Jagger Read online

  It was a quick wrestling between the sheets that left me sweaty for all the wrong reasons, unfinished most of the time, and with a kiss on the top of my head at its conclusion.

  I’ve never asked what other people do, since no one in my circle, my sister included, seemed to give it too much thought.

  After months of Liv’s pestering, I’ve become animated by the idea of giving sex another try. Out of curiosity if nothing else, and of course, because of my newfound sense of freedom.

  I met Tony at a party. Good looking, unattached, a fan of safe sex. With these checked off my short list, I didn’t need a pick-up line or his life story, only his consent. We chose his place over mine, out of pure convenience. Without much introduction, he took care of me, and through and through he delivered.

  All in all, the sex was decent.

  It could’ve been worse, considering the few drinks between us, the lack of foreplay, and the stilted dialogue. I thought I’d mess up, turn him off, freeze in the middle of everything, or bail out, but none of that happened.

  He knew what he was doing, and he was kind enough to tease my clit all the way to a satisfying orgasm. Honoring our agreement, I left as soon as I walked out the bathroom. Later on, as I was climbing in my car, I realized it could’ve been that easy.

  The sound of an opening door pulls me out of my head as my sister walks in the house, carrying the last moving box.

  “You can leave it there,” I say, pointing at a corner. “I have to unpack it anyway.”

  She sets the box on the floor as I move the other boxes around and pull a chair out for her at the table.

  Five years older than me, Lorraine is the spitting image of my mom. Except, she’s never colored her hair, and hardly uses any makeup.

  Barely brushing her shoulders, her chestnut hair frames her soft features and coffee-colored eyes. She wears blue-green scrubs and sneakers. A silicone bracelet wraps around her wrist.

  “Thank you so much. You didn’t need to come all this way. I could’ve picked them up.”

  “It’s okay. Tom had to meet a client anyway, and it was a nice drive. You know how much I love Long Island,” she says, a small smile playing on her lips.

  “How’s Tom’s business doing?” I ask as I shove a bunch of books on a shelf.

  “It’s doing good. They’ve hired new people to meet the growing demand. As long as they expand, I can’t complain.”

  “How’s work?”

  She lets out a long exhale.

  “Same. The hours kill me...”

  “That’s why I said you shouldn’t have bothered to come all this way.”

  “I’m fine,” she says. “Don’t worry about me.”

  I search her eyes for a moment. She shifts her gaze to the boxes.

  She’s the only one in my family who’s kept in touch with me after the fallout with my parents. Once I filed for divorce, my mom stopped talking to me. My dad fell in line, and everybody else followed.

  As much as she would’ve liked to gang up with mom, Lorraine had to swallow her resentment. She remained in touch with me, if nothing else for hope that one day she’ll convince me to reconcile with Brad and everybody else.

  Good intentions aside, I’m not a fool. I know my mom’s eyes and ears are with us in this room.

  “Are you going to be okay?” she asks, her eyes sweeping the large living room and the open kitchen.

  “Yeah... Don’t worry about me.”

  I pull away from the shelves, push a small box to the side, and make room on the table.

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Sure,” she says, her eyes shifting to her phone.

  I walk into the kitchen and set the coffee machine, my eyes drifting to the window.

  It took me months to find this quiet neighborhood, close enough to the train to ensure a fast commute to Manhattan, and far enough away from Queens where my parents, and Lorraine and Tom live.

  It’s a two-bedroom house with a large living room, a cozy open kitchen, and a patio. Luckily for me, the place came furnished and tastefully decorated.

  A comfortable couch, wide enough to sleep on it, a couple of armchairs, and a coffee table sit in the living room. The house didn’t come with a TV, and I didn’t bother to buy one.

  The only piece of furniture I brought with me from my old place is the round glass table, and the matching wrought iron chairs tucked in the corner, a wedding gift I couldn’t part ways with. Glass doors open to the backyard, a great view filling the background.

  There’s a small lake, plenty of trees, my neighbor’s neat lawn, and their custom pool. From the kitchen window, I can see their driveway.

  I fill the porcelain mugs with coffee, set them on a tray, and carry them to the table. She tears her eyes away from her phone.

  “I like your new curtains,” she says, pointing to the dark red drapes dragging on the hardwood floors.

  Her eyes connect with mine.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

  “Why wouldn't I?” I ask, sinking into the chair next to her.

  “You’ve never been on your own.”

  Neither has she, yet it’s never bothered her.

  A soft buzz draws her attention to the phone again. Her finger scrolls down, her eyes skimming a message.

  She smiles, enchanted.

  Who knows? Perhaps Tom is different.

  “I’ve been on my own for the last six months, maybe more if I take into consideration the last years of my marriage,” I say, and her eyes shift back to me.

  “You shouldn’t say that,” she chides me.

  “It’s different for you, Lori.”

  “I don’t know if it’s different. I don’t think there’s anything else. That’s what people do. Get married, have kids, enjoy their friends and families. What else is there? Parties? Living alone like you? I don’t know... I couldn’t do that,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “I still don’t understand why you had to file for divorce. Every single friend I talk to says the same thing. They would’ve never done it. Nobody does something so stupid. Other than you, of course...”

