Between These Walls

by John Herrick

  “That’s right, less than a year away! A perfect June wedding for a delicate princess.” Hunter shot her a wink.

  “The stuff dreams are made of.”

  Hunter sipped his coffee, which went down smooth. Liquid velvet, as he described it.

  As Ellen talked further about her roommate and an argument she’d had with the landlord, Hunter got distracted by a sudden brush against his shoulder as two individuals made their way in opposite directions beside his booth. Hunter looked up.

  “Sorry about that,” said a guy around Hunter’s age as he steadied a tray in his hands. Dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved polo shirt, he looked like the type of person who would wear short sleeves in the middle of winter. Judging from the jeans, Hunter guessed the guy had taken a vacation day.

  “Oh, you’re fine,” Hunter said, waving it off with his hand.

  As the guy walked past, Hunter noticed the flex of his biceps as he carried the tray topped with a sandwich and a heavy bowl of soup. The guy had added a dab of gel to his hair. His dark hair and deep skin tone suggested Mediterranean genes. Italian, probably.

  Hunter returned his attention to Ellen and tried to focus on her face. Yet, at frequent intervals, Hunter flicked his eyes to the guy who had brushed his shoulder, who had settled into the booth behind Ellen, facing Hunter and in his direct line of vision. Unaware of Hunter’s glances, the young guy started his lunch and paid Hunter no further attention.

  “Anyway,” Ellen continued, “when Brendan and I build our new home, I’ll have plenty of room to cook.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to buy an existing home?”

  “Are you kidding? This new home is Brendan’s dream. After all these years he’s spent working for the construction company, managing projects and walking people through the options for their homes, he gets to build one for himself.”

  Another quick glance toward the guy in the next booth, then back to Ellen.

  “In that case, it sounds ready-made for him,” Hunter said. “Brendan probably has all the research and connections in place.”

  “Connections, skills, plus we get to buy all the materials at cost, which is a huge savings,” Ellen said. “And since we’re designing the house ourselves, we can plan the kitchen with my business in mind. I’d love to have a nice, big kitchen to work in. It’s every professional cook’s dream.”

  “A new home for a new marriage.”

  Ellen ran her fingernail along the edge of the table, peered at a distant point past Hunter’s shoulder. “Everything changes from there, doesn’t it …”

  To Hunter, Ellen appeared absentminded. Perhaps she thought she recognized another customer standing in line. He tried to decipher what had captured her attention, but he wound up short and figured he had read too much into it. While Ellen tended not to hide her opinions, Hunter could tell she stifled her share of personal thoughts.

  “How long before you build?” he asked. “Do you have an area picked out?”

  “Oh, I didn’t tell you! Over the weekend, we checked out a plot of land we love! I’ll show it to you some time. If Brendan can negotiate the price and the sale goes through, we can break ground and get the walls built this spring.”

  Hunter sneaked another glance at the guy in the next booth, who thumbed through his phone as he ate. Studying the man’s face closer, Hunter found it handsome. Not the chiseled features of a model or someone who would render Hunter too bashful to look him directly in the eyes, but everyday, all-American good looks. Hunter also had no doubt the man was straight.

  At that point, the man gave a final tap to his phone and looked up. At random, his eyes landed on Hunter. Before Hunter had a chance to think, he cut his glance away from the guy.

  Gritting his teeth, Hunter prayed the guy hadn’t noticed. For Hunter, these frequent glances were akin to habit. He did it as second nature, without thinking about it first, the way other guys—and even Hunter himself, when his interests tugged him in the opposite direction—checked out females.

  But there was a difference: If a female caught a guy checking her out, the guy could wave it off. She might even consider it a compliment. When Hunter checked out another man, however, the thought of getting caught left him anxious—as anxious as he felt right now. But the man, who returned his attention to his phone, didn’t appear to give Hunter’s actions another thought. Hunter whispered thanks to God, who had rescued him from another close call.

