Chapter 26 Nora
Chapter 26 NORA
S unday came with another wave of rain and regret.
Nora kept herself together on the bus to Dipa’s family’s bakery, despite the thunderstorm simmering just below the surface. She regretted everything again—talking to him, inviting him in, spending the night together. How it all hurt her heart, hurt her body. Her soul. And to think that she tended to his wound, but now she would have to take care of hers on her own...
She regretted the wine, the cozy fire, the goddamn magazine. From now on, if Dipa wanted to read that trash, then she’d need to have the subscription mailed to her own address.
But when she arrived at the shop and saw Dipa in utter distress in front of a long line of customers, something inside her melted.
She skipped the line and went straight to her friend. “Hey.”
“That will be seven fifty, please,” Dipa said to a customer. “Nora, hey!”
“I came to pick up dessert to take to my mom’s; I didn’t expect you to be so busy.”
“God, it’s chaos out here. Our cashier is sick, my brother had a dental emergency, and my parents are on their first vacation in ten years. I’m all alone. Here’s your change. Have a sweet day! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m great. Dipa—”
“Oh, good. I was beginning to worry that— Triple chocolate? Excellent choice. Nora, can we talk later? I—”
“Dipa—”
“I am so sorry. I know you need me and I wish I could give you some attention—”
“Dipa!”
“Yes?”
Nora finally seemed to attract her friend’s attention for more than five seconds. “I think there’s something burning in the kitchen. Go get that, I’ll take it from here.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to—”
Before Dipa finished, Nora was already leaning down the counter so she could enter the cashier area. “I wouldn’t trust myself close to the oven, but I’m an experienced cashier. Let me help.”
“ There you go. Have a sweet day! ” Dipa said as she handed a bag of cookies to a man. “Can I pay you in Black Forest cake?”
Nora laughed. “I demand pina colada.”
“Fine. I’m not in a position to negotiate labor conditions right now.”
Dipa ran to the kitchen, and Nora felt a much needed peace of mind as she dealt with the line of people looking for the best sugar treats in town—none of them seemed to know or care who she was or with whom she’d spent Friday night. Busy as the shop was, the morning went by so quickly that Nora almost forgot about Aiden. Almost.
Type. Erase.
Type. Erase.
During the eighty-minute bus ride to Cookeville, Nora tried to come up with how she was going to tell her team about the layoffs. With her own feelings in shambles, the right words wouldn’t come, and the ones she forced out of her brain conveyed the wrong tone, or sounded insensitive, or seemed patronizing. When the bus arrived at the destination, she had nothing but a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Luckily, there was Lucy to cheer her up. The dog ran to Nora as soon as she arrived at her mother’s place, nearly making her drop the gigantic pina colada cake she was carrying. Her mother watched them from the front porch, leaning on the door frame. Balancing the cake in one hand, Nora squatted down and tickled Lucy and rubbed her belly, to which the dog responded with enthusiastic wiggles of her tail and happy barks. But whatever joy Nora achieved with the dog’s affection vanished when she finally reached the front porch and her mother embraced her in her signature bear hug.
“Baby, are you dating that actor?” her mother asked in Portuguese.
Nora grunted. “Since when do you follow celebrity gossip?”
“I don’t,” her mother said. “Sylvia from Pilates class showed me the picture. He’s handsome, that boy.”
Trying to run away from the subject, Nora made her way to the kitchen, where she knew Stephen, her stepfather, would be. She greeted him and praised the delicious buttery scent that came from his cooking—some kind of risotto, by the looks of it.
“You didn’t answer my question,” her mother said, not caring that Stephen was there. “Is this Aiden Elliott your new boyfriend? You should bring him here. I can make feijoada for—”
“Mom. Mom. No.” The mere sound of his name made her blood boil again, even more so close to her favorite Brazilian dish. Not even Myra Flay singing in the background calmed her. At least it wasn’t “Baby, Look.”
Nora went after Lucy to the living room; her mom followed. Faint chirps and tweets and hoots sounded from the TV—National Geographic was on.
“No, what? You don’t want to bring him here? Are you embarrassed of me?”
“It’s not that! We’re not dating. I met him. We had tea. That’s it.” No way she was going to try to explain to her mother that she welcomed a stranger into her house and spent the night with him.
“Nora Oliveira Henning. What happened? Are you mad at him?”
“Madalena dos Santos Oliveira Fletcher.” She mock-scolded her mom in kind. “I’m not mad.” Nora faked a smile, despite knowing it was impossible to hide her feelings from her.
The truth was that she was deeply, utterly sad. But admitting that to herself meant admitting that more than half of the blame for what happened was hers. Dipa was right, Nora had a habit of transforming all her sadness into anger—it was her coping mechanism. Being angry, she could blame Aiden for hurting her. She could call him names for having deceived her.
Once again a man had hurt her, and her shattered heart just wanted to be comforted. And not feel guilty. And of course, her mom could see right through her.
Her mother sat on one end of the beige couch and tapped the spot by her side.
“Come here, cub.”
Nora sat, and her mother’s hands gently pulled her to her lap.
“Mom, don’t do that.”
“We spend too much time away from each other, baby. I miss you.”
“Mom, please.”
But it was done. Nora rested her head on her mom’s lap and let her caress her scalp in cafuné . The love and care of her mother, along with the memory of doing the same for Aiden, was all too much. Nora’s anger dissolved into tears.
“You like him, don’t you?”
Nora wiped her tears. “It doesn’t matter. He lied to me.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, dear. What did he lie about?”
Nora didn’t want to talk about it, but she knew that, if she didn’t answer, her mother would pester her until she did it. “I didn’t recognize him. And he didn’t tell me he was famous.”
Lucy jumped to the sofa and snuggled close to Nora.
“The fact that he didn’t say, ‘hello, I’m famous,’ says a lot about him, don’t you think?”
Fame is one of the worst diseases of the twenty-first century , Nora recalled saying to Aiden. Had that kept him from revealing the truth?
Her mom kept caressing her head, and a deep relaxation took over Nora’s body. She became sleepy, but even so the tears wouldn’t stop.
“I’m thinking here,” her mom said. “I don’t know the first thing about fame, but let’s think of it like this: when you start a new job, isn’t it nice to have a blank canvas? Maybe that’s what he wanted. He didn’t want you to see him as this person in the movies or in magazines. He wanted you to have a fresh image. Maybe by not knowing the famous side of him, you might know more about him than anyone else.”
It’s not how it felt to Nora. She had the impression everyone else knew more about him than she did.
“I don’t care. You were right: men lie, and cheat, and leave.”
Her mother’s eyes filled with compassion. “Oh, Nora. That’s not true. I’m sorry I put that in your head. There are good men, you just have to find them. I can’t tell you if this Aiden is one of them, but if I could give you one piece of advice it would be to allow yourself to see the good in people. And not be hindered by your prejudice or your traumas. I know that’s what I had to do in order to find happiness.”
Nora usually appreciated her mom’s advice, but this situation was surely more complex.
She’d developed a powerful bond—stronger than any other bond she had ever felt—only for it to be violently shattered as soon as they stepped outside. Nora thought she knew Aiden in her soul. She thought they could have a future. Yet she hadn’t known one of the most important things about him. Thinking about it made her heart race, her palms sweat, and her eyes flood with tears.
She didn’t want to look for the good. She didn’t even want to talk to Aiden. Nora just wanted to cry and cry until the pain of losing something that was never hers went away.