What I Remember Most (29 page)

He would wait for me to recover from an orgasm, then make me come again, even when I said, “I can’t come anymore.”

“You’ll be too exhausted from sex with me to even think about having it with anyone else,” he whispered into my ear one night.

That was what all the orgasms were about. They weren’t about my pleasure, or loving pleasing me, or enjoying the sex we shared as a gift to each other. It was about exhausting my sex drive.

I used to think his postsex comments were romantic, too. “You and I will always be together. . . . I will always love you. . . . Don’t ever leave me, Dina. . . . I can’t live without you. I won’t be able to live without you.”

I would reassure him that I wouldn’t leave, but as I grew to know him better after the wedding, I heard it for the threat that it was. I heard his insecurity, his clinginess. His possessiveness was strangling me.

Was true love mixed up within the caverns of Covey’s obsessive, grainy mind? Or was I simply a new human possession he couldn’t part with? I think he loved me somewhere in that, but it was an unhealthy love, wrought with tar and sludge and deception and lies.

And that is no kind of love.

About a month after finding out that Covey had put a tracking device on my car, he gave me a new “updated” phone. I was no fool this time around. I took it to a phone whiz I knew. Covey had put a GPS on it.

I bought a new phone, new account.

Stalked.

Spied on.

Sick.

I finished the canvas with the lilies in the vase with the miniature bucolic village. I drew the crack in the vase straight down. I liked the peace of the village.

I saw the crack as a representation of life. Life cracks sometimes.

I liked it.

I hated it.

I hung it up.

“Grenady, thank you.”

“Why thank me?” Kade and I were on the deck of our bed and breakfast in Ashton late Monday night. Ashton’s a southern Oregon town with outstanding live theatre, a downtown filled with funky shops and restaurants, and an unbelievably beautiful public park that follows a river. “It’s your furniture they loved. I simply filled in a few details.”

“You did more than that. Bringing in the wood as you did was so smart. They loved the scrapbook, too, of our furniture.”

“Aw, gee shucks.” Sounds silly, but it worked. It was a scrapbook of eight-by-ten photos. I put a photo of Kade in front, then photos of the outside of Hendricks’, the red barn doors with the sign over it, a kaleidoscope sunset, the deer that visit, the lobby, and the production area with his employees working with the saws and tools. I included photos of the most spectacular furniture Hendricks’ had made in the past.

It gave the Legacy Hotels people more information about the furniture we made, but it also made it personal. Here’s Kade Hendricks, the owner, and here’s Tim, Petey, Cory, Rozlyn, Angelo, Eudora, etc. This is who works at Hendricks’! See—nice, normal people who love wood, and this is how they’ll make
your
furniture in their rustic yet modern shop surrounded by mountains, fresh air, and deer.

“And the way you attached the sketches to the wood was another smart Grenady idea.”

“And gee shucks again.” I had Cory cut wood in twelve-by-twelve squares, then glued the sketches of the furniture down on top so the Legacy people could feel the wood while analyzing the sketch.

“Plus, you know how to talk with people and make them laugh. They liked you, and that’s huge. If clients don’t like us, they won’t buy from us. They found you personable and funny. I think the story you told about Cleo and how Liddy follows her around like a dog, and the things she says and the clothes she wears, hooked them completely.”

I laughed. “She’s a funny kid, but it’s you, Kade. It’s you they bought. You and your art furniture. That’s what I call it in my head—‘art furniture.’ ”

“I like it.”

I held up my beer and clinked it with his. “To Hendricks’.”

“To Hendricks’ and the best damn sales director I’ve ever had.”

Our presentation was in front of six people from Legacy. In typical Oregon fashion, most people were in jeans, including Kade and me.

I also wore black heels, a black sweater, and gold jewelry. I had my hair down, my smile on. Kade wore his cowboy boots and a light green button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up.

Kade was sure, confident, and personable as he spoke.

I could tell that the three men and three women, although not the owner, were a tad overwhelmed by him. He’s six feet five inches of solid gold tough with scars on his face, but he smiled, he shook their hands, and away we went. They ate him right up. They ate his furniture right up.

They did not even bother to hide their enthusiasm after the first few minutes.

They loved it.

