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~

BACK

Rowena Raven: Chapter Ten

       Four PM, I wake up, Jog till five. Eat breakfast. Leftovers, probably. Something Daisy has made and left in my fridge, or something I brought home from a restaurant if it’s Monday.

Five thirty PM, I shower. At six I walk to the hospital where I work and have time to spare, because it’s closer now that I’ve moved to Sugar Valley.
It took less than a year after she left for my mental practice to go under, if only because I was just barely qualified to run it.
I keep track of our lost time by silently celebrating Velvet’s birthdays.

I feel some sort of male responsibility to care about him, because she was my responsibility nearly the entire time she was pregnant.
Six of them have gone by, now. In two months, It’ll be seven.
Nearly seven years since the last time I’ve seen her. I’ve managed to keep myself from checking up on her records to see if she’s gotten Velvet back, but I’m pretty confident. It’s taken all of my self control not to keep track of every little thing the state knows about her, even though I easily have the power.

When I get home at four in the morning, I check my email and eat something. There’s no time for dating. Daisy’s work has been kinder to her, but she’s not a surgeon.
Saturdays are my grocery days. I like Saturdays. There is something totally Zen about having all the money I could possibly need to buy gourmet cheese puffs, or organic cheese whiz.
                                                            ~o~

I woke up on Saturday “morning” with a sort of spring in my step. It felt like my life was wasting away, one week of work at a time, fifty two weeks of work in a year, and I don’t even think about leap days. I did get vacation time, but where would I possibly spend it? I could just see it now, sitting on the shores of some sandy beach in egypt, drink in hand. There’s an empty seat beside me, a table between us and on that table is another drink. There’s supposed to be someone there, but she’s missing. I know who she is, but I’ve forbidden her name to myself.
Names hold certain power, right? If she hasn’t got a name, she doesn’t exist and I can’t be sad about never seeing her again. User not found.
So I’ll still punish myself for thinking about her as my hands hover over this one container of jam, when I put juice into my basket and wonder what sort of juice Velvet drinks.

Does she make him breakfast in the morning? How many snacks does he get to eat? Does he pack a lunch, or does he buy one at school?
Has she turned into the mother hers was?

I punish myself for thinking about the things she’s said of her mother, just to me. Our secrets. She was never home, and when she was it was like she wasn’t there anyway. She was concerned, but not motherly love concerned, more like concerned the way she treated her child might get her in trouble with the law. Thankful that through her fuck ups her child had learned to take care of herself.
My scorn for a mother like that did not even compete with my love for the woman who could have possibly turned out to be a mother like that.
The juice is heavy in my basket, so when I turn around and catch the shape of her nose and the glint of her hair, I drop it.

I pause for a moment, acknowledging my hallucination, and lean to pick up my juice. But when I cast another casual glance back up, she’s sighted me, and she’s still there. She’s speaking with someone. My hallucinations don’t interact with other people. If I was hallucinating this, I wouldn’t have included Velvet because god only knows what I’d do to the woman after missing her for this long.

She shakes her head a bit and turns back to the woman she was talking with. I pick my things up and put them into my basket, I leave to check out even though I’ve still got quite a few things to pick up here. Amazing how my reaction was completely different than I thought it would be if I ever saw her again. I’m still have convinced she’s a hallucination. Did I even pay for my groceries? I could still be standing there dumbstruck blind by the sight of her.

I’m sitting on the bench out front of the store when she walks out through the sliding doors. Velvet’s in front of her, and he’s the first to see me. She stands there for a moment, just looking at the road in front of the supermarket, or maybe the stores across the street. Velvet tugs on her hand and says to her, “Mommy, do we know him?” he points to me. “He seems familiar.”
Her gaze follows her childs’, and her eyes catch mine. We share a look and I am completely unsure of what it means. She doesn’t answer him, but she does make sure he follows her over when she comes to stand in front of me.
“Hey,” she says. She’s satan and I’m Jesus, starving in the desert. I imagine my throat catching, too dry to speak. Not nearly satiated enough with the human contact I’ve been getting lately to reply. So instead I just sit up a bit and say something intelligent.

“Rowena.” And, I could be wrong, but I think the word sets me free.


BACK

                                     FORTH

Rowena Raven: Chapter Eight

man, I'm really bad about pictures, aren't I?

The door slammed downstairs, and it woke me up. Immediately, my eyes sought the windows to figure out what general time of day it was. My alarm clock usually woke me up at seven, but it hadn’t gone off yet. The fading darkness told me it was extremely early in the morning, not more than four-thirty or five o clock. My hand came up to rub my eyes and I rolled over, trying to go back to bed.
But then I thought, wait, why had the door slammed? And then I thought, delayed reactions like this are going to get me in trouble with business like this. And then I thought of Rowena’s baby. Velvet Skies, the name made me think of the particular brand of gray the sky happened to be right now.
There was no time wasted between my bedroom and the “guest’s” room. I even banged hip on the edge of my desk. Just as I thought, the only one missing was Rowena. I hurried not to jump to conclusions though, surely she wouldn’t have run away again? We were making so much progress. I checked the upstairs bathroom, and then, quietly, daisy’s office and bedroom.
I was even quicker to check every room downstairs, but that didn’t speed up finding her at all. If I’d found her sitting somewhere all normal, sipping tea, running up to her all flustered and breathless, I’m not really sure what I would have told her, or even if I’d be able to tell her anything at all.
I saw the mug of abandoned tea on the coffee table in the foyer and picked it up, still warm, still full. I set it back down and went to grab my keys before going outside, just in case she wasn’t even in the yard. It had been twelve minutes between when the door woke me up and that moment, she could be so far away by now.
The thought only motivated me to move faster, checking the yard barefoot, not bothering to put a shirt on or check if my hair looked ridiculous. I couldn’t explain my own recklessness, refused to admit that it was love, and that I was just worried she was gone.
Instead, I assured myself that my already teetering business would surely go under if Rowena were to go missing, or commit suicide. All my work thus far, gone, and what a shame because I was still so young. And even then, my poor sister who would be dragged down with me. Maybe we could go back to daddie’s house and ask him to hire us. “We’re so sorry we tried to prove ourselves, dad. We’ll bend over and be your bitches now, just like you asked.”
I gripped the wheel tighter and only faintly realized I had gotten into my car. I was driving sporadically, slowly sometimes so that I could look off to the side of the road and search for Rowena, and then fast because I knew I wasn’t going to find her.

