The Frenchman's Slow Seduction (3 page)

Now, Michelle is
dancing with Ed, a tall Ethiopian, and I’m dancing with his German
sidekick, Jon. Turning, I see Ed kissing Michelle passionately on
the dance floor. Jon gets excited and tries the same with me.
Before he can get started, I politely pull away and make my way to
Michelle, who is only too happy to leave. She gives Ed her real
phone number and is mortified by her mistake: she’s out of
practice. Too woozy to drive, we leave my car in the parking lot
and walk to my place laughing all the way. I can’t remember the
last time I had so much fun. Michelle decides to spend the night at
my place.

In the morning, the
sun, rather than the clock radio, wakes me.
Drat!
I forgot
to set the alarm. In a rush, I go into the living room to wake
Michelle, who’s sleeping on the sofa bed.

“Better move that butt
of yours,” I tell her. “We’re going to be late.”

She groans, looks at my
wall clock, and then instantly comes alive.
“Holy crap!”
she
says, tossing aside her blankets. “I’m already late. The bastard’s
decided he wants me there at seven thirty in the freaking morning.”
As breakneck speed, she dresses and then phones a cab. Hugging me,
she says, “Next time we’ll talk.”

“Only if you don’t have
someone’s tongue shoved down your throat.”

“Bitch,” she says, and
leaves.

After a quick shower, I
put some bread in the toaster and listen to my phone messages. The
first one is from Reynaldo, a gorgeous and very amorous Filipino I
went out with twice a year ago, who won’t take a nice
No
for
an answer. Reynaldo remains an enigma. He can mesmerize me by
simply looking at me or talking to me, he exudes that much
sexuality, but I’m not attracted to him at all brain-wise. It goes
to show the power of the primitive brain. The next call is from
Mike. As soon as I hear his voice, my heart reacts. “Hi, Rachel.
Sorry about earlier on. Why don’t you come over for the night? It
doesn’t matter what time it is. I really want to see you.”

Driving into the clinic
parking lot, I see Mike talking to Meg and Tom, the owners of the
yellow Lab. When I get out of my car, Mike waves to me.

“I’ll see you inside,”
I tell him.

Lucy is already at the
front desk. Today, I find her eagerness annoying. Mike calls her
the most capable person he’s ever met. Her hands tremble whenever
he gets near. She not only manages the clinic and lends a hand
whenever she can, she also takes care of wounded wildlife in her
barn at her home in the country.

As I’m working in my
office, Mike takes Meg and Tom to his office next door, and I hear
them talking through the thin wall.

Tom does the talking.
“We’ve decided to have Nick put down,” he says. “We know he’s in a
lot of pain. We’ve brought him some of his favorite things.”

“He’ll be in no pain
when it’s done,” Mike says. “He’ll just feel like he’s going to
sleep.”

“Can we be with him
when you put him to sleep?” Tom asks, sounding pretty choked.

“Absolutely,” Mike
says. “Nick will be in a comfortable bed, and you and Meg can pet
him as he goes to sleep. I promise, it will be completely
painless.”

In a word, Mike is
kind. And I am uncontrollably drawn to kindness in a way that only
people deprived of it from a young age can be.

Already, Mike
reminisces about our first meeting, which took place at a
veterinary seminar on orthopedic surgery: “You came in like such a
ball of energy and grabbed my hand so hard when we were introduced.
God, I liked that!”
The behavior he liked so much was my
grandmother’s doing: “Don’t be afraid of people,” she’d say. “When
you meet someone, put your shoulders back, your chest out, and
announce yourself loudly and clearly.”

What I remember most
from that meeting was what was said. “How do you do?” I asked Mike.
“I do fine,” he answered, with a warm, easy smile. His answer
amused me, and I said, “I think that you probably do.”

At the end of the day,
as I’m in the lunchroom getting ready to go home, Mike slips his
arms around me. “Hey, beautiful. How about my place for dinner
tonight?” he asks, caressing my shoulder and nuzzling me.

“Not tonight, Mike. I
want to go home and relax.”

“You can relax at my
place.”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

My visit with Verna has left me restless, with a
tightness of skin against flesh. Are you afraid of the truth? she
asked. You’d better not be. She brings it out of you.

