by Daisy Jane
The two of them embrace before they even speak, and Donny nudges me.
“Saw you in the paper, bro,” he says, blowing a puff of smoke above us before taking another deep drag, talking again on an exhale. “That’s a lotta properties you bought.”
Donny reads the paper? I’m surprised. Normally people his age read the news on their phone but the fact that a man who pulls a cigarette from behind his ear reads the investments portion of a newspaper surprises me.
“Is that right? Was there a photo?” I can’t remember the paper telling me they had a photo to run.
“Just your name,” he clarifies, nodding over his sweatshirt to the women. “Recognized it because I heard it from the old lady.”
I nod.
“What you gonna do with all those store fronts?” he asks, dropping the cigarette to the ground and smashing it with the top of his sneakers. Donny surprises me again. He’s read the entire article, not just the headline.
It’s true, Bennett and Barrow just bought an entire strip mall in the most populous area of downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut. The businesses that were in the strip mall were told they could remain there for the time being. When I’d pitched it to Barrow, he’d grown to trust my investment senses so much that he didn’t even question what I’d planned for the individual businesses or the space in general. I’m glad he didn’t because I didn’t even really know what my complete plan was, not yet.
All I knew is that one of them would be for Britta when and if she wanted it.
She wanted to be a baker and I wanted her to live her dream, after everything she’d been through. She deserved that much and I really did want her to have it, with or without me. The money was meaningless to me but with Britta, it had meaning.
“Keep them, for now,” I say, tucking my hands in my pocket, rocking back on my heels. Something about Donny’s presence makes me profoundly aware of the age difference between us.
He nods pensively, looking at his feet move gravel around. “Gonna wife up Britta and give her a business to run, huh?” his eyes stay on the ground where his dirt-coated sneakers work out their obvious nerves.
“One day, maybe,” I say, feeling shocked at just how close he is to the mark.
I do plan on giving Britta one of any of the locations I own, to open her own bakery, one day when she’s ready. She can hire whoever she wants and run it just as she pleases, as long she wants to.
He looks up at me before the women return and with his voice low, he says: “I won’t say nothin.”
After a few more hugs and many promises to call and text and tweet and email, finally I have Britta to myself. She looks different now, under the fading sun, the toll of an emotional day settling under her eyes. Beautiful, but sad and perhaps a look I recognize, like defeat.
“What’s the matter?” I lift under her chin, lifting her face to mine, our bodies dangerously close for how impious I feel.
“It’s ugly. Can I be ugly?” sadness droops on her eyelids and I kiss her, gently.
“You could never be ugly,” I love how it’s the truth and with Britta, I don’t have to lie about anything because it’s all real, pure and simple.
“I’m jealous. I’m proud of her of course and I know it’s not about me but, well, I wish I was going off to culinary school.” Her shoulders droop with relief after she confesses, and I wrap my arms behind her and pull her into me.
“Let’s go into the city for an early dinner,” I say, dusting the top of her head with a few kisses, needing to make her happy but knowing a few things lay between us now and her happiness.
22
Brooks
She tells me about the culinary program Melody’s been accepted to while I drive us through the thick of the city traffic, eventually finding a parking garage with vacancy. She’s been so busy catching me up on Melody and the move that she doesn’t look around as I walk her through the dark garage, our hands woven together naturally. Fuck, I really had become a twenty-year-old around her. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.
“Hey,” she looks up at the large, stories-tall mirrored building we’re standing in front of then looks at me again. “You’re right,” she says, smoothing her wild blonde hair back into the messy ponytail she’s wearing. “Thanks,” she nods, taking my hand again before steering us to the door. “I almost forgot, it’s payment day.”
The elevator carried us to the near-top of the building, where the consolidation firm hid. I hated places like this. Preying on and taking advantage of people in financial trouble. They took all their debt and lumped it together, in theory making payments simpler because then the person only had to worry about paying one bill. But the interest and the fee they charged? Astronomical and phenomenally hidden so most people—especially young women like Britta—hadn’t the slightest clue.
As we stepped out of the elevator, Britta froze and turned up to me, hesitant at first then looking embarrassed.
“I’ve been coming here alone for the last five months, I never thought I’d meet anyone who’d want to go with me to pay against my debt.”
She smiled, running her fingers down her white cardigan, which stopped right at the top of her little skirt, giving me a small look at the perfect skin that lie between there, smooth and teasing.
“Dating looks a lot different than it used to in your day huh?” she winked and bit her lip, playfully, teasing me about my age. I could take it. Because I knew she didn’t find me old. The stiff peaks under that sweater told me she found me attractive, too.
I followed her to a desk and the young man sitting behind it waved us over, shouting into a Bluetooth headset pinned to his face.
“Name,” he rolled his wrist at Britta obnoxiously.
“Moore,” she spat out, giving me a nervous look over her shoulder. This guy was impatient and rude and she was still polite, thinking she’d been too slow. My fists tightened by my side.
Using a single pointer finger, he taps a key on his keyboard and leans back in his chair, grabbing a sheet of paper from the printer.
