Axis of Aaron (13 page)

“Sure.”

“Good thing I’m not that girly.”
 

Ebon looked her over, thinking she was girly to the tune of at least a double-D and maybe more. But when his eyes grazed the room, he saw how precisely it was arranged, how masculine the décor. The bedroom was large and open, sterile and spare. The bed’s headboard was against a wall covered in some sort of grayish cushion material. Ebon could see an off-white shag rug visible at the bed’s foot, the bed precisely set in its middle. Beyond the rug was a light-gray laminate floor. There was a single planter a few feet from them, off the end of the bed between it and a glass door leading onto a porch overlooking the ocean. There was a small tree in the planter, its leaves so waxy green they looked fake, though he could smell them and knew they weren’t. A small table and two modern-looking chairs were a bit farther into the room, near the door to a bathroom that, judging by architectural arrangement, probably had its own window wall overlooking the bay. On the table, at opposite ends, were two more vivid splashes of color amid the neutrality: a bowl of bright-yellow lemons and a matching bowl of fire-red apples. Ebon had heard about fruit being used as a decorator’s tool, but he’d never seen anyone do it. Except, he suspected, the many times he’d lain in this bed with this woman beside him.
 

“Okay,” said Ebon.
 

She punched him in the arm. “You’re supposed to say that I’m
quite
girly.”
 

“Oh. Well, sure.”
 

“You never get that right.” The woman vented an over-the-top sigh and, on its conclusion, leaned into Ebon and again ran her hand across his chest.
 

“Sorry.”
 

What’s her name?
 

He knew it. Somehow, he knew it. Because based on the way she was acting, they’d been together for a while, making love in a room accented with lemons, apples, and a single bright-green tree. In the bathroom across the open room, he’d find a bathtub that looked like a porcelain gravy boat standing on a geometric black plinth in the dead center of the floor, its plumbing invisible save a sleek, angular chrome faucet that rose near it, not actually touching the tub at all. There’d be another tree in there, same as the one by the bed. Beside the bathtub would be a small chrome table, a set of towels folded so precisely atop it as to look more like a set piece than anything meant for bathing. There would of course be blinds in the bathroom, but they’d never be drawn. You’d bathe while looking across rocks and waves, knowing that if sea captains with telescopes cared to try and see you nude, they could have all the eyefuls they wanted. The toilet in there wouldn’t be partitioned off either, but that wouldn’t matter because even the commode looked like art. It was the kind of bathroom you’d feel like apologizing to after shitting in it.
 

Vicky,
he thought, new information barging into his brain space like an intruder.
Her name is Vicky Kimble. When she told me her last name, I made a joke that it was the last name of Schwarzenegger’s character in
Kindergarten Cop,
even doing Arnold’s voice. She didn’t get it. I had to explain the joke, realizing how pointless and terrible it was the more I had to catch her up from scratch. Then she asked where I worked, just like that, as if I were charming her. She told me she works in the city too, as an interior decorator. We talked about the statue in the park that the pigeons covered in paste, called it a frosted donut. That made her laugh, and when she laughed I told her that my sharp sense of humor is my secret weapon. Just like it is with Holly. Like it
was
with Holly.
 

But when had that happened? And where? Ebon could have sworn he’d just seen her for the first time yesterday, but a double set of memories was now streaming into his head, overlaying each other like two photo negatives. Something was wrong, but he didn’t know how to reconcile it. What would he even make a doctor’s appointment for, if he dared to voice what may or may not be amiss here? How would he even begin to describe his malady?
 

Hey, Doc, I woke up with a strange woman who I knew the minute I saw her, and now I don’t remember our relationship. We hooked up after I chased her through town, forcing her to lose me like a spy with a tail. Eventually we started screwing — but see, I also came into town just yesterday, and moved in with my oldest friend, Aimee. So basically, none of it is possible. Who puts out a bowl of lemons anyway? Doc, you’ve gotta tell me: is that ficus tree real, or is it fake?

“You’re so talkative this morning,” said Vicky.
 

Yes, it’s Vicky. Definitely Vicky.

“Yeah.”
 

“It’s good that we’re ‘talking’ as suggested instead of you getting me coffee and eggs.”
 

Ebon took a chance. “You always say that.”
 

Vicky laughed. It was cute, and he seemed to be navigating well enough, but he wasn’t really getting the information he needed. He looked out the window, again noticing fall foliage that he now realized had been summer green yesterday.
 

“What day is it?” he asked.
 

“The eighth, I think?”
 

“September 8?” That couldn’t be right. The eighth was a few days in the past.

“
November
8,” Vicky corrected.

Ebon faked laughter, pretending to have mixed up his months, feeling cold. His last crisp memory had been in mid-September. Best-case scenario: He was now emerging from two months of amnesia. But a deep part of him worried that it had been longer, maybe a
year
and two months. Or
two
years and two months. He wouldn’t know until he looked at a calendar.
 

“What day did we meet, again?”
 

“I’m not girly enough to remember things like that.”
 

“Sometime in September.”
 

“Usually,
you’re
girl enough to remember exact dates.”
 

Ebon did remember. It had been September 11 that he’d chased her through the town. He remembered partially because September 11 had been a strange day ever since 2001 had made it famous. And he remembered it the rest of the way because, a deep part of him argued, it had only been yesterday.
 

Ebon rolled sideways. “Have you told anyone about me? About us?”
 

Vicky laughed. “Now
that’s
a manly question.”
 

“Just curious.”

“Okay, fine. Sure. I’ve told people at work about my island lover. The one that’s got me hauling my ass over here this late in the year, when I’ve usually shuttered down by now. They probably think you’re all swarthy and sweaty, like a native.”
 

