Mud Vein

  True to his word, the next day Isaac brought me Nick’s book. I held it in my hands for a long time before I had a nurse put it on my hospital nightstand. Old habits die hard.

  Isaac came to check on me after his shift ended. He was out of his scrubs and wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. The nurses twittered when he walked in dressed that way. He looked closer to a drummer than a doctor. He sat on my bed. But he was not a doctor this time. He was a drummer. I wondered if drummer Isaac was very different than doctor Isaac. He reached for the book and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. My eyes followed the tattoos on his forearm. It felt strange to see Nick’s book in Isaac’s hands. He studied it for a while, then he said, “Do you want me to read it to you?”

  I didn’t answer him, so he opened it to the first chapter. He breezed right past the dedication page without even looking. Bravo, I thought. Good for you.

  When he started reading, I wanted to scream at him to stop. I was tempted to cover my ears. To refuse the assault of a book written to make me hurt. But I did neither. I listened, instead, to Isaac Asterholder read the words that the love of my life wrote to me. And they went like this…

  Nick’s Book

  You don’t have to be alone. We are mostly born that way, though. We grow up being nurtured to believe that the other half of our soul is somewhere out there. And since there are six billion people inhabiting our planet, chances are one of them is for you. To find that person, to find your soul-piece, or your great love, we must count on our paths diverging, the tangling of lives, the soft whispering of one soul recognizing another.

  I found my piece. She wasn’t what I was expecting. If you formed a woman’s soul out of black graphite, bathed it in blood, and then rolled it around in the softest rose petals, you still wouldn’t have touched on the complication that was my match.

  I met her on the last day of summer. It felt appropriate that I would meet a daughter of winter as the last of the Washington sunshine sieved through the sky. Next week there would be rain, rain and more rain. But today, there was sun, and she stood underneath it, squinting even beneath her sunglasses as if she were allergic to the light. I was walking my dog through a busy park on Lake Washington. We’d just turned around to head home when I stopped to look at her. She was lean—a runner, probably. And she was wearing one of those things that’s longer than a sweater and shorter than a dress. A sweater dress? I followed the line of her legs to camo boots. You could tell she loved those shoes by the worn creases and the way she stood so comfortably in them. I loved those boots for her. And on her. I wanted to be in her. A rough manly thought I’d be too ashamed to admit out loud. The straps of a messenger bag crossed over her chest and hung at her left thigh. Now, I consider myself a bold man, but not quite bold enough to approach a woman whose every body movement said she wanted to be left alone. I did that day. And the closer I got, the stranger she became.

  She didn’t see me; she was too busy looking at the water. Lost in it a little. How can a man be jealous of water? That’s exactly what I wanted to explore.

  “Hi,” I said, when I was standing in front of her. She didn’t raise her eyes right away. When she did, her look was a little indolent. I jumped right in. “I’m a writer, and when I saw you standing here, I was compelled to start putting words down on paper. Which makes me think you’re my muse. Which makes me think I need to talk to you.”

  She smiled at me. It looked like it took effort, that perhaps maybe she didn’t smile very often and her facial muscles were stiff.

  “That’s the best pickup line I’ve ever heard,” she mused.

  I wasn’t sure if it was a pickup line. It was embarrassingly truthful. Just saying it made my lips pucker like I was holding in a mouthful of lemon pulp.

  I eyed the worn leather messenger bag at her hip.

  “What’s in the bag?” I asked. I was starting to get a feeling about her. Like I knew what she was before she told me.

  “A computer.”

  I didn’t peg her as a college student. She had too much attitude to be a professional. Self-employed, I was guessing.

  “You’re a writer, too,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “So we speak the same language,” I offered. She had a strip of silver running through her brown hair. More proof, it seemed, that she was born for winter.

  “You’re John Karde,” she said. “I’ve seen your picture. In Barnes and Noble.”

  “Well, that’s embarrassing.”

  “Only if I don’t like sappy women’s fiction,” she said. “Which I do.”

  “Do you write it?”

  She shook her head, and I swear that sliver of silver glimmered in the dying sun. My nerdy writer mind immediately said mithril.

  “I’m working on my first real novel. It feels pretty angry.”

  “Let’s talk about it over dinner,” I offered. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I mean, sure she was stunning—but it was more than that. She was a house with no windows. You could go crazy in one of those. I wanted in. She eyed my dog.

  “I can drop him off, my house is on the way to town.”

  She paused only to check her watch before nodding. We walked in silence for a few blocks. She kept her head down, choosing the sidewalk over the rest of the world. I wondered if she liked the cracks, or if she just didn’t want to meet the eyes of the people we passed. It might have felt uncomfortable, our quiet walking, but it didn’t. I suspected her to be a woman of few words. Muses often spoke with their eyes and their bodies. The power they supply is electrifying in itself. They set fire to your synapses.

