Chapter 8

 Ophelia left the kitchen and dropped face first on her couch, burying her head under the square throw pillows.  Lucky seemed to wiggle smugly inside her pocket.  Right now, she was going to need more than a bottle of wine and friendly advice to make herself feel good about today’s events.

 “Phe-phe?” Tiki said the nickname cautiously as she knelt down beside her friend.  “Hey?  What’s going on?”

 Without moving, she said into the cushions, “I have a date.  Tomorrow.”

 “A date?” Tiki asked, and then, “You hussy!  That’s why you were going to dump Steve.  Not because he didn’t gratify you!  If not for that, you would have kept him, wouldn’t you?”

 Ophelia shook her head.  “No, I was going to break up with him…eventually.”

 “Eventually?  Are you serious?  How long did you think you could continue wasting batteries for that man?  I’d have thrown his butt out on the street after the first time he left me wanting.”

 Ophelia pushed up on her elbows and brushed the hair out of her face.  “That’s the difference between you and me.  You can have any guy you want, but I’m limited on my choices.  Guys go nuts for the artsy, moonbeam thing you’ve got going.  I’m just a bookworm, addicted to a half-dollar and bottles of cheap wine.  Hell, I can’t even walk into my closet without seeing how boring I am.  Plain blouses, gray skirts, even my underwear is monotonous.  The only thing interesting about me are my shoes.”

 “You do have great taste in heels,” Tiki said kindly.  She patted my backside.  “But let’s get past that.  Tell me about this man.  He must have seen something interesting in you.”

 Ophelia snorted.  “That’s funny.  He saw something in me.”

 Tiki frowned.  “What’s funny about that?  You’re pretty and you’re intelligent, and you have your own business.  That’s three good points in your favor.  What guy wouldn’t want that?”

 “That’s not what I meant,” Ophelia said sadly.

 “Then explain it to me.”

 She studied Tiki’s face, hoping against hope that her best friend in the whole world, the woman that never would ever, ever betray her or deem to hurt her feelings, could possibly understand her confusion.  “He’s blind.”

 Tiki blinked.  “Come again?”

 Ophelia nodded.  “He’s blind.  So, you see, he couldn’t have seen anything interesting in me.  Have I really gone so far beyond appealing that only handicapped men would ever want to date me?  I really don’t know if I should feel embarrassed or insulted.”

 Her friend rocked back on her heels and stared at her.  Blank expression and all.  “You did say this guy is blind, right?  I’m not hearing things?”

 “Oh, no.  You heard me correctly.  I have a date with a blind man that walked out into the middle of 2nd Street and twirled like a ballerina until I agreed to have dinner with him tomorrow night.”

 Tiki continued to stare.  Ophelia got a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach.  Embarrassment?  Or insult?  Which was worse?  For a fleeting moment, she felt sympathy for her mother, the woman that endured the gossip of her husband’s extracurricular activities without batting an eye.  But had Ann Masters ever been embarrassed to find phone numbers written in a curly hand in his pants pockets?  Did she get insulted when he called to cancel dinner – instead, choosing to eat with one of his many clients? 

 That morning with Ian, she felt nothing but confusion around him – and a bit turned-on.  Ian appeared to be such a temporary kind of man, much like her father always portrayed, but her parents had been married for thirty-five years, a considerably long time for a transient relationship.  There had never been talk of divorce, that she knew of, but at every family gathering, Ophelia waited with abated breath for the bomb to land.  She felt that way around Ian, too.  Never with Steve, but that was what she wanted, right?  Permanence. 

 Tiki blinked steadily at her, fueling her impatience.  “Well, say something!” she screeched at her silent friend.

 At that, Tiki grinned wide and flamboyantly.  “This is…PERFECT!  I’ve heard blind men really know what they’re doing…’cause they have to rely on feeling and sounds and such.  He’ll know that you’re not finished.  Whoa, what I wouldn’t give to get it on with someone like that!”

 “I don’t plan on sleeping with him,” Ophelia muttered.  “It’s one date, and I only agreed because he was going to kill himself otherwise.”

 Tiki pursed her lips, deep in her world of dirty thoughts.  “Does he have that roving eye thing?  ‘Cause I’m not sure if I could stand to stare at that all night.”

 “I don’t know.  He wore sunglasses the whole time.”

 “Does he do that drooling thing?”

