Roman Holiday: The Adventure Continues

by Ruthie Knox

  The rioting Mariel refugees imprisoned in Atlanta had prayed to her. For all Roman knew, his father invoked her name from his cell at the prison in Waupun.

  If Patrick were here, he would kneel before the altar and search his heart.

  According to Carmen, Heberto always came here when he needed to think.

  The web of connections tightened across Roman’s chest, too dense for him to breathe his way through it. The stained glass brightened and blurred, tears in his eyes, a swell of emotion raising him up and dropping him down until he felt seasick and helpless in the middle of it all.

  He didn’t belong, except that he was the man in the boat. He was the farmer caught in the storm, the boy who’d been rescued, the teenager cast out and taken in.

  He belonged nowhere and everywhere, flung from the island that had given him birth, his parents destroyed along with whatever legacy they might have offered him, stranding him in the Midwest, where he’d acquired his own culture, his own lessons—and then been gathered up by Heberto as though he were a piece of flotsam on the waves.

  Brought to Miami to sink or swim by a man who insisted that he didn’t believe in charity while he doled it out in small, hard crackers of sustenance that Roman had learned to ration.

  Until Ashley had taught him that he couldn’t ration life out into bearable portions. He had to eat if he wanted to live.

  “I need to ask you something,” he said.

  Heberto remained where he was, stiff and frozen in place.

  “Why did you call me? When I was in high school, what made you do that?”

  Heberto didn’t say anything for so long, Roman thought about getting up to leave. Or asking some other question. Why are you here? Do you believe in God?

  Do you believe in virgins who protect and forgive, who grant wishes to the faithful and dispense charity to people in need?

  Roman didn’t, but he believed there was something here—something in this network of connections that mattered more than he or Heberto did as individuals. A process unraveling over time, eddies of consequence, relationships with meaning.

  When he’d told Ashley he wanted belonging, he hadn’t been thinking of this, but here it was, this web he already belonged to. Not just him, but his fathers—all three of his fathers—and this virgin who could change her skin color, her eye color, but whose promise of succor never altered.

  “You had everything wrong,” Heberto said. “That essay you turned in … I couldn’t believe it.”

  “You called me a moron.”

  “You were a moron. A cheeky little moron with cojones.” Heberto sank back against the pew. His knee bounced against Roman’s thigh. “I come here to be alone, you know.”

  “Too bad. You’re stuck with me.”

  Heberto crossed his arms. Eyes fixed on the glass before them, he sighed. “I didn’t like the idea of this Marielito kid in Wisconsin figuring out how to be Cuban from the Internet. You were fucking it up.”

  “You thought you’d be my guide?”

  “I thought I’d get you here, that’s all. Get you closer to where you belonged.”

  “Where do you think I belong?”

  Heberto’s only response was to look at the glass.

  It wasn’t that he refused to answer, Roman thought. It was that he had no answers. If he’d known where Roman belonged, he would have helped him get there, but instead he’d taught him what he knew, which was how to survive in exile. How to build a fortress with thick walls that dulled the pounding demands of the past, the slings and arrows of doubt, the pain of memory.

  “It’s not easy for you, either, is it?” Roman asked. “You haven’t got people any more than I do. You’re a couple hundred miles from where you were born, but it might as well be another planet.”

  “There’s nothing for me there,” Heberto said.

  For the first time, Roman heard his longing. The longing that had been in him all along.

  Heberto didn’t know how to heal. Neither did Patrick. They’d been dealt blows, and what they’d learned was how to flinch. Each of them had given Roman what he could.

  Roman would take what they’d given him and do better. Try to form links where they’d broken, to heal relationships rather than walk away from them. He would learn to love like Ashley did, without accounting for risk. Because the blows came anyway.

  Roman would just as soon feel them if it meant he could feel everything else.

  “You’ve got a life here, though,” he said. “Work you love. Carmen and me. A family.”

  Heberto gave him a disdainful look. “There is no Carmen and you.”

  “We’re closer now than we were two weeks ago. Plus, I think she’s going to be dating my best friend.”

  Roman took the slight widening of Heberto’s eyes to mean No shit?

  “I know,” he said. “But it’s happening.”

  Heberto made a gravelly sound in his throat. “I can’t forgive you.”

  Roman crossed his legs at the ankle. His elbow jostled Heberto’s side, and he leaned in as if he were about to impart a secret. “You can. You will eventually. Want to know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you like me.”

  Heberto snorted.

  “You’re stuck with me, old man.” He was beginning to sound cheerful, which tipped him off to the fact that he was beginning to feel cheerful. “I’m going to make you give me away at my wedding. I’ve got this nephew now, and I’m going to bring him to meet you. I’ll make you take us fishing on that ridiculous yacht of yours.”

  Heberto adjusted his position in the pew. His upper arm rested on Roman’s for a moment. His ankles crossed to match. “Not gonna happen,” he said, without heat.

