by Holly Rayner
“I think this is probably the first time I’ve ever eaten braised tongue,” she said. The look on her face suggested she was having second thoughts about it.
“Not a fan?” I asked.
“Let me get back to you.”
“The night after we had finished moving in,” I said slowly, “I told Delilah—that’s my ex-wife—to order whatever she wanted from the menu. She looked it over for about a minute, then folded it up and told me that all she wanted was a steaming bowl of cheesy mac the way her mom used to make it.”
“Honestly? I kind of wish I had gone for the cheesy mac.” Shannon set her fork down and nudged her plate away. “I thought maybe I would try something new tonight, but maybe I’m just too set in my ways.”
“Well, what would you like? Order something else. If it’s not on the menu, I’ll talk to the chef and see if we can have it made for you special.”
She seemed taken aback by the question, as if she hadn’t expected to be able to change her mind. “Gosh, I don’t know. I hope you won’t hate me for this, but you’ve gotten me really in the mood for some macaroni.”
“Why would I hate you for that?”
She hesitated for a second before saying, “Because it reminds you of your ex-wife.”
“Well, that can’t really be helped.” I sat back in my chair, affecting a nonchalant air, though I was sure Shannon could see through it. “It’s been a few years now. You won’t see me crying at the sight of a bowl of macaroni.”
“If you don’t mind my asking…” Shannon kneaded the backs of her hands nervously. “No, I probably shouldn’t ask. It’s not polite.”
“I don’t mind,” I said honestly. “We’re friends now. If I don’t like the question, I won’t answer it.” But it was hard to imagine her asking something truly inappropriate; even harder to imagine me minding if she did.
“Well…” She stared shyly at the white linen tablecloth. “You’ve been divorced for—how long now?”
“Three years.”
“And…what happened, exactly? I mean, if you don’t mind saying.”
There had been moments during the week when I thought maybe Shannon was starting to like me, but this was the clearest indication so far: her sudden interest in my previous relationships; the hesitation and delicacy with which she asked.
“Yes, that.” I set my napkin down on the table. “The reason I don’t like to talk about it is because I don’t want to embarrass her.”
“And that’s fair. I’ll understand if you’d rather—”
“But I trust you enough that I don’t mind telling you. And I know you’ll keep it between us.” I drummed my index finger nervously on the tablecloth. “Delilah—I guess you could say she lived up to her name.”
“She cut off your hair?” Shannon looked horrified.
“Lord, no!” We both laughed and the spell of unease was broken. “She had an affair with a business partner of mine. She had left Kalilah at her parents’ that day—she was going out shopping with a friend, she said—but then I came home early and she was there with him. I actually found him hiding in a trunk at the foot of the bed.”
“How did you know to look in the trunk?” Shannon asked. “Could you hear him breathing?”
“I knew something was up when I came home and found her in bed. She told me she had just gotten home, but the times didn’t match up and she looked cool and refreshed, like someone who had spent all day in the house. And you know how sometimes you can just sense when things are off?” Shannon nodded. “I had this uncanny feeling like there had been someone else in the room just three seconds before I came in.
“Delilah might have gotten away with it if she hadn’t been working so hard to convince me that she was alone. She had never been a very good liar, and that tipped me off. Finally, my eyes came to rest on the trunk and I knew. I didn’t even have to open it—the moment I started walking toward it she threw herself in front of it, screaming and begging me not to open it.”
“I should think that would have given it away, right there,” said Shannon.
“It did. And of course I opened it up and there was Amir. He tried to act casual about it, like he regularly wedged himself into trunks in friends’ bedrooms. Like it was the most normal thing in the world. He’s very lucky I didn’t just close the lid again and leave him there.”
“I assume you let him out.”
“Oh, I did, eventually. He had to sit there for a couple hours and listen while mine and Delilah’s marriage imploded around him, knowing all the while that it was partially his fault. That was his punishment, and if you ask me, he got off lightly.”
“I’d say,” said Shannon. “Nothing makes me angrier than betrayal in marriage.”
“That’s because you’re an honest person,” I said. Shannon went on staring at the back of her spoon as I added: “I think even if you were trapped in an unhappy marriage, you’d seek a divorce before cheating on your husband. That’s just the kind of woman you are. I told my friend Hakim, there’s a guilelessness about you that’s so rare in someone of your stature. You couldn’t tell a lie if your life depended on it.”
“Oh, I’ve lied before,” said Shannon, clawing at the side of her neck. “I’m not very good at it, but I’ve done it.”
“But anyway, that’s the story of my marriage,” I finished. I poured the last of my seltzer out of the can and into the glass, watching the bubbles rise to the top and disappear. “It took me a long time to get over it, as you can imagine. Friends tried to set me up on dates and I wasn’t interested. It’s hard to trust anyone after a betrayal like that.”
“Gosh, I can’t even imagine,” said Shannon. “Were you ever able to talk to someone about what happened?”
