Rosethorn

by Ava Zavora

  Planets had paraded humbly before them on this night; anything was possible, even forgiveness.

  “I thought that you were testing me, again. How far could you go, how much you could hurt me and I’d take it, all to prove how much I loved you.”

  Sera had smothered her protest. She would grant him the exorcism she had sought for herself.

  “I was impatient and simple. I just wanted to be with you. But you had other plans..." Here he had fallen silent and although she wanted to fill the chasm, Sera remained quiet.

  “My parents had been having problems. I heard them talking one night about separating. They’d been married for 27 years and I thought they were happy. I felt like I’d been sucker-punched.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Sera had exclaimed, even as lightning perception struck her. Completely immersed in her own anger and pain, would she have listened if he had told her, not when she harbored her own secrets from him?

  “I guess because I didn’t want to face it. I thought if I could hang on to you, to us.”

  “You thought I would be the one constant thing. So when I told you about Columbia---”

  “I felt like there was nothing I could count on, not you, not my parents." He had turned to her. “But you have to believe,” his voice hoarse, eyes pleading, “that if I had only known--nothing on earth...”

  “I know,” she had replied as clarity washed over her. “I know.”

  “I failed you. I failed us, but I didn’t realize it for a long time. I was too angry. I quit State that fall and never went back. When my parents ended up getting a divorce, I just checked out. I took the Mustang, what little money I had and drove up Oregon and Washington, camping or sleeping in my car, working odd jobs here and there. I was aimless. It took me three months to make my peace with the world, to realize what an ass I’d been. But I thought it was too late by then, for us. I was young and still cocky enough to think that there would be other chances to find what we had.”

  “How many chances did you have?” she tried to ask casually as she rested her chin on his chest.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “That many, huh?” She got off him and drew the sheets up to her chin. “And your engagement?” she asked tentatively.

  He sighed. “She was...everything I needed."

  Her heart twisted at this, jealous and pained to hear him talk of another woman with such feeling.

  “I was happy with her and we would have had a great life. We were engaged for a year, then two years and still we hadn’t set a date. She said I always found some excuse, wait until we find the perfect house or let me finish one more flip. It was entirely by chance, at least that’s what I told myself then, that I came by this house. I hadn’t been by since the day it ended between us." He shook his head as if in bewilderment.

  “I wasn’t prepared for ... what it brought up. I made an offer and it was mine three days after, just like that, without telling her. She was hurt, not because she knew what it meant to me—she didn’t know anything about its history. I brought her here, and as we walked around, I just knew. She and I would never live in this house together." He rubbed his stubbled chin thoughtfully, a man’s gesture.

  “Why did you buy the house?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out for months,” he laughed. “Why did you come back?”

  She took his hands and bent over them. They were rough and red with calluses and scars, which she slowly traced with her fingers. “You never used to have these,” she murmured as she kissed each palm lightly. They used to smell of grass and earth back then, now they smelled faintly metallic.

  “I looked you up in the web one time. I saw all the articles you had written, all the places you’d traveled. I felt like I did when we were kids, wondering who you were." One hand reached for the bullet necklace, back around her neck. “It was like I never knew you.”

  Her hand closed over his. “So many people have asked about this. Always curious about the story behind it.”

  “And what would you tell them?”

  “Nothing. A good friend of mine, Elise, said it was better to preserve the mystery—‘Just leave them with a Mona Lisa smile,’ she said, ‘And let them invent a fantastic story on their own.’” Sera laughed.

  “She’s always telling me provocative advice like that, my self-appointed fairy godmother. She’s the first friend I ever made in New York, actually. She kind of adopted me, fed me, showed me how to dress, how to do my hair, so many things. But most of all, she helped me to stop being sad all the time. No one can be sad around Elise.”

  “She probably wouldn’t think much of me then.”

  “Oh, no!" Sera sat up, excited. “I’d love for you two to meet. You should see her palazzo in Umbria and the clothes she wears—she dresses like a movie star, diamonds while she gardens and rubies when--”

  “What does she think of your French boyfriend?” He said quietly, arms crossed. “You haven’t said much about him. Or about yourself, actually. I’ve practically laid out my whole life and yet I still know so little about you.”

  She shook her head, then lay back down, her ear to his heart. She could hear its even beating, feel his chest rising and falling with every breath.

  “I met him the day you saved my life," She began. “And he’s not French, but an American ex-patriat living in Paris. We were on a boat in Slovenia, heading over to an island in the middle of Lake Bled. The oarsman was inexperienced, I found out later, and it was windy that day. One strong gust after another until the boat tipped over.”

  “I suppose if I had been swimming all my life I would have reacted quickly. Instead, I panicked. I had never been a very strong swimmer. I remember how icy the water was. I remember sinking further and further down until it was dark all around me. I had swallowed water and felt so heavy. It only took seconds to sink that far. But then out of the darkness I heard your voice--you were shouting, screaming at me to kick as hard as I could. And so I did. You never let up on me until I reached the surface. Chase was the one who stayed with me until another boat picked us up. He held me until I was warm and now comforts me whenever I wake up from nightmares about that day."

