Before We Were Strangers

  Matt looked affronted before his expression softened. “I’ll talk to him, Mom.” He reached his hand out to her. She took it and kissed the back of it, then let him go. “It’s just that I can’t help but feel that people like Alex are holding us back as a species. He wears pink shorts and polo shirts, and he actually refers to himself as an Adonis.” Matt grinned.

  I choked on a piece of chicken and couldn’t help but fall into a fit of laughter. Even Aletha couldn’t hold back. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she let loose boisterous guffaws, laughing so hard she couldn’t even take a breath. She managed to squeak out, “Hey! He’s my son.”

  The mood instantly lightened. “It’s not your fault,” Matt said, still chuckling as we all caught our breaths.

  “Oh, boy, Matthias. That’s the one thing you get from your father.”

  “What’s that?” My interest suddenly piqued.

  She smiled warmly. “He and his father are so lighthearted. They can’t be serious about anything for more than two minutes without turning it into a joke.”

  “He’s not like that anymore,” Matt interrupted.

  Aletha’s shoulders bounced with silent laughter. “Well, at least your father used to be that way.”

  We finished our soup in the glow of pleasant conversation, then Matt stood from the table. “Mom, Thank you. This was delicious. Grace, you want to shower while I help my mom clean up?”

  “Yes, okay. I can help, too.”

  “Don’t be silly, Grace. We’ve got this.” Aletha walked over and patted her son on the shoulder.

  Before I left the dining room, a wooden hutch full of photos caught my attention. Matt followed my gaze. There were various childhood pictures of Matt and Alex, as well as a slew of art projects, beaded lampshades, old cameras, handmade pottery pieces, and several black-and-white photos of a much younger Aletha, laughing joyously. “I took those when I was a kid,” Matt said.

  “They’re amazing.” I stood to get a closer look and Matt followed. “She was like your first muse.”

  I turned and looked up into his dark, squinting eyes. Everything froze for a moment. He looked at my mouth, slightly parted. He ran his fingertips down my cheek and the callused pads of his thumbs felt divine against my skin. I shivered.

  “You’re my first muse, Grace.”

  The music Orvin had taught me how to hear was back. The sounds rushed through my ears as Matt bent and kissed me tenderly on the lips.

  * * *

  MATT’S SIDE OF the bed was cold and empty when I woke up the next morning. I shuffled into the dining room to find Aletha sitting alone at the table, sipping coffee and intermittingly spooning globs of oatmeal from a wide bowl.

  “Good morning, dear.”

  “Good morning, Aletha. Did Matt leave?”

  “Yes, he’s out running errands. He didn’t want to wake you. Oatmeal?”

  “Just coffee for me, thanks.”

  “Have a seat.” When she stood, I noticed she was wearing a paint-spackled apron and garden shoes. She noticed me scanning her attire.

  “I was in the Louvre. That’s my art studio in back, more popularly known as a garage. I call it that because, hell, I want my artwork in the Louvre, and this is about as close as I’ll get. I can take you there after breakfast.” She went into the kitchen as I took a seat. I mindlessly began tracing a vein in the wood with my finger while I watched Matt’s mom search a high cabinet for a mug. Aletha seemed like someone whose soul was so at peace, like life was no a longer a mystery to her.

  “I’m nervous to meet Matt’s dad and his family,” I admitted, without thinking if she would take offense by my referring to them as his family.

  Her movements stopped just for a second as she peered into the cabinet, balancing gracefully on her tippy toes. It was long enough for me to tell that my comment had jarred her.

  “You’ll be fine,” she said, without looking over at me. When she returned to the dining room, she handed me a hand-thrown pottery mug full of black, thickly aromatic coffee. She was smiling. “Matt’s dad, Charles, was a lot like Matthias once.”

  “Once?”

  She pointed to the center of the table where a silver tray held a tiny metal pitcher of cream.

  “Black is fine for me,” I answered her unspoken question.

