Retreat to Love (15 page)

“Basically saying I’m not in the picture?”

I nodded. “Basically.”

“Bastard.”

“May lightening strike him down on a sunny day,” I said, regarding Angelica. She was starting to vibrate with anger again, but I sensed a more self-righteous rage. It definitely made me a bit antsy. “Are you going to be okay with making dinner?”

She growled. “After this morning with Margie I don’t see a lot of options.”

“Maybe if y’all don’t work something out you can trade partners.”

“Will you let me have Caleb?”

I laughed. “Not a chance, sorry.”

“Didn’t think so. You lucked out getting paired with him, you know.”

“I know.” She seemed calm again. “I kinda need to get back to work. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for coming by with the report; I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees it.”

“You’re not, not by a long shot.” I stood. “Let me know if you need something.”

“Cool.” She opened the door for me but hesitated, not knowing I think whether to make some gesture like an appreciative hug. I bobbed in with a quick squeeze, which she returned, saying, “See you at dinner,” before heading back inside.

There wasn’t actually much time before we had to go eat, but I flipped to a new page and started to redraft the nine-patch of men.
Nine Patchy Men
—I liked it. I liked it enough that I nixed the central logo and came up with three more guys from my past to add in: Byron, the high school flirtation who’d lost me by spending all of our study date time together mansplaining Duke’s final four match against Kentucky; Doug, who’d agreed to our blind date because he was still keeping his orientation from his extended family, and could I please not tell his cousin who worked with me; and the one who really made me mad, who I didn’t like to think about, much less turn into art—X, who got into a fight with me about if we should order extra fried rice or not because he was paying and was low on cash, and he hit me. Hard. Right in front of the damn waiter and everyone, and kept yelling damn bitch as they—they, the random strangers whose faces I can’t recall—stepped between us to stop him hitting again and maneuvered him outside while I took cover in the kitchen. Luckily Zach was in town for Christmas and could come get me. I kept telling him other women had it worse—way worse—and the last thing I needed after X was to fight with Zach and his infuriating macho ‘I’ll beat the crap out of him’ instincts. But truth to tell, Zach’s instincts were no where near as infuriating, or as frightening, as what X did to me. And horrid as the process was at the time, I’m glad now he hustled me to the police station to file a report, on the off chance it would help stop X from hurting someone else.

And my lighthearted vent session about the general inadequacy of men had just turned itself into a statement.

I hated it when that happened.

My art has plenty to say about darker subjects. I’d entered three pieces from my
Sheltering Arms
series in a juried exhibition about reframing domesticity, and was hoping to hear they’d been accepted soon; those quilts had grown from a footnote about a mid-1800s quilting club whose members helped battered women find advocates. I’d enjoyed delving into the idea of turning a woman’s craft into a network for comfort and protection from male violence.

And in general I strive to stretch my work beyond entertainment and tradition—to have meaning, to make a strong statement, is for me what separates my true art from my commissions for wedding and baby quilts. Those are skillful and original and in general just lovely. And they pay for my fabric and thread, but stop well short of self-expression.

Shaking off gloom at the turn the piece had taken, I focused on the issue of balance.
Nine Patchy Men
were well and good, but how did Wig’s goofy self-absorption reflect against X’s fist coming at my jaw? I couldn’t put X either in the middle or the lower right corner—he was neither the conclusion nor the locus. Similar problem with Wig—he couldn’t be next to X, or in the top left as a low-key start. It wasn’t a progression. Basically, X didn’t sit well next to anyone, so I put him in the bottom left and Wig in the top right and Daryl with his superglue in the center. Jason’s shrine next to X worked out well—point, counterpoint—and Eric was exiting through the lower right square.

My sketchpad was beginning to resemble a bad succession of tic-tac-toe games. And I felt sad. And mad. And bad and glad and probably plaid as well.

X churned me up. Not even him, more me and the fact I’d let myself get into a relationship with someone who would so readily both hurt and humiliate me. I couldn’t even say why we’d dated so long—a couple of months, and I wasn’t positive at any point during it I genuinely liked him, or kept dating him because there was no one better around. So I was eternally pissed at the person I was then, who wouldn’t leave an unsatisfactory situation just because I had nothing else to do. As much as I got annoyed with Zach and his expectations about his perfect woman, I know I’m prone to being equally insecure and screwed up about love. He’ll avoid going out with anyone who seems to have even the most minuscule flaw, and I’ll go out with anyone who asks, just so I have a date.

