An Ever Fixéd Mark (18 page)

“Well… maybe it’s just the idea that it’s
possible that counts. It’s hope for us before we leave this planet.
Hope that no matter how much we mess up, we can fix it,” Lizzie
reached for another piece of bread. “Even if it never gets the
chance to be fixed. Just the hope that it can be… isn’t that worth
something?”

No one answered. “Well… if nothing else, it
makes for great speculative conversation when I introduce my
boyfriend to my crazy friends.”

Mark laughed and put his arm around Nora.
“True, Lizzie. Very true.”

Meg breathed out and managed a smile. “I
think we can all agree about that,” she accepted the piece of bread
Lizzie just covered.

“That you are all crazy?” Ben chided.
“Absolutely.”

*****

Lizzie dropped her purse and jacket on a
brown leather chair in the living room. She took in the details of
his apartment slowly. It was the top floor of a three decker,
probably a hundred years old. Lizzie noticed the modern furniture
mingled with the historic moldings. It was tidy, well furnished,
and comfortable. It wasn’t what she expected… and yet… not unusual
at all.

“That was fun,” Ben led her into a dining
room.

“You have a dining room.”

“So do you,” Ben returned. “And even with
three people who eat food in your house, you never use it.”

“You really… it was okay?”

“Elizabeth, I like your friends,” he kissed
her sweetly and went towards an antique buffet set up as a bar. She
watched him pour a glass of wine and hand it to her. “Between the
two of us, you only drank half a bottle of beer tonight.”

“I like how you get me drunk every
night.”

“Not drunk. Just… a precaution.”

“Are you hungry?” Lizzie touched her
wrist.

“Just enjoy it,” he smiled.

Lizzie smiled shortly and looked at her
glass. She followed him back into the living room and accepted his
invitation to sit beside him on his sofa. She took a sip of her
wine and let it warm her. “I’m sorry if the acrimony between Meg
and Mark was unbearable. They often… they aren’t friendly.”

“Why is that?” Ben touched her hair as she
leaned against his shoulder.

“It’s just the way it is with boyfriends of
best friends.”

“You get along with him.”

“I get along with most people. I can see
that Mark really truly loves Nora. Meg just … well, she thinks he’s
boring. She would rather we all ran off with…” Lizzie stopped
herself from what would have easily been an amusing thing to say.
She heard Ben chuckle under his breath. “She thinks a little danger
is sexy.”

“Alec …”

“They’ve got nothing on you,” Lizzie looked
ahead and took a sip of her wine.

“No,” Ben took in a breath as he continued
to smooth his fingers along her hair. “I think I’ve met Alec
before.”

“What?” Lizzie almost spit out her wine.

“I’m not sure if he recognized me.”

“From where?” Lizzie pulled herself away
from Ben and set down her glass on the coffee table.

“I’m pretty certain he used to be a donor at
the clinic,” Ben said cautiously, but without concern.

Lizzie looked away, finding a sudden
fixation on the pattern of browns and reds in his carpet. “So that
means he knows… he knows,” Lizzie looked up at Ben.

“It’s a strong possibility,” Ben smiled
shortly.

“But he’s… he smokes and sleeps with so
many… women and men. He can’t have the best blood,” Lizzie took up
her wine glass again. Her intolerance for Alec sank even
deeper.

“I don’t think he still goes there,” Ben
touched her hand. “I just thought you should know.”

“In case he tells Meg?”

“It is her favorite subject,” Ben’s smile
was more polite than encouraging. Even so, Lizzie couldn’t stop a
little bit of hope from entering her mind. It was a week since she
came back from their getaway to Vermont, but she already felt the
limitations of her conversations about Ben. Even when there were
drinks at Nora and Mark’s. Ben could integrate well enough with her
friends, pretend to drink his beer and eat cheese and crackers. But
Lizzie was still left without anyone to talk to about the weirdness
of it all… or the possibility of fear.

Lizzie shook her head and leaned back
against his side. She didn’t want to think of Meg or Alec while she
was in the already familiar comfort of his side in his apartment.
“How long have you lived here?”

