He leaned closer.
“Be honest. Are you asking me to
live
live with you? Or are you offering me a room?”
“I’m offering you a room, no strings attached. But… I’m totally and completely interested in you as a woman, Victoria.”
She hadn’t forgotten his words about being attracted to her. Or the kiss. Yes, she believed that he was interested. Without
thinking, she leaned in closer. His breath seemed to catch and his gazed dropped to her mouth before he gently, hesitantly,
touched his lips to hers. The kiss remained sweet and exploratory, ending much too quickly as he pulled back with a smile.
“We shouldn’t do this, you know,” she whispered.
He shrugged. “If you’re taking about sharing the house, it’s no big deal. If you mean the kiss, it feels right. Being home
feels right.” He ran a hand down her back to her waist. “You feel right.”
“I’m not sure if it feels right to me. But I’m in the mood to do a few things that don’t feel exactly right.”
He chuckled. “It’s settled, then. Move in.” He eased back, swam away, got out of the pool, and disappeared. He returned with
a couple of towels.
She followed him out, took a towel, and dried off.
He brushed her wet hair back with his fingers. “Offering you a room is just because you’re a friend, Vicki, and it’s business.
Nothing more, I promise. ”
“Got it. You’re not doing it to have sex with me. You’re just being nice.”
His fingers froze, and his voice seemed lodged in his throat as he cleared it. “Ah, I’m not saying that, either.”
She laughed, enjoying the fact that she felt comfortable enough with him to loosen up and be flirtatious.
He caressed the side of her face as he slowly pulled his hand back from her hair. “Victoria,” he said.
“Eric.”
“What you said at the club last night about our parents being friends, and all that. I want you to know… I understand what
you meant.” He touched her lips with his thumb. “But maybe their friendship shouldn’t have anything to do with you and me.”
She eased her head back from his touch, because it was distracting. “It’s not just them. Lately, there’s so much going on
in my life. I feel like I’m just getting to know who I really am.”
He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “You want me to back off?”
“Maybe not completely.”
He smiled. “Okay. Good. I’ll take your lead, then.”
She gazed into his eyes and they were warm. With him she felt comfortable. He seemed to understand her like no one else. What
a wonderful, unexpected thing to feel understood and accepted. She pulled his head down and kissed him with all her heart.
Victoria got up early the next morning and went for a two-mile walk. When she got back home, she took a shower and began packing.
Jaqueline walked in with a plate of fresh fruit and placed it on Victoria’s two-person table, which she used as everything
from desk to craft table to dinner table when she didn’t want to intrude on her parents’ alone time. Not that either of them
ever cared to share a romantic dinner alone, but Victoria wanted to give them the opportunity if they wanted it.
“Thanks, Mami,” Victoria said. “That looks wonderful.”
Jaqueline sighed and took a seat at the table. “I don’t understand why you have to live with Eric in that broken-up house.
Victoria, we didn’t raise you to live with a man. It’s not right.”
“Mami, we’re working together. It’s just easier if we’re both there.”
“It’s just as easy if you drive there in the morning.”
Victoria got up off the floor, where she was folding clothes and deciding which she wanted to put in her suitcase. She sat
across from Jaqueline. “I’ll get my own place soon.”
“But why do you have to do that?
This
is your house. If your father doesn’t manage to lose it, it will be yours and Carmen’s.”
Victoria placed a hand over her mother’s. “Dad won’t lose the house. I won’t let that happen. That’s why I plan to work with
Eric and save money. If the bank takes this house, I plan to buy it right back. It’s
your
house.”
Jaqueline shook her head. “It doesn’t feel like my home anymore with you girls grown. Especially if you move out. And with
Victor gone.”
“He’s in the garage. You can ask him to move back in anytime.” The detached garage sat at the end of the driveway.
“I’m not going to do that. In fact, I want him gone farther than the garage.”
“No, you don’t.”
She stood. “If you’re determined to leave, I guess I can’t stop you. But you’re making a mistake, Victoria.”
She probably was, but she didn’t care. She was excited and looking forward to the future. When had she ever felt that?
“You can leave whatever you want until you get your own place,” Jaqueline said. “You don’t have to take all your things now.”
