A Little Bit of Everything Lost

by Stephanie Elliot

  Marnie opened the door and she was assaulted first by the smell, then by the sight of the most elaborate bunch of yellow and orange chrysanthemums she’d ever seen.

  “For you.”

  “Oh my God! Joe! They’re gorgeous!”

  “Well, good, because so are you.”

  “I’ve got to take a picture of them!”

  “You and your camera.” He kissed her, an affectionate kiss, one that was not supposed to be anything more but caused the deep swellings inside she was beginning to know all too well. How could he do this to her, so simply, and did she create the same stirrings in him? She pressed against him and felt that she actually had caused a reaction. Marnie smiled.

  “Why’re you smiling?”

  “Just happy to see you.”

  “Me too.”

  “Grab a beer; I’ll get my camera.”

  “Do you want a beer too?”

  “Actually, get me a wine cooler, please.”

  When she came downstairs with her camera, Joe was in the kitchen and the drinks were on the counter. He had his head in one of the low cabinets. “Do you know where I can find a vase for the flowers?”

  “Yeah, let me check the laundry room.”

  Marnie grabbed a vase, filled it with water and arranged the flowers.

  “They’re so pretty. How did you know they’re my favorite?”

  “You told me, and I remembered.”

  “Wow, you’re like the perfect… ” Marnie stopped.

  “The perfect what?”

  Marnie wanted to say he was the perfect boyfriend, but they hadn’t discussed anything about a commitment, so instead she smiled and hugged him. “You’re like the perfect guy! I want to take some pictures of these for my photography class. We’re on the still-life chapter.”

  She began snapping away and moved the vase next to the window to get ample light as Joe drank his beer. She sensed him watching her and turned to look at him.

  “What now?”

  “You look really hot taking pictures.”

  “Oh come on!” Marnie laughed.

  “Seriously, you’re just taking pictures, but you’re all professional about it and… ”

  Then Marnie turned the camera on Joe and clicked it, catching him mid-sentence. “Hey, I didn’t even smile!”

  “I know. But I like candids best. We should take more pictures. I had so much fun taking pictures that night of the trains,” Marnie said, clicking her camera at Joe. He made a peace sign and stuck out his tongue.

  “I know what kind of pictures I’d like to take of you,” he grinned.

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Come over here with that thing,” Joe reached out and pulled Marnie into him. She turned the camera around and shot some pictures of the two of them. They both smiled into the lens, and Joe pulled her in tight, kissing her on the cheek as she clicked some more. Now she’d have documentation of the two of them together.

  The past weeks had been like playing house. She liked the feeling of being a grown-up, of being in a real relationship, of having someone feel the way she suspected Joe felt of her. And while he hadn’t professed any deep attachment to her through words, she felt he was just waiting for the right moment to tell her he loved her. To say they had been inseparable would be an understatement; they had barely breathed without one another.

  Crazy, she knew, for after all, it had barely been a month since they met. But it had seemed like she knew him a lifetime, and while she had always rolled her eyes at the magazine articles on “Is He Your Perfect Match?” or “Find True Love: Three Easy Steps,” Marnie kind of felt she was headed there; maybe she had found her soul mate?

  Chapter Fourteen

  October 2004

  The four of them sat around the kitchen table, Trey and Jeremy fighting for Stuart’s attention, Stuart listening as Trey tried to tell a knock-knock joke he made up.

  “Dad. Knock-knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Pencil.”

  “Pencil who?”

  “Pennsylvania! That’s who!” Trey busted out in a fit of giggles.

  “That’s gay Trey!”

  “Jeremy! Where did you hear that!” Stuart reprimanded.

  “At Religious Ed,” Jeremy said proudly.

  “Trey, that was a very nice joke,” Stuart addressed his youngest son. Then, to Jeremy, he said, “You, mister, are not to talk like that, do you understand?”

  Marnie’s head was splitting apart. She placed her palms onto the sides of her head, and rubbed at her temples.

