Sunday, September 9, 2012

Rowena Raven: Chapter Eleven


I always go out for lunch or dinner on Sundays, they’re my second personal day of the week. On that Sunday, Rowena came with me. Well, I was going to meet with her at my usual place. The anticipation was very hard to handle, but I can at least say that because of it I was very well prepared. Neat, and casual like we had agreed on. The concept of meeting Rowena casually after this long was elusive at best.
At least she appeared to be some fraction of as nervous as I was. I’d only known her to be very rarely nervous. The occasion was saved for when she was giving birth, or about to jump off a bridge. Not when she went to work somewhere normal for the first time, barely even when she’d woken up somewhere strange.
But when we were eating lunch there was just something about the way she held her fork, or how she kept touching her hair, like she was scared of what I thought of her. I’ve never been good at hiding my emotions around her, and I found that I kept trying to remember what kissing her felt like, trying to remember the precise feel of her body.


“So, what happened to Renewing Springs Inn?” She asked, smiling a bit because it was clear she could guess that it wasn’t exactly a successful venture.
“Ah, well, I guess we didn’t make enough money for the state to be happy with us. Not like it was any trouble for me, of course.”
“No trouble at all? Where are you working now?”
“Well, I’m a doctor of course!” I half joked. “Just a regular old doctor.”
“No brain surgery? I expected more of you, Vanilla.” Nobody called me Vanilla anymore.
“Well, I don’t want to brag about my extensive knowledge of the human body.” I winked at her, and she laughed.
“I forgot your humor.” She said, smiling and casting her eyes down.
“I like your hair longer like that.” I said, “It makes you look your age.”
Ha,” She said, “I doubt I could ever look my age again with a seven year old.” She waved my compliment away.
“How is he, anyway?” I asked, “Velvet, I mean. How’s he doing?” I was trying to hide my intense curiosity but I don’t know how well I came off.
“He’s good.” She said, sullenly. “Smog had him for a bit before I got him back.” She explained. “Smog’s got no filters for children, so he was definitely around some things he shouldn’t have been around that young, even though he doesn’t appear to remember them.” She smiled at something.
“But that’s depressing,” She continued instead, “How’s Daisy?”
“Oh, yeah. Daisy’s good. She’s got herself a girlfriend.” I smiled and waved my hand as if to say, ‘that’s Daisy for you.’
“Didn’t think she had it in her.” She paused. “I’m happy for her, she always seemed to have trouble with those sorts of things.” And she really was. Rowena had never told me she’d made up with Daisy, I was still under the impression Rowena hated her for whatever reason. To anyone else, the pieces would have seemed to all be falling right into place.
I mean, meeting the girl you love and just can’t get over, after seven years, and she’s still single, and you’ve both got steady jobs and stable lives, and she even likes your family. It’s just never that simple,  never even for me. And especially not for Rowena, no matter how much she deserves it.
“So does Velvet ever give you any trouble?” I inquired.
“Not really,” she laughed. “I mean typical seven year old boy stuff. Never wants to take a bath. He goes to bed easy, though. You can just tell him to lay down and he’ll be out like a light in two seconds, no matter where he is. I swear the boy could sleep in the middle of a nuclear war.” She laughed, talking about him. It was just lovely how she cared for him, and I felt some sort of pride for it, and not just to be vain because I knew the relationship wouldn’t be there if I had never been involved with her.
However, maybe things would have been better between us if I could have just stayed away and been a normal therapist.


“So what about you, Vanilla? Guy like you with no girlfriend? I mean, you’re a doctor after all. You should be married with children and a white picket fence.”
“Ha, that’d be something.” I laughed. I wanted to tell her how strained life was without her, but it just wasn’t the thing to do. “No, though. Just not interested.” I wrinkled my nose at it.
“So no dating for you then?” she continued. She almost seemed sad. What did she think this was?
“Oh no, no dating for me.” I stopped, shaking my head. “There’s only one girl I want to date.”
She smiled and played along. “Oh? What’s she like? Funny like you?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, “Great sense of humor.” I smiled. “Very brave. She’s beautiful, too. I mean, shiny black hair, smooth skin.” I bit my lip. “I mean, I can barely even resist her red eyes. They just look right through me.” I put a hand on my chest to accentuate how heartfelt my speech was. She smiled and leaned in closer.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” She almost whispered, I leaned towards her to hear better. “I think she might want you too.” She bit her lip and the edge of her hand passed against mine.
I was frozen in my seat, so I ate some of my food to try and keep it in my pants. God, she was something else.


