Dating da Vinci

by Malena Lott

  My heart sank. Another week. “Fine. You just get well, then.”

  I hung up, wondering if da Vinci and I should go on a date date but remembered he was going to a frat function-some mandatory pledge thing-and that Anh was on a secret date with Michael, who was upset Rachel hadn't asked him to keep Zoe, because she was his child, after all, and I didn't want to spend another Friday night playing Scrabble. I'd had too much Scrabble in my life. It was high time I put some of those words I placed on the board into action.

  Next I called Judith with the excuse that I wanted to bring a box of Joel's things over to her house-his great-grandmother's quilt she wanted back and a copy of his high school yearbook-and I'd get her to tell me everything she knew about Monica. She would know if her son ever got over Monica, wouldn't she? He seemed to tell her everything. They'd talked on the phone once or even twice a day. I'd often wondered if his mother was more of his best friend than I'd been. Besides, I couldn't just trust Monica's side of the story, could I?

  “I have plans,” Judith said a moment later. “We're doing the prep work for the Thanksgiving dinner at the homeless shelter. Why don't you join us?”

  “Who'll be there? I mean, besides the homeless.” Spending a Friday night helping my mom-in-law peel potatoes was not exactly what I had in mind.

  “Oh, just a bunch of Lifers,” she said, which made me cringe. Lifers was the nickname she'd given to anyone who attended Life Church, but it came off sounding haughty. I wanted to remind her the term had been used in prisons long before she started using it.

  Scrabble began sounding pretty good again, but my curiosity got the best of me. After a quick kiss to my kids, which was promptly wiped off by Bradley, I was out the door.

  Chapter 19

  A HOMELESS MAN WEARING socks for gloves and a stained Longhorns knit hat greeted me with a toothless smile as I entered the back door of the makeshift homeless shelter that once housed a mid-century clothes manufacturer. I imagined the place had been alive with the buzz of a hundred sewing machines before technology wiped out the need for so many human laborers. I refused to think the same clothes were now being produced in a sweatshop in a third-world country, which was probably the case. I made my way through the maze of cots, which were blocking the route to the kitchen, due to overcrowding from a bout of hurricanes that set the homeless awash in Austin.

  A curious Hispanic boy noticed me and followed me to the kitchen. He looked to be about William's age, dirty but happy. I remembered why I didn't like helping in soup kitchens: I always wanted to take the children home with me.

  “ Hola, señora,” the boy said, tugging on my jacket.

  “ Hola, muchachito.”

  The boy grinned, revealing both his front teeth missing. I asked him if he spoke English. He shook his head. He told me he and his parents had just arrived in a truck, and his mother was going to have a baby.

  I had the sinking feeling they were illegal aliens and they would be out of the homeless shelter before INS arrived the next morning. I congratulated him on becoming a big brother and handed him a carrot that Judith had just peeled. I kissed my mom-in-law on the cheek and removed my jacket. The boy crunched the carrot like Bugs Bunny but didn't take his eyes off of me.

  “I think someone has a crush,” Judith said. “Poor thing needs a bath like no one's business. Don't tell me. Illegal, right?”

  “ Ssh! Mom,” I scolded.

  “What? He can't speak English. What difference does it make?”

  I asked the boy if he needed anything else and he repeated that his mother was having a baby. A terrible scream rang through the metal warehouse. “Oh, God,” I said, looking at the small group of volunteers in the kitchen. “He means his mother is having a baby right now! ”

  Judith threw down her peeling knife. “I'll call the hospital.”

  The boy's eyes widened. “ Mi mamá dice que el hospital nos llevará a la cárcel.”

  “What did he say?” Judith said, rummaging through her designer bag for her tiny phone.

  I thumped my forehead. “He's right. He says they can't go to the hospital because they'll deport them.”

  “Well, the law's the law,” Judith said with a terse smile. I marveled that a woman who believed volunteerism was saintly and would spend hours peeling potatoes for the homeless would so quickly turn against them.

