Haunting Jasmine (18 page)

Authors: Anjali Banerjee

Tags: #Fiction, #Contemporary Women

BOOK: Haunting Jasmine

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“That’s a fabulous idea.” Maybe he is like his father, a little.

He moves his chair around the table, next to me, and before I can stop him, he’s leaning over to kiss me. His lips are firm, insistent, and I’m transported to a shimmering world of need. An ache of longing spreads through me, but I use all my willpower to extricate myself from his arms.

“I can’t do this.” I push my chair back and stand. My lips tingle. My body fills with light, as if a universe of stars has come to life inside me.

“Why not?” His eyes are half closed, his face slack.

Every molecule of my body wants to give in, but I can’t. “I’m not … ready.”

“I can wait.”

“You might be waiting forever.” I put up my inner shield. An image of Robert comes to me. Once, he took my breath away, too.

“Maybe I have forever,” Connor says. He gets up slowly, with obvious reluctance, and heads for the door to the stairs.

My heart sinks. “I’ll come down with you. Let me put on my shoes.”

“No need. I can see myself out. But we’ve only just started—”

“I need time, Connor. That’s all.” My heart is hermetically sealed.

“Take all the time you need. But remember, sometimes you have to plunge in, take the risk, grab life with both hands, even if only for a day.”

And then he is gone.

Chapter 28

“I’m going to love you forever,” Rob whispered on our honeymoon on Maui. His voice flowed across my skin like a tropical aphrodisiac. I lay with my back against him, his arms around me on a gently swinging hammock strung between two palm trees. Maybe we wouldn’t go anywhere all day.

We’d rented a sunny cottage on the beach. I could almost believe that this paradise belonged to only the two of us, that there were no other people in the world.

“I’ll love you forever and a day.” I closed my eyes, felt Rob’s chest against my back, his heartbeat, my head in the crook of his shoulder. Pinpricks of sand wafted across my skin. The sea gave off faint smells of salt and seaweed, mixed with Rob’s scents of sweat and coconut suntan lotion.

“Forever and two days,” he said.

“Three.”

“Infinity.”

“Infinity plus one.”

“No, I mean really love,” he said, as if trying to convince himself. Now, I wonder, was he trying to understand what love actually meant, what its limits would be?

“I mean really love, too,” I said.

He interlaced his fingers in mine, stroked the palm of my hand with his thumb. “Even when I go bald? When I have to shuffle to the door and my back goes out?”

“We’ll shuffle together.”

“When I drop my false teeth in a glass every night?”

“Your dad said he still has all his molars—at the reception dinner, remember?”

Rob chuckled. I felt the deep vibrations from his body. “I have no idea how the subject came up. My dad’s a hoot.”

“Your mom’s great, too. I loved her speech at the wedding. All about giving up her son and gaining the daughter she never had—”

“A beautiful daughter.” His parents, his two younger brothers, his best friends—the nice people that came with him would also go away with him, eventually. They all belonged in a boxed set.

“Your mom was too generous,” I said, my eyes still closed.

“What if I grow a potbelly like that guy over there?” I felt him pointing. I opened my eyes and watched a paunchy sunburned man, wispy gray hairs blowing on top of his head, saunter along the shoreline several yards away. His pale belly spilled over the top of his plaid shorts.

“I don’t care what you look like,” I said. “I love you for you. For who you are inside.”

But what did I truly know of who he was? I thought I understood him, but he projected a false front. How do we really know people?

What do I know of Connor? I pull on my shoes and run downstairs and out the front door, but there’s no sign of him. No car, no bike, no man striding away. Only the white ribbon of road winds along the waterfront, and above me, the constellations crowd into a black dome of sky.
Look at the stars
.

Robert never gazed at the stars—he was too busy staring at women. Now I’m free of his earthbound preoccupations, free of the confines of the known world. I imagine soaring through the universe, exploring uncharted territory. I touch my fingers to my lips, where Connor’s kiss lingers.

I turn back toward the house, and as I step inside, shivering, his absence closes in around me. Did I make a mistake, sending him away? No, I’m not ready to try again. I may never be ready.

I go to bed, fall in and out of restless sleep, and awaken before the first light of dawn. When darkness begins to lift, I head out to the beach for a jog in the cool morning air, without my cell phone. For now, I need to burn off this frenetic energy.

I follow the shoreline for nearly two hours, until my feet hurt. I half hope to see Connor here, but I find only the cormorants floating on the waves; gulls calling in their piercing voices; and a seal bobbing and dipping, watching me through black marble eyes. I wonder what that seal thinks of me, a wild-haired, lonely woman racing along this windswept stretch of sand?

I stop to gather treasures offered up by the ocean—a ridged pink cockleshell, both halves still intact and connected; clamshells; and colorful volcanic rocks. I return to the bookstore winded but refreshed, just in time for work.

Tony’s dressed in lighter blue—faded jeans fashionably ripped at the knees and a pale blue T-shirt that reads
Careful or You’ll End Up in My Novel
. He flits about in his usual feverish way, straightening displays and replacing the newspapers in the front hall. “Where did you go? I thought the island swallowed you.”

“I was on the beach. Be right back.” I run upstairs to shower and dress. I feel alive, alert. The run did me good. I can taste the sea salt on my lips.

Back downstairs, I make a cup of strong coffee and carry a new box of books to the Fiction section.

“How did your date go last night?” Tony asks, coming up next to me. He removes the packing slip from the box.

“He kissed me, that’s all.”

“What did it feel like?” He grabs books from the box and begins to slip them into new open slots on the shelves.

