“Here?” she asked. “Why not?”
“What about Tom?” “It’s Sunday.”
He pressed her body to his and kissed her forehead. “You going to get shy on me here, Princess?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Do I have to undress you?”
She nodded again. And so he did.
*
“I don’t like your boyfriend,” Mrs. Lucchese said one morning. “Jesus, Ma,” Pia moaned as she placed freshly baked loaves of bread onto slatted wooden shelves along the wall behind the counter. “And you, don’t take God’s name in vain. Just because you’re gonna be a doctor, don’t ever forget that God will always be smarter
than you.”
“What you don’t like, Mrs. Lucchese?” Fatma asked.
Mrs. Lucchese, out of habit, wiped her clean hands on her big white apron in preparation for revealing something really important. “The eyes.” She pointed to her own eyes. “I don’t trust his eyes.” Fatma shrugged her shoulders, as if she couldn’t care less what
the old woman thought, and turned to leave for the pizzeria. “They say he left a wife and three children,” Mrs. Lucchese
called after her. “People say many things,” Fatma answered, walking out the door.
*
“Move in with me, Fatma,” he said one night in late fall as they lay on a Cape Cod beach. They were bundled up in hooded jogging outfits, huddling beneath a blanket, looking up at the stars like two actors in a romance movie. “You know I’ve fallen in love with you.”
He couldn’t afford to take much time away from work, so he enjoyed what he called “quick getaways” – long weekends in Bermuda or Puerto Rico or, as now, Cape Cod. They were staying in a bed-and-breakfast facing the sea in Truro and had spent the afternoon walking the empty streets of Provincetown. Nick liked the beach in the off-season; he didn’t like crowds. He also preferred videos at home to going to the movies; Fatma didn’t mind this, except that he chose films with complicated plots and fast-paced dialogue that she didn’t dare interrupt to ask about because Nick was annoyed if he missed a key word. And while he often said hello to people he knew when they passed on the street, he never talked about his friends, with the exception of George, an undertaker with whom he played golf and whom Fatma never met. Some guys were just like that, Pia said.
The beach was all theirs the night he asked her to move in with him. She turned toward him, wanting to see his face – his eyes – clearly when he said he loved her, but all she could make out was his profile in the dim moonlight. All she could really hear was the crashing of the waves.
“What do you say?” he persisted.
“When we get married,” she answered. A woman has to hold something back from a man she plans to ask a favor from – even if he drives her wild, she thought. It had kept her father coming back to her mother all those years.
*
At Christmas time Nick took his staff to a fancy restaurant with a band, and all the drinks they could handle. Emma, the new secretary, was younger than Fatma had expected, and had a boyfriend who spoke only when someone asked him a question. He hadn’t worn a suit like Nick and Tom, yet it seemed that even his dress shirt and khakis had been too much for him to handle.
“Have you ever seen Nick in a courtroom?” Tom asked Fatma. “Once.” Instantly she regretted the answer, hoping she wouldn’t have to relate the story about Elsa and her common
nightwalking.
“She’s never seen me litigate, if that’s what you mean,” Nick said. “You should come to one of his defenses. The guy’s amazing.” “Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Nick said, but Fatma knew he
enjoyed seeing her being impressed.
“When I watched Tom the first time, I couldn’t believe it was him up there interrogating those witnesses,” Tom’s pregnant wife, Madison, said. “And when he gave his closing – it was a murder charge – I was in tears. So was most of the jury. He won, of course.”
“Nick taught me everything I know.”
“Come on,” Nick said. “You have a law degree.”
“You know this is where the real training happens,” Tom added.
“This your first baby?” Fatma asked Madison.
“Second. We have a girl. We got married right after college. It’s a boy; we already know. I was hoping for another girl. I have two sisters and we’re really close. Boys are so energetic; I’m not sure how I’m going to manage working with two. I’m a kindergarten teacher. I don’t think I can stand to leave both of them all day so I can be with twenty-two other children. I mean, I hated missing Isabella’s first step. She took it in day care. It really upset me.”
