Dating da Vinci (25 page)

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement among the upper-class women wearing their cashmere jackets and designer jeans and boots that I half-hoped would get covered in dog poo. Were they talking about me? One woman stepped apart from the pack and I recognized her, even thirty feet away.
Monica
.

I couldn't run. Couldn't hide. She was coming toward me and I would have to think of something to say. My day that began with da Vinci peeing in my bed followed by great sex followed by meeting Cruella Fiancée. Life was one wicked roller coaster ride.

“You know Monica, right?” Cortland said as he wrapped Monica's lithe, tight body in a side hug.

“Not officially,” I said, nearly forgetting to stick my hand out for her to shake, but of course she would know what to do with it and she did. Very lawyery, firm handshake.

“Nice to meet you, Ramona,” she said, her white teeth shining even in the overcast afternoon.

“You, too,” I said stammering and wishing Cortland would go away.

“Sorry I haven't called you back yet,” Monica said. “It's been a crazy week.”

“Oh, same here,” I said. “We can get together another time.”

Monica pulled her Blackberry out of her jacket pocket and clicked a few times before looking back up at me. “What about Tuesday morning then? Same place?”

I—of the no-PDA, no-calendar, no-big life—stammered some more. “Perfect, fine, sure. That works. See you then.”

Monica turned her attention to Cortland. “You and Rachel still on for dinner at my place Sunday night?”

I could feel my jaw dropping. My sister dining with my pseudo-archenemy? No way.

“Rachel moved some stuff around so she can make it,” Cortland said. “We'll see you then.”

“We'll eat light,” Monica said. “Maybe Rachel can show me some exercises for my little baby gut here.” She patted her flatter than flat tummy. Her “baby” was two, and if a person's stomach could get any flatter, it would be concave.

“Oh, she loves personal lessons,” I said dryly.

Monica shook her head, puzzled.

“I'm sorry. I thought you knew,” Cortland said. “Rachel is Ramona's sister.”

“I didn't connect the dots,” Monica said.

But why would she? We didn't look a thing alike. If it weren't for inheriting the weird earlobe shape from my father, I would've sworn I belonged to the mailman. Mom always said she was a bored housewife before she found the Lord. I wouldn't have put an affair past her, back in what she called her “sinning days.”

As Monica left, her firm buttocks rocking to and fro in her jeans, we both watched her, and then I watched Cortland watching her, obviously liking what he saw, and I hated that I had to be jealous of
him
liking her, too.

“She's something else,” Cortland said, diverting his eyes from her finally. “I mean her success. And she's a nice person, too.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said, willing my voice not to give out on me. Nice I wasn't so sure about, but she was
something else
, something irresistible. Clearly every man admired her.

By the time Cortland and I had left in separate cars, we'd both gotten calls from our respective other halves, telling us that they were on such a roll, they wanted to record just one more show and to go ahead and start without them at the restaurant. No arguments here.

“Story of my life,” Cortland said, as we ordered our second bottle of wine. “Women always keep me waiting.”

“Look,” I said, feeling drunk-happy. “You told me I deserved a worthy bed, and I'm telling you that you deserve a worthy mate. Not one that keeps you waiting every time you turn around.”

“Is that so?” He refilled my glass of wine, though I certainly didn't need it. “You think I should dump your sister, then?”

“If I wouldn't miss you coming around, I'd say ‘Hell, yes‘ to that,” I said, clinking my glass with his.

“You think I call and come around because you're Rachel's sister?”

I snorted, an unattractive result of having drunk too much. “Um, duh? Why else would you call and come over all the time? Look, it's fine. Widow sympathy is a natural human phenomenon.”

Cortland reached his hand across the table and placed it over mine. “And here I thought you were the smart one in the family.”

Our eyes locked and I pulled away, excusing myself to go to the restroom and vowing to myself not to return until I knew da Vinci and Rachel had arrived. In the bathroom, I splashed water in my face, drank water out of my hand from the sink to try to sober up and stared at my raccoon eyes in the mirror. “What are you doing, Ramona Griffen?”

