The Brevity of Roses Read online

  “How’s that going?”

  “Fine.”

  “Your family must be proud.”

  Jalal attacked the vegetable with such vengeance, Meredith knew instantly it had been a mistake to mention his family. “Why did you decide to leave New York?” she asked quickly.

  He paused in mid-chop, but a moment passed before he unclenched his jaw. “I had had enough.”

  “Enough?”

  Jalal looked at her for a moment before answering. “I was through with ... ice and slush. And wind that can freeze your lungs.”

  “Oh my,” she said, “that brings back unpleasant memories. If you think New York is cold, you should spend a winter in Minnesota. I grew up there. Winters seemed endless.”

  Jalal nodded absently, but didn’t resume chopping. Suddenly, his face turned thunderous, he dropped his knife and, in an age-old gesture of grief, he slapped a fist to his chest. “My father expects his sons to obey him without question,” he exclaimed. “I could no longer do that!”

  Surprised by his outburst, she missed a beat before stammering, “He … he didn’t want you to be a writer?”

  Jalal uttered a sort of half-laugh, devoid of mirth. “Not in the least. He told me I would be dead to him.”

  “Oh, surely not! I mean … he couldn’t have meant that.”

  “I am afraid he did.”

  “But, now … that some of your work has been published, hasn’t he changed his mind?”

  He picked up his knife and went back to work on the zucchini. “We did not speak for a year. Then he had a heart attack while driving and wrecked his car. Because of his head injuries, they induced a coma, and while he was out, my mother phoned and told me to come home. I was there when he came out of it. We speak now, but not about my career.”

  “You never discuss it?” she asked in disbelief.

  “There is no reason to,” said Jalal. “My father never admits a mistake.”

  The next morning, while in the kitchen arranging roses, Meredith heard a woman’s scream echo down the front hall. Jalal shouted her name and then, when she heard him pleading with someone, she remembered it was Lorena’s day to clean and rushed to the hall. Jalal stood between the front door and Lorena, who was backed up against the wall, wide-eyed, with one hand clutching her shoulder bag across her chest like a shield, the other splayed and held out before her as if to ward off an attack.

  Jalal looked at Meredith and, with a shrug, spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “I heard the door open and came to see who it was,” he told her.

  Lorena darted a glance to her left. Her eyes registered both relief and surprise as they tracked between Meredith and Jalal. She spewed a flustered apology in a mixture of Spanish and English.

  “No. No. It’s my fault, Lorena,” Meredith told her. “I’m sorry you were frightened.”

  Lorena waved away Meredith’s apology. “No, no. De nada,” she said, and casting one last look at Jalal, she hurried down the hall toward the kitchen.

  “What was that about?” asked Jalal.

  “I didn’t think to warn her.”

  Jalal looked even more puzzled. “Warn?”

  Reluctant to explain, she turned to follow Lorena to the kitchen, calling back to him, “I don’t have many houseguests.” She could not bear to see Jalal’s face when he figured out the truth: Lorena had never known her to have a man in the house. Relieved that Lorena had gone straight to the utility closet to gather her supplies, Meredith grabbed the floral arrangement and returned to the hall. She stopped short when she saw Jalal still there. He stood in profile, studying a framed portrait on the wall.

  “These are your parents?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She set the vase on the table below the painting.

  “You were born late in their lives.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  He turned to her, his eyes solemn. “I cannot explain it,” he said, “but I seem to just know things about you.” Then, without shifting his eyes from hers, he pointed toward the lower right corner of the canvas. “Also, I studied math.”

  She looked to where he pointed and read the date below the artist’s signature. “Very funny,” she said and swatted his shoulder.

  Jalal laughed and pulled her into his arms. “Seriously, I do warn you that I am the most observant man you will ever know.”

  “How so?”

  “I am at least three minutes up on you.”

  Meredith drew back, puzzled.

  “Oh yes,” he said, “I spotted you the minute I walked in that restaurant Tuesday. I stood watching you, and I asked to be seated near your table.”

  “Why?”

  Jalal laughed. “Why? Have you no vanity at all? You do not assume it was because you mesmerized me with your ethereal beauty?”

  Her face warmed and she averted her gaze. How had she given this man such power over her that with just a look, or a word, he broke through all her defenses?

  He wrapped his arms tighter around her and buried his face in her hair. “It was your beauty that caught my eye, but then I looked deeper and recognized you as a kindred soul.” He kept her close for a moment longer, then took her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “And, for future reference, when you try to fake reading … you should turn a page from time to time.”

  Later, while Jalal prepared dinner, she wandered out to her rose garden. During the four days he had been with her, she had neglected her usual daily check for midges or black spot, and it was time to prune the spent blooms. The weather would cool soon, and deadheading the roses now would force one more display before she let them go dormant for winter.

  “Meredith?”

  “In here.” She dropped her pruners into her gardening basket and pulled off her gloves.

  “I had no idea this garden was here,” said Jalal, opening the hedged gate. “The shrubbery hides it from the pool area. This is beautiful. Your sanctuary.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jalal stepped into the small, bricked patio in the center of the garden and pivoted to take in the view. “Would you mind if I moved a table in here?”

