Miranda Page 17

  “Do you have any news on the Norman Clausell case?”

  I didn’t take my eyes off him so as to analyze his reaction.

  “The case is closed.”

  When he spoke, his tone was controlled. I took note of a look of annoyance in his eyes. He didn’t convince me, because he also looked away toward the steering wheel.

  “Why would there be no longer any interest in knowing what caused the accident?” Hooray for me: I definitely caught him unprepared.

  Something made him feel uncomfortable. Since I met him that morning in the trauma waiting room, the way he would look around worried me. I could understand the constant state of alert because of the nature of his work and the number of enemies that I imagine the years have given him. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe not. The reality was that, at that moment, I noticed a significant increase in the frequency of those scans of his surroundings.

  “I’m sorry, Miranda, but I can’t give you information about that.” He still wasn’t looking me in the eye.

  “If you discovered the truth,” I leaned forward in an effort to come into his view. Why is it that silence allows the soul to hear words better? “I don’t think that telling me would do anyone any harm.”

  “Clausell is very important to you?” he asked, cautiously. That time, he made it a point to have his eyes fixed firmly on mine.

  “Are you referring to Norman?”

  Without thinking about it in advance, I let slip that commentary that ended up being more illuminating and revealing for me than for him. Now there wasn’t one Clausell in my life, rather there were two, and both, one way or another, in different ways, were important. I concluded with a vague response.

  “Yes, Clausell is very important.”

  “I can’t give you details,” he paused and hesitated to continue, “but I can tell you that you also are for him. Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  There was no more to say. Norman knew the reason for his accident and didn’t tell me about it. A feeling of disappointment came over me. I was no longer that important to him. Why did he profess otherwise?

  Hernandez was in a bad situation. I didn’t want him to risk himself for me, nor did I want to be left with so many unanswered questions, much less put him in an even more uncomfortable situation. Though, how should I say goodbye? The truth is that I didn’t want to, and that, in particular, was not good.

  Why did I have the two Clausell men on my mind?

  “Thank you for driving me.” I managed to say, finally.

  The heat of his lips burned me before I could touch them with mine. It was a brief kiss – one of those that feels good… until reason enters the consciousness.

  “Oh! Oh! Sorry!” I squealed.

  My chest and my face heated up from so much embarrassment. Hernandez didn’t take his eyes off me. He kept savoring the sensation that my lips left on his.

  “Miranda,” he sighed, “you are a beautiful woman, and you have a heart of gold…”

  I was taken aback. That opening was evidently the beginning of a rejection.

  “I would have been delighted to get to know you at another time in my life, but now I am engaged to a marvelous woman. I can’t reciprocate.”

  Remorse made its smug and triumphal entrance. What a bitch you are, Miranda! How could you think of tempting such a decent man?

  “I… I’m so sorry.” In a move of desperation, I grabbed the good man’s hand. His hand, even though it looked rough, had delicate and tender skin. It took me by surprise. “Please forgive me.” I scolded myself in my mind: But what are you doing, idiot? You keep provoking him? I let go of his hand. “I have to go home now.”

  I reached out to give him a regular handshake. He did the same.

  “Taking me home was kind of you. I regret my indiscretion.”

  The dimple returned to his cheek.

  “It was a pleasure to be sure that you got home in one piece. I also ask that you forgive me for my part in this.”

  I stopped looking at him and shaking his hand. I left the vehicle as fast as I could.

  “Miranda!” I turned to look.

  “Yes?”

  His eyes spoke to me before his lips did. The way he deliberately controlled the rhythm and sound of his words forced me to decipher them slowly.

  “Be very careful.”

  That was not part of any protocol. It was a warning.

  Hernandez was no fallen angel sent from hell… more like an angel from heaven. If he hadn’t put the brakes on the seduction, I would have ended up in bed, keeping the sheets warm with the tenderness of his voice.

  For God’s sake Miranda! Anyone would say that you sleep with every man that crosses your path!

  I went toward the door and… darn! I noticed that I didn’t have my key because I would always use the garage to enter the house. My car was far away and the remote control was in it. I thought that technology was fabulous, yes, but when we least expect it, it makes life frustrating. I had no other choice but to squat to open the garage door and force it open to get inside.

  The damned thing was heavy! Why wouldn’t one of those gossipy neighbors come around to help me? I would have to overpower the door by myself, but I succeeded in accomplishing the task with efficiency.

  It was really dark, and the light switch for the garage was inconveniently located inside the house, but I knew my way around. I got up to the water heater hidden in a closet, and I felt for the emergency key that I hide behind it. My absent-minded moments are so numerous that, on various occasions, I lock the door and forget the keys inside.

  I struggled to insert the spare in the keyhole of the connecting door to the house. My intoxication, the darkness, and the sweat on my hands made it so that the key fell to the floor. Is so much bad luck on the same day possible?

  I took my cell phone out of my purse and, using the flashlight feature, I searched and searched…

  Then I heard heavy breathing... there was someone else near me!

  I got goose bumps and screamed. A hand touched my shoulder and I started screaming again from the terror. I fell to the floor backwards on my rear, ready for whatever it was.

