CHAPTER 7 - EMI
“You mind if I smoke?” Nate asks me as we turn the corner on our way to the coffee house where his car is parked. I crinkle my nose at him in disapproval, but shake my head.
“I don’t care.”
“Cool. Want one?” he asks as he takes off his gloves, putting them in his pocket.
“No, thanks,” I tell him as he lights up. He holds the cigarette in the hand farthest away from me, and blows his smoke in the opposite direction.
“So, I take it you’re staying with your dad?”
“No. My mom.” The ground slick, one of my shoes slides precariously on the ice. I grab onto Nate’s arm for support. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he says kindly, allowing me to hold on to him. “What’d she do to make you so mad? Your dad’s the cheater. Why don’t you want to go home?”
“I just hate it there. It’s a tiny apartment. My room barely fits my new twin-size bed. I have to share a bathroom with Chris. Nothing has a proper place. And when I left there tonight, my sister was there with her new boyfriend who’s going to marry her because she’s pregnant, and she slapped me–”
“She slapped you?”
I touch my left cheek and nod.
“Why?”
“I called her a whore.” He chuckles a little. “She called me a bitch first. And of course I can’t hit her back because she’s cooking a baby–”
Nate starts to cough, small puffs of smoke and hot air escaping his lips as he laughs heartily at what I said. “Cooking?”
“Yeah,” I grin.
“Nice visual. So you don’t want to go to your Mom’s. Is your Dad’s house an option?”
“Aside from the fact that he lives an hour away, I don’t ever want to see him again. So, no.” He’s silent, and his brows are furrowed as if he’s deep in thought. “I know I didn’t think this through.”
“Yeah, what exactly was your plan?”
“Make them worry about me. That was the plan.”
“Well, then I think you’ve done that.” He opens the door to the coffee house for me, but I wait for him to lead the way to the counter. I’ve never been in a place like this before, and after reading the menu, I have no idea what any of it means. “What do you want?”
“I’ll get that drink you gave me,” I tell him. “I liked it.”
“Two chai lattes, no foam,” he says. I start to get money out of my purse until I see the stack of bills tucked under a money clip that he pulls from his back pocket. It looks like he can afford this more than I can.
“No foam?” I ask him, putting my wallet away. I’ve never heard my parents talk about foam with coffee.
“I just like it better like that. Did you want it?”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“Give her foam,” he instructs the man making our drinks. “It makes it milkier.”
“But it’s not chocolate.”
“No. Is this an allergy or something? Because I can’t guarantee that the spoons they use haven’t come into contact with chocolate or anything. Your throat’s not gonna swell up, is it?”
“No, it’s not an allergy.” We get our drinks and head back out to the street toward his car. It’s a black SUV with dark windows. “This is nice,” I tell him as he opens the door for me. Once inside, I look at all the buttons and knobs on the dashboard. This car has everything. Glancing down, I even notice a phone in the center console. Who has a phone in their car? “Are you a drug dealer?” I blurt out as soon as he sits down behind the wheel, before I can even consider what I’m asking. My heart’s racing in panic, and I put my fingers around the handle, ready to escape. Why am I getting in the car with him?
“A drug dealer?” he asks. “Why would you think that?”
“I saw all that money,” I explain, scooting a few inches away from him until my body is pressed against the door. He puts the keys in a cup-holder, as if assuring me we’re not going anywhere yet. I start to take a few breaths as I explain my rationale. “And then you have these dark windows, and a car phone, and you smoke.”
He presses his lips together, suppressing his laughter, I guess.
“This is our family car. I took it because it’s safer to drive in this weather than my car. Mom’s very active in a lot of organizations, and likes to be available at all times, even when people are driving her around. I do smoke – cigarettes, that’s all- and ‘all that money’ was only about a hundred-sixty. That’s not drug money.” He watches for my reaction, and when all I can do is stare back, he leans over the seat to unwrap my fingers from the handle. “Where do you want me to take you?”
I try to focus on the view in front of me, slightly obscured by frost and snow, feeling trapped – not by Nate anymore, but by my situation. My eyes begin to water, and I swallow the growing lump in my throat so I can speak. “Do you live far from here?” Nate starts the car and adjusts some of the knobs, causing the frost to dissipate rapidly from the windshield.
