Fic: We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try) (3/5)
We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try)
Part Three
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“Spill,” Rachel demands bluntly, settling on the couch next to Juliet, tucking her left leg beneath her and reaching idly to itch at the edge of the scarf wrapped above her ears. Juliet, for her part, opens her eyes wide and lets her lips turn up as her lashes flutter, as she traces the flowers on the silk with her gaze, noting the promising way that little, fledgling strands peek out from the fold of fabric at her sister’s temple.
“Don’t pretend there’s not something going on with you, Julie.” Rachel’s the only one who can still call her that without prompting her to roll her eyes in disgust -- it’s the last thing she remembers before her parents’ split: ‘Be strong, Julie,’ her dad’s voice against her ear and her tears at his neck. “I know you too well, remember?”
“It’s nothing,” she protests half-heartedly after a pause, a time to collect herself as the sun beats down on her from the open window, as she glances to the mantle clock and notes the time -- if she hadn’t canceled to catch up with her sister, she’d be meeting Nathan in half an hour.
She rolls her neck, tries to fight the way something tugs from the inside, insistent and unsettled in her joints: she writes it off to repetition, routine -- nothing more.
Rachel doesn’t miss it, though; doesn’t understand the weight in the way she fidgets, but knows it means something, even if she doesn’t quite know what.
Not that Juliet’s all that sure, herself.
“There’s just this...” and she stops, partially because of the fact that she’s not quite sure what to call Nathan, exactly -- not quite a friend, really, but then what else fits the bill? “This guy,” she settles with, inadequate as it may be, “that’s all.”
“A guy?” And Rachel, she looks like a completely different woman, her skin glowing and her face fuller, healthy with the grin that stretches her cheeks. “What kind of guy?”
“Just a guy?” Juliet tries to sound flippant, but it comes out as a question, to them both.
“Julie.” Rachel gives her a knowing look, a knowing tone. “You haven’t so much as looked twice at a man since Ed.” And it’s true; she hasn’t. She doesn’t like to think about why. “There’s no such thing as ‘just a guy’ where you’re concerned.”
That’s true, too; always has been.
“So, tell me about him,” Rachel prompts, bouncing a little on the cushion of the couch.
“There’s not much to tell,” she tries dodging again; it half works.
“Sure there isn’t,” Rachel scoffs, pushing to her feet and retreating to the kitchen. “I might not be the genius you are,” she calls back over the scrape of glasses and the slosh-and-trickle that follows as they’re filled, “but I’m not stupid enough to fall for that.”
She’s hopeful that the blush is gone from her cheeks before Rachel comes back in, handing her a glass carefully from its crystal stem.
“Wine?” Juliet asks warily, breathing in the soft rose-colored liquid and sampling it on the tip of her tongue.
“For you,” Rachel says with a quick and easy smile, the simple, fleeting, thoughtless kind that had grown strained over the months, but had never disappeared completely -- just another reason Juliet admired her sister more than words could skim at the surface. “I’ve got some rather delicious pomegranate juice to toast with.” She raises her glass in demonstration, stilling for a second as her eyes snap into line with Juliet’s before tilting her cup to clink against Juliet’s, the water stains drawn down in drips catching in the light.
“But that’s for...” She can’t quite make out the label of the bottle on the kitchen counter, but just a slightly more discerning sniff at the mouth of the glass and a fuller sip against her taste-buds, tells her it’s the Cabernet Sauvignon they’d bought, just after Rachel had been diagnosed -- insurance for when the battle was over. “We’ve been saving that,” she protests, her features scrunched in confusion as she looks over at her sister with no small amount of concern -- in her experience, after all, surprises had never quite been precursors to joy.
“Well, this is a special occasion,” Rachel says, still smiling despite Juliet’s confusion, her trepidation. “I saw my doctor today.” And despite the smile on Rachel’s face, the way she glows, Juliet’s chest seizes and her stomach drops, because between them, those five words have brought nothing but struggle and loss; and Juliet, she can’t take another blow, won’t weather everything crumbling down, again, just when things were starting to look up.
“I’m still cancer-free.” And for as blissful, as hopeful and joyful as Rachel looks as she says it -- words she’s been waiting so long to say -- it’s nothing compared to the weight that dissolves in Juliet’s chest, that lifts with only its residue remaining; she’d forgotten how heavy it was, forgotten what it felt like to breathe without it bearing down against her.
“I’ve never... not this long, you know?” Rachel continues, blinking too fast, her lower lip trembling a bit. “I’ve always relapsed.” And Juliet remembers, in detail, every single time -- every false start and bad screening, every doctor’s appointment suffered with baited breath, and for a reason. “I’m really going to have my baby,” she whispers, and if she keeps the tears at bay, Juliet doesn’t know it, because her own are already starting to blind her. “I’m going to be a mother.”
I’m going to live long enough to be a mother. It’s never said, but it’s always been implied.
It’s not a thing that either of them dared to hope for, and seeing it now -- the truth of it in Rachel’s growing hair and growing belly; seeing it now, Juliet can almost believe in miracles, in things turning out right.
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“You’ve been in Miami almost six weeks,” she starts, her lips drawing uneven lines in the film of whip still clinging to the lip of her mug; “what exactly are you doing here?”
Nathan swallows slowly, and the silence seems long, warm against her skin. “We’ve been working closely with the University’s medical center in establishing a new division of our Biotech Training Program," he tells her, his finger laced around his own cup and drumming down the side opposite the handle. "Specifically, they’re focusing more directly on stem cell research, advanced disease prevention and treatment, that sort of thing. Most of which is beyond my knowledge base -- I’m just the guy who makes sure it’s all kosher on the legal end of things.” He smiles, and the curves match the meniscus, what's left of his drink.
Things start to fall into place, then -- things she should have figured before now, things she should have asked: why he's in the city, why he was at Miami Central, how it happened that their paths crossed as they did.
“And you were meeting with,” she clears her throat, because the pain's mostly gone, but the name still scratches on the way up her throat: “Edmund Burke, I assume.”
It's subtle, but he crosses himself: a brief, disguised touch to the furrow between his brows, the brush of his thumb, just the pad of it against his lower lip, almost as if to wipe away the long-deflated foam from his latte -- the careful straightening of either side of his shirt, pulling apart the line of buttons at the center as he touches near his shoulders, guarded. Secret. A clandestine sort of respect for the dead.
“Which is why my stay’s been extended a bit,” he comments offhandedly, though there's sympathy in the underpinning. “I mean, I expected the better part of a month, but..." He shrugs, lifting his mug to his lips before lowering it half-way again, level with his shoulders, his collarbone. "Obviously we’re looking at significantly longer now. Not that it’s a problem, of course, or anything," he tacks on -- an afterthought, but genuine.
“Of course," she murmurs between sips, lets the waning heat of her coffee fill in the parts that still feel cold to think about it, about him; they're there, but they're not many -- and she's slowly reaching a point where she might be able to recognize the role of a certain person sitting across from her in helping that process along.
"Do you know anything about Mittelos Bioscience?” she asks suddenly, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth and savoring an extra tinge of vanilla bean from the syrup that had clung to the side of her mug.
“The ones in Portland?” She nods, and he lets out a low, airy sort of whistle that doesn't really hit a pitch, and falls breathy instead between them. “Yeah,” he picks back up, “they’re one of our biggest competitors. The West Coast’s got a jump on the whole biotech thing nationally, sure, but our overseas holdings are fairly extensive.” It's completely out of character, but she almost finds it amusing, the way he leaps to defend his company's honor. She breathes in the sharp bite of java beneath the flavors that skim the surface of her drink, re-centering herself as he plows on. “In fact, we’ve been talking with this outfit in Copenhagen about a huge investment project.” His eyes flicker to hers, which she can almost feel sparkling with an indulgent sort of mirth. “But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about all of that," he wraps up, and if his cheeks flush just a little, she takes it as something of a compliment. “Why do you ask?”
“This man, from Mittelos. He’s been…” She pauses, trying to find the right word for the gentleman that put her on edge and at ease in the very same moment, with his eyes that saw the world from start to finish. “He’s very adamant that I come and work for them.”
“Well, they didn’t send me down here for recruiting, but…” He glances from the scoop of her neckline up to the roots of her hair. “If Mittelos wants you? You’ve got to be pretty damn amazing.” It’s funny, because it’s not surprise, or admiration in his voice right there; it sounds expected, almost blasé -- and it doesn’t feel like an insult, either. “They don’t settle for second best, I’ll give them that much.”
