Dating da Vinci

by Malena Lott

  “Better than the numeral kind,” I said, recalling one of my mother's most embarrassing moments; it was when Rachel was in junior high and I was in sixth grade and Rachel asked Mom and Dad at the dinner table what it meant to “69” someone. Besides choking on her chicken, Mother did nothing to satisfy Rachel's curiosity, so Rachel did what most junior high girls would do and went to her girlfriends, who had asked older siblings what it meant.

  “God, Mom's such a prude,” Rachel said. “And speaking of, I want to hear more about the whole ‘friends and lovers‘ thing when we're not in mixed company.”

  Cortland raised a brow, but before he could excuse himself, she turned on her heels, leaving us in the kitchen alone, her last statement still hanging in the air, but I was unwilling to respond to it.

  “It's really none of my business,” Cortland said, and I swatted the air where she'd left it.

  “Nor hers,” I added, and we went into Joel's office, which I couldn't stop referring to as Joel's office, probably because I only used it when trying and failing to e-mail his ex-girlfriend. He hadn't spent much time there, as he preferred his garage studio with the drafting table.

  I pulled up the pictures, willing myself not to cry, then let Cortland pull up the web site memorybook.com, where I selected a simple design with photo edges and creamy backgrounds.

  “Nice choice,” Cortland said. “Now you just have to decide what cover shot you want to use.”

  I sifted through hundreds of photos, amazed that I didn't mind Cortland sharing the moment, but I couldn't decide which was cover-worthy because every one featuring Joel felt cover-worthy to me, even the ones where he had devil-red eyes or where his head had been lopped off due to a bad camera operator (me).

  “Here, we can fix those red eyes,” Cortland said, taking over the mouse, blowing up Joel's picture until it filled the frame to life-size. How had I forgotten about that tiny mole on his left cheek or the way his five o'clock shadow grew in faster on his chin than the rest of his face or how the corner of his eyelids rose when he smiled?

  And his eyes! Flecked with gold and brown and green, and even the blue of the ocean was in there. When Cortland removed the red eye, Joel looked nearly perfect, lopsided grin and all. I had to look away. I swallowed hard, then realized with surprise that what I felt right then was not grief, but love. For the first time when I viewed Joel's picture, I didn't feel sad at all, but simply happy to see him. Greetings-in-an-airport sort of happy.

  “You okay?” Cortland asked, putting his arm lightly around my shoulder, and I nodded.

  “I want the picture of the four of us at the beach in Galveston for the cover,” I said. “Then I'll just go from there in chronological order. They all have to go in. This might take me weeks.”

  “Well, in that case,” Cortland said, pressing a button that zipped all the photos, the green bar steadily beeping across the screen.

  “What did you just do?” I said, starting to panic that he'd messed up my album.

  Then the screen blinked: Done. Your Griffen Family Album is complete and ready for viewing.

  I flipped through the pages, one click at a time, my heart nearly lifting me right out of my seat, and when I was finished, I clicked “Order” for three hardback books, one for each of us. “The boys will love it,” I said, beginning to tear up.

  Cortland rubbed the back of my neck with his hand, and when I looked up at him, tears in my eyes, I saw that he had tears in his eyes, too. Whatever I was feeling I had passed along to him, but I also saw something else, something that a woman never wants to see in the eyes of her sister's boyfriend, and yet I liked it all the same.

  Chapter 12

  Two days until Joel's DD (Death Date)

  MONICA BLEVINS WAS TALLER than I remembered. Of course, the only times I had seen her in person were among children at the school and standing at the back of the crowd at the funeral, and through my tears, she had looked like the blurriest, yet most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

  As I watched her walk to her car, a sleek red Mercedes, I breathed through the pangs of envy I felt in my chest. Before I arrived, I had stopped by the archdiocese to throw two pennies into the fountain. One penny was for resolution. I wished to get rid of that rock of uncertainty and doubt inside my heart, etched with Monica's name. The other penny was for courage.