I freshened up my makeup and eventually felt clear-headed enough to return. I was an adult. I could tell Cortland that while I appreciated that he wanted to be friends, perhaps our flirtation had gone a little far, and it wasn't fair to either of our mates to ever be alone with
each other again.
Ever.
After all, hadn't da Vinci said something about Cortland seeming fishy?

When I swung open the swanky bathroom door into the darkly lit hallway, arms reached around my waist, pulling me into the even darker corner. Cortland's face was inches from mine, his hot breath on my cheek. “Do you think I wanted this to happen? Because, believe me, the last few times we've been together have been sheer torture for me. I've felt something since the first time I saw you. I wanted to kiss you in my office and on the patio next to the pool and at the Starbucks and on that country road with the puppy asleep in the back and outside in the rain. How do you think it made me feel to lie on that bed with you in the department store with that lingerie you would wear for another guy? Or how just talking to you on the phone makes me feel weak inside, especially when you're talking about French kissing when I've wanted to know what it's like to kiss you for so long? I'm sorry, Goldilocks, but I just can't wait another minute.”

He pressed his lips against mine, and I let my body take over, my mouth on autopilot. The kiss became a French kiss. A soul kiss. A kiss that muddied my normally logical brain, and when he finally stopped, I pulled him into me, our bodies touching in the darkness, and I wanted to tell him that I had felt something, too, especially in the rain, when I could smell his aftershave in the car and on the bed when I secretly wished he could see me in that lingerie, and all the times I had pretended the tone in his voice wasn't tinged with wanting something more.

“Oh, my God,” I said when we broke apart. I wasn't sure if I wanted to run away or run away with him.

Cortland held my gaze. “I won't apologize.”

“Me neither,” I said, straightening my blouse.

“But I don't know where we go from here.”

Da Vinci. Rachel. Of course. I had selfishly forgotten them. “We do nothing,” I said. “Look, we got that kiss out of our system, right?
We'll just play it cool. I'll just tell da Vinci I'm not feeling well, and you can have a nice dinner with Rachel.”

“You're feeling fine,” he said, his finger brushing against my cheek. “In fact, I want to feel more of you.”

I held his hand and pressed it against my chest, between my breasts. “You're wrong. I'm not feeling well at all. I need some time to think about this.”

He nodded, his eyes full of yearning. “I have to see you again. Soon. Tonight. Even that's not soon enough. Let's leave right now.”

If I looked at him too long, I'd be lost and we'd do something I'd truly regret. I could feel tears well in my eyes. “I'll call you in a few days.”

The yearning turned to disappointment. “I'll wait.”

Just minutes after I'd told him he deserved a woman that didn't make him wait, I was doing it to him, too, but what choice did I have? He was my sister's boyfriend, for God's sake. And da Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci, was mine.

“
I don't want to live—I want to love first, and live incidentally.
”
 —Zelda Fitzgerald, letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1919

PANCHAL WANTED TO SEE me. Panchal
never
wants to see me, which could mean only one thing: da Vinci and I had been found out. If he had been bragging about me to his frat buddies, what kept him from saying anything to his classmates? The English class bonded like family. And foreigners were whip-smart, reading the physical cues of others long before they even knew the English words to describe them. But, like da Vinci, they all clearly knew the word “sex” by now, and “affair” and “wrong.”

Panchal was a small man, 5'5” in his black dress shoes, tiny frames around his large brown eyes, silvery black hair around his outturned ears. He sat in an oversized, elevated office chair with a wooden box on which to rest his feet. We made small talk about his daughter and how well his son-in-law fit into his family when Panchal cut to the chase. “We hab a bery big brobleb,” which, after ten years of working for him, I could clearly understand as, “We have a very big problem.”