  I grabbed the phone from her hand. “No hospital. We can't have a new mom deported. She'll be terrified. And she'll only go kicking and screaming.” I'd seen my share of illegal immigrants at the Panchal Center. While you had to have documentation to work for Panchal's temp agency, anyone could learn to speak English, green card or not.

  The boy tugged at my arm as his mother's wails continued. “ ¡Ven! ¡Ven! ”

  “I'm coming,” I told him. “We need a doctor.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Judith said. “Unless you have some midwife skills I don't know about…”

  “Is there a doctor in the house?” Cortland said, traipsing through the door with a bushel of potatoes.

  I caught my breath. “Thank God! A woman is having a baby. Out there.”

  Cortland plopped the heavy crate onto the counter and rolled his shoulders back. “A baby, huh? Might be a lot more fun than peeling potatoes.”

  “You can't be serious,” Judith said.

  “I'll need hot towels, some rubbing alcohol, and clean sheets.”

  The volunteers rushed to carry out his orders, while I shook my head in amazement. Cortland and I followed the boy, Manuel, out into the main room where his mother's screams were even louder.

  “What did she just say?” Cortland asked,

  “She said, 'Get this baby out of me,'” I translated, suddenly feeling faint as we came upon the woman lying on her back on the cot, legs bent in delivery position. Her husband asked me if his wife Maria was going to be okay.

  “ Sí,” I told him. “He's a doctor.”

  The couple made the sign of the cross as Cortland spread the sheet over her, then knelt down to check her progress. “I can see the head,” he said with a grin.

  “Okay, I'm just going to go over there at a safe distance,” I said, backing away.

  “Oh, no, you're not. I need you to translate for me.”

  Maria pulled me down by my arm and squeezed my hand until it was white with pain. “Fine. Powerful grip,” I said, wincing myself. “Just get her baby out now for all of our sakes.”

  “I'm glad you came,” he said to me, then concentrated on Maria. “Push hard now.”

  “ Empuje! ” I told her, and she squeezed my hand harder as I held one knee and her husband held the other. Maria bore down, grunting and filling the air with Spanish curse words.

  A moment later, Cortland pulled a bright pink baby from under the sheet, turned it over and tapped it three times on the bottom, causing it to wail. “It's a girl!” Gently, he handed off the baby to its mother.

  Judith had prepared a makeshift crib out of a box, and another Lifer handed him more hot towels and a suture kit.

  Cortland handed me a pair of scissors and nodded toward the umbilical cord. “You want to do the honors?”

  “Me? What about the father?” The baby's father shook his head, and I took the scissors. Two snips and the baby was free of its mother.

  An hour later, we sat around the kitchen, drinking coffee while the potatoes sat on the counter unpeeled. “Well, it's a little anti-climactic to peel them after what we've been through,” I said, putting my feet up on an empty seat.

  “Pretty handy to have a doctor around,” Judith said proudly, rubbing Cortland's shoulders. “You just never know what life will throw you.”

  He seemed tired but happy. His chill had worn off.

  Judith grabbed her old coat that she always volunteered in and wrapped a red scarf around her neck. “I'm beat. Only so much excitement an old lady can take in one night.” She winked. She only joked about being old because she didn't look old at all.

  I'd nearly forgotten my purpose
for coming there. “Mom G., I wanted to ask you about something.”

  She swung her purse over her shoulder. “What is it, darling? Is it the boys? I can sit tomorrow if you like.”

  “No, I'll have Zoe, so she'll want to play with the boys. It's not that. It's about Monica.”

  Judith rolled her eyes and blew a puff of air. “I have nothing to say about that woman.”

  Cortland looked at us back and forth, before it seemed to register which Monica we were talking about. I didn't care if he heard. I'd waited long enough.

  “I know you don't like her, but I need to know how Joel took the break-up.”

  Judith jaw fell slack, as if I'd just slapped her. “How do you think he took it? Joel had his entire life planned out. He loved her and she betrayed him.”

  “But did he forgive her?”

  “You mean did he stop loving her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “He loved you, Ramona. With all his heart. That's all that mattered.”