  “You okay, hon?”

  “Headache.” Heartache.

  “Why don’t you go on up to bed. I’m sure it was a tough week. The boys and I’ll clean up. The meatloaf was great, by the way.”

  The boys groaned when they heard Stuart mention they would help clean up, but started clearing the table when their father suggested a trip to the Ice Cream Igloo after the kitchen was done.

  “Would you like us to bring you something back?” Stuart asked.

  Marnie wanted to ask if they could bring her back a New Life, but instead she shook her pounding head and trudged upstairs to her room. She thought maybe it was time for another visit with her therapist Eva. She hadn’t seen her since September.

  She heard the dishes clinking and the boys telling Stuart what they had finally decided on for their Halloween costumes. Trey was going to be a ghost, and Jeremy’s costume was some sort of a bloody gangster. She was thankful Halloween was on Sunday this year so that Stuart would be there to take the kids around the neighborhood. There was no way Marnie wanted to deal with all of that. She could barely deal with waking up most days it seemed.

  Finally, the garage door lifted up and then cranked closed until it slammed. It always slammed at the end. One of these days, she was sure it was going to slam down on something important. Like a child.

  Her room was dark, the blinds always shut tight when Stuart was away. It was a dusty room, and if the blinds were open in the morning, glaring stretches of sunlight streamed through the windows, creating more light and dimension than she wanted. On her dresser, there were far too many framed photos of times she wished would have stood still, of days and events she was glad to have captured on film, but now those times were few and far between.

  She placed her hand on the pull of the top drawer and opened it. The silver box was there, untouched. She had only opened it that one time, to place the items inside. She had been heavily sedated, weepy and not sure what time of day it was, or for that matter, how many days after it had been. Still, she had felt like she needed to acknowledge it, to create a moment, to know that it had actually happened, that it was a part of her life, and it had been real. Because so many people around her had pretended it didn’t happen, had glossed by it, said it was something that it wasn’t. And all this time had passed and it still felt like there had been no baby at all. And that wasn’t fair to Marnie.

  She didn’t open it now, just touched the smoothness of the silver box, said a silent prayer, placed a scarf over it, and closed the drawer.

  Marnie looked at the photos of the boys that covered the top of the dresser and wondered what it would have been like to have more pictures there, a family of five. Her head throbbed. Her collection of antique perfume bottles scattered the dresser, cluttered on top of the antique mirrored tray Stuart had given her one Christmas.

  Marnie touched the colored glass of the perfume bottles, and picked up her favorite. It was the amber one, with speckles of purple so dark it looked like black jewels imbedded in the glass. She lifted the stopper and her senses reeled. It happened every time. As the scent enveloped her, the memories of him came. There was no stopping them.

  Marnie knew without a doubt that this time, this time she would have to find him. If Joe was coming into town, she was going to have to get in touch with him and tell him. It would be the only way to make things well. She would have to start from that beginning.

  With the tragedy
from the summer, and what she did in college, this was going to be the first step to getting control of her life. She had lost too much, she had known too little about things she deserved to know. Too many years had gone by with too many unanswered questions, and it had partly been her fault, but partly Joe’s too, and now she needed to know why. She needed to see Joe.

  He was the starting point to getting her questions answered. To getting her life fixed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  August 1988

  They came up for breath.

  “God, my mouth is so dry… ” Joe kissed Marnie’s neck, “but I could kiss you forever.” They decided since it was raining, they would take advantage of the day. And each other. The rain kept the golf club closed, so Joe wasn’t needed at his caddying job, and Marnie figured a sick day was in order, even though she knew on a day with such weather, The Bean would be brimming with customers. Neither considered their part-time summer jobs as being anything but that, so blowing off work in favor of an afternoon in bed, doing nothing, and everything, appealed to the both of them.

  “You thirsty? I’ll get us something to drink.”

  “I’ll come. Could use a change of scenery,” he laughed.