  “You’ve got a big life change coming up, getting married. Are you looking forward to it?” Hunter asked. Then, reconsidering what he’d asked, he snorted and took a sip of coffee. “What am I saying? Of course you’re excited.”

  Ellen reached over and gave his elbow a playful jab. “Way to go, Hunter Carlisle, ruining a bride’s ride upon her fluffy cloud of bliss.”

  “You’re right.” He gave Ellen his most wicked grin. “Maybe you should give me another look at your engagement ring so we can giggle together over the size of the diamond.”

  “Great comeback. So you’re saying women are pathetic?”

  “Just trying to dig myself out of this hole I’ve stumbled into. My chances don’t look promising, though.”

  “Don’t worry, you’re not the first to ask about the wife thing,” Ellen said with a wink. “Why do you think everyone’s shocked that I’m getting married?”

  “I don’t think shocked is the best word. I’d say it takes a lot of us by surprise because you’ve always been the independent type. You’ve had relationships, but you’ve never needed them.”

  “I do take care of myself, huh?”

  “That, plus you’re a ball-buster.”

  “Whatever. Be glad you’re not on my enemy list, Carlisle.” Ellen took a final bite of her salad before shoving the bowl aside. “In all honesty, I surprised myself by getting engaged—for the same reasons. It happened so fast. When Brendan popped the question, it threw me off balance. That doesn’t happen much. Immediately, I said yes—just blurted it out before I had a chance to consider what was coming out of my mouth. But as the weeks passed, it started to make sense: Brendan and I love each other. Why not dive in? I mean, if you’re gonna do something, why do it half-assed?”

  “You have a way with words. You should include that in your wedding vows.”

  Ellen laughed as she sipped her iced tea. Hunter finished off his Reuben sandwich and picked at the remaining homemade potato chips. He felt the warmth of sunlight as it emanated through the window and settled on the back of his neck.

  “Marriage changes everything. But it’s a good change, right?” Ellen said. “It’s not the kind of disruption that causes the roof of your life to come crashing down while you’re still surrounded by walls.”

  Ellen seemed to step deep into thought for a moment, then shook herself out of it.

  “Wedding plans are keeping me busy. Then again, there’s never a convenient time to become extra busy,” she said. “That’s one difference between other women and me: They shriek over their weddings, making sure they fulfill every detail of an elaborate dream they’ve constructed for themselves since childhood. But for me, the wedding’s functional. I love Brendan, and that’s all that matters to me.”

  “It’s your wedding. You should do whatever makes you happy. If simple makes you happy, more power to you.”

  “Brendan’s parents have a different perspective on that. They want a big wedding and are paying for it themselves. I don’t even know how it happened. It’s like I woke up one morning, got into my car, and drove right into the middle of a fairy tale. Which reminds me, have you seen my magic wand? I seem to have left it behind somewhere.”

  Hunter leaned over and feigned a quick search. “I don’t see it under the table …”

  “Where, oh where, is my magic wand? Don’t worry, it’ll show up.” She patted her seat. “I’ll get comfortable, sit down on a comfy booth like this one, and then—Ping!—that magic wand will poke me in the ass when I least expect it. Watch it happen.”

&nb
sp; They chuckled together. Hunter took their trays to the trash receptacle, got drink refills for Ellen and him, and returned to the table.

  “How’s your back?” Ellen asked. “How long did it take for my little napkin with the massage clinic’s phone number to hit the trash can?”

  Hunter debated whether to keep his visits a secret, but decided he had no need to do so. Ellen didn’t suspect anything beyond functionality.

  “As a matter of fact, I took your advice for once.”

  Ellen plopped back in her seat with such force, her brunette hair bounced against her shoulders. “You actually showed up for an appointment?”

  “Twice.”

  “And?”

  “And …” Hunter sighed. “Okay, fine. It helped. You were right.”

  “I knew it!” Ellen beamed. “Gabe is a miracle worker, isn’t he?”

  “I feel much better. So I owe you my thanks.”

  “Are we talking eternal gratitude here?”

