by Gabi Moore
She examined it and laughed.
“You make things out of leather, too?”
I smiled. “Oh, all sorts of things out of leather.”
Seeing the way her eyebrows arched as I said this sent a juicy thrill all through me. What the hell was this vixen doing with a stale old fart like Burgess? There had to be some mistake.
Women of all kinds have been coming to my studio for years now. Women who are looking for fun, for novelty, for themselves. Really dark women, kinky women, women who’ve made a lifelong habit of pushing themselves to their limits…
I have a theory about these women, the kind of people who decide one day to splash out on a novelty sex toy. They work hard their whole lives, they give and give and give to others, they’re polite, they turn the other cheek, their manners are impeccable and their kitchens are spotless. But one day, something delicious in them just snaps. And then they just say ‘fuck it’.
They get divorced. They stop apologizing, start smoking, wear too much perfume and talk too loudly …and then they come to me and request a handmade steel dog crate with built in leather restraints. Something rebellious comes over them, a wild glint in the eye, a little twitch in the lips, and then they’re off. I know a ‘fuck it’ moment when I see one. And this woman, this Miss Lilith, well, she had it written all over her.
So why the hell was she with him?
I watched her totter after him as he called her to come and look at the office. I mingled around, instructed the guys on where to put the cabinets and how to stack them, and took a rag out to idly polish the tops while I heard them chattering in the office. The guys climbed back into the truck.
I stood, rag in hand, thoughts drifting off to something I probably should not have been thinking of, when they returned.
“I’ve been looking for something like this for my living room for ages,” she said to Anthony. “And you know, this cabinet is so beautiful it’s just begging for a little white vase and a pink orchid on top, don’t you think?”
He nodded. “You see, that’s why we’re going to make such an amazing team, my dear.”
This time, the words made her frown visibly. She looked uncomfortable.
Interesting.
I decided to have a little fun of my own.
“You know, Miss Lili--”
“Please, call me Kat!”
“Well, Kat, if you’re interested, I can show you my workshop. I have a lot more of this stuff I’m working on at the moment.”
“She’s a very busy woman, Mark,” Anthony interrupted.
“I’d love to see your workshop,” she said quickly. They exchanged looks.
“I’m free right now,” I said. “You could have a look for something for your living room?”
The color of Anthony’s jowls seemed to be deepening. She looked up at him sweetly.
“I’ve already postponed most of my afternoon meetings for mini golf, so…”
“Yes, yes, of course, I understand,” Anthony said and smiled cordially. “Mr. Cane is a very talented man, I’m sure you’ll enjoy seeing his work.”
He really did sound like some stuffy hero from a Jane Austin novel. As she flickered her eyes over to mine I almost felt sorry for the guy.
“I’ve got tons to do here anyway so you run off and have fun my dear,” he said, and reached over to squeeze her hand. He didn’t notice the pained expression on her face when he did this.
But I did.
“I’ve given Miss Lilith a ride here, are you fine to drop her off at Montgomery street after?”
Christ, he was sounding more like her chaperone with each passing second.
“Sure, no problem.”
Someone called for him in the office, he checked his watch and excused himself, but not before squeezing her hand again and giving her a warm smile.
“Have fun,” he said.
“I will.” She tossed a lock of red hair from her face.
As we walked away and to the truck, I turned and grinned at her.
“So you and Mr. Burgess, huh?” I asked. She looked mortified but said nothing.
“I feel like I’ve stolen you away from your date or something.”
She climbed into the truck and sat in the passenger seat looking a little distracted.
“It’s not like that,” she said simply.
“Are you sure? He seemed a little put off…”
“Fuck it,” she said.
I turned the ignition, unable to contain my smile.
Chapter Five – Kat
Well, they do say that God has a sense of humor.
When I asked for a sign, I didn’t imagine that the sign would come blustering into my life with a smile that looked like that. There was something just so …I couldn’t put my finger on it. But he was a strange man, that was for sure.
Dark brown hair, six foot or so, medium build. Nothing I’d be able to pull out of a lineup. But the way it all came together was what made it hard to keep my eyes off him. The way he moved. The way he looked at me.
The sight of the veins on his strong forearms roughly changing gears as we pulled off was enough to make me feel guilty for leaving poor beige-chino-ed Anthony back at his warehouse. I mean, Anthony may have proposed marriage, sure. But what did we actually have together, beside a few awkward moments of handholding and a cancelled mini golf date?
The whole situation was ridiculous.
Now I was in a truck with a hot guy who was probably five years my junior and had a way of lifting the corners of his mouth that gave me a belly full of butterflies. He wore one of those shirts that’s meant to look old even when it’s new, in some kind of in between grey blue green color, and soft jeans. Smatterings of black and indigo tattoos crawled up his bicep and into his sleeves. Dark, tribal designs, geometric figures, strange, machine-like birds.
“You have any of your own?” he asked, eyes still on the road.
“Uh, what?”
“Tats.” He gestured towards his arm.
How on earth had he known I was ogling?
