Risk Your Heart

"Is that an ice hockey thing?" I asked.

He dived under the sheets and headed for the South Pole.

"That's an every sport, every man thing," Drew said.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," I responded.

*

My boss was not happy with my work. Go figure. Think he'd be more sympathetic if I told him my work had suffered because I was spending all my time getting laid? Maybe if I couched it in ice hockey metaphors.

I pushed Drew firmly from my mind. Firm, mmm, yum.

"I'm going to have to go back to therapy to learn concentration skills, or I'm going to lose my job."

The computer's familiar boot-up sound focused me for about two seconds, until my brain drifted off to think of sound, and how much aural and oral sound alike. Then I lost twenty minutes remembering Drew's oral skills.

As if some psychic tattletale was letting him know I was dreaming about him, a text from Drew came in.

'Thinking about me?' It read.

'No.' I texted back. 'I'm working.'

'Liar, liar, underwear on fire.'

'I don't think that's how the saying goes.'

'All work and no play makes Princess Leia ruler of her solar system but never queen of the galaxy.'

Huh?

'That means she doesn't get interstellar noogie.'

'You're incorrigible. I'm not distractible. I'm working,' I texted.

'It doesn't have to be interstellar. Just stellar will do.'

I didn't answer that one.

'I have my mobile office.'

Ho boy. The ambulance.

'Maybe I'm a little bit distractible,' I texted.

'I'll be there in fifteen,' Drew texted. 'Five if I use the siren.'

*

After Drew left I got two work projects done. The end result was, to use a Drew word, stellar. Which was a good thing, a very good thing. I needed to show that all the blood flow into the penalty box hadn't relegated me to the sidelines.

I was just starting the third project on my docket, when the power went out.

"You have got to be kidding me," I said out loud. At least my computer has a back-up battery reserve. I squinted at the little battery charge amount readout.

One percent.

"You have GOT to be kidding me." I looked up. "Seriously, this is a joke. You are like, jonesing to get me fired."

I turned off my laptop.

"This blows," I said.

I walked to the window and looked outside. I hadn't just stood at the window and stared outside since...when? July 4th?

Over to the left there was a large gazebo-like shelter not far from the pool. There was a woman down there sitting in one of the lounge chairs. In this weather?

I squinted. Looked like she was reading a book.

Hhm.

I looked up at the sky, doubtfully.

After Drew had left in his magical healing sex-mobile, the sky opened up and poured forty days and forty nights worth of rain down in forty minutes. It had been spotty off and on since then, but staring out my window now, it seemed like the gods of 'We'd-like-fuck-you-over weather' had gone and that all was left was an annoying drizzle.

That was definitely a woman down there on the lounge chair. Lounging. She seemed unfazed.

Ah, hell. Whatever.

I grabbed my uglier-than-sin rain poncho, my 'Yes, I'm wet' umbrella, and searched for a book. I wasn't about to bring my eReader out in the damp heat.

I found a copy of Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants under my bed.

"That'll do," I said.

The minute I stepped out of my apartment building the rain stopped completely.

"Friggin' coincidences," I said.

I walked over to the gazebo-pavilion thing. The minute I stepped inside, a light drizzle started up again.

The woman looked up at me. She was beautiful. I mean like, drop dead gorgeous. She had long read hair, and milky skin, and eyes that would make emeralds look dull. If you put Julianne Moore and Amy Adams right next to her, you wouldn't see them, because she was that show stopping.

"Oh, why 'ello," she said in the kind of dulcet, mellifluous tones, and scrumptious English accent that made me think of Mary Poppins. She waved her hand around vaguely. "Lovely weather we're having and all that, isn't it?"

I stared at her. There was some ethereal quality about her that made me think of buttermilk, fields of poppies, and fairytale worlds where everything was in perfect harmony. I don't even think she was being sarcastic.

She stared at me as if she was expecting an answer to the question. I had thought it was rhetorical, but I guess not. I looked around. Excessive rains had left puddles everywhere. The heat had warmed the pavement so much, that steam was rising, in wispy gray tendrils around my feet, giving the impression of smog. The light drizzle had an otherworldly quality, as if it was shrouding us in a curtain made of the tiniest diamonds, that would open with a tinkling sound to reveal either bleak, hilly countryside, or remain closed and conceal any mystical or supernatural creatures creeping through the shadow-enshrouded weather.

