-Something Is Right-
Celia glanced back at the store with TVs in the window once more and settled in her seat. She suddenly felt like celebrating.
'We've done a big deal today, Celia. Don't you think a little celebration is in order?' Drake asked.
'Why not?' she replied, hiding her smile.
'Alright, let me treat you to a dinner, then', he said.
Celia imagined for a brief moment a fancy restaurant, with men in tailored suits and women in dressing gowns and diamond necklaces, just like in movies. And then the car stopped in front of a shabby pizza parlor. Drake stepped out, and Celia started to unbuckle her seatbelt to do the same, but caught a sign of his and froze. He closed his eyes for a second instead of nodding to her and then walked casually inside the parlor. Celia didn't dare to look around even though she knew that the darkened windows would stop anyone from observing her while she remained in the car. She could see Drake in the brightly lit parlor, stepping up to the counter, studying the menu and conversing with a young man behind the counter. After a short while Drake handed him some bank notes and was given a large flat cardboard box. He left as casually as he had entered, opened his car door and put the box on Celia's knees, and then started the car. She felt the hot pizza searing her legs through the cardboard and the fabric of her slacks but didn't dare to move.
When the parlor was left behind, Drake gave out a sigh of exhaustion.
'You can put it on the backseat now. You did very well'.
'What was that all about?' she asked, turning to put away the box.
'I saw someone who looked like a Colonist and decided to play it safe, just in case. They probably know that you are under my protection anyway, but we better make them doubt. So I tried for it to look like I was alone and buying pizza for a lonely bachelor meal. By the way, I hope you like ham and mushroom topping? Had no time to ask you'.
'One of my favourites, actually', Celia smiled.
'Perfect!'
Drake's eyes shone like choosing the right pizza for her were the greatest pleasure for him. 'Red, I presume?'
'Red?'
'Wine,' Drake clarified after taking a sharp turn.
'Oh. Well, red is okay, I think', Celia said. She was never much of a drinker and had no preference in wines.
Drake took out his cell phone and dialed a number. 'Hello, it's me. No, nothing out of order. I just wanted to buy a bottle of wine. Yes, that would be perfect. How much? Usual place? Thank you'. In a few minutes the car stopped at the crossing. Celia looked at a brightly lit convenience store to their right. Suddenly a young boy ran out an alleyway behind the store, and Drake reached for his wallet and pushed Celia's shoulder down simultaneously. She ducked obediently. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Drake open his window. Someone, presumably the alleyway boy, slid a paper-wrapped object in the window. Then they drove on.
'A good acquaintance of mine. Works as a clerk in the store. He helps me out with my shopping', Drake explained. 'Sometimes it's too risky to enter a large store like this, so I place an order and he delivers it'.
'Your life sure is complicated,' Celia remarked.
'Yours is too, of lately, isn't it?'
She said nothing.
Soon they arrived to a crumbling building in a run-down neighborhood. About a decade ago, Celia remembered, there was an ambitious project to build an amusement park here to attract tourists. The idea was short-lived, and the few newly opened hotels and restaurants soon went out of business. Their faded signs were like memorials to ill luck. She tried to shake off sad thoughts that, she knew, could easily lead her to muse about the coming operation and their slim chances of success.
'Don't', Drake said to her suddenly, as if he had read her mind. 'Don't think of tomorrow now'.
Celia realized he was probably as worried as she was but controlled his emotions better.
'Let's get inside. The pizza will get cold', he said joyfully, and his smile didn't look the bit laboured.
The reception area looked a little better than the outside of the derelict hotel. Drake showed Celia to what should have been the concierge room - small, but cosy, with a sofa and a low table.
'We'll have our meal here, if you don't mind. The dining room faces the street, and the less lights can be seen from the outside, the better. Now, I need some things to do, and I presume you'd like to go to your room and change. See you down here in...' he consulted his watch in a business-like way, 'Fifteen minutes'.
Celia went upstairs to the room she had been occupying recently. When she stepped inside, she let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding. All these happenings were undermining her hard-won power over her life. Celia sighed and then decided she could fit in a short yoga routine in those fifteen minutes she had to herself. She expected Leatherman to drop in soon, and she wasn't too happy about that. She rather liked the man, but everything in him spoke too much of war, and she did not want to be reminded that now she was a soldier, too.