“Sign,” he points to the bottom and pulls a pen from behind his ear. Immediately I reach for the pen from my coat pocket and slide it to her and she smiles warmly at me.
“Wait, why am I signing? Last month I put $2,500 down and I got a statement after but I never had to sign.”
She’s aware of what she’s doing with her money and it doesn’t surprise me. She’s responsible and sharp and I can see down her sweater as I stand behind her and I remind myself it isn’t the time to get a raging hard-on.
“Yeah, but you’re done now, sweetheart, so I need you to sign to close the account.” His finger taps against the balance due, where there is 0.00 typed in black ink. She blinks at it and looks back at the man, who is already moving on from us quite quickly.
“Listen, sweetheart, sign the paper, okay? I got more debt to collect,” he tosses his head forward in the direction of the elevator doors and when we look back, a pool of people has collected, arms crossed, mouths downturned.
“I don’t understand,” she says, now holding the paper as if she’s misread it.
“Sign it, and I’ll explain,” I tell her and the look on her face in that moment sent a rush of heat through my entire body. I’d live my whole life again just for that one moment.
Once we get back into the elevator, she turns to me, tears in her eyes.
“How?” she asks, tears breaking free, swimming through her lashes down her round, soft cheeks.
“I hope you don’t have a problem with me finding out where your debt was,” I say, sincerely hoping it doesn’t come off as creepy. Finding out someone’s bank information at twenty could be quirky-stalker but at forty-eight? It could be very One Hour Photo.
“Why? You know I don’t expect it or need it,” she loosens her hold on my hands as the elevator settles on the ground floor, releasing us back to the parking garage.
I pull her aside, hold her small hands in mine, smoothing her palms with my
thumbs. “I know you don’t expect it. But I want you to know that the debt is paid, it’s done, it’s behind you. No matter what happens between you and I, that part of your life is behind you. You’re free from it,” I cup her face with my hands and wipe away a stray tear. “I promise you, it’s behind you.”
She rises to her toes and kisses me, her hands drifting up my chest. When she pulls back, her eyes are misty and I can see her bottom lip tremble gently.
I’m not a cinderblock. I may have gotten misty there for a moment. Seeing the happiness and relief in her eyes, no matter what came of us, was worth it. Even the next part, which cost more than the measly quarter of a million medical debt she’d been working toward. This part cost a lot and was more of a risk because it assumed a future between us.
A serious one.
23
Britta
My heart was fluttering in my ribs like a wild butterfly in the sunshine. I couldn’t believe Brooks had paid my mother’s debt, setting me free of my effective financial prison. That prison, however, was built by the job I’d been working… which is why I was even living downtown in the city in the first place. Now without the need to be a maid, I was free to take out loans and go to school like a normal twenty-year-old. Maybe after the last six weeks of dating me, he’d realized I was too young and this was his way of letting me down easy—paying this debt for me? Though I’d wanted to blurt out that I loved him, I had to consider that this was perhaps a gentle goodbye. Without Melody, without my mom, I had no one to help me pick up the pieces if Brooks didn’t feel the same way. And as long as I didn’t admit how I feel, then I’d be safe. Right?
“There’s something else,” and when he says those three little words, my stomach jumps into a tangle, nervous and tight.
It could mean anything, good or bad. Though I’ve no reason to believe it could be bad, still, it could be. I’m nearly light headed by the time we reach his car and he helps me into the passenger seat. I melt into the leather, my heartrate making my arms feel heavy, my face hot.
“Why’d you want to tell me in the car?” suddenly my skin is clammy and hot, my hair sticking to my neck. Is it hot in here? “Is it hot? It’s hot,” I palm at my throat and tug at damp hairs pasted there.
“Britta, relax,” he reaches out and rests his hand on the inside of my knee, which sends a heat down my spine. My legs instinctively clench together, taking his hand with them.
“Baby, listen, take a breath,” he pushes a button that starts the car, and air starts to circulate, and I exhale heavily.
“You’ve never called me that,” I say, letting the warmth of his hand radiate through my thigh and trickle down to my panties, wet and hot.
“Well,” he rakes a hand over his face and pulls his glasses from his coat pocket, throwing them on in one quick movement. Fuck, that day-old stubble and smooth roll of golden chestnut and pepper hair, the way his shirt drops off his broad shoulders and pins in at his hips. He’s velvet and smooth, Marlboro man meets sexy professor, a wealthy and generous sex god. And I’m all thrift-store clothes and self-taught cookies, maid and broke, directionless and emotionally exhausted.
“Well, what?”
My heart thuds, please, please, please.
“I want you to be mine, my girlfriend because, well, I love you.”
Ohmygod. Ohmygod. He said it. It’s real. I sigh out. I’d fallen in love with the idea of a tortured and lonely bachelor when I read that poem, I’ll admit. But after getting to know Brooks, I realized he was an intoxicating blend of sophistication and chaos, beauty and raw charisma, he was more than the fantasy, better than a fantasy.
And that was how I felt before he paid my mother’s debt and told me that he loved me. Now? I’m ready to tear my clothes off and make love to him like I had in my private memories many times over the last six weeks.
“Britta,” he nudges me gently and I realize I’d been in shock.
