Fic: We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try) (2/5)
We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try)
Part Two
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There is a cafe near the corner of Second and Twenty-Fifth where the lattes cost more than Starbucks’ because someone actually whips the crème atop your macchiato by hand. When she and Edmund had first moved to the city, she’d stumbled upon it by accident while searching for an ATM, thirsty and worn by perpetual heat. She’d ordered an iced cafe mocha, paid with her debit card -- for the elusive ATM seemed somehow far away, forgotten -- and she’d let the dip of her spine sink low against the spindles of a chair worn by love, not by care, older than her mother’s mother. The sweat behind her knee had slid smooth as she’d crossed her legs and lifted her cup, drinking until the cubes clacked at her teeth.
She’d asked Edmund to meet her there, once; he’d made a scene about lipstick on his cup that she couldn’t see, and skim milk in the place of his two-percent, which she couldn’t taste. She never went back.
She thinks there’s more to the fact that she ends up there now than she’s interested in sorting through, more reason to walk through those doors than just craving and thirst, but she does it anyway, and if it doesn’t quite feel like shackles dropping from her wrist when she orders, at least she breathes a little freer.
She finds the same chair she remembers -- the paint a little thinner, with a few more chips and less color than she recalls. The soft, pseudo-jazz alternates slow and effortless, almost against its own will, spilling melodies into harmonies back to melodies anew. Her heart slows and speeds in time with it, coursing the caffeine through her veins. She closes her eyes and hums a few pieces she knows, half-knows, smirks to herself when she misses the notes, and when she’s done with her first drink, she saunters slow, her hips swaying with the cadence of the song, as she goes to buy another.
She finds a bookshelf near the back before she sits again in her chair -- more for show than anything more practical, she suspects, but that doesn’t mean she can’t break the trend. She runs her fingertip across tattered volumes -- first editions, most of them, or else she suspects -- opens a few to check for dedications and little notes, isn’t entirely disappointed: On your birthday, with my love, written in one, a snippet of poetry and a name in another. She doesn’t stop to read any actual text until she comes across a familiar title -- one her sister had always loved, had read aloud once or twice when they were young and shared a room.
On an impulse she pulls it out, flips through it: dog-eared, spine cracked so unrepentantly as to resemble a barcode, worn paper frayed at the edge of every crease, pages wafting of cumin and disuse. Her fingers feel dry against the fragile pages, abrasive against the yellowed edges, chipping off with the curse of decay.
She takes a sip of her coffee and takes the book back to her chair in the sun, flips to the beginning:
Nobody was really surprise when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow.
She loses herself in the story, doesn’t notice the hours pass, or when the light she reads by fades from the sun to the fixtures overhead; she doesn’t stop until a young girl with braided pigtails and an eyebrow piercing taps her shoulder and tells her they’ve been closed for an hour, and she needs to lock up.
She walks home, and finds herself again. She takes a Tylenol PM and falls into bed with her clothes still on; she decides that losing is the better bargain, sometimes -- this time.
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It’s a combination of HR failure and clerical errors that results in Edmund’s office being left unattended to before his family flies back to L.A. How the food chain manages to trickle down to her, in the end, is beyond her comprehension, but it’s nothing she’s never done before; when he’d decided to leave her, she’d had to pack his belongings for him. He was far too busy.
It’d be painfully ironic, really, if it weren’t still so surreal.
Most of his possessions are generic enough to leave and allow someone else to deal with -- office supplies, medical texts, and the like. As a sort of parting gift, she takes the external hard drive attached to his desktop and vows to erase all of its contents: she may still be bitter, but the pornography she imagines takes up a good percentage of its disk space is something his former colleagues never need to see.
The rest is predictable: certificates and degrees that line the walls, disks and notebooks, personal contact files, a few scattered photographs from his desk -- more to cater to convention than to actually savor the memories captured on film. All of it fits in a Hammermill box; the lid even fits on the top.
She’s smiling at Linda, the overqualified RN who works the front desk, over the bowed head of a patient who’s signing in as she pushing out against the revolving door, turned around as her back hits the glass.
She never sees the man who runs into her, knocks the box from her hands and sends her nearly skidding to the ground.
She doesn’t let herself think too much about the surge, the spark that shoots up her spine when she feels strong hands wrap at her hip, at her waist, pulling her up and putting her back in balance.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, standing still for a moment as she regains her bearings and dusts off her skirt. “Are you alright?”
“Fine,” the man replies, and his voice is nice: warm and strong and a little bit rough, a unique sort of scratch to it that rushes through her like a pleasant memory. “It was my fault. I should have been paying better attention.”
“No, it was me, I...” She sees the box lid blow in a sudden gust of breeze, dangerously close to being subsumed in the water and rendered soggy and useless. She holds up a finger to the stranger and jogs to save it from a watery end.
“Here,” she hears as she straightens, box top in hand, and he’s there, holding the box in his arms for her to close with the lid. She smiles her and takes it back from him.
“Thanks,” she says, and there’s something about the exchange that feels stilted, and a little too much like déjà vu.
“No problem,” he answers, smiling again, and he looks at her strangely -- it’s not just her this time. He’s staring, almost leering, a narrowness about his eyes that she doesn’t understand, and therefore cannot trust.
“Do I know you?” he asks just as she’s about to make a hasty retreat; she must look as surprised as she feels, because he quickly doubles back. “Sorry, that’s awkward isn’t it?” and that smirk turns sheepish and melts her, just a little; it overrides the tension of his eyes on her before. “It’s just, you look... very, very familiar.”
She takes a moment to consider him, because now that he mentions it, yeah -- there’s something about him that somehow she knows. “Juliet,” she finally says, hefting the weight of the box onto the crook of one elbow as she reaches out and offers her free hand.
His grip on hers is strong, and it’s only after she memorizes the feel of his hands in her own that she let’s go processes the name he offers in kind. “Nathan.”
And his grin spreads, slow like sunlight after dawn, and warms her just the same.
“We…” His eyes brow quirks as he pauses, jerks, and narrows his gaze at her, considering. “We’ve run into each other before,” he finally says, gesturing at the cement ledges around the fountain just behind them, and suddenly it dawns on her, and she recalls his smile -- the way the sun cast his shadow to her left, her sunglasses flung to straddle the cracks in the pavement at their feet: she remembers the things that got lost in what came after that day; how the world -- her world -- changed, after.
“Yes,” she says, and even she can tell that his voice sounds distant; she clears her throat and tosses a smile that’s only half genuine -- but still only half faked -- to cover her tracks. “Yes,” she forces out a pithy bit of laughter; “so we have.”
“Are you any more inclined to be bribed out of legal action this time around?” he asks playfully. She chuckles again, this time incredulously, until she sees that he might just be a little bit serious underneath the jibe. She starts to protest -- because this time, she’s pretty sure that it’s her fault they collided, and besides: no harm, no foul -- but he holds up his hand and cuts in before she can sneak a word in edgewise. “Mind you, if you turn me down again,” he tacks on, a little bit conspiratorially, “I’ll be forced to wait around until you come this way again, and run into you just to be sure that the third time’s not a charm.”
She bites out a laugh and raises an eyebrow, moving just a hair so that his silhouette blocks out the sun. “Persistent, hmm?”
“I prefer tenacious, myself,” he grins back at her, and his smile -- it’s wide and bright and familiar, somehow; like she’s hardwired to know it, to feel like it’s right. “But persistent also fits the bill.”
She doesn’t consider for long -- doesn’t dwell on the implications, the connotations or consequences, all the reasons why she shouldn’t. None of them seem very relevant, given the givens. “Fine,” she concedes, if a bit reluctantly, readjusting the box beneath both of her arms. “Let me leave these with the front desk. They owe me the favor.”
He looks down, nodding at the load she’s carrying. “Moving out?”
She takes a moment to pick up on the question that’s underneath. “Oh, not like that,” she defends quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong impression about the state of her current employment; “I’m,” and she pauses, because what does she have to prove to this man? She doesn’t have to convince him of her professional worth, her position. She doesn’t have to impress him.
“Actually,” she starts again, “moving on, I hope.” And the small smile that tugs at her lips as she says those words -- more honest than anything else she’s said; this time, her smile is real.
