Chapter 33 Chapter notes
Charlie is one of my favorite Twilight characters. In Fly Like an Eagle, he has a future apart from Bella. In this chapter, he gets to know the little nurse who took care of Bella in the ER. Maya.
He gets to know her really well.
The chapter title belongs to Arlo Guthrie
Chapter 33 All This Stuff Takes Time Wednesday, October 4th
Charlie sits at his desk, trying to finish up some paperwork, but he's distracted by something in his pocket. He takes phone calls and forgets what he's saying; he breaks the copier and has to call a repairman to fix it; he catches Bethany grinning at him, making him wonder if the look on his face is as bemused as the feeling in his chest.
The item in his pocket that has so disrupted his thoughts, and now his day, is a small scrap of paper with ten digits on it. Ten simple numbers. At lunch, he closes his office door and takes it out of his pocket one more time, but he doesn't have to look at it anymore, this poor little piece of an envelope, unfolded and refolded so many times that it's fraying at the crease.
He has it memorized.
Holding the paper to his face, he can smell the flowery perfume that hovers around it like a highly-scented cloud.
He'd given his number to Maya first. When she'd turned the card over, she'd stuck her tiny, perfectly manicured hand inside the back pocket of her jeans, pulled out a piece of paper, and scrawled her number on it.
And here it is, in Charlie's sweaty hand.
Charlie thinks Maya is a beautiful woman. If they engage in a relationship, it will most certainly have a physical aspect. This concerns him, as he hasn't been with a woman since Renee left, seventeen years ago. So, rusty doesn't even cover it. He doesn't want to disappoint her or humiliate himself.
Charlie finally calls Maya at the end of his lunch break. He gets her voicemail. She calls him back at a little past six, when he and Bella are finishing up the last of the food that she'd sent home with him. When he sees the number pop up on his phone, he panics. Bella looks politely at him as he dithers over whether he should answer, and on the third ring, he snaps the phone open.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Chief. Sorry I missed your call. I'm on days for the next week."
Charlie doesn't want to have this conversation with his teenage daughter sitting across from him, so he excuses himself and goes outside to speak to Maya.
They chitchat for a few minutes. Maya is an easygoing, friendly person. She clears her throat. "Chief, would you like to come to my house on Saturday?" Charlie wants to watch the baseball game, but doesn't know how to say this to Maya. In a stunning twist that has him believing in God, Jesus and all the Apostles, she continues, "I really want to watch the game in the afternoon. What do you think? See you at four?"
Charlie pauses for a moment, then asks, "You don't like to fish, do you?"
"I love it, Chief. My father taught me. I grew up on the reservation."
Charlie tells her he'll see her at four tomorrow. When he comes back in the house, Bella has finished the dishes. All of Maya's Tupperware is stacked on the counter. She glances at him. "Who was that?"
Charlie thinks about lying; he thinks about telling the truth. He thinks about Maya and her skin, the color of coffee with a dollop of cream stirred in. He thinks about spring flowers and pink lipstick and her wide, smiling mouth.
"Wrong number," Charlie says, and he goes upstairs.
Saturday, October 7th
Since Charlie's morning is free, he leaves early to fish with Dave. Muchto Charlie's disappointment, Dave does not catch a fish bigger than their cooler. He tells Dave about the dream and they have a good laugh about it. He doesn't share the other dreams, the one about bologna and the faded red bicycle. Or about Maya.
Maya.
At exactly 4 pm, Charlie stands on Maya's doorstep. He takes a few deep breaths and tries to calm himself. He's no stranger to social interaction, but this event has disarmed him. Tentatively, he rings the bell while clutching a bottle of wine and a bouquet of wildflowers with one sweaty hand. The other holds a bag with Maya's pink Tupperware.
After a brief wait, the door swings open. Maya smiles and gestures him into a small, brightly colored foyer. Awkwardly, he hands her the flowers and she says with a gasp, "Oh, Chief, these are lovely!" He follows her to the tiny kitchen, which seems to be all windows, looking out onto a little patio and a garden beyond. He puts the wine and the Tupperware on the counter. Maya places the flowers in water, and after examining the wine, pops it in the refrigerator.
She nods and walks up to Charlie. "Thanks, Chief," she breathes. Charlie forgets his name; he doesn't open his mouth, afraid he'll start babbling. She takes his hand and leads him into an equally small living room furnished with only a soft, squashy couch, a coffee table and a big screen television. He doesn't know how she manages it, but she hands him an ice-cold can of Coke.
Charlie thinks he's in love.