  I didn't have a plan. As I drove up to the pricey new offices that Joel had designed for her law firm, I imagined his hands all over the glass and metal and rock he had picked out personally and thought how happy he would be if, as Deacon Friar thought, he could look down on earth and see the city, and even the state, marked with the buildings of his creation.

  No prep. No heads up. No warning. I hadn't called or e-mailed her, deciding just two days from Joel's death date that I wanted it over and done with, and the best way to achieve it would just be to go find her. She wasn't hard to find, and even now, as she fumbled for the keys to unlock her car, I wondered why it had taken me so long to get to this moment. I could've called her when Joel was alive, but I was too afraid my suspicions were true and I'd have to make a decision to forgive Joel and stay with him or… what? Leave him? Go to counseling? It had all seemed too nightmarish to deal with in his life, and it was only when my motive was pure, when I had dropped that penny in the fountain, that I knew what I really wanted.

  No matter what she told me, it would be over with. Done. Finito. I would be okay with it either way. Joel loved me, and if this temptress-for she very much looked like a high-class version of one- had caused him to stray, then I would forgive him and still honor his memory. I loved him no matter. My love-no, our love- was strong enough to withstand whatever came of it. Still. I had to know.

  I got out of my car, feeling sloppy in my blue track suit compared to her fitted Armani number and stiletto heels, but I held my head high and walked fervently across the hundred feet between us, getting halfway there when she opened her door, plucked her cell phone from her briefcase and began talking as she slid into the leather seat and closed the door, shutting me out.

  What would I do? Pound on her window? Excuse me, Monica. I'm Joel's widow. Remember me?

  Instead, I turned thirty degrees, stepped up on the sidewalk and watched her back out and speed away. I did not take this as a sign, only that I was too slow and had once again let fear keep me from acting fast enough. I retrieved my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and dialed her number, which I had memorized. I know this isn't a nice thing to say, but her number really did spell out SHE-SLUT, although a kinder person might instead use SHE-PJ88.

  I didn't feel like being kind.

  Monica hadn't answered, probably still on the call she'd taken when she sped away, and again! I choked when I heard her voice in her mailbox. But I cleared my throat (not becoming) and spoke through my fear, “Monica. You may not remember me, but I'm Ramona Griffen, Joel's wife. I was wondering if we could meet for coffee and talk for a while.” I left my number and reminded myself I still used the term “wife"; I didn't like to refer to myself as his widow, even if it were true.

  I hung up, feeling both scared and proud of myself for doing it. Of course, there was the distinct possibility that she wouldn't call me back, which is why I thought surprising her in person would be more productive. If Joel had loved her, she had to be a decent person, but who in their right mind wouldn't return the call of a widow?

  What I did next truly surprised me. It was a warm October day, one away until fall break, when the boys would be spending the weekend with my parents. Although they certainly remember the time of year that their father died, we did not talk about his death date. I know some of my friends, such as Catholic Gabriella, regularly visited their friends' and families' graves on their death dates as well as their birthdays, but I had only visited Joel's grave three times in two years, and none of them were significant days. I did not want to spend his birthday or our anniversary, or even his death date, at the cemetery.

  Two days prior seemed like
a good day to visit. It wasn't as if I had to keep up with maintenance-I would never allow even one weed to grow on my husband's grave, but I did every so often wonder how often the cemetery cleaned off bird poop off the tombstones. Joel never had this kind of bad luck when he was alive, but I have been shat on from above four times in my life! Four! And it wasn't even after I'd done anything that deserved it.

  I had selected his gravesite with as much care as a Griever can muster-one that was near a tree to get partial shade during the summer and a beautiful view of autumn leaves and icicles when the weather permitted. This was, of course, just the kind of thing a Griever does: think about the deceased as if they were still living- as if the deceased in the coffin could actually “see” the tree to enjoy it, as if he were napping and needed a good place to lay his head and catch a cool breeze. Still, I knew he would like it, even though he wasn't much of an outdoorsman.

  The clouds rolled by and I watched the puffy train become a tiger become a lollipop. If the deceased could see anything from their spot in the earth, then watching the clouds, not to mention the occasional thunderstorm, would have to be a highlight.

