I’m In No Mood For Love

Ten

The second week of September, Sebastian boarded an international flight bound for Calcutta, India. Seven-thousand-plus miles and twenty-four hours later, he boarded a smaller aircraft for the plains of Bihar, India, where life and death depended on the whim of the annual monsoon and the ability to find a few hundred dollars to battle kala azar-black fever.

He landed in Muzaffarpur and drove four hours to the village of Rajwara with a local doctor and a photographer. From a distance the village looked bucolic and untouched by modern civilization. Men in traditional white dhoti kurta cultivated the fields with wooden carts and water buffalo, but like all underdeveloped parts of the globe that he’d reported on in the past, Sebastian knew this peaceful scene was an illusion.

As he and the other two men walked the dirt lanes of Rajwara, swarms of excited children surrounded them, kicking up dust along the way. A Seattle Mariners baseball cap shaded his face from the sun, and he’d filled the pockets of his cargo pants with extra batteries for his tape recorder. The doctor was well known in the village, and women in bright saris emerged from thatched huts one after the other, speaking rapidly in Hindi. Sebastian didn’t need the doctor to translate to know what was said. The sound of the poor begging for help spoke a universal language.

Over the years, Sebastian had learned to place a professional wall between himself and what took place around him. To report on it without sinking into a black fog of hopeless depression. But scenes like these were still hard to encounter.

He stayed on the Bihar plains for three days interviewing One World Health and Doctors Without Borders relief workers. He visited hospitals. He spoke with a pharmaceutical chemist in the U.S. who’d developed a stronger more effective antibiotic, but like all drug development, money was the key to its success. He visited one last clinic and walked between the crammed rows of beds before he headed back to Calcutta.

He had an early flight out in the morning and was more than ready to relax in the hotel lounge, away from the teeming city, the overwhelming smells, and the constant noisy barrage. India possessed some of the most astounding beauty on earth and some of the most appalling poverty. In some places the two lived side by side, and nowhere was that more in evidence than Calcutta.

There had been a time when he’d scorned the journalist he considered soft-those “old” guys who kicked back in nice comfy hotel bars and ordered hotel food. As a young journalist, he’d felt that the best stories were out there in the streets, in the trenches and on the battlefields, in the flea bag hotels and slums, waiting to be told. He’d been right, but they weren’t the only worthy stories or always the most important. He used to believe he needed to feel bullets whizzing past his head, but he’d learned that high-octane reporting could make a journalist lose perspective. The rush to report could lead to a loss of objectivity. Some of the best reporting came from a thorough and unbiased gaze. Through the years, he’d perfected the sometimes difficult craft of journalistic balance.

At thirty-five, Sebastian had suffered through several cases of dysentery, been robbed, stepped in running streams of raw sewage, and seen enough death to last him a lifetime. He’d been there and done that, and earned every bit of his success. He didn’t have to fight for a byline anymore. After years of running full tilt, balls to the walls, chasing stories and leads, he’d earned some kickback time in an air-conditioned hotel.

He ordered a Cobra beer and tandoori chicken while he checked his e-mail. Halfway through his meal, an old colleague spotted him.

“Sebastian Vaughan.”

Sebastian looked up and a smile spread across his mouth as he recognized the man walking toward him. Ben Landis was shorter than Sebastian, with thick black hair and an open, friendly face. The last time Sebastian had seen him, Ben had been a correspondent with USA Today, and they’d both been in a Kuwaiti hotel, awaiting the invasion of Iraq. Sebastian stood and shook Ben’s hand. “What are you up to?” he asked.

Ben sat down across from him and signaled for a beer. “I’m writing a piece on the Missionaries of Charity ten years after the death of Mother Teresa.”

Sebastian had done a piece on the Missionaries of Charity in 1997, a few days after the death of the Catholic nun, the last time he’d been in Calcutta. Little had changed, but that was no surprise. Change was slow in India. He raised his beer and took a drink. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“Ah, you know how things move around here. Unless you’re in a taxi, everything seems to stand still.”

Sebastian set his bottle on the table and the two of them caught up, swapping war stories and ordering a second beer. They reminisced about what a pain in the ass it had been to climb into hot, sweaty, chemical-protection suits everytime there’d been a chemical threat during the push into Iraq. They laughed about the Marine’s FUBAR, with forest green suits sent to the troops instead of sandstorm beige, though at the time it hadn’t been a laughing matter. They recalled stories of waking every morning in a shallow hole with fine dust covering their faces, and laughed some more about the knockdown, drag-out between a Canadian peace activist, who’d called Rumsfeld a warmonger, and an American wire service reporter, who’d taken exception. The fight had been fairly evenly matched until two women from Reuters joined the fray and broke it up.

