by C.P. Kemabia
The next morning, Antwone woke up feeling refreshed. He hadn’t slept in, but his body had recuperated a great deal from the full night’s sleep and was awake in a way it hadn’t been in a long time.
After taking a shower and ordering breakfast to his room, he got himself behind his writing table. His fingers felt good hammering away at the typewriter as if they were happy to return to that little exercise, plus the words were pouring out from his mind like tea from a goblet. And that, too, felt very good and spurred him on to look deep inside himself and dig up the truth, the unadulterated truth, and write faithfully about it in the most simplistic language.
Sometimes, when he got carried away, he would write a mountain of words—pretty words, shocking words, gripping words… He collected them and always got them all on the page only to realize that half of them were useless, excess fat only made to make the work seem voluminous and important.
Over the years, he had figured out, though, that the work was already important. The writing of it made it important automatically. But there were a hundred ways to hurt the writing and one of them was to write without restrain. It took discipline but he had learned that it was worth it.
Letting the words tell the story without diluting them with pretention was the hardest part in the process. But he’d always worked hard to keep himself out of the story. Just because you wrote a story, there was no reason why you had to put your perpective in it. The characters were the ones who had things to say and his job was to make sure they were heard. And sure enough, that’s what he was hoping to accomplish in his new book.
Ava called him in the afternoon while he was still working. She wanted to see him to talk, she said, over the phone. He brought up the old excuse of being busy but she talked her way into his heart and he gave her the hotel’s address.
Forty five minutes later she was knocking at his door. He opened the door. There she stood, beautiful as always in a blue skater dress with white contrast collar. The sight of that dress on her robbed Antwone of a smile. And Ava was glad he liked what he was seeing.
After he let her in, he went back to his writing table to sort his papers and put them in neat little piles. His room was in shambles too. He had specifically asked not to have the chambermaid sent up to his room. Good thing the shambles did not seem to bother Ava.
“You were working?” she asked him.
“Yeah, but I can use a break since you’re here.”
“Good.”
She came onto him and kissed him.
The underhand kiss made him flinch a little but then, because it was Ava, and because a part of him could never get enough of her charms, of her perfect nose and her eager lips, he kissed her back. And soon enough, they were locked in each other’s arms and, both burning hot with desire, they made for the bed, in a jagged line, almost like two people fairly drunk and, naked, they lay there together after they were done playing with one another’s bodies.
Afterwards, Antwone admitted to himself that, no matter how he felt about Ava, it was always a nice feeling to have her in bed with you. It was something nobody could take away from you. And it was one of those things that made her desirable. She sure fitted the bill of his type of woman…
“You’re not going to ask me what I wanted us to talk about?” Ava said, turning over on her stomach, her breasts flattened by the mattress, her head resting on her arms.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“I think I love you,” she said. “Actually, I know I love you.”
Antwone gave out a mild sigh. Suddenly he wanted a smoke.
“Look, I’m going to leave Hank,” she said and when Antwone looked at her she added, “But I’m not doing it for you.” She rose from the bed and sat up. “I’m just tired, you know. Our marriage, our arrangement, there are times when it makes me sick, tears me all up inside. But we make such a damn fine couple, we deserve one-another, we have everybody to remind us of that. But I’m just tired and I’m not happy anymore. Haven’t been for a while. And I want to be happy again. Is that too much to ask? Don’t I deserve to be happy?”
Without attending his reply, Ava stretched down against Antwone and hollowed out a resting place for her head on his chest. Naturally, his arm enveloped her shoulder.
“And I am happy when I’m with you,” she went on. “When you hold me like this, I just turn to jelly. I know you think it’s just silly talk but I don’t care. And I don’t care either if you put up walls around you, keep yourself at a distance, or make yourself emotionally unavailable. I don’t care because I know somewhere in there”—she gently tapped on his chest with her finger—“you feel something for me. Now tell me I’m wrong.”
She had riveted her eyes to meet his now and trying to escape their probe was harder than confronting them. Her chin was planted on his breast like a stake and their passionate lovemaking had left her hair disheveled, as if she had woken up from an agitated night.
“You’re not wrong,” Antwone finally told her after a moment. In response, Ava buried her face in his shoulder and threw her arms around his neck.
And they kissed again. It was a long, slow and warm kiss and, even though the burning passion had frizzled out by now, there was still a little bit of it left to reignite their senses.
“When do you plan to leave him?” Antwone asked her moments later.
“I want to wait till he’s done with his art expo,” she said. “He worked very hard to make it a success and it’s better if he’s not sidetracked by this kind of news.”
“He sort of invited me over for dinner.”
“I know,” she said. “He told me. Asked me what I thought.”
“And?”
“And I told him why not.”
“So you think it’s a good idea?”
“Why not? He doesn’t know I’m seeing you. And even if he did, he doesn’t care.”
Antwone snuffed out a grin. He said.
“I wouldn’t stake my hand on it. Husbands do care about what other men their wives see.”
“Well, not Hank,” Ava said. “Look you don’t have to come if you’d rather not. I can just tell him you’re busy.”
They were still in bed. Ava looked at the time on the digital clock set on the nightstand. Her wristwatch was sitting on it as well. She put it on and rolled out of bed.
