The Frenchman's Slow Seduction (2 page)

“You’ll find out one
day.”

I find it funny that
Shane should so neatly fit into a stereotype: the quintessential
bad boy. His light brown hair is always messy, and he has a slight
scar down by his chin. It’s a rough, handsome look. He’s the kind
of man that mothers busily warn their daughters against. It hurts
that my own mother should have married one.

“Doc looking for me?”
Shane asks.

“Of course.”

Putting on his white
lab coat, he walks towards Mike’s office.

The next time I see
Mike, he looks a lot happier.

“Thank God that’s
over,” Tim says, as we finish the last surgery of the day. “What a
gruelling list. Why are Fridays so crazy?”

I laugh. “To keep us
humans humble.” Looking at the clock, I see that it’s almost six,
an hour past our usual closing time. In addition to the scheduled
surgeries, Mike and I had to perform emergency surgery on a cat
badly injured by a fall from a fourth floor apartment window.

Before heading home, I
search for Mike and find him in his office, going over test
results. He confirms the diagnosis of cancer for the yellow Lab.
Tests show that it’s advanced. “I’ve advised the owners, Meg and
Tom, to euthanize Nick,” Mike says. “He’s in a lot of pain and it’s
only going to get a lot worse. They’re going to think about it.
They brought him all the way from Denmark. He was in quarantine for
six months, and they only got him back two weeks ago. They blame
themselves.”

Unlike many vets, Mike
has never desensitized himself to suffering. His compassion lures
me to him over and over again.

Smiling, he says, “How
about a movie tonight?”

I shake my head. “I
can’t. I’ve got an SPCA meeting looming ahead of me tonight and it
promises to be a real zonker.”

He laughs. “Better you
than me.” With the devil in his eye, he puts down his papers and
walks towards me. “Maybe I should give you some encouragement.”

The instant Mike’s lips
touch mine, we hear the chime of the clinic door.

“Hey Lucy, is Dad
around?” we hear Mike’s son, Gordon, ask.

Mike lets out a slow
breath and lets me go. “Call me when you get home from your
meeting, Rach, no matter what time it is. I’m dying to be with
you.”

Later that night, when
I get home after the meeting, I head straight to the kitchen for
some lemonade. The meeting was painful in the extreme and lasted
until eight thirty. Some committee members just do not know when to
stop talking.

After downing a tall
glass of lemonade, I phone Mike. “Hi, sweet peach,” I tell him,
“I’m home, I’m naked, and I’m waiting.”

He lets out a groan.
“You shouldn’t do that to me, Rach. I won’t be able to get that
image out of my brain. I might crash the car on the way over.”

I laugh. “I was just
thinking about how nice it would be to have your naked body pressed
up against mine.”

“Enough, Rachel. I’ll
be right over.”

After a shower, I
unlock the apartment door and wait in bed. When Mike finds me, he
tosses off his clothes and joins me. Driven by forces neither of us
truly understands, we devour one another. In the middle of the
night, I kiss Mike awake. Semiconscious, senses heightened, we have
the kind of sex that leaves you wondering in the morning if you
dreamed it. In the morning, it’s Mike’s turn. With his hands under
my hips and his mouth against my neck, he makes love to me
agonizingly slowly. Neither of us has spoken a word since we
started this marathon.

As we’re leaving for
work, Mike shakes his head. “We’re going to be wrecks today. Thank
heavens it’s Saturday.”

I smile. Saturday is our half day.

Chapter 2

Thursday afternoon, I
feel excited as I’m driving towards Northcliff Manor, a seniors
assisted care facility. It’s my first day as a volunteer visitor.
I’m due at four o’clock, and I’m right on time.

Mike is really
reasonable with work hours. Mondays and Saturdays, I work a half
day, and Thursdays I get off at 3:30. Mike believes in quality of
life. His work motto is “quality, not quantity”, whereas other vet
clinic owners will work you into the ground.

After parking the car
in the manor parking lot, I walk towards the building, enjoying the
warm sultry breeze.

August is my favorite
month; I don’t know why, other than it’s the only month in Michigan
when you’re guaranteed to have hot weather—what Grams called the
dog days of summer.
So easily, I can see her sitting on her
porch, fanning herself with the church bulletin, telling all and
sundry, “Good heavens, it’s hotter than the devil’s anvil.” But I
love that kind of heat. Memories of the dog days are what get me
through Michigan’s bitterly cold winters.

