“Yeah, yeah. In case I’m saying that wrong, I mean, you’re welcome.”
I got what he meant.
Cooper kept talking. Throughout the whole meal, we talked together, more about his robots so I would have a clue about what was going on the next night at dinner, but also about other things. About his life in California and what he had done there, more about his parents and his brother. About my job, and my art. He had a lot of questions and I told him about some of the things I had done to promote my paintings.
“I’ve had a few pieces for sale and I made a little money off them. It’s hard to get your foot in the door, and I don’t spend as much time painting as I’d like. And I guess, a lot of the stuff I do, I end up making presents out of it. I don’t want people to have to buy it.”
“I gave the drawing you did of me to my mom. She loved it and it made her very happy.”
“Oh, I’m so glad! See? That’s why I like to give my art away.”
“I would have bought it from you, too.”
“Well, I’m just happy she enjoyed it. If your brother will sit with you, I could paint you both for her.”
“It might be better to keep my brother away from you for a while. I think he’s riding by your house every now and then.”
“Oh, no. My neighbor has been complaining about some man gunning his motorcycle in front of her house and I swore up and down it had nothing to do with me! Maybe I’ll just keep this to myself.”
While we were eating, I asked Cooper about where he had gone to school and what he had studied. He wasn’t that interested in discussing it but he had more questions for me. “You said you went to graduate school.”
“Yeah. It was a bad move, financially, because we had spent a lot on my grandma’s care and…anyway, I see that now. But at the time it felt like, I don’t know.” I stopped for a second. “It felt good that a school wanted me, and it felt like a dream, that I would be getting to do art all the time, with other people who loved it like I did. And I was still trying to figure out what I was going to do with everything, with my life, I mean. When my grandma died, I lost my anchor. I kind of lurched around through school. But I did graduate,” I assured him. “I really did.”
“You don’t need to convince me, Ione.”
I felt like I needed to. “Anyway, that was why I ended up taking that job that I wasn’t qualified for with my friend Karis at the real estate development company. I’m not sure why I even got hired, except that the man I worked for was kind of…he kind of liked me, I guess. You know, how I talked about the external. He was kind of a creeper.”
“I see.” Cooper nodded, frowning.
“I know you’re thinking it wasn’t a good idea for me to take a job that I couldn’t do. It wasn’t fair to Karis because she did so much of my work. I know that.”
“I was actually thinking that a lot of men act like creepers.”
I laughed. “No, they don’t! I guess some. But so many people are so nice, so good inside. It’s really a lovely thing to see.”
“That is a lovely thing to see. I think you’re lucky that you see it.”
“Everybody can see it. But I do see other things about people,” I said. “I could tell that this woman at work, Sarai, was pregnant way before she announced it.”
“How?”
“She had a glow about her. Also, there were always cracker crumbs on her shirt because she was eating them when she felt sick.”
“I think you’re observant. I think you see physical details about people. Like how you could tell I was worried, talking about my mom, because I was holding on to the gearshift so hard. You have an artist’s eye.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” I thought about it. “Maybe, but I’m sure I also saw her glow.”
And Cooper laughed again.
As we were leaving, I checked my phone. “Oh! My car will be ready on Wednesday. Your friend Digger fixed it fast.”
“I told you he was good. He’s turning away business at his garage because he’s so busy. He filled me in on his life, what he’s been doing. He got married,” Cooper commented. “He met a woman and got married and they’re renovating a house. It’s funny to think of him like that. He was always a player.”
“Were you?”
“Me?” Cooper sounded astonished.
“Why not?”
“I’m not—no. I most definitely was not a player. I had one girlfriend in high school, and it was mostly because we did the math club together, not because of any emotional attachment.”
“You had your girlfriend in California,” I pointed out.
“I did,” he agreed.
“Were you sorry when that ended because you came back here?”
