by Cara Nelson
“It’s fine.”
“So talk to me. I’ve missed you the last few minutes, since I pissed you off.”
“I’m going to Dubai tomorrow afternoon for a week.”
“That’s interesting. Have you been there before? I’ve seen it in the movies, the colorful markets and stuff.”
“I’ve been there for business, yes.”
“I don’t guess you’d bring me a scarf. I don’t wear scarves. I’d just hang it over a mirror and look at it and wish I had the kind of attitude that could pull off a scarf with regular clothes.”
“What color?”
“Purple,” she said instantly. “Or should I text it to Miss Hollingford?”
“I think you’ve alienated her for life.”
“I told her I was sorry. I thought you were stalking me and being pushy.”
“I’m assertive. You have to be in business.”
“This isn’t business.”
“Everything is business, Hannah.”
“Yeah, you’re a true romantic,” she scoffed, downing her coffee. “Do you have something I could wear? This is sort of binding,” she admitted, poking at the waist cincher through her dress resentfully.
Jasper brought her some clothes from a drawer. She went into his fancy marble bathroom and shucked off her borrowed dress and hateful corset, the softness of his t-shirt and shorts a relief. She took a fluffy washcloth and scrubbed off her makeup, making herself at home. Hannah padded barefoot into the cavernous living room.
He sat composedly on the black leather couch, not sprawled territorially like most men did on upholstered furniture. She curled up against him, catlike, and kissed his cheek, liking the rasp of stubble along his jaw when she pressed her lips to his face.
“Where were we in the car? Before the lights hit us and made us awkward,” he asked, nuzzling his neck. Jasper pulled her into his lap and claimed her with a kiss, his hands almost punishing in her hair. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m overdue for my five hours’ sleep.”
“I didn’t mean to waste your time.” She drew back, feeling bruised.
“No. That isn’t what I said. I said I was tired. Use your linguistic skills, Hannah,” he chided.
“I’ll go,” she said, wanting him to ask her to stay. He knows he has me. He doesn’t even need to take off my clothes to consider the conquest complete, she thought sadly. She kissed him full on the lips, not going gentle into that good night. He might be through pursuing her, but she hadn’t had all she wanted of Jasper Cates.
“You can keep the clothes,” he said against her lips, his tongue sliding into her mouth. She wound her arms around his neck, pulling him into her, his hand pushing up the back of her shirt, touching bare skin.
“What if I want to give them back now?” she offered, never breaking the kiss. “What if I could make you forget everything else?” Her hands opened the buttons of his shirt, rubbing her palms against his smooth, muscled chest. He cupped her bottom and kissed her neck, his teeth grazing tender skin. She understood why women would be lining up for those disposable phones as she shivered under his touch.
“It’s late.” Jasper said, a lilt of regret in his voice. “Do you want me to walk you home?”
The luscious chill his breath against her neck sent sparking down the length of her body tempered his disappointing suggestion. She could imagine a walk with him, their hands all over each other, restraining themselves just enough to avoid arrest for public indecency…most of the time. She nodded, finding herself unable to speak under his persistent hands, a touch that spoke a different message from the voice that told her to go home. Hannah melted into him, pinning him against the couch, her hair falling around them both as she kissed him thoroughly. She levered off him and collected the borrowed dress from the bathroom.
Their walk was decorous. He held out his arm for her and conducted her home as respectably as any maiden’s chaperone might have wished. At the door of her building, she tugged at his shirt.
“If you come upstairs, you might find a way to win back your phone,” she taunted.
“The hour is late for such negotiations. Sleep well, mockingbird.” Jasper brushed his lips against hers and left her at the doorstep.
Inside her apartment, Hannah flung herself down on her bed and dialed her sister’s number
“It’s two in the morning. What?” Becca grumbled.
“It was an absolute fairy tale. I have your dress. It’s unharmed, by the way. He took me to the symphony and we went back to his apartment and he had bought a French press because I love coffee and it was so romantic, Bec.” She sighed.