The manor isn’t that
bad. I’d prepared myself for white walls, plastic chairs, and the
air of sterility you usually encounter in these kinds of places:
someone here has made an effort. The subdued lighting, muted
wallpaper, mismatched wingback chairs, and Victorian floor lamps
have created a welcoming homey effect.

The volunteer
coordinator has arranged for me to visit with Mrs Beacham, a
seventy-five year old woman almost fully recovered from a stroke.
Approaching Suite 402, I find the door open. In a chair by a window
a woman is reading.

“Mrs Beacham?” I say.
“I'm Rachel Wiley, a volunteer. Would you like some company?”

After a few moments,
she looks up and says, “Don’t think you’re doing me any favors.
I’ve had my fill of volunteers wanting to put something interesting
on their resumes and acting like they’re here to do me a favor. I
know the routine, and I’m not in the mood.”

Her directness makes me
smile. “I don’t need to put anything on my resume—”

“Look, love, you can
fool yourself if you want to, but don’t try to fool me. You’re here
because you need to be here for some reason; and at present, I’m
just not interested. Now, if you could think of some way to make it
interesting for me, I might reconsider.”

Enjoying myself, I say,
“I don’t know why I’m here, Mrs Beacham. I just am. Why don’t we
agree on a business arrangement? If it doesn’t suit one of us,
we’ll cancel the contract.”

She gives me a direct
look. “The arrangement will be no nosy questions, no superficial
talk, just a little bit of living and some decent
conversation.”

It’s only when I cross
the room to shake on our deal that I notice an other-worldly
quality about Mrs Beacham, which is heightened by her pale yellow
pants and cream angora sweater. She’s a small woman, what people in
the fashion industry would call petite, and has dyed auburn hair.
A link to her past?
Already, she has shown herself to be a
woman of contrast, her Scottish accent engaging you while her terse
manner keeps you a comfortable distance away.

“Call me Verna,” she
says. “How much time do you have?”

“About an hour.”

“Alright, let’s go for
a walk.”

I’m noticing small
things about Mrs Beacham, like the way she avoids eye contact
unless speaking to you, and the slight limp on her left side. It’s
just something I do. When I meet people, my mental register takes a
complete inventory: clothes, hair, manner, smell. No detail is too
small to neglect. It’s a parlor trick that paid high dividends when
I was young: fewer scars. When my father came out of the bedroom
smelling of stale alcohol, his forehead furrowed and his upper lip
dehydrated to a point, and dressed only in his burgundy terry cloth
housecoat with the cigarette holes, I knew to run like hell.

Verna suggests a walk
in Hillside Park, so we head outdoors. The afternoon sun is shining
brightly, and I’m glad for the shade of trees. There’s something
magical about a Michigan summer.

When we reach the park,
Verna sits on a bench, and I join her.

Turning to me, she
says, “Are you afraid of where the truth might take you?”

I smile. “Probably. I
mean, I love the thought of total honesty, but if I practiced it
I’d be afraid of the effect on other people.”

Verna reaches into her
carry bag, grabs a handful of seed, and throws it over the ground.
With confidence, pigeons land all around her. “Then you’ve
misunderstood the question,” she says. “Divine honesty has to do
with your own honesty, your own relationship with the universe. You
can’t alter another person’s truth, you can only follow your own.
Are you afraid to discover the truth as it applies to you?”

I shrug. “Maybe, just a
bit. But it doesn’t stop me from looking. Guess I’m pretty much
driven to find it. Aren’t we all?”

She frowns. “No,
Rachel, a lot of people run the other way.” Looking into the
distance, she calls out, “Moses, Moses,” and an albino pigeon
swoops in, lands at her feet, and eats from her hand. Glancing at
me, she says, “I’m Scottish and I’m superstitious, Rachel. I
believe in psychic energy. You’re surrounded by confusion. Can you
tell me why?”

Since my grandmother
taught me to respect spirituality, I give Verna’s question serious
consideration. “I guess I’ve been distracted lately,” I tell her.
“I feel like something isn’t right, but I can’t quite figure out
what it is.”

