The Brevity of Roses

by Linda Cassidy Lewis

  “I just wanted to tell you that I love your garden,” she said. “It’s the only real one I’ve seen along this beach.”

  “Thank you.” He rose from his chair and took one step toward her. “But I cannot take the credit.”

  “Oh!” she said. “You don’t live here?”

  “Yes, I do, but … I did not plant it.”

  She nodded and seemed about to speak, but then closed her mouth and let her eyes trail through the garden once more. “Well,” she said, raising a hand and smiling, “see you around.”

  When she moved away, Jalal walked up to the fence and stood there watching until she was out of sight. And then, for a minute or two longer.

  Always, there came that moment in the silence before dawn, when Jalal sensed death only a breath away. After lonely, restless hours lying in the dark, just before he knew he would finally drift off, it beckoned him. Live or die? Then, the choice, so briefly offered, dissipated like fog as the Fates dragged him down to sleep.

  Was he anywhere near that point tonight? He never knew. A good two or three hours of sleep deprivation might still lay ahead of him. Now, like a tongue probing a canker sore to test how much it still hurt, he went over his last day with Meredith. He replayed every moment as though he might stumble upon one thing, one word, one gesture he had forgotten. Nothing. He moved on to the present, holding imagined conversations with his mother (yes, I am eating) with his agent (yes, I am writing) with his father (yes, I am the failure you always feared I would be.)

  He wondered at the likelihood of insomnia-induced insanity—and then, marveling at the unintended alliteration in that phrase—he tried for a couple more: insomnia-induced insight, insomnia-induced intelligence. Ha! He allowed himself one alliterative opposite—sleep-stimulated sanity—before launching his pillow through the door and into the hall. He pulled the other pillow to him and sighed at the coolness against his cheek. Now, he would sleep.

  Twenty minutes later, he lay there weighing the benefits and detriments of sleeping pills. Been there—in his New York days it was a little of this to go to sleep, a little of that to wake up—done that. Not a good way to live. Not a way to live at all. But then that was the question. Did he really want to live?

  Jalal had only a couple of items left on his grocery list when he saw the girl who had stopped at his gate a few days before. She stood on tiptoe, stretching to reach the last bottle of grape juice pushed to the back of the top shelf. “Let me help you,” he said and reached over her head to grab it.

  “Thanks … oh, it’s you!”

  “We meet again.” He glanced down at her overloaded cart. “That is a lot of food. You must have rented one of the condos for the summer.”

  “Not a condo, an apartment. I’ve decided to live here,” she said.

  “Why is that?” So stunned he had asked the question, Jalal barely registered her answer. What did it matter why? He had no need to know why she moved here, or who she was, or anything else about her. It was all mind clutter. He needed to break his habit of engaging in polite repartee with strangers. It would be better for him to avoid people all together.

  “… make a fresh start,” she was saying. “Bahia de Sueños seemed like a good place for that, you know?”

  He nodded. Great. Now she would launch into her whole sad story of why she needed to start her life over at such a young age. She surprised him by only holding out her hand.

  “I’m Renee,” she said.

  The thought of touching her unnerved him, and instead of shaking her hand, he placed the bottle of juice in it. “I am Jalal, and forgive me, but I am already running late.” He edged his cart around hers. “Perhaps we can chat another time.”

  “Yeah, I guess we’ll probably keep running into each other.”

  “I am sure we will. This is a small village.” Idiot! He had just given her an open invitation to speak to him again.

  Jalal had suffered three torturous nightlong battles in a row, and now, as he sat on his porch steps, the thoughts that fueled his insomnia returned. He gazed out over the ocean to the sun bleeding its fluorescence into the water as it slipped below the horizon. How was it possible to live in such a beautiful, serene place and not be inspired? He had not written any verse in months. It just would not come. He felt eviscerated. Defenseless. Frightened. As it did every day now, the fear plagued him. What if I have nothing left in me to write?

  He liked to think Meredith still watched the sunsets with him. Like a ritual, he had brought her a cup of tea or glass of wine, depending on the season, and they would sit here together until the last light faded. As though retaining an ancestral memory of life in a land with too little sun, she sat beside him and mourned the end of the day. He felt the same sadness now, though only because sunset meant he would soon be lying awake, thinking. Remembering. If he could sleep any better during daylight, he would reverse his night and day activities. What would it matter? His life rarely involved anyone but himself. How stupid that he still tried to live by the clock. Maybe he should make a list: the advantages to living completely, utterly, totally alone. There must be thousands.

  Renee’s voice outside his gate startled him. “Hello again,” she said. “Jalal, right?”

  “Yes, and good evening to you … Renee.”

  “Aren’t sunsets on the beach awesome?” She leaned forward with her hands on the gate, standing first on one foot, then the other, rotating and flexing her ankles. “I guess I walked a little farther than I meant to. Do you mind if I sit and rest for a few minutes?”

  “Of course not.” He had answered before he thought, and now reluctantly slid over to make room for her.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said as she came up the walk.

