For Your Eyes Only

by Sandra Antonelli

  Willa grinned, adding salt to the vinegar, mustard, and oil emulsion before shaking the bottle. “At what age does it become socially awkward to ask someone if they want to be friends? When you were five it was so easy—so straightforward. Why does making friends and friendship have to get so complicated? Why does stuff have to get in the way?”

  “Attention and sex? Competition for both maybe?”

  “Glory days, doll baby!” Dominic called out to his wife, “Please!”

  Lesley frowned and grabbed the football bowl. “Your pal Astro’s had some kind of mishap at work today and it’s put him in a crap mood. To be honest, he’s been moody since my brother came to stay with us, but I think he’s still annoyed you missed our wedding. Not to be a bitch or anything, Willa, but since we’re BFF’s now, I’d really appreciate it if you two would sort this bullshit out and get back to being the best buds you were before.”

  Twenty minutes later, after they’d devoured the salad and a sizeable portion of Lesley’s cheesy baked pasta, Dominic began to tell them about the raw, abraded, blistered-looking skin of his forearms that put him in deeper into a grizzly mood. “The roof is probably thirty feet off the ground,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “but Fabian has no fear of heights.”

  John leaned sideways, closer to Willa’s seat. “Fabian is Dominic’s business partner. I don’t mean in running the hardware store. They own a sideline contracting-landscaping company. Fabian’s a big Spanish guy with a beard. He’s great. You’ll like him.”

  ”Thanks, JT, but Judy Jetson’s known Fabian for many years. Okay, so we’re thirty feet up and Fabian, whom we all know, prances around up th—”

  The Luke Skywalker glass paused at Willa’s mouth. “I would never say Fabian prances.”

  “Neither would I.” Lesley shook her head.

  Sniff-sniff-sniff. “Does Fabian know you think he prances?”

  Dominic set his elbows on the table and folded his hands together. “Look, he prances in his Birkenstocks when I tell this story. So keep your traps shut and listen.”

  Lesley rose and began to clear the dishes from the table, speaking before her husband could. “When was the last time you saw Fabian, Willa?”

  “I ran into him a few months ago.”

  “Excuse me, I’m telling the story of how I sustained this painful injury to my forearms.”

  Lesley stuck her tongue out at Dominic and reached for the plate in front him. “Do you mind if I ask how Miles died?”

  “Oh, Jay-zus, Lesley,” Dominic groaned.

  Lesley looked at her husband’s sour expression and then at Willa. “Was I just rude or was that you, darling? I’m sorry, Willa, I didn’t mean to ask such an upsetting question,” she said, setting dirty plates back on the table.

  John swished wine around in his Han Solo glass. “Look, Queenie, the kids are about to have their first fight.”

  Lips pressed together, Willa pulled the tongs from the empty football salad bowl and stood, trying hard not to laugh. She reached for the tray of lasagne and lifted it from the center of the table. “Miles was hit by a tram, a streetcar. Australia is home to ten of the deadliest creatures on Earth and Miles had to walk into one that was manmade. It’s no big deal, Lesley.”

  “No big deal?” Dominic looked at her, horrified.

  It had been horrifying. It was the most horrible thing Willa had ever faced in her life, but there was no need to relive the horror, or be rendered frozen by the horror as she had once been. People knew all about the ‘fight-or-flight’ response, but few realized ‘freeze’ was another response that could occur with danger or sudden trauma. It had taken her a long while to move beyond the shocking immobility that occurred after Miles’ death, to shift from wanting to die to simply existing. But danger had lit a small fire in her belly and compelled her to react. She understood just how powerful a motivator fear was, and as she took in Dominic’s expression, she knew she had overcome her living lifelessness. She recognized the cartoonish nature of life and death. And she laughed so hard she snorted.

  “Oh, Willa.” Dominic shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t go there.”

  “What’s the matter Dominic? You think my laughing means I’m going to fall apart? You think my talking about it is some kind of nail being banged into my coffin and I’m going to disintegrate like I did before, when Miles died?”

