Chapter 19 Sharing the News #2
Jake ends with a flourish, “And right there in Central Park, next to our favorite bench, I got down on one knee while Emma was scanning the sky for the hawk and asked, ‘Emma, darling! Will you marry me?’ And bless her heart, she said yes.”
His parents don’t look amused, but I laugh and give him a smack on the leg. “I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Jake knows my weakness.”
Carol’s eyes turn even colder; I decide to stay quiet.
Jake takes my hand and, staring into my eyes, turns it over in his hand and kisses my palm.
The room fades to just his bright brown eyes that are filled with such tenderness.
I’m lost momentarily but am brought back to reality when I hear Carol clear her throat and ask stiffly, “May I see the ring?”
Jake pulls me up by my hand and draws me over to Carol and Oliver. He holds out my hand for inspection.
Carol reaches out and her finger lightly touches the delicate ring; a caress.
Looking at Jake, she pauses. Her eyes mist over, and for a second, she looks as if she is going to pull Jake, or maybe even both of us, into a hug.
But then her eyes shift toward Oliver, and when she looks back toward us, all the softness is gone.
She stands. “Well, now we are going to be late to dinner. Really, Jake, you know how important this dinner party is to Oliver.”
Jake replies comfortably, “Of course, I’m so sorry. I forgot all about the Andersons. You both look smashing. That is really all we wanted to share. Oh, and that we are planning to move in together.” Jake drapes an arm around my shoulder loosely.
Carol gives him one more stern look that seems to say, I’m not fooled by any of this, and then marches back to her room with Oliver in tow.
Jake sits back down on the loveseat and pats the spot next to him, and I obediently sit.
“The worst is over,” he whispers. “They’ll be gone momentarily.
” A smile splits his face and the relief is pouring off him.
I try to breathe but I’m still on edge waiting for some explosion.
Carol and Oliver rush through the room with a curt bye, and sail out the door, clearly focused on the dinner party and not the little drama that just occurred.
As soon as the door clicks shut, I let my breath out in a whoosh; Jake springs up pulling me with him.
Twirling me around, he does a little waltz, humming something catchy in my ear.
His enthusiasm is contagious, and I laugh for no reason other than the stress is gone.
He pulls me closer; we stop circling the living room, and he nuzzles my neck.
My knees go weak.
I place my arms around his shoulders and feel his muscles through his sweater. Warmth spreads through me. Jake shifts his head, and his lips graze mine just like he did in front of Carol and Oliver, but as he is pulling back, I stand on my tiptoes and press my mouth against his.
He sighs into me, and his hand slips lower to cup my bottom, pressing me firmly against him. Our lips and our tongues dance with each other and our bodies still. He steps back half a pace and takes my hand and pulls me to his bedroom.
My stomach is in knots, but right below my stomach, I’m pulsating with heat and need. Jake tugs me down on the bed next to him. We sit side by side, and I try to figure out how to kiss him again from this angle.
Leaning forward with his head in his hands, he states simply, “Look, I need to apologize about the last time—hmm, the first time, our first time. I really messed the whole thing up.”
He rakes his hands through his tousled hair.
I watch, mesmerized, as a strand falls across his cheek.
I want to reach out and push it back into place and then pull him to me to make him stop talking.
I can’t concentrate on anything but his lock of hair reflecting in the celestial light, a thousand shades of brown.
Turning to me suddenly, he catches me staring and I flush.
Looking uncomfortable, he blurts out, “I shouldn’t have been so rough.
I didn’t know—you know about—but there really isn’t an excuse.
I was lost that night and then that morning, I made a mess out of that too.
I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’m sorry if it seemed like I blamed you for anything. I didn’t mean to; it was all my fault.”
Staring at him, some of what he is saying sinks in.
He doesn’t blame me, and he isn’t saying I was awful either.
He’s apologizing for something. What exactly, I’m not sure, but I feel light and happy inside.
