Shelter Us: A Novel (18 page)

My stomach rumbles as I get closer. It’s packed, as always. People sit on the curb or stand straddling bicycles, eating cinnamon buns or slices of gourmet pizza. The line is out the door. I line up behind a tall man in a fedora. The smells of sourdough, apricot brioche, and jalapeño-cheddar rolls bring me back in time. For a moment I am twenty-five years old, untethered by choices I’ve yet to make, with everything in front of me. I close my eyes and inhale.

A hand on my back and warm breath in my ear interrupt my reverie. A man’s voice says, “Excuse me. Are you lost?”

Startled, I jump back and step on the foot of a man sitting at one of the sidewalk tables and nearly land on his lap. To keep from falling, I grab the arm of the person who spoke to me. I look to see who it is, but I already know who I’ll see.

“Brian! Wow, you surprised me.” I apologize to the seated man and straighten my suit.

“Same here,” he says. He gives me that sexy smile, the one that sent heat through me in high school. “I mean, I walk out for an afternoon snack, and look who I find: the lovely Sarah Stein. I mean Shaw.”

My heart turns over at the sound of my married name coming from his lips. To my chagrin, I am blushing. “How are you?”

“I’m great. How are you?”

I go with the customary lie. “I’m good.”

He gives me time to elaborate, and when I don’t take the opportunity, he smiles. “Okay, that’s good. And uh, how’s Robert?”

“He’s great. Teaching at UCLA Law School.”

“Impressive. So, what brings you to the old neighborhood?” He has a way of asking a simple question while conveying with his eyes a suggestion that makes me feel naked. I don’t want to think about my miserable reason for being here, or about what might have happened to Michael. I try another generic response. “It’s a long story.”

His eyes size me up. “Well, I’d love to listen to your long story.”

“Um, okay,” I reply. I notice with irritation that my heart rate is increasing.
Stop it
, I tell myself.

We stand next to each other in silence. I pretend to be absorbed in deciding what to order. The chalkboard on the wall lists the day’s special offerings: peach panettone, pear-and-brie pizza, organic apple fritters. I feel the awkward tension of a first date. This is absurd. He’s ancient history.
Remember who you are now, Sarah
.

“Oh, I stopped by your office,” I say. The girl might mention it, so I may as well confess it myself.

“Did you?” he asks, looking pleased.

“Yes. I didn’t remember it was right there. It’s really great.”

“Yeah, I love it.”

The person in front of me moves away with his food. I order. When I go to pay, I can’t find my wallet in my purse. Then I remember: I took it out when I wrote the note to Josie. I can see it on the kitchen table. Mortified, I tell Brian, “I left my wallet at my friend’s house.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He pays for both of us. “You’ll get the next one.” I can’t help but wonder—for just the briefest moment—when he thinks the next one might be.

We take our food out to the sidewalk. The tables are filled, the curb not quite appropriate for the suit I’m wearing. “How about we eat at my apartment,” Brian suggests. “It’s just down the street.” I hesitate, so he adds by way of enticement, “You can see the bridges from the balcony.”

My feet are protesting against their tight constraints, and I’m feeling weak from hunger and too little sleep. I just need to sit and eat. “Okay, sure.” I follow him around the corner and a block down. We walk up the wooden stairs to his second-floor apartment, and he pulls the key out of his pants pocket. He opens the door and steps aside to let me in first.

I step out of my shoes. “Ah, that’s a relief.”

“That’s right, make yourself comfortable,” he chuckles. “We go way back.” I wonder if he intended to remind me of our romantic
beginnings, or if it was an innocent something to say. He leads the way to the balcony, past a wall covered with photos of exotic scenes in mismatched frames. His work travels, I suppose. Wooden shelves scratched on one side from top to bottom—picked up at some Berkeley flea market, I’m guessing—are filled with books and artifacts. On the far wall hangs a carved wooden mask.

“Here you go,” he says, pulling out a chair for me on the balcony. There’s barely room out here for the two folding chairs and the round black table between them. I sit down and look out toward San Francisco. The view is remarkable, I have to admit. The Bay Bridge shimmers toward the shining city, and the fog hovers just below the peaks of the Golden Gate Bridge in the far distance. Here on the balcony it’s warm.

