Through the Heart (26 page)

It was very clear I had no allies.

If you think that money brings you safety and security, you should try having a lot of it, along with the feeling that there isn’t a single person in the entire world who is there for you.

Except that wasn’t true. I had Nora.

The thought gave me reassurance for a split second—until I saw the danger in it. The power to make me feel better also gave her the power to hurt me. With love came fear. It’s like sun and shadow. How do you separate them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only person who said good-bye to me when I got up and walked out of the dinner was Alejandro. He stood, walked me to the door, said he would call me Monday, and shook my hand. No apologies, no fawning—just matter-of-fact and businesslike.

Everyone else sat there like idiots. Except for my mother. She said, “Good night, Timothy. It’s nice to have you back.” She could afford to be gracious now; she knew that she had won this round. She might even have won whole fight. I had believed that she depended on me. I was shaken to find that it seemed it had been the other way around all along.

Thank God, Nora was nearby. She was waiting for me at Daniel. We had arranged that I would meet her there after the family dinner. I figured we could have dinner, since I was always hungry when I left my parents’ house.

It was only a few blocks away, but I jumped in a cab when I saw one because I wanted to get to her as fast as possible. I was sure the minute I saw her, I would feel better.

But I didn’t.

I spotted her right away when I walked in. There was no way to miss her. She was sitting at the bar, wearing another new dress—this one was red, and with that long red hair, she almost glowed.

She didn’t notice me until I was right next to her—probably because she wasn’t alone. She had men flanking her on either side.

One of them said something, and she laughed. A real laugh. As she tilted her head back, her hair rippled down her back, and I swear I’ve never seen anything freer. Or more beautiful.

I can’t describe how it made me feel, to see her laughing like that with other men. It took everything in me to keep from taking a swing at one of them. I didn’t say anything, but both of the men noticed me, and when Nora saw them staring behind her, she turned around. “Oh, here he is,” she said. “Timothy, this is Alex and Stephen. This is Timothy.”

I think I nodded at them, but I can’t be sure. I had no interest in making nice with two blowhards in suits—they were buy-side or investment banking, from the look of them.

They took one look at my face, and they started backing away. Literally.

One of them, I don’t know if it was Stephen or Alex, said to Nora, “Good to meet you.”

She glanced at me, then turned back to the one who spoke, and it seemed to me that she gave him an extra big smile and said, “Thank you for the drink and the company while I waited.”

I felt wild. At that moment, I wanted to hurt her.

They beat a retreat, and she swung around to look at me. The smile disappeared, and she just looked straight in my eyes as if weighing something. Then she said, “Let’s not stay here. Let’s go someplace else. I passed someplace I thought looked nice.”

She didn’t wait for me to agree. She just got up off her chair and headed over to the coat check. She gave the coat check girl her ticket and put some money in the tip jar.

The girl turned and disappeared into the coat room. We stood in strained silence—until the girl came back with Nora’s parka.

“Will you help me with my coat?” Nora asked me.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. She had gone out wearing that awful parka over that dress. And I knew she had done it for me.

“Well, you said you liked my parka,” she said, smiling.

“I love your parka,” I told her. And I took it and held it out for her to slip her arms into the sleeves.

We walked east over to Third Avenue, to a dive bar, and ate chicken fingers and drank Budweiser on tap. I probably had too many beers. When we left, I had the feeling that I needed to concentrate in order to walk straight. We hailed a cab and I pulled her against me, her and her big marshmallow parka.

I waited until the door of the apartment closed behind us. Then I practically leapt on her. She tried to push me away and take off her jacket, but I wouldn’t let her. “Leave it on,” I whispered.

I made her sit down on the sofa. I pulled off her shoes. I rolled down her stockings, then I took off her underwear. And I made love to her in that silly jacket and that stunning dress. Halfway through, I let her take off the jacket. Then the dress. And it was just her body, white against the leather of the couch, and her hair. That hair spread out over her shoulders. It wasn’t just long; it was heavy and thick and it felt like strands of silk when it slid over my skin.

I ran my fingers through it as she looked up at me.

“I love you,” I told her.

“I love you too.”

I searched her eyes. I couldn’t see it.

“I need you to prove it,” I told her.

“What do you mean?”

I stood up and held out my hand. She put her hand in mine, and I pulled her up and led her down the hall and into the bathroom. I opened up the bottom drawer and took out my electric razor and handed it to her.

She held it for a moment, as if she didn’t know what I wanted.

I took the cord and plugged it in.

She just looked at me blankly.