“No, none! I faint if I have to a get flu jab, to be honest.”
He chuckled.
“What’s this one mean?” I asked, and pointed to a thick, inch wide solid bar wrapping the circumference of his broad wrist. He raised it up to eye height and flexed his fist, making his veins jump underneath the black.
“What does it mean?”
“Yeah, does it symbolize anything? Does it have a meaning?”
He chuckled again.
“Does it have to?”
“Of course it does,” I said quickly. “Why get a tattoo if it doesn’t mean anything?”
His eyes still fixed firmly on the road, he wrapped his arms round the giant steering wheel and focused on gliding the truck through the traffic, pulling it gracefully into and then out of wide turns. He was a good driver.
“Does everything you do always mean something?” he asked.
I sighed. “Guess not.”
“If you really wanna know, I saw it in a dream once.”
I snorted. He turned and gave me a sharp look.
“Oh sorry. You were serious.”
He said nothing.
“You saw it in a dream? So you tattooed yourself with it?” I could hear how condescending I sounded. “I’m sorry, that just sounds crazy.”
“And so what if it is crazy? I like to let my intuition guide me.”
“Pffft …and how’s that working out for you?” I said, mostly meaning it as a joke, but when I saw his reaction, I instantly felt like an A-grade bitch.
“I just mean …well, I could never live like that. Just doing random meaningless things? Sounds like a nice way to get yourself into trouble.” I stared again at the veins under the black band on his wrist and imagined getting into trouble with him. “I’m sure it’s fine for you, following your intuition and stuff, but I could never do that…”
“Why not?”
I sighed and looked out the window. I thought darkly how maybe I prefer
red flirting with him when Anthony was around to watch. I didn’t reply.
“So, you were saying about the furniture you had at your workshop? I really like Balinese style stuff, it’s so cool the work you do…” I started.
He gave me a sideways smile.
“Changing the topic, huh?”
I laughed. After a lunch date with Anthony, I couldn’t decide if his bluntness was refreshing or just rude.
“I wasn’t, but fine, let’s talk about your meaningless tattoo again.” I don’t know why I sounded so defensive talking to him.
“Nobody said it was meaningless,” he said mysteriously. I rolled my eyes at him and smiled.
“It’s not meaningless, but you don’t know what it means?”
“Something like that.”
“So what was the dream then? Did the dream mean anything?”
“I don’t really remember.”
“So you dreamt about something, but you don’t know what, about a tattoo on your arm that means something, but you also don’t know what. That makes sense.”
“Doesn’t it?” he said, chuckling.
“Well, I sure as hell don’t understand,” I laughed.
“Well, maybe sometimes you do things but you only understand why you did them later on.”
I looked out at the open road. We drove in silence for a while before pulling into what looked like a run-down timber yard. Piles of wood and tarp-covered mounds flanked a humble looking series of buildings. He parked, jumped out, tossed the keys to a guy who jumped out the back and exchanged a few words with him. In a minute the huge truck lumbered off and it was just me, him and piles and piles of wood.
“I have some coffee tables I think you’re going to love,” he said, and darted off.
I followed.
“Changing the topic, huh?” I said, and he smiled.
Inside, the place was cold and dusty and had the faint odor of unfamiliar chemicals in the air. He disappeared and came back quickly wielding a delicate coffee table with dainty legs that reminded me of a violin somehow. He gently placed it before me.
“It hasn’t got the typical Balinese shape you get on the market, but I really wanted to try something new, you know?”
I bent down to examine the intricate inlay of white flowers with black petals, all made of wood and embedded in the glossy surface. It was the most perfect table I’d ever seen – something that would definitely transform my boring old living room.
“It’s amazing! How much do you want for it? I have to have it.” I couldn’t stop running my fingers over its mirror-smooth surface.
“Eh, take it,” he said and shrugged.
I looked at him wide eyed.
“Mark, this must have taken you hours to make. You’re crazy, let me pay you for it, for heaven’s sake!”
“Please, I want you to have it.”
There really was something remarkable about his smile.
“Now I know for sure you live in lala land. Not only do you take orders from your dreams but you give away your work for free to everyone?”
“No, not everyone. Just you.”
The look he gave me made my knees weak. I cleared my throat and tried to distract my fingers along the lines of the flower again.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, but I couldn’t make eye contact. It had been a strange day. When my cheeks stopped burning and I looked at him again, he was smiling mischievously at me, legs spread and hands on hips, like he hadn’t just made such an outrageously romantic gesture. Divorce had been the most painful ordeal of my life but hell, I was only a few months out and already up one marriage proposal and a cute table.
“I should get home,” I said.
“Sure. I’ll get Sebastian to give you a lift. Give him your address and I’ll have the table sent over,” he said breezily.
While I was busy smoldering to death under his gaze he seemed cool, composed and easy as you please. Before I could find something to say, he quickly said goodbye and left, leaving me wondering what the hell had just hit me.
I left soon after that with Sebastian, a friendly older guy in blue overalls who smelt like glue, and arrived at work just before two. I cursed under my breath, suddenly remembering that I had promised to pick Nicky up from pre-school at 2:30. There was no way I’d make it now.
