“Oh, Hannah!” the girl’s mother gasps. She rushes the few feet forward to grab the little girl’s hand, still keeping the carriage in her other hand. The dog looks at me, wagging its fluffy tail and, from inside of the stroller, I hear a baby cooing.
The girl’s mom glances back at the carriage and then forward again, to the little girl. “You have to be careful!”
“I’m sorry, Mama.” The little girl’s curls bounce as she points to the ground. “I just wanted to catch the light!” It’s easy to see what she means when she says it: the sunlight is forming prisms that sparkle against the concrete. Each little glint looks like a gem, or a jewel being skipped across the ground as though the ground was made of water.
As soon as she says it, I see it, and still: it’s something only a child would think and it’s something only a child would say and I feel delighted to get to witness it. I used to spend a lot of time around children, when I was younger. Some of my favorite memories still revolve around being a camp counselor all of those years ago.
The girl's mother gives her a small, wry smile before she rises to stand. Turning, she looks at me. Her daughter looks just like her, and I smile again.
“I’m so sorry, miss!” she says. “Are you alright?”
Balancing my bike between my legs I nod my assurance to the woman, and then I glance down at the little girl. “I’m fine,” I assure her. She is so cute it makes me heart ache. “I promise, don’t you worry. You just be careful next time you try to catch light!”
“Yes, ma’am!” She says it with all of the enthusiasm she can muster, and she beams and my heart soars.
Hopping back up onto the seat I turn to ride home. As I pedal past the woman and her daughter I hear the little girl say, “She’s so pretty, Mommy.”
That makes my smile go even brighter. Braking again, I turn back to face the little girl. “You’re the one that’s so pretty.”
I’m a sucker for kids, I really am. I always have been. Her dazzling, dark eyes make my day. Her smile makes me feel like I’m floating.
Made my day even though I’d had a pretty good day already. Work had been great, finally. It’d taken me ten years and two jobs after college, but I’m finally a part of a corporation I feel valued by. Human Resources hadn’t been my first choice, but like some things in life, real experience can change the things we’d thought we’d wanted into things we don’t want, and the things we don’t want become the best things we could ever hope to have. I’d gone to school thinking about social work. I’d wanted to make a difference. Maybe the differences I’m making aren’t the kind that will make newspapers, or change lives in big ways I can quantify, but they are the kinds of differences that make people’s everyday lives better. The older I get, the more I am convinced it’s the smallest of things that make the most difference. Someone said life is lived in the details and I wholeheartedly agree.
Even now it’s the details of the sunlight, it’s the passing smiles I share with strangers, it’s the cute little dog bounding at the end of the leash, that are making me smile.
Besides having a great day at work, I’m about to go back home to my beautiful apartment and, best yet, Alexei will be home when I get there.
I tell myself how lucky I am. I tell myself my life is almost so perfect, probably more perfect than anyone could hope to have. It’s certainly more than the life I’d ever imagined for myself. I’d figured maybe, if I was lucky, a nice small house in Brooklyn, a decent job. That had been dreaming pretty big. Now, I have all of this.
I tell myself I wouldn’t want it any other way.
I don’t want to see the shadows. So, right now, today, like I did yesterday, I ignore them. I only let myself see the sun. It’s something I’ve become extremely adept in doing.
* * *
Eric holds the door open. The older man has been the doorman here for as long as we’d lived here, which is near to four years now. I’ve seen people walk by him without so much as saying thank you for holding the door but Eric has become someone I value and feel thankful for. Sometimes we stand outside under the awning and we have long conversations together about his kids and his wife, about my job, about the weather, or sometimes even about the New York Rangers.
The only thing we really don’t talk about at all, ever, is Alexei. Alexei is off limits.
That’s not rare. Alexei is the most important person in my life, but he’s the one thing I really don’t talk about with anyone, not with my Dad, my family, my co-workers, and not even most of my closest friends. There’s so much I can’t say, and there is so much I’m actually afraid to say. What if I say the wrong thing to the wrong person? I don’t want to deal with their questions and I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression. And while I’d never believe Eric would ever do anything to hurt me or Alexei intentionally, I know, in Alexei’s world, information is power. It’s better for Eric, and everyone else, to simply assume that Alexei’s fortune comes from old money. Or real estate. Really, I can’t imagine the assumptions they do end up making about the huge Russian bear that lives in the penthouse on the top floor.
“You look like you had a good day,” Eric says. He reaches to help me with the bike I’m wheeling.
“I did. Thank you. I hope you did too, Eric!” I can’t stop smiling. Laughing, I wave Eric off from where he is holding onto the bike handles. He knows better! Or, at least, he should. I don’t need him to take it for me. I might be living in one of the nicest apartment buildings on the Upper West Side, but I don’t expect anyone to do something I can’t do for myself. It’s just not how I was raised, and no amount of money is going to change that. I wouldn’t want it to. I can’t stand the way some of my neighbors seem to think that carrying a grocery bag up to their apartment is beneath them. My Dad always taught me that people, and especially a woman, should always do for herself. He never wanted me to depend on anyone, certainly not on any man, and not even him. That fierce independence is something I’ve had since I was small. My favorite picture of myself when I was a kid is the one where I’m scowling at the camera with my hands clenched into little fists. Sometimes, I think it might drive Alexei a little crazy, both in the good way and the not so good way.
