One Small Thing (30 page)

Avery started and sat down on the corner of the bed. “I’m going to St. Louis.”

“Great.”

She looked up at the mirror and watched Dan. He swallowed back tears he wasn’t showing her and then wiped his eyes. “I’m going to have to get the court involved in this if Galvin calls again. If you answer, you have to write down everything he says. Midori says I should get a tape recorder.”

“What does he want?”

“I don’t know.”

Something in Avery’s chest was hurting her, a pain deep under her breastbone. She rubbed at it with her fingers and wished she could cry for everything, her baby, Dan’s lies, Daniel, Randi, tonight’s strange call. But even though she felt she could lean over, stroke his back, tell him it would be okay, something held her back. The same thing that made her say, “Fine,” when Brody called her into his office the next day and told her she was heading back to St. Louis and Dirland Accounting and Mischa. The same thing that helped her dress in her traveling suit and walked her to the United gate and sat her down in seat 8B.

Avery wanted to forget about Daniel, his bright, happy eyes as she handed him the skateboard. She couldn’t bear to think about Dan’s reflection in the mirror, his huge sadness spread all over his body, every muscle sagging with too damn much. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what had gone on at his parents’ house if they had agreed to come down for a visit to meet Daniel. So she thought about Mischa Podorov, his blonde scruffy hair, his blue eyes, the way he said her name as if she could fly.

Her assistant Joel had arranged an airport service to pick her up, so Avery was surprised to see Mischa standing in a group just past the security checkpoint. Heat spread through her body like a web, and she flushed, hoping it wasn’t visible to the crowd around her, her body casting off pheromones and heat like a wide, open, spring flower.
Sick
, she thought.
You are sick
.

“A-vary,” Mischa said as she approached, reaching out a hand to take her carryon. “Aren’t you surprised to see me? This is a surprise, I think.”

She nodded, unable to talk, desire and nausea cutting off her voice. He was clean-shaven, and she smelled the shaving cream under his cologne. She clasped her hands, holding her fingers back from the line of his jaw, the long line of his European nose, the lift of his hair over his forehead. Avery realized she knew him well enough to remember the tiny scar in his eyebrow, a parenthesis of flesh in the light curve of hair.

“I have called the service, and they will not be coming. So, I will take you to the meeting,
krasaritsa
.”

Ignoring the new endearment, she thought of work. It was good to talk about work. She was glad he hadn’t said anything about taking her to her hotel, where there was a room with a door and a bed that this particular hotel chain promised would be the best she’d ever slept on. She’d grab a cab after the meeting, and then she’d call Dan and find out if Galvin Gold had called again.

“So,” she said, clearing her throat. “Your people are on board?”

“Oh, yes,” Mischa said. “They will go where I navigate them.”

As she followed him out the automatic doors into the hot St. Louis air, he turned and smiled, his eyes like a reflection of the sky in a Florida puddle, blue but not immediately, a murk of past and history to get through before the color. He reached out and took her hand, and she shut her eyes for a second and reached out for him, feeling his different hand, fuller and smaller than Dan’s, holding her in another way. She pressed her skin against his, feeling the guilt and sorrow and disgust under her flesh, and then pressed harder so she could have only this moment, now, now, now. Like the yoga teacher always said, “Stay in the present.”

Responding to her squeeze, Mischa turned to look at her, and she let the present moment birth a future, a future with him--a family with Mischa, not Dan. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed Georgian baby. A different baby. A different life.

They crossed over to the parking garage, still holding hands, the wheels of her carryon skid-scratching on the asphalt. She tried to smile and held her stomach, pressing back the memories of Daniel carrying his skateboard, Dan in the kitchen reading the receipt, the crack of the phone when she hung up on Galvin Gold.

“That went well,” Avery said, sliding in to the cab, tucking her skirt carefully around her thighs. “I would never have thought it would go so easily.”

“A-vary. What did I tell you? Once I said the word, they would agree. It was a matter of having us both in the room. By this time next week, we will be in Phoenix. I will take you to my favorite restaurant. Or better yet, I won’t.” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it.