“Then how about we start with moving on to lunch,” he redirects gently, but his expression seems brighter, a reflection of her own, “as a precursor to your going about and moving on in the grander scheme of things, shall we?”
The dampened parts of her that still want to refuse are silenced for good as her stomach growls, too quiet for him to hear, but loud enough to prompt a blush. She leaves Edmund’s effects with Linda, and faces forward this time as she pushes through the door.
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They end up at a tiny Chinese place tucked away in the crevices of the city -- Rachel had found it years ago, and Juliet had only been there once or twice, before Rachel got sick and the smell of pork lo mien started to make her feel nauseous. She’s never been here without her sister; doesn’t know why she suggests it now, lets him offer his driver -- his own driver and his Rolls fucking Royce -- to take them there, particularly when it’s barely a ten minute walk, and there’s a gorgeous breeze coming off of the coast.
She doesn’t know much, really.
“So, what brings you to Miami?” she asks once they’re seated, with the kind of aloofness that comes off as stagnant and rehearsed, that echoes of practice in front of a mirror, watching her lips form the words against the low light of the city, the dying life as it streams in through the open door at her back, through tacky neon window-paint declaring half-priced lunch buffets and specials on moo goo gai pan. “Business or pleasure?”
“Business,” he answers, and his voice is lost inside the swirl of incense, the lingering scents of green tea and soy sauce lowering the words, burying them in musk, and curling them into something delicate, sensual and intoxicating in ways they shouldn’t be, in ways they aren’t. She can feel his eyes on her as she drives the edge of her spoon into the wontons floating in her soup, cutting them haphazardly into halves, into fourths. “But that doesn’t mean that pleasure won’t catch me unawares while I’m here.”
She’s been out of the game for a while now, but she knows it’s not just the musk of jasmine and peanut oil that lets the comment linger, lets it smack of a come-on.
She sips at the water in her glass, cringes at the feel of too much condensation clinging to her skin when she sets the cup back down into the ring of wetness it had left in its wake. “So I take it the city’s been kind to you so far?” she asks idly, trying to discreetly dry her hands upon the thighs of her chinos.
“You sound surprised.” He quirks an eyebrow, and her palms still near her knees beneath the table. It hadn’t been her intention, but it wasn’t an unfounded observation. Particularly since she’d finalized her divorce, she’d wondered what in the hell she’d seen in Miami that was fitting enough, appealing enough to end up calling it home.
“I am.” And he chuckles; she doesn’t. But it doesn’t serve to temper his amusement, the way his lips curl in genuine good humor -- strangely, she finds he likes that simple fact, the way his little snort of enjoyment rings out alone, unabashed.
There’s something free in that sound, and she finds herself aching with it, wanting to float away on its wings as it fades.
“Cynical,” he observes through a tight-lipped grin as he leans back, throws an arm across the empty length of the booth that stretches out toward the wall. “I can appreciate that.”
She ducks her head a little graciously, and little uncomfortably, masking the strange surge of awkwardness that shoots through her stomach as she shifts, grabs for an egg roll and dips the tip in her dish of sweet and sour sauce; she wonders as she chews, just before she swallows, if there’s any way she can end this odd little encounter before they have the chance to order entrees without seeming completely impolite.
“Have you always lived in New York?” she asks with a sort of half-interest he seems to overlook, or at the least, not to mind.
“Unfortunately,” he answers with a sigh, and there’s something different, something less flat and more open in him, like seeing through the crack in a wall that hides the ocean, or the sky.
“What about you? Born and bred Miamian?”
“God no,” she laughs, almost snorts. “I just... ended up here.”
“That’ll happen.” And there’s something... commiserating, something that understands inside the words, that unfurls and unwraps and permeates hard and fast through her, through them both. She shudders with the careful, subtle overlay of feeling that descends around her, suffocating and strong, and somehow, as it settles, the tension, the discomfiture that had gotten caught in between them starts to slip into the ether, the tendrils of incense barely-visible in the low light, shining in the shafts of sun that reach back from the front window.
Suddenly, she’s not so keen to leave.
She flags down their waitress with a smile and a raise of her arm to request some sweet and sour chicken and the two orders of fried rice on top of the broccoli pork that Nathan asks her to put in. They parry back and forth in the interim, with mild, almost comfortable periods of silence between, talking about everything and nothing -- maintaining an amiable sort of banter, a careful but friendly exchange while touching on very little that could be construed as personal: the economy, the weather, idle gossip about b-list celebrities and political scandals of the nonpartisan flavor. He rubs her as a Republican, though, so she keeps her liberal leanings to herself.
She learns that he’s a closet action movie buff, can’t stand Hillary Rodham Clinton, and that he drives a Suburban back home at least occasionally, perhaps when his driver’s on a lunch break. She tells him that she likes to watch Meet The Press on Sundays because Tim Russert reminds her of her uncle Donny and that her eyes are particularly sensitive to light, and as such, she doesn’t know what possessed her to move to the Sunshine State in the first place. She asks him for a favorite movie -- Top Gun, he asks her how she ended up in Florida -- scholarships, and the desire to be as far from the broken threads of her family as she could get, but that bit she keeps to herself; and before either of them is aware of it, their plates are nearly clean, and their checks are set before them. A smattering of individually-wrapped fortune cookies falls to the table, the plastic crackling on impact.
“Come on,” she chides him with narrowed eyes when he grabs for the bill before she can look to see the damage she’s incurred and make a grab for her checkbook.
“No,” he gives a quick, but firm shake of his head. “I told you, I have to sway you against pressing charges,” and somehow, the pretense that he’s attempting to buy her isn’t an annoying one -- somehow hasn’t grown stale just yet. It’s almost endearing.
And it shouldn’t be. But there it is.
“Don’t like your women going Dutch on you, hmm?” she asks slyly, shooting him a pointed glance.
“I don’t like being sued,” he returns with a smile, sliding his credit card under the clip on the tray, covering the total she knows can’t top twenty-five dollars, at the very most. She doesn’t bother a second glance to see his last name embossed in silver; she doesn’t need to know. In a matter of moments, it won’t even matter.
She gives up the fight without much of a fuss; or at least, with less of a fuss than she might make with someone else, and she thinks that might mean something silly and obscure, but probably not. Instead, she grabs for one of the fortune cookies, and pushes the air from it with a hollow pop, breaking the pressed seal of the bag and sliding the cookie out into her palm.
She breaks it in halves, careful not to look at the little slip of paper until the piece is at least in her mouth, sweet against her lips; superstitions and all. Plant a good seed and you will joyfully gather fruit. She sucks the slick sugar from the surface of the cookie before she cracks it between her front teeth -- the crumbs trickling down the front of her shirt, a few stragglers tumbling inside the cups of her bra -- and she wonders if it’s like blowing out birthday candles, or wishing on a star; maybe if you say it out loud, it won’t come true.
But then, nothing really comes true, in the end; it only either comes, or it doesn’t.
She turns the paper over and forms her lips silently around the pronunciation for Chinese word for ‘fish’ while Nathan swallows quickly around his own cookie as he thanks the waitress for his card and signs for the charges.
She looks down at her lucky numbers: 8 15 23. She wonders, for a moment, why there are so few of them. She’s no gambler herself, but she remembers there at least being enough to number to make the Play 4, because Ed had won three hundred dollars on his fortune cookie numbers on their second date.
She doesn’t like where that train of thought takes her, though, so she folds the paper once, twice, into a tiny, solid square that she stuffs under the little basket that holds the salt and the soy sauce, leaving it behind as they walk out. She can’t tell whether or not she imagines the weight of a distinctly male gaze on the sway of her hips as she exits, but the thought does cross her mind.
The dimness of the restaurant is intensified, juxtaposed with the midday sun that assaults her retinas as they step outside. She squints carefully, and reaches for her shades, pausing mid-step as she remembers the day they’d first crossed paths; the day that everything had changed.
“Do you need a ride back?” Nathan turns to ask her when she doesn’t move to follow him into the waiting car, his voice sharp somehow, and his eyes invisible, hidden behind the lenses of his Ray-Bans.
“I think I’ll walk,” she manages, something sour in her mouth even as she forces out a smile she hopes looks genuine -- appears strained only because of the glare; she’d had a nice enough time, after all, when all was said and done.
