The Brevity of Roses (36 page)

“I just didn’t get time to pick things up.”

“That was two days ago.”

“I know, but … I’ve been here most of that time. Or at work.”

He shook his head. “You keep your apartment spotless. If you had truly made up your mind to stay, you would have already cleaned up that mess.”

Where the hell had sensitive poet Jalal gone? “You don’t understand—”

“Yes, I do,” he said, “I finally do.” He locked his eyes on hers. “We are both too damaged, Renee. We are not good for each other.”

His quiet calm iced her heart. “Don’t say that.” She reached out to him, but he motioned for her to stop.

“I am trying to face things, Renee. Let myself feel again. But you …” He cleared his throat. “You do not seem able—or willing—to break down your walls. Not a bit. Not for me.” He reached in his pocket for her keys and held them out to her. “I think you should go now.”

Somehow she forced her feet to move, made them walk across his yard and out the gate to her car. When she opened the door, Jalal’s scent of spice and tea and sugar swirled around her making the air she inhaled feel heavy, yet too thin, and she steadied herself against the car for a moment. Long enough to come to her senses. She slammed the door.

When Renee turned and realized Jalal was watching her advance toward him, it threw off her stride, but only for a second. “Why do
you
get to decide we’re over? How many chances did I give you?” She locked eyes with him and stood with hands clenched, arms stiffened at her sides. “I made one stupid mistake—one—and now you decide I’m not willing to make this relationship work?” She took a deep breath, waiting for the urge to hit him to subside. “You son of a bitch, you can’t just tell me to ‘
go now
.’ That’s not fair. I don’t want to go!”

“Wonderful!” Jalal grabbed her, knocking her off balance. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her so tightly, she couldn’t breathe. Or maybe that wasn’t the reason. His reaction had blown away her anger, leaving her empty for a moment. Now his kisses filled that spot.

“It’s hard for me to open up, Jalal.”

“I know.”

“I will try.”

“I know.”

Renee pressed even closer to him, marking him with her tears.

After a few days, they had settled into a rhythm. Every day Jalal asked her to quit her bar job, and every day Renee refused. On most days, after her shift at Jennie’s, she went directly to his house for dinner. They took turns cooking. They spent a lot of time in bed, and though some nights she drove home afterward to sleep in her own, she usually lay awake wondering why she bothered. The words Jalal had denied himself all those months now flowed freely. During the hours she worked, he wrote at home, so today, when he walked into Jennie’s at the peak of the lunch rush, it set off her alarm. Renee could tell by his face he’d had a setback. At her first opportunity, she slipped into his booth. “What’s wrong?”

“Azadeh called. She is moving back to Seattle.”

“Well … did you really expect her to move down here permanently?”

He rubbed his forehead. “What about Sam?”

“You said they were settling the divorce on friendly terms, now.”

“Yes, but—”

“And school starts for the kids soon.”

With one flick of his eyes, he signified her betrayal. “There are good schools in Coelho,” he told her.

She laid her hand over his. “The Coelho house is not Azadeh’s home, Jalal.”

He only stared at the tabletop.

“It’s your home.”

When he looked up at her, his eyes revealed the depth of misery her reminder caused him. She didn’t look away. She didn’t back down. She could almost see him circling her words in his mind, stepping gingerly onto them, testing if they would hold his weight. After a moment, he sighed and relaxed back against the seat.

“She wants me to drive over there tomorrow,” he said. “My mother is there.”

“You should go.”

“Will you come with me?”

“I … I don’t know if Jennie can give me the day—”

“You
must
be kidding,” said Jennie from somewhere behind their booth. “I’ll fire your ass, if you
don’t
go.”

A ghost of a smile touched Jalal’s lips.

Renee shrugged. “Looks like I’m going with you.”

She stayed with him that night. Time after time, his insomnia pulled her from sleep. At dawn, they finally abandoned the pretense and moved silently through their morning routines, each muted by anxiety over the day ahead. Their fears were not equal. She would only have to face his mother. He would have to face reality.

