“What, do you pick a number from a hat?”
“Almost. After I finish a book—or I’m super close to the end—when I wake up in the morning, before I even open my eyes, I think of a number. Whatever number pops into my head, I read that one from the list. It’s stupid . . .”
“It’s not.”
“It kind of is,” he said, chuckling. “We all have our things, right?”
She watched the corners of his mouth curl up. He may have blushed, too, Nora couldn’t be sure and she didn’t want to stare any more than she had already.
“Think Lolita is next. No death and destruction,” he said. “Bring on the apples and sex.”
Nora looked at him.
“Shit. That came out wrong,” he said, and cupped his hand over his eyes. “Sorry.”
Nora laughed. “No judgment here, perv-o.”
“Maybe you can read it with me. I’ll send you a copy.” He was looking right at her. “We could email each other notes on the book.” Daniel licked his lips. Nora tried not to notice how inviting it all was. She casually turned away from him and let her breath out, slowly.
She pointed to one of the workers on the lawn. “Hey, is that a new guy you have working for you?”
“Not me, my dad. No one works for me,” he said. “That’s Tobias. He’s actually a student—or he was. He’s the son of one of my parents’ church friends who needed some guidance. Supposed to help out a couple days a week or something. They’ve kind of taken him in.”
“That’s cool of your parents.”
Daniel nodded. “Yeah, they like to help out. Not Bourdain-level stuff, but they do what they can.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like—shit. My foot is really wedged in my mouth today.”
Nora shrugged, and the two stared out at the men working.
Daniel looked over at Nora, but only through a quick side glance, and bit his lip before breaking the quiet. “Did you find out anything?”
She shook her head.
“I’m sure it’s fine. She’s fine.”
“I don’t know . . . I mean, I want to believe that all the way, but everything with my mother just seems so off. I told you about the hand tremor thing.... It’s worse. Like, way worse. And she’s tired all the time. Even when she wakes up from ten hours or whatever of sleep, like, a lot of sleep, she’s still exhausted. She’s just not herself.”
“Have they let on that anything’s wrong?”
“No, not really. Well, except she keeps asking me to call her Elise. Since ‘we’re family—practically.’ All these years later, now we’re family?”
“Practically.”
“Right.” Nora snorted, rolling her eyes. “Practically.”
“What about Dr. B—what’s he think?”
Nora’s whole expression curdled, her lip twitched, but she forced herself to stay locked on Tobias, watching him root around the large, twin shrubs near the deck.
“You want to come inside?” She stood up.
He paused for a moment, looking up at Nora. “Is that okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Nora extended a hand to him, her palm up. Then she wiggled her fingers. “Coming?”
Daniel nodded and took the help up. “Why do I feel like I’m about to step into some trouble?” He was balancing himself on the edge of the top stair, leaning in closely toward Nora and smiling. She could feel the warmth of his breath along the side of her neck. She turned her head, slightly, so they didn’t bump into each other and clumsily knock him off his ledge. From this angle, Nora could only see half of him—half of his flushed, remarkable face—and her eyes moved down and stayed for a moment on his mouth, the etched laugh line, his glossy bottom lip. He must have just licked them, Nora thought, as the flutter around her heart returned.
Nora led him into the laundry room, not looking back his way for several steps, not until she heard the soft click of the back door closing. She turned to catch Daniel looking around at the white of the room, unsure but curious as he walked over to her.
“You’ve never been in here?” Nora lifted herself up onto the washing machine to sit; her feet dangled and knocked against its front-load door.
Daniel chuckled. “No, never once, not even to wash my hands at that sink.”
“You’re here now.” Nora stopped kicking her heels against the machine. It was quiet inside, only the chirping birds and intermittent whirl of the landscaping tools interrupting their hush.
“I guess I am.” He pushed his hands into his front pockets so deep that his shoulders moved up to his ears.
“It’s maybe my favorite room in this house.”
“Seriously?”
