CATHEDRAL, Patrick Sean Lee [most popular ebook readers .txt] 📗

Suddenly the doorbell rings, and I leave the kitchen to answer it.

The guy who’s standing on the doorstop is about eight feet tall and hasn’t shaved forever. He’s scary. He smiles at me, and I can’t help but notice he has an eyetooth missing.

“Isabelle Glenboard?” His voice belongs to the Mikado; it’s half a dozen octaves lower than the low string on a stand-up bass, and the stubble on his face climbs up to his purplish-spotted temples.

I don’t stare longer than a second, and I don’t bother to correct him about my name.

“Just a minute,” I tell him. I leave the door ajar, although as I retreat to the bedroom to grab my bags and purse, I wonder if that was such a good idea. When I leave the bedroom he is standing a few steps inside with a huge grin. I hope Annie doesn’t decide to come out naked, looking for a washcloth or a fresh towel. He glances at the door, following my eyes, then makes a gesture to me with an outstretched hand.

“Ain’t often I see a babe pretty as you. Lemme’ take them bags.” His smile is oozing, creepy. He steps forward, and I have little choice but to hand him the suitcase, or else scream bloody murder. I want to tell him off, but I also want to get out of my house alive. Stay put, Annie. Hannibal Lecter takes the bag with his gargantuan right hand, raking his fingers across the back of my palm as he does so, and he lifts it as though it were a creampuff with a handle. He leers at my chest for a moment, and then turns and strides back down the hall and out the front door.

I tap on the bathroom door. “Annie, love, I’m leaving. Coffee’s ready. Will you open a can of food for Stanfield tonight? The front door key is by the phone. I’ll call this afternoon. Love ya’. Bye.” The shower is still on and I don’t think she hears me. Whatever. “BYE.”

I see Stanfield sitting on the arm of the sofa looking at me, mouthing a weak meow. I think he knows. I’ll miss him, and I pet him and give him a peck on the top of his head. “Be good, buddy.”

Hannibal has the trunk open and waits for me, grinning in the early morning light. I hope we go straight to the airport. If we take any route other than the one familiar to me I’ll have 911 keyed in before he can say “Shit Howdy.” I mouth a little prayer. “Dear God, send me one of your biggest guardian angels. Amen, and thanks.” I hope he’s listening.

“You’re early,” I say to Hannibal.

“Yeah. LAX, right?”

“Yes, straight to LAX.” I emphasize the second word.

 

Colorado

Isabella

 

 

 Matthew is waiting for me in the aerie terminal when I enter the visitors’ waiting area. His arms are filled with red roses, Gypsophilia that I love, greenery in such abundance that his face seems to be growing out of a garden. His smile overwhelms the beauty of the bouquet, and I am at a loss to decide which is more astonishing—the peripatetic faces of the crowd who certainly must have wondered at this man caught in a floral avalanche, or my own delighted surprise at seeing him greeting me so unabashedly. He promised flowers, and God, did he make good on that. He also promised to shower me with kisses, and so he does, to the cheering and clapping of more than a few romantically inclined onlookers.

 “You look beautiful. Welcome home,” he whispers in my ear in that mesmerizing voice I’ve missed so much. After he crushes the flowers against my body, after he kisses me, as though we’d been apart for many years during a long and bloody war, we gather my luggage and exit the terminal into a translucent, feathery snowfall. A long, white limousine slips like the Queen Mary up to the curb, braking and creating little eddies of snowflakes in its wake. A uniformed driver hops out, hurries around the hood-end of the car, and then opens the rear door like a bellman at the Ritz Carlton. I am bowled over by the walking bouquet that is Matthew, and it should not surprise me that he would think of hiring a vehicle that could entertain twenty people, but I stutter-step when I realized the man is waiting on us. I look up at Matthew, positioning myself in the beatific glow of his stare.

 “I thought you might like to ride in comfort up to the lodge.” He hands the wheelbarrow load of flowers he carries to the driver, who takes them on actor’s cue and places them carefully inside the cavernous interior.

 This is the second in a long trail of courtesies that will follow—thoughtful inventions, unexpected presents from Matthew.

 The nearly overwhelming smell of roses, gardenias, carnations, and stephanotis lays down a mist of sweetness that hypnotizes my senses and make me think of his breath as I step into the royal chamber of luxury. The possibilities of his mouth, the magic of his voice. The touch of his tongue. I sit in the rear on the white leather, lean back, and wait for his arrival at my side. He meets me in the subdued light of the limousine, a man who saw me, I think, for what I would become for him, or maybe had always been, but not what I could ever have imagined. Suddenly I know without a doubt that Matthew Ash has known me from someplace far away from time and this earth. My body shakes.

