Gate Deadlock (7 page)

‘I’m only taking a sip. I have to drive you back
safely.’ he said seriously. There was a strange sparkle in his eyes
in the dark that made him look mysterious and somehow even more
handsome. He lifted his glass to make a proposal.

‘To your future!’ he said, looking at me.

‘Thank you for everything Christopher.’ I wetted
my lips with the cool wine. It was so refreshing that I eventually
decided to empty my glass at one gulp.

‘What?’ I asked him a little embarrassed.
‘
I’
m not driving. I’m probably
suffering from post-traumatic stress. I’ve outdone myself tonight,
haven’t I?’ I added, looking shyly into my glass. We both laughed
but next minute, an awkward silence prevailed. ‘I should call Suzan
and thank her for her present.’ I said, desperately trying to break
the silence.

‘Well, that’s enough for tonight. We can finish
it up some other time.’ he said.

He took the empty glass from my hands and put it
back into the freezer. Then, he put his next to mine and then the
freezer was in the back seat again. He turned towards me and said
in a low, gruff voice,

‘
Emma, don’t you want to know what my
present for you is?’

‘You’ve bought something for me? You shouldn’t.
You’ve already done so much.’

‘This is not something you buy Emma. But it’s
something I’ve wanted to give you for a long time.’ I was already
out of breath.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, but my voice could
barely be heard.

Then he leaned towards me and slowly pressed his
lips on mine. At first, I was numb, unable to move or breathe. But
in the next second, it felt as if the tension I had being trying to
suppress for so many days, was suddenly unleashed. I put my hands
around his neck and crushed my body on his. I do not know how long
that kiss lasted. When he drew back a little, he was breathing
heavily too.

‘That was much more than I’d expected!’ he said
smiling. He released me with careful, slow movements. ‘We’d better
go before things get out of hand. I don’t know what kind of wine
she gave us, but it certainly served its purpose.’ he joked, making
me chuckle nervously again. He was wrong. Things had already got
out of hand. Still in a daze, I thought about asking him not to
start the car, but I was not sure I could find my usual voice. He
started the car. I was trying to focus on the road in front of us
when he gave me a quick look.

‘You’re so silent. Have you already
regretted our kiss?
’ How can he be so
straightforward about this?
I thought, abashed once
again by his frankness.

‘No, I’m fine.’ I said, rigid in my seat,
my eyes fixed right in front of me without really seeing anything.
I could not tell him I was so silent because I was still bewildered
by his kiss. At that very moment, I felt like it was someone else’s
life I was living, not mine. But then he reached for my hand on my
lap and held it under his until
we parked outside my
apartment.

‘Do you still want to go to the wedding with me
tomorrow?’ he asked me.

‘Yes, definitely.’ I replied, a little too
enthusiastically.

‘I’ll be here at 8.15 then. Don’t make me wake
you up again.’ he said with his irresistible challenging
manner.

I should be getting off, but my legs refused to
move and take me away from him. I made a huge effort to open the
door, but then he grabbed my arm.

‘Emma?’

‘Yes?’ I turned to him.

‘Come here.’ the same sexy voice whispered
again. He closed his arms around me and kissed me again, only this
time he drew back sooner, as if trying not to be too carried
away.

‘You’d better go inside.’ He was smiling but I
could not ignore the fake-warning tone of his voice that caused a
flutter in my stomach. I got off reluctantly and, as he drove off,
Suzan’s words echoed into my mind.

‘He can be very persuasive
Emma. Be careful.’
But it was too late for
that.

Kate was lying on the sofa, half asleep. When
she saw me, she sat up rubbing her eyes.

‘Hey! How did it go?’ She was talking about my
presentation but I was so preoccupied with Christopher’s kisses
that the conference now seemed so distant and unimportant.

I tried to be as brief as possible about it,
under the excuse that I needed to go to bed. I had to be alone and
contemplate about what had just happened. I promised her that we
would talk about it in detail in the morning of course.

