Chasing Chaos: A Novel (8 page)

Dan
was silent for a minute, apparently mulling the veracity of her words. “What
you did was really fucked up.”

“I’m
sorry I hurt you,” she said.

The
line went dead.

She
lowered the phone from her ear and realized she was shaking even more now. She
glanced at Marlon.

He
wasn’t watching the sunset. He was watching her. Closely. “This Dan fellow. Is
that the guy you were seeing? The guy at Timmy’s birthday dinner?”

“Yeah.
We broke up yesterday.”

“You
did the breaking up.”

Daphne
nodded.

“And
he isn’t taking it too well?”

Daphne
nodded again.

“How
long were you two together?”

“A
year and a half? I have to think about it. We sort of eased into our
relationship,” she said. “We started out as work friends.”

“And
now it sounds like you guys aren’t much at all.”

Daphne
sat down next to Marlon again and chugged the rest of her beer. She set the
bottle on the table, then leaned back in her lounge chair and shut her eyes.

“You
can’t watch a sunset with your eyes closed,” he said.

“No.
But I can feel it.”

Marlon
Barringer didn’t like taking risks. He drove slowly. He wore light-colored
clothes when he took walks so drivers could see him. He had plenty of money in
his savings accounts. He wore safety goggles when woodworking, and he never put
his left hand in front of a chisel. He knew his risk-averse behavior stemmed
from the deaths of his parents when he was young, but he was OK with that.
Being driven by the past was only a problem when it was a problem.

Like
right now. He looked at Daphne Saito, lounging next to him on the long,
brown-cushioned chair, eyes closed, black ponytail hanging loose over her
shoulder, unaware of his examination. Of his fascination. He’d managed to keep
at least that much under wraps.

He’d
meant it when he’d said she couldn’t read him right because she’d misjudged
him. He knew that she thought he lacked motivation. She thought that was why he
didn’t try to make a career showing his paintings. Truth was, he was extremely
motivated. And he did have a career with his paintings. He just didn’t need to
have a show. Each one was sold before he’d picked up a brush.

Marlon
made a very good living.

She
also didn’t understand his relationship with Sandy. That was clear enough. She
would figure it out soon, though, once she spent more time with him.

His
relationship with Sandy was basic psychology. When Marlon had been eighteen,
he’d met Sandy, and the childless man had taken him in. But Marlon wasn’t just
Sandy’s assistant. Marlon and Sandy were family, and neither man had much
family.

“You
want another beer?” Marlon asked.

She
tilted her head in his direction. She opened her perfect brown eyes to gaze at
him.

He
wondered what ends he would go to in order to keep her on his deck.

“Yes,”
she said. “Bring the rest of the six-pack.”

“The
beer will get warm out here.”

“The
sun is setting.” She pierced him with her eyes. “Bring the six-pack and a
blanket.”

She
turned her head to the sky again and shut her eyes. Marlon remembered Sandy’s
description of Daphne:
gorgeous, whip-smart and potentially lethal
. Not
exactly the girl for the risk averse.

He
entered the door that led into his kitchen. The garage apartment resembled
Sandy’s house. When Sandy had remodeled his house (with Marlon’s help), they’d
done both spaces at the same time. The apartment had the same stone
countertops, the same custom cabinetry. Marlon had insisted that putting such
fine materials in a guest house was a wasted expense, but Sandy had seemed
delighted by the idea.

Marlon
had only been a junior in college.

It
wasn’t until Greta had come along that Sandy had seemed to take an interest in
another person. Greta had captured Sandy’s attention much like Marlon had—he
was protective of her and treated her like a favored niece or even a daughter.
Greta had quickly won over Marlon too. She was also part of his family.

But
Marlon had never had much occasion to get to know Daphne.

He’d
seen her from a distance many times. Passed her coming and going. Noticed her,
of course—how could a man not? She was a knock-out. That much was undebatable.
But she always seemed busy, and she always seemed taken. So he’d kept his
distance.

