15
Nina
I didn’t have the heartto keep him waiting on the patio. I went back about ten minutes later.
My family was spot on for the reason for my dismissal. My grandmother called it. I sensed doubts in Adrian. He delayed telling me the reason. He hadn’t come here blazing with the zeal to defy his parents. He wanted me to stay at the house to defy them. Nonsense.
I sank back into my seat across from him. I looked at his handsome face. His strong hands tented against his strong nose. This beautiful specimen was into me and I was into him. I’d never trusted my heart to want. I had never before let my heart fully want what it wanted. I’d always kept enough freedom for me to walk away.
“Adrian, what have you decided?” I asked with quaking bravado.
“I am going back to talk sense into them. I am going to make them see we belong together. I am going to get them to accept you.”
I threw my head back and laughed at his naiveté. Did he really believe the words he uttered? He didn”t, because I watched uncertainty, then despair, then dread march across the window into his soul.
I got up and left the patio for the second time.
Yes.
I am a coward.
I run away from feelings.
I run away from voicing my thoughts.
I run away from relationships.
I went to the kitchen and took out my favorite crystal bucket. I filled it with ice from the ice dispenser. I took a bottle of Perrier water from the refrigerator. I went back out to the patio and met Adrian in the same position in deep contemplation.
My heart twisted for him. I wasn’t making this easy for him. It was so hard. I was trying hard to keep the range of emotions from escalating within me. My stomach twisted into giant knots of tension, fear and pain.
I poured the fruit punch onto the crystal ice and then the Perrier water. This was one of my indulgences. I loved the combination of the fizz and the fruit punch.
Adrian studied me while I poured the drink and served a dainty white gold-rimmed plate with pastries. One for me and one for him.
“Let’s eat and drink.”
He looked at me with questioning eyes. He’d already eaten from the pastries. But these acts were my acts of delay. I wanted to delay my heartfelt response.
“Let’s break bread together, Adrian. We need the fortitude for the road ahead. Nothing like pastries to soothe our souls and spirits.”
I stared him down until he took up his glass and took a sip. I did the same. He took more sips until his glass was halfway down. His eyes never left mine. The warmth in his eyes did a softening number on me. To break the spell of his eyes, I spoke.
“Adrian, Adrian, Adrian. I like you,” I purred. “But we are too different. How many West Indians do you know?”
“A lot.”
“How?”
“I spent a year roaming the islands.”
“Oh yes, you said so before. Which islands were your favorite?”
“Dominica, Barbados, St Barts, St Kitts, St Lucia, Guadeloupe.”
“Are you going to name all the islands?”
“I could,” he said laughing.
“So, did you see Aimee in Dominica?”
“No, she’s married and living in San Anselmo, California. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
“We broke up. We graduated. And I went on my four-year sojourn.”
“Four years is a pretty long time to travel.”
“It was an educational tour.”
I laughed and leaned towards him to look into his eyes. “Are you serious?” I cajoled.
“Dead serious,” he said, holding my stare. “My grandfather says no one needs four years to find themselves.”
We both laughed, loud and spontaneous, and full of gaiety.
“I think I agree with your grandfather,” I said, between bouts of laughter.
His laughter turned into a knowing smile and he said, “It was the best education my trust fund money could purchase. And I am deadly serious.”
“I don’t doubt you,” I said. “My parents traveled widely. My father for his work as an economist with the IMF. My mother and I would accompany him when school was out for the both of us. Every year there were family vacation trips. By the time I was thirteen they had ensured I had touched down on every continent. And then their plane crashed.”
He reached for my hand and caressed it and I drank in the warmth, sympathy, compassion flowing out of his loving eyes.
“I like you.”
“But we are so different.”
“Are we?”
He traced his finger along my bottom lip. The lightest touch. But it lit little fires in me. He was getting under my skin. He was getting inside my head. He was creeping into my heart. And the last one was the scariest. I didn’t let anyone into my heart completely. Lest they leave.
I placed my glass on the tabletop. Then I pressed my hands down on it, staring at my hands as if it was a painting. I pushed out a gust of air. Time for me to speak again.
“Adrian, you are not going to change the minds of your parents. You are not ready to make up your mind. You are not ready to leave, to walk away, to divorce your family.”
He started to protest. I cut him off.
“Don’t say a word. You’ve told me about you and Aimee ad nauseum, and I’ve hated each time you brought her up. My insides clench in unfamiliar jealousy. You were not ready for Aimee. And you are not ready for me. You’re not ready to give it up for a mixed-race girl. My mother was Irish. My father, a black Bahamian. You’re not ready for me.”
I paused to take a sip of my favorite drink. He tried to speak. I stopped him again.
“Adrian, I send you back to your family. Your place is not here and not with me.”
I was right to always guard my heart. To hold back. I kept reminding myself of that over the last few days of our whirlwind romance. It was too perfect, too instant to be good.
“You’re not ready for me. I am not ready for you.” My voice cracked on the last word. I grabbed my drink for another sip. And I allowed him to have a word in.
“You are not going to help me fight for us.”
“No, you have the ace card, the power card, the power play,” I said, unyielding.
“What are you willing to give up for us? Until you can answer that question, there is no us. Go back to New York. Go back to your legacy, tradition, law firm, your precious foundation. Leave me,” I said, and it was tinged with the sense of finality coiling around my arteries.
He shifted back in the black canvas chair like he’d been electrocuted with a high extension wire. Time slowed down. His chest rose and fell. His eyes closed. His fingers wrapped with a vice grip around the glass. I feared the glass would break.
At the realization, I closed my eyes. I was causing him pain. But it couldn’t be helped. I opened my eyes again and noticed his eyes remained closed. The closure a flimsy barrier that failed to keep the wetness locked behind his eyelids. It seeped out and traveled down, two single lines of wet pain.
“I just found you. How can I lose you?” he said, tired and defeated.
“Because you aren’t ready,” I said, faltering and faint. My tears were damming up behind my eyelids. I spread my eyes wide to keep the dam from breaching its walls.
“Go back, Adrian.”
“Nina, let’s try.”
“This is not a game Adrian. This is life. It’s not a movie audition. You’re not ready to divorce your family. That’s what it will take. Stand up.”
He did, and I walked to him and wrapped my arms around him. I pressed my lips, wet with tears, to his. Satin lips against silk lips. Our tears mingled. Then our lips tangled in a soft kiss. A light play of lips. Then deep and loving and passionate. Like all last kisses should be. A kiss forever etched into our memories.
I released him.
“Leave and don’t contact me,” I sputtered.
I took his arm and walked him to the door. I watched him walk from my front door to the Bentley. I closed the door behind me. My legs buckled; I leaned against the door and crumbled to the floor like a windshield shattering into a billion pieces of glass. And I burst into loud soul wracking sobs. I was sure my parents heard in heaven.