~o~


She stood beside my bed, illuminated from behind by strains of early sunlight. She’d come home with me after our date and stayed late chatting, had ended up asleep in the guest room. Apparently that wasn’t going so well.
“Vanilla.” She urged me awake with my name, and I propped myself up on my elbow to get a better look at her. She was in her panties, and nothing else. She reached her arms up above her head and arched her back slightly, stretching and simultaneously putting her body on display.


Utterly unabashed to be mostly naked, she smiled coyly at me and asked “Can I get in with you?”


What else could I have done but let her? She got on the bed with me and pushed my chest back to drape herself over me. Our lips and our legs tangled and finally we lay together and I slept comfortably for the first time in a long time.


   ~o~


Voodoo became my best friend after going back to living like a normal person. There was one particular afternoon during one of the court meetings it took to get Velvet back, that I decided I was going to treat myself to something at a bakery. In a town an hour away. I left court and thought to myself that I just needed to leave for an afternoon, and when I finally arrived in Sugar Valley, the first place I found that sold food was a little supermarket with a particularly nice little bakery in one of the little corners.
Working the counter was a woman with vibrant purple hair, paler purple skin, and striking blue eyes. She struck me as a very independent woman, and asked to eat with me as I’d come in just before her lunch break. We had a very nice chat, and seemed to just click. She was very independent, as I had originally thought.
We agreed to meet up again, and because she had more money than I did, she usually ended up visiting me in Briocheport. We talked about a lot of things, her infertility, my child, our past relationships. She talked a lot about her family, and I talked a lot about Vanilla.


She appeared to like him enough from what I described, however much it was tinted by my rose glasses. After two years, I got Velvet back and realized that I needed to move into a larger apartment.
Being from an influential family, Voodoo agreed to accommodate me for a bit. She lived in a large apartment her family owned, and she was happy to accept me as a roommate, rent free. It was a better setup than I could have ever dreamed of.
There was once when I came to see her at the supermarket, and met up with her just as she was leaving the lady’s room. We chatted for a bit, Velvet standing beside us, when I heard someone off to my right drop what they were holding. And there he stood, glowing golden and beautiful.


“Voodoo, fuck. That’s him!” I managed to get out while he bent over to pick up what he’d dropped.
“Who is it?” She said, and then thought “Wait, THAT’S Vanilla? He’s a regular, but we all know him as Lemon. Dang, Rowena. Way to pick your men out.”


I laughed in disbelief and stood there for a minute to process.
“How long has he been a regular for?”
“Every week for the past, six? years I think.” She continued, leaning in. “He’s got money, Rowena. Looks like he remembers you, too. You should go after him.” She said, and I don’t know if she realized how influential she was being. She was half joking, but this seemed like some god given sign that Vanilla was my destiny, no matter how cheesy it was.
I smiled at her and said “I think I will.” and she gave me a thumbs up, so I took Velvet’s hand and left to walk after him.


~o~


Velvet learned very early on not to ask me questions about his absent father.
However, when I started dating Vanilla he seemed to get much more hopeful about it.


“Do you think I’ll ever get baby siblings?” He asked once, after I picked him up from school. “Auntie Voodoo says you and Vanilla are gonna get married. And then you’ll have babies with him, right?” He was completely serious, and I couldn't help but laugh.
Stifling it, I walked on. “How would you feel about that?” I asked him. “Do you like Vanilla?”
“Why are you asking me?” He said, crinkling up his nose. “It’s you who’s marrying him.”
“Well,” I explained. “You’re the number one man in my life, Velvet. I would never get married without asking you if you liked him first. Your happiness is very important to me.” I smiled at him and he frowned.


“Well of course you should marry him, mom. He takes us out for ice cream like, every week.” My eight year old boy, marriage was a matter of ice cream for him.


