BUSINESS
Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.
Category: Angst, drama, romance.
Rating: M
Author's note: Any feedback will be treasured for the rest of my life, and keep me going.
Chapter Eight
When she approached the study, she paused at the doorway and watched her husband and her son. They didn't notice her; a bespectacled Alfred was sitting in an easy chair and narrating from a tattered copy of Winnie the Pooh, while Charlie was sprawled out onto the coffee table, pushing crayons across a sheet of butcher paper.
Charlie saw her first and picked himself up from the floor and ran to her, flapping the sheet of paper in front of him: "Who is this, Mum? Who is it?"
Blobs of yellow and brown.
"Winnie the Pooh?" Marjorie guessed, and when he nodded, she pulled him to her in an embrace. His tousled blond head rested upon her stomach, smelling faintly of milk and chocolate biscuits.
She suddenly felt the urge to weep.
The study, with its imported mahogany bookshelves and Persian rugs, reminded her of London, and she told herself to end the entire damned game with Ardeth Bay. At this moment the Med-Jai seemed almost repulsive to her, now that her son was pressed to her stomach and her husband was staring at her from behind a pair of reading glasses.
In an hour she could be sitting over a game of crosswords, or peering across the courtyard in search of Tuareg traders. A cup of Earl Grey between her palms.
"Are you all right?" her husband asked, and she smiled and told him she was simply feeling under the weather.
Charlie wriggled loose from her arms; cool air filled the space between them. "Dad, can we go see the camel races with Mum?"
"Your mother's tired today," her husband said. "We can go tomorrow, after church."
"But you promised—"
"Your mother's tired, Charles. Be a good gentleman."
"Alfred," she said.
"Darling?"
"Don't speak on my behalf."
He gaped at her, blinking rapidly. "Darling, but I was—"
"Honestly, I never said I wasn't going to go."
"All right. If you're feeling up to it, then we can go. I was just—"
"You were just making my decisions for me, like you've done for every bloody day since we've arrived in this god forsaken country." She rubbed her face with her hands and found that her cheeks were burning, and moist with tears. "I can't take this anymore, Alfred. I simply bloody can't."
"Marjorie, will you stop? Our son is right here."
"Charles, go to the lobby downstairs and find Samira. She'll take you down to the courtyard. Be a good boy."
She watched as her son ran mutely past her in a jumble of arms and legs, and pinned Alfred under her glare until she heard the front door close. Then she said: "I'll see you at supper."
"Where do you think you're going in the meantime?"
"Out," she answered, and started down the hall.
She was halfway to the bedroom when Alfred reached her. "You're staying," he said, and boxed her across the ear.
Marjorie closed her eyes against the burning pain, and waited until the shrill ringing had subsided inside her skull. She opened her eyes and saw that her husband was crying. "Do you love me, Alfred?" she said. "Or are you just being a good gentleman?"
A teardrop was glistening at the end of his mustache. "I need you."
"For my mothering. For my cooking. For my sex. But do you really love me, Alfred? All of me?"
When he didn't answer, she walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. She waited at the dresser until the red swelling left her eyes, then slipped out of her dress and smeared a generous amount of gardenia lotion over every part of her body that she could reach. She then wrapped herself into the white kimono with the red and black cherry blossoms, and powdered her face with loose foundation.
As she rose to leave, she spied a tube of lipstick on the dresser, and briefly considered staining her lips dark maroon. But then she remembered the ambassadors' wives – perfect ladies under dainty satin parasols, innocently pursing their rouged lips at passing male strangers while expecting nothing in return – and decided against it.
She did not own a parasol, and she was not a lady. Not anymore.
TO BE CONTINUED…