I smile. “You’d rather think?”
“Good point.”
Settled into the bar, with its agreeable atmosphere of an old Irish pub, we order ales and shepherd’s pie. I take a sip of my ale and sigh. “This is nice, Rick. Did you have something you wanted to talk about, or is this just for fun?”
“I wanted to see you,” he says, and reaches across the table for my hands. “I miss you and I wanted to be with you. And,” he rubs his thumbs over my knuckles, “it seemed to me that we have to start over in a way, don’t we? See where it will go?”
“Okay, that’s fair.”
He bows his head, and I can tell by the way his mouth is working that it’s hard to say the rest. “I don’t want to spend the evening on the past, Trudy, but I’d like to tell you a couple of things, if that would be all right.”
“Sure.”
“I’ve been an asshole. I don’t know why it all happened. I’ve been seeing a shrink, and she’s pretty good. She thinks—well, it doesn’t matter.” He raises his eyes, that same beloved neon blue. “I was wondering if you’d come to counseling, too. I’ll keep doing mine by myself, but maybe we can work on the other stuff together, figure out how and why and what.”
I pull my hands away gently. “What I’d like to know, Rick, is where you are with Carolyn right now.”
He looks surprised. “I broke up with her a couple weeks before Christmas. I thought you knew that.”
I think of the phone calls, of my visit to her. “She was at your apartment on Christmas.”
“Yeah.” He winces. “It’s been a little bit … uh …” He sighs. “She’s pretty broken up. Kinda wacko.”
“What a surprise,” I say with a smile in my throat. “Joe’s girls, right?” This is a reference to the kind of women Joe Zamora always mixed himself up with. There was always trouble at the end. Once, a tough girl from Mexico tried to shoot him.
He laughs, even as the color shows in his cheeks. “Look, I don’t want to talk about her, not ever again, unless we do it in counseling. Can we do that?”
“I can try.” I reach across the table, touch his beloved hand. “I’d really like to try.”
“Good.” He squeezes my fingers. And again, “Good.”
After we eat, we carry our ales into the other room and grab a table, sitting side by side to listen to the music. It’s oddly electric feeling his arm brush against mine, leaning in to tell him something, and seeing him admire something about me. His hand keeps straying to my bare thigh, pushing at the hem of the skirt the slightest bit. I keep pushing it away with a secret smile.
It’s wildly erotic in some way I can’t name, then he leans over and says, very quietly, “You know what I want to do to you?”
I laugh. It’s an old game. One we invented to survive PTA meetings and boring recitals and long events we didn’t particularly want to attend. “What?”
“I want to make your nipples hard so I can see them right now.”
“How are you going to do that?”
His hand moves lightly on my knee, circles around the inner thigh. “When we get out of here, I’m going to push up that sweater and unfasten that bra and stare at your beautiful breasts without touching them until they’re cold. Then,” he says slowly, moving his hand a little higher, “I’m going to put my hot mouth right on there and flick my tongue over it.”
“Hmmm,” I say, and catch his hand creeping up my inner thigh. “Touching isn’t fair.”
“In real life, my hand is still, but in my imagination,” he says, “it’s moving very very slowly up your leg and my fingers are touching your hot middle, and I’m pushing away those little bitty panties, while everyone around us thinks we’re just talking, and I’m stroking you and teasing you until you are ready to explode.” He laughs. “Ah, there we go.” He sighs a little, meets my eyes. “I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
“I think it’s my turn.”
“Your turn to make my nipples hard?”
“No, big man. Something else.”
“Already there.”
“Not like it’s going to be.” And I start to talk, in great graphic detail, about taking him into the boy’s room and doing luscious things to his body.
So by the time we leave, we’re both weak-kneed, and when we climb into the truck in the dark corner of the parking lot, I tug him over and start kissing him, straddling his body until he’s groaning. And then we drive to his apartment and we’re having sex within three seconds of shutting the door, most of our clothes still on, fiercely joined in the hottest sex we’ve had in a long time.
