Sunflowers (Tournesols) II 13 страница

I thanked her and took the forms. I was glad to have the prospect of some work and money, but it felt draining. There was all of this coordination and organization, and I just wanted to create. I certainly did not envy Jasmine's position at all in all of this, the final organizer and editor of all these seemingly random and mix-matched stories about iconic renegades. She had to deal with everyone's mistakes, not just her own. I didn't know how she found the magnitude to deal with that. We were sitting at the table as she talked and explained a few more things, and her exhaustion coupled with nervous energy paradoxically returned to her face. She was in good spirits and sociable, but now that I examined her more closely, I saw the bags under her eyes. I had invited her over for dinner, and yet, she had bought most of the dinner and done the majority of the cooking and explaining to me about certain ingredients. Now she was explaining to me my role in this whole magazine ordeal. Did her days ever stop? I put my hand on her small forearm and rubbed back and forth.

She seemed very shocked by my gesture. I guessed she was used to people at her office and everywhere else not allowing this type of intimacy. I had also tried to extend this the night we had dinner together and even at the thrift store, where she also had been stunned by my response. She was always in work mode now, I realized, and it was this fact which created the startling difference between the Jasmine I knew four months ago and the Jasmine I knew then. She was surrounded by work and she had consumed it all. Even what she ate on a daily basis was work; it involved reading labels, deciphering chemicals, additives, ingredients, and then finally, starting from scratch.

She did not move as soon as I touched her, and I suddenly felt bad for it. She was not prepared for it. She still had this thick wall between us - between herself and everyone, really - and it would have to come down before anything got accomplished. I didn't know where to begin, or if I could even offer anything to make it easier.

"Do you want to look through some photos for awhile, just before dinner is ready, and maybe you can see something that jumps out at you?" I stopped moving my arm back and forth, but I left it there, weighted and anchored. I hoped that I didn't seem smothering and was more soothing. I framed my question so that she regained control, but we still entered into my world of art instead of work.

She considered this for a bit before she nodded. She said she wanted a drink, and I offered wine, but she informed me with the small fact that sometimes fish were used in the processing. Inside I was flabbergasted that this was true, but I held it back, and got us both water in wine glasses as we went into the dark room. We brought out the portfolio to the living room and sat on the orange couch as we looked through its contents. She didn't say anything about the mattress in the middle of the room, but her eyes lingered there for some time.

As we looked through the photos, I did see her loosen up a bit. Having her mind focused on images rather than words helped tremendously. But I felt her clam back up again when we got deep enough into my portfolio that we found the first photo I had taken of her, when we were both seventeen.

"Oh god," she said, and then quickly pushed past it. "We were so young."

"We're still young," I offered.

She scrunched up her nose. "I suppose, when you look at Gerard and Vivian. But we're not that young anymore."

I was unsure what she was trying to get at; age in actual years or maturity or what. But there was a closure in her voice, as if that picture was final and could never happen again. Before I could pursue it more, we heard a sizzle and realized we needed to attend to dinner. It was just about done.

We served up the Pad Thai, and although it wasn't the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, I was learning to slowly appreciate with all of my senses. The olive oil and red pepper flakes, combined with ginger and bay leaves, made it smell fantastic. The ginger itself seemed to infuse into the broccoli with an added kick, and the soy sauce made everything contain just the right amount of flavour. It was good. I had my French bread cut up and on the side with a bit of (non-vegan) butter and I felt ever better about the entire meal.

"Not too bad, huh?" she offered, and I nodded empathetically. I watched her as she ate and I could tell that she thought it was the best meal ever. Not because it tasted particularly amazing, or better than anything she had ever had before, but because she had made it and was able to take pride in it. Also, because the meal itself had not hurt any animals, it was even better.

"Of course, there's no such thing as being the perfect vegan or 100% vegan. Although there aren’t animal products in this, that doesn't mean that somewhere someone or some animal wasn't hurt. The soy sauce itself is from a company, and they could have extremely bad ethics. It will never be perfect."

"Then why bother?"

She was shocked by my question. She actually put down her fork for a second and looked at me caustically to see if I was serious. "I mean," I elucidated. "If it can't be perfect or if you're always going to hurt someone, why set up so many restrictions for yourself?" I felt bad poking holes like this, but she had opened up the conversation. I tore at my bread and shoved small bits of it into my mouth.

"You're thinking about it backwards, Frank. It's not restrictions. It's not that I can't eat that, it's that I can eat this. I flipped it in my mind and then a whole other world was opened up to me. It's more freeing than you're giving it credit for."

