What Brings Me to You (3 page)
Read What Brings Me to You Online
Authors: Loralee Abercrombie
"May I point out, oh cynical one, that Austen was an author of
fiction
." He said when his clear blue eyes finally made their way back to my face.
"I'm certainly aware of that, however in life there are very few, if any, happy endings and art, as the saying goes, is a reflection of life."
"Why should it?" I certainly had not pictured the conversation going on that way. I didn't even know the guy's name and there he was baiting me into a philosophical discussion.
"Why should art imitate life?” He repeated. “Life pretty much sucks. Works of fiction are a way to escape for a little while. Don't you think in that sense Austen got it right?"
"Why would someone miserable want to read about someone who, miraculously, got everything they ever desired? It's like going on a diet and watching someone eat a pint of ice cream.”
“It’s entertainment.”
“But entertainment for entertainment’s sake is silly and does more harm than good."
"Well, I'm with Oscar Wilde; I think Life should imitate art."
"Ha. You
would
be an Oscar Wilde fan." My high-brow dig at his sexuality didn’t really seem to take, or maybe it did. Either way his crooked grin morphed into a heartbreakingly beautiful smile. I continued to scowl hoping he’d take the hint and leave, but instead he sat down cross legged against my rock.
"What are you doing?" It almost came out as a shriek.
"Reading."
Smart ass.
"Why?"
"Because reading is fundamental...?"
"No, I mean, why here?"
Why haven’t you run away screaming, yet!?
"Oh, I didn't realize this spot had your name on it. I can go if you want." He looked at me for a real answer.
That's sweet,
I thought before my brain could stop me.
No, it isn't sweet he's going to try and torture you some more.
If I was being honest with myself, which I wasn't, I didn't want him to go, and he seemed content to stay, so I acquiesced.
Flustered I said: "Fine. Just. You know. Don't make a lot of noise.Or whatever." I took out my book, another copy of
Jane Eyre
, and plopped down in the sand next to him. Though I was sure not to touch him in any way, we were close enough that I could feel the heat from his body dance on my skin making me insane. The floppy hat could not cover the hives that were creeping over my chest. I had to check myself several times because I could feel my breathing working itself into a pant.
He’s taunting you, Charley. Do not give him the satisfaction.
I played and replayed that mantra on a loop in my head throughout the afternoon which helped me to relax, marginally. I was able to enjoy what was left of my book, though it took me a ridiculous amount of time because I took every opportunity to steal glances at this boy who made no move to leave my side.
He alternated between reading some kind of sci-fi garbage, to tilting his head back to drink in the sun. On his back, his upper body propped up on his elbows, legs crossed at the ankle; I reveled in his features and realized he was my opposite in every way. His tall to my short: he had the body of a swimmer; lean muscle, taut flesh. Not a single freckle on his pale skin turning a pinky-gold in the sun; my dark skin turning browner. His hair: straight, amber-blonde and stick straight to my unruly, thick, brown and curly. He was the picture of health while I looked like I could be on the cover of one of those cancer booklets asking for donations for kids with leukemia.
He looked serene lying in the sun. His perfect profile almost angelic - like an Italian fresco, right down to the blond hair on his arms and legs, around his temples, and that little seductive patch below his navel all glistening in the sun making him look like he was bathing in stardust. It was divine looking. Other worldly, even. The thought made me blush then mentally stab myself in the eye for my hopelessness.
I finally finished
Jane Eyre
and had to take slow breaths to keep myself from crying. I was not giving this guy the satisfaction of seeing me cry. He looked up anyway when I’d shut the book finally and with a sideways glance said: "Art imitating life, eh? He smirked something seductive and infuriating. I just wanted to slap that smirk right off his beautiful, angelic face. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as far back into my head as they could because I wasn’t going to give this guy any ammunition, I was simply going to stare him into submission. Then, he kept smiling, so I had to break the silence between us which was heavy with something else. Something that was churning up all the mush behind my hardened exterior.
"I doubt it." He looked at me quizzically so I continued.
"Men like Mr. Rochester and Mr. Darcy, though a beautiful fantasy, simply do not exist. Handsome, conveniently wealthy men do not pine for and woo some poor old, no pun intended, plain Jane, because she's smart and wholesome. It doesn't work like that. Men are attracted to what they see before all else. And this is essentially why there's so much wrong with girls. We're raised up on this "knight in shining armor" narrative which is completely and totally bogus. There is no hero to save a damsel in distress. There are only bastards and decent guys. You just need to get one of the decent guys and know when you have him or you're in for a lifetime of pain. Even with a decent guy, life isn't like the movies. He's going to hurt you too, but if he's decent he'll at least be sorry for it."
"So you're saying that a woman isn't attracted to a man based on what she sees?"