I spontaneously throw my arms around him and kiss him, as now the angle is perfect.
Our lips touch and I slide my lips against his, pressing and angling.
I can’t formulate any words to accept his apology, so instead I shift to press my body into him, and he lies back willingly.
He moves, pulling me further on top of him, and I slide between his legs.
He loosens my shirt from my pants and his hands trace my curves.
I concentrate on kissing his mouth and then rain kisses along his neck.
Reaching my hand up slowly, I tentatively push the hair from his face, and my insides melt, and wetness gathers.
Jake is slow and gentle.
The pressure builds slowly and overtakes my brain as I push and writhe against him. “Please, please hurry.” I beg.
Lying under his expert fingers, I’m taut with a need I don’t have words to express. He rubs and teases and I’m left panting, gazing up at his fancy light, bathed in its little stars. Suddenly they explode into a flash of light and I’m floating far away on a different plane, in a different world.
As I slowly come back to reality, Jake comes into focus. He’s watching me.
He murmurs in my ear, “Lie still. Just relax, this time won’t be as bad, I promise.”
And that is what I do. He is slow and careful, and I understand now what he meant by his rough comment.
While he wasn’t rough by any means, he wasn’t like this.
I experience the same fullness where I think I can’t take any more.
I see how beautiful Jake is in his power and some-thing ignites in me when he gets lost in his own urgency, he too has left this realm for a moment.
I feel all woman and all powerful. I’m both softness and strength.
I’m as old as the ancient trees and also as new as the fawn I saw last spring.
Suddenly, we are moving as one, in and out, pushing and pulling, my hips moving wildly. I can’t get enough of the fullness. Jake explodes and freezes, and his muscles clench and release. I’m back floating, staring at the pinpoints of light above my head.
Kissing me gently, he rolls off me but pulls me into the crook of his elbow.
After a few deep breaths, Jake props himself onto his elbow and gazes down at me.
I don’t even have the decency to blush. I’m naked and don’t try to cover myself as he scans my body.
He smiles at me and again, I’ve lost the ability to move or show any modesty.
Tracing circles on my stomach, Jake begins softly. “Have I told you why I don’t want to work for Oliver’s hedge fund?”
I shake my head, as my tongue doesn’t seem able to form words.
“My dad, my real dad, worked on Wall Street. Carol and he met at Ole Miss. After graduating, they came to New York to make their mark. It was the eighties and was a crazy time. My dad had a finance degree and started working at some brokerage firm on Wall Street. He started slowly, but it being the eighties, he couldn’t help but make money.
It just started rolling in. My mom had Sandy and then me a few years later, and she quit working.
She started hanging out with all the other rich, bored Wall Street wives.
They had it all: cars, fancy apartment, the place in the Hamptons, kids and my dad seemed to have the Midas touch. ”
Jake pauses and takes a deep breath. I sit up and touch his tense arm encouragingly.
“After a few more years, my dad started doing coke and other drugs, it was all part of the game. You needed uppers to stay awake and then downers to come down. Have you ever read Wolf of Wall Street?”
I shake my head. “Is it good? I love to read.”
“Well, they are making it into a movie now, but probably not your cup of tea.” Jake quirks his lips, “I read it because I wanted to get an idea of what it was like for my dad; you know investing, drugs, cheating, and all that shit. I think there were a lot of parallels except my dad died and Gordon just went to jail. For my dad, the money started to ebb and flow and suddenly what was so easy, wasn’t so easy anymore.
The stress skyrocketed. I was five when the market took a bad downturn.
Because they were mortgaged to the hilt, they were about to lose everything.
My mom was crazy with fear and anger. The fights and the tension were awful, while I didn’t understand any of it, I felt it.
My father was too coked up to figure a way out of the mess, so instead hatched some shady deals that failed miserably.
All my dad had left was a life insurance policy.
” Jake wipes at his eyes. “So, he OD’d on May 12, 1982, and Carol got the million-dollar payout.
