::FIFTEEN::
“What, you don’t like it?”
Holding the hideous green shirt over her chest, turning to face me, she’s laughing so hard that tears are starting to form at the corners of her eyes.
“I could get to like a lot of things, just because they’re on you, but that? No way.” Jeanette holds the shirt up against her chest again, her nipples poking against the fabric. It’s not lost on her, as she grins at me. “I won’t like that shirt, ‘Nette, I just won’t.” I have to close my eyes, running my hand over my face to try to wipe the smile off it. When I look up again, she’s stuck the offending shirt back in the bag, and is holding the flowers that Alvarez gave her.
“You’re cute when you’re squeamish, Sean.” She tilts her head to catch my eye again, which has us both burst out laughing. Hers started with a snort, which she quickly jammed a hand over, but it’s too late, the sound is out there, making her crack up even harder. I don’t know if this was the reaction Alvarez expected, but I silently thank him for it nonetheless.
“I have an unexpected day off with you, Jeanette. What do you want to do?”
“It is a little weird, isn’t it? I haven’t had a day off in quite a while either. I have to call Dan, and see about work. He was in the back when… well, when it happened.” Her head drops a little and she pulls my sweatshirt a little closer to her, hugging it to her chest, as the thought of nearly being shot washes over her again. I drop her hand, and slip my arm around her waist instead, pulling her close to me as we walk back to the car. She rests her head on my shoulder and takes a deep breath, letting it out again to calm herself. “He didn’t get hurt, but, I… well, I guess I kind of forgot about everything.” She grins up at me, and leans in to kiss my neck. “I have you to thank for that.”
“You already thanked me.” I hand her my cell phone when we get to the car, so she can call Dan. She holds onto it for a moment, looking out the window at the clouds that have started to blow in across the mountains to the south. It’s getting cooler again. Her voice is a little quieter, when she speaks again. “I’d also like to visit the cemetery. A little later of course, if it’s…” I reach across the car to kiss her before she can finish.
“This is the one thing you never have to feel awkward about with me. Do you want to be by yourself when you go?” I stop her from fidgeting with her hair, tucking it behind her ear for her. I don’t want to be apart from her, but I don’t want her to be uncomfortable either.
“I’d like to go with you, if you’d like to.” She’s almost shy again, a quiet sort of smile on her face, fidgeting with my sweatshirt now, instead of her own shirt hem.
“I’d like to. You’re not sad are you, ‘Nette?” She looked surprised by the question.
“I like to go when nice things happen too, and then I can tell them that I’m happy. I guess that’s a little weird.” She covers her mouth as she laughs quietly, the blush creeping over her cheeks. There was a time when I probably would have thought that was a little weird. It hurt every time I went to the cemetery, even when it was something I had to do, when it was all I could do, it hurt. The idea of going because you’re happy? Maybe it is a little weird, but everything about us is a little strange already.
“I’ll be with you anywhere you want me to be, Jeanette.” That beautiful grin again, before she kisses my hand.
“Did you have anything you needed to do, Sean?”
“I think I need to go grocery shopping. I’d like to cook you dinner but all I have in my house is cookies.” She smiles at that, and I can almost hear her, ‘you say that like it’s a bad thing’. Her smile tells me that she was thinking just that. “Alvarez is going to find out when you can get back into your apartment, but I can’t feed you cookies forever.” The first small drops of rain start to hit the windshield. I was thinking about mowing my lawn, but I guess I got out of doing that.
“I think a walk’s out of the question now, we’ve hit rainy season a little early. Maybe we could rent movies?”
“Rainy season?” I’ve only been here a couple of months. Alvarez had made mention of rain in August, it’s almost August now. “A whole season of rainy days inside with you? I could get used to that, ‘Nette.” I run my fingertips over the delicate shell of her ear, tucking her hair back is an excuse now, an excuse to touch her. An excuse to hold her, and kiss her. “Dinner, and scary movies it is then, ‘Nette. What do you like to eat?”
“What are you good at?” Her brown eyes glint with mischief the moment she’s said it, she bites her lip to keep from grinning. “In the kitchen that is…..to cook…”
My dad was away for most of my life but one thing he said that always stuck with me is learn to cook a few things really well. Women will always rule the kitchen, but they still like it and are always impressed when we can cook something for them. Something they don’t have to help you with. “Spaghetti and meatballs.” She leans in to kiss me, and stays still for a moment, our noses touching, her eyes open, watching me. It’s a Lady and the Tramp moment, an innocent kiss, before we both break into wide grins. I don’t even need to ask to know that the same thought went through her head, but I ask anyway. “Lady and the Tramp?” She grins a little wider, her quiet laugh nearly silent.