“No, not really.” He hesitated. “She wanted to get married. She said, if she was going to move across the country and change jobs, she wanted to have a real commitment. It made sense, but I…” He made a little movement with his shoulders.
“You didn’t want to get married.”
“Some days I don’t feel like I should take the time to take a shower or eat, that’s how busy I am. I can’t have a wife or a girlfriend. I think I’m barely keeping our heads above water. If I don’t make this deal, if the company fails—they’re all depending on me.” He stopped on the sidewalk. “Apparently I took to heart your article on the importance of spilling your guts.”
“You’re not spilling your guts. I already knew you were on the edge about everything.”
“Ah yes, my aura.”
Also I was watching the way his shoulders had moved up by his ears. He needed me to rub them down again.
We were mostly quiet on the way back to my house. There was a small crowd outside but nothing big that night. I saw Devesh in the front window of his house with Sania, holding one of their daughters in his arms and swaying back and forth like he was rocking her to sleep. I hoped Cooper’s brother hadn’t been roaring by on his motorcycle and keeping her awake.
“I’ll pick you up here, tomorrow?” Cooper asked me, and I nodded to him. He looked around the front of my house. “It looks like you’ve been doing some more yardwork.”
“I have.” I had planted flowers and found my grandpa’s old push mower to do the grass. When Devesh had seen me shoving and dragging it around, he had gone and gotten his big gas mower and I had chopped down the yard in about a second. I had left a little drawing of his daughters on their trikes on their front porch to say thank you. “I’m glad you can see a difference,” I told Cooper.
An ungodly scream issued from inside my house. “Oops, I better go. See you tomorrow!” I ran in to shut down the screaming, which turned out to be part of an experimental poetry session. It was too late to stop Sania from coming over, though, and we had a few words that weren’t the most pleasant. Corrie was still there, I was happy to see, and I told her about going out for Cooper’s business dinner. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed some help.
∞
Augusta’s closet was the size of my studio. I stared around, wondering if in my whole life I would ever accumulate so much clothing. Usually I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what I put on, as long as I was mostly covered, and dressed mostly appropriately for the weather, but not tonight.
“If you’re going to L’Argent for dinner, you have to wear shoes,” Augusta said, looking doubtfully at my feet. “What size do you wear?”
“Eight. I was totally planning to wear them. I wear shoes to work, almost every day,” I informed her.
“Ok, we’re almost the same size.” She flipped through her clothes, holding her squirming child under one arm. “Phoebe, just a second, honey!”
“I’ll take her,” I offered, and lifted the baby from her arms. Phoebe was fully walking and in my friend Karis’ words, was becoming a Holy Terror. But she was really the cutest little thing, with sprouts of red hair and big blue eyes. She didn’t look like she made her parents take spontaneous naps on the floor, as I had heard.
&nb
sp; Augusta kept moving hangers. “Do you like the bridesmaid dress I picked out? I thought it would be a good color for you.”
“I love it. It will be the nicest thing I’ve ever worn.” But then Augusta held up a dress that she had pulled from her rack. No, that would be the nicest thing I’d ever worn. “For me?” It was a wrap dress with a V in the front, and it looked like it would cling.
“You’re going to look great in this.” Augusta eyed my chest. “Are you wearing a bra?”
I felt. “Oh, no. I must have forgotten to put one on.”
She sighed heavily. “You can borrow that, too. Your boobs are bigger than mine but it’s ok if there’s a little spillage at the top. Come here, we’re going to do you up.”
I had left work early to get over to Augusta’s house. The night before, when I had told Corrie that I was going to a fancy restaurant, she had looked me up and down and said, “Really?” I had thought about it a lot as I lay on my sofa. I needed to help Cooper, that was my job for the evening, and I needed to really focus on the external to do that. So I had called the one person in my circle of acquaintances who I thought would have L’Argent-appropriate attire: Augusta. Karis would be over soon to put in her two cents also (although she mostly relied on our company’s fashion app to get dressed, and even then, things often went awry).
