Choose Me (33 page)

As I caressed the soft leather steering-wheel cover, I wanted to believe him, but the Evileen who mistrusted everything had
heard that line before.

“Look at me. I’m not lying,” Adam said, reading through my silence.

I looked at his face, serious and sincere. “I didn’t say you were.”

“I can show you my test results.”

“I believe you,” I insisted. It was true, though I didn’t know why I believed him. Perhaps because I wanted to believe that
a man who had suffered from something as devastating as cancer wouldn’t lie about something as serious and personal as infertility.
Or maybe I wanted to believe Adam could be the one, that if he couldn’t have children, it was one obstacle out of the way.

“Do you?” he asked skeptically.

I scooted across the seat and leaned into his chest. In the vanity mirror, I saw him cringe. I lifted my head and looked at
him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. My chest has been kind of tender lately.”

“Adam, you need to get that checked out. Tender breasts are a sign of TC.”

“They’re pecs, not breasts,” he said defensively. “And how do you know?”

“I read up on it. On the Internet.”

“So now you’re an expert, Doctor Clemente?” he said facetiously, smirking. “I didn’t even have any symptoms the first time.
I just happened to go the doctor ’cause I had … for something else, and they found the cancer.”

“Either way, I think you should call your doctor.”

He smiled. “I don’t need two mothers.”

“I’m serious, Adam.”

“I’m serious, Adam,”
he mimicked.

I poked his nose gently and he winced, laughing. “Okay, okay. I’ll make an appointment.”

We eyed each other and he leaned in for an instinctive kiss. With his swollen nose and blackened eyes so close to my face,
he looked sinister, like a monster. I didn’t want to encourage him so I pulled back.

“Remember making out in the backseat?” he whispered. “When you were a teenager?”

“I never made out in the backseat of a car when I was a teenager.”

“You lie.”

“I’m serious. I was a virgin ’til I was eighteen, then I moved in with my boyfriend who then became my husband, so we didn’t
have to … you know, ‘do it’ in a car.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.” He leaned back on the headrest with exasperation. “Evileen,” he hissed.

“What did you call me?” I asked, surprised.

“Evileen,” he said, smiling.

“Who told—?”

“Simone.”

I poked his nose again, a little harder than before, and he grabbed me and pulled me to him. “Don’t do that,” he said, his
voice getting deep with desire. “My whole face hurts.”

“You’re such a baby,” I teased. “Love.”

He smiled. “I see
you’ve
been talking to my mother.” He released me and opened the car door. “Let’s get out and walk,” he suggested.

“Are you crazy? It’s, like, thirty degrees out there.
Without
the wind chill factor.”

He closed the door and started walking backward, taunting me, “Come on,
Evilee-een.
”

Reluctantly, I got out of the car and followed. The wind was blowing like a storm was coming, sending huge waves crashing
violently against the step-shaped revetments, and forming icy patches in random areas. I had read that plans were under way
to replace the old damaged limestone steps with more durable concrete. Soon, the beach would be off-limits.

When I reached Adam, he pulled me to his side, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. As we walked, his opened cracked leather
jacket flapped back in the wind while I buttoned the top button of my ankle-length wool coat and pulled my fleece headband
down lower over my ears. Ordinarily, I would put my arms around his waist, but under the circumstances, I felt the less I
touched him the better.

It was obvious he was not going to bring up the matter of our future, so I would have to. Even if we had both made our positions
clear from the beginning about marriage and sex, I knew it was my fault for letting things get as far as they had. Deep down,
I suspected he believed I would eventually give in. If he was truly convinced it would never happen, he would’ve called it
quits long ago. Although in my heart I had always known all of this, it made me suddenly angry at Adam, but mostly at myself.
Why couldn’t he just be honest and direct? Why couldn’t I?
Once again I was looking to the wrong person for answers, for comfort.
He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge,
I thought remembering Psalm 144.

