Burned Gasoline (12 page)

              “I’m nosy?” She scrunched her eyebrows together.

              “Hey, focus on the important thing here, Raylyn. Focus on what I just said. I like you
despite
of all those things, not because of them.”

              Her feet twisted nervously on the hard cement of the front porch, making her look like someone being scolded and now feeling embarrassed, with her fingers entwined behind her back. Eventually she had to break the silence between them. He hadn’t really said too much, but wow had his words been mighty.

              “Well, I like
you
despite of your grumpiness, your extremely stubborn nature, and your habit of keeping things a secret from me.”

              “I guess we both have things that are annoying… let’s leave it at that.”

              She looked up and met his eyes, which had lessened in anger into something else. Softness perhaps?

              “You’re not like the guys I’ve met in New York.”

              “I hope that’s a compliment.”

              She looked up at him, and shook her head in slight irritation. “Of course it is, I like you a lot too, you know. You’re… you.”

              “Meaning?”

              She raised her shoulders trying to figure out what she actually really meant to say.               “You’re not metro-sexual, you don’t care about fashion, you don’t wax your eyebrows, and you don’t go to the gym every day. You’re normal and… well, nice.”

              His eyebrows did an inkling up, he cringed his forehead and brought forward the lines developed from a long time of suffering, sleepless nights, and the reality of life.

              “I’m nice? Gag.” He said, and pretended to ejaculate a looming vomit. “That sounded awful. You make me sound fucking boring. But I guess that’s one way of saying it.”

              “So…” She mumbled, pushing her freezing hands deeper down in her pockets. “Is she home right now? Your mom, I mean.”

              “Mhm.” He nodded a few times and tugged nervously with his teeth on his lower lip.

              “Okay. Well, I’ll let you go back to whatever you were doing. I’m… I’m going to go back home now. Nova’s babysitter has to go back for her homework soon, so…” She pressed her lips together tightly and started walking backwards, down the few gray cement steps to the gravel path, eventually leading her back to her car still parked on the side of the road. But as soon as her black thick winter boots had pushed away a few feet of small rolling rocks under her soles a large warm hand pushed down on her shoulder, halting her steps and slowly turned her around.

              “You see, I can’t let my mother rot away in some home somewhere, with someone who doesn’t care as much about her as I do.” She couldn’t quite make out if he was at his last straw and restless because of it, or if he had completely let his guard down and opened himself completely, as if in total defeat. “Yes, I know: I’m thirty-eight, divorced, I’ve slept with women I’ve pick up at bars when I’ve been too lonely, and I live with my mother. It’s an awful resume, but fuck, I don’t have a solution to it at the moment, so it’s the way it is.”

              His hands went into his pockets, either to stop himself from raking any more strands of hair from his head, or to survive frostbite from the chill. “My ex-wife, Marina, left me because I had to take care of my mom. Apparently I made my mom’s life a priority instead of hers. Which are her words not mine, by the way. And because… well, I’m boring, Raylyn. Marina couldn’t make that any more clear throughout the years, when she felt the need to travel and see new cities and go on adventures. I’m staying here. I’m kind of locked to this place.”

              She couldn’t believe her ears. Instead she simply stared at his plump lips moving with every word that came out of them. Knowing how soft and warm they could be… if they were anywhere else but here.

              “You shouldn’t be interested in someone like me. I’m stuck here, in the middle of ‘fucking nowhere’ of America, as Marina would have put it, hence the divorce, and as you said earlier, I’m grumpy. I’m a guy who doesn’t even have the privacy of having his own house.”

              His hands flew up in the air, and released a frustrated grunt, as if letting go of some pent-up energy emerging from the opening of the deep sorrows he’d been carrying around for so long. For ages.

              Their breaths began to turn slightly white and their feet almost touched on the gravel where they stood in the brooding darkness of the evening. Their bodies only lit up by the light of the hovering moon already high on the dark evening sky, and the fifty’s style lamp next to the front door.

              “I have nothing, nada, zero, nyet to offer you, Raylyn. The wisest thing would be to get the fuck away from me, as far as you can. Well, except… I’m pretty decent in bed. But that’s it. Kind of.

              All the tension inside her suddenly erupted into an explosion of outrageous laughter. She couldn’t stop herself, and let her body lean forward, grabbing on to her knees holding herself up. Her laughter just kept coming, she simply couldn’t stop it. It was like a dam of tension and nervousness had suddenly erupted and a flood of insanely loud laughter was released to the world. Her laughter didn’t die off until she heard him starting to laugh as well, oh so faintly.

              “What’s so funny?”

              “You.”  She said, whipping tears running down her cheeks. “Ending that whole downwards spiraling story with such a nice touch at the end. Yeah, you are pretty decent in bed, Jeff. My bedroom noises must have proven you right on that many times over.“

              “Um, yeah, I guess so.” He said as his face gave birth to a hint of that dazzling smile she loved so much.

              “So, you happen to love me? Wow, by the way. Didn’t see that coming last night, that’s why I didn’t answer you. I only thought you liked me, you know. Maybe just had me around for some short term fun.” The tears that escaped her eyes from her laughter soaked into the shirtsleeve she dapped across her face.

              “My dad once told me that love is like ‘looking at someone face forever without getting bored,’ and you have that, Raylyn. All your self-proclaimed flaws are what make you attractive, and I want to look at them for a very, very long time. If you’ll allow me.”

              “Alright, just because it’s you and the fact that this moment is a bit strange I’m going to let that last comment about my flaws just roll off my shoulders. I was expecting you to say I was
flawless
, if anything.”