“Wow, this is beautiful, Brian.” I envy him this spot. I pretend for a moment that this is my apartment and I live here, try on his life for size. I feel my heart rate speeding up, a blush unfolding across my face. I’m sure it’s just because I’m emotional right now and I haven’t seen him in so long.
It’s just our history
, I tell myself.

“So, are you ready to tell me your long story?” Brian asks, settling into his chair and opening his bag of fresh-baked bread. He hasn’t forgotten.

I take a bite of pizza and swallow. “A friend of mine is on bed rest,” I say, repeating the line I gave Robert.

“Oh,” he says, then takes a big bite of his warm sourdough roll. I can smell the yeast. He presses me on my story. “Bed rest, huh? So what’s with the suit?” He takes another bite and keeps his eyes on me as he chews, a smile on his face. I’m suddenly burning up, the sun searing my arms through my sleeves. I stand up, take off the suit jacket, and turn around to hang it on the back of my chair. I feel his eyes on me, and I linger with my back to him to enjoy one moment of privacy where he can’t see my face. The sunshine heats my neck. I turn back, sit down, reach for my pizza, and take another bite. Stalling. Considering. His question is still out there. I put down the slice on top of my brown paper bag, pick up the napkin, and wipe my mouth and
fingers, then set the napkin next to my pizza. The folding chair pushes against my thighs.

“Actually,” I say, “that’s not the whole story.”

Maybe it’s easier to talk to someone who has nothing to do with your real life—like a seatmate on an airplane or a stranger on a park bench. Or maybe it’s because Brian knew me before my mom died, knew the girl with the light around her. Whatever the reason, I feel an easiness toward him unfold, and I tell him everything. I tell him about the first time I saw Josie and Tyler, about searching for and finding them, about our secret lunches and my frustration at not being able to help them. I tell him about the reason for our trip, about Michael being missing and my fear that something horrific has happened. We have long since finished our food and the bottle of wine he retrieved from the kitchen midway through my story. The sun has moved a considerable distance. The sky is starting its evening transformation from blues to pinks. I have told him about my children, Oliver and Izzy. I tell him, finally, about Ella.

At this, he reaches out and holds both my hands for a long time without saying anything. He gently massages my fingers and palms, and says in a raspy voice, “I’m really sorry that happened, Sarah.”

I sigh. It feels like a transition is coming. Like I’d better leave before I can’t. “I should be going,” I say, without making a move to leave. He doesn’t get up either.

I try again. “Thanks for listening, Brian. And for lunch, and the wine, and the view.” I let go of his hands and this time I stand. I feel the wine in my wobbly legs as I ask them to carry me up and out of his apartment. He stands, too, and opens the balcony door into the apartment for me, then follows me in. I turn to face him. “It was really good to see you, Brian.” He opens his arms for another hug. It feels appropriate, after all the soul baring I’ve done, after all the time we’ve known each other. I step toward him to accept the hug, and we stand embracing. He wraps his arms around me in a way that is so protective it feels like pieces of my broken heart are melding back together.

A moment comes when the character of an embrace shifts, where
it moves from the innocence of old friends bidding farewell to something more like a beginning. Brian’s arms begin to move ever so slowly, his hands making circles on my back, all the way down to my waist, then sliding up my arms to massage my shoulders, until his hands are on my neck, then caressing my face, his fingers tracing my lips. He leans his forehead down to rest against mine.

“Brian,” I begin. I feel light-headed from the wine and the way he is embracing me with his whole body. If I leave now, everything will be fine, everything will be the same, nothing bad will have happened. We hold a gaze for a long moment; then he slowly starts kissing my face, gently touching his lips to each temple, my eyelids. He leans down and kisses my neck. My body is warm and tingly. I tell myself to walk away. I close my eyes. I am seventeen. My mom is alive. My parents are away for the weekend. Brian is my boyfriend. Everything that has happened since is a dream. His kisses find my mouth, and I keep my eyes closed and kiss back.