“Yeah, I saw a therapist for a few months. It was through talking to her that I realized I’m not opposed to the idea of getting married again one day. I would just have to find the right person. Someone I genuinely trusted. And so far, that hasn’t happened yet.”
Shannon nodded sympathetically, her eyes trained on the half-empty glass of sangria that stood between us. “Do you ever have those moments where you’re lying awake at night and you look over and wish there was someone with you? Someone you could feed and hold and brush the hair out of their face?” Without waiting for me to answer, she went on, “I guess when I was younger I thought, if I could just make it as a musician, I would be the happiest person and all my needs would be satisfied. And I do get a lot of satisfaction out of playing my songs. I find more joy in the craft, honestly, than in all the awards and applause. Sometimes, I think I would trade all my fame just to have someone lying next to me.”
“Surely you can’t want for opportunities,” I pointed out.
“I’ve never been much for groupies,” Shannon said with a look of distaste.
“That’s honorable. If I was a rock star, I don’t know if I’d have your self-control.”
“You practically are a rock star,” said Shannon. “Here, at least.”
I shrugged, as if to concede the point. “I think the problem is that I struggle to let people in. Trust issues, and all that.”
“And I worry that people only want me because I’m famous,’” said Shannon. “So, there’s not a lot of trust there, either.”
“You could have anyone you wanted—”
“I don’t know about anyone,” Shannon said, brows raised. “I think I’m too anxious to have even a fling with some random guy.”
“And I’m too paranoid and suspicious,” I said. “Look at us.”
“Look at us,” said Shannon, and downed the last of her drink.
Chapter 13
Shannon
Perhaps it was the revelation that we were being trailed by security wherever we went in the city, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched even when alone in my room in the palace. It was a puzzling feeling: I knew Umar wasn’t the sort of person to violate someone else’s privacy, but the anxiety persisted. I became cautiou
s about what I shared with Ginger during our late-night chats, and began locking myself in the restroom before I undressed.
On the night of my third day in Sabah, I finally broke down and told her what had been bothering me. “I think Kalilah may have been right,” I said. “There’s something spooky about this place. Wherever I go, it feels like there’s a pair of eyes on me. Like my every move is being observed and recorded.” Seeing the look of unease on her face, I asked, “Do you think I’m being paranoid?”
“No, I just think maybe your conscience is bothering you.”
This was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to me. “Why would you think that?”
“Because I know you, Shanny. And I know you’re not a liar, and I remember in seventh grade when you broke down in tears and confessed to Mrs. Miller that you had written those nasty things on the dry-erase board, even though Jeff and Jake had already been punished for it and there was no need to bring it back up.”
“Hmm, yeah.” I had forgotten all about that. “She said it was the first time any of her students had ever done that.”
“When you’re hiding something from someone,” said Ginny, “the guilt eats away at you until you can’t help but confess.”
“So, do you think I’m going to break down and confess to Umar that I’ve been lying this whole time?”
“I hope you won’t, honestly.”
“Really?” Up until now Ginger had been a fierce advocate of telling him the truth. Her sudden about-face surprised me.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and at this point, I think it would just be detrimental. You’ve had a lovely few days in Sabah, you’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow and you won’t ever have to see him again. Now, if you were holding out for a long-term relationship, then yes, I would urge you to come clean before you come home. But if you’re leaving the relationship in Sabah, then I don’t see the point.”
I think Ginger sincerely believed she was being helpful, but I went to bed feeling more agitated than before. She assumed I was planning on ending the relationship once I left, but I was no longer sure that was what I wanted. I had made the mistake of staying too long, and now Umar held me entranced. I loved his throaty laugh and his shy smile and the way his cufflinks gleamed in the light of the dining-room chandelier. I loved the rich brown of his eyes and his skin smooth as chocolate and the juniper scent of his cologne. Most of all, I loved the way he held my gaze as we were talking, as if scared to look away. It felt like he was making love to me with just his eyes, and the sensation was as intense as it was thrilling. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.
We spent my last evening in Cafta, where we rode an elevator to the top of the tallest skyscraper and bought drinks at the Hundred-and-Twelfth-Floor Bar. I might have drunk a little too much, for by the end of the second glass of port wine, the floor had begun to sway dangerously under me.
The feeling persisted through the rest of our meal and the ballet afterward. The sensation didn’t alarm me, though. On the contrary, I felt safe and relaxed. I had one of those epiphanies where I understood the essentially comic nature of the world. Everything struck me as funny. I kept laughing into Umar’s neck during much of the second act. He patted me warmly on the head and wrapped one arm around me, heedless of the annoyed stares of our fellow audience members.
The effects of the wine had begun to lift by the end of the ballet, but the sense of freedom persisted. It was a dangerous feeling, because I felt like I could make any request and he would have granted it.
Back at the palace, we shared a slow dance on the balcony overlooking the back garden. By now, there was a sense of shared but unspoken understanding between us. I didn’t betray the slightest surprise when he placed his hands around my waist, nor did he flinch when I buried my face in the soft space between his neck and shoulders. We were drunk on each other and we both knew it. It felt like we had always known it, even though it had never been discussed.
