EYES ON YOU Page 10

  A smile found its way onto Roman’s face. “I’m thinking tomorrow would be good. I’ll have to check to see how busy she is. They’re moving in today.”

  “I know all about it,” Julia reflected. “Ruth called me.”

  “She did?” Slowly, he began nodding. The Merry Geezers were already cranked and had shifted into third gear.

  “We had a nice talk. Ruth’s so happy it’s you. Jess has had a tough time for several months. Ruth told me that she doesn’t talk about the ex-husband and what happened because she’s afraid it’ll upset Jess.”

  Ruth was a wise woman.

  “So, I should cook something nice and take it over—tomorrow?”

  For a moment, Roman was flummoxed by the question, his mind still elsewhere. But he recovered enough to say, “I think she’ll appreciate it.”

  “Good!” Julia said, positioning her pen over her list. “You know, I think I’ll make a beef bolognaise. That, and a fresh loaf of sourdough bread.” She paused in her writing to smile at her son and say, “This is oh…such wonderful news, Son!”

  A kiss or two in her darkroom, and then attending a basketball game with her and her kids was already a full-fledged romance? In his mind, he’d been stuck on the kisses for every waking hour since they had happened. Then he took a deeper, more measured breath.

  “I think she’ll love the gesture,” he said.

  “There’s no need for you to take me to the store, Dear. There’s no ice and I’m fine.”

  He asked, “Are you sure?”

  “I’m not that old,” Julia assured, standing her ground.

  He got up from the chair, went over to his mother and hugged her. She was like a small, fragile bird, but she was also the Mayer family’s powerhouse in all the ways that counted. “I do want you to meet Jess and her family,” he conceded. “But we’re just friends, Mom.”

  “Oh—I know you are,” Julia said with a twinkle in her eyes. Then the Mayer family powerhouse had quite a merry laugh.

  *****

  Jess had a pile of clothes in her arms when she answered the door, presenting an immediate smile when she saw that he had brought Mona with him.

  “I came to help,” he announced, indicating his worn jeans and old sweatshirt underneath his jacket. “I’m a very good painter.”

  “I knew you’d come.” Jess’s eyes traveled from him to Mona, the dog working her way beyond the doorway and into the house. Once she succeeded, she briskly wagged her long tail. Jess laughed when Mona began dancing around. “This house needs that dog,” she said, immediately realizing what that entailed, and flushing.

  Lightening her armload of clothes, taking many of them in his own arms, he smiled at how she sometimes blurted out things, beginning to see that she had a spontaneous side that he liked a lot. Embarrassing her further, he said the obvious, “We’re a package deal.”

  Her cheeks became rose-colored indeed. She was wearing a shorter, loose blouse that presented him with a quick glance at cleavage that he hadn’t seen before, and when she bit her lower lip, he said, “Careful there, with that lip. Someone might like to kiss it. Where would you like these?”

  Before she could say where, Aden came barreling down the stairs, saw both Mona and him, and said, “Hey, Doc. You brought your dog.”

  Mona was furiously wagging her tail again, and the boy sat down on the bottom step to acknowledge and begin petting her. Molly appeared at the top of the landing, surprised to see Mona and him, and flew down the stairs to join her brother while saying hello. Aden said, “Without the sweater, you can see a lot more of her leopard spots. She’s wicked looking.” Aden and Molly began smoothing down Mona’s withers and lower back fur, and she was lapping the attention up.

  Roman said, “Far as I know, she’s the only Catahoula Leopard in the area, and maybe in the entire state of Maine.”

  “Aden, you and Molly take these clothes to your rooms and either fold them or put them on hangers?” Jess was regaining her momentum. Aden got up to retrieve them from Roman and his mother, and he and Molly scampered back up the stairs.

  “They’re very good at minding you,” Roman observed.

  With a dubious look, Jess said, “Sometimes. Would you like a cup of coffee? I just brewed it.”

  “Actually, I would,” he admitted.