“I’d say I’m fairly good at what I do, yes.” The silence that follows is, inexplicably, a heady one -- it doesn't feel awkward, so much as it feels charged; anticipatory. She feels strangely in control of it, and it's a beautiful, unexpected sensation that she's missed of late, that she's been waiting to feel again for far too long.
“Okay, so, I feel kind of like an ass for this,” he prefaces, and she tries not to smile too smugly, tries to train her features into idle interest in what he's saying; all told, she fails fairly miserably. “I know you’re in medicine but...”
“Research, actually." She saves him the fishing, amusing as she finds it -- finds the strange and endearing way the dip above his lip deepens as he tries to feel out the situation, tries to find steady ground in uncertain waters. "Well, mostly. Fertility research. But I work with patients still, when my schedule permits.” She thinks of Rachel, mostly -- plays with the threading in the arm of the reupholstered recliner she's curled in the corner of when the thought of her future niece or nephew burrows, nestles into the folds of her mind -- warm and happy and wonderful in ways she didn't think she'd ever know.
“Somehow, I don’t think you’re talking about just helping out a few guys shooting blanks.” He eyes her, wheels turning behind his gaze. “Or making sure there’ll be octo-moms a-plenty through the twenty-first century.”
She chuckles, and figures it's irrelevant to mention the Serophene trials she'd worked on. “Not quite.”
“If I had to guess, I'd say you did all kinds of groundbreaking experimental stuff, particularly if Mittelos is taking note. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done at work?” he asks, looking like a grade school boy -- eyes wide with the promise of a dare, a prod; one upping his rival, but playfully, as if neither of them have anything to prove.
She kind of likes that feeling.
“I impregnated a field mouse, once," she answers casually, her lashes lowered until she can see their shadows flicker over the surface of milky mocha, lukewarm but still strong, still satisfying.
“Huh," and he's skeptical, doesn't believe her, but has no real reason for doubt -- caught between logic and feeling, and doesn't she know that conundrum like the back of her hand, the beat of her heart.
“A male field mouse,” she adds, gaze steady, voice flippant, as if it happens every day.
“You’re kidding.” His tone’s shifted from doubtful to incredulous, and her lips curl again; somehow, she doesn’t think she usually smiles so easy, so often.
“He didn’t carry to term,” she laments, a little drama slipping into her voice as she recalls the poor little thing in her mind’s eye, “but the fact remains.”
He chuckles at that, staccato and a little bit floored, passing his palm over his mouth as his jaw hangs a little bit open. "So you're actually a genius,” he says flatly, but his eyes are wide, and she thinks she may have just impressed him; it feels natural, unforced -- like clockwork. “Is it wrong that I’m a little bit turned on by that?”
She giggles at that, feeling the pink creep up her neck at the way he seems to look at her with a little more weight, a little more longing; his look, in truth, doesn’t change as it settles in around her with more force, more intensity -- but she notices now, feels it full, and all of a sudden there’s heat in her stomach and a lightness in her chest, like she’s thirteen again and the boy in her algebra class had asked her to the spring fling. “Considering the story centers on a pregnant male rodent? Probably.” She attempts a stilted sort of arrogance, all in good fun, but the way her teeth keep showing through her smirk -- stretching it too wide, from playful condescension into joy -- defeats the purpose quite spectacularly.
“Eh,” he grins back, taking a long swig from his cup. “I can deal with probably.”
Funny, she thinks, so can she.
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They keep the pattern up for another few weeks before it’s interrupted; she doesn’t think too much on the way her stomach plunges and her lips pull downward as he tells her he can’t make the cafe that afternoon, that he’ll be in a meeting until at least seven, but the way she brightens, the way her heart flutters awkwardly at the base of her throat when he asks her to meet him for cocktails later that night is something that she can’t really ignore, no matter how much she may want to.
She finds a dress, hidden at the back of her closet behind pencil skirts and sleek suit jackets and enough different-colored oxford tops to paint through the rainbow twice over: short hem, high neck, just a bit snug against her chest and light, airy on her thighs where it tapers off to nothing -- and the lavender of it washes her skin out a little bit, but the cut's flattering. She’s always liked it.
Edmund had always thought it made her look like "some prepubescent grade-school chick," and she doesn't know whether it's her imagination, or something more tangible that smells of stale blossoms and formaldehyde when she smiles at herself in the mirror, lips curled subtly, without teeth.
She pinches at her cheeks -- an old habit learned from watching her mother in front of her makeup mirror, wanting so badly to be just like her, only to find now that she wants anything but -- and she breathes deep against the beginnings of nerves, of butterflies waking in the pit of her stomach; it's been so long since she's done this.
Funny, that she hadn’t realized before that she's been doing this every day for the past two months; it hadn’t seemed so significant, so weighty when it had just been coffee every afternoon. Something about twilight and alcohol, though -- it sends a thrill through her that means more.
Idly, she wonders what it is about the time of day that really matters; what the position of the sun in the sky, the light that spreads changes about a person, a meeting, a rendezvous. She knows, in the tight grip of her chest, what secrets she's hidden under the cover of night.
She feels a bit too much like that prepubescent grade-school chick as she studies her wide-eyed reflection, notes that she looks nearly a whole cup-size larger when she breathes in deeply, at least half-a-cup bigger when she squares her shoulders and straightens up her spine.
She shakes her head at herself, realizing just how fucking absurd she's being, and grabs for the most casual clutch she owns: white satin, with detailing so fragile she's already managed to snap it off at least five times -- thank god for hot glue guns. Before she leaves, though, she sprays one last burst from her bottle of Ferragamo, because there's still the lingering scent of roses and tears that clings where it doesn’t belong, refuses to let go.
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He's already there, settled on a stool at an elevated table for two in the far right corner of the establishment, somehow defiant of the softly-hued shadows cast from the ceiling, bright and undampened as he waves her toward him with an easy sort of grin.
She orders Sex on the Beach as he sips at a whiskey sour, and he asks if he should take that as a hint. She doesn't even think to be uncomfortable, to read past the smile in his eyes, the leering promise behind them; she merely laughs into her glass of water and relishes the cool as it slides, monsoon-like, down the her throat.
"How was work?" he asks casually, his eyes somewhere between her earring at the wall to her left as he lifts the glass to his lips, lets the deep amber wash across his teeth. And it doesn’t mean anything, not really -- but it’s something he’s never asked her before. Something that means more than it does.
“Busy,” she replies, swallowing deep and long against the sudden leap in her pulse, leaving him an out to avoid the tedious details of her profession; the innocuous minutiae of who she is beyond the coffee and the way she’s learned to smile at him over the lip of a mug, the soft circle of a straw.
“Busy with what?” And he meets her eyes this time, like earth meeting sky, and she shivers at the contact, mouth dry and she has to hood her gaze, make a spectacle of savoring the citrus and the tart berry on her tongue before she can bring herself to believe in it, to buy into the very idea that someone cares without having to.
It’s unnerving. It’s warm, unsettled beneath the flutter in her chest.
She’d forgotten what this felt like.
So she tells him: about the ultrasound technician who incorrectly identified the sex of her patient’s child; about the paperwork fiasco involved in the hiring process that has somehow found its way onto her desk of late; how she’s spent more time than is strictly warranted lamenting the lack of an opportunity for doing her actual job, for researching and experimenting and breaking down the kind of barriers most people shy away from. That’s what’s saved her from self-destructing this long -- the fact that somewhere in her world, in her life, she has control. Somewhere, she does things that matter.
Not that she says so, of course, and not that he interrupts her with requests for elaboration, but she doesn’t stop until she can feel the strain of so much extended speaking start to gnaw at her throat, and she can still feel the interest of his eyes on her, focused and steady above the neck -- attentive. She doesn’t know what to make of it.
“No rat impregnations today?” he asks, nibbling at their appetizer sampler when she wraps up at an awkward conclusion. It was something jumbled about labs and the mysterious case of the pregnant teen who supposedly hadn’t even started menstruating yet, which, admittedly, had piqued her attention until they quickly discovered that the girl had really just told her disgustingly gullible mother she’d yet to get her period so that she could have sex with half the football team without rousing undue suspicion; it’s an awkward conclusion, of course, because menstruating girls aren’t quite what normal people talk about over cocktails. “I’m almost disappointed.”