  She waited at the edge of my driveway, even though I invited her in, toeing a stray weed that had forced its way up through the concrete. I wasn’t much of a gardener. My yard looked unloved. I walked Max back up to the house and opened the door I never locked. I stopped by his water bowl and topped it off under the faucet while he watched me. Max knew my routine with women. I’d take her to dinner, I’d say things about my writing and my passion, then we’d come back here. Before I went back outside, I ran my fingers through my hair, grabbed a piece of Juicy Fruit off the counter, and stepped into the chill. She was gone. It was then I realized that I had never asked her name. I never really told her mine—not my real one, anyway. I carefully unfolded the gum from its wrapper, sticking the yellow strip between my teeth. I pocketed the piece of wax paper, scanning the street for some sign of her. I’d just lost a girl I really wanted to know. It didn’t feel good.

  Nick’s Book

  She came back. Two days later. I saw her from my living room window, standing in the same spot I’d left her, staring at my house as if it were something out of a bad dream. The last time I saw her she’d been standing in sunshine, this time it was rain. She had on a white slicker, the rim of it dripping water into her face. I could see the silver streak in her hair plastered to her cheek. I watched her from the window for a few minutes, just to see what she’d do. She seemed rooted to the spot. I decided to go get her. Walking barefoot down my driveway, I sipped my coffee casually, running my tongue over the chip in the rim. A few raindrops dripped into my mug. When I came within a few feet of her I stopped and looked up at the sky.

  “You like this weather.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” she said.

  I nodded. “Want to come in for some coffee?”

  Instead of answering me she started walking up the driveway, helping herself to the door. It slammed behind her before I realized she was alone in my house.

  Was it my imagination, or did she make sure to step on every weed on her way up?

  She didn’t stop to look around when she walked through the corridor that connected my foyer to the rest of the house. I had several pictures hanging on my walls—art and some family stuff. Normally women stopped to examine each one. I always thought they did it to ease their nerves. She took off her jacket and dropped it on the floor. Puddles formed around it as the rainwater skirted off. She was an odd bi
rd. She walked right to the kitchen like she’d been there a hundred times before, stopping in front of my beat-up Mr. Coffee. She pointed to the cabinet above it, and I nodded. She chose a Dr. Seuss mug—smart girl. I tended to stick to the Walt Whitman with the chip on the rim. I watched her lift the pot from the warmer and pour without looking. She was staring out my window. Right when the liquid reached the rim of the mug, her hand automatically pulled back. I breathed a sigh of relief. She had the weight and timing perfected in that strange little head of hers. When she was done, she leaned back against the counter and looked at me expectantly.

  “So, the other day…”

  “What?” I said. “You’re the one that just left.”

  “It wasn’t the right day.”

  What the hell type of thought was that?

  “And today is the right day?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. I just felt like coming, I guess.”

  She ambled over and sat across from me at the worn dinette I’d taken through three relationships. If I ended up with this girl I was going to buy a new table. I’d had sex on it too many times for it to be relationship kosher.

  “This is a stupid world,” she said, and traced her finger along the edge of the table like she was reading brail.

  I waited for her to go on but she didn’t. My forehead was creased. I felt the skin wrinkling against itself. She was sipping her coffee, already thinking about something else.

  “Do you ever have a complete thought?”

  She seriously considered my question and languidly took another sip. “I have many.”

  “Finish the last one then.”

  “I don’t remember what it was.”

  She drank the rest of her coffee, then stood up to leave.

  “See you Tuesday,” she said, heading for the door.

  “What’s Tuesday?” I called after her.

  “Dinner at your house. I don’t eat pork.”

  I heard the screen slam behind her. Max raced for the door, barking, his nails clicking against the tile as he scrambled past me. I leaned back in my chair, smiling. I didn’t eat pork either. Except bacon, of course. Everyone eats bacon.

  She showed up on Tuesday, right at six. I had no idea when to expect her, so I made sushi with the salmon I’d bought that morning from the market. I was busy wrapping my rolls in seaweed when she let herself in. I heard the screen door slam and Max’s manic barking.

  She slid a bottle of whiskey across the counter.

  “Most people bring wine,” I said.

  “Most people are pussies.”

  I choked on my laugh.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Brenna. What’s yours?”

  “You already know my name.”

  It was mostly true. She knew my pen name.

  “Your real name,” she said.

  “It’s Nick Nissley.”

  “So much better than John Karde. Who are you hiding from?”

  She unscrewed the lid from the Jack and drank straight from the bottle.

  “Everyone.”

  “Me, too.”

  I looked at her out of the corner of my eye as I poured soy sauce into two ramekins. She was young, much younger than me. What did she have to hide from? Probably an ex-boyfriend. Nothing serious. Just a guy who didn’t want to let go, most likely. I had some exes who probably wanted to hide from me. It was a shallow thought, because if this woman was really that simple, she wouldn’t have struck my interest. I saw her standing still and quiet, and she caused movement in my brain. I’d already written over sixteen thousand words since she’d walked with me to my house and then disappeared. A feat, considering I’d been claiming writer’s block for the last year of my life.

  No, if this woman said she was running away, she was.

  “Brenna,” I said that night as we lay in my bed.

  “Mmmm.”