  Mona was holding back from climbing the stairs, whining, until Jess told her she could go up. There were stairs in his mother’s house that she was accustomed to climbing and she raced up them, disappearing in a flash.

  After shrugging off his jacket and dropping it on a stack of boxes, he followed Jess into the kitchen. In front of the coffeemaker, she poured him a cup, and then poured herself one. Before she could pick hers up, Roman clutched the back of her head and kissed her.

  “Now it’s a good morning,” he said, feeling a boldness in him rise up. Yeah…it was clear that she liked a little chutzpah.

  CHAPTER 14

  Painting was something he could do quite well and fairly fast. He rolled the paint on the walls of the living room in under two hours, and although the process of cutting in took a lot longer and included some intricate details around the fireplace, he was still finished in less than four hours. Jess and he were able to talk while he painted and she began opening boxes. Sometimes, his sweatshirt rode up when he had to expand the roller’s reach, and he caught her looking at a portion of his hairy abdomen. Neither of them said anything, but he smiled to himself.

  “I like your family a lot. You, however,” she emphasized the pronoun, “didn’t tell me about who they were.”

  He knew that was about to come up. He asked, “Would knowing that have changed any of the perceptions you have of me?”

  She thought for a moment, pausing from unpacking. “Well…no,” she admitted. “Your sister and brother-in-law are both police officers…you’ve got two nephews on the high school’s basketball team, and lots of people spoke to you the entire time we were there. I guess I was just impressed by your connections to so many people.”

  Roman had his back turned, continuing to paint. “I told you I know a lot of folks. Many were curious about you and the kids attending a game with me.”

  “I’d met a few of them when Molly sang the anthem last week,” she admitted.

  “But you haven’t met my mother yet,” he countered.

  “Should I be nervous?” she asked, sounding as if she were.

  He looked back at her. “Not at all. In fact, she’s hoping to welcome you to the neighborhood by bringing dinner over tomorrow.”

  “Oh? That’s so nice of her!”

  “She’s also dying to see who’s caught my eye,” he confessed.

  She was about to reply when Molly started giggling from upstairs, followed by Aden who laughed out loud, and then both kids began guffawing. Molly was the first to fly down the stairs partway, followed my Aden, both of them urging Mona down the stairs. The dog had on a small, frilly pink tutu around her middle, along with a small pink hat with silk flowers adorning it. Aden had his phone out snapping pictures, while Molly urged the dog to make a grand entry.

  Jess and Roman immediately joined in the laughter, especially after seeing Mona’s large, dropped ears pressed even closer to her face by the band of the hat. Once she descended all of the stairs, she knew she was the center of attention, making the most of it, providing the humans with belly laughs at the sight of her. For her, human laughter was the highest form of praise.

  *****

  Everyone had peanut butter sandwiches on the fly for lunch, and then the kids took Mona outside in the backyard to play Frisbee and soccer (dog style.) The day was brilliantly sunny, nearly fifty-five degrees, an unseasonal, perfect time for romping with a dog outdoors. Roman was chugging down a bottle of water before asking Jess, “What’s next?”

  She was bent over a box to get the last large book out, unaware that her loose blouse had gaped low to show the upper parts of her lovely breasts. She had on a low-cut bra, making Roman’s view of he
r feminine charms all the more fascinating.

  Jess raised up and replied, “I’m thinking that the dining room’s too much to expect. Wouldn’t you rather be outside having some fun?” They could hear the kids’ laughter from where they stood.

  He’d already looked at the room and knew he could paint it in a couple of hours. The walls were nine feet rather than twelve, and the room was a standard size. “I’d like to help you get this done,” he earnestly said.

  Reservedly, she responded, explaining, “I chose a different pastel color—a light grayish blue.” The living room was now painted entirely in a creamy white, and he and Aden had placed the sofa and side chairs where she wanted them before Aden had gone outside. Roman followed her to the laundry room to get the paint, and when they returned, he was drying the brush he used for cutting in on a dry rag and happened to peer over Jess’s shoulder at one of the large books she had unpacked.

