Axis of Aaron

by Johnny B. Truant

  Vicky looked at Ebon, puzzled.

  “Doesn’t it get expensive, taking all those flights?” Ebon had always taken the ferry to Aaron. It was slower, but relatively inexpensive. Even though he’d made great income, he doubted he’d feel comfortable spending that freely for something so regular and recurring.

  “I make more than you may realize.”

  Ebon looked around. Given the house and the décor — and considering that this was her weekend and summer place — Ebon thought he realized just fine.

  “Besides, I really like being alone. The city is always crowded. Here, it’s just me. You can’t even hear people on the beaches after summer is over, kids screaming and Jet Skis buzzing. I can spend all day existing. All week, it’s a whirlwind. I like the time to just be. And I’m not here every weekend. I travel a lot.”

  “Where?”

  “I just got back from Paris.”

  “Really?” Ebon suppressed his surprise, because she’d surely told him that already, probably multiple times. The longer he spent with Vicky, the better his sense of continuity seemed (It frightened him to realize how much he’d grown used to uncertainty about even the march of time around Aimee, but a person could get comfortable with anything), but it wasn’t all back. Still, Ebon felt himself settling by degrees. He wanted to stay here forever, to relearn everything about Vicky that he seemed to have forgotten.

  “I know a family there,” she said, nodding and swallowing a bite. “I met them when I was studying abroad, but we stayed in touch. Now they’re like a branch of my own family.”

  Ebon remembered something out of the blue — a tidbit that floated in front of his awareness like a mote of dust. Vicky spoke fluent French. She’d told him that the day they’d met, and it had drawn him to her even more. She seemed so exotic. So seasoned. So mature, grounded, and worldly. Ebon’s job as a “professional Rolodexer” could probably send him all over the world, but he’d studiously accepted only domestic clients. It had seemed sensible, to focus on the places he knew. But now he wondered if that decision had stemmed from fear and a desire to stay close to home, as he’d stayed close to Aaron.

  “Cool.” An inadequate response, but Ebon was getting worried about exposing his ignorance on things she’d already told him. Luckily, it was in character for him to say little.

  Vicky laughed, as if remembering something.

  “What?”

  “Once, my brother and I took a trip when I came to visit. Rather than staying in France, we…”

  “You have a brother?”

  “My French brother. Mon frère.”

  “Oh.” It occurred to Ebon that he knew nothing about Vicky’s family. Only that she lived alone.

  “I’d just torn my ACL while skiing, but we already had the trip planned, so I hobbled onto the plane with crutches and onto trains with Paul. Then we realized that it would make more sense to just give in and get a damned wheelchair for him to push me around. Because with all the walking, the crutches were murder.”

  “Hmm.”

  “But do you know what? The wheelchair was just as bad.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Europe: not handicap accessible. Old stone streets, big curbs, narrow walkways … it was a nightmare.” She laughed again. “Even though he lived near Paris, he’d never been to the Eiffel Tower. So we went, but instead of posing in front of it, we took pictures of me beating on the wheelchair with my crutches.”

  Ebon chuckled because he thought he was probably supposed to. He couldn’t relate to the story at all (he’d never been to Paris; he’d never torn his ACL; he’d never traveled with a sibling; he’d never felt angry at a wheelchair), but he enjoyed hearing Vicky tell it. He wanted her to keep talking and telling stories. He hadn’t realized how exhausted the past days and weeks had left him. He wanted to lie on her chest and go to sleep, her voice a warm blanket in his ears.

  “Sounds like a nice memory.”

  “It is. But do you know what’s funny?”

  Ebon ran his tongue over another bite of veal. “Mm?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever told that story in English.”

  “Mm.”

  “It feels different in English.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. It’s … artificial? I’m not sure. The thing about language is, once you’re fluent, you don’t actually translate in your head. It’s different when you can start thinking in the other language, kind of like how you’ll get used to something costing x number of euros without converting it in your head to dollars. So, I mean, I can dream in French. And that trip — it’s a French trip. It’s a French memory. Telling it to you just now is like … I don’t know, like reading a translation of a novel. It’s just not the same story, due to colors and shades of meaning.”

