Destined

by Gail Cleare

  Tony and I turned and followed the footpath that ran along the north side of the building, heading for the alley in back where he was still parked next to the porch. It was dark and quiet. The motion-activated light on the back porch turned on when we came out into the back yard.

  “Hey, why don’t you drive this time, OK?” I said, handing him back the keys.

  “What’s up, Em?” He looked at me, alert and concerned.

  “I’m a little tired, that’s all.”

  “Of course you are. Emily,” he said, “Come here.”

  He stopped walking and turned around to put his arms around me, enveloping me in a long, warm hug. With my face gently pressed against his bare throat as we stood together, I fit perfectly under his chin. I slipped my hands inside his leather jacket and wrapped my arms around his firm body. I noticed he was giving off the same delicious, spicy scent that had made me swoon on our first date. Inhaling deeply, I closed my eyes and let all the air out again in a big sigh. It was bliss.

  “It’s not easy to save the world and fight evil all day long, is it?” he said, rubbing my back with one hand while continuing to hug me with the other arm. I moaned a little, first inadvertently then in an exaggerated, joking way. It was a great hug. He made me feel safe and grounded. We disengaged naturally in a few minutes, comfortable with each other.

  “OK, hop in,” he said, unlocking the passenger door for me. I obediently sat. The Prius was beautiful too, I noticed grudgingly. Very luxurious and comfortable. I vowed to try to appreciate it, for the sake of our planet.

  Tony drove to my apartment building while I daydreamed about ways to make Lexi change her attitude towards me. They all seemed to involve kidnapping, explosives or weapons of some kind. I realized I was still holding in a lot of anger.

  “What would you do?” I asked Tony.

  “About Lexi?” He looked over at me.

  I nodded.

  “I would probably go to see her. Try to talk my way out of it. See what it was she seemed to want, and try to give it to her.”

  “That’s very direct.”

  “Yes,” he said, pulling up to park in front of my building. “But then, I took a seminar in negotiation. I didn’t make it up! I’m not that smart.”

  “Oh really! I would have said you are quite smart.”

  “Perhaps ‘diabolically clever,’ some would say.” He raised one eyebrow and grinned.

  “Some who?”

  “Some of my friends, who appreciate my finer qualities.”

  “I‘m beginning to appreciate your finer qualities too, you know?”

  “You are? Emily! I was hoping you would realize what a wonderful person I am!”

  We both laughed.

  “I know what you need,” Tony said, leaning closer.

  “You do?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly, and kissed me on the lips. My mouth tingled and a hot electric charge shot through me like a bolt of lightning, all the way down to my toes.

  “What makes you think so?” I said, kissing him back. His lips were soft, warm, and he tasted like ginger. My logical mind started to melt into a golden mist.

  Tony kissed me again, and again, putting his arms around me and pulling me toward him. The scent of his leather jacket and his delicious natural chemistry wafted over me. It was completely intoxicating, and with every breath I spun a little more out of control.

  Those piercing, dark eyes were very close now, looking intensely into mine. I felt like the earth had suddenly opened beneath me, and I was falling into a deep chasm. Drawn by his mind, mesmerized, I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, letting the kiss go deeper. Dizzying waves of sensation raced through me and fireworks glittered inside my eyelids. All the hard edges began to dissolve, and the soft vulnerable me inside the shell was exposed, pink and trembling. I’m sure my face was bright red as I pulled back and gazed at him adoringly.

  His voice changed and got a little husky, like he needed to swallow.

  “I know what a woman needs at a time like this, Emily, I was not born yesterday,” he said.

  My hypersensitive self-protective instinct immediately kicked in again. Tony seemed sincere and caring, but he was very, very smooth. He was even admitting his expertise with women, right up front, almost like a warning or a challenge. But he was so incredibly sexy, it really didn’t matter.

  I lowered my eyes with a coy smile.

  “OK, tell me…what do I need?”

  I waited breathlessly for him to tell me, or show me. Or hopefully, both.