  I lay on my back beside Joel, six feet above the pearlescent burnt-orange coffin I'd spent too much money on, again falsely believing that Joel would care that he would rest in eternity in a box the color of his favorite college team, the Texas Longhorns. Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The dead grass tickled my hand, which I had laid, fingers spread, above Joel's resting place, as if in some karmic way we were holding hands, or perhaps my hand was above his heart, the one that gave up on him at least forty years too soon. The autopsy indicated a heart defect that he was most likely born with, one that was exacerbated by too much physical activity. I couldn't imagine Joel's life without sports. If they had found the defect when he was younger, he wouldn't have played youth soccer or junior high basketball or high school football or intramural sports. Or those weekly pick-up games with the guys in the cul-de-sac. His life would have been completely different. Not the same person at all.

  Of course, I had immediately had my sons' hearts checked out. People told me I was crazy, but by now, you've figured out that Grievers do crazy things, and high among them is to check the health of those left behind. I didn't just stop at heart checks, either. I had every organ, every bone, even our blood tested for the rarest of rare diseases. After several tests, I was found to be completely normal, barring a few extra pounds that could come off with, you guessed it, physical activity. Stick to your daily vitamin. That was it. That was the magic cure to keep me alive to raise my boys? Of course not. Still. I took that daily vitamin as if I were drinking from the Holy Grail. I had to live, even if some days I hadn't wanted to live at all.

  And the boys, well, you couldn't find two healthier boys than Bradley and William. “As normal as boys could be,” the doctor had said.

  I had argued with the doctor. “I don't feel normal at all,” I had told him. I wanted to tell him I was dying, I was certain of it. But aren't we all dying a bit every day? It's morbid to admit, but I knew my pain wasn't my body giving up on me, but my bruised soul wilting within me.

  The wind picked up, and I rolled over on my stomach, on top of Joel's grave. I wondered if I was turned the right way, if our faces were in alignment, or however unfortunate, my head were at his feet. I couldn't remember. But I pretended we were lying chest to chest, my cheek on his cheek, and I breathed deeply, slowly, fully trying to feel our spirits connect until I watered his grave with my tears. I imagined they traveled through the earth and landed right on Joel's cheek as they had done when we found out we were pregnant with Bradley.

  A recent best-selling book asked what you would do if you had one more day with a loved one that had died. I thought of this often-something the author obviously knew Grievers do. But as many times as I played out that One More Day, the more it looked like Any Day and it was a good day-not a great day, but a typical day in our marriage: being parents, running errands, and successfully completing the crossword puzzle. There was nothing I would ask him or say to him that I hadn't already said in his life. Even the question about Monica.

  Maybe our spirits were intertwined or the autumn sunshine had soaked some sense into me, because suddenly Knowing did not matter anymore. I let it all go. I could have closure without Her. He was Mine and would be for eternity.

  Without meaning to, I'd fallen asleep. When I awoke, my muscles ached, and the sun was beginning to set. I had dreamed of Joel, something I'd only done once since his death and even then, it hadn't been the powerful dream I'd been looking for. Grievers hope to dream of their loved ones telling them they are fine, they'll be fine, they still love you, and they'll watch over you. My dream had fallen far from my aspirations; it was simply Joel asking me if I'd bought more peanut butter.

  But on this day, my dream startled me. It started out well enough, Joel and I and the boys at an amusement park, eating cotton candy and going on all the rides I hated, the fast ones that made my insides switch places. We all got on the Tilt-A-Whirl and began spinning, Joel making it go even faster by turning the wheel in the middle until my body was crushed against his and I rested my head on his shoulders until our ride came to a stop, and when he lifted the safety bar and reached out his hand for me to take, it wasn't Joel at all.

  “You okay?” he asked, and I nodded my head and took his hand-one that did not belong to my Joel or my da Vinci, but to my sister's beau.

  I'd almost forgotten that you get as much time on break from college as you actually spend in college, so when my father came to pick up the boys that morning for the long weekend, it meant that da Vinci and I would be alone. Entirely alone. For four whole days.