He considers her for a moment, careful and still, before he ducks to slide into his seat. “It was a pleasure,” he tells her, smacking his lips before he adds her name, like a prayer or a curse, every syllable scant and naked off his tongue: “Juliet.”
The slam of the car door echoes after the engine revs and the vehicle pulls from the curb; she doesn’t think she’ll ever hear her name without the underscoring of his tone in the back of her mind, ever again.
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His car is already around halfway to the nearest corner, the consonants stripped sharp in his voice just starting to fade, when she feels the tap on her shoulder, hears the hushed, heavily-accented ramble of the waitress who’d served them explaining in broken bits that the wallet in her hand had been left in their booth.
Nathan’s wallet.
She doesn’t know what prompts her to take it, to not simply flip open her cell phone and call the number on the license -- New York State. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t try to flag down the car he’d taken off in, or at least try to narrow her gaze against its plates.
She simply notes that his name is Nathan Arthur Petrelli, and thanks the petite woman for coming after her before she turns and walks home.
And later, sitting at her kitchen table, she’s pretty sure it’s justified, really -- looking through to see if she can find enough information to get the wallet back to its rightful owner. She’s sure there’s no real harm to be had in it, but the whole time she sifts through the contents, fingers dry and rough against every small item she finds, she feels a little bit bad, a little bit wrong.
It doesn’t stop her, though.
She catalogs the items as she goes, lining them up in order so that she can put them back exactly as they were: half of a Post-It note -- the sticky part -- ripped and folded over a hardened piece of chewed gum. She can still smell the spearmint.
Gym membership, recently renewed; she probably could have guessed that. She wouldn't deny he was a looker.
A key, pressed so far into the leather that the imprint remains when it pops out; old, given the cut, but rarely used. Still clean, still sharp. It looks like a house key, but something tells her it's more important; less of a spare and more of a secret.
There's a ticket stub from a flight into Miami, two weeks prior, flying with Herarat Aviation, and a receipt from an airport Burger King printed at 3:47 A.M; it makes her wonders, just a little, about whens and wheres and whys.
She fingers a business card -- embossed with a stylized double-helix, his name emblazoned beneath the logo of The Pinehearst Company. Nathan Petrelli. Behind it, she finds an insurance card -- he carries through Aetna; listed as Nathaniel there, and for some reason, she smirks at that. Another name's on the card, as well -- a shared plan, with a Peter Petrelli, obviously his brother, given the age listed. She wonders if their parents hated the boy: Peter Petrelli.
All of his card slots are filled, most doubled, some tripled, stretched beyond their capacity and straining at the seams: Visa Black Card, American Express Platinum, a smattering of store cards for various high end retailers. Frequent flyer cards for all of the major airlines: American, Oceanic, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, Ajira, Herarat, United. Man got around, apparently.
The cash enclosed bloats the bifold dangerously, bilging against the card slots: three Benjamins, crisp and flat, straight from the bank; another two-hundred in twenties; and a good twenty-five in suspicious-looking singles.
She quirks her eyebrow at what falls out when she goes to replace the bills, frowns when she figures out what it is: browned and fragile, but still intact, the four-leaf clover has seen better days, and she finds herself wondering as to its story, pondering different scenarios in her head. She’s surprised that she wants the truth more than the stories, wants the opportunity to ask.
She also sees a thin strip of paper caught against the worn tag sewn into the seam: a fortune, she realizes, still stiff along the halves of the paper, the fold still peaked at the crease. It’s from their lunch, she’s sure of it.
Divest your ordinary nature and find your true nature, it reads, and it feels heavier than it has any right to. She wonders why he kept it, whether he meant to, whether it was coincidence or something more.
On a whim, she flips the paper over and looks at his numbers: 4 16 42. Only three; he got gypped, as well.
With that, she means to close the wallet and call it a night, but the jagged edge of something peeking out from behind his license grabs at her attention and stokes her curiosity violently enough to prompt her thumb into the opening in the plastic screen, and to slide out the laminate and dig for what’s underneath.
She finds a scribbled name on ripped piece of paper -- looks like the back of a receipt -- Paik, and a number with too many digits to be domestic; the country-code is unfamiliar, not that she knows many by heart. The handwriting is strangely loopy for a man's, but too slanted, too sharp for a woman's; sloppy, quick, half print and half script. Scattered. Untethered.
Pushed farther down, there are a few well-worn, moisture-bled fast food coupons folded over too many times and shoved into the change pocket -- expired, months ago; they’re for free drinks with a combo meal and half-priced sandwiches with the purchase of any regularly-priced menu item of equal or greater value. Nothing unusual, but somehow... fascinating. Like secrets spilling for her perusal.
She notes that the number of his license differs from the number on his business card -- of course it does, a work phone and a home phone -- and she doesn’t know why she chooses to call his work line, precisely, but she knows that it’s more than just the logical assumption that, if he’s in Miami, there’s no way he’ll be home to answer her call.
Suddenly, she feels a little tongue tied, a little hesitant and unsure, and how in the hell did you say that last name, anyway? Peter-elli? Pet-relli? Pet-raili? Pete-reel-ee?
"I'm looking for Nathan Petrelli," she says into the mouthpiece, a smile curling her lips before she can think about why it's there, because yes: that sounds right.
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After speaking with four assistants -- three of whom had seemed to be the assistant of an assistant, or the assistant of the assistant's assistant -- followed by the endearing and open laugh of the Peter who'd been listed on the insurance card (his brother, as she'd guessed), she’d managed to finally reach a male voice she recognized, if only just. They'd arranged to meet after she got off of work; she hadn't told him that the University had granted her the rest of the week off for bereavement, given the unique circumstances. She gives him directions to the little cafe she's come to think of as her own, and he promises to be there by quarter-to-four.
“Had to take a cab, without my license,” Nathan says, sounding a little breathless above the scuff, the squeak of his shoes on the floor -- as if a cab required any exertion on his part; the old-fashioned Ridgeway striking on the decorative mantle near her seat at the window reads 3:54 as she hands his wallet back to him, everything carefully replaced, just as she'd found it.
“Where’s your driver?” She shoots at him smartly, eyebrow quirked as she watches him slide his wallet into his back pocket; deliberately ignoring the subtle curve accented there, disguised by the fine tailoring of his slacks...
“Previously engaged.” She can't help but note the strain of his neck, and the suggestion, the teasing cut of his abs as he shrugs, fidget beneath his jacket.
“How’s their espresso?” he asks, fingers still on the wallet in his pocket as he squints at the menu, focusing on the colored chalk against framed blackboards lining the walls behind the counter.
“Top notch,” she says seriously, raising her cup in affirmation as she leans back into the cushion of his chair, downing the rest of her drink and setting the empty mug on the table between them before she sinks too far into the give.
“Hmm,” he hums beneath his breath, “want another?”
She takes a moment -- just the one -- to watch him, study the way his face stays open, innocent; she wonders how many people in the world can still look so empty, so untouched. His eyes flutter open, then closed; one, two, three times, his jaw shifting just slightly, the openness starting to narrow, to tighten before she finally decides, responds:
“Sure.”
He smiles, and there are no boundaries to it, no limits; it’s warm, warmer than the drinks or the sun, and squints a little, even as she grins back, because it’s everywhere, that spreading heat, but it’s too much, too soon, and she doesn’t have the time to shield her eyes.
He leans toward her, unexpectedly -- closer than an acquaintance should probably venture, running the tip of his left ring finger through the stiffening foam clinging in porous ledges, ephemeral sills along the edges, the lip of her cup. She can only process the way that the finger curls, crooks, wipes with decided nonchalance against the glazed surface -- bare, unclaimed beneath the knuckle. He seems the type who’d wear a ring, beside the fact that she recognizes the wrinkle of white where something had once wrapped around the skin, kept it safe and in the dark; the divorcées brand was something she was intimately familiar with by now, though hers had finally faded -- though she was the only one who still looked to see if it remained.
She blinks, hard, as the image of Edmund, speaking, striding, swept away in a blur of motion and metal, doppler shift and drops of blood, and when her eyes open again, the gentle, dampish pop of Nathan’s finger sliding out against the side of his mouth -- slipping wet between his lips as he rolls his tongue around his teeth, the movement hollowing and pursing his cheeks in turn; that pop sounds a little dull, a little heavy, falling like meat, dead weight upon the pavement even as it strikes a spark of something in the pit of her stomach.
