Authors: N.M. Lombardi
"Delivery," a voice called.
Mary stepped onto the dais, calling out blindly as she unlaced the bride from the Versace.
"Leave it on the counter, please?"
"Need a signature."
She heard the woman's mother gasp, "Oh, Cecilia, look at those flowers. They're beautiful."
Stella and Mary looked to the front, a delivery man waiting patiently with another arrangement of roses: bursts of bright, red-tipped yellow, sprays of green fern.
They exchanged a weary look before Stella mustered her last shred of enthusiasm.
"Well, that's the second one we've had today.
And much
nicer
than the first."
Cecilia glowed, "They must be from David."
Mary struggled from the ocean of whispering white, changing places with her on the dais to sign for the delivery and return it for the bride's gushing inspection. Cecilia stretched her hands out like a marveling child, touching the blushing petals.
"They're gorgeous.
I knew he'd do something like this."
"Do they say anything
," her mother urged.
She picked the card free, oblivious to Mary's trembling arms. As it was impossible to see through the stems, she heard rather than saw Cecelia's sudden change in temper.
"…Who the hell is
Mary
?"
She
craned a sudden look around the roses.
"What?"
Angrily the bride flipped the card around, face hot.
MARY
PLEASE STEP OUTSIDE.
She looked at Stella.
Stella looked back.
"What the hell are you waiting for," she blurted, struggling to take the arrangement from her. "Go go go!"
Extracting herself from the ferns and thorns, passing her hands nervously back over the smooth fall of her hair, Mary tripped to the door.
Beyond the darkened glass the street lights were whitely aglow, the sidewalk iced and empty as she stepped out.
Kai stood quietly, hands in the pockets of his coat.
He sniffled and smiled very slightly.
"They were out of white."
Mary was not the kind of girl to throw herself into a man's arms, and Kai never had anyone throw themselves at him, but she stared, stunned. He sniffled again, face beginning to burn as he uttered a low, weak chuckle. "So. This is awkward."
She star
ted slowly towards him, folding her hands beneath her arms against the cold.
"Kai… what are you
doing
?"
His smile faltered, dismayed.
"S… surprising you."
"On
Valentine's Day
?"
"On Valentine's Day.
"
"With
roses
?"
"You like roses."
"
After you broke up with your girlfriend
?"
He set his teeth in a light cringe.
"Somehow you know about that."
"She came by the store last night.
Accidentally
. She almost eviscerated me when I mentioned 'what a cute couple' you make."
"Oh."
"And since when did you get fired?"
"What?
N…no, I didn't get f—"
"And where have you been?" panic and accusati
on waged war in her voice. "I've been trying to get you on the phone all day, I've been worried out of my mind. Kai… what's going on with you… why are you lying to me all of a sudden? And then… and then this?" she gestured back at the shop. "
This
?"
It was too much for him to process all at once, fingertips pressing to his temples as he wrapped his mind around it.
"Wait… wait—no, I… I wasn't lying to you. Well, maybe… okay, a little."
"You broke up with Crystal?"
"Last week."
"And your job?"
"I didn't get fired. They transferred me to another office four months ago."
"Then
how
and
why
are you still taking the train every day?"
"To be with you."
It was too bluntly honest, too guileless and difficult an admission, and she was unprepared. She was on the verge of demanding to know where he'd been for two days, but he motioned that he needed a momentary break from the conversation, and sneezed into the crook of one sleeve.
He looked up as his arm fell.
"At least I wasn't lying about being sick."
"Kai," Mary groaned.
"Mary," he said, struggled, then fumbled out, "Come home with me." At first the words seemed ill-chosen, a casualty of his awkwardness, but the more he tried to clarify, the truer they rang. He said it again, more certain of himself. "Come home with me."
She palmed her eyes,
then met him on the sidewalk, wrapping her hands around his arm. "Come on… "
"Where are we—
"
"Inside.
Just come on."
"You're not angry?
", he went with her, but hesitantly, as if waiting for the next wave of admonition.
"I don't know what I am. I'm freezing, is what I mostly am."
"Can we go?"
"When I'm done prying this bride from her six-thousand-dollar dress."
"But you like the roses? I wanted to surprise you."
"Trust me.
I couldn't be more surprised."
Mary got off at Kai's stop, two short hops after her own, and relieved him of his car keys. He was in poor condition to be out of doors, let alone driving, though the worse he felt the less he let on. She gauged him purely by the glassy fix of his eyes.
He directed her awkwardly through the winding, icy streets, up a steep hill to a brownstone apartment building.
Leaving the roses to the preserving coldness of the car, Mary urged him through the building courtyard, then into the elevator.
Kai's apartment was a curiously contrary arrangement of visuals: inexpensive furnishings accented by mismatched throw pillows and
afghans, wall art with no discernible theme arranged in strange places, as if hung according to what positions in the room were most common to him.
