Dating da Vinci (14 page)

“What about you? Knocking boots with Leo yet?”

I brushed through my hair, trying not to compare it to my sister's. It wasn't fair that I'd just spent $125 on a color job that I couldn't afford in the first place and hers still looked shinier and bouncier. “Don't be silly.”

“I'm not being silly. I'm being hopeful. For you. If I weren't with Cortland, I'd be in hot pursuit. You're just not interested, huh?”

“Actually, he has kissed me. I mean we've kissed. At a wine festival.”

Rachel's wide mouth opened even wider and emitted a squeal of delight. “OhmygodI'msohappyforyou. Is he a great kisser? I always imagined Italians would be the best kissers.”

“Very much so. He's young, though. I think kissing improves with age.”

“Poo. It's when they're young and hot and full of reckless abandon that it's good. I bet sleeping with him will be …” She rolled her eyes into the back of her head. “OhmygodIcan'tbelieveI'mjealousofyou.”

I swelled with pride. Of course I shouldn't have to keep da Vinci a secret. I was a grown woman. I could make my own decisions about my love life. About getting one, that is. I'd just have to deal with the teacher issue and figure out how to break the news to Judith without breaking her heart, and then we were fair game. Not that I'd let my sister's jealousy speed along any decision.

“There you are,” Cortland said as I exited the bathroom, and for a split second I thought he'd been waiting for
me
until I saw that my sister was directly behind me. Cortland locked eyes with me,
one, two, three
, then focused on my sister, who put her arm around his waist and led him away from me.

My boys were still at the table, talking football. My boys: William, Bradley, and da Vinci. When I approached, they all three looked up at me with adoration. Not as adorably as when my boys were little and they shouted “Momma!” every time I entered the room, but for growing boys and one young man, I felt very lucky. Especially when da Vinci leaned over and whispered in my ear, “
Usci-amo di qui.
”

Let's get out of here.

Anagrams: Leonardo da Vinci

FOR SOMEONE OF QUESTIONABLE faith, I looked for signs only where I'd felt comfortable: within words. I thought it meant something that Cortland named his dog “love.” I thought it meant something that my da Vinci had been named after that da Vinci and that Mona Lisa was a derivative of my full name. Even though I couldn't explain it, I knew that in this time and this space Mona Lisa (me) and da Vinci (him) meant something together though. To figure it out, I searched for meaning within his name, playing the anagram game that had become second nature to me. There were plenty of messages to be found within Leonardo da Vinci:

A candid lore vino
. The “lore” of our names.

A candid role vino.
The “role vino” had played in our courtship at the wine festival.

A candid rove loin.
Having a roving loin could be a bad thing, but as long as it was roving in my direction, I took it as a good sign.

Which led me to:

A candid lover ion.
It couldn't be helped.
We
couldn't be helped. It was right there: da Vinci and Mona Lisa's union. Love matter. Right there in his name. All along.

As Anh helped me rake leaves the following day (the thing about leaves is, they keep falling until the last leaf is gone. The trees were
now bare, which meant we were only two weeks from Joel's death date), I confessed to Anh my intentions. I'm not sure if I wanted her to give me a high-five or a stern, shake-her-finger-at-me type of warning or do a cartwheel. Instead, she stared at me blankly for a few seconds, which felt more like an hour. Then she threw her rake down and wrapped her skinny arms around me.

“Good for you, Rames.” Her hug also felt like it lasted an hour. When she let go, she had tears in her eyes.

“Oh, dear. Why are you crying?”

“Because I'm so happy for you. Because I can tell how much happier you've been lately and if he's the reason for it, then I say,
more amore
!”

“Well, I got him transferred into another class. I'm no longer his teacher, though I am still
a teacher
. Fortunately Panchal met his own wife at the cultural center, so he can't exactly throw stones.”

Anh shrugged. “You're both adults and it's not a public university. Besides, sometimes you can't help how you meet who you meet, you know?”

“And besides, it's not like we would be going anywhere relationship-wise. It would just be for companionship.”

“And great sex.”

I tossed my rake onto the ground. This is why I had to tell Anh. I wasn't looking for consensus or approval. I was looking for a sex pep talk. “I don't think I can go through with it. I'm scared. And don't you dare tell me it's like riding a bike.”

