“Are you in character for some play or something?” she asked when I stopped speaking.
“In what?” I queried in return.
She stared at me.
She then inquired, “Are you from England?”
I stared back at her.
It was not lost on me I was much different in manner and speech to those of this world. Until I found my footing, at times such as these, an explanation might be required.
Therefore, I gave her one.
“We both are from Lunwyn,” I shared, flinging a hand Josette’s way. “It’s a land far from here. Though we speak the same language, things are much different there.”
“I’ve never heard of that,” she turned to her compatriot on a stool at Josette’s feet. “Have you heard of it?”
That woman shook her head.
“It’s very difficult to get to. Quite, undeveloped, as it were, in comparison, of course, with your,” I threw out my other hand again, indicating the soil under the floor on which we sat, “America.”
“Right,” she said. “Okay.”
“So, to end, are we nearly finished?” I asked.
“Yeah, uh, just, you know, the massage and polish. Maybe twenty minutes. But you should probably text now.”
I nodded. “My gratitude.”
“Right,” she mumbled then went back to my feet whereupon she commenced massaging them and my calves.
Marvelous.
I had to request another who worked at the establishment to help me liberate my phone from my reticule so I didn’t spoil my varnish and it was not easy poking at it with wet nails.
I accomplished it, a whoosh noise happened telling me it was sent, the phone sounded in my hand, making both Josette and I grin at each other like schoolgirls, but my grin deepened when I saw Noc’s name above a little bubble that was underneath my little bubble.
Be right there, sugarlips, it decreed.
Ah Noc.
My Noc.
A goodness I earned.
The best there could be.
* * * * *
Half an hour later, I was not thinking such kind thoughts about Noc.
I was grinding my teeth.
This was because he was laughing his arse off, doing it carrying me to his vehicle, with me wearing brightly-colored, flimsy, weightless pieces of nothing that looked like the footwear Josette had been wearing since she donned this-world clothes, except much less substantial.
I had been shuffling along, rather gracelessly (to my utter despair), holding my shoes and my bag, until Noc took pity on me and swung me up in his arms.
He didn’t take that much pity considering he did it as I’d mentioned, laughing his arse off.
Apparently, after a pedicure was complete, you either had to wait some time for your varnish to dry or you were to arrive in footwear that would not demolish the efforts your pedicure person put into making your feet look better than they ever had. Something you’d paid no mind to all your life. Something that seemed, from the moment the last brush of varnish went on, crucial to existence.
This bringing of the appropriate footwear being something I did not do.
Noc walked me out to his car, opened the door while still carrying me, and ducking us carefully to avoid slamming us both into the roof, he deposited me in my seat.
Through this, I had ignored his existence, a difficult task considering he was carrying me, but one I pulled off with aplomb (in my estimation), until that moment when I could no longer do so since he placed his hand on my jaw and forced me to look at him.
He was still laughing.
This meant I began glaring.
“We’ll get you some real flip-flops for the next time you go to a spa,” he said, continuing not to put the slightest effort into quelling his mirth.
“I’ve been in your world not but two days and I still can say with some authority I am not a flip-flop person,” I announced haughtily.
His waning laughter burst forth yet again and he felt, for some reason, the need to kiss me even while allowing the full force of his hilarity to continue to flow.
This he did.
When he ended it, he was only chuckling.
Regardless of the fact that his laughter tasted lovely on my tongue, I was still glaring.
He took in my glare and that made him no less amused.
“Will it help if I say you look cute, even shuffling like an invalid?” he asked.
“No…it…will…not,” I snapped.
Noc. Still no less amused.
“How about if I tell you, three hours ago, someone asked me if you could get any more beautiful, I woulda said it was an impossibility, but I’ve been proved wrong?”
“How about if I tell you, if you remove yourself from my vicinity, perhaps I’ll no longer wish to kick you somewhere unpleasant?” I returned with false sweetness.
“Is it vanity, baby?” he queried, now only grinning, which was no less annoying, “Or pride?” he finished.
“It’s both,” I admitted the complete truth without embarrassment.
He shook his head, the grin remaining in place. “That’s my girl. Someone says you’re cute and beautiful, you get pissed. Or in this instance, stay pissed. Someone asks if you’re vain or prideful, you claim that without a second’s delay.”
“It’s true.”
“It is, I’m sure,” he returned. “But you’re still cute and you’re definitely fuckin’ beautiful.”
I decided that was a good time to share something important.
This I did.
“I think, with this conversation, that it’s clear that even you, who I hold dear, cannot cajole me out of a pique by saying lovely things. That even for you, my piques, as they always have been, run deep and are lasting and require me having time to fume before they naturally die away. So I think that you need to kiss me, but do it swiftly, then exit my vicinity, drive me and Josette somewhere in order to feed us and do that immediately.”
“Even me,” he said instead of doing as I asked.
“Even you,” I confirmed.
“Even me.”
