Sliding Past Vertical (14 page)

Chapter 23

Afterward, when the room stopped
swirling, they made a snug fit in Sarah’s narrow bed, two heads on the same sad
little pillow, damp thighs interlocked, arms at awkward angles.

Even though her eyes were
closed, Sarah could feel Emerson warming his metaphorical medicine dropper,
getting ready to gaze at her adoringly. Being looked at that way made her feel
sexy and important for about ten minutes—maybe an hour—when they
were teenagers, but adolescent worship was not what she wanted to see on a
grown man’s face.

It was too much pressure. No
one could live up to that much adoration or survive a fall from a pedestal that
high.

So she continued to feign
sleep, despite the tightness in her lower back, the left hand that had gone
numb, and the feeling she’d made a terrible mistake. More horrible was the
feeling that if she took one glance into those eyes she’d do it all over again.

Then Emerson pulled away, slowly,
as if afraid to wake her. Her left hand tingled with returning blood. She heard
him fumble on the nightstand for his glasses.

The
better to stare at you with, my dear.

Even imagining his face was
dangerous, and in her mind she already saw his heartbreaking downturned eyes
and the gentle, vulnerable smile, which could disappear in an instant if she
said a careless word.

“That was pity, wasn’t it?”

“Huh?” Sarah blinked a couple
of times.

His pale eyes focused on her,
through her.

He was not smiling. No
baby-chick look. No medicine dropper, no warm milk.

Something inside her winced.

“Pity.” He almost spat the
word at her. “Mercy. Commiseration. Charity. You felt sorry for me.”

“Take your thesaurus and
stick it.” Sarah, too surprised to be careful, punched out the hard “K” sound
like a weapon.

It did what it needed to, but
it was his own damned fault.

She turned away, facing the
wall, arms folded across her breasts. She couldn’t look at those startled,
wounded eyes. “Might I remind you,” this time she carefully considered each
word, “that you started this.”

“You didn’t stop me.”

“Please. I
allowed
it, so that makes it all my
responsibility?”

“You did a little more than allow
it, Sarah.”

“How? You walk in on me while
I’m undressing and while you weren’t even supposed to be home and that means
come and get it? Now serving number thirty-seven?”

Her voice shook. Her stomach
knotted like it had when Rashid had told her the truth—Emerson wanted her
and expected her because she had come back. She needed Emerson to take some of
the blame. It was, and always had been, too heavy to carry by herself.

He stroked her shoulder; his
fingers were gentle and warm. She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to turn
around and curl into his arms.

Instead, she shrugged him
off.

“You let me kiss you,” he said,
a hair sterner from her rebuff. “For a really long time. You let me pick you up
and put you on the bed.” He dropped his voice. “And what you did next gave me a
damned good idea you were a little more than willing. And then you let
me—well,
begged
me might be
more accurate—”

“Okay, okay,” she snapped. “I
was there, save me the blow-by-blow. So to speak.”

“What I’m saying is that you
didn’t have to do this.”

“I don’t
have
to do anything.”

“So you’re saying you wanted
to.”

“Christ, Em!” No wonder he had
so much trouble keeping girlfriends. He interrogated them right out the door.
“Yes,” she said. “I
wanted
to do
this. Perhaps there’s something you’d like me to sign. It’s early, we could
have it notarized.”

She heard him let out his
breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just having a hard time believing this
really happened. That you could ever...”

Her belly tightened at the
way he trailed off, the fragility in his voice. At the damage she’d done in
their teens that made him still feel this way about her. He had no good reason
to trust her, yet once again he’d been willing to put his heart, poorly healed,
into her unsteady hands.

She turned, touched his
cheek, and stroked his hair. Ever so slightly he smiled and tilted up his face
like a cat greeting affection. The sun cast elongated shadows through the
cracks in the blinds and glinted off the small, golden bristles on his skin. It
made his eyes nearly invisible behind streaked, autumn-colored reflections.

As if removing them from her
own sleeping child, she lifted his glasses off at the temples.

His pale eyes looked so
gentle, filled with equal amounts of adoration and pain.

He let her kiss one closed
lid and then the other.

“Believe it,” she said,
setting his glasses on the nightstand.

“But is it for real?”

The question stopped her, and
for a long time she cradled his myopic gaze. What he wanted to hear was not
what she felt ready to say. She needed more time to decide and wouldn’t tell
him something she was not completely sure of. But to respond otherwise would be
just as hurtful, and not quite the truth, either.

So, in response, she kissed
him and ran her hands along his body. He did the same and pulled her closer.
While cupping him in her palm with the greatest of care, she whispered against
his neck what she wanted him to do to her again.

Chapter 24

Sarah woke alone and naked,
in the dark, swathed in blankets. The neighbor had stopped raking and her radio
had been turned off, but she could hear the sound of
Wheel of Fortune
on the television downstairs, as well as dinner
preparations. Pots clanged and something hissed as it hit hot oil.

She flicked the light switch.
On the nightstand sat half a chocolate donut on a yellow paper napkin, which made
her smile. And there was a note where Emerson’s glasses used to be:

Sorry,
running late. Couldn’t get anyone to take second shift, or you would have woken
up to something a hell of a lot better than the last of my donuts.

