by Alix Nichols
“Isn’t everyone at that age?”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “When I asked you to go under the needle—and not just for a small tat, but a huge tacky thing across your back—it didn’t occur to me how painful and… permanent it would be. I’m really sorry, Julien.”
“You were very young.” I shrug. “And so was I.”
She gives me a weak smile.
I glance at my watch. “I need to be downstairs in fifteen, or else Lucas will kill me.”
“Of course!” She points to the bathroom. “Hit the shower. I’ll see myself out once your teammates join you for breakfast.”
I touch her cheek. “I want you to know I’m not giving up on us.”
She sighs. “How can we ever trust each other after the things we’ve done? A relationship without trust is doomed.”
“I trust you,” I say. “I would trust you with my life.”
She keeps silent.
I guess that means she doesn’t trust me.
Can’t blame her. What I did to her only a month ago was too harsh. Way too harsh.
“There’s been too much…”—she hesitates as if looking for the right word—“nastiness, too much bad blood between us. We’ll be deluding ourselves to think we can just turn the page and start over.”
I shake my head in silent disagreement.
She draws away. “Go. Your coach is waiting.”
Noemi
When I emerge from the métro station, it’s already dark. And cold. But unlike a couple of weeks ago, evenings are a lot less depressing now. It’s late November, which means only a month to go until my favorite time of year.
A few days ago, the Mayor of Paris switched on the illuminations on the Champs-Elysées, and the city donned its festive attire. Bright garlands zigzag between buildings, shop windows compete to offer the most beautiful displays, and tree branches sparkle with tiny leaves of light.
As I marvel at the fairy-tale-like feel of my neighborhood, the cynic in me rolls her eyes and argues that Christmas is the most commercialized holiday of the year. The bright lights? They are there to make us spend more on gifts and entertainment.
But my inner Disney princess pouts and begins to sing, There’s magic in the air!
The cynic pulls a face and crawls back into her joyless den.
After stopping at the sushi place near the station to order my usual takeout, I hurry home. The final match of the Pro A league begins in ten minutes.
I don’t want to miss a minute of it.
A week after I got back from Montpellier, Julien sent me a ticket to today’s game which the Nageurs are playing in Paris. I texted that I wouldn’t go. He texted back asking if I would at least watch the game streamed live on the Internet.
I wrote back that I would. And I intend to keep my promise.
This match is the Nageurs’ chance to win the gold they’ve been vying for two years now.
I cross my fingers on both hands.
Please, let them win!
By the time I fire up my laptop, the game has already begun. Placing my food in front of me on the table, I peer at the screen. As I scan the pool for Julien, I wonder if his nose has healed by now.
When I spot him, my jaw drops.
He has a white mask on his face that makes him look like a hockey goalie or an unsung comic book hero.
I guess his nose had been broken, after all, and the doc forced him to wear that contraption to protect it from further injury. On the bright side, the doc wouldn’t have allowed Julien to play again so soon if he’d had a concussion.
So, no concussion.
“The man in the mask,” the commentator says, “is Paris’s hole-D Julien Boitel. His nose got broken two weeks ago, during the match with Montpellier. Boitel claims he can’t remember how or when exactly it happened.”
The camera shifts to the action near the goalie’s cage, and for a few minutes, I can’t see Julien. The game seems to be less brutal than the one in Montpellier, but there’s still too much wrestling, shoving, and jostling for my liking.
Julien should’ve sat this match out, like he did for the first playoff game last week.
But of course he couldn’t, not with the gold medal in the balance.
Finally, the players in the pool sprint to the other side and the camera zooms in on Julien, defending the hole. When the two grappling men turn so that Julien’s back is toward me, I clap my hand to my mouth and stare.
Between his shoulder blades is a huge double rose with a line of text in the middle.
Can it be…?
Has he lost his mind?
“Oh, wow,” the commentator says. “Nageurs’ hole-D has made sure his back stands out as much as his face today. That tattoo is spectacular.”
When the camera zooms in tighter, I can just make out the writing.
I love you, Noemi Dray.
It’s the exact same tattoo he’d had inked in eight years ago.
The mistake he later went through pain and tears to erase.
One of the reasons he wanted revenge.
The rest of the game—an hour or so, including time-outs and overtimes—is a blur. I just sit in my chair, oblivious to my empty stomach, the progress of the game, the score, and the whole world.
At some point, I taste salt in my mouth and realize I’m crying.
My heart is so full I’m afraid it will burst. Part of the overflowing emotion is defeat. An admission that my rational mind and sense of self-preservation have lost the battle to things that are more primal. Illogical. Hardly defensible in court.
Desire is one of those things.
An unfounded optimism that everything will be all right is another.
But the biggest winner is the inexplicable certainty that this pigheaded, crazy man is my future, my other half.
Despite what I’ve done to him.
Despite what he’s done to me.