“Mice. Pregnant mice,” and his eyes are still heavy, focused on her as she corrects him, and she can feel the blush creep into her cheeks as she dips her chin and finishes her drink, motions to a passing waitress for something a little stronger, a little more grounding. She lets her lips close heavy on themselves, clears her throat in a flurry of embarrassment and the stinging dregs of the schnapps, takes in the two empty glasses at his elbow, ice melting and fracturing the light -- one half-full, caught in a flippant sort of grasp, all splayed fingers and thumbprints against the condensation. She had to have taken up a good half an hour, if she’s lucky. More, if she’s honest.
Impossibly, he only smiles at her, his nose dipped close to his drink so that when he exhales, it clouds against the glass like frost, like steam; unfathomably, it’s almost as if he hadn’t noticed. Or noticed, and just doesn’t mind.
“So,” she ventures, her voiced pitched higher than normal as she smoothes her palms against the skin of her thighs, crosses her legs only to uncross them, recross them where they dangle unnoticed beneath the table, “what about you?” And she realizes, then, with the stunning clarity of the sorts of things that should be obvious, but aren’t, that for all they’ve talked about families and childhoods and literature and the value of an extra shot of espresso, she still doesn’t know what he’s doing in Miami aside from the barebones of the operation; she only knew what he did for a living in the first place from the goddamn business card she’d found in his wallet.
“Has Miami been everything you’d hoped for so far?”
He grins, and it’s a little wolfish, a little bit leading in the shadows, versus the streaming sun; it sends pleasant shivers down her spine as he answers, “Everything and more.”
She laughs, a little tight -- a little too much like a giggle, in a register a little higher than she can hit -- but he takes a drink, his face bathed in rose, and when she realizes the lighting above him is much more blue than pink, she lets the laughter bubble forth a bit freer, a bit lighter; lets it be hope and not fear that carried her through the lull before he takes up with the niceties: idiot interns at the office, incompetent associates and a particularly wonderful breakfast burrito he’d picked up on the way in that very morning.
And it’s odd, how different everything feels in a dress, in the dark, her lips tacky with liquor and color; everything feels new and frightening and exhilarating, plunging harsh and swift in her stomach without regard to the way it sends her heart racing, her breath thinning, as if they’d never spoken, never touched.
They’ve shared so many afternoons, so many words, and yet they’ve rarely just asked about each other’s day like this -- the minutiae that make a life from sunrise to sunset, between breaths. Or maybe they have, but not like this, because this is wildly incredible and absurd, almost sad, and strangely domestic and significant in ways she can’t put a finger on, can’t quite pin down. And it’s amazing, she thinks, how much you can know about a person without really knowing them at all.
But he tells her about the details, the trivialities, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, his hands talking twice as quickly as he does -- a fact she finds endearing -- as he goes on about documents and negotiations and taking calls from back home, trying to tie loose ends from hundreds of miles south of where he needs to be; where he’s supposed to be, she reminds herself sternly, because it’s all too easy to think that this is something steady, something real, the start of something that could become something, and to forget that he’s here on business, on loan.
It hasn’t escaped her notice, though, that Nathan has money, and she can’t help the twinge of hope that blossoms, unwanted and unwarranted and undimmed, whenever she wonders just what keeps him from simply flying to New York and back to take care of things in person.
He stops, abruptly, and it shakes her from her musings, takes her that much longer to notice that their server’s come back to ask how they’re doing. Nathan orders another drink -- the obligatory nightcap -- and she asks for a White Russian to his Black.
They both forget where they’d left off, and the buzzing sort of hum that plays backdrop to their silence is the most comfortable thing -- soft and safe and full. She just smiles, because he does; she suspects, or maybe just hopes, that his smile draws on her own.
They work on their drinks slowly, drawing out whatever this is, might be -- it’s easy, but charged in a way it’s never been before; and it’s unexpected, when he grabs her hand from across the table, and it strikes her, suddenly, that they’ve never even kissed.
“Come back to my place?” he asks, hope in his voice and a light in his eyes beyond the reflections, the refractions shining from above, and she smiles, because she can feel the question as well she hears it; she feels the subtle unsteadiness, the tension in his fingertips where he holds on to the heel of her palm.
And it’s amazing, she thinks as she nods, feels her pulse stutter and surge, how little you can know about a person when in truth, you know them like the sound of your own soul.
She savors every sip as she watches him
She drops the tip to the table, wedges it discreetly beneath her empty glass, watches as a stray droplet of coffee-tinged cream soaks against the bills, saturates the greens to emerald. For reasons she doesn’t know, she runs her fingertip along the top of the glass, collecting what’s left of the evening and bringing it to her lips for an evaluatory taste; on impulse, she reaches to trace his glass as well. It’s headier, fuller and richer than her own -- filled with the promise of its own demons.
She pushes in her barstool and squeezes her handbag hard against the center of her palm, follows him out with looking back.
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She doesn’t recognize the door: neither its color nor its shape, and in retrospect, it’s both a shameful and a reasonable thing -- her head had been spinning, after all, but it just makes the whole thing more despicable, the memory of it somehow more sour at the back of her throat.
The layout doesn’t ring any bells, either -- the setup of the rooms and the furniture; it’s familiar enough, but basic to the point of genericness, and there’s no reason to suspect it, to think twice. The tile under her feet, the shag of the carpet -- neither sparks her memory.
It's not until she follows him into the kitchen, leans against the refrigerator and lets the hum of it fill her head as he reaches for a glass and asks her if she wants anything; it's not until she asks for a water and tips her head back against the door of the freezer as he pours himself two fingers of Maker’s Mark that she remembers the rumble, feels it beat in her pulse, between her thighs, and she knows -- knows the light and the voice and the touch and the taste underneath sadness and heartache and too much tequila, and all the things she would have died to forget, if she could have -- she knows, and she's been here before.
He looks at her, and she can tell that he sees the way her eyes glaze, her body tenses, the way she crumbles and cracks without indication, without warning. He shepherds her gently into the living room -- she can remember it, now, in shadows and vague impressions, on the way to the bedroom beyond; just a hand on her elbow and a lean, a slow gravitation toward her that drives her forward, keeps her moving until she stops, falls, settles onto the plush ottoman that's closest to her.
She looks up at him, and all she feels is sad for a moment as he reaches out and hands her a glass of water she doesn't remember watching him get. She means to say: 'that isn't me; I never do things like that.' She wants to tell him: 'you found me at a low point, a dead point -- you found me broken.’
What she actually manages is: “Do you have anything stronger?”
He retracts his hand, gaze wary but giving; offers his glass of whiskey, ice clinking like raindrops on glass. She doesn't hesitate in grabbing for it and knocking half of it back in a single swallow.
“My ex-husband died," she says, mouth dry and throat burning; "Two months ago today.” She shivers as the alcohol settles, seems to sear bright as it hits.
“His funeral was three days later.” He says nothing in response, doesn't see the vague shapes, the pieces she's slowly bringing together, the picture that's starting to coalesce. She remembers the flowers, the tightness in her chest; remembers the drinks and the lights and a touch that's dampened by the buzz of everything -- of hate and fear and grief and a desperation that makes her cheeks burn -- but still familiar, now that the connection is there, now that she knows. The little things -- small memories and tiny points of contrast, similaritiy -- it all seems so much more vivid now, the feel of him; it taints whatever it is they've come here for, whatever they'd be planning, wanting, silently, and the tears that gather behind her eyelids feel hot and coarse, the sob in her throat like ice.
It’s only when the burn and the shame state to well in her eyes that he seems to see it; to recognize; his eyes grow wide and she can see herself, see the reflection of her eyes a little dead, a little hollow in his own like they gleamed that night, and she has to look away -- can't stand the shock that precedes the disgust that she feels; can't wait to see if he feels it, too.
She tries, moves to rise, to leave, to run -- tries, but fails, rooted to the spot, helpless and drained, eyes on the tops of her toes, so it's a delayed reaction when she gasps against his mouth as he presses his thumb to her chin and lifts her into a kiss, gets her lost in the taste of sour and edge and the cut of stale vodka, thrumming with the pulse she can count against his tongue. Maybe it's not the same as before, maybe nothing's ruined -- or if it is, maybe it's not beyond fixing.
His hand cups behind her head and draws her deeper, opens her further as he fits between her knees and leans down to drink hard from her mouth; and she can tell in the soft brush of his fingertips, the firm but gentle massage of his lips on her own: he understands.
It's more than she'd dared to hope for.