Something in the way he said that pulled me out of my irritation and fully into that moment.
When I arrived at that moment I saw that Noc held no humor. He was looking into my eyes, his shining with a light so beautiful, my soul lit in such a way it felt it would never go dark again.
“Even you,” I whispered.
He held my gaze and worlds could have collided. Millennium could have passed. Stars could have fallen from the sky.
Nothing could have intruded on our moment.
After some time (I fear, rudely, a good deal of it), a subtle clearing of her throat brought our attention to the fact that Josette (wearing flip-flops and having some experience in them so she had no issues) had followed us and she was currently sitting in the back of Noc’s vehicle.
This broke the moment, causing Noc to lean in, touch his mouth to mine, but after he’d done that, instead of doing the rest I’d demanded, he put his mouth to my ear.
“All my life, thirty-eight years, only you,” he whispered there before he promptly moved away and closed my door.
With frozen body but shifting eyes, I watched as he walked around the front of his car, what he’d delivered in my ear settling with the flutter of butterfly wings around my heart.
“I love him,” Josette whispered into the confines of the car. “Love, love, love him,” she went on, and before Noc opened his door, she finished, “For you.”
I did too.
By the goddess.
I…did…too.
* * * * *
“My word, Franka, have we arrived in the lap of the gods?” Josette asked reverently.
I didn’t answer, though if I had, my answer might have been yes.
Noc did.
“No, babe. It’s just the Nordstrom shoe department.”
Slowly, her head turned and her gleaming eyes lifted to Noc.
“Can I—?”
she started.
“Have at it,” he told her, tipping his head to the vast area beyond us filled with tables and shelves covered in a dizzyingly delightful spectacle of this-world shoes. “You find something you like, let me know. I’ll get you a salesperson and we’ll sort you out.”
“I love you,” she breathed, eyes still gleaming.
I pressed into Noc’s side, my lips curved into a deep smile.
Noc chuckled.
Josette hesitantly approached the first table of shoes, staring at it reverently, her manner one of care, such as you would approach a large chest tumbling over with such treasure you couldn’t quite believe your eyes.
Noc used his arm about me to curl me to his front. I took my gaze from Josette and lifted it to his.
“I cannot believe I’m asking you this,” he began. “I’m thinkin’ I’m breakin’ a seal I’ll regret. But you ready to learn how to shop?”
This confused me.
“Why would you regret this?” I queried. “You and I both are criminally wealthy. In this world, that would be literally. Thus I can afford to spoil myself, and Josette, without worry.”
His lips twitched before he answered, “Right. Probably good I explain. We’re gonna do this today. We’re gonna kick the shit out of it. We’re gonna set you and Josette up. Fill my Suburban with stuff that you dig that’ll make you girls happy and make you feel more comfortable here. And until you two can get around on your own, I have a feeling I’ll be doing that more than once. But just to warn you, when you get used to getting around by yourselves, you can ask me to go shopping with you once every five years. No more, but you could go with less. And if you feel like buying me shit, have at it. I have a feeling I’ll get off on watching you trying on clothes and shoes. I never get off on having to buy shit for myself.”
There was so much there, I had no idea how to begin.
I wanted to comment on the “once every five years,” but I suspected my best play with that was to let it lie and hope that I had many opportunities in my future to hit this quota.
So I focused on something else.
“You don’t enjoy purchasing garments for yourself?”
“Nope.”
I was even more confused.
“But, you always look so nice. Your selections are most attractive. They suit you completely. So much so they’d indicate you get great enjoyment out of making those selections.”
His eyes warmed at my words, and when I was done uttering them, he replied, “I failed to mention, Sue, my dad’s woman, likes to shop. Christmas and birthdays are off the hook. It makes Dad apoplectic. He keeps telling us we’re wearing his retirement. That doesn’t stop her. I haven’t catalogued it all, but I’m pretty sure nothing I’ve worn since I’ve known you I bought for myself.”
“Interesting,” I murmured.
His arm got tighter in a manner I wasn’t certain I liked.
When I caught the look on his face, I knew I was correct in having that feeling.
“And, just to put it all out there, Cora, the dead one, bought me a ton of shit when I was with her working undercover on that illegal gambling gig I was investigating.”
“Ah,” I whispered, quite in the know about this as it, too, had been shared with me (carefully) by the lovely, and alive, Cora, not to mention Noc had not spoken of it at length, but he also had not shied away from mentioning it before.
“Frannie,” he called, regardless of the fact I was right there.
“Yes?” I asked.
He was studying me closely. “Not that this is for Nordstrom shoe department, and I can make sure Josette is good for a while so we can go get a coffee if we need some alone time to hash it out, but things have changed with us and,” he kept studying me, “you seem down with that.”
“Well, I am,” I shared.
He looked dubious. “You are?”
I pressed closer.