Avery breathed in and pushed a stand of hair behind her ear, trying to think about anything other than the pounding in her crotch. In a half-hour, all of her ache could be gone, Mischa and she in bed, making use of the heat and desire swirling her body. And maybe she didn’t have to ever go home, staying in the air at all times, every week off to another office, checking in by phone once a day, a week, a month, and then not at all. Daniel could grow up without her, Dan could remarry, find a wife to whom he’d tell the truth right away. And she could have Mischa, who wooed women at work, bringing over caviar, Stoli, the red wine he talked about all the time, and smooth English sentences in a sexy Georgian accent. She pulled her hand away and opened her purse, looking for anything.

“Tonight, though, I want to take you out,
ptichka
. You brought a celebration outfit, I hope?” Mischa dug in his pocket for his cell phone. “I will make reservations.”

Outside, the business day went on, couriers flitting through traffic, pedestrians ignoring red lights and running across intersections, cabs honking at one another in a secret language. What was happening at home, she wondered? Had Galvin Gold come forth to take Daniel away? Maybe he wanted to steal him and then ask Dan for support. All Dan had told her was, “He was a mean-hearted son-of-a-bitch. He shouldn’t be around kids. He shouldn’t be around anyone.”

Avery looked up as the cab slowed and stopped.

“Here you are,” the cabbie said.

Mischa clicked off his phone and handed the man a twenty. “The change is for you.”

Avery started to open her door, but then stopped when Mischa smiled and shook his head, got out, and walked over to her side of the cab. “Please,” he said, “Let me.”

As she began to slide out, her nylons slipping on the leather seat, she thought,
no. Don’t go. Stay
. She imagined her hand on the door handle pulling the door closed. “Go,” she could shout. “Airport.” And the cabbie—always having waited for one of these moments after watching a hundred cabbie scenes in the movies and on TV—would accelerate through traffic, saying, “Lady, I knew this was going to be one hell of a fare.”

At the airport, she would call Dan, tell him, “I’m coming home. I’ll call you when I land.” She would hang up and go to the bathroom, ignoring her wet underwear, the drum beat in her womb and skin and breasts. A souvenir from her visit, nothing more. As fleeting as a postcard she might hang on the refrigerator, throwing it away when the writing yellowed and the person who sent it was forgotten.

But Avery didn’t say a word. She didn’t pull the door closed. Instead, she took Mischa’s hand and lifted her heels over and out of the door, standing up beside him, leaning into his body.

The bed was as promised, soft, luxurious, comforting. Mischa sat on it, watching her, as she opened her carryon, hanging up her other suit, smoothing out the wrinkles.

“Do you want a drink?” he asked.
What about morphine or heroin or nitrous oxide?
she thought, wanting the next minutes to take her into coma.

“What does this bar have?” Avery turned back to her unpacking, putting her underwear and bras into the dresser drawer, zipping up her bag, and putting it in the closet.

“No Stoli, I am sure. Or caviar.” Mischa winked, and she thought of the night he’d sat in a chair across from her, watching her, listening to her, not asking anything with words but she’d felt his questions all the same. She’d felt his want of her from the moment they’d met, the way their eyes connected when Ed in the St. Louis office asked stupid, repetitive questions about implementation, writing the same answer down at least twice on his yellow pad, his toupee shifting as he nodded.

Mischa and Avery were the same, liking things perfect, neat, clean. But this wasn’t clean or neat. She was married to a man she thought she still loved but maybe didn’t like so much any more. Mischa knew very little about Dan and nothing about Randi and Daniel, the drugs and the stealing. She’d never mentioned a word about Isabel and her annoying habits or how her father died too early, too young, before Avery knew all the things she wanted to say to him. He didn’t know a thing about the IUI’s and the exploratory surgeries or how she’d laid on exam table after exam table. And certainly, she didn’t know a thing about Mischa except what he’d told her between meetings and on short, choppy phone calls. He was from Georgia, where they drank strong red wine and the summers were hot and lazy, not the peaches-and-cream Georgia. The original. He was a computer genius. He was beautiful. It was possible he had as many secret stories as Dan—a family in Europe, wife, kids, parents, siblings, all waiting for him to come home. Maybe worse. Maybe desperate stories, sad stories, crime or jail or sex stories. She didn’t know anymore what people could hold inside and live with.