  She sat down on the other side of the table, leaned back in her chair, and removed the glasses from the end of her nose, setting them beside the empty oatmeal bowl. Seconds of silence passed before she continued. “Sometimes money changes people. As for Matt’s brother, Alexander, don’t worry about him. Monica is the one you’ll have to keep an eye on, especially when she’s around Matthias. She’s the conniving one. Alexander is just . . . well, I think Matt described him pretty well last night. Harmless but not exactly benevolent. I think that’s the nicest way to put it.”

  I opened my eyes wide, shocked by her candor.

  “I just tell it like it is, Grace. Monica always had a thing for Matt. It’s just that her thing for money was stronger. I think Alexander knows that, and it’s driven a wedge between him and his brother. They were always different but they were close before she came along.”

  Desperate to change the subject, I nodded and sipped my coffee while my stomach did somersaults. “I’d like to get something for Matt.” I paused and she waited. “I don’t have much money. Do you have any ideas of what he might like?”

  She looked up from her coffee and smiled. “Yes, I’m glad you asked. I think I know the perfect thing. Come on out to my studio.”

  I followed Aletha out to the garage, which looked as old as the house but wasn’t maintained as well on the outside, its beige, battered shingles in need of repair. She ushered me inside and closed the door quickly, giggling like we were conspiring schoolgirls. There were racks everywhere with drying pottery, sculptures, and an easel with a half-finished landscape painting. The walls were lined with large shelving systems that went all the way up to the ceiling and were filled to the very edge with brushes in tins, metal tools, and glass jars. The new potter’s wheel sat in the corner. The only gleaming, untouched surface was the large, round metal top of the wheel. From the back of the door, Aletha grabbed a smock and handed it to me. “How about you make something for Matthias?”

  “Sure, but what? I’m not very good at this.” I picked up a metal coffee cylinder filled with tiny silver tools. “What are these for?”

  “Leather tooling.”

  “Oh! Matt needs a belt. He’s been wearing two shoelaces tied together.”

  “Perfect,” she said. She walked to a long metal cabinet and pulled out a solid leather strip with four round holes punched through one end. “All you’ll need is a buckle. We can go thrift-store shopping for that.”

  I was falling more and more in love with her by the second.

  Taking a tiny hammer and a few tools from the coffee tin, I held them up. “So do I just tap these into the leather?”

  “First, we must wet the leather a bit so it’ll be pliable enough. That way the design will set and last longer, maybe forever.” She went to the farmhouse sink and returned a moment later with a wet rag. She saturated the leather using the small towel and then took a step back. “Have at it, honey.”

  “What kind of design should I do?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  I studied the tools with different shapes on the end. There was a circle made of three squiggly lines. I grabbed it, along with a tiny solid circle, and pressed the larger circle into the leather with ease, leaving a permanent indentation. Then I took the smaller circle and tapped it into the center of the design I had already made.

  She stood over me. “Wow, that looks just like an eye, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I guess it does.”

  “Let’s girlify it then. May I?” I nodded and she picked up a tool with a narrow teardrop shape at the end and made three divots above the eye design and three below. Then she tapped in a second eye and repeated the process. She took a half-mo
on-shaped tool and pressed it, striking it quickly several times in a row on the top and bottom edges, creating a border. Before I knew it, two inches of the belt was designed, abstract enough to resemble a paisley print or women’s eyes looking out from a pattern of tribal swirls.

  “That is so impressive,” I said.

  “Now you have the design. ‘Eyes on Matt,’ I assume, if we had to name it.” She laughed.

  “ ‘My Eyes on Matt,’ ” I corrected, and she chuckled even harder.

  “He’ll love it. Just repeat the design over and over until you’re at the end of the belt.” She scooted a tall wooden stool behind me, so I sat down and got to work.

  14. Did You Have Doubts?

  GRACE

  Hours later, I finished the belt just as I heard the rumbling of a motorcycle pulling into the driveway. Aletha had gone into the house to make tea. I hung the belt inside the cabinet, closed it, and went to the door of the shed just as Matt opened it. He pushed me back inside and kissed me hard. I wrapped my arms around him and let him lift my legs around his waist. He slammed the door and pushed me against it.

  “Don’t say no to me,” he said near my ear.