 “No, Tiki!  Christ!  You are so bigoted!”  Ophelia thrust a pillow at her.  “He’s actually a nice man – well, not a ‘nice man’ – and he’s…well, kind of good-looking.  I just don’t know why he asked me out.”

 “Good-looking, huh?  How good-looking?”

 Ophelia sighed back against the cushions and smiled a tiny bit.  “Tall…golden, brown hair…muscles out the yin-yang…  He has that bad-boy grin.  Very sexy voice.”

 Tiki heard the forlorn in my tone.  She crawled up the couch to sit next to me and pull me against her shoulder.  In her soft, best-friend voice, she said, “He asked you out because he sensed something special in you…”

 “Yeah,” Ophelia grunted.  “Steve said I was special, too.”

 “Forget Steve.  Concentrate on…What’s his name?”

 “Ian,” she answered.  “Ian Fisk.”

 Tiki stiffened next to her.  “Ian Fisk?  THE Ian Fisk?”

 Ophelia looked over at her.  “You know him?”

 “Heard of him,” she corrected.  “But I wish I did know him.  He’s a sculptor, mostly wood and clay.  You know that carving of the mother and child in the Arts Center?”

 “Yeah,” Ophelia answered, envisioning the four-foot high mahogany sculptor of a mother’s love, soft arms wrapped around her baby, smiling down with so much adoration and love that Ophelia’s stomach clenched whenever she saw it.  How could a blind person create such raw emotion without truly seeing it?  “That’s his?”

 “Sure is.  I don’t know how he does it.  With him being blind and all…but he’s made a name for himself because of it.”  Tiki breathed out wishfully.

 “And you think this is the same Ian Fisk?” Ophelia inquired, and intrigued.  Ian steadily developed in her mind as a man like an onion, layers upon layers, surrounding a core of potent piquancy. 

 “How many blind men, named Ian Fisk, do you think live in this town?  Where’s your computer?  We’ll look him up.”  She scrambled off the couch and disappeared into the second bedroom, coming back a few minutes later with Ophelia’s small laptop that she used for on-the-go research.  “Here,” she said, typing in his name.  She pushed the device into Ophelia’s lap and smashed the enter button.  Photos of Ian Fisk and his art popped onto the small screen.

 “That’s him,” Ophelia confirmed.  “But I still don’t get it.  Why did he ask me out?”

 “Good question,” Tiki said, and Ophelia smacked her on the arm.  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, rubbing the spot.  “I’m just saying that he’s kind of famous for turning down women by the masses.  There’s a lot of kinky people out there, in it for the blind fetishes and all, and he’s been targeted by some of them.  Ian Fisk doesn’t date just anyone.  He has a thing for redheads, though, but I don’t see why, since you know…he can’t see and all.  It’s also rumored that he’s gay.  ”

 “I seriously doubt that’s true,” Ophelia said, remembering how he grinned at her and focused his four remaining senses on her individual presence.  He was as straight as they come.

 “Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Tiki said as she snapped the computer closed.

 “On the contrary, there’s numerous ways to find out his sexual preferences, but I won’t be the interrogator, if you know what I mean,” Ophelia replied cooly. 

 Tiki nudged her and said, “For crying out loud, quit your belly-aching.  Just go out with him tomorrow and ask him why you.  I’m sure he’ll give you the same answer I did.”

 Feeling frustrated again, Ophelia retrieved her comfort item from her pocket and rubbed thumb over the raised bust of President Kennedy.  Tiki sighed and gave her another hug.  They sat there like that, two friends in silence, for a long time.  Lucky did nothing to ease Ophelia’s questions, and Tiki’s advice evidently burned out.

 “Tiki,” Ophelia said, “don’t you ever wonder if we’re all just part of a huge experiment?”

 Tiki frowned at her.  “All the time, but I’m sure that’s just me.  I’ve got some joints downstairs, if you want?”

 Ophelia rolled her eyes.  “That’s not what I meant.”

 “I know you didn’t,” Tiki replied with a heartfelt smile, “but it helps me clear my head sometimes.”

 “It’s illegal,” she reminded her.  “I’ll bail you out if I have to, but I won’t sit behind the bars with you for something like that.”

 Tiki shifted on the couch, tucking her long skirt under her knees, and faced Ophelia.  “Okay, we’ll do it the old fashioned way.  Something’s bothering you, and it isn’t Steve or Ian Fisk or any other guy.  So spill it, girl.”

 Ophelia sighed and took a moment to string Lucky on her chain, resettling it around her neck.  “You remember a few years ago when you went back to New York with me during the holidays?”