Nora nodded. “I know. Random, right?” Daniel inched over to Nora and the washing machine. No longer taking in the tiles and shelves of the room, he was looking directly at her. “I guess I like it because it’s where things get clean and neat and new again. You could put the dirtiest, muddiest, grossest piece of whatever in here”—she touched the machine gently—“and after a quick spin, it’s good again.”
Daniel squared his jaw, licking his lips and nodding. “That’s pretty poetic.” His eyes drew a line from her hand resting on the washer, along her side, up to her face.
A flash of heat moved from Nora’s ears down to her ankles. It tickled and she smiled, but Daniel didn’t. His face was straight and serious, but not steely. He walked in closer, stopping next to the machine. He was within her arm’s reach. Nora stretched hers toward him, her palms up like before. She danced her fingers again. And he took her hand again. The kiss started soft. Soon Daniel’s hand was sliding along the small of Nora’s back, gripping her waist. Leaning forward, Nora’s calf brushed the top of his worn jeans. She felt a scrape—the book in his back pocket—as he roughly pulled her into him. Daniel’s lips tasted exactly as she wanted them to. His breath was hot and a little sweet.
They separated and Daniel’s eyes finally opened as he pulled back, his hand still resting on Nora’s neck and jaw. He looked at her, taking her in. Nora wanted another kiss. A longer, deeper one—if that were possible. She wanted to wrap her legs around his waist and pull him hard into her. Slide his shirt over his head. Unbutton the top of his jeans, forcing the zipper down halfway. Arch her back gracefully as he made his way down her neck and the wide line between her breasts. And do all the things she had seen women do on the daytime stories her mother loved to watch.
Daniel stroked the back of Nora’s head. He gently massaged her scalp with his fingers. “Is this safe?”
Nora giggled. “As in, what, you might get crushed by the washing machine?”
He smirked. “I mean, is it safe to be doing this—here?” Nora shrugged and tried to drop her head into his chest, but Daniel leaned back a little farther. “I’m serious. What if someone sees?”
Nora looked up. “No one’s here. You know they’re gone this week, and my mother’s out. She’s been gone all day, actually. So there’s, like, literally no one here.”
Daniel’s expression turned uneasy. He slowly drew his hands back. His intention started to take shape, clear enough for Nora to see it. Her grin dissolved. “What are you worried about; who’s going to see us?” She pulled away from him, but kept her eyes locked on his. Leaning back, waiting for Daniel to say the words she could already hear in her head, Nora winced. The moment was familiar. Unlike the others, though, Daniel kept his head up and looked her in the eyes.
“Nora, it’s . . . it’s not me. My parents, they’re old school. They wouldn’t be okay with you and me—It’s how they were raised, you know? They’re stuck in the old way. And they really respect Dr. Bourdain and his wife.” He ran his hand through his hair, pushing the tousled heap over to one side. “They pride themselves on doing a good job here and being proper and I . . . I wouldn’t want to do anything to mess that up.” He dropped his head and dragged his hands through his hair again. “You know I’m not like that, Nora. It’s not about me.”
“And it’s not
about me either, right?” Nora’s grimace was pulled so tight across her face it pinched the corners of her eyes. She took a deep breath and let her glare fall away from Daniel, staring past his feet until the white of the room swallowed him up and he was a blur. “It’s fine, Daniel. Don’t worry about it.” She fanned her hands by his face.
“Come on, Nora. Don’t do that. Don’t act like a six-year-old. I’m talking to you in a real way here about, like, real things. They’re my parents. Think about if your mother—”
“Nope, you don’t get to say that to me. No.” She shook her head hard and pulled her legs up on the washing machine to fold them under her. A fresh sting from the cut on her thigh rose up and she bit the inside of her cheek, trying to mask her wince. “It’s fine, okay? You’re fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Daniel stepped back and covered his mouth with his hand, rubbing his lips with the tips of his fingers. He let out a loud breath. “I don’t want you to be . . . Just tell me you understand where I’m coming from. I’m not like that, Nora. You know me.”
“I know that you really believe you’re not like that. I can see it in your face. And I know that you really want me to believe it, too.” Nora jumped off the machine. “But it doesn’t matter what a person believes. It never does.”