I drive around downtown, not really caring too much where I’m going, as Jeanette calls Dan. She’s going to be back at work tomorrow morning. The glass window out front is going to be replaced first thing in the morning. If the bookstore is going to be open, there’s no need to keep her out of her apartment. The day seems so short all of a sudden. I loved waking up with her, it wasn’t just making love to her either, I loved the sound of her singing in the shower, and the comfortable way she walked to the bathroom naked. I loved having her fall asleep in my arms the night before, and carrying her to bed. Maybe I’m getting in way over my head but I really don’t care at this point. I want her to stay.
It’s raining a little harder now, and she gives me back my cell phone, pulling my sweatshirt back on. “You know, I may very well end up claiming this, Sean.” She’s grinning, as she hugs her arms over her chest for a moment, my shirt huge on her. Stacy used to steal my shirts all the time, she’d never wear them outside but she loved to wear them around the house. It used to give me butterflies every time I saw her in them. She could wear the sexiest thing she could find, it didn’t matter. The sight of her in my shirts did it for me every time, especially if I’d already worn it. She’d smell like me. Now Jeanette smells like me. I don’t just want her to stay, I need her to stay, like I need oxygen to live.
I fidget with the phone, knowing the right thing to do is call Alvarez and see if he’s found out anything about her apartment. Alvarez would wait until the last minute, rather than call me. “Will you stay with me, even if you could go home tonight, ‘Nette?” The red light takes forever, no sound but the rain and the windshield wipers. The light turns green. I don’t care.
“I’ll stay with you tonight. Even if I can get into my apartment.” I finally pull the car ahead, ignoring the car behind me honking. Right now all I care about is right here, right beside me. She reaches out to take my hand, her fingers interlacing with mine as we drive in silence for a little while. There’s a supermarket close to work, Alvarez passes it on the way. I don’t really care where I’m going, all I care about is that she’s beside me.
I call Alvarez as soon as I park the car, turning in my seat to watch her, my thumb stroking over hers. Watching as the reflection of the rain on her face makes her eyes even darker than they were before. I could get lost just watching her.
“Hello, Alvarez.” I wait a minute while he puts down whatever he had in his mouth when he answered the phone. “Did you find out anything about Jeanette’s apartment yet?”
“The cops are going to let her in, but probably aren’t going to let her stay until the glass in the window downstairs is fixed. You’ll have to see the cop watching the place before you go in.”
“At least he’ll be easy to find.” I turn to tell Jeanette the news. Alvarez and I share more jokes about the undercover cops.
“I thought you didn’t want to know yet, Vetter?” I can almost see him leering at me over the phone.
“Not knowing was killing me. Thanks, Alvarez.”
Still holding her hand I ask her, “did you want to go now, ‘Nette?” She shakes her head at me, smiling, before kneeling on the seat, leaning over and kissing me. Not a little kiss, a deep passionate kiss, her hands cupping my jaw. “Good, I don’t want to let you go.”
“You promised me spaghetti, Sean. Why would I go?” Her voice is light, but her eyes aren’t. She’s as serious as I am.
“I love you, ‘Nette.” My thumb traces the outline of her bottom lip, my eyes couldn’t leave hers even if I wanted to. Her eyes soften, as she leans in, kissing the bunched up spot between my eyebrows, resting her lips there for a moment. The whispered words I love you traced into the skin there by her lips, as though simply saying it wasn’t enough. Like she wanted the speak the words right into my skin. “I love you.”
She’s pulling her hood up, getting ready to walk out into the rain. “Wait, I’ll drop you off out front and park the car.” She gives me a strange look, one eyebrow raising, a laugh right behind it.
“This isn’t rain, Sean. I’m from Seattle, remember?”
I even felt happy shopping with her, and I hate shopping. We talked about stuff we liked to eat, and what we didn’t. Jeanette has a mayonnaise phobia. It’s not that she doesn’t like it or doesn’t like the taste of it, she hates it. So of course I teased her about it and threatened to fill my fridge full of mayonnaise. I picked up all the stuff I would need to make her dinner, and picked up a bottle of wine to go with it. And I asked her what she really liked for breakfast. I told her real men couldn’t have yogurt in their fridge, that there was some sort of law. She jumped on the front of the buggy while I pushed, sticking her tongue out at me. I bought flowers, pink daisies, for her daughter, my hand stroking over her hair as her eyes welled up before she blinked her tears back. Jeanette got an evil glint in her eyes as we were leaving, and bought two kazoos, for Sandro and Miguel. Payback for the shirt. “Remind me to never get you mad, ‘Nette.”
