She put down the charcoal she was fiddling with and wiped her hand on her jeans. “No, I don’t need to go get anything. Maybe I’ll sleep over.”
“Ione?” Fox knocked hard on the door. “That bitch from next door is here again complaining. She won’t leave until she talks to you directly.”
I sighed and went downstairs to discuss with Sania how some guy had come to her house asking to use the bathroom since ours was apparently out of order.
“My house is not a public restroom!” she seethed. “You have these people over here treating your home like a gas station, but that’s not how we want to live!”
“I’m sorry someone bothered you,” I answered. “I don’t know who it was or I would tell him not to do that again.”
“How do you not know the people in your house?”
It was a bad time for the chanting to start up again in the dining room. I really did not know what they were doing in there. “Sania, I understand that you don’t like how I have my house, but it is my house, right? I don’t come and knock on your door all the time and tell you how to do things, so maybe you should give me the same respect.”
“Respect? You have a clown house, painted partway blue with trash in the driveway. You don’t respect your neighbors. You don’t respect yourself.”
“Sania, that’s not very nice!”
She calmed down a little. “Please try to see this from my perspective. We are trying to have a nice, normal life.”
“But I’m trying to have the life that I want, too. I’m not letting people play loud music anymore and I’ll keep trying to clean up the yard. You may not like the blue paint, but I do.”
She kept arguing with me, but we were getting nowhere. Eventually she left and I asked the chanters to give it a break for the night. I looked around for Corrie, but sometime during my discussion with Sania she must have taken off. I hoped that she had somewhere else to go.
I lay on the couch in my studio with a cold washcloth on my forehead like my grandma had given me when I was hot as a child, but I tossed and turned anyway, not able to get to sleep. I thought about writing on Cooper’s palm, holding his hand in mine. I thought about Corrie, how she had run her fingers over my canvas, my pens, taking in everything. I thought about my grandma a lot, and I dreamed about her that night. In my dream the house looked like it had when she was alive, everything in its place and a place for everything. She stood stirring things in her big pot on the stove, talking to me, and I heard her voice so clearly. When I woke up, I almost felt her there.
∞
It was so funny that it didn’t ring. I shook my phone (I had found it that morning when I threw away an old sandwich from my desk drawer and it had been hiding underneath). Nothing! I shook it again.
“Are you having a problem with that, Ione?” Leo asked me. He had walked by my desk at least five times already.
“I’m not sure,” I told him. “I’m thinking that the ringer is broken.” I let him take it and look for a moment.
“It seems ok. Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll call you to test it?” he suggested.
I did, and my phone rang just fine. Hmm.
“Can I call you again later? Would that be all right?” Leo asked.
“No, you don’t need to do that! It seems to be working, so no need,” I answered, and he walked away, frowning.
It was Friday, and I had suggested to Cooper that we get together to practice Japanese. Maybe he had forgotten. Or maybe he had washed his hand and my number had gotten smeared. Hmm. I stared off into the distance and almost missed the fact that two people had arrived to meet with Reid.
“What’s wrong, Ione?” Karis asked me as we took the stairs down to the gym at lunch. “Why are you so quiet?”
“I gave a guy in my Japanese class my number and he didn’t call me. I keep thinking my phone is broken.”
Karis smiled. “I think we all sometimes hope that we have broken phones.”
“What?” I asked her. “I don’t get it.”
“Sorry, it’s just kind of funny…sorry. Do you have his number?”
I thought. “I should make a move, right?”
“Hi, Ione,” the man at the gym check-in called, beckoning me over. “I had a new membership card made for you.”
“Thanks!” I took it from him. “I’ll try really hard not to lose this one.” He had already made so many for me.
“Are you a member here?” he asked Karis, kind of snotty, even though she came in a lot more frequently than I did. She nodded and ran her card through.
