The Color of Home: A Novel (15 page)

“What?”

“You’re so strong.”

“You’re just figuring that out now?”

“Easier to see outside the city.”

“Ah.”

After dinner, they returned to their room to change and pick up a couple blankets and a backpack. They made their way to the beach where, barefoot, they walked arm-in-arm for a long time. The salted breeze filled him with hope, with desire. The sand constantly changed around his feet, tickled him, made him smile. Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner?

“There’s nothing like the smell of the ocean,” she said.

“Dinner was fun. We should role-play more.”

“We or me?”

“We.”

“Can you do Ryan Gosling?” She darted in front of him, turned around, and backpedaled. “Why did we come here?”

“I need to practice with you without any distractions.”

She waited for him to catch up, pulled him close, and on her toes, brushed his lips just enough to salt his thirst. “How long did it take you to come up with that line?”

“Long enough.”

“When do we start?”

“As soon as we find a secluded spot and spread out the blanket.”

“Guess I should pay attention to the surroundings then.”

“Guess so.”

They hiked another solid mile before settling on a spot nestled between two small sand dunes. He spread out one of the blankets on the sand. Without exchanging a word, they undressed. In the same fluid movement that he had learned from her, filled with lust, with safety, he lowered her onto the blanket. He kissed her gently.

“Just relax and let go,” he said.

“I can do that.”

Rachel’s arms. He caressed her left forearm with slow, ever smaller, circular movements that led to specific pleasure points. As he did that, he studied her face to trace her path of arousal. When each point saturated with pleasure, he changed the motion from circular to linear, as if to push the arousal out to the rest of her body. When he finished her left arm, he shifted to her right arm and repeated the movements using the same technique. He continued to watch her face as she drifted into a more relaxed, almost meditative state. After he finished with her right arm, he slowly and repeatedly stroked the back of each ear. He’d been reading.

He removed a glass bottle from the backpack, poured a thick creamy white lotion from the bottle on his hand. He caressed her right breast with the same circular motion, culminating on her nipple. When her pleasure saturated there, he cupped her breast and spread the feeling to the rest of her body. He repeated the movements on her left breast.

Her thighs. As he’d done before, he spread the pleasure out with a shift from circular to linear movements, caressing her entire lower body with his hands. Her level of arousal continued to build.

It was time. He penetrated her with his index and forefinger, which he maneuvered onto her G-spot, then he used his thumb, still covered with lotion, to track the movements of his index and forefinger. Time slowed. Boundaries blurred. Thoughts evaporated. Later, he replaced his thumb with his tongue.

Covered in sweat, her body trembled, pulsed, like some quasar about to explode and reshape the universe. She let out a moan that seemed to release some fundamental primordial energy from deep within her. She went completely limp. He imagined, at least for a moment, that she had touched god. He moved up her body and kissed her forehead.

After some time, she opened her eyes. Smiling, she reached over, and touched his lips with her fingers. “You gave me my first full-body orgasm.”

“I could tell.”

“Dakini bliss.”

For the rest of the year, Rachel and Nick lived moment to moment, day to day, happy. Constantly experimenting, they let the
Kama Sutra
guide them into deeper and deeper physical intimacy. When they weren’t practicing, they played music—together, separately, collaboratively. They recorded her songs, his songs, and songs they’d written together. He sat in on guitar for a number of her live gigs. They even began serious conversations about forming a band, Dakini Bliss.

One afternoon, they were sitting in front of the mixing console in Nick’s studio, listening to a mix of one of their songs. The song, acoustic with soaring strings and an almost nursery rhyme-sounding piano part, played stronger than anything either of them had ever done. With lyrics like, “I want to walk next to you and be utterly wild / I want to know how it feels to be that strong” and “I want to cover you in safety even when I’m most afraid” and “I want the strength to let you go wherever you need to go,” it was the capstone of their year together.

She wheeled her chair around, leaned back, and draped both of her legs over his. “We’ve done a full album’s worth of songs.”

True. And she’d given him much, much more. She’d taught him how to collaborate. She’d shown him how two completely different people could come together and make art. Musically. Physically. “Are you still happy with how they turned out?”

“Man, I don’t know. I’m happy with the songwriting, and my vocals are outstanding, but I’m not sure about the backing band.”

“Say the word and I’ll hit delete.” He reached over to his mouse, selected all of her songs, placed the pointer over the delete command. He’d already backed up all of their music, so there was no real risk.

“Fine. Fine. I guess I can live with them.”

“I scored a tantric sex teacher and you scored an album.”

“Fair trade.”

“I don’t know, I might be a little ahead.”

“It all depends on how you count.”

“I’m better at math.”