 ~o~


“You know,” I brought up one night, over dinner with Vanilla at my apartment while Velvet was looking for his shoes in his bedroom. Vanilla was taking us out for ice cream. “I think Velvet likes you a lot.
“Really?” he inquired, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, he told me I should marry you because you take us out for ice cream all the time.” We laughed together, and when we calmed down he said.
“He’s catching on to my seduction techniques. Boy’s gonna be a ladykiller.”
                           
                              
  ~o~


Daisy and her girl, Zig had a very small private wedding. It was in a little park not that far from the beach and there were tons of flowers.


The only guests were Vanilla and I, and two more guys, who I assumed were Ziggurat’s friends. It was quiet and pleasant and sat in the park and grilled food together instead of  having a “real party.” Zig told me she would have preferred a party but this was the way Daisy wanted it.


They were very sweet together.


Vanilla and I certainly enjoyed ourselves, laughing and talking loudly and drinking with everyone. Vanilla made sure not to let me drink too much.  In my buzzed state I expressed to him what my plans were upon going home with him, because I had already made sure Voodoo had Velvet for the night. He made sure to rush through his meal after that.


Afterwards we ended up sitting in the chairs in front of the fireplace in his room, warming up. I looked over at him and brushed my hand up his arm. I tried to imagine a future without him, and it was impossible.


“Vanilla,” I said, worried. He looked slightly confused at my tone. “I can’t ever leave you. Never again. I just wanted you to know that.”
“I love you.” He replied.
So I said “I love you too.” and then thought for a moment, bit my lip. “I want to marry you.”
He smiled at me, and the moment was perfect.


























  ~o~

A week later I was doing our laundry at his house, since I could use his washer and dryer for free. Velvet was watching TV in the living room, and I was sorting through everyone’s socks. There was a pile for me, one for Vanilla and one for Velvet. There was a match for every one of them except for one of Vanilla’s. He was out in the kitchen fixing lunch, so I got up to look through his sock drawer to see if I put the missing sock in there as a single the last time I did the laundry.
I was searching through his drawer when I saw a little velvety box. Obviously curious and with my own assumptions, I reached in and picked it up, forgetting about the sock I was looking for. I looked inside and my suspicions were confirmed, a golden ring with a big yellow stone set in it.
“Shit.” I breathed, and I had half a heart to stick it back in the drawer and forget about it until Vanilla brought it up. But the other half was way more persuasive. I stuck the box in my pocket and left Vanilla’s room to go out into the kitchen. As I walked in he heard me, and turned away from the salad he was preparing.
“Hey,” He said.


“Hey, Vanilla?” I asked, with a sly smile I began to get down on my knee. He leaned forward, intrigued and touched my shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he asked, somewhat panicked. I pulled the box from my pocket and he took a surprised step backwards.


“Vanilla, I’ve known from the first day I met you that-” I heard the television mute when Vanilla panicked and went,
“Oh, what the hell Rowena? How did you find it?” I laughed and stood back up, handing him the little box.
“I was sorting the socks, and I found one that didn’t have a partner, so I went looking.”
Shoot, I had nice reservations and everything.” He laughed nervously, running one of his hands through his hair. “So I guess now that you know my plans, anyway..” he continued, holding the box out towards me. I swear my heart stopped for a moment, which was silly because it had been obvious what was going on for the past five minutes and this was the first time I was taking it seriously.
Yeah, Vanilla. Of course.” I said, taking the box from him gently, and surprising him with a soft kiss. I heard the TV go off of mute, but not before Velvet scoffed and said “Finally!”


~o~


Vanilla and I had taken Velvet to the park, and Vanilla sat down to take a break from playing catch with Velvet. He told Velvet to go play with the other kids, so he could take a break. Velvet didn’t want to, but he did anyway. Velvet and Vanilla got along seamlessly. It was beautiful. Vanilla sat back on the bench with me, not even out of breath. He smiled and pushed some of my hair out of my face.
“I want to have a small wedding.” He said. “Just you, me, Daisy, and Velvet.”
“No Zig?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He supposed. He didn’t really like her that much, and she probably wouldn’t be offended.
“I don’t even think we know enough people to have a big one.” I said to him.
“I could deliberately make it a disaster and invite my family.” He joked and I replied “Right, yeah. Totally wise.”