“You know what I love?” he asked after we had been swaying together in silence for a while.
“Hmm?”
“How we just fit together so well, like we were made to be dancing in each other’s arms.”
There was a fraction of a second where the air crackled between us and I wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss me or if I was going to kiss him. To this day, I’m still not sure which of us initiated it. Maybe we both did. I just remember that all of a sudden we were kissing each other passionately, with the sort of dangerous, greedy intensity that could have easily ignited into something else. I didn’t care. By now, I wanted it. I had gone long enough without it.
I wrapped my arms tightly around him, half-expecting him to pull me into another room and fling me down on the bed, unleashing the carnal energy that had been building between us for four days. I wouldn’t have objected if he had. He could have taken me in that moment and I would have willingly yielded.
There was a moment after our lips had broken apart when the world’s horizons seemed to expand briefly. I realized that one of two things was going to happen now: we could go back to the palace, and find a room where we would give in to our deepest urges; or, we could walk away and pretend that this never happened.
Umar searched my face in the dim light, as if looking for some cue to continue. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said finally.
“Umar…” I rested a hand on his lapels.
“No, I get it. I understand. No one wants to be in a relationship with someone who lives on the opposite side of the world. One of us would have to move, and I’m not going to ask that of you. I know how important your career is to you.”
I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t. That would have required explaining that America had already moved on and forgotten about me, which would have raised awkward questions about why I had been lying this whole time.
I wasn’t prepared to deal with that, not tonight.
“Umar, I don’t know what to tell you,” I said sadly. “I like you. I wish we could go on like this. I wish our careers and the breadth of the world weren’t conspiring against us.”
“So do I.” He squeezed my hand gently. “Maybe I was foolish to think that we could be anything more than friends. It would’ve been perfect, if only there weren’t so many obstacles in the way.”
Why did we have to be having this conversation, here, now?
“We’d have had our problems just like any other couple,” I said. “You took a huge step this week, opening your heart to someone. You’ll find another girl you can trust and love on. A girl you can shower with affection. I promise.”
“You can’t promise something like that,” said Umar. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen.”
“I believe in you. I do.”
I leaned up and gave him a brief kiss on the cheek. Umar wrapped his arms tightly around my waist, as if afraid to let go. I breathed in the scent of his cologne, wishing I could bottle him up and take him home with me. Or, better still, bottle up this moment and inhale whenever I wanted to remember this night and this week that would be, probably, the only week we had.
“But why do we have to let go of each other?” I asked. “If we both feel the same way, then what’s to stop us from being together?”
He ran his thumb along the line of my jaw. “There are some forces that are more powerful than love, Shannon.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. It seemed to me a sufficiently motivated couple could overcome banal obstacles like time and distance.
“Are you sure that isn’t just an excuse?” I asked. “Is this how you reject me?”
I could tell I had erred by the injured look on his face.
“Shannon, please don’t do this,” he said sadly. “I want to make this work, believe me, but after everything I’ve learned about you these past few days—about your passion for what you do, and your talent—I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you threw away your career for my sake.”
There was no lie in his eyes
: he really did think he was protecting me by pushing me away. I could see how much it was hurting him, how every moment was a quiet act of resistance against the hunger inside him.
I bit back tears as an undeniable truth became clear to me: if I hadn’t lied to him, we wouldn’t be standing here, struggling to say goodbye. If I told him the truth, after everything he’d been through, he’d shut me out forever.
“God, I wish you weren’t so noble,” I said finally. But then he wouldn’t have been the Umar I had fallen in love with.
Chapter 14
Shannon
“Do you think I’ll ever find a boy in America,” I asked Ginger, “who is my age, and wants to go out? Or is it always going to be overseas flings?”
“Maybe the other side of the world is just full of handsome, rich men who would be happy to marry you, and you’re wasting your time over here,” Ginger replied with a serene shrug. “Actually, maybe I should move over there.”
We were standing in the paranormal section of the new-age bookstore. It was the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday and we had fled here to escape a sudden rainfall. I was bringing Ginger up to speed on my last night in Sabah while she scanned the stacks in search of a book about out-of-body experiences.
It was the first time we had gotten together since my return from the Middle East. Emboldened by the success of my concert in the palace, I had booked a few gigs for myself in Columbus using my fake agent email address. A year ago, when I couldn’t turn on the music channel without seeing my own face staring back at me, I had refused to play the smaller venues. I had convinced myself I was made to play stadiums. But here, on the other side of fame, things looked different. I had real fans in this country, many of whom couldn’t afford to pay stadium prices. I was playing for them now, and for the pure joy of making music.
But even the smaller gigs weren’t going as well as I had hoped. I felt a crushing sense of disappointment the first time I came out onstage to a half-empty venue. Even the people who had shown up kept checking their phones, as if they just wanted to kill time before another engagement.