“Uhhh,” he hesitates. It’s obvious I’m imposing on him, making him uncomfortable. I blink, forcing two tears to run down my cheeks. “Hey, it’s okay,” he says assuringly. “I’m about ten miles southwest. I just–” he pauses, sounding nervous. “I’ve never had a girl over to my house before, that’s all.”
“It’s not like that,” I say quickly, realizing I may be giving him the wrong impression. “I just don’t have any other options–”
“I know, Emi.” He puts his hand on top of mine. I allow it for about three seconds, and then pull mine away, clasping my hands and settling them in my lap. “Sure, we can go to my house.”
“Thanks. Will your parents mind?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” he says. “But once we’re there, I know my mom won’t want me driving in this again, so we have that working in our favor.”
“Do you have an extra room?” He laughs at my question, carefully accelerating when we hit the main street. “Well? I can take the couch.”
“You don’t need to worry about that–”
“I’m not staying with you–”
“You’ve already made it clear that’s not what you want,” he says. “I don’t want that either. When you see where I live, you’re going to feel very silly, that’s all.”
“What, is it like a mansion?”
“No,” he says plainly. “It isn’t like one. It is one.”
“So you’re rich?”
“I will be when I’m twenty-one,” he tells me. “Inheritance. Now do you want me?”
I look at him, shocked, but see by his expression that he’s just joking with me. I laugh a little before I process what he’s said. “Your grandparents?” I ask him, hopeful that it isn’t some tragedy that will make him wealthy.
“Grandfather, yes,” he says. “And my dad.”
“Oh,” I say softly. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. I’m fine.”
“Okay.” I smile when he glances over to me.
“Your lipstick is distracting,” he says to me abruptly. I moisten my mouth with my tongue, surprised the red pigment is still on.
“That was the point, I guess. I was trying to make my brother’s friend jealous.”
“You’re going about it all wrong,” he says. “Do you not realize you were blessed with the most beautiful feature I’ve ever seen on any person? Naturally and unadorned?”
I blink rapidly, taken aback by his compliment. “What?” I say in a quick huff of air. I suddenly can’t breathe.
“Your eyes.”
I have my grandmother’s eyes, apparently, but she’d died before I was born. I’d never met anyone with eyes like mine, but I always thought they were too pale, and strange-looking. “They’re weird.”
The corner of his lip lifts slightly as he shakes his head. He takes a deep breath and sighs audibly. “You’re going to think I’m weird.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see,” he says. “You may want to go home once you find out.”
“I’m a little scared.”
“Don’t be scared,” Nate says. “I’m probably the least scary person you’ll ever meet.”
“I can tell you’re trying to look a little rough around the edges,” I tell him. “The smoking. Your leather jacket. Your scuffed-up boots. But then I really look at your face. You have a very pretty face.”
“Pretty?” he asks.
“That’s not an insult,” I assure him. “You have these great cheekbones, and long lashes. And your lips are a little distracting, too.” We both blush at that admission. “I’m just being factual. I am not hitting on you, by the way. Does that make sense?”
“Perfect sense,” he says. “You’re an artist, doing what an artist does. Observing. That’s all I’m doing, too, so don’t think my compliments are anything more than... an aesthetic appreciation.”
“Okay,” I say with a smile.
“Just remember that when I show you what I’ve been working on in my studio.”
“Okay.”
He takes me down a heavily wooded road, marked with mailboxes every so often, but I can’t see any houses. Finally, he makes a right turn down an unpaved lane that’s lined with tall street lamps. “This is all our property,” he says as the drive continues for about a quarter of a mile. We come over a small hill and take a sharp left, and I can suddenly see his house.
“Holy shit.” He’s silent, continuing the slow drive over frozen rocks and gravel. I count fourteen windows surrounding an entranceway made more stately by four wide columns that rise from the ground to the roof, spanning all three floors. Three floors? “This is where you live?”
“All my life,” he says.
“This is bigger than the apartment building we live in. Like, with all the units.” He just nods, pressing a button to open a garage door. There are two garages, with four doors total. He drives into the spot closest to the house. A beautiful woman opens the door to the house, her shoulder-length blonde hair perfectly-styled. She’s wearing more makeup than I’m used to seeing on women, especially at ten o’clock at night. Maybe she’s on a date.