~o~


Vanilla thought I was totally cool and calm about our impending marriage. The truth was I was too excited for my own skin. Voodoo knew this, and helped me out as often as possible. When I told her about his desire for our small wedding, she shrugged it off and said,
“Guess I’ll have to break out the binoculars then.”
She was constantly offering to buy me dresses, and I finally caved in. Since Vanilla and I had agreed on the small wedding soon afterward (and eventually included both Zig and Voodoo), I decided a small dress would be best as well. A simple light yellow dress with red accents. It hung in the hallway closet of Voodoo and my apartment.
At times I thought she was more excited about it than I was. I wasn’t really versed in the technicalities of a wedding, but she was always asking me things like what sort of a cake I wanted, because I had to have a cake, and always brought me home cupcakes from the bakery to sample. She told me she had all the food handled, even though I told her six people don’t even need that much food.
She disagreed, quite blatantly. She told me that everyone at my wedding was going to gain five pounds at the sight of the food alone.


~o~


We decided to set the wedding up in Vanilla’s backyard. Even though we told her we didn’t want it to be big, Voodoo played florist and caterer and she brought carpets and an arch to lay out. We did it later in the day and it turned out to be very beautiful.


The light dress turned out to have been the perfect choice. Vanilla looked delicious and later Daisy admitted to it being her doing.



Velvet was very excited and spent the entire evening being social and running about being generally excited.
“Don’t pee yourself, Velvet” Voodoo said to him at one point.
“Auntie Voodoo, if Vanilla was your dad you’d pee yourself in two seconds.”


Arguably, it was the most memorable exchange of the entire evening.


Everyone danced with everyone in our tiny group, at one time we had everyone in a big circle. Voodoo had picked out the perfect music. During our first dance together, Vanilla leaned in and whispered in my ear.
“I have a surprise for you afterwards.” I smiled and winked at him and whispered back, “Me too.”


And at the end of the night everyone made innuendo jokes about leaving us to do what newlyweds do, and Velvet smiled obliviously and I hugged him and told him I’d see him at the end of the week.


Voodoo had agreed to look after him, because Vanilla and I had both racked up tons of vacation time and Vanilla had ridiculous amounts of money to spend on a vacation. He was taking us to Egypt, and we were going to spend time at private beaches and probably visit some pyramids.
“Ready for your surprise?” I asked him, once everyone had left, kissing him chastely on the neck.
“Mine first,” he insisted, and took my hand to lead me back into the house. He led me up the stairs to the second floor, and I thought about how the only time I had been up there was to go to the guest room and to use one of the bathrooms.


He led me down the hallway to the right, where I had never been and opened one of the doors, sweeping his arm in a 'Voila' sort of motion.
I stepped inside and was met with a nursery, done up in rich reds and yellows.
Oh my gosh, Vanilla.” There were two cribs, ‘just in case,’ he explained.  There was a bookshelf and a big cushy chair. There were so many toys. It was hard to contain my emotions. I hugged Vanilla tightly and he rubbed his hands over my back.
“This is so beautiful.” I told him


“Only the best for our family.” He told me, and went to go show me another room. This one was a bedroom, clearly done up just for Velvet.
“He’s going to love it.” I said, smiling enormously.
I led him back downstairs, and we were both barely able to keep our hands to ourselves, I left him sitting on the edge of his bed and went into the bathroom to prepare my surprise. While in there, getting out of my dress and fixing up my makeup, I thought of how my surprise could not possibly ever match up to his.
When I was done I stood in the doorway, my hair had been taken down and I was wearing some tiny lacy thing Voodoo had bought me, and god knows how she’d found out my size.


Vanilla had taken off his suit jacket and his bowtie. He was in the process of removing his shoes when he looked up at me and was caught in the middle of his movement.
I walked forward to stand directly in front of him and played with a bit of the fabric on my hip.
“Do you like it?” I asked him.
“Do I like it?” He scoffed, and put his hands on my hips, bringing me down onto the bed with him and kicking his other shoe off in the process.



We pulled away from each other and I rested my head on his chest. We sat there peacefully for a series of moments until he finally quietly spoke.
“I think I’m still finding new tattoos.” He said, bemused.


 ~o~

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