“And the constant barrage of strangers feeling they have the right to do whatever they want because she’s in the public eye?” I’d thought. “No thanks.”
While I definitely felt empathy for her, having been faced with that kind of attention myself when I was on book tours and having been married to Nadia, that part of her life repelled me. I was glad to see she was not enamored by it, and that she actually seemed to hate it, but it didn’t change the fact that it existed. And probably always would.
“So why did I ask her to walk with us?” I moaned loudly as I lay in bed this morning, the sun peeking through the blinds.
I rolled over and gazed at Brontë.
“I even used to you to lure her in,” I said. “What a cad! Forgive me?”
She stared up at me with her big brown eyes and I reached out to give her a pet before rolling onto my back again and resuming my emotional self-flagellation.
I was sure it wasn’t a big deal. Positive she wouldn’t think it wasn’t anything more than what it was – a walk. But even I wasn’t buying that. There had been something between us the other night at the bar. An electricity. A tension.
Of course, we’d also been drinking. But then there had been our little tour of the U District in Seattle, our eyes meeting time and time again over Marley’s head.
Fucking hell. I just needed to get laid. That’s all this was.
Except… was it all this was? Was I making something out of nothing? It had certainly been a while. Maybe I needed to let Fran set me up again.
“For fuck’s sake,” I said to the ceiling. “I am a glutton for punishment, aren’t I.”
I knew this wasn’t just about sex though. True, it had been months since I’d had any, but the women I’d been set up with or had met on my own in the park, in bookstores, and at bars, had done nothing for me. There was no spark. No visceral or romantic need.
But with Lior…
I pulled the pillow from behind my head and pressed it to my face, letting out a groan of frustration before tossing it to the foot of the bed and getting up and heading to the bathroom for a shower. I had two hours before I was to meet her at our agreed upon meeting place and I was in desperate need of three things: coffee, a shower, and some self-gratification.
Fresh from the shower, I stood at the espresso machine watching Brontë nose at her food while I foamed the milk for my cappuccino. We had an hour now before we had to leave to meet Lior. A little tremor of anticipation eked up my spine. I shook it off, poured the milk in my cup, and was about to take a seat at the kitchen table when someone knocked on the front door.
I glanced down at Brontë, but she had moved to her bed and hadn’t seemed to notice.
Running a hand through my damp hair, I loped down the hall to the entryway, wondering if I’d forgotten I’d ordered something, and opened the door with an expectant smile.
“Grammy!” exclaimed a voice, as two spindly tan arms wrapped around my neck.
I tried not to choke on the tsunami of perfume that overtook me, nor at the panic of realizing it was the familiar ‘Dirty Violet’, a lovely scent when worn as intended, rather having been bathed in.
Nadia.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, untangling myself and not even pretending a little bit to be happy to see her.
She brushed past me into the house, a whirlwind of movement and noise. Somehow I’d forgotten how heavily she walked for such a small human. How she picked things up, studied them, and then slammed them back down. She’d set my nerves alight a dozen time a day when she’d lived here – slamming doors, toilet seats, plates. For such a diminutive person, she was chaos personified.
She stopped and stared at the living room, wrinkling her nose when she caught sight of Brontë’s new blue bed in front of the tacky white patent leather sofa she’d picked out.
“I’m in town for a bit and my hotel has the worst lighting. I knew you’d be home. You never leave. I need to do a promo spot for a new lipstick.” She spun and gave me her signature pout. “What do you think?”
“I don’t.”
She rolled her eyes and took a step toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To my office. It has the best natural lighting. It’ll be perfect.”
“It’s not your office anymore.”
She gave me one of her overdramatic sighs, her entire body lifting and falling.
