She grabs my shirt, pulls me closer. “You mean, I would’ve been your first?”
I sigh and grab her hand. My stomach turns at the thought of that once being on my docket, at how close Ettore came. “That was the plan.”
She looks at me and smiles. “Well, if you’re not careful you’ll end up being my first, too.” As I decipher what that means, she drops her hand and her head at the same time, closes her eyes and shakes her head, mumbles something to herself.
As I interpret her statement—and her own reaction to it—I widen my eyes and step back.
“Wait.” I pinch my chin. “You mean,” I stutter, “you’re a…”
Melody drops her shoulders and throws up a hand. “Yes, a virgin, Jonathan. What’s the matter, you’ve never killed a virgin?”
“I told you I’m not gonna kill you.”
“It was a euphemism. Does the term deflower sound better?”
“How’s this possible?”
She chuckles, makes a face. “What do you mean? You think there’s some rite of passage—”
“How old are you?” All along I thought I knew, but now I’m starting to wonder.
“Depends on which persona you want me to use. If I’m Linda Simms, I’m just about to turn thirty. Shelly Jones? She’s a spry twenty-four.” She shrugs, rolls her eyes. “I’m twenty-six.”
I walk backward, sit on the sofa near the window. Melody sits across from me on the bed and curls her legs up and covers them with her robe.
“And you never… you never found someone you loved enough?” I’m lost again, like in ’Tone’s restaurant, forgetting who and where I am.
“I’d love to say I was being morally responsible, but the truth is I never allowed myself to get close to anyone—physically or emotionally. There was just too much risk.”
I hesitate before asking, “Risk for whom?”
She stares at the floor, reaches up and clutches the robe to her chest. It takes a moment before she responds. She does not directly answer my question, but exposes her vulnerability, of failed love, through a story of losing a teen romance by way of being pulled from the boy’s arms and tossed in the back of a government van.
“There’s never been a reason to love,” she says, “because it would mean lying about who I am the entire time, only to one day make the decision to either leave that person behind or take him with me and put him in equal danger.” She falls back on the bed, lets a leg drop off the edge. “It’s a real mess. I’ve thought about it for years, desperately searching for the loophole.” She turns her head and glances my way. “There is no loophole.”
My mouth has gone dry. As I speak, I half gag on the words. “I’m sorry, Melody.”
“For?”
“Just… everything. For every moment of suffering and heartache. For every night you went to bed scared and woke up alone.” My voice begins to fade. “For there not being a loophole.”
She smiles a little. Her look reminds me of my mother, an expression I received as a child when I’d say something cute but of no consequence.
“All of this comes back to my family,” I add. “If I had a father who did something legitimate with his life, we wouldn’t be here.”
Melody sits up a little. “True, but you realize… if he did, you and I would have never met.”
I stare at her, can barely ask, “And that matters?”
Her eyes glisten. She answers my question so softly that if I couldn’t read her lips I might not have understood: “Of course.”
NINE
I escort Melody down to the spa, introduce her to the staff as a means of alerting them that the woman they promised to treat like a princess has just arrived. Earlier this morning, when I demanded it, they assured me they treat all their customers like royalty, to which I chucked an additional hundred on the counter as an illustration of how I do not want her being treated like all their other customers. Round and round we went, though I believe we finally ended at a place of understanding.
I stick to her side through the initial part of the process, the introductions and explanations of treatments she’ll be getting. While they prepare a room for her massage, we wait in an area that loosely resembles a lounge or higher-end coffeehouse, a dimly lit cavern with a waterfall trickling out of view and a set of deep, plush sofas. Unrecognizable classical music plays through speakers I don’t see. A buffet lines one