Perfect Strangers

That night, our lovemaking has a desperate edge to it. The frenzy of unleashed wild animals that leaves my body sore and bruised in the morning.

My mind it leaves scraped clean. A pumpkin hollowed out by knives, awaiting its Halloween candle.

James left in the dark with a whispered word of farewell, kissing me as I laid nude under the sheets, my skin still slicked with sweat from our passion. I didn’t sleep a wink after that. I simply listened to the song of crickets and the lonely calls of night birds, the heady scent of the lavender fields drifting in through the open windows like the most comforting balm.

I told him I wanted to go with him on his lethal errand, but his no was unequivocal. It was too dangerous. He wouldn’t take the risk. But he would honor my other request.

He found the idea of bringing me a head on a platter pleasingly biblical.

Yes, we’re quite the pair, we two. A modern day Salome and Herod, happily lopping off their enemies’ noggins. I should start looking for competent couples counselors the moment the sun crests the flanks of the mountains.

But when that moment comes, I’m no longer in bed. I’m dressing in a hurry, pulling on my jeans and yanking my T-shirt impatiently over my head, because I’ve heard the sound of a car pulling up the long gravel driveway outside.

The throaty purr of the Mercedes’s engine is unmistakable.

With my heart in my throat, I run barefoot through the darkened house. The heavy wooden front door I fling open as if it weighs nothing. Then I watch breathlessly as James parks the Mercedes by the low stone wall that surrounds the circular drive court and cuts the engine.

When our gazes meet through the windshield, my heart stops dead in my chest.

A purple bruise darkens the hollow under his left eye. His lower lip is split and swollen.

He exits the car, closes the driver’s door, and walks around to the hatch in the back. Gravel crunches under his feet. The hatch lifts silently with a push of a button. Then James reaches inside the car and removes a leather satchel.

It’s black and rounded on either end with two short curved handles and a zipper that runs between them, front to back. It’s something you could carry over your shoulder, about the size of a big purse. It looks like a bag that might be used to store a bowling ball.

James shuts the rear hatch and turns to look at me. Carried on the sweet-smelling dawn air, his voice floats across the driveway. “Honey, I’m home.”

He lifts the bag like a trophy.

I press my shaking hands over my pounding heart.

Then my legs give out and I sink to my knees on the floor.

In the end, I couldn’t look at what the bag contained. I told James to bury it somewhere far out in the lavender fields, then I went inside and made coffee and omelets and waited for him to come back.

When he did, we didn’t talk about it. We never spoke of it again.

I stayed in Provence for the rest of the summer, telling Kelly that I’d broken it off with James and needed a change of scenery, and informing Estelle that I found Paris far too crowded and hot. I said I’d gone instead to a small fishing village on the coast that I loved and might want to relocate to.

Being good friends, they were both supportive. They didn’t ask too many questions. They just wanted me to be happy and could tell by my voice that I was.

James dealt with Christopher via a single phone call. I don’t know what was said, but Chris later sent me an email letting me know my name and face had been removed from the computers and security cameras at the hotel Saint Germaine, so I’d never be associated with the “incident” there. He told me he loved me and always would, and to contact him if I needed anything.

I never wrote back.

It’s September now. I’m almost finished with my novel. The lavender fields have been harvested. The briefly blooming rows of purple and blue have returned to their normal earthen shades of brown and green. They’ll lie fallow through winter and spring until bursting forth again in one glorious, short-lived riot of color next summer.

But not every field around here lies fallow. One small plot has proven itself surprisingly fertile. In one miniscule acre, a tiny bud of life grows.

“A baby?” whispers James, eyes wide as I show him the little plastic stick.

“A baby.” I laugh when he bursts into tears. It’s always the big tough guys who’re the mushiest inside.

“When?” he demands, excitedly pulling me into his arms. “We have to get ready!”

We’re outside in the garden. It’s a glorious fall day: the sky blue, the air crisp, the potted geraniums blooming in a burst of crimson around the burbling fountain. I’ve never been happier.

“It’s early,” I murmur, winding my arms around the solid mass of his shoulders. I press a kiss to his strong neck. “I don’t know exactly how far along I am, but I’ll make an appointment at the doctor’s.”

He pulls away and grins at me. His eyes are shining. His cheeks are wet. He’s so handsome it hurts my chest.

“Let’s look at a calendar and try to figure it out!”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“I’m glad you’re so happy about this.”

He pretends to be outraged. “Did you think I’d be a total asshole and ask who the father was?”

“No. But…I wasn’t sure…”

All his laughter and teasing vanish. He says urgently, “You weren’t sure about what?”

Avoiding his eyes, I pick at the top button on his shirt. “Well, to be totally honest…” I glance up to find him staring down at me in blistering intensity. My voice drops. “I wasn’t sure how a baby would fit into your lifestyle.”

He slowly exhales a breath, then pulls me closer, cupping a hand around the back of my head and tucking it into his shoulder. “In case you hadn’t noticed, sweetheart, I’ve been here with you every day.”

I frown. “Um…and?”

“I haven’t been working.”

He says it as if there’s some deeper meaning to his words. If there is, I’m not grasping it. “Yes,” I say carefully, “having you here has been nice.”

He throws his head back and laughs, startling me. “What’s so funny?”

