Other Side of Love (A Different Kind of Love Book 5)

by Liz Durano

  I nod. “That sounds good.”

  “Let’s shake on it,” he says, holding out his hand. As I shake his hand, I suddenly feel sheepish. Why the hell are we shaking hands? As if reading my mind, Benny laughs and pulls me to him, wrapping me in a hug.

  “Thanks, Benny,” I say as I pull away moments later and he touches the tip of my nose with a knuckle.

  “Everything will be alright, Sarah. I promise.”

  We get back on the road and spend the next hour listening to music on the radio as we make our way to Taos. We talk about the three-bedroom, two-bath condo he bought that’s close to the Harwood Museum of Art, his roommate, some guy who loves to go rock climbing and often spars with him at the gym, and about his mother and his half-sister Marjorie who live on the reservation in Shiprock, his twin brothers who are just starting high school.

  Leaning back in my seat with my feet on the dashboard, it’s just like the way we used to be when we’d go on day trips years earlier. Back then, we were just friends.

  This time, we’re older, and in Benny’s case, wiser. We’re still friends, but there are things simmering beneath the surface now, planted there by the secret I told him that night two years ago, a confession only one other man knew... the same man who then used it against me, exposing it for the world to see.

  Sure, Benny and I can start over right now, erase the things I said that night. But nothing can erase the pictures that have made their way to private chat rooms and forums.

  Nothing can erase the shame of what I really am.

  Chapter Six

  I park the truck in front of Sarah’s childhood home that’s behind a walled entrance. It’s a pueblo style hacienda with an oversized garage where I see a black Land Rover and a white Mercedes SUV parked in front of its doors. Tall colorful hollyhocks line the front courtyard that leads to a set of double doors that I assume is the entrance into the house. Along one wall, I see herbs growing in a raised bed, parsley, cilantro, and peppers.

  “That’s a lot of pepper,” I say as I turn off the engine. “You guys roast them yourselves?”

  “Nana roasts them and makes her own green chile salsa and everything,” Sarah says as I push open the front door but she grabs my arm. “I can take it from here, Benny. You don’t have to walk me to the front door. Don’t you have to prepare for a meeting?”

  “It’s not for another two hours,” I mutter as she reaches for her backpack in the back seat. I hate that she’s still panicking at the idea of meeting of her father, but even as I think that, another thought hits me. Is she embarrassed to be seen with me? It’s not like I haven’t met her family before. I met them at her graduation, hours before Sarah showed up at my apartment drunk and determined to get me into bed with a list of things she wanted to try out.

  The front door opens as I walk around to her side of the truck and pull open the door. As her parents walk out toward us, Sarah curses under her breath but I squeeze her hand.

  “Hey, you’ll be fine, Sarah.”

  “You made it, mija. And here I was thinking you weren’t coming at all,” the woman I met on Sarah’s graduation night two years ago says. She’s wearing a sleeveless checkered shirt and blue jeans, her forearms streaked with what looks like clay. It’s as if she washed her hands but missed washing the clay off her arms.

  Sarah pulls her hand away from mine and steps out of the truck, meeting her mother halfway. Pearl Drexel is a stunning woman with jet black hair falling over her shoulders and hazel eyes. Beside her, Daniel Drexel, wearing a blue collared shirt and jeans watches me with narrowed eyes.

  “What happened to your car?” he asks as Sarah hugs her mother. “Is anything wrong with it?”

  “Benny said he was driving to Taos so I hitched a ride.” Sarah kisses her father on the cheek and steps back to stand next to me. “Mom, Dad, you guys remember Benny, right? From UNM? You met him on graduation night.”

  Daniel shakes my hand, his grip a little too firm, his eyes never leaving my face. “Of course, I remember. Your friend.” The way he says that last word grates at me but I let it go.

  Pearl’s greeting is a hundred times warmer, hugging me as if I’m an old friend. “Benny Turner! Of course, I remember him, Sarah. Hello, Benny! Do you work out in Shiprock, too?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But we have our main office here.”