  “Hot water,” he said, kissing me once more, gently, in the middle of the forehead. “Very hot water. Rosemary and sea salt. A candle. Maybe several?”

  “A bath? I must admit, it sounds good.” I pictured myself naked in the tub, in the flickering candlelight, perhaps not alone? I wondered if he was imagining the same thing.

  “You need to soak in very hot water and let your thoughts drift. You absorb the ions from the agitated water molecules. It’s good for the body and the spirit. The famous holistic doctor Andrew Weil says so.”

  “Does he?”

  “Yes. I read it in his newsletter,” Tony said, and that seemed to settle it.

  He followed me inside and actually started to run the bath for me, pausing to speak to Tree, who rubbed up against his leg. I kind of wanted to do the same thing.

  “So, now are you going to put me into the tub?” I asked hopefully, as he came over and wrapped his arms around me again. He had not taken off his jacket, a bad sign.

  He held me close and looked at me with an odd, kind of overflowing expression, his face flushed as he looked into my eyes.

  “No, Emily, not tonight,” he said slowly. “But I am very much looking forward to it when the time comes!” He kissed me tenderly, and departed. I was sorry to see him go, but suddenly felt too exhausted to worry about it.

  I locked the door behind him and walked toward the big claw-footed bathtub, dropping my clothes on the floor as I went. I was so tired, I couldn’t even stop to pick them up. I pinned my hair up on top of my head and stepped into the steaming, fragrant water. Tony had thrown in some sea salt and fresh herbs from my kitchen windowsill, rosemary and lavender. There was just one lamp lit in the main room, and two candles flickered on the shelf at the foot of the tub. I folded up a hand towel and used it for a pillow as I lay down, relaxing and letting my eyes go out of focus as the steam glowed in the fluttering, strobe light of the wavering candle flames. My eyes fell shut and I still saw a muted flashing through my semi-transparent eyelids.

  I lay under the steaming water with my hands crossed over my chest like a mummy. The tub is deep and long, so most of me was submerged in liquid heat. I crossed my left leg over the right at the knee, loosening the kinks in my lower back with a stretch. An enormous yawn suddenly overtook me, and as I let it out, I sank down slowly, slowly, centimeter by centimeter, lower, looser and more relaxed, until every muscle in my body that would obey a request was limp.

  But my mind wouldn’t stop racing. Pictures flashed across the movie screen inside my eyelids. Lexi, furious. Tony, smiling. Siri, in her water goddess colors. The crescent moon claw marks on my arms. Lexi’s gallery, where she reigned happily as the Queen and welcomed customers with pride, as though she had painted the works of art herself. She really seemed to feel that way. When we all worked together and sold several pieces to a big client, she was proud as a parent. We were a team, then. She had actually seemed to like me, on those occasions.

  I focused on the memory of Lexi being friendly to me, when she was excited and happy. Sometimes she could be kind of fun. I remembered one day after we sold two very large paintings when she had pulled out a bottle of champagne from the fridge and we closed the gallery early, getting a little smashed while we talked about silly things from our college days. I saw her face again, laughing at me. She had hiccupped and inadvertently snorted some champagne up her nose. For some reason it was utterly hysterical. I started to giggle again in the tub, r
emembering.

  I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling, turning on a trickle of hot water with my big toe to re-warm the bath. I realized I had started to feel a little better and the headache was gone. I also realized that I had somehow managed to stop thinking about Lexi’s negative side, and was concentrating on the fun times. Siri was right, it was much more pleasant! I took in a deep breath and let my head slip all the way under the water, a little stream of bubbles slowly slipping out of my nose. I opened my eyes under the water and watched the bubbles rising up to the surface.

  What if I could let all the bad feelings float away from me just as easily? I pushed against the anger with my mind, finding where it dwelled inside me, somewhere near my solar plexus. It felt like a balled fist, a cramped knot of muscle. I touched it with my hand. It was literally a sore spot. I pushed it with my fingers, and pushed it with my mind, massaging the knot in my imagination and starting to break it up into smaller and smaller pieces. I saw them as little shards of broken glass, sharp and glittering, dangerous.