"I didn't say that, but it is more complicated with a woman. It's a mixture of physical attraction, intellectual, spiritual. How much does he remind her of other male figures? How much does he remind her of authority figures? If he's young, who will he be or could he be? Is a go-getter? A hustler? We think of all this consciously and subconsciously with the first few minutes of meeting you. Whereas all a man thinks is: 'is she fuck-worthy'."
"How do you know so much? Experience? Observation?" I was too embarrassed to say I had nil in the way of experience, but something in the way he looked at me; or rather undressed me told me he knew that already. Thankfully, he glossed over the question to another.
"So what did you think of me?"
The hives flared on my chest and my throat constricted.
"Not fair!"
"Listen you can't give me all this garbage without giving me a reliable case study. Share! It's the only way I'll learn." He was laughing at me now, not out loud, but mocking me. He'd trapped me with my own ego and somehow he knew I'd share because my pride wouldn't let me accept defeat. I needed to beat him at his own game.
"You share too, then." I knew it was stupid the moment it came out of my mouth. I didn't want to know. Whatever the answer would spoil the illusion I'd built up in my mind and that fantasy could carry me through for months, if not years of solitude. There was no way he was going to shatter it before I even got to use it. For the status quo to remain, he need not know that I was attracted to him. At all. "On second thought, I don't want to know."
"No, I think it's only fair. I'll show you mine if you show me yours kind of thing," he wiggled his eyebrows in a mock suggestive way which, any other time, would have been corny and wrong, but in this instance was sexy and I was run through.
He had reeled me in with a disarming charm, the likes of which I’d never encountered.
"No, really. I don't want to know. I don't
need
to know."
"Fine. But you're still going to tell me."
"No."
"Yes. Yes you are because you're dying to. I can read it all over your face.” Damn him. How can he read me so well? Though, looking back, it couldn’t have been all that difficult, you know, with the drool pooling and running out of my mouth.
The afternoon persisted this way. Every few seconds or so he'd nudge me either with his words or in the arm with his elbow. Sometimes both. When he got more impatient he turned up the heat. He rolled onto his side so his nose was level with my shoulder. I could feel him breathing on my neck and there were goose bumps rising all over my arms. "Get out of my bubble, please."’
"C'mon. If you don't answer I'm just going to assume that you're madly in love with me and I'll kiss you right here.” He, ever so gently, touched the tip of his finger to my shoulder and I shuddered. Without looking, I knew he was grinning from ear to ear. My discomfort was palpable and he was exploiting it.
Damn sexy bastard
!
He was inching toward me and in the back of my mind I suspected he would never touch me. Not that I thought he was the perfect gentleman, but I knew I wasn’t really this guy’s type. Still, I really didn't want him to think it was funny, and his breath in my ear was making me feel faint, so I relented.
"Fine!" and he rolled back over looking triumphant with that damned smirk.
"Okay. Yes. I am attracted. Only on a purely visceral level. But yes."
"He was looking so proud of himself that I had to get rid of that smirk and since throttling him and burying him on the beach would be too much trouble, I went for the next best thing.
"Your strengths are your weaknesses, though. You're confident to the point of arrogance. You can take charge in a no-nonsense way but you won't take criticism or help. You're smart but you want people to know and so you come off as condescending. You're good looking, but so painfully aware of it that you come off vain, and pretentious. You have nice eyes."
The last part tumbled out of my mouth without a thought and I'd hoped he missed it. It was true. They were a pale blue with a ring of dark blue around the outside. I'd never seen eyes that striking before. It struck me that, except for the good looking part, I could've been describing myself and I was horrified but also bemused.
This stranger and I have quite a bit in common.
I was so deep in thought that I almost missed him say: "I like your eyes, too." Almost.
I was suddenly painfully aware of my appearance and I pulled my cover up high over my concave belly and chicken legs. It was at this point people started to wonder about me. I remembered the whispers at school. Why is she wearing a sweatshirt when it’s ninety degrees? I’d been called into the guidance office more than once and given countless eating disorder pamphlets. Each time they’d call home and I’d suffer the consequences. I never had friends because I pushed them away. Because of this secret. I’d soon enough scare this boy away. The embarrassment was setting in white hot. My collar bone itching from hives and I restlessly shifted my weight from hip to hip. His compliment; a
real
compliment, hung in the air between us and I couldn't think of any witty remark or snarky comeback. Flight. I had to go before he noticed that I was ugly and ran away screaming. I stood abruptly, possibly startling him but I didn’t care. Escape was all I could think about.
"Well, it's been real, but I've got to go." and I turned to run away but he stopped me with his words.
"Same time tomorrow, then." He said as if it was a given and the presumption startled me. I didn’t know that I would be back tomorrow and neither did he.