“Remember that Italian reporter?” Ben asked through a smile. “The woman with big red lips and…” He held his hands in front of his chest as if he were holding melons. “What was her name?”

“Natala Rossi.” Sebastian raised the bottle to his lips and took a drink.

“Yeah. That was her.”

Natala had been a reporter with Il Messaggero, and her gravity-defying breasts had been a constant source of fascination and speculation for her male colleagues.

“Those had to be fake,” Ben said as he took a long pull off his beer. “Had to be.”

Sebastian could have cleared things up for him. He’d spent a long night with Natala inside a Jordanian hotel and had firsthand knowledge-so to speak-that her lovely breasts were real. He’d understood very little Italian; she’d spoken very poor English; but conversation hadn’t been the point.

“The rumor was, she took you up to her hotel room.”

“Interesting.” He’d never been the kind of guy to kiss and tell. Not even when the retelling was really good stuff. “Did the rumor mention if I had a good time?” When he thought back on that night, he could hardly recall Natala’s face or her passionate cries. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, a different brunette rose up and got stuck center brain.

“So, the rumor isn’t true?”

“No,” he lied, rather than give a blow by blow-so to speak-description of his night with the Italian reporter. While the memory of Natala had faded, the memories of Clare in a pink thong and the kiss they’d shared seemed to grow more vivid with each passing day. He could recall perfectly the soft curves of her body pressed against him, the soft texture of her lush lips beneath his, and the warmth of her slick mouth. He’d kissed a lot of women in his life, good, bad, and hot as hell. But no woman had ever kissed him like Clare. Like she wanted to use her mouth to suck out his soul. And the confusing thing was, he’d wanted to let her. When she told him to kiss her nice little butt, he knew just the spot he wanted to kiss.

“I hear you got married,” he said in an effort to change the subject and get his thoughts off Clare, her smooth behind, and soft mouth. “Congratulations.”

“I did. My wife’s expecting our first child any day now.”

“And you’re here, waiting around to talk to nuns?”

“I’ve got to make a living.” A waiter set Ben’s third beer on the table and disappeared. “You know how it goes.”

Yeah, he knew. It took a lot of hard work and a good deal of luck to make a living in journalism. Especially for a freelance reporter.

“You haven’t said what you’re doing in Calcutta,” Ben said, and reached for the bottle.

Sebastian filled him in on what he’d been investigating in the Bihar plains and the newest outbreak of black fever. The two men shot the breeze for another hour, then Sebastian called it a night.

On the flight home the following day, he listened to the interviews he’d taped and scribbled down notes. While he wrote an outline, he recalled the abject hopelessness he saw in the faces of the peasants. He knew there was nothing he could do but tell their story and shed some light on the epidemic that had plagued the region. Just as he knew that there would be a new plague and a new epidemic to report next month. Bird flu, malaria, HIV/AIDS, cholera, drought, hurricane, tidal waves, starvation. Take your pick. War and disasters were a never-ending cycle and a constant employer. On any given day there was a new breakout of disease, or if not, some little dictator, terrorist leader, or Boy Scout gone bad, was going to start shit somewhere on the planet.

During a two-hour layover in Chicago he got a bite to eat in a sports pub and pulled out his laptop. As he’d done hundreds of times in the past, he pecked out an opening while he ate a pastrami on rye. He struggled a bit, but nothing compared to what he’d gone through with the piece he’d written on homegrown terrorism.

On the flight from O’Hare, he caught up on some sleep, waking just in time for the Boeing 787 to set down at Sea-Tac. Rain pelted the runway and strings of water streamed from the wings of the big aircraft. It was ten A.M., Pacific time, when he deplaned, and he maneuvered easily though the airport toward his Land Cruiser parked in the long-term lot. He couldn’t recall how many times he’d walked through Sea-Tac over the years. Too many to count, but this time was different. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he knew this would be his last international flight. Flying halfway across the globe to report a story didn’t appeal to him as it once had, and now he was thinking about Ben Landis and his pregnant wife.

As he drove up Interstate 5, an irritating little peck of loneliness nagged at him. Before the death of his mother, he’d never been lonely. He had male friends. Women too, a number of whom he could ring and who’d meet for a drink or anything else he wanted.

