The Brevity of Roses (6 page)

She handed him a towel. “Because you think I want you to tell me I’m your one and only.”

He wrapped the towel around his waist and sat down near the end of her lounge. “All women want that.”

“Well, I don’t.”

He shook the water from his hair and the fabric of her tunic grew transparent where each drop landed. “That is because you think you can change me,” he told her.

“I think no such thing, Jalal.” She stretched one leg across his thighs. “Are you telling me you’re leaving right now?”

“No,” he said and slid his hand up over her knee, “not right now.”

Jalal made love the same way he prepared and served a meal: with care and detail. After a delicious
amuse bouche
poolside, he had brought her upstairs. Afterward, like sated gluttons, they had dozed off.

Meredith woke to find Jalal shirtless and sorting through a pile of clothes at the foot of the bed.
How long, before I feel no thrill at the sight of you?
Though he had now been with her five days, he startled her every time he walked into a room where she sat, or closed a door upstairs, or spoke while she was lost in reading.
How long, before I get used to your presence? Will you stay with me that long?

She sat up, tucking the sheet around her. “Looking for something?”

“I am down to my last clean shirt,” he said. “Do you have anything ready to go to the dry cleaner?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I need to take some things in, and I might as well take yours too.” He shoved one arm through the sleeve of a white polo, then stopped and turned toward her. “Is that all right?”

She smiled. “Yes. But since I need to do some shopping anyway, I’ll drop our things off.”

“All right, you take the cleaning, but if you mean grocery shopping, I will do that on my way back. Your cupboards are bare, and you lack some basic kitchen tools. Do you cook at all?”

“Not if I can help it.” She smiled. “On your way back from where?”

Jalal sat on the bench at the foot of the bed to put on his shoes. “I need more clothes. Some books. My mail. I hate pressed jeans and underwear. You do have a washer and dryer, right? Or is doing laundry another thing you avoid?”

She laughed and hugged her knees to her chest. “Of course, I do laundry.” Evidently, he would be staying a while longer. His confidence comforted her, made her feel secure, as though his presence was a matchbook slipped under the short leg of her teetering life. “Jalal, I’ve been meaning to ask, were you on your way to or from somewhere when we met?”

Brow arched, he turned to her. “Why do you ask?”

She pointed to his duffle bag lying on the floor. “You had a packed bag in your car.”

“Oh! Yes. I was on my way home from Seattle.” He stepped to her side of the bed and leaned over to kiss her. “I will be back in a few hours.”

“A few hours! Do you plan to buy out the whole market?”

For a moment, Jalal looked puzzled. Then, he opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and flashed a smile. “I am a careful shopper,” he said.

After he left, she dressed and touched up her hair and makeup. She paused to examine herself in the mirror. This was not the face that usually peered out at her. Not quite. This one looked less tense, less wary. Deep within her, something had awakened. Something had taken a breath, stretched its limbs, and arched its back.

A week ago, if someone had told her she would soon be living with a gorgeous, younger man, she would have declared them psychotic, but she
was
living with him. Or rather, he was living with her. How had such a drastic change in her life happened so effortlessly? His underwear would be sloshing with hers in the washer in a few minutes.
Amazing
.

She gathered a basketful of clothes and started down the hall to the laundry room.

You know he started to tell you something, then changed his mind.
What is he hiding?

Meredith shook her head.

What if he doesn’t come back? Just hours ago, didn’t he say he would leave you?

Maybe he would; maybe not, but certainly that would not be today. He would return in a few hours. He just needed to get more of his things. That made perfect sense. And to be honest, she could use a little time to herself. She was used to being alone most of the time.

Meredith started the load of clothes and returned to the bedroom to gather the dry cleaning. Too late, she regretted volunteering to drop it off. If she ran into someone she knew, how would she explain Jalal’s clothing? She picked up one of his shirts and held the collar to her nose, breathing in his scent. She gasped at a sudden fluttery aftershock of orgasm, and then smiled. Maybe having him around day and night was not so bad after all.

And who will he give that same thrill to when he does leave?

She shot a glare toward her reflection in the mirror above the dresser. My lord, give it a rest. She gathered the clothes and, as she turned to leave, noticed Jalal’s watch on the bedside table and, lying next to it, his grandfather’s ring. There! See? Jalal had not left her, and for today, nothing else mattered.

She had left Stephen once—well, for only one day, but he had no idea where she was, so she counted it as leaving.

On one of their rare quiet afternoons together, they were reading in the cramped living room of their first apartment. She sat on the floor and Stephen lay on the sofa. “Stephen,” she said, “have you decided to stay at SFSU or are we both applying for new positions for next fall?”

He closed his book, but stared at the ceiling for a moment before responding. “Louis Leakey died this week,” he said, “but his work will continue in Kenya. There’s a new dig starting in Ethiopia, and—”

“Why are you bringing up African research?” Not only had he ignored her question, it seemed he was about to announce a change of plans. “My field statements have all been on Mid-East sites. You said our fieldwork would be in Iran this summer.”

Stephen sat up, glaring. “What the hell does it matter
where
the work is? The point is I’m not part of it!” He stood and walked to the window. “I’m stuck here teaching addle-brained students the fundamentals of anthropology in a damned state university.”

“But we agreed—”

“Yeah, well, we didn’t think it through, did we?”

She willed herself not to cry. “It’s only another year … after this one.”

“That’s assuming your committee signs-off on your dissertation proposal.”