  “You’ll relent sooner or later. You won’t be able to give up that land because it’s sweet land, it’s a sweet deal, and you can’t stand to let go of a sweet deal. You’ll keep it. I’m going to introduce you to Ashley, and before you know it, you’ll be taking my calls again. Mark my words: five years from now, Carmen’s going to have a bunch of babies with my contractor, and she’ll name the second one after me, but I’m going to name my second one after you if you play your cards right.” Roman paused. “Maybe just his middle name. Ashley probably won’t want to call him Heberto.”

  For a minute, they sat side by side without speaking.

  Roman thought about Ashley and babies. He’d got ahead of himself there. Surprised himself.

  But he’d liked the weight of his nephew against his arm. He’d loved the soft smacking of his lips and the wide-open surprise of his face.

  He thought he and Ashley could make some damn pretty babies if they worked at it.

  “Just as much a moron as ever,” Heberto said.

  It sounded close enough to an endearment that Roman affirmed it. “A cheeky little moron with cojones.”

  When Heberto jerked his chin in abrupt agreement and looked away, Roman thought he caught the shine of tears in his eyes.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ashley had just finished hammering a nail into the wall above Roman’s bed when a key turned in the lock. She froze at the sound of the door opening, overcome for an instant with guilt.

  What if the condo rules forbade hammering things into the walls? What if she was in trouble?

  But that was stupid. He’d told her to make herself at home—to take the morning to settle in instead of going out to look for a job—and besides, there was no such thing as a four-bajillion-dollar apartment where you weren’t allowed to hang things up.

  Roman’s keys clinked against the ceramic sides of the hideous frog bowl by the front door. He would be toeing off his shoes now.

  On the bed, her duffel bag sat open beside her squashed pink sateen pillow, which she’d given pride of place next to Roman’s white cotton one. A pile of clothes spilled over his duvet, pinned down by a few of his heavy wooden hangers.

  Ashley dropped the hammer on top of the clothes and picked up the wall hanging. Kneeling on top of h
er pillow, she suspended the wall hanging from the nail by its decorative length of twine.

  There.

  “Ash? You here?”

  By this point, Roman had probably caught sight of the unaccustomed splash of color on the living room couch. What did he think? The blanket was tacky, her pink pillow way tackier, and the wall hanging—there were no words. None of it should make her feel suffused with a jiggling, horny sort of glee, but it did.

  Roman’s apartment was so over-the-top rich Miami developer, it was practically kitsch, and all this stuff she’d picked out to decorate was even more kitschy in its white-trash-Florida-Keys-girl way.

  For some reason, the combination worked fabulously well.

  “Ash?” he called again. She heard water running in the kitchen.

  “In your room.”

  Padding feet in the hallway. Roman appeared holding a glass of water. He had weary lines around his mouth, but he smiled to see her. “Our room.”

  That made her smile back. “Our room.”

  “You’re unpacking.”

  “Sort of.” She got off the bed. She felt like jumping rope or whirling in circles until she collapsed—hopeful and antsy and excited for Roman’s reaction.

  He sat down on the corner of the bed and drank his water in thirsty gulps. When he’d finished, he placed the glass on the end table. “I saw the blanket out there. What else have you done?”

  She waved at the bed. “Clothes, mostly. Is the blanket okay? I thought the color might be nice, but …” It’s cheap chenille, with one corner unraveling. It doesn’t fit in, and I love it.

  Love love love it.

  “It’s from the office at Sunnyvale, right?”

  “Yeah, from that green couch. I thought your place—”

  “Our place.”

  “I thought our place could use a little more … coziness.”

  Roman shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it over a nearby chair, and lay down on the unoccupied side of the bed. He didn’t so much as glance at the wall hanging.

  Ashley checked to make sure it was still there.

  Yep.

  “You okay?” he asked. “You’ve got a funny look on your face.”

  She picked up a dress and a hanger. “Sure. How was your lunch?”

  Roman exhaled slowly and shoved his hands underneath his pillow, popping his elbows out. “Awful. Heberto ran out, and I had to chase him across Coconut Grove. He said I’d violated his trust and he was done with me.”

  She dropped the hanger and started crawling over her open duffel bag to get to him. With a graceful swoop, Roman caught her under the arms and hauled her up his body. His hands slid to her hips. Even through his dress slacks and her yoga pants, his grip felt warm and strong and amazing.

  How people could possibly keep turning their backs on this man, Ashley would never understand.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “I told him he’s stuck with me, basically. That I won’t give up. I think I got through to him.”

  “That’s great! How did it feel?”

  Roman gave her a rueful smile. “It wasn’t any fun.”

  His hands journeyed up and down her half-bared back, playing with the knot at her neck where her halter tied and tracing the lines where fabric met skin. She wanted to kiss all the frowny lines off his forehead. “Care to elaborate?”

  Flattening his palms, laying them hot over her bare shoulder blades, he pulled her down to him. Come here, he coaxed with his hands and his mouth. Come here, come here, I need you.

  Ashley sipped at his lips, nudging his broad nose with hers, rubbing her chin over his roughened cheek but keeping it light because, horny or not, she needed to encourage Roman to talk.

