The Brevity of Roses (10 page)

“Oh, Jalal, if only you had driven thirty-five miles inland on one of those trips, we might have met then.”

“Do not think that way, Meredith. Regret only steals the present from you.” He squeezed her hand. “Though, having known you longer would not be a bad thing.”

A few minutes later they were driving through the picturesque section of the town—the Old Village, he called it—and as the car approached its lone traffic light, her pulse quickened with an irrational fear Jalal would read her mind and know she had spied him at that very spot only thirteen days ago. She saw now that the shop he exited that day was a bookstore. Had he been there to inquire about the Danish edition he sent her?

Jalal turned off the main street, heading west, and at various twists in the road, she caught glimpses of the ocean. When he entered a gated community and descended onto the beach access road, she cried out, “Oh! You really
do
live on the coast.”

He laughed. “I have the realtor’s word my house will not drop into the ocean any time soon.”

“Why, this is a little cottage,” she said, when he pulled into his driveway, and then, afraid she might have offended him, she added, “for some reason, I pictured your house a sprawling thing, all glass and angles.”

“Then, as a cottage, it does need a garden, yes?”

Meredith, not waiting for Jalal to open her door, got out the second the car stopped and hurried through the side gate. “Oh, yes,” she called back to him, “it begs for a garden. Of course, with all the fog, there might be a problem with mildew on roses, but I can research which ones will do best. Rugosas should grow here surely, and lavender, rosemary, fuchsia, begonias. Oh, it’s going to be beautiful! Did I see a garden center in the village?” When he didn’t answer, she turned to him. “Why are you grinning at me like that?”

“Would it be all right if I take our things inside before we start digging up the yard?”

Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m sorry. Of course, yes, show me your home.”

She followed Jalal inside. He continued on to the bedroom with their bags, but Meredith stopped in his living room. He had lined three walls with shelves of books. Shorter cases ran under the windows, and taller ones in between and along the other wall. The room was smaller than her bedroom, and yet, with the large windows and pale leather furnishings, it seemed light and airy—New York loft meets California beach house. She stood scanning book titles until Jalal returned.

He flashed her a comical leer. “Could I entice you into my kitchen for tea?”

His kitchen was three steps to her left, little more than an extension of the living room, and separated from it by a breakfast bar. From what she could see, Jalal’s home was no more than one-fifth the size of hers. “You must think it’s ridiculous for me to have such a large house for myself,” she said.

“I love your house, and it suits you well.” He filled the kettle with one hand and gestured around the small room with the other. “I admit I am jealous of your kitchen.”

“Which is wasted on me.”

Jalal smiled. “We will remedy that.” He sparked the flame under the kettle and began opening cupboard doors.

Meredith stood by the table and looked out the window. “You must miss this view when you’re at my house.”

“I have you to look at.”

She smiled, but rolled her eyes. “If someone hasn’t already published a book titled
1,000 Ways to Flatter a Woman
, then you should write it.”

“I am only noting the obvious,” he said.

“Oh, lord!”

He laughed.

While Jalal readied the tea things, she watched the waves. As always, the sight quickened her breath and made her a little apprehensive. “I love the ocean, but it frightens me.”

“Frightens?” he asked. “Because it’s powerful … and mesmerizing?”

“Yes, and that’s a dangerous combination.”

He came up behind her and hugged her to himself. “The ocean is a woman.”

“Are you saying I’m dangerous?”

“Only powerful and mesmerizing.”

“Ha!” she said. “I don’t see myself as either.”

“Why?”

Unable to think of a way to answer without revealing more than she was ready to tell him, she stood silent, wrapped in his arms. Maybe she could avoid ever telling him. Let him think of her as the woman he imagined her to be. She had perfected the art of pretense over the years.

When the kettle screamed, Jalal let her loose and turned back to the stove. While the tea brewed, he placed shortbread on a plate and carried it to the table. “Sit,” he said, “but I have not forgotten that you declined to answer my question.”

“We have a lot of the same books,” Meredith said and took a seat at the table.