Karis got right up on a treadmill and started running. She and Reid were doing a half-marathon in the fall to celebrate their wedding, which to me seemed like an absolutely terrible way to celebrate. I wandered around for a while before hopping onto one of the machines also. I put in headphones but that didn’t stop a man from getting up on the treadmill next to me and talking like a maniac at me, even when I pointed to my ears and shook my head. I thought maybe there was something wrong that he didn’t understand social cues, so I said slowly and carefully, “I’m not talking to you on purpose,” to help him out. He got off and walked away.
I finished my run but Karis was still going hard, so I cleaned up and went into the gym lobby to sit for a minute. And I called Cooper.
“It’s Ione,” I said when he answered.
“Oh, hi.” There was a pause. “Did you need something? Did you forget what our homework is?”
“I’m calling because I thought we might get together to work on Japanese,” I reminded him. “Remember I said that?”
“Oh, right. I’ve been pretty busy. Uh…” I heard some paper shuffling and he said something about a missing shipment to someone else.
“Why don’t we go to dinner tonight?” I said.
There was another silence and I heard more paper and the click of a keyboard. “Like a working dinner, to study? Yeah. Sure, I could really use the practice. Or better yet, why don’t we just go straight to the library?” We talked about a time to meet up and then I hung up, feeling very let-down. He clearly didn’t want to see me, he was just interested in me helping him with his Japanese. The guy at the front desk of the gym was trying to talk to me but I wasn’t paying attention that well.
“Ione? Ready to go back to the office?” Karis was still all red from her run and her long, dark hair was wet from a shower.
“Sure, I’m ready,” I answered, a little listlessly. We took the elevator this time, and I was still lost in thought.
“What’s wrong?” she asked me, and I explained about Cooper, how I had called him and how he’d reacted—he just wanted to meet me to study, and that was all.
“So you like him, and he doesn’t like you back?” Karis summarized.
“I guess that’s it,” I answered, and she nodded sympathetically.
“Have you ever been in this situation before? Liking someone and he doesn’t feel the same way?”
I followed her across our big office space to the little partitioned room that was her office with Reid. They shared a big desk, sitting across from each other, mostly because he liked to stare at her, I thought. Her view wasn’t bad, either. “Of course I’ve been in this situation before,” I told her, but then I thought about it. Hm.
“Maybe not,” Karis said. “In all the time we’ve been friends, I’ve never seen you really, really like someone. You haven’t even really dated anyone.”
“Yeah, it has been a while.” I also thought back to my last boyfriend, but it had been…God, how long had it been? “I think I really do like this guy. But he doesn’t like me back.”
Reid had been quietly listening from his place on the other side of their big desk. “You mean there’s actually one man out there who isn’t chasing after you, Ione? Besides me,” he told Karis. He leaned way over the desk and kissed her. The ability to kiss her whenever with some privacy was the reason that Reid had wanted a separate space with walls, if you asked me, and I didn’t think Karis m
inded much either.
“That’s not true about me!” I told him. “Don’t say things like that.”
Reid held up his hands. “Fine. And you didn’t cause a five-car traffic accident when the wind blew your skirt up when you were crossing Jefferson Avenue, either. Are you sure this guy isn’t interested?”
“I’m sure,” I said sadly. “You know how I’m good at reading people.”
“She did know a month before Davina quit that it was coming,” Reid told Karis.
“Well, I had asked Davina if she was unhappy in her job,” I admitted. “She just seemed so down to me, and when we went out for drinks, she told me she was going to quit. That was how I knew.”
“But no one else had even noticed that she was unhappy,” Karis said. “No one else had thought to ask her to go talk. You knew about me and Reid also, how we, you know, had feelings for each other.” She turned red, not from the exercise.
Reid laughed. “Come here, Prudence.” She sat carefully on the arm of his chair and he put his arm around her, and played with the ends of her wet hair.
“You do seem to pick up on things,” Karis continued to me, “so if you think that this Cooper doesn’t reciprocate your feelings, then I’m sorry, but I think you’re probably right.”
