Meant To Be

by Karen Stivali

  “When he died I was relieved he wasn’t suffering anymore. I was almost happy. Then it sank in that he was actually gone.”

  Although the situations were different, Daniel related to every word. As she spoke he felt as though his heart had stopped beating. No one had ever shared anything like this with him before. The closeness he felt to her defied definition.

  Marienne exhaled a slow shaky breath. “Anyway,” she said. “That’s why I’m upset. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of his death, which is hard enough in and of itself, but then this afternoon my sister called and she was trying to convince me to call our mom, and I can’t. I just can’t. And it’s making me feel worse. I know it’s the right choice. I just need to get past these next few days.”

  They sat in silence.

  Daniel spoke first. “Tell me one of the similar quirks.”

  “What?”

  “You said you and your father shared the same sense of humor and the same quirks. Tell me one.”

  “Well.” She paused. “We both loved watching and quoting from bad movies. We both kept our books organized by how much we liked them, rather than by author or genre. And we both believed that cookies contain some magical power that cures stress.” She smiled.

  Daniel was happy he’d been able to get her to remember something positive about her dad. “Well I, for one, am very glad that you took after your father, because I love all three of those quirks. And if your mum can’t appreciate those things about you, and makes you feel bad about yourself, then you’re absolutely making the right choice to avoid contacting her. You deserve so much better.”

  Marienne remained silent.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s the first time all day that I haven’t felt like crying. I have a confession to make. I was kind of avoiding you earlier because I was afraid if I started talking about all this I would start crying.”

  “Sometimes it’s good to cry.”

  “I know, but I only cry in the shower, or occasionally in my car.”

  “What?” Is she serious?

  She laughed and shrugged. “I know, it’s weird, but I don’t like to cry in front of people. It makes me uncomfortable, largely because I know it makes them uncomfortable, so years ago I stopped doing it. I’m really good at not crying now.”

  Daniel couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her honesty overwhelmed him.

  “But,” she said. “When I’m upset about something, I’ll get into the shower, and I’m alone, and I know no one can hear me, and then I’ll cry.”

  The thought of her, standing in the shower sobbing, broke his heart. The urge to reach out and touch her returned. He wanted to put his hand on hers, but he didn’t dare move for fear of what he might do once the initial contact was made. He was drawn to her in a way that intrigued but frightened him.

  “Do you do this a lot?” He hoped that wasn’t too personal.

  “Not often. When my dad was sick, and right after he died, I did it daily. Very. Long. Showers. Car rides too. That’s another place no one is likely to notice you’re crying. Though I imagine there are drivers who saw me sobbing at a traffic light at some point. Sort of like the way you glance into another car and catch someone picking his nose.”

  Her openness touched him. Any question he asked she seemed to answer without hesitation. He responded to her with emotions so strong they stunned him. Her words had a way of moving him, setting off feelings he didn’t even realize he had or hadn’t thought of in a long time. The thought of her crying her way through her father’s illness and death, once again brought him straight into his own memories of his mother being ill. During that time he’d felt completely alone, and, as he was staying with friends while she was in hospital, he’d also been very careful not to cry in front of anyone. She was right, it did make other people uncomfortable, and that had made him feel even worse. The shower was a loud, safe place to let your guard down.

  “Surely you must at least cry in front of Frank,” he said, trying to bring his focus back to Marienne.

  “He hates when I cry. It almost seems like he gets mad at me for doing it. If it’s not a problem he can fix, he’d rather not hear about it.”

  “But—”

  “Trust me. It’s not a good thing.”

  He believed her, though it made him sad to hear it. “Okay.” He chose his words with as much care as possible. “Well, just so you know, should you ever choose to not be alone when you feel like a cry, you can always ring me and I’ll be right over. You can cry all you want, and I promise I won’t be even the least bit uncomfortable.”

  She smiled.

  “I’ll go one further,” he said. “I’ll be totally comfortable with it, so comfortable I may even join you.”

  “Join me what?” Her eyes narrowed. “Crying? Or showering?”

  Daniel bit his lip and shrugged. “Whatever you need.”

  She giggled.

  “Honestly,” he said. “I would be there for you, if you needed me. I’m a very good listener.”

  “You’re the best, Daniel.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. His heart flipped over in his chest.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Another six inches.” Frank backed into the U-haul holding up one end of the leather couch.

  Daniel adjusted his grip then hoisted the monstrosity as high as he could. “Got it now?” he grunted from the exertion.

  “Little higher.” Frank was struggling too.

  With one last shove the couch was in.

  “Jesus this thing’s heavy,” Frank said.

  “You’re telling me,” Daniel said, breathing hard. “I’ve been moving it around for years every time Justine decided to rearrange our furniture. I hate this bloody thing.”

  “Well, you’re rid of it now. What’s this yard sale for again?”

  “This is how the theater group raises money. Their proceeds go toward whatever charity they’re supporting, so after each show they have a yard sale to raise seed money for the next one.”

  “I hope someone pays a lot for this couch.” Frank removed his cap and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Hey, how the hell are you gonna get it off the truck when you drop it off? You need me to go with you?”

