Heartless (16 page)

I nodded, thinking. “Kind of like how I’m feeling stronger because you make me feel strong, and you believe I am.”

“Yeah. So now I know better what I want and don’t want. And I don’t want anyone like Marcie. And I really, really want you.”

He stepped closer to me and I could feel the heat emanating off him. I was pretty sure he was going to kiss me. But then he said,

“Come on.” He grabbed my hand and led me from the alcove to the main hall. “Let’s go to the other side.”

As we headed over to the east wing, we paused under the central dome and stared at Foucault’s Pendulum. Resting our elbows on the circular edge we watched the swing of the pendulum. This always messed me up. Just the idea that Earth was moving but I couldn’t feel it left me feeling so disoriented. The sun seemed to move through the sky and yet it was we, gravitationally glued to Earth, who moved through the sky, and not a blue sky but the pure blackness of space. These were chilling facts to me. Yet beyond the disorientation and existential fear of my own life’s insignificance, there was a resting place in the awareness of something larger, and much more significant, at work. When I was younger, this balm of security came from the idea of God. When experience shattered those beliefs, I was left bereft and angry, because I knew, somewhere deep inside me, that something larger and more intelligent than I helped chaos dance toward order and back again. I just knew it wasn’t an image of a man that carried that power, that elegance. I think that’s why the stars, and even this place, became so important to me. I was able to put my faith in the cosmos, in the reality of the universe, even if I could only partially conceive what that was. It was still bigger than me, and I was a part of it, and no human man would ever have the power to tell me otherwise.

“What are you thinking about?” said Josh.

I turned to him, slightly dazed by my own reverie.

“You look so serious,” he added. “And a little sad.”

I looked back at the pendulum swinging slowly and consistently. The truths that lay in the facts of science were reassuring, if a little cold. How could I explain to Josh that the reality of the cosmos allowed me to reform the beliefs in my heart?

“I was thinking about facts and belief and where and if they converge.”

He tilted his head back, looking up to the top end of the pendulum’s oscillating wire. “Ah. Deep.”

I watched his extended throat as he swallowed, saw the tiniest hint of a beard shadow, and the flicker of his pulse. He had just shared so much with me. I felt my whole heart seize with a kind of pleasure-pain. Here we were, turning through space and not able to feel it; we were two tiny insignificant beings relative to the planets and the stars, but we were able to feel each other. My breath caught and my eyes were on the brink of watering. This man beside me was a universe unto himself, as elegant and complex as the cosmos expanding around us, but with a different scope, a form and shape that I could hold, taste, smell…
savor
in this brief moment of a human life. And I was the same. We all were. Tiny universes, made of the same stuff as stars, orbiting around each other, pulling on one another, affecting and reacting, merging magnetically and then repulsing in search of wider spaces and new frontiers. I stared at this man beside me who had landed in my orbit like a wild asteroid and had become a moon to my planet and the sun to my solar system. I started shaking and breathing raggedly.

Josh looked down at me. “Are you all right?”

I nodded.

“You look pale.” He reached for me hand. “Heather? Say something.”

My knees felt weak. I leaned into him.

“I think I need fresh air,” I whispered.

He guided me to the door, concern furrowing his brow. People entering through the main door parted to make way for us. Josh must have looked very serious and determined because the admiring looks quickly changed to activity, to moving away to make room for us to pass.

Once outside I smelled the grass and that made me feel better right away. We sat on the steps in the shade.

“I don’t suppose you have a water bottle in that purse of yours? Maybe you’re dehydrated.”

“I do I think.” I rubbed my cheeks and my forehead trying to stave of the headache trying to take root.

“Mind if I look?”

“Go ahead.” The burgeoning headache was coming from the surge of emotion that followed the realization of the depth of my feelings for Josh and how all of that converged with my newfound beliefs. Only I had a hard time believing my realization; I loved him. Already. I could feel it in my bones. I just
knew
. But I didn’t
want
to know that just yet. And I certainly didn’t want Josh to know that either. I didn’t want things to get so
deep
so soon. Heck, we weren’t even boyfriend/girlfriend yet.

Details
, I heard in my head. Was that beach-girl talking to me? She’d been quiet for a while.
You and he are so much more than that already. Don’t worry about the details
.

I scoffed at beach-girl. Somebody had to worry about the details.

“Here.” Josh had found my water bottle, opened it, and held it out to me. “Drink.”

“Yes, Doctor.” I smirked. With my first sip I felt things settling inside me again.

Josh gave me a crooked smile. “If you call me Doctor I might start getting ideas about
examining
you. Heat stroke can be quite serious you know.”

We both knew I didn’t have heatstroke, though the thought of him examining me did make certain body parts flare up.

I handed him the water bottle and he took a sip. I said, “If I’m contagious and you fall ill I might have to don the white coat and examine
you
.”

He growled quietly and pulled my hand to his mouth. His lips, cool-damp from the water, nibbled at my fingertips.

“Actually, Doc, come to think of it, I am feeling a little feverish…” He threw me a sweet, pouty, puppy dog look. I wanted to grab onto that protruding lower lip and never let go.

“Let’s go sit on the grass for a while,” I said to distract myself.

We got up and found a patch in the short shadow of the obelisk right next to the orbit path for Venus. Josh started to pull off his boots and socks.

“Ahhh,” he sighed when his feet were free, his toes buried in the lush green grass. “That feels better.”

“You have beautiful feet,” I said as I nursed the water bottle. I really wanted to do something else with my mouth but the water bottle would have to do for the time being.

He wiggled his toes. “No one has ever said that to me before.”