  “Not at all. You’re doing a hell of a job holding it all together,” his eyes cut to John, briefly, “and your priorities sure are straight, but who knows? One little thing might tip you over the edge. And then everything will crash down around yo—”

  “I am not about to fall apart.”

  “No, maybe not yet. But you will.”

  “You’re an absolute fuck-knuckle, you know that?”

  “And you’re a snotty-faced little girl with old lady hair.”

  ”At least I’m not going bald like you are.”

  “I’m not balding.”

  “No, maybe not yet. But you will.”

  They went at it, bickering and name calling like siblings until Lesley intervened from the kitchen. “So,” she said above the din of the squabble and John’s amused sniff-sniff-sniffing, “Fabian’s prancing up on the roof…”

  Dominic didn’t miss a beat. “…and he bends over to pick up another sheet of tar paper and hammer it in, when he sees her in the back yard next door, buck naked.”

  “I thought it was ‘butt naked.”

  “Buck or butt, JT, she was totally nude and giving herself a home Brazilian.”

  “No way.”

  “In the back yard?” Lesley snorted.

  Sniff-sniff-sniff. “It is almost bikini season.”

  Willa took the lasagne into the kitchen. “It wasn’t exactly bikini-warm today.”

  “She seemed to think it was. I mean she must have, with the waxing and nude sun-bathing.”

  “She was sun bathing too?”

  “I guess she wanted an even tan.”

  Lesley called out, “At least she wasn’t anal bleaching as well.”

  John coughed on his sip of wine and his head whipped around to his cousin. “Say what?”

  “Google it,” Willa laughed. “I’m not going to describe it.”

  “Anyhow,” Dominic said a little too loudly, “so she’s ripping off wax and the next thing I know, Fabian is falling out of his Birkenstocks and falling over the edge of the roof. I dove after him, grabbed him by the back of his pants and hauled his ass back up. Gave him quite the atomic wedgie. He’s going to sound like Mickey Mouse for about a week. So that’s how I got roof rash on my forearms today, doll baby.” Dominic smiled at his wife. “Now will you come and kiss it better?”

  Lesley stomped back into the dining room to stand before her husband. She grabbed one of his big wrists, lifted it to her mouth and began making a tiny line of soft kisses over his raw, abraded flesh. Her eyes never left his.

  John glanced at Queenie, cleared his throat and pointed overhead. “Uh, the spare bed upstairs has clean sheets on it.”

  Neither Lesley nor Dominic seemed to have heard. Lesley had moved on to the other arm, repeating the trail of little kisses. “How’s that, ya big baby?” she said, squinting.

  “You missed a spot,” Dominic grumbled.

  In the next second, Lesley had planted herself in Dominic’s lap and her tongue was very plainly in his mouth.

  “Seriously, guys. Fresh sheets. On the bed. Upstairs.”

  Through the archway into the kitchen, Willa caught John’s furtive gaze, started laughing, and opened the dishwasher.

  “Okay, fine. Let me just get these,” John gathered up the Star Wars glasses, “out of your way and point out there’s a blob of sauce in the middle of the table, should you decide to move there to further your mutual tonsil examinations.”

  The couple continued to make out, ignoring him.

  John took the tumblers into the kitchen. He bumped into Queenie when she turned to swish breadcrumbs from the countert
op and very nearly lost Darth Vader. Wine splashed out of the glass and dappled the floor with cabernet. His rugby jersey got splashed as well, dark splotches marring the juniper colored fabric. “We can’t seem to keep our clothes stain-free around each other can we?”

  She took the Han Solo and Luke Skywalker glasses from him. “Sorry,” she said, dabbing at his chest with the cloth she’d used on the countertop, sprinkling crumbs down his front.

  “My fault.” He laughed as she brushed bits of bread from his shirt, and his mind filled with ideas of what he’d rather have her do with her hands.

  “I should look where I’m going.”

  Queenie smelled like outdoors, like rain and sun and summer wind. John set R2D2 and Darth Vader on the counter. “Again, it was my fault.”

  A giggle came from the other room. It was followed by a decidedly masculine-sounding giggle and a long sigh.

  “Oh, brother.” John reached for her hand. “Queenie, would you like to see my herb garden?”