  Ebon nodded as if he understood. He didn’t. He spoke only one language. But right now, Vicky could talk about income tax law, and he’d find it fascinating. And when you added the fact that she was actually discussing her knowledge of the international language of love? He wasn’t sure if he was horny or spellbound. Probably both.

  “I hope my daughter likes to pick up languages.”

  Ebon nearly choked. “I’m sorry?”

  “I learned French pretty easily, I guess, but that came because I was immersed. My parents used to go to France when I was a kid and took me along — the way you said you spent your summers here, I guess — and I just sort of continued it on, picking up two separate exchange programs in high school. The second was the one where I met my French family. Learning like that was simple: I had to think and conduct my business in French just to get by. And besides, I wanted to fit in. That meant dressing and speaking like them.” She fluted off into a long, extravagant French sentence that made Ebon fall in love with her. Then, continuing in English: “I really have no accent, and … ”

  “You’re American,” Ebon explained. It was a dumb thing to say. For one, she knew that. And for two, he had no idea if it was true. If she truly had no accent, couldn’t she have been born French? But she’d have mentioned something like that. Just like she’d have mentioned that she had a daughter, despite making it abundantly clear that she didn’t.

  “No American accent,” she said. “When I speak French, I mean. What’s commonly called an ‘accent’ is just mispronouncing words: ‘chateau’ instead of ‘chateau.’”

  Ebon nodded, but the two words had sounded the same to him.

  “Most Americans would say it the first way, with the ‘eau’ sounding like ‘oh’ instead of softer. But see, that came from me wanting to be like the local kids. My daughter lives in America and has never traveled — yet — so I hope she’s interested for the sake of interest because … ”

  “Have you told me about your daughter?”

  Vicky stopped midramble. “Of course.”

  “I think I’d remember.”

  “Yes, Ebon, I have. Sabrina. She’s eleven. None of this is ringing a bell?”

  Ebon wanted to play along (of course it rang a bell!), but this was too unnerving. It wasn’t that he didn’t recall Vicky talking about a daughter; he flat-out recalled her saying things that more or less contradicted having a daughter. She’d never been married; she’d never settled down; she’d always traveled too much for work; she liked to be alone; she spent her weekdays working sixty-hour weeks and her weekends on Aaron alone. Her island home had never seen a child’s disorder, and her place in the city didn’t sound kid friendly at all. She’d never mentioned a man in her life with whom she might have shared custody. Her stories were all exotic locales, spending money freely and selfishly, and centered on single-serving friends punctuated by the occasional enduring presence. There was no room for a child in Vicky’s stories, especially given her free-flowing way of speaking, and the inevitability that with time, she’d tell him all that was to be told.

  “No,” said Ebon.

  “I told you about her dance recital last time I saw you. It’s why I had
to come late.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “I showed you pictures. For Christ’s sake, Ebon, there’s one right over there.”

  Ebon followed Vicky’s finger and saw the profile of a picture frame, its face hidden. He didn’t want to stand and walk over (it felt too much like counting repaid money to make sure he hadn’t been cheated), but this was unsettling. Vicky’s home, along with Vicky, had been his anchor. If he’d missed something vital here, he’d lose it.

  Ebon stood. Beside the couch was a silver-framed photo of Vicky, looking decidedly less glamorous than he knew her, with her arm wrapped around a young girl with hair as red as hers.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Now you remember?”

  The answer was no, but it could still be an error of omission. She’d told him before, and he’d missed it, or he’d yet to recall something that had thus far remained absent from his mind. He decided to say something noncommittal, dodging her question and now-curious eyes.

  “Why don’t you ever bring her here?”

  “I told you. She’s afraid of the ocean.”

  “Who’s afraid of the ocean?”

  “I don’t know, Ebon. Why are you quizzing me?”