I pulled up right beside the undercover cop outside the bookstore. He looked just as annoyed as Alvarez said he did, which tickled Jeanette, even if she did a great job of hiding it. Her one room apartment is tiny, but cozy, and filled with bookshelves. I looked over her books, and at pictures of a young Jeanette, as she found some clothes to wear, and a clean pair of pajamas, looking at me before stuffing them in the bag.
The picture by her bed, on the little table, caught my eye, the frame bright pink with daisies all around it. Emily, her little girl, had Jeanette’s beautiful brown eyes. Her dark hair a mess of curls against her chubby face. She held the same pink daisies in the picture, and I fought against a lump in my throat, looking at her small radiant face so much like ‘Nette’s. There were pictures of John and ‘Nette, on the shelves. I had thought it might upset me to see her with another man, but it only made me hurt for her loss, she smiled in every one of those pictures.
The picture of her little girl is different. It hit me in a place I had no defense against. It wasn’t another man that I could put into a certain order in my life. In her life. Emily would be tied to her always, and gone from her always. The depth of that loss hit me in a way even Stacy’s death couldn’t. Nothing could touch that. Nothing. The remembered image of the first day I met her, when her daughter would have turned four.
I must have been sitting there for a while, holding the picture of the beautiful little girl, a girl gone forever. Jeanette sat beside me, everything in her body still and quiet, the one open wound in her life laid bare before me. Putting the frame back on the bedside table, in the exact spot it was before, knowing she would know instinctively where it was, where she needed for it to be. Running a finger down the side of the frame, to line it up with the exact place I had found it. For a second I didn’t know what to do, I know I couldn’t say anything. What could anyone say?
Making room for her between my knees, I pulled her to sit in front of me, and held her, my hands around her waist sliding under the hem of her shirt. I let my hands run gently over the strange silver trails of her stretch marks on either side of her belly. Marks she’d bear for the rest of her life, marks that might fade over time, but that would never be gone. Her hands rest over mine, the rings clicking together once, before her neck arches back, a deep shuddering breath, let out into the silence of the room.
She kisses my hand, letting it go before getting up, turning in the space between my knees. My hands rest at her waist, pulling her towards me to kiss her belly, resting my head there for a moment. Looking up at last, part of me wanting to take the easy route, like everyone else, and tell her how sorry I am. I don’t though. A lot of people would think I was being cold and that I should have said something, but Jeanette watches me, and knows. We’re not everybody else.
I carry her things back to the car, balancing a collection of scary movies she grabbed before we left. I held her hand as we drove back to my house in silence. I was puzzled earlier when she mentioned that she goes to the cemetery when she’s happy too. To tell them she’s happy. I didn’t understand that until now.
I leave all the bags on the counter, I don’t care, I can put them away afterwards. Handing the daisies to Jeanette, the intense pink of them brightening everything about her, the pale reflection of them caught in her eyes, the pale pink light close to her face as she buried her nose in them.
“We’re close enough to walk, if you’d like.” She grinned up at me, taking my hand. I’ve never liked the rain but Jeanette seems not to even notice it, so I do my best to ignore it. The small cemetery is quiet, the leaves of the big tree letting only a few drops of rain through. I had intended to sit at the stone bench and wait for her, and we stood on the path, our hands linked, saying nothing. Her head drops, and she smiles softly, shyly.
“You’re why I’m so happy, Sean. Please….” She doesn’t finish asking, I’d never make her ask, but follow close behind. Kneeling next to her, in front of the grave marker, the lump in my throat back as I read Emily’s name again. It’s so hard, having seen her picture. The bright daisies look odd against the cold grey stone, but it doesn’t bother Jeanette. Like that first day, her fingers trace over the etched name there, Emily Dawn McLean. She would be four. She leans in, to kiss the stone, her words are whispered, meant for people who can’t hear her any other way. “I’m in love, Emily, John.”
It’s not a goodbye, it’s something different, something so much deeper. It’s letting go, but not goodbye. After seeing that little girl, it can never be goodbye. It can only be something different. I don’t care that I’m crying when she looks up. I let go. I let go of Stacy, I let go of it all. I just let go, and hold Jeanette.
copyright © 2006 xxxevilgrinxxx