  “He’s an environmental protection specialist,” Sarah says before glancing around. “Where are Dax and Nana?”

  “Dax spent the night over at Gabe’s and they’re probably hanging out at the park,” Pearl replies. “Nana is in the kitchen.”

  “The Bureau of Indian Affairs?” Daniel asks, his expression surprised. “That’s who you work for? Their offices are close to the Plaza.”

  “Yes, sir. Two years now, right after I graduated with my Masters.”

  “Ah, yes. You were studying for your Masters when we first met,” Daniel says, his brow furrowing.

  “Yup. Earned my Doctorate last year.” I don’t even know why I’m telling him about my Doctorate but from the way Daniel’s scowl is replaced with a look of surprise, it seems it was necessary to impress him, but only barely. I can almost guess what’s going through his mind, that I’m probably no different from the two men his daughter ended up with—just another asshole with a fancy degree fucking his daughter.

  “Benny’s got a meeting to go to, Dad, so he can’t stay long,” Sarah says before turning to face me. “Thanks for the ride, Benny. I don’t want you to be late.”

  “You’re welcome, Sarah,” I say, forcing a smile. “Call me when you’re ready to head back. You’ve got my number, right?”

  Sarah nods as I turn to shake Daniel’s hand one more time and lean in as Pearl gives me another hug. “You just got here, Benny. You should stay and have something to eat.”

  “I’m good, thanks, Mrs. Drexel,” I say as the front door opens and a gray-haired woman emerges from the house.

  “Nana!” Sarah exclaims as she runs toward her, wrapping her in an embrace. A few seconds later, I’m introduced to Sarah’s grandmother Anita Anaya whom I’m supposed to call Nana from here on. No exceptions, she insists which is fine with me. Sarah clearly takes after her mother and grandmother when it comes to personality and warmth.

  “Have you eaten?” Nana asks and I nod.

  “We stopped at a food stand an hour ago,” Sarah says as Nana grasps my hand and starts pulling me into the house.

  “That means you have room for one of my sausage breakfast burritos then. Do you like green chile, Benny?”

  I almost say no but when I catch Daniel’s look of annoyance, I tell myself, screw it. Let him guard his turf all he wants. I haven’t had homemade green chile in a while. “As a matter of fact, I do, Ma’am… I mean, Nana.”

  “He just said he ate, Nana,” Daniel mutters as Pearl grabs Sarah’s arm, pulling her back so they’re walking behind Nana and me while Daniel trails behind all of us.

  “That’s only because you don’t want to share, Daniel,” Nana says, chuckling as she proceeds to pull me into the house. “Besides, Benny drove Sarah here all the way from Shiprock. He’s also a growing boy. Mira, Daniel, he’s as tall as you.”

  As the women chuckle at Nana’s unabashed appraisal, Daniel does not look amused.

  When I leave twenty minutes later, I finally understand why Sarah always told me there was no better cook than her grandmother. One bite of that breakfast burrito—“just a taste,” Nana said—and I have to agree. In fact, as I get behind the wheel of my truck, the women saying their goodbyes outside the door as Daniel watches me still unamused, I’m carrying a plastic container with two giant breakfast burritos I know without a doubt I’m ready to guard with my life.

  At the office, I do my best to focus on the points I need to touch on at the meeting but it’s a struggle. My mother calls and this time I answer the phone. I still have an hour left before the meeting begins.

  While I installed two solar panels at the house and bought her a re
frigerator and a big-screen TV so my siblings didn’t have to be so bored indoors, there’s no way I can get a phone line in the area. Mother is probably at the grocery store picking up supplies for the week. It’s when she makes all her phone calls and sends her text messages. It’s no joke we call cell phones bil n’joobal in Navajo which basically means that ‘thing you use while spinning around’ while searching for a reliable signal.

  “Yá’át’ééh, Benny,” my mother says in the customary Diné greeting. “I wanted to remind you about next weekend. Do you think you have time to pick up a few things on your way here? Water, too, if you can manage it. A few gallons just in case we run out.”

  “I will.”