Really
sorry. I love you.

She read it again and again
while sitting cross-legged on the narrow little bed, the half-donut long gone,
Emerson’s afghan wrapped around her bare shoulders. She let the warmth of his
last three words etch into her skin, as well as the passionate underlining of
“really.”

Four times, scratched deep
into the paper.

But she stared at the note
too long, until the last two sentences became one.

Really
sorry I love you.

She crumpled the note and threw
it across the room.

A soft fist tapped at her
door. Then she heard Rashid’s voice, just as unobtrusive. “Sarah? You are
home?”

She hunted for her clothes.
“I’ll be out in a minute, Rashid.”

“No, don’t trouble yourself,
it’s not important. I’m cooking, have you eaten?”

“I’ll get something later,”
she called to him.

“You are sure? You’re working
tomorrow. You don’t want to have your supper too late, it will ruin your
sleep.”

She’d nearly forgotten about
her new temp assignment. Whatever he was making smelled awfully good and the
donut had merely whetted her appetite. “Well...”

He sounded happier. “I will
make extra and leave it for you when you are ready.”

* * * * *

After she took a shower and a
bowlful of something with lentils, Rashid boiled water for tea, and then he and
Sarah, in sweaters, sat on the back porch. He told her about his day: a possible
breakthrough in the lab, the latest idiocy of his new young charge, and a
letter from his uncle at MIT.

Sarah thought about Emerson.
He’d probably fret about her being outside with damp hair. It was just about
time for his dinner break. The cafeteria where they’d eaten with Charlie would
be long closed. She hoped he had something besides junk food from the vending
machines.

“You are warm enough, out
here?” Rashid asked.

“Fine,” she said. “You?”

“Perfectly comfortable.”

The neighbor’s leaves sat in tidy,
raked-up piles. So that’s what he’d been doing while she and Emerson rolled
around on her wafer-thin bed for the better part of the afternoon. The rhythmic
whoosh whoosh
had fallen into the
background like a failing metronome.

She thought of what happened
afterward. The first time. The pity thing. It couldn’t have been only his own
insecurities that had led to his question. He had to have picked something up
from her. He knew her too well.

She worried her motivation
like a loose tooth. If she’d been feeling sorry for anyone, it had been
herself. She’d spent the previous evening wallowing in guilt. And had asked for
forgiveness in old, familiar ways, by giving him her body, the one thing she
knew he wanted, the one comfort she was good at providing.

But this time, maybe, she
could also give him her heart.

“The tea is not too strong?” Rashid
asked.

She shook her head, taking in
his mild expression and trusting brown eyes. If only love could be as simple as
he thought it was, as she desperately wanted to believe it could be. That it waited
until you were ready to create it. Or felt yourself worthy of it.

“Don’t you get lonely, waiting
for your fiancée?”

He hesitated. “Sometimes,
yes. But I have my work and my studies, and friends like you and Emerson.”

“I meant...for women. For a
woman.”

Sarah’s clarification was met
with silence. Her ears tingled with embarrassment. Again she’d crossed the
line, forgetting other cultures weren’t as frank as Americans. Or maybe it was
just Rashid. Emerson had told her that even though Rashid’s family had lived in
many countries, he’d been kept largely insulated from the world outside the
embassy.

He poured another cup of tea.
Stirred three times. Clockwise. Forgot the sugar. “Why this sudden interest in
my social life?”

She shrugged. “You just seem
to deal with it so well. Her being so far away.”

“I know it will not be
forever.”

“I wish I could be as
patient. Sometimes I think being impatient makes me do things that aren’t
right.”

His eyes widened with
incredulity. “Oh, I can’t imagine you would—”

I
need to get off
this
pedestal, and fast
. “It’s true! I
choose bad men and they hurt me. If all the stars line up the right way and I
get good ones, I hurt them. Emerson must have told you what I did to him in
college.”

Again he hesitated, probably
while he shaped a diplomatic answer. “Only that after a period of several
months you had decided no longer to be his girlfriend.” He sipped his
unsweetened tea, realized his error, and added a spoonful of sugar. “Personally
I believe that this was your right and his obligation to accept.”

He made it sound like a
contract.

“Often he told me that he
hoped one day you would change your mind back,” Rashid continued. “This is what
I was trying to tell you last night, Sarah, when you ran away. And that you
shouldn’t feel responsible for that.” He dropped his voice and looked around as
if searching for eavesdroppers; there were none but a few piles of leaves and a
fuzzy crescent moon. “You can’t control his desires.”

She couldn’t help feeling
responsible. Even though she’d argued that it was both their doing, she knew
how serious Emerson was and how wrong it had been of her to let him make love
to her when she didn’t know her own heart. In the moment of decision she had
defaulted and would probably wind up hurting him again.

She tried to hide her face
but Rashid noticed the pain.

“Something has happened to
you?” he asked softly. “Was it...him?”

She shook her head. The truth
belonged to her and Emerson and nobody else. She ought to end it. If she had
any sense, if she cared about Emerson at all, she should end it.

