The Art of Love

by Anne Whitney

  I want to say something, to tell him that I have known him all of a weekend but already am finding myself head over heels lusting for him, but I don’t. It might be the alcohol talking, or my inexperience, or my desire to curl up and sleep for days.

  It might be the worry and the fear and the desire for someone to keep me safe.

  He guides me through the crowd that doesn’t seem to be any worse for the late night wear. At some point, Fitz wraps my coat over my shoulders, taking special care to keep my hair out of the way. I swoon mentally like a schoolgirl.

  “Almost there,” he says in my ear as we burst through the last wall of bodies onto the cold, blustery street.

  The wind has picked up and the sidewalks are mostly empty. A few people mingle around, taking long drags on cigarettes while laughing off the lingering effects of one too many cocktails. Fitz tries to hail a cab while keeping me close to his body. No one stops.

  “Just sit down for a second,” he says. He guides me to a stack of newspapers beside a closed stand and settles me down.

  My knees seem to give out in one fluid motion. I giggle and sway, my back hitting the wooden wall of the newsstand with a soft thud that vibrates through my bones. Fitz walks back to the street, waving his hands over his head. The cabs keep driving by without noticing him.

  “Lust lust lust,” I whisper to myself with another giggle. My head falls onto my shoulder, sending Fitz tilting on axis.

  From a safe twenty feet away, I can admire him from afar. Well, as much as is possible with increasingly blurred vision and a complete lack of balance. I try to remember the words to a song I heard tonight - centered on something called a ‘kiki’, an entirely new concept to me - but find that my forming simple words has become a monumental task. I’m close to falling asleep on the spot, but I’m not too worried. It’s okay. Fitz will look after me. Maybe he’ll throw me over his shoulder and carry me home!

  “Finally!” Fitz runs over, having hailed a cab. “There’s our ride home.”

  “My hero!” I squeal, giggling like a child on a sugar high. I feel arms pick me up to my feet with ease. The need to sleep is overwhelming me and I cannot help but slump against Fitz as he practically drags me to the cab. When he stops moving, I barely notice because everything is still spinning for me.

  “Marina, what’s this?” He asks me, waving something in my face. I try to focus my gaze on whatever it is that has him suddenly so tense but everything is blurry and nothing else really matters to me because I’m drunk and happy and in the arms of a gorgeous man without a shirt.

  “Wha...?” I slur, welcoming the dark comfort of slumber as Fitz’s voice fades away.

  “Marina! Marina, wake up, please. Why are you...?”

  CHAPTER 10.

  As expected, I have a headache upon awakening from my sleep, face down on the couch and still in my dress. The crushing feeling in my skull is far worse than it was on my first night in the city, which already feels like an age ago. All my earlier acclaim for woo-woos and incandescent cocktails have turned to stern disapproval. It’s all Viridian’s fault, I decide. She’s the one so determined to corrupt poor innocent little girls from Spokane with her mysterious concoctions and six inch heels. It must be an artist thing, I decide.

  I run my fingers through my hair - Fitz must have removed the fascinator - and turn tentatively toward the light streaming through the curtains. It’s painful but bearable, and it’s then that I notice the painkillers sitting on the coffee table next to a tall glass of water, and realize just how thirsty I am.

  Good old Fitz! He really is my hero.

  The water is the perfect remedy for my parched throat, and I greedily guzzle it down in a few gulps. Once the aspirin pills are swallowed, I feel ready to go. Thanks to Viridian’s intervention with Rachel, I don’t have to go into work until later in the evening, so I have the day to myself to fully recover and maybe even take in a few of the city’s sights. I’ve barely seen the landmarks of New York since arriving, having stringently stuck to the route between the cafe and Fitz’s apartment. Maybe I could ask Fitz to be my guide.

  “Hey,” a voice behind me says. I turn quickly to face him, immediately regretting such a strenuous move. Fitz is wearing a knitted tank top over a long-sleeved t-shirt with baggy jeans. It’s the most clothing I’ve seen him wearing since meeting him. That concerns me more than the worried expression on his face.

