Chapter Forty-Seven
Forty-Seven
For the next full week, Mary could think of nothing else but the night that she’d spent with Quaddra, replaying that entire evening inside her head on an endless loop – from the moment that he came up behind her at the Legion of Honor, until the second that she turned her back on him and ran out of his house in the middle of a stormy night.
And Mary could remember every detail… every touch they’d shared.
Mary took a seat on her sofa, placed her feet on the coffee table, and allowed her eyes to settle on the painting that Quaddra had given her.
She had finally unwrapped it and hung it on her wall, and she absolutely loved it.
The more she looked at it, the more details she uncovered – little subtleties that Betsy had expertly added to the painting here and there, like Easter eggs to be discovered – and the more details she uncovered, the more that the piece reminded Mary of her own childhood.
It reminded her of her mother’s endless stream of live-in boyfriends – most of them for no more than a year, maybe two, maximum.
It also reminded her of the tears that she’d cried almost every night, and of the incessant bullying that she was subjected to from a very young age, but most of all, the painting reminded Mary of the night that she’d finally had enough – enough of the constant beatings…
enough of the pain… and certainly enough of her mother’s boyfriend’s stench not just all over her skin and hair, but inside her as well.
That one night, as her mother and her boyfriend had another drunken argument in the living room, Mary, knowing exactly what would happen once her mother had fallen asleep, had packed a small bag with just a few items of clothing, and as they screamed and cursed at each other in the living room, Mary jumped out of her bedroom window, and disappeared into the night.
She was only fifteen years old.
She never went back.
They never came looking.
But that wasn’t the real reason why Mary liked that painting so much.
It wasn’t because of what the mirror revealed about the girl’s past – all the pain, the anguish, the suffering.
No, what Mary loved most about that piece was the other side – the woman staring at the mirror and how, from a scared, broken and bruised little girl, she had blossomed into a beautiful and strong woman – a woman who would never again take abuse from anyone.
The mirror in that painting was simply the past. The woman starring at it was the present…
she was the future… and Mary was trying hard to be that woman.
On paper, she was only twenty-seven years old.
Samantha Stewart would’ve been thirty-five, but Mary Smith was still only twenty-seven.
Regardless of how she looked at it, she was still so very young, and Nelson Stewart wasn’t going to be the last guy she’d ever dated…
she knew that. It had been over a year since her divorce and if Mary was honest with herself, Quaddra would at least make it into the ‘boyfriend material’ category.
He was hot, he was kind, he was courteous, and he’d treated Mary with a lot of respect, despite all her mad outbursts.
Even though it was pretty clear that he was completely into her, after Mary had run away from his house, in the middle of the night, like a gunslinger outlaw, he kept his promise…
he didn’t try to contact her again… and that showed character.
Right then, Mary wondered if for the past week, Quaddra had thought of her at all, because no matter how hard she tried, she simply couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, give him a call already.
The voice inside Mary’s head sounded sick and tired of all those thoughts.
You know you’re going to. And not to worry you or anything, but a guy like Quaddra, how many women do you think are in line to go out, date, jump in bed with him…
whatever they can get, really? He’s certainly sweet on you, but that won’t last forever, do you understand what I’m saying here? ’
Mary did… and the voice had a point.
She checked her watch – 8:15 p.m. – Thursday evening.
‘OK, fuck it.’
Mary reached for her cellphone. She didn’t have to look at the piece of paper that Quaddra had left inside his coat pocket to know his number. She already had it memorized.