  “Don’t push your luck.” Hunter focused on his coffee cup. He jiggled it in his hand and felt the liquid slosh around inside. “I couldn’t believe what a difference the first appointment made, so I went again yesterday.” He sipped his coffee and avoided eye contact. No telling what Ellen might decipher from it. “We got to talking, and as it turns out, our paths crossed at a church youth event, way back when we were teenagers.”

  “No kidding?” Ellen crossed her arms as a smirk formed. “It sounds like you got along well with him.”

  “We had a good time. We talked and joked around, shooting the breeze while he did his job. We’re as different as night and day but got along real well. Great sense of humor. It made the whole massage concept … bearable.”

  “That Gabe is such a sweet guy. And you know I don’t say that about many people.” She shook her head in disappointment. “I wish I could find him the perfect girl. He’s not seeing anyone.”

  At that, Hunter’s ears perked up, but he allowed no outward signs of reaction. Feigning nonchalance, he said, “He’s not?”

  “Nope,” she said, then snickered, “I must admit, I’ve wondered at times if Gabe is secretly gay.”

  Hunter almost choked as he swallowed his coffee. “Why would you wonder that?”

  “I can’t put my finger on it.” Ellen squinted in thought. “A couple of his mannerisms, maybe an inflection in his voice. I don’t know.” She leaned forward. “What do you think, Hunter? You’ve met him. Did you notice what I’m talking about?”

  Hunter gave a halfhearted shrug to indicate he didn’t care one way or the other. His heartbeat jack-hammered.

  “But then I give it more thought and realize I’m flat-out wrong,” Ellen added. “He can’t be gay.”

  “Why not?”

  “What do you mean, ‘Why not?’ He’s a Christian. You can’t be a Christian and be gay, right?” Ellen said. “You all seem immune to it.”

  Hunter took a long draw on his coffee.

  CHAPTER 9

  When Hunter asked how Kara wanted to spend her Friday night, she said she wanted nothing but to curl up on her sofa with a movie. So Hunter left work an hour early, picked her up from the airport, and took her to her apartment, where they ordered from a Chinese restaurant around the corner. Now, with nothing but two glasses of wine before them on her coffee table, Kara nestled against him.

  At first, she suggested they pick a movie from their streaming rental queue online, a film on which they could agree. But Hunter insisted she pick a movie she wanted to see—her perfect moment to relax after returning from two weeks in Paris.

  Kara loved romantic dramas. The more tears, the better. And this film contained plenty of them. Hunter often teased her about her taste in movies because their plots always anchored on a death or illness of some variety. In Hunter’s words, I can tell you what will happen in this movie: Either someone dies in the beginning, or someone has an illness and dies a slow death through the film, or someone has a sudden death at the end. And he was seldom wrong.

  True to form, he found this particular film a tad too melodramatic for his taste. But what intrigued him was the fact that Kara, effervescent as she was—the young woman who kept Michael Bublé on constant rotation in her car—had such dark taste when it came to the films she watched. Yet when he looked around her apartment and noticed things like decorative flowers and scented candles, jars of bath salts and beads of oil or whatever they were in her bathroom, the fresh vegetables she picked up from a farmer’s market when she stayed in town long enough to shop there, he saw signs of a woman who could probe the simplicity of life and uncover treasures the rest of mankind would overlook.

  Hunter wrapped his arm around her and she nuzzled against him further. He listened to her breathing as it slowed. She reached such a point of relaxation, he couldn’t help but check to see if she still had her eyes open.

  On the screen before them, a married woman had wound up in an affair with a chef. It had started with an exchange of glances on a subway in New York. Before she knew it, she had created excuse after excuse to stop by his restaurant. In fact, she took many people in her life along with her. They knew she had met the chef. They themselves had met the chef, partaken of his cuisine, recommended his restaurant to their friends and family. Whenever the woman visited the restaurant, the chef would stop by the table to greet her fellow patrons, charming them with his wit and anecdotes of training in Paris. Upon closer examination, they might have noticed the chef had stopped by their table while ignoring all others in the dining room. They might have observed how close the chef stood to the woman.