Try missing everything, Fatma wanted to say, downing her third vodka on the rocks although they were still on the appetizers.
“I told you, you don’t have to work,” Tom said, patting her hand. “Business is good.” He cast a look of gratitude toward Nick.
“How are those golf lessons going?” Nick asked Tom.
“I’m working with a pro at a virtual course this winter. I should be ready to take you on this spring.”
“We’ll see.”
“I hope you’re not turning him into one of these absentee golf husbands,” Madison said. “Can’t you play tennis? Golf takes too long.”
“Take it easy,” Tom gently cautioned, not wanting to ruffle Nick. He sounded the way Nick had when Nick had tried to tone down Tom’s compliments.
But Nick wasn’t bothered by what Madison had said. He deemed it the perfect time to take the envelopes from the inside pocket of his jacket and present Tom and Emma with their bonuses.
“We’re having a housewarming on the twentieth,” Madison said. “We hope all of you will come.” Then, turning to Fatma, she asked: “What do you do?”
“She’s in retail,” Nick said, and called for the check.
*
“You don’t see your children?” she asked later that night when they reached his condo. “It doesn’t bother you?” “Of course it bothers me. I miss them. But I hope they’ll come around one day. It hasn’t been that long. They just need time. These things happen in divorce, especially if you’re married to a wacko. One party poisons the kids about the other. The kids feel sorry for that whining parent because they’re the weaker one, and the next thing you know, they turn against the strong parent. It’s probably better you never got to know your son before you lost him.”
She had told him about Hussein, and he had been sympathetic. Now he was telling her she was smart to leave well enough alone. How was she ever going to persuade him to go up against her family? She was upset, so he presented a peace offering – in his own interest.
“We could have a baby, just like Tom and Madison.”
The thought actually appealed to her. This she could do with Nick.
“But only if it looks like you,” he added.
He had been sitting next to her on the couch, and he bent over and kissed her. His lips were cushiony and moist, and she could have sucked at them all night, but he asked her to do what he liked her to do – to take off her clothes. She could never look at him when she did this, and so she focused on something else – the lamp on the end table or the switch plate on the wall.
“Slow down, Princess.”
He got up to put some dreamy music on, but he never took those gray eyes off her. She unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor.
“Hold them,” he said.
By the time her pants and underpants were off, so were his, and his penis, big and swollen, was aimed straight at her. She went over to the couch and knelt in front of him. She put his penis between her breasts and rubbed it until it erupted. Then Nick made her lie down on the floor and licked her until her body shook and she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Will your family disapprove of me because I’m so much older than you?” he said afterward. “I could be your father.”
“You have lot to learn about my culture.”
“And I want to, Fatma. I want to go to Mombasa. And we’ll find Hussein.”
His last statement surprised her. It was all turning out as she had hoped – even better. It was all going according to plan.
“Tell me something. Did your husband ever make you feel the way I do?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t want to talk about Daniel. It didn’t feel good; it didn’t feel right. She laid her head on Nick’s broad chest, curling the long bronze and silver strands around her finger.
“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I asked you that.”
But it wouldn’t be the last time he did, as though he couldn’t help himself, and it made her uneasy. She didn’t like to see a weak side of him.
In Muslim Law
“I stopped by Juicy Burger today for lunch, but you weren’t there.” Nick’s statement demanded an explanation.
“You ask for me?” Fatma hadn’t even taken off her coat. They were at Edelweiss, where she was meeting Nick for dinner a few days into the New Year.
“No. I figured you must have gone home early or not come in at all for some reason. Not feeling well?”
“I have bad stomach ache, and they let me go home.”
“I called but you didn’t answer. I swung by your apartment. It was all the dragon lady could do to tell me she hadn’t seen you all day.”
“Mrs. Lucchese’s not bad, Nick. It’s just her way.” “You mean it’s just that she doesn’t like me.”
“Maybe. She’s proud lady. She doesn’t like when you tell her what to cook.”
