“Incredible. Thank you,” I say, licking the last bit of goodness from my fingers.
“A colleague told me they were worth the drive alone, and I believe he was right. We’ll be picking coconut from our teeth for some time.”
“What teeth? I think mine just fell out from the sugar overload.” I laugh, and he does, too.
“They need the black coffee,” he says. “Something to cut the sweet.”
“I’d love to know how they make them,” I say.
“Perhaps we can wheedle a recipe.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, noting a sign on the wall, small but distinct, that claims all rights to the baked goods they make here. “I can probably figure something out. I’m sure that there’s egg and some almond extract in them. The binder isn’t egg whites, though, and... what?”
“Perfect example! A bloody perfect example of your curious mind. Nyle is absolutely correct, you should enroll at university.”
“No time.”
“Make time,” he says to me, his gaze intense yet again. “There are night courses, there are on line courses, and the campus is practically in your backyard. Summer’s approaching and your daughter will be gone for the most part. There’s no reason that you couldn’t take a course or two. It might be intensive, but you could MAKE the time.”
“I don’t think I could get back into school work again at this late date.”
“Bollocks.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Balls. Hogwash. Bullshit, if you like,” he tells me with a laugh.
“You and Nyle certainly have it stuck in your heads that I’m wasting my life in some way or other, don’t you?”
“I cannot speak for Nyle. I, myself, do not think that you’re wasting your life in any way whatsoever. But I do think that you could broaden your horizons, and that once you’ve gotten yourself into the groove of classroom life, you’d eat it up faster than these cookies.” His hand makes a sweeping movement over the debris of our dessert.
“You’re serious?”
“And you’re not.” But he laughs. “I understand the demands of your job, I really do, and perhaps you’re correct and this summer might not be the best time for you to embark on something like this. I do think that you should mull over the possibility, though. I’d do what I could to get you registered, even if it’s pushing you through the wait list. God knows I’ve done it for less deserving pupils.”
“Your opinion of me seems a little over elevated,” I tell him.
“Hardly,” he says. He stands and extends his hands. “Come, let’s walk for a bit, before we’re mistaken for two rather large pastries ourselves. That’s another odd phenomenon of California, it seems. Have you noticed that hardly anyone walks anywhere?”
I welcome his hand, the offer to walk, and the abrupt turn of the conversation.
~~**~~**~~***~~**~~**~~
David is a sport. He lets me drive his car part of the way home, regardless of the fact that I’m still not in my comfort zone when dealing with a manual car. When I grind the gears a bit, he doesn’t even wince, and I know that this little beauty is his pride and joy. It’s a green convertible, with an optional, snap on hard top that is safe in his garage at the moment. He had it shipped over when he took the job at Pepperdine, and says he hasn’t regretted the cost at all; the dry weather is easy on older cars.
It’s coming on sunset during the return drive. I have no real need to get back before ten, the appointed hour of return for Tish; she’s dining with Kim after their busy shopping day. But I’m still driving like a bit of a mad person, lead footing it down the PCH, hoping there are no police in site.
David just smiles at me, when I look at him to see if I should slow down. He’s watching me as I drive, I know it, I can feel it, feel his eyes on me, and I don’t care. I actually like it, because I know that behind his dark glasses, there’s a certain amount of admiration there. If I can’t see it in his eyes, it’s in his comfortable stance, the way his legs are sprawled and his arm rests on the car door.
I’m amusing him.
I decide to amuse him further and come to a screeching halt, one that kicks up a spray of sand, at one of the many little shoulders on the side of the road.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a maniac,” he says, pushing his glasses up to the top of his head.
“Me? Never. I thought it would be nice to catch the sunset,” I tell him, taking my own sunglasses off and slipping them into my pocket. “Thank you for letting me drive, but I think I’ll let you take it from here. It’s one thing on open road, I don’t trust myself taking it through town and up into the hills.”
“You need to return home?” He checks his watch, and I check mine.
“Not right away, no.”
“Would you like to get some supper?”
“I’m still full of macaroons.”
“Yes. Well, how about a drink, then?”
“Maybe.”
“Coyness? Siobhan, you’re just full of surprises.” His arm snakes across the back of the seats and I feel the back of his fingers on my arm.
“Oh, DO shut up. Watch the sunset,” I tell him. I try to ignore that touch and it’s impossible. I reach up to brush his hand away and instead find my fingers twined with his. He brings them down to rest on the glove box that divides the car. I wish it felt uncomfortable to be doing this, but it doesn’t. Not at all. There’s no demand in David, no forcing; I know, I can feel that if I pulled my hand away he wouldn’t pursue it.
But I don’t want to pull my hand away. I want to sit here at the edge of the ocean and watch the sunset holding hands with this man. I’ve never done anything like this in my entire life. Errol wasn’t one for holding hands. He wasn’t, as far as I know, one for sunsets, either. Maybe he is now. Maybe I was too busy being stressed and bitchy about our lives to even notice if he liked sunsets, the ocean, heck, anything.
I push those thoughts away. That was then, this is now. I’m not that person, and I won’t bring an ounce of regret into this moment, into this sunset. It’s too beautiful.
We sit together in comfortable silence, listening to the waves and the traffic that passes behind us. The sun is almost halfway down, the light dimmed by some incoming smog, or fog, but it’s very pretty all the same. The sky above turns to pink and peach, then streaks itself with violet and blue. I look straight up and see one of the first stars of the evening hanging above us. David looks up, too, then lowers his gaze back to the horizon to watch the last throes of yellow light before the sun turns orange and disappears.
David lifts my hand to his lips and kisses the back of it.