Anh put her hands on her hips. “No. It's a helluva lot more fun than getting back on a bike again. And take it from me, someone who's had more sexual partners than should probably be openly admitted and three of them very different husbands in the sack; the fundamentals are the same from guy to guy.”

“Uh, yeah. I don't need a diagram. Tab A goes into Slot B, repeat as necessary, thankyouverymuch.”

“What I mean is, once things get going, it kind of takes care of itself. The body almost goes into autopilot. Only some autopilots are a lot sexier than others.”

“Well, it did feel like if I hadn't stopped things at the wine festival or in the car that I could've gone through with it. If only …”

” … you didn't feel guilty about Joel.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, if Heaven weren't already as great as having sex every minute of the day, then he would be doing it, too. I once read orgasm is the closest thing we experience on earth to the feeling we'll have to the perfect bliss we'll feel in Heaven.”

“But you don't believe in Heaven. You believe in reincarnation.”

“It doesn't matter what I believe; it matters what
you
believe. And you believe in Heaven, and I do believe in bliss, so go for it.”

“A little piece of Heaven might be nice.”

“Or a lot of it. A whole lot of bliss.”

Bliss: a word missing from my personal vocabulary. What would it be like to have it back in my dictionary? To actually feel it?

“What about you? Gone blissing lately? You haven't shared, which means you either haven't or you're keeping secrets.”

Anh shrugged her shoulders. “I swore I wouldn't tell you.”

“This can't be good. Maybe I don't wanna know.”

“I had a thing the other night …”

“Great. You're telling me anyway. Fine, you had a mover/shaker thing?”

“Exactly. And who was there, but Michael.”

“As in my ex-brother-in-law Michael?”

“Mr. Republican Himself. So we have a few drinks. You know how vodka tonics do me.”

“No. Don't even say it.” I threw down the rake and covered my ears. “You slept with Michael and now neither of you are going to go to the boys' games with me, and it'll be all awkward and weird, and oh, Jesus, Anh, couldn't you stick to a safe glass of Chardonnay?”

“I'd had a very bad day. My stock dropped.”

“And that makes you sleep with people you don't like?”

“No, it makes me drink vodka tonics with extra lime. And sometimes it leads to sleeping with someone I don't like. But it's not that I dislike Michael as a person. He's a good-looking enough man.”

“Who fundamentally disagrees with everything you stand for.”

“Well, he
has
bought stock in my company, so he can't be all bad, political, social and spiritual views aside.”

“What other view is there?”

“The strictly physical view. Nice smile. Nice body. Nice voice. Nice hands.”

“I've never noticed his hands.”

“That's because they haven't been all over your body.”

I cringed. “
Ewww.
Okay. I still think of him as a brother, so you can leave the deets out of your conquest this time.”

“He's an amazing lover. Quite aggressive.”

“Must be why he and Rachel stayed married so long. So what does this mean? You're not going to start dating him, are you?”

“I can't imagine what we'd possibly do other than what we've already done, which is fine by me. There are four basic human needs. Do you know what they are?”

“I have a feeling you're going to tell me sex is one of them.”

“Food, drink, sleep, and sex. And not exactly in that order, either. I'll admit Michael wasn't my first choice, though. I had a drink with Cortland before he had to jaunt off to some play of Zoe's.”

“Ohmigod
. You're
the reason Michael was late to Zoe's play?”

“He made it in time for the third act, didn't he? Besides, I think our first two acts were far more interesting.”

I shook my head. “No wonder he was in such a good mood when he arrived.”

Anh smiled proudly. “Michael was in a good mood? Of course he was in a good mood, what am I saying? And now that I think
about it, all Cortland did was ask questions about you before he took off.”

I straightened my shoulders. “He did? What sort of questions?”

“About you and da Vinci, for one thing. If you've dated since you lost Joel, how it happened, how you're coping with the boys. He didn't mention your sister once.”

“He just wants to get to know her family better is all. I think she might be getting serious about him. They're all coming here for dinner on Sunday. It's Dad's birthday and I get birthday duty.”