Jalal gave a sad shake of his head and told her, “I will keep asking that question until you give me an answer, you know.” He filled their cups and settled in the chair opposite hers. “And, yes, I noticed. I calculate our book collections are about sixty percent the same.”

“Doesn’t that surprise you?”

“Not at all,” he said, smiling. “The Fates were paving the way for our meeting.”

“Oh, good lord! Do you actually believe all the bull you spout?”

At first, Jalal looked at her wide-eyed, but then he broke into laughter. “So,” he said, “I guess this means the honeymoon is over.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m blurting out one rude thing after another today. I didn’t mean—”

“No,” he said. “This is good. Now you can be honest with me.”

Aware her question was as ridiculous as Jalal’s flattery, she asked it anyway. “When have I not been honest with you?”

His eyebrows shot up. “When? I could start with the day we met.”

“How was I dishonest then?”

He sat back in his chair and smiled at her. “Tell me why you took me home with you?”

“Wasn’t that obvious? I wanted to have a little fun.”

“That sounds like something Judith would say.”

She only shrugged.

“So,” he said, leaning forward again, “it was no big deal to you? Sex with a stranger was something you had every afternoon.”

“No, of course not!”

He had just raised a triangle of shortbread toward his mouth, but now he pointed it at her. “Then you were being dishonest by acting as though—”

“You reminded me of someone.”

Jalal stiffened. “What?”

Equally surprised at her response, she grabbed her cup and took a drink. The words were true, but she had never intended to say them, and now she prayed against reason Jalal would forget she had. “You are hardly in position to question my honesty, Jalal. Didn’t you deliberately let me think this house was in Coelho? I might wonder what else you’ve deceived me about.”

He studied her for a moment, then picked up his cup and smiled. “I believe I forgot to show you my work. I will share some of my poetry with you after dinner.”

Meredith and Jalal, laughing, raced to the porch. After dinner, they had strolled along the beach footpath, and a windswept rainstorm had caught them by surprise. Now, just as they stepped over the threshold, lightning splintered the air followed by an explosion she felt in her bones, and a velvety blackness swallowed up the beach road. Jalal reached out and flipped the light switch with no result.

“The transformer must have been hit,” he told her, his voice hushed.

She sensed him bend down beside her and then she heard the clunk clunk of his shoes hit the floor, followed by a rustling. Wet fabric pressed against her hands and she realized he held his jacket out to her.

“There is a coat rack to your right,” he whispered. “Stay here. I will light some candles.”

As Meredith wondered why every utterance in the dark seemed to become a secret, she slipped off her shoes and hung up their jackets. Light flared in the kitchen, and then Jalal carried a candle into the living room. The antiquity of the image struck her. He was Atar, eternal purifying flame. For a moment, she believed that no life existed beyond his circle of light and the darkness held no past. She longed to step into that fire and let it consume her.

In reality, she watched while Jalal used the first candle to light one on the breakfast bar and two more on the mantel. “Is that a gas fireplace?” she asked.

“Good idea.” He leaned down to turn it on.

“A little wine would be nice while you read to me by firelight.”

Jalal grinned. “Why, Meredith, are you suggesting something sensual?”

Suppressing a smile, she turned toward the kitchen. “I’ll get the wine. You get your poetry.”

When she returned to the living room, she found Jalal reclining against a nest of cushions before the fire. She poured the wine and settled in beside him.

He opened his journal. “In honor of this occasion, I will read only poems inspired by you.”

For a long while, he read beautiful poetry of love and devotion that brought tears to her eyes, though not for a minute did she believe she had inspired a word of it. After the candles burned down, they lay in the glow of the fire as he fed her slivers of ripe pear and bits of dark chocolate between slow, tender kisses.