By mutual agreement, they stopped for breakfast at Jennie’s before heading to Coelho. She realized, for the first time, that both of them drew from Jennie a strength, a centering, a sense that all was right in the world, though it seemed she and Jalal lived on the edges of that world, neither sure how or where they fit in.

They spoke little on the drive inland. At one point, Renee asked, “Your mother speaks English, right?”

Jalal glanced over, but it took a few seconds before his eyes focused on her and a few more before he formed a reply. “Yes. Yes, she speaks it quite well. She has only a little accent.”

“More than yours?”

“I do not have—” He stopped, realizing she only teased. He gave her a weak smile and reached for her hand. “You will like Maman. And she will like you.”

The closer they got to Coelho, the slower Jalal drove. When they reached the town, he turned off a main street and then, it seemed, took a circuitous route up into a hilltop community, The Knolls, according to a sign. They passed one unique gate for the second time, confirming her suspicion he was stalling.

“Jalal, it’s time.”

He kept on driving, circling around again, but when they neared the dragon-shaped gate a third time, he reached up and pressed a remote button. The gate came to life, rolling aside, and he steered the car into the drive. They crept forward.

“Shadi,” he said and parked next to a silver Lexus.

Though the word sounded familiar, Renee had no idea what it meant, but the way he said it made her reluctant to ask. It would probably be best for her to say very little today. Let him face this on his own terms.

While she'd read Meredith’s journal, she tried to imagine her house. She’d got it all wrong. The house and grounds were less California upscale and more English country manor. No wonder Jalal had avoided coming back here. Even she doubted Meredith would ever truly leave this place.

Jalal turned off the engine, but made no move to open the door. “My sister is here,” he said.

Had this trip traumatized him more than she’d thought? “Jalal … Azadeh was the one who asked you to come.”

“Not Aza.” He pointed to the car next to his. “My sister Shadi is here. She must have driven my mother down.”

“Is that a problem?” His response was to raise his eyebrows and crook his mouth, a gesture she took to mean a problem was possible. Likely even.

Jalal sighed deeply and got out of the car. At the front door, he extended his hand then hesitated, mere seconds, but long enough to make her wonder if he would walk in, ring the bell, or turn and leave. In the end, he took a deep breath and claimed his rightful ownership.

Delicious smells filled the entryway and Jalal appeared to head straight for their source. She followed behind, casting quick glances left and right, taking in the rooms that led off the hall. A huge living room sat to the right and, to the left, a darker room lined with bookshelves and, on the far side, a door leading beyond to a sunnier room. They passed a large formal dining room and then entered what would surely be described as a dream kitchen in decorating magazines, but she had only a moment to register a few details before Jalal’s mother spied him and squealed in delight.

After introducing Renee to his mother and Shadi, Jalal stayed in the kitchen with them, while Azadeh gave her a tour of the house and gardens. Evidenced by her questions about Jalal’s emotional state, the tour was more an excuse to get Renee alone than Azadeh’s sense of duty as hostess. The lunch they ate proved Jalal was not the only talented cook in the family, and now they sat around the kitchen table talking. Jalal said little.

“Your gray eyes are beautiful, Renee” said Nasrin. “They remind me of my sister Dorri’s.”

“Remember when Aunt Dorri painted her kitchen bright purple?” asked Azadeh.

“And Uncle Amir told everyone she was having a breakdown,” said Shadi. The Vaziri women laughed together at the memory.

As their banter continued, Renee smiled and commented when appropriate, but she kept an eye on Jalal. He seemed to drift further away by the minute, barely glancing up unless asked a question. Abruptly, with no obvious provocation, he stood up and left the house through the back door. His mother and sisters paused the conversation for only a moment, but when it resumed, they changed the topic to Jalal.

