She thought back to her conversation from the day before with Tom Forrest. He was proud of the way she was handling the Cabrio story, he said. “You’re incredible, Carmen!” he’d told her. “They’re eating it up. Keep those tidbits flowing.”
She had hesitated in her response, not certain how to word it, not certain how it would be received.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m using him,” she said softly. “Exploiting him.”
There was dead silence on the line.
“Tom?”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” Tom’s voice conveyed something like disgust. “This is your job, Carmen, and there was a time you were better at it than anyone else I know.”
“Right,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
There was no point in trying to explain her feelings to him. Tom’s skin had grown thick and calloused over the years. He didn’t know what it was like to suddenly wake up one morning with your skin full of tender spots. He wouldn’t be able to understand how easily she bruised.
She thought of Mia’s allusions to her cruelty, Jeff’s complete disdain for her. Only Chris seemed to understand.
He always had.
32
THE MOMENT CARMEN APPEARED on the television screen, Mia set down the wire cutters and stood to turn up the volume. Carmen was wearing an aquamarine dress tonight. Every night this week, she’d worn something new, something bright and bold. There had definitely been a change in her on-screen presence lately. She held her head a little higher; her smile was sure and confident. Tonight, though, Carmen wasn’t smiling. Her demeanor was serious and Mia guessed she was about to divulge some piece of information about Jeff to her audience, undoubtedly something Jeff would rather the world not know. Mia sat down again behind the wire armature for the fountain and waited, tense and frowning, for Carmen’s first words.
“News Nine has learned that Jeff Cabrio’s stepfather was arrested during Jeff’s senior year of high school,” Carmen said. “The charge was a murder committed several years earlier related to a drug deal. Jeff was then placed in foster care. I had the opportunity today to speak with his foster father in New Jersey. He stated that Jeff had been one of the most difficult youngsters he and his wife had ever taken in, a genius whose tumultuous family life made it hard for him to find happiness. He described Jeff as single-minded, sad, angry and unreachable.”
Mia’s eyes were drawn to the coffee table, where the unfinished sculpture of Jeff rested under a sheet of plastic. He hadn’t changed much over the years, she thought. He hadn’t changed at all.
SHE WAS GETTING OUT of the tub a few hours later when she heard Jeff calling the kitten. Wrapping a towel around herself, she peered out the bathroom window. She couldn’t see him, but she heard that high-pitched questioning whistle he always used with the cat.
“Hey cat!” he called. “Come here, kitty.”
She put on her underwear and the sundress she’d worn that day and went outside.
He stood on the rim of the canyon, hands on his hips.
“Jeff?”
He turned to watch her walking toward him. “The cat’s missing,” he said, when she was standing next to him. “He was gone this morning. You know how he loves to play ‘watch cat’ and sit on the window sill in my living room?”
She nodded.
“Well, he must have slipped out the side of the screen where it isn’t fastened to anything. I was hoping he’d come home sometime during the day.”
He looked away from her, probably reading her thoughts. Surely he’d heard it too last night—the too-close howling of the coyotes.
She began calling for the kitten, walking a few yards down into the canyon to join Jeff in a search she felt certain was futile, sensing his desperate need of the ruse. She listened in vain for the squawky little meow. Darkness was falling rapidly over the canyon. The chaparral and scrub oak sent long shadows across the earth, every shadow as dark and black as the cat.
Suddenly, Jeff turned and stalked out of the canyon, walking toward his cottage. Mia heard him step onto the porch, but continued her search. Most likely, he was coming up with some wonderful Jeff-like solution to the problem. He would emerge from the cottage with a whistle carved from the limb of a tree or some magical piece of equipment designed to pinpoint the cat’s whereabouts. At the very least, she expected him to bring out the box of kibble, which they could shake in the hope of luring the kitten home.
When he didn’t return after several minutes, however, Mia left the canyon herself and walked to his cottage. The front door was open. He wasn’t in the living room, where his usual stacks of papers rested on the coffee table, nor was he in the kitchen.
“Jeff?” She walked slowly down the hallway toward the one bedroom, where she found him lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The back of his arm rested across his forehead, and she thought of how Carmen had described him on television earlier that evening: sad, angry, and unreachable.
She leaned against the doorjamb. “Maybe he’s okay,” she said. “Maybe someone found him and took him in.”
He looked at her from under his arm. “Did you see the dragon lady on the news tonight?” he asked as if he hadn’t heard her words of consolation.
“Yes.” Mia hesitated, but Jeff seemed to want her to continue. “It made me very sad,” she said. “Growing up was so difficult for you.”
He nearly smiled at her. “I wish Carmen Perez had a fraction of your compassion.” He patted the bed next to him and, against her better judgment, Mia stepped into the room and lowered herself to the mattress. Jeff took her hand, but let go quickly. Since that night in her cottage, he hadn’t touched her. Right now, though, Mia wanted the warmth of his fingers on hers. She pulled his hand to her lap, locking both of her own hands around it.