“God,” he breathes at the end. “We always did have this part right, huh?”
“Stop talking,” I say.
He laughs, wraps his hands in my hair, and we make love again.
* * *
The next morning, I sit down to read my e-mail for the first time in a week and there is my airline ticket, propped against the computer. I need to get this taken care of, and it’s bugging me that I haven’t done it yet. In sudden decision, I grab it, put on my coat, and walk with purpose next door. Angel’s orange car is in the driveway, and it gives me a pang to see it, a nostalgia that sweeps through me for that magical time.
“Trudee!” he says with surprise, and gestures me inside. “Come in.”
“It’ll only take a minute.” I keep my coat tight around me, like armor. “I have this ticket to Seville and I’m not going to use it. It’s too late to cancel, and I want you to have it. Go see your woman.”
He holds up both hands, palms out. “No, I will not take it. It is for you.”
“I can’t go. Not right now. I need to work on my marriage. This is a pretty crucial time.”
“Trudy,” he says. Only my name. It sounds so sad.
I bow my head, fling away. Plop down on the couch, ticket still in my hand.
Softly, he says to me in Spanish, “Will you give up all you are for love?”
I reply, brokenly, in the same language, “But what is life without love?”
“A true love lets the lovers bloom.” Swiftly, he moves and sits beside me, takes my hand. “You must go, Trudy. You must.”
I can’t even look at him. It’s as if Angel himself has become Seville, that my desire for Spain has become embodied in him. If I look at his face, I’ll hear flamenco. I’ll see myself walking those ancient cobbled streets. On his mouth, I’ll see the promise of green courtyards. It swells in me, the desire, something wicked and just out of reach. In his house, I smell the exotic spices he uses. “I can’t.”
He makes a sound of annoyance, a tsk that is peculiarly Spanish. He stands up and tugs my hand. “Trudy,” he says, a command. “Come.” I follow him less out of a desire to see what he wants than out of inertia. He drags me across the room, into his bedroom. I halt, pulling back, suddenly afraid this is about sex. He doesn’t let me stop, drags me around the corner, and takes my chin and lifts it up. “There you live, mi embruja.” There is anger in his voice. “Look.”
And there is one of the photographs he took of me, blown up to eleven-by-fourteen, or maybe even bigger. It is a high-quality print, cropped a little from the one I saw. I am lying in sleepy splendor across the green-and-purple serape, my hair scattered over my back and arms. One hand trails off the bed, and in my eyes is a smile, an invitation.
He stands behind me, his hands on my chin, and the only thing I can do is close my eyes to shut it out. I can’t shut out his voice, so close to my ear, though. “Here is the woman you are, inside, the one who has been hiding. He loves her, too, your husband. Let her free, Trudy.”
I am weeping, suddenly, my shoulders shaking. He puts his arms around my shoulders, kisses my hair. “She is beautiful,” he says quietly. “Do not send her away. Not for any man.”
Loss overwhelms me. Not loss of love or loss of my marriage. It is Lucille in my mind as I stand there in Angel’s bedroom weeping, Lucille standing so brazenly in her yard on a summer day, strong and sturdy and as sexual
as her poppies. I know, in that minute, that she is the reason Angel is here, that he’s a messenger from her. In fierce gratitude, I kiss his hand. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“No,” he says softly. “Thank you. This picture, it will make me famous.”
I start to laugh, cover my face. “I never thought I’d be a muse.”
He lets me go, tugs a handful of tissues from a box by the bed, touches them to my tears. He suddenly seems the older, I the younger. An old soul with golden eyes. “You are so many things,” he says seriously.
“Fling open your heart and your arms and let it all live with you. He is a good man, your husband. He will love you if you are yourself.” I kiss his cheek. And go, my ticket still in my hand.
* * *
I’ve set the table with a batik cloth and candles and orchids. I’ve used the mismatched china and beautiful goblets, but I’ve cooked pork chops and mashed potatoes and gravy, which is one of his favorite meals. Annie is at work.