“I rented the apartment when I first worked
at the hospital,” Ben restored his arm around her shoulder. “Then I
bought the whole building in the 60’s. The rental income was useful
when I went to Springs. After graduating from MIT, I restored all
the units and sold them as condos. I figured my company was enough
responsibility and no longer had interest in being a landlord.”

Lizzie looked down at her wine glass. She
still expected him to say he bought the place five years ago… not
fifty. She breathed in slowly and then looked at him suddenly.
“What hospital did you work at?” she lifted her eyes to see his
reaction.

He pursed his lips on the smile. “Mt.
Elm.”

“That’s… where I work,” she faded on the
obvious words of her sentence.

“Yes.”

Lizzie took the last sip from her glass and
replaced it on the coffee table. She rested against his arm and
gazed at the entertainment center and shelves across from her. She
couldn’t identify the DVDs or books on the shelves. “It is one of
the older hospitals in the city,” Lizzie said to herself, thinking
of some of the more antiquated buildings on the campus.

“It is.”

“Ben, is there such a thing as
reincarnation?” she didn’t look at him with her serious tone.

“What?”

“You’ve been around a while. Maybe you’ve
seen someone come back.”

He breathed in deeply. “I don’t know much
more than you about what happens after a person dies, Elizabeth. I
just know I don’t die as easily.”

“But you have been on this planet much
longer. That gives you more opportunity to observe things… to
understand that things can’t be as neat and tidy as Mark would like
to believe,” Lizzie sat up and turned to look at him.

“I think some people come back,” Ben
readjusted his posture. He looked at Lizzie intently. “I’m pretty
certain I’ve met a soul in different lifetimes.”

Lizzie met his stare and then twisted
herself back against his shoulder. “Oh,” she couldn’t bring herself
to ask the next question.

“But I don’t know… I don’t know that is what
happens to everyone.”

“Well, of course not,” Lizzie took his hand
and intertwined their fingers. “Could you come back? If your heart
was destroyed, would you come back as a vampire?”

She felt his breath go deep into his
stomach. “If someone destroys my heart, Elizabeth, I am done with
this world.”

“What happens?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you go to hell?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in hell.”

“I didn’t believe in vampires either,”
Lizzie let go of his hand and looked at him. “I didn’t mean that in
a … mean way, Ben. If there is a hell, I’m probably going there,
too.”

“I think we’ve both already experienced our
own versions of hell,” he looked away from her, his thoughts
following his gaze.

“Karma?”

“I guess you could call it that,” Ben
returned his focus to her and took her hand in his again.

“I think…” Lizzie sighed, welcoming the
fingers in between her own. “I think this is my good karma.”

Ben smiled. “Me too.”

*****

Lizzie awoke expecting to see the green
numbers of her clock. Her mind slowly awakened, realizing she
wasn’t in her bed or her room. She was under Ben’s arm in his
apartment. She let her mind retreat back to sleepiness with the
conclusion there wasn’t enough sunlight to require getting out of
bed for another Saturday at the Fulton House.

She drifted back to sleep as she imagined
taking Ben on her tour. She wondered if he remembered using objects
like they had in the museum… if it would be at all interesting or
nostalgic for him to see them. Maybe he could explain all the fuss
about the chair in Harriet’s room. That way she could tell Richard
to tell Gerard Fulton to stop worrying…

Lizzie stood in the passageway from the
stairwell to the great room. She kept in the shadows watching all
the people mingle and drink their cocktails. She watched Gerard
Fulton whisper to Jonathan, the curator. Paula and Richard stood
close to them, both aware of Lizzie in the passageway but more
attentive to the discussion of upholstery. Lizzie wondered if she
should enter the room and clean up the empty glasses cast on the
side tables, but thought her jeans and sweater were too informal
for the party, making it obvious that she didn’t belong in the
crowd.

She looked away from the conversations and
focused her attention on the string quartet at the back of the
room. The notes of Vivaldi quieted her mind and took her from the
room and her aching feet. She leaned her head against the wall and
felt the heat of someone behind her. She turned slowly and met
Ben’s friendly gaze.