You understand her, I reminded myself. You know where she went, I yelled into my own skull. But you just have to get there in time. You know she wants you, the littler voice says, that she can’t bear the thought of losing Velvet, but even greater is her will to get him back.
I knew it though, I just knew I would find her on the bridge. She wasn’t going to find drugs, she wouldn’t think of slitting her wrists, and what quicker death than breaking your neck hitting the cold water from however many feet above?

She was standing there, just about halfway over the bridge. She’d been standing there for a couple of minutes already, I’m not sure why I could tell. It just felt right.
I stopped my car a couple of yards behind her, because I didn’t want to startle her. If I startled her, who knew what she would do?

I walked towards her as slowly as I could bear to, because I cared. About my business. If she died, so did my business, I reminded myself.
“Rowena.” I called out to her, she was already leaning so far over the edge. I was about five feet away from her, if she jumped now, I wouldn’t get to her in time. She looked at me and stepped back from the edge a bit.
“Do you think you’re going to stop me?” She didn’t sound distraught, or upset.
“I don’t think I’ll have to.”

She frowned.
“Listen, I understand what you’re going through.”
“You couldn’t possibly..” She scoffed, waving me off.
“No, really, I mean. As best as a man could, I get it, Rowena, don’t do this to yourself, or anyone around you. Please.”

“You really think I’d be standing here if I gave a shit what happened to anyone else?” She sort of faltered at the end, and I thought of Velvet again. I remembered his innocent face in the hospital when I carried him out to CPS, and how he cried.
“Rowena, if you do this, he’ll always blame himself.”
“That’s ridiculous, it’s not his fault he was born.”
“That’s not how children think of it, Rowena.” She turned around, taking a step back towards the edge of the bridge again. I wished I could see her face.
“Rowena, Daisy had a baby too.”
“What’s that got to do with me? You were rich, you were fine, she didn’t have to give hers up, I bet.” I could tell she knew she was wrong.
“That’s why dad called her useless, Rowena.” I dared a step closer. “She couldn’t do anything but the opposite of his wishes.” I imitated my father’s voice. “He didn’t want us dating, but she had a boyfriend all through high school. She got pregnant halfway through her junior year and he almost forced her to get an abortion.”
I watched the slump of her shoulders when she exhaled.
“‘All you can do is be a stupid woman.’ He told her. ‘Just like your mother.’ Because, Rowena, our parents didn’t want her. She was the useless leg, the rebel. She tried so hard to help, to clean, to get good grades, everything.” I stepped closer again, she flicked a glance at me but allowed it.
“And, Rowena, That’s how Velvet is going to feel.” I heard her sigh, and I continued. “He’s going to always try his hardest to please whoever he lives with, and it’s never going to be enough, because he’ll know his mom killed herself after he was born. It will always be his fault. If he hadn’t been born, she would still be alive and well. I’ve got straight A’s, he’ll think, but my mom still wouldn’t love me. I graduated valedictorian, he’ll think, but my mom still wouldn’t love me. I’m a neurosurgeon, he’ll think, but that’s still not good enough for mom.”
She turned around and her eyes said daggers, the rest said she’d given up and would come back with me.
“Come home, Rowena. We all need you.” I suddenly remembered what I’d been telling myself about the business. “And that way, Velvet can live a better life.”
There was a moment when she held her breath and looked up at me from under her scorn, and ultimately, her sadness, and then she breathed out and said. “Come home, Rowena, come inside, Rowena. You could drag me to the ends of the earth, you know, Vanilla. All you’d have to do is say please, and you always do.”

I was stunned. I couldn’t tell if she meant because it was me, or because I was so good at convincing her to do things. For some reason it didn’t worry me much. Beyond that, it was just unbelievable. Would winning her over really be that easy?

                                                                       ~o~

It was days before she even spoke again, weeks before she opened up to a fraction of what she used to open up about. She played the piano a lot, tried to be alone more often.
There was one evening when I was sitting in the hallway, and she was sitting on one of the chairs in the foyer, when Pomegranate sauntered up to her.

He sat down on the couch and waggled his eyebrows at her. He said something, but it was too low for me to hear. She rolled her eyes and said something back.

 He did this thing he always does when he’s annoyed but trying to get something he wants, he sort of clenches his jaw and smiles at you extra-nice. He did that and said something that looked vaguely like ‘but don’t you want me?’
I smiled and went back to the book I’d been reading when she audibly said “Fuck off, Pomegranate,” got up, and walked away.

“God, what is it about me?” She said when she sat down in the chair across from me the next morning for our meeting.

 “Just what is it that makes all the wrong men go ‘oh, I can get with that?” She huffed and looked displeased.
“I don’t know, Rowena. Maybe it’s the way you’ve presented yourself.” She entertained the thought, I could see, because her eyebrows went up for a second and she nodded.

She seemed to struggle with saying something, because she thought about it first, opened her mouth, and then thought about it again. She decided not to say it, and I wondered what it had been.
“How am I supposed to present myself?”
I laughed, “However you think you should. Personally I’d try to be the kind of person who attracts the kind of people I want to attract.”

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