"Lovely?" I asked her. I put down my umbrella and took off my poncho.

She nodded.

I looked around again. The light drizzle did make a sort of comforting tapping sound, a combination of low, quiet pitches, each slightly different as the water hit the pavement, the foliage, and the roof of the gazebo, yet it all blending together to make one soothing, background lullaby.

Still.

"Kind of...Heathcliff on the moors, isn't it?" I asked.

She smiled up at me. She closed her book and turned it around so I could see the cover.

Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights.

I slapped my hand over my mouth.

"Quite the chance, I'd say. What are the odds?"

Friggin' coincidences.

"Won't you join me?" She made a sweeping motion with her hand to the chair next to her.

I sat down. I guess if she said something that eerily referenced my book I should be scared.

"I haven't seen you out enjoying the weather," she said.

I stared at her again. She laughed.

"I'm from England. This is delightful."

I shrugged. I guess warm rain was better than cold rain.

"I don't get out much," I said. "I basically stay in all the time."

I wondered what made me say that.

She touched her hand to her chest. "I'm Claire," she said.

"Leah," I said, and I reached out to shake her hand.

"I just moved from England a few months ago," Claire said. "I work from home, so I can work anywhere."

"I work from home too!" I said.

She smiled at me, and nodded.

"Why did you leave England?" I asked. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to pry."

"Oh, no worries. My mother just died recently."

I started to offer condolences, but with that same elegant hand, she wiped my concerns away.

"She was sick for a long time, and completely bloody loony at the end, so it was for the best. My father left us when I was eight, so it was just the two of us."

My mouth hung open. It wasn't the fact that we had something in common that shocked me, it was the fact that she said something so vile and secret out loud, to a complete stranger, as if it was nothing. I don't know what my expression looked like, but it must have been horrific, because she laughed.

"Really, darling, don't worry. It's not a big deal. My dad just packed up all his things one day, and said he if he wanted to be nagged he would go to the racetrack. He took all his clothes, the good china, his favorite painting, and he was good to go. He squatted down so we were on eye level and said to me, 'It's not you Clairikins, it's me.' I said, 'You're right. If a little nagging is more important to you than your daughter, it IS you.'"

I stared at her.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

"Oh. Is it something you don't want to hear? You Americans do that small talk, chit-chat thing a lot, don't you? Would you rather do that instead? Want to talk about the weather some more?"

I was too flabbergasted to talk, so I just shook my head.

"Got you gobsmacked, don't I? Sorry, love. My point was, my father left, and it was just my mother and me. I think my mother stayed in that same house all those years because she secretly hoped he might come back. I was planning on leaving right after university, but then she got sick, and then sicker, and I've been taking care of her for years. Her passing was sad, but I'm glad she's not suffering anymore, and now neither am I.

"When I get my knickers in a twist, I always ask myself, 'Do you want to go backwards or do you want to go forward?'. I want to go forward."

I blinked. I think if my jaw hung any farther down it would scrape the pavement.

"You know. So I decided to hop over the pond. See the colonies."

She smiled, a little self-depreciating.

"Empire State Building. Hollywood—"

"Boiling hot weather and unceasing rain," I said, interrupting her.

"I'm from England," Claire said. "I'm used to rain. I took care of my mother, and it took up a huge chunk of my time, my life. Now, I'm following my dreams. I'm meeting new people."

She gestured to me.

"I'm broadening my horizons. Taking a walk on the wild side."

Again she gave me another self-depreciating smile.

"Or at least enjoying a good book, no matter the weather."

I frowned at her.

"You're shaking your head," Claire said.

"I am?"

"Mmn-hmn."

"I just...well...that's very brave."

"I think we're all braver than we think."

I stared at her. This whole conversation was getting weird, and I could feel my brain trying to shut down.

"Are you going to go to the apartment pot luck on Sunday?" Claire asked.

"I didn't know there was one," I said.

"Well, there is. You should come," she said.

"I usually stick to myself," I said. When I said it I realized how true it was.

"Oh, ballocks," Claire said. "I'd love to have a friend there. I thought I'd make something terribly English, you know, something with a really horrible name that actually tastes good. Like bangers and mash for an entrée—"

"I don't know," I said.

"And spotted dick for dessert," Claire said.

I smiled. "I know where to get some great beaver tail."

She clapped her hands together like a little kid. "Brilliant."