  “Morning,” I reply, slowly sitting up.

  He approaches me with something rolled up tightly in his hands that looks like a newspaper.

  Oh god, I think. What did I do last night? I didn’t try to kiss him, did I? Or worse?

  “Should I apologize now for whatever I did?” I say with a small snort, only half-joking.

  Fitz doesn’t even smile out of pity, and now I’m terrified. He sits down next to me, his knee bumping against mine. A thousand possible conversations run through my head. Is he going to ask me to leave? Did I tell him something last night that I shouldn’t have? What on earth happened that could change his demeanor so drastically?

  “Marina,” he starts, seemingly struggling to find the right words. “Your life is none of my business. I know we’re still strangers in many ways, but these past couple of days have been... Well... I’ve greatly enjoyed your presence here. I mean it.”

  “Mmm,” I mutter, biting my lip. This doesn’t sound too bad so far. When’s the other shoe going to drop?

  “I like having you here,” he continues earnestly. “I want you to stay for as long as you want, if that is what you want. I don’t want you to feel like you’re being made to stay here or something.”

  “I do want to stay here,” I insist. “Fitz, did I do something awful last night? If I did, then I’m really sorry. I was pretty drunk and I’m not used to it. God, I must have made a fool...”

  “It’s not that. You were fine, just sleepy. Oh, Marina...”

  Fitz unrolls the newspaper and lays it out in front of me. Taking up the majority of the front page is my face, an old high school photo taken a few months before I dropped out. I look a little more fresh-faced than I am now, but otherwise there have been no dramatic changes. My gently-smiling face sits above a bold headline.

  FIND MY MARINA.

  I don’t know what to say, even though I know exactly what this means. He’s out to get me. There’s no other possible explanation; he’s the only one who would go to such extremes to find me. After everything he had done to keep a tight leash on me throughout my short life, a nationwide newspaper campaign seems right up his alley.

  “I think we need to have a talk,” Fitz says, reaching out to take my hand, limp against his. With his free hand, he opens the newspaper to the next page, where there are further pictures of me from my childhood years, all surrounding a large, faded photograph of me as a four year old with ribbons in my hair as I bounce elatedly on my father’s lap. I have no recollection of that photograph being taken, nor do I remember ever seeing it around the house. Evidence of such happiness in my life, however brief, is practically non-existent.

  “Yes,” I reply flatly. The tears are already gathering in my eyes. “I think we do.”

  “The night you came to my show. Were you running away from whoever kidnapped you?”

  My eyes widen.

  “Wait, what? Kidnapped?”

  “Yeah.” Fitz points to the opening paragraph of the piece. I pick it up and scan the story, more confused than ever. My eyes pick up the words ‘break-in’ and ‘kidnap plot’, but it’s the ‘tearful statement’ from my father that finally breaks me. He talks of love and missing me, and how he just wants me to come home safe and sound. Now the police are involved and a reward is being offered.

  The bastard! The vile, evil bastard!

  The tears flow freely and my fingers tear at the page until it’s confetti. It’s all over so quickly. All my dreams had dissolved in front of me, and the fragments of freedom I had been allowed, that had made me feel completely and profoundly ha
ppy, would soon be dust in the wind. If the police and the media are involved, it won’t be long until some concerned citizen spots me and makes a tip-off, thinking they’re saving me from hell when, in reality, they would be returning me to it. What else can I do?

  “It’s okay, you’re safe now.” Fitz hugs me tightly, muttering reassuring platitudes into my ear as I sob and stain his shoulder with tears and snot. It will all end today, I just know it. “Do you want me to make the call now?”

  “No!” I scream, pushing him back with strength I didn’t know I possessed. “No,” I repeat, this time more calmly.

  “Marina, you know nobody’s going to hurt you now, right?”

  “Fitz, I can’t go back. Please don’t make me go back there. He’s lying to everyone!”