  “Your granddad might also need your help with some stuff, too,” she adds. “The sheep pen needs fixin’ and other things.”

  My grandparents live with my mother and stepfather on the homestead where he and my grandma raised her and her two brothers. It’s ancestral land that’s at least an hour away from the nearest town if driving my big-ass truck, the bus stop a twenty-minute walk from the front door. It’s the world I grew up in after my father died when I was six and my mother decided to return to the reservation and raise me there. It took a lot of getting used to—no electricity or running water—but I got used to it.

  “I’ll stay the weekend, Shi’ma. Don’t worry,” I say.

  “I know you’ve been out of town, but I ran into Noelle and her father yesterday and she told me she hasn’t heard from you in over a month, not since you two broke up. I didn’t even know you broke up again,” she says, her tone accusing.

  “We cooled off.” Same thing.

  “I told her that I thought you guys were together since you told us you were going to ask her the big question. Her father’s thrilled.”

  Ah, shit. “Shi’ma, you didn’t have to say that. In fact, you didn’t have to say anything.” That’s the thing with extended families. Everyone knows your business.

  “The girl can’t wait forever, Bidzii,” she says, calling me by my Diné name which means strength. “I know marriage is a scary step and you’ve only been avoiding it like the plague for years, but you two have been together since you danced your first Powwow together.”

  “I was only a kid then.” I also didn’t know any better but I did love the rhythm of the drums and the elders’ chanting. It was hypnotic. While I haven’t danced at any powwow since then, I’ve watched it every year, usually with Noelle by my side.

  “It’s been six years since you two went steady. I’m actually glad you two decided to focus on your education in the beginning because with you workin’ for the bureau and her involved in that Diné immersion program with the natives, I just know you two can do so much together. You’re perfect together, Bidzii,” she says as I rest my forehead on my hand and rub my brow. My mother telling Noelle I’m about to pop the question when we’re supposed to be broken up makes everything awkward. And if that isn’t the biggest hint for Noelle to know that I’m supposed to be getting back with her, I don’t know what is. I just wish it were as easy as simply asking her and hearing her say yes.

  But that ship sailed the moment I ran into Sarah.

  “Shi’ma, I’ve got a meeting to go to in ten minutes so I can’t talk long.” A blatant lie since my meeting doesn’t start for another half hour, but it’s the only thing I can think of. I glance at the clock on the wall. “Why don’t I call Noelle right now?”

  My mother sighs in relief and after a few more words about next weekend, we say our goodbyes. After I hang up, I realize I’ve been holding my breath and I let it out, my shoulders relaxing for the first time since I answered her phone call.

  It’s not like my mother to be pushy but she’s got a point. I did say I was going to do something four weeks ago and I haven’t done it even if I had to work in Arizona the last three weeks. I could have done it then but I didn’t. It doesn’t help that everyone but my stepfather was at the house that day and we were all having dinner, my grandparents, my mother and my sister Marjorie at the table with me and my twin brothers on the couch playing a video game. Whether or not I said it then to get them off my back about their endless questions about my love life, it was as good as an official announcement as any.

  Alright, I’m going to ask her.

  They all looked at me then, their eyes widening. Even my twin half-brothers who stopped playing their game to stare at me in surprise, their game controllers frozen in place between their knees.

  For real, bro? Tahoma had said. He’s the one with a scar on his forehead from the time he fell off a rock while running up and down a boulder. It’s the only way I can tell him and Tsela apart.

  Yeah, for real.

  Only I never thought I’d run into Sarah Drexel again. I never thought I’d see fear in her eyes for the first time since I’ve known her. And I never thought I’d still feel the same way I always felt for her back when I first knew her in Albuquerque.

  Only this time, there’s something else that’s made my feelings for her even stronger. It’s making my heart race at the thought of her, my belly clenching at the feel of her body against mine. It’s everything she told me that night two years that changed everything, adding another layer to the already-complicated dance between us.

  I punch Noelle’s phone number before I can change my mind and listen to the succession of rings that follow. I hold my breath, hoping she doesn’t answer. I let go only when her voicemail picks up and I listen to her voice telling me to leave a message.