She was good at arguing. Her use of the word free meant that I would be hesitant to argue against it, and she knew that. I was quiet, ate a bit more, and let her go on.

"As far as the hurting people goes, and that effort in itself not being one hundred percent perfect, so why even bother, that's a tough question, but it has an easy answer. To give up because perfection is unattainable is like saying why bother drawing or painting or taking pictures if you're not going to get famous or you're not very good. It doesn't make sense. It's about trying more than anything. I'm going to try to be famous, or to hurt as few people as possible, and whatever happens, I at least know I did something."

Again, she was good at arguing. I took a bite of my bread, but suddenly felt bad because of the butter I used. I ignored it, fast; this wasn't my lifestyle. This was hers, and I understood it a little better now that she had put it in a frame of mind she knew I could sympathize with. But I was tired of feeling guilty. I wanted to flip the conversation back to art, so I mentioned Gerard's upcoming involvement.

"I heard about that. Vivian's got herself quite a handful this month. Cassandra also has a show to prepare for."

"You knew about that?" I questioned, then felt ridiculous. Of course she did. She appeared to be closer with that family than I was. "Cassandra is good. I heard her do the song she's playing and she'll knock 'em dead, for sure."

Jasmine smirked. "That's a rather apt phrase for the song she's doing."

I raised my eyebrows, unsure of what she meant. She asked, "Do you not know what the Valkyries do? The legend behind them?"

I shook my head, and she placed her fork down in overzealous surprise. "Oh Frank, have I not gushed to you about Norse mythology, and have you not been studying paintings enough?"

I felt my face blush, but urged her to continue.

"The Valkyries took the dead soldiers of battle to the Viking heaven Valhalla."

Once she began explaining, it did sound vaguely familiar, but Jasmine had a much better grasp over all of it than I did. She went on explaining more things to do with Norse mythology, and although I knew she loved myth from what she told me in Savers, there was something about this particular branch of mythology that grabbed her. She went on and on about Vikings, and their great adventures, and how they viewed life.

"Norse gods didn't exactly think of themselves as immortal like Greek and Roman. They tended to know that death was going to happen, and since it was, you may as well be valiant as you went into it. Do something good with your life before you blaze down with the ship. It's so beautiful."

I agreed with her, but there was something between her lines of speech that she wasn't telling me. Vikings were always on the run. They never settled. They were consumed by their goals, they never really latched onto anything in life.... and then it hit me. Jasmine. Jasmine wanted to be a Viking. She didn't want to be a Valkyrie that took people to the afterlife; she wanted to be one of the warriors. She was fighting all the time, even in the tiny body of hers, and she was waging a war. She was fighting against time and her own lineage. I realized then that Bergen - her last name - was probably Norse. Her father had left the family, and her brother had left too. Jasmine was following in their footsteps, only she wanted to fight a better fight. The veganism, the work on the political and artistic magazine, everything that I had thought I lost about Jasmine, I suddenly began to understand again.

"I think you must have started your myth obsession when I was in Paris," I told her. I realized the full weight of my statement as it came out of my mouth, and how I had also left her. I left her in the same way that Gerard left Cassandra, and the way her father and brother had left her. And she had been fighting ever since.

"Probably," she stated, losing some of the zeal she had had before. "I guess that would be why you don't remember any of this."

"Hey..." I said, unsure of how I wanted to proceed. We were pretty much done with our meal at this point, and I pushed my plate out of the way and leaned forward on the table. I wanted to touch her pale white forearm again, but I knew I needed a damn good reason to get back into her personal space again. I had hurt her, and once you hurt Jasmine, there was almost no going back. There was no room. She would just run away and leave, while still staying in the same space. Her body, I realized, her body was that battlefield, that ship going down in flames, she was a Valkyrie and a Viking, combined into one, fighting the entire time. Had she already left me, while still staying in the same spot?

"I'm sorry I left without telling you," I offered her. There was no way I was going to feel guilty for leaving and following my own dreams and doing what I had to do. But I realized, after Cassandra, that there may have been a better way to do it. "I should have said something more profound or more serious than I usually did. It came out of nowhere - for me as well as you - and I should have given you warning when I was leaving, and when I was coming back. I am sorry about that. I don't think I said that before."

She looked absolutely stunned. Her eyes were wide and her hands were spread out on the table, motionless. Had I ever apologized to her before, for anything? I used to think it was a useless task, that it showed regret, so I had eschewed the word from my vocabulary entirely. Apologizing meant that I wished the action never happened, but I knew that was wrong now, that there were some dreaded gray areas that we had both fallen into now. I could still be glad I went, but be sorry I didn't do it in a different manner.