  “Gee, now that’s original!” Dominic said, finally coming up for air.

  Lesley scooted out of her husband’s lap and pulled the neckline of her top back into place. “Willa, “she waved her hands, coming into the kitchen, “get away from those dishes. You’re not washing up anything. Let John show you his thing. I mean his plants. Dominic and I will clean up.”

  “Clean up? But doll baby, I’m injured.”

  Banished from the kitchen, John and Willa stood outside on the deck. Under the gentle glow of white fairy lights and tall lamps that looked like Hawaiian torches, he showed off his herb garden.

  Before she’d stepped outside, Willa thought she’d be looking at some cultivated garden beds. What she got were a bunch of clay pots full of black soil.

  “This one,” he pointed to the potting mix that filled an oblong box of terracotta, “is cilantro, which is called coriander in some parts of the world.”

  Willa nodded, pretending to be impressed by his dirt farming.

  “Over here’s flat leaf parsley. … No, this is the cilantro and that’s the parsley.”

  “And what’s this,” Willa touched the edge of another piece of mulch-topped earthenware, “more dirt?”

  “Don’t knock my garden. I have a very green thumb.”

  “And a very red nose.”

  “It’s cold out here. Are you cold?” John slid an arm around her waist, pulled her back to his chest, and rested his chin on her head. “Better?”

  “You missed a spot.”

  “Forgive me.” He turned her around and she pressed her cheek right over his heart. He wondered if she realized it was beating faster than normal.

  They stood there together, absorbing the warmth of one another for a long quiet moment. Her arms, around his middle, were slender, but there was amazing luxury in them. John cuddled her closer and drank in the opulence of the embrace.

  “I’d forgotten how lovely it smells here in Los Alamos,” she said. “The piñon and ponderosas are wonderful. It smells different than it does in Cedar Crest or Albuquerque. There’s more sagebrush in the air at that elevation.”

  ”I think the whole state smells good.”

  “I think you smell good.”

  “I have a bath every Saturday night, whether I need one or not.”

  Chuckling, she rubbed her cheek against his shirt. John felt her warmth through the thick jersey fabric; it permeated through to his skin. He wanted to soak up more of her heat. Hell, he wanted to soak up as much of Queenie as he could, sop up her like he was a piece of bread and she was gravy.

  He was horny, there was no doubt about that, but he was also filled with a longing he hadn’t known in over a decade, and the mind-blowing thing was, he’d never expected to have this sort of ache crop up again in his life. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was supposed to mean, if it meant anything at all. His response to her was most likely purely chemical, a sexual attraction, the kind of attraction that confused some men and sent them into a midlife crisis. Mid-life confusion or not, John knew then that he was going to find out how far the envelope of this feeling stretched.

  “Thank you for taking the time, for spending the time here tonight,” he said.

  “There’s no place else I have to be.”

  Comfortable silence settled over them. They listened to the rustle of blowing leaves and creaking pine branches and held each other.

  Finally, she sighed. “I owe him so much, John. Dominic took care of me when I couldn’t seem to take care of myself. He took care of everything. He picked me up, cleaned me up, propped me up. He cooked, he cleaned, paid my bills, he mothered and fathered, and did things that I couldn’t.” Fierce determination and self-loathing darkened her voice. “How can I make up for what he did? How do you thank someone for that? I’m trying to fix this. I’m trying to put it right. I’m trying like hell because I’m the only one who can. He’s such a good man, solid, dependable, irritating. What is it that makes siblings, even adopted ones like Dominic such a pain in the ass?”

  “The day I figure out what makes Kathleen a giant hemorrhoid, I’ll let you know.”

  She shook her head. “When I take a step back, when I look at everything that happened, with the things I said to Dominic, or Isabel, with all the crap they’ve both done out of love, out of concern for my well being, I know I’m pretty lucky.”

  John nuzzled his nose into her hair. “Lucky how?”

  “I could have Dominic’s brothers. Have you ever met the youngest, Terry?”

  “No, but I’ve met Lesley’s brother, Sean.”

  “He’s not so bad.”

