24. Not So Much Acceptance
Summer
“You’re joking,” I said. “Or crazy.”
We weren’t driving, and we weren’t back at the house. We were at the Niagara Falls Café, which was a not-really-a-restaurant somewhat-converted house, off the not-really-a-highway in the not-really-a-town of Niagara, but was charming as it could be, its tables covered with colorful mismatched cloths and looking out at a peaceful landscape of—yes, green. Green and sheep and sunshine and peace. New Zealand in a nutshell.
It hadn’t been that many hours since breakfast, but we’d hiked about seven muddy, hilly miles, and besides … well, the food was all locally sourced, and the menu had been too tempting. Roman was eating a lamb burger on homemade bread spread with hummus, feta, and other Greek-type treats, and I was attempting some discipline by having a salad. A salad made of greens and herbs from the café’s garden, tossed with Stewart Island salmon that tasted like the fish had been swimming this morning. I wasn’t complaining. I also wasn’t craving scones with cream and jam for dessert. Much.
“I’m not joking,” Roman said. “I’m dead serious. I don’t want to do this, but you’ve convinced me. Win for you, eh. If I have to go, I want company and an escape plan, and bringing my girlfriend along seems like the best way to get both. You could also be a bit better than me in fraught situations. Not in business, but in, ah …”
“Situations where you don’t want to bark at people or terrify them with your killer stare?” I said. “Possibly. Can I have a bite of your lamb burger?”
He didn’t complain, the way some men would have done. He also didn’t cut off a bite. He held it out so I could chomp at it like that Golden Retriever. Which I did.
“Mm,” I said, wiping my mouth. “That’s so good. Want some salad?”
“No,” he said. “And, yeh, that’s what I meant. If I’m not meant to walk out on my so-called father or to tell him or anybody else what I think, I could need you there to smooth things over. In case I haven’t mentioned it, I don’t want to go.”
“How about your assistant?” I asked. “Can’t she be your girlfriend?”
“Esther?” He laughed. “She’d be worse than me. Esther suffers no fools, and she’ll pretend to be my girlfriend or let me hold her hand when hell freezes over. Nah, I need your sweet kitten face.”
“My kitten face? I know I look like the girl next door, but a kitten? I do not! I’m a software engineer! I’m a?—”
“Sorry, but you do.” He took another bite of burger. When he’d chewed it, he said, “Not the girl next door, though. I’d remember if I’d had you living next door. You’ve got that sweet thing going on with your face, but then there’s the body. Gives a fella whiplash.” He rotated the burger in the air. “But the forehead and eyes and chin and all? Sexy little kitten all the way. And the way your voice is a bit growly, too. That’s seriously sexy.”
“I’m growly?” Well, this was horrifying.
He gestured again with the burger. “Smoky. Husky. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Oh,” I said, and couldn’t think how to answer that. “Delilah’s not disarming, though, and she’s not interested in smoothing anything over.”
“Ah. Delilah.” He looked at me speculatively.
“I’m not leaving her here alone,” I said. “No way. Setting aside the tailbone—in case you haven’t noticed, she thinks she knows it all. Perfectly capable of deciding she should throw a party in your house and drink all your wine, because no one person should own that much of the world’s resources. Especially if we’re going to be—where, exactly?”
“Katikati,” he said. “North Island. Bay of Plenty. Near Mount Maunganui, but not nearly as flash.”
“Way too far away,” I said. “She’d have a party for sure. Go down to the beach and invite everybody she meets. I can see it now. If your house wasn’t actually burned to the ground due to a pizza-oven accident, you’d be lucky, and I just spent weeks cleaning it. But we spent a little time there, in Mount Maunganui. Great beach. Lots of cafés, too, but we couldn’t afford to eat in them. But …”
“Look.” He set down the burger. “It’s one afternoon. Saturday. We fly up that morning, we meet people, we chat, we leave. Stay over and go to the beach at the Mount on Sunday, if you like, and eat in some of those restaurants before you fly back to Dunedin. Call it a mini holiday. You, me, and Delilah.”
“And I’m your girlfriend,” I said. “Why, exactly? Why can’t I just be your friend? Your houseguest? I don’t have the wardrobe anymore to be the girlfriend of somebody as fabulous as you.”
