The Brevity of Roses (9 page)

Let him go
.

She kept her counsel throughout the day, but as sunset neared, and a second night alone loomed, the silence became unbearable, her thoughts increasingly morose. Jalal had stretched the borders of her life. It would take some time before they shrank to fit her again.

Dreading another pointless day, she made plans to drive over to the coast where she could visit art galleries, meditate by the sea, and have lunch somewhere different. Somewhere that wouldn’t remind her of Jalal. Early the next morning, she drove thirty miles to a village called Bahía de Sueños, a place she had escaped to before. Alone. After living so many years near San Francisco, she missed the ocean with its dual nature of calm and chaos. It called to her in voices of both lover and adversary. Always, she felt that if she could sit beside it still enough, long enough, she might solve mysteries. About life. About herself.

Two minutes after her arrival, while stopped at the only traffic light in that section of the town, she perused the line of shops ahead. The flash of sunlight on an opening door caught her eye. She watched as Jalal stepped out and headed down the sidewalk, away from her. A sense of longing hit her with such force it left her breathless. That longing so frightened her, she turned her car around and drove straight back home.

The phone began to ring just as she walked into the kitchen. She took two steps toward it, then froze.
What if it’s Jalal? What if it isn’t?
She hesitated one ring too long. The machine picked up, and Judith said, “Meredith, where the hell are you? We’re all waiting for you here at the charity luncheon!”

Oh! If only she had remembered the event. She wouldn’t have driven to the coast. She wouldn’t have seen Jalal. She would have been one day closer to moving on. Rather than return Judith’s call and admit she had forgotten, Meredith rushed to change her clothes. She would drive like crazy to the country club and pretend she was only running late. Attending the luncheon would have to be better than spending another afternoon alone. If nothing else, it would force her mind off Jalal for a little while.

Twenty minutes later, she grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing server, and took her seat at the table.

“Where’s our honey boy?” asked Judith.

Meredith ignored Judith’s question and asked one of her own. “Did I miss anything?”

Donna replied, “Only Goldie, boring everyone with her usual opening drone.”

Judith and Carol sputtered in glee, while Carol motioned with a flick of her eyes toward the next table. When Donna glanced over to where Goldie’s daughter sat, she uttered a hearty, “Oh, shit!” and then she laughed too.

Their mean-spiritedness stripped them bare, allowing her to see them as Jalal must have. Goldie and Donna had been neighbors and friends for years. How could Donna be so two-faced? She studied the three women she had called friends the last twelve years. How many times had they secretly made her the butt of their cruel jokes? Honey boy? Did Judith’s dress bare every legal inch of her chest because she had expected to see Jalal?
Our
honey boy? Had the three of them conspired and decided Jalal should be community property?

Oh, God!
What if Jalal had decided she was every bit as shallow and ridiculous as these women? What if he truly no
longer wanted her in his life? The possibility sickened her. Without a word, she rose from the table and left the Wanton Women behind.

After that, she tried hard not to think of Jalal. In Bahía de Sueños. With someone else. She tended her garden, read journals and magazines that had piled up, and caught up on her correspondence. After only a few days, she ran out of ways to occupy her time. As though her previous life had vanished with Jalal, Meredith had forgotten how she survived the days before meeting him. She hadn’t felt this lost and alone for fifteen years, since the day life betrayed her.

On that day, she and Stephen had arrived at the excavation site after a pre-dawn breakfast. Though it had rained for three days before, the weather was perfect that morning, and they hoped to make up for the time lost. They parted with a kiss at the field office because she had paperwork to finish before joining him at the dig.

“See you in a few, lovely lady,” he said.

Not even fifteen minutes passed before Stephen’s assistant rushed back. “There’s been an accident … Stephen and Carl!” he told her.

Meredith split in two: body and mind, or body and spirit, or heart and soul. One half knew instantly, just knew, the accident was fatal. That half shattered like cold crystal against stone and refused to believe that anything so horrible had happened on that beautiful morning. Had happened to Stephen. Had happened to her. That broken Meredith believed, if only she had not stayed behind, if only she had been by his side, the horrible thing could not have happened. Or even if it had, she would not have been left—alive—without him.

Her other half switched off. That controlled Meredith stood at the collapsed dig observing the recovery of the bodies of the two men, and felt sympathy for Carl’s wife, at home in the States, and not yet aware she was also widowed. It was that steely Meredith who flew home with the coffin, arranged the funeral, accepted the offered condolences, and wrote the thank-you notes.

At some point, her shattered self and her stoic self merged and went on with a life. She continued writing for a while, but she couldn’t face the prospect of field work. She continued teaching, but her heart was no longer in that either. Within a year, she had resigned her position at the university. At the age of thirty-five, she retired.

It had been a long time since she pulled out, dusted off, and examined the memory of her life immediately following Stephen’s death. At first, grief covered her like skin, defining her, holding her together. Gradually, it sloughed off, and collected into another form—pain without warning, like a cat hiding under the bed reaching out its paw to swat her when she least expected it. Finally, it ceased breathing and became only an object, a fact of her life, but that object cast a shadow—the dark, formless absence of Stephen. This shadow lay over her so long she became oblivious to its presence. Then Jalal lifted it like a veil, and now she craved this new sun-filled life.

Five

SOMEONE NUDGED THEIR cart into hers as Meredith stood in the frozen food aisle of the market. Assuming it was was accidental, she didn't react until they spoke.

“She lives!”

Meredith stiffened and forced a deep breath. “Hello, Judith.”

“So, you
are
still speaking to me! I didn’t know, since you don’t return my calls anymore.”