"Maybe", I murmured somewhat dumbfounded, but he flashed me his smoldering half-smile laced with double-meaning that I'd yet to understand. I didn't want to stand like an idiot working it out so I turned on my heel and nearly sprinted back to the Beetle kicking up sand as I went.
Please don't be watching me walk away. Please. Please.
I couldn't help but turn around to get a glimpse of the angelic looking boy and when I did, curse it all, he was watching me. We were twenty yards away or more but his gaze was penetrating and felt, almost, illicit.
He doesn't even know my name.
Teddy
I keep meaning to call her, but there’s always an excuse not to.
She’s grieving
, I thought.
Give it time
. But a week became two and then three and now it's been six.
She'll be going to work, today
.
I'll find some time to call her later
. I wasn’t even fooling myself, really.
I’m trying to make coffee with the last of the fancy shit you’d left over here. Expensive and tastes like cat piss; I’d rather have Folgers, but I ran out and I’m in a hurry. I make a mental note to pick some up on the way home from work. Then, my phone rings, which makes me jump and spill the remaining grounds all over the counter.
Dammit!
I’m going to just let it ring when I think
it could be her. .
I’ve been obsessing over whether or not to call her when she could just as easily pick up the phone and call me. Again, I’m not even convincing to myself, but I can’t ignore her no matter how bad I want to, so I succumb to the compulsion to answer. I pick it up right before voice mail does.
"Yello?"
"Teddy, this is Iris. Charley's mother.” My breath hitches. I always am surprised by how similar they sound on the phone, and even though she’s announced herself, it takes my brain a moment to catch up.
It’s not her.
I breathe a small sigh of relief at that. Even though I know if Iris is calling it’s only to talk about her.
"Hey Mrs. Feinman,” I say distractedly while dumping coffee grounds into the trash.
"Teddy, we've known each other long enough. Please address me as Iris." All I can do is laugh nervously in response. "So, how are you holding up?"
"Fine. Thank you, ma'am."
"That's wonderful. More than I can say for Charley, I'm afraid."
"Oh?" After all these years. All the time I’d seen Mrs. Feinman in passing we’d deliberately not talked about Charley. And now she’s calling me with information about her? All kinds of scenarios run through my mind, but I need to play it cool so she’ll give me something. Anything about how she is.
"Yes. Collette called me. You know, her friend, Collette?” I don’t know. Not officially, anyway. Just things I’ve heard through the grapevine over the years. “Anyway, she’s worried. We’re all worried.”
High time
, I think, but don’t say.
"Oh?" Is all I can manage to get out, though the ball of tension is tightening in the bottom of my stomach.
“She hasn't left the house Teddy. Not even to get groceries.” Which even I know, remembering her rapacious appetite, is unlike her. “To tell you the truth, I don't know what to do. I’m trying but she's not listening to me."
I don’t really understand why she is surprised by this, but I’m trying to be polite so I ask: "Is there a reason you're calling, Mrs. F.?"
"Iris."
"Iris? What are you asking?"
"Well, given your history, I was hoping you'd reach out to her. Perhaps you can assist her with this. You seem to be adjusting better."
"All due respect Mrs....Iris, I don't see how anything I say will help."
"Well, you've shared a very profound experience. Perhaps knowing she's not alone...I don’t know. Would you just try anyway?"
"I don't know if it's a good idea--"
"Teddy, please. I know you still have your reservations about me, as you should. But it's not a favor to me. It's for Charley. You were friendly once, and you go way back. Please. We--
she
has no one else.”
It would be nice to forget. If I forgot, then I wouldn’t hurt so damn much for her, but now, in part because of you, we're linked by and invisible tether. I can’t ever get free of her.
*****
If I'm telling the truth, yeah, I noticed her body which wasn’t really much, but what did it to me, was her eyes. They were nothing like yours, Lace: sharp emerald green with delicate blond lashes that scream "I'm sweet" when in actuality were vicious and brutal. No, this girl's were a severe brown, almost black. It was difficult to distinguish the iris from the pupil unless the sun was in the right place, but they weren't dead like a doe's eye. They were intense, smoldering. Like a sable colored tempest. I swear I could physically see her mind turning. There was a profound, solitary sadness in them that made her seem like an ancient statue of a Greek goddess or a lone wolf. Even from a distance, I needed her.
It wasn’t my typical kind of ‘need” either. I talked to her and all of a sudden wanted her for more than a meaningless fuck. I wanted to know her. The girl was an enigma. She was smart: I knew it from her appraisal of Jane Austen, whom I too loathed. She was sensitive: her reaction to the end of
Jane Eyre
(which, embarrassingly enough I'd never read). She was tight lipped and guarded most of the time except when she was being witty and refreshingly obstinate: as her little joke about me being gay like Oscar Wilde revealed. The best part was that she didn’t know me, my name or my family, so she wasn't trying to manipulate me or get in my pants. She wasn't afraid to bust my balls and didn't cower when I gave it right back to her.