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Eventually, she falls back into her regular schedule -- and she feels rejuvenated, shockingly enough, not at all like an... ex-widow, of whatever it is she now is. Sometimes it still hurts when she walks past his old office, or when she passes through his part of town, but for some reason -- a number of reasons -- it doesn't weigh her down like it used to, doesn't haunt at her back anymore.
Nathan is a lot of the reason.
He becomes something a given, a fixture in her everyday routine -- and she tried, for a time, to ignore it; to think of anything but the fact that she didn't anticipate, but expected the time that she spent with him -- that when she called, she didn't wonder whether he'd pick up. When it became too hard, to trying to ignore -- stole too much of her energy as she sought to pretend it away -- she decided to acknowledge it, process it like a mature adult ought to, but allow it to exist outside of herself, to be separate and foreign, familiar only at a glance, versus a touch.
That, too, soon becomes a moot point, and it's harder to mind it than to simply give in.
He meets her for lunch almost every day; she can count on just one hand how many times he has to cancel for his own appointments. Sometimes they grab dinner. Sometimes she ends up at his house, makes innocent memories there -- like breaking the ice maker in his freezer and eating her first s'more in eons after exploding three marshmallows in his microwave and kissing slow and sweet on his couch until she can barely feel her lips --- that eventually wipe away the old ones.
Or, if not wipe them away, then buffer them; give them a context that isn't so bleak. Whatever happens, though, it's warm and subtle and she doesn't mind it -- it's too early to decide, to admit if she likes it, really; too soon -- so she doesn't fight it, doesn't question.
Because she likes her mornings when he texts her a quick hello, or surprises her outside of work with a latte and a quick kiss that keeps her coffee tasting like him until it's gone. She likes sampling his food, reaching over and nabbing a bite from his plate with her fork, likes the smile it pulls from his lips as he grabs for her drink and takes a sip between her swallows. She likes the weight of his arm around her shoulders, his hand in hers in fleeting moments when they brush, pass, touch. She likes being with him, watching him, watching him watch her -- and his eyes, his eyes say the things she’d always resented Edmund for never saying, never doing: things like, you’re beautiful and you’re brilliant and I don’t know what I saw in anyone I met before I found you.
And she’s older now, stronger, surer -- she doesn’t need the words.
She likes it; all of it, even as it plummets in her gut and makes her question everything she ever thought she knew.
And sometimes, they sprawl across the sheets -- under them and over them, clothed and unclothed -- and she doesn't have to think about it, doesn't have to wonder at the novelty, even if she does sometimes, just because. It’s like a gift she doesn’t want, and doesn’t want to lose, either, and she doesn’t know what to do with it, how to react. She’s only ever wanted the things she’d never gotten, would never know -- she doesn’t know how to deal with wanting something she’d convinced herself she was better off without.
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Frankly, she’s surprised that Mittelos is still speaking to her, after so many weeks -- months, now, really. For being so insistent in the first place, they’ve been incredibly lenient as her schedule has shifted, as grief segued with dizzying speed into anything and everything at once, her own responsibilities coupled with everything Edmund’s secretaries couldn’t manage or pawn off on closer colleagues to the late Dr. Burke.
Turned out, though, that after everything, Juliet still knew the most about Ed’s research, about the projects he’d been backing and the studies he’d been following -- and it made her sad, to think that she’d been the closest to him, in the end, had known him best.
Just the thought of it had convinced her, for the most part, to take the extra work without much complaint.
And if she cancels on Alpert twice to meet Nathan for a quick bite or a latte and a leisurely walk on her lunch -- well, a little white lie wouldn’t do anyone any harm.
Except, maybe it would, did -- was, in fact, this very moment causing harm; it’s a fact that seems unavoidable and inexcusable as she peeks inside the folder that’s sitting on the table in the deserted conference room she’d been seen into upon arriving at Mittelos’ Miami headquarters. A fact that was evidenced starkly, heartbreakingly, by the same scans she’d been shown before, of the seventy-year-old womb in the twenty-six-year-old’s body, with a paper-clipped note at the corner, bearing the angry scrawl of “Deceased.”
That’s blood on her hands.
She quickly closes the file and walks as far from it as the room will allow, passes the windows without looking at her own reflection as she puts distance between herself and yet another awful truth of her own making, of her own... indecision.
Her failings.
She biting back the very edges of something like hysteria when her eyes fall upon a statue -- a figure, molded out of bronze, or something close to bronze, catching light from the ceiling, from the sky; the curves of it are soothing, somehow -- ancient. She follows the infinite curl of metal, the bend and give of it twirling around and passing through itself, piercing its own heart and writing its own beginnings and ends, and she breathes easier, for an instant; knows inexplicable, undeserved peace.
Her eyes find the placard affixed to the pedestal beneath it, though instead of bearing a title and an artist, it simply sports a line of inscrutable text. The markings, letters -- almost Hebrew, but not quite -- are mesmerizing, their artistry profound in a way that has her reaching out, running the pads of her fingers just below the nails against the etching of it, the concave lines that make no sense; speak volumes.
“God loves you as He loved Jacob,” a voice says from just beyond her left shoulder; she spins on the balls of her feet, her balance shaky as she takes in the narrow-featured brunet standing behind her, sea-foam scrubs hanging loosely from his gangly frame. He points indicatively to the plaque she’d been studying, and she registers then that he’s translating words that, somehow, she thinks she already knew.
Her lips thin together in a gentle, strained sort of gratitude, and his answering smile is so much more open, more welcoming that it strikes something unsettling in her, resonates as deception, as deliberately misleading. Covering something sinister, something foul with the guise of friendliness, of altruism.
She curls her toes against the insole of her flats before she turns back, fingers tracing the etchings of each letter with a reverence she doesn’t understand.
“You probably don’t remember me,” she hears him pick up again, clearing his throat before he speaks; his sneakers scuff against the smooth flooring as he takes a step closer; too close. “I’m--”
“I remember you,” she says carefully, remembers the way he’d been there when the walls came crashing down, closing in -- an intrusion, an interloper. She doesn’t turn around as she rolls his name, clinical and precise, past her lips: “Ethan.”
There’s a silence that follows as she loses herself in the warped, distorted blotches of color that settle on the surface of the sculpture -- blues and pinks and peaches where she stares, transfixed, and if it weren’t for the distinct lack of footsteps, of retreat, she’d have thought she was alone again.
“Dr. Alpert’s been a bit delayed, I’m afraid,” Ethan tells her, far away. He sounds contrite, certainly, but she can’t tell, can’t focus enough to figure if it’s real or feigned.
God loves you as He loved Jacob.
“We can reschedule?” Ethan proposes, and she turns suddenly to meet his questioning gaze; there’s something hopeful in his tone, in his eyes -- and maybe it’s merely friendly concern, or regret at the inconvenience; maybe she’s misread him entirely.
But there’s something there that she doesn’t like, that flashes like lead in the pit of her stomach -- and she’s still not sure if she wants this job or not, if the immense professional freedom is worth the personal sacrifices she’ll be forced to make; but she owes it to herself to consider it, to give it a real, serious shot, now that she can.
Edmund’s dead, after all, and she’s still not convinced -- not in her heart of hearts -- that there’s no connection. She can’t prove it, of course, can’t logically reason it out, but the intimation, the suggestion remains. The guilt doesn’t die.
She may have hated him, in the end, but she’d loved him, too, and she’ll be damned if he died in vain.
So, she folds herself neatly into a chair at the table, crossing her legs high enough to strain the fabric of her skirt.
“I’m more than willing to wait,” she replies with a cordial, if tight sort of smile. Ethan says nothing, just nods, and leaves the way he entered.
Within five minutes, there’s a mimosa in front of her and a plate of croissants that melt like heaven on her tongue, and she’s almost convinced that it’s just Ethan who rubs her the wrong way about this place, these people; they’re feeding her, after all, and that’s a universal check in the plus column.
The delay stretches into mid-morning, teeters on afternoon; Juliet declines the offer of lunch when an assistant comes in to assure her that Dr. Alpert will be in within the hour, and settles for plain orange juice in her champagne glass as she polishes off the rest of the pastries. She watches the interplay of the waxing sun against the statue she’d studied before, channeled through the wet glass at the top of the flute in her hand as it paints a dancing portrait of light on the walls, falls in the etching beneath the artwork again, spelling the words in copper and gold.
As he loved Jacob.
She thinks back to the dead woman’s CT scans in the folder, and for a second -- just a second -- she feels the need to pity Jacob, whoever he was, is; just a little.