“We love it,” the head honcho-ette and owner Bettina Rhodes said. “Love it.” She winked at Kade. She had wavy white hair and wore loud, expensive jewelry. “I envision myself enjoying my Manhattan at the bar after a long day of busting heads together. Being the boss, you gotta bust heads sometimes, right, Kade?”

Kade laughed.

“Now, I don’t waste no time, and you don’t either, do you? How much money am I going to shoot through my nose for all this?”

We were ready with that, too.

Kade told her the prices she would have to shoot through her nose, handed her a price list. We had worked on them together along with Rozlyn.

Bettina didn’t haggle much. Kade met her mild haggling with humor. He re-sold her on the quality of the furniture, the wood, and how he would carve a peacock into the pieces she bought, as the peacock is their symbol—not surprising after meeting Bettina.

“What do you think, Grenady?” Bettina asked me, her diamond bracelets running partway down her arm.

I told her. I told her how furniture affects a home, then related it to a hotel and how people needed to feel at home in a hotel. I told her how the right furniture held the theme of the hotel together, how if the furniture and décor was somewhat uniform in a chain, people felt more comfortable. They knew what to expect whether they were in Colorado or Carmel. I appealed to her inner snob and how our furniture would appeal to people who were used to the finer things in life.

“Sold, sweetie,” Bettina boomed. “I been lovin’ your furniture for years, Kade, and now that we met, I love you, too, and this here Grenady, too. We have ourselves a lovin’ deal. ”

“Happy to work with you, Bettina,” Kade said.

“Baby, I am, too.” She shook Kade’s hand, then mine, with vigor. “If I had looks like yours and a smile with all those teeth and that hair, I would be able to snag me a fourth husband. As it was, with this old figure”—she indicated her curves—“I could only find three. You married, Grenady? No? Maybe you’ll meet a husband in my hotels one day, sugar.”

I felt Kade shift beside me, and he drummed his fingers.

“I want a husband about as much as I want a hole in my head,” I said, the words leaping out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Bettina’s laugh ricocheted off the walls. “I think you’re right. What do I need a husband for? Money? Don’t need that. Sex? Believe it or not, this ole girl still has it. Now let’s go and have some ribs and potatoes and celebrate with some women’s booze that can sear the skin off a cow. I have a hankering to get some meat on my bones.”

“I’ll take some meat on my bones, too,” I said. “And a beer.”

“But no hole in your head!” She cackled.

“No hole.”

I could see Kade studying me, thinking, but I ignored it.

We all went to a local restaurant and had a blast. A band played in the corner, and we got some meat on our bones and drank some beer. The deal done, we all relaxed, laughed, and chatted, Kade beside me. I tried not to think about how natural it felt to be sitting by Kade, in a restaurant, with people who were surprisingly fun and funny.

Bettina said, “I do business quick as a lick. We shake on this, and I know you’ll hold up your end.” She had her accountant give us a check. “I right like you two. I look forward to more business and beer in the future. Y’all get started now, ya hear?”

There were a lot of zeros on the check.

We left about midnight, and Kade winked at me.

“Cheers, Grenady.” We clinked our glasses together on the deck of the bed and breakfast. We were both having wine. “It’s a huge sale. Excellent for the company. We have work for months.”

I grinned. I was delighted. That would be the word for it. It wasn’t even my company, but I was delighted.

I would miss Kade and Hendricks’ when I was in jail. I thought of those bars closing in on me, tighter and tighter. So tight. They reminded me of another time.

Not a happy time.

That night in my dreams I saw a red, crocheted shawl. It was on the clouds, floating, then it formed into a heart and disappeared.

“Let’s go walking in the park.”

“What?” My eyes flew to Kade’s over breakfast the next morning. It was ten o’clock Tuesday. I figured we would head back to Pineridge.

“You told me once that you like to hike and walk. We have the afternoon open, so let’s go.”

“I’d love that.” I missed walking. I missed nature.

“You need a break, and so do I.”

“My boss has a whip and a chain,” I quipped.

“Then we’ll exchange the whip and chain for a trail. It’s cold, but not that cold. Grab a jacket.”