I stay in the car, nervous, as Nate gets out. She doesn’t notice me at first, talking to Nate and giving him a hug. He kisses her cheek, then glances at me through the front window of the SUV. His mother – I presume– looks startled. Nate waves for me to get out.
“I’m Emi,” I say nervously as I shut the car door a little too hard. The door was heavy, and didn’t need all the force I’d put behind it.
“This is my mom,” Nate says. She doesn’t say anything to me. She just nods and smiles nervously.
“Well, get inside,” she addresses Nate. “It’s too cold to be out here.” Nate waits for me to enter the house behind his mother first, then follows me in. She continues walking ahead, but I stop, waiting for Nate to take the lead. He follows her to another room across the house.
In the kitchen, another younger man sits at the kitchen island with a glass of wine. “Victor, this is Emily,” she says.
“It’s Emi, actually,” Nate corrects her.
“It’s okay,” I smile, not wanting to offend anyone. “My parents call me Emily sometimes. It’s my real name.” I walk over to the man and shake his hand. “Are you Nate’s brother?”
The kitchen goes dead-silent, and I suddenly feel suffocated by awkward tension.
“Victor is Mom’s business partner,” Nate says, and I can feel all the color drain from my face. I look to his mother, an apology hanging on my tongue but unable to make its way out.
“It’s okay,” she says with a slight smile.
“I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t be,” Nate’s mom says. “He’s brilliant at what he does, even if he does look like he just got out of college–”
“Mom, can I talk to you for a second?”
“I was hoping you would,” she says with a smile in my direction. “Victor, see if Emi wants something else to drink.”
“Wine?” he asks.
“Please tell me she’s not old enough to drink,” his mother says quickly.
“I’m not, no,” I answer for my friend, feeling completely uncomfortable. I can tell Nate’s mom is not okay with me being here.
“I have my latte, or something,” I mumble, holding it up. “It’s good.”
“Something to eat?” Victor asks.
“I’m good.” I start to shrug out of my coat, realizing that beads of sweat are forming on my upper lip. It could be the roaring fire that’s six feet to my left, or it could just be the situation. Unsure if I should make myself at home so soon, I leave the coat on, but unzip it all the way.
“Have a seat,” the man offers, pushing a chair out for me.
“Thanks.” I listen intently, trying to hear Nate or his mother, but I hear no one. They could have gone anywhere in this huge house, never to be heard from again. And I’m left with this man–
Imagination, Emi...
“Can I take my coat off?”
“Of course.” Victor stands up, touching the shoulder of my down jacket. “Let me help.”
“I’ve got it,” I say, confused. I can take off my own coat. He stands next to me, waiting until I’ve got both arms out of the sleeves, and then takes my coat from me. It seems awfully late on a Saturday for a work meeting. It’s none of my business. But what is he, twenty five?
“Are you Nate’s girlfriend?” Victor asks me as he walks back to his glass of wine.
“No,” I tell him. “I go to school with him. I actually just met him yesterday,” I admit. Was it only yesterday? “It’s just... the weather was bad and I couldn’t get home, and... well, I hope I’m not getting him in trouble.”
“In trouble with Donna?” he asks with a chuckle. “She’s the most charitable woman I’ve ever met. You need a place to stay tonight?”
“I guess, yeah.”
“That makes two of us,” he says with a sympathetic smile. “I’d planned to leave before the storm, but sometimes we both just get too involved in our work.”
“What do you do?”
“Our current project is a fund-raiser for AIDS research. Donna’s involved in a lot of organizations, though. It’s my job to keep her focused on one thing at a time. She has a tendency to spread herself a little thin. When she learns of someone who needs help, she just can’t say no.”
“She sounds very caring.”
“She is. And that’s why I don’t think she’ll turn you away tonight. She’d give up her own bed if she had to.”
“I wouldn’t want her to do that–”
“Sweetheart, look around. She has more room than she knows what to do with.”
“You really don’t think she’ll mind?”
He shakes his head. “Make yourself at home.”