It feels sacred, like an event surrounded by so many years of anticipation that it has to happen. We are reverent with each other as we lie down on the soft shag rug without speaking. We undress. He moves his lips slowly up from my fingertips, along my arm to my shoulder, across my collarbone, covering my body in gentle kisses. My fingers graze his skin, skipping lightly over his shoulder blades, down his vertebrae. We explore each other’s bodies like precious relics from an earlier time. I roll over to my stomach and he kisses me from my neck down my spine to the bottom of my back. I roll over again to face him, and our lips meet again like we have lived every day of our lives for this moment. It is a movie kiss, wet and sexy and in perfect tempo. We make love, and it is exquisite. I doubt it would have been like this in high school.

We lie side by side on the soft carpet on his living room floor, two naked humans, tensions released, breathing in time. I don’t hide or cover myself. I feel outside of time, lacking inhibition. I close my eyes. He reaches for my hand with his, and we hold on to each other. And then the sumptuous cloud of romance and lust that we have been
moving through begins to lift. Sex can be a mind-altering drug while you’re in the midst of it, but when it recedes, when the ecstasy ebbs, reality awaits. I learn this with painful clarity as I emerge from a haze to the dawning reality of what I’ve done. A word blares like a horn in my ears:
betrayal
. An almond-shaped headache spears the center of my forehead. I bring my hands to my head and start rubbing in circles. My eyes are closed. “Oh my God,” I whisper, not realizing I’m speaking. “I’m sorry.” I say it to myself, to Robert.

“Don’t be,” Brian says as he raises himself up to his side, leaning on his elbow. The sky is dark now. The windows are half open. Cars slow at the stop sign at his corner and accelerate away. Some college kids are walking down the street, calling out to each other.

“I . . . I’ve never done anything like this. I . . . it just . . . I thought I was . . .”

I look at him looking at me, not speaking, waiting for me to stop talking, trying to make sense of me. He cracks a smile. Something about all this strikes me as absurd, and I start to cry. Tears pour out. Brian stops smiling and patiently watches me decompose. I cry out all the pain and stress that fills my limbs and stretches to every extremity. My toes and fingers weep. When I stop, he is looking at me with calm and respectful seriousness. He bends his head toward me. I look away, shake my head, and wipe my eyes. “Now I really am sorry,” I say.

He leaves the room and returns with a glass of water. “Here,” he says, holding it out to me.

I take his offering. My sips are punctuated with hiccups. “I should go.”

Brian hears hesitation in my voice and seizes upon it. “Don’t go. You’re too upset to drive. Just stay. We can talk, or not talk. Get some sleep. You’ll go home tomorrow.”

I look out the window at the darkened sky, one faint streak of persimmon embedded in navy blue. The ceiling fan circles slowly, evoking Morocco or Turkey or some foreign locale. It barely ripples the air, but its movement lulls me. My stomach rumbles loudly enough for both of us to hear.

He smiles. “At least let me get you some dinner.” I should not be
here with him. But I don’t know where else I should be. I consider that my loyalty to Robert is already breached. What more harm could I do now? “Come on. A little food. Some sustenance. What do you say?”

“Well . . .” I sigh in resignation. “I haven’t had a good burrito in a really long time.”

“Done.”

I borrow a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and flip-flops. It takes all my energy to walk the few blocks. I order my favorite, to go, indulging my illusion of adolescence a little longer.

As we walk back to his apartment, my cell phone rings. H
OME
, the screen announces. I give Brian a look of warning, then turn away, take a deep breath, and exhale before answering.

“Hi, honey. How are you?” I greet my husband.

“Hi, babe, I didn’t want to interrupt your visit with Carolina, but the kids wanted to say good night.”

“Of course.”

I wait as the phone is passed. “Good night, Mommy,” Oliver’s quiet voice cuts across the miles, brings me into his bedroom, the moist droplets from the bath hanging in the air, stuffed animals around him.

“Good night, Oliver. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mommy. Here’s Izzy.”

I hear heavy breathing into the mouthpiece. “Mama,” Izzy says with a raspy voice.

I coo, “I love you, Izzy” into the phone a couple times, with no response, until Robert’s voice returns.

“I guess he’s done,” he chuckles. “Everything okay up there?” The tenderness of his voice destroys me. I am the worst. I am vile.

“Yes, everything’s fine. You?”

“We’re fine. Okay, go back to whatever you were doing. We’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.”

Despite the sickening, heavy feeling that my body is filled with hot tar, I manage to utter, “I love you, too.”

Back in the apartment, we eat in silence on the couch. “Would you like some more wine?” Brian asks.