A prickle rolls up my back. “I want to tell you. I want to tell you everything, but I can’t.”
Even just in telling her that, I feel like I’ve pretty much told her everything. I’ve told her all my secrets right between the lines.
Finally, she gives a sort of final nod. “You’re smart. And even if it’s who I suspect, I won’t tell.” And she zips her fingers across her lips. “How much do you need?”
I lower my voice. “If you could spare $100, I’d be so unbelievably grateful.”
She picks up her purse from the floor and pulls out her Burberry wallet. From the zipper compartment she takes two crisp hundreds and holds them in the air.
I stare at them as she rubs them against one another out there in front of me, making papery noises between us. “No. I can’t. I’ll never be able to pay you back ever.”
“Stop,” she says, pressing them into my hand. “It’s not a loan.”
“Lucy.” I have no idea what to say. “Really…”
She jams her wallet back in her purse. “I’m only just paying it forward for when you have to come bail me out of jail one day.”
As ever, my eyes begin to moisten and I feel that sting in my nose.
“Now get the hell out of here,” Lucy says, kissing my cheek. “I have classes to fail.”
31
It’s a day of firsts. First time I ever felt the desire to take a woman away on a romantic weekend, first time I ever booked an Airbnb, and the first time I’ve ever gone on a true, bona fide shopping spree, the planned contents of which show me just how much fun life with Naomi could be. Life. With. Naomi. Could. Be.
Don’t drive off the road, Ben. Don’t be that guy.
First things first, on my way out of New Haven, I stop at Home Depot for some utilitarian items. Nylon rope, zip ties, and a handful of assorted-width Sharpie markers: fine tip, regular, magnum, and king-size. Mercifully, the self-checkout lines are open, so I don’t have to explain—“It’s all consensual!”—or my outrageous hard-on.
Leaving Home Depot, I spot a thoroughly shady-looking establishment across the way called Kinx Adult Emporium. I drive over to it, not sure if I feel like it’s Mecca or Chernobyl. She’s so classy, so gorgeous. I don’t want to debase her, I just want to make her squirm a little. To make her pant and writhe and slip that perfect tongue out over those lips. Or maybe it’s me I’m making squirm.
Inside, I find it to be incongruously like a craft store. I don’t know what I was expecting. Furtive men behind curtains? Porn sounds? That’s not this place. I wish she was here with me so damned much it hurts. I want to walk down every aisle with her and ask a thousand questions about what she might like or might not like. Because honestly, I’d buy every fucking thing in this place if she wanted it. Feathers, harnesses, cock rings. Every lube for every purpose. Or none of it, if she didn’t like it. But I don’t want to make any decisions for her, for us. Not unless they’re absolutely necessary. So, keeping my make-Naomi-happy mission in mind, I go to the vibrators. The array is astounding. I’m pleased, as a deep abiding feminist, to see that significant research-and-development money has been spent on the vibrator industry. As for what she’d like? God. Talk about personal. Briefly, I consider texting her to ask if she owns one or if she’d like one or what kind of things she might conceivably dig—gyrating penis with pearl beads, ten-speed battery-operated golf ball? Anything is great with me, provided it makes her feel exactly what she wants. But then I don’t want to put a bunch of pressure on her. I want this to be just right.
So I go for the Hunter rain boots of vibrators: the Hitachi Magic Wand. Even if she owns one, she could always use another. To keep in my house, maybe.
Jesus, man. Pull yourself together.
Second thing, a blindfold. The choice is easy. Top shelf, nicest one, soft black satin—just like her dress that first night. And then on my way out the door, I grab a nice bottle of massage oil. Because you just never can tell.
When I get closer to Mystic, I start looking out for local groceries. Not because I’m that guy that shops local, but because I like the idea of finding things a world apart and the very best quality.
In the bags next to me in the Jeep, I now have assorted goodies. Fresh eggs from a local dairy I passed, fresh half-and-half. Tea for her, coffee for me. Strawberries, bananas, and the apples. Cheeses. Bread. Wine, both kinds, and champagne, just in case. I know she’s not 21. Of all the rules we’re breaking, that’s the one that worries me least.