I let Phoebe toddle around her mother’s bedroom while Augusta gathered a bra, jewelry, shoes, and a purse to go with the dress. She laid it all out on the bed and it looked like something you’d see on a fashion runway.
“Not really,” she said, when I told her that. “But it is a little more polished than your usual look.” She glanced again at my bra-less chest.
I quickly stripped and put the outfit on. I didn’t have any mirrors in my house and I avoided the ones at the office, so I took a moment to study my reflection. Pretty much the same as the last time I had looked, except I needed a haircut even more. But the outfit was something else. Even I had to admit that I had probably never looked better.
Augusta contained her daughter in a playpen and started messing with my hair. “Who is this guy you’re going out with?” she asked, brushing hard.
“Ow. I met him in my Japanese class. Conversational Japanese. We’re going out with some people who might buy robots from him.”
“Hm. We were just doing…Jesus, your hair is thick. What do you do to make it so shiny?”
“I just wash it.”
“Anyway, I’m working on a project that relates to assembly line robots. When was the last time you got a haircut? I’m trimming off some split ends,” she informed me.
“That’s what Cooper’s company makes, robots for assembly lines! I was thinking they would be like The Jetsons, but no.” I watched as hair fell to the floor and explained everything I knew about Cooper’s company, what he had told me, and what I had found online.
“Hello?” Karis let herself into the bedroom and made a beeline for the baby. “There’s my little phi.” Phoebe laughed and held up her arms to be picked up. “Wow, Ione! You’re gorgeous.”
“Get her phone,” Augusta ordered. “Ione, get ahold of this guy and tell him to pick you up here so Karis and I can see him. I’m dying to check out the person you finally deigned to date.”
I typed obediently. “That makes me sound terrible! And I’m not dating him, anyway.”
“He doesn’t like her. Like her, like her,” Karis explained. “Ow, gentle, please.” Phoebe had two big handfuls of Karis’ dark hair and was using it like climbing ropes.
“Oh, is he gay?” Augusta asked me.
“No. He just doesn’t feel that way about me,” I explained.
“What’s the matter with him?” Augusta asked Karis, who shrugged an answer.
“There’s nothing the matter with him!” I protested. “He had a girlfriend and she wanted to get married, and now he’s too busy, and he’s just not interested in me.”
“But you are, in him. Why?” Augusta asked. She was putting stuff in my hair and twisting pieces around her fingers.
“He’s just so…I don’t know, there’s just something about him. On the first day of class, he sat and frowned the entire time, concentrating so hard. He wants to do well. In everything! He’s a hard worker, and responsible, and quiet, and I think kind of shy, and smart, and he loves his mom and his brother. He’s so terrible at Japanese and it’s so adorable. And I just want to rip his clothes off, all the time,” I admitted. “I don’t know what it is. I have dreams about licking his naked body.”
Augusta was fanning herself with her hand. “I get what you mean. When Shane and I first started dating, I could not keep my hands off him. Every time we got in a car, I was in his pants.”
“Wasn’t that dangerous?” Karis asked.
“I tried to wait for red lights. What about you and Reid?”
Karis turned all red. She did not like to share, especially sex stuff. “We’re fine,” she said, but then she got a big, big smile.
“I saw you in the back of his car last Saturday,” I volunteered. “I had to come in to the office to find my wallet and I spotted you guys in the garage.”
“Ione!” She blushed more. “We got…eager. Do you think anyone else saw?”
“Maybe not. I wish that Cooper was that eager for me.” I sighed.
“I think this will help, now that you’re not dressed like a 1960s hippie living in a little house on the prairie,” Augusta said. She didn’t care for flowy skirts and scarves. She reached down the V of my dress and pulled my breasts up higher out of the borrowed bra. “There. Let him look a little.”
“It’s very impressive,” Karis said, staring at my chest.
“Thanks. I got my mom’s figure.” According to my grandma, according to everyone, my mom had been beautiful, but it hadn’t done her much good.
