Page 47 of Dirty Diana
He’s rocking back and forth on his heels, and I know he’s ready to go. I walk to the door and open it for him.
“Diana.” He hesitates. “Someday we’ll go to Taos, okay? I promise.”
I hug him, mostly so he won’t see my tears. Then I slip from his arms and close the door between us.
—
I’m waiting on the doorstep of Justine’s loft when Melodie shows up early the next morning. My heart is an exposed organ beating outside my chest, on display for the world to see. I can only imagine what I look like when Melodie sighs and says, “Oh, Diana.”
“Change of plans,” I tell her.
“Fuck.”
Melodie lets us in and goes immediately to the kitchen. She pours half her thermos of coffee into a mug for me and tears her chocolate croissant down the middle. One look at my face, and she can tell I don’t want to talk about it. We switch on the lights and sit down before Justine’s unfinished piece, both of us regarding it, and the hours of work stretched out before us. She taps her thermos against my mug in a gentle toast. “To getting this fucker done by Sunday?”
It gives us a week. A little over a week until Justine’s show and still so much work in front of us. I smile and take a sip. While Melodie picks out a Dolly Parton album from Justine’s collection, I shake some food into Henri’s tank and pray Justine will take pity on me.
Two hours into our work, we hear the door open. I hold my breath as Justine sweeps in. I hear her slip off her jacket and boots.
“You’re back.” Her voice is icy.
“The move was called off.”
“You mean Jasper called off the move.” She stands over me.
“I’m sorry I left you in the lurch.”
“We’re way behind now, Diana. We’ll never catch up.” But I can hear a softness creep into her voice.
“Justine, I’m so sorry. My work with you has been really meaningful to me.” I lay it on thick. “Really an honor. I’ll work all night if I have to. I’ll make up for the lost time, I promise.”
Her gaze lingers on my hands, then my face, before she sighs and turns on her heels. “Let’s see how you do today.”
I don’t stop working for the rest of the day. Justine leaves around four. Melodie leaves an hour later. “Sorry, Diana, I’m babysitting my niece tonight.” Then it’s nighttime and I’m alone and I know there’s no way I can do all the work that needs to be done with just my two hands. Maybe Justine is just setting me up. She knows I can’t finish this much embroidering by tomorrow and that will give her an excuse to fire me for good. She’ll think of it as my punishment for having quit. I fight the urge to just lie on the velvety couch and close my eyes. I want to finish this task, and I also want to avoid thinking about Jasper. How easy it would be to leave and drive to his house and take the small pieces of him on offer.
I sit up straighter and get back to work for another solid hour. Then I stand and stretch my legs, my back, and my fingers. I linger by Henri and watch him swim. My eyes get heavy and so I hop up and down on my toes to try and wake up.
I hear someone at the door, and think possibly Hannah has come to help.
Then I look through the peephole and see Jasper’s familiar outline. He’s holding two large cups of coffee. “Hey,” he says when I open the door. “Can I come in?”
“Okay.” After that, I don’t know what to say. I’m too afraid that if I speak, I’ll cry, and I do not want to cry anymore, so I turn my back to him and get to work. The whole time I feel his eyes on me. He sets the coffee down and pulls up a stool, close. He watches me thread the needle and then watches as I stitch even lines of sapphire blue across one of the panels. Jasper didn’t ask me to go with him to London. Itdoesn’t need to be discussed. I wonder when he’s leaving, but I don’t want to ask. When I sneak a peek at him out of the corner of my eye, I hate how my body responds. I fight the urge to reach for him, to pull us closer and remind him how good we make each other feel. I can feel his eyes on me and I wonder about all the things he’s thinking but not saying. I focus on the work.
Without saying anything, Jasper walks to the other side of the stretching rack and sits down in Melodie’s place.
“Where should I start?” he asks.
I look at him, confused, until I realize that he’s come here to help me finish the piece. He hadn’t been silently searching for the right thing to say, he’d been watching me work. Studying the motions and figuring out where to jump in.
Tears pool in my eyes. I can’t help it. I’m tired from sleeping on my bare apartment floor or maybe it’s from the exhaustion of his push and pull—just when I want to hate him, I love him; and when I want to love him, he’s not there to be loved. “You can start with that corner.” Jasper nods and gets started. He moves slowly but deliberately and handles the embroidering with no trouble. I put on a Neil Young album and we fall into the rhythm ofHarvest Moonon repeat.
We work for hours, steadily making progress, until the sun splashes across the floor and we’ve finished all my section and Melodie’s. When our bodies are wrecked with exhaustion, Jasper walks over to where I am sitting on the floor. He kneels down, touching his lips to my forehead and kisses me softly, then whispers the words I had been longing to hear for the past several months, “I love you.”
After Jasper leaves, I look atThe Map,now nearly finished, and I know in my heart my time in Santa Fe has come to an end. Everyone is gone and I am utterly spent.
—
At a red light, I cry so hard that I think the woman in the car next to me might get out to check on me. I give her a little wave and mouthI’m okayand the whole thing is so ridiculous that I’m laughing at myself by the time the light turns green.