  Sniff-sniff-sniff. “Want to know how Sean made his first million?”

  “He’s a millionaire?”

  John ran his hands up and down Queenie’s back. “Scary, huh?”

  She nestled closer. “So how’d he get rich?”

  “When he was in college,” sniff-sniff-sniff, “he took some business class where he had to come up with a product to market. He came up with The Post Coital Clean-Up Kit.”

  “Which is what, a tissue?”

  “No. Two tissues in a plastic pouch the size of a condom.”

  She started to laugh.

  “Then he came up with the Condom Companion.”

  “And that’s what?” she asked, still chuckling.

  “One tissue in a plastic pouch with a condom. Walk into the restroom of any truck stop in the southwest and you’ll find a vending machine that sells both.”

  Queenie began laughing harder. Snorting, she unclasped her arms from his waist and took a step back, rocking with mirth. Clutching at his arm, her small fingers sank into the location where he’d been ripped open with the meat fork. Pain shot through his shoulder and up along the ridge of his neck. John jerked from her grip, the movement as involuntary as his “Ye-ow!”

  Startled, Willa gazed at him in dismay; hands raised high as though ready to surrender. “What? What is it?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare the hell out of you.” He rubbed his arm gingerly. “I was stabbed a few weeks ago. The spot’s a little sensitive.”

  “You were stabbed?”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “A hazard of the job. It’s what forced me to take a seven-week vacation.” John grinned, rolling his shoulder.

  Willa grasped her elbows. “What happened?”

  John reached for her. He un-pretzeled her arms and pulled her into his embrace, where she’d been before. “I was an uninvited guest at a barbecue,” he said, settling her against his chest again, wrapping his arms about her.

  “Does it still hurt?”

  “Only when you laugh.”

  Chuckling, her head fell back and she looked up into his face. At that perfect moment, when she was in his arms and he was finally going kiss her, Mighty Colossus barged in again.

  “A-hem,” Dominic coughed, comic book style.

  “What?” John said, glaring over the top of Queenie’s head.

  “Your sister is on the phone
.”

  “Great. Wonderful. Shit. Thanks, Kathleen.” Reluctantly, John pulled away from a chortling Queenie and dropped a light kiss on her mouth. “I’ll be back after I apply some verbal Preparation H,” he said before he headed inside.

  14

  “My wife knows something’s going on,” Dominic said, handing her a coat.

  “Lesley’s a very smart woman.” Willa slipped the jacket on. It wasn’t nearly as warm as John.

  “That’s why she married me.”

  “And you marrying her is the smartest thing you’ve ever done.”

  “While trusting you is the stupidest.”

  “You really vacillate, don’t you?” Willa shook her head. “One minute you snarl at me, the next you’re worried that discussing how Miles died will once again reduce me to incoherent jelly. Don’t worry. You will never again be in a position where you have to feed me, bathe me and put me to bed.”

  He shrugged. “Is this the conversation we’re going to have? Is this why I had to invite you to dinner, so we could talk about my ambivalence and how you were after Miles died? Willa, I love my wife and she loves me.”

  “I know, and it’s great. I never thought I’d live to see the day you settled down. I’m really glad for you. It’s wonderful to see you so happy.”

  “I am happy, Willa. I’m very happy. Now tell me how we’re not going to fuck up my happiness.”

  The deck was long and made the most of John’s narrow back yard. Sloping earth full of tall pine trees gave way to a dark canyon below. Distant streetlamps lit up the arch of the Omega Bridge, the Lab, and the NSSB building beyond. The fairy lights cast a soft hue onto the decking timbers. Stars glittered in the inky night sky above, and Dominic’s topaz eyes practically glowed like twin blue suns in his face.

  Willa moved to take a seat on a bench made of polished pine. A pot with a dead geranium sat near her right foot. The toe of her shoe tapped against the edge of it. She loved these chocolate brown clogs and had had them for nearly as long as she’d known Dominic. There were a few scuff marks in the leather, just as there were a few scuffs on her and Dominic, but she’d never get rid of the shoes or the friendship. Not without a big fight. If Dominic wanted a knock-down-drag-out, she’d give it to him.