We stopped at a sandwich shop for lunch, then went to a grocery store for snacks. Kade, I learned, has a thing for barbeque potato chips, and I like licorice. We bought both.

“I spent six years in prison starting when I was nineteen.”

“I’m sorry, Kade.” I knew he wasn’t surprised that I knew. Pineridge is a small town.

I took another bite of a chocolate chip cookie and handed the other half to Kade. He ate it.

The hike we were on started in the city park. It followed a river. There was a rose garden that would be beautiful in the summer, a pond, an outdoor amphitheatre, and towering trees. There was a light dusting of snow, the silence complete except for the river, as we wound past a Japanese garden. It felt like we were walking through a snow collage.

“I did not enjoy it at all.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. What was the worst part?”

“Being trapped and angry. I was behind bars, like an animal. It was dangerous. I got into fights, some with homemade weapons. At first I lost a couple of fights, which is how I got one of these scars.” He pointed to his cheek. “I had the one next to it coming into jail. Anyhow, I got tougher, I worked out all I could, even in my jail cell, and I started winning. And I kept winning. I was not going to lose.”

We crossed a bridge, the stream rushing below. He had been nineteen. A kid. In jail with killers and pedophiles. “What did you do?” I had a vague idea, but I wanted to hear it from him.

“I was running around with a gang in L.A. Tough neighborhood. Join or be beat to shit. I was an angry, messed-up kid from a messed-up background. We got into fights with other gangs all the time. Knives and other weapons. That’s how I came to a few of the scars on my back. We were a bunch of angry young men, few with fathers, living poor. Petty crimes. I was tough and getting tougher, which meant I had an attitude problem. During one fight, the fight that sent all of us to jail, both sides, guns were shot off. I shot mine off, too, once, after I was down on the ground, with a bullet through my shoulder blade from one of the opposing gang members. Luckily I didn’t hit anyone. To this day I am grateful for that.”

I handed him another cookie. I pictured shredded muscles, chipped bones, and ripped skin, and closed my eyes. I do not like to think of people, especially not Kade, getting hurt. “What was your home life like?”

“Home life would probably not be the word for it.” He stared up at the snow-crusted branches forming an intricate arc above us. “My father was more out of my life than in. He and my mother never married. He was a successful businessman. It’s unfortunate that his product was drugs. More unfortunate that I ended up in jail, too, like my old man.” He laughed; it was bitter. “Can’t call him my old man, though. He and my mother had me when they were eighteen. She was pregnant in high school.”

“What is your mother like?”

“Was. She’s dead. She struggled. She tried.” He smiled, soft, gentle. “And she loved me. I did know that.”

“So you had her in your corner.” I sniffled. A mom in your corner.

“I did. But I also had a lot of rage, too. My father did not live with us. Once when I was seven he went to jail for three years. Another time he was jailed when I was thirteen. Everyone knew my father. I was the son of a drug dealer. He was the leader of one of the largest drug rings in Los Angeles. Nothing to be proud of, in a normal life, but in my life, in that neighborhood, with the poverty and drugs all around me, in a twisted way I was proud of it. I didn’t know anything else.”

“And then you joined a gang.”

He nodded. “I joined a gang, then ran it. Apparently leadership skills for criminal conduct runs in the family. Perhaps it’s hereditary. In my genes.”

“Outstanding. You showed leadership skills as a teen.” I was flip because I was feeling emotional. “You just needed a different place to lead ’em.”

“That’s true. Sometimes I led guys into fights. But the guys in my gang were like family, too. We offered each other protection and friendship. There were about fifteen of us. Three are in jail today. Three are dead. Two you met at The Spirited Owl, Ricki Lopez and Danny Vetti.”

“Oh, yes, of course.” They had seemed tough under the friendly smiles.

“Ricki ended up working in private practice for another man who contracts with the government, and Danny owns five auto shops in Los Angeles. We’re still friends with five other ex–gang bangers. We’re older, wiser. No one wants to go to jail again.” He winked at me. “The food is terrible.”

Yes, it was. “Tell me about your mother.”

“My mother worked full time as a nurse’s aide and another twenty hours a week at a 7-Eleven if my dad was in jail. If he wasn’t in jail, she only had to work as a nurse’s aide, as he would give her money. I was alone a lot.”