” I suck in my breath and Jake lets out a sad hollow noise.
“The money allowed her to pay off the apartment and the house in the Hamptons, but we didn’t have any money to live on.
She was desperate. Then, in walked Oliver to save the day, and she did what she had to do—for me and Sandy and our future. ”
I give a pitiful sigh. “That is so sad. For everyone.”
Jake continues, “Auntie Beth, Vee’s mom, told me this story when I was ten, and I vowed I’d never work in such a crazy world where making money is all you’re doing.
I wanted to be a police officer or a builder or maybe save the world.
Something real, something you can see and feel, not just pushing around make-believe money.
I’m not sure why Auntie Beth told me the story when I was so young.
I don’t think I asked her, but maybe I did.
I don’t really remember my dad. I remember some stuff from that time, mainly the fights and the screaming, but Auntie Beth filled in the stuff I didn’t know or understand. ”
Jake lays his head back down on the bed, facing me, and I shift so I’m on my side too.
Taking his face in my hands, I respond fervently, “That’s a sad story, but it doesn’t mean you have to do something you don’t want to do.
You can be a builder or a police officer, or a doctor.
That’s something you can feel and touch.
” I pause and when Jake doesn’t respond, I continue, “You don’t have to work at a hedge fund.
It’s your life and your choice. Your mother made her choice. ”
Jake smiles wistfully, “But she did something she didn’t want to. Sometimes you gotta do stuff no matter what vows you made when you were ten. Family is family.”
Knowing all too well the weight of family obligations, I shake my head.
Then try another tack. “But you don’t have to.
You aren’t a single mother in desperate straits.
You don’t have to save anyone. You need to do what’s right for you.
” I like the sound of that. That is what I’m doing on a tiny scale.
“I find doing the right thing rarely means doing the right thing for you.” Jake gives me a soft kiss.
“Who knows what will happen? All I want to do now is move out of here and finish my thesis. I can barely breathe, never mind think, with them on my back all the time pushing this girl or that girl at me.”
Jumping up, Jake starts pulling on his clothes. His contemplative mood evaporates.
“Come on!” he says. “Let’s pack up my stuff.
Now that we are legit, we can move in together, right?
I know it isn’t quite the same as being married, but your church has loosened up a little on those puritan beliefs, right?
” He continues without letting me answer, “I may actually finish my dissertation by March. Come on, my little minx, before I lose my focus again.”
He playfully slaps my thigh, and that gets me up and scrambling for my clothes. I’m thrilled to feel the heat and sting of embarrassment, as I was worried I may be lost forever in the dreamy world Jake seems to catapult me into with just a touch or a look.
“What can I do to help?” I ask.
Jake hands me a small suitcase. “How about if you pack up everything in the bathroom?”
I head to the bathroom and carefully begin to clear out the drawers.
As I do, I get a clearer picture of Jake.
He keeps everything neat and uncluttered.
His toothpaste cap is screwed on tight, and neatly squeezed from the bottom.
I’m relieved, as Vee was a complete mess.
Vee never put the caps back on, or if she did, she never tightened them.
I investigate his razor drawer and the cord to the electric razor is wound up neatly. I’m going to like living with him—a thought causes another blush to stain my cheeks.
Looking into his bathroom mirror, a disheveled, feverish stranger stares back at me.
I whisper, “Please, Father, forgive me for my sins. I know it doesn’t make it right, but it is only for a short while. Please understand why I must do this and forgive me. I promise to try to make up for it for the rest of my days. Amen.”
Shooting a quick glance out the bathroom door, I spot Jake still in his closet, taking items off hangers and folding them into a large suitcase.
I look heavenward and make the sign of the cross.
Boy, I hope God is the understanding and all-knowing God Vee thinks he is and not the fire and brimstone God of St. Augustine.
I return to the job at hand: I lug the suitcase out of the bathroom, swing it up on the bed with the other suitcase Jake has quickly filled, and help him finish emptying his closet.