Page 51 of The Enforcer

22Zoe

I work hard.

Sometimes I fuck hard.

And I take my self-care just as seriously.

I have some aromatherapy bath drops, and I squeeze them directly under the arc of the shower spray. I have a bath melt that I put near the drain in the center of the room. I turn the shower on as hot as the ancient system can manage, and after a few minutes…well, it’s not as hot and steamy as my bathroom back home, but just the smell of lavender and vanilla soothes me.

While I’m waiting for the water to warm, I wet my hands under the spray and use the exfoliating facial cleanser to wash away an entire day of sunscreen and sweat. I let it sit on my face and step under the spray and then give the rest of my body the same treatment.

My mother is the kind of woman who can spend a full day taking care of her skin, body, hair, and mind, and she did. Once a month, she kicked my dad, Zahra, and me out of the house to “have fun or something.” Once she was alone, she took all her butters and oils and other sundries into the bathroom with a bottle of champagne and her tape player. She listened to her favorite music and made herself the center of her day alone. And when Zahra, Shae, and I were old enough to understand, she made sure to tell us that we deserved at least the same kind of alone time and personal attention.

I know she thinks I never listen to her or take her advice — because I tell her that I don’t — but actually, that’s a lie, and my buttery soft skin is a testament to that fact. Once I’m clean, I turn off the shower and dig a sheet mask from my beauty essentials pack; this one is great for brightening and firming. I have to root around to find the travel pumice stone I keep in here, and then I go to work on my rough heels.

Usually, before a vacation, I pay a number of people as much money as they want to do these things for me. At the very least, I try to get a new set of braids and a pedicure! The Aunties have really ruined my pre-trip preparation, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not always prepared. In the warm, steamy bathroom, I exfoliate the ever-loving fuck out of my body until it feels like mine again.

I moisturize myself from face to foot and then look at my reflection in the foggy mirror. I look like myself and smile for what feels like the first time in months, or at least the first time since before my entire life got turned upside down. I feel so good that I somehow forget where I am and who with.

When I pull open the bathroom door, naked and chubby as the day I was born, I find Alfonso standing next to his bed, a pained look on his face and a very prominent, hard column disrupting the pleat of his pants.

“Well, let’s see it then,” I tell him.

The pained choking sound he makes when I say that is almost as good as the triumph I feel when he does as I say.

Alfonso

I grew up in a house full of men, a thing my mother could complain about endlessly. It’s one of the things I remember most about my childhood, the way she’d fling open the doors of the house sometimes, muttering to herself, “La puzza. L’uomo. I ragazzi.” No matter how old we got, no matter how much puberty changed our height, our smell, or our voices, her refrain remained the same. She’d wanted all girls, she’d gotten all boys — her disappointment didn’t stop her from loving us, but loving us didn’t erase her disappointment.

To be honest, I never fully understood what she was trying to say. We were clean — unless we’d spent the day at the beach, dipping in and out of the sea, or helping papà in the garden — but I get it now, finally after all these years.

Zoe’s smell permeates the house slowly.

Vanilla and lavender.

One minute I’m putting more of my mother’s food into the refrigerator, and the next, I can’t keep my eyes from darting to my bedroom door.

She left it ajar.

I start to clean the kitchen only so I can keep an eye on that sliver of space, wondering if the door was open wider would the smell be stronger, would I be able to hear her in the shower?

These are dangerous and inappropriate thoughts, which is why I rush outside.

If I were up at my parents’ home, I could have helped Ugo plant or harvest something, but not down here. There are planters with more fruit, vegetables, and herbs, but he’s forbidden any of us from touching them without his supervision. Every day, he becomes more like our father.

Since I can’t touch his plants, I decide to walk in a circle around the house, which is an obvious mistake. That scent has me so out of my mind all of a sudden that I can’t think in a straight line, but I can walk in one directly toward the bathroom window like a fool.

The scent is stronger here.

I groan and then begin my circuit around the house, slowly under that window, faster until I’m back again. I tell time mostly by the sweat beading down my face and body as I walk under the late afternoon sun. I’m burning up from the inside out.

How long can this shower take?

Once my shirt is soaked through, I decide that enough time has to have passed. She has to be done. I must be only smelling the remnants of her shower. Still, I step cautiously back into the house. I kick my boots off at the door since they’re now covered in dirt and dust. I move into the kitchen and stand stock still, listening for sounds of her in any part of the house, but I come up empty.

I decide to take that as a sign that she’s gone to her bedroom, and I’m relieved. She seemed on edge earlier, and maybe she needs time by herself. I certainly do. I rush into my bedroom. Zoe’s smell is even stronger in here, and I groan as soon as I cross the threshold. I pull my soaked shirt over my head and reach for the button on my trousers.

And then the bathroom door opens.

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