Le Remède Read online

  My father would set down his beer and the newspaper, walk over to my mother, slip his hand around her waist, kiss her on the neck and say. “And it smells delicious. Andie and I will set the table.” And I would roll my eyes at how embarrassingly predictable they were.

  Now, I miss that predictable scene like I miss the sound of my mother’s voice.

  ****

  After making my rounds for errands, I drag my overflowing metal cart down the busy sidewalk. The florist is farther from home than Mack said. A text comes in from her.

  Might be late. Like tomorrow morning late.

  Okay. Wasn’t going to wait up.

  She sends me an emoticon for the raspberry. At least Mack is predictable in her unpredictability.

  Finally, I spot the shop with the red awning, The Black Orchid written in florid script. Mack was right about the window display; it looks like an English garden—a botanical explosion of eye-popping colors, tiny plants in porcelain teacups, an ivy-covered arbor and a two-tiered fountain topped with a smiling, angelic figure.

  I prop the door open with my butt and the bell above the door tinkles as I drag my cart in, forcing it over the threshold, struggling to get us both inside.

  I turn around just as the door to the back of the store closes. Inside, the place reminds me of Paris, where Mack and I spent all our Euros on a graduation trip—the twinkle of miniature lights over the doorway, the delicate scent of freshly cut flowers. I can almost hear Edith Piaf’s voice winging its way through the air.

  There’s a bell on the counter. I hate those things. Always seems so demanding. “Serve me NOW.” I look around to get some ideas for Mack, take a couple of pictures of arrangements with my phone, and lightly ding the bell once.

  Through the back of the store, I hear, “Someone will be with you in a moment.”

  I have a thing for accents and his is warm caramel. Delicious.

  He emerges from the back and is worth the wait. Tall, blond, turquoise eyes. He resembles a young Brad Pitt, but he’s so fair, he looks like he might be allergic to the sun.

  He’s drying his hands with a towel, as he smiles at me and says, “How can I help you?”

  His English lilt is not the voice I heard through the door.

  My breathing is still irregular from the walk and the struggle with my cart. I pause and take a deep breath before saying, “I’d like to get something a little unusual as a thank-you gift. What would you suggest?”

  Loud music begins blaring from the back of the store, the bass line throbbing. The Brad Pitt lookalike frowns, shakes his head, and clicks his tongue in disapproval, before turning his attention back to me.

  “We just got a delivery of our namesake, some amazing black orchids. But it depends on how much you want to spend. They’re a bit pricey.”

  “I don’t want to go crazy.”

  “Okay, if you want something different, how about this?” He’s pointing to a gorgeous periwinkle blue orchid plant. “But in the interest of full disclosure, you should know it’s a dye job. When they rebloom, they’ll be white. If anyone tries to sell it as a truly blue orchid, it’s rubbish.”

  I appreciate his honesty. “I think it’s actually kind of cool that it blooms in a different color.” He picks it up and turns it back and forth for me to examine.

  “How much?”

  “One-hundred twenty-five.”

  I cringe. God, I hope I get the job. “I’ll take it.”

  He looks at my overflowing cart. “We deliver, if you prefer.”

  “That would be awesome.” I don’t have Meghan’s address; I’ll get it delivered to me and bring it to her at the office, but I wish I knew if I’ll be thanking her effusively for helping me get the job or if it will be a thanks-anyway card. “Can you deliver them on Wednesday?”

  “Not a problem.”

  I give him my name, address, phone number and email and charge it, taking a leap of faith that I’ll get the job. I thank him again and, relieved I can check the last item off my list, I trudge the ten blocks home, dragging my cart behind me. By the time I reach my building, I feel like I’ve run a marathon. I’m ready to get in the apartment, put everything away, strip, shower and collapse.

  I slip my hand in my right pocket for the keys. My left pocket. My purse. I start digging through the groceries, the cleaning, the Duane Reade bags piled in the cart. Then it hits me. I set them on the counter at the florist when I signed the bill—ten blocks away. I peer inside, but Joseph, the doorman, is nowhere to be seen. I text Mack.