  I tried to act nonchalant. After all, da Vinci did spend most of his time in the studio but came and went as he pleased through the back door for dinner or snacks or for stealing kisses when the boys were asleep. It was bad enough having sex with da Vinci in the studio-I vowed I would never be with da Vinci in Joel and my marital bed, Lumpy. I had begun to wonder if da Vinci and I were more “friends” than “lovers,” as we hadn't been together since that night in the studio, but with the boys safely out of the house, the idea to have some fun of my own sounded better every minute.

  When I had returned from the gravesite the day before, da Vinci had tenderly wiped the dirt from my cheek where the grass has made an imprint, but he hadn't asked where I'd been. He seemed to notice when I didn't want to talk, but then again, we rarely needed to talk. Words were for whom? Journalists? Novelists? Linguists? Sure. But not always for friends and truly not necessary for lovers. Rachel had been right about that.

  When the boys pulled away, waving from their backseats of my father's SUV, I instinctively pulled da Vinci closer to me, and when the car rounded the corner out of sight, da Vinci pulled me into him in a long, urgent kiss that sent us tumbling back into the house for privacy.

  I hadn't eaten breakfast yet, but it wasn't food I was hungry for. Da Vinci lifted my flannel nightshirt over my head, kissed my shoulder blade and steered us to the bedroom. I put the brakes on, my feet firmly planted on the hardwood floor, my arm reaching out to grab the wall, but da Vinci was much stronger than I. Before I could protest, we were already on the king-sized bed, much softer than the drafting table in the studio, and I got lost in the heat of our bodies pressing together, forgetting that this bed ever had any other purpose than a soft place to make love in that moment.

  “I should've known you'd be blissing,” Anh said, arms crossed in the doorway. I shrieked, awkwardly grabbing for the sheet to cover us, but we were still nearly fully clothed. We hadn't even gotten to third base yet.

  Da Vinci's groan turned from pleasure to annoyance. Something was always getting in the way of our togetherness, and it wasn't because of him. My boys. My family. My best friend who really, really should've known better. Nothing should break the spell of a Fantasy Sex Day. It wasn't fair. And I only got one, maybe two, my whole lifetime.


  Da Vinci's arm was wrapped around my waist, his hot breaths at my shoulder blade, warming me from the outside in. I couldn't believe I wouldn't get to do what we were about to do. “What are you doing here?”

  Anh gave an apologetic shrug, but obviously she wasn't sorry enough to turn around and leave when she saw us. “You said you'd watch Vi for me, remember?”

  Vi appeared from behind Anh's legs and stared up at me with her big brown eyes, a sucker stick hanging from her mouth, sugary goo dripping onto my carpet. “I did? Why would I do a crazy thing like that?”

  “Because I have the conference in Galveston this weekend, remember?”

  I pounded my head against the pillow. So much for a free weekend. “I'm sorry. I can't believe I forgot.”

  Anh knelt down, a worried look on her face. “I hate to ask this, but do I look as bad as I feel? I've felt like crap all morning.”

  I pressed my cool hand against her head and quickly removed it. “You definitely have a fever.”

  Just then Vi removed her sucker and threw up all over the floor beside my bed. She was so shocked at her own vomit that she ran out of the room and straight for the couch, where she promptly spewed again.

  Good thing Joel and I had a plan not to get new furniture until our kids were older. Little tykes believe couches are their personal wipe rag. Because our boys had finally reached the age where they knew potato chip grease was meant for napkins instead of seat cushions (well, half the time anyway), we'd been looking for a new couch the week before Joel died, but couldn't agree on one we both liked. Vi began to wail. “Oh-up. Oh-up.”

  “Dammit!” Anh said. “My son was sick earlier this week. He must've given us his bug.”

  I began tending to my friends. Another clue da Vinci was not a typical American male: he cleaned up the throw-up without even being asked. Actually, I wouldn't have asked him to do it at all, but by the time I'd retrieved the thermometer and trashcan from the bathroom, he had already grabbed a towel and began cleaning the mess. “Carpet cleaner?” he asked, and I directed him to the Oxy10. I'd almost forgotten his last temp job had been cleaning office buildings.