Page 57 of Sublimate
“It makes your eyes look so dark, like navy blue. It’s pretty.”
“I’ll keep it,” I decided. Lately, I had found myself interested in prettiness. “But why are you giving away all your clothes?” Ipointed to the new shirt she was wearing and asked, “Did you go shopping? I like this a lot.”
“Thank you. I decided that I could do a little more with myself. Why not? I should, shouldn’t I? I’ve been dabbling in a quid pro quo.”
I wasn’t sure what that was. It didn’t sound like French but it did sound a little dangerous. “Is that like bondage?” I asked tentatively. “You need to be careful unless you know the guy very, very well and you’re absolutely sure that you can trust him.”
“Vivi!” She turned bright red. She explained the meaning and no, it wasn’t about sex. “Beau Gowan has been helping me pick out new clothes while I work on the portrait of Finley.”
“He’s not paying you?”
“He’s also paying me,” she said. “But he suggested that I could incorporate a few new pieces into my wardrobe, and I thought he was right.”
I looked at the grocery bag stuffed full of the pieces that she was getting rid of. “But you’re giving away so much.”
“I went a little farther with it,” she admitted. “I’m tired of this stuff.” She nudged the bag with her foot. “I’ve had most of it since high school and I’m going to turn thirty. Thirty years old. Thirty.”
“Yeah, I got that. But first, you’ll be twenty-nine, right?”
“Why would I dress the same? Why would I be doing anything the same?” she asked me.
“I don’t know. I am,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve changed at all.”
She squinted as she stared at my face. “You look different.”
“I’m not bruised anywhere. That’s very different for me.”
“Vivi, that’s so awful. I can’t believe you were with a guy who hurt you. I hate Kolter and I still think you should go to the police about him.”
I didn’t bother to say that I wasn’t a person who wanted to be involved with the police, because I hadn’t had the same friendly relationship with law enforcement that she had. For her, they represented safety and help but for me, the presence of authorities had meant that someone would probably disappear from my life (like my mom). Now that I wasn’t personally doing anything illegal, such as driving without a license, I could try to change my perspective.
I also didn’t correct that I hadn’t been referring to Kolter—notonlyto him. One way that I had remained the same was by picking the same guy over and over again and ending up hurt in many different ways.
“I wasn’t talking about bruises, though,” Cadence continued. She winced as she spoke and shook her head.
“I’ve been working on my hair. That’s different,” I suggested. Despite what Nolan had said about how he liked my braids, I’d also been doing more. I’d used product and dried it until it was as sleek as his mom’s—mine was red instead of blonde, though. I’d even gotten it cut by a professional, rather than using scissors myself. My time at beauty school hadn’t been sufficient for me to do a good job but the stylist had made it look great.
“No, it’s not your hair, but I like that a lot.” She tugged on one of her curls. “What could I do with mine?”
We discussed that for a moment before she went to help a patron and I went back to my table. I didn’t need to hide in the Whitaker Reading Room anymore, since I had plenty of rooms in a big house that was totally secure and also warm. But I liked coming here to see my friend and to sit in front of the fire to work on things. It was too bad that my current side project was total crapola, as was my actual job of cleaning houses. I was down to one client, just one. I’d had several interviews for other positions that I thought had gone well but I hadn’t received an offer. But just this morning, I’d talked to the manager at a restaurant and he hadn’t immediately shot me down. With any luck, I would be washing dishes there soon. I was getting desperate.
I worked for a little while longer and then gathered up my stuff. Baking hadn’t gone great for me but I was doing better at cooking, and I planned to make a nice dinner for me and Nolan to have tonight. Plus, I had some packing to do. We were going to Hawaii! It was a good destination for warmth also a destination that didn’t require a passport, which I didn’t yet have. I wouldn’t take my new sweater but I was bringing the bikini I’d bought. I thought about lying on a beach, about coconuts, about our hotel room…
We would be staying together. He had asked me if I wanted separate rooms, and I had shrugged and said no. We didn’t sleep in the same bed at home but it seemed silly to waste money on individual spaces in a hotel, especially since I knew where wewere staying and it was a very, very nice (and expensive) place. But now that I was thinking about it more, I had questions.
Cadence had brought some up, too. “Won’t it be weird to have him right there?” she’d wondered when I’d first told her about the trip. “What if you snore? Wouldn’t you be embarrassed? What if you have to go to the bathroom?”
“I guess I’ll get up and go,” I had answered. “What else would I do?”
“But he could hear it!” She had turned red even thinking about it. “I’ve always had my own room. It would be strange to have someone there with me.”
But it wouldn’t be for me. The way I was living now, not sharing with anybody, was the first time I’d ever been alone in my life. I’d bunked with my sister, my mom, roommates, boyfriends, animals…
“But this isNolan Whitaker,” she had said and that had been when I’d started thinking about it more. We had spent one night together in his parents’ house when his dad had been in the hospital, but that had been over so quickly. I’d fallen asleep while listening to him breathe and woken up to the sound of him in the shower. He’d left the room and I’d gotten ready.
Then we’d driven north and gone back to our separate bedrooms.
We would be in Hawaii for a week, a week of sharing, and I wasn’t sure what size this bed was going to be. If it was a full? He was tall and he had a long reach—no, I didn’t think he was going to reach for me! But he would naturally take up moreroom, and I could have done the thing of making myself as small as possible…but he would be right there.Nolan Whitaker, I imagined Cadence repeating reverently.