She rose and straddled him as he sat in the chair. She kissed his forehead. “I admit you’ve got that one thing over me. What do you think about naming the album
Songs of Love and Loss
?”

“Like Leonard Cohen?” he asked.

“The man is a god, you know.”

“True enough. Maybe a little too derivative.”

“Okey dokey. I’ll come up with something else. When is your meeting with Sassa?”

“Next week.” Just the day before, he’d exchanged text messages with Sassa and agreed to a time and location. Other than that, he hadn’t heard from her.

“Do you have any idea what she’s been up to?”

“Nope.” And, since Ocean House, he hadn’t thought that much about her. Every now and then a flicker. That was all. After two years apart, after Brayden, Rachel, and maybe a new boyfriend from year two, had they settled in as lifelong friends?

“Next week might be the end of the road for us,” she said.

“Why do you say that? Aren’t you happy here?”

“Yes. It’s a feeling that came up, and I wanted to say it out loud. Are you still in love with her?”

“I still love her. What’s the difference?”

“You don’t know the difference?”

“Not really.”

“One is exclusive and one isn’t.”

“So you can only be in love with one person at a time, though you may love more than one person at a time? Did I get that right?”

“Something like that.”

“I love her, then. Don’t worry about her. I’m happy here.”

“No worries, man. No worries.”

After Sassa landed back at her Cambridge studio, her blueprint started to unravel. The plan. Stay in Cambridge for at least another year. Continue working at Sirellina’s as a well-respected, full member of the team. Spend more time hanging out with friends. Stay on the path of most resistance. But in her apartment that night, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been stranded in the middle of nowhere, that Cambridge was no longer on the path, that the time had come to break more ties.

Walking over to the wall, she placed her hands palm down on the floor and pushed up into a handstand. Upside down, her gaze traveled along the grooves in the pine floor until it reached the molding on the far wall. As she studied the nicks on the molding, blood rushed to her head like sand in a wide-necked hourglass egg-timer. A short time later, she formed a V with her legs and jackknifed to the floor. Light-headed, she wobbled across the room to her desk, picked up her phone, and hurtled it against the wall where she’d just stood, as if the V had left a target.

At her desk, she logged onto her bank account. Fifty thousand dollars in savings. In her trust fund, $300,000 remained from the insurance settlement. Her mom and dad had taken care that way. As she studied the screen, it seemed to shatter into a thousand glass Scrabble pieces. Letters strung into words, only to have them scramble before full sentences came into view. Whole. Stranded. Light. Nick. Too many Zs, Xs, and Qs to form much more. With her foot, she pulled the computer plug out of the wall and, for a moment, took comfort from the gray screen.

Later, curled up in her bed, she flipped through
Shambhala Sun
magazine. “Living in the Age of Distraction.” “Journey to Awakening.” “It Starts from Zero.” “Women on the Path.” Like a Frisbee, she flung the
Sun
across the room at the wall. She’d spun out, drifted, fallen behind, made small miscalculations and big ones. The time had come to catch up, to find the next step on the path, to go west.

Major West Coast cities? Vancouver. Seattle. Portland. San Francisco. Any one of them would suffice for a few years. How to make the decision? Finding a job wouldn’t be a problem. Stepping outside of her comfort zone, obtaining more exposure, crossing a few lines—that would be the real work. Maybe organic gardening classes at the San Francisco Zen Center. Maybe teaching Bikram yoga in Vancouver. Maybe cello lessons in Seattle. Blah. Blah. Blah. She fell asleep no closer to a decision.

One night, during her shift at Sirellina’s, a colleague raved about a vegetarian restaurant he’d recently visited in Portland, Maine. The Green Angel specialized in creative vegetarian food based solely on local produce. The organic green tea noodles—amazing. The Asian vegetable stew and the king oyster mushroom tempura—to die for. On a short tea break, Sassa googled the restaurant. More than impressed with the reviews, she planned a visit.

On her next day off, she motored to Portland and wasted no time making her way to Old Port’s Exchange Street. From across the street, the Green Angel looked like many of the shops housed in a row of renovated nineteenth-century brick buildings. The facade, an attractive combination of cement and brick with wide, ten-foot-high glass windows, allowed a full view of the interior. A green awning with the number thirty-four covered the entrance: a large, ornate oak door.

She crossed the street. A menu taped to the window next to the door caught her eye. She skimmed the appetizers and entrees. What an eclectic menu. Inside, she found herself in a spacious, tastefully decorated dining room. Tamari and curry infused the air. Local modern art covered the walls— abstract oil paintings, black and white photos of farm workers, a few nude sketches. Simple tables lined the space, discretely distinguished by colorful hand-blown glass centerpieces and surrounded by one-of-a-kind chairs built from reclaimed wood. A small bar in the back of the restaurant, stocked with local beer and wine, finished the place.