“I’d like to be his friend, in any case,” I told them. “I also have the feeling that he needs one. And I’d like to keep drawing him, so selfishly, I’m going to keep trying. I’ll see him tonight, anyway.” I thought about the lines of his interesting, angular, serious face, his long, muscular body under his clothes. Maybe he would pose for me, no matter if he liked me or not. Then I looked at Reid looking at Karis and thought that I needed to remove myself from their office, because you didn’t need skills at reading people to be able to see how things were headed in there.
Things were remarkably quiet back at my house after work, with only Fox in the living room with fans plugged in and waving around him as he typed on his laptop. He did some writing for local online newspapers and some freelance paid content for different websites, and I wasn’t sure how he made enough to get by, with what I knew about how expensive life was.
But he didn’t have the medical debt from my grandma’s illness, and he didn’t have my student loans, the dumb things. I had not been thinking clearly when I took all that on; I had been mostly veering around, trying to figure out what to do with my life, and then got crazy about the idea of going to school just for art. I hadn’t considered for a moment how much I was going to owe and how long it was going to take to pay off said school. Having all that debt was why I had decided to go after the job at the real estate company that I wasn’t equipped to do, and after that experience, I had resolved to only take things on if I could actually handle them myself.
I plopped down on the floor next to Fox. “Where is everyone?”
“I needed to work, so I kicked them all out.”
“Really? Where did they go?” I asked, astounded.
“I guess back to their own houses. Most of these people have places to go, Ione,” he said.
That made me think of Corrie. She didn’t, but I hadn’t seen her around. “What are you doing tonight? Any plans?”
Fox was looking hard at his laptop screen. “I bought a bunch of groceries. I was thinking of making dinner.”
“That sounds good. You used to cook a lot, but you haven’t in a while. Remember how you used to make dinner for all of us?” I thought back to when we had all been in school, Fox and I and our four other roommates. We had traded off cooking on weekend nights and had such a good time around the big dining room table.
“You used to, also,” he reminded me. “That was fun. Anyway, we can do that again tonight, just the two of us.”
“I wish I had known what you were planning,” I said. “I’m sorry to miss it, but I have dinner plans.”
“Karis, again?” He sniffed. Fox didn’t like Karis because of his issues with Reid.
“No, a friend from Japanese class.” I looked over his head out the window, at the pile of debris in the driveway. “I’m going to work a little outside first.” Fox just nodded as I went upstairs to change. He didn’t look up at me again as I went back outside, now in a tank top and shorts, to fix up the driveway.
It was still meltingly hot. I had put on my grandpa’s old straw hat and piled my hair underneath it, and I could feel the sweat trickling down the back of my neck. I worked hard, chopping everything and bagging it carefully, then dragging the bags to the back, near where the garage stood. When I went to the front, Sania was on the sidewalk with one of her daughters, Ani.
I waved at the little girl and she smiled shyly back at me. I had ridden my tricycle up and down the same sidewalk, a few years ago, now. “I cleaned it up. Better, right?” I greeted my neighbor, and gestured at the driveway as I picked up a broom.
Sania’s eyes swept over the yard, and over me. I took off my hat and my hair tumbled down.
“You could put on a shirt, next time,” she said.
I looked down at what I was wearing. “I do have on a shirt.” Anger rose in me and I tried to remember to think kind and loving thoughts. “I thought you’d be glad that I cleaned the driveway, when you were upset about it.”
“I would be happier if you were fully clothed as you did it.”
I just shook my head. There was no pleasing this woman. “Well, I’m happy with how the front looks.”
“Now, if you could only paint over the terrible blue streaks on your house, and stop all the foot traffic,” she pointed out.