  She looks at me expecting me to react, perhaps to defend myself and my decision, but after all this time I know better than to let myself get pulled into the same, worn out conversation.

  Staring back at her, I say nothing.

  She brings the cup to her lips and takes a sip of coffee before she speaks again.

  “Women want men like Brad. Loving, reliable, having a good career. You can build a life with someone like that. There are plenty of men out there, but not many are marriage material these days. ”

  She’s right, and I can’t argue with her, but the thing is, I was married, and it didn’t work out for me.

  Who knows? Perhaps I’m not marriage material either.

  “He is a good man, and he was loyal to you. He’s not gonna be single for long. You know that,” she says, and I hear my mom’s wisdom streaming in her words. “He’s never treated you badly. And you left him for what? A scribbling job you could’ve gotten out of high school and an empty house?”

  “How do you know he was loyal to me?” I ask, slightly irritated,

  She gives me a sharp pointed look.

  “Do you have reasons to believe otherwise? The only thing that kept him away from home was his crazy schedule, but you knew that when you married him. That’s the life of a surgeon, and for the longest time, you had no problem with that. You were so proud of him, and certainly, you didn’t dislike the money,” she adds, her lips tilted with a malicious smile.

  I bite back a retort.

  “Why would you do that to him?” she asks, and anger seeps in my blood.

  “I didn’t do anything to him. I didn’t want that kind of life,” I say, grappling with my emotions.

  She looks at me as if I lost my mind.

  “How can you say such a thing? You affected him profoundly. I’m surprised after all this time he still speaks highly of you, whi
ch says a lot about his character.”

  My throat tightens as adrenaline surges through my body. I place the cup on the table and take a long breath.

  “What do you mean, now? Is he still coming to our house?”

  She gazes at me, visibly uncomfortable.

  “We can’t just stop seeing him because you decided to throw the life you built with him away.”

  “So mom and dad are still talking with him, but not with me?”

  “Why wouldn’t they? He hasn’t done anything wrong. They can’t blame him for something that you’ve done.”

  I whip my gaze to the side and roll my eyes.

  “What about me? Have they ever thought about me?”

  “What about you? Do you really expect their sympathy? You behaved like a child. After six years of marriage, you filed for divorce for what? To follow your dreams? What dreams, Violet? You’re no longer seventeen. You’re a grown up woman. You should start acting like one. What makes you think that being a single woman is a great accomplishment? Especially nowadays when it’s so hard to find someone decent to settle down with. Or do you think that your new career is something special? Are you kidding me? All that money, time, and energy that went into college flushed down the drain. You threw everything away. For what? To write for a magazine and rub elbows with twenty-year-olds? You don’t get any younger, Violet. You’re twenty-five––”

  “Twenty-four.”

  She waves me off, annoyed.

  “One day you’ll want kids. Mom pushes me and you know we’re trying, but it’s getting harder as we get older. It’s not as if we don’t want them. You, on the other hand... You could’ve had them... He even bought a new house for you. We all thought you were trying for children. You could’ve stayed home, raised your kids, but no, no... You had to find your true self,” she says mockingly, at the same time sincerely disappointed.

  She keeps talking, and my eyes glaze over her. I’m sick of her litany. I’ve heard those words, over and over again, as I was growing up, and then as a married woman. They were my mom’s words before they became my sister’s, and they were meant to guilt me into doing what they thought was right.

  I push out of my chair, walk to the refrigerator, and scoop out a bottle of water. Her eyes follow me as I stroll back to the table and take a seat. She studies me for a few moments while I drink my water.

  “There are a couple of single guys at Tom’s firm,” she says tentatively. “They make good money,” she adds, waiting for a reaction.

  “I’m sure they’re fine people. I’m just not looking for a relationship, right now,” I say, calm, trying not to stir her up more than I already have, but the slow arching of her eyebrows and the pursing of her lips tell me otherwise.

  “I don’t understand, Violet. What exactly do you want?”

  Her voice brims with frustration. I could spend the whole evening explaining to her, yet she’ll make no effort to listen to me or try to understand. It’s not as if we haven’t been through this before.

  “I want to figure out life, Lorraine. That’s all I want. My life. Outside of my parents’ home and matrimonial obligations.”

  “You make it sound like it’s all bad,” she says, disheartened.

  “No, I don’t say that. For some people it’s bad, and for some, it isn’t. For me, it wasn’t good. Just because it works for you, it doesn’t mean it’s good for everybody else. Why is it so hard to understand that it was different for me?”

  “It’s not perfect for us either, but we’re working on it.”

  “Listen... I’m not looking for perfect. I’m looking for something real,” I say.

  Her eyes connect with mine.

  “He didn’t treat you badly, did he?”

  I shake my head.

  “No, he didn’t. He didn’t abuse me physically or verbally if that’s what you have in mind.”

  I pause for a moment. I wish I could stop before I say something I might regret later on, but I don’t.