How can a defeat feel so sweet, so liberating? One minute I’m taking care of myself, all grown up and sensible—and the next I’m jumping for joy at the prospect of inviting the man who humiliated and dumped me a month ago back into my bed, and back into my life.
So, this is what love is like.
I tune back in when the horn sounds the end of the game.
“Nageurs de Paris win the Pro A League Championship. They are officially the best water polo club in France,” the commentator says.
Julien must be pumped now.
I grab my phone and send him a message that consists of four little words:
I love you too.
Julien
When I knock on Noemi’s door, she opens it immediately.
I step in.
She takes my coat and shuts the door behind me.
I gather her to me, and for a long moment, we stand in the entryway, adjusting to the novelty of being together like this. Shields down. Hearts exposed. No hidden agendas. No duplicity of any kind.
Just love.
Hers, confessed in a text message. Mine, declared somewhat more ostentatiously via the flashy ink art on my back.
“Is that tattoo real or one of those temporary things that come off after a week?” Noemi asks, looking up. “Please tell me it’s the latter! I can’t bear the thought of you going through all that pain again just to get me to pay attention.”
“First,” I say, my lips curling up. “What kind of man would declare real feelings with a fake tattoo? Second, I did get you to pay attention, didn’t I?”
She smiles. “I would’ve come around on my own in a week or two.”
“Would you?”
She sighs and nods. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“I’m not.” My expression grows more serious. “There was another reason I did it.”
She gives me a quizzical look.
“Atonement,” I say. “Or maybe catharsis. Or both. I needed to cleanse myself for our fresh start.”
“Perhaps I should do the same…”
“God, no!
” I widen my eyes in exaggerated horror.
“Why not?”
“My back is loud enough for both of us.” I stare into her hazel eyes as I slide my hand from her back to her belly. “And even for three or four or five of us later.”
“I love you, Julien Boitel,” she says. “If you don’t want me to write it on my body, then you’re going to hear me say those words every day.”
“Promise?”
She nods.
I kiss her brow.
She strokes the side of my face. “I half expected you to show up here still wearing that white mask you had on during the game.”
“The doc fitted it to my face to protect my nose from getting punched again,” I say, smiling. “He wasn’t going to let me play otherwise.”
“So it’s broken?”
“Yes. But fortunately, not in a way that requires surgery. It’ll heal on its own.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” She motions me in.
I take a few steps toward the sofa in her TV room, then stop. For some reason I prefer to stand while I recount the part of our “origin story” she doesn’t know.
The part where I hung myself. Was saved by my mom. Almost died again a week later.
She listens without interrupting as I tell her all of this.
When I’m done, she clasps her hands over her head. “And here I was, calling it a ‘prank’ and a ‘joke’… You must’ve been so bitter! Why didn’t you say anything to me earlier?”
I shrug. “I guess I was ashamed. I guess I felt that telling you about the full effect your prank had on me would make me look like an even bigger loser.”
She shakes her head, smiling sadly. “If there’s a loser in this room, it’s me.”
“Why would you say that?”
“You’ll know in a sec.”
She goes to the bedroom and returns a couple of minutes later with an old notebook.
Thumbing through it, she finds a page. “Read from here.”
The notebook is a diary written in a neat, pretty handwriting. The way Noemi used to write at school. The entry she’s opened begins by summarizing her day and then talks about me.
I glance at her, a question in my eyes.
She nods. “It’s OK, read on.”
I do, and I can hardly believe what I’m reading.
I miss him so much! … Why did his stupid parents have to move? … How I wish he hadn’t blocked me from all his social media, so I could tell him that I’m sorry. And that I’m in love with him.
“How is this—” I stare at her, flabbergasted. “How is this possible? I had no idea!”
“I paid a price for those confessions. Remember ‘the Cats’? They stole this diary from my schoolbag and…” She expels a ragged breath. “They stole it and—”
“It’s OK, sweetie, you don’t need to give me the details.”
“I do,” she says with a faint smile. “I want to. But I’ll do it another time, when I’m feeling a little less emotional.”
Taking a step toward her, I pull her to my chest. “Will you marry me, for real?”
She looks up.
“I know it’s too soon to ask,” I say, stroking her hair. “Please don’t feel like you have to say yes just because you said you love me.”
Noemi tips her head back and draws in a deep breath as if bracing herself to say something difficult.
Damn my impatience!
“I’m getting ahead of myself,” I say quickly. “You want me to earn your trust first, to prove that—”
“I still have your ring,” she says.
I peer into her eyes. “Does that mean…”
“Yes.” She grins. “It means yes. But no big wedding.”
I frown.
“Not that I don’t trust you to show up—I do—but I’d rather not go through the motions again.”
“Got it,” I say. “It’ll be just you, me, and the mayor.”
She smiles. “Our parents and siblings can come, too, if they want to. And your friend Roland. I might even invite Melissa.”
“That’s almost a crowd.”
She gives me a mischievous smile. “May I see your tat? I wonder if it’s as impressive up close as it was on the screen.”