“I’m jinxed, Mia.” Jeff tightened his lips, the smile gone. “People should avoid me. I’m a danger to everyone. I can’t even take care of a goddamned cat. You should go back to your cottage and stay there. Lock the door and don’t let me in no matter how long or how hard I beg.”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“I wish I were.”
There was a rustling noise from outside. “Shh.” She let go of his hand and turned off the lamp next to the bed. Raising herself to her knees, she leaned close to the window screen, searching the darkness outside for the sleek black kitten.
“Do you see anything?”
“No,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to the screen. “But it would be hard to see a black cat out there.”
At first, Jeff’s touch on the back of her thigh was so light she barely noticed it. It might have been accidental, a random pass of his fingers across the skirt of her sundress. But she knew it was no accident. He didn’t even feign subtlety as he circled the back of her thigh with his palm. Mia froze. She had to stop him, but there was no part of her willing to lose the delicious sensation of his touch.
He rolled toward her, raising the skirt of her dress just enough to let him press his mouth against her knee, and she closed her eyes and gripped the headboard of the bed in her hands. She was safe, she calculated quickly. He was lying down; he couldn’t possibly reach the left side of her chest. So, she surrendered to the pleasure as he stroked her thighs through her cotton dress, surrendered to it as his touch grew more probing and intimate. From the canyon, she heard the hum of crickets on the soft summer air. Other than that, the only sound was her breathing. It was deep and quick by the time Jeff slipped his hand beneath her dress, jagged when he touched her between her bare thighs.
Was he watching her? Could he see the need in her face in the darkness? He stroked her through the wet silk, then inside, and she lost track of what he was doing to her body. His fingers seemed everywhere at once, and she rocked against them, abandoning any last remnant of inhibition. She clutched his shoulder as she came and heard her own voice slip out into the canyon in a moan of pleasure.
Jeff sat up then, quickly drawing her into hi
s arms and kissing her hard as he reached for the top button of her dress.
“No.” She held him away from her, her hands flat on his chest. The muscles in her thighs quivered.
“Mia, for Christ’s sake!” He leaned away from her. “What’s with you?”
She held her arms in her usual protective position across her chest, her fingers locked over the top button of her dress. He was so close, his eyes so piercing. She looked down into her lap, while he smoothed his fingertips over her cheeks, cupped her face in his palm.
“You’ve got to tell me,” he insisted. “What are you afraid of?”
She hesitated only a second or two, then looked him squarely in the eye. “I had cancer,” she said. “I’ve had a mastectomy.”
His face registered stunned surprise, then he shut his eyes, pulling her into his arms again. “Too young,” he said.
She savored the way he was holding her, tightly, with no fear of her or her body. It was a moment before she realized he was rocking her, and another before she became aware of her tears. She leaned hard against him and let herself cry like a child.
“Suddenly everything makes sense,” Jeff said.
She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “What do you mean?”
“Why you’ve frozen up on me every other time I’ve touched you, but now, when I was touching you far more intimately than I ever have before, you were completely receptive. I didn’t expect that response out of you.”
Mia colored at the memory.
“I liked it a lot,” he said. “Your response.”
“Me too.”
“And the mastectomy explains why you’re out here in Valle Rosa, doesn’t it? It explains what you’re running away from.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “In October I can have reconstructive surgery. I’m hibernating.”
“Your left side, am I right?”
She frowned, alarmed. “How could you tell?”
“You’re protective of your left side.” He lowered his head to kiss her slowly, but suddenly pulled away.
“Glen,” he said. “How does he fit into this?”
She sighed. “He was repulsed. He said I was grotesque.”
“Cad.”
“He was right, though. It’s hideous.”
He pulled away from her, reaching for the top button of her dress.
She caught his hand. “No, Jeff, please.”
He looked her in the eye. “Do you want to be friends or lovers?” he asked.
“Both,” she whispered.
“Then you have to let me do this.”
“But I’m afraid once you do, we won’t be able to be lovers. After he saw my scar, Glen said that he couldn’t get”—she hunted for a word—”he couldn’t get aroused around me.”
Jeff was unbuttoning her dress as she spoke, but when she’d finished speaking he stilled his fingers and looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he leaned back on his elbow to unbuckle his belt, unzip his jeans. He took her hand and drew it inside, pressing it around his erection, and she sucked in her breath at his brazenness.
“Our litmus test,” he said, nodding southward. “Let’s see what happens.” He finished unbuttoning her dress. “Raise your arms.”
She had to let go of him to do so, but after he had lifted the dress over her head and dropped it behind him on the bed, she returned her hand to the steely warmth inside his jeans, smiling to herself as he responded with a groan.
He reached behind her to unfasten her bra, and she held her breath as he slipped it from her shoulders. It fell onto her wrist, heavy with the weight of the prosthesis, but she wasn’t about to let go of him now. The image of her body as it had looked in the mirror the other day flashed through her mind and she shut her eyes in distress, fighting the urge to cover herself from his gaze.
“Mia,” he said, and she heard the amusement in his voice. “You’re hanging on for dear life down there. Can you relax?”