Antwone watched that naked body of hers rise against the setting sun outside the window. He knew every curve and every perfect and imperfect line of it. It was pleasant for him to know that he had just conquered and explored her body through and through only minutes before and the caveman in him jealously treasured all the secrets kept in it.
Presently, Ava was pulling her things together and getting dressed in a slow and relaxed manner. Antwone was looking on in silence.
“How close are you to finishing the first draft?” she said in a conversational tone.
“Pretty close. Just have one chapter left to write.”
“Oh, so when will you be leaving town?”
“In a week maybe,” Antwone said. “Two at the most.”
“Are you losing your edge? I knew you to write faster.”
“It’s not that,” he said. “Something came up; something personal.”
“What?”
“My sister,” Antwone replied without thinking and nearly regretted it.
Ava was through getting dressed and was now doing her hair. She stopped dead upon hearing the reply.
“You have a sister?” she said. Her voice carried a note of flagrant surprise.
“Yes I have a sister.”
This was one of the things that happened when you felt close to a woman. You started opening up to her. Antwone was not so sure about it now. There was no mistaking the screwing effect of the revelation on Ava’s face. Her lip curled back in disenchantment.
“Why do I have the sudden impression that you’re never forthcoming with me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Six years we’ve known eac
h other,” she said, no longer heeding her hair. “And it’s only today I learn that you have a sister.”
Antwone sat up on the bed.
“We sort of drifted apart,” he said. “Went our separate ways and––well it turns out she’s in town. She lives here.”
“In L. A.?”
“Yeah. I ran into her the other day. Now I have to find out where this whole family reunion thing leaves us.”
“You plan to see her again while you’re here?”
“That’d be the normal thing to do.”
“Why don’t you bring her to the dinner?” Ava suggested.
“What dinner?”
“You know––”
“—I thought we’d closed that subject.”
“This is a different subject; I want to meet her.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“I just don’t think it is.”
Ava tilted her head with brashness to signify that she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“You see what I’m talking about,” she said.
“Look, I’d gladly dance to your tune if I still had a relationship with my sister, which I clearly don’t since I haven’t seen or talked to her in years.”
“Is she crazy?”
“What?’
“Is she mentally unstable?”
“No.”
“So she’s not a danger to herself or to others, right?”
“What are you getting at?” he said.
“So there’s no potential risk or danger at re-establishing a new relationship with her, right?”
Antwone said nothing. He remained silent for a few seconds. This whole conversation was getting to be annoying. He finally said, “Ava, you’re wasting your breath.”
“What happened between the two of you?” she said.
“Life,” he said, “life happened.”
Seeing that Antwone was closing up like a shell, Ava changed tactics and came up to his side of the bed. She sat down on the edge of it. She smoothed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“She’s your sister,” she said slowly, “she’s your family. And unless there’s a deep rift between you that is better off unrepaired, I would really, really love to make her acquaintance. A formal introduction is all I’m asking…”
“Is it all that important?” Antwone said.
“Yes, it is.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you,” Ava said again, looking at him. “And because if this casual fling we do here, now, ever gets to a point of, say, engagement, wouldn’t you be curious to know more about my own family baggage? Because I damn well know I would be about yours.”
Antwone thought about this for a second. The fact that Ava had even mentioned the word engagement, no matter how derisory the mention was, while referring to their relationship did not have the effect of scaring him away. It surprised him a lot the way he actually welcomed the thought of being engaged to her.
She said, “If nothing else, just do it for me. Ask her to come to dinner and see what she says, alright?”
Presently, Ava was using her long-toothed smile to influence Antwone’s answer. It was difficult to turn her down when she was this close to you, with her eyes searching yours to bend whatever resolve they may have had in them. As always, she would get what she wanted.
“I guess I could do that,” Antwone said. And Ava leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. She then got up, cockeyed and with an air of satisfaction about her. She was ready to leave. The hotel room – their improvised love nest – was now scented with her natural lavender odor.
“Goodness, I can’t wait to meet your sister.” she said with a huge smile.
“It’s not a done deal yet,” Antwone said. “I have yet to see her and ask her.”
“It’ll be fine. I know it’ll be fine. If you were my brother and we lost touch or something, I’d always have you on the brain.”
“You’re not really helping.”
“By the way,” Ava said, at the door, “I have to fly out in three days. I’m wanted back in New York, so––”
“—So we won’t be doing this anytime soon, huh?”
“Is that all you’re going to miss?”
“What do you think?”
Ava smiled, shook her head, looked at Antwone sitting up alone on the wrinkled bed and smiled again as if to say, ‘Don’t be an ass.’ She then opened the door and walked out.
Not long after she left, Antwone took another shower. It helped settle things down in his mind. He had exchanged numbers with Mary. He could ring her up anytime he wanted. But since that chance encounter, he hadn’t called her. He had thought about her though. But he hadn’t called. Why? He had let himself be distracted with other things. But she hadn’t called either. He thought that it should’ve been easier for her to call, to make the first step. After all, she seemed happy when he had met her, content with her life. She had managed to move on. And he could move on with Ava. Their affair could evolve into something formal and long term. It could work. After all, she did love him dearly. And he knew he could love her the way she loved him with time.
By the time he got out of the shower, Antwone felt keenly about seeing Mary again. It was really time to stop ducking the future to stay in the past and not live in the present. It was time to open new doors and finally walk ahead. To do that, Antwone reckoned that he must close all the old doors permanently.
14
