The Brevity of Roses (5 page)

Three

JALAL HAD JUST POURED a lemon rosemary marinade over chicken breast fillets, when the phone rang. Meredith, sitting across from him at the island, kept reading.

“That is the third time today you have ignored your phone,” he said. “Are you avoiding someone?”

“No.” She turned a page. “They’ll leave a message if it’s important.” There had been time enough for the gossip to spread. It would be one of her friends calling, but she had no desire to explain herself.

“I am certainly not complaining that you have spent the last forty-six hours alone with me,” he said, “but surely you have friends … social obligations. I must be keeping you from them.”

She marked her place and closed her book. “And what about you?”

Jalal dried his hands and draped the towel back over his shoulder. “No one wonders where I am.” He carried the chicken to the refrigerator.

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

He shrugged. “I have not lived out here long.”

“Do you write for a living?”

He crossed to the stove and stirred the boiling pasta. “I write. I do not make a living from it.”

“When did you leave New York?”

“Earlier this year. February.”

“You were still working in finance there?”

“Not at that time.” Jalal fished a noodle from the pot and blew on it.

“What exactly was your job at Crain-Harris?”

“I was a financial advisor.”

“Were you successful?”

“I made good investments for a lot of clients … and did all right for myself.” He bit into the pasta to test for doneness. “Would you like a printout of my financial statement?”

“Of course not!”

Jalal smiled. “But you do want to know why I gave up a successful career to write.”

He hadn’t posed it as a question and Meredith waited for him to continue. Jalal had answered her questions truthfully so far, but exactly why he quit that career was one thing about him her research had not told her.

Jalal kept her waiting for the answer while he carried the cooked farfalle to the sink, ran cold water into the pot, dumped it into the colander to drain, and returned to the island where he began to sliver stacked and folded basil leaves.

“I was not happy in New York,” he said, finally. “I was a ‘rising star’ in the company, but I hated the work. I was lonely, and I made all the wrong moves—too many lines snorted, too many martinis downed at desperate parties, too many selfish, vapid women drifting through my life.” He stopped work and looked up at her. “Are you shocked?”

“No,” she said.
Well, you should be. How do you know he’s changed?

Jalal pushed the basil to one side of his cutting board and switched to slicing a red pepper he had roasted and peeled earlier. “And then my grandfather, my mother’s father, died. We had always been close, but I had no idea he had set up a trust fund for me. I received a small windfall and a blank leather journal from him. Inside the journal, he had written:
Naveye azizam, be harfe delat gush kon.
” He looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“Listen to your heart, my beloved grandson?”

He smiled. “Excellent translation.”

“So, you quit your job and started writing seriously.”

“I did.”

“Have you been published yet?”

“Yes. Several of my poems have been published in magazines, one in the New Yorker—I had a connection. And six of my stories are published in either a magazine, journal, or anthology.” He scraped the basil and pepper strips into the mixing bowl and reached for a zucchini. “I have some stories and poems on submission now, and I am working on a poetry collection.”

“How’s that going?”

“Fine.”

“Your family must be proud.”

Jalal attacked the vegetable with such vengeance, Meredith knew instantly it had been a mistake to mention his family. “Why did you decide to leave New York?” she asked quickly.

He paused in mid-chop, but a moment passed before he unclenched his jaw. “I had had enough.”

“Enough?”

Jalal looked at her for a moment before answering. “I was through with ... ice and slush. And wind that can freeze your lungs.”

“Oh my,” she said, “that brings back unpleasant memories. If you think New York is cold, you should spend a winter in Minnesota. I grew up there. Winters seemed endless.”

Jalal nodded absently, but didn’t resume chopping. Suddenly, his face turned thunderous, he dropped his knife and, in an age-old gesture of grief, he slapped a fist to his chest. “My father expects his sons to obey him without question,” he exclaimed. “I could no longer do that!”

Surprised by his outburst, she missed a beat before stammering, “He … he didn’t want you to be a writer?”

Jalal uttered a sort of half-laugh, devoid of mirth. “Not in the least. He told me I would be dead to him.”

“Oh, surely not! I mean … he couldn’t have
meant
that.”

“I am afraid he did.”

“But, now … that some of your work has been published, hasn’t he changed his mind?”

He picked up his knife and went back to work on the zucchini. “We did not speak for a year. Then he had a heart attack while driving and wrecked his car. Because of his head injuries, they induced a coma, and while he was out, my mother phoned and told me to come home. I was there when he came out of it. We speak now, but not about my career.”

“You never discuss it?” she asked in disbelief.

“There is no reason to,” said Jalal. “My father never admits a mistake.”

The next morning, while in the kitchen arranging roses, Meredith heard a woman’s scream echo down the front hall. Jalal shouted her name and then, when she heard him pleading with someone, she remembered it was Lorena’s day to clean and rushed to the hall. Jalal stood between the front door and Lorena, who was backed up against the wall, wide-eyed, with one hand clutching her shoulder bag across her chest like a shield, the other splayed and held out before her as if to ward off an attack.

Jalal looked at Meredith and, with a shrug, spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “I heard the door open and came to see who it was,” he told her.

Lorena darted a glance to her left. Her eyes registered both relief and surprise as they tracked between Meredith and Jalal. She spewed a flustered apology in a mixture of Spanish and English.

“No. No. It’s my fault, Lorena,” Meredith told her. “I’m sorry you were frightened.”

Lorena waved away Meredith’s apology. “No, no.
De nada,
” she said, and casting one last look at Jalal, she hurried down the hall toward the kitchen.