I yank off my sweater and T-shirt and turn around.
She trails her fingers along the outlines of the petals, the leaves, and the words on my back.
“Still impressed?” I ask teasingly.
“More than impressed,” she says. “I’m awed at how similar it is to the one you had eight years ago.”
I spin around. “I went to the same parlor and picked an identical pattern for the double rose.”
“Of course.” She steps back and pulls her sweater off.
I admire her pretty bra for a half second before I free her yummy breasts. My eyes, hands, and mouth have been deprived of them for two weeks. And a month before that. Much too long.
Not happening ever again.
My eyelids grow heavy as I fill my palms with her soft flesh. “I have another, more mystical explanation to the tat. Are you up for it?”
“Try me.”
“It isn’t actually similar, or even identical to the old one,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the same tattoo.”
Her eyes bore into mine, searching.
“It was there all these years, gone into hiding so it wouldn’t confound our rational minds. But it hadn’t been erased. It couldn’t be erased as long as its message remained true.”
She reaches up for a kiss, her eyes watering with emotion.
My eyes threaten to follow suit as I encase her face with my hands and voice that indelible message. “I love you, Noemi Dray.”
< <<>> >
Epilogue
Noemi
A Year Later
“I still can’t believe you’ve never been to a Christmas market!” I shake my head at Melissa as we climb the stairs of the Concorde métro station toward the bright lights of the Champs-Elysées.
She arches an eyebrow. “Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Christmas markets are just such an institution…”
“We didn’t have them in Paris growing up,” she says. “They’re a recent institution.”
“Really?”
She nods. “And, besides, I just… I don’t like Christmas.”
Coming out of the mouth of the métro, I draw in a breath of crispy late-afternoon air and give Melissa an incredulous look.
“Before you call me a monster,” she says, “I’ve never let my strained relationship with Christmas ruin Ben’s holiday.”
“Oh good! You had me worried for a moment there.” I point to the wooden chalets lining the sidewalk all the way from Concorde to the Champs-Elysées Roundabout. “Meet the best marché de Noel of the capital.”
“Pleasure.” Melissa sticks both thumbs up theatrically and bares her teeth. “Charmed.”
I ignore her hints at impending martyrdom. “It’s going to be fun. Besides, you could find a present for Ben or your mom.”
“I buy their Christmas presents in the summer.” She gives me a sly smile. “Online.”
As we reach the first set of booths, a cheerful tune drifting from the vendor’s sound system lifts my slightly dampened spirits. Four or five chalets away, a food stall fills the air with delicious scents of fresh coffee, waffles, and mulled wine.
Too bad there’s no snow!
But a white Christmas is a rare occurrence in Paris, so the artificial snow on chalet roofs is what we have, and what we’ll work with.
Melissa halts in front of a costume jewelry stand and begins to sort through a collection of funky rings. “They’re cute!”
She buys one with a big blue flower, not unlike the ring she’s been wearing lately.
I scan the booths around us until I spot the unforgettable pashmina stand from last year. Woohoo! When we get there, I begin to finger the soft wool wraps on display. The astute vendor s
ees my picks and then pulls out another pashmina wrap from a shelf and unfolds it for me.
It’s perfect.
I turn to Melissa. “Look at this one! Touch it. What do you think?”
“It’s gorgeous.” She strokes the intricate reddish patterns on the azure blue wrap. “And it’s soothing to the touch.”
Even though I know for a fact she loves big wraps and this particular color combo, I still hesitate. She could have said those things just to be polite. I steal a look at her face. It never lies.
One of the many reasons I hired her four months ago.
At present, Melissa’s face tells me she really likes the wrap.
“Pure cashmere wool from India,” the vendor says. “It’s my most expensive pashmina, but it’s worth the price!”
I pay him, and hand the garment over to Melissa. “Merry Christmas!”
“What? No! You shouldn’t have! And… and…” She gives me a panicked look. “You’re my boss!”
“I am, and this is my first ever Christmas present to my first ever employee.” I give her a big-eyed Puss-in-Boots look. “I wanted it to be memorable.”
Her expression changing at once, she gives me a bear hug. “I love it. Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.”
I turn away quickly to hide my self-satisfied smile.
Noemi Dray hasn’t lost her cunning.
Yep, still got the touch.
As crafty as ever.
The Forces of Good are lucky to have me, if I say so myself.
“Come on, I’m buying you a treat,” Melissa says, pointing to the food booth I’ve been eyeing since we got here.
The cinnamony smells wafting from it are too mouthwatering to ignore.
Melissa and I spend another hour at the market, sipping vin chaud from paper cups and nibbling gingerbread cookies, as we stroll in the direction of the Arc de Triomphe. Melissa often stops in front of handmade accessories, crafts, and regional food specialties.
Looks like online shopping doesn’t cut it on its own after all.
As we get nearer to the roundabout, I glance at my watch to see if it’s time to head to the 9th arrondissement.