  “A table?”

  “I had planned to serve our dinner poolside, but I would rather eat it in here.”

  “That would be lovely,” she said.

  Jalal arranged a café table and chairs in the garden and served the meal. They ate in silence for a few minutes before he said, “Tell me the meaning of life.”

  She paused with her wine glass halfway to her lips and laughed. “So much for light dinner conversation. The meaning of life!”

  “Yes, the meaning of life. What is your perception?”

  Her hand continued on its path to her mouth and she sipped to delay answering. “I’m not sure I’ve ever given it much thought,” she said after a moment.

  He shook his head. “I do not believe that. You are too intelligent, too sensitive.”

  She shrugged and looked past him to the honeybees at the lavender. Then, she took another sip. “I’m not sure it’s something we are meant to know. Great minds have pondered it for centuries, haven’t they?”

  “Indeed, but I believe they complicated it beyond reason.”

  “You’re saying the answer is simple?”

  “I am saying it is, by necessity, something innate.”

  Meredith shot him a look of warning. “Jalal, please don’t tell me the meaning of life is sex.”

  He smiled, but shook his head. “Only if you see yourself as purely physical.”

  “So, this is a religious thing?” He’s a member of a cult! Her heart rate rose and she pled silently for his answer to be no.

  “No,” he said. “It is not a religious thing.”

  She exhaled.

  “It is spiritual, though,” he told her.

  She drained her glass and, with zero enthusiasm, asked, “How so?”

  “We are spirit beings.”

  She stared at him. “And that is the meaning of life?”<
br />
  “Of course not!”

  Meredith frowned and reached for her fork. She took a bite of eggplant and chewed slowly, giving herself time to replay their conversation, hoping to see where she had gone off track. Before she could, Jalal spoke.

  “Do you want to know what I believe is the meaning of life?”

  “Yes,” she said, relieved. “Tell me. Please.”

  “Love.”

  “Love?”

  “To receive love, to give love, nothing more.”

  She smiled at him, this handsome Persian poet who would distill all of life down to love. Oh, my lord, what have I gotten myself into?

  Meredith, wearing only a gauzy tunic, lay in the shade watching Jalal swim laps in her pool. He wore nothing at all. Dear god! She could not remember a time when all her appetites had been so deeply satisfied. The sheer decadence of it all had muzzled her inner critic. He moved with such ease, comfortable in his own skin. She envied that. He seemed sure of his strength, his beauty, without conceit. That, she admired. What did he want from her? Would he ask for more than she could give? Yes, she feared.

  Jalal dived under, and surfaced near her. “I will not be faithful to you,” he announced, “but I will always return to you … as long as you want me.”

  Her soft laughter belied the pang in her heart. “Really!”

  “I am trying to be honest with you.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You do not believe me.”

  “Oh, but I do.”

  He splayed his hands on the tiled edge of the pool and boosted himself out. Rivulets of water ran from his hair, meandering around joint and muscle, tracing the length of his body as he approached her. “If you believe what I said, why are you smiling that way, Meredith?”

  She handed him a towel. “Because you think I want you to tell me I’m your one and only.”

  He wrapped the towel around his waist and sat down near the end of her lounge. “All women want that.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  He shook the water from his hair and the fabric of her tunic grew transparent where each drop landed. “That is because you think you can change me,” he told her.

  “I think no such thing, Jalal.” She stretched one leg across his thighs. “Are you telling me you’re leaving right now?”

  “No,” he said and slid his hand up over her knee, “not right now.”

  Jalal made love the same way he prepared and served a meal: with care and detail. After a delicious amuse bouche poolside, he had brought her upstairs. Afterward, like sated gluttons, they had dozed off.

  Meredith woke to find Jalal shirtless and sorting through a pile of clothes at the foot of the bed. How long, before I feel no thrill at the sight of you? Though he had now been with her five days, he startled her every time he walked into a room where she sat, or closed a door upstairs, or spoke while she was lost in reading. How long, before I get used to your presence? Will you stay with me that long?

  She sat up, tucking the sheet around her. “Looking for something?”

  “I am down to my last clean shirt,” he said. “Do you have anything ready to go to the dry cleaner?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I need to take some things in, and I might as well take yours too.” He shoved one arm through the sleeve of a white polo, then stopped and turned toward her. “Is that all right?”

  She smiled. “Yes. But since I need to do some shopping anyway, I’ll drop our things off.”

  “All right, you take the cleaning, but if you mean grocery shopping, I will do that on my way back. Your cupboards are bare, and you lack some basic kitchen tools. Do you cook at all?”

  “Not if I can help it.” She smiled. “On your way back from where?”

  Jalal sat on the bench at the foot of the bed to put on his shoes. “I need more clothes. Some books. My mail. I hate pressed jeans and underwear. You do have a washer and dryer, right? Or is doing laundry another thing you avoid?”

  She laughed and hugged her knees to her chest. “Of course, I do laundry.” Evidently, he would be staying a while longer. His confidence comforted her, made her feel secure, as though his presence was a matchbook slipped under the short leg of her teetering life. “Jalal, I’ve been meaning to ask, were you on your way to or from somewhere when we met?”