“What was that about?” asked Jalal.

“I didn’t think to warn her.”

Jalal looked even more puzzled. “Warn?”

Reluctant to explain, she turned to follow Lorena to the kitchen, calling back to him, “I don’t have many houseguests.” She could not bear to see Jalal’s face when he figured out the truth: Lorena had never known her to have a man in the house. Relieved that Lorena had gone straight to the utility closet to gather her supplies, Meredith grabbed the floral arrangement and returned to the hall. She stopped short when she saw Jalal still there. He stood in profile, studying a framed portrait on the wall.

“These are your parents?” he asked.

“Yes.” She set the vase on the table below the painting.

“You were born late in their lives.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

He turned to her, his eyes solemn. “I cannot explain it,” he said, “but I seem to just
know
things about you.” Then, without shifting his eyes from hers, he pointed toward the lower right corner of the canvas. “Also, I studied math.”

She looked to where he pointed and read the date below the artist’s signature. “Very funny,” she said and swatted his shoulder.

Jalal laughed and pulled her into his arms. “Seriously, I do warn you that I am the most observant man you will ever know.”

“How so?”

“I am at least three minutes up on you.”

Meredith drew back, puzzled.

“Oh yes,” he said, “I spotted you the minute I walked in that restaurant Tuesday. I stood watching you, and I asked to be seated near your table.”

“Why?”

Jalal laughed. “Why? Have you no vanity at all? You do not assume it was because you mesmerized me with your ethereal beauty?”

Her face warmed and she averted her gaze. How had she given this man such power over her that with just a look, or a word, he broke through all her defenses?

He wrapped his arms tighter around her and buried his face in her hair. “It was your beauty that caught my eye, but then I looked deeper and recognized you as a kindred soul.” He kept her close for a moment longer, then took her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “And, for future reference, when you try to fake reading … you should turn a page from time to time.”

Later, while Jalal prepared dinner, she wandered out to her rose garden. During the four days he had been with her, she had neglected her usual daily check for midges or black spot, and it was time to prune the spent blooms. The weather would cool soon, and deadheading the roses now would force one more display before she let them go dormant for winter.

“Meredith?”

“In here.” She dropped her pruners into her gardening basket and pulled off her gloves.

“I had no idea this garden was here,” said Jalal, opening the hedged gate. “The shrubbery hides it from the pool area. This is beautiful. Your sanctuary.”

“Thank you.”

Jalal stepped into the small, bricked patio in the center of the garden and pivoted to take in the view. “Would you mind if I moved a table in here?”

“A table?”

“I had planned to serve our dinner poolside, but I would rather eat it in here.”

“That would be lovely,” she said.

Jalal arranged a café table and chairs in the garden and served the meal. They ate in silence for a few minutes before he said, “Tell me the meaning of life.”

She paused with her wine glass halfway to her lips and laughed. “So much for light dinner conversation. The meaning of life!”

“Yes, the meaning of life. What is your perception?”

Her hand continued on its path to her mouth and she sipped to delay answering. “I’m not sure I’ve ever given it much thought,” she said after a moment.

He shook his head. “I do not believe that. You are too intelligent, too sensitive.”

She shrugged and looked past him to the honeybees at the lavender. Then, she took another sip. “I’m not sure it’s something we are meant to know. Great minds have pondered it for centuries, haven’t they?”

“Indeed, but I believe they complicated it beyond reason.”

“You’re saying the answer is simple?”

“I am saying it is, by necessity, something innate.”

Meredith shot him a look of warning. “Jalal, please don’t tell me the meaning of life is sex.”

He smiled, but shook his head. “Only if you see yourself as purely physical.”

“So, this is a religious thing?”
He’s a member of a cult!
Her heart rate rose and she pled silently for his answer to be no.

“No,” he said. “It is not a religious thing.”

She exhaled.

“It
is
spiritual, though,” he told her.

She drained her glass and, with zero enthusiasm, asked, “How so?”

“We are spirit beings.”

She stared at him. “And that is the meaning of life?”

“Of course not!”

Meredith frowned and reached for her fork. She took a bite of eggplant and chewed slowly, giving herself time to replay their conversation, hoping to see where she had gone off track. Before she could, Jalal spoke.

“Do you want to know what
I
believe is the meaning of life?”

“Yes,” she said, relieved. “Tell me. Please.”

“Love.”

“Love?”

“To receive love, to give love, nothing more.”

She smiled at him, this handsome Persian poet who would distill all of life down to love.
Oh, my lord,
what have I gotten myself into?

Meredith, wearing only a gauzy tunic, lay in the shade watching Jalal swim laps in her pool. He wore nothing at all.
Dear god!
She could not remember a time when all her appetites had been so deeply satisfied. The sheer decadence of it all had muzzled her inner critic. He moved with such ease, comfortable in his own skin. She envied that. He seemed sure of his strength, his beauty, without conceit. That, she admired. What did he want from her? Would he ask for more than she could give? Yes, she feared.

Jalal dived under, and surfaced near her. “I will not be faithful to you,” he announced, “but I will always return to you … as long as you want me.”

Her soft laughter belied the pang in her heart. “Really!”

“I am trying to be honest with you.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You do not believe me.”

“Oh, but I do.”

He splayed his hands on the tiled edge of the pool and boosted himself out. Rivulets of water ran from his hair, meandering around joint and muscle, tracing the length of his body as he approached her. “If you believe what I said, why are you smiling that way, Meredith?”