But when I turned towards my bedroom she
said,

‘
Not so fast!’

‘
What now?’ I turned
impatiently. She smiled. ‘Christopher. Tell me all about him.’
‘Well, there’s not much to say…’ She looked disappointed. ‘… except
for the fact hat we kissed of course…twice!’ I deliberately
stressed the last word. ‘Wow!’ she screamed. ‘I knew it! I knew he
had a crush on you from the very first minute.’ ‘Don’t exaggerate
it Kate. I doubt it if he remembers this tomorrow. It was only
meant to be a gift for my good performance after all. I don’t think
it meant anything to him.’ ‘Now you’re being silly. Do you think he
just hangs around kissing students in compensation for their good
work? That’s ridiculous. You’d better accept the fact that he’s in
love with you the same way you’re in love with him.’ She saw me
blush and added seriously, ‘Christopher is a catch. Every woman on
this planet would give her eyeteeth for him! Just don’t get too
public. You wouldn’t want him to lose his job and disappear.’ ‘I’m
going to bed. You’re awful!’ I pretended to be angry. ‘Sweet
dreams, Cinderella!’ she shouted behind me.

In the silence of the night, I was lying in my
bed trying to recall every little detail of that evening. Only, I
wasn’t thinking about the conference, but about the moments I had
with Christopher on our way back. With my eyes shut, I relived the
warmth of his lips, the heat of my body when he touched me. Even if
it was true that those kisses did not mean anything to him, I could
live with this memory for the rest of my life.

Deep down I was under the conviction that it was
“the right thing to do”, as Christopher had said a few days ago. It
certainly felt right. It was as if I had found something I had been
missing for a long time, one of the missing pieces of the puzzle of
myself.

I just wished I knew if he felt the same. Of
course, he must have had many girlfriends by then. Girlfriends was
suddenly a wrong word, it did not match. Lovers. That was much more
like him. I would never be able to compare myself to his lovers,
who I could imagine to be as gorgeous as Suzan.

I decided to put their images behind me. If he
wanted me, I was now more than eager to give him everything. I
could not help it, my mind was made up. I was under his spell.

I tried to think of what I knew about him. I
knew he was half Swiss half Canadian, he used to work in a
university in Canada, he had two postgraduate degrees, but I was
not sure on which field, and he had a PhD, but again, I wasn’t sure
on which scientific area. How had I forgotten to ask him about
that? He would always change the subject every time I led the
conversation to his past. He did not teach anything in the summer
school and all these days I had not seen him work on anything else
besides my paper. That was good, considering how much more awkward
it would be if I were one of his students. Not that we hadn’t
already crossed the line.

Still, the developments of Project-Em lay ahead.
So this had to be the only duty he had at Brantel. Obviously, they
had hired him only to supervise me. I would have expected them to
send me someone who was already working at Brantel, not to hire
someone new. Why hadn’t they told me I was to be supervised, why
the secrecy?

And yet, Christopher seemed so well posted on
the project.

Needless to mention, I was aware of his attempt
of flirtation and had welcomed it from the very first moment.
Still, my instinct warned me that there was something I had been
missing. Yet, that night I was not in a mood to worry about that. I
had so many questions about him, that much was true. I promised
myself to make a research on him the next day.

The next morning I pretended to be asleep until
I heard Tony’s car. He took Kate for a swim and I knew they would
not be back before late in the afternoon. The light of day dropped
me from the clouds so I was deliberately avoiding Kate, as I was
not sure where things stood with Christopher. Therefore, I felt it
would be wiser to withhold any pompous statements about him.

I made coffee and turned on my laptop to enter
the Brantel web site. I used my password to login and clicked on
the STAFF link. I scrolled down the page with the names and e-mails
of the university staff but I was not able to locate Christopher’s.
I wrote his name in the SEARCH box and clicked on the START
indication. To my amazement the phrase UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS flashed
in front of my eyes. I froze.