“I’ll be wearing shorts,” he said. “It’s a barbecue.”
“Yeah, right. You’re a tycoon and can get away with it, and anyway, men’s dress codes and women’s dress codes are different. I’m guessing you know that. I don’t even have any makeup except one lipstick, because guess what? It got thrown out of the van and I couldn’t find it, and I figured I wouldn’t need it anytime soon. You’d look pathetic in the girlfriend department. I’d better be your houseguest.”
“I’m going to take it on myself to invite my houseguests to my newfound grandfather’s important party, am I?” Roman said. “I thought about fiancée, but …”
“Yeah, that’s a no.” I ate some more salmon. “I’ve been a fiancée. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Delilah would do it, though. She’d think it was funny. We bought her replacement makeup, and she even has a dress. Fancy an eighteen-year-old fiancée?”
“No,” Roman said. “Why can’t you use her makeup?”
“Because it’s unsanitary? Because she’s a brunette and I’m a blonde? Because her eyes are brown and mine are gray? Because our skin tone is completely different? Do you really not know that?”
“Oh,” he said. “Being a woman seems like heaps of work.”
“You’re right about that. Too bad I sold the ring, though. The thought of Delilah in it is amusing me. That thing cost over four hundred thousand pounds. I know, because some reporter found out and published the price, or more likely, Felipe told them. It was hideous. Huge triangular yellow diamond like a yield sign, surrounded by a whole bunch of white diamonds on fastened-together gold rings, one above and one below the ring with the yellow diamond. You cannot imagine the tackiness. It covered my finger all the way to the knuckle. Gaudy doesn’t begin to describe that ring. On the other hand, it looked like it came out of a gumball machine, so maybe people just thought I had bad taste in costume jewelry. What do you say when the guy gives you a ring like that? ‘Oh, my’? ‘You shouldn’t have’? I tried both of those. They didn’t work, and short of screaming, ‘I hate it! Take it back!’ I couldn’t figure out how to get out of wearing it. I’m sure everybody at my job thought it did come out of a gumball machine. That was amusing. If Delilah was wearing that thing, sounding eighteen and looking fifteen the way she does? There’s a phrase in the States. Trailer trash. I’ve always hated it, because being poor and living in a trailer doesn’t make you trashy, but Delilah could have some real fun with it. Your family probably wouldn’t invite you ever again, so if that’s the idea …”
“What did you do with the money?” Roman asked. “I’m not addressing the rest of it. Just going to ask why you’re planning to sleep in a tent if you sold a ring like that.”
“Bankruptcy, remember? And it didn’t fetch as much as that. It was a used gumball-machine ring by then.”
“You can’t keep your engagement ring in bankruptcy?”
“Nope.” I speared another delicate, tender piece of flaky salmon and looked at it. “You can keep a wedding ring, if it’s plain gold. Needless to say, my wedding ring wasn’t plain gold. Doesn’t matter, because I didn’t want it anyway.” I ate the salmon. Delicious. “The gumball-machine ring brought in more than the Lamborghini, though, and that was one fancy Lamborghini.”
“You had a Lamborghini?”
“Who, me? I had a Mini Cooper. I got to keep that. The Lamborghini and the Bentley went toward the creditors. I sold the Mini for plane tickets and part of the campervan and … and a few other things.” I shrugged.
“And you didn’t care more than that,” he said.
I set my fork down. “I cared extremely. But not about that ugly ring. And, no, I won’t pretend to be your fiancée, or answer questions about when we’re getting married, or lie about how we’ve been together for a year. I’ve lived enough of my life lying. Lying that my life was working for me. That I was happy. I have to—” I broke off, tried to pick up my fork again, and couldn’t do it. “I have to be real. I’ll go as your friend, and if people assume I’m your girlfriend, I won’t correct them. If you want to hold my hand or put your arm around me, I’ll go along with that. I owe you that much. I owe you more than that, but that’s as far as I can go.”
“And yet you kissed me today,” he said. “That didn’t feel like a lie.”
