by Malena Lott
“Well, he has bought stock in my company, so he can't be all bad, political, social and spiritual views aside.”
“What other view is there?”
“The strictly physical view. Nice smile. Nice body. Nice voice. Nice hands.”
“I've never noticed his hands.”
“That's because they haven't been all over your body.”
I cringed. “ Ewww. Okay. I still think of him as a brother, so you can leave the deets out of your conquest this time.”
“He's an amazing lover. Quite aggressive.”
“Must be why he and Rachel stayed married so long. So what does this mean? You're not going to start dating him, are you?”
“I can't imagine what we'd possibly do other than what we've already done, which is fine by me. There are four basic human needs. Do you know what they are?”
“I have a feeling you're going to tell me sex is one of them.”
“Food, drink, sleep, and sex. And not exactly in that order, either. I'll admit Michael wasn't my first choice, though. I had a drink with Cortland before he had to jaunt off to some play of Zoe's.”
“Ohmigod. You're the reason Michael was late to Zoe's play?”
“He made it in time for the third act, didn't he? Besides, I think our first two acts were far more interesting.”
I shook my head. “No wonder he was in such a good mood when he arrived.”
Anh smiled proudly. “Michael was in a good mood? Of course he was in a good mood, what am I saying? And now that I think about it, all Cortland did was ask questions about you before he took off.”
I straightened my shoulders. “He did? What sort of questions?”
“About you and da Vinci, for one thing. If you've dated since you lost Joel, how it happened, how you're coping with the boys. He didn't mention your sister once.”
“He just wants to get to know her family better is all. I think she might be getting serious about him. They're all coming here for dinner on Sunday. It's Dad's birthday and I get birthday duty.”
We bagged up the leaves, and I tried to get Cortland out of my mind. I don't know why I was looking forward to seeing him again. So my sister was dating a nice, sweet, funny guy who asks about me. Big deal.
Anh placed the bags in the trashcan and we went inside. My neighborhood coffee was in thirty minutes, just enough time to shower and put on the coffee and rolls.
“Here's the number you asked for,” Anh said, handing me a business card. The chakra specialist. I couldn't believe I was going to see a yogi. “You'll thank me later. I can't wait to see what the new and improved Ramona looks like. Scratch that. What she feels like.”
After Anh left, I peeled off my clothes and stepped into the shower and began humming a favorite song of Joel and mine: Sonny and Cher's “I Got You, Babe. ” Sometimes I thought the shower hitting my scalp was like pushing the on button on the stereo in my mind. I only sang Sonny and Cher in the shower, and even then, I sang badly but with fervor.
When I paused to grab the shampoo, the song went on without me. Through the shower glass, I saw a frame, da Vinci's frame, as he peeled off his shirt and hummed the song I didn't even know he knew. “Is okay to shower now, Mona Lisa?” he asked.
I instinctively covered my body parts, which was ridiculous since he obviously meant to get in with me. The very naked me. I sucked in my stomach, stuck out my chest and smoothed my hair back. “Come on in, da Vinci.”
When is a shower more than a shower? When you share it with someone else. Especially a someone with a hard, wet body pressed up against yours, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, arms wrapped around each other's slick, soapy bodies. And then? Lips on lips. Lips on collar bone. Lips on breast, stomach, thighs. Anh was right. Enlightenment can come from the simplest things. We hadn't even gotten to actual sex yet, and I was feeling the out of body experience that came with the transition from becoming to being.
I wasn't thinking of anything while we were in the shower, mind you. It was better than getting back on a bike, one thing leading to another and I would have most certainly let nature take its course if it hadn't been for Zoya and Gabriella both calling my name in their thick accents beyond my bedroom door. “Ramona, we're here.”
“Shit.”
“No stop,” da Vinci said as he continued to kiss me.
I began to panic. “Didn't you hear that? My neighbors are here. I can't believe we've been in here thirty minutes already.”
“Just five more minutes,” da Vinci said, and as much as I would've liked to have gone through with it, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it knowing my neighbors could walk in on us any minute. They had no idea I had company. Why would they?
