Page 6 of Come Back to Bed
2
Matt
Well, that was unexpected.
Wish I could say it’s a welcome surprise. Not like it’s that much of a surprise that Aunt Dolly didn’t mention her neighbor’s an attractive young woman. If she had, I probably would have found myself an Airbnb. Dolly never liked Vanessa. I always wondered why she kept talking about “Bernadette next door” and how I should meet her. Why do I need to meet a seventy year-old artist nerd, I’d think.
I leave my stuff on the floor in the front hallway, hang my coat in the closet and loosen my tie. I can’t wait to get out of this suit. I only wore it because I had a lunch meeting with other lawyers today. The rich tech and math geeks that I work with usually get uncomfortable when I wear a suit to the office, the general counsel that I report to hates it when I dress better than him, and I’ve gotten so used to my downtown style I think I just act different when I dress like a typical corporate lawyer. Like a big dick, apparently.
Daisy’s hard at work, sniffing around.
“What do you think, girl? This is where we’ll be staying for a few weeks, maybe.”
I’ve only been to visit my aunt here once, and I don’t recall getting the full tour. It’s a good-sized space—bigger than our place. I mean—bigger than the place I’ve been living in with Vanessa for the past three years and paying a hundred percent of the rent for, like a fucking idiot. I follow Daisy down the hall to the living room. Her nosey judge-y nature aside, Aunt Dolly has always had exceptional taste in almost everything.
The art and furniture in this room is stunning without being intimidating. Sort of like Vanessa. Which is why I never understood how Dolly could be so against my relationship with her. Even now.
Fuck.
I pull my phone out of my back pocket to check my messages. Still nothing from Vanessa. At least I went a good fifteen minutes without checking my texts or her social media accounts. Guess all it took for me to turn into an obsessed teenage girl was getting dumped by the woman of my dreams. No big deal.
It’s only been four days since I’ve seen her.
Four days since I hired guys to move the few large objects that I consider to be mine into a small storage unit.
Two months of her not acting like herself.
Two months since she let me touch her in bed.
One month of her insisting that “it just isn’t working for us anymore.”
One month of me asking if there’s someone else and her saying: “There isn’t an ‘us’ anymore. I just need space. I just need to find myself again.”
She just needs time and space to find herself again and I’ll give it to her.
She’ll call.
I haven’t failed.
It’s not over yet.
“Right, Daisy?”
Daisy ignores me. She’s too busy investigating smells in my aunt’s bedroom.
“Let’s stay out of this room,” I tell her, as I peek inside. It’s basically a big tasteful boudoir, pretty much what I’d expect of my mom’s long-divorced, sexed-up older sister. “Come on, Daisy. Out. Let’s find our room.”
Our room is the guest room, on the opposite side of the hallway. It’s a pretty small room, painted bright white and just wide enough for a queen size bed and a bedside table. But it’s the painting on the wall above the bed that makes the room magnificent. A heavy square canvas about four feet wide all around. Abstract, muted blues, white and gold blending into each other, just a hint of seascape. It kind of looks like marble, but there’s a warmth to it. It seems alive and changeable. I have no idea why I like it so much, I just do.
I check the signature in the lower right corner.B. Farmer. Bernadette Farmer?
What do you know.
The less-than-seventy-year-old artist nerd has got talent.
A bod and talent and some kind of fragrance that I’ve never encountered before and more than one screw loose, so far as I can tell.
I can’t help but wonder what she’s doing on the other side of the wall right now. Taking off that dress? Scheming to steal my dog? Both, probably.