              “It’s an impossible task to find someone like that. I love you with whatever you find to your dislike in regards to your body.” His eyes looked kind in the evening light. “So, anyway… you wanna come in? Meet my mom?”

              “Yes, I’d love to. Thank you.”

              “Alright, come on.”

              “Are we okay, you and I?” Stopping their steps back to the house.

              “I am, if you are?”

              “Okay, then we’re fabulous.”

              “If you say so.” With an arm around her shoulders he walked them back up the front steps and closed the door behind them to keep the chill out.

Chapter Fifteen

              The house looked just as dated on the inside as it did on the outside. At the kitchen table stood a vase of randomly picked flowers and a stack of newspapers piled neatly towards the wall at the end of it.

              “So, I guess Truly told you about my mom?” He said quietly, as they stood outside the only closed door in the hallway next to the other two bedrooms of the house. Raylyn nodded and started to pick at her fingers nails, looking at him while he was talking.

              “Alright.” He said, composing himself. “My mom has severe Alzheimer’s and it’s been going on for about seven or eight years now, which means she doesn’t have the ability to take care of herself anymore.“ He took a breather.

              “My shift is at night, and the nurse is here during the day so that I can go to work. Otherwise we’d be living in a box, okay?” His hand still lingered on the door handle, but he still hadn’t opened it. It almost seemed as if he was afraid of how she would react seeing what was on the other side of the door.

              His voice turned quieter, almost a whisper, and slowly he pushed the handle down, only allowing the faint clicking noise of the door to sound. “Most days she doesn’t even know who I am.” His hand released the handle and slowly he pushed the door opened.

              The quite spacious bedroom laid in partial darkness, as for a small corner lamp placed high on a dresser along the wall. Jefferson motioned to her to take a step in, but to be quiet, as the small person in the bed was sound asleep. As quietly as she could her feet brought her inside the room until she was barely a few inches from the bedside.

              The petite woman looked peaceful in her sleep. A white nightgown and a thick blanket covering her delicate body. Jefferson stood at the end of the bed with his hands in his pockets, his eyes locked on Raylyn. She thought he looked almost terrified, as if she’d run out the door any second in disgust, never to return.

              Suddenly the blanket moved slowly, making Raylyn take a few steps back towards Jefferson, but instead the heel of her boot bumped into a small side table knocking down a book on the floor, making it land with a big thud.

              “Oh, you scared me, darling.” Came a small voice from the bed.

              “Mom, this is Raylyn. She’s a good friend of mine. Would you like to say hello?” As calm as a dead breeze on a hot day, Jefferson simply took a step towards Raylyn and placed a hand behind her back, motioning her with him towards the bed. “This is my mother, Joan.”

              “How are we doing on the numbers today, Michael?” His mother had suddenly spoken again.

              “The numbers are just fine, we’re doing great at the shop.” He turned slightly and whispered in Raylyn’s ear, before he turned with a smile towards his mother again: “She most often believes I’m Michael, my dad.”

              “Marina dear, please stop by the shop later and tell Jefferson to come home for lunch. He needs to eat better that young man.”

              Raylyn looked at Jefferson not quite getting the situation. Then she remembered his ex-wife.

              “Um, mom… this is Ra…” She placed her hand on his chest and smiled at the woman in the bed.

              “Yes, of course I will, Mrs. Daily. What time would you like him home?” Jefferson looked a bit stunned, but smiled sadly and mouthed an almost invisible
thank you.

              “Oh, I’m suddenly feeling a bit tired. I’m down for a nap, Michael. I’ll talk to you later.” The woman said, and turned away from them and just as quickly fell back to sleep.

              Jefferson pointed them out the door, but before the door closed there was a movement in the bed and the small woman rose up on her elbow to face them. “You sound so much nicer today, Marina. You should try to stay that way.” With that she put her little white head back down on the pillow and went to sleep.

              “Thank you. I will.” It came out as a whisper, and then she stepped out the door to where Jefferson was standing in the hallway and closed the door quietly behind her. With no preamble he took the half-step keeping them apart, pulled her into his chest and kissed her hard.

*              *              *

              The great comfort of resting her head on Jefferson muscular shoulder came as no surprise later that night when the house laid quiet and Nova’s travel bed stayed tucked into the darkest corner of his bedroom. She’d been waiting a long time for this moment. For him to welcome her into his home, breaking down barriers he was too conscious to share, and for him to tell her that he loved her. Even though he hadn’t showed anything at that moment, the tension he must have felt introducing Raylyn to his mom, and what his real life was truly like behind the unbreakable walls of pretended toughness and strength, had still shone through.

              She looked at him in the ambient dimness of the room. His facial lines, the fabric of his skin, the unshaven beard going in multiple waves across his face, the way his dark hair got mashed up against the pillow, and how it was possible to trace a few of his freckles down the fair skin of his neck onto the shoulder on which she was resting. Pressing her face, then her lips, onto the soft skin of his upper arm, she couldn’t help herself to smile. This was heaven, she thought. Nothing more or less. Only this. Only the three of them in the room, in the darkness, in the quietness of the night. Breathing, sleeping, loving.

              “What is it, sweetie?” She woke him up.

              “Nothing.” She whispered, extending her naked arm across his chest, pulling him closer. Her subtle, non erotic move, made him smile. Even the rarest and faintest of giggles was heard.

              “What?” She asked quietly, afraid to wake the baby, still asleep tucked away in the corner.