Marie Sexton - Coda 04 - Strawberries for Dessert (18 page)

In a few weeks, I’ll be leaving. I should have left already. I’ll fly to Paris and I’ll stay there until I’m no longer dying to see him again, and he’ll find a new lover and the universe will make sense once again. But for now, I’ll allow myself a little more time with him, because the truth is, Sweets, he makes me happy in a way that nobody else has in a very long time. But I know it cannot last. Soon, I will let him go. He does not love me, and I hope he never will.

S
OMETHING
changed between us after that, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. When we were in bed together, everything felt different. There was a level of trust and longing between us that I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. Maybe not since Zach. I tried not to think about what it meant, mostly because I was pretty sure I was the only one who was feeling it. Out of bed, he still pushed me away more often than not when I tried to touch him or kiss him. He still kept his walls between us. The difference was that where he used to be mocking and carefree, now he seemed sad. And the fact that he kept himself behind those walls, where I could not reach him, made me ache for him. I yearned for more. But I had no idea what to do to change it.

A few weeks later, the restructuring was finally put into effect. I returned from my last week-long trip to LA on a Friday night feeling absolutely giddy. It was like being a kid again and having that last day of school before summer vacation. Starting the next Monday, I would be a
Junior
Liaison Account Director (and it was Cole’s mocking voice that I heard in my head when I thought about it). Any trepidation I had held over accepting a demotion was gone. I was so relieved to be home for good.

I called Cole before I even left the airport.
“Hello, love. Are you home?”
“Finally. Did you miss me?”
144

“Not at all.”
“I didn’t miss you either. Can I come over?”

He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “It would be a wasted trip, love. I’m already at your house.”

 

“Good,” I said smiling. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

For once, I didn’t find him in the kitchen. He was actually sitting on the couch reading when I got home. I had a ridiculous urge to lie down on the couch and put my head in his lap, but he stood up before I could decide whether or not to follow through.

“I didn’t have time to cook,” he told me, “but I ordered take-out. It should be here soon.”

 

“That sounds great. How did you know I would be home tonight?”

 

“I tried to call you, and it went to voice mail, so I knew you had to be on the plane.”

“I’m impressed,” I said, and he winked at me.
“You should be, love.”

I reached out and took his hand, trying to pull him over to me, but he resisted. I pulled harder, but he still didn’t cooperate.

“Come here,” I said in exasperation.
“Why?”
“Because I want to show you how much I didn’t miss you.”

He smiled at that and relented. He let me pull him close and put my arms around him. He was a little bit stiff in my arms, but I didn’t mind. I put my nose into his hair, just so I could smell that ridiculous strawberry shampoo. It was a smell that had somehow become simultaneously erotic and comforting to me. I felt silly for it, but it was such a part of him and of
home
now that I found myself missing it whenever I was away.

I tipped his head back so I could see his face and his beautiful full lips. He didn’t exactly relax, but he allowed me to kiss him. His lips 145

were soft and sweet, his breath shaky, and like always, I wanted only to sink deeper into him. I pulled him tighter against me, and to my surprise, he put his arms around my neck. He sighed, and his lips parted, and then—he really, truly kissed me back. It was something that he still did only rarely, and I lost myself in the sensation of it: his body against mine; his mouth, sweet and fruity; his arms tight around me; his lips soft yet insistent. I abandoned all thought and reveled in
him
.

Until the doorbell rang. It was the first time ever that I found myself wishing that delivery was slower.

“That must be our food,” Cole said as he pulled away from me. And there was something strange in his voice when he said it, but I didn’t have time to figure out what it was. He was bringing in bags of Chinese food, and then we were sitting down to eat. He was unusually quiet all through dinner. He kept his head down so I couldn’t see his eyes. I kept waiting for him to say something, to laugh, to make fun of me for something, but he didn’t. He seemed… sad.

“Is anything wrong?” I asked.
“Not at all.”
“Are you sure? It seems like something is bothering you.”

He was quiet for a minute, and then he surprised me by answering my question with a seemingly unrelated question of his own. “The weekend of April second—would it be at all possible for you to take Friday off?”