Technically, neither of us were as bad as all that. But we had tendencies, for damn sure. And the ease with which I could trace them to the obvious differences in our relationships with Frank and Bernadette just irritated me further.

Still, knowledge leads to change, and after college I’d spent some time ruminating about X and Daryl and Eric and all, so each relationship felt like baby steps towards improvement. And here I was, starting off again with Caleb.

Caleb who I was kissing because he asked. And there was no one else around.

There had to be more to it. I had reason enough to avoid his advances, thanks to Wren, but—I hadn’t. I hadn’t been looking, but look what I’d found.

To elevate my mood, I threaded the machine with a rich Bordeaux spool and picked a scrap the color of dark Godiva, and free-embroidered ‘
Nine Patchy Men
, by Ashlyn May’, then tacked it up on the wall above my desk.

I was just washing my face when Caleb arrived with a suspiciously dense camera bag.

“Is that a wide-angle lens in there or are you just happy to see me?” I wrapped my arms around him and melted as he played his fingers down my spine. He reached my lower back, and forgot to answer. “Mmmm. I suppose it’s time to head to dinner already?”

“Yeah.”

“And it would be bad if we both showed up late?”

“Yeah.”

“Or didn’t show?”

“Oh, yeah.”

I sighed. “Damn. You better let go of me, then, cause somehow I’m losing my appetite for food.”

He gave me another minty kiss and stepped into the bedroom to put down his bag. It struck me again I didn’t know what we were getting into. But then I remembered that I didn’t care. It was my desire, and sometimes you just have to let desire reign supreme. Or such was my prevailing theory.  We held hands until we got to the footbridge and I actually giggled, a sure sign I wasn’t in full possession of my faculties. What the hell was the point of having convictions and making resolutions if they flew out the window the second a man’s gaze lingered a loaded second too long?

If nothing else, Lizzy and Wren were good at pulling me out of my starry-eyed dreams and into a reality where I shouldn’t be contemplating anything romantic with Caleb. They had us all in stitches as they relayed their Canoeing Catastrophes, which included being drenched not once but thrice, and a swift but stumbling run from a very agitated Hester The Peahen, the retreat’s unofficial mascot, who was apparently quite territorial. But clever Lizzy managed to turn even that recount into a pointed stick for me, adding she didn’t blame poor Hester, who had staked her claim early on and had every right to defend it. All this while looking directly at me; very subtle.

Angelica was in a fine fettle, chatting away at Rafa and Brandon, who settled quite comfortably into Theo’s usual seat. Rafa was as taciturn as ever, but Brandon unctuously declared he had a new appreciation for Angelica after viewing Theo’s painting. A pretty clear implication, but Angelica seemed pleased. Wren caught my eye and mimed a retch, and my stifled laughter was also relief Lizzy hadn’t yet blown our secret.

Wren said she’d come by and have a look at my new layout after dinner and Caleb drew Lizzy into a discussion about his showing over coffee. It took his leaning over to whisper to her—later he told me he’d said, ‘don’t be a bulldog, she won’t hurt her’—to get her to sit back down as Wren and I left together.

“So you’ve already got the next one planned out?”

“Yeah, I think. It was going to be playful, but it’s taken a turn. I think I’ll end up liking it better now, once I get comfortable with it.”

“Great.”

“Yeah. Hey, have a seat. It was just a ruse.”

“Eh?”

“To get you alone to talk. I mean, if you still want to look at it that’s great, cause you’ve got an incredible eye, but I just needed to talk to you.”

Wren looked perplexed. I was being too serious. “Okay .... About what?”

I sat next to her on the sofa. “About Caleb.”

“Geez. Did he say something?”

“Not exactly.”

Her lips were set tight. “Out with it. I’m not blind enough to think he fancies me. Lustful, but not blind.”

“I know. I just hope you’re not vengeful.”

“Man, woman, you’re so on edge. What could be so bad?”

I forced a few deep belly breaths and tried to lighten up. “Not bad. But you’re right, he’s not interested in you. Never has been, really.”

“Well you don’t have to rub it in.”

“No, I’m not. I just wanted you to know, so the next part isn’t so bad.”

“There’s a next part?”

I nodded. “Fraid so.”

