Loving Rosenfeld

by Leighann Hart

  I only knew you for a short period of time, and yet you’ve had a greater impact on my outlook than my psychiatrist has in seven years. You’ve (mostly) shaken me from my cynical torpor and reintroduced me to the beauty of life, and taught me to appreciate the little things.

  It’s disgusting how much I’ll miss you, but I’ll eventually find solace knowing that you’re off doing wonderful things and basking in the freedom of young adulthood (which, by the way, enjoy it while it lasts because it’s crippling college loan debt and a web of other unpleasant financial obligations the minute you leave that campus).

  Take care of yourself out there. And remember, pressure is imaginary. No one is in control of your life except you.

  So, grab the helm and steer, darling.

  P. Rosenfeld

  Hand shooting to her mouth, she turned away slightly while a series of jerky shoulder contractions left her shaking. She clutched the journal to her chest, facing him with shining eyes and a trembling chin. “I love it.”

  Ryleigh strained on her tip-toes and embraced him, movements trailed by the debilitating redolence he had come to associate with her hugs. She clasped her hands around his neck and brought the tips of their noses together.

  Did she detect the clamorous banging of his heart?

  “Congratulations,” Peter whispered, pulling her flush against his lanky frame. He stroked her tumbling waves and branded a publicly respectable trio of kisses onto her lips. Stars littered the backdrop of Ryleigh’s irises when he begrudgingly surrendered her mouth. “What are you doing tonight?”

  Her thumb dipped within his pants and his lungs became as useless as a busted airbag. Grinning, she circled the hook and bar closure. “You, if I’m lucky.”

  “Always with the extreme.” He laughed off his unease. The intimate atmosphere of the alcove paired with her teasing touch had Peter so punch-drunk, he was tempted to indulge her of the request. “You’re going to get kicked out of your own graduation.”

  She extracted the indecorous thumb in an instant as a familiar voice approached.

  “There you are. We’ve been looking all over for—” Charlotte’s relieved mother front fell to pieces upon locking eyes with him. Adjusting her purse strap, she extended a collected, “Hello, Peter.”

  Lips parting, his mind stalled in computing a response and malfunctioned entirely when her husband joined them.

  What do you say to the parents whose teenager daughter you’ve been sneaking around and stealing kisses with?

  Together, they formed a terribly awkward quartet in the cramped alcove, all the space surrounding them greedily consumed by tension and disparaging, unaired thoughts. Peter almost would have rather them said something, anything to punctuate the piercing silence grating his eardrums.

  He had to question his sanity for willingly attending any function where Dexter Branson would be present, the man who had been out for his blood since the year’s first snowfall.

  But his reason for attending stood tucked under his arm, and she did not budge as the four of them bathed in the stifling reality that dominated the scene in which they were suspended, staring helplessly at one another and much too fearful to let any words slip, lest any of them prove regrettable.

  Dexter’s hands briefly clenched before slipping into his pockets. Mustering cordiality, he acknowledged, “Peter.”

  “Mr. Branson.”

  He offered a tentative nod. “Dexter will do.”

  Adrenaline coursed through Peter. Was her father offering some kind of truce? The next inquiry, though extended with a degree of resignation, gave him further reason to ponder the unprecedented civility.

  “Would you care to join us for brunch?”

  Unbelievable. Those few excruciating moments standing in their presence were tortuous enough; he did not feel like journeying through the nine circles of hell via sacrificing himself to an entire brunch.

  At least his Beatrice would be at his side.

  Charlotte patted her ponytail, chiming in, “We insist.”

  He winced as Ryleigh pinched his wrist, a quiet though violent plea to accept. No amount of covert sleeve tugging or lip biting on her part would have driven him to comply.

  “I wouldn’t want to impose.” Peter rapped on the NENPA badge clipped to the pocket of his dress shirt. “Plus, I have a story to wrap up. It’ll probably be another half-hour.”

  “Maybe some other time, then,” her mother said. “These weeks are flying by. I can hardly believe it. Pretty soon, we’ll be in Michigan.”