“I’ll see what I can do. Why?”
“I was considering a few days away.”
“Are you asking me to go with you?”
“Is that not what I’ve just been saying?”

Only in a very round-about sort of way, but I knew better than to argue with him. “I would lov—”

 

He held up his hand to stop me. “Before you answer, sweetie, let me warn you: I won’t be any fun at all. I’ll be cranky and moody and 146

 

sulky and
dreadfully
temperamental. You have to promise me that however badly I may behave, you won’t hold it against me.” “Are you going to tell me
why
you’ll be cranky and moody and sulky and temperamental?”

He smiled at me, but only barely. “Eventually. Maybe.” “But you want me to come?”

And again, he looked down at the table so that the fall of his bangs blocked his expression from my sight. “Very much.” “Then I will,” I told him, “but I’m paying my own way.”

That made him look at me again, and he rolled his eyes. “Sweetie, really. That’s completely unnecessary, and it will only make the reservations more complicated.”

“Then I’m not going.”
“Don’t be such a killjoy, love. You just said you wanted to.”

“Not if you’re going to insist on paying. You know how much I hate it when you do that.” I knew he still didn’t understand why my pride prevented me from letting him pick up the tab everywhere we went, and he probably never would.

He debated for a moment. “Fine,” he said, “I’ll buy the tickets, because I want to surprise you. But you can buy all of our meals, if it means so much to you—”

“It does.”
“—and we’ll split the room. Is that sufficient?”
“It is.”

“Thank goodness,” he said with exaggerated relief. “Good grief, sometimes I don’t know why I put up with you.”

 

N
OW
that I wasn’t traveling and had a predictable schedule, we fell into a comfortable pattern. Monday through Thursday, he would be 147

waiting for me when I got home, and the weekends were always spent at his place. I realized then that he never traveled any more either, and I wondered when exactly he had stopped. I wondered if it was because of me. I knew better than to ask him—he would say it had nothing to do me, whether it was the truth or not.

The weekend of our mystery trip drew closer. I was unbelievably curious, but he refused to tell me where we were going. He told me only that I would need one suit and that the weather would be moderate. Friday came, and I picked him up on my way to the airport. He had told me he would be moody and sulky. I hadn’t really believed him, simply because I had rarely if ever seen him be anything other than his usual flamboyant, mocking self. But in the weeks since then, he hadn’t quite been himself. And today seemed worse than ever. He was silent all the way to the airport. Finally, when we got to the baggage check counter, he handed me my ticket.

“New York?” I asked in surprise as I looked at it. “Your house in the Hamptons?”

“Not this time, love.” He didn’t seem inclined to say more than that, and the lady at the counter was asking for our tickets and our IDs. She checked Cole’s first. “Have a nice trip, Mr. Davenport,” she said as she handed it back to him.

I turned to look at him in surprise. He had his head down, and I knew by now that it was to keep me from seeing the blush on his cheeks. “‘Davenport’?”

“What about it?”
“Why did she call you that?”
“Because it’s my name!”
“I thought—”

“Good lord,” he snapped at me, “don’t make a fuss.” I realized then that the woman at the counter was watching us, listening to our conversation with a suspicious look on her face, and I decided to drop it. For the moment at least.
148

I finished checking my own bag and followed him through the security line, which was relatively short, to my surprise. I kept waiting for some type of explanation, but he was making a point of not looking at me.

“Cole,” I finally said in exasperation after we had made it to our gate and were sitting in the waiting area, “you’re really not going to tell me why she called you Mr. Davenport?”

He flipped his hair out of his eyes and gave me that look that meant I was being an idiot, and an annoying idiot to boot. “I
did
tell you. She called me that because that’s the name on my license.”

“I thought your last name was Fenton.”

 

He turned away from me again, letting his hair block his expression. “It is.”

“Are you intentionally being cryptic?”
“Are
you
intentionally being obtuse?”

“Fine,” I said, although I was fighting to keep from laughing. “Don’t tell me.”