She tried to read my face a moment, then gave up. “What, then?”

“He has had an interest here, he says since he got here. All along, I mean.”

She arched the one eyebrow. “And?”

I shrugged. “You remember that first morning?” She nodded. “We were walking over there, and I told you, not my type, I’m not interested?”

One more glance at me and she stood up. “Well. Obviously things change, don’t they?” It wasn’t a dagger in her voice, but certainly a fairly sharp kitchen knife. “When?”

“It’s not like we—well, like we’re consummated or anything,” I protested, hoping his bag in my bedroom was well out of sight. “But Saturday we started talking, and it became obvious, and when I realized he ... well, when he said it, I realized I was interested, too. I hadn’t given it a thought before then.” Mentally I blocked the image of us on the porch swing, praying it wouldn’t betray my half-truth. “But I’d like to pursue it. And I can’t unless I, I don’t know, clear it with you first. I don’t want to screw up our friendship.”

Wren rubbed her eyes and forehead with her palm, then raked back her hair, looking dead-on at me. “Well, frankly, Ash, I don’t know what to say. It’s not like I feel up to giving you my blessing, is it? And I don’t even know if that’s appropriate, anyway. What do you want me to do?”

I felt like a beach ball in storage, gritty and deflated. “I don’t know, Wren. I just find myself in this situation and I love our friendship and wish it didn’t have to make a difference if Caleb and I want to kiss. But like it or not, it does. Or at least it makes enough of a difference I have to talk to you about it. Beyond that, it’s up to you.”

She sat on the arm of the chair, balefully. My little sub-conscious slapped at me and reminded me it wasn’t fair to leave it up to her, so I added, “I guess what I want, what would be ideal, is for you to say you are happy for me, or for us. And mean it.”

“Yeah,” Wren sighed. “That last part’s the hard one though, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

She looked out the dark window. “Ash, I wouldn’t let a man come between myself and a friend. It wouldn’t seem worth it. And since you’re a friend, I have to stick with that and not mind. And yes, even be happy for you.” She glanced back at me, then turned and walked for the door. “But just for now, don’t go expecting me to listen to all the details, okay? I’ll work on the meaning it part, if you keep working on the being my friend part. Deal?”

“Deal.” I hugged her, which she didn’t want, but I did anyway. “Thanks, Wren. Thanks for being honest.”

“Yeah, you too, I guess. Goodnight.”

I watched her walk up the path to her cabin, then caught the peripheral motion of Caleb coming towards me the back way. When she was far enough from ValeSong, I turned to him, and opened the door wide.

It hadn’t gone smoothly between Caleb and Lizzy, but he wasn’t too shook up. Lizzy thought he owed it to Wren, as a friend, to find out if there were sparks. Caleb explained to her it wasn’t feasible, he’d thought about it, and decided it would be leading her on, and he wouldn’t. “I said how even when I didn’t know if you were into me, I still wanted you.”

He grinned like my blushing had to do with his lascivious intentions, but I was kinda busy being embarrassed at how, unlike me, he didn’t just take the easy path of going with whoever indicated an interest.

Mid-kiss, I decided I was just being down on myself and I wouldn’t have been standing there with Caleb if he’d been somebody else—if he’d been Brandon or Rafa or whoever, I would have just said ‘no thanks.’ Actually, if it was Brandon, more like ‘get real, you idiot.’

But Caleb was my friend. We were knowing each other better and liking each other more by the day. And he had been subtle enough I could have missed his point. I obviously hadn’t wanted to.

And there we were.

Alone.

Trading stories.

Trading kisses.

Sharing electricity.

His bag in my room. He’d gotten ahold of some condoms, and I had no intention of asking how, when, or why.

I didn’t expect interruptions, but slid a chair in front of the door as a warning system, just in case. It didn’t take long for me to stop thinking about relationship motives and other people and even to put aside those persistently lingering thoughts about Gran and what I would have to tell her.

We started in the sitting room. But the lamp was on and there were no shades to keep anyone passing by from viewing us like an R-rated movie. Or PG-13, but moving rapidly up the MPAA rating system. Every time I heard a noise outside my body did a little hop-skip away from his, until we were doubled with laughter.

“Let’s lock up this place, shall we?” I asked, and stood to take our wineglasses into the other room. He followed me to the door of my studio, where I had more lights to turn off.

“May I?” he asked, nodding in.