The decorative lights around the gazebo sputtered to life.

"I guess the power's back on," I said.

"I didn't know it was off," Claire said.

Hhmn. Sometimes life's like that.

"Well, I should get back to work," I said.

"Come visit me before Sunday. I live in apartment 1FF." She twisted around and pointed toward her window.

"I live in 2FF," I said.

"Well, then you must be head and shoulders above me," Claire said.

I smiled. "Clever."

I got up and started to leave.

"Hey, you're not a fan of Toy Story, are you?" I asked her.

"Best animated film ever made," Claire said. "To infinity and beyond, and all that." She laughed. "I bought an Infiniti because of that."

"But what does it mean?" I asked.

"Bugger if I know," Claire said.

*

I went up to my apartment feeling like some hand was guiding me in ways I couldn't imagine. The thing about Claire's dad was too wild. Her dad left her, and it didn't seem like it fucked her up for life. Maybe one day I would talk to her about it. Right now I wanted to put it out of my mind.

My laptop made its same boot up sound, which made me think of aural, and then oral. This was not good. Now I was going to associate Drew going down on me to every time I opened the computer.

Hhhm.

Well, I guess that's not totally bad either.

"How about some music while we work?" I looked up. "Whad'ya think?"

The heavens didn't open up and send down an angelic chorus.

"I'll take that as a yes," I said.

I opened my phone to Pandora. I don't usually listen to music when I work, but on the rare occasions when I do I usually listen to classical or smooth jazz. Today Mozart or, God forbid, Kenny G., just wasn't going to cut it.

I put on the oldies station.

'Do you believe in magic? In a young girl's heart?' Came out through the tiny speaker.

"You have got to be kidding me."

I turned it off.

I looked up.

"Some sense of humor you have," I said to the ceiling. "Just don't tell me you're a Star Trek fan."

Nobody beamed me up for sacrilege, so I concentrated on work. When I got up to stretch, it was after one in the morning.

No beaver tail had magically manifested in my refrigerator, so I toughed it out by eating pistachio Hagan Daas instead. I wandered around my apartment, tub of ice cream in one hand, spoon hanging out of my mouth when I needed to use my other hand to straighten or tidy anything.

I found a pair of Drew's underwear on the bathroom floor, partially hidden by the open door. They were dark blue boxer-briefs and incredibly sexy looking.

"I'm surprised I even know they're yours without some cartoon character on them," I mumbled around the spoon.

I threw his underwear in the hamper. On the floor underneath the hamper a piece of paper was sticking out. I picked it up. It was the 'areas of your life' chart that Dr. Jeff had me fill out in June.

All that red covering the paper looked less threatening.

"Hhhmmn," I said around a cold mouthful of pistachio. I looked at the categories. First one: social. "Hhmn," I said again. Well, I probably need to work on that one some more, but I just met Claire and she lives right underneath me, that counted right?

I looked at the other categories. Sure, I still had a long way to go, but there was some progress. Romance. If you pick up a guy's underpants, you had the romance category stitched up. I had definitely made progress in the sex category. Whoo-ee, yes sir, absolutely.

Although, there's always room for self-improvement.

I texted Drew.

'Feeling in need of a little discipline,' I texted.

The return bing of an incoming response text was so quick, it seemed to arrive before the one I sent out.

'Kneel, baby doll. I'm on my way.'

Hhhmmn. I wondered if he was going to use the sirens again?

*

I don't know what made me do it. It was probably partially due to the post-coital glow I was feeling. Maybe my judgment was impaired because of the intense satisfaction I was feeling. I still had Drew's belt around my neck, although now it looked like a loosened tie about to be discarded rather than the sexier-than-hell, 'I've got you on a leash' that it looked like just moments before.

We were lying in bed, and Drew was lazily caressing my breasts and looking at me like I was the eighth, and ninth wonders of the world. (I guess he really liked my breasts if they counted as individual wonders.) I was riding high on endorphins, and yet still spaced out at the same time, and I surprised myself when I said, "Oh, the apartment complex is having a party on Sunday. Will you come with me?"

Blame it on the beaver tail. That must have been the reason I invited him, because I couldn't get tail by myself.

Drew's face lit up, glowed, like I had offered him something precious. I frowned when I saw the content radiance on his face, and while he stopped shining like he could create shadows by himself, my frown didn't take away all of his enthusiasm.