“Thanks.” Victoria’s stomach grew queasy, and not just because she was always hungry.
Jaqueline left, and Victoria felt alone in her big bedroom. This was home. This was safety. She knew it was normal to feel
trepidation when facing an unknown future. Everyone who left home probably felt exactly the same way. But the knowledge that
she wasn’t the only one to ever go through this type of anxiety didn’t make her feel any better. She pushed aside her fears
and continued to pack her suitcase.
Beside her closet, she had a plastic trash bag for all the clothes she never wanted to wear again—sizes 18 and even 20. She’d
worn them for a while one particularly horrible year when she couldn’t seem to stop stuffing things into her mouth. That had
been when she dropped out of college and had to tell her father she couldn’t handle all those classes on statistics and business
writing. She’d pick up venti mocha cappuccinos and extra large muffins on the way to class. Ate king-size Butterfingers between
classes, then doughnuts and more coffee before heading to the restaurants in the evenings. Then her mother would offer her
a huge steak before she started work, and she’d accept it and eat a baked potato loaded with butter and sour cream. Every
night.
Ugh.
She tossed the clothes in the plastic bag and vowed never to fit into those again. Even her current size 16 she planned to
discard as soon as possible. She loved food, but life was too short to hate the way you looked every time you looked in the
mirror. And lately, she didn’t feel so much like stuffing herself with things that were bad for her. Especially when she was
around Eric, who looked so healthy and vibrant. Because he knew what he wanted and went for it, she decided. That’s what she
wanted for herself.
A couple of hours later, she had two suitcases packed with clothes, shoes, belts, and other accessories. One bag full of makeup,
brushes and combs, her blow-dryer, hair straightener, curler, lotions, creams, deodorants, toothbrushes, and birth control
pills. She’d been taking those since she’d turned eighteen, and at times she asked herself why she bothered. Her face warmed
now as she wondered if she would need them soon enough.
Eric made it pretty clear that he was offering her a room as he might offer a business partner a spare office. Was he interested
in sleeping with her? She’d have to say yes. And she’d lie if she said she wasn’t just as interested. Sex had always been
a complex thing for her. The female part of her craved the touch of a man. But then came the overthinking. Not wanting to
undress unless it was completely dark, not wanting a man to run his hands up and down her body and feel all the flab. When
you were over-weight and hated your body, that kind of intimacy held a painful amount of anxiety.
But with Eric, that wasn’t the reason she might hesitate entering into a sexual relationship. She looked better today than
she had in years. No, it was more that their families had been friends and would probably continue to be friends forever.
Would sex mess things up if they didn’t get emotionally involved? Probably, Victoria reluctantly admitted to herself.
She dragged her bags to the living room. Then she went in search of her mother and found her in her bedroom, surrounded by
boxes and boxes of stuff. “What in the world are you doing?”
“I’m doing some packing and cleaning up, too. Maybe it’s time for all of us to leave.”
Victoria opened her mouth to respond, but didn’t know what to say. Leave? This was where both her parents belonged. “What
are you packing?”
“Things I plan to give away and things I’d like to keep.”
She walked in. “Like?”
Jaqueline had piles of old clothes. Cardboard boxes full of pictures; other pictures sat in albums. Plastic bins full of crafts
and trinkets she and Carmen had made through the years. Victoria picked up a picture frame she’d made out of popsicle sticks
and soft drying clay back in third grade. A picture of herself smiling with overgrown front teeth stared back at her.
“Would you like some of those?” Jaqueline asked.
“No.”
“Would it hurt your feelings if I chose just the most special to keep?”
“Of course not.” Victoria found a spot on the bed to sit. She picked up old cameras. “I remember when you used to use these
huge things.”
Jaqueline nodded. “That’s when it took skill to take a good picture. Not like now that everyone uses those digital things
with automatic settings.”
Victoria put the camera down and peeked into a box of pictures. “Wow, Mom, I never saw any of these.” There were tons of pictures
of Jaqueline with Victor when they were young. They wore heavy coats and hats, and the scenic backgrounds of mountains and
ice made it look as if they were in Antarctica.