  “No, tons of guys from the theater will be there. One of them can help. Thanks though.”

  “No problem.” Frank hopped down from the U-haul. “Thanks for hauling all of Marienne’s crap over for her. You’re saving me a trip.”

  “Do you know if she has everything boxed up yet?”

  “She was almost done when I left the house.” Frank withdrew his keys from his pocket. “You sure you don’t want me to go with you to drop this thing off? I can hit the gym later.”

  “No, I’m good. You go ahead.”

  Daniel placed the last few boxes into the van then drove over to Marienne’s. As he maneuvered the U-haul into her driveway, he saw her in the garage. She was on tiptoe, jumping up to reach a box on the top shelf.

  “Need some help with that?” he asked, walking toward her.

  “Yes,” she said. “I asked Frank to take down these boxes, but he only took down half of them.”

  “Which ones do you want?”

  “Those two.” She pointed.

  Daniel reached up to grab the first box. It tipped forward, spilling out papers that fluttered to the floor.

  “Sorry.” He bent to gather them and stopped the second he picked up the first piece. It was a postcard, with a photo of a muscle-bound guy in a tiny bikini bathing suit.

  “What have we here?” He grinned, holding up the photo.

  Marienne looked over and laughed. “Oh my God.” Her face flushed. “I can’t believe I still have that.”

  “I can’t believe you ever had this, naughty girl. I’d no idea.”

  “Actually, there was an entire wall of them.” She looked into his eyes with a cheeky smile before turning back to the box she’d been going through.

&nbs
p; “An entire wall?” He was more than a little surprised.

  “Yes,” she said, with exaggerated nonchalance. “My freshman year we had the ‘Wall of Men’ up in our bathroom.”

  “Please go on. I’m intrigued.”

  “It was silly. It started over winter break. One of my suite mates went to the Bahamas with her family while the rest of us were stuck in New York, freezing to death. She sent us all these postcards of hot, scantily clad men. Read the back.” She gestured for him to flip over the card.

  He read aloud. “‘A little something to warm you up! XOXO Sarah.’ Sarah sounds like a bit of a minx. I like her already.” He enjoyed the scowl that spread across Marienne’s face.

  “Anyway.” She ignored his comment. “Beth hung all three of our postcards up on the bathroom wall and when Sarah returned she put up a sign that said ‘Wall of Men’. For the rest of the year we kept adding photos until we wound up with this huge collage. I was responsible for putting funny sayings either under the picture or on a post-it bubble coming out of their mouth.”

  “Sayings like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t remember.” She laughed.

  “Yes, I think you do. Give me an example.”

  She shook her head. “Noooo.”

  “Oh, come on. Please.”

  “Okay, there was one where the guy was wearing a similarly skimpy bathing suit, plus chaps and a cowboy hat, and I captioned it ‘Yes, everything IS bigger in Texas’.”

  He laughed. “Tell me another.” He loved the wicked smile that crossed her face.

  “There was one.” She paused. “Oh God, I can’t. This sounds so stupid.”

  “Now you have to tell me.”

  “Ahhhhh,” she groaned.

  “No, seriously, go on. Not only am I enjoying this glimpse into your deviant past, but it’s interesting for me to see into the inner minds of the perverted NYU co-ed. Consider it a sort of ‘training’ for me. I still work with these warped young girls, you know.”

  “True.” She took a breath. “Okay, another one was a picture of a guy, no clothes, but holding a saxophone that was…strategically placed. And the bubble said ‘The Joy of Sax—always up for a good blow.” She covered her face.

  He laughed again. “That’s priceless. Were those two your favorites?”

  “Not favorites, just memorable ones. I preferred the candid shots.”

  “Candid shots? What, you mean like photos of people you knew?”

  “No, there was no one we knew on the Wall of Men, it was all things clipped out of magazines or newspapers. My favorites were this set from The Village Voice.”

  No, couldn’t possibly be. “The Village Voice?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What were they like?” He tried to modulate his voice. She looked up at him, apparently catching the change in his tone. He held his breath.

  “They were shots of a student. Silly article about….” She seemed to struggle as she tried to remember. “Being unprepared…being incomplete….”

  “Future Unknown?” he asked.

  “Yes. That’s it. Oh my God, how did you know that?”

  He looked off to the side of the garage, feeling his cheeks burn, and took a deep breath. “Because that was me.”

  She stared at him, clearly trying to remember the photos. Her eyes widened. “Oh. My. God.” Her hand flew to cover her mouth.

  “What?” His brow furrowed at her wide-eyed expression. “What?” he demanded.

  Her voice was barely audible from behind her hand. “I captioned you,” she managed to squeak out, before peals of laughter escaped her.

  He attempted to look stern and unamused. The longer he stared at her the harder she laughed. Her entire body shook. The more she attempted to reign in her giggling the more out of control it became.

  Watching her, struggling for composure, only to burst into a fresh round of cackles as she doubled over, he couldn’t help but chuckle. He loved seeing her laugh this hard, even if it was at his expense. He waited until she seemed settled before attempting a question.