“So why are you home already?”
“He was a gentleman.”
“Really, the phone guy? Are you sure?”
“Yes. This is different for him, for us both. We don’t need to jump into bed. We have this connection…”
“Are you sure this is my sister Hannah and not some stranger impersonating her?”
“Shut up and go back to sleep.” Hannah laughed. She smiled even in her sleep.
Chapter 6
Jasper and Hannah
As he walked, he thought over the misguided attraction he had entertained for Hannah. It had been the evening from hell for Jasper. First he had to sit in the concert hall and not check his email even once. Then she caught him using hand sanitizer, and instead of just taking the piss out of him, she had unleashed a torrent of fond concern. It made him feel like his head would cave in.
He had wanted her to come to his apartment, had liked how much brighter and warmer his sterile, top of the line kitchen looked with her moving around in it, but he couldn’t handle letting her in and having her talk to him like that, like she could see inside his head. He had dodged the concern on her face. It was the same expression that Miss Hollingford had given him, one of sadness mingled with worry. He had sent the secretary back to her desk, but Hannah didn’t work for him, so he couldn’t order her around as easily. Ordinarily, the pointless chatter of his dates was grating. This had been worse because it was personal. He realized too late that he’d rather ignore girls talking about themselves than try to ward off one who scrutinized him.
Her motions were clean and purposeful, efficient, and she had hummed under her breath without realizing it. Not Bach, as he’d expected, but The Doors. For a moment, he had let himself enjoy her presence, the way she animated the space. Then his hands had itched for his phone, to check his email. He drummed his fingers to distract himself, stubbornly refusing to show any besetting habits.
Jasper couldn’t sleep, didn’t get his requisite five hours, or even three. He was in the gym at five as planned, but exhausted and muddled. This business trip was perfectly timed to give him some distance from a distracting, inappropriate woman. Normally, he didn’t like travel, but he found himself looking forward to time out of town.
He’d been on the ground in the UAE for half an hour before he texted her a picture of the Jumeirah Mosque, its pale domes and intricate stonework. He was in a meeting when he got her email, and he read it right there at the conference table.
What an ethereal building! All four-square and pure white. It’s no wonder it appealed to my Virgo. Thanks for the picture. Here’s one of my view.
She’d inserted a gif of a script in her studio.
I got a whole movie role! The actress sounds like Boston and the character has to be southern, so I get to loop all her dialogue. I’ve got to brush up on my Southern accent, but I’ll get my sound equipment paid off after this! See you soon. Hannah.
Somehow, Jasper was prouder of her movie role than he was of his profits in the expanding markets. He excused himself from the conference momentarily to reply.
Mockingbird, read some Tennessee Williams to reacquaint yourself with the patois. It’ll come naturally soon enough. It’s a wonderful opportunity for you. Do you want to expand into TV and film work, or are you happy narrating PowerPoints? I’ve heard that you sing a little. When I get back, I want you to sing
for me. Virgo.
He got some work done before she messaged back and found himself wandering the Al Karama market, rebuffing the aggressive hawkers with a sharp “laa” and “Ekhrass!” if they persisted. In a conference, he might be the picture of politeness, but at the souk he was rude, disliking the crowds, the jostling and shouting. He passed over the purple and went straight to a tangerine shawl with a rosy sheen, the fabric beaded in gold and burgundy. He haggled, offered an obscenely low price, and threatened to leave before purchasing it.
I braved the souk for you. Your present will come home when I do, Mockingbird. It isn’t purple, but it’s perfect for you.