  “But it was different, wasn't it? Just tell me.”

  Judith's face softened. “Yes, it was different. But honestly, she's not what hurt him the most. He missed Jonathon most of all. Friends since they were three. His mother is still one of my best friends, but she knows not to discuss her daughter-in-law with me.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “Why would I? What does it have to do with you?”

  “I'm just trying to piece things together. I'm sorry if it upsets you.”

  Judith stepped forward and lifted my chin with her index finger. “It's you I worry about. Why don't you bring all three kids by tomorrow and they can play, and you can go out and have some fun.”

  She never mentioned da Vinci by name. I knew she disapproved. She wore it on her skin as obviously as her coat. Her code for him was “fun.” He was a fling to her. I hoped she didn't find out about his moving in.

  “I guess I'll see you at Thanksgiving dinner, Cortland,” Judith said as she turned to leave.

  “Oh, I don't think I'm coming.”

  “Of course you are. Don't be ridiculous. Your mother said she'd send you over for some pie.”

  “Pie. I guess a man needs his pie.”

  “Ramona makes a delicious pecan pie.”

  “She does, does she?” He tilted his head my way. “I can't resist her pie, I suppose.”

  “'Night, Mother.”

  Judith turned off the main kitchen light, leaving Cortland and me sitting in the near dark, the full moon beaming through the cracked kitchen window. “I guess I should shove off unless you need me.”

  Cortland stared at me and even when I looked away, I could feel his gaze on my face like a hot blast to my cheek. “I do need you, Ramona.”

  “You know I meant with the baby.”

  “I know what you meant. And you know what I mean.”

  “I've told you-”

  “I was going to break up with her tomorrow.”

  Relief washed over me. “Still.”

  “Da Vinci.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if you love him, I'll get out of the way. But if there's a chance.”

  “A chance.”

  “Possibility, probability, likelihood.”

  “I know the synonyms, thankyouverymuch.”

  “I put my house on the market. Will you help me look for a smaller one tomorrow? I don't trust realtors. They just tell you what you want to hear.”

  “Kind of like men.”

  “You don't believe that.”

  “I have the kids tomorrow.”

  “Nice try. Judith offered to watch the kids so you could have fun.”

  “And house hunting with you would be fun?”

  “Well, if delivering a baby in the middle of a shelter can be fun, then yes, house hunting can be fun.”

  “I couldn't even pick out a bed, much less a house.”

  “That's just it. I need your critical eye. Otherwise, I might just buy the first house I see.”

  “I'm cleaning out my garage. I'm trying to purge the clutter before the new year.”

  “A pre-new year's resolution?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I'll tell you what. You look for houses with me in the morning, and I'll help you clean your garage in the afternoon.”

  “You don't take no for an answer, do you?”

  “Not where you're concerned.”

  “It's complicated.”

  “Maybe. But worth it.”

  I stood to leave, and Cortland held my pinkie. “You just never know what life's gonna throw you.”

  “Take a chance?”

  “On me.”

  “On you.” My heart sped up. I could hear the baby crying in the other room. The kitchen felt smaller and smaller, until it was only two feet of space between us. Arm's length, yet I could still feel him in my heart. He moved his hand up my arm, his touch sending electrical vibrations throughout my body. Rachel would be gone, history. She was nothing to him, I knew. But it didn't mean she wouldn't hate me for it. It may not register on the Richter scale of betrayal like Jonathon and Joel, but she could see it as betrayal all the same. She was my sister, far from perfect, the most egotistical woman I knew, but she was family.

  And what of da Vinci? If I gave Cortland a chance and we didn't work out, I'd lose da Vinci forever.

  Chapter 20

  ANH HANDED ME THE Flirtini-a martini made of vodka, champagne, and pineapple juice-and tossed her flip-flops off her feet. She wore them all year around, even in the dead of winter. She said Vietnamese were hot-blooded, but I told her in her case, it was more likely her hot-headed nature. She didn't argue.