“Magnificent,” he says. I feel his warm breath on my hand as he speaks, then his cheek, rougher today than that evening we went to supper together, as he holds my hand there for a moment. Then I feel him as a low laugh erupts from deep inside his throat. “Impetuous again,” he says.
And I turn to look at him. His grin makes him look like a mischievous boy, but his eyes say something else entirely.
“But you do it so well,” I tease him.
“Mm,” is all he says, and he releases my hand. “Are you sure you’d prefer me to drive into town?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
He gets out of the car, and I make to do the same.
“No, no, now, you have to wait. A lady waits,” he insists, laughing as he jogs behind the car and around to the driver’s side door. He opens it and holds it for me, holds out his hand to help me out. “There, yes, just like that,” he says, teasing ME now.
“Aren’t you supposed to come back around and open the door for me on the passenger side now?”
“Absolutely.” And he follows me around the car once more, opens that door, and helps me in. “There, now, that’s just so, isn’t it? All the proper rituals done.” He grins down at me, and his hand touches my face once more before he returns to the driver’s seat and pulls back out onto the road.
~~**~~**~~***~~**~~**~~
We go to a small Mexican place for Margaritas where we can sit outside and smoke and drink. The evening air still holds a lot of the mellowness of the day. I think that it’s a good idea that Mickie will be bringing Tish home tonight, I’m not up to doing more than being driven home. My legs are starting to get a lovely ache in them from the walking we did around Solvang, and I’m feeling no pain from the tequila.
“So you have a brother?”
“I do. Lawrence. He’s a rather flamboyant person, he’s an architect in London. Married, three children, two dogs, and a completely obnoxious cat. My father is living with him at the moment, too, since I’m here now. He’d been living with me since mum passed away.”
“Did they mind you coming all this way to work?”
“Mind? Not exactly mind, no. They miss me, I hope,” he says with a chuckle, “and I miss them, as well. But they knew that this was an opportunity not to be passed up.”
“So you’re not going to stay here, then?”
“That’s uncertain. As of now, this is a two year assignment, but it could turn into something long term. I suppose it depends on what incentives they can offer me to want to stay.” He shrugs. “That seems like a long way off. I know it’s not, but it seems that way.”
“And you’ve never been married?” I ask. I know it’s the tequila, because I would never ask such a forward question; ‘new’ me or ‘old’ me.
“No,” he says, and he’s grinning but says nothing else.
“Well, did you ever WANT to get married?”
“Is that a proposal?” he asks, and we both end up laughing. “No, not really. Never enough time. Work, work, work, study, study, study. There was never a period of time that wasn’t allocated and I didn’t think it was right to attempt to pigeon hole someone into that.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh.” He lights himself a cigarette and lights one for me, too.
“So.”
“So?”
“So there’s just a trail of broken hearts behind you, hmm?”
“Hardly. Maybe one or two, but certainly not a trail,” he says, and laughs again. “And you?”
“Me?”
“Broken hearts?”
“Only my own.” Well, hell. Hell. I didn’t mean to say that, I didn’t want to say that, but I have. I think I sound pitiful and foolish.
“Yes, that, too, I’m afraid. It’s terrible when things don’t work out the way we expect them to, isn’t it? Terrible to be disappointed. And I’m afraid I don’t possess your caution. You are a cautious one, aren’t you?” he asks.
“Yes, I am.” Why not admit it? I’ve already put my foot into my mouth with the questions I’ve been asking and the answer to the last one.
“That’s good, then. It creates a balance,” he says.
A waiter interrupts us to find out if we want refills and I’m grateful. I’ve taken the conversation into a territory I don’t want to travel. David defers to me, and I check my watch before declining a second round. I have to go home.
The ride isn’t long from the restaurant, just a dark, twisting drive up the mountain. When we arrive it’s dark outside the house. I never left the lights on, I thought I would have been long home. I tell David not to bother trying to jockey the car into the drive, it’s already crowded with vehicles, but he does it anyway, driving me up to the door.
“Thank you for everything,” I tell him.
“My pleasure. Here, these are your cookies. Don’t forget them or I’ll just eat them all myself,” he says, reaching into the narrow space behind the seats where he put the bags. He puts the sack into my hands, then gets out of the car once again.
I know better now, and I wait for him to open the door for me. He leaves it opened while walking me to the gate that’s near the garage, where Tish and I use the side path to get to the pool house. It’s even darker here and I have to fumble for my key, but I find it and open the tall wooden door. Once I do, sensors turn on the path lights that dot the way down to the pool.
“Lovely,” he says.
I smile. I think that the path looks pretty when it’s lit like this, too. I turn my head to look at him and see that he’s not looking at the path at all. He’s looking at me. His finger pushes a piece of my hair behind my ear, comes around and under my chin, tilting it up.
So nice. One of the nicest kisses I’ve ever had. His lips are soft, firm, and not demanding in the least. They lift away for a moment, and it’s me, not him, that reaches back for them. It’s me, not him, that leans in, crushing my cookies between us, the bag making a crinkling noise that I hear above the moist sound of our lips. I feel brazen, and I like the way that feels. I like the way his hands on my hips feel, too, holding me close, but not too close. And the way that his hair brushes my face as he bends over me.
And it’s me that draws back.
“Good night, Siobhan. I’ll ring you tomorrow,” he says, and plants two more kisses on my face, one on my lips, one on my forehead.
I stand by the gate and watch him leave. I think that my caution has just been tested. I think that if Tish weren’t coming home in half an hour, I would have failed the test.
~~**~~**~~***~~**~~**~~
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions
