Page 50 of So Close

It’s a veneer, of course, a professional polishing. You must have applied yourself obsessively to have made such a perfect facade for Kane Black. But you were always eager to learn, to rise. You just needed the opportunity – and the money – to make the transformation possible.

Now, I’m free to study you to my heart’s content. The city traffic is far behind us, and trees line the highway. Stevie Nicks sings about waters closing around her. The driver’s seat is slid back to its farthest point to accommodate your long legs. You control the steering wheel with your left hand, leaving your right hand to rest lightly on your thigh. You are relaxed and completely in control of the powerful vehicle.

You wear no watch. There is only golden skin from your elbows to the tips of your fingers, bare but for a sprinkling of dark hair and the wedding band that proclaims you as mine. Such an innocent thing, the baring of your forearms and the minimalist adornment, but I find everything about your appearance profoundly erotic. I always have.

We talk about some of the people I met at your headquarters. It’s clear you take a personal interest in your employees from the amusing anecdotes you share. That they feel free to laugh with you and share private stories reveals a great deal about your leadership style.

“Why did you bring your family into Baharan?” I ask.

“You know I didn’t have a choice with my mother since she originated and owned the Baharan trademark. She agreed to assign it to the company in return for a stake, and she invested to gain an even larger share, using royalties from licensing my father’s chemical patents until they expired. And honestly, the company needed someone else who wanted it as badly as I did.”

You look at me. “I was barely functioning after I lost you. And the company was little more than a logo that needed refreshing and a handful of staff nearly as lifeless as I was.”

With a deep sigh, I share your grief, although it’s not for the girl I once was, it’s for the boy you once were. Your mother’s emotional immaturity damaged your self-esteem. You’ve always struggled with feelings of inadequacy. Working with her is the worst possible outcome. How will you ever recover when new wounds are inflicted so often?

“Why bring your brothers and sister into it?”

Your shoulder lifts in a shrug. “They’re employees, not shareholders. My mother suggested that having family in key positions would make it easier for me to do what I want, and she was right. Darius has his moments, but he falls in line. Ramin comes off as a slacker, but it’s an act. He’s CLO, and hates being wrong, which is an advantageous flaw when you’re an attorney.”

Older trees line the interstate, their broken and vine-covered branches occasionally revealing pockets of homes that have lost the optimism with which they were built. Paint peels from warped siding, windows sit cockeyed in their frames. Power and phone cables stretch across sagging roofs, lifelines attempting to keep the American dream of homeownership alive. Thousands of eyes pass over these houses every day, yet they might as well be invisible.

The landscape begins to blur, and my eyes close. I think I know where we’re going, but I’m afraid to hope.

On the radio, Kansas begins to sing to a wayward son, and I sing along softly at first, then you join in. A smile bursts across my face before I can stop it. Creedence Clearwater follow with their ode to Suzy Q, and our voices rise in unison. I lower the window to feel the breeze, tilting my chin so air flows over my face.

Your laugh is deep and genuine. You reach for my hand, linking our fingers before lifting them to your mouth. You kiss my knuckles. “I missed you,Setareh. So much.”

I don’t know what’s altered to make you so easy and affectionate. I don’t know how long your mood will last. You are like the sun, warm and enlivening when you shine on me but transient. I have been hopeful and hopeless too many times over the past several weeks. And the simple truth is that you couldn’t stay away from Lily, couldn’t stop yourself from loving her, but it’s been all too easy to keep your distance from me. I thought I could don her skin and slip into her place in your life – a place you left unfilled. But that skin doesn’t fit, and I am only my inadequate self.

The view outside has changed. The towns are bigger, the houses no longer ramshackle and sad. Soon, they are farther apart, less visible, larger and set farther back from the side roads. I search for the unfamiliar and strange, landmarks that are recent enough to be new to me.

“Are we there yet?” I ask.

“Less than fifteen minutes.”

I wait a beat, then tease, “Are we there yet?”

You shoot me a droll glance, and the warmth in your amusement thrills me.

By the time we exit the interstate, my spirits are buoyed. With every turn, I grow more excited. Soon, you’re pulling into the driveway of a two-story cottage covered in cedar shingles that have weathered to gray. The white trim is crisp and bright. The yard is beautifully landscaped, with massive hydrangeas and thickly planted perennials in every hue and height boarding the flagstone paths. The home blends with its neighbors yet could never be similar. I feel the pull of it, have been feeling that pull the whole drive.

The quarter-arch windows on the second-floor stare down at us like eyes. There is the unmistakable sense that the beach house waits impatiently for our return.

“Kane,” I breathe, “have you been leasing this place the whole time …?”

“It’s ours now.” You put the car in park and turn off the engine. “When your estate lawyer told me it was a rental, I couldn’t believe it. And I couldn’t let it go. It took me nearly two years to convince the owner to sell, but they came around.”

When your beloved face blurs, I realize I’m crying.

Unbuckling your seatbelt, then mine, you tell me, “We met here. We were married here. If we have children, I want them to spend their summers here. I couldn’t walk away from it.”

I’m made speechless by a throat that aches like a throbbing wound. I meet the house’s watchful gaze again, and that unblinking stare arrests me, so much so that I jump with surprise when you open the passenger door to offer me your hand.

With your arm around my waist, you lead me up the steps from the driveway and unlock the front door with a numerical keypad. You step back as if to let me enter first, then scoop me up like a bride and carry me across the threshold.

Snuggling into your embrace, I note how much bigger you are now, how your strength cradles me easily and makes me feel safe.

The curtains in the living room are thrown wide and light floods the ground floor. Everything is just as before, like a time capsule. Every surface shines. There isn’t a single dust mote in the air, yet there is a sense of hollowed emptiness, of pervasive abandonment.

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