He took a step toward Nora. “Come on,” he said, and put his hand out.
She slapped it softly. “Thanks for stopping by, Daniel. Good luck with the Harvard stuff, eh?” Nora reached for the large clothesbasket on the shelf nearest her and started sorting the small heap of colorful clothes.
“Nora,” Daniel said, crestfallen and trying to catch her eyes with his.
“Hey, do me a favor?” she said sweetly, adding a grin. “Just close the door in good behind you.” She turned back to the basket and continued separating her fresh, clean pieces from her mother’s, listening for the sure click of the patio door. The minute the sound hit the air, Nora’s ribs caved, pitching her forward into the yawn of the clothesbasket. She shook her head slowly as the tears dripped on a half-folded nightgown spilling out the side. The vein by her temple throbbed as Nora’s breathing stepped up, getting louder and more fierce until that’s all she could hear. She wrapped her fists around the clothesbasket, squeezing tighter and tighter as a growl burned from the center of her belly through her lungs and finally came booming out of her mouth in flames. Nora threw the basket over her head, wild, roaring to the skylights. It was enough. It was too much. The ground-in misery and rancor of her young life—one spent on the outside of every circle—seeped in, and Nora’s thicker outer shell finally cracked all the way through.
She left the clothes strewn across the laundry room and returned to her basement bed. A piece of broken glass hidden in the folds of the sheets jammed into Nora’s knee as she crawled to her pillow. She moved to pull it out, but stopped—stopped wincing, stopped crying, stopped gritting her teeth—and let the sliver remain.
CHAPTER 4
Fisher reached over and placed the green ring box on the glass top between them. He sat back, staring down at the quaint thing as it glowed beneath the lights. After a long beat, he smiled first, then leaned in and looked over at Nora.
“Should we do this all over again, then?” he said, grinning even wider. “That is, if your answer is still the same.”
Nora bit the small center of her bottom lip, a shaky dam to keep any hard truths from trickling out. She stayed quiet, gazing at the pretty box, barely moving, only a slight curl pulling at the corners of her mouth. As her silence stretched out, Fisher’s smile began to droop and his brows inched toward each other. Catching himself, he chuckled and pulled away from the table, resting back in the patio chair. He picked up his beer bottle in a loose, three-fingered grip and brought it to his mouth for a slow sip. His usual ease returned as the pale ale flowed down his throat.
“You love the ring. You love me,” he said, gesturing with the bottle. “I’m not ruffled by any of this.” Fisher traced a lazy circle in the night air around Nora. “And I know the answer is still yes. The real question is, what’s got you so out of sorts?”
Nora finally looked up from the ring box and over at Fisher. Their twinkling patio lights made his face shimmery and almost translucent. She shrugged and shook her head before pushing out a tight smile. “There’s nothing. It’s nothing. I’m . . . I’m just tired. My sleep’s been off.” Nora moved her gaze over Fisher’s shoulders. Looking right at him was asking too much. “It’s normal stuff, you know . . . jitters.”
“Jitters,” he said. Another slow sip.
“Yeah, wedding jitters. Totally normal.” Another light shrug.
“Right. But you’re not totally normal and you’re not a jitters person. You’re Nora Mackenzie. So, what’s really going on?”
Nora took a deep breath and considered what it might look like, the truth, standing between them raw under the stars. She imagined how Fisher’s face might morph from sweet and calm and kind into something more pained and sickened; how his eyes would narrow, barely able to stay open, watching as she spilled every drop of her warped and mangled story onto the spotless glass. Would he push himself back in his chair, arching his body away from the rancid sewage that poured from her mouth across the table and dripped onto the limestone floor? Or maybe he would stay stoic, unable to process what she said and want nothing more than for her to stop talking and just leave. As horrible as the visions of this potential future were, Nora never felt so on the cusp of coming clean. Looking at him, sitting across from her, leaning into her, waiting on her next breath, Nora wanted to answer Fisher’s question, she wanted to tell him what was really going on, convinced that she could actually do it. She bit the inside of her bottom lip once more, inhaled deeply once more, and set both of her sweaty palms flat on the table to steady herself. She wanted to speak it, let loose the words jumbled at the back of her throat, quickly before the tears could rush in and turn everything into a shapeless, soggy mess. She even opened her mouth, slightly, but still big enough for something to slip through and at least begin. But it didn’t work. Nothing came. Not even her choppy breath skated over her lips. Nora glanced down at the ring box still sitting there perfectly centered, and allowed the tears to move freely.