  Left keys at florist. Can you come let me in?

  I’m going to come, but not to let you in.:-) He lives uptown. Maybe in a couple of hours??

  Shit! Shit! Shit! I plop down on the step in front of our building, one hand protectively hanging onto my cart, the other on my purse. I’m sweating under my coat, my hands are frozen stiff, my nose is running and I’m beat. I’d give a million bucks right now to open the door and walk into the apartment. I can already feel the spray of the hot shower on my back.

  I’m feeling sorry for myself and hating on New York. But this mental griping is getting me nowhere. I can’t sit here for two hours while Mack has multiple orgasms with her over-the-hill hipster. I take a deep fortifying breath, throw my shoulders back and tell myself it’s “only” ten blocks.

  Chapter 5

  Vincent

  “What the bloody hell is your problem? And what’s with the rap music?” Nicholas shouted, as he stomped to the back of the store. “You hate that shite.”

  “Is she gone?”

  He plopped down in a folding chair and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Okay, I’m all ears, mate. And this had better be good.”

  I told him of my almost encounter with the young woman at Lizzie Borden’s and of the yearning, the palpable, human heartache I felt, that I feel, which stands apart from the ever-present blood lust. He shook his head in disbelief. “Vincent, we’ve been over this; none of that rubbish is true. It’s just some old wives’ tale, like garlic is a repellant or that we don’t cast a reflection in mirrors. Or—or some other shite, like Gus’ cure. They’re all sadistic tales bloated with false hope.”

  “But some of those so-called wives’ tales turned out to be true,” I pointed out. “Like the destructive power of fire. The ovens at Auschwitz showed that to be true.”

  He stood up and looked at me slumped hopelessly in the chair across from him.

  “Anyway,” he said, not fully appreciating my inner turmoil, “If you fancy her, just take her. What’s stopping you?”

  I rose and looked him the eye as I tried once again to explain. “If I do that, I’ll lose control. I know it. I feel it.”

  “Since when are you out of control?”

  “Since I first saw her,” I said with a conviction that surprised even me.

  He scratched his head and returned to the piles of boxes we were sorting through.

  “Vincent, I’m telling you, nothing’s going to happen that you don’t want to happen.”

  He doesn’t understand. How can he, when I don’t understand it myself?

  After we finished inventory at the end of the day, Nicholas headed for Lizzie Borden’s, and I stayed behind to close up. Before he left, he said it was time to scout for a bar in another neighborhood. Always after a few months in one spot, sometimes as long as a year, we begin to feel conspicuous and we find another bar, another source.

  ****

  I’m sitting behind the counter, tallying receipts, my back to the door, when the bell on the front door jingles. I lift my head. She is a perfume, standing out even among the heady scent of the flowers that surround me. I feel her presence and my thirst intensifies, my desire swells. I see into her warm soul and my cold, cold heart stirs. I set the receipts on the counter, brace myself and turn around.

  “How may I help you?”

  She’s staring at me, her mouth agape. I need her to look away.

  “Hi.” She pauses, as if waiting for me to ackno
wledge our previous encounter.

  “I was in here earlier and I think—I hope—I left my keys?” She inches closer to the counter, dragging her cart behind her.

  “Let me check the Lost and Found box.” I turn to the counter, my back to her, and sift through a pile of books, gloves, hats, charge cards, a wallet, a pair of bifocals and ah, keys! I turn to face her and she’s right in front of me, leaning on the counter. I feel my expression harden as I struggle to maintain control. I must look demented. She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, then she cocks her head and I notice the tiny silver nose ring reflecting off the ceiling lights. She points her finger at me. It’s blue from the cold, her nail bitten down to the quick.

  “You were at Lizzie Borden’s last night.”

  “Yes, actually I was. Were you there too?” She pulls back her finger, curls her hand into a fist and stuffs it in her coat pocket. My indifference has hurt her.

