by Emerson Rose
Back in my car, I nap for over an hour, and with three hours to go, I can’t wait any longer. I text Violet.
Me - Can you get away early?
She responds immediately.
Maybe, how early?
Me – Now.
Violet - I’ll make it work. Where are you?
Me - I’ll be out front in ten.
Violet – Okay.
Ten minutes later, she’s exiting the building and I’m holding the door to the Lexus open for her. She’s carrying two computer bags and a duffle.
“I’ll take those for you,” I say.
“Thanks,” she says, handing me the bags. Her voice is laced with nerves, and I wonder what she’s feeling. I help her in and put her things in the back. When I’m in the driver’s seat, I ask, “Where to?”
“It’s too early for dinner. I guess we could go to my place and talk, if that’s okay.”
“Perfect, show me the way,” I say.
“Just go to the end of this road and take a left.”
She shields her eyes from the sun, and I remember my gift.
“I picked these up today. I noticed you were squinting outside earlier. Thought you could use them.”
I hand her the bag, and she holds it out in front of her to read the logo. Her mouth pops open as she turns her body in her seat to face me.
“A gift?” she asks.
“Yes, is that all right?”
“I don’t know. Why are you buying me gifts?”
“Why shouldn’t I buy you gifts?”
“Well, first of all, this is expensive—like really expensive. And second, won’t your girlfriend be pissed if she finds out you’re spending the afternoon with another woman and buying her presents?”
Her words spill from her lips like an avalanche, gaining bitterness and momentum as she speaks, but I have no fucking idea what she’s talking about.
“Violet, what makes you think I have a girlfriend? I told you when we met I don’t do relationships, just one-night stands.”
“And I’m the only exception to your little rule, huh?”
She’s angry. I’ve never seen her angry. Her eye twitches when she’s pissed. It’s very distracting.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, you are. What’s this all about?”
She throws the Cartier bag in the back seat and her bottom lip quivers. I reach out to cup her cheek, but she bats my hand away and a big, fat tear slips down her cheek onto my wrist.
“You know, I cared about you a lot, but I don’t like being lied to, and I won’t be the other woman to anyone. I can’t believe I ever fell for that I’ve never taken a woman to my house before you shit. I’ve seen Fifty Shades of Grey. I should have known you were stealing ridiculous plot lines. I don’t like being played for a fool, Major. It’s insulting.”
Okay, why the hell is she talking about Fifty Shades of Grey? And how the hell am I playing her for a fool? I pull up my knee in my seat and mirror her position.
“You’re going to have to be more clear, Violet. I don’t know where you got the idea that I have a girlfriend or that I lied about you being the first woman in my bed, but I suggest you get really specific right now so I can set you straight.” My blood is pounding so hard I could easily take my own pulse without touching a finger to my wrist, and my vision is blurring with my anger. I can’t wait to find out who the hell told her these things so I can break their fucking neck.
She looks out the front window, and I reach out and hold her chin between my thumb and forefinger to turn her face back to mine.
“Please, just tell me who’s been feeding you lies, baby.”
Her expression is cold, and her voice steady when she answers me.
“You.”
I shut my eyes and shake my head back and forth, confused.
“Me? How so?”
“I heard you on the phone with her. I heard you tell her you love her.”
She holds my gaze, never blinking, waiting for me to confess, but there’s nothing to confess to.
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about, Vio—”
She doesn’t let me finish. She twists in her seat and yanks open the door to leave, but I grab her wrist before she can escape.
“Oh, no you don’t. You’re not running away from me again. Something is fucked up here, Violet, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it right now. I’m not letting you go again.”
She stops struggling, half in, half out of the car, with one foot down on the pavement and her back toward me.
“Get back in the car and tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
It takes her a minute to relent, but I don’t release her arm until the door is shut. I press the automatic lock button and activate the child lock function that I’ve never used before to make sure she doesn’t run again.
Her eyes are trained on her hands in her lap, and a rush of emotion crashes over me. I need her in my arms. I need to make this better, whatever this is. I pull her into my lap, and she’s so startled she doesn’t fight me. I take her face in my hands and come as close to begging as I ever have. “Tell me what phone call you’re talking about, please. Violet, I can assure you I do not have a girlfriend. If you just tell me what you’re talking about, I promise you I can prove my innocence.” I kiss her lips, and then I kiss them again. I want nothing more than to cover her mouth with mine and ravish her, but we have to work out this misunderstanding first. I pull her against my chest and rest my chin on the top of her head.
“You put me in the shower. You were going to come back, but you never did.”
I search through my memories for the exact moment she’s talking about three months ago, and it hits me. The phone call. She heard me talking to Sabrina. Holy fucking shit, no wonder she thinks I’m a bastard.
“I heard you apologize for being too busy to see her that weekend. You told her you’d be free to see her soon. You told her you loved her and invited her to din—”
“Stop, stop. You have this all twisted up in that pretty head of yours. Shit, you should have said something to me. We’ve wasted three months because of a single phone call.”