“You have a great night, Miss Carlton,” Eric says as I roll my bike over the shining marble floor to the elevator. Light wavers beneath the shadows of the wheels; the mosaics ripple as though they are shedding. There are paintings hanging on the walls too, beautiful deep, rich paintings of dark skylines and stormy seas. Really, the hall in this building looks like it belongs in a museum. It was something that took me a lot of getting used to when I’d first moved in with Alexei three years ago. I hadn’t grown up poor, but I hadn’t grown up around opulence like this either. I know Alexei didn’t grow up with wealth either. We’re probably two of the strangest occupants in the whole building.
“Radiah!” I remind Eric over my shoulder; I say it with a small edge, as though I’m frustrated with his refusal to use the name I’ve given to him over and over again. He doesn’t have to be so formal with me. Though I know working in this building, it’s probably easy to forget that.
“Alright.” I hear him chuckle. “Have a good night, Miss Radiah,” he calls back to me. I swear, he’s smirking as he says it.
The elevator doors slide open and I wheel the bike in.
Pushing the button for the top floor, I lean back against the dark-paneled wood wall and brush the bangs out from where they are falling over my eyes. The far side is mirrored and I can’t help but to check my reflection. It’s not that I’m vain, well, no more than any woman likes to feel like she’s looking good. It’s that I like to look good for Alexei. He always says how beautiful I am no matter what I wear; he always says it doesn’t matter how I decide to do my hair.
And when he says those things, I actually believe him.
When I was younger, like so many girls, I didn’t like the way I looked at all. I wanted to be taller. Then, I wanted to be shorter. Then, I wanted my
hair one way and then I wanted my hair the other way. I was becoming more confident in who I was way before I met Alexei, but something about the way he looks at me gives me the added assurance I don’t need from a man but enjoy having. It’s not a forced thing between us, our attraction, and it’s not based on only the superficial things. When Alexei says I’m beautiful, I know he’s not just talking about the way I look. And when I say that Alexei is hot, well, I’m not just talking about his looks either. I’m talking about all of the ways he moves and the ways he doesn’t move, and all of the ways he does what he does; it’s his little smirks and it’s the way thinks before he talks, it’s the fact that he stops to pat dogs on the tops of their heads when we take walks together.
It’s because he says hello to Eric too. It’s because he waits and lets other people pass by him instead of muscling his way through a crowd. He calls elderly women ma’am and he calls older men sir, and one time, when there was a baby crying at the table behind us in a restaurant, I caught him making funny faces at him; not to make him stop, I know. He’d been doing it to try to make the baby feel better.
It’s the way he laughs. It’s the way he smiles. It’s the fact that when he lets loose, it’s usually only around me, and I treasure and cherish that because I know he is comfortable enough to let his guard down.
The sheen of the sun is glinting against my dark skin now and the dark purple shirt and black shorts I’d changed into after work are nothing special, but I know Alexei is going to look at me like I’m walking in the door wearing pumps, full makeup, and an evening gown.
Thinking of him makes me smile again. Thinking of him makes me think about him more; it starts that chain reaction that turns the vague image of his size into the deepness of his voice, and then that rumble becomes the heat of his breath whispering against the back of my neck. It becomes the slightly warm scent of leather and sun. It becomes his hands spreading from small into large...
In the mirrored wall, I catch sight of myself. I see my smile. My ‘Alexei smile,’ my best friend Carla calls it because, she says, ‘I never see that smile except for when you’re thinking or talking about him.’ Maybe that’s because I’ve never met a man that makes me feel the way Alexei does. He’s a rough man, in so many ways. He’s big, built like a bear and, as my best friend Carla also likes to say, a total bad boy. A total hot bad boy.
That body, Carla said once, and she fanned herself saying it. You must just want to go home and play with him all night long.
Carla says a lot of other things too. A lot of things only a best friend can get away with saying about her best friend’s man.
The elevator door opens and tonight I see it’s Ivo and Evgeni that are standing at the end of the hall, two of the five hulking bodyguards that take turns guarding the penthouse. There is always someone there at the door, even though Alexei has equipped the penthouse with a state-of-the-art security system. Sometimes, as I walk down the hall, I can’t help but to think to myself, smile, you’re on candid camera!
A few days ago, Alexei mentioned the idea of keeping one of the bodyguards with me at all times. It was an idea I shot down immediately. It’s not that I don’t, to some degree, understand the risks that are inherent in Alexei’s work. I’m far from blind to it. It’s just that I won’t allow myself to be controlled by fear. And I won’t allow myself to be controlled by Alexei’s fear for me either. It’s not like Alexei has a bodyguard with him everywhere he goes, and if he doesn’t need one, then neither do I.
“Hi, boys!” I say it like they are neighbors and friends, not gigantic men carrying guns that are tasked to protect us from...other gigantic men carrying guns who might want to hurt us. They...it’s...all of it is still not something I’m used to, not even after being with Alexei for the last five years. It’s something I try not to think about, but at times like this, when the two men start approaching to reach for the bike before I wave them both off, it’s literally impossible to ignore. I mean…there are two living, breathing walls standing outside of my front door day and night. How can any woman pretend that away?