  She’s too close; soon I will be lost. I can almost feel the glorious relief of giving in to the primal urge that lays dormant deep inside me. To take and take with no constraint. My pledge never to take another life forgotten. The remaining threads of my humanity I so carefully stitched together long ago would be ripped apart.

  “Here are your keys.” I place them on the counter and before I can pull away, she reaches out. Our fingers touch. Her eyes close, her head rolls back, her lips part and she lets out a soft moan. A powerful jolt of electricity courses through my body. She gasps, jerks her hand back from the flame. Her eyes widen; she looks confused, frightened.

  I back away, slamming against the counter. A vase crashes to the floor, shards of glass shatter at my feet.

  She stares at me for a second. “What the…?” she mumbles, her voice hoarse.

  My self-control is being tested, strained, stretched as far as it can go without snapping.

  “We have a static electricity problem.” I haven’t yet recovered from her touch and it’s the closest I can come to anything resembling a logical explanation.

  She looks at me, opens her mouth as if to say something, but then abruptly shuts it, pulls her coat tighter and runs her fingers through her hair. I nod at the keys on the counter and put my hands behind my back.

  “Go ahead, take them.”

  She hesitates before reaching out, tentatively testing their shock value. She grabs the keys and turns to leave, mumbling “thank you” as she hurries out the door. I watch as she crosses the street, her head down. She stumbles. I want to run out and take her in my arms, breathe in her scent, tell her my life’s story, make love to her. Devour her.

  The knowledge that I will likely never seeing her again reassures me of her safety.

  And leaves me feeling emptier than ever before.

  Chapter 6

  Andie

  The sensation of his touch lingers, but even before the door to the florist shop closes behind me, I’m questioning if it really happened. As I step out onto the sidewalk I stumble, adding yet another thick layer to my humiliation. I hope he wasn’t watching, but I don’t dare turn back to check.

  In a fugue-like state, I make my way through the crowded city sidewalks. Stepping off the curb and onto 72nd Street, the unrelenting shriek of a taxi’s horn brings me back and saves me. I gasp and step back into the path of a jogger, who unfurls a lengthy string of four-letter words, never losing his stride.

  I somehow make it home, mindlessly take the elevator to our floor, and open the apartment door. I collapse into the sofa, as I try to focus, to remember the details of the disorienting encounter. Static electricity? But, then I change tactics and try to force myself to forget everything, push it to the back of my mind.

  An odd sensation washes over me. A chill? A fever? Vertigo? It lasts mere seconds, but it’s as if the memory is pushing its way back to the forefront, refusing to be forgotten.

  Mack walks in, stops and stares at me before she flips on the light. I have no idea how much time has passed, but I’m still sitting in the dark, still wearing my coat, my hand still gripping my cart.

  “Andie?”

  I look at her for a few seconds. I lick my dry lips and hesitate. “If I tell you something, you have to promise you won’t make any snide remarks—or have me committed.” I struggle to find the right words to tell her what happened.

  She sits down on the stool next to our tiny table for two. She nods and silently waits for me to spill, which I do, in lurid detail. She does as I ask and holds the editorializing.

  “Have you ever felt something like that?” I ask, knowing her sexual experience and experimentation far exceed mine.

  “Wait, I want to make sure I understand,” she says as she holds her hands up, motioning for a time-out. “He didn’t say anything suggestive, sexual—dirty?”

  I shake my head.

  “He didn’t touch you anywhere except your fingers?”

  “Just my fingertips, not even my hand, and he just said something about my keys and was handing them to me and when our fingers touched, it…that’s when…it happened. He said it was static electricity.”

  She looks as confused as I feel. “I honestly don’t have a clue.” She pauses. “So, it really felt like you were on the verge of—you know?”

  I look at her, slowly nod and we both burst out laughing. I’m certain of what I felt in the florist shop, embarrassed, frightened—aroused—but I can’t for the life of me figure out what I’m feeling now.

  Mack pulls my cart from my death grip, pushes it in the corner and I start to take off my coat.

  “Leave it on. You look like you could use a drink. And after that story, I could use one.”

