Staying True - A Contemporary Romance Novel (19 page)

* *

We spent the morning curled up in her
bed under layers of blankets like two hibernating felines wanting no contact to
the outside world. At moments, I’d wake up and watch Ruby breathe in and out in
perfect harmonious rhythm. Her nose was petite and straight. Her eyelashes were
long and curled. Her lips arched at just the right point, and reminded me of a
clementine with their smooth and dewy texture. And her hair. God I loved her
hair. I could spend my life wrapping strands around my finger, staring into her
baby blue eyes and enjoying the view.

Why couldn’t this be my life? I could
so easily slip into this one as if my old one never existed. I could learn to
fly around with her and enjoy new perspectives where life colored itself in
rainbow hues instead of orange jumpsuits and gray prison walls, where my days
wouldn’t be spent hiding from the awkward silence that now sat between me and
Jessica.

I sobered to her name. How would my
life with Jessica pan out now? I married Jessica the Burlesque dancer, the fun
one, the free one. That Jessica died along with the lady she killed. A cheater
replaced her. What would I do with this new version of her?

I stared at Ruby’s tattoo, envious of
it, and scared that I wouldn’t get to see it for much longer. It saddled her
neck and hugged her. No matter what, that tattoo would always be able to call
Ruby home. That pristine tattoo was hers.

I sat up and slid my finger down the
vine of her tattoo. She didn’t flinch. She bowed her head and allowed me to
touch her. “I’m so sorry I’ve dragged you into this mess of mine.”

“You’re sorry this happened?”

“Are you?”

Ruby inhaled deeply and held onto the
breath. It swirled in her, filling her lungs with life, traveling around her
chest to her vital organs. Then, she exhaled and released the pressure,
filtering out the stale with the revived.

I propped up on my knees and massaged
Ruby’s shoulders. She didn’t move still. She didn’t utter a word. She just
bowed her head lower and continued drawing deep breaths and exhaling ever
deeper ones, as if purging her system of everything messy and heavy that I
dragged into her life.

I kneaded her soft skin falling prey
to its beauty, its sun-kissed glow, its divinity. I massaged my apology for
turning her into a mistress, focusing my thoughts on helping to cleanse her
from me so she could go on innocently, untarnished by my sins.

She moaned, and I caressed her arms,
sliding my hands up and down, attempting to soothe any coming angst. “Please
say something.”

Ruby rose, and my hands fell to my
side. I remained propped up on my knees as if withstanding the pain of
purgatory. She walked to the bathroom and stopped before entering. She pulled
in her lower lip, squeezed her eyes closed, and then looked up at me. Her eyes
housed compassion, not anger. Her dimples formed in the small smile that
highlighted her forgiving face.

“What we have here together is
perfect. Don’t you think?” She blinked heavily, showing off her long lashes. “I
wouldn’t want to change a thing.” She disappeared into the bathroom and started
the shower.

God, how I loved everything about
this girl.

* *

Ruby walked out of the steamy
bathroom with a red face. She wore her hair in a fluffy white towel and waltzed
towards me naked, her breasts perky, her nipples standing at attention. She
stopped in front of me, offered me her hand. I accepted. She walked me to the bathroom,
wiped steam off of the mirror, and then placed an arm around my shoulder. We
faced each other in the mirror.

“Happy is the only way I know how to
live,” she said. “I don’t allow in guilt, remorse, fear or anything that
misaligns my sense of place in this world. I love being happy. I never want to
give that up. I certainly don’t want to get in the way of your marriage. So, we
have a choice. We can view this as the perfect arrangement or not.” She
shrugged, arched her eye, and walked away.

I caught up to her and kissed her
hard. I pushed us towards the bed and pressed against her, bearing all my
weight and bearing no stops to my passion, to my desire for her, to this new
intoxicating freedom to express myself without regret.

* *

The next morning, I drove us back to
Rhode Island. Shawna sat shotgun and Grampa and Ruby sat in the backseat. When
we crossed over to the Rhode Island border Grampa said to Ruby, “I’m glad we
came.”

“Me, too.” She smiled and looked over
at him.

A trace of serenity blanketed him.

“How are you feeling?” she asked him.

He stretched his gaze out over the
trees edging the interstate. “I feel healed.”

“Healed?” she asked.