“Well, it’s true.” His feet were long, strong, and not too wide. Each toe was well proportioned and the nails were trimmed and clean. He had a smattering of brown hair on the top of each toe that matched the not-too-thick hair around his ankles, which were poking out of his jeans.

He smiled up at me from his semi-prone elbow-supported position on the grass. “I love that I never know what you’re going to say next.”

“What do you mean?”

“How your mind works is a mystery to me.”

“It is to me, too,” I said, laughing sardonically.

“But I like it. I
love
it. Your mind is alive, always working, making connections, coming up with new ideas. You’re smart, Heather. Smart and strong.”

I shook my head, shocked at how Josh saw me; it was so different from how I saw myself. Though I couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t included beautiful. Or pretty. I thought I’d be more comfortable being pretty than beautiful.

“I like that I’m getting to know these things about you,” he continued. “Anybody can spot the obvious stuff—that you’re gorgeous, totally hot, and not full of yourself like so many other LA types.”

I swear there’s a spot deep in the guts that knows how to smile—a big broad grin that eclipses anything the face can come up with—that’s what I felt when Josh called me gorgeous. Deep in my gut, I smiled. Not that I believed what he was saying. Not intrinsically. What made me smile deep down inside was that Josh believed it, and that was precious to me. That gave me the
feeling
of gorgeous. That was priceless.

“You see,” said Josh. “It’s the stuff underneath that gets revealed over time that means the most, that makes the outer beauty glow from the inside. Knowing that I know how strong and smart you are makes you even more beautiful than what any passerby notices at first glance. That’s what I love.” He gave me a long, open look with those intense blue eyes and I started to feel all shaky and weak, like earlier, standing beside Foucault’s Pendulum.

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and met his intense gaze with my own. I took a risk. “That’s a little like what I was feeling inside just now. I was looking at you and was aware of everything on the inside of you, not just the outside, and then you became larger than life, and… and… I don’t know know what that is. You call it Fate, but I don’t know what
that
is either, and… I…I…”

Josh pushed up on his elbow, placed a finger on my lips to pause my stuttering.

“Heather, it was a twist of Fate that we met. I’ve been spinning ever since. Everything that came before got us to where we are now and all I want to do is keep spinning with you. That’s what Fate is to me. It takes us where we need to go and then the rest is up to us.”

“The rest?” I mumbled against his finger still pressed to my lips. He drew his finger lightly along my bottom lip and I felt gravitationally pulled toward his mouth.

“The rest is up to us,” he said, and I could feel his breath.

And then his lips were where his finger had been and he wrapped me in a kiss that spread from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. In that moment I
tasted
Fate, as we stretched out on the grass, our bare feet entwined, side by side in the orbit of Venus.

“Wow, you look great!” said Eliana when I arrived at work on Monday morning.

“Thanks!”

I felt as if I was walking on air. Eliana followed me holding an invisible microphone to her lips and started ‘reporting’.

“She’s happy, too, folks. Head held high, striding confidently into her place of work, she turns back and rolls her eyes at her co-worker, a sassy look to be sure, but even that can’t phase her admirers, she’s won over their hearts today. Who knows what she will be capable of? The fans roar.”

Brian came out of the back room just as I was going in.

“What’s going on?” he said.

I was grinning like a fool because of Eliana’s antics, and Brian noticed she was following me and he took another look at me, scrutinizing me from head to toe.

“All right, Heather. What happened?”

“Nothing!”

“It’s got to be a boy,” said Eliana. “Look at the way she’s blushing.”

“Stop!” But I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face.

Brian said, “I just meant with Wayne away and all, I’m supposed to keep an eye on you. Is this something I need to get involved in?”

“
Involved
? What are you talking about?” I said.

His eyebrows were all scrunched up and any minute I was sure I’d start laughing.

“Yeah, Brian, what?” said Eliana. “I didn’t think threesomes were your style.”

Now Brian was blushing too and I had to turn away. My fit of giggles quickly morphed into irritation. Eliana was clearly still not getting enough sleep again.

“Quit projecting your fantasies onto others, Elie.” I was glad to have a few of Miranda’s psycho-babble phrases to use at times like these.

“Oh, damn.” I heard Eliana say to Brian. “Did I go too far again? I did. I know it. Shit damn. Sorry, Brian. And sorry about the swearing, too. I can’t do that at home anymore.”

“Work isn’t an appropriate place for it either, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“You know, that’s just it. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to be a regular person. Baby brain turns your mind into a sieve and only the
important
stuff strains out.”

“Do you need the day off again?”

“No, no.”

“Are you sure? Heather could take care of things.”

“Archer Frye’s coming in today. She’s a cow.”

“Heather worked well with her last time.”

“You’re scaring me, Brian. Please don’t make me redundant. You’re not planning to fire me, are you?”

“Relax, Elie, I told you not to worry about that. By the way, sleep deprivation makes you paranoid, too.”

“Is that why I always feel like someone’s following me?”

Brian laughed. “Elie, you’ll always have your job here. Unless you start swearing at clients, or calling them cows to their faces. Then for sure I’d have to do a review.” He sighed heavily. He was teasing her, I knew. Brian totally relied on Eliana, and me now, too.

Brian went to unlock the front door and I sidled up to Eliana.

“You’re right. It
is
a boy.”

“I knew it!” Brian was on his way back again so she whispered, “Full disclosure later, babe.” She winked at me and walked off to the design table to get everything ready for her first meeting.

The next day I had my appointment with Miranda, and I had an awful lot to share with her. She seemed particularly pleased about my cognitive awareness about slipping into a disassociated state and then being able to find my way back out of it on Saturday. The dates with Josh were a huge leap for me, in her opinion.