But there’s one last thing:
Before I get to the house, I drive around Stonington looking for just the place. MARIE’S BOUQUETS catches my eye.
Flowers for Naomi. It’s a bit of a gamble. Lilies? Roses? When the florist sees me walk in, looking no doubt disheveled and holding my old wallet patched with duct tape, her eyes slide over to a half-price bouquet of blue carnations.
“Alright. So. I want to buy flowers for a woman,” I say.
The florist seems like she was expecting this. Of course.
“I love this woman,” I said. When I say it I feel my nervous system bounce once, really hard, on the floor. “Love her, love her.” The subsequent bounces prove no less jarring, and not in a bad way.
The florist said, “Anniversary?” Holy shit, the possibilities of anniversaries sprinkle into the future like so many splatters of bright paint. How fucking amazing. But no, no. “We just started…”
Started what? Dating? That’s not the word.
The florist narrows her deep-set eyes. “What’s she like, this woman you love?”
Smart, pretty. Black hair, blue eyes,” gulp, “freckles. Her birthday is in April. She studies philosophy. She makes me feel like I’m dreaming.”
I smooth my hair and stop talking. Aside from everything else, she’s turned me into an out-and-out babbler.
The florist smiles. “Have a poke around. See if there’s anything that strikes your fancy.”
I open up a few refrigerators and think that she kind of reminds me of sunflowers, but I can’t go walking in there with a bundle of sunflowers, can I? No. I want romantic, not farmhouse.
But then I see them. I don’t know what they’re called. “Those,” I tell the florist. “Wrap up all of those in the shop.”
“That’s more than a hundred stems, sir.”
“Sold!”
And so, with my arms full of these flowers I can’t even pronounce, I thunder down the old roads to the Romantic Private Seaside Cottage.
The place is beautiful from the outside. There are still a few leaves dangling from gnarled old elms outside. There’s a gravelly path that goes around from the parking places to the front. The ocean is right there at the edge of the yard. Right. There.
Inside, it’s also beautiful. Possibly a little nautical for my tastes—so many embroidered lobsters on the cushions, Christ almighty—but clean, and quiet, and ours. Just ours, that’s what matters. I unpack the groceries and put my duffel upstairs. I come back down to the kitchen. I put my hands in my pockets. I look at the time.
Of course.
Only four freaking hours to go.
32
The Zipcar is parked in front of a place called Alpha Delta Pizza, which will make anything from souvlaki to rice pudding to potato skins to eggplant parm. All the delivery guys are standing around in front of the door, surrounded by a fog-machine-like cloud of smoke. They wave to me, I wave back, and hop in the car. It’s a white Prius with an audio cable waiting for my phone. Perfect, absolutely perfect.
I turn on the ignition, the engine makes no noise whatever, and I’m off.
As I drive, I feel myself letting go of campus and my life there. The pressure of deadlines and the archways lessens, and I let myself think, for just a second, about what would happen if circumstances changed. What would happen, say, if we weren’t professor and student? What would happen if one of us did something to change things around? What if I took the pressure off myself and us? Us. Is there an us? I think ther
e might just be an us. Early days, yes, but still. I’ll never know if I never find out. So it’s worth thinking about. Carefully, calmly, logically.
Which I can do. I think. If my heart would stop fluttering.
About twenty minutes into my thinking, though, it hits me—or Google Maps hits me—with the news that I’m going to be two hours early.
Oh man. There’s punctual and then there’s waiting around, obsessively checking Facebook with your heart pounding in your chest for the love of your life to appear.
Gotta slow down, Naomi. Take it slow. No need to go full steam ahead. Illogically for the time of year, I get a craving for something cold and sweet. So I stop for a Slurpee at a 7-Eleven, and treat myself to some Good & Plentys, which make me think of absinthe on Ben’s lips. The Slurpee, in turn, gives me a brain freeze, which I have to grit my teeth through with my head against the steering wheel right there in the parking lot for a while. I look at the clock. That ate up all of ten minutes.
