Page 107 of Catch a Kiwi
I stayed in my bathroom about ten minutes. Every time I thought I was done crying, I remembered what Delilah had said, and how thoroughly I’d messed things up with Roman, and how badly I’d failed to get my life back in order and myself back on an even keel and how I probably never would—I knew I was looking at it from the bottom of the pit, and the view was distorted from down there, but it somehow wasn’t helping—and how Erica’s parents had looked when they’d walked into the room and how they’d hugged her and she’d looked like she knew everything would be all right now, that she could let go and be scared, because they were there and she was safe, and I started crying again. I only stopped because there was a knock at the bathroom door.
I wiped my nose one more time—I’d used up the Kleenexes and was onto the TP now—and opened the door to find Roman. Holding a mug.
“Cup of tea,” he said. Looking … I wasn’t sure how. He didn’t have that hard face anymore, anyway. “Drink this, take a shower, and change into something more comfortable. Yoga pants, maybe. Like that.”
I stared at him, forgetting my blotchy face and drippiness and weeping and so forth. “You want me to wear yoga pants? That makes you the first man in the history of ever.”
“My wives did that,” he said. “Bad periods, fights with their mum. Yoga pants and tea and TV. Sometimes ice cream. It seemed to help.”
“I don’t have any yoga pants with me,” I said, feeling inexplicably better even as I sniffed and dabbed at my nose. “I wanted to be pretty for you.” An idea that made my eyes fill with tears again. How patheticwasI?
“Sweetheart,” he said, and now, his face was definitely softer, “you’re always that.”
I had to laugh. It was pretty watery, but it was a laugh. “Not so much at the moment. Ugh. I guess I could be coming across worse, but I’m not sure how. I seem deranged even to myself. All right. I’m going to take a shower and put on one of the other two outfits I brought, and then I’ll come out and help you finish cleaning up.”
“You do that,” he said, and I did my best to smile, closed the door, and took a very long, very hot shower, during which I did not cry. I also didn’t try to analyze my emotions, because I couldn’t. Tomorrow, I might attempt it, but right now? I was a hot mess, so I stood under a rainfall of near-scalding water, let it turn my skin pink, and didn’t think.
When I came out again with some strategic foundation hiding the worst of the blotchiness and reminding me not to start crying again—it seemed as good a preventative as any—Roman wasn’t anywhere downstairs. Also, the sheets were washed and dried, the towels and duvet cover were in the dryer, and the duvet was thump-thumping in the washing machine.
The bathrooms and floors were clean, too. All of them.
I went upstairs holding my empty tea mug with something welling up in my chest, something that felt a whole lot more complicated than gratitude, and found Roman on the couch, frowning at his laptop. When I came in, he shut the lid and asked, “Better?”
“Better,” I said, and smiled. “Thank you. So work is your go-to, not yoga pants? I’m going to have to get there again. When I have real work to do, that is.”
“Yeh,” he said, “because I’m a brilliant model for a happy life.” He looked me over. “It’s not yoga pants, but it’s how I’m used to seeing you.”
I sat down beside him on the leather couch and sighed, then put my own bare feet on the cold marble coffee table along with his. And felt myself relaxing like snuggling into a warm bed on a cold night. “I do need to buy some work clothes,” I said, “if I’m really going to try for that software engineer job, and I sure seem like I am. The skort and T-shirt are going to get old. They’re already old, counted in number of washings.”
“I like the skirt and T-shirt,” Roman said. “Always have. You look pretty in pale pink. Prettier. And I’m guessing I shouldn’t offer to buy those work clothes.”
“Ha,” I said. “You’re right about that. You cleaned downstairs.”
“I did,” he agreed. “Damage controlled, thanks to us.” He paused. “And Delilah. She does the right thing sometimes, I’ve noticed, but somehow always says the wrong one. Sorry she said that about you. Not fair. And don’t bristle at me and tell me what she said was fine. You know it wasn’t fine.”
I sighed for a different reason now. “I know. I’ll talk to her. Honestly, though, I’m wrung out. This is supposed to be your holiday. Relaxing. Ha.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll take it.” And smiled at me. My heart may have melted a little.
I said, “There must be a quote for this. This moment.”
“You’re taking the piss,” he said. “I should be offended.”
“No, I’m not. Remember? I need all the inspiration I can get. I’m feeling very … unmoored right now.”
He thought a minute, then said, ‘At the still-point in the center of the circle, one can see the infinite in all things.’ Zhouang Zhou.”
“The still-point in the center,” I said. “I like that. Like … having a quiet cup of tea and letting the emotion and upheaval settle. I’m not always very good at this serenity thing.”
“Nobody’s good at it,” Roman said, “except possibly the Dalai Lama. That’s why he got the job. And why it’s called practice.”
“Like yoga.”
“Another good one. Want to do some yoga, then?”
“You know?” I said. “That actually sounds great. I’m probably stiff as a board, and I don’t have the pants, but …”
“That’s judgment,” he said. “We don’t need judgment. It’sMount Maunganui. If there isn’t yoga somewhere here on Sunday morning, I’ll be gobsmacked.” He was already typing, then cursing and backspacing. “Esther usually does this kind of thing for me,” he muttered. “Ah. Here you are.” He swiveled the laptop toward me on his knees. “A few streets away. Three kinds of yoga. Flow yoga, some yoga I can’t pronounce, and, uh, Bikram yoga. Whatever that is when it’s at home.”