  “Matt, your mom.”

  “Take this off.” He set me down and removed the smock. “Actually, take all of this off.” He reached for my T-shirt but I stopped him. “She won’t come in here,” he said breathlessly.

  “What, why?”

  He let his hands fall to his sides. “Because she knows we’re in here. Now, where were we?” He looked up to the ceiling and tapped his chin, then pointed his index finger at me. “Oh yes, we were undressing you.”

  “Wait, maybe she thinks we have a tiny bit of respect.”

  “Maybe she thinks we’re young and in love,” he countered quickly.

  Silence, as if the air were sucked out of the room and we were left in a vacuum, wordless, our eyes glued to each other. Matt’s expression remained impassive.

  I arched my eyebrows.

  He gave a quick shrug. “What?”

  “Are we?”

  “Young? Yes, relatively.”

  “No . . . are we . . .”

  “What do you think, Grace?” And then his mouth was on mine, except there was no urgency behind his kiss anymore. The kiss went on and on, like we were trying to melt into each other, romantic and sweet.

  Finally, I pulled away. “You have a motorcycle?” I asked, dreamily.

  He answered by nodding into my neck and kissing me right below the ear.

  “Wanna take me for a ride?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “You know, we never really talked about the other night.”

  “Do we need to talk about it?” His tone was suddenly stiff.

  A sudden wave of paranoia slammed me back a couple of feet, out of Matt’s embrace. He was avoiding the topic. Why? I wondered if there was something he didn’t want to tell me. Was I not good enough? How could I be? I thought. He was like a god, dripping with an intoxicating blend of sweetness and sex. I couldn’t take my eyes off him most of the time. On top of it all, he was kind, smart, strong, and artistic.

  Really, universe? That’s plenty. That’s just fucking plenty! You cannot make one person this delicious. It’s not fair.

  Matthias was the kind of guy girls dreamed about marrying. The kind of guy whose last name you would doodle after your first name in wispy cursive letters across the cover of your Trapper Keeper. Graceland Shore. Graceland and Matthias Shore. Mr. and Mrs. Shore. Images of your family photos would zip through your mind in blurry streams, like stars moving at warp speed. You, standing there, glowing and pregnant for the twelfth time, with all of your beautiful little Adonis and Aphrodite children clinging to your legs as you and your husband gaze into each other’s eyes. You’d shout it out to the world, “This. Man. Is. Mine!” And you’d always give him lots of blowjobs. I hadn’t even done that yet, but I planned to. Anyway, the point is, you’d do anything for him.

  And then, like a mythological creature, he would annihilate your heart with mere indifference.

  Do we really need to talk about it?

  Ouch.

  He squinted at me, pleading, searching. Or was he playing with me? My stomach spasmed with anxiety.

  “Okay, Grace, what the hell is going on?”

  I couldn’t hold it in. “Was I terrible in bed?”

  “What? What’s wrong with you? Are you kidding me?”

  “Well, are you going to answer my question?”

  He stood up straighter, “Do I really need to point out that I basically just told you I’m in love with you? I thought you got it. Fucking Christ, Grace. I have a raging hard-on and I’m trying desperately to defile you against the wall of a disgusting shed in my mother’s backyard. I thought actions speak louder than words?” We glared at each other and then he lowered his voice. “The other night was easily the most enjoyable night of my life, I swear to you. I doubt anyone else could ever top it. You are so uniquely beautiful and sexy, and you moved so perfectly that I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.” He looked down at his pants and laughed. “Which has made life on airplanes and in Aletha’s house extremely awkward.”

  Heart slayed. He owned me.

  He grabbed my hand. “Come on, silly girl. I want to take you over to my dad’s for lunch, and it’s already getting late.”

  “Really?” I looked at my watch. I didn’t realize Matt wanted to see his dad on such short notice. “Oh shit.” I ran through the door of Aletha’s house like a whirling dervish, spinning in frantic circles. “I don’t know what to wear,” I moaned.

  Matt trailed behind me and sat back on the guest bed, watching me, hands propped behind his head, a satisfied, smug grin on his face. “Just pick something. You look great in everything . . . and nothing.”