  “Not at all.” Shit! His mouth was stuck on auto-respond. Renee settled beside him. The warmth of her body filled the two-foot space between them with a slight scent of coconut. Sunscreen? He felt disoriented. He blamed this on his lack of sleep, and yet, he nonchalantly stretched and shifted an inch or two farther from her.

  “Have you been out of town?” she asked.

  “No. Why did you think so?”

  She shrugged. “I just haven’t seen you around for a couple weeks.”

  Jalal gave her a meaningless nod and looked back out to sea.

  After a moment, Renee spoke again, “I’ve never lived this close to the ocean before. I love looking at it, walking along it.”

  He only nodded again.

  “But it’s colder here than I expected.”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed. From the corner of his eye, he watched her. She tucked a loose tendril behind her ear. She stretched her legs down over the steps, then drew them up again. She tapped an index finger against her bare knee as though keeping the beat to some tune in her head.

  “So,” she said, “was the garden already here when you moved in?”

  “No.” It took him a few seconds to pull together the next words. “My wife planted it.”

  Renee stiffened, then scrambled to her feet. “It will be dark soon,” she said. “I’d better go. Um … give your wife my compliments.”

  Absently, Jalal watched her retreat. When would it end, this knife in the heart at unexpected moments? He wished more than anything to be able to pass along Renee’s appreciation to Meredith. She had worked so hard on the garden, a one-woman force against the wind and fog that threatened her beloved roses. Under her direction, he had done all the dirty work. He transported plants from the nursery, laid out beds, prepared soil, and then, watched as she transformed his yard into a garden by the sea. In time, the butterflies and hummingbirds came and added their visual music to what she had created. But nothing in that garden compared to her beauty.

  He had sat on the porch, writing while he observed her pamper and prod each plant to do its best. When she fretted over a pest or threatened blight, he hid his amusement. She was in her element, and he in his as he expressed his love for her in verse. He had thoug
ht it would always be that way.

  A gust of cold wind pulled him from his reverie. Meredith’s garden struggled without her. Life was a mockery. And all he could do was write of what had been.

  A run at low tide had eluded him during the day and despite the fog, at half-past ten, Jalal decided to run to Jennie’s. He had become one of her three night owl regulars. Sometimes, the others pulled him into a discussion. Most times, they left him alone to read or write. Tonight, he hoped to read, maybe eat something. Coffee was never his first choice, and he avoided what passed for tea there, but he had grown fond of her homemade pie.

  “Hey, stranger,” said Jennie. “It’s lemon meringue tonight. Want a slice?”

  “Indeed.” He greeted Eduardo and Don with a thumbs-up.

  “Coffee or tea?”

  “Walking on the wild side tonight, Jennie. I will take my chances with your coffee.”

  Grinning, she planted her hands on her wide hips. “Let me remind you that I have the right to ban your ass from my place any time I want.”

  The men interrupted their chess match long enough to snicker and reassure Jalal. “Never going to happen,” said Eduardo.

  “Not as long as you have a dime in your pocket,” agreed Don.

  “Speaking of which,” said Jennie, “when are you going to settle your tab from last week, Donald?”

  Jalal laughed and headed for the booth with the best lighting. As he sat down, he noticed only one other customer, apparently a woman, sitting in the front booth. Only the top of her head and one leg were visible in his line of vision, but he stood up and switched to the other side of the booth, facing away from her. Just to be safe.

  Jennie brought his order to the table and squeezed into the seat opposite him. “You have an admirer,” she said and nodded toward the woman. “She’s reading your book.”

  Jalal frowned and picked up his fork. “Did you tell her I come here?”

  “Now, hon, would I do that? I know why you come in here so late. Did you notice I didn’t call out your name when you came in?” She patted his hand. “You doing all right?”

  He had to smile. Jennie was only about ten years older than he was, but she was a born mother hen, like Goli. “I am fine, Jennie. Thank you for asking.”

  Jennie looked over his shoulder as she scooted out of the booth. “That girl’s my new summer help. A hard worker.” She leaned down closer to him and whispered, “Pretty too.”

  Jalal caught her wink before she turned to go, but took no offense. Jennie made no secret of her worry about his preference for solitude. He finished half his pie before it hit him. He motioned to Jennie.

  She brought the coffee pot and topped off his cup.

  “Thanks, but I just wanted to ask you something. What is her name?”

  “Renee.”

  He nodded. “We met a few days … a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Oh, yeah? She didn’t mention it,” said Jennie. She stepped aside, sweeping her hand toward Renee. “Go talk to her, then.”

  Jalal forced a weak smile, but shook his head. He sat for a moment while his anger churned, then he slipped a twenty under his cup, grabbed his book, and strode to Renee’s table. Not bothering to ask permission, he sat down across from her. She snapped the book shut and shoved it under the tote beside her. Her eyes flickered once across his face before dropping to her hands, now folded on the table. “So,” he said, “you are reading my poetry?”

  “I was curious.”

  “Before or after you just happened to show up at my house?”

  Her head snapped up, eyes wide. “What?”

  Jalal stared at her for a moment and then, incensed by her display of innocence, he slid out of the booth and stood with his palms flat on the table, looming over her. “Buying my book does not entitle you to invade my privacy.” Without waiting for a response, he stalked out the door. Before he was three strides down the sidewalk, he heard footsteps rushing up behind him. He stopped and turned.