Celia took off her shoes and socks, noting that she really needed a shower. Recently she sweated terribly, though when she was not too distracted, she found that she managed to control her sweating somewhat, making herself un-feel the heat and humidity in the air. But today, when she could not help but think of what she would be doing in this hour the very next day, Celia let herself go and sweated. She stripped off her pullover and jeans, remaining in her underwear, and lowered herself on the yoga mat she had insisted Drake buy for her the first day he brought her to the old hotel. Concentrating on her breathing, she carefully arranged her body into the first asana of her routine.
After yoga, much more relaxed and calm, Celia was positive about the shower. She still had five minutes left, so she went to her bathroom and undressed. While she waited for the heater to start up and for water temperature to adjust, her eyes went to her body in the mirror. She used to hate her belly, and her love handles, and her all-too-small breasts that ridiculously refused to grow no matter how many extra pounds she put. Now Celia found that she was content with her body. She took care of it, and it served her adequately. Still, she sometimes thought how imperfect it was.
That had been her concern since her teenage years. Her mother and grandmother both assured Celia that everything she disliked about herself would be gone as soon as she got pregnant and gave birth to a baby. It ran in the blood, they said. It seemed all the women in her family were made for maternity - even the bleakest of her aunts and cousins turned strikingly beautiful when mothering. That had been one of the reasons that drove Celia to the couch and television. She hoped to have a baby in her first year of marriage, but no matter how she and Roger tried she could not conceive. On her way from the clinic where they told them that the problem was in her, she had a tantrum and ran off from her husband. He later found her in some pizza parlour, her eyes fixed on a large TV screen, with a plate from a party-sized pizza and a large coke glass in front of her. After a while she recovered, the episode was forgotten, and they started talking about adoption.
Celia stepped into shower and let the warm water mellow her memories of those days. Her thoughts turned to happier things.
She adored little Will, and his strange skin condition only made her love him more - he was imperfect just like her, though in a different way. Her daughter, on the other hand, was as perfect as they make them. She seldom wept as a baby, as though she thought it too undignified for her. She always did what was right. The little girl - girls, she had to remind herself - soon took the running of the house in their nimble hands. Roger and Will didn't much care as long as they were fed and had somewhere to sleep. Celia tried to reclaim her position but did not succeed. Rebecca was so much better at housekeeping than her that Celia gave up and retreated to the couch and TV. She felt that no one in her family needed her. Only recently she had come to understand that she needed herself. And after that it turned out that her son and her husband did, in fact, need her too, and loved her, in their own, somewhat bizarre way. Celia's heart went to Will and Roger.
A diligent knock on the bathroom door broke her reveries.
'Celia? Celia, are you all right? I'm sorry I had to enter, but you have been gone for more than half an hour already'.
'I... I'm all right, Drake, do not worry', she replied, turning off the water. 'I'll come down in a moment'.
'Right, I'll be downstairs'.
Celia turned the water on again, quickly washed her hair and stepped out of the shower. Toweling herself, she thought about Drake for a moment. So charismatic, so in control, so unlike Roger. She shook off the thoughts. 'It is a war we fight, Celia. No time for fantasies', she told herself.
Absent-mindedly, she put on the pajamas she had bought a few days ago, then remembered she still had to go downstairs for the dinner and briefing and decided that a warm bathrobe on top of the pajamas would do.
'Celia, I've taken the liberty of opening the wine', Drake said to her when she entered the concierge's room. Celia noticed with relief that he had changed to a t-shirt and sweatpants and was sitting cross-legged on the sofa. Without his billowing coat, the renegade looked less imposing, even somewhat timid.
She sat on the other end of the sofa and the feeling that she was in some kind of a show hit her. A man and a woman in their home garb, about to have their evening meal of pizza... the only thing missing was a TV, or it would be a perfect ad for the takeaway. Wine added a definite romantic overtone, though, and were they younger the scene would be at its place in a light comedy. With characters this old and things they were to talk of, on the other hand, it was rather an art house movie. But the morbid back-story with stalkers from the ages past hinted at film noir, and the looming tomorrow coloured the evening in shades of thriller.
'Don't worry, it will all go down smoothly', Drake said. 'And you can move closer, so that you don't have to reach too far for the table. I'm not going to eat you'. He smiled wolfishly and added with a smirk, 'In fact, I'm going to eat the whole pizza if you daydream any longer'.
Celia shook off her thoughts of movies and grabbed a slice, sliding a bit closer to the centre of the sofa. The pizza was good, and it had cooled right to the temperature she preferred - when cheese was just hardened but not yet rubbery. She savoured the taste and the feel in her mouth and closed her eyes, chewing slowly. It was strange how simple experiences like this could make one feel so much better. The wine was nice too, dry and tangy. Celia held it in her mouth for a second before swallowing.