She nods. “Intuition
always kicks in before the brain does. You need your tarot cards
read.”

I laugh. “Maybe I do.
What are they?”

She holds out the bag
of seed, and I take a handful.

“They’re cards that can
guide you in life and help you look into the future,” she says.
“They prepare you for it. We could get Elizabeth Gretcham to do it.
She lives at the manor. She’s very good. I’ll ask her if you
like.”

“Sure,” I say, tossing
my seed. “My grandmother used to read my cards when I was little.
She used a deck of playing cards.”

Verna smiles. “They
work too.”

On the walk back to
Northcliff Manor, I tell Verna about my work as a vet. When we
reach the parking lot, we make plans to meet again on Monday
morning at ten.

Leaving the manor, I go
to Mike’s place in the suburbs. Driving past the closely built
houses, I feel claustrophobic. The yards, heavily sprayed with
chemicals, are devoid of life, and the dandelions, bees, and birds
I enjoyed as a child are nowhere to be seen.

Walking into Mike’s
house, I see that Gordon has unexpectedly come for dinner. At
nineteen, he still sits on the sofa waiting to be served. Mike
walks over to greet me. It amazes me that we have this attraction
for one another. At forty-four, he’s fifteen years older than I am,
but when he holds me and looks into my eyes, I just don’t see the
age difference. Gordon looks like his dad—they both have the same
clean-cut boyish look—but there are no other similarities.

“So, how’s life at the
manor?” Mike asks.

“Different, very
different.”

“Well, a change is as
good as a vacation.”

Feeling desperate, I
say, “Mike, how about going to a movie tonight?”

“Sounds like a great
idea. Hey, Gordon,” he calls out, “how about going to a movie
tonight?”

My idea for a
stress-free evening has gone cold.

“I thought we’d just
hang out in front of the TV,” Gordon says.

Mike looks at me like
he’s done so many times before. “Maybe tomorrow night.”

Feeling like the life
has just been sucked out of me, I say, “I’m kind of tired anyway.
Do you mind if I take a rain check on dinner?”

Having had a hard day
as well, he’s too tired to try to change my mind. “Sure, honey,
that’d be fine.”

Gordon shifts around on
the sofa and noisily yawns.

I know what Mike will
do next; it’s the reason I was attracted to him: his simplicity, no
contrivances. He’ll come to me, even with Gordon in the house, and
he’ll kiss, touch, or hold me, but this time I let him off the
hook.

“
Bye, Gordon,”
I call out.
“Great seeing you.”
I give Mike a quick kiss and fly out of
the house.

Chapter 3

Driving home from
Mike’s place, I feel antsy. On impulse, I decide to stop by
Michelle’s place to see if she wants to go to a movie. We’ve hardly
seen each other since I started seeing Mike. For six years during
university, we lived together, and she’s like a sister to me.

As I park in front of
Michelle’s apartment building, I see her on her balcony.

“Howdy, stranger,” she
calls out. “I’ll be right down.”

Michelle has a manner,
a look,
an aura,
that instantly puts you in a better place.
Hers is an unconditional friendship. Once, when I apologized for
saying something rather bluntly, she said, “Lighten up, Rachel. If
you love someone and they say something that can be taken in a good
or a bad way, you take it the good way. Besides, I know what a
bitch you can be.”

Running out of the
building, Michelle gives me a bear hug; then she holds me at arm’s
length and says, “Shit, you look awful. So this is what love does
to you?”

I shrug. “I’ve had a
hard day. What about it?”

“Christ, you look like
you’ve had a hard ten years. Alright, you’ve busted out for the
night, so let’s get on with the good times.”

I suggest a movie,
which she readily agrees to. The movie—a comedy—turns out to be
pretty good. Leaving the theatre, we head to a nearby bar, where
Michelle knows a good reggae band is playing. From the parking lot,
we hear and feel the music pulsing. As we walk into the bar, warm
moist air hits us. The place is packed.

Easily, we slip into a
night made magical by music that is hotter than the room, and
rhythms that carry us off to the Caribbean. In no time we get lost
in the sultry party atmosphere and get slightly drunk from one too
many vodkas with orange juice.