They crack their wide smiles at me, smiles they’d never crack if Alexei were out here too. With Alexei, they are all business. And their business is pretty serious. Alexei never tried to hide from me. As soon as it became apparent we felt the same way about each other, he told me who he was. He told me what he does. Alexei’s life is violent, and dangerous, but he’s a good man. I’ve tried to explain it to Carla the way Alexei explained it to me. The Mafia is his family. He was barely eighteen when he started working for them. Without them, he’d told me, he probably wouldn’t be alive today.
All I wanted to do was fight, he’d said. He’d said it as we’d lain next to each other, he’d said it as his arm wrapped us into being closer. I didn’t care who I fought, or what I was fighting for. I wanted to fight, and I wanted someone to fight me. I was young, he said, and he’d looked down at me.
And hurting, he didn’t say. And alone, he didn’t say. I didn’t say it either, though I knew it. I could feel it. Alexei doesn’t tell stories about his childhood in Russia. I’ve pressed, and he’s always redirected the conversations. He doesn’t talk about his mother, and he doesn’t talk about his father. What he doesn’t say, says volumes.
I remember when I’d asked him if he’d ever killed anyone. His dark eyes had shadowed. No, he’d told me. He hadn’t said anything more, but he hadn’t needed to. I could see that, as little as Alexei feared, and as far as he was willing to go, he was glad he hadn’t, and he was determined not to. His world was violent, had, he’d hinted, always been violent, even when he was young. But there was gentleness to him too. A look and a word was usually enough to make any man reconsider going against him, and I think he is pleased that he doesn’t have to fight so much anymore. When men like Alexei fight, people don’t get up again.
It had made my attraction to him deepen. To be perfectly honest with myself, I’ve never been so attracted to a man. Still, like I’d told Carla, sometimes I just can’t see it, I can’t see us, working. Alexei and I are so different. My best friend had waved her hand at me with an exasperated huff. “Your eyes light up when you say you’re going to meet him for coffee, Radiah. They light up when he calls you. Even a text gets you excited.”
She’s right. With Alexei, even the most mundane things, even the smallest of things, becomes exciting.
Carla is convinced that love can overcome any obstacle. I’d like to believe. Most days I manage to convince myself of it. But, really, deep down, when I’m thinking to myself in quiet moments, I’m not so sure.
She’s right though, about the way Alexei excites me. Walking in the door now, after not seeing him since this morning, makes my stomach full of butterflies. Alexei excites me and soothes me and I’ve never been more physically or emotionally attracted to a man in my life. When he talks in my ear and I curl against him at night, I feel a deep contentment I’ve never even come close to experiencing. When he smiles, and I know I’ve made that smile, I feel elated. I want to make him smile every day. I want to him to make love to me every day. At work sometimes, at my desk, I actually start thinking about how good it’s going to feel when he wraps his arms around me later. Sometimes I imagine his eyes, or I think about his hands. Sometimes it’s his voice. I’ve even called him. Alexei will say, ‘yes?’, and I will say, ‘nothing,’ and then he will laugh and he will rumble out something about how he has just been thinking of me too.
There is no doubt how deeply in love I am with him. There is, usually, in my mind, no doubt about how deeply in love with me he is.
But I don’t know if it’s enough. I want it to be enough. I want love to be enough to hold us together. I want to be with Alexei forever. I want to have his babies.
That’s the problem. Alexei sometimes still regrets bringing me into a life he knows is dangerous. How, he has said to me, could he do that to children?
You could give it up, I’ve said to him. I’ve said it softly, I’ve sai
d while he’s been seated in the recliner in the living room, I’ve said it as I’ve straddled his lap, I’ve said it as I’ve kissed at the side of his neck. I know, or at least I think I know, how much it is asking of him. So I try not to push too much. I try to live day to day. I try not to think about the family I want and instead, simply enjoy the family I have.
Everyday it gets a little harder. I’m not getting any younger.
It’s on my mind now as I wheel the bike through the foyer. Leaning against the wall I give a sniff. Alexei must be cooking. It smells wonderful. I’m happy to be home and like I usually do, in the way I have become so adept at doing, I make myself not think about the things I want and don’t have.
I make myself focus on the here and the now and the things I do have, the things I am so utterly thankful for having. I have so much that I feel guilty for wanting the things I don’t have.
Moving quietly, although I am sure he knows I am here because Alexei is always so aware of his surroundings, I pass through the living room.
Beyond that, I see Alexei through the doorway that leads to the kitchen. His feet are bare. I watch him bend, close the door to the stove; I watch him rise up. He’s wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt, and those innocuous clothes shouldn’t show him off the way they seem to, but they do. His back stretches beneath the cotton and his shoulders shift as he turns. The fluorescent lights make the material almost see through. I can see the musculature in his abdomen as he twists towards me. He looks like lighter and darker ink strokes in a haze of cotton-colored light.
Her Designer Baby: (Loving Over 40 Book 1) Page 14