Part Two // Master Post // Part Four
Part Three
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Spill,” Rachel demands bluntly, settling on the couch next to Juliet, tucking her left leg beneath her and reaching idly to itch at the edge of the scarf wrapped above her ears. Juliet, for her part, opens her eyes wide and lets her lips turn up as her lashes flutter, as she traces the flowers on the silk with her gaze, noting the promising way that little, fledgling strands peek out from the fold of fabric at her sister’s temple.
“Don’t pretend there’s not something going on with you, Julie.” Rachel’s the only one who can still call her that without prompting her to roll her eyes in disgust -- it’s the last thing she remembers before her parents’ split: ‘Be strong, Julie,’ her dad’s voice against her ear and her tears at his neck. “I know you too well, remember?”
“It’s nothing,” she protests half-heartedly after a pause, a time to collect herself as the sun beats down on her from the open window, as she glances to the mantle clock and notes the time -- if she hadn’t canceled to catch up with her sister, she’d be meeting Nathan in half an hour.
She rolls her neck, tries to fight the way something tugs from the inside, insistent and unsettled in her joints: she writes it off to repetition, routine -- nothing more.
Rachel doesn’t miss it, though; doesn’t understand the weight in the way she fidgets, but knows it means something, even if she doesn’t quite know what.
Not that Juliet’s all that sure, herself.
“There’s just this...” and she stops, partially because of the fact that she’s not quite sure what to call Nathan, exactly -- not quite a friend, really, but then what else fits the bill? “This guy,” she settles with, inadequate as it may be, “that’s all.”
“A guy?” And Rachel, she looks like a completely different woman, her skin glowing and her face fuller, healthy with the grin that stretches her cheeks. “What kind of guy?”
“Just a guy?” Juliet tries to sound flippant, but it comes out as a question, to them both.
“Julie.” Rachel gives her a knowing look, a knowing tone. “You haven’t so much as looked twice at a man since Ed.” And it’s true; she hasn’t. She doesn’t like to think about why. “There’s no such thing as ‘just a guy’ where you’re concerned.”
That’s true, too; always has been.
“So, tell me about him,” Rachel prompts, bouncing a little on the cushion of the couch.
“There’s not much to tell,” she tries dodging again; it half works.
“Sure there isn’t,” Rachel scoffs, pushing to her feet and retreating to the kitchen. “I might not be the genius you are,” she calls back over the scrape of glasses and the slosh-and-trickle that follows as they’re filled, “but I’m not stupid enough to fall for that.”
She’s hopeful that the blush is gone from her cheeks before Rachel comes back in, handing her a glass carefully from its crystal stem.
“Wine?” Juliet asks warily, breathing in the soft rose-colored liquid and sampling it on the tip of her tongue.
“For you,” Rachel says with a quick and easy smile, the simple, fleeting, thoughtless kind that had grown strained over the months, but had never disappeared completely -- just another reason Juliet admired her sister more than words could skim at the surface. “I’ve got some rather delicious pomegranate juice to toast with.” She raises her glass in demonstration, stilling for a second as her eyes snap into line with Juliet’s before tilting her cup to clink against Juliet’s, the water stains drawn down in drips catching in the light.
“But that’s for...” She can’t quite make out the label of the bottle on the kitchen counter, but just a slightly more discerning sniff at the mouth of the glass and a fuller sip against her taste-buds, tells her it’s the Cabernet Sauvignon they’d bought, just after Rachel had been diagnosed -- insurance for when the battle was over. “We’ve been saving that,” she protests, her features scrunched in confusion as she looks over at her sister with no small amount of concern -- in her experience, after all, surprises had never quite been precursors to joy.
“Well, this is a special occasion,” Rachel says, still smiling despite Juliet’s confusion, her trepidation. “I saw my doctor today.” And despite the smile on Rachel’s face, the way she glows, Juliet’s chest seizes and her stomach drops, because between them, those five words have brought nothing but struggle and loss; and Juliet, she can’t take another blow, won’t weather everything crumbling down, again, just when things were starting to look up.
“I’m still cancer-free.” And for as blissful, as hopeful and joyful as Rachel looks as she says it -- words she’s been waiting so long to say -- it’s nothing compared to the weight that dissolves in Juliet’s chest, that lifts with only its residue remaining; she’d forgotten how heavy it was, forgotten what it felt like to breathe without it bearing down against her.
“I’ve never... not this long, you know?” Rachel continues, blinking too fast, her lower lip trembling a bit. “I’ve always relapsed.” And Juliet remembers, in detail, every single time -- every false start and bad screening, every doctor’s appointment suffered with baited breath, and for a reason. “I’m really going to have my baby,” she whispers, and if she keeps the tears at bay, Juliet doesn’t know it, because her own are already starting to blind her. “I’m going to be a mother.”
I’m going to live long enough to be a mother. It’s never said, but it’s always been implied.
It’s not a thing that either of them dared to hope for, and seeing it now -- the truth of it in Rachel’s growing hair and growing belly; seeing it now, Juliet can almost believe in miracles, in things turning out right.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“You’ve been in Miami almost six weeks,” she starts, her lips drawing uneven lines in the film of whip still clinging to the lip of her mug; “what exactly are you doing here?”
Nathan swallows slowly, and the silence seems long, warm against her skin. “We’ve been working closely with the University’s medical center in establishing a new division of our Biotech Training Program," he tells her, his finger laced around his own cup and drumming down the side opposite the handle. "Specifically, they’re focusing more directly on stem cell research, advanced disease prevention and treatment, that sort of thing. Most of which is beyond my knowledge base -- I’m just the guy who makes sure it’s all kosher on the legal end of things.” He smiles, and the curves match the meniscus, what's left of his drink.
Things start to fall into place, then -- things she should have figured before now, things she should have asked: why he's in the city, why he was at Miami Central, how it happened that their paths crossed as they did.
“And you were meeting with,” she clears her throat, because the pain's mostly gone, but the name still scratches on the way up her throat: “Edmund Burke, I assume.”
It's subtle, but he crosses himself: a brief, disguised touch to the furrow between his brows, the brush of his thumb, just the pad of it against his lower lip, almost as if to wipe away the long-deflated foam from his latte -- the careful straightening of either side of his shirt, pulling apart the line of buttons at the center as he touches near his shoulders, guarded. Secret. A clandestine sort of respect for the dead.
“Which is why my stay’s been extended a bit,” he comments offhandedly, though there's sympathy in the underpinning. “I mean, I expected the better part of a month, but..." He shrugs, lifting his mug to his lips before lowering it half-way again, level with his shoulders, his collarbone. "Obviously we’re looking at significantly longer now. Not that it’s a problem, of course, or anything," he tacks on -- an afterthought, but genuine.
“Of course," she murmurs between sips, lets the waning heat of her coffee fill in the parts that still feel cold to think about it, about him; they're there, but they're not many -- and she's slowly reaching a point where she might be able to recognize the role of a certain person sitting across from her in helping that process along.
"Do you know anything about Mittelos Bioscience?” she asks suddenly, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth and savoring an extra tinge of vanilla bean from the syrup that had clung to the side of her mug.
“The ones in Portland?” She nods, and he lets out a low, airy sort of whistle that doesn't really hit a pitch, and falls breathy instead between them. “Yeah,” he picks back up, “they’re one of our biggest competitors. The West Coast’s got a jump on the whole biotech thing nationally, sure, but our overseas holdings are fairly extensive.” It's completely out of character, but she almost finds it amusing, the way he leaps to defend his company's honor. She breathes in the sharp bite of java beneath the flavors that skim the surface of her drink, re-centering herself as he plows on. “In fact, we’ve been talking with this outfit in Copenhagen about a huge investment project.” His eyes flicker to hers, which she can almost feel sparkling with an indulgent sort of mirth. “But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about all of that," he wraps up, and if his cheeks flush just a little, she takes it as something of a compliment. “Why do you ask?”
“This man, from Mittelos. He’s been…” She pauses, trying to find the right word for the gentleman that put her on edge and at ease in the very same moment, with his eyes that saw the world from start to finish. “He’s very adamant that I come and work for them.”
“Well, they didn’t send me down here for recruiting, but…” He glances from the scoop of her neckline up to the roots of her hair. “If Mittelos wants you? You’ve got to be pretty damn amazing.” It’s funny, because it’s not surprise, or admiration in his voice right there; it sounds expected, almost blasé -- and it doesn’t feel like an insult, either. “They don’t settle for second best, I’ll give them that much.”