“Here's the plan. I go out first. You wait five minutes, get dressed. Fully dressed, da Vinci. And walk out the front door and around to the studio. Okay?”
Da Vinci scrunched his brow but said okay. “But shower nice, no?”
I kissed him one last time, hard on the lips. “Yes. Shower very nice.”
Gabriella, Zoya, and Simone were already eating cinnamon rolls they had heated themselves when I joined them.
Zoya was complaining, her hands flying everywhere as she spoke. “I'm tired of baby-trying,” she said. “Used to sex two times a week. Now sex every night. Zoya don't need baby that bad.”
Gabriella, who had five children, reassured her. “Just get pregnant, and you'll get sex much less often. He'll be afraid to hurt the baby and after baby comes, you'll get sex hardly ever.”
“Really?” Zoya's eyes widened. “Then maybe baby now good thing.”
We laughed, but my neighbors stopped laughing, Simone's eyes like saucers, when da Vinci, wearing only a yellow towel that barely closed, walked through the kitchen, his hair still dripping wet. “Da Vinci!” I yelled, wishing I had a dishcloth big enough to cover his whole body. What part of get dressed and go through the front door did he not understand? I swear. Sometimes he says okay when he has no idea what I'm saying.
“ ¡Dios Santo! “ Gabriella gasped in Spanish. Sweet Lord in Heaven.
“ Pelo amor de Devs! ” Simone whispered in Portugese. Heaven help us.
“ Glückliches weibchen, ” Zoya said in German.
“Zoya!” I scolded. She'd called me a lucky bitch.
“Ladies,” da Vinci said, walking casually over to me where he planted a kiss on my temple. It didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out we both had wet hair and had come out of the bathroom within minutes of each other. And the kiss said more than any explanation could. “Good morning.” He proceeded to pour himself a cup of coffee while we all stared at him. What could I do?
“Good morning, indeed,” said Gabriella.
Simone slit her eyes. “You didn't tell us you'd already had breakfast, Ramona.”
“The shower in the studio is broken,” I told them nonchalantly.
“I'll have Jesús fix it,” Gabriella said, then raised a brow. “Or perhaps not so fast?”
We smiled, the chemistry in the room thick with surprise, our eyes all on da Vinci's back where drops of water glistened on his shoulders.
“ Schlechtes Mädchen, ” Zoya said as she wagged her finger at me. Bad girl.
Being bad had never felt so good.
Chapter 10
I'D NEARLY CONVINCED MYSELF the shower scene was an anomaly, an erratic blimp in an otherwise normal platonic relationship, yet for the life of me, I couldn't get it-or him-out of my head.
The cursor blinked on the screen, beckoning me to conjure the words, to fill the white space in the quiet hours meant for my dissertation. My outline clearly demanded I write about the history of love letters, but contrarily I'd spent the morning reading the most romantic love letters the world has ever seen and fantasizing about finishing what da Vinci had started.
I, the lover of words, did not wish to write. I only wished to do. Whether I would actually go through with it if and when the time ever came would be a great surprise, like opening a forbidden sex box. I could daydr
eam for hours about the package itself, let alone what I might find inside.
Doing would not be possible for the foreseeable future. Though not nearly as tragic as the love letters written by authors separated by war, da Vinci and I could not pursue our mutual attraction because he was a student first, a worker second, and a lover third. It had been so long since I'd been kissed or whiled away the morning daydreaming about sex that I didn't even care if I came in third place.
Because the real thing wouldn't be home from work until midnight, I spent the rest of the morning researching love in the Renaissance and what secrets I might find in the original da Vinci's past. Anh had dropped off several da Vinci books from her own collection. I had never paid any attention to the origin of da Vinci's works, or wondered about his subjects, until my da Vinci began calling me his Mona Lisa.