  I said it again, tracing a finger along her arm.

  “Why do you keep saying my name?”

  “Because it’s beautiful. I’ve known Brianna’s, but never a Brenna.”

  “Well, congratulations to you.” She rolled off the bed and reached for her skirt. That skirt had been what started it all. I see a skirt and I want to know what’s underneath it.

  “Where are you going?”

  The corner of her mouth lifted. “Do I look like the kind of girl who sleeps over on the first date?”

  “No ma’am.”

  She fished around on the floor for the last of her clothes, and then I walked her to the door.

  “Can I take you home?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want you to know where I live.”

  I scratched my head. “But you know where I live.”

  “Exactly,” she said. She pushed up on her toes and kissed me on the mouth.

  “Tastes like a New York Times Bestseller,” she said. “Goodnight, Nick.”

  I watched her go and felt conflicted. Did I really just let a woman walk out of my house in the middle of the night and not take her home? I hadn’t seen a car. My mother would have a coronary. I knew so little about her, but there was no question that she wouldn’t take well to me galloping after her on my imaginary steed. And why the hell didn’t she drive? I walked back into the kitchen and started cleaning up our dinner plates. We had only made it through half of the sushi before I leaned across the table and kissed her. She hadn’t even acted surprised, just dropped her chopsticks and kissed me back. The rest of our night was impressively graceful. I credit her with that. She undressed me in the kitchen and made me wait to take her clothes off until we reached the bedroom. Then she made me sit on the edge of the bed while she undressed herself. Her back never touched the sheets. A true control freak.

  I put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher and sat at my desk. My thoughts were coming at me fast. If I didn’t get them down, I’d lose them. I wrote ten thousand words before the sun came up.

  A week later we took our first trip into Seattle together. It was her idea. We rode in my car since she said she didn’t have one. She looked nervous sitting in the front seat with her hands folded in her lap. When I asked her if she wanted me to put on the radio she said no. We ate Russian pastries from paper bags and watched the ferries cross the sound, shivering and standing as close as we could get to each other. Our fingers were so greasy when we were done we had to rinse them off in a water fountain. She laughed when I splashed water in her face. I could have written another ten thousand words just from hearing her laugh. We bought five pounds of prawns from the market and headed back to my house. I don’t know why the hell I asked for five pounds, but it sounded like a good idea at the time.

  “You have one of these,” I said, as we were cleaning the prawns together at my kitchen sink. I ran my finger laterally along its body, pointing out the dark line that needed to be cleaned out. She frowned, looking down at the prawn she was holding.

  “It’s called a mud vein.”

  “A mud vein,” she repeated. “Doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

  “Maybe not to some people.”

  She de-headed her shrimp with a flick of her knife and tossed it in the bowl.

  “It’s your darkness that pulls me in. Your mud vein. But sometimes having a mud vein will kill you.”

  She set down the knife and washed her hands, drying them on the back of her jeans.

  “I have to go.”

  “Sure,” I said. I didn’t move until I heard the screen door slam. I wasn’t upset that my words had run her off. She didn’t like to be found out. But she’d be back.

  Nick’s Book

  She didn’t come back. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t care. There were plenty of women. Plenty. There were women everywhere I looked. They all had skin and bones, and I’m sure some of them even had silver streaks in their hair. And if they didn’t have a silver streak in their hair I’m sure I could convince them to put it there. But there is something about the p
rocess of convincing yourself that you don’t care that just confirms even more that you do. Every time I passed the window in my kitchen I found myself looking up to see if she was standing in the rain, judging the weeds poking out of the driveway. I looked at those weeds so much that eventually I went out there in the rain and pulled them up one by one. It took me all afternoon and I got a nasty head cold. I was cleaning up my driveway for a woman.

  I wanted to go look for her, but she’d told me little to nothing about herself. I could hold the five things she’d said in the palm of my hand, and still find plenty of room. Her name was Brenna. She came from the desert. She liked to be on top. She ate bread by pulling off little pieces and placing them in the center of her tongue. I had asked her questions, and she had skillfully turned them back on me. I had been eager to give her answers—too eager—and in the process I’d forgotten to collect answers from her. She had played me like a narcissistic trombone. Tooting, tooting, tooting my own horn. She must have been thinking what a fool I was the entire time.

  Toot, toot.

  I went back to the park, hoping to run into her again. But something told me that day in the park was a fluke. It wasn’t her day to be there, and it wasn’t mine. We met because we needed to, and I’d gone and screwed it up by telling her she had a mud vein. I thought she knew. God. If I had another chance with her, I’d never talk again. I’d just listen. I wanted to know her.

  I sat in front of my laptop and wrote more words than had come to me in years—all at once. They just strung themselves together and I felt like a writing god. I had to have more of this woman. I’d write a library full of books if I had a year with her. Imagine a lifetime. She was meant for me. I cleaned out my weeds, I cleaned out my closets, I bought a new table and chairs for my kitchen. I finished my book. E-mailed it to my editor. I lingered some more at my kitchen window, industriously washing and rewashing my dishes.