“What did you say to him?”
“Nothing,” I replied as I started the engine.
“Well, whatever it was, it sure must have been somethin’,” Uncle Jack proposed as he fidgeted with his splint. “Haven’t seen that boy smile like that since…I can’t remember when.”
* * *
The next day, a dozen yellow roses arrived at my office in a large green vase.
Steve smirked as he carried the roses into my office and ceremoniously placed them on my desk. “Slept with him, eh? How was he?”
I put the chart I had been reading to the side and inspected the roses. “I don’t kiss and tell, Steve,” I pronounced, and plucked the small white envelope from the bouquet. I was going to open it, but decided to wait until I was alone.
“Must not have been that great, otherwise you’d be blushing.” Steve waved at the roses. “Anyway, it’s a classic post first-time-in-bed-move to send flowers.” He ran his fingers over the yellow buds. “Means he wants more sex. If he didn’t send flowers then the sex wasn’t so great, and you would never see him again.”
I sat back in my desk chair and stared at him. “Am I missing something here? Some unpublished phantom handbook that floats around on the particular elements of dating? You and my mother keep quoting these rules to me.”
“Ah, you must have told Claire about him. Now it will get interesting. Did she ask you to bring him over for dinner yet?”
I grimaced with apprehension. “Not yet.”
Steve laughed, a loud sounding cackle that filled my small office. “She will!”
“I don’t know if I’m up for that.” I paused as I inhaled the sweet aroma of the roses. “Knowing Mother, she’ll probably scare him away.”
“Hell, Claire will probably abduct him.” He took in my concerned frown. “Don’t look so worried, Nora. If he’s serious, he’ll want to meet her.”
“How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “All men approach dating the same way, and meeting the future in-laws is always a serious step. Except it’s a much bigger deal to women.”
“How would you know what women are like?”
He waved his hand dramatically in the air. “I went with girls in high school. Where I came from in Mississippi, no one even knew what a homosexual was, let alone how to act like one. So, I started out with girls, but when I was ready I switched to men.”
“When did you decide you were ready? Do all men have some unwritten schedule when it comes to dating? When to date someone, when to sleep with them, when to get serious?”
Steve gave a heartfelt laugh. “That’s silly, Nora.” He started toward my office door. “The only people I know who do stuff like that either need medication or are already on it,” he added over his shoulder.
After Steve shut my door, I took the white envelope out of my hand and opened it.
“Sorry I was such an ass. I apologize, and hope we can be friends.” The card was signed Jean Marc Gaspard.
I had to read the note twice to make sure I was not hallucinating.
“Great, just great.” I slapped the card down on my desk. This was completely unexpected. Then, another thought crossed my mind. Why didn’t John send flowers?
I picked up the phone and pressed the intercom button to Steve’s desk.
“Miss me already?” he said into the intercom.
“Steve, see if you can find the number for a Gaspard Fisheries in Manchac,” I stated, still looking at the flowers on my desk.
“Why, are we having a crawfish boil or somethin’?”
“No.”
“Then why do you need the number?” he persisted.
“Because the owner of Gaspard Fisheries, Jean Marc Gaspard, is the one who sent me the flowers.”
There was silence on the other end of the line, and then my office door flew open.
“Who in the hell is Jean Marc Gaspard? Have you been keeping another man from me, Nora?” Steve called from my doorway.
I gave an exasperated sigh. “He’s an old family friend, not a man in my life.”
Steve stared me down with his intimidating blue eyes. “And I’m straight.” He took a step inside my office. “So who is he?”
I sat back in my chair. “A friend…no, not a friend, more like an adversary. He and I never got along well, except when I was little. He used to watch over me when I was younger.” I waved a dismissive hand at him. “But that was a long time ago.”
“Obviously his feelings haven’t changed.” Steve nodded to the flowers. “Is he cute?”
“Cute?” I shook my head. “I don’t know. He’s dark and moody. He always seems to be in a foul temper, and talks to me like I’m eight years old. Oh, and the way he looks at me, it’s as if I have the plague. And he’s always got—”
“Nora.” Steve rolled his eyes at me. “You’re in trouble.”
I furrowed my brow at my secretary. “What makes you say that?”
He grinned at me. “The doctor never got you this hot and bothered.”
“I’m not hot and bothered. I’m aggravated,” I corrected.
Steve snickered. “Darlin’, for you it’s the same thing.” Then he quietly pulled the office door closed behind him.
* * *
It took three different transfers on the phone with Gaspard Fisheries to finally get through to Jean Marc’s offices. I was about to give up after holding on the line for several minutes, when I suddenly heard a smooth, deep voice come over the speaker of my cell phone.
“Gaspard here,” he said in his usual brisk, businesslike tone.
“Jean Marc, it’s Nora Kehoe.”
There was a moment of silence. “You got them,” he whispered.
“Yes, thank you, but it was not—”
“Yes, it was,” he cut in. “I shouldn’t have jumped all over you like that. Your uncle was hurt and you were scared for him. I was out of line and I wanted to apologize for the way I acted.”