“Where were you?”
“Upstairs. Sleeping. The Luccheses don’t see me every time I
go in and out building. Guess I don’t hear phone.”
“You must be feeling better, otherwise that spätzle and bratwurst you just ordered is going to sit like lead in your belly.”
“I’m much better. And hungry. I don’t eat all day.” “Good. I’m glad to hear it.” He took a sip of his scotch and put it down without taking his eyes off her. Then he broke into a little smile, as if he hadn’t believed a word she’d said, as if he knew she’d been down to New York, as if he’d caught her in her own game. “By the way, the correct word is didn’t, you didn’t hear the phone and you didn’t eat all day.”
*
He hadn’t wanted to go to Tom and Madison O’Brien’s party. “I talk to people all day,” he said. “When I’m off, I need a little quiet – a little down time.” Still, he went, to please Fatma.
The O’Briens lived in a suburb of Rockfield, in what Nick called a bedroom community, on a street of new houses that were all the same. There wasn’t much furniture in the house, only the necessities.
“It’s getting there,” Madison said. “I figured this was a good time to have a party, before we put down any carpeting. Would you like to see the rest of the house?”
“Sure,” Fatma said.
“You go ahead,” Nick said. “I’m going to fix myself a drink.” Fatma followed Nick upstairs. When she showed her the master bedroom, Fatma couldn’t help picturing Tom and Madison making those babies in that big bed. Before Madison slowly opened the door to her daughter’s room, she put her finger to her lips.
“I don’t have to,” Fatma said.
“No. No. It’s fine. Just be quiet,” Madison whispered. “Once she’s down, she’s usually out for the night, thank God.”
In the illumination of a nightlight, Fatma saw her in the white crib, her padded bottom almost in the air, her face red and plump, thumb in her mouth. “I know she shouldn’t be sucking it, but it’s so cute,” Madison said.
Fatma thought it would hurt to see her, but it didn’t. For the first time she felt excited about having another child of her own, and hopeful about Nick helping her find the one she’d left behind. She had gambled on being on her own, and it was paying off big-time.
Downstairs, Nick was standing in the same spot, about a foot from the entrance to the kitchen, not far from the island that served as a bar. He handed Fatma a vodka tonic.
“Ready to go?” he asked after she had downed her drink. “We just get here.”
They stood there for the remainder of their short time at the party, Nick changing his position only to go to the bathroom to attend to that weak bladder, then resuming his post, as if he were a bearing wall that might bring down the entire house if it were taken away. He was pleasant enough when other guests introduced themselves but he never initiated a conversation.
“Had enough?” he asked after a while. “Parties just aren’t my thing.”
A man brushed by Fatma to get to the bar. When he excused himself, she looked up at him and their eyes locked in recognition. He turned away quicker than she did, poured two glasses of white wine, and found a different way back to his wife, or whoever the woman waiting for him was. Fatma had seen him often at the Royal Lion. He wasn’t one of her clients, but men of his caliber didn’t frequent the Royal Lion just to drink. When she was with Nick, she ran to the bathroom at his place, or to the ladies’ room when they were out, to check her pager. Later, a doctor, a cop, even some judge’s messenger would be in the alley behind the Royal Lion no matter what hour of the day or night she stipulated. It had been easy for her to slip in and out of two worlds as it suited her, but now the worlds were moving independently, threatening her plan and frightening her as they transgressed their boundaries.
*
Nick arranged more getaways, to Vegas, Palm Springs, Cancún, and other exotic places. Most weekends they went to Boston. He tended to business while she spent time at the hotel’s shopping mall or in the jewelr y district in Downtown Crossing. They’d meet back at the hotel room, where Nick would pick out a new outfit for her to wear, and soon she was that lady with gold bracelets and diamond pendants, dining among the elite of Beacon Hill at the Top of the Hub, looking down on her kingdom. Occasionally Nick chose a small place in Cambridge – perhaps Indian or Mexican – and they sat close to each another in a dark corner booth while waiters in white pleated shirts and black pants grilled chicken vindaloo, or flamed bananas at their table.