He rolled his eyes down to his lap,
scrunched up his mouth. “I didn’t want to come. I vowed I would never return
here. The place holds so many memories. First your grandma, and then Grace. I
thought by leaving it all behind, I could find happiness elsewhere, beyond the
wooden walls and the rolling fields. Then life just got dull. I feared going
back and being stabbed with that fresh pain of them both leaving me again.
Comfort swaddled me when I entered that warm foyer and ate that scrumptious
breakfast and smelled the roaring fire. All of these years I ran away from the
one source that could heal me, blaming it for my troubles.”

He reflected on the trees again.

“That was beautiful,” Ruby said. “I
didn’t think it was possible, but I admire you even more now.”

“I missed out on a lot in life,
because I refused to let go of these hurtful memories of losing Grace,” Grampa
said.

“You’ve lived such a rich life.”

“I have. Though, I stopped just short
of fantastic.”

“How so?” she asked.

“I couldn’t bear to sit in that
living room, to cook in that kitchen, to greet one more guest without her there
by my side. It hurt to smile. It killed me to mow the grass that at one time we
used to sit upon and stare out with love and dreams as we looked beyond the
maple trees and to the deep blue sky behind them. I couldn’t stand to sleep
alone in that big empty bedroom anymore or sit and read a book. She permeated
everything. So, I ran. Of course, that just caused the bruises in my soul to
deepen and worsen. Over time, it just scarred over, and every once in a while
it still itches, hurts, and aches. It’s a constant reminder of what I’d sold
out on and hadn’t ever regained back. Girls take it from me. Don’t do this to
yourself. Don’t be afraid to live your lives.”

I looked back over to Shawna. She
stared out the window and sniffled.

“Are you okay?”

She turned to me. “Just full of emotions
right now,” she whispered.

Chapter Fifteen

Ruby

For the months that followed that
special weekend, we had a blast together. We went hiking on the Cliff Walk in
Newport, golfed at Fairlawn golf course, pigged out at Wright’s Dairy Farm, and
made love to each other in the most curious of places. One time we did it in a
broom closet at a restaurant. Another time, we did it in the back row of the
movie theater to the background noise of Will Ferrell acting goofy. Once we
stopped alongside a busy interstate and did it right there in the backseat of
her CRV.

We cemented down a good routine.
Nadia spent two weeks in Rhode Island, then she’d go back to visit her wife for
three days and come right back to me. On the days she’d leave for Connecticut,
I’d take off work and go travel to escape routine and keep myself in this
healthy mindset. Sometimes, I’d end up in the mountains of New Hampshire,
climbing the Lafayette Trail, other times, I’d take a train to New York City
for the day to go shopping at Barney’s, and once in a while, I’d even venture
to Canada and sit in a café in Quebec and listen to French Canadians speak with
a pretty lisp to their voices. The nights before Nadia would return, I’d pace
my condo searching for something to keep me occupied until the next day arrived
when she would once again pull me into her arms under my warm blankets and tell
me all about pottery and gardening and flowers. Her eyes would sparkle when she
started telling me about the magic process of growing something out of nothing.
She’d hold me tighter. She’d kiss my forehead more. She’d twirl her finger
around my hair and talk about perennials and annuals and the power of plants in
healing and well-being. Nadia was so smart.

I loved our arrangement. It worked.
We indulged in a noncommittal relationship filled with sex and freedom. I
dreamed up this girl. I asked the universe for someone just like her, down to
the green eyes and smooth confidence at separation time.

She was unhappily married. I was
single. We had great sex. Too perfect for words. Change any of that equation,
and I’d end up a nauseous girl seeking an escape from the confines of what so
many others spent their entire lives trying to force.

“Do you ever grow tired of hearing me
speak?” Nadia asked one night after we just indulged in strawberry shortcakes
and extra-large helpings of milk—the pure stuff, and not that watered-down skim
crap.

I cuddled up to her bare chest and
laid my head just above her breasts, resting my chin against her right nipple.
“Sometimes words get in the way. But, not in your case. I could listen to you
for years.”

“Well, how about you?” She kissed the
top of my head and ran her fingers through my tangled bedhead. “Tell me about
your secret passion.”

“I don’t have secrets. I live life
right out in the clear. What you see is what you get.”

“Everyone has secrets.”

“Not this girl anymore. Secrets just
keep us from moving forward and enjoying life, like with not telling my grampa
about my feelings towards my mother. Now that we spoke, everything is so much
better for me.”