  “Calm down woman… it’s me!”

  I could barely pronounce the name.

  “Eliezer?”

  He offered me a hand, but I ignored it. It was like there was no alcohol in my blood anymore. That’s how potent adrenaline is. He was holding the spare key. He opened the door and motioned to me to go inside. I turned on the lights and took note of how much Eliezer enjoyed the mishap. His presumptuous look irritated me so much that I could not contemplate niceties.

  “What are you doing here?” I said while taking off a shoe.

  “I would prefer it if you would thank me for my help.”

  “And since when do you care about gratitude?” I threw the other shoe at his feet. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

  I went to the refrigerator. I grabbed a bottle of water and took a drink.

  “Can I tell you something? It’s not safe to keep that key there. Anyone could find that hiding place. Anyone with malicious intentions, that is.”

  I smiled a smile that would have turned to laughter, but when I gulped down the water, I didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

  “Thank you for the advice, Clausell. If you don’t answer my questions, you can go. I don’t need you here.” Why was I being consumed by uncontrollable anger?

  Eliezer had leaned against the counter, crossing his arms and legs, observing me–trying to understand why I was getting angrier.

  Breathe, Miranda. Inhale peace… exhale anxiety… I would repeat in my mind.

  I controlled my anger. I imitated his pose. I crossed my arms and legs and leaned my weight against the counter in front of him.

  “Are you going to tell me what brings you here?” This time my friendliness was sneaky.

  “Was that Hernandez? The inspector handling Norman’s case?”

  I looked at him perplex
ed. How did he know who had driven me?

  “Were you already here when I arrived?” There was a vibration visible at the corner of his mouth. “And you didn’t help me raise the damned door?”

  The way he was looking at me made a perverse transformation.

  “I thought about doing it, until I remembered a certain kiss, and my mind became occupied with that thought.”

  Then it hit me… the kiss!

  “You are an idiot!”

  “Is that the best you can think of telling me, Miranda?” I said nothing. “I have been given worse excuses. Go ahead… surprise me! Answer me!”

  I lowered the tone of my voice.

  “What’s the question?”

  He got close. The heat of his body caressed mine. He brought his lips to my hatred.

  “Weren’t the kisses I gave you last night enough?”

  I pushed him away. I would not tolerate insults.

  “Do you know about red amnesia?” Eliezer examined me from head to toe, probably asking himself what the hell I was talking about. Since he didn’t answer, I made myself clearer. “Red amnesia is the temporary amnesia that women get when they see the idiot that they had fucked all night going to a luncheon they would both be attending, accompanied by a flirtatious redhead.”

  An intermittent glow in his eyes told me that he would push the envelope again.

  “Fucked, Miranda? That’s what you did all night? Fucking?”

  “Check your words with me, Eliezer Clausell!”

  “Me? You check your words with yourself. I feel sorry for the guy you fucked all night.”

  “And what did you do last night, Eliezer?” I raised my eyebrows and smiled.

  His emeralds dropped to the floor and I could tell how his chest sank. I longed for a response, but got silence.

  “This is my house, Clausell, and if you want to remain in it one second longer, spit out some kind of answer.”

  He looked up. The more attitude I added to my words, the more his eyes turned to anger.

  He stepped back without taking his angry look off me.

  “I thought we should make a few things clear.” His voice was halting, but cold, like the water I was drinking. I gave him space to continue. “Today’s luncheon was more than a disaster, Miranda. I should have imagined that something like that would happen…”

  “But you didn’t imagine it. Why didn’t you tell me that you would be going with someone? Why didn’t you tell me that you were seeing someone? The last thing I want is that kind of problem, Eliezer. I don’t know what the hell is going on between us, if there is something going on between us, but I don’t play those games.”

  Eliezer got close and put his index finger on my lips.

  “I am not here to give you explanations, Miranda Wise. I’m here to tell you the rules of my game.”

  How convenient and lovely! I’m talking about “something between us” and he thinks he’s the referee of a “game.” How convenient indeed!

  “What game are you taking about, Clausell… the fucking game?”

  He covered my mouth with his hand.

  “Stop saying that, Miranda! You sound like a vulgar whore.”

  He pushed harder… and noticed that he had just put his foot in it all the way. He withdrew his hand and wiped his forehead with it, as though with that he would find a way to undo the damage done. However, he couldn’t find a way of making up for the lack of respect and tact.

  Eliezer was, definitely, a man incapable of breathing life into emotions that aren’t based on self-absorption and arrogance. How did you get here, Miranda? How did you succeed in being as intimate with this iceberg as you have never been with anyone else?

  “You have to go, Clausell. There’s no need for you to lay down your rules because I’m not going to be playing anymore.” I tried to project firmness, and I would have succeeded if the words hadn’t boomeranged and hit me in the chest.

  His shoulders fell along with his breathing a sigh, a clear signal of surrender. They didn’t drag across the floor because his well-defined muscles held them in place.

  My tears lined up in single file, ready to make their majestic entrance, but I didn’t allow it. I walked to the door and pointed to it. Even though I hoped he wouldn’t, Eliezer made every step resonate. He went out the door and paused. He turned and we were face to face.