“I am not your first lover, Noc, and you are not mine. It would be unkind to make you feel uncomfortable and definitely not contrite for having lovers before me, or further, making you feel unease in mentioning them when you speak of your life. But more, it would be a waste of words and emotion for both of us in going over such when it’s history. We’re together now and it’s only our future that interests me, not a study of the past we can do nothing about.”
He grinned. “Just in case you forgot, gonna remind you that you’re the shit, sugarlips.”
I smiled back. “Indeed I am.”
He bent and gave me a brush of the lips, lifted his head and queried, “Can’t believe I’m askin’ you this, but you want more shoes?”
I couldn’t believe he was asking that either.
Thus I didn’t answer.
I just broke free, took his hand and entered the lap of the gods.
* * * * *
I opened then closed the mirror which was actually a cupboard in Noc’s bathroom.
I did it again.
And again.
I smiled to myself at the ingenious use of space that included a charming hidden compartment and then opened it again in order to put the bottles I’d purchased at the mall inside it.
These bottles included cleanser, something I would need to use on my own face to rid it of the paint without Josette at Noc’s to assist me (and this, oddly, elated me).
Also moisturizing lotion, which the woman who sold us our cleansers shared with us was a crucial element in our “skincare regime,” this moisturizer having two varieties, day and night.
And then there was toner, something which was explained but I still wasn’t quite clear on its purpose, just that it was vital to my skin appearing “healthy” and required Noc to take us to a place called a “pharmacy” so we could buy “cotton wipes” in order to use it.
The perfume I’d purchased I’d set on the counter surrounding Noc’s basin. The bottle was far too attractive to be hidden away in a compartment, no matter how clever that compartment was.
“It’s called a medicine cabinet.”
I jumped at Noc’s voice and turned to see him leaning in the doorway, watching me, a look of soft satisfaction on his face.
I felt my spirit settle into that look and asked softly, “Why is it called that?”
“You put what you put in it just now, but it was invented back in a day when there wasn’t much of that stuff. Mostly it was where you stored medicine.”
“Ah,” I murmured, watching him and not moving because he was not moving, just standing in the doorway, leaning his shoulder into the jamb, his eyes gentle on me.
It was, of course, after our trip to the mall and Noc had returned Josette to Valentine’s, where she assured us she was quite happy to experiment with her newly-acquired skills with the microwave in order to make her supper that night and again watch the television. “Where I learn much of this world,” she’d said.
I felt some guilt, however, for I knew she was saying such with only a hint of truth. Mostly, she wanted to be certain Noc and I had time together.
This was her adventure too, and as such she shouldn’t be spending it sitting in an empty house (for Valentine again was not there upon our return or even when we’d left), eating alone and watching a box, no matter how interesting what played on it was.
But for now, I was back at Noc’s where he said he’d make me dinner while I put away the purchases I’d made to keep at his home and where I’d be sleeping.
Needless to say, Josette and I very much enjoyed our time at the mall. We’d done as Noc said we’d do, filling his Suburban to the brim with our bags.
In other words, there was a good deal for me to put away.
And I had been doing just that while Noc had been in his kitchen cooking.
I was surprised he had these skills but only because, in my world, a man such as him would have servants to do these things for him.
In this world, it seemed everyone cooked for themselves, which I found most odd and vaguely alarming for there might come a time when
I was expected to do the same and I had no desire to do so.
I didn’t think much on that. I thought simply of going through my marvelous purchases and putting them away while I smelled the pleasant aroma of Noc’s efforts filling the house.
“Is dinner ready?” I queried when Noc said nothing and continued not to move.
“Not quite,” he replied.
I tipped my head to the side and asked quietly, “Is all well?”
He looked to my perfume bottle on the counter and back to me.
“Absolutely.”
He said this firmly but his manner was peculiar.
“You seem in a strange mood, my love,” I whispered.
With a suddenness that was astounding, his energy filled the room, wrapping me in its warm embrace with such fierceness, it almost made me gasp.
But even as this happened, his reply was calm.
“No, baby, just enjoying our first night of normal.”
“Our first night of normal?” I inquired.
“Life can’t be all drama and adventure, Frannie,” he replied. “Travel between worlds. Trips on galleons. Dinners with a queen. For us, it’s gonna be this. Your shit in my medicine cabinet, your perfume on my bathroom counter, dinner in the oven, a glass of wine waiting for you in the kitchen when you’re done putzing around.”
“You’ve poured me a glass of wine?” I asked, for some reason thinking this was the height of thoughtfulness.
“Yeah, sweetheart. I know how you like to unwind.”
He did. I always had a glass of wine prior to dinner as well as during it.
He looked to the empty bags on the counter and back to me.
“You need any help?”
I shook my head. “No, darling. And I’m almost finished.”
He lifted a hand in a casual gesture and dropped it. “Take your time. Made shepherd’s pie. It needs to bake, but even when it’s done it can rest until you’re ready.”
I smiled at him. “Thank you.”