“I’d say I’m fairly good at what I do, yes.” The silence that follows is, inexplicably, a heady one -- it doesn't feel awkward, so much as it feels charged; anticipatory. She feels strangely in control of it, and it's a beautiful, unexpected sensation that she's missed of late, that she's been waiting to feel again for far too long.
“Okay, so, I feel kind of like an ass for this,” he prefaces, and she tries not to smile too smugly, tries to train her features into idle interest in what he's saying; all told, she fails fairly miserably. “I know you’re in medicine but...”
“Research, actually." She saves him the fishing, amusing as she finds it -- finds the strange and endearing way the dip above his lip deepens as he tries to feel out the situation, tries to find steady ground in uncertain waters. "Well, mostly. Fertility research. But I work with patients still, when my schedule permits.” She thinks of Rachel, mostly -- plays with the threading in the arm of the reupholstered recliner she's curled in the corner of when the thought of her future niece or nephew burrows, nestles into the folds of her mind -- warm and happy and wonderful in ways she didn't think she'd ever know.
“Somehow, I don’t think you’re talking about just helping out a few guys shooting blanks.” He eyes her, wheels turning behind his gaze. “Or making sure there’ll be octo-moms a-plenty through the twenty-first century.”
She chuckles, and figures it's irrelevant to mention the Serophene trials she'd worked on. “Not quite.”
“If I had to guess, I'd say you did all kinds of groundbreaking experimental stuff, particularly if Mittelos is taking note. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done at work?” he asks, looking like a grade school boy -- eyes wide with the promise of a dare, a prod; one upping his rival, but playfully, as if neither of them have anything to prove.
She kind of likes that feeling.
“I impregnated a field mouse, once," she answers casually, her lashes lowered until she can see their shadows flicker over the surface of milky mocha, lukewarm but still strong, still satisfying.
“Huh," and he's skeptical, doesn't believe her, but has no real reason for doubt -- caught between logic and feeling, and doesn't she know that conundrum like the back of her hand, the beat of her heart.
“A male field mouse,” she adds, gaze steady, voice flippant, as if it happens every day.
“You’re kidding.” His tone’s shifted from doubtful to incredulous, and her lips curl again; somehow, she doesn’t think she usually smiles so easy, so often.
“He didn’t carry to term,” she laments, a little drama slipping into her voice as she recalls the poor little thing in her mind’s eye, “but the fact remains.”
He chuckles at that, staccato and a little bit floored, passing his palm over his mouth as his jaw hangs a little bit open. "So you're actually a genius,” he says flatly, but his eyes are wide, and she thinks she may have just impressed him; it feels natural, unforced -- like clockwork. “Is it wrong that I’m a little bit turned on by that?”
She giggles at that, feeling the pink creep up her neck at the way he seems to look at her with a little more weight, a little more longing; his look, in truth, doesn’t change as it settles in around her with more force, more intensity -- but she notices now, feels it full, and all of a sudden there’s heat in her stomach and a lightness in her chest, like she’s thirteen again and the boy in her algebra class had asked her to the spring fling. “Considering the story centers on a pregnant male rodent? Probably.” She attempts a stilted sort of arrogance, all in good fun, but the way her teeth keep showing through her smirk -- stretching it too wide, from playful condescension into joy -- defeats the purpose quite spectacularly.
“Eh,” he grins back, taking a long swig from his cup. “I can deal with probably.”
Funny, she thinks, so can she.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They keep the pattern up for another few weeks before it’s interrupted; she doesn’t think too much on the way her stomach plunges and her lips pull downward as he tells her he can’t make the cafe that afternoon, that he’ll be in a meeting until at least seven, but the way she brightens, the way her heart flutters awkwardly at the base of her throat when he asks her to meet him for cocktails later that night is something that she can’t really ignore, no matter how much she may want to.
She finds a dress, hidden at the back of her closet behind pencil skirts and sleek suit jackets and enough different-colored oxford tops to paint through the rainbow twice over: short hem, high neck, just a bit snug against her chest and light, airy on her thighs where it tapers off to nothing -- and the lavender of it washes her skin out a little bit, but the cut's flattering. She’s always liked it.
Edmund had always thought it made her look like "some prepubescent grade-school chick," and she doesn't know whether it's her imagination, or something more tangible that smells of stale blossoms and formaldehyde when she smiles at herself in the mirror, lips curled subtly, without teeth.
She pinches at her cheeks -- an old habit learned from watching her mother in front of her makeup mirror, wanting so badly to be just like her, only to find now that she wants anything but -- and she breathes deep against the beginnings of nerves, of butterflies waking in the pit of her stomach; it's been so long since she's done this.
Funny, that she hadn’t realized before that she's been doing this every day for the past two months; it hadn’t seemed so significant, so weighty when it had just been coffee every afternoon. Something about twilight and alcohol, though -- it sends a thrill through her that means more.
Idly, she wonders what it is about the time of day that really matters; what the position of the sun in the sky, the light that spreads changes about a person, a meeting, a rendezvous. She knows, in the tight grip of her chest, what secrets she's hidden under the cover of night.
She feels a bit too much like that prepubescent grade-school chick as she studies her wide-eyed reflection, notes that she looks nearly a whole cup-size larger when she breathes in deeply, at least half-a-cup bigger when she squares her shoulders and straightens up her spine.
She shakes her head at herself, realizing just how fucking absurd she's being, and grabs for the most casual clutch she owns: white satin, with detailing so fragile she's already managed to snap it off at least five times -- thank god for hot glue guns. Before she leaves, though, she sprays one last burst from her bottle of Ferragamo, because there's still the lingering scent of roses and tears that clings where it doesn’t belong, refuses to let go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He's already there, settled on a stool at an elevated table for two in the far right corner of the establishment, somehow defiant of the softly-hued shadows cast from the ceiling, bright and undampened as he waves her toward him with an easy sort of grin.
She orders Sex on the Beach as he sips at a whiskey sour, and he asks if he should take that as a hint. She doesn't even think to be uncomfortable, to read past the smile in his eyes, the leering promise behind them; she merely laughs into her glass of water and relishes the cool as it slides, monsoon-like, down the her throat.
"How was work?" he asks casually, his eyes somewhere between her earring at the wall to her left as he lifts the glass to his lips, lets the deep amber wash across his teeth. And it doesn’t mean anything, not really -- but it’s something he’s never asked her before. Something that means more than it does.
“Busy,” she replies, swallowing deep and long against the sudden leap in her pulse, leaving him an out to avoid the tedious details of her profession; the innocuous minutiae of who she is beyond the coffee and the way she’s learned to smile at him over the lip of a mug, the soft circle of a straw.
“Busy with what?” And he meets her eyes this time, like earth meeting sky, and she shivers at the contact, mouth dry and she has to hood her gaze, make a spectacle of savoring the citrus and the tart berry on her tongue before she can bring herself to believe in it, to buy into the very idea that someone cares without having to.
It’s unnerving. It’s warm, unsettled beneath the flutter in her chest.
She’d forgotten what this felt like.
So she tells him: about the ultrasound technician who incorrectly identified the sex of her patient’s child; about the paperwork fiasco involved in the hiring process that has somehow found its way onto her desk of late; how she’s spent more time than is strictly warranted lamenting the lack of an opportunity for doing her actual job, for researching and experimenting and breaking down the kind of barriers most people shy away from. That’s what’s saved her from self-destructing this long -- the fact that somewhere in her world, in her life, she has control. Somewhere, she does things that matter.
Not that she says so, of course, and not that he interrupts her with requests for elaboration, but she doesn’t stop until she can feel the strain of so much extended speaking start to gnaw at her throat, and she can still feel the interest of his eyes on her, focused and steady above the neck -- attentive. She doesn’t know what to make of it.
“No rat impregnations today?” he asks, nibbling at their appetizer sampler when she wraps up at an awkward conclusion. It was something jumbled about labs and the mysterious case of the pregnant teen who supposedly hadn’t even started menstruating yet, which, admittedly, had piqued her attention until they quickly discovered that the girl had really just told her disgustingly gullible mother she’d yet to get her period so that she could have sex with half the football team without rousing undue suspicion; it’s an awkward conclusion, of course, because menstruating girls aren’t quite what normal people talk about over cocktails. “I’m almost disappointed.”