  “Can you look me in the eye without looking away for a moment? Only a minute, Miranda.”

  I batted out a pair of tears with my lashes. I raised my eyes until they met his emeralds. I could look at those pupils for the rest of my life, if he let me.

  “Miranda… You are the only person in the world with whom I would want the least bit of any kind of relationship. This thing that happened to us wasn’t planned, at least, not on my part. If there is anger in my words, it’s because that’s what I feel about myself for having gone along. I also think that you hadn’t planned this jumble of emotions, and that makes me even angrier. We should have been more prudent before… getting to this. We’re very different, Wise. Your life is simple. You see everything through rose-colored glasses. My life is not at all simple, as much as it seems otherwise. I carry very heavy baggage and broken glasses of many, many colors.”

  The confession tore my soul to pieces. Why couldn’t I tell that I would fall in love with him from the beginning? Why did I have to figure it out right before he would tear my heart to shreds?

  Eliezer restarted our conversation.

  “My life is complicated, yes. But I assure you, Miranda Wise, that the redhead doesn’t have any place in it.” The declaration patched up one of the torn pieces of my soul. “I don’t know how to reciprocate your friendliness, because that’s not how I was raised. Since Panama, I asked myself what the hell you see in me, if I am your opposite. My rants, filled with sarcasm and my ire, must shock you to the point that you dream about clobbering me. I tried to find one reason, only one reason, that would assure me that having a relationship with you would be the best for both of us, but, shit… Wise! To this day I couldn’t find one. And a few hours ago, during the luncheon, when I saw the way Isabel tried to expose you to ridicule and give you a hard time, I felt that it wasn’t right, but I was powerless. I was supposed to be the one who would protect you… who would defend you.

  His words had me in the lead car of a roller coaster. Climb, Miranda, climb… now… fall, Miranda, fall! I wiped away a careless tear.

  “I didn’t ask that you do any of those things, Eliezer.”

  He wiped away another that fell unexpectedly.

  “One thing that you have to understand, Miranda. Your life will no longer be the same. My presence and that of Isabel have changed everything, and will continue to do so. You have to be very, very clear about that.

  I tried to decipher the codes embedded in every one of his words that frightened me and, at the same time, fed me crumbs of hope. I knew how the conversation would end, because I had been through it before. The last goodbye wasn’t the final memory that I wanted of him. This time, I was the one who approached and dared to put hands on him. I hung a finger on his lower lip. I held back any other desire to continue the conversation.

  “If you’re going to end this, Clausell, let’s at least do it the way it started.”

  Eliezer closed his eyes, got close, placed his lips against mine, hugged me tightly around my waist, and that way, wrapping me in hugs and kisses, he took us back inside the house and closed the door behind us.

  Our clothing littered the hallway of my home as evidence. That night was different: no more roughness and savagery… only tenderness and affection. It made me tremble more than usual, of course, but it didn’t make things easier.

  We made love.

  ***

  I woke up in mid-morning and he was no longer in bed. The key to my car was on the nightstand along with a brief note.

  Wise, it is against corporate policy to leave company assets unattended. Do you know that using Medika property while in
toxicated is sufficient cause to give you the boot?

  ***

  I wanted to laugh, but tears betrayed me. Naked, I wrapped myself in the bed sheet tightly against my chest where a freezing winter was slipping through.

  Eliezer concluded with a memorable farewell.

  It was hard to get out of bed the next day. No calls, no text messages, not even smoke signals. It’s not that I’m complaining, no. I was disillusioned with myself and down. That’s how good the sweet goodbye tasted. The days passed with no rhyme, no reason, and no novelty.

  I took the opportunity of the holiday season to visit some acquaintances and to exercise in the evenings. Running cooled the heat I would feel between my legs every time I remembered nights with Eliezer. At home, I did nothing but lie in bed. I liked torturing my mind with ridiculous romance novels: a tasteless cliché, I know. At least it helped me understand my situation. What was the baggage that Eliezer was carrying that weighed him down so? He understood the significance of the presence of his mother in my life perfectly, but how could he be a risk to me?

  ***

  December 31st.

  8:45 in the morning

  My cell phone rang to tell me that I received a text message.

  Sleepy and grumpy, I reached out and grabbed the device.

  I’ll see you today at the airport. One in the afternoon. Private flights section. Eliezer.

  I re-read the message. Am I dreaming?

  I sat up in bed suddenly, laughing out loud, with hope agitating the butterflies that once again fluttered in my stomach. Oh! How I missed those hyperactive butterflies! They only let me get to the sink, where I vomited over and over. The scene was neither pleasant, nor sexy, and was a prelude to hot and cold flashes… leading to a major worry.

  The malaise passed quickly. I went to the kitchen and made coffee. I returned to bed. Should I respond to the message? Confirm the meeting? Turn it down? Leave him waiting?

  I got out of bed again. I turned toward the wardrobe, opening it wide. What to wear? What to take? For how many days? Weeks? No… it couldn’t be a trip lasting for weeks….