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“Did it work? Your dream?” I smiled at her.
“It was the only thing that worked.”
“What was it? The dream you had.”
“Do you really want to know?”
“I want to know all of it,” I responded. It was the truth I wanted. Her truth.
“Okay, then. But you can’t laugh,” she warned. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It seems silly now. This was a long time ago.”
My hands curled over her knuckles as I leaned against her. I squeezed the palm of my hand over hers. “Tell me. Please.”
She nodded. “The one that played over and over in my head was one when we decided to see each other. We needed to. It was better than accidentally bumping into each other somewhere or being our fathers’ pawns. You had moved out of your apartment, but you asked me to meet you there. It was a place we could be alone. Quiet. Private. No distractions. No one would think to look for us there.”
I listened while she explained the dream.
“In the dream, all your things were still in the rooms, just like you had left them. All I had to was open up the windows and doors and it was as if you had never left. You told me where the hidden key was so I could let myself in. I arrived before you did. The sun was starting to set. I left the door open on the balcony so I could hear the music floating up from the street. I unloaded groceries, the things I had brought from the cooler, my favorite bottle of champagne. I knew you would be there soon. I made a cheeseboard because I didn’t know how else to pass the time. I wondered if we would eat all of it, or you would think it was crazy I’d spent so much time making this presentation for you, which had nothing to do with why we wanted to see each other. I poured a huge glass of chilled wine, but only took a few sips. I was worried to drink too much before you got there. I didn’t want to be numb in any way. I wanted to feel everything when I saw you again.”
I could picture everything she described. I wondered if I’d had this dream too. Had it saved me in a dark place? Was she there somehow when I was rebuilding the vineyards and starting over after the fires?
“I heard your footsteps climbing the stairs. I looked up as the door squeaked. I was afraid to look at you. Afraid that I would start crying or laughing, maybe both made sense together. I knew we would look a little different, but somehow still the same. What if I wasn’t who you remembered? I had to stop myself from being terrified. I glanced up. It used to feel like when we were together, we could talk across a room with our eyes and no one would know what we were saying or thinking. That’s how it felt when I saw you. I knew exactly what you were thinking and feeling when our eyes met.
“I waited for you to drop the bag you were carrying before I barreled into your arms. I wanted to be wrapped up in you for a minute, or a year, I didn’t know. Just to know you were here. I could touch you. Hear you. Smell you. Everything in me was on fire. A fire I hadn’t felt since the last time I was against your chest like this. Your hands moved to my face, just like the first time you kissed me. You never let me look away from you before, and you didn’t want me to now. I hadn’t planned on kissing you this soon. We were supposed to drink and unpack. But those crazy magnets sewn under our skin were more powerful than us. Trying to absorb every second and take our time wasn’t really possible. You kissed me and kissed me again. We tried to talk about food or wine, or unloading more things in the car, but we kept kissing. You walked me
backward. Our hands were everywhere. You pushed me against the wall, and we tried to catch our breaths, but how do you quiet something like that?”
Her words tumbled out. She wasn’t looking for me to answer.
“We tried to say important words quickly, but they were drowned out by how I tugged on your shirt. Threading it over your head and throwing it on the floor. I’d worn a short dress for you. Your fingers dug into my thighs, up higher. I rocked into you. Everything was going faster than it was supposed to. All I could think about was touching your skin. I wanted to taste you, kiss you, lick you, know your body again until anything I had forgotten was erased and replaced by a new memory of how you felt against me.
“I wanted to know everything about you that I hadn’t learned in all the conversations leading to this moment. I wanted to stay up and talk and drink and eat. I wanted to laugh with you and listen to music and maybe dance in front of the piano once the sun went down. That was probably the right plan, the take your time and get to know each other again plan. But it was you and it was me. And I knew we could still do all those things, and probably focus better if you just took me in the next room first. Because if you didn’t, all I would think about over dinner was when you would kiss me again. When you would try to get me out of my clothes. If the foreplay would be as intense and powerful as it used to be. So, when you pressed into me against the wall I nodded yes, an emphatic yes, between tasting you, biting you, clawing at you. Your hands curled to my legs, lifting me to your waist. I smiled, this felt familiar. I loved when you used to do this. I curled my legs around you. With another long kiss, I wrapped my hands around your neck. God, I wanted off the wall now. I wanted more, so did you. You held me tightly and walked me to the bed. We could hear a saxophone playing on the street below. Dinner could wait. Wine could wait. The stupid cheeseboard could wait. We’d waited a year to be connected again—that didn’t seem like it could wait.”
“And then what?” My voice was low. I was almost afraid to speak. I didn’t want to fuck this up. Not now.
Her smile was sweet and sexy. “We were a tumbled and tangled mess after that. It was hot and fiery. Better than any dream I’d ever been able to create. I thought maybe it had finally replaced all the other dreams. All the times I lost you or woke up heartbroken. Maybe we could finally have a stronger unbreakable reality. That’s what I told myself over and over, until I started to believe it.”
“It’s almost like you predicted our night at the Vieux Carre.”
She smiled. “Almost.” Her tone was somber. We both had to sit in this for a minute. It couldn’t be washed away with flirty banter. I had to accept what happened to her.
I had a similar story, but instead of a dream, I had seen her in the Paris airport, or at least I had convinced myself I had. That girl wasn’t a dream. Perhaps a mirage. For months afterward, I would lie awake at night and replay what I should have done. What I could have done to follow the girl who looked like Kennedy in Paris.
I still didn’t know how to process what she said. The dream. The kidnapping. I had to hear the rest of the story.
My hands moved to her shoulders. “I’m glad you told me what happened. Can you tell me how it ended?”
“You’re not going to like the ending.”
“I don’t like any of it.”
She sighed. “I know. I didn’t think I could keep it from you.”
If she could survive it and come out on the other side the queen of the city, I could sit here and let her tell me what she had faced. I owed her nothing less.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know. I can’t believe my parents or even Seraphina never mentioned it. I should have known. Someone should have told me.” The anger started to work its way up my fingertips again.
Her eyes flashed to mine. “I’m glad you didn’t know. What could you have done about it? I’m fine now. I was fine then. You couldn’t have hopped on a plane. It would have only hurt you. There was nothing you could have done. Nothing.”