  She rose to meet his eyes.

  “What more is there to tell, Andrew? I suppose I can weave stories about the best osteria in Rome, how to bargain for carpets in Istanbul, how to say good day and please in countless languages. My poor passport doesn’t have space for another visa. Oh, all the stories I can tell you for days on end about being a gypsy. How Alli envies me. You remember Alli? She’s got two kids now. The most exotic place she’s ever been is Disneyland. And she reminds me that I’m living the life that others only dream of. Out of the two us, though, she’s the one who’s content. Frazzled, but content. But then she has a home, and all I have are a series of anecdotes." Sera paused to take a deep breath.

  “I came back because right here,” she said as she lay back down within the circle of his arms, “is the only place that ever felt like home. All that you need to know about me Andrew, you already know. Do you realize that? Everything comes back to here. Once upon a time, in this house, I used to know who I was and what I wanted.”

  “And now, do you know what you want? All you’ve done since you’ve been gone, all your wandering, and it’s led you back here."

  She didn’t answer him, and perhaps sensing the guilt that had begun to seep into the edges of their newly found happiness, they instead made plans for the next day, as if they were teenaged lovers again, with no thought beyond the immediacy of when they would next meet.

  *****

  There was no hiding what had happened the next morning.

  Sera did not have to look in the mirror to know how transparent she was—she could feel herself glowing, with secret smiles that her grandmother caught with worried eyes, restless and unable to keep from checking her watch every few minutes. Dreamy and feverish, Sera tried to keep her impatience from showing as they had their leisurely brunch and
shopped at the farmer’s market.

  Away from the old house, the guilt that she had ignored the night before – two missed calls from Chase, an e-mail from her editor asking about her article on Morocco, and now the discomfort of avoiding the obvious with her grandmother – was asserting itself, as unavoidable as the bright May sun.

  “Don’t think,” she almost said out loud, shaking her head as if to shake off the image of Chase that persisted in appearing before her, of the night before she flew home.

  Chase had grudgingly obliged one of her whims and they had taken the Metro to the Trocadero. They had strolled down the stone steps and past the fountains as someone from the square, a gypsy catering to the milling tourists and young lovers in dark corners, played “La Vie En Rose” on an accordion.

  Chase had rolled his eyes, but had stopped across the street from the brightly lit Eiffel Tower, held her cold face with his gloved hands, and kissed her until she was warm. With an indulgent air, he had bought her a chocolat et pistache glace from a street vendor and they sat on a bench next to the Seine.

  “Perhaps I should get you a waffle with melted noisette instead. Something warm,” he suggested as she shivered in his arms.

  “Wouldn’t be the sssame,” she had said, watching the tower with the glace in her hands.

  “Will you never get tired of this?”

  “Shhh!” she scolded, as she waited, poised on the edge of the bench.

  “Ahhh,” she said a moment later, when at the stroke of the hour, the lights of the Eiffel started twinkling, making it look like a gigantic Christmas tree against the backdrop of a Paris night sky.

  Wrapped up in strains of La Vie En Rose and twinkling lights, her future was a luxurious gift presented to her by Chase. She will never again have to be alone in the most beautiful places in the world for he would always be there right next to her.

  She leaned back and, deeply satisfied, she consumed her glace as they silently watched the brilliant display for 10 minutes, after which the tower lights ceased twinkling. She felt him watching her intently and so she turned her head.

  “Does this feel like home?" He placed a warm kiss on her forehead.

  “Mmmmm,” she sighed, eyes closing briefly in delicious contentment, mouth sticky with ice cream. “Not yet. But it will."

  That was only four days ago, she realized with shock, and now she was buying a baguette, roasted chicken, smoked salmon, and browsing for grape tomatoes in preparation for a wanton afternoon with another, as if that had been some other woman making plans to live in Paris with her lover.

  She did not know what to do with this contradiction, as she had subconsciously termed it, a word more comfortable than infidelity. So she ignored the troubling half of the contradiction, just as she ignored her grandmother’s strained face and delicate tiptoeing towards asking Sera what she thought she was doing, and concentrated on choosing, as if she were searching for rubies among rubble, the plumpest and sweetest tomatoes for lunch.

  Beyond the next few hours she did not, would not think, not even of the looming plane trip back to New York that night.

  “Don’t think,” she kept repeating to herself, as she quickly changed after the farmers market into a red wrap dress she had impulsively bought in Paris at Puces St. Ouen while Chase bargained for her antique desk.

  Circling its red strings twice around her waist, she imagined Andrew untying them, his rough hands unwrapping her from its silken folds.

  She left her hair down, the way he liked it, remembering how the night before he had loosened her chignon and buried his face in it, like he used to, and whispered, “You even smell different,” as if the loss of so many years could be measured in her hair, in her scent that was foreign to him.

  No lipstick or gloss, just a quick swipe of lip balm on her still-bruised lips, like overripe fruit, her feet into high heels, a quick glance in the mirror to see her sixteen-year-old self still looking back at her, then running down the stairs, like she used to, because Andrew was waiting for her.