“Mice. Pregnant mice,” and his eyes are still heavy, focused on her as she corrects him, and she can feel the blush creep into her cheeks as she dips her chin and finishes her drink, motions to a passing waitress for something a little stronger, a little more grounding. She lets her lips close heavy on themselves, clears her throat in a flurry of embarrassment and the stinging dregs of the schnapps, takes in the two empty glasses at his elbow, ice melting and fracturing the light -- one half-full, caught in a flippant sort of grasp, all splayed fingers and thumbprints against the condensation. She had to have taken up a good half an hour, if she’s lucky. More, if she’s honest.
Impossibly, he only smiles at her, his nose dipped close to his drink so that when he exhales, it clouds against the glass like frost, like steam; unfathomably, it’s almost as if he hadn’t noticed. Or noticed, and just doesn’t mind.
“So,” she ventures, her voiced pitched higher than normal as she smoothes her palms against the skin of her thighs, crosses her legs only to uncross them, recross them where they dangle unnoticed beneath the table, “what about you?” And she realizes, then, with the stunning clarity of the sorts of things that should be obvious, but aren’t, that for all they’ve talked about families and childhoods and literature and the value of an extra shot of espresso, she still doesn’t know what he’s doing in Miami aside from the barebones of the operation; she only knew what he did for a living in the first place from the goddamn business card she’d found in his wallet.
“Has Miami been everything you’d hoped for so far?”
He grins, and it’s a little wolfish, a little bit leading in the shadows, versus the streaming sun; it sends pleasant shivers down her spine as he answers, “Everything and more.”
She laughs, a little tight -- a little too much like a giggle, in a register a little higher than she can hit -- but he takes a drink, his face bathed in rose, and when she realizes the lighting above him is much more blue than pink, she lets the laughter bubble forth a bit freer, a bit lighter; lets it be hope and not fear that carried her through the lull before he takes up with the niceties: idiot interns at the office, incompetent associates and a particularly wonderful breakfast burrito he’d picked up on the way in that very morning.
And it’s odd, how different everything feels in a dress, in the dark, her lips tacky with liquor and color; everything feels new and frightening and exhilarating, plunging harsh and swift in her stomach without regard to the way it sends her heart racing, her breath thinning, as if they’d never spoken, never touched.
They’ve shared so many afternoons, so many words, and yet they’ve rarely just asked about each other’s day like this -- the minutiae that make a life from sunrise to sunset, between breaths. Or maybe they have, but not like this, because this is wildly incredible and absurd, almost sad, and strangely domestic and significant in ways she can’t put a finger on, can’t quite pin down. And it’s amazing, she thinks, how much you can know about a person without really knowing them at all.
But he tells her about the details, the trivialities, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, his hands talking twice as quickly as he does -- a fact she finds endearing -- as he goes on about documents and negotiations and taking calls from back home, trying to tie loose ends from hundreds of miles south of where he needs to be; where he’s supposed to be, she reminds herself sternly, because it’s all too easy to think that this is something steady, something real, the start of something that could become something, and to forget that he’s here on business, on loan.
It hasn’t escaped her notice, though, that Nathan has money, and she can’t help the twinge of hope that blossoms, unwanted and unwarranted and undimmed, whenever she wonders just what keeps him from simply flying to New York and back to take care of things in person.
He stops, abruptly, and it shakes her from her musings, takes her that much longer to notice that their server’s come back to ask how they’re doing. Nathan orders another drink -- the obligatory nightcap -- and she asks for a White Russian to his Black.
They both forget where they’d left off, and the buzzing sort of hum that plays backdrop to their silence is the most comfortable thing -- soft and safe and full. She just smiles, because he does; she suspects, or maybe just hopes, that his smile draws on her own.
They work on their drinks slowly, drawing out whatever this is, might be -- it’s easy, but charged in a way it’s never been before; and it’s unexpected, when he grabs her hand from across the table, and it strikes her, suddenly, that they’ve never even kissed.
“Come back to my place?” he asks, hope in his voice and a light in his eyes beyond the reflections, the refractions shining from above, and she smiles, because she can feel the question as well she hears it; she feels the subtle unsteadiness, the tension in his fingertips where he holds on to the heel of her palm.
And it’s amazing, she thinks as she nods, feels her pulse stutter and surge, how little you can know about a person when in truth, you know them like the sound of your own soul.
She savors every sip as she watches him
She drops the tip to the table, wedges it discreetly beneath her empty glass, watches as a stray droplet of coffee-tinged cream soaks against the bills, saturates the greens to emerald. For reasons she doesn’t know, she runs her fingertip along the top of the glass, collecting what’s left of the evening and bringing it to her lips for an evaluatory taste; on impulse, she reaches to trace his glass as well. It’s headier, fuller and richer than her own -- filled with the promise of its own demons.
She pushes in her barstool and squeezes her handbag hard against the center of her palm, follows him out with looking back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She doesn’t recognize the door: neither its color nor its shape, and in retrospect, it’s both a shameful and a reasonable thing -- her head had been spinning, after all, but it just makes the whole thing more despicable, the memory of it somehow more sour at the back of her throat.
The layout doesn’t ring any bells, either -- the setup of the rooms and the furniture; it’s familiar enough, but basic to the point of genericness, and there’s no reason to suspect it, to think twice. The tile under her feet, the shag of the carpet -- neither sparks her memory.
It's not until she follows him into the kitchen, leans against the refrigerator and lets the hum of it fill her head as he reaches for a glass and asks her if she wants anything; it's not until she asks for a water and tips her head back against the door of the freezer as he pours himself two fingers of Maker’s Mark that she remembers the rumble, feels it beat in her pulse, between her thighs, and she knows -- knows the light and the voice and the touch and the taste underneath sadness and heartache and too much tequila, and all the things she would have died to forget, if she could have -- she knows, and she's been here before.
He looks at her, and she can tell that he sees the way her eyes glaze, her body tenses, the way she crumbles and cracks without indication, without warning. He shepherds her gently into the living room -- she can remember it, now, in shadows and vague impressions, on the way to the bedroom beyond; just a hand on her elbow and a lean, a slow gravitation toward her that drives her forward, keeps her moving until she stops, falls, settles onto the plush ottoman that's closest to her.
She looks up at him, and all she feels is sad for a moment as he reaches out and hands her a glass of water she doesn't remember watching him get. She means to say: 'that isn't me; I never do things like that.' She wants to tell him: 'you found me at a low point, a dead point -- you found me broken.’
What she actually manages is: “Do you have anything stronger?”
He retracts his hand, gaze wary but giving; offers his glass of whiskey, ice clinking like raindrops on glass. She doesn't hesitate in grabbing for it and knocking half of it back in a single swallow.
“My ex-husband died," she says, mouth dry and throat burning; "Two months ago today.” She shivers as the alcohol settles, seems to sear bright as it hits.
“His funeral was three days later.” He says nothing in response, doesn't see the vague shapes, the pieces she's slowly bringing together, the picture that's starting to coalesce. She remembers the flowers, the tightness in her chest; remembers the drinks and the lights and a touch that's dampened by the buzz of everything -- of hate and fear and grief and a desperation that makes her cheeks burn -- but still familiar, now that the connection is there, now that she knows. The little things -- small memories and tiny points of contrast, similaritiy -- it all seems so much more vivid now, the feel of him; it taints whatever it is they've come here for, whatever they'd be planning, wanting, silently, and the tears that gather behind her eyelids feel hot and coarse, the sob in her throat like ice.
It’s only when the burn and the shame state to well in her eyes that he seems to see it; to recognize; his eyes grow wide and she can see herself, see the reflection of her eyes a little dead, a little hollow in his own like they gleamed that night, and she has to look away -- can't stand the shock that precedes the disgust that she feels; can't wait to see if he feels it, too.
She tries, moves to rise, to leave, to run -- tries, but fails, rooted to the spot, helpless and drained, eyes on the tops of her toes, so it's a delayed reaction when she gasps against his mouth as he presses his thumb to her chin and lifts her into a kiss, gets her lost in the taste of sour and edge and the cut of stale vodka, thrumming with the pulse she can count against his tongue. Maybe it's not the same as before, maybe nothing's ruined -- or if it is, maybe it's not beyond fixing.
His hand cups behind her head and draws her deeper, opens her further as he fits between her knees and leans down to drink hard from her mouth; and she can tell in the soft brush of his fingertips, the firm but gentle massage of his lips on her own: he understands.
It's more than she'd dared to hope for.
