Through the Heart (18 page)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I stayed in that tiny town in Kansas for a month. I spent my days in the coffee shop, doing my work from my laptop (though after a couple of weeks, so many people started to come there that one morning, when I slept late, I arrived and there were no tables left). I kept waiting for Nora to start seeming ordinary. But it didn’t happen. How could it be that a girl who lived at home with her mother and worked at a coffee shop would turn out to be the one that I couldn’t get out of my head? I couldn’t even tell you exactly what seemed different about her, except that she didn’t seem to have the need to fill the space, to talk at every pause to make sure there was never a moment of silence. That first day when I came back and we went for a drive and ended up driving all night, we talked a lot, but a lot of the time we were just quiet.

There was also the fact that I could never predict what she was going to do. I was so sure she liked me after that night driving, but then I went to see her the next day, and she told me she couldn’t see me that night—and it wasn’t her playing hard to get. It wasn’t any of those games that I know so well and that never work. Men might be slow about some things, but those games we can spot from a mile away.

I could tell she was worried I might leave—and still she didn’t see me. I swear she was like no woman I had ever met.

So I stayed. I told myself I would stay until it wore off. And it didn’t. I never saw myself hanging out in a tiny town in a grungy motel for a month, but I did. I ignored the phone calls from my mother, and then from my father. I sent them reports every Friday, and I can’t tell you how happy I was to miss the family dinners. I was a little concerned about not being invited to Nora’s house, but she’d told me enough stories to know that her family situation wasn’t exactly easy. I might have been more judgmental, but my family situation wasn’t exactly normal either, so it made a kind of sense to me. I knew I would want to keep her away from my family for as long as I could. I just assumed she was doing the same.

I kept waiting, but I didn’t tire of her. So finally I decided to do it—I decided to ask her to come to New York with me.

I wouldn’t call myself a patient person, and generally once I decide to do something I do it as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I decided in the morning, and then I had to wait all day, because I didn’t want to ask her over the racket of the espresso machine. But at five, which was the posted closing time, the store was still full.

I had taken to helping Nora sometimes behind the counter. I barely recognized myself—I had never in a million years imagined I would voluntarily work behind a counter serving coffee. But I have to tell you, I make a mean macchiato. Nora didn’t use enough chocolate. She wouldn’t listen to me, until I made her one my way, and she had to concede. I never would have thought I would enjoy hanging out in a coffee shop. Though I knew it wasn’t the coffee shop. It was her.

Five o’clock came and went, and then six. Finally, the last of the people wandered out, and Neil put the Closed sign up. Nora was just putting the metal spouts for foaming the milk in to soak. A thick layer of milk residue coated the metal, and if you didn’t soak them, it was impossible to get them clean. I was wiping down the counters, and Neil was loading the dishwasher.

I turned to Nora. “Do I get you for tonight?” I asked her.

Just from the shape of her smile I knew the answer was no. When her answer was no, she always smiled but with the corners of her mouth turned down. I had noticed a little dimple that appeared in her left cheek with that same smile. It was my only consolation for the no’s that came too frequently. I was not used to people saying no, and I had gotten a lot of practice that month with Nora. But I had a feeling the novelty might be wearing thin.

I hadn’t planned to ask her standing in the middle of the coffee shop, but suddenly I didn’t want to have to share her anymore. I didn’t want to have to ask if I would have her for the evening. I wanted to have her all night long in my bed. I’d had her in my bed, but she always slipped out from between the sheets and got dressed and left. I wanted her there in the morning when I woke up. I wanted her.

I said, “Come back to New York with me.”

“What, you mean for a visit? Like a week or so?”

“No. I don’t mean for a visit. I mean I want you to come to New York to live with me.”

I was so sure she would say yes. But that was the thing with Nora. I was so often wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Timothy asked me to go to New York with him. He asked me every day for a week. Every morning when he came in he said, “I’d like a double-shot Venti with skim and for you to come to New York with me.”

Whenever he came up for a refill, he’d say, “Could I get another, and can I get you to come to New York with me?”

I couldn’t go. Of course I couldn’t go. But there wasn’t an easy way to say no. I didn’t want to tell him the reason I couldn’t go. I had waited too long to suddenly say, oh by the way, I’m here in Kansas and living at home because my mother might be dying. But even more than that, I didn’t want his pity. I preferred him to see me as someone who had chosen a quiet life in her hometown rather than as a victim, someone who’d had her life taken away from her by circumstances and was stuck here with no way of getting out.

At the same time there was a tiny voice inside me saying maybe I could go. Maybe I’d done enough. I asked myself: could I let myself off that hook?

I didn’t know the answer. Not the true answer. I knew I wanted to go, but I also knew I would be miserable in New York if I felt like I’d abandoned my mother. Where does responsibility end? That’s the question I was left with. And it was complicated. It wasn’t just the emotional support but also the fact that I was the monetary support. I paid for the house and the food and the electricity and the phone. And there was also the loan I was paying off. And I wasn’t really managing. Even if I could somehow justify leaving my mother, I didn’t see how I could move to New York, get a job there, cover my expenses,
and
pay for my mother back here. I would have gladly taken the risk for myself, but it didn’t seem fair to make my mother dependent on it too. What if Timothy said he would support both me and my mother, and then we got in a fight and Timothy decided to throw me out or simply to stop paying? I couldn’t risk it.