“I want you to stay forever…”

 

We are somewhere in the mountains; I don’t have any idea where because everything seems distant and transformed in the veil of white swirling around the limo. The canyon we are in is a jagged tube of dark gray and sleeping green, spattered by the whiteness racing by. So different from the late summer trip up the gorge when the details were a vivid painting through my windshield. The low rhythmic humming of the tires blends with the music lilting from the speakers mounted in surround. To Matthew’s left, the bar stands open face with a half bottle of Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Milleaires and our two glasses. Blue lights dot the edges of the white upholstery like fireflies. Our shoes lay beneath the bar, one of mine haphazardly tipped on its side. My coat and his are wrapped up together, like us, thrown across the seat toward the front, and we are warm from our own bodies and the champagne. The music is broken momentarily by the chauffeur’s voice. I am in Matthew’s arms, my cheek close to his chin, and I raise an eye to the announcement.

“Mr. Ash, Ms. Barrington, we're about five minutes away from your destination. I hope the trip has been enjoyable.” And then the music returns again. I sit up, reach for my purse, and begin to fix my makeup. Matthew watches me, and out of the corner of my eye I can see him studying this ritual.

 “You don’t need that, you know.”

 I laugh. “Right! And you don’t need a keyboard.” I shoot a glance at him. His smile is barely noticeable and his eyes are filled with curiosity at my work. “Your nose has powder on it, Mr. Ash.” I daub at it with a tissue. “There. Now, let me finish.”

 As I soften the edges of my blush, Matthew continues to look at me without moving a muscle, and then says out of the blue, “How did he take it?”

 I stop, shoot him another glance, not exactly prepared for that question, then return to the compact mirror.

 “Badly. At first. He’ll be ok in time. How far into your book are you?” I say, changing the subject.

 “Badly? How badly? What did he do?”

 I don’t want to talk about Brad, who I’m sure has already gotten the news of my return to the lodge. Annie, no doubt, has told him why, too. God knows what pit of despair that bit of information will throw him into. I don’t want to think about it. He’ll deal with it, somehow—we all suffer through break-ups at one time or another in our lives. Maybe, I hope, Annie will pull him back up. Maybe, despite her shock at my suggestion at dinner, she’ll romance him through it. I don’t know. I try not to care.

 “He calls a lot. That’s all. Leaves messages. Grab our coats, Matthew. I’m excited to be home.”

 The chauffeur is at the door, his hand extended to help me. He wears black leather gloves, no cap, he is clean shaven—and I trust him. He is smiling courteously, and as I place my foot out onto the glazed pavement a few yards from the front steps, he cautions me, kindly, to be careful. They say all the crazy people of the world eventually wind up in California. I don’t know if that’s precisely true, but I believe they all visit. I don’t think this man has ever been there.

 When I am safely out onto the driveway I turn in a full circle and peer out into a wintry painting. I am standing deep in the center of the most enchanted neighborhood of Paradise, wrapped in the aura of my angel, Matthew, inhaling icy air laden with snowflakes. No sound beyond the faint sighing of an occasional breeze across the snow-clothed pine boughs interrupts the silence. The sky is gone, covered with a cloak of slate illuminated in dark silver, dotted with flakes, captured in the lights spilling through the windows of the lodge. Our for-a-little-while home stands before us, warm, inviting, curls of black smoke rising from two of its chimneys. The roof is frosted thick and deep, pure white, sculpted by the hands of winds. This is a cathedral.

 I feel the gentle touch of Matthew’s hand on my shoulder, and then the warmth of his breath near my face. “Lovely, isn’t it?” he whispers.

 “Yes. More than lovely. It’s something you only dream about.” I turn and look at him. Snowflakes are settling on his mussed hair. He is more lovely than any of this as he smiles down at me.

 “If you’ll bring the luggage into the lodge, Edward,” he says to the chauffeur. And then to me, “Shall we?” I see puffs of his breath, and he takes my hand. We cross the treacherous black-iced pavement and climb the white-edged steps leading into the lodge. My heart begins to dance inside my chest. A wreath of umber twigs and cones intertwined with red ribbon hangs on the door beneath the frosted window, and Matthew steps ahead to open it for me. I step into the entry and take a deep breath of the warm air. Mr. and Mrs. Davenport are standing to the left near the sofas, and when I am inside, both of them smile and stride across the room toward me. Mr. Davenport raises his arms.

 “Welcome back, Isabella! Gosh almighty, we’re glad to see you again!” He reaches me first and takes me in his rough old arms in a hug that makes my back arch. Lord. His shoulder smells musty, like barn wood, hay mixed with Aqua Velva, and