“I love you, too,” I finally say. It feels good to say. So good.
“I want to have told you that before this but I didn’t, and, I don’t know, I was nervous,” he admits, shrugging only so slightly. Even in our emotional state, the testosterone seeps through his clothes and permeates the air around us, pulling me in a thick, hot frenzy. I squeeze my thighs tighter and his fingertips curl into my leg.
“This doesn’t make me love you, the money has never made me love you,” I wipe away a tear with the back of my wrist and tuck a hand between my legs, on top of his. My palm on his makes his eyes flicker closed for a moment; the slightest touches between us now so dizzying and powerful.
“I hope you really feel that way,” he says and the heat of his hand nearly burns through my turgid flesh, I can barely restrain myself anymore. There’s no oxygen in this car and I need to cover his mouth with mine and find my breath, my life in him.
“I bought some property in Connecticut,” he starts, raking a hand down his face, cleaning his glasses on his coat, slipping them back on. My panties tingle watching him while the scent of him reaches to me and curls under my chin, pulling me to him, like a cartoon.
“Yeah?” I say on a desperate exhale, an attempt to sound normal but I’m breathing so fast now, the need for him burning it’s way from my toes to my brain, making rational thought nearly impossible.
“It’s um,” he scratches the back of his head as if he’s nervous, but I ignore it. He doesn’t say anything when I move his hand up my thigh, fingers grazing the wet heat of my panties. I’m so glad I’m wearing my plaid skirt.
“Oh,” his voice goes deep, adjusting to the new sensation I’ve given him. “Um, it’s in downtown Bridgeport, highly populated strip downtown. I just said downtown, didn’t I?” he rolls his neck and glances at his hand, which I now have pressed directly on top of the seam of my body, throbbing and wet.
“Three times,” I respond, amazed that I remembered. God, I love what I’m doing to him.
“Anyway, I’m keeping the current businesses there but I thought after you got out of culinary school, if you wanted to open your own bakery with Melody or by yourself, you could choose which of those locations you’d like.”
I don’t forget where his hand his, and I don’t pretend I can’t feel his long, thick fingers move gently against the cotton fabric, his body easing closing towards me, the smell of hot leather and our skin burning between us. But I do pause.
“What?” I can’t quite process.
“And I’ll put it in your name, when you’re ready. It will be yours, completely. And if you want me to find someone to run the business side, I will find someone. And if you want to learn how to do the books and all that on your own, I’ll find the best person out there for you, to teach you.” He leans forward and kisses my neck, damp with sweat, hair peeling away on his lips as he leans back.
“I’m nervous,” I say, wiping at the sweat on my neck.
“Don’t be,” he kisses me again in that same place and I feel my lower half melt into the seat.
“You bought me a primetime location for a bakery?” I can’t believe it as I say it out loud. “I haven’t even applied to culinary school, Brooks. I haven’t, I mean, I didn’t…” I trail off.
In the time that we’ve spent together, I’ve told him about my mom making me take general education classes at the junior college until I had to drop out. I told him I wanted to be a baker, but beyond it being a crazy little hobby, I never told him just how much I wanted it.
“I saw it, when you told me about Melody going to culinary school, I saw it in your eyes. If you want this, I want to help you get it. But if it’s too much pressure and you don’t want it, know that you can tell me. You can tell me anything, Britta.”
For the first time in my life, I believe and trust another person with my entire being. I trust Brooks more than I ever trusted my mom. Too many times she promised to do better, come home, not drink, save that money, whatever it was—it was perpetual cycle of broken trust and disappointment.
Brooks had
worked the last six weeks to prove to me I could trust him and that my heart was safe with him.
And I now know it is.
24
Britta
I want it, I do, but I have to disappoint him now by telling him I’ve not even looked into culinary school yet. I hadn’t got that far in planning my future. I didn’t really see a future until I met Brooks.
“I’ve not really made a plan for school. I mean, it was so faraway with all that debt I owed,” my voice is small and when I meet his eyes, I see he’s listening, hearing me, not just dismissing me like most people.
“Let me help you,” he says, smoothing my hair away from my face, his other hand still nestled between my legs. “You can go wherever you want. If you want to go to Manchester in Connecticut with Melody, you can. You just have to tell me what you want.”
I’ve never been asked this. A simple question, by all means, but still, no one has ever asked me what I really want. I’ve been told what I needed to do, I’ve had it implied what I should do, and I’ve felt the overwhelming pressure of obligation before, too. But never, not once, have I been served a platter of beautiful choices to pick and pull apart, to concoct my own dream, taste my own perfect flavor of happiness.
“I love you,” I say it again and find his lips across the console, drive my tongue into his mouth, sweep his flavor back into mine. He could be the only thing I ever taste for the rest of my life. Not even a macaron would be this sweet.
“But I don’t want to go away to Connecticut without you,” I admit, sheepishly. Maybe another girl would’ve wanted to do it alone, experience school and college on her own. But now that I’d met Brooks, I couldn’t imagine anything without him. Culinary school and a bakery of my own was a tremendous gift but without love, even the best gifts looked tarnished and lacking. Love made it all worth it.