I fidgeted in my chair, unsure of how to respond. “Well, I’ve said some things in the past that I shouldn’t have, but no matter what we say or do, Jean Marc, we will probably always feel at odds with each other.”
“I don’t feel that way about you.” He paused, and I could hear a phone ringing in the background.
“You’re busy,” I surmised, brushing off his words. “I just wanted to thank you for the flowers, and I promise I’ll try to do better with us in the future.”
He sighed heavily into the phone. The ringing stopped in the background and I heard a woman’s voice calling his name.
“Nora, I didn’t send you the flowers to make you feel guilty.” There was another awkward moment of silence. “I was going to invite your uncle to stay a few days over at the house with my mother. Momma’s got plenty of room in that old mansion, and when I told her what happened, she insisted on looking after Jack. She even went out and bought one of those electronic blood pressure cuffs for him.”
“I don’t know what to say, but thank you, Jean Marc. That makes me feel so much better. I know Ms. Marie and Uncle Jack go way back.”
“Yes, they do.” I heard him shuffle some papers about. “Did you know my mother turned your uncle down for a date to the senior prom? Went with my father instead.”
“I’ve never heard that story,” I confessed, somewhat taken aback, because my uncle always loved to tell stories about growing up in Manchac.
“Have Jack tell you about it some time,” he stated, just as more ringing began in the background.
“Yes, well, thanks again, Jean Marc. I won’t keep you. I know you’re busy.”
“All right, Nora.” His voice seemed to return to its usual detached tone. “I’ll get word to you when I get your uncle set up at the house. Good-bye.” Then he hung up.
I stared at my cell phone as I mulled over our conversation. But just as I was about to put my cell phone in my purse, my intercom beeped in.
“John Blessing is on line one,” Steve announced into the speaker. “A
nd he sounds divine.”
Chapter 6
Three weeks later, John decided that the time had come to meet my parents.
“I think we are due an evening with Claire and your stepfather. Better to make the introductions at this point in our relationship,” he had said early one morning while I was cooking his breakfast.
“Are you sure about that?” I had questioned.
“They need to meet me, Nora. It’s time.”
I noticed how everything about our relationship seemed to be set according to some imaginary schedule John had predetermined. But I attributed his behavior to the rigorous demands of his medical training, and figured all residents probably approached dating in the same way.
A few days before our dinner with my parents, John determined it was necessary to discuss the proper term for our arrangement.
“I think the time has come for you and me to consider ourselves an item,” he proposed while we were getting ready for bed.
A gentle spring rain pattered on my roof as I eased my nightshirt over my head.
“We should agree to tell everyone we know that this is an exclusive relationship,” John insisted.
I pulled the beige comforter back on my four-poster bed. “John, you have been spending every night you’re off from the hospital here with me. I think it’s pretty obvious we’re not seeing other people.”
He tossed his scrub suit top on a chair next to the bed. “But we haven’t discussed it. I want you to know that exclusive means you and me, Nora. No dating other people,” he added with a stern frown.
I climbed onto my bed. “You mean like going steady?”
“If you like.” He removed his scrub pants and boxers.
I sat back and took in his naked body. “All right, John. If that's what you want.”
He nestled next to me. “I’m glad we sorted that out,” he whispered against my neck. “Now why don’t we seal the deal,” he suggested, and his teeth grazed my shoulder. “Take off that nightshirt and let’s have some fun.”
I slipped the nightshirt over my head and John’s hands eagerly went to work exploring my body. As he whispered instructions to me like a motion picture director supervising a love scene, I began to wonder if sex with John was always going to be like this. It wasn’t that I disliked having sex with him; it was more like I no longer felt spontaneous.
Determined to try something different, I tried to shift John’s body to the side. “Why don’t you let me get on top? It could be fun to change things up a bit.”
“Just do it this way,” John impatiently muttered as he gently guided my body back underneath him.
I didn’t have a vast amount of experience in the bedroom, but my few previous lovers had taught me that some degree of variety in bed helped to keep the relationship from getting stale. But John seemed to enjoy the same old routine.
“Don’t you want to try something new?” I asked as his hands began to spread my legs apart.
“No,” he said breathlessly. “Now, shift your hips up to me like I showed you.”
I decided not to pursue the subject further. I just wondered how long it would be before I began to want more.
* * *
On the evening when we were to meet my parents for dinner, John resolved the time had come to affirm our true feelings for each other.
“I think we should iron out the exact emotional level of our relationship,” he stated as we headed along the interstate in his always perfectly clean car.
I turned from the window and peered over at him. “What are you talking about?”
He kept his eyes on the road. “Your parents will want to know my intentions, and I think—”
“Correction,” I interrupted. “Only my mother will want to know your intentions. Lou is the normal one.”
“Well, I think we need to discuss how we feel about each other. Your parents will want to know if we are serious.”
I gave him a questioning look. “We’ve agreed not to see other people. I thought that meant we are serious.”
He cleared his throat as he took the exit off the interstate to St. Charles Avenue. “Yes, but we have never really talked about how we feel about each other, have we, Nora? Most women want to know where a man stands, emotionally.”