  Marnie leaned over the side of her bed and handed Joe his boxers, the yellow ones with the smiley face right smack on the front. There was certainly reason for Marnie to be smiling lately. This had turned out to be an incredible summer, more so than she could have ever expected, and she dreaded school starting up again. He would be back at his college, and she, at hers, almost four hours from his.

  “Here. Put this on.” He handed her the shirt he had on earlier – from his fraternity, with the plaid letters EX. She stuck her arms through the holes, and inhaled the smell of him, of light sweat mixed with Obsession, of grass and trees (she imagined he wore it to the golf club the day before) – all this, she could smell from his shirt. She exhaled as her head plucked through.

  “Let’s get something to drink.”

  In the kitchen, she opened the fridge as he stood behind her, his arms encircling her waist, his body tight up against hers, and the thrill of his touch, again so soon, was enough to make her want to turn around and start kissing him right then and there even though they just left her bed.

  “Joe,” she whispered.

  He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Do you have any lemons?” he asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Grab some?”

  “You want lemonade?”

  “Something like that,” he laughed. He moved away from her and she opened the drawer at the bottom of the fridge and scrounged around, and just as she was about to suggest something else to drink, she spotted a plump lemon.

  “We’ve only got one. We have that lemonade powder stuff. I could get… ”

  “One’s fine,” and he took it from her.

  He searched some cabinets, found a cutting board. “Sugar? And can you get some ice?”

  The thought of him in her kitchen, making lemonade, being domestic, excited Marnie but she wondered how he was going to make lemonade with only one lemon. In the back of the cabinet where her mother kept coffee stuff – powdered creamer, coffee filters, tea bags – Marnie found a small container of sugar.

  Joe sliced up the lemon in crescent-shaped glistening chunks. Marnie walked over and poked him in the ribs, thinking how lucky she was to have this guy in her house, in her bed, in what she hoped would be her future.

  “Did you get ice?”

  When Marnie nodded in the direction of the glass she had filled with ice, Joe said, “Perfect.”

  He placed five lemon pieces into a bowl. He then took the ice cubes from the glass, and dumped them on top of the lemons, chilling them.

  “Sugar?”

  Marnie nodded toward the sugar. Joe licked his index finger and skimmed the top of the white mound of crystals, then placed his finger on Marnie’s lips. She sucked.

  “Taste good?”

  “Umm.” She licked her lips.

  He grabbed her around the waist and Marnie wrapped her arms around his neck and they kissed, tasting each other’s sugared lips. In a fluid motion, Joe raised Marnie up onto the kitchen island, and she spread her legs a bit, waiting for Joe to join her on the counter.

  God, if only my mother knew.

  Joe kept kissing her as she scooted back a bit, opening her legs further, making room for Joe to climb up, but then he stopped.

  “Wait. I told you I was thirsty.”

  “Oh, come on, you’re kidding, right?”

  Joe looked at her, and smiled. She was impatient, she was ready; she didn’t want lemonade.

  Joe turned away from Marnie and she sighed, touched her knees to one another, closing her legs.

  “This better be some damn good lemonade,” Marnie muttered.

  “Can you do me a favor?” he asked from the sink, his back to her. She was still perched on the island, sure that her kitchen fantasy was going to be just that. Sure he was going to ask for something else, maybe the sweet and low, or some bottled lemon juice for this lemonade concoction he was so hell-bent on making.

  “What?” she snipped, annoyed at being teased.

  “Can you lie down?”

  Joe was still facing the sink, and if he had turned around, he would have seen her eyes go wide. He had only been teasing her, and he did, in fact, want to play. She suppressed a giggle, and scooted until the back of her knees hit the edge of the countertop. Then, she leaned back, but kept her elbows on the counter, steadying herself so she could watch him.

  “This good?” she asked, in what she hoped was a sultry, flirty way.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?” She pouted.