We bagged up the leaves, and I tried to get Cortland out of my mind. I don't know why I was looking forward to seeing him again. So my sister was dating a nice, sweet, funny guy who asks about me. Big deal.

Anh placed the bags in the trashcan and we went inside. My neighborhood coffee was in thirty minutes, just enough time to shower and put on the coffee and rolls.

“Here's the number you asked for,” Anh said, handing me a business card. The chakra specialist. I couldn't believe I was going to see a yogi. “You'll thank me later. I can't wait to see what the new and improved Ramona looks like. Scratch that. What she
feels
like.”

After Anh left, I peeled off my clothes and stepped into the shower and began humming a favorite song of Joel and mine: Sonny and Cher's “I Got You, Babe
.
” Sometimes I thought the shower hitting my scalp was like pushing the on button on the stereo in my mind. I only sang Sonny and Cher in the shower, and even then, I sang badly but with fervor.

When I paused to grab the shampoo, the song went on without me. Through the shower glass, I saw a frame, da Vinci's frame, as he peeled off his shirt and hummed the song I didn't even know he knew. “Is okay to shower now, Mona Lisa?” he asked.

I instinctively covered my body parts, which was ridiculous since he obviously meant to get in with me. The very naked me. I sucked in my stomach, stuck out my chest and smoothed my hair back. “Come on in, da Vinci.”

When is a shower more than a shower? When you share it with someone else. Especially a someone with a hard, wet body pressed up against yours, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, arms wrapped around each other's slick, soapy bodies. And then? Lips on lips. Lips on collar bone. Lips on breast, stomach, thighs. Anh was right. Enlightenment can come from the simplest things. We hadn't even gotten to actual sex yet, and I was feeling the out of body experience that came with the transition from becoming to being.

I wasn't thinking of anything while we were in the shower, mind you. It was better than getting back on a bike, one thing leading to another and I would have most certainly let nature take its course if it hadn't been for Zoya and Gabriella both calling my name in their thick accents beyond my bedroom door. “Ramona, we're here.”

“Shit.”

“No stop,” da Vinci said as he continued to kiss me.

I began to panic. “Didn't you hear that? My neighbors are here. I can't believe we've been in here thirty minutes already.”

“Just five more minutes,” da Vinci said, and as much as I would've liked to have gone through with it, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it knowing my neighbors could walk in on us any minute. They had no idea I had company. Why would they?

“Here's the plan. I go out first. You wait five minutes, get dressed.
Fully
dressed, da Vinci. And walk out the front door and around to the studio. Okay?”

Da Vinci scrunched his brow but said okay. “But shower nice, no?”

I kissed him one last time, hard on the lips. “Yes. Shower very nice.”

Gabriella, Zoya, and Simone were already eating cinnamon rolls they had heated themselves when I joined them.

Zoya was complaining, her hands flying everywhere as she spoke. “I'm tired of baby-trying,” she said. “Used to sex two times a week. Now sex every night. Zoya don't need baby that bad.”

Gabriella, who had five children, reassured her. “Just get pregnant, and you'll get sex much less often. He'll be afraid to hurt the baby and after baby comes, you'll get sex hardly ever.”

“Really?” Zoya's eyes widened. “Then maybe baby now good thing.”

We laughed, but my neighbors stopped laughing, Simone's eyes like saucers, when da Vinci, wearing only a yellow towel that barely closed, walked through the kitchen, his hair still dripping wet. “Da Vinci!” I yelled, wishing I had a dishcloth big enough to cover his whole body. What part of get dressed and go through the front door did he not understand? I swear. Sometimes he says okay when he has no idea what I'm saying.

“
¡Dios Santo! “
Gabriella gasped in Spanish.
Sweet Lord in Heaven.

“
Pelo amor de Devs!
” Simone whispered in Portugese.
Heaven help us.

“
Glückliches weibchen,
” Zoya said in German.

“Zoya!” I scolded. She'd called me a lucky bitch.

“Ladies,” da Vinci said, walking casually over to me where he planted a kiss on my temple. It didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out we both had wet hair and had come out of the bathroom within minutes of each other. And the kiss said more than any explanation could. “Good morning.” He proceeded to pour himself a cup of coffee while we all stared at him. What could I do?