  “You want to know the truth? I’ll give you the truth, but I don’t think you’re gonna like it... He locked me in a prison called marriage, and then forgot about me. He made sure everything looked perfect from afar, the house, the cars, and money, but there was nothing inside, not for me anyway, and he didn’t give a damn. He couldn’t be bothered with who I was or what I wanted. He had his own life outside of our marriage. He also had his medical career, the clinic, the people who have sung his praises and looked up to him––not that there is anything wrong with that. For him, I was nothing more than a chapter in his life. I wasn’t his life. That’s what marriage was for me.”

  She gapes at me as if I’ve grown a second head.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she mutters, irked, her eyes drifting away from me.

  “I don’t know how else to explain it to you. I’m not saying that the whole idea of marriage is inherently wrong, but this whole experience left me drained. The timing was bad, my lack of experience didn’t help, and Brad was clearly not the right man for me. He was overbearing, and that’s an understatement, and I didn’t know how to push back. Everything looked great from outside, but it wasn’t. And you know what else my marriage did to me? It killed my desire to be with a man in that way. I no longer want to live that kind of life. I no longer tolerate that sort of leash. I resent restrictions and norms and anything that reprimands me or asks me to be someone that I’m not.”

  Slowly blinking, she gawks at me as if I’ve shape-shifted into some mythical creature.

  “I’ve never thought of myself as an adventurous woman. All I wanted was to do things for myself, things that grown up people, like my husband, usually find stupid. In retrospect, I realize what I wanted was small and inconsequential, and you know what I got? Nothing. That’s why now I want everything.”

  She looks at me with the expression of someone who's tuned out. Her phone goes off, Tom’s name displaying on the screen, and her face lights up with a relieved smile.

  “I have to go,” she says, rushed.

  She gives me a quick kiss on my cheek and scurries away.

  The door closes behind her, and I let out a long exhale as peaceful silence surrounds me in my new, empty home.

  The patio doors are wide open, meshed noises coming from outside. A woman’s soft laughter, a slammed door, a kid’s giggling, and the barking of a dog. The bits and pieces of a dialogue echo in the background, soon followed by the noise of a car pulling away.

  As the evening unfurls over the neighborhood, the humming of the TVs permeates the silence.

  I take a sip of tea, the concoction a mix of orange peel and cinnamon aroma. I set the mug on the table, and shift my focus to a box sitting on the chair next to me.

  One by one, I pull out souvenirs I’ve collected throughout the years, books I used to read as a teenager, and a stash of watercolor paintings.

  A small smile tugs at my lips. I almost forgot about them.

  I was seventeen when I learned how to paint. I spent a whole summer teaching myself to see the beauty in people, things, and nature. One year later, I started college, got married, and my passion for painting became a thing of the past.

  I retrieve them one at a time, studying them with fresh eyes.

  Hmm. They are not bad. A bouquet of red roses sitting in a tall glass vase, a delicate butterfly with intricate black and golden wings, a girl with long hair and oval face, her arms holding a bunch of white and purple lilacs, and then a shore I’ve never walked on. I vividly remember the postcard I had painted it after. The glimmering ocean in the distance, a solitaire colorful umbrella abandoned on a stretch of sand.

  The beauty of summer… I love summer.

  I run my fingertips over the paper, my eyes absorbing the light and the colors, my mind envisioning that simple life.

  I can almost sense the scent of algae and salt wafting through the air, the sun scorching my skin, the grains of sand brushing my feet, and the breeze kissing my face.

&nb
sp; I can almost hear the sound of waves lapping softly in the background.

  Sighing, I push the paintings to the side and dig further.

  A lot of flea market bargains surface, stuff Lorraine and I used to pick up on our weekend trips. A bunch of vintage necklaces and bracelets, an antique book with a flowery handwritten dedication, and a handful of old postcards and photographs.

  Right at the bottom of the box, I find a message in a bottle. I pull the cork out and retrieve the parchment paper. It’s still pretty after all these years. A woman sold it to me for next to nothing one rainy afternoon, when Lorraine and I were rushing home. A frail, old lady standing next to the exit door, her hands clutched on this bottle. She wanted to go home too.

  It belonged to her daughter, she said, a young woman who was long gone. She passed away young. I asked her why she was selling the few things that reminded her of her daughter. She said nothing and tears streamed down her face.

  I kept the bottle on my desk, the memory of that old woman coming back to me every time I wanted to read that letter, and I didn’t because I feared something bad.

  I move the lamp closer.

  The handwriting has faded, but it’s still legible. The old paper rustles, fragile. The writing is small and erratic, sometimes flowery, sometimes losing focus, like a child lost in a meadow, running in different directions.

  I’ve waited for you, my love and now I’m out of time...

  I never thought I’d die young, but as I came to learn, life and death are never in our power.

  I’ve waited for you, looking for you, praying for our paths to cross. Perhaps, they did. We’ll never know.

  Maybe you were the brown-haired man who kept his eyes on me on a summer afternoon as I was walking in a store or maybe you were the man with eyes the color of the sky who locked my gaze as I strolled in the park.

  Or maybe, just maybe, you’ve offered me a book, your hand, your smile, your words. Perhaps we’ve touched. Perhaps, not once. It could’ve been a thousand times. We’ll never know.

  Maybe we’ve shared the air, a sunset, or a dream. Perhaps we’ve longed for secret things.