  “Where does she stay, when you’re up here alone? Don’t you feel like you’re …” He stopped himself from concluding the sentence with … neglecting her, but in the absence of a substitute ending, she intuited his meaning on her own.

  “She stays with my sister. I told you that too.”

  “Why doesn’t she stay with her father?” Ebon realized the size of his mistake the second he made it. He had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about Sabrina’s father, same as he’d so recently had no knowledge about Sabrina herself.

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “Sorry,” Ebon said, backpedaling.

  “Should we discuss your kids instead?”

  Ebon walked directly into the trap. “I don’t have kids.”

  “Really. And yet you’re so full of opinions!”

  “Look, I didn’t mean to … ”

  Vicky rolled her eyes.

  “Let’s get back to talking about France. Have you thought about … I mean … do you want to take her there?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I wasn’t trying to change it in the first place. I just … after falling in the water today, I … things have been confusing and stressful for me recently and …” Ebon realized he was pleading. Not for Vicky to stop being angry at him, but for her to sympathize. It was a strange thing to recognize, but he couldn’t pause until she stopped him.

  “I don’t understand you,” she said.

  “Sometimes, I don’t understand me either.” And then it occurred to Ebon that perhaps he didn’t understand Vicky as well as his gut had told him he did. It was probably offensive that he’d missed something as obvious in their (apparent) discussions as the existence of her daughter, but what he’d said afterward was — in Ebon’s mind, at least — hardly insulting. He’d been ignorant, maybe adorably disoriented. And yet she seemed to be releasing her angry flare with reluctance.

  “I just haven’t gotten the chance,” she said. The sentence left her lips with obvious effort.

  “Sorry?”

  “I haven’t gotten the chance to take her overseas. We do do things together though.”

  “Of course.”

  “But with as much as I work … ”

  “I’m sure.” Ebon felt disoriented. He found himself desperately wanting to please her — to pacify her at the expense of anything and everything else. She was supposed to be the one who made him feel needed. She was the one who was supposed to make the senseless stand still enough to turn into sense. He couldn’t have her angry at him. It was as if she’d stopped being the playful, sexy, smart companion she was supposed to be and had become someone else. Someone flawed, less than ideal.

  “I’ll take her soon,” she said.

  Ebon sensed a return to equilibrium, if he could only make sure to keep tipping Vicky in the right direction. Her eyes were returning to their familiar, friendly almond shape, her lips finally beginning to unpurse and widen into their usual bow. Her skin had found an angry blush, but was settling back to its porcelain complexion.

  “You look really pretty.”

  Vicky tried to roll her eyes but chuckled instead. He’d said the most transparent, most predictable thing a man can say to a woman, but that hadn’t stopped him from hitting the bull’s-eye.

  “Well, thanks.”

  “Is your hair different?”

  She touched her up-do. “Not really.”

  “You tinted it.”

  “I don’t need to tint it.” This came with a small smile, and Ebon felt a weight fall from his shoulders. But at the same time, his compliments and questions about Vicky’s appearance weren’t just peace offerings. He was seeing something different all of a sudden but couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Like recognizing someone in public, then going mad trying to figure out where you had seen them before.

  “I just mean, like, highlights. The lighter streaks. Those are new, right?”

  “I don’t have highlights.” She looked around the room briefly, and Ebon guessed she was looking for a mirror to see if her hair had streaks she’d forgotten. “Are you seeing my gray?” This last was less playful, almost concerned. Vicky didn’t strike Ebon as vain, but she staged appearances for a living and likely couldn’t help translating interior design to thoughts of her own composure.

  “You don’t have gray.”

  “Well, I don’t have lighter streaks either.” Her fingers went to the natural part in her hair, as if she could feel its color.

  “I just swear something’s different. Did you — ” he was on dangerous ground but stepped forward anyway, “ — lose weight?”

  “No.”

  “Is that a new dress?”

  “I might have gained a few pounds. Maybe that’s what you’re seeing.”