  “Ripples in a Stream,” he read aloud. She turned to the author’s page and there Jess was, smiling before the world. Below the picture of her was a biography that he couldn’t read, but the name, Jessica Wentworth, screamed at him.

  “Wait a minute,” he suddenly said. “Jessica Wentworth. That’s you!”

  Turning halfway around from where she was sitting, she said, “That’s me. My alter-ego.”

  Pulling out more large books, Jess showed him several others: Snowy Mountain, Dignity, We Will Remember, Whale Songs, and Interludes. Each first edition book had the name of the woman who sat before him.

  Stunned, he muttered, “You use…”

  “My maiden name,” she said.

  Having recently cleaned his hands, Roman put the brush he’d been wiping aside and bent down to pick up one of her books. Reverently, he opened the volume Dignity and slowly began paging through. He saw faces of ordinary people, not only Americans, but working people around the world. From farmers in Africa to street vendors in Rio. After a quick turn of several pages, he was struck by the extraordinary amount of traveling Jess had done to get these images.

  Looking up at him with optimistic eyes, she said, “You could take them home with you. Maybe you would get to know me better through my photographs.”

  Roman sat down on the ottoman with her, his face inches from hers, as he said, “I’d love to get to know you better.”

  “And you should start with Snowy Mountain. It was my first photo essay, back when I was twenty-four years old.” Their faces drifted closer, and Jess touched the outline of his mouth before she kissed him.

  He said, “I saw an exhibit of yours in Atlanta…nine or ten years ago. But I didn’t see you there.”

  Jess thought about that for only a moment, remembering the southern tour of her exhibition. “That’s when I’d just had Molly.”

  They could hear the kids playing with Mona, Molly’s occasional high-pitched squeals bringing forth laughter from those inside the house. Nine and a half years ago… Roman flashed back to a time in his life when he was roaming the streets of Atlanta, looking for any way to distract himself from a barren life that had lost all meaning.

  “You’re still working?” he asked.

  “I’m still trying to get going,” she amended. “My agent would like a new book to be published by the end of this year. She knows I’ve moved to an entirely new and fertile location, one ripe for photographic exploration.”

  She stood to face Roman as he placed the book down with the others. “I’m so impressed,” he said, “that I can hardly speak.”

  “Keep them for as long as you like.”

  Roman placed his hands on her shoulders before saying, “You’re famous, Jess. There are a lot of people on this island who would love to know that a celebrity photographer—an artist—is living here among us.”

  “But you’re not going to tell anyone?” she asked with a fearful smile.

  “Not a word. You’ll have to be the one who reveals herself when your next book is published.”

  “When is the operative term.”

  *****

  Before going home, but while he and Mona were on their way, Roman called his mother to make sure that she had gotten back from her shopping trip. His ankle was throbbing from having been on his feet much of the day, but he had no choice but to keep slogging along with it, hoping the ligaments, tendons—whatever—would eventually mend themselves. He could tell that his foot had swelled inside his athletic shoe.

  Julia asked, “You helped to get them settled in, I hope?”

  “I did some painting,” he answered. “Mona’s had a hard day, playing with two rambunctious kids.”

  She laughed at that. “She needs a real family to give her daily workouts, Roman.”

  “Is that a request, Mom?” He pulled down his own driveway and Mona yawned from her catnap. “Jess and I are just friends.”

  “That’s how it starts, Dear. Your dad and I were always the best of friends.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, before he made the curve into the pines, he thought he saw a car slow down near the head of his driveway. He took his foot off the gas and stopped to look back in the rear mirror. There was a car, and it had stopped parallel to the entry of his road. He supposed that someone was looking for a specific address, and his house number was not on his mailbox…and that reminded him that he hadn’t gotten the day’s mail. He waited another moment, the other car remained where it was, and he finally decided that whoever had stopped would eventually move on, or turn in and drive down to the house. He decided that he would get his mail the next day.

  “Are you still there?” asked Julia.

