Brando took the candle and lit another fireplace. This one had a mantle that matched the bed frame that sat in the center of the room. Chipped whites and a blue so creamy it could only be described as heavenly brightened the darkness. The furniture, the entire look of the space, reminded me of vintage France.
“How—” I turned in a circle, taking it all in again. “Brando—”
“Let’s see the rest.”
I smiled. “All right,” I whispered, and one of the candles fluttered with my breath.
From there, the tour revealed five other bedrooms, four baths, a washroom, the kitchen with its many windows, and a vast yard. Rows and rows of dead roses haunted the outside with shadows of their ghosts. An old vegetable garden stood as a testament to what had been and what could still be. It was even complete with a rickety gate that stood ajar.
There was so much potential here.
In the kitchen, I flipped a switch and electrical bulbs blasted awake, almost blinding me. Blinking back the brightness, I flipped it off, preferring the candlelit darkness. All of the subtle details could be admired tomorrow, in the sunlight.
During the grand tour, I noticed that we had passed one room without stopping, but before brain caught up to mouth, Brando had shifted my concentration by taking a quilt from the plastic covered sofa and spreading it out before the fire.
He instructed me to take a seat and then disappeared, leaving me to my own thoughts. Not long after, too short of a time for me to even consider what all of this meant, he was back, a box wrapped in gold paper in his hands. It shimmered against the firelight.
Placing the package between us, he took a seat across from me. I had settled in, leaning to the left, the gown fanning out around me. In reflection to the raging heat, the silk reminded me of a melting rose petal.
Brando removed his jacket, mimicking my stance, and when he looked toward the fire, I was gifted with his profile. Regal. Angular. Perfect. I wondered just what kind of day God was having when he created Brando Fausti.
I reached out and touched him, my fingertips gentle, my strokes light, barely there. My fingers were as cold as ice, his skin like the heat of a flame. He didn’t smile or turn to me, but his eyes reflected the peace he seemed to have found. He pressed his face closer, kissed my wrist, and then whispered, “Open it.”
I nodded, not offering a word.
After a bit of staring at the wrapped box, I did as told, lifting the gift closer to the fire so I could see all of the intricate details better.
A beautiful music box.
The top was covered by a square piece of crystal that seemed to be dotted with small pieces of “snow.” A ballerina—who looked an awful lot like me—stood in the center, her pose frozen in a pirouette. Her arms were raised above her head, her hands touching ever so slightly, her upper body titling to the side just a bit. She had a blue ribbon in her long auburn hair.
The wooden ballerina was framed by what seemed like a frosted window, except the glass was an illusion, a trick to make you think separation existed where it did not.
Music started to play, an instrumental version of “Ballerina Girl.” The delight that reached my heart was wild, uninhibited, and I smiled with abandon, laughed with it too, when a wooden carved man, who could’ve been Brando’s twin (leather jacket included, hands in pockets), appeared from what seemed to be a trap door at the bottom of the box, and set his dark eyes on the ballerina while she twirled.
I hadn’t even realized that Brando had cranked the knob until I caught his stare. For some reason, the box seemed magical, as if it could do all of these things on its own.
“Open the little door at the bottom,” he said.
I hooked my fingertip in the small, round entrance, a little golden handle, pulling it out slowly. The wood slid at an odd angle, revealing only a hint of the gift inside. A little more…tucked inside the velvet-lined compartment was another box.
This one I held in my palm, the outline a promise in the heated glow of the fire. I kept it there for some time until Brando reached forward and opened the top of the box.
The ring inside sat against black silk; so white, so stunning. Set in the center of the platinum ring was a classic round diamond, haloed by a square row of smaller diamonds. Encircling the center was thirty or more tapered baguette diamonds, set in such a way that one rose just a breath above the other.
Seen as an entire entity, the ring reminded me of a tutu in motion, all of the soft, frilly layers that move so effortlessly with the dancer. In the fire, it almost seemed to undulate, as magical as the music box it had been housed in.
The facets of the diamond caught the light, throwing off a dazzling rainbow. I had never seen anything so bright, a piece of jewelry that sparkled with such a fierce shine.
Brando took the ring out of the box, pulled my right hand forward, and slipped it on my third finger. It fit, but it felt a bit tight. It wasn’t meant for that finger. That didn’t take my attention though. I had never seen the boy in Brando, only a man, and nothing had changed in that moment except for the hopefulness in his eyes.
Yes, there was hope there, and that lent him a more peaceful look, almost revealing a bit of youth. “Almost” being the operative word. Life had hardened him long before a boy should ever turn into a man. This, I was sure of.
As he stroked the finger with the new ring, he explained where the music box had come from, a man called the “Music Keeper,” his shop in New Orleans, along Canal Street, and how it was custom made, just for me.
“The ring,” he continued, “is from France. A ‘Ballerina’ ring from the 1950s. The certification is in our room.” He pulled my hand to his mouth, placing a hard kiss on my skin, directly in front of the ring. “Keep it close. It’s a tangible part of me.” His breath came out in a warm rush against the chilliness of mine.
The lines between us had become blurred. Two tears slipped down my cheeks—no more, and they came at the cost of internal blood. He moved forward, wiping them with a finger, and then rubbed the moisture against his lips. He kissed me afterward, a kiss that left a tingling behind after he put separation between us again.