When Rick arrives, hair damp at the neck from a shower after work, I’m nervous. My hands feel too big. “Let me take your coat.”
He gives me a puzzled look. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to talk to you a little bit.”
“Okay.”
I bring out the dinner, serve our plates, get him a beer. He tells me about a customer at work, about a letter he got from Colin. Athena, hearing his voice, runs down the steps and trills at him. Idly, he strokes her back and he remembers aloud when we found her—a starving street cat, pregnant and with a BB in her side. The first cat he ever wanted to keep.
When we’re finished eating, I get him another beer, pour myself some coffee. Take a breath. “I’m going to Spain next month.”
His eyes darken. “With Ann-hell?”
“No. By myself. He’s helped me arrange it, he has a lot of family there. But I’m going alone, in the middle of February for eleven days.”
“I don’t get any say in this?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
He looks away, scowls. “We can’t do it together, maybe next summer or something?”
“I thought about that, but I think I have to do it alone.”
“Is this some kind of payback, Trudy? Tit for tat?”
I sigh. “No. Not even a little bit. It’s just that while you’ve been away, I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I want and where I want my life to go. This is part of it. Travel, and studying Spanish.”
For a long moment, he’s silent, his hands working around each other. Then he looks at me. “Okay. I get it. I don’t have to be happy about it, do I?”
“Well, if you’re not, then it takes a lot of the joy out of it for me.”
“Oh.” He looks surprised, then breaks into a grin. “I see your point.”
“It’s not about men, or sex. It’s about my mind, you know?”
He reaches for my hand, scoots his chair a little closer. “I do know,” he says, and his voice is a little raw. “But you’re so goddamned beautiful I know you’ll have offers.”
“Rick, I have never wanted another man. Not since the minute we met.” I touch his thick black hair, going so silver in beautiful streaks. “I love you, only you.”
His eyes are vulnerable. “Me, too, kid. Only you.”
We kiss, and it’s magical, like light bursting out of us. “Hold on,” he says, and goes to his coat, takes something out of the pocket. “I know it’s a little soon, but I wanted you to have this.”
It’s a jeweler’s box, blue velvet. I look at him. “What’s this?”
“Open it and see.” He sits down and puts his hands on my knees.
My heart feels off center, trembly, as I open the box. It’s an engagement ring, something I never had before because we were too broke. It’s a beautiful, table-cut diamond, medieval in spirit. “Oh, Rick, it’s beautiful!”
“You don’t have to say anything yet, but I wanted you to know where my heart is, Trudy. I want to renew our vows and be with you for the rest of my life. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
A part of me knows he wants me to say yes right now, and a part of me wants to do it—take the ring out and put it on my finger and be safe again. “I’m going to try it on, okay? I’m not going to wear it yet, but I do want to look at it.”
He swallows. Nods.
“You have such beautiful hands,” he says when I slide the ring on my finger. “I looked all over for the right one. Do you like it?”
“It’s perfect.” I take it off my finger, but before I put it in the box, I press a kiss to it.
He sighs with pleasure, puts his hand around the back of my neck, leans in to kiss me. “I love you,” he says. “I’ve missed you every minute, this whole time.”
“I know,” I whisper. “Me, too.”
“How long is Annie going to be gone?”
I smile. “Hours and hours.”
“Good.”
We go upstairs to my room, to the bed we’ve shared a thousand nights, and make love. It isn’t wild sex. It isn’t fancy. It’s the joining of two people who know every inch of each other. It’s very good, and I’ve learned to appreciate it. Afterward, we lie in each other’s arms and talk. He asks me about Seville and what I want to see there, listens quietly. He tells me that he’s been thinking a lot about how much freer our lives will be when Annie goes to college next year, and that he’s been looking at ways we could travel.
It’s simple. It’s quiet. It’s good.
I click on the lamp by the bed when it’s time for him to go, and lie there watching him get dressed. He flung his watch on the dresser as he always did, and reaches for it.
