The Girl She Used to Be (18 page)

She leaves and I watch Jonathan examine the food. “Ever eat carambola?”

I stand and walk to his side. “I was just thinking about that. No, never had one.”

“Well, don’t start with any of these; they’re too green. They’ll be horribly sour.” He walks a few steps. “This pineapple,
on the other hand, must have been cut just moments ago; it hasn’t oxidized at all.” He picks up a chunk and places it to his
lips and he sort of kisses it instead of taking a bite.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m checking the acidity. Amazing.” He places it in his mouth and moves it around like a taste of wine. “This you must try.
Sweeter than sugar. Only God could make something this perfect.”

He picks up a piece, carefully selecting one that will not be too big for my mouth, and brings it to my lips. I keep my eyes
on his and when he puts the wet fruit in my mouth, I bite down on his fingers a little and suck. He slowly lowers his hand
and I chew slowly and smile, my lips still wet. “Well, you were right about that.”

He is about to say something when the masseur and one of the clerks come in to get me for my massage. We all walk out, and
when we get to the massage room, everyone looks at Jonathan like he needs to leave.

“What,” he says.

“Sir,” the clerk says, “she’ll be getting her massage now.”

Jonathan peeks into the room and studies the masseur; in comparison, he really is Little Johnny. And from the look on his
face, it seems he might’ve been expecting a woman.

“He’s gonna… do the… thing?”

“Yes, sir,” the clerk answers.

Jonathan turns to me and whispers, “You have to take off your clothes?”

I smile and whisper back, “I think that makes it easier.”

“Well,” he says in full voice, “as your bodyguard, I need to stay by your side today and guard your… body. Literally.”

“Jonathan,” the clerk says, suddenly dropping the
sir
, “she’ll be fine in our care.”

“But even better in mine.” And he walks in.

The masseur laughs and nods to the clerk that it’s okay. “Why don’t you disrobe and put this towel around you and I’ll be
back in a moment.” He pats me gently on the back a few times and squeezes my shoulder, as though it should signal my getting
used to his hands on my flesh.

The door closes and Jonathan sits in a chair and covers his face with his hands. I take off my jeans and my sweater and my
shirt and my bra and drape the towel around me, and as I reach up under the towel and pull my panties off, the sound of the
fabric sliding against my legs makes Jonathan’s Adam’s apple bob a few times.

“Okay,” I say, “it’s safe.”

He cracks his fingers a little, peeks, then drops his hands. “Great,” he says, casually crossing his legs.

I slowly crawl atop the table and lie on my stomach, pull the towel to my waist and put my arms above me. I can feel my chest
slightly spilling to the sides. I turn my head to face him. The look on his face is sweet and distinctly red; he is a cherry
Life Saver.

Jonathan’s voice jumps a little as he says, “Maybe I should wait outside.”

I frown like a child. “But how will you guard my body?”

“Huh, yeah, true. How could I… yeah.” He fumbles around his pockets and I can tell by the way he’s feeling himself up
that he’s trying to find his cigarettes. He reaches under his sweater and removes a small box and taps it a few times like
he’s going to pull out a smoke. But instead he opens the lid, clumsily, like he has yet to master some new routine, and taps
a small white tablet into his mouth.

I laugh. “Is that Nicorette?”

He noshes it like a dog chewing a bone and he gets this sad look on his face, like he recently buried a close friend. “What
can I say? You make me want to be a better man.”

I lose my smile. “Are you serious? You stopped smoking for me? But… I never asked.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have to.”

The surrender of an addiction might be the noblest of all gifts. “You… you really are full of surprises.” I look away.
“I mean, we don’t really know how much time we’re going to have together.”

“Which makes it even more important that I stop now, you know?”

We stare at each other.

His chewing slows.

And so it happens again, another moment where I have forgotten where I am and who I am with. I am not a kid who sneaked out
of her parents’ house one night to make out with her boyfriend. I am on the run in the wrong direction with the wrong guy.
Yet he’s giving me gifts, physical and emotional, that I don’t fully understand. And for some reason I want him, and certainly
need him. So around I go, back to being the kid, and now I want the physicality that marries the emotion. The clock is ticking,
yes?

“Have you ever given a woman a massage before?” I ask. Jonathan adjusts his glasses. I close my eyes and say, “Come here.”

He clears his throat. “What do you mean?”

“I mean stand up, take steps in my direction, and stop when you reach the table.”

He hesitates, but does as I have asked.

I raise my arms even higher and say, “Now, place your hands on the small of my back.” My sexual inexperience brings a glint
of anxiety, but Jonathan’s determination to preserve my virginity actually relaxes me, allows me to be uninhibited—and, ironically,
allows me to pursue
him
.

He takes in a long, steady breath and says, “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

I repeat more softly, “Place your hands on the small of my back.”

He does nothing, remains motionless. I am about to open my eyes and give up when I suddenly feel his hands slide down the
lower portion of my back and land on the small of it. His hands are warm and he puts his thumbs together at my spine and spreads
his fingers over my skin and he is able to cover my entire lower back. The skin on his hands is rough and it tugs my skin
slightly as he moves his fingers.

Directions are no longer needed as he digs his hands into my body and he squeezes my flesh and I wince and I keep taking air
in my lungs but can’t seem to let any out and my body rises off the table as he tightens his grip on me and I can feel the
towel has shifted lower and the cleavage where back meets bottom is exposed. Jonathan glides his hands to the base of my neck
and pulls them back down, dragging them across all my muscles, and I can feel myself loosening up, twenty years of fear and
tension being squeezed from every muscle, every bone, and I do not want him to stop, and before I can catch myself the air
finally leaves my lungs in the form of a request.