"No, you've never said that before. Thank you, Frank," she told me, genuinely. She sat up a little more. She didn't extend her hand to reach mine, but she didn't shoo me away either. "I really needed to hear that. Thank you."

I could tell she wanted to say more, but she shook her head. She didn't want to dwell on things - at all, so she completely shifted the conversation. "Let's do dishes."

I began to panic as the last dish became clean. I did not want Jasmine to leave, and it seemed to be that this was what she was gearing up to do. She had already packed up what remaining food there was and placed it in a Tupperware container. She cleaned off the table with a sponge and was about to walk over to her coat when I remembered that I still had her sweater.

"Wait! Where do you think you're going?" I teased. "Don't you remember that I said I had a surprise?"

"Right," she nodded her head. "Of course."

I walked into the old bedroom where the laundry baskets were. Gerard and I had finally managed to get this done one afternoon, using the scary machine in the basement. I felt like I had been walking into a horror movie set the entire time, but we had survived, and I held up one of the benefits from our ordeal.

Jasmine tilted her head to the side before she realized what I was holding. Her eyes widened and then she furrowed her brow sceptically. "How did you know I wanted that?"

"I saw it in your eyes. I know I'm not good at a lot of stuff, but I can read things in people's faces, usually. I guess it comes from taking so many pictures."

She took the sweater in her hands and smiled as she went over all of the really kitschy embroidery. The purple flower at the front wasn't too bad; it didn't stand out too much, and looked like a small little decal on the front. But the back was full of pink, purple, yellow, and blue flowers nestled at the bottom in a bed of green, and was more than over the top. It was a lot of fun, though, and as she turned it over in her hands, she began to laugh to herself.

"I didn't know I was so transparent," she chuckled. "But oh, this is so awesome. I will totally wear it at work and feel super old."

"Old? I would think with all the flowers it would make it seem like spring all the time."

She nodded. "That too. It will get me through the winter." She looked up at me from the sweater, and biting her lip, lean forward to give me a hug. "Thank you for noticing. I don't think I would have bought this for myself."

I was about to say something as I hugged her back, but just as quickly as it started, she pushed away and declared: "Oh, speaking of winter, look at it outside!"

The way we had been hugging meant that she saw to the balcony over my shoulder and she had already caught a good glimpse of the blizzard that was going on outdoors. She rushed over to see how bad it had already gotten, and I followed behind. I stood next to her as we looked, and placed my hand at the small of her back. She was too preoccupied with outdoors to really notice.

"My car is buried, and the roads are so shitty. Fuck. I better go now before it gets much worse." She spun away from me, and began to rush towards the door, as if this would help her beat the weather. I was about to call after her to tell her to stay longer, when the weather cut in and took care of that for me. Suddenly the lights went out in the apartment and across the entire block. I looked outside and saw the traffic light at the edge of the corner blinking on and off as snow fell between.

" Fuck," Jasmine said. "Where are you? It's been awhile since I've been here and I have no idea if there are flashlights."

"Don't worry, we don't, but I have an idea," I assured her, and without waiting a second, I bounded off to grab candles, still knowing my way in the dark. Gerard had been using them a lot recently, saying that they reminded him of Paris, so I knew exactly where to find the set along with the book of matches. I lit a bunch and set them down on the art table until eventually Jasmine came into view. She had put on the sweater over her black t-shirt and crossed her arms over her chest. When she saw where I was with the light and warmth, she came over to me. We stood together in the light from the flame for a bit, her attention flitting between me still lighting, and the snowstorm outside.

"I guess I could drive..." she thought aloud."Most people would probably be discouraged because of the snow and the power outage. Maybe it will be easier, and maybe it won't be off too long."

I put my arm around her shoulder. "It's going to be dangerous. Jersey power couldn't even deal with the first real snow storm. It'll be even worse on the roads."

"Yeah, I know," she agreed. She put her arm around me as well. Though she was slowly opening up, her voice still kept a distance. "Can I stay the night?"

I smiled, feeling like my insides had started a storm of their own. A slow smile crept on my face. "Of course."

Since I already knew that Gerard was spending the night with Vivian, there was no need to worry about anything. It was actually great timing; Vivian had been the one who was escorting Gerard to and from her place most nights, and I knew she wasn't going to bother coming back in this mess. He and I didn't own a car, and Gerard claimed to even forget how to drive being gone and not owning a vehicle for so long. I knew he wouldn't want to walk in this, and that Vivian wouldn't let him anyway. I had no idea if the power outage had reached their part of the grid, but I knew Gerard was safe and that was all that mattered. What I wanted right now was to spend time with Jasmine and make sure she felt equally safe.