I know that at twenty-three, I should not have been enjoying Ultimate Frisbee as much as I did, and that coercing my friends to play nearer to her so I could get a better view, and subsequently hit her with the hard plastic disk to get her attention isn’t exactly “acting your age” but I had to do it. I had to, Lace. After our first meeting, I was contented just to be near her; to hear her breathing and to take in her scent. God, her scent! It wasn't an overpowering type of smell like perfume, I doubt she even know she smelled like that, but I was so acutely aware of the sweet, buttery scent I swear I could’ve gotten high on it. Sweet, warm, citrusy; it reminded me of days as a kid when I’d eat overripe peaches with whipped cream, letting the sticky nectar drip down my chin and over my fingers. She was intoxicating and I spent days lazily reading in the presence of her. It was mid-June before I realized how much time I’d been spending with her not doing anything but appreciating her company. When she wasn't at the beach I would fantasize about her. When she was, I would moon over her like a starry eyed teen aged girl. The place where her neck met her shoulders; I wanted to know that place. I would long to touch the skin covering her bony shoulder. One day while we were sitting on our embankment, she up against the rock with her knees bent, face buried in a book, I watched a drop of sweat slide from her temple down her sugared-peach colored cheek to her neck and down, down, down the butterscotch slopes of her skin into her bathing suit and nestle between her breast before disappearing. It was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen and I felt my heartbeat quicken. She had to have heard it or sensed it or something because she turned to me with those dark chocolate eyes.
"What's with you today?"
"Why do you cover up so much?" She seemed thrown by the question and immediately self-conscious. She clutched at the knot in her wrap near her navel her brown knuckles turning red with the strain.
"Why do you care?"
"I don't,"
Lie
, "just curious. I mean, look around; no one really cares what they wear to the beach, Charley."
"Teddy, it's obvious you know nothing about girls."
"Enlighten me."
"Despite what you think you know I'm going to give it to you straight and it may alter your perception of us as a gender. Girls are SNIVVELL.” She counted down on her fingers as she listed: “Selfish. Needy. Immature. Vicious. Vindictive. Evil. Lascivious. Liars. They will slice your heart out and feed it to the dogs before thinking twice."
I wanted to laugh. Partly because she was right, and partly because I felt a like Mr. Darcy.
Are you so severe on your own sex
? I wanted to ask. But she was looking square in my eyes, unblinking. She was serious.
"Are you SNIVVELL?"
"I can be. Yes."
"There are exceptions, no?"
"Name one."
She got me. I couldn't. Every woman I'd ever met fit into that category at some time or another. "Mother Theresa."
"Saints don't count."
"Fine, but you still haven't answered my question." She sighed, exasperated with me but I had to know. I wanted to see her body so badly, okay so I didn’t want her for a
meaningless
fuck but that didn’t leave fucking off the table entirely. Besides that, somewhere deep inside of me there was this niggling sense of dread about it. It was clearly more than just a fashion choice for her since whenever I brought it up she got all shifty, but I couldn’t get a grasp on it.
"Seriously?"
"Look if it's because of some complex given to you by your mother then just let it go. No one cares."
"You don't know me like that, Teddy. You need to drop this." she was pulsating with anger now, her normally steady brown eyes dancing, but I didn't stop.
"So it
is
a mommy thing!" I knew that I was goading her into an argument but she looked so cute when she was all riled up. Maybe if I nicked her pride enough she'd strip for me, I thought.
"Teddy, not every girl has a flawed relationship with her mother. And even if that were the case, not every relationship results in a crushed self-esteem or negative body image or
whateverthefuck
they're telling girls these days. Furthermore, I don't wear pasties and a string up my ass because I'm quite aware I have nothing to show off, so I don't. I would rather not expose myself to ridicule from my mother or any other person for that matter, least of all you. I dress in what is comfortable for me. What's more, I don't think you're some kind of oracle because you can regurgitate a mother archetype you learned in Lit one-oh-one at the community college. I'm not impressed."
I could see the hives spreading underneath her collar bone. She was actively controlling her breathing; her chest heaving from the force of it, but none of it showed on her face except for that solitary sadness in her eyes. It looked almost as if she may cry.
Shit. Please don't cry.
"I'm sorry, Charley. I'm not trying to impress you,"
Shit. Please don't cry. What do I do?
Flattery. She loved it when I complimented her, I thought. "I think you're the one trying to impress. ‘Archetype'? Excuse me Miss Smarty Pants." I tried poking her lightly in her willowy arm but she waved me off and gave me another hard look.