He
opened his fridge. Inside were all the fresh ingredients he had purchased at
the neighborhood market. Sandy hadn’t said as much, but the reason he was
having Marlon handle the wedding catering was because Marlon knew his way
around a kitchen.

In
the refrigerator door was his collection of beers. He liked to try new ones
every time he went to the store. After hesitating a moment—the phrase
“potentially lethal” crossed his mind again—he grabbed the remainder of the
six-pack. He snagged the quilt from the couch and made his way back out onto
the deck.

He
set the beers on the table. On her lounger, Daphne had kicked off her shoes and
tucked her sock-clad feet up under her bottom. She opened her eyes when she
heard him approach. He stood there with the blanket in his hands, unsure of what
to do with it.

Draping
it over her himself seemed far too intimate.

“Scoot
your chair next to mine,” she said. “Then we can share.”

Clearly
the two of them had different ideas of what constituted intimate.

But
it didn’t seem as though Daphne were trying to seduce him. Quite the contrary.
She seemed to be curling into herself, looking inward for comfort. But he was
flattered she felt relaxed enough to do so around him. He knew what kind of
trust it took to let down one’s guard around someone new.

He
moved the table out of the way and pulled his chair adjacent to hers. The
armrests touched. After sitting down, he flung the quilt over both of them, and
it settled over their chairs, brushing the deck on either side.

Daphne
ran her hands over the material. “This is beautiful.”

“My
mother made it.”

Daphne
paused, seeming to take in his words. “Did your mom make many quilts?”

“One
a month, it seemed. She gave most of them away. I have a few of them left.”

“What
was her name?”

“Isabella.”

“Italian?”

“Very.
She named me after Marlon Brando.”

Daphne
giggled. Then her face turned serious. “I’m sorry I laughed.”

“No,
it is hilarious. My mom had stars in her eyes. Thought I could be a movie star
or something, growing up in Los Angeles. But you look at Marlon Brando—I mean,
just the tragedies with his kids—one a killer, one committed suicide. Life must
have been awful for him.”

“It
wasn’t easy for you either,” she said. But there wasn’t any pity in her voice,
and he found himself liking her even more because of it.

“Maybe
the name was a curse,” he said.

“What
happened to your dad?”

Marlon
paused, unsure of how much to share with this beautiful stranger.

It
had been so long since he’d shared anything. Sure, he’d met girls—and
women—here and there, and many had even seen the inside of his bedroom. But
he’d hung onto none of them. He’d certainly never shared anything about his
childhood. He thought of Carrie and smiled, feeling a little disgruntled. His
cousin-by-blood but sister-in-spirit had taken the choice out of his hands by
telling Daphne more than he would have volunteered. He wondered if Carrie had
done it on purpose, matchmaking without his consent.

“My
father died young. But before he died, he wasn’t around much. He was trying to
start his own company.”

“Doing
what?”

“Fine
carpentry. Cabinet making. The fancy woodwork you see in houses like these.”
Marlon waved his hand at the hills below. “He’d leave early, at like
five-thirty in the morning, and wouldn’t get home until after we were asleep.
Once I got old enough to swing a hammer, I realized the only way I’d ever get
to see him was to work with him. So that’s what I did.”

“How
old were you?”

“Eight.”

“What
did Isabella think about that?”

“She
was just glad to know he didn’t have a mistress.”

“But
he did, didn’t he? In a way? Just not the human kind.”

“Yeah,
you could look at it like that. He got a few good jobs, but it didn’t take. He
blew through our family savings in a couple of years. And then he just died.
Heart attack. I was twelve.”

“Do
you have any brothers or sisters?”

“Yeah.
Carrie.”

Daphne
nodded, seeming to understand a bit of what he was saying about his adoptive
family.

“My
mom died two years later,” Marlon continued, “and then I showed up on Aunt
Donna’s doorstep with two duffle bags.”

Daphne
ran her hand over the quilt again, tracing the pattern with her delicate
fingertip.

“Thank
you,” she said, finally.

“Well,
strangers are the easiest people to talk to,” he said.