“They will!” She rose to face him, but he remained at the window, his back turned to her. “What didn’t
we
think through, Stephen? It was your plan to teach nearby while I finished my doctoral, then apply for positions somewhere together, buy a home … have a child.”

Stephen sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, that’s right, Meredith, and then we’ll live happily ever after.”

She knew she would cry then, but refused to do it in front of him. She slipped on her shoes, grabbed her purse and jacket on the way out the door, and made it around the corner before she broke down. Not caring if strangers gawked, she sank down on the edge of one of the cement planters set at intervals along the sidewalk and gave free reign to her tears. Not until she wiped away the last of them, did it occur to her she had nowhere to go. All her friends were on loan from Stephen. Meredith crossed the street to a café where she drank peppermint tea and pondered her situation. Going straight back home would make her look ridiculous—pathetic. It was what Stephen would expect of her. In the end, she spent the night in a hotel.

Stephen must have heard her key in the lock when she returned to the apartment early the next afternoon because he met her at the door. “Damn it, Meredith, you could have called—” Shaking his head, he pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue. I love you, and I know I’m impatient. You were right. We agreed on the plan.”

The marriage continued for nearly eleven more years. But they never worked in Iran. Three more years passed before she received her degree. And, somehow, it had never seemed the right time to have a child.

But why was she thinking about that now? Jalal was not Stephen and no one was leaving anyone.

An hour later, she laid the clothes destined for the cleaners on the passenger seat, but as she started to back her car out of the garage, another drove in through the gate. She didn’t recognize the white Mercedes convertible, but as it progressed up the drive, she recognized her friend Judith at the wheel. Meredith switched off her ignition and hurried toward the convertible, hoping to reach it before Judith got out. No such luck.

“What do you think?” Judith gestured toward the Mercedes. As always, when driving a convertible, she wore her classic sunglasses and a silk headscarf, Grace Kelly style.

“Nice, but where’s your BMW?”

Judith laughed. “You know me; I needed a new accessory for fall.
You
should get one. Retire that old Cadillac.”

“Old! I’ve owned it less than a year.”

Judith ignored her. “I’ve been calling you for days. I wish you’d get a cell phone like the rest of us. Where have you been?”

“I went down to L.A. to do some shopping.”
Oh, lord, wrong answer.

“Without my help?” Incensed, Judith headed for the front door, her Prada stilettos clicking on the cobblestone walk. “Show me what you bought!”

“No!”

Judith stopped and pivoted toward her, eyes wide.

“I mean, I can’t right now. I have to run some errands.”

“Oh?” Judith teetered toward her car. “Where do you have to go? I’ll drive you. We can talk on the way.”

“Well …” She cursed Jalal’s dry cleaning as her mind zipped through its Rolodex of excuses in search of a feasible one. When Judith’s cell phone rang, Meredith nearly laughed with relief.

Judith lunged for her purse on the front passenger’s seat. She paced while she listened to the caller. Meredith considered making a break for it while Judith was preoccupied, but what good would that do? The woman was like a terrier; she would keep at it until she got what she was after. Their circle of friends was not large. No one kept a relationship secret for long. Judith knew about Jalal and wanted the details. But Meredith was not playing her friends’ game of picking up men like carryout food to nibble at and throw away. An angry shout broke into her reverie.

“Son of a bitch!” screamed Judith. She tossed her phone onto the passenger seat, slid in behind the wheel of the Mercedes, and slammed the door. Without so much as a backward glance, she started the engine and roared down the drive, screeching to a halt to wait while the gate opened.

Thrilled at the reprieve, Meredith stood watching the convertible drive out of view. She had known Judith long enough to interpret the situation. The phone call had been from the private detective who had trailed her husband, Gary, for weeks. Now, Judith would be headed to divorce court for the third time—but not before she spent as much of Gary’s money as she could.

Jalal sat on the floor writing in his journal while Meredith worked through her yoga routine. Having ended with the corpse pose, she sat up. “Are you writing verse?”

He marked his place and closed the book. “Are you not supposed to keep your mind focused while you do that?”

She sighed. “I find it impossible to ignore your presence. Now, answer my question.”

“Yes, I was writing verse.”

“Do you ever write on the computer?”

“Only when I have to,” he said.

“Why do you write poetry?”

For a moment, he sat still, his eyes downcast, a study in repose. Then he burst into motion, raking his hair off his face, folding his legs into semi-lotus, and leaning forward. “I love words,” he said. “I love the sounds and shapes and rhythms of them.”

“But why poetry, not prose?”

He grimaced. “You will think me sexist if I tell you that.”

“Ha! Now you have to tell me.”

He took a deep breath, then forced it out as if resigned to his fate. “I am the youngest of three sons,” he began, “born between two sets of sisters. My brothers were eight and ten years older, and wanted little to do with me. My schooling was delayed because of my health, and since I spent most of my time at home with my mother and four sisters, I heard a lot of … uh … chatter, so I played a game to see how silent I could be. Sometimes—if my father did not directly address me—I found it possible to get through a whole day without a single utterance. And even when I had to speak, I used as few words as possible to get my meaning across.”

She shook her head. “That might be how you developed the conciseness necessary to write poetry, but that’s not
why
you write it.”

Jalal leaned back against the wall, pulling at his lower lip while he studied the ceiling. He looked at her. “Poetry best allows me to express my emotion.”

“Not good enough.”

He frowned at her. “It forces me to express what I want to keep hidden? It bares my wounds?”

“Yes!” said Meredith.

Jalal studied her for a moment before giving a knowing nod. “You are a poet also.”

“Yes.” She rose and started toward the hall. “And I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”