“Most of those we took when we went to Bariloche for our high school graduation trip. Back then, as soon as you started high
school your parents started to make monthly payments to a travel agency. By the end of the fifth year, they had paid for a
one-week trip to the Patagonia. Your father met me there, since he wasn’t at the same school as I was. My parents never knew
that he’d done that.” Jaqueline blushed.
Victoria smiled. “You had a whole week alone in an exotic, isolated Patagonian town?” She raised an eyebrow. “What did you
do?”
Jaqueline’s fair skin turned even more red, and she looked away. “Nothing. Explored.”
“Each other?”
Now Jaqueline looked directly at Victoria and frowned. “Victoria!”
“Sorry.” She looked back at the pictures. “These look like postcards, Mom.”
“Mmm,” she said, and stacked old books in boxes.
“Did you take all these?”
“All the ones I’m not in, yes.”
“They’re great.”
“Thanks.” She got a faraway look in her eyes. “I loved to take pictures. I used to imagine that I would sell some to a magazine
like
National Geographic.
We didn’t have Internet back in the mid-seventies when I took those, and the magazine was available at the newsstands, but
it was so expensive. I would buy one every few months and wonder how those photographers managed to get their pictures in
there.”
Victoria gazed at her mother. “Really?” she said gently. “Why didn’t you pursue photography once you moved to America?”
Jaqueline shrugged and brushed aside the idea with a huff. “Who had time to do that? I had to take care of you girls and help
your father at the restaurant. I didn’t have time to play like when I was a teenager in Argentina.”
“But you could have made money selling your photos.”
“Victoria, don’t be silly.”
That was her answer to everything. It annoyed her. “Mom, dreams aren’t silly.”
“It wasn’t my dream. It was just for fun.”
Fine. She stood. “Save some of those pictures for me.”
“Some day, when I have time, I’ll have to organize them.”
“Good idea.” She bent down and kissed her mother. “I’ve gotta go. Love you.”
Jaqueline looked at her like she was moving to another continent. “Good-bye.”
“I’ll see you soon. Okay?” Victoria ignored the guilt that she told herself she shouldn’t feel. She was twenty-eight, for
goodness sake. Most American kids left home the second they hit eighteen. She had to go. It was now or never.
Jaqueline watched Victoria leave and didn’t move until she heard the front door close. Then she let out the gush of air she’d
been holding in her lungs to keep from calling her back. Her last child was gone, and she felt the last bit of life drain
from the house. How could she stay here alone? Tears clouded her vision. She reached for a pillow and let out a shaky sob
that had been building for hours. She cried into the soft feathers covered by warm cotton. Hot tears flowed from her eyes,
and grief and fear from her soul. Her whole life, everything she worked for and lived for, was gone. It all came down to this.
Boxes full of pictures and an empty house. Once she released much of the pain she’d been holding in check, she felt better.
Drained, but better. She straightened, setting the pillow aside. “Estupida,” she scolded herself.
She wiped her eyes, glad she had nowhere to go today. No one to see. She reached across to the box of pictures Victoria took
so much interest in. One day when she had time, she would organize them, she’d told her. An ironic laugh escaped her lips.
Time was all she had these days. She decided to put the rest of these pictures into albums. Then she’d offer some to Victoria,
some to Carmen, and some to Victor. The rest she’d keep for herself.
She stared at a picture she took of a group of penguins. She and Victor had enjoyed Bariloche so much that a couple of years
later, she’d traveled back to the Patagonia to Peninsula Vales. She’d photographed penguins and glaciers and places most people
would never see because of its remoteness. Gorgeous sceneries. Her country had magnificent sites that nature had sculpted
and humans had not had a chance to destroy. And Victor had wanted to leave all that behind. Granted that even in Argentina,
they had lived in a city where they weren’t lucky enough to enjoy the stark beauty of the south very often. But they would
have been so much closer. They would have been home.
Jaqueline let the photograph drop back into the box. This was getting her nowhere. Those days, those times, were over. And
she had to face life as it was now. And maybe it wasn’t too late to reclaim the girl and the woman who took those pictures.
Maybe the lie she’d told Victoria about not having dreams could be remedied. Why not? She wasn’t dead yet.