She shook her head.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve seen your chest, and I’m still here.”
“Glen said it was okay, too. I only realized he was repulsed when I overheard him talking to my sister about it.”
“I’m not Glen.” Jeff gently withdrew her hand from his jeans and stood to take off his jeans,. He motioned her to stand up, and she clung to his shoulders as he lowered her dress over her hips.
“We… I used to use a diaphragm,” she said, “but I didn’t bring it with me to Valle Rosa.”
“I’ve had a vasectomy. Which is something I regretted until right this minute, because I really wouldn’t want to have to put this off until tomorrow.” He bent low to kiss her, to hold her tightly, and she thought she would never be able to get close enough to him.
“No one’s held me in so long,” she said.
He drew away and she saw concern in his eyes. “I need your guidance,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know if I should ignore your right breast or not.”
“Oh.” She closed her eyes, her breast nearly aching for his touch. “Please don’t ignore any part of me.”
He pulled her onto the bed again, and she lost herself once more to the gifts he offered, offering some of her own in return. He was above her; inside her, when they heard a sudden rapping on the front door. Jeff raised his head, the look in his face nothing short of terror. The knock came again, and he pulled out of her swiftly, reaching for his jeans as he got off the bed. She caught his terror although she didn’t understand it. She pulled her dress over her head, forgetting her bra and her underpants, and followed him out to the living room. He motioned her to move back into the hallway, then seemed to brace himself before opening the door.
Chris stood on the porch, holding the kitten in his arms. “I found him in the crawl space under my cottage,” he said, stepping into the living room.
Jeff started to laugh, the relief in his face, in the entire room, nearly palpable. Chris looked from him to Mia, where she stood in the hallway, and back again, and his expression showed instant understanding of what she was doing there. Mia’s feet were bare, and she’d managed to button only three of the buttons on her dress; Jeff wore no shirt and, in his rush, had forgotten to snap his jeans.
Jeff reached for the cat, who squawked hoarsely as he nestled into a dark ball against his owner’s bare chest. “I thought he was a goner,” he said. “You want to come in?”
“Uh, no.” Chris grinned. “I get the distinct feeling I’m intruding.”
Jeff didn’t argue with him. He held the cat up in the air. “Thanks for bringing him home,” he said.
Jeff closed the door on Chris, hit the lock, then turned to face Mia, still smiling. “Could you look a little guiltier, please? I don’t think he got the picture.”
“Me.” She laughed. “You answered the door with your pants falling off.”
“Well.” He put his arm around her and began walking her back toward the bedroom. “As long as Chris thinks we’ve already completed the dirty deed, we might as well go through with it.”
“YOU KNOW WHAT YOU are, Mia?” he asked later, when they lay in his bed, tired and full of each other and, as far as Mia could discern, content.
“What?”
“You are a wood sprite who’s gotten herself trapped in a jar.”
“Oh,” she said, sadly. “I think maybe I can come out every once in a while now.”
Jeff drew in a long breath, squeezing her tightly as he let it out. “Listen to me Mia,” he said. “I’ve… you’ve been good for me. I didn’t expect to find a friend here. And I find that I need you in a way I never expected to need anyone ever again. I need you in a way I haven’t wanted to need anyone, because it complicates things.”
He was quiet for a moment, and Mia said nothing, breathing in the soap-and-sweat smell of his chest.
“But you have to understand something,” he said finally. “I can’t offer you anything. I can’t stay here much longe
r, and I can’t even answer your questions about why I have to go. I know it’s unfair to you. Completely unfair.”
She listened to his words without believing them. “I want to be with you as long as you’re here.” She heard the lack of conviction in her voice. He wouldn’t leave now. He couldn’t.
“And you understand that the fact that you’ve lost your breast will have nothing to do with me going, right?”
She nodded against his chest.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “Tell me about the cancer.”
She spoke softly. She had avoided thinking about cancer, she told him, despite her mother’s experience and the statistical probability that she too would contract the disease. She had decided she would begin worrying about it when she was thirty-five.
“I never checked myself. I closed my eyes to the entire possibility. I found the lump when I was showering one day, and even then I tried to ignore it.”
“You don’t strike me as that irrational.”
“Only when it comes to breast cancer. They did a lumpectomy, but couldn’t get clean margins, and because of the type of cancer it was, they decided they’d better take the entire breast. I worry now that I’ll get it in my other breast.”
“I think I’d want to have my other breast removed, too, so I wouldn’t have to think about it.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you were a woman.”
“Maybe not.” He leaned up on an elbow to look at her, resting one warm hand on the flat plane of her chest. “You’ve put your life on hold until you can have the reconstruction surgery, but you’ve survived, Mia. You’re alive now. You shouldn’t waste this time.”
She looked up at him for a moment. “Okay,” she said finally, reaching for him, wrapping her leg over his hip and pulling him close to her. “Let’s not waste a minute.’’
THEY WERE LYING EXHAUSTED in each other’s arms an hour later when they heard the faint strains of Chris’s guitar. Mia lifted her head to listen.