“Umm . . . hello?” Jeremy tapped Jack on the shoulder. “I believe that’s my date you’re holding.” He was a cocky fellow. I had to give him that. Persistent too.
Jack turned around, one arm wrapped possessively around my waist and looked at him. He didn’t have to say anything. His massive, self-confident presence did all the talking.
“Riiiiiight.” Jeremy backed up and shot me a questioning expression.
“Rodel.” Jack kept his eyes fixed on him. “Did you make plans with this gentleman?”
“Yes. We were supposed to go out for dinner. I’m so sorry, Jeremy. Jack just showed up out of the blue.”
“Is this a regular thing?” Jack’s stance was one of studied relaxation, but his tone had an edge to it. “Are you two dating?”
“No. Nuh-uh.” Jeremy let out a nervous laugh. “It’s the first time she said yes. But if I’d known you er . . .” He gestured to Jack. “Yeah, no.”
“So where were you planning on taking my girl?”
“Well . . . there’s this nice steak house by the river. It’s very . . .” He glanced from Jack to me and coughed. “It’s very romantic.”
“You made reservations?”
“Uh . . . yes. Yes, I did.”
“Mind if I tag along?”
“Pardon me?”
“Here’s the thing, dear chap . . .” Jack tilted his head toward Jeremy and lowered his voice. “Rodel agreed to have dinner with you. And you, being the gentleman you are, decided to take her to a nice restaurant. And I, being the gentleman I am, realize that I showed up unannounced and ruined your plans. Now, I don’t expect the lady to switch things around at the drop of a hat for me. At the same time, I’m not about to let her out of my sight. I’m also very, very hungry. Airplane food does not do it for me. So, I’m suggesting dinner. On me.”
Jeremy blinked. Then he smiled. “Hell, yes. There’s just one thing.” He pointed to his Mini Cooper and looked at me. “You think he’ll fit in there?”
I FELL IN love with Rodel Emerson somewhere between a tea party in the cradle of Africa and a nameless, roadside food stall with plastic chairs and plastic tables. Maybe it was when she asked me to lock her passport in my safe, and I read her name on it.
I was in love with a girl whose middle name was Harris.
My God, I was irrevocably, irreparably in love with her.
Her charm stole insensibly upon me—slowly at first, and then like a ton of bricks. I can’t remember when I started thinking that her eyes were like the smooth river rocks I used to collect as a kid—dark and smoky, with a bright sheen that held me arrested when she laughed, or cried, or got riled up about having an old woman spit on her head. They were always different, always changing, sometimes the color of winter trees at twilight, other times like sunlight shining through Cognac. Her eyelashes were all girl, black and long. They made me believe how the flutter of butterfly’s wings could cause a tsunami.
She had the kind of beauty that came from being disarmingly unaware of how pretty she was. Sometimes, I’d turn around and there she was, on her tiptoes, peering out the window at something beyond the horizon. The lines of her body fell into splendid poses, and once you looked at her, you couldn’t look away. It wasn’t because she was arrestingly beautiful. Wait. I take that back. She was. Hell, the night she came down the stairs, all dressed up, everyone at The Grand Tulip froze. But beyond that, she had an inner simplicity, an artlessness to her speech, her gestures, her smile. People relaxed around her. She saw you. She made you feel like you were someone too.
The first time I knew she was special was when I was heading inside from the fields. I heard her laughter spilling out from the kitchen window and I couldn’t help but smile, even though it was just on the inside. Lily had done that to me. Her joy, her laughter, her giggles, used to make me stop and take notice. No one else had the right to make me feel that way again.
I resented Rodel Emerson that day. I resented her for poking holes in my armor, for making me feel anything but the pain that was running like a drug through my veins. I needed that pain, pure and unadulterated, to keep myself going each day. Without it, my knees would buckle and I’d give in to the darkness that was licking at the edges of my soul. I couldn’t wait to get rid of the pretty girl with the pretty laughter and the pretty ideas about the world.
But Rodel Emerson didn’t leave. And when she did leave, she was still always there—in the wind that ruffled the clothes on the laundry line, in the light that touched the soaring clouds, in the rain, in the moon, in the creak of the empty swing at night. And when I woke up, there she was again, in the dew of mist-kissed blades of grass.
I couldn’t take a single step without colliding into the ghost of her.
So, I got on a plane. And I got into a Mini Cooper. And I got the most outrageously extravagant bottle on the wine list, as I watched her laugh at whatever her dinner date was saying. This was not a Coca-Cola moment. And she knew it. She knew I was taking in long, slow sips of her—all the parts I had missed and kissed and was going to claim when we got home. It didn’t bother me that she’d said yes to this Jeremy fellow, or that he was sitting at the table. I was just relieved that she hadn’t moved on. Hell, even Jeremy could feel the sparks zinging between Rodel and me. That’s just the way it was, the way it would always be with us.
“Thanks for dinner,” said Jeremy as I un-stuffed myself out of his car. “Have a good summer, Rodel.”