"It's coffee,” he prods.
"Yea...” I take it. “Thank you."
It's heavy on the cream and sugar. Another thing they have in common. Thomas is such a bundle of contradictions that way, so careful in his diet, but totally given to childish impulses. Ice cream for dinner or popcorn. Sushi at midnight with root beer floats.
He has that metabolism, to stay so thin. I guess I do, too, although up until last year I drank my calories.
"I'm Brian,” he introduces himself to the man in the dress.
"Felicia.” They shake hands. “Thanks for the smoke,” he tells me, tossing it into the sand filled receptacle.
"No problem. I'll keep your buddy in my thoughts."
"Yours, too.” He heads back inside.
"Cigarette?” I hand Brian one, the universal language. Outside an Alcoholic's Meeting you'll find mountains of ashes, the air gritty and gray; all those sharp teethed people, bleary eyed, trying to find new ways to be alone together, sober.
I doubt if Brian is an alcoholic, but I find it's easier for me personally if I think of everyone as one.
"He looks bad.” Brian says it first.
"I know.” I can make the more immediate comparison, seeing him every day, in all states of dress, than can his son who has seen him just a handful of times in fifteen years. Thomas never took off on him, he's not that kind of man, but there was a time the bottle ruled Thomas’ life as it did mine. It was kinder to him at first, bought him into heavy hitting circles, made him a lot of money, but then the payments fell due and you never have enough
It's a long way down as they say and by the time he hit something close to bottom he'd lost Brian and Brian's mother Vicky. She didn't want anything to do with him for a long time—not all Thomas’ fault. Eventually Brian got old enough to want his own answers. That was six months ago.
Weird timing, right?
Thomas has done his best and they've e-mailed a lot and had some interesting meetings. Of all the things in Thomas’ life right now, I think I know the least about this. I know he'd have told me more, but it felt like intrusion.
It's freaking me out, seeing a version of Thomas younger than me.
Like a parallel universe, like me traveling back in time or something.
I think he's twenty-six, which gives me a full decade of experience over him. Ha.
He's watching me smoke.
"What?” I say it too sharply.
"Nothing."
"You've never seen a woman smoke?"
"Not like you."
"I better get back in there,” I tell him.
"Not yet. Come for coffee with me?"
"We have coffee."
"This is stand up coffee, I mean sit down coffee."
Stand up ... sit down ... my ears play tricks on me, hearing them as commands. Daddy wouldn't say it like that. He'd be softer; he'd get me to do it with his eyes. “I can't. I am sorry..."
"You didn't do anything."
"I'm apologizing for the coffee. Not for anything I did."
"But you are going for coffee."
"Why is that?"
"Because I'm asking nicely."
"Oh."
Back in present, I go with Brian.
"I'm from upstate New York,” I tell him in the hospital cafeteria. More people in scrubs and visitors looking lost as us. “A town you've never heard of."
"Try me."
I name it; loathe to give it more reality than it already has.
"Been through it,” he smiles.
"No shit. I guess you're dad wasn't kidding when he said you got around with your guitar."
"It leads, I follow.” The hands fret the fresh Styrofoam cup. Music making fingers.
"Did you play in Saratoga?” I name an artsy college town nearby. “I used to go to some places there."
"I've been to Lena's."
"The mother of them all. Is Lena still there?” The Cafe is named for her, it is her, everyone got there start there or passed through. Arlo Guthrie. Dylan. Don Mclean.
"She died when I was ten,” he delivers a chilling reminder I am no longer a Spring chicken.
"Jesus, you're young."
"I was born that way."
"Do you write your own songs?"
"Some."
"Your dad's a poet; did he ever tell you that?"
"No."
"Didn't think so. He hides it from...” I catch myself.
"From people he's not intimate with?"
"From his family,” I try and re-direct.
"It's all right, Caroline, I know."
"Know what?"
"It's obvious from looking at you. Anyone could see; you two are lovers."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You don't need to panic—maybe everyone can't see. I had a leg up, I guess."
"This conversation is over.” I get four or five feet from the table and double back. “What do you mean, you had a leg up?"
"You said the conversation was over."
"Don't piss me off. Answer the question."
He sips coffee. “He never said anything, if that's what you're thinking."
"You don't know what I'm thinking. Of course I know he didn't say anything, Thomas isn't that kind of man. What kind of man are you, that's what I want to know."
"Apparently the kind that pisses off attractive women."
"Oh, fuck you, I'm not that attractive. I'm old enough to be your mother."
"Not quite."
"Don't sit there all smug,” I blast. “You shouldn't even be wearing that jacket. It's his isn't it? From the Air Force."
"Yes.” To my astonishment he takes it off. “Here."
Now what do I do? It's not like I can afford to be seen with the thing.
"Just stay away from me,” I walk away for real.
It's been a long time since I felt this kind of exposed. Brian hasn't the right, he's a puppy, but somehow he's inherited his father's ability to render me transparent. I might as well have stood there naked with all our sins written across my body, words and sentences curled over my breasts, my hips, my ass and twitching pussy.
It's obvious from looking at you that you two are lovers...