And I suddenly remember the photographs I tucked under the scarf, and in the instant before he sees them sticking out, a hundred possibilities run through my mind, how to stop it, how to change it, how to make it seem different.
Instead, I lie there as he sees them peeking out beneath the scarf, reaches for them. I see his long, smooth back, the curve of his arms, the fall of his tousled hair. My body is still.
“God,” he says. Blinks as if to make them go away. “I guess Ann-hell is good for something besides tips on travel, huh?”
I know the emotion he’s experiencing right now. I know it intimately. The burn of sexual jealousy, the acid of knowing you are not the only one. “Rick—”
“Don’t, okay?” He puts the photographs down very carefully, slips his watch over his wrist.
I sit up in bed, blanket tucked around my nakedness. “I wanted to tell you before you saw them. They’re art photos, Rick. He’s an artist.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
And suddenly, I’m furious. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me. Did you think I would pine away for you forever? Sit here in my lonely house and cry while you were out with another woman, getting laid whenever you felt like it?”
His jaw is hard. “No.”
“I was devastated by what happened, Rick. Devastated that you betrayed me and our family. That you could be so cold-blooded about it! I was furious with myself for giving up so much to be with you, and thinking it was enough to keep you happy. Angel made me feel like somebody again.”
“Yeah?” He’s furious now, too, standing there shirtless, barefoot, wearing only his jeans. “Well, it goes both ways. God, you got so damned stuck-up when you went to that school in Boulder. Started talking to me like I had the brains of a maggot. You were always so much better than me, weren’t you? Slumming with old Rick, passing time with me until you got to your real life.”
I stare at him, feeling the truth of it through my whole body. “Rick, I …”
He meets my eyes. “From the first minute I laid eyes on you, I was in love, Trudy. That never changed for one second. I always knew I wasn’t good enough for you, but I couldn’t stop trying. I kept thinking, over and over, that maybe one of these days you’d really see me.”
“Rick, that’s not fair! I was a snobby girl, I know I was. But I loved yo
u. I have always loved you. And I did give up a lot of my dreams, which I didn’t regret until you pulled the rug out from under me.”
“You think you’re the only one who gave things up, Trud? You think there weren’t days when I was working my ass off to make sure we had what we needed that I didn’t wish I could still take my trips with Joe once in a while? Just go hang out and be on the road, the wind in our hair?”
I lower my eyes. “You’re right.”
“Shit.” He sits down and tugs on his socks. “I don’t know why I keep—”
“Rick, let’s stop this, okay? You’re upset about the photos and I understand. This is a stupid fight. I don’t want to fight with you.”
“It’s not a stupid fight. It’s real. I fucked up, I know I did, but the thing I keep asking myself is, why? I love you. Why go with another woman?”
“Are you going to blame it on me, Rick?”
“No.” He shakes his head sadly. “It’s not your fault.”
I look at him, waiting. “Why?”
“Maybe I just wanted you to see me, Trudy.” He sighs, picks up his shirt. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Not even a kiss good-bye?”
“Not tonight.”
When I hear the door slam downstairs, I fall back on the pillows and stare at the ceiling. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Who got lost, who stopped seeing whom?
I don’t have any answers. Not a single one.
Seville, the capital of Andalusia, possesses an monumental wealth which is second to none. Strolling through it’s neighborhoods is the best way of getting to know the city. Santa Cruz, part of the old Jewish legacy, is narrow streets, the sound of water, gardens where forged steel imitates the natural beauty of flowers, shady, and silent.
43
TRUDY
There’s something stirring in me this January Monday. I have to go back to work Wednesday and I’m not looking forward to it. Not to mention I usually hate this month. If we’re going to get below-zero temps, that’s when they’ll show up, and we’ve had some this year. They come in stretches of five or six days, when the air is so cold and dry, the grass crackles underfoot, and you don’t dare take a deep breath for fear of freezing all the little hairs in your lungs. January is so bright, it burns my eyes.
The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue: A Novel Page 30
