Chapter 59
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Gabriel
“How do you think it’s going, Otis?” I asked on Monday afternoon when we moved out to the front porch as the wind picked up.
He cocked his head to the left and to the right, studying my face, then lay down and covered his eyes with his paws.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Never underestimate a dog’s ability to read a room.
Thunder rumbled and a flash of lightning split the sky in two. I watched the storm clouds rolling in while I played the new song I was working on.
With Cleo here, the words and the music were flowing. Even when she disappeared into her studio for hours and gave me the brushoff, the music still flowed.
And so did the memories. They didn’t come flooding back, but they trickled in.
On Saturday when I was kissing Cleo in the pool, I remembered when we were on a tour bus. Not sure where we were headed. Not even sure when it was, but she was making coffee in the kitchenette, and I came up behind her, wrapped my arms around her middle and kissed the side of her neck.
She leaned her back against my chest and wrapped her arms around my neck and I whispered into her ear, “You are an entire universe.”
No real context because it was just a flash of memory, but at the time, she seemed to understand. And maybe somewhere deep in my subconscious, that was what compelled me to have the teardrop mandala tattooed on my back.
It symbolized the interconnectedness of all things. A visual map of the universe.
It was just a hunch, but I got the feeling that she drew it when we were on that tour bus.
I grabbed my notebook and scribbled more words on the page. Teardrops inked on my skin. We’re only here for this moment in time. My soul cries out for yours.
Lame. Lame. Lame.
That’s the best you’ve got?
I crossed out the words and chewed on the cap of my pen, trying to figure out what I wanted to say, but all I could see was Cleo’s face when she breezed past me earlier. Last night at dinner, she barely spoke to me. She wasn’t rude. Just distant and withdrawn.
Polite , I guess. The kiss of death.
I knew she was pissed off about something, and a wild guess told me it had to do with Maya, but when I asked if she was okay, she said, “I’m fine.”
I hated that word. Fine never meant good.
Rain drummed on the tin roof over the porch and pummelled the ground, flattening the tall grasses that flanked the driveway.
I threw down my pen, zipped up my hoodie, and carried my guitar inside. I didn’t own an umbrella or a waterproof jacket so I pulled the hood over my head, ran through the rain and sloshed through the puddles.
By the time I reached the studio, I was soaked to the skin and my sneakers squelched. I pushed my hair off my face and knocked three times before stepping inside and shutting the door behind me.
Radiohead’s “(Nice Dream)” was playing on the stereo, the sound muffled by the driving rain as I kicked off my shoes and tossed my wet hoodie on the floor.
Cleo looked over from her canvas. “What are you doing? You’re soaking wet.”
“A little rain never hurt anyone.” I wiped a hand down my face. “Besides, we used to love to dance in the rain.”
She shook her head and faced forward again. “I’m busy.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” I crossed the studio and stood next to her while she continued gluing pieces of paper to the thick paint on the canvas. “But since you won’t tell me what’s wrong, I had to come and find you.”
“I told you I was fine,” she said in a clipped tone.
It was the equivalent of Fuck off . But I didn’t take the hint. I stayed and studied the canvas, searching for clues, but I couldn’t figure out what she was going for.
Flyers, pieces of broken glass, bottle caps, a flattened Lucky Strike packet, all glued to the canvas. Midnight blue paint. Silver…tin foil? Some kind of grid mapped out.
I moved down to the other end and studied her sketches. Hands. There were a lot of hands. I moved in closer. That looked like my hand. They all looked like my hand.
She looked over then faced forward again. “It’s pure chaos right now.”
“But you have a vision,” I said.
“I have a vision. I’m mapping the cosmos.”
“A microcosm of the universe.”
Cleo looked at me. “Aren’t we all?”
I moved next to her as if it were an invitation to get closer. “I don’t know about everyone, but I know that you are. You are an entire universe.”
“What?” she whispered.
“I found it in the Milan Kundera book you gave me the day I left. The teardrop mandala,” I clarified. “It was folded into a small square, tucked into the pages of the book, and I didn’t find it until a year after I left. You wrote a note on the back.”
She swallowed, licked her lips. “What did the note say?”
“It was a Rumi quote. That’s how I found Rumi. Through you.”
“’You are a universe in ecstatic motion,’” she said.
“Yes.” I nodded, watching her face in profile.
She kept gluing paper to the canvas while I wracked my brain for the right words to end this stalemate.
I took a stab at it. “Maya and I are just friends.”
“So, she said.”
It sounded like an accusation. I exhaled loudly. “I never slept with her, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Great. Good to know,” she said sharply. “What am I supposed to say to that?”
“Say whatever the fuck you want.” I threw my hands in the air, exasperated. “Just say something. Preferably something honest because you might be surprised to hear that I’m not a fucking mind reader. I can’t fix this if you don’t tell me what the fucking problem is.”
“No one’s asking you to fix anything.” She spun to face me. “I was doing just fine until you showed up. Why now, Gabriel? You don’t even remember me so what makes you so sure you even want me back?”