It was very hard to think kind thoughts. I opened my mouth but my phone buzzed in my back pocket, startling me. I wasn’t used to having it again. It was a message from Cooper, saying that since I didn’t have a car, so he would pick me up, and would I mind having dinner with him? I smiled down at the phone, realizing that mean Sania didn’t matter too much. I didn’t bother to talk to her again as I ran back into the house to get ready for a night out with Cooper.
That brought back the kind thoughts, and also a lot of butterflies, swirling around in my stomach.
Chapter 4
I was waiting in the front window, taking advantage of Fox’s fan set-up in the living room, when the car came into the driveway. I was even more glad that I had done the rest of the yardwork when Cooper got out and looked around.
“Who’s that?” Fox asked, walking up beside me.
“My friend,” I told him. Fox had apparently given up on his plan to cook dinner and was eating cereal from an old mixing bowl. “He’s my friend from Japanese class.” I went to open the door as Cooper walked up the front steps. “Hi,” I said, and I felt myself get a big smile. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
He nodded. “I talked to my friend at the garage. He said he has to wait for a part so your car won’t be ready until next week.”
“You talked to him about me?” My smile grew.
“Not really. He happened to mention it, since he thought we were friends.”
I heard Fox snort behind me and I wasn’t smiling anymore. “Oh. Ok, I’m ready.”
“Don’t you need shoes?” Cooper asked skeptically.
“Right, yes.” Also my purse. When I came back down from my studio with it, Cooper and Fox were staring at each other.
“I probably won’t be here when you get back,” Fox said as I left. I nodded and waved. “I’ll be home late,” he called as I was shutting the door.
“Your boyfriend didn’t like you coming to study with me,” Cooper mentioned. He started the car and air conditioning poured from the vents. It was heavenly.
Now it was my turn to snort. “Fox? He isn’t my boyfriend. He’s a friend, and my roommate. Definitely not a boyfriend. I don’t have one,” I said, and looked over at Cooper from under my eyelashes. His light didn’t change at all. Damn. “What about you?” I asked curiously. “Are you seeing anyone?” I kept looking at his aura. Also his face.
“No, not currently.”
“But pr
eviously?” I pressed.
“Well, I had a long-term girlfriend in California.”
“Why do you say ‘had?’ What happened?”
“She didn’t want to leave her career to move to Detroit and neither of us was interested in long-distance.” His voice was steady and he seemed more interested in the car in front of us doing strange things with its brakes.
Hm. I could see that he couldn’t have been too much in love, or he would have done anything to be with her. And vice versa.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” He shot me a sideways glance. “It’s disturbing.”
“Is it? I’m just looking at your light. I’m pretty good at reading people.”
“My ‘light?’ What on earth would you be trying to read about me?” Cooper asked.
“I’m interested in you,” I said, and his eyebrows shot up. “I mean, I find you very interesting. Your robot stuff, and coming back to save your company, and learning Japanese.”
“I’m not interesting, not at all.” He passed the car braking oddly. “Your house was empty tonight except for Ferret.”
“Fox.”
“Right. Tell me more about why so many people were there when I dropped you off after class.”
I explained about how my grandma had died when I started college, community college, and I had gotten some roommates. “My grandma had such a personality,” I said. “Not obnoxious, but she sort of filled the house. It started to feel empty and I wanted some company, I guess.” My roommates had friends, of course, and my house ended up as the place to go to hang out, meet up, end the night. I had loved it. “Then I developed my open-door policy, and my roommates all moved out except Fox. One girl got married, and one moved away from Michigan, and the rest…they just wanted to live somewhere else.”
“You literally leave the door open to your house. This isn’t a symbolic thing,” he clarified, and I nodded. “I don’t know you at all, but I feel like I have to say that it’s a very dangerous thing to do. You must know that.”
“Everyone tells me so. But the people who come to my house aren’t trying to cause problems. They’re there to sing, or make friends, or like, this one girl, she doesn’t have anywhere else to go and I’m trying to convince her to move in. She needs help.”
Love in Many Languages Page 5