  Nothing had changed; driving as fast as she could to the old house, but wishing she could fly to him because it would be faster.

  “We’ll have a picnic at Limantour, by the rocks-remember?” Andrew had suggested the night before. “Or we could go wine tasting at Napa Valley. We’re finally old enough. Or have lunch at the Lark Creek Inn and mingle with the rich people, instead of peeking in through the windows like we used to.”

  “Is that your repertoire of seduction?” she had teased. “Beaches, wineries, expensive restaurants?”

  “I don’t suppose any of that would impress you now.”

  Kissing him to take the sting away, she had whispered, “Of all the places, in all the world, no one has ever shown me what you have. It’s your fault I’m restless."

  “No, I want to be here,” she had said as they tumbled, “In your bed. As long as I can, before I have to fly back.”

  It would never be enough, she realized, as she weighed the handful of precious hours they would have today. No amount of time could make up for what they had let slip through their fingers. It doesn’t matter anymore, she thought as she parked the car and checked her reflection in the rearview mirror.

  There was no other word for it—she was luminous, marveling at how she had shed the aura of mystery and pretense of self-control so willingly.

  Paper bag full of food in her arms, she walked through the gate, breathing in the roses that had opened that morning. She entered the unlocked door without knocking, impatient and eager as she called out Andrew’s name.

  Her voice echoed in the empty rooms of the old house. He did not come bounding down the stairs or appear from the hallway, so she stood uncertain in the foyer, her happiness cracking a little with slight panic. She set down the bag and mounted the stairs.

  “Andrew, I’m here,” she called out again, her voice a little shrill.

  He wasn’t in his room, although the unmade bed made her smile. She picked up the shirt he had been wearing last night and brought it to her face. Sharp longing filled her as she inhaled the ghost of his smell. She started going from room to room, even though she could already tell she was the only one in the house.

  She tried not to recall the last time she had been alone here. This is different, she told herself, clutching Andrew’s shirt close to her heart.

  She jumped when from somewhere a phone started ringing. She ran back to his room, remembering the phone she had seen on his dresser, and picked up.

  “Hello?” she asked, breathless.

  “Oh, good, you’re there." She sank to the floor in relief. “I called your grandma’s house but you’d already gone.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I am so sorry." She could hear some hammering in the background. “My subcontractor’s behind, so I have to stay for a little while longer. I’m going to be an hour, tops. Wait for me?”

  “What do you think?” she laughed.

  “This is surreal,” he whispered. “You answering the phone. I can’t believe it.”

  “I know. For a minute, when I walked in and you weren’t here, I had this horrible thought that I dreamt it all." She heard herself sound like a forlorn child, but there was no pretense left in her. “That I had made up last night.”

  “I’m leaving right now.”

  “No, no, no. Don’t. You need this job. Victorians don’t come cheaply. I’ll wait. We have some time.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can. And we’ll talk, okay? We have some plans to make. I’m not about to just let you go.”

  Her heart jumped in her throat then, as she realized that she had been waiting for him to speak of a future beyond this afternoon.

  *****

  Laughing at how she had become clingy and insecure overnight, Sera shook off the fear that had begun to overtake her. She set about arranging their lunch and rummaged for dishes and silverware in the largely empty kitchen cupboards. She took off her heels and dragged the tiny table from the kitc
hen to the large drawing room with the starburst window and wooden griffins. She found a crate to accompany the one chair, and set out two mismatched plates, battered aluminum forks, and tumblers she had scavenged from the kitchen.

  Then, taking a knife, she went out to the front yard and, humming barefoot in her red dress, she strolled among the briars cutting with some difficulty an armful of roses, which she arranged in a green mason jar to sit in the middle of their humble table. She laid the baguette on a diagonal and set out the salmon, chicken, and a chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio.

  Popping a ripe grape tomato in her mouth, she surveyed her handiwork.

  “Perfect,” she declared out loud as she noted how, despite the incongruity, it all somehow fit in the grand living room, remembering all the impromptu picnics and rag tag meals of their youth. “Better than Napa or the Lark Creek Inn.”

  “Are you real?” she had asked him last night as her fingers wandered in disbelief over his sun-warmed skin. “And this house,” she had exclaimed as she climbed out of bed, suddenly unable to keep still, “Is it finally going to live again?”

  He had said nothing and just watched her as she stood by the window, amused. “I can’t wait until it’s all done. This house has been neglected for so long, forgotten and sad. It needs to be loved. Don’t laugh.”

  “I’m not laughing. I just can’t believe you’re here.”

  “I always imagined that this house was meant to have a big family in it, you know, children running up and down the stairs and all over the backyard." Seeing that his smile wavered, she had said quickly, “And parties. Can you picture it?"

  She had felt like twirling, like she had that morning, giddy in the beauty of the restored jewel room.

  “A huge table groaning with the weight of platters and platters of food, plenty of wine and scrumptious desserts. Vases all over the house bearing bouquets of wild roses from the garden. Music playing and its rooms full of people.”

  She came back to where he was. “Remember that party at Miss Haviland’s? With the paper lanterns and votives? It should be like that, don’t you think? The way it was meant to be."