“Aaron natives are swarthy and sweaty?”
 

“Well,
you
are.”
 

“What else do you tell them?”
 

“Are you digging for compliments?”
 

Ebon shrugged.
 

“I told my secretary that you stalked me into submission. I didn’t tell anyone else that though. Because sure, a lot of the male decorators I know are gay, but some aren’t, and there are reps and other uncouth gents who I figured it would be unwise to encourage re: stalking me to earn my affections.”
 

“Is that what it felt like? Stalking?”
 

Vicky nodded. “Oh yes. Let’s not sugarcoat your obsessiveness. It’s lucky you’re cute.”
 

“I was shy,” he countered. It was half-true, at least during the stalking session he remembered. What he’d felt had been closer to obsession (a stalker emotion if there ever was one), but at least obsession shared the spectrum with shyness. He’d wanted to see her, to meet her, to be in her radiant presence. For a reason Ebon wouldn’t have been able to articulate, he’d felt that she was his missing piece — as if she’d been dislodged from his psyche and was required, at that moment as his psyche struggled, to get back in there and prop it up. That had been a crazy day. She’d felt like an anchor, and when he’d lost her everything had turned upside down and sideways.
 

But if that day really had been two months ago, maybe he’d healed a bit from it. Maybe he’d told Vicky all about Holly, unburdening and stitching himself together. Maybe he was more on an even keel these days. Well, except for his pair of missing months.
 

She leaned in and kissed him on the lips. Ebon felt a current run through him. It was the strangest, most hybrid sensation. The kiss felt deeply familiar and comforting, but also brand new. He was simultaneously kissing her for the first and thousandth times. It was the best of both worlds: the depth of an established relationship combined with the thrill of infatuation. Despite his intention to remain distant and gather information, he found himself propping up the bedspread again in his lap.
 

“Well, hon,” she said, “let me give you a tip. In the future, when you want to meet a girl, don’t just tail her for days. Most would have you arrested. Luckily I was curious. And maybe a little bit foolish to finally confront you. But I
had
to know what in the hell you wanted.” She snuggled closer. “You got lucky. I almost never come here during the week, but it was the only time they could deliver my new bathroom sinks from the mainland.”
 

“Definitely.”
 

She was looking up at him with light-blue eyes, a sighing expression despite the offishness implied by her story. Maybe he’d scared her away that first day and the days she’d implied followed, but he’d managed to woo her eventually. Vicky might not be girly, but right now she was definitely a girl. One who liked Ebon plenty.
 

“You’re going to have to come back to the city with me though. Do you know how much of a pain it is to get here in the winter, once the ferries stop running?”

“I’ve never been here in the winter,” he said.

“This is supposed to be a summer house,” she said. But even as Ebon looked around he realized how strange that was. Who built a home so modern and refined in a place where sand and bugs invaded every corner, and even the most fastidious person couldn’t keep from sullying furniture with sweat and sunscreen?
 

“This house isn’t winterproof?” With the question, another flash of disconnected memory leapt into Ebon’s mind. He was suddenly sure that there was a fireplace in the bathroom, on the wall between it and the bedroom. Peering over the bed’s foot, he realized he could see a matching fireplace on the bedroom side of the wall, but couldn’t recall whether it truly straddled the partition or if they were two separate units. A summer home, yes … but still built for comfort when the mercury dropped.

“It is,” she said. “But flights from the city? I don’t mind the cost, but … ” She shivered. “I just hate those tiny little planes. Feel like God is going to swat them out of the air like gnats. Or that they won’t clear the runway and we’ll skid off into the water. It’d be so much easier to meet in the city. I have a great loft downtown. It’s … ”
 

“I don’t want to leave the island.”

Vicky’s shoulders fell, and Ebon realized they’d had this discussion before — perhaps many times. She’d overstayed her summertime and fall on Aaron so far, and Ebon always refused to trade back by visiting the city. But even that raised another set of questions: If Vicky only came to Aaron on the weekends, where did he stay the rest of the time? Was he still at Aimee’s? And what must Aimee think about it all? He and Aimee had traded tons of messages leading up to his arrival, and he was supposed to be helping her fix up her father’s house. He was supposed to be rekindling an old friendship, both of them seeming to hope it would grow into something more. He felt a strange sense of having broached a loyalty by siding with Vicky, and of leaving an old wound untreated. Part of Ebon was desperate to forget Holly … but in the doing, he’d forgotten Aimee too.
 

“Just for a weekend. Just come away with me.”
 

But Ebon had stopped listening. Now that he’d thought of Aimee, she was a rapidly inflating balloon inside his mind. He slid sideways on the bed, dropping his feet to the floor. His clothes were there in a pile — very Ebon — whereas he was quite sure that Vicky’s clothes would be on a small end table or tucked into a stainless steel bin. Perhaps she’d undressed in the bathroom and come out in a terrycloth and microfiber spa robe, colored Indian ivory to match the rug.

“Are you leaving?”
 

Ebon turned. “Well … ”
 

“You always bolt out on me.” She said it playfully, a pout on her lips. Apparently he
did
always bolt out on her, but it was a quirk — one she accepted, understood, and maybe even liked.
 

“I just want to take a walk.”
 

“Are you going back to Aimee’s?”
 

Ebon stopped, his back to Vicky, then turned slowly.
 

“Well … ”
 

“I keep telling you. You can stay here while I’m gone.” She crawled forward, then lay on her chest with her smooth back bare. “And you can stay here while I’m here too.”