I scratch at my jawline, where my five o’clock shadow is quickly turning into an afternoon fuzz. “My family was a colossal mess and starting around when I was ten until I was sixteen, I was the worst of them. I got into a lot of trouble. My parents spent a lot of time and money to help me and to prevent it from affecting my future.” I rub my temple and look over at her.
“I’m not proud of anything that happened. You’re going to think so much less of me after you hear about it,” I say. “You said you wouldn’t want to work for a company that would think less of you for your sex life or sexual history and if you think less of me over my history…”
“Did you kill someone?” she asks.
“What? No.”
“Then, just spit it out,” she says. “Otherwise, I’m just going to run with the assumption that after the police arrested us, you fell in love with the detective who was interrogating you and it was such a deep, consuming love that when you saw me trying to message you, it horrified you that you ever felt anything toward me. Maybe the two of you popped out a couple of kids that you’re hiding under the floorboards right now. And then the two of you committed murder.”
“That is an amazingly detailed story.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” she says. “Even in that short time we were together, you must have figured out that I ruminate. I came up with several worst-case scenarios. In one of them, you were an undercover French police officer, tricking teenagers into breaking into the Louvre in order to convince French citizens that Americans shouldn’t be allowed into France.”
“That would be a better story and a better life than the one I was leading,” I say. “I’ll just start at the point we were separated. The police interrogated me. The detective pointed out that Oliver and Marina could choose to make a deal with whoever was interrogating them. And I knew they would. If it was just me, I would have considered taking the punishment, but I’d involved you. I know it sounds like bullshit, but I decided to make a deal to save you from jail time. You didn’t deserve it. I ended up needing to get my parent’s lawyer and the French prosecutor involved. The deal with the prosecutor said that I’d leave France and not return for another five years while the French police and the Louvre received a very nice donation from my parents. After my parents and I left, they told me I couldn’t talk to you again. I tried to explain that it was my fault, but they thought you had caused me to fall back into my bad habits. I agreed with what they told me. I owed them my life and I thought time would cause me to forget you. My parents didn’t completely believe me, so they took my phone and had a guard watching me for the first three months, but that didn’t work. About a month and a half after I was kicked out of France, I managed to use a friend’s phone to get onto Facebook and I saw your messages. I wanted to respond, but I didn’t want you to know about the deal, the fact that my parents bailed us out, that my parents were treating me like a child again or that I wasn’t half the man that you thought I was. I didn’t want you to know any of it. I also saw on your Facebook page that you’d seemed to be doing fine. You hadn’t even mentioned Paris at all.”
“I was pretending,” she says. “I needed to act like everything was normal.”
I nod. “I get that now. But, at the time, I decided that maybe if I became my own independent man without needing any support from my parents, I could try to contact you again. But time kept passing by. I was certain you’d be pissed that I’d nearly gotten you locked up in a foreign country and that you’d moved on. I am sorry about getting you arrested and not contacting you again. At the time, I did think it was the best move and what you wanted.”
She crumbles the edge of her panini. She doesn’t look at me.
“Zandra.” I lean forward. “I know I was a little shit. I should have explained everything to you right then, but my ego was too big and already wounded. I don’t think I could have handled it if you’d chewed me out and told me you never wanted to see me again. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it if you’d slowly faded out of my life as you realized I wasn’t who you thought I was. So, I cut you out before you could cut me out. That’s the truth.”
She looks up at me. There’s a hint of a smile on her face. “I get it, Mark. We were teenagers. Some part of me wants to be angry, but…I did think you were flawless. If I’d found out about your parents, my past history with rich, privileged kids might have changed my mind about you. But we’re older now. It’s okay. You turned into the man I thought you were. Besides, this means that you aren’t a serial killer who fulfilled women’s wildest dreams and then killed them but you were prevented from killing me that night by the French police.”
“Another one of your worst-case scenarios?”
“I only thought about it for a minute,” she promises, a sly smile growing on her face. I give her a quick kiss over the desk.
I take another bite of the panini. It tastes better than before.
“We should go on an actual date sometime,” I say. “Since you’re not worried about the boss-employee relationship. Or the idea that I’m a serial killer.”
“I’d like that,” she says. For a moment, she looks lost in her own thoughts, but after she takes a bite of her panini, she’s focused and smiling again. Today was a nightmare, but she’s woken me up and everything is looking stunning
******
The restaurant is called The Mosaic Plate. The mosaic theme runs rampant inside it—the floors, the tables, the artwork, and the chandeliers with their misshapen colored crystals. If I’d come here without Zandra, I may have seen it as oversaturated to the point of being tacky, but as Zandra and I are escorted to our seats and we luxuriate in our first glass of wine, the way all of the pieces fall together and the variety of hues is dynamic and almost poignant.
After the waitress takes our order, I take Zandra’s hand. While we’re twisted together, they seem inescapably strong, but holding it now, her hand takes on a delicate quality.
“I still have that drawing of you,” I say. “The one from Paris.”
Heat raises into her cheeks, adding a whole new color to The Mosaic Plate. “Oh, you have to be full of shit for that one. You must have moved a dozen times since then.”
“Only four or five,” I say. “And it’s the honest truth. You’ll have to come to my apartment and see it.”
“Is that the line you use to get all of the women into your apartment?” she teases. “I would love to come by your apartment while I’m sober. From my drunk memory, it seemed elegant.”
“It’s functional.” I release her hand. “While we’re waiting, could I draw you again?”
“So you can see how much I’ve aged in the last six years?”
“So I can freeze this moment like I froze that moment,” I say. “And I just enjoy taking the time to focus on every detail of you.”
“Oh, you’re good with the lines.” She takes a sip of her wine. “I can’t truly stop you, can I?”
“You could hold me down.”
