Nick’s Book
She came back. Two days later. I saw her from my living room window, standing in the same spot I’d left her, staring at my house as if it were something out of a bad dream. The last time I saw her she’d been standing in sunshine, this time it was rain. She had on a white slicker, the rim of it dripping water into her face. I could see the silver streak in her hair plastered to her cheek. I watched her from the window for a few minutes, just to see what she’d do. She seemed rooted to the spot. I decided to go get her. Walking barefoot down my driveway, I sipped my coffee casually, running my tongue over the chip in the rim. A few raindrops dripped into my mug. When I came within a few feet of her I stopped and looked up at the sky.
“You like this weather.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” she said.
I nodded. “Want to come in for some coffee?”
Instead of answering me she started walking up the driveway, helping herself to the door. It slammed behind her before I realized she was alone in my house.
Was it my imagination, or did she make sure to step on every weed on her way up?
She didn’t stop to look around when she walked through the corridor that connected my foyer to the rest of the house. I had several pictures hanging on my walls—art and some family stuff. Normally women stopped to examine each one. I always thought they did it to ease their nerves. She took off her jacket and dropped it on the floor. Puddles formed around it as the rainwater skirted off. She was an odd bird. She walked right to the kitchen like she’d been there a hundred times before, stopping in front of my beat-up Mr. Coffee. She pointed to the cabinet above it, and I nodded. She chose a Dr. Seuss mug—smart girl. I tended to stick to the Walt Whitman with the chip on the rim. I watched her lift the pot from the warmer and pour without looking. She was staring out my window. Right when the liquid reached the rim of the mug, her hand automatically pulled back. I breathed a sigh of relief. She had the weight and timing perfected in that strange little head of hers. When she was done, she leaned back against the counter and looked at me expectantly.
“So, the other day…”
“What?” I said. “You’re the one that just left.”
“It wasn’t the right day.”
What the hell type of thought was that?
“And today is the right day?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. I just felt like coming, I guess.”
She ambled over and sat across from me at the worn dinette I’d taken through three relationships. If I ended up with this girl I was going to buy a new table. I’d had sex on it too many times for it to be relationship kosher.
“This is a stupid world,” she said, and traced her finger along the edge of the table like she was reading brail.
I waited for her to go on but she didn’t. My forehead was creased. I felt the skin wrinkling against itself. She was sipping her coffee, already thinking about something else.
“Do you ever have a complete thought?”
She seriously considered my question and languidly took another sip. “I have many.”
“Finish the last one then.”
“I don’t remember what it was.”
She drank the rest of her coffee, then stood up to leave.
“See you Tuesday,” she said, heading for the door.
“What’s Tuesday?” I called after her.
“Dinner at your house. I don’t eat pork.”
I heard the screen slam behind her. Max raced for the door, barking, his nails clicking against the tile as he scrambled past me. I leaned back in my chair, smiling. I didn’t eat pork either. Except bacon, of course. Everyone eats bacon.
She showed up on Tuesday, right at six. I had no idea when to expect her, so I made sushi with the salmon I’d bought that morning from the market. I was busy wrapping my rolls in seaweed when she let herself in. I heard the screen door slam and Max’s manic barking.
She slid a bottle of whiskey across the counter.
“Most people bring wine,” I said.
“Most people are pussies.”
I choked on my laugh.
“What’s your name?”
“Brenna. What’s yours?”
“You already know my name.”
It was mostly true. She knew my pen name.
“Your real name,” she said.
“It’s Nick Nissley.”
“So much better than John Karde. Who are you hiding from?”
She unscrewed the lid from the Jack and drank straight from the bottle.
“Everyone.”
“Me, too.”
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye as I poured soy sauce into two ramekins. She was young, much younger than me. What did she have to hide from? Probably an ex-boyfriend. Nothing serious. Just a guy who didn’t want to let go, most likely. I had some exes who probably wanted to hide from me. It was a shallow thought, because if this woman was really that simple, she wouldn’t have struck my interest. I saw her standing still and quiet, and she caused movement in my brain. I’d already written over sixteen thousand words since she’d walked with me to my house and then disappeared. A feat, considering I’d been claiming writer’s block for the last year of my life.
No, if this woman said she was running away, she was.
“Brenna,” I said that night as we lay in my bed.
“Mmmm.”
I said it again, tracing a finger along her arm.
“Why do you keep saying my name?”
“Because it’s beautiful. I’ve known Brianna’s, but never a Brenna.”
“Well, congratulations to you.” She rolled off the bed and reached for her skirt. That skirt had been what started it all. I see a skirt and I want to know what’s underneath it.
“Where are you going?”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “Do I look like the kind of girl who sleeps over on the first date?”
“No ma’am.”
She fished around on the floor for the last of her clothes, and then I walked her to the door.
“Can I take you home?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want you to know where I live.”
I scratched my head. “But you know where I live.”
“Exactly,” she said. She pushed up on her toes and kissed me on the mouth.
“Tastes like a New York Times Bestseller,” she said. “Goodnight, Nick.”
I watched her go and felt conflicted. Did I really just let a woman walk out of my house in the middle of the night and not take her home? I hadn’t seen a car. My mother would have a coronary. I knew so little about her, but there was no question that she wouldn’t take well to me galloping after her on my imaginary steed. And why the hell didn’t she drive? I walked back into the kitchen and started cleaning up our dinner plates. We had only made it through half of the sushi before I leaned across the table and kissed her. She hadn’t even acted surprised, just dropped her chopsticks and kissed me back. The rest of our night was impressively graceful. I credit her with that. She undressed me in the kitchen and made me wait to take her clothes off until we reached the bedroom. Then she made me sit on the edge of the bed while she undressed herself. Her back never touched the sheets. A true control freak.
I put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher and sat at my desk. My thoughts were coming at me fast. If I didn’t get them down, I’d lose them. I wrote ten thousand words before the sun came up.
A week later we took our first trip into Seattle together. It was her idea. We rode in my car since she said she didn’t have one. She looked nervous sitting in the front seat with her hands folded in her lap. When I asked her if she wanted me to put on the radio she said no. We ate Russian pastries from paper bags and watched the ferries cross the sound, shivering and standing as close as we could get to each other. Our fingers were so greasy when we were done we had to rinse them off in a water fountain. She laughed when I splashed water in her face. I could have written another ten thousand words just from hearing her laugh. We bought five pounds of prawns from the market and headed back to my house. I don’t know why the hell I asked for five pounds, but it sounded like a good idea at the time.
“You have one of these,” I said, as we were cleaning the prawns together at my kitchen sink. I ran my finger laterally along its body, pointing out the dark line that needed to be cleaned out. She frowned, looking down at the prawn she was holding.
“It’s called a mud vein.”
“A mud vein,” she repeated. “Doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“Maybe not to some people.”
She de-headed her shrimp with a flick of her knife and tossed it in the bowl.
“It’s your darkness that pulls me in. Your mud vein. But sometimes having a mud vein will kill you.”
She set down the knife and washed her hands, drying them on the back of her jeans.
“I have to go.”
“Sure,” I said. I didn’t move until I heard the screen door slam. I wasn’t upset that my words had run her off. She didn’t like to be found out. But she’d be back.