“Another caramel macchiato, then,” he says, with no small degree of certainty after considering the taste for a long second. “Soy?” he asks, and there’s the hesitance, perhaps surprise -- unguarded, untamed. It doesn’t match the cut of his suit, the sharp lines on his card, doesn’t go with the chauffeur or the assistants -- the haunted mist behind his eyes over crab rangoons that’d had nothing to do with the incense, the heady musk of the establishment itself.
“Nonfat,” she corrects him, and his eyes quirk, their shape strange for a moment before a smirk curls his lips to match.
“Please. Like you need to cut the calories.” She takes it as a compliment, and contents herself with watching the people, the light as it plays through the window panes; she doesn’t spend too many breaths between studying the muddy reflection of him, his back in the glass as he orders, waits, pays.
“This place has... charm,” he declares, breathing deeply as he sets the cups upon the table and stretches his arms back, kinked at the elbows as he shucks his jacket, lets it pool where the back of the chair meets the seat as he slides back on the edges of it, settles down and sweeps his gaze across the whole of the room: the mismatched seating and the streaked glass of the countertops. “I like it.”
“My ex-husband always said it was common. Dirty,” she says, and it’s heavy in her gut, speaking ill of the dead. “I stopped coming here for the longest time.”
“Hmmm,” and Nathan doesn’t know it, but the steady rumble of the sound shakes some of the weight, the guilt free. “Does it taste as good as you remember it?”
She lifts her cup to her lips, tilts it back and lets the liquid burn the insides of her lips, run slow to the back of her throat and slip down, so warm. She inhales through her nose and licks at her lips, savoring the taste, the bitter cut and the milky buffer; the sweet undertone lingers, keeps her coming back for more. “Better.”
“Then, maybe the break was for the best,” he says, a little sagely, full of himself as he dusts invisible crumbs from his thighs. “You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.”
“Don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” she murmurs in agreement, the words close enough to the surface of her drink to send tiny ripples, little waves through the cream; the heat of it condensing on the tip of her nose as she breathes out, in against the edge of her cup, hiding the hint of her smile against the side.
“Great song,” he comments, the end of his swallow breathy, tacking on an extra, protracted vowel before his words, and even as she glances toward him warily, critically from the corners of her eyes the words have taken up a beat, matching the rhythm he’s idly drumming against his knee.
She says nothing, and he picks up on the silence only after the front door of the cafe swooshes open and accents the lack of conversation; he glances toward her, neck craned over the back of his seat as his eyes meet her own. “No, really,” he protests, an note of protest, childish defense coloring his tone. “I mean, classic hair-metal stuff,” he tags apologetically, “but yeah.”
She snorts gracelessly, but covers it with a quick sip of her coffee. “Don’t tell me you had the whole back-combed look going on, please.”
“Oh, but I did,” he grins, and she’s torn between horrified, as she imagines him with that hair, and a little bit giddy, for the infectiously playful joy that the memory seems to bring him, and the way the white of his teeth peeks winningly from behind his lips. “You’re imagining it, aren’t you?” he accuses with a laugh when she remains quiet; she suspects her eyes give her away, but she doesn’t mind -- she wasn’t trying to be cryptic, wasn’t meaning to hold back.
“Trying not to, actually, but it’s a futile effort,” she confesses with a laugh. “You might have to buy me another one of these to make up for the mental image I’m going to be suffering from for at least the next hour.” She raises her mug indicatively, angling her eyebrows a little reproachfully, though her smile kills the sting.
“You know?” He takes another drink, eyes glinting with something she can’t quite figure, doesn’t quite know. “I think that can be arranged.”
And when he laughs, she knows just one thing: she likes it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Isn’t this a bit high school?” she asks, the second time they meet for coffee.
“Maybe,” he says, steepling his fingers at the point of his chin, "But it’s how I met my first girlfriend at Princeton, so maybe we can bump it up to being a bit college and call it square.”
Her arms spread to the sides, propped to the elbows against the back of the overstuffed chair she's sprawled across in the corner. “Fine.”
“Right,” he blinks, as if he'd been expecting more of a fight, and she sees a bit of the boy in him, the one who probably started like this with that first girlfriend in New Jersey, and Juliet can't help herself -- she wonders if she has that girl's eyes, her smile, the same color hair. She wonders if this is like that, or if it's something different.
“So,” he pulls her from her thoughts, before they can really take hold. “Favorite... vacation spot.”
“Mmmm, Southern France.” It's out of her mouth before she can think about it, but it's true.
"Ah, le Midi." Other people would have asked more, would have asked when and why she'd managed to lose herself on the Continent for a long summer between undergrad and med school; and it's not as if he doesn't seem to care -- it's more as if he knows, without the asking.
“Favorite song to listen to when you’re driving.”
A smiles curls his lips, a memory washing over his eyes, and there's a light in him, a spark -- like a secret, something lost and then found. “Don’t Stop Believin’. Definitely.”
She smiles, too; she can see that, in her mind's eye -- his hair, perhaps with the mullet, blowing in the warm breeze as he drives some vintage car that cost his parents more than a Bentley, making his way down the interstate to nowhere, going anywhere.
“Favorite ice cream flavor.”
“Karamel Sutra." She can almost feel the swirl of it on her tongue, melting against her teeth. She knows she's smiling like an idiot, but it's a weakness, Ben & Jerry's; it's a real, vital weakness.
Hers is not a smile like his, however: wolfish, hungry, sly. “Kinky," he comments blithely, and she shoots him a half-hearted glare while she takes an indulgent sip of her coffee, thankful for the abundance of caramel flavoring she'd unwittingly added to her order.
“Favorite poet.”
“Rilke.” And that surprises her, just a little; he doesn't seem uneducated, by any means, but men who know their poetry have always been a bit of a rare find for her outside of English departments and basement slams with three-dollar cover and all-you-can-drink coffee that tastes like morning breath and battery acid and comes in red plastic cups that look like they should hold something stronger.
“The sovereigns of the world are old,” she quotes, a little lofty; to test, to prove, to know.
“And they will have no heirs at all.” And he seems pleased -- with her, and himself -- to finish the line.
She grins again; it's becoming a trend.
“Favorite word.”
She takes a long sip from her cup, takes a moment to close her eyes and savor. “Vivacious.”
“Really?” He sounds genuinely surprised, confused.
“Won an elementary school spelling bee with that word.” She drinks, lets her eyes slide closed again; remembers sweaty palms and her eyes on her patent-leathers and the origins and parts of speech she still knows, but has never actually needed.
It takes her a moment to think of a question beofre her eyes fall on the line of novels along the wall. “Favorite book.”
“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” If that doesn't scream hidden layers and inner demons, she doesn't know what does; she can't tell if it's a honest answer, or a canned sort of response -- but either way, it's a good one.
“Favorite color.”
“Periwinkle.” Like the afternoon sky, and it's reflection in the sea.
“Favorite time of year.”
“Summer. The end of summer.” He breathes deep as he leans heavier against the arm of his chair, gaze focused on something beyond themselves, the store, this plane. “Like... the beginning of September.” He turns a soft smile in her direction as his eyes refocus and find her again; it feels comforting, his attention on her with such genuine, subtle, radiant warmth.
“Favorite food.”
“Peach cobbler.” Her grandmother's, and it makes her sad when she realizes she hasn't had it since before she died; her mom had never quite mastered the recipe.
“Favorite..." her eyes dart around between them, trying to draw inspiration, find something... "Shoes.”
He raises an eyebrow at her, stretching his foot toward her and tapping his Rockports indicatively against her calf. “Shoes?”
“I’m running out of ideas.”
“I’m running out of coffee," he counters, raising his mug; he tilts it so that she can see the dregs sloshing up the sides.
“One more,” he says; something glinting in his eyes as he smiles at her -- half-hopeful, half-mischievous, filled with something less than joy, but only just. She spares a glance at the setting sun outside and heaves a sigh.
“Decaf," she concedes, handing her cup to him as he heads to the counter. And there, on his face -- she thinks that's real joy.