I shrugged. “If you want.”

“I just like looking around in here, seeing where you work. So I can imagine you better when we’re apart.”

Something melted at the idea of his envisioning me at work. I felt liquid, watching him (in marvelous black jeans again; either he’d packed more than one pair, or he was Sargie’s lint trap culprit) swiveling slowly in my desk chair, running his strong hand across the top of my sewing machine. He stroked the thread lightly, felt the sharp point of the needle, half-stood to lean forward and examine the title patch I’d hung earlier.

“Am I one of them?” He didn’t turn around.             

“The patchy men? Hardly.” He sat and spun the chair around in one motion. He was grinning—he’d been teasing. So, “Not yet, anyway. We’ll see,” I added.

As he walked back towards me, towards the bedroom, I turned off the light. He protested. “You’ll just have to feel your way,” I said.

“Mmmm.” He did.

Once his palms had cupped my hips and his head was brushing lightly over mine, I glided backwards into the dark bedroom. The back of my thigh found the mattress; my hands found the table to set the glasses down; my fingers found the dimple of his chin.

Caleb’s head turned, his mouth ravenous for my fingers. My other hand was on the back of his neck, my lips were traversing his earlobes, his hands lifted my buttocks and scooted me onto the bed, his body pressing close after mine.

As his mouth moved down my throat, his hands up my ribs, I don’t know what I did. I remember the feel of his vertebrae and muscles, their contours under my fingertips and the stretch of his cotton t-shirt across the backs of my hands. I’ll know when I’m eighty the electricity of our thighs touching through my jeans and his, the muscles contracting for each other as if transmitting some sort of code. Which they were, a message of tender urgency, a need needier than just need: it was demanding, but solicitous. My shirt didn’t last long; his fly flew open. We were talking but not listening to ourselves or each other, just touching: flesh, tongue, cloth, and mind to mind.

He sat up enough to pull off his shirt, then we rolled so I hung over him. As I tasted his chest, he swept my hair into his hands, and my breasts brushed his skin, nipples crinkled hard through their restraining cotton. My crotch slid down his thigh, encountered his kneecap, stayed for a ride. One half of me was flitting over him like a butterfly, agonizingly light, while the other half dug in, desperate to meld.

Each stretch of skin he touched radiated chills to my nerve endings. All my favorite romance novel descriptions kept flying through my head: hot loins, pulsating desire, searing flames of passion. I giggled, trying to come up with a definition for ‘loins’—was it a gender-specific term? I decided if I had them, they were somewhere between the belly button and the actual genitalia, because that’s where I was most throbbing. Eventually Caleb paused long enough to ask if I was ticklish, his hand playing gentle sonatas on my abdomen, which, I was embarrassed to note, quivered with delight.

“You? Want me to stop?” he was reluctant to ask.

“Oh Goddess no.” His flushed face in the half-dark was even more gorgeous. I was becoming quite fond of his jaw line and the faint ‘hmm’ he often breathed before speaking. It was so deep and low in his throat, you hardly noticed it, unless you were close to him. He hummed it a bit while he was kissing me, too.

His eyes scanned my face, searching for latent reluctance. I grinned at him. “You know what I am? I’m giddy.” But he didn’t look any more reassured. “Happy,” I clarified. “Giddy. Pleased to be here, to be with you.” I kissed his cheek and whispered, “Excited.”

A hmm-groan. Woah. I was going places on his voice alone. Then there was his warm breath on my nipples, making me want to cry every time he moved his mouth from one to the other. And the sheer solidity of his torso, the grace and ease with which he moved his body over, under, around mine, as if we were the two parts of a lava lamp sliding and curving around each other, fitting, our shapes defined by each other—sinuous oil and water dancing, always moving but never parting.

It’s not like I hadn’t had good sex before. It’s not like I hadn’t had shit-hot sex before. But frankly, it had been a while. And there was an electricity with Caleb which, if I’d felt it before, I didn’t remember.

He was so tender, then. So damn tender I did cry, and he kissed my tears, and we were carried away to some salt-water world where we were each other’s life rafts, and we clung to each other, buffeted by the waves, and it took us a long time to arrive at the shores of our own personal desert island together.

When I could breathe semi-normally again, I pulled the quilt up over the drying sweat of our limbs, rolled into his embrace, and just said, “Cool.”