Abruptly, I stopped walking and sat down on the top stepstone. He sat behind me and enveloped his arms and legs around me,
shielding me from the wind with his jacket. It felt wonderfully warm in his embrace, like I was shrouded in a cocoon, and
temporarily, I felt protected from the imminent and inevitable ending. If only he knew how much I did want him, in every way.
If only he could understand how very difficult it was to push him away when I wanted to do the opposite. If only things could
stay the way they were, until…

“Adam, I’m not going to have sex with you,” I finally said bluntly.

“What?” He said this in disbelief, innocently, as if the thought had never even crossed his mind.

“You heard me,” I said louder over the wind.

He didn’t answer, and his arms and legs loosened their grip on my body, although not completely. In the back of my mind, I
knew the main reason why we couldn’t stay together, the one reason I had been ignoring. Although he had accompanied me to
church a few times, he hadn’t made any effort to give his life to Christ, let alone express the least bit of interest. I wasn’t
sure about a lot of things, but one thing I knew for certain, I could not contemplate anything serious with a man who wasn’t
saved.

Just then he whispered something in my ear, but because of my hair, my headband, and the wind, I couldn’t hear him. “What
did you say?” I asked, lifting the headband from one ear.

“Te quiero,”
he whispered.

“Don’t even try—”

“Te quiero,”
he repeated, louder and clearer, with conviction. I struggled to turn around to face him, to ascertain his true intent, but
he hugged me tighter, then burrowed—more like hid—his chin in my neck. “Don’t
mirame,
” he added.

If I hadn’t been so taken aback at his first declaration, I would have laughed at his novice erroneous attempt to say “don’t
look at me.” As it was, I was too busy trying to make sense of the words,
te quiero,
which, depending on the context, could mean, “I want you,” “I care about you,” or “I love you.” His pronunciation was almost
flawless, like he had been practicing it for some time. I knew he must have consulted a dictionary or someone who knew Spanish
to know that he didn’t need the pronoun
“Yo”
for “I.” Someone like Luciano. I imagined him coaching Adam:
Just tell her “Te quiero,” and while she’s thinking you mean “I love you,” you really mean “I want you,” and she’ll be all
yours.
It was much safer, less committed than saying Te
Te amo,
which solely meant “I love you.” Maybe he thought I would be touched that he had learned how to say the words in Spanish.
Perhaps he thought I would be stupid enough to conclude that he meant the latter, that I would assume marriage would be the
end result and sex would be permissible. And I would fall into his trap, his bed, at last.

God only knew how many women in his past he had said those same words to, in English, just to get them in bed. It wasn’t going
to work with me. He should know that by now.

IT IS MUCH
easier to abstain from sex when you are alone, but it is a little harder when you are involved with a woman. It
is more difficult when you find yourself caring for a woman who is celibate and has been for a while—determined to stay that
way until marriage or who knows when.

But things really got complicated and confusing when that celibate woman finally gave in.

As my hands roamed over her soft, soft skin, her hands simultaneously and unabashedly explored mine. I cautiously began to
unzip her velour jacket, pausing every few centimeters, waiting for her to stop me, because intermittently, I could feel her
body tense up, then relax. One moment she would stop my hand, the next her hands traveled up and underneath my sweatshirt,
setting off a chain reaction all over. Whether she really wanted me, or she was finally giving in to satisfy me, I wasn’t
sure. I was usually good about reading body language, but from the beginning I knew Eva was governed by another entity. What’s
more, I had the strangest feeling there was someone else in the room with us.

“You’re so soft,” I whispered, unable to stop the words.

I pulled off the silk scarf holding back her hair, and I massaged her scalp, taking my time kissing her face, her lips—relishing
the taste of her. Even though my nose was still sore, I could smell the intoxicating scent of her rose oil and the strawberries-and-cream
conditioner. The light from the streetlamp seeped through the windows, illuminating her face, but she wasn’t looking at me.
Outside a storm was raging, the snow blowing sideways in thick panes and making visibility nil. It was the perfect night to
stay under the covers, the perfect setting for us to be together at last. I tried to make eye contact in an effort to connect
with her, but her eyes were transfixed, staring past me as if someone were standing behind me, causing me to turn and glance
over my shoulder. I thought perhaps Luciano had come back, then I remembered he had returned the spare key a long time ago.