Looking at the map, I see there’s a non-highway scenic route. Being from Maine, I know that’s Department of Tourism double-speak for very slow road. So that’s perfect. It’s Route 1, the original colonial Route 1. I see old historical marker signs that say it’s the old King’s Highway, established 1751. It feels like that, snaking between the gorgeous fall trees and pressed on one side up against big blocks of Connecticut granite. The drive becomes so slow and quiet that my mind keeps driving to different possibilities again. About how the world brings two seemingly opposite people together, who then can’t imagine what they did before.
And about what in the world to do next.
I’m always doing that—pre-worrying my way through things that haven’t happened or might never happen. For this, with him, I want to stay right here in the moment. For just this little while, I promise myself, I won’t worry. I won’t overthink. I will stay right here. With him.
The whole drive, my phone doesn’t buzz. I don’t know if this is because he knows I’m driving and is keeping me from being distracted, or because he’s up to something. Or both. The thought of that, it gives me shivers and makes me feel like I’ve had way, way too much tea.
As I continue west, the sun begins to set. I roll down the window a little, to feel the warm autumn breeze. Imagine Dragons plays through the speakers and I feel like I’m back in high school. Life, in other words, is awesome.
Finding the cottage, on the other hand, is a bit complicated. On the Airbnb reservation, the owner said there’d be no cell service, and Google Maps would be no help. He wasn’t kidding. As I turn down the tiny road on the far, far edge of Mystic, everything feels just like the 1770s. Unchanged.
I pull over and look at the screenshot of the directions, and then wind my way through stranger and stranger tiny lanes and farm roads, no bigger than a horse cart across. Finally, I see it, CT Route 2. It’s at a plain intersection, with massive stone farm walls on all four sides. I’m still a little early—fifteen minutes. So I pull over and sit in the dark car, counting back from 60. Fifteen times.
33
After pacing around so much my shoes actually feel hot, I see headlights. With my knees on the window seat, I stare out and down the driveway. Holy hell, that’s her.
Right, because who else is going to be, Ben? UPS? Pull yourself together, man!
I have no idea how she got a car, and I feel guilty for making her figure it out, but it had to be that way. Safety first, me figuring out a way to pay for the car later.
I hear her car door close, and then the trunk. The lights go off when the locks beep. I’m completely possessed by the noise of her feet on the gravel. Soft and light and beautiful. Nothing like my clomping around like a yeti. Her steps circle the house, and I creep towards the front door, not wanting to interrupt that noise. How I love that noise. Her coming to me. Her here with me. And then there she is in the doorway.
I don’t move towards her. I just take her in. She’s wearing this beautiful dark-brown sweater. It fits her curves just right. She’s got her purse on her arm, her rolling suitcase behind her, and her red boots in her free hand. Her sweater is long in the sleeves, and comes down to her palms.
I’m a goner.
This is entirely different than anything before. This isn’t the guest suite, this isn’t the Jeep. This is a whole world, just for us.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” I echo back.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she says. She sets her stuff down. I pull my head out of asshole-land and take her suitcase. I carry it upstairs and put it on a luggage rack I found in the storage closet. I wipe my palms off on my pants, and then come back down to see her.
She’s looking in the fridge, and she turns to me. “You’ve been busy.”
“But wait!” I say, and go around to the dining area. I bring her the bouquet. It’s absurdly, ridiculously huge, but looks even bigger in her arms.
“Ranunculus! How did you know?” she asks
I grin so hard my face hurts. “I didn’t know. They just seemed like you.”
She sticks her nose into them. I love that. I know they have no smell. But I love that she sniffs them anyway.