“Like a kiss. I don’t know. Good. It was good.”

“Sexy?”

“Yes, that, too.” I’m blushing at the memory.

“What else?” Tony sits on the carpet, cross-legged next to the box, and removes the rest of the books in piles.

“Nothing else. We talked.” I sit next to him. “I freaked out after he kissed me, and he left. I couldn’t help it.”

“You’re a wounded bird. He’ll understand.”

“He might be gone for good.”

Tony points a book at me. “He’ll be back, and next time, have more fun with him.”

I give Tony a playful slap in the arm. “I wasn’t going to jump into bed right away. What am I supposed to do—take off all my clothes, slip under the covers, and say, ‘Here I am, come and get me’?”

“Why not have a little fling? You don’t have to marry the guy.”

I stare at the novel in my hands.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
, about a woman who falls in love with a ghost and waits all her life to be with him
.
I shove the book onto the shelf. “I’m not ready for that kind of fun.”

“You deserve to have that kind of fun. No stress, no crap.”

I shelve a copy of
In Love with the Past.
“That’s what my ex-husband did, have flings with no stress, no crap. He forgot he had a wife waiting at home. Slight oversight.”

“But you’re not your ex-husband, and you’re no longer married. No Strings Attached can be fun. I’m the king of No Strings Attached. I could give you a few lessons.”

I hold up my hand, palm forward. “It’s okay. Really. Too much information.”

“Imagine, you get to spend time with a hunk of a man who’s drooling over you and can give you pleasure. Why not
give in
? Throw all caution to the wind. Then you go back to L.A.” He makes a motion as if tossing up dust.

I point to another stack of books. “I’m going to put those away now. And I’ll donate the ones we don’t need. No more talk about jumping into bed with strange men.”

Tony clucks his tongue. “He’s not strange. What do you think will happen? You’re not going to disappear in a puff of smoke.”

“How do you know? Sometimes I feel ephemeral.”

“Once you sleep with Connor, you’ll feel like a woman again. You’ll feel whole.”

“I’ll feel whole when the divorce is final. I hope Robert doesn’t keep trying to take the condo from me.”

Tony pats my shoulder. “Look, forget about that guy. Why don’t we get out of here for a bit?”

“Who’ll keep an eye on the store?” A headache is pushing at my skull again.

“I’ll put a Be Right Back sign on the door. We won’t get in trouble. I’ll take you to the Fairport Café for a cinnamon bun.”

“I could use some sugar.”

In a few minutes, we’re out in the blustery day. The cold air and drizzle feel fresh against my skin.

Fairport Café bustles with local color—students tapping away on computer keyboards, a group of women with their toddlers in strollers. The sweet scents of freshly baked bread and croissants make my mouth water.

“I don’t remember so many people living on the island,” I say. “They look happy.” They’re so lighthearted, they might float away on the slightest breeze.

“Must be the island’s enchantment,” Tony says. “Some people think there’s magic in the currents that converge around the island; some think it’s the weather patterns.”

“I need a little happy magic.”

We order espresso drinks and two large cinnamon buns from the glass case and sit at a corner table near the window.

I stir my cappuccino. A woman jostles me as she passes with a tray in her hands.

“I wish my aunt would modernize,” I say. “I have a feeling she’s going to lose the bookstore. I ordered in some new bestsellers, and I dusted. I’m trying, but I can’t find all the answers in a month—”

“I’d like someone to give me all the answers, too.” Tony slurps the froth from the top of his mocha, leaving a faint white mustache on his upper lip. “Like why I’m not published.”

“You’re a writer? Your T-shirt gave me a hint.”

He sighs and stares into his frothy cup. “I tried to sell exactly fourteen novels, and not one has been published, but I still hold out hope.” Through the window, he gazes in wistful yearning at slick raincoats passing in glistening sheets of yellow and blue, as if they are unattainable mirages.

“You’re persistent. That’s good. I hear you have to hold out a long time in the publishing business.”

“I’ve worked in bookstores for a long time, but your aunt’s place is the best. I wouldn’t be anywhere else. But I’m waiting for my big break.” His voice is full of unfulfilled dreams.

“You could fly to New York and pester a publisher until they accept your manuscript just to get rid of you.” I grin, surprised at my own spectacular advice.

“They might report me to the police as a stalker.”

“Then stick to the old adage: trust in your talent and never give up.”

His face brightens. “I like that one better. You need to do the same.”

“I can’t trust myself. I chose my ex-husband, after all. I fell for his charm and didn’t see what was behind it.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been through it. Not divorce, but heart-break. Same thing, right? You feel like you’re wandering in a daze.”

After Robert left, the world swooped past me while I plodded along, heavy as stone, barely surviving each day. “I went crazy at first, when my husband moved out. I drove away from the gas station with the pump still attached to the tank; I forgot my coffee cup on top of the car, even accidentally wore two different shoes to work.”

Tony tears off a sticky piece of cinnamon bun, shoves it in his mouth, and talks while chewing. “How different were the two shoes? Were they, like, one red shoe and one white shoe? A pump and a flat? Come on, be specific.”

I laugh, nearly snorting my coffee out my nose. “Two black shoes that looked similar, but one had a strap on the front and the other didn’t.”

“So it was an honest mistake.”

I nod. “But other mistakes were just … klutzy. I forgot to pay the energy bill. I got home one night and the power was out.”

“Give yourself a break. You loved the guy, what’s-his-name.”

“Robert.” It comforts me to know that Tony finds the name forgettable.

“Whatever. You wanted to believe the best about him. I know what that’s like. I fell in love once. Head over heels.”