  “Your shirt – actually, my shirt – is still on.” As he moved in front of her, she sat up. He latched his thumbs under the T-shirt and slowly, he inched his fingers, and thumbs, and palms up the sides of her, his hot hands tickling, teasing, so slowly. Her flesh prickled into goose bumps and she felt herself go warm from the inside out.

  When Joe took the shirt off, he smiled at her and turned once again to the sink, retrieved the bowl of ice and lemon wedges and moved back to Marnie.

  “Ready?”

  Marnie nodded, suddenly nervous. Joe picked up a lemon wedge and sucked on it, not even making a sour face. He licked it some more, and then brought it to Marnie for a taste. As she licked it, lemon juice and water from the melting ice dripped onto her chin, and fell into a drop on her belly. She lay down again, and pulled her hair from behind her neck and let it fall onto the counter behind her head. She propped her hands under her head so she could watch. Joe lifted a cube from the bowl and held it above her stomach. Drops melted onto her, and turned hot when they hit her skin. Marnie felt like she was on fire. He moved the cube over to just above her nipple, and waited as it dripped – three quick splats – and then, he moved to the other one. She shuddered from the feeling and closed her eyes, to see only what she could feel, to remove the sense of sight to heighten the sense of touch.

  “Oh, God.”

  “That good?”

  “Oh, God, yeah.”

  When she felt the thick wedge of lemon on her belly, it surprised her.

  He skated the lemon over her skin; skin that was hot and cold at the same time. Her nipples were tight, and the heat from below was insane. He moved the lemon back and forth, up and down her body, coating her with sticky sourness. She wanted him to lick it off her, to take every sliver of her body and suck it off. Her hips lifted as she arched her back.

  He sprinkled sugar over the lemony path trailed on her body. Sugar fell, and then he traced the lemon wedge over the sugared lines. The sensation was almost too much and Marnie reached for Joe, ready.

  “Wait, Mar. Hold on. You like this, right?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know if I can take much more.”

  “Oh come on, this is fun.”

  “For you, maybe,” she whined, “But, but… you’re torturing
me!”

  “Just hold on.”

  Then she felt something new, something else down low.

  The lemon.

  This, she was not expecting. Not that she was afraid; it was just so… not Marnie. The old Marnie wouldn’t have done this. Been in the kitchen doing these things. Marnie wouldn’t have let a guy shave her as she had let him. Marnie wouldn’t have continued to keep it shaven. But she had. This was a new Marnie, one who wasn’t afraid of new things, the Marnie who was willing to trust completely. To trust Joe. This guy who she was certain she was falling in love with, because how could you feel this way for a person, and let him do these things to you, and want him so badly all of the time… how could you have so much desire for a person you weren’t in love with? How could you?

  Because she knew she was in love with him.

  The lemon wedge was making its way downward, and she moved her heels up, letting one knee fall open to the side.

  “Looks nice down there.”

  “Umm.”

  He opened her up, spreading her, first licking the lemon and then slowly, gently, he took the lemon and moved it over her. He squeezed, and the juice fell onto her. He took the lemon and moved it back and forth, back and forth, onto her. He turned Marnie toward him now, and she lifted her knees up. Another lemon wedge and this time, he pushed a little too far. “Ooh, that stings.”

  “Sorry, babe.”

  “No, it’s okay. It’s good.” She loved when he called her babe.

  He moved the lemon on her again, testing the limits, and again she cringed.

  He put the lemon to the side and licked her skin, taking his time with her sugar-coated, lemony nipples. Then he slipped his tongue downward, following the crystal and sour path he had created. He grabbed the sugar bowl, and most of the contents scattered onto the counter. He pinched some between his fingers, and moved his head up to her lips to kiss her. His mouth tasted like the lemon drop candies she loved when she was little. But better. And she sucked at him. Joe found the parts of her he wanted, and he sprinkled the sugar grains onto her, rubbing them into her skin. Touching and tweaking, sugared fingers found their way inside her, and she was sure if he kept at it, he would make his own candy.