  A breath caught in his chest. “We?”

  “Didn’t Ryleigh tell you? We’re going to Ann Arbor at the start of July.”

  He almost abandoned the family in favor of continuing his assignment, thinking that if he excused himself from the conversation, the revelation would hold no weight; even though, beneath that illogical layer of his brain, it was already crushing him, twisting his veins and compressing his organs.

  And while it was not Heather-level betrayal, the blatant omittance made him wonder if he could trust Ryleigh.

  Peter’s eyes flitted to her. “No, she didn’t mention it.”

  “They’re flying out to tour the campus. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to join them. But you’re more than welcome to swing by my practice while the girls are away.” Dexter removed his glasses and used the untucked hem of his pinstriped shirt as a makeshift cloth. “I’ll give you a cleaning, on the house.”

  Calling him by his first name, extending brunch invitations and doling out free dental exams?

  He’s priming you for slaughter.

  “I’ll take you up on that.” Disgruntlement flattened his tone. Turning to Ryleigh, he directed the next question to her and her alone. “How long will you be gone?”

  “Four days, maybe five. I don’t remember. We’ve had it booked for a few months.” She stared at her raspberry toes.

  “A few months? And you didn’t think to mention it?” Though their argument was only warming up, Peter forgot her parents stood three feet away, petrified in their upper crust garb. “Would you mind if I steal her for a few minutes?”

  “Of course not. We’ll meet you at the car, honey.” Charlotte blew a kiss to her daughter before hooking arms with a grimacing Dexter, who no doubt gave her an earful of protest once they rounded the corner.

  He pressed his hands to the wall on either side of Ryleigh, hanging his head to bring them closer to eye level. She shifted on her feet within his arms’ prison. The room spun in and out of focus around them, and while she was the source of his disorientation, she was also the one thing grounding him.

  “What the hell is going on here? Since when do you keep stuff like this from me?”

  “I’m not your girlfriend. Do I really owe you an explanation?” She gave a half-hearted shrug, tossing her head back. “Why does it matter so much to you that I’m leaving in a few weeks when I’m leaving for good in a few months?”

  “It shouldn’t matter, but I wish you had told me. I don’t like being blindsided.”

  “You’re so confusing.”

  Ryleigh avoided his tense features by examining the fire extinguisher cased within the wall.

  “And why’s that, exactly?”

  Arms pinned to her stomach, she snapped, “You’ve made it abundantly clear we have until I leave and then nothing more will come of us. So, why are you frustrated that I neglected to mention a brief trip?”

  He sank to a squatting position, muscles tensing as he scrubbed a hand across his heated face.

  “Why? Because I was expecting to spend every spare minute with you until August 27th and now you’re dropping this shit on me. Out of nowhere. And you weren’t even the one to tell me, you dumped that task on your mother. Do you expect me to be cool with the fact that, suddenly, I have 100 less hours to spend with you?” More to himself, he mumbled, “I need a fucking cigarette for this.”

  “Tell me I mean something to you, something more than you let on, and I’ll belie
ve what you just said.”

  Ryleigh stared at him, eyes turning glassy from a brewing storm of tears. Even in the face of his grand irritation, she did not falter in her gaze.

  Coals backlit the darkness of her pupils. That soul-searching, unending stare edged with yearning said more than any poem she might have written or filibuster persuasion she might have spewed.

  And then he understood.

  He felt those three deadly words as if Ryleigh had delivered them in the form of a telekinetic message, transported between two ordinary people.

  But she had not said it aloud, and until that fateful moment, if it ever were to arrive, Peter would ignore what was presently written all over her hauntingly beautiful face.

  Ryleigh had been gone all of 48 hours, and Peter could hardly stomach the absence. The moment they said their temporary goodbyes, a piece of his heart had broken off and gone with her, unwilling to remain intact in protest of the departure.

  Two days, and he bordered on falling apart.