I did not know I needed more authorization than
my password. It had never happened before. I wished I had asked him
the name of the university he used to work in Canada. I made some
more fruitless efforts to search Canadian universities staff, until
I finally gave up.

4.

WEDDING RECEPTION

Christopher was on
time for the wedding. I did not know if being punctual was another
one of his assets, or whether he was just trying to keep up with my
oddities, but he had never stood me up.

Checking from the living room window, I saw him
waiting for me standing next to his car, with his back against the
passenger door. This had been another oddity of mine. Trying to
avoid Kate’s and Tony’s inquisitive looks and teasing comments, I
had asked him to wait for me outside instead of coming in.

‘He’s here!’ Kate shouted from her room.

Next moment, she was
standing next to me, staring at him too.
‘Look at
him!’ she whispered, admiration unconcealed in her voice. ‘He could
be posing for a fashion
magazine.’

‘
I know.’ I smiled as I kept staring
at him. The loose, off-white linen suit matched the color of his
skin and the light blue shirt made his eyes look
brighter.

I looked at her anxiously, waiting for a remark
about my appearance.

‘Well?’

She nodded approvingly. ‘You look astounding.
Hey, I want all the details tonight!’ she said smiling, as she
walked me to the door.

I took a deep breath before crossing the
doorstep. Christopher was holding the passenger door open for me as
usual.

‘You look fabulous, Emma. I’m starting to think
you deserve much more than a wedding reception tonight.’ he said,
grinning his approval of my appearance.

‘Thanks. You look very handsome too.’ I said,
unable to take my eyes off him.

I was grateful to Kate for helping me overcome
the total hysteria about finding the suitable dress for that night.
On Friday morning she had insisted on a shopping trip to Athens for
this purpose, to find the perfect dress for the wedding.
Eventually, I’d chosen a light green, strapped dress that revealed
the most of my back down to my waist. What had struck me about that
dress, were the small Swarofski beads that decorated the delicate
straps.

‘Definitely this!’ Kate had agreed. ‘It totally
accentuates your curves.’ She had decided not to come to the
wedding but spend the night with her sweetheart instead. She tried
to arrange another romantic dinner, but this time Tony had insisted
on ordering food from a nearby tavern.

We arrived at church soon enough to
see the nervous groom standing in front of the entrance, holding
clumsily a bunch of white orchids. He was among his friends who
kept teasing him that the bride would keep him waiting, indicating
the gaining of the upper hand in their marriage, a typical joke at
Greek weddings. But this did not happen. Tina was the kind of girl
who would rather rush an hour earlier to marry her sweetheart than
even think of torturing him by making him wait.

Inside the church, we met Rose and Don, my
godfather and professor at Brantel, who had flown here especially
for the occasion. He and the groom’s parents had been good friends
for many years. I was really glad to see him and I introduced him
to Christopher right away. I noticed Don was rather cold towards
him, probably not approving of him as my date. Christopher, on the
other hand, did not seem to notice.

Christopher was very interested in the wedding
ceremony and the Greek marital customs. Rose and her Greek friend
from the Language department, whose name I can’t recall, were more
than happy to help him pore over the subject.

After I had waited patiently in the queue for my
turn to congratulate the newly weds, Don approached me and
whispered to my ear.

‘I’ve just had a call from Colin. He’s coming
straight from the airport. I was thinking, Emma, that tonight it
might be a good opportunity for the two of you to get over this
misunderstanding.’

I gave him an angry look, but before I could say
anything, Rose called him to introduce him to a group of Greek
professors.

This unexpected information wiped out the smile
from my face instantly and I felt my temples burn with anger. Why
should Colin come here now? And what was this little plot with Don
suggesting we should work out the misunderstanding? To my eyes,
there was no misunderstanding.

I realized with surprise that after I had used
his thought as a distraction on the first day I had been alone with
Christopher, I had completely forgotten about Colin.

I felt Christopher standing behind me, before I
heard him say

‘What did Don tell you? You look very
upset.’