I began sweating and removed my jacket. “I don't know what to say,” I said full of shame. Panchal had been a mentor to me, urging me to get my PhD and supporting me through my loss. Disappointing Panchal was worse than disappointing my parents.

Panchal shrugged. “Well, it's not your fault, is it?”

“I suppose not. Not exactly. Still.”

“Don't be ridiculous. You can't help that Leonardo is Leonardo any more than I can.”

“Right. And?”

“We must correct the bad behavior.” Panchal came around the front of the desk and sat on the corner.

I began to think of all the bad things I'd done with da Vinci in the last month. Panchal knowing about even one of them would be devastating. Correcting the bad behavior would mean giving up da Vinci, breaking things off with him.

Panchal waved his hands in the air. “Tardiness. Absenteeism. Total disrespect for the Panchal Way of Immersion.”

That
bad behavior? Not the sleeping-with-the-teacher kind of bad behavior? The Way of Immersion was Panchal's method for smooth integration. While every immigrant is expected to struggle, Panchal's “way” should work if only they followed the rules. Panchal continued: “I expected him to be different. It is his birthright, see? I expected him to make his own path, but something has happened to him in the last month. Something big. Would you know what this is?”

I nearly blurted the first thing that came to mind: da Vinci was my lover. But that was the biggest thing that had happened
to me
in the last thirty days, not da Vinci. No, he likely had bigger worries, like making his grades and learning English and finding his way in a new country. But Panchal knew all of this. All immigrants dealt with these dilemmas. It was something else. “He joined a fraternity,” I said, wiping the sweat on my brow with the back of my hand.

Panchal crossed his arms. “American fraternities can be hard for Americans, let alone someone like da Vinci. Frat houses are not a part of Panchal immersion.”

“Yes, sir. But they offered him free tutoring and a nice gym.”

“And beer and girls,” he added in disgust. “I can see the lure, Ramona. But I thought da Vinci was smarter than that. Perhaps he is just big, dumb jock after all?”

I vacillated between wanting to defend da Vinci and agreeing with Panchal. Da Vinci had started spending more and more time at the frat house and on campus, partying four or five nights out of the week and crashing at the frat house half the time instead of our new bed. I missed him, but what choice did I have? I knew I would lose him if I pushed him too hard.

“You have a special relationship,” Panchal said. “You can talk some sense into him. He must be on time and finish every job he is assigned. He must not miss English class. Is this understood?”

“I'll see what I can do.”

Panchal put his hand gently on my shoulder. “And Ramona? Be careful. Your heart is still tender.”

Long exhale. He knew. Of course he knew, and he cared too much about me to stand in the way of my happiness. I could see it there—the light at the end of the tunnel—when I would feel
la vita allegra
, but I had never expected I would stumble so much on my journey. Joel, da Vinci, Monica, Cortland.

Panchal was right. My heart was still bruised, and there was only one way to avoid further heartbreak: institute the arm's length policy. “Arm's length!” I would yell at the boys when they picked on each other. If I kept everyone at arm's length, not only would they not be able to reach my lips, but they'd be at a safe distance from my heart, too.

“What are you doing here?” I said as I entered the Starbucks Tuesday morning, my vocal cords tightening. I froze in place. Cortland sat in the corner booth where we had sat together two weeks prior. He was unshaven and wild eyed. He didn't look or act himself.

Cortland stood and grabbed my arms. “You haven't called me.”

I shook loose of him, remembering my arm's length policy. He was already breaking it, and his touch felt like lightning on my skin. “I said it would be a few days.”

Sadness and longing flickered in his eyes. “My God. You look beautiful.”

I hadn't dolled up for him, but her. I had gotten up early to look good for Monica, and fortunately, neither of my boys threw up that morning to foil our meeting, but instead I found something even worse. I had thought about calling Cortland a hundred times since Saturday night, but I had stopped short of it, because what good would it do? Avoiding the issue seemed a far smarter way to go. If only there weren't another human being on the other end of it.