Part One // Master Post // Part Three
Part Two
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is a cafe near the corner of Second and Twenty-Fifth where the lattes cost more than Starbucks’ because someone actually whips the crème atop your macchiato by hand. When she and Edmund had first moved to the city, she’d stumbled upon it by accident while searching for an ATM, thirsty and worn by perpetual heat. She’d ordered an iced cafe mocha, paid with her debit card -- for the elusive ATM seemed somehow far away, forgotten -- and she’d let the dip of her spine sink low against the spindles of a chair worn by love, not by care, older than her mother’s mother. The sweat behind her knee had slid smooth as she’d crossed her legs and lifted her cup, drinking until the cubes clacked at her teeth.
She’d asked Edmund to meet her there, once; he’d made a scene about lipstick on his cup that she couldn’t see, and skim milk in the place of his two-percent, which she couldn’t taste. She never went back.
She thinks there’s more to the fact that she ends up there now than she’s interested in sorting through, more reason to walk through those doors than just craving and thirst, but she does it anyway, and if it doesn’t quite feel like shackles dropping from her wrist when she orders, at least she breathes a little freer.
She finds the same chair she remembers -- the paint a little thinner, with a few more chips and less color than she recalls. The soft, pseudo-jazz alternates slow and effortless, almost against its own will, spilling melodies into harmonies back to melodies anew. Her heart slows and speeds in time with it, coursing the caffeine through her veins. She closes her eyes and hums a few pieces she knows, half-knows, smirks to herself when she misses the notes, and when she’s done with her first drink, she saunters slow, her hips swaying with the cadence of the song, as she goes to buy another.
She finds a bookshelf near the back before she sits again in her chair -- more for show than anything more practical, she suspects, but that doesn’t mean she can’t break the trend. She runs her fingertip across tattered volumes -- first editions, most of them, or else she suspects -- opens a few to check for dedications and little notes, isn’t entirely disappointed: On your birthday, with my love, written in one, a snippet of poetry and a name in another. She doesn’t stop to read any actual text until she comes across a familiar title -- one her sister had always loved, had read aloud once or twice when they were young and shared a room.
On an impulse she pulls it out, flips through it: dog-eared, spine cracked so unrepentantly as to resemble a barcode, worn paper frayed at the edge of every crease, pages wafting of cumin and disuse. Her fingers feel dry against the fragile pages, abrasive against the yellowed edges, chipping off with the curse of decay.
She takes a sip of her coffee and takes the book back to her chair in the sun, flips to the beginning:
Nobody was really surprise when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow.
She loses herself in the story, doesn’t notice the hours pass, or when the light she reads by fades from the sun to the fixtures overhead; she doesn’t stop until a young girl with braided pigtails and an eyebrow piercing taps her shoulder and tells her they’ve been closed for an hour, and she needs to lock up.
She walks home, and finds herself again. She takes a Tylenol PM and falls into bed with her clothes still on; she decides that losing is the better bargain, sometimes -- this time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s a combination of HR failure and clerical errors that results in Edmund’s office being left unattended to before his family flies back to L.A. How the food chain manages to trickle down to her, in the end, is beyond her comprehension, but it’s nothing she’s never done before; when he’d decided to leave her, she’d had to pack his belongings for him. He was far too busy.
It’d be painfully ironic, really, if it weren’t still so surreal.
Most of his possessions are generic enough to leave and allow someone else to deal with -- office supplies, medical texts, and the like. As a sort of parting gift, she takes the external hard drive attached to his desktop and vows to erase all of its contents: she may still be bitter, but the pornography she imagines takes up a good percentage of its disk space is something his former colleagues never need to see.
The rest is predictable: certificates and degrees that line the walls, disks and notebooks, personal contact files, a few scattered photographs from his desk -- more to cater to convention than to actually savor the memories captured on film. All of it fits in a Hammermill box; the lid even fits on the top.
She’s smiling at Linda, the overqualified RN who works the front desk, over the bowed head of a patient who’s signing in as she pushing out against the revolving door, turned around as her back hits the glass.
She never sees the man who runs into her, knocks the box from her hands and sends her nearly skidding to the ground.
She doesn’t let herself think too much about the surge, the spark that shoots up her spine when she feels strong hands wrap at her hip, at her waist, pulling her up and putting her back in balance.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, standing still for a moment as she regains her bearings and dusts off her skirt. “Are you alright?”
“Fine,” the man replies, and his voice is nice: warm and strong and a little bit rough, a unique sort of scratch to it that rushes through her like a pleasant memory. “It was my fault. I should have been paying better attention.”
“No, it was me, I...” She sees the box lid blow in a sudden gust of breeze, dangerously close to being subsumed in the water and rendered soggy and useless. She holds up a finger to the stranger and jogs to save it from a watery end.
“Here,” she hears as she straightens, box top in hand, and he’s there, holding the box in his arms for her to close with the lid. She smiles her and takes it back from him.
“Thanks,” she says, and there’s something about the exchange that feels stilted, and a little too much like déjà vu.
“No problem,” he answers, smiling again, and he looks at her strangely -- it’s not just her this time. He’s staring, almost leering, a narrowness about his eyes that she doesn’t understand, and therefore cannot trust.
“Do I know you?” he asks just as she’s about to make a hasty retreat; she must look as surprised as she feels, because he quickly doubles back. “Sorry, that’s awkward isn’t it?” and that smirk turns sheepish and melts her, just a little; it overrides the tension of his eyes on her before. “It’s just, you look... very, very familiar.”
She takes a moment to consider him, because now that he mentions it, yeah -- there’s something about him that somehow she knows. “Juliet,” she finally says, hefting the weight of the box onto the crook of one elbow as she reaches out and offers her free hand.
His grip on hers is strong, and it’s only after she memorizes the feel of his hands in her own that she let’s go processes the name he offers in kind. “Nathan.”
And his grin spreads, slow like sunlight after dawn, and warms her just the same.
“We…” His eyes brow quirks as he pauses, jerks, and narrows his gaze at her, considering. “We’ve run into each other before,” he finally says, gesturing at the cement ledges around the fountain just behind them, and suddenly it dawns on her, and she recalls his smile -- the way the sun cast his shadow to her left, her sunglasses flung to straddle the cracks in the pavement at their feet: she remembers the things that got lost in what came after that day; how the world -- her world -- changed, after.
“Yes,” she says, and even she can tell that his voice sounds distant; she clears her throat and tosses a smile that’s only half genuine -- but still only half faked -- to cover her tracks. “Yes,” she forces out a pithy bit of laughter; “so we have.”
“Are you any more inclined to be bribed out of legal action this time around?” he asks playfully. She chuckles again, this time incredulously, until she sees that he might just be a little bit serious underneath the jibe. She starts to protest -- because this time, she’s pretty sure that it’s her fault they collided, and besides: no harm, no foul -- but he holds up his hand and cuts in before she can sneak a word in edgewise. “Mind you, if you turn me down again,” he tacks on, a little bit conspiratorially, “I’ll be forced to wait around until you come this way again, and run into you just to be sure that the third time’s not a charm.”
She bites out a laugh and raises an eyebrow, moving just a hair so that his silhouette blocks out the sun. “Persistent, hmm?”
“I prefer tenacious, myself,” he grins back at her, and his smile -- it’s wide and bright and familiar, somehow; like she’s hardwired to know it, to feel like it’s right. “But persistent also fits the bill.”
She doesn’t consider for long -- doesn’t dwell on the implications, the connotations or consequences, all the reasons why she shouldn’t. None of them seem very relevant, given the givens. “Fine,” she concedes, if a bit reluctantly, readjusting the box beneath both of her arms. “Let me leave these with the front desk. They owe me the favor.”
He looks down, nodding at the load she’s carrying. “Moving out?”
She takes a moment to pick up on the question that’s underneath. “Oh, not like that,” she defends quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong impression about the state of her current employment; “I’m,” and she pauses, because what does she have to prove to this man? She doesn’t have to convince him of her professional worth, her position. She doesn’t have to impress him.
“Actually,” she starts again, “moving on, I hope.” And the small smile that tugs at her lips as she says those words -- more honest than anything else she’s said; this time, her smile is real.