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Eventually, she falls back into her regular schedule -- and she feels rejuvenated, shockingly enough, not at all like an... ex-widow, of whatever it is she now is. Sometimes it still hurts when she walks past his old office, or when she passes through his part of town, but for some reason -- a number of reasons -- it doesn't weigh her down like it used to, doesn't haunt at her back anymore.
Nathan is a lot of the reason.
He becomes something a given, a fixture in her everyday routine -- and she tried, for a time, to ignore it; to think of anything but the fact that she didn't anticipate, but expected the time that she spent with him -- that when she called, she didn't wonder whether he'd pick up. When it became too hard, to trying to ignore -- stole too much of her energy as she sought to pretend it away -- she decided to acknowledge it, process it like a mature adult ought to, but allow it to exist outside of herself, to be separate and foreign, familiar only at a glance, versus a touch.
That, too, soon becomes a moot point, and it's harder to mind it than to simply give in.
He meets her for lunch almost every day; she can count on just one hand how many times he has to cancel for his own appointments. Sometimes they grab dinner. Sometimes she ends up at his house, makes innocent memories there -- like breaking the ice maker in his freezer and eating her first s'more in eons after exploding three marshmallows in his microwave and kissing slow and sweet on his couch until she can barely feel her lips --- that eventually wipe away the old ones.
Or, if not wipe them away, then buffer them; give them a context that isn't so bleak. Whatever happens, though, it's warm and subtle and she doesn't mind it -- it's too early to decide, to admit if she likes it, really; too soon -- so she doesn't fight it, doesn't question.
Because she likes her mornings when he texts her a quick hello, or surprises her outside of work with a latte and a quick kiss that keeps her coffee tasting like him until it's gone. She likes sampling his food, reaching over and nabbing a bite from his plate with her fork, likes the smile it pulls from his lips as he grabs for her drink and takes a sip between her swallows. She likes the weight of his arm around her shoulders, his hand in hers in fleeting moments when they brush, pass, touch. She likes being with him, watching him, watching him watch her -- and his eyes, his eyes say the things she’d always resented Edmund for never saying, never doing: things like, you’re beautiful and you’re brilliant and I don’t know what I saw in anyone I met before I found you.
And she’s older now, stronger, surer -- she doesn’t need the words.
She likes it; all of it, even as it plummets in her gut and makes her question everything she ever thought she knew.
And sometimes, they sprawl across the sheets -- under them and over them, clothed and unclothed -- and she doesn't have to think about it, doesn't have to wonder at the novelty, even if she does sometimes, just because. It’s like a gift she doesn’t want, and doesn’t want to lose, either, and she doesn’t know what to do with it, how to react. She’s only ever wanted the things she’d never gotten, would never know -- she doesn’t know how to deal with wanting something she’d convinced herself she was better off without.
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Frankly, she’s surprised that Mittelos is still speaking to her, after so many weeks -- months, now, really. For being so insistent in the first place, they’ve been incredibly lenient as her schedule has shifted, as grief segued with dizzying speed into anything and everything at once, her own responsibilities coupled with everything Edmund’s secretaries couldn’t manage or pawn off on closer colleagues to the late Dr. Burke.
Turned out, though, that after everything, Juliet still knew the most about Ed’s research, about the projects he’d been backing and the studies he’d been following -- and it made her sad, to think that she’d been the closest to him, in the end, had known him best.
Just the thought of it had convinced her, for the most part, to take the extra work without much complaint.
And if she cancels on Alpert twice to meet Nathan for a quick bite or a latte and a leisurely walk on her lunch -- well, a little white lie wouldn’t do anyone any harm.
Except, maybe it would, did -- was, in fact, this very moment causing harm; it’s a fact that seems unavoidable and inexcusable as she peeks inside the folder that’s sitting on the table in the deserted conference room she’d been seen into upon arriving at Mittelos’ Miami headquarters. A fact that was evidenced starkly, heartbreakingly, by the same scans she’d been shown before, of the seventy-year-old womb in the twenty-six-year-old’s body, with a paper-clipped note at the corner, bearing the angry scrawl of “Deceased.”
That’s blood on her hands.
She quickly closes the file and walks as far from it as the room will allow, passes the windows without looking at her own reflection as she puts distance between herself and yet another awful truth of her own making, of her own... indecision.
Her failings.
She biting back the very edges of something like hysteria when her eyes fall upon a statue -- a figure, molded out of bronze, or something close to bronze, catching light from the ceiling, from the sky; the curves of it are soothing, somehow -- ancient. She follows the infinite curl of metal, the bend and give of it twirling around and passing through itself, piercing its own heart and writing its own beginnings and ends, and she breathes easier, for an instant; knows inexplicable, undeserved peace.
Her eyes find the placard affixed to the pedestal beneath it, though instead of bearing a title and an artist, it simply sports a line of inscrutable text. The markings, letters -- almost Hebrew, but not quite -- are mesmerizing, their artistry profound in a way that has her reaching out, running the pads of her fingers just below the nails against the etching of it, the concave lines that make no sense; speak volumes.
“God loves you as He loved Jacob,” a voice says from just beyond her left shoulder; she spins on the balls of her feet, her balance shaky as she takes in the narrow-featured brunet standing behind her, sea-foam scrubs hanging loosely from his gangly frame. He points indicatively to the plaque she’d been studying, and she registers then that he’s translating words that, somehow, she thinks she already knew.
Her lips thin together in a gentle, strained sort of gratitude, and his answering smile is so much more open, more welcoming that it strikes something unsettling in her, resonates as deception, as deliberately misleading. Covering something sinister, something foul with the guise of friendliness, of altruism.
She curls her toes against the insole of her flats before she turns back, fingers tracing the etchings of each letter with a reverence she doesn’t understand.
“You probably don’t remember me,” she hears him pick up again, clearing his throat before he speaks; his sneakers scuff against the smooth flooring as he takes a step closer; too close. “I’m--”
“I remember you,” she says carefully, remembers the way he’d been there when the walls came crashing down, closing in -- an intrusion, an interloper. She doesn’t turn around as she rolls his name, clinical and precise, past her lips: “Ethan.”
There’s a silence that follows as she loses herself in the warped, distorted blotches of color that settle on the surface of the sculpture -- blues and pinks and peaches where she stares, transfixed, and if it weren’t for the distinct lack of footsteps, of retreat, she’d have thought she was alone again.
“Dr. Alpert’s been a bit delayed, I’m afraid,” Ethan tells her, far away. He sounds contrite, certainly, but she can’t tell, can’t focus enough to figure if it’s real or feigned.
God loves you as He loved Jacob.
“We can reschedule?” Ethan proposes, and she turns suddenly to meet his questioning gaze; there’s something hopeful in his tone, in his eyes -- and maybe it’s merely friendly concern, or regret at the inconvenience; maybe she’s misread him entirely.
But there’s something there that she doesn’t like, that flashes like lead in the pit of her stomach -- and she’s still not sure if she wants this job or not, if the immense professional freedom is worth the personal sacrifices she’ll be forced to make; but she owes it to herself to consider it, to give it a real, serious shot, now that she can.
Edmund’s dead, after all, and she’s still not convinced -- not in her heart of hearts -- that there’s no connection. She can’t prove it, of course, can’t logically reason it out, but the intimation, the suggestion remains. The guilt doesn’t die.
She may have hated him, in the end, but she’d loved him, too, and she’ll be damned if he died in vain.
So, she folds herself neatly into a chair at the table, crossing her legs high enough to strain the fabric of her skirt.
“I’m more than willing to wait,” she replies with a cordial, if tight sort of smile. Ethan says nothing, just nods, and leaves the way he entered.
Within five minutes, there’s a mimosa in front of her and a plate of croissants that melt like heaven on her tongue, and she’s almost convinced that it’s just Ethan who rubs her the wrong way about this place, these people; they’re feeding her, after all, and that’s a universal check in the plus column.
The delay stretches into mid-morning, teeters on afternoon; Juliet declines the offer of lunch when an assistant comes in to assure her that Dr. Alpert will be in within the hour, and settles for plain orange juice in her champagne glass as she polishes off the rest of the pastries. She watches the interplay of the waxing sun against the statue she’d studied before, channeled through the wet glass at the top of the flute in her hand as it paints a dancing portrait of light on the walls, falls in the etching beneath the artwork again, spelling the words in copper and gold.
As he loved Jacob.
She thinks back to the dead woman’s CT scans in the folder, and for a second -- just a second -- she feels the need to pity Jacob, whoever he was, is; just a little.
Part Two // Master Post // Part Four