He burst into laughter. “Ashlyn May, you are the queen of understatement.”

“So shoot me.”

“Okay.” He rolled over and leaned off the bed a minute, then came back up and pointed his loaded Canon at me. I dove for cover under the quilt but he took his pictures anyway.

“My hair’s a mess,” I squealed, and twisted then pinned him down so I could snatch the camera and take one of his mock-horrified face bleached by the flash bulb. Then he chased me into the bathroom to get it back, which was an amusing sight since he still wore the spent condom.

Soon enough we were naked as jaybirds in the shower together, where Caleb proved to have quite the back-scrubbing arsenal. I’d never felt anything like it. I was putty—not boring putty-colored putty, but Aegean Sea turquoise and teal putty, as smooth as the sand at low tide, as relaxed as a day in the sun listening to the waves. As willing to give in to his natural force as a dune in the wind. Whatever else, if the time came I would be making spiteful quilts about him, I held myself to being glad I—we—had decided to ignore any reservations and just go for it.

When morning came I felt the same. Caleb was a peaceful sleeper and he didn’t rumble or start or, blessedly, drool. Like a sexy log to curl up against, with a gentle radiance keeping my feet warm and my heart warmer.

I don’t know if we were stealthy going to breakfast, but we didn’t leave together, since Caleb had to spend the morning setting up his exhibition for us. I had seen a few prints and we’d talked plenty about our respective projects, but I was curious—a little trepidatious, to be honest—to see the finished products. He had a good eye. The photos were sharp and original, kind of nervy in the way they got into your visual field, but I couldn’t imagine the message coming together the way he’d enthused about. I was afraid the brashness of the image quality wouldn’t gel with the natural theme.

But that’s what the artist does, is make his or her mind’s eye apparent in unexpected ways. If it were beautiful but expected, it’d be design, not of art. Or so a theory went, anyway.

And Caleb pulled it off.

Fearing my lack of objectivity would lead me to talk over his work in an effort to ‘make’ everyone like it and praise Caleb, I winked at him and held my tongue. But it was exciting to see my pregnant doe grazing on the porch of the ice cream shop, and the woodpecker who hung out in the glare of the afternoon sun outside the computer room instead attacking his reflection in what looked to be the men’s room of the Austin airport. He had images from California, too—a tumble of ice plant growing down the windshield of a Porsche. A blue jay, presumably as naked as we were the night before, fussing at the squirrel who sat at the desk opposite his. The edginess of the photos kept them on the provocative side of kitsch.

All in all, the group was pleased. A couple of the shots fell flat, and after some discussion we still couldn’t pinpoint why, but Rafa went so far as to give him a nod and a slap on the back at the same time, and Wren, who had been rather sullen going in, got downright chatty about his use of light enhancing the blended truth.

No one had much to say to me. Wren and Lizzy took off together, not shunning me but not going out of their way to ask me along. Or Caleb. So we were left to entertain each other.

We spent the night at ValeSong again, then decided to switch to LakeFire the next morning, for a change. I went back to my studio to work on
Patchy Men
after breakfast then packed a duffel with extra underwear and socks and other essentials, and left it at Caleb’s. He was in the darkroom, and as I was coming out I thought I heard a noise at the door, so I paused to wait for him. But instead it was Angelica at Brandon’s door, and we were face to face coming out of cabins not our own.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

I paused. “Lunch time?”

“It should be. I was just helping him set up his studio.”

“Oh,” I nodded. We had to look at Brandon’s pics soon, I’d forgotten. Guess I couldn’t worm my way out of it anymore. Opting against explaining my own presence, I said, “Well, that’s nice of you. Should be fun to see his stuff.”

“Yeah, it looks great. I think it’ll be a hit.”

I suppressed my smirk mid-way and tried to model a grin. “I’m sure.”

“See ya at lunch, then,” she said, since I hadn’t moved off of Caleb’s porch. This time I knew the sounds were from the darkroom door.

I nodded again. I was beginning to feel like a bobble-headed doll. She walked off, but turned at the sound of Caleb’s emergence into the light. I smiled at him but didn’t say anything, inclining my head towards Angelica turning back towards the Main House.

“Hi. You ready to eat?” he asked, nibbling at my neck.

I tasted his warm skin. “Starved. You?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Sometimes his laughter vibrated out of him, as if from some earthquake-prone core of his being. It was fabulous.