'Feel better now?' Drake inquired. She only nodded in response. 'Then let us go through it once more'.
'Shouldn't we wait for Leatherman?'
'He won't be coming here tonight. He has business out of London', Drake explained. Celia was surprised at how relieved she was about this. With only Drake instructing her, the whole next day thing was less like a military campaign from a history book... and more like a theater play, she suddenly thought. Everyone played his or her part, from the star of the show to the stagehand. Everyone could fail, but they simply wouldn't. It could be wine getting to her head, but the whole plan for the operation, already discussed a number of times, now seemed more and more phantasmagoric to her, as Drake retold it step by step.
'Now, to our success', proclaimed he finally, pouring more wine.
'I... don't think it's the right way to say it'. Celia shook her head, still captured in her thoughts.
'What do you mean?'
'We haven't succeeded yet... It's probably stupid, but I always felt it was wrong to toast something... that doesn't fully depend on us, like someone else's health or business...' Celia began to stutter and lowered her eyes. 'Because... you know, it's tempting fate'.
'Sounds reasonable to me', Drake smiled. 'What shall we drink to, then?'
He was positively in good mood, though he probably understood he might not survive the next day. He just didn't give in to his concerns. Like an actor that knows his character so well he can improvise with anything happening on the stage.
'Let us all break a leg tomorrow', she said.
'Alright!' Drake gave a small laugh, and they drank.
Soon the pizza was gone and they sat slowly sipping their wine, neither of them obviously too intent on going to sleep.
'Do you sometimes...' Celia started after a long silence. The words felt brittle in her throat, and she stopped.
Drake looked up at her.
'Probably'. He smiled reassuringly.
'Do you sometimes feel... like you don't really have a say in anything? Like your life is taking its course however you try to fight it...' Celia caught Drake's concerned eyes and, realizing how her words must have sounded, hastily explained, 'But in a good way, you know? Like there is something pushing you in the right direction, and when you resist you do it like a spoiled kid, just for the sake of resisting, while the natural thing to do would be to let the world... I don't know... happen around you. And the only challenge is to feel that right direction and go for it...' She knew she was babbling, but when she looked at Drake again there was only genuine interest on his face.
'I know what you mean', he said simply. 'There are so many things out of our control... things we cannot even begin to understand, and so we try to force our will upon anything we can reach. I guess I just had to learn it the hard way. It took a near-death situation to make me kill someone for the first time. After that... it was just as hard, but I learned to cope with it'.
Celia glanced at his hands, rough but still elegant in shape, long fingers tapping the table absent-mindedly. Hands that wielded deadly weapons of all sorts in strange and dangerous lands she could not even imagine, hands that killed, hands that saved her son and many others. Drake was a mystery, short of a complete stranger to her, and still Celia knew she could - and did - trust the man with her life.
'A lab geek forced to turn into a renegade freedom fighter...' Drake mused, unaware of her inspection of his hands. 'As a kid I dreamed to be either a scientist or a military man when I grew up. It's ironic, but I couldn't decide which I liked better'.
Celia looked away, deep in her own memories now.
'I guess it was the shock of losing Roger, and then Will and Becky...' she confided to him. 'Though I know now it is much more complicated than that, but... I felt lost, and alone, and I hated it that I had to act. And then I looked at myself and… woke up to the world once again. I had to go on, and I suddenly knew that all I had become in those years of rotting on the couch was only my protection from the real life... I just shed it off, and the things I thought I had lost forever started coming back to me...'
'It often takes a crisis to show us what we are capable of. You managed to achieve so much by yourself. You are strong and very brave', Drake said.
'I'm not', she replied. 'I'm terribly afraid'.
'That you are. But still you will do what you need to. That's what braveness is about'.
Celia looked inside her glass, at her tiny reflection in the clear crimson liquid.
'Why me?' she suddenly said. 'Why me?' she repeated, looking up at him.
'Because you can do it', Drake said matter-of-factly.
'I just... just cannot cope with it. I always was behind the scenes at best... always thought I was nothing special...' she stuttered, suddenly defenseless under his stern look.
'You are very special, Celia', Drake said. And then he leaned in to kiss her briefly on the lips. Almost dropping her glass, she tried to reciprocate, but he had already slid back and fixed her with an unreadable gaze. She touched her lips in an absent-minded way, relishing the forgotten sensation, and took a sip to hide her unease. Her hand trembled a little.