  “Are you here to make an appointment for your child, sir?” the buoyant receptionist asked as he entered Harris Pediatric Dentistry. “We actually just closed a few minutes ago, but I don’t mind helping you schedule a visit. What’s the name of the child?”

  While he originally had no intention of taking Dexter up on the offer extended at graduation, he had already watched Steel Magnolias four times and the next item on his solitary to-do list would have been jerking off until he rendered himself catatonic.

  Better to get out of the house.

  “I don’t have any children.” Peter surveyed the waiting area’s lack of childish decorations; not even a fish tank or a bead maze resided in the sterile space. “I’m a friend of Dexter’s.”

  “His friend?” The woman, whose silver-plated name tag read ‘Sara,’ replaced several large black binders on the shelves lining the far wall.

  “I may have fibbed a bit on that one. I’m sort of dating his daughter, and he invited me to swing by for a cleaning.”

  Tucking one of the binders to her chest, Sara pinned him with an incredulous stare. “Oh? I didn’t know Ryleigh had an older sister.”

  Peter was in no mood for a judgment call from a stranger; he was grieving the temporary loss of his not-quite-lover for crying out loud.

  “She doesn’t. I know, I’m 36, she’s 18. Yadda, yadda. We’ve heard it all before, so spare me the sideshow look on your face, alright?”

  He relished in the uncomfortable expression the receptionist wore as she reluctantly disappeared to go fetch her boss. No sooner than Sara had left, she rounded the corner and ushered him through the archway.

  “Third door on the left,” she said, breezing past Peter.

  His scalp prickled as he mentally prepared himself to face Dexter while shuffling through the narrow hallway. How would he act without his wife and daughter around?

  Though, he was never a shining example of amiability in their presence, either.

  Stomach quivering, he reached to open the examination room’s door, but was halted by his buzzing phone. Wondering if it might have been Ryleigh, his fingers inched into his pocket before snapping back to the door handle. Just call her back after. Clicking a button to cease the device’s vibration, he stepped into the space where Ryleigh’s father waited, where he may have very well been cleaning a heavy duty hunting bow rather than a saliva ejector.

  Peter produced a half-smile for the man in the white coat. “Shouldn’t this place have a dinosaur out front? Something to ease the kids about their impending mouth torture. I thought my article would make a difference around here.”

  He could see Ryleigh in her father at that moment, and it made his heart clench; the same ocean eyes, the same dip in their chin. Maybe the masturbatory coma had not been the worst idea.

  “Oh, it did. We used to have one at the entrance, if you can believe it, but it scared some of the kids so I had to get rid of it.” Despite channeling humor, an underlying edge of fatherly stringency always laced his tone. Dexter assessed Peter’s black joggers and faded UC Santa Cruz shirt. “Off work today?”

  “Yeah, though I’d rather be there, truthfully. I’m not a big fan of weekends, and I usually take some assignments home with me when I am off.”

  Brightly colored posters decorated the walls, ranging in theme from proper flossing etiquette to water conservation while brushing. Just what every kid wanted to look at while being poked and prodded with horrifying dental tools.

  “Your boss must love you.” Dexter unwrapped and arranged various disposable dental instruments on a tray. He jerked his head in the direction of the examination chair, which was clearly designed for children and not a 6’2” adult. “You can go ahead and have a seat. I’m just setting up.”

  Peter cringed at the desperate squeaks that escaped as his weight settled against the chair’s frame. His legs hung over the sides, shoes planted on the floor. The armrests cut off at his elbows and thus made for a comfortless arrangement. He felt like a giraffe lying on a longboard.

  And probably looked like one, too.

  “Let’s see what we’re working with.” Retrieving a mouth mirror and a sickle probe from the tray, Dexter set to the task. “You’re not a smoker. That’s a relief. I was under the impression that was a common habit among journalists.”

  “Harris is hardly large enough to have its own paper. It’s not the stress-inducing environment that breeds smokers,” he attempted to say despite his tongue being held aside by the cold metal mirror. “I smoked in college, but I gave it up after I’d been here for a couple of years.”