Obviously, things were a little different now than the last time we had spent the night together. Though I tried to bridge that gap of months with my apology, and it had helped a little, our relationship was still altered. She wanted to sleep on the couch and not in bed with me.

"It's nothing personal," she assured me. "It would be too difficult, and awkward, because the bed is in the middle of the room now."

"But the couch is in the middle of the room, and I'm sure it's just as awkward," I countered. "Probably more. I mean, I know you're short but your legs are probably going to be cramped, still."

"Not exactly the type of awkward I'm taking about," she commented.

"Oh," I said, taking my attention away from the couch. I understood her request, but at the same time, I thought Jasmine wouldn't let something like that bother her. All the conversations we had had during her undergrad came back to me and I tried to reinstate them. "You know that Gerard and I have a similar relationship than what you and I had. We don't belong to one another. I'm Frank and he's Gerard and that's that. We love each other, sure, but we don't own one another...." I was failing at articulating what I wanted to say, and Jasmine's nose kept bunching up. "...like, a relationship is not a game. You can't cheat."

She laughed a bit, reading through what I was saying as me just wanting to have sex without repercussions. But no, no, that wasn't exactly what I meant. I just wanted her closer to me, and I didn't care how or in what context and I struggled at making this known to her.

"It's still different," she countered. "I'm fine with the couch."

I didn't push the issue anymore after that and we both seemed to lock eyes and nod a truce. It was still too early for bed, however, so we went over to the bookshelf in hopes of trying to recreate the type of conversations we used to have. Instead, it became me gushing about the art books that were there, and occasionally her nodding and offering a small reference to her own studies. She was distracted and not nearly as energetic towards the second half of her degree as she had been about the first tonight. She said she wanted to grab a book from the shelf and read until she felt tired enough to sleep.

"It's been a long day, you know? I'm just tired," she offered.

I agreed to do the same, and began to look through the shelf with her, but everything felt different and I didn't like it at all. She picked her book, and I grabbed the first thing I could find.

"I miss you, Jasmine," I told her as I walked over to the bed. I heard her sigh behind me.

"It's just different now, Frank."

"I know, but I thought this difference would be a good thing. Gerard keeps calling us a family, and I'm still not sure what that means and -"

Jasmine cut me off, eager to get in. "I know. Vivian says that to me too and I just don't know what to do with it."

"Exactly!" I was so glad we were coming together on the same plane, finally. "I mean, from my experience, families suck. You want to escape them and do your own thing."

"It's too much obligation," Jasmine added. "Too many disappointments."

"Exactly," I repeated. "And doesn't it go against the idea of ownership? I mean, don't you feel obligated, owned, when you are part of a family."

"Yes, to a certain degree, although I think Viv is trying to eradicate that. But it still freaks me out. It's like I'm destined or fated to be a part of this now. Like I have no choice. I don't like not having a choice."

I smiled. It was unreal how a like Jasmine and Cassandra were. Jasmine went on. "But I suppose when you get out of the mess of biology, then you, in a way, do choose your family. That can be liberating. I think this is what Viv is trying to do."

I considered it. It was certainly better than the biological family I had now, and I knew, for Jasmine as well. But because we had come from families that had been so horrendous, so restricting, and it had taken us a quarter of our lives to really break out from them, the prospect of jumping in again was too much. Even if it was with a chosen family and we had freedom in who was there.

"But you, you're pretty much already there," Jasmine added.

"What do you mean?"

"You and Gerard. Living together. Owning a piece of property together and now, considering a future. That is having a family."

"But I said we don't own one another. That's not the type of relationship we have."

"True. But you own this property. You're responsible for that, if nothing else."

I could feel myself panicking. I loved Gerard and I never wanted to let him go, yet, at the same time, I saw so many doors and windows of opportunity closing.

"So who do you live with?" I threw back at her.

"Mikey and Alexa. Only temporarily, though, until I get my own place. By myself, so I can leave whenever I need to." She smiled. Even in the dim candlelight I could see how pleased she was by this. "And now that I've lived around a married couple with five kids, I see things that I didn't notice before. Stuff about family, biological or chosen, that I hadn't considered. Let me ask you.... have you done laundry together yet? Have you fought over dishes? Over who left their underwear on whose side of the room?" She raised her eyebrows, looking menacing and almost amused in the candlelight. "Because you probably will, and then it won't feel much like freedom."