“Then how about we start with moving on to lunch,” he redirects gently, but his expression seems brighter, a reflection of her own, “as a precursor to your going about and moving on in the grander scheme of things, shall we?”
The dampened parts of her that still want to refuse are silenced for good as her stomach growls, too quiet for him to hear, but loud enough to prompt a blush. She leaves Edmund’s effects with Linda, and faces forward this time as she pushes through the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They end up at a tiny Chinese place tucked away in the crevices of the city -- Rachel had found it years ago, and Juliet had only been there once or twice, before Rachel got sick and the smell of pork lo mien started to make her feel nauseous. She’s never been here without her sister; doesn’t know why she suggests it now, lets him offer his driver -- his own driver and his Rolls fucking Royce -- to take them there, particularly when it’s barely a ten minute walk, and there’s a gorgeous breeze coming off of the coast.
She doesn’t know much, really.
“So, what brings you to Miami?” she asks once they’re seated, with the kind of aloofness that comes off as stagnant and rehearsed, that echoes of practice in front of a mirror, watching her lips form the words against the low light of the city, the dying life as it streams in through the open door at her back, through tacky neon window-paint declaring half-priced lunch buffets and specials on moo goo gai pan. “Business or pleasure?”
“Business,” he answers, and his voice is lost inside the swirl of incense, the lingering scents of green tea and soy sauce lowering the words, burying them in musk, and curling them into something delicate, sensual and intoxicating in ways they shouldn’t be, in ways they aren’t. She can feel his eyes on her as she drives the edge of her spoon into the wontons floating in her soup, cutting them haphazardly into halves, into fourths. “But that doesn’t mean that pleasure won’t catch me unawares while I’m here.”
She’s been out of the game for a while now, but she knows it’s not just the musk of jasmine and peanut oil that lets the comment linger, lets it smack of a come-on.
She sips at the water in her glass, cringes at the feel of too much condensation clinging to her skin when she sets the cup back down into the ring of wetness it had left in its wake. “So I take it the city’s been kind to you so far?” she asks idly, trying to discreetly dry her hands upon the thighs of her chinos.
“You sound surprised.” He quirks an eyebrow, and her palms still near her knees beneath the table. It hadn’t been her intention, but it wasn’t an unfounded observation. Particularly since she’d finalized her divorce, she’d wondered what in the hell she’d seen in Miami that was fitting enough, appealing enough to end up calling it home.
“I am.” And he chuckles; she doesn’t. But it doesn’t serve to temper his amusement, the way his lips curl in genuine good humor -- strangely, she finds he likes that simple fact, the way his little snort of enjoyment rings out alone, unabashed.
There’s something free in that sound, and she finds herself aching with it, wanting to float away on its wings as it fades.
“Cynical,” he observes through a tight-lipped grin as he leans back, throws an arm across the empty length of the booth that stretches out toward the wall. “I can appreciate that.”
She ducks her head a little graciously, and little uncomfortably, masking the strange surge of awkwardness that shoots through her stomach as she shifts, grabs for an egg roll and dips the tip in her dish of sweet and sour sauce; she wonders as she chews, just before she swallows, if there’s any way she can end this odd little encounter before they have the chance to order entrees without seeming completely impolite.
“Have you always lived in New York?” she asks with a sort of half-interest he seems to overlook, or at the least, not to mind.
“Unfortunately,” he answers with a sigh, and there’s something different, something less flat and more open in him, like seeing through the crack in a wall that hides the ocean, or the sky.
“What about you? Born and bred Miamian?”
“God no,” she laughs, almost snorts. “I just... ended up here.”
“That’ll happen.” And there’s something... commiserating, something that understands inside the words, that unfurls and unwraps and permeates hard and fast through her, through them both. She shudders with the careful, subtle overlay of feeling that descends around her, suffocating and strong, and somehow, as it settles, the tension, the discomfiture that had gotten caught in between them starts to slip into the ether, the tendrils of incense barely-visible in the low light, shining in the shafts of sun that reach back from the front window.
Suddenly, she’s not so keen to leave.
She flags down their waitress with a smile and a raise of her arm to request some sweet and sour chicken and the two orders of fried rice on top of the broccoli pork that Nathan asks her to put in. They parry back and forth in the interim, with mild, almost comfortable periods of silence between, talking about everything and nothing -- maintaining an amiable sort of banter, a careful but friendly exchange while touching on very little that could be construed as personal: the economy, the weather, idle gossip about b-list celebrities and political scandals of the nonpartisan flavor. He rubs her as a Republican, though, so she keeps her liberal leanings to herself.
She learns that he’s a closet action movie buff, can’t stand Hillary Rodham Clinton, and that he drives a Suburban back home at least occasionally, perhaps when his driver’s on a lunch break. She tells him that she likes to watch Meet The Press on Sundays because Tim Russert reminds her of her uncle Donny and that her eyes are particularly sensitive to light, and as such, she doesn’t know what possessed her to move to the Sunshine State in the first place. She asks him for a favorite movie -- Top Gun, he asks her how she ended up in Florida -- scholarships, and the desire to be as far from the broken threads of her family as she could get, but that bit she keeps to herself; and before either of them is aware of it, their plates are nearly clean, and their checks are set before them. A smattering of individually-wrapped fortune cookies falls to the table, the plastic crackling on impact.
“Come on,” she chides him with narrowed eyes when he grabs for the bill before she can look to see the damage she’s incurred and make a grab for her checkbook.
“No,” he gives a quick, but firm shake of his head. “I told you, I have to sway you against pressing charges,” and somehow, the pretense that he’s attempting to buy her isn’t an annoying one -- somehow hasn’t grown stale just yet. It’s almost endearing.
And it shouldn’t be. But there it is.
“Don’t like your women going Dutch on you, hmm?” she asks slyly, shooting him a pointed glance.
“I don’t like being sued,” he returns with a smile, sliding his credit card under the clip on the tray, covering the total she knows can’t top twenty-five dollars, at the very most. She doesn’t bother a second glance to see his last name embossed in silver; she doesn’t need to know. In a matter of moments, it won’t even matter.
She gives up the fight without much of a fuss; or at least, with less of a fuss than she might make with someone else, and she thinks that might mean something silly and obscure, but probably not. Instead, she grabs for one of the fortune cookies, and pushes the air from it with a hollow pop, breaking the pressed seal of the bag and sliding the cookie out into her palm.
She breaks it in halves, careful not to look at the little slip of paper until the piece is at least in her mouth, sweet against her lips; superstitions and all. Plant a good seed and you will joyfully gather fruit. She sucks the slick sugar from the surface of the cookie before she cracks it between her front teeth -- the crumbs trickling down the front of her shirt, a few stragglers tumbling inside the cups of her bra -- and she wonders if it’s like blowing out birthday candles, or wishing on a star; maybe if you say it out loud, it won’t come true.
But then, nothing really comes true, in the end; it only either comes, or it doesn’t.
She turns the paper over and forms her lips silently around the pronunciation for Chinese word for ‘fish’ while Nathan swallows quickly around his own cookie as he thanks the waitress for his card and signs for the charges.
She looks down at her lucky numbers: 8 15 23. She wonders, for a moment, why there are so few of them. She’s no gambler herself, but she remembers there at least being enough to number to make the Play 4, because Ed had won three hundred dollars on his fortune cookie numbers on their second date.
She doesn’t like where that train of thought takes her, though, so she folds the paper once, twice, into a tiny, solid square that she stuffs under the little basket that holds the salt and the soy sauce, leaving it behind as they walk out. She can’t tell whether or not she imagines the weight of a distinctly male gaze on the sway of her hips as she exits, but the thought does cross her mind.
The dimness of the restaurant is intensified, juxtaposed with the midday sun that assaults her retinas as they step outside. She squints carefully, and reaches for her shades, pausing mid-step as she remembers the day they’d first crossed paths; the day that everything had changed.
“Do you need a ride back?” Nathan turns to ask her when she doesn’t move to follow him into the waiting car, his voice sharp somehow, and his eyes invisible, hidden behind the lenses of his Ray-Bans.
“I think I’ll walk,” she manages, something sour in her mouth even as she forces out a smile she hopes looks genuine -- appears strained only because of the glare; she’d had a nice enough time, after all, when all was said and done.