Lizzie rolled over as she opened her eyes
from her dream. Ben was gone. A moment of panic filled her
thoughts, but then talked herself back to reality remembering she
was in his apartment. She found his shirt on the floor and buttoned
it as she crossed the hall to look for him. She heard the click of
a keyboard and followed it into his office. He looked up from his
screen as she walked in. She saw the burning look in those eyes. He
was hungry.

“Morning,” he softened the glimmer in his
eyes.

“Morning,” she sat on a leather couch
opposite his desk, not able to completely quiet the question of how
hungry he was.

“I made you some coffee in the kitchen,” he
rose from his chair.

“You make coffee?”

“It’s a good skill to have as a
businessman.”

“You must have a secretary,” Lizzie tried to
imagine Richard making his own coffee.

“There’s milk in the fridge,” Ben said
lightly and watched her leave the room.

Lizzie went to the kitchen, opening three
cupboards before finding the mugs and glasses. She was surprised to
see so many dishes and silverware. It was clean, almost brand new.
She wondered how many guests he had for whom he kept up the
pretense… or fed if they knew… if he fed from them. Lizzie shook
that thought from her mind as she stirred the milk into her coffee.
It was good coffee.

She took her mug and went back to her seat
on the leather couch. Ben typed another few minutes before
returning his gaze to her. “What time do you have to be at the
museum?”

“Ten,” Lizzie rested the mug on her knees.
“What time is it?”

“Eight,” he smiled again. “I can give you a
ride if you don’t feel like taking the train.”

“Thanks,” Lizzie took another sip and
grinned to herself as she thought of her dream. “I could give you a
tour.”

Ben took in a light-hearted breath. “I can’t
today,” he paused as if contemplating a change in his plans. “I
have to finish up this project before noon. Then I have to get to
the clinic.”

“Right,” Lizzie summoned the neutrality to
mask her disappointment. “If it’s too much to give me a ride, I can
take the train.”

“It isn’t too much,” he shook his head.

“Next time,” Lizzie shrugged as she lifted
her mug to her lips and let her eyes wander to the details of the
room. She noticed the old volumes on the bookshelves and thought
the Fulton House might not be so interesting to him anyway.

“You’re going back to Nora’s tonight?”

“Yeah, I’m helping her with the favors.”

Lizzie saw the amusement in Ben’s his sweet
gray green eyes. “Will Meg be there?’

“She’s supposed to be… but after last night
probably not,” Lizzie walked over to the books that caught her eye.
She pulled a volume of Keats and looked at the title page. “This is
a first edition.”

“I got it in England,” Ben left the desk and
moved to her side.

“You like poetry?”

“I like Keats,” he pulled another
volume.

Lizzie took the book from his hand.
“Shakespeare’s sonnets,” she admired the binding and the pages.
“This is three hundred years old. I really shouldn’t be touching
this without gloves.”

“Why not?” Ben shrugged. “It really makes no
difference what it’s printed on. Isn’t it the words that matter the
most?”

“But there is a craftsmanship…” Lizzie
stopped herself and looked at Ben. “It is in good condition.”

“Yes.”

“Have you read all these books?” she looked
at the companion plays to the collection of sonnets in her hand.
“Even with all your medical and computer studies?”

“I confess I haven’t read them recently,”
Ben watched her pull out another book and look inside. “A few I
reread because they were important to someone I like to
remember.”

Lizzie closed the copy
of
Candide
and
shifted her focus quickly enough to catch a glimpse of sadness in
his expression. “These are valuable to you for a reason beyond
bindings and printing dates,” Lizzie sheepishly returned the book
to its place.

“Yes,” Ben looked at the book she replaced
and looked back to her. “You can touch all these books without
gloves, Elizabeth. I like to think you will enjoy them.”

She wanted to ask him a dozen more
questions. She wanted to know who the someone was and why he still
wanted to remember her… if it was a her. Was it the vampire who
changed him? Was it another human... from another century? She
shifted her eyes back to his, the first of her inquiries poised on
her tongue. She saw the burning look of his hunger. “I should
probably get ready,” she said quickly, deciding to move away from
him and her curiosity.

Ben heaved a deep sigh and nodded. “I’ll be
here if you need anything,” he offered as he returned to his desk.
Lizzie felt his eyes follow her out of the room.