"Hey Chief, have you seen on TV about the mysterious person that is funding shelters and all kinds of programs all over the country?"
"Yeah. Well, I heard about it on the radio. Anybody know who it is?" Charlie had listened to the program with interest. Apparently, billions had been spent.
"Not from what I heard. I was so happy to hear that the coastal programs here in Washington had received money." Maya turns on the set and hands Charlie the controller. "Can you find the game, Chief? I'll bring some snacks in."
"Which game? Baseball? Basketball? Hockey?"
"Baseball. That okay? It's the National League Division game, Padres and the Cardinals."
Charlie can't believe it. She's beautiful and sexy, she can cook, and she likes sports and fishing. "Yeah, baseball is fine with me." He doesn't know how much of the game he'll be watching. He thinks he might be watching Maya, watching the game.
Maya suggests they choose opposing teams to root for. It's fun, cheering and booing. And laughing. And smiling. Smiling at each other, at the game, at the silly bets they'd placed on which team would win. When his team hits a home run, he hopes it's prophetic.
When the game is over, Maya takes chicken wings and sides out of the refrigerator, and they eat sticky chicken and drink cold beer. They have their first real conversation while Maya washes their dishes and Charlie dries.
"My father Tomas is dead. He's Chief Littlefoot's brother. He married a pretty senorita when he was a young man, and they had two daughters. It's just me and my sister Carmen." She hands Charlie a glass platter and lets her soapy fingers linger on his hand. His heart skips a full beat.
"Anyway, Carmen got married and moved to Seattle, and when I graduated from high school, I was informed that my marriage had been arranged with a Quileute man named Paul Loggins, who was twelve years older than me."
She stops washing and their eyes meet. Charlie frowns. "Arranged marriages. I thought those went out with hoop skirts."
"Not too common, but sometimes still happens on the res. Anyway, I refused, and it caused a rift in my family that we never got over."
"That's terrible." Charlie doesn't have words to comment on arranged marriage.
Maya looks out the window and washes without looking down. "My mother told my father that if he insisted on this marriage, she would leave him. He flew into a rage and told me I was banished from the tribe and could never set foot on the reservation again. That I was no longer his daughter. So my mother took me to Mexico and we lived there with her family until she died, almost five years ago."
"And you came back then? Or…"
"Yeah. She'd left me some money and I enrolled in nursing school in Seattle. After I finished, I worked at a doctor's office there, and then decided I wanted to be near my sister, so I moved down here. I've been at the Forks Hospital for about eight months now, although I was a surgery nurse until recently."
This conversation with Maya, about her upbringing on the reservation, her banishment, her mother's death, and the effect all of it had on her takes about twenty minutes. When Maya asks about Charlie's life, he says, "I was married for a year and a half and she divorced me. Took Bella with her when she left."
Two sentences. Took seven seconds to say.
Their date ends with a chaste kiss to Maya's cheek. It doesn't seem like enough for either of them, but Charlie doesn't want to rush things. Maya is off tomorrow, and they've made plans to get together around noon to have lunch and watch football. And Charlie wonders if he'll have a whole other definition of touchdown when the day is done.
Sunday, October 8th
Charlie wakes early. He takes an extra-long shower and chooses his clothes carefully, finally deciding on a new-ish flannel shirt and khaki pants. He makes sure that his socks match and picks his cleanest pair of boots. In the bathroom, he inspects his reflection carefully. After splashing on some aftershave, he brushes his teeth again.
Bella is still asleep, so he leaves her a note saying he'll be out today. He grabs his keys and phone, and after donning his raincoat, runs to the cruiser. He drives slowly, thinking about the upcoming football game. He won't let his mind go any further than that.
It would be a perfect morning for fishing, other than the fact that it is pouring rain. Instead of worshiping at the banks of the river, Charlie goes to the office to finish up some paperwork. He heads over to Maya's house when the clock chimes twelve.
When he arrives, Maya is cooking some kind of marinated beef on the grill. He dresses a salad and they eat in her tiny, brightly-lit kitchen. Charlie enjoys his steak medium-well, but Maya takes hers off the grill when it is barely cooked. It drips blood when she cuts it, and when the meat is gone, she picks up the bone and gnaws it clean.
Charlie likes watching Maya eat. She's different from the women at the station that have come and gone, or like you see on TV, who approach food like it's about to explode on their fork. Maya really enjoys her food, especially the meat. He remembers yesterday, when she'd attacked the chicken with a fervor bordering on manic, sucking all the sauce from each bone before discarding it. It had made him physically uncomfortable, all that sucking.