  “Hey, jerk,” said Renee, “you forgot the book you were reading.” She held it out to him.

  He took it from her, but said nothing.

  “Yeah,” she said, “you’re welcome.”

  Hoping she would take the hint, he turned and started to walk away.

  Renee called after him, “It was after, if you really want to know.”

  Jalal stopped again, but did not turn back.

  “I had no idea who you were that first day,” she told him. “Or the next time I stopped at your house either.”

  He looked at her over his shoulder.

  “If I had,” she continued, “I wouldn’t have been surprised.”

  “Surprised?”

  “You know … when you mentioned your wife.”

  He had no precise recall of their conversation, but he never talked to strangers about Meredith. He rarely talked to anyone about her. “Then I apologize for the false accusation.” He tucked the small volume into his sweatshirt pocket. “Good night.”

  Before Renee could say anything more, anything about Meredith, Jalal took off at a run, heading back home. Passing not another soul along the empty street, he cut across the bridge and wound through the lanes, every house looming dark and silent, every pounding step echoing from the vacant spaces, every heartbeat taking him down and down and down toward the shore.

  It was nearly ten when Jalal woke the next morning, yet he was in no rush to get out of bed. Instead, he lay there tracing the edges of the ceiling with his eyes. If Renee never talked to Jennie about him, how did she know about his book? He needed a cup of tea. If only he could sleep at night, he would have a normal schedule and then he could write again. How long could you continue lying to your agent, screening her calls, before she gave up on you? He should have phoned Maman days ago. Damn. Renee called me a jerk. Right to my face.

  The fog that had moved in early and thick the night before was only beginning to lift at noon. Even though the tide was just ebbing, he decided to go for it, and if he could not make it past the Point at this time of day, he would have to run the first half of his course twice. Then again, probably nothing prevented him from running both north and south today. Likely few, if any, people would be on the public beach yet. As he feared, the tide stopped him at Blue Point, so he doubled back and then continued south. Running forced him outside his zone of solitude. In the effort to stave off unwanted contact, he had learned to stay aware of his surroundings, to be alert to what moved in and out of his peripheral vision. As Jalal reached the public beach, he spotted her. Renee stood on the top landing of the steps leading down from the pathway.

  Her face in profile, she looked out to sea, or possibly, she looked at nothing. Bundled against the chill and damp, with only a few flyaway tendrils escaping the hood of her sweatshirt, he was surprised he knew the shape of her. Her stance, her coloring, the line of her jaw, somehow committed to memory already. Surely, she would see him in seconds—three, two, now—he passed below her. He did not look up. She did not call out to him. Relief and disappointment washed over him in equal measure. He should have waved, at least. Maybe she would be there when he passed by again. If so, he would stop. Just to small talk, be courteous. After all, she had transgressed as a stalker only in his mind. He must have looked like a fool the other night, a bully—a jerk. Yes. Welcome to Bahia de Sueños, Renee. Meet the town jerk.

  Jalal turned back. Not long after he passed the pier, he focused ahead, straining to make out the stairway. Even as he came within yards of it, he could not see her, so when she called his name from behind and to his right, he stumbled and came down too hard on his left foot. With a sort of hop-limp move, he turned toward her.

  Aghast, Renee stared at his feet. “Oh god, I’m sorry. Did I cause you to sprain something?”

  “No … it is nothing,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “I did not see you.”

  “I saw you when you ran by earlier,” she said. “I waited for you to come back so I could say hi.” She pointed. “I was
on the stairs.”

  As if he had not seen her there earlier, Jalal gulped water from his bottle and let his eyes follow her prompt to the steps. “Well then, hello.”

  She laughed. “Hello.”

  He circled her slowly, breathing easier now and testing his ankle. “How are you today?”

  “I’m great. A little cold.”

  He looked for the sun. “The fog will burn off soon.”

  She nodded. “Not to bring up a sore subject, but I finished your book.”

  “And?”

  “Your writing is beautiful.”

  “Thank you.” He took another drink and glanced up the beach toward his house. “I really should keep moving. Cool down, you know?”

  “Oh! Sure.”

  He set off toward his house.

  “See you later,” she called.

  He kept running, but raised a hand in response.

  Twenty-four hours later, Jalal stood before the rack of French reds in Piemonte Wine and Deli. He was studying the bottle of burgundy in his hands when someone sidled up to him. Without a glance, he knew who it was and that both pleased and unnerved him.

  “That’s some bargain,” said Renee.

  He turned his face toward hers. “You know this vintage?”

  Her eyes widened. “I wasn’t serious.”

  He frowned, questioning.

  She reached out and flicked the price label on the rack. “How much do you think Jennie pays me?”

  He hesitated. She was only teasing him, surely. Still, he felt self-conscious as he slipped the bottle in his basket. “Do you shop here often?”

  “No.” She glanced around. “I’ve never come in here before. I’m still getting to know my way around town.”

  “This is the best place in town for wines and cheeses.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” She wiggled her fingers at him. “Enjoy your wine.”