How much more does he know? Does he know the secret games we play, the roles we put on and off as easy as a Sunday morning robe and slippers? Does he know the code we speak, what it means, the thousand different looks we can give each other and know instantly the meaning? Could he in a million years grasp the nuances when I walk up to his desk and give him that look which only he understands, knowing exactly what I need. To be taken, to be entered, to be wildly savaged, to be enraptured in a fuck so profound, so down and dirty it curls my toes and my hair and leaves me stupid. “Me, too, baby girl,” he will say, reading me start to finish. “Go and lock the doors for daddy.” And could Brian guess how that normally free spirited and stubborn girl runs to do his bidding at that moment, how she lives to say “Yes, Daddy,” to him alone, how she treasures that naked time with him, warm-up time for business, he calls it. Just enough time for a cigarette afterwards, and okay, maybe a coffee next door with a shot of espresso before paying the bills and floating the deals?
And even then it's more play than work.
"Come on C, let's go for a ride,” he'll say when it's time to go and take a drive to look at property to be developed ... my heart going pitty pat in anticipation as I stand, rising from my chair, my work forgotten, my eyes only for him, my body only for him ... now that is how to make a woman, a baby girl stand. We're going to play in the dirt; he warms up on the way down to the car, we take the back stairs, the outside stairs that lead directly from the small suite we occupy in the building he owns. He watches my ass in the skirt. I always wear skirts. Daddy likes to see me that way, likes to see his property displayed. I sashay, I move sexy and nice and fluid and I feel redeemed in warm sunshine, going to play in the dirt. He opens the door on the passenger side of his Cadillac, not for pretense, just practicality,
because they last twice as long. He always opens the door for me and closes it, too, he's a gentleman, not that he's above watching how I sit, how I smooth my skirt and settle into the creamy leather. He's looking at me with undisguised lust and I feel so deliciously feminine, not cheap, not exploited. He'll use and worship me at the same time.
He gets in behind the wheel, his body lean and sexy, like it's the cockpit of one of the jets he used to fly, his neatly trimmed beard outlining the face of the lion, determined but playful. The car starts and I am thundering in anticipation. I don't even wait for him to start. I am wet. Cool fingers between my lips, I part for him, I suckle his finger gently, between my legs I ache with emptiness, I open my thighs, they go wide and wider. Now I must wait on him, on his pleasure, on his gauging of my pleasure.
Once we start, there will be no stopping. I will pull up my skirt, my panties, if I'm still wearing them by the time we get to the car, have to come off, before we get to the expressway, where the big trucks are that sit high up.
"Thomas, what if they see?” I gasp the very first time.
"Then they will enjoy the view. Truckers work hard. Don't they deserve some grade A pussy like anyone else?"
Grade A pussy. My beloved pussy, on display as he plays with me. I can't interfere, I can't use my hands, I have to come, that's all that matters because he won't stop, won't slow down, won't get off the road until I do and it has to be a good one, explosive and hot and I have to call out his name, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.
No sweeter sight in the world than Daddy, afterwards, licking baby girl's juices off his fingers. “I wish I could lick you and drive, baby girl."
"I know I wouldn't be driving if you did that,” I rasp and we both laugh because I don't even know what I just said.
We are all over each at the grove. He pulls onto a sandy access road, ostensibly to look at property, a future site for driveways, schools and playgrounds.
"Daddy, what are you going to do to me?” I giggled.
"Take a guess,” he bent me over, slipping out of character as he slips up my skirt and moves to slip in his cock. My shoe flipped off, somewhere out of sight, into some brambles, he was so excited he came on my ass and my skirt and even my hair, and god, aren't we a sight, just a couple of kids now, me trying to look for my shoe, how far could it have gone? I check the car, I'm bending over and this fifty five year old man is hard again already, it's a surprise, but a pleasant one as he penetrates.
"I can't help myself."
"Don't ... I mean do."
We end up with burrs all over us, the shoe is in the bushes, don't even know how it got there, an hour later, trying to act serious in the bank lobby, I'm trying to pick burrs out of his hair, dark brown, the color of earth, the feel of man silk to run my fingers through.
I blink and I'm outside again.
In limbo.
It's colder, or is it just me?
I debate going back in, and then I see Brian walk through the lobby to the elevators. Fuck that. I call Monica from my car. Old Betsy. Thomas always threatens to buy me a new one so I'll be a kept woman but I'm pretty strict about that. He pays for meals, hotels and sex toys, beyond that all I take is twelve dollars an hour contract fee for keeping his books balanced and generally sorting out the vast piles of papers he is capable of accumulating.
After we met at the Alcoholic's Meeting and started our relationship it took him three months to convince me to work for him.
"I can't get anyone else, they all quit."
Two desks, drawers full of receipts, bills, invoices, contracts. That was after we excavated the blizzard of blueprints and schematics for all the projects he had dreamed up.
He is good at making money, mostly for other people. When it comes to collecting—rents from his own office tenants, stakes in consortiums—he sucks.
"I'll get Phil to look over the Lake West contracts,” I tell Monica. Phil is the lawyer. He's generally happy to hear from us, as opposed to the accountant.