  Brow arched, he turned to her. “Why do you ask?”

  She pointed to his duffle bag lying on the floor. “You had a packed bag in your car.”

  “Oh! Yes. I was on my way home from Seattle.” He stepped to her side of the bed and leaned over to kiss her. “I will be back in a few hours.”

  “A few hours! Do you plan to buy out the whole market?”

  For a moment, Jalal looked puzzled. Then, he opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and flashed a smile. “I am a careful shopper,” he said.

  After he left, she dressed and touched up her hair and makeup. She paused to examine herself in the mirror. This was not the face that usually peered out at her. Not quite. This one looked less tense, less wary. Deep within her, something had awakened. Something had taken a breath, stretched its limbs, and arched its back.

  A week ago, if someone had told her she would soon be living with a gorgeous, younger man, she would have declared them psychotic, but she was living with him. Or rather, he was living with her. How had such a drastic change in her life happened so effortlessly? His underwear would be sloshing with hers in the washer in a few minutes. Amazing.

  She gathered a basketful of clothes and started down the hall to the laundry room.

  You know he started to tell you something, then changed his mind. What is he hiding?

  Meredith shook her head.

  What if he doesn’t come back? Just hours ago, didn’t he say he would leave you?

  Maybe he would; maybe not, but certainly that would not be today. He would return in a few hours. He just needed to get more of his things. That made perfect sense. And to be honest, she could use a little time to herself. She was used to being alone most of the time.

  Meredith started the load of clothes and returned to the bedroom to gather the dry cleaning. Too late, she regretted volunteering to drop it off. If she ran into someone she knew, how would she explain Jalal’s clothing? She picked up one of his shirts and held the collar to her nose, breathing in his scent. She gasped at a sudden fluttery aftershock of orgasm, and then smiled. Maybe having him around day and night was not so bad after all.

  And who will he give that same thrill to when he does leave?

  She shot a glare toward her reflection in the mirror above the dresser. My lord, give it a rest. She gathered the clothes and, as she turned to leave, noticed Jalal’s watch on the bedside table and, lying next to it, his grandfather’s ring. There! See? Jalal had not left her, and for today, nothing else mattered.

  She had left Stephen once—well, for only one day, but he had no idea where she was, so she counted it as leaving.

  On one of their rare quiet afternoons together, they were reading in the cramped living room of their first apartment. She sat on the floor and Stephen lay on the sofa. “Stephen,” she said, “have you decided to stay at SFSU or are we both applying for new positions for next fall?”

  He closed his book, but stared at the ceiling for a moment before responding. “Louis Leakey died this week,” he said, “but his work will continue in Kenya. There’s a new dig starting in Ethiopia, and—”

  “Why are you bringing up African research?” Not only had he ignored her question, it seemed he was about to announce a change of plans. “My field statements have all been on Mid-East sites. You said our fieldwork would be in Iran this summer.”

  Stephen sat up, glaring. “What the hell does it matter where the work is? The point is I’m not part of it!” He stood and walked to the window. “I’m stuck here teaching addle-brained students the fundamentals of anthropology in a damned state university.”

  “But we agreed—”

  “Yeah, well, we didn’t
think it through, did we?”

  She willed herself not to cry. “It’s only another year … after this one.”

  “That’s assuming your committee signs-off on your dissertation proposal.”

  “They will!” She rose to face him, but he remained at the window, his back turned to her. “What didn’t we think through, Stephen? It was your plan to teach nearby while I finished my doctoral, then apply for positions somewhere together, buy a home … have a child.”

  Stephen sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, that’s right, Meredith, and then we’ll live happily ever after.”

  She knew she would cry then, but refused to do it in front of him. She slipped on her shoes, grabbed her purse and jacket on the way out the door, and made it around the corner before she broke down. Not caring if strangers gawked, she sank down on the edge of one of the cement planters set at intervals along the sidewalk and gave free reign to her tears. Not until she wiped away the last of them, did it occur to her she had nowhere to go. All her friends were on loan from Stephen. Meredith crossed the street to a café where she drank peppermint tea and pondered her situation. Going straight back home would make her look ridiculous—pathetic. It was what Stephen would expect of her. In the end, she spent the night in a hotel.

  Stephen must have heard her key in the lock when she returned to the apartment early the next afternoon because he met her at the door. “Damn it, Meredith, you could have called—” Shaking his head, he pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue. I love you, and I know I’m impatient. You were right. We agreed on the plan.”

  The marriage continued for nearly eleven more years. But they never worked in Iran. Three more years passed before she received her degree. And, somehow, it had never seemed the right time to have a child.

  But why was she thinking about that now? Jalal was not Stephen and no one was leaving anyone.

  An hour later, she laid the clothes destined for the cleaners on the passenger seat, but as she started to back her car out of the garage, another drove in through the gate. She didn’t recognize the white Mercedes convertible, but as it progressed up the drive, she recognized her friend Judith at the wheel. Meredith switched off her ignition and hurried toward the convertible, hoping to reach it before Judith got out. No such luck.