He considers her for a moment, careful and still, before he ducks to slide into his seat. “It was a pleasure,” he tells her, smacking his lips before he adds her name, like a prayer or a curse, every syllable scant and naked off his tongue: “Juliet.”
The slam of the car door echoes after the engine revs and the vehicle pulls from the curb; she doesn’t think she’ll ever hear her name without the underscoring of his tone in the back of her mind, ever again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
His car is already around halfway to the nearest corner, the consonants stripped sharp in his voice just starting to fade, when she feels the tap on her shoulder, hears the hushed, heavily-accented ramble of the waitress who’d served them explaining in broken bits that the wallet in her hand had been left in their booth.
Nathan’s wallet.
She doesn’t know what prompts her to take it, to not simply flip open her cell phone and call the number on the license -- New York State. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t try to flag down the car he’d taken off in, or at least try to narrow her gaze against its plates.
She simply notes that his name is Nathan Arthur Petrelli, and thanks the petite woman for coming after her before she turns and walks home.
And later, sitting at her kitchen table, she’s pretty sure it’s justified, really -- looking through to see if she can find enough information to get the wallet back to its rightful owner. She’s sure there’s no real harm to be had in it, but the whole time she sifts through the contents, fingers dry and rough against every small item she finds, she feels a little bit bad, a little bit wrong.
It doesn’t stop her, though.
She catalogs the items as she goes, lining them up in order so that she can put them back exactly as they were: half of a Post-It note -- the sticky part -- ripped and folded over a hardened piece of chewed gum. She can still smell the spearmint.
Gym membership, recently renewed; she probably could have guessed that. She wouldn't deny he was a looker.
A key, pressed so far into the leather that the imprint remains when it pops out; old, given the cut, but rarely used. Still clean, still sharp. It looks like a house key, but something tells her it's more important; less of a spare and more of a secret.
There's a ticket stub from a flight into Miami, two weeks prior, flying with Herarat Aviation, and a receipt from an airport Burger King printed at 3:47 A.M; it makes her wonders, just a little, about whens and wheres and whys.
She fingers a business card -- embossed with a stylized double-helix, his name emblazoned beneath the logo of The Pinehearst Company. Nathan Petrelli. Behind it, she finds an insurance card -- he carries through Aetna; listed as Nathaniel there, and for some reason, she smirks at that. Another name's on the card, as well -- a shared plan, with a Peter Petrelli, obviously his brother, given the age listed. She wonders if their parents hated the boy: Peter Petrelli.
All of his card slots are filled, most doubled, some tripled, stretched beyond their capacity and straining at the seams: Visa Black Card, American Express Platinum, a smattering of store cards for various high end retailers. Frequent flyer cards for all of the major airlines: American, Oceanic, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, Ajira, Herarat, United. Man got around, apparently.
The cash enclosed bloats the bifold dangerously, bilging against the card slots: three Benjamins, crisp and flat, straight from the bank; another two-hundred in twenties; and a good twenty-five in suspicious-looking singles.
She quirks her eyebrow at what falls out when she goes to replace the bills, frowns when she figures out what it is: browned and fragile, but still intact, the four-leaf clover has seen better days, and she finds herself wondering as to its story, pondering different scenarios in her head. She’s surprised that she wants the truth more than the stories, wants the opportunity to ask.
She also sees a thin strip of paper caught against the worn tag sewn into the seam: a fortune, she realizes, still stiff along the halves of the paper, the fold still peaked at the crease. It’s from their lunch, she’s sure of it.
Divest your ordinary nature and find your true nature, it reads, and it feels heavier than it has any right to. She wonders why he kept it, whether he meant to, whether it was coincidence or something more.
On a whim, she flips the paper over and looks at his numbers: 4 16 42. Only three; he got gypped, as well.
With that, she means to close the wallet and call it a night, but the jagged edge of something peeking out from behind his license grabs at her attention and stokes her curiosity violently enough to prompt her thumb into the opening in the plastic screen, and to slide out the laminate and dig for what’s underneath.
She finds a scribbled name on ripped piece of paper -- looks like the back of a receipt -- Paik, and a number with too many digits to be domestic; the country-code is unfamiliar, not that she knows many by heart. The handwriting is strangely loopy for a man's, but too slanted, too sharp for a woman's; sloppy, quick, half print and half script. Scattered. Untethered.
Pushed farther down, there are a few well-worn, moisture-bled fast food coupons folded over too many times and shoved into the change pocket -- expired, months ago; they’re for free drinks with a combo meal and half-priced sandwiches with the purchase of any regularly-priced menu item of equal or greater value. Nothing unusual, but somehow... fascinating. Like secrets spilling for her perusal.
She notes that the number of his license differs from the number on his business card -- of course it does, a work phone and a home phone -- and she doesn’t know why she chooses to call his work line, precisely, but she knows that it’s more than just the logical assumption that, if he’s in Miami, there’s no way he’ll be home to answer her call.
Suddenly, she feels a little tongue tied, a little hesitant and unsure, and how in the hell did you say that last name, anyway? Peter-elli? Pet-relli? Pet-raili? Pete-reel-ee?
"I'm looking for Nathan Petrelli," she says into the mouthpiece, a smile curling her lips before she can think about why it's there, because yes: that sounds right.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After speaking with four assistants -- three of whom had seemed to be the assistant of an assistant, or the assistant of the assistant's assistant -- followed by the endearing and open laugh of the Peter who'd been listed on the insurance card (his brother, as she'd guessed), she’d managed to finally reach a male voice she recognized, if only just. They'd arranged to meet after she got off of work; she hadn't told him that the University had granted her the rest of the week off for bereavement, given the unique circumstances. She gives him directions to the little cafe she's come to think of as her own, and he promises to be there by quarter-to-four.
“Had to take a cab, without my license,” Nathan says, sounding a little breathless above the scuff, the squeak of his shoes on the floor -- as if a cab required any exertion on his part; the old-fashioned Ridgeway striking on the decorative mantle near her seat at the window reads 3:54 as she hands his wallet back to him, everything carefully replaced, just as she'd found it.
“Where’s your driver?” She shoots at him smartly, eyebrow quirked as she watches him slide his wallet into his back pocket; deliberately ignoring the subtle curve accented there, disguised by the fine tailoring of his slacks...
“Previously engaged.” She can't help but note the strain of his neck, and the suggestion, the teasing cut of his abs as he shrugs, fidget beneath his jacket.
“How’s their espresso?” he asks, fingers still on the wallet in his pocket as he squints at the menu, focusing on the colored chalk against framed blackboards lining the walls behind the counter.
“Top notch,” she says seriously, raising her cup in affirmation as she leans back into the cushion of his chair, downing the rest of her drink and setting the empty mug on the table between them before she sinks too far into the give.
“Hmm,” he hums beneath his breath, “want another?”
She takes a moment -- just the one -- to watch him, study the way his face stays open, innocent; she wonders how many people in the world can still look so empty, so untouched. His eyes flutter open, then closed; one, two, three times, his jaw shifting just slightly, the openness starting to narrow, to tighten before she finally decides, responds:
“Sure.”
He smiles, and there are no boundaries to it, no limits; it’s warm, warmer than the drinks or the sun, and squints a little, even as she grins back, because it’s everywhere, that spreading heat, but it’s too much, too soon, and she doesn’t have the time to shield her eyes.
He leans toward her, unexpectedly -- closer than an acquaintance should probably venture, running the tip of his left ring finger through the stiffening foam clinging in porous ledges, ephemeral sills along the edges, the lip of her cup. She can only process the way that the finger curls, crooks, wipes with decided nonchalance against the glazed surface -- bare, unclaimed beneath the knuckle. He seems the type who’d wear a ring, beside the fact that she recognizes the wrinkle of white where something had once wrapped around the skin, kept it safe and in the dark; the divorcées brand was something she was intimately familiar with by now, though hers had finally faded -- though she was the only one who still looked to see if it remained.
She blinks, hard, as the image of Edmund, speaking, striding, swept away in a blur of motion and metal, doppler shift and drops of blood, and when her eyes open again, the gentle, dampish pop of Nathan’s finger sliding out against the side of his mouth -- slipping wet between his lips as he rolls his tongue around his teeth, the movement hollowing and pursing his cheeks in turn; that pop sounds a little dull, a little heavy, falling like meat, dead weight upon the pavement even as it strikes a spark of something in the pit of her stomach.