Nadia kissed the tip of my nose.
“Tell me what you loved most about growing up at The Rafters.”

“I loved meeting the new guests. Some
traveled in from different countries. I could sit there for hours listening to
them tell me stories about their lives in faraway places. Maybe my passion is
travel. Maybe I should become a world traveler, doing massages in Milan and
Paris and Sicily. Then I could take naps in the afternoon while others slaved
away at their desk jobs. I could eat all sorts of foods. Imagine? Hmmm. Pasta
in Italy, arepas in Colombia, dal in India. I love culture.”

“So we must travel one day.”

Nadia’s plan for a future we’d never
have pricked me. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Where would you like to go first?”

“You’re such a dreamer.” I circled
her belly button, sucked into its supple swirl, suddenly wishing I could kiss
it. I began to move towards it, and she stopped me.

“You know I wish that could happen,
don’t you?”

I continued on my journey around her
skin. “Yeah, yeah. I told you, words get in the way. Let’s just have this
moment together.”

Nadia pushed me away. “I have to tell
you something.”

Her tone scared me. I met her eyes.
“You secretly hate to travel?”

She groaned. “I have to meet with the
lawyer tomorrow. He has news on her parole.”

I panicked. Neurons fired off in all
directions. “It’ll be fine,” I said, being the supportive mistress. “Everything
will be just fine.”

* *

The next day, off she went to her
wife. She didn’t return for almost a week. When she did return, something had
changed. She stiffened under my gaze.

“You’re different,” I said to her.

“I might’ve been wrong about Robby
and Jessica.”

“Why?”

“I found out that Robby’s her AA
sponsor. He’s also married, and he and his wife are both on the visiting list.”

Dread crawled around us. “Now you
feel like what we did was wrong?”

Nadia tilted her head. “I thought she
cheated on me.”

The blood drained cold through my
veins. I saw our moments fleeting, ebbing away. Ringing echoed in my head. “So
was I just a return volley on that one?”

She shook her head. “Of course not.”

I pined after her like a needy, whiny
sap. “So what then?”

She gulped her Merlot. “I don’t
know.”

I pulled at her. “Are you telling me
we’re over?”

Nadia hugged herself and looked away.
“These past few months I lived in ignorance about whether she was cheating, and
I enjoyed the bliss of it. Now that I know the truth, I feel guilty.”

Her guilt caged me, backed into the
corner. “I’m not here to complicate your life. I’d never do that to you.”

Nadia raised up her glass. “I know
you wouldn’t.” She gulped it back again. “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

Don’t worry? How did I end up in this
position? When did I allow her to turn me into someone who would worry? I
gulped my Merlot, seeking its dark and mysterious power, willing it to come
back to me. “You have to do what you have to do.”

“She rested her hand on mine. “Thank
you for being so supportive. You are something incredible. I hope you know
that.”

I just nodded.

We sat like two lost souls that night
getting drunk at the lounge. I kissed her cheek and left her at the lobby
entrance.

Nadia called me later on and
apologized, citing the Merlot added to her sad mood. She promised the next day
she’d be back to normal.

Normal didn’t come again.

She distanced from me emotionally and
withdrew from sex, stating the guilt consumed her. She seemed fine with falling
back into our friendship status. But me? No way. Somewhere between falling in
love with her and sipping Merlot, I had turned into a sap who couldn’t tune
into any other show but hers.

How did this happen?

I found myself suddenly waiting on
her late night ‘friendly’ calls, and tossing and turning when they didn’t come.
I found myself asking her when she’d travel back to Rhode Island and whether she’d
have time to visit with me for a ‘friendly’ chat. She would answer vague in her
sultry manner, keeping me guessing until the very hour.

The loneliness in this new unsettling
freedom Nadia tossed at me hurt like a stab to the chest.

I started to question her more about
Jessica. I tossed out questions about their future and what that future meant
for our ‘friendship.’ She flung flimsy answers back at me, like
let’s not
worry about that until it happens
.

I worried. I worried all the time. I
feared the day she would stop calling, stop visiting, stop joining me, Shawna,
and Grampa for pottery lessons, and stop being there for future overnight trips
to The Rafters.

Then, one cold, snowy day, Nadia
stopped by my massage oasis, popped her head in, and told me, “Jessica’s parole
was approved. She’s coming home.”

We both stood there, jaws dropped,
pale skinned and sad.