"Of course I'll go with you, Lee. That will be great. The weather's supposed to be wonderful this weekend. Should I bring anything?"

"Just yourself," I said.

Now that I thought about it, I could get confections Federal Expressed from Vancouver just as easily as anyone. I have Internet and a telephone so I could order beaver tail desserts. I might need to bring them myself because my sudden urge to uninvite Drew was so strong I had to roll my lips together and clamp my jaw to stop myself from speaking.

Pretend to fall asleep. Definitely the best course of action in moments like these.

Coward.

In a few seconds I was asleep, which was good, because it stopped me from thinking. When I woke up, I forgot all about the potluck.

I remembered it when I bumped into Claire while taking my trash to the dumpster.

"Why don't you come to my apartment for a cup of tea?" Claire asked me.

"What? Now?"

She nodded.

"Isn't it too hot for tea?" I asked. Then I smacked my forehead, because it sounded so stupid.

"I'm English," Claire said. "Don't worry, I'll put yours in a glass with ice. If you want, I can make it out of fake almost-tea-flavored powder and sweeten it with a half-cup of sugar too."

"Well in the case," I said. "What the hell."

Her apartment was cozy and feminine, a distinct contrast from my basically undecorated place. The minute I walked in, it was like someone lifted a lock off my emotions and my self-control. It felt like everything that ever happened in my life, good and bad, every event, every feeling, every doubt, attacked me at once.

She went into the kitchen, presumably to put a flame under the teakettle.

When she came back into the living room I was still trying to deal with how the pleasant atmosphere of her apartment blew a lid off my tapped-down emotions.

My lower lip trembled.

"Oh, darling," Claire said. "It's just tea. I have loose leaves and everything. But if it distresses you so much I'll put it in a tea bag."

I gave her a watery smile.

Damn it. I hate crying. If there's one thing I hate worse than crying, it's crying in front of strangers. Then I remembered Drew saying on the first day we met, 'Don't cry in front of strangers; cry in front of a friend.'

Take a deep breath, hold it, and then let it out slowly, I told myself. It actually helped a little. Thank you, Dr. Jeff. I really needed to go back to therapy if this waterworks was any indication. Damn it.

Claire took both my hands in hers, and when she did a strange calm passed over me, as if she were not quite of this earth, and by touching her I knew her secret.

I narrowed my eyes, as if squinting at her would let me know if she were really an angel or not.

"Come, love," Claire said. She gently pulled me over to her pink loveseat, walking backwards. "Tell me what's bothering you."

Angels don't walk around dragging you down onto their pink loveseats. That sounds like a double entendre. I laughed hysterically.

"Leah. I'm a really good listener. Won't you tell me what's got you so bloody glum? We'll have a great bitching session, drink some soothing tea, and have a good cry, both of us. After all, isn't that what girlfriends are for?"

"I don't know, I've never had one." As soon as I said it, I realized it was true. What is it about this woman that gives me diarrhea of the mouth?

"Egads," Claire said.

"Gobsmacked," I said, in a fair impression of an English accent.

She smiled at me. The teakettle whistled.

"Be right back," Claire said.

In a minute she came back with a beautiful silver tray with two teacups, a teapot, a glass full of ice, and a humongous glass canister full of sugar as well as her sugar bowl. Very funny.

Claire fixed us tea, and after she handed me my glass, and I'd had a few sips, she stared at me expectantly.

"Well," I started. "I have a great boyfriend."

"Does he have a brother?"

"As a matter of fact, he does. Two."

"Excellent," Claire said. There was a wickedly mischievous twinkle in her eye that made me wonder if that meant she'd like to take on both of them at once, super kinky threesome style. Maybe she's not an angel. I guess I should buy her a pair of underwear with a naughty angel/devil meter on it.

"Sorry to interrupt, do go on."

"Well, I have a great boyfriend, and I've been planning to break up with him on the official last day of summer."

"Good heavens, why? You know what they say about a good man, don't you?"

I shrugged.

"A good man is hard to find, and a hard man is good to find. For God's sake, if you've got a bloke who's both, don't give him up."

The fingers of my left hand started a nervous tap dance on my thigh, as if of their own accord, and my right hand trembled so badly I had to put my ice tea down. Claire picked up my hands, rubbed them, and then held both my hands in hers again. She leaned forward a little bit. She smelled like lavender.