  “Mack, I don’t feel like going out again and I’m—"

  “Shush. You’re coming with me.”

  “I thought you were having a sleepover with “the moustache.”

  “Something came up.”

  She leaves it at that and I don’t have the mental bandwidth to ask.

  I really could use a drink, so I stand up and follow her out the door, down the steps and around the corner to Lizzie Borden’s.

  We walk in just as two people are leaving—two empty spots at the bar on a Friday night is some kind of miracle. She pulls me by the hand and commands me to sit.

  “I’ll order,” she says.

  I do as instructed, still obsessing over the events of the afternoon. Has it been so long since I’ve been with a guy that all it takes is a touch to get me going? And why did he pretend he hadn’t seen me the night before? I know he did. And he knows I know.

  Mack waves to the bartender and shouts over the noise, “Two dirty martinis, one with extra olives.” The extra olives are for me.

  I’m checking out the crowd reflected in the mirror behind the bar when I catch a glimpse of a familiar face. I swing around to get a better look. It’s the Brad Pitt lookalike who sold me the blue orchids. He waves at me, smiles and ambles over.

  He snaps his fingers and points in my direction, “Andie—blue-orchid girl, right?”

  “That would be me.”

  “I remember your address was in this neighborhood. Do you come here often?” He laughs. “Wow, did I just bloody say that?”

  The accent is sweet icing on this British biscuit. When Mack turns around, she’ll be a heat-guided missile. He won’t know what hit him. “I’m here too often, actually,” I say. “I have an annoying habit of locking myself out of our apartment and my roommate meets me here to let me in.”

  I nod in Mack’s direction. She’s leaning over the bar, laughing with Jake, the bartender. Probably at a dirty joke he’s shared, his thousandth time to try to lure Mack back to his apartment at the end of his shift.

  “Speaking of keys, I left mine in your shop today and had to go back and get them.”

  He looks far more concerned than the situation warrants. “It’s okay,” I say, “Someone else was there and dug them out of the lost-and-found box.”

  He frowns and cocks his head to the side. “Vincent gave you
the keys?”

  Vincent. It suits him. I nod.

  Mack turns around, a martini in each hand. She immediately zeroes in on her target and raises her eyebrows. “Well, hellooo,” she says as she hands me my drink without ever taking her eyes off him.

  Mack, this is—I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.”

  “Nicholas.”

  “Nicholas, this is my roommate, Mackenna.” I turn to Mack. “He’s from the florist shop.”

  Mackenna’s mouth drops open. I’m willing her to make eye contact with me as I give her the right-ear tug signal. Tonight it means “This isn’t the guy who rocked my world earlier today.”

  “So, Nicholas,” she says, her voice dripping sweet seduction, “Andie says you have a great shop?”

  “Yeah, we like it.” But he’s not looking at Mack, he’s looking at me, but it smacks of curiosity rather than sexual attraction.

  Mack edges closer to me to get in his line of vision. “I always imagined falling into a bed of rose petals, American Beauty style.” She sighs, bats her long, dark lashes, followed by her signature hair flip and then sniffs the air, as if taking in the scent of fresh flowers.

  “We specialize in orchids,” he says, not taking the bait.

  “Andie says the flowers she ordered are gorgeous.”

  “Orchids,” he repeats.

  I feel Mack’s frustration. She’s not used to failure. She takes a subtle step closer to him as she sips her martini and looks up at him doe-eyed.

  “I also hear you have an—unusual—static electricity problem in there.” She’s leaning into him now, about to make contact.

  With that, he turns to face her, a question written on his face—in bold font. The two of them are inches apart. “What static electricity problem?”

  I knew it!

  Mack says flatly, “Ask Andie.” She’s folded her hand.

  He’s looking at me even more intently now, his brow furrowed.

  I feel my face flush in response as my intensely intimate feelings from earlier in the day resurface.

  “It was nothing. It’s just that when he handed me the keys, there was this—shock.” I hesitate. “He said the shop has a problem with static electricity.”