“Am
I still a stranger?” she asked.

Her
eyes poured into his, and he felt lost. Then he remembered her phone
conversation, the dinner she wasn’t having right then, and drew back. He
certainly didn’t want to be her rebound.

“I’ve
known you for a long time, but it’s true we’ve never become friends,” he said.
“I’m glad we finally have.”

“Me
too,” she said, looking back at the sun as it neared the horizon. “What time is
sunset?”

“Around
this time of year? A little before seven-thirty.”

She
looked at her watch. “What would you normally do for the next thirty minutes?”

“Eat.”

“I
skipped dinner for this,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“Then
I’ll be back shortly.” He stood, and this time he tucked the blanket around
her, intimacy be damned.

~~~~

Daphne
watched the sun dip closer toward the horizon, barely marking the passage of
time.

After
a while, Marlon returned to the deck with a gigantic platter covered in a
Caprese salad. He set it on her lap. She took in the beauty of it before gazing
up at him in wonder. “You truly are an artist,” she said. “Where’s my fork?”

His
smile made her stomach flip, and she wondered if the feeling was influenced by
the beer. He held out a fork, handle first.

“Is
this all mine?” She gestured to her lap.

“I
thought we might share,” he said. “It’s an awful lot.”

“Are
you just going to eat off of me?”

As
soon as she said the words, she wanted to fall off the deck in embarrassment.
Marlon just gave her a closed-mouth grin, one that told her he knew what she
was thinking, that he was thinking it too, and that they could be grown-ups
about it and move on.

She
sighed, unsure if she was grateful for his maturity or not.

She
ate the salad, the tomatoes so red as to seem cartoonish, the white mozzarella,
creamy, the basil, richly pungent—did he grow it himself somewhere?—the olive
oil, liberally applied.

After
what seemed like only a few minutes, the salad was gone. Marlon produced
napkins from the table next to his chair and handed her one while he took the
platter from her lap.

“Did
you know I’m from North Carolina?” she asked.

“I
did.”

Daphne
was surprised, but then realized she shouldn’t have been. Marlon knew about
Greta. Therefore, he knew a few things about her.

“Then
you know I’m a tomato connoisseur. It’s what we do there. Well, tomatoes and
pork. And those were amazing tomatoes.”

“I
buy most ingredients at the market down the hill.”

“The
one you can walk to.”

He
nodded.

Daphne
passed the shopping area on her way up to Sandy’s every time she came, but she
paid it little mind. She supposed the handful of stores mattered a lot to the
people who lived here, and even more to someone like Marlon who didn’t have a
car.

“What
else can you make?”

“Just
about anything originating in Italy. Most things from France. A lot of things
from Spain.”

“You’re
a chef,” she said, delighted.

“I
like to cook.”

Daphne
felt it again, the tingle of allure that she knew would transform into
full-blown attraction if she let it.

She
wanted to let it.

But
she didn’t trust herself. She knew she was reeling from Dan. She was also
reeling from Greta’s marriage to Timmy. Plus, Sandy was important to her, and
Marlon was important to Sandy. Obviously, Marlon was like a son to him. She
couldn’t screw things up. She couldn’t, no matter how much it would make her
feel better now.

She
looked at her watch. Seven-fifteen.

“We’re
getting close,” she said.

He
reached over and took her hand where she had been unconsciously tracing the
starburst pattern of the quilt.

God,
she was done for.

As
the sun dipped beneath the horizon, they huddled under the blanket for warmth,
tucking their hands beneath but not letting go.

He
started this too
,
she said to herself.
It wasn’t just me.

She
turned to face him, resting her head on the lounger, and he did the same. His
gray eyes held so much warmth and caring. She realized these emotions were his
status quo. She wanted him to feel those feelings for her.

But
she shouldn’t get too close. Marlon was too special to all of them. What would
Sandy think—or Greta—if Marlon got hurt because of her?

She
couldn’t be the one to start this. But she could wait here on this chair. She
could wait here all night. She’d always been patient, even as a little girl.