“I just know that I need you in my life. Maybe it’s a gut feeling. Maybe it’s my heart and soul calling the shots. I can’t even explain how I know. I just do.” I shrugged like I had no idea because truthfully, I didn’t.
I had no memories, no concrete proof, just a feeling that my life wasn’t complete without her in it. And reading her words in the notebook only confirmed what I’d already suspected. Our love story was epic. Strong enough to stand the test of time. Resilient enough to bounce back from adversity.
She laughed under her breath. “You’re unbelievable, you know that? You abandoned me. You walked out the door without looking back. And now here you are, expecting me to forget all the pain you caused me?—”
“I’m not asking you to forget. I’m not expecting you to just let me off the hook. I’m just asking you to be honest with me?—”
“You want honesty?” Her eyes narrowed on me.
“I hate that Maya knows things about you that I don’t.
I hate that you never once mentioned her even though she played a pivotal role in planting that garden you love so much.
I hate that I didn’t know you had a tattoo.
I hate that you’ve created this whole life for yourself in a house we never shared… .”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she gritted her teeth and warded me off when I reached for her.
“But what I hate the most is that I used to know all these little things about you and now I don’t.
I mean, you changed your shower gel, and I had no idea.
You arrange your books in alphabetical order by the author now whereas before you never did that.
And it is so, so stupid to even care about any of that. I don’t want to care.”
I shoved my hand through my hair. “You think I don’t feel the same way?
You think it didn’t bother me to see you all dressed up in heels and red lipstick going off to meet someone else when I came over to ask you to dinner?
You think it doesn’t bother me that they took out the bathtub and my keys don’t fit in the damn locks?
You think I don’t worry that I will never be the man you fell in love with?
I’m not him anymore. I’m not the guy you wrote about in the notebook. ”
She opened her mouth to speak, but I kept going. “You think I’m okay knowing that you got mugged by some asshole when I wasn’t there to protect you? You think I don’t know that none of this is okay? Trust me. I fucking know.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks and I wanted to make it better, but I had no idea how to do that because, once again, she warded me off and took a step back without letting me comfort her.
“Cleo,” I said softly.
She wiped her nose on the back of her arm and let out a shaky breath. “I’m fine.”
“Stop fucking saying that word,” I said through clenched teeth.
She lowered her gaze to her clasped hands.
“I was coming home from a New Year’s Eve party.
It was at a club in the hinterlands of Chelsea.
My friend Xavi was with his boyfriend and for them, the party was just getting started, but all I wanted to do was go home.
When I left the club there were no taxis because it was New Year’s Eve and there are never any taxis available on New Year’s Eve.
“So I started walking, and I kept thinking about New Year’s Eve the year before.
You played at the Supper Club and after the show, we went to a bar, and I don’t even know what bar it was, but we were together, and it didn’t matter where we were.
Then I started thinking about all the other New Year’s we rang in together and I was wallowing in self-pity.
“I got onto the subway and took it one stop with the other drunks and revellers, and I was just so caught up in my own misery that I didn’t even see the junkie following me out of the subway station to Astor Place. I didn’t want to give up that ring.
“But I did. I ripped it off my finger and threw it in his face and when I got home, I sat in that stupid bathtub and I thought, This is it. This is the end of our story . It seemed so crazy to me that I got robbed in the early hours of New Year’s Day, just one year after you gave me that ring. I just couldn’t get over that.”
I wanted to tell her that I’d get another ring made for her, but I wasn’t sure that was the kind of thing you could replace. It wasn’t about the actual ring anyway. It was all the memories attached to it. All the symbolism it represented.
That ring was irreplaceable.
So I did the only thing I could. I pulled her into my arms and this time she let me.
“I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you but I’m glad you gave it to him.
I’m glad you’re okay now.” I brushed a lock of hair off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear.
“It will be bad karma for that asshole. He won’t know a moment’s peace. ”
Small consolation, but I had to believe it was true.
She tried to smile and let out another shaky breath. “Can I see the tattoo?”
“Yeah, sure.” I tugged my wet T-shirt over my head and turned my back to her.
She traced the design with her fingertip, branding my skin more than any tattoo ever could.
“I wonder how it ended up in that book?”
“No idea. But it was a great book.”
“You loved it the first time too. I let you borrow my copy because you left yours in a bar and needed to know the ending.” She lowered her arm to her side and took a few steps back as I turned to face her.
“If you want to know anything about me, just ask. You can ask me anything. I’m an open book.”
I’m not sure if I’d ever been an open book, but I knew beyond a doubt that I’d let her in before, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
All she had to do was ask.
Her eyes met mine. “I shouldn’t have had to ask. You used to tell me everything. But I guess we’re not those people anymore. We’ve grown and changed and evolved. So of course you’re not the same man you used to be. I’m not the same girl either.”
She packed up her things while I retrieved my wet clothes from the floor.
“I don’t want to dwell on the past anymore,” she said. “I just want to live in the moment.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. I can do that.”
“Should be a piece of cake for you.” She brushed past me and headed for the door.
“Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll let you buy me dinner.”
An olive branch.
I followed her out the door. The rain had stopped, and amber sunlight lit up the garden. “You’re too good to me.”
“Don’t I know it.”