The Renaissance, a time of rebirth between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, was marked by reflection and resurgence, improvement and perfection. Da Vinci's insatiable curiosity about how the world and everything in it worked gave birth not only to brilliant art, but brilliant ideas. Much like my young Leo, old Leo seemed thrilled to be alive, to make new discoveries in the everyday. Could the scholars be right? Did Leonardo invest in his studies the passion usually reserved for a lover? Out of thousands of pages of notes, not one doodle hinted of a personal affection. Even back then, surely you couldn't resist writing your lover's name just once. Or initials with a heart around it. But maybe that's just me.
Maybe Leonardo was in love with life and that was enough for him. Could it be enough for me?
I stared at the picture of a painting of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan and da Vinci's patron for several years, who commissioned da Vinci to paint the Last Supper. Why did I find the fact that da Vinci orchestrated Ludovico and Beatrice's wedding celebration far more interesting than a great work of art? Da Vinci: Renaissance Man, Wedding Planner.
On the next full page, I studied my favorite da Vinci portrait, The Lady and the Ermine. Da Vinci was known for using symbolism in his work, and the ermine-the white, short-tailed weasel known for its hatred of dirt-symbolized purity. With mounting disappointment, I read that the “lady” was no lady at all, but Cecelia Gallerani, the favored mistress of the Duke of Milan, and had in fact given birth to the Duke's first son the same year as his and Beatrice's wedding. Was da Vinci a natural jokester, or was it simply so accepted that every husband keep a mistress on the side that no one caught the irony of the ermine in the mistress' lap? At least the ermine was a weasel, and-also fitting-a carnivore.
Poor Beatrice. Four hundred years between us, and I know how you must've felt. As Ludovico lay in your bed, did you not wonder if he was thinking of her? I know. Sharing his heart was far harder than sharing his body, was it not?
I imagined da Vinci painting a portrait of Monica Blevins wearing a shimmery red gown, her dark hair flowing down onto her full bosom, her eyes full of mischief, a fox resting on her lap. A sly, conniving fox, plain and simple. I didn't care for irony. If Monica was in fact a mistress, no use in being cunning about it.
I slammed the book closed, cursing myself that I'd let my pleasant daydreams turn dark at the thought of Monica. I needed some inspiration, both in the form of a second cup of coffee and a visit to my personal collection of love letters. So Joel couldn't compete with the romantic Robert Browning-I was no Elizabeth Barrett Browning, either.
Joel was not a writer. He was not eloquent so much as straightforward, yet his words, in his own handwriting, as opposed to the e-mails our generation is so accustomed to, brought me comfort.
I hurried to my closet, where inside a plastic teddy bear container that once housed animal crackers (yes, Joel loved them with peanut butter), now resided ten years' worth of cards and notes. Unfortunately, ten years only amounted to a jar half full. Or half empty. Whichever way you choose to look at it. This is what remains of our love:
1. William and Bradley
2. Approximately four hundred photographs, a third of them digital, stored on discs.
I'd meant to get them printed for two years, but I wasn't the scrap-booking type. I'd read an article that you need to print off at least one set because of how quickly technology changes. I made a mental note to do this before his Death Day.
3. One VHS tape, ten mini Hi-8 tapes, and two DVDs of home movies (which I have placed in a fireproof safe).
Rachel had offered to have her production team transfer the old tapes to DVD, too, yet I thought watching us from the early days would be painful. I took out the tapes and set them on the dresser to give to Rachel on Sunday.
I unscrewed the bright blue lid, slid down the wall and scooped out the contents like a bear with a jar of honey. One glimpse of his signature was all it took. I hadn't even read the sappy ones (two-third of Joel's cards were humorous, one-third sweet and romantic, probably due to not finding any funny ones he liked on the card aisle that day).
His words: authentically Joel. I read the cards, laughed, cried, and lingered where it mattered most, his own words inked onto the cardstock.
Your bed warmer, J
To many more years of S &S (S &S was code for Sex and Snuggling, two of his favorite things besides peanut butter and basketball)
My lovely
Thanks for putting up with me
And his last cards for Valentine's Day, my birthday, and our anniversary:
Score one for Cupid
You get prettier with age
This card isn't big enough for the love I have for you.