Augusta started dabbing perfume on me. It smelled delicious. “If you think he may get frisky, I would put a little between your thighs.” She looked at me questioningly.
“No, behind my knees is enough.” I sighed again.
“Well, whenever you go out, you usually have about ten men trailing after you wanting to get frisky if this guy doesn’t,” she said encouragingly. “Maybe that will give this Cooper some ideas, too.”
My phone dinged just as someone rang Augusta’s doorbell. “He’s here!” I exclaimed, looking at my text. It was so exciting. I hadn’t gone to the prom or anything like that, but I imagined that it would be like I felt right now.
“I’ll get the door,” Augusta told us. “Ione, I’ll call you and you make your entrance.” She kissed the baby’s head and ran out.
“You know, Ione, if he really isn’t interested, maybe you should look at one of the guys who is,” Karis suggested. “The many guys in our office, for example. Or the gym, or the ones you went to art school with. They love you, and I mean that literally. Or what about the one who hired the plane to fly over Detroit with the message for you?”
“Oh, he was just joking about wanting to marry me.” I sighed. “Maybe I should just go out with someone. Anyone. It’s funny, I’ve been thinking a lot about it.” Even though there were always so many people at my house, I felt a little…alone.
“Ione!” I heard Augusta call from downstairs. “Someone is here for you.”
“Go and make him eat his heart out,” Karis told me, and smiled. “I know you don’t worry about the external, but you’re beautiful inside and out, and if he doesn’t see that, then he doesn’t deserve you.”
“You’re a good friend, Karis,” I told her. “And don’t worry that I saw Reid’s ass in the back of the car. I won’t draw it, not even a little. I swear.”
She covered her eyes. “Oh, gracious. Just go! Have fun tonight.”
So I went to the top of the big staircase, and Cooper was waiting for me at the bottom. It felt like a fairy tale.
Chapter 6
I got all the way to the last step, and he still hadn’t said a word.
“Wow,” Aug
usta commented loudly, speaking directly to him. “You look absolutely gorgeous, Ione.”
“Thank you,” I answered. “Thank you for everything, Augusta. I really appreciate it.”
She gave me a hug. “You’re welcome. He’s an idiot, I think,” she whispered in my ear.
No, he wasn’t. “Hi, Cooper. Thanks for coming all the way out here to get me.”
“No problem,” he said. “You do look very nice, Ione.”
I shrugged. “It’s Augusta’s dress. And her underwear, too.” Augusta stepped in, asking him some questions about where we were going, narrowing her eyes and kind of glaring. It was how I imagined a mom would act, how Augusta would probably act again when Phoebe got old enough to go out with a guy. I smiled at her and waved to Karis, who had been keeping a close eye from the stairs while holding on to the baby. “Let’s go, Cooper.” I blew a kiss at the house as we got into his car.
“I appreciate you making all this effort for me,” he told me. “Honestly, I’m very glad you’re coming tonight.”
“It was fun to get dressed up,” I said. “How was it today?” I turned in my seat so I could observe him. He was not as tense as he might have been if things had gone poorly.
He filled me in, and in sum, it did sound like I had read him correctly: Cooper was guardedly optimistic. “They asked a lot of things that they wouldn’t have cared about unless they were serious. It went…all right. Depending on how things go tonight at dinner, I’m thinking it may work.”
“That’s great. All we have to do is seal the deal.” I smiled at him. “We can do that.”
He told me more details about his meetings, then told me the names of the men who would be joining us. I ran them through my head a few times so I would remember.
“Did you try any Japanese with them?” I asked.
“Did you just hear me say that things went all right today? That included me not speaking Japanese.”
“But they’re the reason you’re taking the class!” I sat up straight, suddenly aware that the V in the top of my dress gaped when I slumped even a little. “I think they’ll be impressed when you break it out. We’ll knock ‘em dead.”
Love in Many Languages Page 8