“That was …” I trailed off and looked outside, because looking at Roman had been harder since that kiss. He’d held me almost … tenderly, but he’d kissed me so hungrily. Like all that intensity I kept getting from him was real. Like he wanted everything from me, but he knew I wasn’t ready and was holding back. Another brush of his hand against my lower back as we came through the café door, and that was all. Was that caring? Or something else?
He was too complicated for me. He was too much for me. When I was ready, I needed somebody else.
“Do you know any nice guys?” I asked.
He blinked. “What?”
“I was thinking,” I said, “that if I want to kiss somebody again, and clearly I do, or I wouldn’t have done it—if I’m having sexual feelings again, I should expand my dating horizons. Even in college, I went out with a football player. A star football player. I went to so many loud, drunken parties. I was shallow, obviously, even though I’d have sworn I wasn’t, and then, of course, there was Felipe. I’m attracted to exciting men, but the problem is, I’m not exciting, and I tend to end up being the steady support system. After your party, when Delilah and I have moved on, maybe I could try a nice guy instead. Maybe that would be a better match, and a nice guy might not expect too much too soon, the way—” I cut myself off. “If I can actually rent someplace in Dunedin and get a real job, that is, because no guy wants to date a woman who’s actually homeless, I don’t care how nice he is. Dunedin’s cheaper than Auckland or Wellington, right? I’m going to have to confront the bankruptcy sooner or later, so I’m thinking …” I took a breath. “Why not now? I’m living too much on the edge for Delilah to feel comfortable leaving me, and I’m running out of time. She needs to know I’m OK, that she can go home and go to college and live her life and I’ll be fine. And I need to get over my fear of people finding out and just let them find out. What do I care, really? They don’t know me. And surely somebody would rent to me if I got a job first. Maybe. If I explained the reason for the bankruptcy.” I looked down at my salad. “Or not, of course. That fraud charge. Doesn’t matter that I was acquitted, not really. And how would I get a job without an address? If it doesn’t work, I guess I’ll try a roommate situation once I go home. It may be a dumb idea to try it now.”
“That’s not the dumb idea,” Roman said. The frowning intensity had started up as soon as I’d begun talking, and now it was here in full force. “The nice guy is the dumb idea. You don’t want a nice guy.”
“I don’t? Excuse me, but how do you know what I want?”
“A nice guy’s going to be intimidated by you. Every time.”
“Why? How? I have a pretty face and nice hair, but what else about me is so fabulous that a man can’t keep up? I grew up dirt poor, and now I’m broke again. I’m wearing shorts and a T-shirt and a ponytail. I’m a waitress and a cleaner, I’ll be a software engineer when I can get back to it, and I’m not one bit glamorous anymore and don’t want to be. I want to go to work and make dinner and be a … a normal person. I don’t want to be desperate for money, because it’s not fun, but I also don’t want to dance the night away in the VIP room of some overpriced club and drink too much champagne, I don’t want to be on any magazine covers, and I really, really don’t want press. What about me could possibly be intimidating?”
Now Roman’s jade eyes looked patient. Oh, man. It was always a bad sign when a man looked patient. “You’re not a normal person,” he said. “You need a man who can match your wattage, who’s not threatened by you, if what you want is marriage and all that. And I’m not just talking about your looks.”
“Right,” I said. “I’m so fabulous, I need somebody like you, is what you’re saying.”
“No,” he said.
“No?”
“Not me,” he said, “because I don’t want any of it.”
All right. I might be getting mad. “Wait a minute. Who keeps asking me to stay with him and pretend to be his girlfriend? Who just kissed me in a plunge pool? Who’s been staring at me from the start like he wants to … to do everything to me?”
“I don’t want to get married again,” Roman said. “Or have any kind of serious relationship, either. I told you, I’m bad at it. I don’t do things I’m bad at.”
“Pretty limiting,” I said, embarrassed about everything I’d revealed and trying to rally. “Where’s all that stuff about being in the moment and growing and so forth? ‘Surrender to what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be.’ Sonia Ricotti. That’s supposed to be you, right? Well, you’re bad at surrendering. I’m going to point that out here, since you seem to think you’re doing it. You also might be bad at having faith, and I don’t see you letting go of your anger at your dad for letting you grow up like that.” Lashing out because I was embarrassed, probably, but how could I help it?
