(ms) Fingertips have memories [Mine can't forget the curves of your body]

2008-07-17T08:46:39Z

Do you remember a good first kiss? // Stars shooting across the sky // To come to such a place as this // You never left my mind
(PJ Harvey – ‘One Line’)

The way Serge Cartier and Laurent Gardner designed their houses was for a distinct purpose. They wanted to be able to spit, swear and play cards on the patio without their wives being able to hear them.

As time went on, their sons Martin Cartier and Ray Gardner used the patio for the nearly the same reason; spiting, swearing and running plays without Genny yelling at them to take it outside.

Since their retirement they'd taken to having breakfast everyday on Ray's patio, overlooking Lac Vert in the early mornings. Martin never needed help getting there, his feet moved without his eyes needing to tell him how to get there.

--

Waking up is slow in coming for Rose, it comes in spurts and stutters, pushing her awake in fits and bursts as she tangles herself deeper under the blankets. The world suddenly comes into sharp focus, however, when she hits her head against something hard and the combined cussing forces her eyes open.

"Shit!"

"Shit."

Pressing her hand to her eyes, she spreads two fingers apart, peeking at Nathaniel from behind her hand. The sunlight is slanting through her blinds from too high in the sky and the birds aren't chirping an incessant alarm in her ears. "Oh, it's far past first light."

He groans into the pillow, not bothering to move. She half wonders if he's trying to suffocate himself. "Je sais, Rosebud. Trust me, I know."

She laughs quietly at the absurdity of the situation. They were sneaking around under their father's noses, as if their father's didn't somehow know.

Everyone knew.

Nathaniel has been her best friend for as long as she can remember. But there has always -- always -- been something different there. The old women in town called them l'âme accouple -- soul mates. Rose always brushes it off, laughing at the old women with their traditions steeped in Church and roses and hockey. The Canadian way.

She doesn't believe in soul mates. She believes that her parents were meant to be, she believes that May and Martin were meant to be, eventually, she believes in fate and heaven and hell, she believes in ghosts and spirits and magic. But she can't bring herself to believe in soul mates. She can't bring herself to believe that she and Nathaniel are meant to be.

She refuses to yield to fate if it won't let her decide.

His face is no longer buried in the pillow, but next to hers, his fingers brushing across her chin, locking her blue eyes with his green, so deep they matched the lake outside her window. "You're thinking again."

She pursed her lips. "Nathaniel," she whispered, feeling her cheeks grow hot, flushing pink. She didn't know how he always knew when she was thinking about them, together.

"When are you going to believe me, ma petite fleur, that it's meant to be?"

"Signifié pour être," she scoffs. Meant to be... what did that even mean? "Nate, please don't start."

He smiles, taking her face in his hands, passing his thumb across her cheek. Her eyes close involuntarily and she feels the heat rise again. "As long as you don't ask me to stop," he murmurs, setting her heart to racing against her chest. She felt so vulnerable, wrapped up in blankets and his arms, bare knees pressed against his.

Waking up with him hadn't given her any time to collect herself. "Stop what?" she breathes, her words nearly lost in the breeze lifting her curtains away from the window, cascading a streak of sunlight across the bed.

"Loving you."

Her lips press against his softly and she feels him stiffen, defensive, before his arms tighten around her and he pulls her tight, holding her until her heartbeat calms and her fingers feather across his collarbone.

--

"When do you think they'll realize it?" Ray asks, spreading fresh apple butter across his bagel, watching Thunder pad around the grass near the lake. Protecting them from nothingness.

Martin laughs roughly, reaching nimbly across the table for the coffee. "That she's in love or that we know Nate sleeps in her room?"

"Rose knows. She tells him every night to use the door." Ray's answer leaves them both to laughter again, the sound echoed by Thunder's lazy barking.

Martin doesn't answer the real question, it doesn't have one, instead he stares unseeing across the lake. A hawk coasts across a slipstream, strong feathers fluttering in the wind. His calm eyes follow the hawk and sometimes Ray wonders if his best friend sees more than his eyes allow.

[765]

(ms) i hate to wake up [because you're gone without a trace]

2008-07-17T02:05:57Z

The great big city's a wonderous toy // just made for a girl and boy.
(Ella Fitzgerald – ‘Manhattan’)

The tap on her window is so sharp it startles her into almost dropping her half empty soda all over her paper. Her hand flies to her chest, fingers pressing into her collar bone in a nervous habit she's had for as long as she could remember. Nathaniel's lips quirk up in a mischievous smile and she glowers at him, focusing on steadying her breathing.

"We've got to stop meeting this way," he chuckles as he jimmies his pocketknife under her screen, pushing it up and out of the way, slipping through the window and tumbling onto her bed. He wasn't the most graceful of people.

She keeps glowering, placing her soda on its coaster before swiveling in her chair to face him. "You, Nathaniel Cartier, need to stop climbing through my window. The door is a perfectly acceptable feature of my bedroom."

He snorts and rolls his eyes, sliding from the bed to lean over her shoulder, his always slightly too long hair brushes against her neck. "Oui, because I really want to stroll past Uncle Ray this late."

"I think Martin would be the one you'd want to be on watch for, eh?" She raises an eyebrow when he chuckles softly, the sound muted against her hair. "You disagree? Aren't you grounded anyway?"

"You forget, Rosebud, that we Cartier men will do anything for love."

He looks so pompous and self-assured she shoves his face away from hers and starts to shuffle her papers back into their correct order. "How's the book goin'?" he asks after a moment, settling back on her bed, lounging comfortably against her pale blue bedspread. "Any dragons yet?"

She gives him a bland look as she presses the pages into a folder and puts them in her desk drawer. "No dragons at all."

"You keep saying that, why?" He pats the bed next to himself, giving her a crooked smile. She ignores him as she puts her pen back in their place, clearing off her desk. She ignores him still while she wriggles out of her jeans, folding them neatly and laying them across the back of her chair.

She's obsessively neat. Everyone think it's weird, but when Martin comes over for dinner, he always smiles extra wide because he doesn't need to be led anywhere; she keeps it neat for him.

Pulling her sweatshirt over her head and struggled slightly, dancing around in her tank top and underwear until her hair untangles from her sweater and tumbles down her back. It's only then that she turns to address Nate. "Because there are no dragons in my story."

"Book," he corrects lazily, pulling back the comforter as she jumps underneath it. Even in summer it was far too cold at night to be standing around in skivvies. Especially with the window wide open like he'd left it.

"When are you leaving this time?" she questions, pressing her cheek against his shoulder as his arms wound around her waist, tugging her closer until her legs tangled with his.

His answer is always the same. He kisses her forehead gently and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "At first light."

[527]

Rose Martin Gardner

(ms) Fingertips have memories [Mine can't forget the curves of your body]

(ms) i hate to wake up [because you're gone without a trace]