Mischa handed her a drink, clinking her glass with his. The glass was cold, ice to the top, and she shivered. “Here’s to you, A-Vary.”

She took a sip and swallowed, feeling like the liquid was going nowhere, her body disappeared, the drum beats stopped, everything below her neck in another dimension. With her eyes, she saw him put his drink down on the table and take off his jacket, moving toward her, his hand taking her drink and putting it next to his. She felt his touch on her elbows, his hands gliding up her arms, pulling her even closer as he held her shoulders, her back. She closed her eyes because if she couldn’t feel anything and now couldn’t see, none of this would be happening. But then the drum beats started up again, her skin feeling the pressure of his embrace, her nose remembering his smells, the still present layer of shaving cream and cologne, her tongue taking in the taste of his mouth—gin, tonic, warmth—her heart pounding as it hadn’t in months, not since Daniel slipped into their house through the phone lines. Not since everything became a lie.

She let herself kiss him and then forgot she was letting him do anything, kissing him back with lips and tongue and teeth and hands. She pressed against his body, leaner than Dan’s—
forget, forget
—and tighter, her hands at the small of his back, the muscles flaring away from his spine in hard, beautiful arcs. Pushing at him with her hips, she felt his erection through their business clothes. She hadn’t had sex with Dan since that night they did it in their sleep, remembering the rhythms from before their lives cracked open, and now her body felt full and ripe and ready.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, kissing her temples, hair, cheeks. “Perfect.” He grabbed her hair in his hands, strands between his fingers, and whispered, “
Lubov moia
,
sladkaya
.” Closing her eyes, she hoped the words were kind, and they sounded kind, gentle, his voice holding them gently, softly, giving them to her with his mouth and hands and body. But she didn’t know, and she couldn’t ask, her breath too high in her throat for words.

She leaned against his shoulder, rubbing his back through his shirt. He yanked at his tie, pulling it off, holding her tight as silk slid across silk, his hand flared and steady on her back. He began to push away her jacket top, and she pulled away, still feeling his body on hers, her skin a map of heats, red where his legs had pressed, where his hand had stroked, where his lips had touched.

“Let me . . .” she said, lifting her hand toward the bathroom.

He nodded, untucked his shirt, unbuttoning, undressing. She turned and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her, leaning against the wood. Squinting against the bright lights that flickered off glass and marble and brushed nickel faucets and towel racks, she lifted her hands and watched them shake. Gripping them together for a moment, she closed her eyes, imagining her yoga teacher, the breathing, the body open and empty and pure, full of nothing and then nothing again. The moment. This moment.

She opened her eyes and brought her hands toward her chest, rubbing her hands together, both so cold, like everything in this bathroom. Breathing out, she slowly began to unbutton her jacket, one brass button, and another. She hung the jacket on one of the padded satin hangers on the back of the door, then slipped off her skirt, and laid it flat on the counter.

Turning on the water, she stuck her hands under the faucet but then didn’t know what to do except watch the water run over her hands and splash onto the marble. The minute after she picked up the soap, rinsed, and wiped her hands, she’d have to go back into the bedroom. It had been so long since she’d slept with anyone other than Dan, who was familiar with and liked her smells.
Don’t. Stop.
Should she clean herself like she used to do in college, ashamed of the smells that feminine hygiene sprays promised to eliminate? Or her underarms? She’d been on the plane and in a long meeting, no deodorant that good. Holding up her arm, Avery bent her head down and began to sniff, when she caught her reflection in the mirror. There she was, her arm raised over her head, her armpit darkened with a slight stubble, and yes, she did smell. She needed a shower. Her hair was hanging lank on her shoulders. Avery put her arm down and stared at herself, her skin slightly green in the mirror, her body different from when she was at home, sort of lumpy. Her hips and thighs and stomach were lumpy. Her face looked mottled, her mascara smudged, her toes slightly purple from cold.