Jasper smiled at the thought of her anticipation, her childish excitement over the surprise. He imagined the glory of Hannah’s smile as he wrapped the shawl around her shoulders, its silky lightness and the surprising weight of the beading. He would fold her in his arms, inhaling the tart apple of her shampoo as it mixed with the scent of saffron that clung to the fabric. He had promised himself to stop thinking like that, but soon the image intruded…Hannah laid bare across the rosy orange fabric, her pale freckled skin like moonlight against the cool silk. Her arms reaching for him, her thighs opening for him, welcoming him. He swallowed hard, folding the shawl into his suitcase.
I can’t wait! And I’m excited to see the present, too. I miss you.
He read it six times, a private smile on his face. This was perfect, he thought. Even better than his dial-a-blonde project. This was intimacy, closeness, but with distance and safety. He could reveal as much or as little as he wanted, control the encounter. An email relationship had its appeal.
They messaged off and on all day and night. At one in the morning local time, he emailed. She replied immediately because it was almost ten back home. She told him about her childhood, about the music she liked and the kind of birds she was afraid of. He told her things by email that he had never said aloud to anyone.
My father was a music teacher. He started teaching me the cello when I was four. I practiced each night for twelve years. I was never good enough.
My only real relationship was with Clare. She was very calm and rational, but she wanted me to talk about emotions all the time, or she wanted rose petals on the bed and candles all round. Nothing I tried was sufficient. I never knew what she wanted except for me to be a different man. I would still be with her if she had not left me.
Hannah had asked if he loved Clare.
I’m not sure. I thought at the time that she grounded me somehow or made a quiet space in my life, but nothing was quiet at the end. It became like a perpetual earthquake. I’m not entirely certain I’ve got my bearings again, even now.
Hannah asked what Clare looked like.
Tall, blonde, composed. Very Grace Kelly, although she thought herself a Lauren Bacall. Perhaps she was right, because she was more ruthless than I knew.
On the fourth day, his VP in Dubai took him aside and asked if he were ill.
“You have seemed distracted and unfocused. You have not attended to the reports of our directors. When the Abu Dhabi contingent arrives tomorrow, you will have to be on your guard not to offend. Do you wish to speak with a physician? Perhaps travel has disagreed with you,” the man suggested tactfully.
“There’s a woman back home,” Jasper found himself saying.
“You must put aside personal concerns for now. I mean no disrespect, Mr. Cates, but you must pull yourself together.”
Jasper nodded, retreated to his room and messaged Hannah.
Hannah, you must stop emailing me. I sent you a picture of the mosque and started the correspondence, but it is interfering with my business here. I will speak with you upon my return. Regards, Jasper Cates.
Three minutes later, his phone lit up with a call from her.
“Fucking REGARDS from Jasper Cates? What does THAT mean?” She demanded.
“It means a twenty-eight-year-old VP just told me to pull myself together because I’m texting and emailing in meetings and the board of directors is offended and thinks I need a doctor,” he blurted out.
Her laughter rippled through the phone, sending a chill down his arms. Her voice was honeyed and he gripped the phone unnecessarily tight, holding it closer.
“If you think I’m distracting you by email, imagine what I could do if I were there with you,” she teased.
“Believe me, I have, mockingbird.”
“That’s more like it. Calling me ‘Hannah’ and signing shit ‘regards’ makes me crazy. Don’t do that to me. I can’t reach you from here.”
“You can reach me from there. I wish—“
“What?”
“I wish I could hold you.”
“So do I, Jasper. When do you get home?”
“Three days. What are you doing that day?”
“Seeing you.”
“Good answer. My flight gets in around ten at night.”
“Can I meet you at the airport?”
“I wish you would.”
“I’m a little nervous about seeing you.”
“Why?”
“I feel like I know you now. Like, your mom was a secretary, which explains why your admin staff is paid so well. Things like that. When you left you were just this guy I kept thinking about…now you’re Jasper. You’re my friend.”
“I have no desire to be your friend.”
“I hope we’re about to be lovers,” she said, and he was surprised again by her frankness and that smoky voice.
“If I were there, we would be by now.”
“You kicked me out of your apartment.”