Chapter 4

Driving home from the
clinic, I decide to drop by Michelle’s place again.

“Want to go to another
movie?” I ask, walking into her apartment.

She frowns. “Now I know
something is bothering you. The more movies you go to, the more
worried you are. Why don’t you just bite the bullet and talk about
it?”

“After dinner.”

I know what Michelle
will have for dinner. For the six years we lived together she ate
the same thing every night: pasta and canned artichoke hearts, with
a light sprinkling of vinegar, salt, and pepper. I’m one of the few
people who know that she eats a minimum of three bags of chips a
day. Foraging in her cupboards for my meal, I find a lonely tin of
brown beans surrounded by several cans of artichoke hearts. As we
lay out the feast and joke around, she tells me about the bastard
she works for. Wanting to work with wildlife and zoo animals, she
needs experience treating a wide range of animals. The clinic she
works for specializes in birds, rodents, reptiles, and fish, which
is why she puts up with the bastard. “No offence,” she says, “but
I’d rather die than do dogs and cats.”

After our meal, she
goes to a cupboard and pulls out two bags of chips, a box of
strawberry-flavoured cereal, a bottle of red wine, and two wine
glasses.

“Let’s retreat into the
lounge,” she says, handing me the cereal. When we’re settled onto
the sofa, she says, “Okay, what’s up?”

I sink into the sofa.
“I wish I knew. I guess the problem is with Mike and me.”

“I hate to tell you
this, but that was fairly obvious.”

“I feel like I’m in a
black hole, Michelle, and I don’t know how to get out. I have
really big highs when I’m with Mike, but sometimes he’s responsible
for my worst lows.”

“So, you’ve let him get
close?”

“Yeah, and I did it
without thinking. I know you think I’m naive, but I really thought
you chose who you wanted to be with. I figured you met someone you
thought was nice, you went out together for a while -- and then,
using your brain, you decided if you wanted a relationship or
not.”

“I wouldn’t know about
any of that. I get carried away by the animal attraction thing. I
figure your Mike deserves a medal though, for busting through that
line of defence you set up. I remember that spiel you gave me about
the power thing.”

Returning home from one
of her sexual escapades during the first year we lived together,
Michelle asked me why I didn’t want to fool around with some of the
guys who asked me out. I told her I didn’t want any man to have
power over me. I was going to wait until I had a job and money
before I chose a suitable candidate. My mother had neither; so when
things went bad, she couldn’t leave. She found another way out and
drank herself to death. That was definitely not going to happen to
me.

I still remember
Michelle’s answer. “For heaven’s sake, Rachel, lighten the heck up
and stop living through your mother. We’re liberated now. You don’t
have to give away your power. I’m just talking about getting laid
and getting some technical expertise while waiting for Mr Right.”
But I couldn’t change who I was.

“Okay,” she says, “so
what’s the problem?”

“Well, it’s like Mike’s
not really available. I figured if you had a relationship, there’d
be this kind of fence around you where nobody could come in. A
place to feel safe. Then you could face anything. With Mike,
there’s no fence. When I go into his space, it’s like a
free-for-all. I take abuse from his children, who are adults, and
Mike doesn’t do anything about it. He doesn’t even seem to notice
when they treat him or me like shit. It drives me crazy.”

Michelle nods. “A man
with emotional baggage. I’ve been out with men who have kids. The
kids treat you like an extension of that parent. If they treat
their father like crap, they treat you like crap. It’s got nothing
to do with you.”

“What did you do?”

“I stopped going out
with men who had kids.”

The truth is so easy
for Michelle.

“It’s hard dating men
with ex-wives and kids,” she says. “You’re walking into an
established family dynamic. It’s tough. Too tough for me. It’s no
fun being second wife.” The two of us munch on some chips. Then
Michelle turns to me. “So why are you sticking around, Rachel? It’s
not like you to take shit from anybody.”

“I think it’s the sex.
It must be addictive. When Mike touches me, nothing else seems to
matter. The earth disappears. I disappear. But here I am, more
miserable than I’ve ever been.”

