Though he couldn’t know what the future held, I believed him; he had never told me anything untrue. I knew him well enough to know that he would have never left if he thought otherwise. There was the occasion to be wary of him with my heart, but not with my life.
He never had to speak the words; I knew with all certainty. He’d give his life in honor of mine, without a second’s hesitation. Brando Piero Fausti was wired to be an honorable man with all of the stubbornness that comes along with the cause. All of the gear a knight wore seemed to be made from the texture of his head. It was as hard as hauberk.
After he had gone, I lay awake in bed, in the apartment with Colette and Emilia, and waited for him to arrive home. I felt the miles between us in the marrow of my bones. The humming dissolved into a natural whirring. In his absence, all of the things I could’ve said whirled through my head.
This is not the end, I reminded myself.He’ll be back.
Time seemed to tick forward with the slowness it usually employs when situations feel impossible to overcome. All of the things I never thought of in his presence seemed to flood in at once. Recent events came in first, before memories moved backwards, and it hadn’t dawned on me until then to ask him why he’d been late.
Chapter Twenty-One
Scarlett
We had it all settled before he left. During Brando’s two weeks off, he would fly back to Paris. During the time in between, we would write. Brando had said that he wanted to fill boxes with all of our words, so that one day when we were old and our hair had turned silver, we would have something to show for our beautiful years.
We would include pictures and whatever else we felt necessary. We each bought a cell phone, for when letters were not enough and only our voices would do. Calling proved to be harder, though, with his work schedule and mine. I was always ahead of him. Our sweet time became 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. I looked forward to the wakeup call each and every morning. He said his dreams were better hearing my voice before bed.
As it turned out, his letters always gave me a deeper insight into his life on the rig, and sometimes into his soul. All those embarrassing things that are sometimes hard to say face to face, because spoken words somehow demean them, became my favorite.
If I didn’t have your love, I’d die.
I can still taste you on my lips and feel the softness of your skin on my hands.
The space between us makes it hard for me to breathe.
Sometimes I wake up to the smell of roses and reach out to touch you, and then realize you’re not really here. I just fell asleep with your last letter over my heart.
If I had to prove my love to you, would swimming across the ocean do?
The smartest thing I’ll ever do is give you my name.
He would always end his letters with Secret or Promise, but Promise was always the same:See you soon, my baby.
Other times his letters would be filled with tales of the rig. He’d go on about his days. He’d describe the sunsets or the sunrises, sometimes both, the way the stars looked above the rocking water, or the fish they’d catch, or the sharks they’d seen. He’d always include pictures, and opening them was a true gift.
I bought a board like Maggie Beautiful’s and started to pin the photos up, alternating as he sent them.
Because I was so used to bringing up Puddin’ with Maggie Beautiful, I had slipped up and asked him if he thought Puddin’ really missed me as much as he said he did. He had called me, late in the night for him, during a break in dance for me.
“Who’s Pudding?” he had demanded.
“Puddin’,” I had corrected and then refreshed his memory. It had never dawned on me that perhaps the man who had started the barroom brawl over me years ago was only called Puddin’ by his girlfriend. Or whoever she was.
He grunted, and we reminisced about the time I hit the woman over the head with a beer bottle to stop her from smacking him. God, if it wouldn’t have happened to me, I’d be leery of believing it.
His next letter included:I’m going to kick Puddin’s ass. I did it once. Don’t bring him up again. P.S. Don’t send any more pictures like the last one. And definitely not like the one before. I almost had to throw some bastard off the rig—he made a remark. Save those for me when I come home.
When he would arrive in Paris, and I switched back to my parents’ apartment, we got little sleep. As this ritual continued, there was no doubt that it had started to take its toll on him. He was never one to give into exhaustion, but when he slept, he slept like the dead. Light violet circles were beginning to appear under his eyes, and I had to yank a silver hair from his head.
I had suggested that instead of coming every two weeks, perhaps he should only come every other month, for his two weeks off. After the wedding, we could reassess the situation again and go from there.
In fact, I was thinking of quitting dance and moving back home for good, but I hadn’t brought it up, not wanting him to protest the idea because he thought I’d be missing out on the best years of my career.
He wouldn’t hear of coming every other month. Especially since I had a break coming up in the season soon. I countered that the wedding plans were going to keep me occupied. Still, he was adamant about his decision.
Then his letters came less and less, and his phone calls were shorter, more clipped. I could feel the distance between us, really feel it, like a taut string from my heart to his, and his side was being pulled in the opposite direction.
During a call one day he cleared his throat and said, “You need to think about what you’re committing to. If I’m around, you’re not going to. I’m giving you this time to consider what we talked about in the restaurant, whether you want to or not.”