In the morning, Meredith woke before Jalal and crept from the bedroom. She gathered yesterday’s clothes off the living room floor and dressed, then lit the fireplace to break the chill. One glance out the window told her the weather was dismal, though the rain had tapered off to a drizzle. In the kitchen, her plan to make coffee fell through when she found the power still off. She would never attempt Jalal’s complicated chai brewing process, so she searched the cupboards and, to her relief, found mint tea bags. She lit the burner with a match and put the kettle on to boil, standing guard. At the first hint of whistle, she grabbed the kettle, poured the boiling water over the bag, and carried her cup into the living room where she could sit to warm herself by the fire.

Jalal’s journal still lay on the floor. She leafed through it until she realized he had recorded his thoughts along with his poetry. She put the book down. He challenged her enough with the comments and questions he voiced. Those he kept to himself would surely be more than she could deal with. By the time he woke, she was standing at the front window looking out at the ocean.

“This does not look like a good day to garden,” he said.

“Oh!” She turned from the window. “Did you really think I was going to start digging up the place right away? No, I need to think about that for a while. Plan it out.”

He nodded. “After I shower,” he said, “I will cook breakfast … or brunch. What time is it anyway?” He reached down to pick up his jeans, and pulled his cell phone from the pocket. “It is nearly ten o’clock,” he announced, as if bewildered, then gathered the rest of his clothes and returned to the bedroom.

She resumed her observation of the ocean waves, reaching out, drawing back, as though relentlessly seeking something just out of reach. No, this was not a day for gardening. Her instincts told her this was a day for confessions.

The rain stopped sometime during breakfast. Under a sky growing brighter by the moment, she and Jalal measured and mapped the yard, and calculated the sun’s path throughout the year—information she would need to plan his garden space. Afterward, they drove into the village. He held her hand as they walked the length of it, visiting the art galleries and shops she had intended to visit on her day trip two weeks earlier.

They passed a jeweler’s studio and she recognized the name as the designer of her hummingbird bracelet. In one shop, they looked at wind chimes, but she couldn’t decide which to buy for his porch. Jalal insisted they buy one of each until she pointed out that with the constant ocean breeze, not only would they be unable to sleep, but his neighbors would probably have him fined for disturbing the peace.

Meredith took note of all the women they encountered. She tried to sort out the locals, thinking she might detect a certain familiarity with Jalal, a sign that one, or more, of them could be Jalal’s
other.
It surprised her that, in such a small community, not many people seemed to know Jalal by name and though most of the women, as well as a couple of men, let their eyes linger on him, their glances seemed more an appreciation of pleasant form than proof of carnal knowledge. Maybe he had no lover here. Maybe his house served the same purpose as her garden: a sanctuary.

She spoke with the owner of the nursery, gathering useful tips on suitable plants, soil conditions, and planting schedules for a coastal garden. After one last stop—a bakery, for teatime pastry—they headed back to Jalal’s house.

“I would like to read the rest of your poems,” she said.

He shook his head. “They are too dark.”

“I let you read all of mine.” He nodded, but whether that signified a promise to let her read the rest of his or only affirmed he had read all of hers, she couldn’t tell. The sun had broken through while they walked the village, but clouds had swallowed it up again, and Jalal’s mood seemed to have darkened along with the day. Meredith could tell he was deep in thought, but she was in no hurry for him to reveal why. She dreaded answering the questions she sensed were on his mind today.

Jalal turned the car onto his road. “While you waited for me to wake this morning,” he said, “you did not read my journal?”

“Of course not!” She sighed. “All right, I did pick it up. I wanted to read more of your work, but when I saw that you had also recorded your private thoughts, I put it down.”

He parked the car in the driveway. “I wish you had read it,” he said and got out.

She opened her door and was standing beside the car before he had time to walk around to her side. “Why?” she asked.

Jalal stopped a few feet from her. He turned his head away, looking toward the ocean for a long moment. “I need to tell you something,” he said, finally.

Meredith sucked in a breath and clutched the door for support.
Don’t-tell-me-don’t-tell-me-don’t-tell-me!

“I do not know why I did it,” he said. “No, I do know why, but it was unfair to you. It was cruel.”

Like a child, she wanted to clamp her hands over her ears and hum to block out what Jalal was about to say, but then he faced her again. He looked as distraught as she felt.