Just like that, discomfort took over,
replacing the freedom I pretended to enjoy. A silent mourning now wedged itself
between us for a loss for what would never come. A sinking gloom hit me, the
likes that dragged me to my knees and stomped on my back. “I hate that you’re
married.”

“I have to go and pack.” Nadia bowed
her head and walked away.

I paced my massage room. Its
potted-tree ‘walls’ closed in on me, clung to me, cut off my air. A man walked
up and asked for a massage. I couldn’t even respond. I tore off out of the
oasis and charged towards the elevators. I couldn’t let her go like this.

When Nadia opened her hotel door, I
threw myself into her arms like some loving fool.

“Please don’t do this,” she
whispered. “It’s hard enough.”

I looked up. Her eyes clenched onto
mine and held me hostage. A sadness floated in them. The fine lines around them
etched in an undeserved pain. I wanted her smiling, laughing, and enjoying
herself.

I trailed the back of my hand down
her cheek and jawline. She closed her eyes. Her lids fluttered. Her jaw
loosened. Her shoulders relaxed. “What do you want?”

Nadia clasped her hand over mine and
opened her eyes. “I want to be a good person.”

“You are a good person.”

She shook her head. “I wish things
were different. I wish we would’ve met years ago. I wish I didn’t live in
Connecticut and you didn’t live in Rhode Island.”

I closed in on her. I brushed her
lips with mine. And the dance began. The sweet dance of two girls enjoying each
other for what they could in that moment.

On her drive to Connecticut, Nadia
called me. “I care about you. I hope you know that.”

I melted just like the first time she
looked at me with love in her eyes. “So what happens now?”

Long pause. “Hmm,” she said.

I closed my eyes, and a rush of panic
coursed through me. “Nadia?”

“I just need some time to sort all of
this out. Right now I need to be there for her.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, of course. I
wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“So, you understand?” she asked.

I swallowed bitterness. “She needs
you.”

“She does.” Nadia breathed heavily.
“I’m so sorry.”

“No. Don’t apologize. I get it. I
expected this day would come. I’m okay with it. You’re married. You have to be
there with her.”

“I miss you terribly already,” she
said.

I let her words sink in and swaddle
my heart. “You take care,” I whispered and hung up. I spent the rest of the
afternoon bawling in my massage oasis.

I hated this version of myself.

* *

Suddenly, I turned into an envious,
snooping, ridiculous person, scrapping at anything that would save my future
with her.

I snooped. I created a Facebook
account for the first time just so I could gain access to her when I wanted to
be in her arms. She friended me right away.

I snooped at every last picture of
her. One of them of her at a bachelorette party dizzied me. She wore a white
t-shirt, a black tie, and a garter belt. She was smoking a cigar, and her hair
blew wildly as if she were sitting in front of a fan.

I refused to go into the photo album
of her and Jessica. The one picture on the cover of the album freaked me out
enough. Jessica was so fucking hot. They looked so happy together. Jessica’s
lips rested on her smiling cheek. Nadia glowed with a bright halo bathing her
in pure joy.

She knew I’d see this, and this
didn’t faze her in the least bit.

I excelled at pretending that I
didn’t care about anything but being carefree and flirty, in only a friendly
way now of course.

I craved more from her now. I wanted
to cuddle. I wanted to kiss. I wanted her to twirl my hair. I wanted to please
her. I wanted her to ask me about my life. I wanted her to confess that she
hated her wife. That she didn’t love her. That she was at least mad at her.
But, she built her up to me, I surmised out of self-preservation, protecting
her, falling victim to the very thing I had tried to avoid all of my life – a
relationship.

I had become
that
girl.

I never thought I would be ‘that
girl.’ You know, that girl who lived out of her car, borrowed money from her
poor grampa, or fell in love with a married woman.

Yet, here I was, all of that and
more.

That first night when I lay in my old
bedroom with her, staring at the back of her head, I should’ve walked. Her hair
fell in gentle waves over her tanned shoulders, spilling onto the mattress. I
should’ve run away. I should’ve torn myself from her, gotten dressed, picked up
my pocketbook, and gone to the other room at the other end of the hallway.
Instead, I swept my leg around hers and inhaled her alluring scent. My inner
voice screamed at me to back away. I ignored it. I justified that we somehow
both deserved this moment, that we could control our emotions, that it was just
sex between two lonely women, and that we could fly away from this at any
moment of our choosing, like two free birds in a wind tunnel.