“Shit!” I mumbled, raced into the office and flung my handbag down. I soon had the phone in my hand, while waking up the laptop with my other hand and balking at the pile of emails that had sprung up there over the last few hours alone.
“Hi Sandra? Sandra, it’s Kat. I hate to be a pain in the ass but could you take Nicky this afternoon? I’m swamped here at work and time’s just run away with me…”
The crisis resolved, I threw down my phone and next tried to pick through all my emails, every last one of them labeled ‘Urgent’. The intern Melissa came around silently and plunked a cup of coffee down on my desk without saying a word.
“Oh God, you’re an angel, thank you,” I said. She gave me a salute and walked off.
The phone buzzed.
“Shit!”
Someone I definitely did not want to speak to.
“Pradesh! Hi! Long time” I said with all the fake enthusiasm I could muster.
“Yes, I know there’s been a delay with that, but you have to understand, the grant writers are not actually on site with us, we freelance them independently…” I picked up a gnarly looking elastic and nervously twiddled it in my fingers. “Yes, yes I understand, Pradesh, but we’ve done everything we can on our side.”
The Lotus Program was the single most ambitious project for the empowerment of women and girls in the Indian subcontinent that any one NGO had ever undertaken, but the nasty truth was that I felt like a completely disempowered woman roughly 95% of my workdays.
I took a pen in my hand and clicked at it viciously as the voice on the other end proceeded to lecture me. I nodded and listened, then put the pen tip on the elastic band and drew on it again and again, blackening it.
“That’s reasonable Pradesh, and I do understand that. I’ll be following up with Miss McKenna as soon as we hang up, thank you so much for your patience,” I said, my own patience running thinner as the black on the elastic grew thicker.
I hung up and exhaled loudly, took a sip of coffee and tried to think. Before I could scarcely form a thought my phone pinged.
It was Anthony.
My apologies for the rush today. I’d love to see you soon though. Can I take you somewhere for dinner, let’s say tomorrow evening?
I groaned. I didn’t have nearly enough time on my hands to deal with irate school principals in eastern Chennai and juggle a dating life at the same time. I put my head in my hands and rubbed my temples. Maybe I should be like that hot idiot Mark. Maybe I should follow my intuition and see where it took me, since I seemed incapable of juggling all this crap on my own.
“You OK?”
It was Melissa. I gave her an exhausted smile.
“Just a busy day. Lots of decisions to make, you know?”
Just then my phone pinged again. Another message from Anthony, this time just a single emoji. The kissing emoji. Melissa’s eyes darted to the screen and quickly back again.
“Man trouble?” she asked sweetly.
I laughed.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. But I’m thinking I should start learning to follow my own intuition about these things…”
“Ooh, that sounds interesting.”
“Trouble is I have no idea what my intuition is saying.” I had already asked for a sign and got …well, him.
“Hey what’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“That on your wrist?”
I looked down and saw that without thinking I had put the elastic band around my wrist. I must have done it while talking to Pradesh.
“It’s uh …oh it’s nothing” I said and pulled the elastic band off. I froze. The ink I had scribbled onto it had transferred itself to my skin, lea
ving a perfect, uniform band of black all around my wrist.
“Melissa, do you believe in, like, signs? You know, omens?”
She gave me a weird expression.
“It’s just Mark,” she said.
“What?”
“I said, it’s just a mark.”
I turned my wrist over and examined the line again.
“Nevermind. It doesn’t mean anything,” I said quickly.
Chapter Six – Kat
Masooma Tavawalla. A fifteen-year-old girl who had made waves last year after creating a Facebook group condemning the Bohra community for their participation in female genital mutilation. A sweet, moon faced thing who had done the TED talks, done the morning talk show circuit and was now turning up at my office in half an hour to discuss partnering with the Lotus Program for an intervention.
I scrolled through photos of her girlish, unremarkable face. Google images offered only the same handful of gritty social media snaps and a few stills from TV. I made a mental note to offer to pay for some professional shots for her. At the rate she was garnering attention for her cause, she’d need them.
From all accounts she was a firecracker. Whip-smart, the eldest of seven children, outspoken and with a heart of triple reinforced gold, if the interviews I’d read were to be believed. I had only emailed with her briefly but was touched by her frankness, and her excitement to hear about out initiatives. She was a phenomenal young woman, an inspiration and a touching tribute to the robust human spirit. She was a marvel. Truly.
Then why was I so thoroughly bored?
I sighed and scrolled through listlessly.
Mark.
He was all I could think about. He had been a bright, weird spark in my boring day and I hadn’t been able to shake his memory. His cheeky smile. The carved coffee table had arrived this morning and I had stood staring at for it a full five minutes, wondering if it warranted me calling him up for a thank you drinks. People did that, right? Said thank you for furniture over drinks?
I nervously chewed my pen and tried to remember what Anthony had mentioned his last name being, and before I could stop my fingers, they were clattering over the keyboard.