A waitress approached and offered a warm, friendly greeting. Sassa followed her to the back of the restaurant, passing by a boy and his mom who both smiled, an elderly man who nodded, and two lovers deep in conversation. The waitress glided like a ballet dancer on the way to her mark.

“My name is Myrina. We’re offering a number of specials tonight. As an appetizer, we’re serving stir-fried Brussels sprouts done with tamari sauce. That’s one of my favorites. As a main course, we’re offering a spicy soy masala dish.”

Myrina had a Mona Lisa-like smile. With long, thick, wavy red hair; tender, probing hazel eyes; and more than enough freckles, she resembled a schoolgirl, even though Sassa placed her in her thirties. A calmness in her cheekbones and jaw seemed to house wisdom.

“Those sound tasty. I’ll start with an unsweetened iced tea.”

“Are you from around here?”

“I’m from Cambridge.”

“Long drive.”

“A friend told me about your restaurant. We’re both chefs at Sirellina in Boston. He said the Green Angel was his favorite vegetarian restaurant on the East Coast, so I had to check you guys out.”

“Thank you. I’ll pass that on to the chef. Be back in a minute with your tea.”

Sassa picked up her knife and studied both sides of it. Sometimes she had a feeling about a place, like crawling under a blanket with the windows open on a crisp fall night. The first time she stepped into Pellegrino’s. The first time she drove through New York. The first time she walked through Harvard Square. The first time she slept in Nick’s bed.

“It’s clean.” With a huge grin on her face, Myrina stood at the table, iced tea in hand. A man accompanied her.

“Sorry. I drifted off,” Sassa said.

“Here you go.” She placed a two-piece iced tea pot on the table. The bottom was filled with ice and the top suspended a pyramid-shaped tea bag in steeping hot water.

“That’s the coolest iced tea maker I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah. We like them too. This is Matthew; he owns The Green Angel. When I mentioned that you’re also a chef, he wanted to come out and meet you.”

Matthew, taller than Myrina but much smaller than Nick, had straight black hair striated with gray pulled back in a ponytail; he had dark brown eyes to match his dark skin and a hint of a foreign accent that Sassa couldn’t place. Croatian? Hungarian? The same calmness girded his face, masking his age.

“Hey there, I’m Sassa. Nice to meet you. You’ve done a wonderful job with this place. Local produce. Local beer. Local everything. Very cool.”

“Thank you. Myrina told me you work at Sirellina. It has an excellent reputation.”

“They’ve been good to me.”

“Are you a vegetarian?”

“I’m an aspiring one. I do eat fish and grass-fed beef in small portions, but I don’t buy anything from ‘the middle supermarket aisles,’ to reference Michael Pollen.”

Matt nodded. “Great book. Well, I just wanted to stop over and say hello. I’m going to send over a beer from a Portland brewing company. I think you’ll love the flavor. Enjoy.”

“Take care.”

Shortly after Matthew left, Sassa’s meal arrived. She devoured her Brussels sprouts, which were the most flavorful she’d ever tasted. Not big on soy, she still savored every bite of the masala dish. How did Matt get so much flavor into a soy dish? He should open a place in New York. After she finished her dinner, she ordered a wonderful coconut and chocolate macaroon dessert with her tea. While sipping her tea, she noticed Matt heading toward her table with something in hand.

“Hey again. I have a gift and a request for you. I’d like to buy you dinner tonight, one chef to another.”

“Thank you, that’s generous.”

He folded up the bill and slipped it in his pocket. “Would you be willing to stick around town until the restaurant closes? Maybe we could have a drink together? I have a business proposition for you.”

Was Matt interested? Or did he truly have a business proposal? Either way. “Sure.”

Portland. From Old Port to the Art Museum to Newick’s Lobster House, Sassa loved everything about the city. A manageable size, the place was full of friendly young artists and musicians, and an abundance of diverse restaurants. What more could she ask for from a place, East or West Coast? For a better part of the day, she walked the city. The Eastern Promenade. Diamond Cove. Deering Oak Park. Congress Street. The place welcomed her, as if she’d been away at war and had just come home. After a few hours, she strolled back into the Green Angel on time, whistling “Across the Universe.”

Matt and Myrina greeted her at the bar with a glass of the same Portland beer that he’d sent over earlier that day.

“We’re married, by the way.” Matt reached out to hold Myrina’s hand.

“Ah.”

“We’ve been in this business for ten years now, and we love the Green Angel,” he said.