  He looks confused, and I don’t blame him. Having a hysterical, sobbing wreck in your house can’t be easy, but his comfort is greatly appreciated. His soft tones and gentle hands are keeping me from going over the edge.

  “It’s okay. Just take a deep breath and start from the beginning.”

  It takes a little while for me to compose myself, but once the tears have stopped and I can breathe properly, I decide that it’s time to tell Fitz the truth. I’ve never told anyone about my life. Not my teachers, not the few friends I managed to have before interactions with them were forcibly cut off, not the perceptive headmistress who questioned me repeatedly until I was removed from the school. Growing up, it was never in my best interest to be honest.

  “My father is...” I take a deep breath. I’ve written down my thoughts before, but always disposed of them quickly lest they be found. Complete truthfulness has been a foreign concept until this moment. “My father’s a monster.”

  The hand stroking mine acts as silent encouragement for me to continue. I’m glad it’s there.

  “My mom died in childbirth. There was a rupture or something - I don’t know the exact details - and they had to perform an emergency C-section, but she died on the table. Great start to life, eh? So all I had was my dad. My grandma was there for the first few years, but she died by the time I started school. It didn’t get any better after that.”

  “You don’t have to talk about this now if you don’t want to,” Fitz tells me.

  “No, it’s okay. I’d rather you know everything. God, I’ve been holding it all in for so long.”

  “Sure. But feel free to stop if it gets to be too much, okay?”

  I nod.

  “My dad never had an easy life, so when Mom died, he really didn’t know what to do. Grandma helped, but after she died it just became second nature for me to do everything for him. I didn’t know it wasn’t normal for five year old girls to do all the cooking and cleaning. I didn’t know my life wasn’t the same one every kid had. Even when I was in school and I watched all the other kids get picked up by their parents with hugs and kisses, it just didn’t register in my mind as odd.”

  My eyes fall to the newspaper on the table, partially shredded, but my face still remaining in view; the past keeping a watchful eye on me. I turn the paper over to the less intrusive sports section and continue.

  “Dad had a way with words. Everything was my fault growing up. Of course it was. I was a silly little girl and I was lucky to have such an understanding father who would teach me a lesson and let me pay my dues because other daddies wouldn’t be so generous. Nobody told me differently. Then again, I was never allowed to really talk to other people. As I got older, it... It got worse.”

  “Did he ever... Sorry, this is none of my business.”

  “Did he hit me?” I finish his sentence for him, surprised by my sudden candidness.

  He nods.

  “Yes. Not very often, but he didn’t need to. I was a good girl,” I say with a laugh of derision. “Believe me. I had no intention of doing anything that would provoke him to lash out.”

  “Did he...”

  “No, none of that. He wanted a wife but not for sex, thank God. When I got to high-school, the controlling escalated. Strict curfews, more chores, that sort of thing. Never a nice word said, of course. That’s just how things were and I accepted it. It wasn’t until my studies began to falter that I really took a step back and thought, ‘Wait, this isn’t right’.

  “I started to flunk and the principal dragged me about it. We talked and she must have guessed what was going on. I denied it all. Didn’t have a choice. She called the police and they came to our house. It took hours for us to convince them that everything was okay. That maybe I wasn’t even right in my head, stuff like that.”

  The memories are flowing, an unstoppable river. My mouth is having a hard time keeping up with the deluge.

  “God, I did everything my dad wanted me to, but it took all of my strength for me to not just scream and run into their arms and beg for them to take me away.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Fitz says

  “You think it’s that easy?” My tone sharpens. “You think a lifetime of what can only be described as Stockholm Syndrome can be undone in an instant? I spent countless hours thinking, ‘What if?’ And all it did was make me feel even more worthless.”

  “Marina, I’m sorry,” he interjects, clearly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to sound so insensitive. I probably sound like such an ass, don’t I?”