  “Yes, I’m here. Friends of both genders are good to have.”

  Julia simply laughed out loud.

  *****

  After a long, steamy shower and a Healthy Choice dinner, Roman settled down with the books. He had carefully stacked them at one end of his L-shaped sofa, placing Snowy Mountain on top so that he could view it first, as Jess had requested. Mona settled down nearby on the floor, he backed himself into the corner of the couch, and put both his legs up on the sofa. His ankle and foot were indeed swollen, but he decided to put off icing the area because he had gotten settled before he’d thought of it, and didn’t want to get up again. On his stereo system, Roman had soft piano jazz by Oscar Peterson playing.

  The book was an expose of Parkview Mountain in the Rockies, one of numerous massifs, this one a few miles from the western boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park. She had said that she was twenty-four when the book was published, and he wondered if she had been married by then. Turning to the back of the book and to her biography, he became convinced that she hadn’t been.

  Looking at a more youthful image of Jess took several minutes. Roman already thought of her as young, certainly more so that he. But after noticing the publishing date, 1999, he did the math, calculating that she was now around forty-three. In the photograph, taken as a snapshot and apparently without any staging, Jessica Wentworth personified the image of an outdoorsy, modern young woman. Her long hair was bound into braids, the freckles across her face much more prominent than what age and maturity had now wrought. She’d had wispy bangs that covered part of her forehead, and she had been smiling so much that her eyes appeared to be secondary to her mouth, her facial squint inadvertently hiding her most prominent feature. Youthful exuberance was how Roman would have described her. She’d been energized, and was filled with lively enthusiasm.

  In her biography, he learned that she had a bachelor’s degree of fine arts and photography from the University of Colorado and that she lived in Boulder. He learned that she had been taking pictures since she was ten years old with a Brownie camera. The biography was short, however.

  As soon as he opened the book, he saw that she had been the Grand Prize Winner of the 1998 Audubon Photography Award for a picture of a snow goose. He imagined that the award—based on technical quality, originality and merit, had to have helped in gaining the attention of a publisher for a first book of her w
ork. He knew that twenty years had made a whole lot of difference in photography. The types of cameras had dramatically changed. Yet, when he saw the first of her pictures, he knew that Jess’s photographic imagery was truly special. She had been a pro from the start.

  He was struck by the image of the snow goose. Jess’s photo had captured the extraordinary grace of the bird by emphasizing its strength. The beauty of the creature was breathtaking—the elegant pitch of the neck and throat and the lissome wings exuding style and suppleness, as the fowl bested gravity and started to rise above smooth waters and into the infinite sky. He could not help but be astounded at the photograph’s capacity to convey the wonder and magnificence of the bird. It was truly breathtaking!

  CHAPTER 15

  Roman slept later than usual, since he had poured over Jess’s pictures until he couldn’t see. He’d gotten through Snowy Mountain and had picked up the second book she had published, We Will Remember, when he realized that he could go no further. The second book dealt with the 2001 Trade Center and Pentagon bombings and the aftermath that ensued. He decided that he’d rather look at it with fresh eyes.

  He had let Mona out to take care of business and had heard her growling, something that she almost never did. He had turned on the outside lights, and she wasn’t far from the back door. Looking out at the pines and their shadows in the lights’ illumination, he could hear the gentle lapping of the ocean waves below the cliff, and he felt the cold night breeze.

  “Nothing to see, girl.”

  He had waited some more, she finally urinated and had then quickly scurried back inside. But her fur had been raised on her back and neck. Something or someone had definitely spooked her, and during the night, she was wakeful. Roman couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a solid night’s sleep.

  He woke up groggy and initially disoriented, finally dragging himself from under the covers. Before rising from the edge of his bed, he saw that the swelling in his ankle and foot had not improved during the night and decided that he would lie low, ice the swollen ankle on and off during the day, and vowed to ride his stationary bike. Low impact aerobic exercise was something his orthopedist had recommended. He was still too incapacitated for his preferred form of exercise, hiking with his dog.