“Oh, Jonathan, that feels so good.
Please
don’t stop.”

He responds by digging in harder, tugging at my muscles, and I can feel all the experience he’s had with violence as he twists
my body around. He keeps moving me and pulling me and the roughness of his palms is scraping me and my towel is shifting farther
down and I can tell his face is getting nearer to my skin as he excavates. He moves closer and closer and I can feel his breath
on me and I arch my back because I want to feel his lips on me and he rubs harder and his hands are sweating and just as he
is about to kiss my back and I am about to flip myself over on the table and pull him down, the door opens.

“Uh,” the masseur says, “that’s not what we mean by hourly rate.”

Jonathan and I look at each other, then at the masseur as we say in unison, “We’re done.”

“Are you sure? That looked more like the middle.”

I sit up and hold the towel to my chest. “Uh, you know… I think I’m finished with the massage portion of my day. I’m
sort of spent.”

Jonathan just stands frozen with his hands at his sides, like he’s never been caught doing something illicit—which, again,
I find impossible.

“I’ll just… wait… outside,” he says.

After I get dressed, I walk back to the room with the food and Jonathan is waiting there. I smile and hug him and whisper,
“I loved having your hands on my body.”

He trembles a little and says, “There is really no other place they’d rather be.”

We hold each other for a moment and he is the first to pull back. “Listen, I’m gonna make myself scarce.”

“No, I want you here.”

“Well, so far my presence seems to have clouded what I wanted to be a day of relaxation for you. And I need to make some phone
calls. I need to set some folks straight. Or unstraight.”

I give him a quizzical look.

He clarifies, “I need to buy us more time.”

I nod a little, even though I don’t understand. “Why do we need more time?”

He gets a faraway look on his face, then runs his fingers through his hair and says, “We just do.”

He gives me a quick peck on the cheek and if I’d known he was coming in like that I would’ve intercepted with my lips.

“I’ll see you at five o’clock, okay?” He steps backwards. “Meet you in the hotel bar?”

“I’ll be there.” I say this like it’s a certainty but it seems there’s really no way to know.

I like the fact that Jonathan trusts me to spend the day here, that he’s self-assured enough to know I’ll be waiting, especially
after I was pulled away last time.

I’ve heard people mention the term
day spa
before, but usually only on television or in the movies. People who are stuck in—or put in—jobs that pay in the entry-level
range typically do not get to experience such luxuries. But the entire process is addictive: the unfettered care and attention,
the high-end hair and body products, the knowledge. The experience is enough to make me want to find a high-paying job just
so I can maintain a regular fix.

The hours flew; when I wasn’t having my skin treated or my nails done, I was being pampered and fed and treated like a movie
star. With each person who helped me, I could see myself changing—changing
back
—to the person I was supposed to be.

The ultimate transformation came during my time with the hairstylist. She spent twenty minutes just
discussing
what I wanted my hair to look like. I didn’t know, of course, other than to say natural.

Which was a problem.

The stylist asked me what my natural hair color was, but all I could offer was “some shade of blond.”

I truly have no idea what I should look like.

But the stylist did. She matched a color to my skin and cut my hair into a shape that accented my face, feminine and, perhaps
most important, intentional. It took two women to get my hair beautifully colored and conditioned to where it was a pleasure
to run my fingers through it.

It’s just after one o’clock and I’m a new woman. A
different
woman. I stare at myself in the mirror of the spa lounge for a good five minutes before someone comes over and asks if there
is something wrong.

“No,” I say, “everything is finally right.”

I can’t take my eyes from the mirror. “Welcome, Melody Grace,” I whisper. “I’ve missed you.”

I truly think no one would recognize me right now. Perhaps it’s the greatest disguise of all—simply to be myself. If I didn’t
recognize the person in the mirror, how would the Bovaros?

The food on the bar has changed for lunchtime and I eat a few finger sandwiches. As I am about to leave the room for my one-fifteen
appointment for something called a body polish, a clerk walks over and tells me a gentleman is waiting for me out front. Since
I know only one
gentleman, I double-time it to the entryway, ready to show Jonathan the new me and throw my arms around him. But when I reach
the entrance to the spa, there is no one there.

I step into the hall of the hotel and look around and just as I am about to ask the clerk where this gentleman is, I hear
a familiar voice from behind me.

“Hello, Michelle.”

Turns out the new me looks a great deal like the old me.

S
O HERE IS HOW PATHETIC I AM: I ACTUALLY TURN AROUND AND look at this man and say, “I’m sorry, but you must have me confused
with someone else.” I walk back toward the spa and as I get within striking distance of Sean, I add, “And you’re no gentleman.”

“Michelle,” he says. I keep walking.

“Michelle,” he repeats. I enter the spa.

“Melody.”

I stop. Then I turn and glower at him and he throws his hands in the air and quickly drops them to his sides.

“Look, I’m not tossing you in the back of a government vehicle, am I? You’re not being hijacked by two or three feds, right?”

The people in the spa have stopped talking and I can feel them watching over my shoulder. Without turning to acknowledge their
attention, I slowly walk toward Sean.

“All I want,” he says, “is to talk.”

We stare at each other for a moment and I can feel all of the tension returning, the muscles tightening, the bones aching.

“How did you find me?”

“What?” He gives me a condescending laugh. “You’re kidding, right? The job of a U.S. Marshal is to hunt down fugitives. How
hard do you think it was to find
you
?”

“Take any heat for losing me twice in one week?”

Thus endeth the laugh.

“Look,” he says, stepping close enough to whisper, “we know who you’re with. And based on how you’re spending your day, I’m
assuming you went with him willingly.”