The more I thought about it, the more I knew the answer had to be no. But I didn’t say no. I said, “I don’t know.” And when he asked me when I would know, I just repeated myself. “I don’t know.” I didn’t even know what I was waiting for. A miracle maybe.

Well, I got it. It turned out my miracle was Neil. And I found out that miracles are not always easy to handle.

It happened just when I had finally decided I had to tell Timothy no. I couldn’t see any way around it. But I didn’t want to do it when the store was filled with people. And I hadn’t quite decided what to tell him. So I waited until we were in the midst of the closing-up routine that we’d established. Timothy always stayed to help. Closing down a store owned by an obsessive-compulsive was a little more work than you might think.

“You know what I’d really like to do tonight?” Timothy said, as he was throwing away the one cookie and two croissants left over from the day. Everything else had sold. Some days lately we even sold out.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I’d like you to come back to New York with me,” he said with a grin.

I was in the middle of cleaning the glass doors of the food case. I stopped and put down the rag and tried to smile. Then I remembered he said he always knew when I was about to say no because of my smile.

He stood up slowly from where he had been crouched behind the food case. Then he said, “Nora, please.”

“Timothy, I’m sorry.”

“Think about it some more,” he urged. “You don’t have to decide today.”

“It’s not fair to you,” I said. “When I’ve thought about it and I know I can’t.”

“Can’t forever? Or can’t just right now?”

How could I put a time limit on it? It would be trying to figure out how long my mother was going to live. And if she died, then I’d get to go off to New York? It’s not the kind of thing you can speculate on.

“I can’t,” I said again, but I didn’t explain. It just seemed like too much.

He looked at me very seriously then. “I assume you know what that means?”

“Yes,” I said.

What can I tell you about the look that passed between us? Words seemed to flatten things, to trivialize them. Neither of us felt a need to say anything else.

But apparently Neil did. And he said, “Excuse me, but is what I think is going on really going on?”

Timothy and I both looked over at Neil. I’d actually forgotten that Neil was around. But there he was, standing among the tables, leaning on a mop.

Neil was frowning at me. “Are you really telling him you’re not going to go to New York?” Then he turned the frown on Timothy, “And you’re going to take that as an answer?”

Timothy answered him. “What else am I supposed to do? If that’s what she really wants.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Neil said. “You know that’s not what she wants, and, given her situation, I’d think a smart man like you would be able to figure out why she’s saying no.”

“Her situation?” Timothy echoed.

Then it got awkward.

Neil looked at me. “You didn’t tell him?”

I shrugged uncomfortably.

“Oh, good Lord,” Neil said.

“What?” Timothy demanded. “What didn’t she tell me?”

“I should have known,” Neil said, looking at me.

“You’re killing me, Neil,” Timothy said. “What didn’t she tell me?”

“She didn’t tell you the reason she’s here.”

“Here?”

“Here. Here in this town. Here working in a coffee shop. You never wondered?”

“No. I just assumed she liked it here.”

“I do like it here,” I said. And at this point, that was actually true.

Neil shot me a withering look. “Don’t give me that shit. It’s not what you would have chosen. Not in a million years.” He turned back to Timothy. “Her mother got sick. Cancer. Nora left school and moved home to take care of her. She’s been stuck here ever since.”

“How long?” Timothy asked.

It was Neil who answered. “It’s been three years. They’re in the middle of the second round of chemo now.

“Why didn’t she tell me?”

It was funny that Timothy kept asking Neil the questions. But I was glad, because I didn’t want to answer.

“Because she’s an idiot?” Neil said. “Who knows? Maybe she’s incredibly proud and stubborn and doesn’t want anybody’s pity or sympathy or, God forbid, their help.”

“I’m standing right here,” I said.

It was as if I hadn’t even spoken. Neil went on. “In a million years, she shouldn’t be working here. She’s so much better than this job, but God forbid anybody else knows that. God forbid anybody knows that she’s got a master’s in economics from Chicago, and she would have had a PhD if she didn’t have to leave and come back here.”

“She
what?
” Timothy said. He looked at me. “Nora?”

That was a blow. Timothy had talked to me some about his job, thinking that I didn’t know anything about the financial market. He’d even spent a half an hour explaining how interest rates worked. At the time I told myself it didn’t matter. That he’d never find out because he’d get bored and go back to New York any day.

I bit my lip. “I didn’t want you to think . . .” I trailed off. I knew it would be a relief for Timothy to know, but this part of things was harder than I’d thought, even though I wasn’t even having to explain it myself.

Neil filled in for me again. “She’d do anything to avoid someone thinking that she’s bragging, or that she might think well of herself, or, even worse, that you might actually get to know her. It’s much safer to hide.”

“Neil,” I said, “enough.”

Neil spread his hands as if I were exhibit one. “See. It drives her crazy if people ever try to mention it.”

“I swear to God, Neil . . .”

“Okay, okay. I won’t tell him any more” Neil said, finally.

“Wait, you mean there’s more?” Timothy said.

“Well,” Neil turned back. “I’m pretty sure she’s the only one supporting her and her mother. And I don’t know how she manages—”

“Neil!” I said. “Stop.”

He turned to me. “Did you ever think that maybe this is the reason you’re still single?”

“Now you sound like my mother.”

“Well, maybe you should listen to your mother for once. She might have a point.”

“Make up your mind. First I’m practically a saint; now everything is my fault and I should listen to my mother.”