At the lakefront, when Eva told me I could forget about having sex with her, she surprised me, especially after she added
that if I expected sex, we had come to the end of the road—just as I worked up the nerve to tell her I was in love with her.
So what could I say, but simply and indifferently, “Okay, whatever you say.” Then, two weeks later, there she was at my place,
stating in so many words that she had changed her mind. It took everything within me not to go off on her.
What kind of sick game are you playing?
I wanted to scream at her. But as she stood in the living room, wearing a new velour sweat suit and gym shoes in my favorite
color, cobalt blue, I didn’t think “easy access”; I thought, “beautiful.” I was wearing a sweat suit too, though it was gray
fleece and frayed, but clean. I kind of knew she was complying for my sake, to prove that she wanted me as much as I wanted
her. But even though most men wouldn’t have cared if the sex was unrequited, I felt like garbage, because that’s the kind
of man I am.

I tried to send her home; I told her not to do me any favors, and at one point I even shoved her gently toward the door, but
she persisted.
She was the one who threw herself at me,
I told the little voice of conscience that had been bugging me lately. But I knew I had to acknowledge my role in awakening
the dormant craving in her.

Now as I found myself kissing her heart-shaped tattoo-looking birthmark, trying to divert her attention to me, I began to
sense her freezing up again. I was losing her.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice barely audible.

Her voice, so close to my ear, made the hairs all over my body stand at attention. I sprang up, sat on the edge of the bed,
and reached hesitantly into the nightstand drawer for a condom before she could change her mind; I couldn’t hold back any
longer. It had been so long. I wanted to explain that the inability to control myself wasn’t something that happened often,
but then I remembered what happened with Sondra the last time I was with her, and I began to lose my nerve. I felt awkward
and insecure, like I was sixteen again.

With one quick sweep, I pulled off my sweatshirt but kept my back to her and waited. I sensed she was having second thoughts
and decided to let her call the shots. If she didn’t touch me, I would take it as a sign that she wasn’t ready; if she did,
she was ready but wanted me to take the lead. At that moment, I closed my eyes and hoped the incident with Sondra wouldn’t
be repeated. I thought about praying that it didn’t, but I felt suddenly guilty for using prayers for such a selfish request.
The fear of a reoccurrence of that past event prepared me for the disappointment to come if Eva changed her mind. I wouldn’t
be mad at her.

I flinched when she began caressing my back, because I had expected the opposite. Then she pulled the elastic band from my
hair, freeing my locks. I turned around, and without looking at her, buried my face in her neck and hair, avoiding her lips
because I knew if our lips touched, it would be over sooner.

Even though she welcomed me into her embrace, she kept her eyes shut tightly, burrowing her head into my chest. I smoothed
back her hair, massaged her temples, and tried to pry her eyes open. Then I kissed her right temple, the site of her tormenting
migraines, my lips lingering, wishing I could take away her pain forever. I wanted to tell her I loved her but I knew saying
it in bed was forbidden in the unwritten manual of making love. The weekend before we ended things at the lakefront, I had
been debating the best way to say the words. Then one night while flicking through the channels, I came upon an old black-and-white
Spanish movie in which a woman was resisting a man until he uttered the words,
“Te quiero.”
The English captioning had read:
I love you.
In Spanish, it had sounded more dramatic, romantic, less trite than it did in English. As the woman’s eyes softened she melted
in the man’s arms, and despite the melodramatic mannerisms and exaggerated kiss common in old movies, it was effective.

“Open your eyes,” I whispered. “Open your
ojos. Mirame.
”

She looked at me timidly, and we stared at each other, our breathing measured, then escalating in sync. Tongue-tied, I tried
to convey my devotion with my eyes, hoping she would read me correctly, hoping she could see that it wasn’t about lust—that
what I was feeling for her was real.
Do you understand what I want to say?
I thought, trying to transmit the words through the air. She reached up and read me with her fingers, tracing my eyebrows,
nose, and lips, as if my face were braille. Even if she were blind and deaf, she couldn’t deny that I cared about her.