I reached out a lifted a lock of hair from her shoulder, and I said, “I want you to prove it. I want you to cut off your hair.”

Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes were wide and dark. Her pupils seemed to have expanded to take up the whole iris, so they were just a well of black. She glanced at herself in the mirror. Then she looked back at me.

“You’re really asking me to do this?” she said.

“Yes.”

I don’t know if you’ll understand, but the thrill I felt at that moment was like nothing I’d ever experienced. This was it—it was what I wanted. It was what I needed. I needed proof, and this would be it. This would give me what I’d been looking for. I would know for certain how she felt.

“How much?” she asked me.

“Everything,” I told her.

I don’t know what I expected. Tears I suppose. Or protest. Or questions. I got none of it. She looked at me with no expression at all. At least none that I could read.

She said, “I’d prefer to do it alone, if you don’t mind.”

I did mind. I wanted to watch, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it. So I nodded and turned around and left the bathroom.

She closed the door behind me, then I heard nothing for a long time.

I lay down on the bed and waited. Eventually I heard the buzz of the razor when it was turned on, then the higher pitch of it as it was set to work. I lay there listening to the whine of it.

I closed my eyes and I imagined the heavy strands of hair falling to the floor. I saw it as something sad and beautiful, like the autumn when the trees drop their leaves and cover the ground with a carpet of color.

It went on much longer than I thought it would. But finally the noise stopped. And the silence afterward was almost a palpable thing.

I opened my eyes. But a long time went by and nothing happened. Then, finally, the handle of the door turned. And she came out.

 

 

 

 

I admit it. I thought New York would be the answer to all my problems. I thought it would be a wonderful adventure. I thought I would feel like I was living for the first time.

But from the moment I stepped out of the cab, I knew I didn’t fit in there. The airport was fine—maybe because in the airport I was surrounded by people who weren’t from New York. But the minute I got onto the streets, I knew I didn’t belong. Everyone seemed to have some sort of handbook on how to dress, how to walk, how to appear sophisticated and aloof.

I never paid much attention to my clothes in Kansas. I mean, you might dress up when you were going out at night, but during the day it was really more about being comfortable. Here the way everyone else dressed made me feel like a lumberjack. I looked around and there were so many beautiful women in New York. I had no idea why Timothy had asked me to come. What was he doing with me? I couldn’t answer the question. He had invited me to live with him, but the thing that we never talked about, that was left unsaid, was what would happen if it didn’t work out.

So in some ways that first weekend was an agony. Funny, right? I’d gotten everything I wanted, everything I’d been waiting for, and I was miserable. All my money worries—gone. I had met an amazing man. I had escaped my mother’s house and a dead-end job. I’d come to New York. And I was miserable.

For the first two days, the thought that haunted me was that I wanted to go home. But that was also my greatest fear—that Timothy would send me back.

What I wanted and what I feared were the same. It seems so obvious, but it took me two days to realize it. But when I finally saw it, it made me laugh. And when I did, everything was better.

That’s also when I started actually doing something to change what had made me so uncomfortable. During that week on my own in New York, I discovered some things about myself. I found I always turned in the wrong direction when I came out of the subway. I found I loved walking around the city, even when it was bitterly cold. I found I liked shopping. I always assumed I hated it, but it was a bit different when you had money in the bank and you were in New York. I found my attitude had changed—I didn’t mind feeling out of place, and the looks other people gave me when I was out with Timothy just made me laugh.

When I was feeling more secure, I started to see his insecurities. Aren’t relationships like that? It’s like being on a seesaw. There are those precious moments when you’re just even with each other, but you move through that, and then one person being down by definition means the other person is up. I knew he loved me, and I knew he was afraid. I discovered that, if you look, you can actually see everything. All you have to do is clear away your own fears. The things you think are so well hidden: we can all see them. That’s the secret. Everyone can see everything.

But, even though I could see what he was feeling, I didn’t see what was coming. So I ended up standing in the bathroom with an electric razor in my hand.

What can I say about the moment when I understood what he wanted from me? He wanted me to cut off my hair to prove I loved him.

It wasn’t a fair test.

The truth was, I had wanted to cut off my hair for as long as I could remember. I would have done it, but I was afraid no one would want me without my hair. My mother had taught me that it was my beauty. Without it, I would be nothing. I resented it, I wanted to be rid of it, but I felt like I needed it. And here was someone telling me they wanted me without it. He was standing there, thinking he was asking for the greatest sacrifice, but with that request, he was giving me the greatest gift.