  But I don’t.

  I can’t.

  My throat tightens as I hang up. I blow out a breath and close my eyes. I should be seeing Noelle in my mind. I should be putting her soft voice together with her face but it doesn’t happen.

  Instead, I see Sarah’s face. And in her eyes, I see fear I’ve never seen there before. I see my cowardice, too, reflected back at me, my desire to fit in and belong, not wanting to straddle two worlds all the time. Just wanting to fit in for once somewhere.

  But I know that’s impossible. I’ve done it too long to suddenly not do it. I’d also be lying just as I’m lying to myself now.

  I want to belong to my Navajo roots, true, but I also want the love of a woman I cannot have.

  Chapter Seven

  After Benny leaves, Mom leads me into her workshop while Nana asks Dad to help her with a shelf in the kitchen. It’s one of the things that always amazes me about Dad whenever he comes home. He sheds the New York executive and becomes the man about the house, tightening door hinges, fixing crooked shelves, and when the job is too great, hiring the right people for the job instead of struggling with a band saw. But more importantly, he becomes a husband, a father, and a son-in-law.

  Sure, he’ll disappear into his home office now and then to check on his company’s investments, write his emails and send faxes, but he always makes sure that Mom, Nana, or Dax never want for anything when he’s home. It’s a weird arrangement for my mother but it’s worked for them ever since I was eight and Mom, pregnant with Dax, decided New York wasn’t for her and returned home to Taos. My grandfather, Luis Teves Anaya, or Papa as I called him, was still alive then and he and Dad expanded the house to accommodate all of us living under one roof. Funny, though, because we could have bought a new house but Mom simply wanted to return home and Nana and Papa were more than happy to welcome her back. As their only child, they wouldn’t have wanted any other arrangement.

  Meanwhile, Dad still kept the brownstone that we called home back in the Upper East Side and he never really did anything with my bedroom. When I asked him if I could fly back with him so I could return to my old life, my school and my old friends, he refused, saying I had to be with my mother and my future brother. He would have to do the commuting back and forth. A week in New York followed by a week in Taos. Soon, it turned into two weeks in New York and a week in Taos. When Dax was born, he stayed in Taos longer, so awed by my younger brother who was born with lungs of steel you could hear h
im next door whenever he cried. Now Dax is taller than me and slowly filling out. Spoiled rotten and a Mama’s boy, he and I love to tease each other a lot whenever I’m home.

  “I made these for you, mija. They’ll make great bowls for soup or salad for your new place. What do you think?” Mom’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts as she hands me two bowls glazed in shades of deep browns, blues, and turquoise.

  “Mom, these look amazing. Thanks,” I say, studying them. I love seeing how the glaze dripped on one of the bowls and on the other, the way the spiral developed. Each one is a work of art. I turn them over and grin proudly when I see her signature at the bottom. Pearl Anaya-Drexel.

  Legally, Mom doesn’t really have a hyphenated last name. She dropped her maiden name when she married Dad and they were both living in New York. But when she moved back to Taos while pregnant with Dax, Dad convinced her to keep her maiden name for her pottery. That way, people would know she was her father’s daughter, keeping the tradition alive. These days, Mom holds classes in her home studio and sometimes she goes to schools to teach kids how one can create endless magic with soft clay mixed with water.

  She still creates each piece using traditional tools like her father’s kick wheel. I remember sitting in her workshop after school with my homework neglected in front of me, too busy watching her stretch soft clay on the wheel with water, shaping it with her slender fingers, her bare foot sending the wheel spinning with a deft kick. When she was done, there was a mug or a bowl or a pitcher, yet to be fired and then glazed. Dax always loved watching her, too, although these days, he prefers hanging out with his friends to staying home.

  “One day, these will end up in a museum, Mom,” I say, setting the bowls back down on the table. “I’ll probably leave them here since I’m only going to be in Shiprock a few more weeks and I don’t want to risk breaking them during the move.”