She always calls him 'Chief', but he doesn't correct her. He watches her chew; he counts how many times she smiles at him; he wonders what her bedroom looks like.
They watch the Seahawks beat the pants off the Rams, and afterward, Maya brings out the wine that Charlie brought last night. They each have a glass, and Maya frankly tells him that she's had her eye on him for months.
Babbling. Don't start babbling. He just gazes at her. She scoots nearer to him on the squashy couch, until her breasts are pressing against his arm. She is very warm. Charlie swallows, and as Maya lifts her face, he kisses her.
And she's soft, and her lips taste of wine and the strawberries they ate for dessert. He pulls her abruptly onto his lap and she straddles him. He kisses her lips, her face, her neck, and she moans in his mouth. As they kiss, she winds her hands in his hair and presses her body against his.
For almost the entirety of his adult life, Charlie has sat on the sidelines while the game was played around him, an unsigned free agent. Now, he's the fucking quarterback. The ball is in his hands and he has an able and willing wide receiver. Don't fumble, he tells himself.
He feels spellbound, helpless, as if he has no will of his own. He leans back on the couch cushions to admire Maya's supple perfection, and as their eyes meet, she pulls her sweater off in one swift motion. Her breasts are barely restrained by a lacy white bra with a front clasp in the shape of a heart.
She stands up and slowly unzips her jeans. Charlie meets her eye, and of course, she's smiling at him. He looks down. The jeans fall to the floor. She's wearing a thong, oh god, a thong. And it's not pink, it is black. He's trying not to hyperventilate; he doesn't want to pass out. As he's wondering if the string of the thong disappears in her folds, she reads his mind and takes a few steps to the nearby wall. She places her hands against it and bends slightly, with her legs apart.
Oh my good god, it does. The string of the black thong vanishes in the luscious crack of her ass.
Charlie has met many obstacles in his life: armed felons, threatening to blow his head off; rabid skunks with foaming muzzles, staggering toward him; angry mother bears, protecting their cubs. He's never before been faced with a woman's bare ass, staring him in the face, as this same woman directs him to reach his fingers up the crack of her ass to snag the string of her thong.
His brain has switched off. He drops to his knees behind Maya, framing the air around her ass with his hands, wondering how to proceed, when instinct switches on, and he's no longer the Chief, he's a man and she's a woman. And he knows what to do.
He rubs her ass and she moans, bending forward a little more. Charlie takes two fingers and runs them inside the upper elastic until they meet in the middle. He then runs both of them down, feeling the string, feeling her warmth. He slides his pinkie under the string and the other hand pulls the thong, and it drops to the floor.
Charlie quickly unbuttons his shirt and leaves it to hang open. He presses his body against hers, until she is against the wall. She takes quivering breaths as he shifts the heavy tumble of her hair and places kisses on her throat, her neck, and down the length of her spine. She reaches for his hand and places it on the clasp of her bra. With a press, it opens and the bra falls away. He spins her around to face him, and her face is flushed, her eyes wide, and her arms go around his neck and pulls him toward her for a kiss.
Her breath is sweet and he feels the pointy end of her tongue in his mouth, mingling with his own tongue, then tracing his lips.
Charlie steps back so he can gaze at her body. She stands still, watching him. He admires her feet, with their perfectly painted pink toenails, and trails his eyes up long, straight legs, past an alluring curve of hip, to the flat plane of her stomach, up to her breasts, so large and soft, he's certain that if she had the desire, she could lift one and lick her own nipple.
He has the desire, and performs this act. Maya gasps. "Chief," she breathes, "oh…madre de Dios…"
He steps back and lets her make the next move. She initiated this action, but she'll either invite him to her bed or she won't. In any case, he's not taking her here, against the wall. At least, not the first time.
She takes his hand, pulling him behind her. Her house is tiny, and in eight steps they're standing next to her bed. She unbuttons and unzips his jeans. They fall to the floor. Right before he steps out of them, he has just enough wits left to grab the condom out of his pocket. With no ceremony, Maya takes it from him, bites the edge of the foil wrapper, pulls it out, extends it and rolls it on Charlie's cock. Her warm hand, so unlike the calloused one he's used to, makes his knees feel weak. He has to concentrate really hard on the algebra he learned in high school or this tango will be over before he twirls her once around the dance floor.
He feels as if he has one coherent sentence left in him, and says, "I haven't done this for seventeen years."
"It's been a long time for me too, Chief," she whispers.
And it's true, it's like riding a bicycle. Your brain remembers. Part of your brain doesn't remember your name, but it remembers this.