But she could still feel him
on her, inside her. She could still hear the whisper of his eyes close to hers,
every cell of him desiring and adoring her as he waited for her to make up her
mind. She doubted that even Emerson would be saintly enough to have the
strength to throw that away, so soon.

* * * * *

Sarah quietly reassembled her
clothing while Emerson did the same. They stood back to back like partners in a
guilty transaction, taking the moment to regain their dignity.

Something about him bothered
her, something she had not yet found the courage to say. She’d tried to push it
down in the beginning, but each time they made love it drifted a little higher.

It wasn’t the ooze of baby-chick
concern or the remembered gooeyness of his long, adoring, adolescent looks.

It was something else.

It was Dirk.

He finished first, his attire
less complicated, and then helped her hook and straighten.

She pulled her hair out of
his way. He kissed a trail down her neck to her bare shoulder, leaving his lips
against her skin as if he could drink her up.

The already rumpled bed was
too inviting, the temptation too great to sink into him and let him once again
reassure her that it was only the two of them. But she didn’t want to get him
in trouble with his supervisor, and she was due back at her temp assignment in
fifteen minutes, an assignment she almost enjoyed.

Reluctantly she pulled on her
blouse.

She heard him sigh with
similar disappointment.

Their eyes met in the small
mirror over the bureau while she buttoned. He appeared to be studying her, not
with baby-bird wonderment, but like he was cataloging something for later.

“Are you going to write about
this?” she said.

He smiled at her reflection.
“Gorgeous girl takes advantage of lonely orderly in an empty patient room on
his lunch break? Sorry. Already been done.”

“I wasn’t talking about that
slutty little student nurse who grabbed your ass that time while you were
mopping. I mean this.” She turned and ran her hands up his chest, underneath
his shirt, gathering his warmth. “Us.”

“No. Never,” he said, eyes
closed, only opening them when she stopped touching his bare skin. Then he
watched her fingers as she straightened his shirt and zipped up his coveralls.
“And she wasn’t slutty. Her boyfriend just dumped her and she needed some
attention.”

“And you were just there.”

He shrugged his shoulders,
not even attempting to deny it or act embarrassed. How could he, when he’d
written her an eight-year trail of letters detailing his adventures? All of
which she could count on both hands and maybe a toe or two. None of whom she
thought good enough for him, or smart enough, and all too young.

“Anything in the name of
literature, huh?” Sarah said, a teasing lilt to her voice.

“Not anymore.” Emerson was
dead serious. “All Dirk gets is old memories, now.”

“Just as long as they aren’t
old memories of me.”

“Sarah, you know I—”

“Yeah, you don’t write about
me. So how come when I came into your room that one time you hid what you were
working on?”

His cheeks flushed. “Because
it was lousy first draft crap.”

“You ripped it out of the
typewriter.”

“It was really lousy.”

She laced her fingers at the
back of his neck and smiled into his eyes. “You’re a good writer. I’m sure it
wasn’t that bad.”

“Trust me, Sarah. It was.”

“As bad as the 7-Eleven
story?”

He looked hurt. “I didn’t
think that was so bad. They reprinted it twice.”

She broke away to fix her
makeup and hair in the mirror. Mainly she was buying time to gather up words,
and watching him watch her over her shoulder. “Em. Just because you made money
from it doesn’t mean it was a positive contribution to society.”

He let out his breath and
flopped onto the wooden chair next to the bed. “You want me to stop.”

She perched on the edge of
the bureau while putting a speech together in her head. Her voice was small,
her words safe and carefully chosen. “Well...if you had something to prove to
yourself about your writing, I think you’ve already proved it by being
published so many times. I just don’t understand why you keep writing...him.”

“You know why,” he grumbled.

“But there are other ways you
can make money writing. Other magazines.”

“I have contracts, Sarah.
Deadlines. Readers expect him.”

She toyed with her lipstick
container, heart pounding.

Emerson watched her, not like
he usually did, with moist expectation, but the way Jay used to, waiting for
her to talk him out of doing coke. It seemed like he was waiting for her to
talk him out of being Dirk Blade.

If she said nothing, Emerson might
think she was giving up. Giving in.

Too many times with Jay she’d
given in. Every time, except the last, and that was only because he’d given her
a good flying push.

“I’m just afraid people are
going to think...” Her voice came out stronger, but her words still fluttered.
“Especially now...that it’s about us...”

He flew out of the chair,
hands stretched toward her. “But it’s not about us! Besides, I don’t use my
real name. Nobody knows I write it. Not even Rashid!”

She looked away. “I know you
write it.”

His face went melty and he tried
to hug her, but Sarah stopped him with a glare. “She looked like me, Em. The
girl on the Slurpee machine. Is that what you really think about me? What you
used to think about me? Back when you hated my guts for breaking up with you?
Is that why you made Dirk?”

“Sarah...honey...” He reached
for her again, his expression tender with concern as he looked deep into her
eyes. “Yeah, I was pissed, but I’ve been over that for a long time.” He touched
her face. “Things are different now.”

His warmth and sincerity
mollified her somewhat, and her words softened. “But why’d you have to make her
look like me?”

“The editor wanted a brunette
with brown eyes.”