His mother was gone, but life was fine, just the way he liked it, just the way he’d always envisioned. But with every silent swipe of his windshield wipers, the feeling scratched a little deeper. He figured it was the jet lag and once he got home to his condo and relaxed, the feeling would go away.

He’d purchased the condo two years after his book had hit number one on the New York Times and USA Today best-seller lists. The book had sat on the lists for fourteen months, earning him more money than he’d ever made or would ever hope to make from journalism. He’d invested the money in real estate, luxury goods, and a few risky tech stocks that were paying off nicely. Then he’d moved on up, à la the Jeffersons, from a small apartment in Kent to the deluxe condo in the Queen Anne district of Seattle. He had a million-dollar view of the bay, the mountains, and Puget Sound. The 2,500-square-foot space had two bedroom suites with shower stalls and sunken jet tubs in each bathroom. Everything from the ceramic tile and hardwood floors to the plush carpet and leather furniture were done in rich earth tones. The polished chrome and glass shined like new money, a symbol of his success.

Sebastian pulled his SUV into his parking space, then moved to the elevator. A woman in a power suit and a boy wearing a lizard T-shirt waited by the doors and stepped into the elevator with him. “What floor?” he asked as the doors closed.

“Six, please.”

He pressed the buttons for six and eight, then leaned back against the wall.

“I’m sick,” the little boy informed him.

Sebastian looked down into the kid’s pale face.

“Chicken pox,” the woman said. “I hope you’ve had them already.”

“When I was ten.” His own mother had turned him pink with calamine lotion.

The elevator stopped and the woman gently placed her hand on the back of her son’s head and they stepped into the hallway. “I’ll make you some soup and a bed in front of the TV. You can curl up with the dog and watch cartoons all day,” she said as the doors closed.

Sebastian rode the elevator two more floors, got out, and entered the condominium on his left. He dropped his carry-on suitcase in the entryway, the sound inordinately loud on the tile floor. There was nothing to break the silence that greeted him. Not even a dog. He had never had a dog, not even as a kid. He wondered if he should get one. Maybe a beefy boxer.

Sunlight poured through the huge windows as he walked from the great room and set his laptop on the marble countertop in the kitchen. He started a pot of coffee and tried to explain away his sudden interest in a dog. He was tired. That’s what was wrong with him. The last thing he needed was a dog. He wasn’t home enough to take care of a plant, let alone an animal. There was nothing missing in his life and he wasn’t lonely.

He moved from the kitchen to the bedroom and thought perhaps it was the condo itself. Maybe it needed something more…homey. Not a dog, but something. Maybe he should move. Maybe he was more like his mother than he’d ever guessed and had to try on a dozen or so homes before he found one that felt just right.

Sebastian sat on the edge of his bed and took off his boots; the dust from the streets of Rajwara still clung to the laces. He kicked off his socks and took off his watch as he headed to the bathroom.

Several years before, he’d tried to talk his mother into retiring and moving into a nicer house. He’d offered to buy her something newer and fancier, but she’d flat-out refused. She’d liked her house. “It took me twenty years to find a place that feels like a home,” she told him. “I’m not leaving.”

Sebastian stripped naked, then stuck his hand into the shower stall. The brass fixture was cool to the touch as he turned on the faucet and stepped within the glass closure. If it had taken his mother twenty years to find a comfortable space, he figured he had a few more years to figure it out. Warm water rained down upon his head and over his face. He closed his eyes and felt the tension wash away. There were plenty of things to stress about. At the moment, where he lived wasn’t one of them.

He had to sell his mother’s house. Soon. Her best friend and business partner, Myrna, had moved all the beauty supplies out of the salon and taken all the plants. She’d donated the canned and dry goods to the local food bank. All that was left for him was to figure out what to do with the rest of his mother’s things. Once he got that off his shoulders, his life would get back to normal.

He reached for the soap, lathered his hands and washed his face. He thought of his father and wondered what the old man was up to. Probably pruning roses, he supposed. And he thought of Clare. More specifically, of the night he’d kissed her. What he’d told Clare had been the truth. He would have done just about anything to get her to stop crying. A woman’s tears were just about the only thing in the world that made him feel helpless. And, he reasoned, kissing Clare had seemed like a better idea than hitting her or throwing a bug in her hair, like he had as a kid.

He lifted his face and rinsed away the soap. He had lied to her. When he apologized for kissing her, he hadn’t been all that sorry. In fact, he hadn’t been sorry in the least. One of the most difficult things he’d ever done was turn away and leave her standing in the shadows. One of the most difficult-but the wisest. Out of all the single women he knew, Clare Wingate was not available for kissing and touching and rolling around naked. Not for him.