  “What did you caption me?” he asked. He was dying to know.

  She bit her lower lip. “Well, keep in mind, I was a huge fan of the Sex Pistols.”

  “What did you caption me?”

  “Huge Sex Pistols fan. Huge.”

  “Waiting,” he said, not breaking eye contact.

  “I taped over the words ‘Future Unknown’.”

  “And?” The suspense was killing him.

  “I put in ‘Pretty Vacant’.”

  Again the laughter erupted out of her.

  “I’m sorry,” she squeaked. “I’m really sorry”

  “Don’t be sorry. Just be glad you picked a cool band. If you’d ‘captioned’ me with a Debbie Gibson song or something by Barry Manilow then we might have a problem.”

  She grinned, looking relieved.

  “However,” he said, in his most professor-like, serious warning voice. “You are hereby on official notice that I reserve the right to caption any photo of you, of my choice, at some point in the future.”

  “Deal.” She wiped her eyes.

  “Now.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see what other unsavory bits of your past we can find in these boxes.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Daniel got down the other box then started loading Marienne’s things into the U-haul. He couldn’t believe she’d not only seen those old photos of him, but she’d had them hanging on her wall. She captioned me, for God’s sake.

  He walked back into the garage and found Marienne grinning. She held up one of the clippings. “Oh God.” He groaned and felt his cheeks flame again.

  Marienne laughed. “How did you wind up as a cover model anyway?”

  “Slow news week,” he said, remembering how flabbergasted he’d been when it happened.

  “Seriously.” Marienne’s head tilted to the side as she studied the image. “Hey, isn’t that the front desk at Tisch School of the Arts?”

  “It is. I was working as the evening desk clerk to earn spending money. One night I was reading this never-ending novel for Russian Lit, and a bunch of people swarmed into the building. I asked someone what the crowd was for and was told some photographer I’d never heard of was doing a guest lecture. Twenty minutes later a woman and man swept into the lobby wearing tiny rectangular eyeglasses and long, brightly colored scarves.”

  “Trademark photographer garb.”

  “Apparently. The woman stopped at the desk and muttered her name. Then she said, ‘I must photograph you.’ And she started clicking away on her camera.”

  Marienne’s eyes twinkled with a mix of amusement and fascination, almost making him lose his train of thought.

  “I asked if she wanted me to do anything and her assistant said ‘no, just keep reading’, so I did. It was dreadfully awkward. They made me sign a release in case they wanted to print the photos, but I couldn’t imagine that happening. Then three weeks later they called and said the pictures were to be used as a cover story and insert in The Village Voice.”

  “Wow.” Marienne’s eyes widened, then she returned her gaze to the clipping. “I can see why. They’re beautiful.”

  Daniel flushed again. “I hate them.” He cringed just thinking about it.

  “Why?” She set the papers down and looked up at him.

  He raked his hand through his hair. “Well, for one, I look completely bewildered. Which I was.”

  “Not bewildered. Innocent.”

  He raised his eyebrow, and she giggled.

  “Second, I hated the attention. I felt like I was being stared at by every person I met. It didn’t help that the bloody Voice stays on newsstands the entire week. It was like overnight I became this bizarre minor celebrity.” He picked up the second photo and shook his head. He still saw the same person he’d always seen. The same slightly crooked nose, the same somewhat lopsided eyes, and the same frightened emptiness behind them. How could anyone find this attracti
ve? He could hardly find himself bearable at times. “My roommates thought it was the best thing ever. They found it hilarious plus they were delighted because all of a sudden there were all these women at our door.”

  ****

  “I’ll bet.” Marienne remembered how her own roommates had fawned over the images. Not to mention what Justine had said about the cover inspiring her to seek Daniel out and meet him.

  “Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it anymore, I met Justine. She was oblivious to the whole thing and it was such a welcome relief, after the weeks of sudden popularity, to feel normal again.”

  Marienne winced. How could she have never told him? “Justine never mentioned the photos?” Surely she must have said something.

  “No.” He shook his head. “Though they did come up a year later. She arranged for me to have a photo shoot with a modeling agency, some client of her father’s. I was so pissed off, I told her I didn’t want to do it, but she insisted I had to because she didn’t want to back out on a promise to her dad, so I did it. It was awful. Almost broke us up.”

  “You hated it that much?”

  “Yes, plus when I got paid, I donated the money to a cancer research charity, and Justine was furious. We had a huge argument, and I told her I didn’t think we were compatible, but then she apologized and we worked things out.”

  Marienne wondered if Justine had been sincere in her apology or if she’d just manipulated him again. She bristled at the thought of Justine lying to Daniel. He deserved better than that.

  Daniel reached over and turned Marienne’s wrist to look at her watch. “It’s late. I’d best get all this over to the theater.”

  Marienne tingled from the contact. “Let me help you.” She went to pick up a box, but Daniel took it from her hands.

  “I’ve got it,” he said. “You have plenty to do putting away your wall of men.”

  He grinned, his hair falling across one eye, looking twice as charming in person as in any of the photos.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was an exceptionally cold morning for early December. Even inside the train Daniel was freezing.