“The restaurant has been everything we’d hoped for and more, but we’re considering moving on,' Myrina said.

“Really?”

“We had our first child, Janine, a few months ago.”

“Ah. What a pretty name.”

“Thanks. We’ve realized that we’re going to need help raising her. Myrina is from Seattle. All of her family is still there.”

“I get that.' How were her aunt and uncle doing in Indiana? Her cousins? She would never move back, even if she married and had kids. Yet Matt and Myrina’s plan to go home seemed right to her, as if she’d been tipped off ahead of time that Seattle was their true home.

“So we’re toying with the idea of selling the Green Angel if we can find the right buyer. Based on a hunch more than anything else, we both thought you might be that person.”

“Really? I’ve never considered owning my own place.' Nick had told her early on that she was destined to run her own business, but she’d never thought that seriously about it. She shifted her weight back and forth from side to side on her chair and twirled her hair with her index finger.

“We might be wrong. Like I said, we had a hunch.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Tell me more.”

“We’ve talked to several potential buyers in the past few months and, for a lot of reasons, none of them felt right. On the other hand, there’s something about you—your experience, how you carry yourself, your interest in the restaurant. If nothing else, we’ve shared a glass of the summer ale.”

“Delicious.' She took another sip. What to make of the offer? Part of her liked the idea of owning her own place, managing a team, creating a real sense of community. But was she ready? Her favorite memory of her mom, the one where they were swinging on the front porch of her childhood home drinking citrusaid, bannered across her mind. The path of most resistance? Warmth emanated from right below her heart. “Here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking about going out West. I even considered Seattle myself. I have some stuff I need to figure out, and there’s this guy—”

“No surprise there,” Myrina said.

Sassa started twirling her hair again. “Things with the guy may or may not work out. I’m considering a whole range of stuff that might help me figure things out. I’m not sure owning a restaurant makes sense given everything else I need to do.”

“Did you ever consider work as a possible solution?”

“What do you mean?”

“We had a lot of issues to work out as well and, much to our surprise, we found the answers we were looking for in this place. Didn’t we, Matt?”

“Some we weren’t looking for, too.”

Sassa nodded slowly, searching for a crack, a micro-expression, in their story.

They had years of common history where they’d both grown. How did that happen, and what was the secret? She had to figure it out; maybe they’d found the key to fifty years. “You were able to work things out together?”

“Separately and together,” Myrina said.

“I learned how to stay present when I prepare food,” Matt said.

“And I learned how to truly connect with people who, in many cases, I would serve and never see again,” Myrina said.

“I no longer freak out when the delivery guy accidentally smashes a crate of fresh vegetables,” Matt said.

“And I treat employees as partners without using any kind of one-up, one-down scare tactics,” Myrina said.

Her mind raced. Who were these two? Had they really worked it all out? Work. Family. Love. Staying present. Not freaking out. It was too good to be true. Yet she was sure they had tapped into something pure, something real, something she hadn’t experienced. “Okay, okay. Slow down. What does one-up, one-down mean? How many people do you employ?”

“We have ten employees, and each has a lot to offer. We look at them as equal partners and don’t in any way look down on them because we run the place. They complement us,” Matt said.

“That’s wonderful.”

“We think so too. Are you staying in Portland for the night?” Myrina asked.

“Yes, I booked a room at the Regency last minute.”

“So what are your first impressions?” Matt asked as he handed her another beer.

“Well, you have me thinking, though I’m not sure I can afford a place like this.”

“Let’s not worry about money right now. The most important thing is to find out if there’s a match. We can work out the details later if we all agree to move forward.”

“How about if I sleep on it? Can you meet tomorrow morning for coffee before I leave?”

“Okay,” Matt and Myrina replied at the same time.

Sassa checked into the hotel, settled into her room, and went to bed straight away. She tossed and turned, and in no time her sheets and blankets were in a tangle. Reaching over, she grabbed her phone off the nightstand to call Nick. It was too late. She gently placed the phone back down, and picked up her tablet instead. Tablet propped up against her blanket-covered knees, she scripted what she planned to say the next morning. Timing. Training. Employees. Housing. Price. Buyer beware.

When she finished the script, her thoughts gravitated back to the West Coast. Maybe she should leave the East after all? She’d already decided she needed a change, and owning a Portland restaurant didn’t top her list. Stuck in the middle of something she didn’t fully understand, leaving might be just the thing. A thought entered her mind: Nick stroking her hand one morning at Joe’s, consoling her about criticism she’d received at work the previous night. Sassa, you can do anything you put your mind to. You are incredibly talented. I have complete faith in you. She smiled. She flipped through the television channels for a long time before eventually falling asleep to
SportsCenter
.