“Another caramel macchiato, then,” he says, with no small degree of certainty after considering the taste for a long second. “Soy?” he asks, and there’s the hesitance, perhaps surprise -- unguarded, untamed. It doesn’t match the cut of his suit, the sharp lines on his card, doesn’t go with the chauffeur or the assistants -- the haunted mist behind his eyes over crab rangoons that’d had nothing to do with the incense, the heady musk of the establishment itself.
“Nonfat,” she corrects him, and his eyes quirk, their shape strange for a moment before a smirk curls his lips to match.
“Please. Like you need to cut the calories.” She takes it as a compliment, and contents herself with watching the people, the light as it plays through the window panes; she doesn’t spend too many breaths between studying the muddy reflection of him, his back in the glass as he orders, waits, pays.
“This place has... charm,” he declares, breathing deeply as he sets the cups upon the table and stretches his arms back, kinked at the elbows as he shucks his jacket, lets it pool where the back of the chair meets the seat as he slides back on the edges of it, settles down and sweeps his gaze across the whole of the room: the mismatched seating and the streaked glass of the countertops. “I like it.”
“My ex-husband always said it was common. Dirty,” she says, and it’s heavy in her gut, speaking ill of the dead. “I stopped coming here for the longest time.”
“Hmmm,” and Nathan doesn’t know it, but the steady rumble of the sound shakes some of the weight, the guilt free. “Does it taste as good as you remember it?”
She lifts her cup to her lips, tilts it back and lets the liquid burn the insides of her lips, run slow to the back of her throat and slip down, so warm. She inhales through her nose and licks at her lips, savoring the taste, the bitter cut and the milky buffer; the sweet undertone lingers, keeps her coming back for more. “Better.”
“Then, maybe the break was for the best,” he says, a little sagely, full of himself as he dusts invisible crumbs from his thighs. “You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.”
“Don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” she murmurs in agreement, the words close enough to the surface of her drink to send tiny ripples, little waves through the cream; the heat of it condensing on the tip of her nose as she breathes out, in against the edge of her cup, hiding the hint of her smile against the side.
“Great song,” he comments, the end of his swallow breathy, tacking on an extra, protracted vowel before his words, and even as she glances toward him warily, critically from the corners of her eyes the words have taken up a beat, matching the rhythm he’s idly drumming against his knee.
She says nothing, and he picks up on the silence only after the front door of the cafe swooshes open and accents the lack of conversation; he glances toward her, neck craned over the back of his seat as his eyes meet her own. “No, really,” he protests, an note of protest, childish defense coloring his tone. “I mean, classic hair-metal stuff,” he tags apologetically, “but yeah.”
She snorts gracelessly, but covers it with a quick sip of her coffee. “Don’t tell me you had the whole back-combed look going on, please.”
“Oh, but I did,” he grins, and she’s torn between horrified, as she imagines him with that hair, and a little bit giddy, for the infectiously playful joy that the memory seems to bring him, and the way the white of his teeth peeks winningly from behind his lips. “You’re imagining it, aren’t you?” he accuses with a laugh when she remains quiet; she suspects her eyes give her away, but she doesn’t mind -- she wasn’t trying to be cryptic, wasn’t meaning to hold back.
“Trying not to, actually, but it’s a futile effort,” she confesses with a laugh. “You might have to buy me another one of these to make up for the mental image I’m going to be suffering from for at least the next hour.” She raises her mug indicatively, angling her eyebrows a little reproachfully, though her smile kills the sting.
“You know?” He takes another drink, eyes glinting with something she can’t quite figure, doesn’t quite know. “I think that can be arranged.”
And when he laughs, she knows just one thing: she likes it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Isn’t this a bit high school?” she asks, the second time they meet for coffee.
“Maybe,” he says, steepling his fingers at the point of his chin, "But it’s how I met my first girlfriend at Princeton, so maybe we can bump it up to being a bit college and call it square.”
Her arms spread to the sides, propped to the elbows against the back of the overstuffed chair she's sprawled across in the corner. “Fine.”
“Right,” he blinks, as if he'd been expecting more of a fight, and she sees a bit of the boy in him, the one who probably started like this with that first girlfriend in New Jersey, and Juliet can't help herself -- she wonders if she has that girl's eyes, her smile, the same color hair. She wonders if this is like that, or if it's something different.
“So,” he pulls her from her thoughts, before they can really take hold. “Favorite... vacation spot.”
“Mmmm, Southern France.” It's out of her mouth before she can think about it, but it's true.
"Ah, le Midi." Other people would have asked more, would have asked when and why she'd managed to lose herself on the Continent for a long summer between undergrad and med school; and it's not as if he doesn't seem to care -- it's more as if he knows, without the asking.
“Favorite song to listen to when you’re driving.”
A smiles curls his lips, a memory washing over his eyes, and there's a light in him, a spark -- like a secret, something lost and then found. “Don’t Stop Believin’. Definitely.”
She smiles, too; she can see that, in her mind's eye -- his hair, perhaps with the mullet, blowing in the warm breeze as he drives some vintage car that cost his parents more than a Bentley, making his way down the interstate to nowhere, going anywhere.
“Favorite ice cream flavor.”
“Karamel Sutra." She can almost feel the swirl of it on her tongue, melting against her teeth. She knows she's smiling like an idiot, but it's a weakness, Ben & Jerry's; it's a real, vital weakness.
Hers is not a smile like his, however: wolfish, hungry, sly. “Kinky," he comments blithely, and she shoots him a half-hearted glare while she takes an indulgent sip of her coffee, thankful for the abundance of caramel flavoring she'd unwittingly added to her order.
“Favorite poet.”
“Rilke.” And that surprises her, just a little; he doesn't seem uneducated, by any means, but men who know their poetry have always been a bit of a rare find for her outside of English departments and basement slams with three-dollar cover and all-you-can-drink coffee that tastes like morning breath and battery acid and comes in red plastic cups that look like they should hold something stronger.
“The sovereigns of the world are old,” she quotes, a little lofty; to test, to prove, to know.
“And they will have no heirs at all.” And he seems pleased -- with her, and himself -- to finish the line.
She grins again; it's becoming a trend.
“Favorite word.”
She takes a long sip from her cup, takes a moment to close her eyes and savor. “Vivacious.”
“Really?” He sounds genuinely surprised, confused.
“Won an elementary school spelling bee with that word.” She drinks, lets her eyes slide closed again; remembers sweaty palms and her eyes on her patent-leathers and the origins and parts of speech she still knows, but has never actually needed.
It takes her a moment to think of a question beofre her eyes fall on the line of novels along the wall. “Favorite book.”
“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” If that doesn't scream hidden layers and inner demons, she doesn't know what does; she can't tell if it's a honest answer, or a canned sort of response -- but either way, it's a good one.
“Favorite color.”
“Periwinkle.” Like the afternoon sky, and it's reflection in the sea.
“Favorite time of year.”
“Summer. The end of summer.” He breathes deep as he leans heavier against the arm of his chair, gaze focused on something beyond themselves, the store, this plane. “Like... the beginning of September.” He turns a soft smile in her direction as his eyes refocus and find her again; it feels comforting, his attention on her with such genuine, subtle, radiant warmth.
“Favorite food.”
“Peach cobbler.” Her grandmother's, and it makes her sad when she realizes she hasn't had it since before she died; her mom had never quite mastered the recipe.
“Favorite..." her eyes dart around between them, trying to draw inspiration, find something... "Shoes.”
He raises an eyebrow at her, stretching his foot toward her and tapping his Rockports indicatively against her calf. “Shoes?”
“I’m running out of ideas.”
“I’m running out of coffee," he counters, raising his mug; he tilts it so that she can see the dregs sloshing up the sides.
“One more,” he says; something glinting in his eyes as he smiles at her -- half-hopeful, half-mischievous, filled with something less than joy, but only just. She spares a glance at the setting sun outside and heaves a sigh.
“Decaf," she concedes, handing her cup to him as he heads to the counter. And there, on his face -- she thinks that's real joy.
Part One // Master Post // Part Three