  The indicators were obvious. Yet no one suspected the woman and the chef had succumbed to their desires. Least of all, the woman’s husband.

  Now, as her husband searched for a specific necktie in their walk-in closet, the woman listened to his voice as he spoke from the other side of the closet wall. Torn between the shame she felt and the hefty price honesty would require, she vacillated on how to approach the subject with her husband. Hunter could see the angst in her eyes, in the way she pursed her lips, in the way she rubbed her temples. Despite his disinterest in the film, Hunter noticed he had clung to every detail in the scene before him.

  Hunter sipped his wine. For the sake of his male ego, he decided to give Kara a little tease about her movie. He gestured toward the actress. “That woman’s tormenting herself night after night. Why doesn’t she get it over with and tell him the truth?”

  “It’s not that simple, Hunter,” Kara replied in innocence. “She’s conflicted. Her secret has spun out of her control.”

  “I don’t know what she sees in the chef anyway. The two of them are polar opposites.”

  “It’s not a matter of similarity. She has emotional needs that are rooted from when her twin brother ran a red light and got killed in an intersection on Prom Night. Remember that from the opening scene?”

  “Yeah, but that was thirty years ago.”

  “It still scarred her. It was her twin, Hunter. A piece of her went missing after that night. She didn’t simply lose her brother; she lost her best friend, her closest confidante.”

  “He was her brother, not her lover.”

  Kara released a playful sigh. “I know that, but it left her with unresolved issues and feelings of abandonment. So when she perceives that her husband loves his career more than he loves her, she feels like her closest confidante has started to abandon her all over again. So, now, she has these emotional needs that she wishes her husband could fulfill, but the chef has fulfilled instead. She’s in a worse pickle than when she started, but she can’t find her way out. All because of one critical mistake.”

  “Which was?”

  “She thought she could solve her issue with sex. One night of intimacy. Forbidden fruit. But it solved nothing and created a slew of new problems for her.”

  Hunter hadn’t read into the character’s motivations the way Kara had. Then again, she was used to these films. His preferences veered toward mov
ies that involved explosions in cars or skyscrapers. Now that he thought about it, Kara’s and his preferences both involved people clinging for their lives. In Hunter’s case, however, the characters clung in a literal sense—from a building hundreds of feet above rush-hour traffic in Manhattan.

  As Kara grew absorbed in the film again, Hunter ran his fingers through her blond hair. He nuzzled his nose and mouth in her hair for a moment, inhaled the scent of jasmine. Kara didn’t seem to notice, other than the absentminded response of running her thumb along the palm of his hand as she kept her eyes glued to the television, listening to every word.

  Moving his head lower, Hunter twice brushed the nape of her neck with the tip of his nose, then planted a kiss on that spot. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine himself in love with her. And although, considering his faith, he wasn’t sure whether he should do this, he pictured her without clothes on. He had seen her in a bathing suit but had never caught a glimpse of what hid underneath. He relaxed, envisioned himself exploring the shapes and textures of what might exist beneath her layers of clothing.

  Hunter wished he could arouse a sexual attraction toward her. Though he found women attractive, its foundation rested in outward appearance—the pretty factor—rather than a sexual desire.

  Despite his attractions to the same gender, however, Hunter found peace in the fact that he hadn’t deceived Kara. He had focused on her the way an attentive boyfriend should and had made an honest investment in their relationship. His distractions came by way of little tugs toward other men, temptations that tried to lull him into complicity.

  That had been his destiny in every relationship, regardless of who his girlfriend was. Regardless of his fervency when his relationships began, his inner tugs would, in time, sabotage them.

  Hunter wanted to be normal. He just couldn’t find a way to get there.

  With all his heart, Hunter wanted to be attracted to Kara. He wanted not only to find her attractive, but to desire her the way he knew she desired him. The way other men desired the woman with whom they shared a relationship. Though Hunter had tried to kindle that sort of desire on countless occasions, he wound up frustrated each time. His roots had anchored themselves so deep, not even sex could eliminate them.