  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” Clothes went flying out of my suitcase and across the room. “I have nothing!”

  “This,” Matt said, picking up an item of clothing from the floor. “Wear this.” It was the dress, the one with the black little flowers and a cut out in the back. “With tights and your boots. You look amazing in it.”

  Grabbing it from him, I scanned the wrinkled material. “Throw it to me,” came a voice from the doorway. Aletha held her hands out. I almost started to cry when I looked up to see her warm smile. When I was at my home, I was expected to iron not only my own clothes but my dad’s and my siblings’, too. My mother always said it was about doing my part. Even when I was home from college on holidays, I would spend hours doing chores and ironing. I despised ironing. The mere sight of an ironing board made me angry. Aletha’s small gesture reminded me how much I yearned for a nurturing mother—one who didn’t let my father’s drinking rule our lives. One who sounded excited, who wanted to know me when I called. One who wasn’t spread so thin.

  “Thank you, Aletha.”

  “My pleasure, sweetie.” I think she meant it. Like ironing my dress actually made her happy.

  Within twenty minutes, I found myself fidgeting in the passenger seat of Aletha’s van while Matt blared the Sex Pistols and banged on the steering wheel to the beat, weaving in and out of traffic, totally oblivious to my nervousness.

  “Hey!” I yelled over the music.

  He turned it down and glanced at me. “Don’t freak out, Grace. They’re a bunch of pretentious assholes. Just play a song for them. They’ll all be totally impressed. Monica will be jealous. Alexander will be a douche. My dad and his wife will be cordial but smug. They’ll all talk about how some famous chef cooked our meal and then my dad will remind you how much he paid for the wine.”

  “I feel bad for showing up empty-handed.”

  “My mom gave me a bottle of Prosecco to bring.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s sparkling wine, like champagne.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Perfect.”

  When we pulled into the driveway of what I would modestly call a mansion, my eyes
bulged out of my head. The house was decorated in white Christmas lights and there was a grand Christmas tree in the center of the circular driveway, covered in large, extravagant bows and huge ornamental glass balls.

  “My stepmom loves this shit but she doesn’t do any of it herself. She just hires people.”

  I spotted the wine behind his seat and grabbed it. We both shuffled toward the door apprehensively. Matt pressed the doorbell; I thought it was strange that he couldn’t just walk into the house he grew up in.

  A plump woman in her midsixties, wearing an apron I thought only people in movies wore, answered the door. She was Alice from Brady Bunch, but not cheery.

  “Matthias,” she said. Her accent was thick and obviously German.

  He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Naina, this is Grace.”

  “Nice to meet you.” She shook my hand firmly and turned. We followed her through an entry and down a long hall.

  Who is that? I mouthed.

  “Housekeeper,” he whispered, and then leaned in toward my ear. “She’s mean.” My eyes grew wide.

  Naina turned around and stopped midstride. “I can hear you, boy.”

  Matt grinned. “Naina has been here since I was twelve. She helped me with all my homework, taught me a bunch of German swear words, and would always sneak me tons of sugary snacks.”

  Naina stomped her foot and put her hands on her wide hips. “Matthias,” she scolded, but it only lasted a second before her cheeks turned pink and she started laughing. “Come here, you.” The rotund woman practically lifted Matt off his feet in a bear hug. “I’ve missed you, Matthias. It hasn’t been the same around here without you.” They pulled away from each other.

  Matt pointed a thumb at his chest. “I’m her favorite.”

  “Come on now, enough of that,” Naina replied as she turned and continued down the hall. She blew off the remark, but I knew it was true.

  It was two days before Christmas and I was about to meet Matt’s dad, his brother, his stepmother, and his vindictive ex-girlfriend/soon-to-be sister-in-law. I was happy to have something to carry into the room; it felt like a shield against whatever was waiting for us in the grand living room. Matt yanked the bottle of Prosecco out of my hands—so much for my shield—and entered the room ahead of me, holding his arms out wide, his chest up, bottle dangling from his right hand. “Merry Christmas, family. I’m here!”