“Who is she?”
I rub her arm up and down like I’m warming her up on a cold winter night.
“Her name is Sabrina, she is my best friend, and yes, I do love her. I love her very much, but not the way you’ve assumed. She’s very important to me. She did something for me that I can never repay her for. We spend time together and she knows things about me that no one else does, but I swear to you, I’ve never slept with her, she’s never been inside my house, and there is nothing remotely romantic going on between us.”
She sits frozen in my arms for the longest time. Long enough that I have time to sort through what’s happened. She’s still better off without me. I should still let her go and free her from what’s bound to be the most difficult relationship she’ll ever be a part of, but I can’t. I can’t live without this beauty curled up in my lap another day.
“Violet?” I say, kissing the top of her head. “You okay?”
She doesn’t speak, but instead nods her head up and down. Her body begins to shake. I hear her whimper against my shirt, and she begins to sob. Oh God, there’s nothing worse than a crying woman. I can’t take it. I have to fix this and make her understand that I’m not angry. I just want to start over.
“Shush, everything’s going to be okay now. It was a misunderstanding, that’s all, just a story to tell our grandkids someday, you know?”
She stops crying and sits up, eyes wide and white as two golf balls.
“I’m kidding, sorry. No grandkids, no kids, whatever. I was just joking.”
Her bottom lip trembles and she starts to cry again, harder than before this time. Note to self: no kid jokes or references.
She burrows into my chest, and I continue to console her until her sobs turn to sniffles.
“Why didn’t you come after me? Why didn’t you contact me?”
“Then why are you contacting me now?”
“I can’t stop thinking about you. I’m making everyone around me miserable because I want to be with you. I’m a selfish pig. Take your pick.”
She shifts in my lap. Oh, the things that those small movements are doing to me. Lord, we need to make up so we can kiss, although I’d prefer to kiss and make up instead.
“I choose selfish pig, but only because it’s not true.”
I smooth my hand down her thigh. “You may want to wait and see before you dismiss that admission.”
“I’ll take my chances. I think you might be worth it. Will you take me home now, please?”
“Okay, do you need a Kleenex?”
She sits up, revealing her puffy face, and I twist my lips to one side. “Or maybe two or three?”
“I think I need a whole box.” I help her back into the passenger seat. I hand her a box of Kleenex from my center console, and when she’s finished blowing her nose and dabbing her eyes, she holds the wad of tissue up.
“Where can I put this?”
I point outside to a trashcan. “Out there.”
She rolls her eyes and tries to pull the door handle.
“Would you take the child lock off, please?”
“Only if you promise not to run away.”
“I won’t run away.”
“Promise,” I say.
“I promise,” she says.
I press the button to free her and watch her take a few steps to the trashcan and back. When she’s inside with her seatbelt fastened, I take her hand and kiss her knuckles while I pull out into traffic.
“How far away are we?” I ask.
“Only a couple of miles. Turn right up here.”
We ride in silence, and ten minutes later, I pull up in front of her apartment building. It’s a high-rise and she’s on the tenth floor. She directs me into the underground parking garage, and I help her into the elevator with her bags. At the last minute, I remember the cupcakes and her sunglasses. I grab those bags as well.
“What’s with all the stuff?” I ask.
“We’ve been working on a big project. Sometimes, I sleep in my office to save time going back and forth.”
“Your friend mentioned you weren’t allowed to work past six. Why is that?”
She rolls her eyes, “I was sick a couple of weeks ago and they’re worried about me. It’s nothing. They’re totally overreacting.”
“They don’t know you’re sleeping in your office?”
“Nope, and now I’m not, because we finished the project, hence the bags.”
“I see.” We exit the elevator and hang a left. Halfway down the hall, she stops and stares at something propped against her door. It’s a bouquet, a big one, wrapped in paper, waiting for her to find them when she gets home. They’re a little wilted. They’ve probably been sitting there over twenty-four hours if she’s been sleeping in her office. We don’t say anything as she scoops them up and unlocks the door, pushing her way inside with her computers and her flowers.
Inside, she flicks on the light in the dining room and tosses the flowers haphazardly onto the table.
“You can put that anywhere. I’m going to just put these in my office. I’ll be right back,” she says, toeing off her shoes and padding down the hall away from me. I close the door and place her bag on one of the dining room chairs. I bend at the waist and read the card with the flowers, keeping my hands stuffed into my front pockets.
Thank you for lunch. I hope we can do it again soon –Sayeed
Sayeed, huh? Jealousy pricks at my heart, and I think of how Violet must have felt that morning listening to me talk to Sabrina. I did tell her I loved her. Hearing only my side of the conversation must have sounded like an exchange between lovers. Why the hell didn’t I think of that? I thought she was in the shower and I hadn’t spoken to Sabrina all weekend. I needed to take the call. It’s unfortunate that she didn’t confront me about it, but we had only known each other two days, so I can see why she bolted.