“You’re looking up these quotations to get the better of me,” he said. “You can’t have them in your head.”
“Oh, yeah?” I couldn’t think of any better retort. How arrogant was this guy? “You have no idea how hard I’ve worked for serenity. You have no idea. I’ve needed all the help I can get. Yes, I memorized things to tell myself during the hard times, and I have a good memory. What, I’ve been spending my time figuring out ways to impress you? I’ve been cleaning.”
“Right,” he said. “Message received.” Was he cowed? Clearly not, because he went on, “If I’m meant to accept who I am, that’s not a husband. Or a fiancé. Or anything close. But you’re right about one thing. I do want to do everything to you.” He didn’t smile, and I got a shiver right down my … well, it wasn’t down my back. “I’m happy to have you move in with me in Dunedin, if that’s what that was about, the bit about the flat and the job and the nice guy and all. If you were trying to make me jealous, you did it, so I’ll say this. I have two bedrooms, and I want you. Move in with me until Delilah needs to go home, and get a better job. You’ll have an address that you won’t have to pay for, and I’ll have the kind of relationship I can do, with heaps of sex and you cooking those dinners and a guaranteed end date. And I’ll promise not to buy you any rings.”
“So we move in,” I said. “And I pay for our keep with sex.”
“I didn’t say that.” He didn’t even look flustered!
I wasn’t sure if I was humiliated or mad. No, wait, I knew. I was both. I’d been clear, back when I was being a Disney princess, that it wasn’t real. Not true love, not Prince Charming, and not happily ever after. If I’d harbored any sneaky illusions, I’d been set straight when I’d realized that my international-superstar husband, for all his neediness and his half-million-dollar ring, was sleeping with every pretty girl he could get his hands on and didn’t think it mattered. And I hadn’t even known then that he’d exposed me to fraud charges!
I said, trying to keep my voice steady and hearing how it wasn’t, “Let’s back up. I’m sorry about your father. I’m sorry about the party, and that you’ve been hurt.”
“I haven’t—” Roman started, but I put up a hand.
“Sure you have,” I told him. “You didn’t have a dad, your mom never put you first in her life, and your first wife, at least, seems to have used you as her personal bankroll and dumped you as soon as she didn’t need it anymore. You’ve had to do everything by yourself, all anybody wants to do is take what you’ve got, it’s damaged you, and I’m sorry. But I’m not any kind of answer, because I’m damaged, too. I’m all alone on this island of mine, and so are you. There’s no loneliness like being with somebody who doesn’t want all of you, and I’m not doing it again. Not for a week. Not for a day. I’d rather live in a tent.” I stood up. “And I won’t be going to your party with you. Find another woman. You could pay her. You’re good at that. Let’s go back. We need to put your rugs down.”
Roman was up, too. “Hang on. I didn’t say I didn’t want you. I never said anything like that. I said I didn’t want to get married. I’ve known you about three weeks. Bloody hell.”
“You can want anything you like,” I said. “It’s your life, and I’m not judging it. But I’m done being somebody’s sweet kitten. Somebody’s understanding resting place at home. Somebody’s doll on a shelf, waiting patiently for when he needs her enough to take her down, until the doll isn’t as pretty anymore and he finds another favorite. I’ve lived that, and I’ve watched it happen to plenty of other women. I’m thirty years old, my doll days are numbered, and besides—I don’t have to be that and I never did. I just didn’t realize it. I got sidetracked, but that’s over. I have skills, and I have pride. Delilah and I need to go.” Which was when I realized it. “Oh, shoot. The tailbone. My job. I need to give at least a couple days’ notice. We’ll leave Monday morning. Sorry, that makes my speech much less dramatic.” I tried to laugh.
He wasn’t having any. “You need to leave to do what? To live in a tent? Because I offered my flat and my bed at no charge to either of you, and just saying it crossed the line?” He was simmering with frustration, his muscular arms were folded, and he looked like nothing so much as an angry bull. Maybe I should’ve been intimidated, but I wasn’t.
“Maybe,” I said. “The difference is, it’ll be my tent. If I could walk out now, I would. I can’t, so I’ll say—please take me back to your house so I can finish the job you asked me to do.”