Meredith was surprised to feel a rush of pity when she looked at her. Judith was all hard edges and brittle points. A lack of love had burned away all softness. “I’ve been busy.”

Judith rolled her eyes. “Well, now that you’ve finally qualified as one, you need to know that we Wanton Women stave off depression by finding a new man as soon as possible.”

“Why would you think I need a new—” she didn’t bother to finish her protest. As usual, gossip had spread faster than a canyon wildfire.

“It wasn’t hard to figure out. No one’s seen him around, and you’ve locked yourself away.”

Meredith forced a smile. “Jalal is away on business.”

A tinge of delight colored Judith’s look of pity. “Honey,” she said, “he’s not the type of man who goes away on
business
.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Oh, don’t be a
fool
,” said Judith. “Jalal’s off chasing some new—and almost surely
younger
—piece of ass.”

The sympathy Meredith felt moments ago washed away in a wave of anger and she lashed out. “We’re not talking about
your
men!”

“You bitch!” Judith grabbed her purse from her cart, and shoved Meredith aside as she stormed off.

Meredith resumed her shopping, but all the while, she questioned herself.
What’s wrong with me? Where is my dignity, my self-respect?
Why would any woman agree to let her lover be unfaithful?

On the seventh day, Jalal sent Meredith flowers. Two days later, he sent a silver bracelet with dangles of sea glass and a hummingbird charm. The next day, he sent a Danish edition of
Out of Africa
she once mentioned coveting. His unspoken message wrapped around her heart like a cashmere scarf, melting away any resolve she had to forget him.

Late the next night, when the phone woke her, and Jalal asked, “Am I still welcome?” She replied, “You are.”

Jalal arrived an hour later. She met him at the door and, as though suddenly shy, they shared an awkward moment of fumbling with words and doors and bags—and then he pulled her to him. For a second, she longed for the comfort of their bed, and then he kissed her. As her gown slipped down to puddle at her feet, she felt a cool whisper against her skin only seconds before his heat seemed to touch her everywhere at once. And for just that moment, she surrendered herself completely.

They slipped back into their routines as though there had been no interruption. Yet, they didn’t ignore the ten days they had been apart. Jalal, of course, asked her direct questions: Did you eat every meal out? Did you decide to plant the ginkgo or the pistache trees? Did you remember to take your car in for an oil change? While she, afraid she would overstep, did not question him. She took the oblique route, saying things like I hope you had time to write, or you probably had a lot to get caught up on at home, but nothing that would hint at the question that twisted in her mind. Never would she ask why did you leave me? It was easier to play the game.

“I must teach you to cook,” he said as they cleaned up after lunch on the second day. “Preparing a meal together can be very sensual.”

Meredith laughed. “I've noticed that, somehow, you manage to make everything we do together sensual, Jalal.”

He came up behind her. With his arms wrapped around her waist, he nuzzled her hair aside and kissed her neck. He whispered, “Sensual is bad?”

Breathless, she pulled away and turned to face him, “Sensual is good, but the landscaper will be here any minute, and I have to show him where I want the trees planted.”

“And then?”

“And then … I could teach you to garden.”

He frowned, but seconds later his face lit up. “We could plant a garden at my house?”

“You have a house?”

“Does that surprise you?”

“Well …” She shrugged. “I guess, I pictured you in an apartment.”

“I have a house on the coast.”

“What! You don’t live in Coelho?”

Jalal’s face blanked and he looked away. “I do not know why I let you think that.”

Yes, why, Jalal
? At the sound of voices outside, she looked away. “The landscaper is here,” she said and started toward the back door. Though she knew the answer before she asked, she needed to hear him say it. “Where
is
your house then?”

“In Bahía de Sueños,” said Jalal. “It is not far away. You must know it.”

“I’ve been there.” Her hand faltered only a little as she reached to open the door. “But not lately.”

As she talked to the landscaper, another part of her mind stood waiting with Jalal’s revelation in hand.
He’s not as honest as you thought.
What do you think of that
? Only after the men began their work did she consider the question. So, Jalal had gone to his house when he left her. What other secrets did he have? Did he have another woman on the coast, and, if he did, how had he explained to her why he was nineteen days late returning from Seattle? Was this woman fool enough to believe his lies?
And how will he explain why he never takes me to his house?
Lost in thought, Meredith didn’t hear Jalal come up behind her, and when he took her hand in his, she startled as though she were the one caught in some illicit action.

“Do you have to start work out here right away?” he asked.

“No, but I planned to go to the nursery sometime this afternoon to pick up the winter annuals.”

He nodded. “Could that wait for a couple of days?”

“I suppose.” The tension, the underlying sobriety, in Jalal’s voice made her wary. “Why?”

“I want to take you to my house,” he told her.

They left within the hour. Though Jalal reached for her hand often, he said little as the car wound through the coastal range. Several times he glanced at her and she sensed he was about to speak, but he only turned his eyes back to the road ahead. All right, so he lived alone in his house. Still, he had warned her; somewhere, there was another woman—or women. When their car passed a road sign informing them they were only twelve miles from their destination, Meredith broke the silence.

“Why did you choose to move to Bahía de Sueños?” He looked at her immediately, but she saw in his eyes that, for a few seconds, his thoughts were still far away.

“I passed through there many times,” he said finally and nodded as if confirming the fact to himself. “When I needed to get away, I would drive down the coast from Seattle. Twice I went as far south as Mexico. Certain places along the way stayed with me, Bahía de Sueños—the ‘Bay of Dreams’—especially.”