  It was Girls' Night In, something we were used to since I couldn't afford Girls' Night Out anymore. The last of Joel's life insurance money had been used for that bed and some Christmas gifts for the boys I knew their father would want them to have. I would be on my own financially, yet for the first time I knew I could make it.

  Anh had become quite a cocktail waitress from our GNI evenings. “She's unbelievable,” Anh said, taking a sip of the concoction she'd mixed and rolling her eyes. “This is why a woman should not get in a relationship with a divorced man: you don't just date them, you date their exes. It's a threesome, without the pleasure.”

  I joined her on the couch, still high from my own unbelievable Saturday, only for a very different reason. My garage was pristine, every inch litter-free, as organized as an After on a home improvement show. And the house hunting with Cortland hadn't been bad, either. That is, until he spotted the house across the street and two doors down that was for sale, a cottage-looking home with a wraparound front porch, blue shutters and immaculate landscaping. Mrs. Thompson had died six months prior, and her three grown boys were selling it and splitting the profits. I'd watched enough HGTV to know the reason her house wasn't selling wasn't because it wasn't cute, but because it was cutesy cute. Mrs. Thompson had collected ducks. She had duck borders and duck towels and duck rugs and ducks painted on the walls.

  Cortland saw beyond the ducks. Besides, he claimed he liked to renovate. “My wife wanted everything brand new,” he complained. “I like to fix things with my own hands.”

  Which got me to thinking about his hands: ones that had lulled people to sleep for surgery, ones that had pulled out a beautiful baby girl the day before, ones that had roamed over my body at the restaurant two weeks prior.

  “At least da Vinci has no ex,” Anh went on.

  “I'm not so sure,” I said, tossing her an envelope he'd gotten in the mail that day. It would've been an ordinary air-mail envelope, save for two things: the penmanship was beautiful, carefully scripted by someone who relished writing da Vinci's name, and the return address noted the sender as Chiara, which meant “bright and famous.” None of his sisters were named Chiara, I knew, and I doubt they would've spritzed the envelope with perfume, either.

  “Smells sexy,” Anh said. “I thought he didn't have anyone special back home?�
�

  “Who knows,” I downed the Flirtini as Anh poured me another. “He's at another frat party tonight, so I'll ask him tomorrow. I hate feeling jealous.”

  “Of Chiara or the frat party?”

  “Both. When I'm away from him, I start thinking I'd be okay with him leaving, but as soon as I see him, I want him again.”

  “It's the pheromones. He's a magnet guy. You can't help being drawn to him. Especially with amazing sex. He got chakra two back in action. As long as he doesn't make a habit of peeing in the bed.”

  I considered the sex, wishing I hadn't gotten used to it. Da Vinci did things to me I'd never let Joel do. I'd been so afraid to explore with Joel, afraid he would think badly of me, especially after we had kids. The sex kept the loneliness at bay. I grabbed a chocolate-covered strawberry from the dish on the table. Anh insisted our Girls' Night In consist of more than Ruffles and ranch dip this time, so she set us up properly: sushi, loads of chocolate and enough Flirtini mix for a party of twelve. “So you were saying… about being in a threesome with my sister?”

  “Ugh. This is why I can't date Michael. She calls him nearly every day, and it's not always about Zoe, although she had a mouthful to say about your little stunt at the pageant.”

  “Well, Zoe gets to play soccer now, so it was worth it.”

  “Michael thinks she'll flip out when she hears we're dating, and I stopped him and said, 'Excuse me? We're dating? Because I thought we were just sleeping together.'”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah. So he goes, 'Fine, then I'll return the tickets to the Bahamas I ordered on Priceline.com today.'”

  “You can't resist a guy who knows how to find a good deal.”

  “Or a beach far, far away from my grandmotherhood.”

  “Where is Vi tonight?”

  “With her mother.”

  “On a Saturday night?”

  “Don't even get me started.”

  “Fine. I'd rather hear more about you and Michael. And I'd love to see you and my sis in a bitch-slap contest.”

  “Funny. I don't know who she'd hate worse: me for screwing her ex or you for kissing her current.”