  “Fitz,” I sigh, fighting back more sobs. Shouldn’t I be running out of tears yet? “I didn’t have anyone else in the world. My dad may not have been a father of the year but I literally had nothing else but him and those four walls we lived in together. The police came when I was 17 and it took me four whole years to scrimp together enough money to buy a train ticket out of Spokane. I just had to find the guts to run.”

  My head flops into my hands as I remember dark, sleepless nights and bruises across my pale skin that cover the spectrum of colors; ripped clothes and screams through doors; letters from schools and the rushed moves in the middle of the night into increasingly smaller apartments in more and more dangerous areas. Eventually, all attempts to find out where I had disappeared to withered away to nothing because, of course, they didn’t really care. Nobody did.

  “A few nights ago... That was it. I just had to get out. He’d been drinking, as he was prone to doing between jobs, and snapped over something. I can’t even remember what it was that set him off. I think it was over his dinner. My mom used to play hockey, and we’d kept her stuff after she died. No matter where we moved, we always remembered to bring her stuff, even if it meant leaving behind more important things.”

  I stop for a second, running my hand through my hair. My breathing has become panicked and deep. Droplets form in the corners of my eyes, white hot and salty as they drip over my cheeks down to my chin.

  “He took her hockey stick and he slammed it over my back. I’m sure the bruises are still there. They’ll take a while to disappear. He calmed down, eventually, and told me that we’d ‘discuss it in the morning’. There was no way in hell I was going to wait around to find out what that meant. After he passed out on the couch, I threw some things into my bag and ran. I didn’t look back until I was on a train and across state lines. Now, here I am.”

  That’s it, I think as I watch Fitz try to take in everything he’s just heard. That’s all there is to say.

  I don’t feel the sense of relief wash over me like I’d always imagined I would upon relieving myself of a lifetime of emotional baggage. Instead, I feel as trapped as I had before, maybe even more so. The truth smothers me. I can run away to the other side of the country and find everything I’ve always wanted, but he’ll always win. He’ll tear the world down if he needs to because it’s all he knows how to do. I’m all he’s got.

  Fitz stands up and moves away from me. For a moment, my heart stops and I can practically see my dad coming to get me. There’s no other way this can end.

  “Fitz, please believe me,” I plead, rising from my seat.

  As his hand approaches his phone, I let out a pathetic squeal.

 
“Please, Fitz! Please don’t call them. Don’t let him win!”

  “Marina,” he says gently. “I believe you. I’m just going to call V and Rachel.”

  “What? Why?”

  “They’ve probably read the paper and are wondering what’s going on. They need to know not to call anyone. Don’t worry, they wouldn’t do that without talking to you first, but the rest of Rachel’s staff may be less thoughtful.”

  I watch silently as he calls up Rachel and Viridian to explain things. He never mentions the circumstances but makes sure they both know not to believe the papers. I’m sure they’ll have further questions that I’ll need to answer later, but I can take that as it comes.

  Fitz takes charge of the situation with such ease. His voice remains calm and even as he explains things to my new friend and boss, light on details, but his tone says everything. Once he is done, he puts the phone on the table and walks back toward me.

  “Okay,” he says. “Rachel’s not overjoyed, but she’s employed people with far worse backgrounds than yours. V’s fine, too, but she’s freaking out worried. She’s going to come around with Derek later and we’re going to figure something out..”

  “Next step?”

  The beginnings of a smile form on his face, a sight I’m so glad to see.

  “You probably shouldn’t have told all of us your real name.”

  “Sorry,” I reply, happy that the mood is finally lightening. “This is my first time.”

  “You’re going to need to pick a new name and get used to using it quickly. V’s bringing around some hair dye. I hope you’re prepared to talk her out of giving you rainbow highlights or something.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  My voice is barely audible. I feel as if I’ve talked more in the past few minutes than I have in my entire life, and my throat is raw from the experience. The uncertainty of my future hangs in the air in front of me, and I’m afraid to speak in case the shreds of hope I have clung to crumble.