We sat in silence for a minute. Maybe two. Finally he sighed dramatically, and I turned to find him watching me warily. “My full name is Cole Nicholas Fenton Davenport the Third.”

I burst out laughing before I could help myself, but cut it short when I saw the obvious embarrassment on his face. “Umm…. Wow.”

“It’s terribly ostentatious, isn’t it?”
“It really is.”

“You can see why I don’t choose to introduce myself as such. It makes me feel pretentious.”

“It makes you
sound
pretentious.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “You’re not helping, love.”

They called for first class boarding, and I ignored it out of habit, but Cole stood up. I looked up at him in surprise. “Are you coming?” he asked.
149

“Are we flying first class?”

 

“Good lord, of course we are,” he said, and I had to hurry to gather my things and catch up with up him.

“I’ve never flown first class,” I admitted as we found our seats. “I’ve never flown coach.”

He got a blanket down before he even sat down. He wrapped it around himself and curled into the window seat with his head against the wall, looking out at the tarmac. I suspected it was driving him crazy that he couldn’t take his shoes off. “Is everything okay?” I asked him.

“Fine,” he said quietly. “I warned you that I would be temperamental on this trip.”

 

“I don’t mind,” I told him. “I’m just not sure if I should try to cheer you up or leave you alone.”

 

“I’m not sure either, love. But I’m glad you’re here.”

The simple confession touched me. It was so unlike him to say anything genuine. I wished that we weren’t on an airplane with a line of people filing past us. I wished I could wrap my arms around him and make him smile. I settled for reaching over and putting my hand on his leg. He put his hand on top of it, allowing his fingers to tangle with mine. “I’m glad too,” I said.

The flight from Phoenix to New York took nearly six hours. He hardly spoke for the first half. I read a magazine and left him alone. We were three hours in when he asked suddenly, “What was your mother’s name?”

I turned to him in surprise, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was still looking out the window, and his bangs hid his expression from me. “Why do you ask?”

He was silent for a bit, and I was starting to think he wasn’t going to answer. But finally he sighed and turned to look at me with wary eyes. “I’ve been reading the cards.” For half a second, I thought he was talking about some kind of fortune telling thing. But then I remembered the recipe box. I hadn’t thought about it since the day I gave it to him. 150

“Yes?” I prodded gently.

He looked so unsure of himself. It was unusual for him. He looked down at his lap, letting his hair hide his eyes from me again. “I feel like I know her,” he said softy. “I know it sounds silly, but I do. I know what she looked like, from the picture at your house. And I learned a great deal about her from the cards.”

“Like what?”

“I know that she loved garlic. I know that her favorite dessert was pumpkin bars, and she liked key lime pie, but she hated anything with coconut. I know that she took the green peppers out of every recipe—”

“Because I didn’t like them,” I said in surprise, but he kept talking as if I hadn’t spoken.

“—and that she put sour cream and onion flavored potato chips on top of her tuna casserole. I know that she mixed cottage cheese into her goulash, and used half hamburger and half spicy Italian sausage for her meatballs, and that she never made pie crust from scratch. I know that she made beef stroganoff more than any other recipe—”

“It was good, too.”

“—and that she was allergic to shellfish. I know she didn’t like chicken enchiladas or green chili, but she loved cilantro, and I know that her favorite soup in the world was ham and beans.”

“You got all of that from a box of index cards?”

He turned away from me to hide his blush. “I could tell which ones she used by how worn the cards were. The ones that are clean were never used. The ones she used often are almost illegible. And she made notes.” It amazed me to learn that not only had he kept the recipe box, he had looked at it. And more than that, he had
studied
it. He had used it to piece together a picture of my mother that even I had never quite seen before. His voice, when he continued, was little more than a whisper. “I feel like I know her better than I know my own mother. The one thing I don’t know,” he had to pause for a moment then, “is her name.”
151

I reached over and took his hand, and although he didn’t look at me, he gripped my fingers tight. “It was Carol. Carol Elizabeth Kechter.”

“Carol,” he said quietly, almost like a prayer. And then he turned to me with a smile. “Thank you.”