  I came up to the surface of the water to take in another deep breath, and then I submerged again. I deliberately pictured the little jagged pieces of anger each enclosed in a smooth bubble of air, then one by one slowly let them escape from between my lips. I let all of the air out of my lungs, one bubble at a time. Then I rose back to the surface and shook the water out of my eyes, my heavy wet hair coming out of the pins and streaming down my back. I inhaled a full breath of moist herb-scented, healing air. I put my hand to my midsection and realized that the painful knot was gone! A slightly tender spot remained, but not like before. My shoulders were not so tense, either.

  If Lexi had thought of me as a friend, whatever that meant in Lexi Land, then maybe she felt personally upset when I quit. I knew she was totally unaware of how she sounded sometimes. She was a great salesperson and knew a lot about how to manipulate people, but she was a klutz at real relationships. She told me once that she didn’t have any close girlfriends at college, that she had never trusted other women. She had always seemed kind of lonely and pathetic to me. Her self-centeredness might have something to do with this, as both a cause and an effect. Maybe she thought I just freaked out for my own selfish reasons and deserted her for a better job. Maybe she had no clue about how I had felt that day, or why I had felt that way. Maybe there was something I could do now to change things, if I went to see her. I could remind her of our good times together. Charm her. It might work if I could get past my innate disapproval of her egocentricity. If I acted as if we could be friends again, then maybe it would happen.

  What was it Tony said he would do? Go see her, find out what she wanted, and try to give it to her. That sounded like a pretty good plan, now that I had thought about it. I decided to follow up as soon as I could. Tomorrow! Immediately, I felt lighter and happier.

  I slept very soundly that night. I lay totally relaxed in my bed under the skylight and the waxing quarter moon shone down on me from overhead. I dreamed about flying, one of my favorite dreams. I flew effortlessly through the air and steered by yearning towards a certain direction. In my dream I flew over to Market Street, where I hovered outside an upstairs window. Tony was inside, lying asleep in bed. I flew through the wall and hovered over him. He looked beautiful and peaceful. I wanted to lie down next to him, so I did, being careful not to disturb him. I felt his warmth all along one side of me as I snuggled into the curve of his body. It was very pleasant, and I closed my dream eyes and drifted off to dream sleep.

  When I woke up, for real, it was morning. I still felt the warmth of his body next to me in the sheets. It was uncanny. I reached out with my hand and felt something furry beside me.

  “Mmrrrr?” said Tree, poking his head up out of the covers.

  I burst out laughing and pulled him out to tickle him under the chin. He purred ecstatically. The sun was shining, the birds were singing. It was a new day. And I’d started it with laughter and happiness, which is a good thing. I decided to try and stick with the same attitude for as long as possible.

  Death

  CHANGE, METAMORPHOSIS

  Description: A skeleton rides a black horse or rows a boat across the river Styx, sometimes flying a banner that displays a rose, the symbol of Life.

  Meaning: Change, death, rebirth. Reincarnation, metamorphosis. Getting rid of antiquated ideas to move forward in a new, liberated state.

  When I got into work at around nine, I looked out the back window and noticed that the Prius was not in residence. There was only a little coffee left in the still-warm pot, and a neatly rinsed bowl and spoon occupied the dishwasher, which someone (joy!) had emptied. Probably someone tall, dark and handsome. Who had consumed three of the low-fat yogurts by now, I saw as I leaned into the fridge to pull out the ingredients for today’s lunch special, vegetarian moussaka.

  I had already made the thick tomato-based sauce yesterday, using lentils and mushrooms instead of ground lamb, with lots of fresh parsley and cinnamon. This morning I only had to roast the eggplant slices in the oven on cookie sheets, make a quick ricotta egg custard sauce for the top, and then assemble everything in a couple of big rectangular baking dishes. I wanted to get the eggplant sliced into disks, drizzled with olive oil and into the oven first thing, so it was ready to work with while my breakfast scones were baking.