“You are.” Still chuckling, he takes my face into his hands. “All those big words you know, and ‘nice’ is what you come up with nine times out of ten.”

I grouse, “Nice is a nice word.” When he grins, I smack him on the shoulder. “Quit it!”

“I have.” He kisses me gently, rubbing his thumbs over my cheeks.

“Have what?”

“Quit.”

“Quit what?” When he just stands there smiling at me with tender eyes, I gasp in understanding. “You quit?”

“God, you’re slow. Are you sure you have a college degree?”

Gazing at him in disbelief, I say, “My grandmother used to tell me I was so clueless I’d starve with a loaf of bread under my arm.”

He makes a face. “She sounds like a charming woman.”

“Sicilians don’t fuck around. Back to this quitting thing.”

He kisses me again, this time a little deeper. “Hmm?”

“When did it happen?”

“As soon as I realized I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. After that, my line of work didn’t make sense anymore. If I was going to be responsible for taking care of you, I couldn’t be flying around the world killing bad guys who sometimes tried to kill me back.”

I think of his bruised face and split lip when he returned that night from Germany with the leather bag and shiver. “So you can just walk away? I mean, with no consequences?”

His face darkens. For a moment, he simply gazes at me in silence.

I say quickly, “Just tell me if me or the baby will be in danger.”

“No,” he says instantly, shaking his head. “But remember I told you I’d break rules to make you mine? Well, I broke them. All of them. And there’s a price to be paid for everything in life. Someday that marker will be called in, and I can’t refuse it.”

Holy shit that sounds bad.

He stands waiting for me to grill him with questions, and I know he’ll answer them if I do. But I’ve gotten very good at handling ambiguities. I’m an expert now at navigating the dark, dangerous waters of life, and I know that whenever this “marker” of his is called in, I’ll handle it.

We’ll handle it together.

Adopting a lighter tone, I say, “Well, I hope you’re not expecting me to support you, Romeo. You’re still going to have to pull your weight around here, contract killer or not.”

Slowly, his face breaks into a smile. “And here I thought you were a feminist.”

“What does me being a feminist have to do with you not being a slacker?”

“I thought feminism was all about equality.”

“And?”

“And what if I wanted to stay home and take care of the baby while you worked?”

This man is so good at saying things that make me stare at him with my mouth open. Seriously, it’s a Jedi-level skill.

He laughs and gives me a hard squeeze. “I’m going to find a calendar so we can figure out when James, Jr. is coming.” He turns and heads back toward the house, leaving me shouting after him, “What if the baby is a girl, you chauvinist?”

As he disappears through the open French doors, I hear his chuckle. “Then we’ll name her Jamie.”

Laughing weakly, I sit in one of the cushioned wrought iron chairs that surround the square wooden table where we love to eat supper in the evenings. The olive trees are alive with birdsong. The sun is warm on my head. I toy with the plastic pregnancy test stick, smiling like a crazy person and shaking my head at how the universe conspired to bring me here, to this moment.

To drag me through the sewer and test my mettle before rewarding me with such beautiful gifts.

When James returns, holding a wall calendar, I scoff. “What happened to your super spy phone?”

He rolls his eyes. “Your grandmother was right. Didn’t you notice? I haven’t used that phone in weeks.”

“Side with my nana again and this child will be the last you’ll ever be able to produce, my friend.”

He drops the calendar on the table in front of me, kisses me on top of the head, then ambles toward the raised beds of vegetables growing rampant along the wall on one side of the patio. I watch his ass—the eighth wonder of the world—as he goes.

When I turn my attention back to the calendar, I notice its theme is fall foliage on the East Coast. “Pretty pictures,” I call out to James. “Have you ever seen the leaves change in Central Park in September? It’s magical.”

He says something I can’t quite catch over the chirping of the birds, which has grown louder. They’re fighting over the last of the wild plums in the hedgerows, no doubt. There’s a faraway buzzing sound in my ears, too, a mechanical noise, something distant and slightly irritating. Idly wondering if a farmer is plowing one of the spelt fields nearby, I flip open the calendar to September’s page.

The photo for the month is of an apple orchard outside a quaint village in New England. The trees are brilliant shades of scarlet, yellow, and gold. Beneath the photo is a description of the trees and location it was taken, along with the name of the group who sponsored the calendar.

Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg, New York.

My breath is knocked from my lungs. The skin all over my body prickles with gooseflesh. The strange mechanical noise intensifies until it’s all I can hear.

I whisper in horror, “No.”

When I look up in panic, my eyes desperately seeking James, he’s no longer bending over the vegetable beds, picking tomatoes for dinner.

He’s gone.

When I look back at the wooden table, it’s gone, too. So is the chair I was sitting in, and the house, and the patio, and the garden, and the rolling fields of harvested lavender bushes, and all the beauty and tranquility of Provence. Everything has vanished.

The only thing left is the calendar in my hand—the calendar with a big red circle around Monday the 23^rd.

The first day of fall.

The day I was supposed to return to New York from my summer vacation in Paris.

White light surrounds me, growing brighter and brighter until I’m blinded. I can no longer see, but I can still feel my blood pounding hot through my veins, and I can still hear the strange, irritating mechanical noise, though it’s quickly drowned out by something much louder.

The high, wavering sound of my scream.