“Do you feel like ordering something for dinner later?” she asks, entering the living room. Her apartment is cozy, not a lot of space, but there’s only her, so it makes sense. She opens the curtains covering the French doors that lead to a patio outside. When she lifts her arms to push the material back, her shirt rides up, making her perfect ass more visible. I’ve missed that ass, but I have to get my thoughts off Violet’s curves and onto the conversation we need to have next.
“Sure, sounds good.”
She sits, curling her legs under her on one end of a perfectly white couch. I wouldn’t peg her to have unpractical furniture, but there are so many things I’ve yet to learn about her.
“You gonna stand there all day or come sit with me?”
I do as she did and remove my shoes at the door. I like that she doesn’t track the world’s garbage and germs into her home. I sit sideways next to her with my knee up and my arm draped over the back of the couch.
“You have an admirer.” I can’t help it. I have to bring it up. It bothers me that a man is bringing flowers to her at home.
She fidgets and plays with the edge of her loose shirt. People fidget when they’re uncomfortable or guilty. She must be involved with this Sayeed person. It’s stupid of me to think she’s still single. She’s a beautiful, smart, successful woman. However, knowing this and accepting it are two different things.
“Oh, that’s just my doctor. We became friends when I was in the hospital,” she says, waving her hand dismissively.
“A doctor who makes house calls with flowers?”
“We went to lunch a couple of times. He’s nice, but it’s nothing.”
“You were sick enough to be hospitalized? What happened?”
“I was working too hard. I caught a cold and it turned into pneumonia. I’m better now, though, not contagious or anything.” She’s doing it already—reassuring me, enabling my OCD behavior.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“What?”
“Tiptoe around my aversion to germs. I’m fine.”
“Major, can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Have you ever been diagnosed with OCD? I don’t mean to be insensitive, but your need to have things clean and organized is a little extreme.” Her face is soft and sympathetic, like Katie’s used to be when we first met. I won’t admit that my compulsive behavior is related to OCD. Katie sat me down once with a copy of the diagnostics and statistics manual of mental disorders. She read all the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder and begged me to see a psychiatrist, but I refused to go.
“No, I haven’t. It’s been suggested that I see a professional, but I’d rather not. I’m a Marine. Being organized comes with the lifestyle.”
“So you don’t think it’s a problem?” she says, shaking her head.
“No, I don’t.” I’m not going down this path today. I don’t want to waste time on my peculiar mannerisms. I want to get to know more about Violet.
“Okay then, tell me about your friend, Sabrina. How did you two meet?”
I reach out to twist a curl from her ponytail around my finger and examine it. The soft ebony lock naturally forms to my finger. I wish she’d take it down so I could run all of my fingers through it.
“Major?”
“Hmm?”
“Sabrina, how did you meet?”
I drop the curl and steady myself to tell her the story I hate to tell. I clear my throat and start at the beginning.
“Violet, I used to be married. My wife’s name was Katie.”
“Oh . . . so you’re divorced?”
“No, widowed. She died six years ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says, reaching out to take my hand and pull me closer. I scoot forward until my leg is pressed against h
ers.
“I didn’t tell you so you’d feel sorry for me. I don’t usually talk about it anymore, but if you’re going to understand my relationship with Sabrina, you need to know about Katie.”
“Okay, go on. I can see this is hard for you. I won’t interrupt.”
“I appreciate that. I met Katie the year I graduated college. I knew I was going into the Marines immediately after school ended, so I wasn’t looking for a relationship, but she took my breath away. She was so open and free—a lot like you, actually.”
She smiles an I don’t want to be compared to your ex but I’m being supportive kind of smile.
“Anyway, one thing led to another, and we got married a year later and moved to Guam, where I was stationed for two years. We got pregnant and had a baby girl. Her name is Malory.”
Violet begins to grip my hand like a vice when I mention that I have a child. I know this is all new information for her, but I need to get it all out at once, so I continue telling my story.
“Katie suffered a severe form of postpartum psychosis.” I swallow past the lump in my throat that’s always there when I think of Katie’s suicide.
“She drove her car into lake Fena with Malory strapped in her car seat.”
Violet gasps, and her hand flies to her mouth.
“Oh God, Major, no.”
“Katie drowned, but someone saw her drive the car in the lake and tried to save her. She swam in and saw Malory in her seat and chose her over Katie. She said Katie wasn’t moving, that she already looked like she was gone, and she couldn’t leave the baby in the car one way or another. That person was Sabrina.”
God, it’s hard speaking those words out loud. Even after six years, it rips my heart apart to know that Katie was suffering so much that she saw suicide as her only way out. I look up from the couch cushion where I’ve been focusing my attention and find Violet’s eyes brimming with tears.
“Don’t cry. Come here,” I say and pull her into my lap for the second time today to comfort her.
“I’m such a bitch, I’m so sorry,” she sobs into the curve of my neck.