Here’s what I thought was going to happen: I thought she was going to walk in, and I was going to kiss her like I kissed her at the library, and walk her backwards to the couch while tearing off her clothes in a frenzy. There’d be jeans flying and shoes clattering to the floor. Underwear hanging on lamps. I’d take her hard and aggressive and tell her I fucking love her and it’s making me actually ache, it actually hurts my muscles and bones.
That is not how it goes.
Because I’m really nervous. Awkward and clumsy and tongue-tied. I look around for vases—that’s how big the bouquet is, vases plural—and find a few, one under the sink, one on the shelf. All of them painfully nautical. Lots of anchors and flounders and sand dollars. At the sink, we divide the flowers up. She fills the vases, I arrange the flowers. Try to anyway. I have no idea what I’m doing. Do I put them in one by one? In clumps?
“That’s….” She glances at me as she turns off the faucet.
The word is sad. “Here, I’ll fill. You arrange.”
“I had no idea you were so definite about gender roles,” she says, with a tiny, sparkling giggle. And then picks up her left foot and tips towards me, balancing on her right. She presses the side of her head to my shoulder.
She makes me too weak to ravish her. All I can do is fill this vase and hope I don’t make an ass out of myself.
The flowers distributed, she begins exploring while I get to work with the wine and cheese. I’m marginally better at arranging cheese on a plate than I was putting flowers in order, and within a mere five minutes, I join her on the couch. “Red or white, madam?”
“White,” she smiles. “Red gives me headaches.”
“Or champagne?” I add.
“Oh, yes please. That’s perfect.”
All those things. Headaches and quirks and preferences, that’s what I want to know. That’s what I need to know. The tiny minutiae of Naomi Costa. But also the big heart-filling dreams, and the little ideas that make life so damn much fun.
“Thank you, Ben. For all of this,” She glances around. “I’ve never had anybody…”
I tuck her hair behind her ear. I see she’s wearing pearl earrings again.
She puts brie on a cracker and hands it to me. She makes one for herself, and we sit there chewing for a second. She straightens out Ships of the Royal Navy on the coffee table.
“They didn’t mention the nautical theme in the description,” I say. I adjust a pillow shaped like a starfish that is presently jabbing me in the kidneys.
She frees one of the starfish legs. I think it was caught on my belt. Were her freckles always so pretty? “I like it. Reminds me of home. I’m from Maine, do you know that?” Oh shit. What do I do, feign innocence? I memorized everything about her from the registrars’ portal. “I did actually know that.”
She wrinkles up her nose. “I don’t even know where you’re from. I’ve told you I love you and I don’t know where you grew up.”
“Vegas,” I say, making another brie cracker. “Charming place. View of the dumpsters, plenty of cockroaches.”
“Oh God,” she moans, one hand to her mouth and chewing.
“But it was near the library. So.” I shrug. What I’m hoping is she can tell I grew up without the proverbial bean too. “What brought you to Yale, anyway?” I ask her. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize it sounds like I’m asking How did a girl like you end up here? But she doesn’t take it that way, thankfully.
“The scholarship gods.” “And you, obviously.”
She rolls her eyes. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
That’s not false modesty there. That’s a girl who doesn’t know that she deserves what she has. Who doesn’t belong. And boy, do I know that feeling too.
“So, this thing with you and me…” She trails off.
No, no way. Don’t tell me she’s going to break up with me here. I freeze with my cheese halfway to my cracker.
“What, what’s wrong?” she asks. “Why do you look like that?” “If you tell me we’re splitsville, I’ll drink this whole bottle and probably fall asleep in the shower.” I set down my cracker.
She adjusts her body to point towards mine and tosses the pillow over the back of the couch. She takes my hand in hers. “That is not what I was going to say.”
“Jesus,” I gasp.
“What I was going to say, Mr. Worrier, is that I’ve never felt this way. I realize I’m not even 21, but you know. Still…”
Now’s the time to profess my love, except that I, who can fill three volumes with a whole lot of words about nothingness? No words. Sliding down to my knees, I’m in front of her, at her feet. My back presses the coffee table away, and I take her hands. “Me neither.”
Professed Page 17