  In the interest of talking, she tried to pull away, but he deepened the kiss, which was sneaky of him. When he got his free hand underneath the stretchy bottom of her halter top and started working his way north, she began to think that, yeah, maybe they could shelve conversation for later.

  That was when he said, “I got angry. I was so mad, I thought I would throw up. I almost did.” He kissed a path down to her throat. The sneaky hand closed over her breast. “Then I almost cried,” he said, and his hand felt so good. She felt so good, because Roman Díaz was telling her about his feelings in a growling-low sex voice made for pillow talk. And it was turning her on even more than his thumb dragging back and forth over her nipple.

  “Then I was cheerful for no reason,” he said. “I had the shakes most of the drive home. It wasn’t until I saw your pillow on my bed that I started feeling like I was okay.” He turned his head to look at the garish pink blob. “That is your pillow, right?”

  “Right.”

  He gripped her hips and tugged her down onto his erection. “You put your pillow on my bed.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d like it.”

  “I like it.”

  She couldn’t doubt it—not when he looked at her like he wanted to take her and own her and keep her forever. Possibly locked up in a tower. “There’s some other stuff,” she said. “Scattered around.”

  “Like what?”

  Mardi Gras beads hanging from the showerhead. The Oscar Mayer wiener on the cedar shelf in his closet. She’d combed through the boxes in the Airstream again, as well as a garbage bag full of personal items that Noah had rescued from the office and her own nearly empty Sunnyvale bedroom.

  “Like that.” She pointed to the weathered gray board on the wall above the bed. Its surface had been painted with the kind of script where the letters began and ended in oversized dots.

  Home is not a place.

  Beside the words, the artist had painted what was meant to be a dumpling-shaped girl with freckles wearing a bonnet and bloomers. Probably.

  Roman lifted up on his elbows so he could look. “Where did you get that?”

  “I found it in one of the boxes. I don’t know if I just didn’t see it before, or if I saw it and didn’t really see it, but this morning there it was. I don’t remember it. I don’t know if it was even Grandma’s or if it somehow got mixed up with her stuff. I just felt like …”

  “Like you wanted to put it up on the wall above my bed.”

  “You hate it.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s … Susan had it up at the hospice care place.”

  “You saw it when you visited?”

  “Yeah.”

  Awkward.

  Since North Carolina, she’d wanted to ask him a dozen different times, but it was such an awkward subject. Hey, hon, can you put another log on the campfire? And oh, also maybe tell me what it was like to visit my dying grandmother.

  Roman brushed his fingers over her collarbone, bringing her attention back to him. “You want to hear.”

  Ashley nodded, wordless and grateful.

  He settled beneath her again, resting his hands on her thighs. “I went there thinking I would stay half an hour. I had this idea we might need to talk about you, because the nurse had told me Susan didn’t have a lot of time left. I thought if I showed up to see her she might … I don’t know. Make some big confession or bequest, or offer an explanation. But Susan was kind of out of it on pain medicine, and I didn’t know her well enough. I sat there a few minutes trying to decide if I should touch her hand, say something … I spent more time questioning the staff than seeing her. I made sure everything was paid for and that she wasn’t in any pain, and then I left.”

  He looked so sad and disappointed in himself, Ashley said, “It’s okay.”

  “It’s really not. I chickened out.”

  “There wasn’t anything you could do.”

  The knowledge sank into her with weight, dropping to a depth it hadn’t previously reached. There wasn’t anything he could have done.

  There wouldn’t have been anything Ashley could do.

  Roman touched her cheek. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “It makes me sad,” she said. “I’m sad she died, that it happened at all, tha
t it happened without me being part of it. But it was what she wanted. She died the way she wanted. It didn’t have anything to do with me. I think I’m getting used to that.” Ashley glanced at the wall hanging. “Although I probably wouldn’t have put that over the bed if I knew where it came from.”

  “It’s so ugly.” Roman shifted so she was draped across his chest, her head tucked into the space beneath his shoulder. His arms came around her, tight and comforting. “I like it.”

  “You do?”

  “I like that you put it up on the wall in our bedroom.”

  “I did because of what it says. I don’t want you to feel like I’m invading your home or anything, but I thought maybe it would remind us of our trip. I could always take it down, though, if it doesn’t work for you.”

  “Ashley.”

  “What?”

  “Have I not been clear? I want you to invade my home.”

  “You really do?”

  “Yeah. And anyway, you’re my home. Because home is not a place.”

  She checked his face, and sure enough, there was Roman’s crinkle-smile—stealth dimple and all—and she understood that he was never going to stop teasing her about this. “Don’t pick on my wall hanging.”

  “It’s such a great wall hanging, I should have six. One in every room. One for the Escalade, too. Although I have to say, I don’t get why it has mushrooms on it.”

  “That’s a little girl.”

  He twisted his head to look. “Nope. Mushrooms.”

  “She’s wearing a bonnet. She has eyes.”

  “Mushrooms with eyes. Maybe they live in the woods, because they don’t have a home. Maybe it’s got secret meaning.”

  “Don’t pick on me. I’m having an emotionally fragile dead-grandmother moment.”