  The eggplant was nearly done and the first batch of scones was sitting ready to take its place when I heard someone coming down the back stairs. My employer shuffled into the kitchen, dressed and combed, carrying an empty white mug.

  “Too early?” he inquired with a forelorn expression, looking at the tray of unbaked scones sitting on the counter.

  “Sorry!” I said, “It’ll just be a few minutes, they’re going in right now.”

  He poured the last of the coffee into his mug and collapsed into one of the chairs at the table. He rubbed his eyes wearily.

  “Are you feeling OK?” I asked. I pulled the three hot cookie sheets of roasted eggplant circles out of the oven and put them on the granite countertop to cool.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “It’s just Tony, you know. Up with the birds. Full of energy. Every day. It’s driving me crazy.”

  I smiled. Tony was driving me crazy, too. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! I slid the scones into the oven and closed the door, remembering last night.

  “So, where’s the car?” I asked, nodding toward the alley.

  “He was off at dawn today. Made me drink green tea when I’m usually still lost in slumber. Says it will be good for me. Have you ever heard such drivel?”

  “Why, yes, I think I heard some drivel just like that last night. It seems Tony has been reading the holistic health news.”

  “That’s what comes from all this traveling around on airplanes. One is exposed to all sorts of unsuitable reading matter.” He sniffed.

  “Not his typical fare?”

  Henry looked shocked and shook his head.

  “Definitely not. But let’s not be too concerned. When he starts listening to A Prairie Home Companion instead of salsa music, then we’ll worry.”

  “He does seem to be making a lot of changes in his life lately, “ I commented, interested in Henry’s thoughts on the matter. I hoped to tempt him into revealing some significant details about Tony’s precipitous move to the U.S..

  The old man looked at me sharply over the edge of his coffee mug, leaning back in his chair. I started to measure out the flour and milk for the white sauce that would be the base for my custard. I didn’t want to appear overly concerned with his answer.

  “What do you really think of Tony?” Mr. Paradis asked bluntly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I asked.”

  “I like him very much. He seems to be a person of conscience. I admire that. And, “ I said, starting to whisk flour into the melting butter in my heaviest pot, “He’s very attractive, of course. That doesn’t hurt.”

  Henry regarded me thoughtfully
. He did not seem satisfied with my response.

  “Tony Novak is a man of great imagination and vision, Emily. Do you believe in vision?”

  “I’m not sure, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The power of visualization, following your vision of the future.”

  “You mean, deliberately? Or coincidentally?”

  “Deliberately, of course. I’m not talking about mere observation. I’m talking about the actual creation of one’s reality, one’s future reality.”

  The timer dinged, and I took the scones out of the oven while the roux cooked on low. I was still not sure what he was trying to say.

  “What does that have to do with Tony?” I asked. “You’re suggesting he uses this…technique?”

  He smiled, nodding an affirmation. I put two scones on a plate for him and he took it from my hand. Then I turned back to the stove and poured hot milk into the heavy-bottomed pan, whisking madly. The sauce blended and started to thicken. I turned up the heat slightly and kept on whisking, slower now.

  “Tony believes in taking the bull by the horns,” Henry was saying, “and I must say I approve. When he visualizes a goal, he heads straight for it. He does not falter. He takes full advantage of every opportunity that destiny puts in his path. He believes that his visualization actually creates the opportunities. It’s a very interesting idea.”

  “Did he attend a seminar on this somewhere?” I asked.

  “Yes, I believe he did.”

  “He took a seminar on negotiation, he told me,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “He seems very interested in his continuing education.”

  “He is a natural scholar. Omnivorous. Full scholarship at Princeton, you know!”

  “Why did he really leave England, Henry? What new vision of his life is he creating now?” I asked, turning off the burner and leaning back against the counter with my arms folded protectively in front of my chest.

  My friend regarded me with a little smile.