I swallowed. I didn't know how right she was. Gerard and I had fought before, but that was during the tense time when we thought we were going to be found out. We were mad at the outside world and we just took it out on each other. After that, there nothing. And yes, we had done laundry together, but that was a fun thing. It would continue to be a fun thing, I was sure, or at least something innocuous or banal. It wouldn't turn into a fight because there were so many better things to worry about. Would we really start to care that much about fabric softener? About dishes? It seemed to go against everything that we both stood for. It just would happen. But... everyone needed to eat. His words about money and economics came back into my head. If everyone needed to eat, there were going to be dishes. Eventually, yes, we may fight over this, I told myself slowly, and trying to accept it. We would fight over stupid things. Okay, that was fine. But I didn't think it would completely eradicate our freedom.

Would it?

"This is why I'm staying single," Jasmine concluded. "Because the only person you can own is yourself."

I nodded, vaguely, but I didn't want to keep thinking about it. I swapped the book I had in my hands from the shelf with the book of Rimbaud poetry, and I waved it signalling that I wanted to read. Jasmine nodded, and flopped down on the couch.

"Goodnight," we both said to one another. We read in silence for an hour, no one moving or speaking, before we blew the candles out. The power had still not come on, and the snow was still falling outside.

I had my falling dream again. It was becoming persistent. My jump and jolt in bed was made a lot worse at the end by actually kicking the extinguished candle. It made a loud clattering noise, and Jasmine and I both sprung out of bed.

"What was that?" she asked, her voice lucid and not full of sleep.

"Just me. I'm sorry, I was having this dream...." I apologized and trailed off, too groggy to care.

"Oh, okay." A pause. "I had a dream too. It woke me up ages ago and I haven't been back to sleep."

I lifted my head up to see what the clock read, but it was dark. The power was still not on. "You okay?" I asked. "Was it a nightmare?"

Back in university, stuff like this used to happen all the time. Jasmine would get sleep terrors where her body would be paralyzed before she could really wake herself fully, and there were other times when she'd wake up in tears. She never told me about the nightmares or why exactly they were happening, but I always just figured it was something to do with her dad or brother. That was what she had already told me, years ago, and I didn't want to pry more.

"No, no, nothing like that," she assured me. "It was actually a really nice dream, just so overwhelming and now I can't fall back asleep. Do you know what synaesthesia is?"

I told her no, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.

"It's when you see sound, hear colours, or smell touch. Basically all your senses get completely mixed up. That was what my dream was like."

"Sounds fantastic," I declared.

"It's technically a neurological disorder and I feel bad thinking it's really awesome too. It can fuck with your perception of reality and that's never good, but at the same time, the world is so shitty maybe it would be nice to see something beautiful at random every once in awhile."

Her voice was sombre, and I could tell that even though she had not had a nightmare, but what sounded to be like an extremely creative and inspiring dream, it reminded her of the same trauma nonetheless. We were quiet for awhile, but now both of us completely awake, and I struggled to find comfort for her. I would normally hold her when stuff like this happened, or if she was still within the flashback, tell her the date and time, but I could do none of those. I bit my lip, hating this feeling, and tried to switch topics. I told her about my falling dream, and the one version of it I had where I actually fell and exploded in colours.

"Sounds like you're afraid of something," she told me. "I don't know if I put much stock in dream analysis, but Alexa has been telling me stuff."

"Mmmhmm," I nodded. I had never really thought about it as well, but I went with it. "And what about yours? Are you afraid too?"

"I am now," she laughed nervously. "That dream was so gorgeous I don't want to live my life now."

She kept laughing cryptically. I knew the pain she was digging at, and it was what I had felt with Gerard all the time. Sometimes, when I would wake up alone in his apartment I used to think I had created him myself. That there was no way he was real, and if he was real, then I didn't want to live anymore because he wasn't with me. It seemed somehow easier to keep him if he was a fantasy, because that meant he could go anywhere with me.

"You okay?" I offered Jasmine. She had stopped laughing and I couldn't decipher her face nor her voice in the dark.

"Yeah. But. Ugh." She started shifting around. "You're right, the couch is awkward. I keep watching the roads hoping the lights will go on again or the plows will come by, but nothing. I should just sleep."

"Come over here," I told her instinctively. I wasn't trying to pressure her, it was just my response. I kept forgetting that she was more tentative than I was, especially after that dream, and I didn't want to make her feel even more uncomfortable. "You don't have to, but there's plenty of room. You can even have my side of the bed and I'll sleep on Gerard's, if you want."

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14