  “Glad to hear you kicked that. It’s a nasty habit.” The concentration on Dexter’s face was unbreakable, forehead creased in a series of deep, weathered lines. “You don’t floss much, do you?”

  “Who does?”

  “I do,” he stated with a bit too much conviction.

  “You have to; your reputation depends on it. It’s like if I didn’t read the newspaper, people would question my authority.” The conjecture sounded less than eloquent with a mouthful of metal.

  “Fair point,” Dexter concurred. “If I’m going to get any work done, I’m afraid you’ll have to keep the talking to a minimum.”

  Softening his hold on the armrests, Peter tried his best to relax in the chair. Dental examinations had always made him skittish and this was no exception.

  It did not help to ease his anxiety that the man handling the instruments happened to be Ryleigh’s father.

  “The campus is absolutely gorgeous,” Charlotte commented, fluffing her cobb salad with a fork. “I bet it’s breathtaking in the fall with all of the trees. You’ll have a great view walking to class.”

  “Yeah. Everything’s amazing.”

  Ryleigh sampled a nibble of the steaming pesto panini on her plate. Cheese strung from the bread to her mouth, connecting them as one. Her finger snapped the threads of vegan mozzarella with a swift, slicing motion.

  This was the most delectably stringy vegan cheese she had yet to encounter, and her roiling stomach refused to be excited about it.

  “Where’s your mind, honey?”

  “Somewhere it shouldn’t be.” She shied away from her mother’s concern, peering out the large glass window beside them, instantly regretting that she had opened herself up to the parade of affection that lay outside Le Croûton.

  Several couples passed by on the sidewalk, holding hands and laughing. Some of them carried coffees, while others tugged on dog leashes, but all of them were unapologetically smitten. Her heart crumbled at the unyielding display of infatuation. If I stay in Connecticut, that could be us.

  Charlotte patted the back of her daughter’s hand.

  “I know it’s difficult to think of leaving Peter behind. But let’s not forget you've worked your entire life to get to this point. There will be other boys—men, I promise.”

  A mother’s intuition never failed to amaze her.

  “But there won’t be anyone like him. I
don’t know if I could ever move on, or if I even want to try. I think I’m in …” She tapered off.

  “Hanging onto these feelings for him will only cause you more pain. You have to be realistic about this.” A sympathetic smile played at her lips, but it did not reach her eyes. “If the two of you have agreed to end things once you leave, then you have to be receptive to the idea of letting him go.”

  Ryleigh sniffled, tears dripping onto her barely eaten panini. “What if I’m not ready to let go? What if I’m not ready to say goodbye?”

  Throughout the duration of the trip, she had lost her appetite. Being away from Peter resulted in her disinterest of basic human functions; showering, sleeping, and eating had all been neglected since she had arrived in Ann Arbor.

  She suspected it would be no different when she returned in August. Sure, the campus was crawling with single, willing guys; but they were her age and their fingers were far from grazing their ceiling of maturity.

  A gap year was appealing. But what good would it do? Any choice they might make would just postpone their seemingly inevitable fate.

  Their clock had started ticking when they met.

  Charlotte twisted one of her pearl earrings, glancing out the window and then back to her daughter.

  “Your father and I are going on a trip for our anniversary next month. He wants you to stay at the Fuentes’s but I told him you’d be okay at the house.” The mischievous sparkle in her hazel eyes gave away her otherwise solid poker face. It was her tell, a code. “What do you think?”

  Ryleigh’s chest expanded with possibilities, like someone had pumped it full of helium and she would float out of the chair at any second.

  “I’m almost 19. I can handle being alone for a weekend.”

  “Since the day Ryleigh was born, I dreaded the thought of her dating. The past few years I realized that day wasn’t far around the corner. I tried to prepare myself for whatever was to come. Though, I’ll admit, I really wasn’t expecting this,” Dexter unloaded as he examined Peter’s teeth and gums.