“Do they?” I shrugged my shoulders, never having felt the need to know where John stood on our relationship. I already knew.
That gnawing little burn in my stomach began to churn ever so slightly as we descended the exit ramp. I chalked up the feeling to motion sickness, not wanting to analyze the sensation any further.
After an odd silence filled the car, he said, “I love you.” He paused for an uncomfortable second or two as he pulled the car up to a red light. Then he turned to me. “Now, tell me how you feel,” he insisted.
“I, ah….” I stuttered as the burning sensation in my stomach intensified to an uncomfortable irritation. “I love you, too, John,” I finally told him.
John leaned over and tenderly kissed my lips. Then he put the car into gear just as the light changed to green.
“I’m glad we discussed that. It makes our relationship stronger,” he affirmed and directed his attention back to the road ahead.
I said nothing as he drove down St. Charles Avenue. I just kept running our conversation over in my mind. I had never told a man I loved him before, but somehow I thought the experience was supposed to be a bit more emotional. Or at least that was the way it always appeared to be in the movies. But life was not a movie. No matter how much we desperately wanted the fantasy, reality would always triumph.
By the time we pulled into my parents’ driveway, I had come to the conclusion that John definitely had some unromantic ways about him. But I shrugged off my pessimistic attitude and decided, what was romance between two medical professionals? Romance was for the hapless housewife starved of affection, and her nose buried inside some steamy novel. I could not afford such trivialities in my life. A relationship was a business, an intimate business between two contractual partners. Love, romance, and passion only clouded the mind and blinded one to the harsh reality of life. We are born, we mate, and then we die. Everything was biologically predicated on the need to continue the species, just as Darwin had concluded all those years ago.
I looked over at John as he turned off the engine and opened his car door. His physical appearance was appealing, he was successful, and he was dependable. What else could a girl ask for?
As we approached the front door of my parents’ uptown double-gallery home, complete with white Doric columns, long balconies, and wide french doors, I could not help but question if some of my mother’s ravings over the past few years had not rubbed off on me. Here was a fine specimen of a man that I had roped and corralled. But could I find contentment in a life of branded bliss with him? I gazed from John’s profile to the leaded glass front door of my old home.
Let’s just see what mother thinks of this one, I thought as the door opened before me. The old librarian has finally come through.
“Darling,” Mother cooed as she stood in the doorway.
She was in one of her finer designer dresses, a shimmering silver piece that was cut very low at her bust and fit a little too snuggly about her hips. The dress clashed with the extraordinary amount of diamonds she had around her neck, her ears, and about both wrists. She had even teased her usually conservatively coifed red hair into a round bun above her head. She reminded me of a Christmas ornament, the kind one leaves in the box and does not put on the tree. Standing behind her in the foyer, Lou was wearing one of his ill-fitting dark suits, thick-rimmed black glasses, and holding a glass of bourbon in his hand.
“Mother, Lou.” I turned to John. “This is John Blessing.”
John stepped into the rosewood-inlaid foyer and kissed my mother on the cheek. He then reached over and took a firm grasp of Lou’s outstretched hand.
“Welcome, John,” Mother purred as she took his arm. She walked him into the living room beyond the foye
r, leaving Lou and me to take up the rear.
“You’d better be prepared,” Lou whispered to me. “She’s gone hog wild. Even wanted me to hire a butler for the occasion.”
I frowned at Lou as we entered the living room. “I knew she would be impossible tonight. Ever since she found out John was a doctor, she’s been pestering me to bring him over.”
Lou nodded to John holding my mother’s arm ahead of us as Mother showed him to the bar at the far end of the living room. “You like this one, No?” Lou asked, calling me by the nickname he had given me ever since the first day Mother had brought him home to meet me. “I mean, his being a doctor is great and all, but do you really like the guy?”
I stopped and stared into Lou’s bloodshot, hazel eyes. “You know something I don’t, Lou?”
“Nah, I just was wondering how you felt about him.” He motioned over to my mother, who was smiling and preparing a drink for John at the bar. “We know how your mother feels. She’d marry him if she could.”
I elbowed my stepfather playfully. “She loves you, Lou. You know that.”
He looked at me, his eyes tinged with uncertainty. “I wonder about that sometimes, No.”
“You’re the only person who understands her, Lou. I’m her daughter and I don’t even understand her. But you do.”
Lou took a swig from his glass. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
Mother had gone all out for John, as I discovered when we entered the dining room to sit down for dinner. Her best Royal Worcester china and Baccarat crystal were displayed on top of the fancy Irish linen tablecloth she kept under lock and key. The expensive candles in the antique silver candelabra, which prior to tonight had been a blasphemy to light, were burning away, dripping their expensive, rose-scented wax down the polished silver. The table even had the best of the silver dining utensils and serving pieces laid out in an intricate array probably not seen on this side of the Atlantic Ocean in over a hundred years.
“My God, Mother!” I exclaimed, almost laughing at the garish presentation. “Is the Queen of England coming to dinner?”
My mother tittered nervously. “Really, Nora, you act as if you were raised in a barn. You know very well I always use the best china for special occasions.”
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