“I . . . I am just so, so excited to be your wife,” she said, moving her damp hands to clutch high on her chest. “I want it to happen tomorrow or tonight—right now, this minute we’re in right now. Everything else . . . it all could fall off the edge of the terrace,” Nora said, waving her hand toward the end of the long table. “I don’t need it. It’s you. That’s it. That’s what I want. You.”
Fisher signaled with the slightest dip of his head that he was falling for this woman all over again. Nora reached for the box and pushed it over to him.
“Ask me once more,” she said, her face bunched into a wet knot.
Fisher grabbed the box and left his empty beer bottle in its place. He stood up, never breaking his focus on Nora, and walked around the table to her side. When he dropped to his bent knee, his eyes bright and smile wide, Fisher paused and looked up at this blond beauty, tracing the outline of her warm, glowing face with his gaze. He took her left hand from her lap and brought it to his lips—the only time his glance left her. Nora didn’t bother to hold anything in—she couldn’t. The tears, the trembling heart, the vertigo, it was all happening outside of her control, set to their own rhythm.
Fisher popped open the ring box and angled it toward Nora, his smooth, lightly tanned face in full blush. He licked his lips and brushed two fingers over the dew left behind—a nervous tic. He let his grin fall away and, after a short breath, he started. “Nora Mackenzie. I’m in love with you,” he said, nodding. “I love everything about you. Even the things that you don’t like about you—especially those things you don’t like. I do. I love all of it. I knew this was real from the moment we met. You were trying to pretend I didn’t exist”—he paused for a chuckle and wink—“but you saw me, because I saw you. And I want to s
pend the rest of my life doing just that: seeing you. Loving you. Being right here for you.” Fisher removed the ring from the box and steadied it on the very tip of Nora’s finger. “My beautiful, wonderful, lovely Nora, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
Nora lunged into his body, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face there as she sobbed.
“Hey, hey, Mack,” Fisher said softly, craning his neck to catch a view of her face. “Babe, what’s happening here? This is not the first time you’re hearing this.” He gently shifted Nora’s weight back into her chair and tried again to make eye contact with her. “These tears, this isn’t joy—you’re crying, and it’s so much sadness. What’s wrong? You can tell me. You know that; you can tell me what happened.” He stood up and pulled Nora’s limp body up with him. “First, let me just put this on you properly.” He took her trembling hand and slid the ring over Nora’s finger. “There. Where it should be.”
Nora shook her head, her body swaying, as she barely stood up straight enough to receive the celebrated piece of fine jewelry. “I don’t need it,” she said, sniveling and trying to break from his embrace. “It’s not for me. This, it’s not me.”
“Listen, hey, hey. Listen. This ring is for you. It’s yours.” Thud. Fisher slapped his chest. “I’m yours. I’m for you. I messed up on the sizing. That’s on me. And those guys, they’re specialists. They’re old and precise. That’s the only reason it took so long. But this ring is yours, okay? It’s for you.”
All Nora could offer was a stiff nod. And Fisher accepted it.
“Mack, is this”—he folded her into him and hugged tight—“is this about your mother? You said it was good this way, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s too close to the date, to her anniversary.”
Nora’s back locked up and her jaw clenched. Although a day did not go by without her thinking about her mother at least once, she wasn’t prepared for the woman’s death to be brought to mind and space right then. She pressed her head into the middle of Fisher’s chest, trying to force herself to pull back and look at him. Counting breaths wasn’t working this time. She closed her eyes and like that, it started again: the names.
Have You Met Nora? Page 5