  “No, I … ”

  “This dress does kind of bunch.” Vicky plucked at it, trying to clear space between her skin and the flowery fabric. It was in vain; the dress was supposed to be tight and hug her many curves. She could probably gain a few pounds, and the weight would end up solely in her large, powder-white breasts. That would be okay with Ebon. He wanted to say so, but she seemed agitated. Now, she didn’t seem vain so much as insecure. But that didn’t fit his mental compendium about her. Vicky was strong; Vicky was confident; Vicky lived her life alone when away from the daughter she didn’t have until five minutes ago, making her own rules. Vicky didn’t fret over the fit of a dress meant to accentuate what she had, ample and beautiful as Ebon found it.

  “Maybe it’s the dress.”

  “It’s not the dress. I’ve worn this dress with you before.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. But Ebon wasn’t sure. The dress definitely rang a bell, but it would have rung the bell in the past too, for a different reason. It just wasn’t a Vicky dress. It was the dress of someone trying to look younger, to recapture something from a decade past. Vicky’s clothing was (he seemed to recall) always chic and confident and mature because Vicky, more than anyone he might have ever known (and certainly Aimee), had grown up. Proper adulthood looked good on her.

  “It’s the winter. I get fat in the winter.” The comment was a bomb that Ebon was expected to pick up and diffuse — a feint at insecurity and a dig for reassurance. He didn’t like it, or her change in demeanor, but at the same time he felt an obligation — a desire — to make Vicky feel better. It was the oddest mix of emotions. The way she’d taken offense at nothing felt pathetic and sad to Ebon, but she’d been so good to him, and he was still so strongly attracted to her. On his way over, once the worst of his vertigo was behind him, he’d begun to anticipate the warm reassurance of Vicky’s home and ample bosom. His arousal had ticked up like a Pavlovian response. Vicky meant sex. But not just because they’d had i
t — repeatedly, Ebon felt certain — but because it’s who she was. It’s who she’d always been, even all those years ago when she’d been forbidden fruit, too mature and worldly for the likes of shy little Ebon Shale.

  “You’re not fat,” he said.

  “You’re just saying that.”

  Pathetic. Sad. Vicky wasn’t a twig but wore all her “fat” where God had meant women to carry it. Ebon couldn’t clearly remember taking a ride on the body across the table and had only vague impressions, but he imagined it being like a roller coaster. The more ups and downs, the better. His robe’s lap began to rise again and he tried to shuffle the fabric to hide it, wondering if, in Vicky’s agitated state, his overt attention would be bothersome more than flattering. But in Ebon’s mind, at least, the worse she fretted, the more he wanted her. Things were becoming urgent, like a 911 call.

  “I’m not. I actually proposed the idea that you’d lost weight.”

  She stood, now looking down. Ebon stood to meet her, and his terrycloth erection knocked his fork from the table’s edge to the floor.

  “And in fact,” he continued, trying to subtly slip his interloper under the robe’s belt to secure it, “I think that whatever has changed, it’s a good change.”

  “I don’t think anything else could have changed.”

  “Maybe it’s nothing.”

  It wasn’t nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “I’m being moody.”

  “It’s no problem.”

  “It’s the shorter days. I get that seasonal depression thing.”

  Ebon wanted to ask if any of it was due to hormones. It was the kind of question that was sure to earn him nothing but trouble, but he suddenly needed very badly to know if she was on her period. Life seemed to depend on her being off-cycle right now. He wondered if it made him a horrible person that the sadder and more vulnerable Vicky became, the more it turned him on.

  “I get it too.” He didn’t, but it sounded right. Ebon walked forward and, pulling a cue from the room’s mood, wrapped Vicky in a hug, his head on her shoulder, his face against her fragrant red hair. Up this close, he wondered if maybe it was her hair that was different after all. It had looked so carrot orange, but now it seemed almost tinged with crimson, like something done in a salon. Regardless, it smelled like fresh blossoms and vanilla — the opposite of winter.