Fire And Spice

She should not flatter herself. He was probably sitting on his sofa reading some report or other, contemplating the state of the infrastructure of some poor Third World country.

Then again, maybe he was taking a long, cold shower. She groaned into her pillow. What was the matter with her? Never in her life had she felt so totally bowled over by a man. It was terrifying. She wasn’t sure how to handle it, what to do.

Well, one thing she did have to do: try to hold on to her sanity, not to let matters progress too fast so she’d lose control. A real relationship took time to develop and she wasn’t in the market for something fast and fancy.

She pushed her face into the pillow. What she wanted was something solid and long-term. What she wanted more than anything was to find a soul mate, someone for the long haul. A man to build a life with, a man to be the father of her children.

Behind her closed eyelids was the image of a man with blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes.

She did not see or hear from Bryant in the next few days, which was a relief of sorts, even though she had expected it. He had told her during their dinner that there was a week-long international convention in town which meant he’d be busy till all hours.

Although she didn’t get a glimpse of Bryant coming or going, what she did notice was a young blonde woman in the hall one afternoon with a grocery store paper bag clutched against her chest. She had a key and was trying to get into the Sinclair apartment.

‘Hi!’ she said cheerily, and gave Zoe a white-toothed smile. She was in her early twenties, Zoe guessed, and she had a fresh prettiness.

‘Hi,’ said Zoe, and started up the stairs, only to hear the sound of something dropping to the floor and a muffled curse. She glanced down. The girl had dropped the bag and the contents had fallen out.

Zoe went back down. ‘Let me give you a hand.’

‘Oh, thank you. That damned key. It wouldn’t work.’ She laughed. ‘I’m such a klutz.’

She didn’t look like a klutz. Her slim body looked sleek and sporty and well-coordinated. She wore slimfitting jeans and a sweatshirt that read ‘Georgetown university’.

Zoe put the stuff back into the bag-boxes of macaroni and cheese mix, a frozen pizza, a packet of hot dogs. The girl had managed to open the door and Zoe handed her the bag.

‘Thanks a lot. Do you live upstairs?’

‘Yes. I’m Zoe Langdon.’

‘I’m Kristin Meyers. It’s nice to meet you.’ Her smile was bright. She radiated cheer and peppiness. ‘See you!’

Zoe climbed the stairs to her own apartment wondering who Kristin was. Not that it was any of her business. Come to think of it, she hadn’t noticed Mrs Garcia lately. Was she no longer working for the Sinclairs? Zoe stood in front of the window and looked down at the street, noticing Paul. His school bag hung by one strap from his shoulder. His head drooped and he focussed on his shoes as he kicked a pebble along the pavement. He’d been held after school today to do make-up work, work he had not done at home.

Maybe Kristin was a sitter, or a tutor, or a combination of the two. Then again maybe she was Bryant’s woman of the week. ‘Oh, stop it!’ she said out loud to herself. It wasn’t her business. She didn’t care.

Yes, she did. Secretly, she kept waiting for Bryant to call or knock on her door, in spite of the blasted convention that made him come home late every night.

She turned away from the window. Something was happening to her and she didn’t like it. She didn’t want to feel this way. She didn’t want his image in her head all the time. She didn’t want to hear his words over and over in her mind.

‘I think something is going on between us.’

She was not going to sit by the phone like a lovesick teenager and wait for Bryant to call her. He had kissed her very nicely—well, okay, passionately, she corrected herself—but that did not mean that he was now going to spend every night knocking on her door. He was busy and so was she—at least, she could make herself busy. She should do something about her social life, make friends.

She started a cooking spree and invited some of the teachers to dinner. She signed up for an evening class at the university. Maxie took her to a seminar on Indian spirituality on Friday night.

She wrote letters to her friends, called her mother in Italy, took long walks and read a big book, or tried to.

None of it helped one little bit. Her mind was determined to occupy itself with thoughts of Bryant, thoughts of him kissing her, touching her.

The trees had started to turn in vivid colors, the fiery orange and red of the maples joining the rich golden yellow of hickory and the warm, coppery brown of the oaks. In the morning the air was cool and clear and to Zoe it was like a gift of the gods. Walking to school she would drink in the air like champagne, feeling light on her feet and smiling at the world in general. Ah, fall was so glorious!

The six-weekly report cards came out, and Paul’s was a miserable collection of failing grades. With a sigh of despair, Zoe sent a note home with Paul saying she wanted another conference with Bryant. He called her at home that night and just hearing his voice made her tingle all over.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘How was your convention?’

‘Deadly. But it’s over now. I received your note,’ he went on, and there was a change in his voice, subtle but real. ‘I have no time to come to school in the morning, and frankly I do not expect a conference to change anything.’

The lovely tingling stopped instantly and anger rushed through her in its stead.

‘Have you seen his report card?’

‘Yes.’

‘Paul is in trouble, Bryant. You are his father. Don’t you think you ought to do something?’

‘I don’t think a conference is going to accomplish anything.’

Not if he was not willing to cooperate, not if he didn’t want help. ‘So you’re going to stand by and let him fail? Don’t you understand that his behavior is a cry for help?’

‘Listen,’ he said impatiently, ‘I’ll come up and we can discuss it now if you like, but I can’t do this on the phone with him in the next room.’

‘Then come to my office tomorrow.’

‘Your office, your apartment, what’s the difference?’ He sounded annoyed.

There was a big difference, but she didn’t want to argue over time and place. In view of the situation, she was glad to have a chance to talk to him about Paul at all.

So she agreed, raced into the bedroom, looked at herself in the mirror and groaned at her faded jeans and sweatshirt. She put on some lipstick, brushed out her hair and a knock came on the door. He was dressed in jeans and a cotton sweater, and her heart leaped at the sight of him in his casual clothes. He looked sporty and strong and utterly male.

She told him to take a seat and busied herself pouring them each a cup of coffee, her hands shaking. She sat down opposite him, willing herself to concentrate on Paul rather than Bryant.

She took a fortifying sip of her coffee. ‘What did Paul say about his grades?’

He waved his hand casually. ‘That this school is “stupid” and he wants to go back to his old school in Buenos Aires. I told him it was out of the question.’

She stirred her coffee. ‘What did you say to Paul about his report card, specifically?’

‘What do you think I said? I told him it was a disgrace and that I expected better from my son. I found him a tutor, but apparently that has not improved matters.’

Ah, Kristin. She couldn’t help feeling a tiny sense of relief.

‘The problem isn’t that he needs help with his homework,’ she said calmly. ‘He knows how to do it; he just doesn’t. He systematically refuses and that refusal is a symptom of the problem.’ Her mind produced the picture of Paul slumped in his chair, head down, fiddling with a paper clip. ‘Something is bothering him. He’s not happy.’

He gave a crooked grin. ‘He’s twelve years old. Puberty’s looming. Of course he’s not happy. The world is a terrible place. Nobody understands him. Unfortunately, it’s a phase he’ll have to go through like the rest of humanity. It’s growing-up time. He’ll have to learn to adjust to changes and accept the inevitable.’ He sighed. ‘We can’t go back to Argentina. There isn’t a thing to be done about it.’

‘Your move here was a big change and it’s not easy to adjust to big changes like that,’ she said.

He looked straight at her. ‘Oh, I know,’ he said slowly. ‘Believe me, I know.’ There was something odd about the way he said it, and deep down, way behind the brightness of his blue eyes, she saw a dark shadow.