“You were too close. I’m not accustomed to that level of scrutiny.”
“You’re used to dating women who like the idea of you—billionaire CEO—but never bother getting to know you and how picky you are and how demanding and how hard on yourself.”
“If you decide to hang out a shingle as an analyst, let me know and I’ll make an appointment.”
“Fair enough. I’ll stop. I’m saying you deserve better than women who only think of what you are, and not whom.”
“You said whom. No one has said whom since about 1890. How’s your Southern accent coming?”
“’What is straight? A lahn can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh naw, it’s curved lahk a road through mountains,’” she breathed in a perfect Georgia drawl.
“Tennessee Williams, I presume,” he said a little breathlessly.
“The man himself. I’ve been practicing. Maybe when you get back I’ll let you hear some of my lines. If you’ll play the cello for me.”
“Sing to me.”
“You said once I sounded like Nina Simone, so ’If you knew how I need you/you would not stay away, today. Don’t you know I need you/Stay here, my dear, with me,’” she sang softly.
He could hear the earnestness, the slight tremor of self-consciousness in that supple voice, could hear that she meant every word.
Jasper’s hand covered his mouth to stop a sound he felt in his throat, something like a sob, a cry. Something unmanly his father would have beaten out of him and set him three more hours of the cello for penance. The phone went silent as she waited for his praise, his sarcasm, for any response to show that he heard her. He hung up the phone without a syllable, unable to tell her anything she would understand.
His meetings were successful, his application for expansion in the UAE was approved, and the VP even remarked that he seemed to be feeling better. He didn’t speak to her or message her again. He might have downloaded a few Nina Simone tracks and played them in his room when he couldn’t sleep, but he never contacted her. A brown-haired girl with too many opinions and a voice like hot molasses would not vanquish two decades of drive and ambition.
When he cleared the TSA check at the airport and headed for the exit, she was there. Hannah, standing with a paper sign that read “Virgo.” He didn’t rush to her, swing her into his arms and kiss her until she was laughing and crying with relief. She saw
him and broke into a run, nearly knocking him over with the force of her embrace. She was there, live and warm, in constant motion, a flurry of hair and sleeves and lips engulfing him. She had on a long patchwork skirt, a tank top, a headband totally inadequate to the task of taming all that dark hair. He framed her face with his hands, looking at her as if he couldn’t believe his luck. He leaned his forehead against hers, pressed his eyes shut.
“What?” she asked nervously.
“Just you.”
“Yeah, it’s just me.” She shrugged and pulled him toward a taxi. He gave the driver his address as she snuggled against him, burrowing catlike until she found the niche where she fit just right beneath his arm.
“I liked your song,” he said finally. “I meant to say at the time, but I wasn’t sure what my linguistics professor would make of my tone. I wasn’t—myself.”
“Well, that VP thought you were sick,” she pointed out teasingly.
“It was lovely, but I couldn’t put it into words. I liked it.” He faltered, losing ground.
At his apartment, he turned on the oven and set her to slicing enoki mushrooms. He took a shower, returned with a white t-shirt clinging damp and transparent to his back, droplets of water flicking off the ends of his wet hair as he moved. He grated cheese, his arms flexing.
“What are we making?” she asked.
“Omelet.”
“Isn’t that eggs with maybe some cheese?”
“No, this is a good omelet. Not something you ate at Denny’s,” he chided, putting the mushrooms in to roast, rinsing and chopping the spinach.
Hannah sat at the table, watching him cook. When he turned to offer to make her coffee, her head was cushioned on her arms and she was asleep. He quietly took black truffle oil from the cupboard, whisked the cheese and mushrooms into the eggs, and put the mixture into a skillet. When the omelet was done, he sliced it and put it on a plate, which he slid in front of her. The clink of his fork against the china plate stirred her. She inhaled the nutty Parmesan, the earthy mushroom, and the truffles’ rich odor, and her mouth watered.