"They want to write off what?"
"What do you mean all they have for 2003 is a single page of receipts?"
"Thank you, Caroline."
"Sure. Get some rest, Monica, okay?"
"I will."
She's barely left the hospital since this whole thing happened. Last night she stayed in the room, they wheeled in a cot for her. She went home long enough to change and came back. Talk about exposed, all her careful preparations to face the world reduced to the barest of prison essentials, cold water splashed on the face, just a little lipstick.
Before Thomas came along I wouldn't have been able to say something like that with a straight face, but Thomas has taught me to be more forbearing of my sisters.
Even the blonde ones whose worlds rise and set on hair curlers and eyebrow pencils.
"Monica can't rough it,” Thomas once told me. “She's much too fragile and insecure. She knows she can't compete with women like you, so they fight too hard, for men's attention."
I never fight for Thomas. “You're not the other woman,” he tells me. It's kind of a joke, but true. “You never feel second best where the man is concerned."
I'm not the only woman who notices this. He has this affect on all females. From our sixty five year old janitor to the granddaughter of the woman who works for the investment business down the hall, they're all smitten. He finds some piece of himself to give—a part ninety nine percent of men won't find for even one woman.
But there's a price for that.
Fuck ... I was worried about him. He put on a show. But the last couple of weeks, he wasn't himself. Said it was a cold, said it was business, said it was Monica's calls, he said it was a lot of things.
I should have known.
My breakdown happens over the steering wheel. In the god damn parking garage. There's a knocking on the window. I roll it down, who knows how long he's been out there.
"You're not driving yourself home,” says Brian. “Open the door and slide over."
I pull the button and do as he says. I can't fight anymore, I haven't the strength.
"Where do you live?” he gets behind the wheel.
"Off University. Do you know where that is?"
"Yea, I lived in Orlando for a few years."
"What day is it?” I ask.
"Tuesday."
"The heart attack was Monday."
"Uh huh."
"Seems like a century."
"You must be beat."
"Not really.” He has the Air Force jacket on. It smells like Thomas. “Do you want to get a burger, Brian?"
You don't know how close I just came to saying beer. A beer as in five, six, seven or eight. Not serious drinking mind you, just fun, a little unwinding, who could blame me? It's under control, see? Otherwise I'd be thinking about my wine. Or my vodka. Now there's the serious shit.
Christ, I'm desperate. Brian scares the shit out of me, but the alternative is my own company and we all know how much that sucks.
We find a chain diner. Just two other couples besides us, both older. The waitress is about his age, blonde, she flirts with him. Is it that obvious we're not a couple or does the little wench not care at all?
I want to bite her head off, honest to god. Little twits. Why did Thomas up and marry one? I'd go back in time and give him a dumb slap if I could. We could have married each other otherwise, or at least lived together. Okay, maybe I am leery of living with men anymore, but they sure as hell don't need to be with blondes or checking them out.
"Here's the thing,” I tell him after the diet colas arrive. “I don't give a damn about my own reputation..."
He smiles. “Should I call you Joan Jett?"
"That's before your time,” I accuse. “You can't quote it."
"A lot of people say I was born in the wrong decade."
"People say your father was born in the wrong century."
"What should he have been? A pirate?"
"Something like that."
"About your reput
ation,” he finishes my thought. “It's safe with me. I respect my dad and you. No one will ever know."
"What exactly is it you think you know, anyway?"
"I didn't know anything for sure until you freaked out on me back in the cafeteria."
I shake my head. “I guess I made a jackass of myself, huh?"
"No. I was the jackass. It was a dickhead move bringing the whole thing up. I'm sorry, Caroline."
"It's okay.” I sip my soda. The apology means a lot. “We're both not at our best."
"I don't know what to feel,” he says. “The man is my father, I never got to know him like I should, people hear who I am they make all these assumptions, what it's supposed to be for me. I'm just empty. Does that make me a bad person?"
"It makes you human. You think I know what to feel? I'm so busy covering everything up I can't even begin to deal with my own grief."
"You shouldn't have to do that. I'm sorry."
I have a lump in my throat.
"What? Did I say the wrong thing?"
"No ... it's just ... it's just that Thomas says stuff like that. He's always trying to take on the responsibilities for the sum total of people's life experiences. At least it seems that way to me."
"Some people need to do that."
"Some people jump off cliffs and drink themselves to death."
"My dad almost did."
"So did I."
The burgers come juicy, medium well, stacked high with onions and ketchup and pickles. I cut mine in half. It's as much as I'll eat. Brian picks his up, takes a huge bite like it is the whole fucking world in his hands.
The waitress lingers a moment to watch him enjoy. She's entranced. It's like that with Thomas. Every woman is fascinated. He teases me frequently about being jealous.
"Need anything, Sir?” she flips her hair.
I know what she needs—a good spanking.
"We're fine.” I ward off the blonde with a stare.
"If you don't stop that...” I turn on Brian.
"What, Caroline?"
"Doing things the same way as him."
"You'll have to give me a list,” he says sardonically. “Gestures, expressions."
"It's no use. You look too much like him."
Own Me Wholly! Page 2