A salty tear fell on the “love” and I caught my breath, afraid the ink would smear, but it merely magnified the word. Of course he loved me. How had I believed that I was the runner-up?
I knew I had to get it over with. The day before, I had called Monica Blevins at work, prepared to set up a quick meet-and-greet over coffee. After all, asking a woman if she'd had a sexual affair with your husband over the phone would never do. It had to be done with grace and aplomb (n., self-confidence or assurance). I was afraid that over the phone I would choke and no words would come at all.
Her number rang the requisite five times before her voice mail picked up. I was at once relieved she did not pick up and say hello, because my own voice had done as I had feared and been constricted by a muscle spasm in my vocal chords. I listened to her voice. Lovely, really. In one of my doctoral classes, we had studied voice. Did you know that most people can accurately determine one's physical properties from one's voice? As beauty is based on one's symmetry, so too can one have a symmetrical voice. Monica Blevins' voice was bold yet beautiful. From her voice alone you could imagine her speaking in front of a jury or making an acceptance speech on stage or whispering sweet nothings into an equally beautiful suitor's ear. I imagined her with Joel. This is why my throat constricted.
Her message said it all: I can't take your call right now, and I wondered if she could take my call ever. If by confronting whatever it was that happened with my husband would be as painful to her as it would be for me.
I didn't leave a message. I did what most cowards do and hung up and went to Plan B: e-mail. I wondered if my e-mail would go in her spam folder, until I remembered that Joel and I had shared a home email address. She would recognize the last name (had he e-mailed her from our home account?). I had searched the history, mind you, and had not found any, but then my husband was meticulous about keeping his Inbox and Sent box clean. I was the packrat who kept e-mails long after they lost their purpose. If he had e-mailed Monica from our home account, he had efficiently deleted its record.
In my grief book, I ran my finger over her e-mail address, as if I didn't have it etched in my mind like writing on a tombstone. My fingers trembled as I typed in her address in the “To” box.
Subject line: re: you and Joel Griffen. Backspace. Too specific.
Re: your past. Delete. Too mysterious.
Re: a question. Too vague.
I tried again: Can we meet for coffee? Yes,
this would do. Non-threatening, the message right there in the subject line, meaning I wouldn't have to say much in the text box.
Monica,
As you may be aware, the anniversary of Joel's death is approaching and while this time is very hard for me, it is made even more difficult by some unanswered questions I have about his life. I was hoping that you might help me with this. Can we meet for coffee in the next few days?
Yours,
Ramona
Then wondering if she would know who Ramona was, or simply to be possessive, I signed it: Ramona Griffen.
The cursor blinked over the “Send” button. How simple an act just to press my finger down and have it be done with, sent through the cable lines that would cause my message to appear to her within seconds. But I didn't. Instead, I hit “Draft,” which would save it for later. I couldn't believe how weak I felt, how powerless, not even mustering the courage to send an e-mail, but the truth was as much I wanted to know the facts, I didn't want to know at all. The same reason that kept me from approaching her at the funeral or reaching her during the last two years remained to this day: knowing would end whatever hope I hung onto that Joel had been faithful to me. That he loved only me.
I turned off the computer, realizing I was already late to meet with the yogi. As I let myself feel the heaviness in my heart that I used to believe was sadness, I reconsidered based on Deacon Friar's advice. I changed my mind-it was full of love. If my heart felt like a hundred-pound sack of potatoes in my chest, I would imagine its weight was that of the love that all those eloquent writers spoke of.
It worked, though my mind felt heavy with anxiety over Monica. What if the seven wheels of energy could heal that and everything else that seemed out of sync with my life? It was worth a shot.
Chakra: a Sankrit word meaning wheel, or vortex, referring to each of the seven energy centers of which our consciousness, our energy system, is comprised. If the soul is energy, the mind energy and the universe energy, I had to believe there was some truth in this practice. How else had it survived thousands of years?