Nick slipped off his shiny black loafer and beneath the floor-length tablecloth ran his toe up and down her leg. He put his arm around her, and drawing her closer, kissed her until the taste of scotch and the smell of cologne weakened her and she could hardly hold back an orgasm. Finally, he whispered something outrageous, something no one in the restaurant could have dreamed he was saying, like: “Next time, don’t wear panties.” With his face so close to hers, she could see little red veins throbbing at his temples, like rubber bands about to snap, and she worried not that Nick would never find Hussein, but that Nick would leave her because she didn’t know how to love him.
*
“I have a little surprise,” Nick said, taking a glass of vodka out of her hand and setting it and his scotch on the coffee table. They were watching a movie at his condo in Connecticut, just over the Rockfield city line. It was a moment when she felt happier than she’d ever been, one of those rare times when all the puzzle pieces finally fit together, and one fears that the sudden ringing of the telephone, a sneeze, or even a slight breeze might scatter them all and make them forever irretrievable. She hadn’t wanted Nick to move a muscle, but he got up to go to the bathroom, she assumed, as he often did. This time he went into the kitchen and returned with a miniature liquor bottle – the kind she used to serve on airplanes – and a plastic bag with a familiar-looking pebble in it, a small piece of aluminum foil about an square, and a fork. Poking holes in the foil with the fork, he shaped it into a tiny cup. He took a drag on his cigarette, filled the cup with burning ashes, and put one of the pebbles on top of the ashes. He fitted the cup to the open neck of the bottle and sucked at a hole on the side of the bottle. Then he handed it to her.
“I don’t,” she said. She may have been a drunk, but when it came to tasting her wares, she had listened to Isaac and India. “It’s just a business. A means to an end,” India had sai
d.
“Come on, Princess. I think we can be honest with each other after all this time.”
“I’m honest.”
A little bewildered, he pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. “Look, I know you have a side thing going. We all have our
little secrets.” He held the pipe up as an example of his own. “How you find out?”
“Your friend Elsa. Defendants often try to implicate – name –
others to get off easier.” “You know all this time?”
“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to scare you away. I wanted to wait until you knew me better, until you trusted me. You do trust me, don’t you babe?”
She did trust him, and that’s why running into the guy at Madison and Tom’s party had shaken her up. Rockfield was a small city, and the world of addicts even smaller. She had had bad dreams after ward about Nick finding out and leaving her, and dreamt she was down on her knees pleading with him not to go, grabbing at his legs, his shoes, anything she could get hold of. She would wake up the way she used to on Poplar Street when she dreamt about Hussein, sobbing into a wet pillow. She couldn’t lose Nick.
“I quit business, Nick.”
A look of surprise washed over him.
“But I never use, Nick.” She had drunk too much as usual, and was getting confused. She needed to keep her wits about her. Pay attention, Mrs. Lucchese had said. She needed to stick to the plan, but the plan was overtaking her.
“We drink, don’t we?” he said, his smile returning. “Well, there was a time in this country you could go to jail for drinking. Did you know that? And it’s just a matter of time before marijuana and cocaine are made legal. And we don’t waste money and time defending street junkies. Drug cartels will disappear, and everyone will just smoke socially, like I do. Just like we drink. And you can resume your business, because it’ll be legal. Of course, you won’t earn nearly as much money. By the way, what are you doing with all your money?”
“I save it for my family.”
“Of course. That’s a good thing.”
“Sometimes I think we drink too much, Nick.” “No, Princess, we don’t.” He spoke with authority in a calm and reassuring way, drawing her in word by word, breath by breath, keeping her in suspense as she watched his lips form every syllable, making his opinion known just the way the men in her family did. That had been the problem with Daniel; he hadn’t known how to make people listen to him, how to convince them – especially Fatma. “I’m under a lot of pressure with my job, and I need to
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