“He ate almost nothing,” said Nasrin. “Azadeh, you told me he was doing so well now.”

“He has, Maman,” she said, “you can see he’s almost up to his normal weight.”

“Well, he’s obviously not sleeping,” Nasrin said.

“He just didn’t sleep well last night,” Renee told her. “He was anxious about today.”

Nasrin looked stricken. “I knew we should never have forced him to come here.”

“Oh, stop it,” said Shadi to her mother. “You know Jalal is just being overly dramatic. As always.” She turned to Renee. “Azadeh says you confronted Jalal about his addiction to grief.”

Nasrin gasped. “Shadi!”

“Face it, Maman; his behavior has gone far beyond normal.”

Though Shadi’s callousness irritated her, Renee had to admit that addicted to grief had described Jalal exactly. “Yes, Shadi, I did confront Jalal.”

“Do you have some kind of counseling background?” asked Shadi. “Some training for conducting an intervention?”

It would have been nice if Jalal had just warned her that Shadi was a bitch. “No, I don’t.”

“What sort of work do you do?”

“I’m a waitress.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Actually, I have two jobs. I wait tables in a restaurant days and at a bar most nights. That’s the only kind of work I’ve ever done. Do you have a problem with it?” The room silenced. Shadi arched her perfectly shaped brows, feigning innocence. “Let’s cut the—” Renee glanced at Jalal’s mother. “Let’s get this straight, Shadi. You don’t like me, and I don’t fu … freaking care. I’m here because your brother asked me to come with him. Being in this house again is a major step, so why don’t we just focus on supporting him?”

All eyes were on Shadi. She surveyed her sisters and mother coolly. Then, she laughed. “As it happens, Renee, I like you quite well. I think you are exactly who my brother needs. You will support him when he is weak, but I believe you will also toughen him up, which no one else in his life has ever managed to do.”

Renee blinked. “Well.” She nodded once. “Okay then.” She pushed her chair away from the table. “I think I should check on him.” Nasrin reached over to pat her hand, and Renee gave her a smile before she got up and walked to the glass-paneled door. She looked out, but didn’t open it. The other women began to clean up the kitchen, while she watched Jalal.

Jalal stood rigid, facing away from Meredith’s hidden garden. For a moment, he gazed into the pool at something apparently visible only to him, and then he looked up and around. His eyes paused here and there and, bit by bit, his body relaxed, as though at each stop he severed a cord that held him taut. Again, he stared into the pool. He swayed slightly. His upper body turned a few degrees, then snapped back. She watched him struggle to turn and face that place he connected most to Meredith. Even as Renee wavered, wanting both to hold him back and to push him forward, she reached for the doorknob. As if he’d been aware of her all along, he turned his head and looked straight into her eyes. Within seconds, she stood at his side and, taking his hand, led the way toward the gated hedge.

At dinner, Jalal talked a little easier, but neither his mother nor his sisters were able to persuade him to spend the night in the Coelho house. It was nearing ten o’clock, when the two of them headed toward the coast.

“I am not ready to live there,” he said.

“Someday.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again.

“You seemed to have hit it off with Shadi.”

“I guess.”

“Meredith never learned how to take her.”

“Really?” Renee only pretended surprise. From what she’d read in Meredith’s journal, it seemed most of the time even Jalal had intimidated her. Meredith entries also hinted that she had loved his family almost as much as she had Jalal. Had they expected as much from Meredith as they did from her? Probably not, since Jalal hadn’t needed fixing then like he did now. But she and Jalal were like addicts trying to help each other get clean. She should have set his mother and sisters straight today. They over-estimated both her inner strength and her power over him.

When they arrived in foggy Bahia, Jalal headed toward his house. “I’d like to go to my place,” she said.

“Oh. Of course.” He turned the car around. At her apartment, he parked and got out. Renee reached for her tote, but not the door handle. She’d learned to let him play the gentleman. “Should I just wait here for you?” he asked, opening her door.