But that didn’t stop him from thinking about her. About her round breasts and dark pink nipples. Lust churned low in his belly as he closed his eyes and thought about making her nipples hard as his fingers followed the pink string of her thong across her hip to the triangle of silk material covering her crotch.

His testicles ached and he turned rock hard. He thought of her using her beautiful mouth on him, and sexual need pounded through his veins, but there wasn’t anyone to slip into the shower and take care of that need for him. He could call someone to come over, he supposed, but he didn’t feel right having one woman finish something another woman had started. With the thought of Clare in his head, he took care if it himself.

After Sebastian’s shower, he wrapped a towel around his waist and headed into the kitchen. He felt a little ridiculous having just fantasized about Clare. Not only was she the weird little girl from his youth, but she didn’t even like him. Usually he tried to fantasize about women who didn’t think he was a dickhead.

He poured a mug of coffee and reached for the phone sitting on the counter. He dialed and waited as it rang.

“Hello,” Leo answered on the fifth ring.

“I’m back,” he said, pushing thoughts of Clare from his head. Even after the time they’d spent together recently, it still felt a bit strange to just dial up the old man.

“How was your trip?”

Sebastian raised the mug. “Good.”

They talked about the weather, then Leo asked, “Are you going to be heading this way anytime soon?”

“I don’t know. I have to pack up Mom’s house and get it ready to sell.” Even as he said it, a part of him shrank from the thought of packing his mother’s life in boxes. “I’ve been putting it off.”

“It’s going to be tough.”

That was an understatement, and Sebastian laughed without humor. “Yeah.”

“Would you like me to help?”

He opened his mouth to give an automatic refusal. He could pack up a few boxes. No problem. “Are you offering?”

“If you need me.”

It was just stuff. His mother’s stuff. She most definitely wouldn’t have wanted Leo in her house, but his mother was gone and his father was offering a helping hand. “I’d appreciate that.”

“I’ll tell Joyce I’ve got to be gone a few days.”

Packing up the kitchen was easier than Sebastian had anticipated. He was able to detach himself as he and Leo worked side by side. His mother had never been into china or crystal. She ate off Corelle, plain white, so if she broke a plate she could replace it. She bought her glasses at Wal-Mart, so if she dropped one, it was no big deal. Her pots and pans were old and in fairly good shape because she’d rarely cooked, especially once Sebastian had moved out of the house.

But just because his mother hadn’t been materialistic didn’t mean she hadn’t been meticulous about her appearance till the day she’d died. She’d been picky about her hair, the color of her lipstick, and whether her shoes clashed with her purse. She’d loved to sing old Judy Garland songs, and when she was in the mood to splurge, she’d bought snow globes. She had so many, she’d converted his old bedroom into a showplace for her collection. She’d lined the walls with custom-made shelving, and Sebastian had always suspected she’d done it so he couldn’t move back home again.

After Leo and Sebastian packed up the kitchen, they grabbed some newspapers and cardboard boxes and headed for Sebastian’s old bedroom. The wood floors creaked beneath their feet, and through the white sheer curtains sunshine flowed into the room and through the rows of globes. He half expected to see her, pink feather duster in hand, dusting the shelves.

Sebastian set two boxes on a card table and a stack of newspapers on a folding chair he’d placed in there earlier. He deliberately pushed memories of his mother and her feather duster from his head. He reached for a globe he’d brought back from Russia and turned it in his hand. White snow fluttered about Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square.

“Well, I’ll be…Who woulda thought Carol would have kept this all these years.”

Sebastian looked over at Leo as the older man reached for an old globe from Cannon Beach, Oregon. A mermaid sat on a rock combing her blond hair while bits of glitter and shells floated about her.

“I bought this for your mother on our honeymoon.”

Sebastian grabbed a piece of newspaper and wrapped the Russian globe. “That’s one of her oldest. I didn’t know you gave it to her.”

“Yeah. At the time, I thought that mermaid looked like her.” His father glanced up. The deep lines at the corners of his eyes got even deeper and a faint smile played across his mouth. “Except your mother was about seven months pregnant with you.”

“Now that, I did know.” He set the globe in the box.

“She was so beautiful and full of life. A real corker.” Leo bent and grabbed a piece of paper. “She liked everything full-tilt, like a roller coaster, and I…” He paused and shook his head. “I liked calm.” He wrapped the globe. Over the sound of the paper he said, “Still do, I guess. You’re more like your mother than you are me. You like to chase lots of excitement.”