He had a television but no radio, books but no music.
It should not have surprised her to find his home so barren of the elements of sound.
Kai climbed out of his coat with little assistance, but made an immediate beeline for the couch, relieved that no further movement would be required on his part.
"Relax," she ordered, hanging their coats by the door. "Do you have tea? Orange juice?"
"I'm not thirsty."
"You need to drink something. How about aspirin? A thermometer?"
"Yes.
All those things."
Mary approached to open one of the
afghans over him, and there noticed the tableau arranged on his living room floor: a checkered blanket, a picnic basket, plates and glasses and a bottle of wine. She looked at him.
He blinked, muz
zy, "…because you said—"
"—
Never mind," she said gently. "I get it."
She covered him with two of the mismatched blankets, encouraging him to stretch the entire length of the couch.
He was too tired or too weak to keep up appearances, laying there with a slackness that troubled her deeply. Kai was quiet, but never this quiet.
She fixed what she could without invading too much of his privacy: green tea with honey, dry toast to put something in his stomach, a thermometer
and a cool, wet washcloth. His eyes tracked her movements as she returned, but otherwise he was weak and passive.
Mary knelt on the floor alongside the couch, folding the cloth across his forehead. His teeth chattered instantly, shivers running through him, even beneath both blankets.
His eyes were dark fire.
"You're scaring me," she whispered
.
"M' fine."
"Do you want me to call a doctor?"
His head shook tightly.
"Kai… why have you been taking the train all this time?"
"Told you," he rasped.
"To be with you."
" I
would have met you."
"Not the same."
"How did you even do it?"
"Got up earlier.
Got home later."
"The train fare alone must have been—"
"Worth it."
Mary looked at him, incredulous, the whole o
f him wracked by little earthquakes.
"Try to sleep, Kai," she whispered.
"Don't leave." He turned his eyes up, half-focused, as she stood. "I still have to say things to you."
"You'll have plenty of time."
His eyes closed, furrowing and troubled. "Time I'm worried about."
He slept for hours, albeit fitfully.
Mary was afraid to stray too far from him, both for the fever and out of respect for his personal space.
The dim outline of his bedroom begged to be explored, his drawers and cabinets and hidden places, but she wasn't that girl, neither too suspicious nor too curious for her own good.
Perhaps that last part landed her here. Maybe she should have seen this c
oming sooner.
She changed the compress on his forehead three times before he came around, first shivering and then with deeper and more relaxed breaths.
She stared anxiously at his face as his eyes opened, clear and dark, searching the living room ceiling with slow, uncomfortable awareness.
She said, "Hey."
His head turned, finding her in the half-lit room; the blinds were open, moonlight through the windows pouring onto the carpet, though otherwise the apartment was a mosaic of contrasting shadows.
"Hey."
"How do you feel?"
"Better.
Tired." A pause. "What time--"
"Around ten."
He sighed and smeared a hand down his face, disbelieving. Carefully she stood, sliding a hand beneath his shoulder.
"C'mon.
Do you think you can sit up?"
A
nod, and she helped him upright. His strength was definitely returning, the motion easier for him, though his joints moved with perceptible stiffness. Without hurry he surveyed the room, settled time and place with a look of tired acceptance, then returned his attention to her.
"Are you angry?"
"I'm not angry," Mary sat beside him, adjusting the fall of the blankets the way she would a bride's gown. "I'm… confused."
"Confused is better than angry."
"Do you want to talk?"
He laughed quietly, "Do I ever?"
"Well, too bad. You first."
Again Kai passed a look over the room, assembling it all in his head.
His thoughts were a long time coming, but no less certain when he spoke them aloud.
"I love you."
Part of her had expected this, but most of her had been in staunch denial. Men didn't fall in love with her. Date her and then leave her for someone prettier and more outgoing? Yes, both those things. But she was not someone who had ever kindled love.
"I don't—"
"You don't have to love me back," he said quickly, and she reached out to pinch his arm. "Hey—
ow!
"
"I wasn't going to say I don't love you.
I was going to say, I don’t know how I feel. No, that's not true, either, I just… I don't think you love me."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not pretty, or funny, or smart, or… or anything that men fall in love with. I'm the girl that gets picked last in gym class, and doesn't go to the prom because she knows she'll have to sit out every slow dance. I alter dresses and make tiaras for the women that men fall in love with, but I'm not one of them."
He wouldn't look away from her, "Am I like any man you've ever known?"
Slowly, "No, you're definitely not."
"So trust me."
He gradually looked down at her hands, then back to her face, "Do you think you could? Not right now, I mean, but—"
"Love you?"
"Could you?"
"Kai," she nea
rly wept. "You're brilliant and, God,
gorgeous
, and… and the first and the last forty-five minutes of my day are the best—"