Drake felt for his own glass, not taking his eyes off her. She took another sip of wine, he did the same.
'Thank you', Celia said, mustering her courage and breaking the awkward silence.
They put their glasses on the table almost simultaneously. The tension was tangible between them. Against her will, her mind filled with images of Drake's lean, taut body entwined with hers. She felt incredibly drawn to the man. He seemed to experience visions of similar nature, as his eyes were burning, unmistakably, with desire. He took Celia's face in his hands and fell upon her mouth like a thirsty man upon a spring. She gripped blindly for his arms, his shoulders and returned the kiss with equal fervor, letting herself get lost in it. She heard herself moan quietly in his mouth, but then suddenly Drake let go of her and moved away.
'I... I'm sorry. I hadn't intended to go that far', he panted.
'We didn't go anywhere', Celia countered and after a short pause added, 'yet'. Their eyes met. This time she was not letting go. She drew nearer to him and ran her fingers gingerly along his stubbly cheek, touching his lips with her thumb. Her racing heart was calming down.
'Won't you regret it?' he asked in a hoarse whisper. She just shook her head and dropped her hand on the back of the sofa.
'I need it'.
Drake closed his eyes and for a long moment said nothing. Celia listened to his breathing - still ragged, she noted automatically, - and hesitated. Was he daring her to change her mind, to stand up and leave? She suddenly understood - if she did just that, the little incident would be forgotten by morning. But she wasn't sure she wanted to let it end like this.
He opened his eyes.
'Still want it?'
'I do', she replied.
'I haven't been with a woman for...'
'I don't care. Now, stop talking, please', said Celia and kissed him.
The next half an hour was a blur to her. She remembered getting tangled in her bathrobe, biting his shoulder playfully, scrambling up to turn off the light somewhere along the line, fumbling with the drawstrings of his sweatpants, remembered the feel of his skin under her hands and the sweet burn of his touch, the sounds they both made, the way his eyes glistened in the dark, the smell of his sweat, the awkwardness of the first moments of their lovemaking per se and the startling pleasure after that, but she could not concentrate on any one of these drabbles of memory - they were like single pieces in a kaleidoscope, making sense only when arranged together.
Celia began to doze off, when she heard Drake's soft, but insistent whisper. 'You have to go back to your room. We cannot afford the luxury of sleeping in each other's arms. Please, Celia'.
'Are you afraid that Leatherstocking finds us like this in the morning?' she demanded, a little offended.
'No, that is not the matter. We just should not let ourselves go. To relax is too dangerous now. Please, Celia, please go. You need this as much as I do'.
She shook herself fully awake. Drake's strong arms that had felt so warm and right around her slowly retreated. She met his eyes in the dark. 'Please, Celia', he said again, sounding surprisingly desperate. 'All right', she mouthed. She, too, felt the temptation and knew it was dangerous to succumb to. But she couldn't make herself break the spell. Celia was overwhelmed by the sense of moment: these shining eyes fixed at her, the heat of Drake's body, now so familiar, a soft whisper of the wind outside, a thin line of moonlight falling through the crack between the curtains, the lumpiness of the sofa beneath her side - everything clicked together like pieces of a puzzle, and Celia felt it was the single perfect moment in her life. It was like she found the answers to everything at once and finally understood what she was fighting for. The perfection and fragility of this moment - of every moment in her life. She wanted for this second to last forever, but still she knew that it owed its perfection to being ephemeral. She knew she had to leave, and every second of hesitation filled her with crazy happiness. She locked her eyes with Drake's, trying to see if he felt the same.
'I can sleep upstairs if you prefer to stay here', he said.
'No, that's all right, I'm getting up already', she replied. The spell was gone.
Celia sat up and groped for her bathrobe, then carefully put it on and felt for her slippers. Finally she found them and her discarded pajamas, grabbed them all and went to the stairs without a backward glance. Back in her room she dropped on the cold bed, slithered under the blanket and promptly fell asleep cradling her pajamas in her arms.
In the morning it all felt like a dream, and neither Celia nor Drake mentioned what had happened between them. Leatherman arrived for breakfast, glanced at the empty wine bottle with contempt but said nothing. They ate in silence and then stepped out to the white van. The men sat in front, while Celia went in the back. 'We'll drop you two blocks before the Common and then go to pick up our video guys', Drake told her pointing at the monitors stationed around her. That was when she finally told herself that whether it had been a dream or not, the only thing that mattered was to survive the day. And then, if they were lucky, the moment of fragile perfection could be made anew.