Not so much anymore. At least not as much as he had a few months ago. “Maybe I’m slowing down.”

Leo looked up at him.

“After this last trip, I’m seriously thinking about hanging up my passport. I have a few more assignments, and then I think I’ll go strictly freelance. Maybe take some time off.”

“What will you do?”

“I’m not sure. I just know I don’t want to take foreign assignments. At least for a while.”

“Can you do that, then?”

“Sure.” Talking about work kept his mind off what he was doing. He reached for a Reno, Nevada, globe and wrapped it up. “How’s the new Lincoln?”

“Rides like butter.”

“How’s Joyce?” he asked, not that he cared, but thinking about Joyce was better than thinking about what he was doing.

“Planning a big Christmas to-do. That always makes her happy.”

“It’s not even October.”

“Joyce likes to plan ahead.”

Sebastian set the wrapped globe in the box. “And Clare? Is she over her breakup with the gay guy?” he asked, just to keep up the small talk with the old man.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen much of her lately, but I doubt it. She’s a very sensitive girl.”

Which was yet one more reason to stay away from her. Sensitive girls liked long-term commitments. And he had never been the kind of guy to commit to anything long term. He reached for a Wizard of Oz globe with Dorothy and Toto following the yellow brick road. Even though it would never happen, he let his mind wonder to the possibility of spending a night or two with Clare. He wouldn’t mind getting her naked, and he was certain she’d benefit from a few rounds of sex. Get her to relax and lighten her up. Put a smile on her face for weeks.

In his hand, the first notes of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” began to play from the music box within the base of the globe. The Judy Garland classic was his mother’s favorite, and everything inside Sebastian stopped. A thousand tingles raced up his spine and tightened his scalp. The globe fell from his hands and smashed to the floor. Sebastian watched water splash his shoes, and Dorothy, Toto, and a dozen little flying monkeys washed across the floor. The detached front he’d kept inside his soul shattered like the broken glass at his feet. The one steady anchor in his life was gone. Gone, and she wasn’t coming back. She was never going to dust her snow globes or fuss about clashing shoes. He’d never hear her sing in her faulty soprano voice or nag him to come over for a haircut.

“Fuck.” He sank to the chair. “I can’t do this.” He was numb and charged at the same time, like he’d stuck a key in the light socket. “I thought I could, but I can’t pack her up like she’s never coming back.” The backs of his eyes stung and he swallowed hard. He placed his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands. A sound like a freight train clambered in his ears, and he knew it was from the pressure of holding it all back. He wasn’t going to cry like a hysterical woman. Especially not in front of the old man. If he could just hold it back for a few more seconds, it would pass and he’d be okay again.

“There’s no shame in loving your mother,” he heard his father say over the crashing in his head. “In fact, it’s a sign of a good son.” He felt his father’s hand on the back of his head, the weight heavy, familiar, comforting. “Your mother and I didn’t get along, but I know she loved you something fierce. She was like a pit bull when it came to you. And she never would admit that her boy did any wrong.”

That was true.

“She did a fine job raising you mostly on her own, and I always was grateful to her for that. The Good Lord knows I wasn’t around as much as I shoulda been.”

Sebastian pressed his palms against his eyes, then dropped his hands between his knees. He glanced up at his father standing next to him. He took a deep breath and the pinch behind his eyes eased. “She didn’t exactly make it easy.”

“Don’t make excuses for me. I could have fought more. I could have gone back to court.” His hand moved to Sebastian’s shoulder and he gave a little squeeze. “I could have done a lot of things. I should have done something, but I…I thought that the fighting wasn’t good and that there would be lots of time once you were older. I was wrong, and I regret that.”

“We all have regrets.” Sebastian had a ton of his own, but the weight of his father’s hand felt like an anchor in a suddenly vertiginous world. “Maybe we shouldn’t dwell on them. Just move on.”

Leo nodded and patted Sebastian’s back like when he’d been a boy. “Why don’t you go get yourself a Slurpee. That’ll make you feel better, and I’ll finish here.”

He smiled despite himself. “I’m thirty-five, Dad. I don’t get Slurpees anymore.”

“Oh. Well, go take a break and I’ll finish this room.”

Sebastian stood and wiped his hands down the front of his jeans. “No. I’ll go find a broom and a dustpan,” he said, grateful for his father’s steady presence in the house.