She takes a minute to
think over what I’ve said before passing judgement. “Well, I figure
he’s worth a second chance. You’ll just have to spill the beans and
see what he does. If he doesn’t change, get the hell out because I
can’t stand what it’s doing to you.”

“I know. You’re right.
I’ll do it.”

“The next time you see
him.”

“Yeah, the next time I
see him.”

“Good, because I’m
tired of seeing you look like death warmed over.”

I laugh. “It’s a good thing I’m thick-skinned.”

We continue to talk
about everything and nothing until nine o’clock, which is when I
leave for home.

As I’m unlocking my
door, Myra, my neighbor, pokes her head out of her apartment and
asks me to go over to her place. She has taken to mothering me
since she found out my mother passed away. Walking into her
apartment, I walk into a fifties TV show: everything is from the
fifties and in near-perfect condition.

“I’ve got something to
show you,” Myra says.

She leads me to her
fifties kitchen table, where there’s bottle of wine and a vase full
of extraordinarily beautiful flowers. I smile but don’t understand
their significance.

“Mike was over, dear.
He came to see you tonight and brought these. Well, I knew you
weren’t in, so I went to tell him. He insisted on giving them to
me. Won’t you take them?”

At the mention of Mike,
my stomach tenses up. “Gosh no. Mike really likes you, Myra. If he
wanted you to have these things, you should keep them. I’d love for
you to enjoy them.”

“Well, if you’re sure.
Is everything alright between you two? He hasn’t gone and done
something stupid has he?”

“I don’t think so.”

She gives me a hesitant
look. “Rachel, can I tell you something about men?”

Up until now, I’d never
thought of Myra as ever having had a man. “Of course.”

“I was married to a man
who sometimes didn’t treat me so good. There would be cycles of
good times and bad times. When times were bad, he found fault in
everything I did and stayed out until all hours. One day, during a
particularly bad phase, a very good friend of mine came to see me
with what she called serious news. As gently as she could, she told
me that Jack, my husband, was seeing other women on the side and
had been for years. I think she felt afraid of how I’d react
because she stood on the other side of the room when she told me.
But there was no need for her to feel afraid because all I felt was
relief. It drove me mad not knowing what caused Jack’s wretched
mood swings. Suddenly, everything made sense. When Jack started a
fight, it meant he had a new girlfriend and needed a reason to get
out of the house to see her. When things were good, there was no
girlfriend. What brought this all back to me, Rachel, was Mike
coming over with the flowers and wine. When a bad phase was
finished, which happened after Jack had ended things with a
mistress, he always brought me flowers and wine.”

Why do I feel so
surprised when older women tell me about their love lives? Having
always been frank with Myra, I say, “Mike’s not seeing another
woman. Things are just a bit strained, that’s all. I’m not sure
he’s got room for me in his life.”

Narrowing her eyes, she
says, “Well, that man doesn’t know what he’s missing. Don’t you
worry, Rachel. Things’ll work out for the best.” Then, seeing how
tired I am, she says, “Go home to bed, honey. You look
exhausted.”

As soon as I get to my
apartment, I phone Mike. It’ll be too awkward at work tomorrow if I
don’t. Right away, he picks up.

“I missed you tonight,”
he says. “My bad luck.”

“I decided to go to
Michelle’s. Look Mike, I need to talk to you -- about us.”

“Please, not over the
phone. Can we do it at the clinic tomorrow? I can get in an hour
early.”

“Alright,” I say,
disappointed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Push. Pull.
That’s the relationship that’s developed between Mike and me.
Magnets that line up north-north, north-south, south-south, the
pushes and pulls getting stronger. One minute, forcibly attracted
to each other; then, with a sudden change in some unknown force,
wildly thrown apart. Caught at sea in a windstorm, I don’t know
anymore which direction I’m pointing in.

Twenty minutes later,
the doorbell rings. When I open the door, I try to smile, but
can’t. Neither can Mike. He puts his arms around me.

“Mike, please don’t. I
won’t be able to talk to you if you do that.”

“I couldn’t wait until
tomorrow,” he says. “I don’t think I’d have gotten through the
night. Why don’t we sit down and you can tell me what’s on your
mind?”

I take him to the
kitchen table so that we can sit across from one another. Then I
tell him everything.