 Her friend groaned.  “How could I forget?  I’ve never been so happy to get back on an airplane in my life, and you know how I am about flying.”

 Yes, she remembered that part well.  The two connecting flights to LaGuardia taxed Tiki’s self-control and Ophelia’s nerves from having to constantly soothe Tiki’s fears, but on the way back, the reverse occurred and Tiki had been so relieved to see the last of Ophelia’s estranged family that she’d been the pacifier.  That Christmas, her parents acted even more novel than she could ever recall, her mother half-drunk the whole week and her father all the more arrogant and confrontational.  Christmas dinner had been comprised of Mr. Jin’s wonton soup, veggie lasagna from the Rizzo da Cucina, and an authentic New York cheesecake, a meal designed to incorporate all the city had to offer and indicate Ophelia what she was missing out on.  Her father’s words rang loud and clear as he blessed the food, “Dear Lord, thank you for this nourishment, which feeds our bodies as you feed our souls, reminding us who we are and where we come from…”

 Ophelia’s cheeks burned, not quite believing her ears.  Her father was ashamed of her.  Her!  A woman who sought a conventional life for herself, with clean air to breathe and possibly a man she could identify with.  Even after three years, the implication still stung. 

 “So, you remember telling me how you thought it was peculiar that I’m as normal as I am, considering who raised me?” Ophelia asked.  Tiki grunted low in her throat.  “And then there was the time that I went with you to your family reunion, and I was bowled over by how your childhood imbued a Norman Rockwell painting?  Well, don’t you think that because of how different our families are, we are the way we are?”

 She could tell she lost Tiki in the conversation.   “We just are the way we are,” she said simply for an answer.

 “But don’t you see, it’s like the world is this huge lab experiment, and we’re the guinea pigs.”

 A frown crinkled Tiki’s brow.  “I don’t feel that way.  Granted, I’m the youngest of eight children in a Catholic family, and my parents love each other so much beyond the meaning of the word, I chose my own path.  I like the person I’ve become.  I thought you liked you, too.”

 “I do,” Ophelia said with a slight moan, “but I figured that if I tried hard enough, I could have the house in the suburb with the white picket fence and the two-point-three kids.  Now, look at me.  I’m stuck in a rut…no handsome husband kissing me good-morning, no manicured lawns, no Sunday outings with the kids.  I live in a two-bedroom apartment, whining to my abnormal best friend and baby-sitting my foul-smelling cousin.  I’m twenty-eight, Tiki.  Where’s my happy ever after?”

 She glanced over at her friend, whose lips were twitching as she tried to retain some seriousness, but in the end, it was a lost cause.  Tiki’s grin slowly slid across her face.  “I’m not laughing at you,” she said when Ophelia glared at her.  “I just think it’s funny that you believe you can find happiness in the Steve’s of this world.”

 “I’m not talking about Steve,” Ophelia said hotly.

 “Yes, you are,” Tiki reprimanded.  “You think you aren’t, but you are.  There’s not a Steve in this world that would ever be considered a knight in shining armor.  If that’s what you’re looking for, train your eyes in Ian Fisk’s direction.  He’s knight material.  Steve’s the experiment.”

 Ophelia pouted.  “He reminds me of my father.”

 “Who, Ian?”

 Ophelia nodded. 

 “How so?” Tiki asked, shaking her head with disbelief.  “Now, I’ve only met your dad once, and I’ve never met Ian, but I really don’t see the resemblance.”

 “I do, and that’s all that matters,” Ophelia returned, wishing she never continued this conversation.  Her palms were getting sweaty, and her heart started palpitating again.

 “Then don’t go out with him,” Tiki advised.  “If you don’t like the way he makes you feel inside, cancel the damn date.  What’s he going to do?  Stalk you?”

 A shrill laugh bubbled up in Ophelia’s throat.  That’s exactly what Ian had been doing.  According to Mira, he’d been staking out her bookstore for a week.  How that was possible, being that he couldn’t see, she couldn’t fathom.  “No, no.  I agreed to one date, and I’ll suffer through it if it kills me.”

 Tiki stood up, looking to leave her.  “Then there’s nothing I can say to help you.” 

 Ophelia dropped her head to her chest because that much was true.  She was the one who had to find a way to make her own rainbows.  Ian wasn’t on that path.  Neither were the Steve’s of the world.  Somewhere, somehow, she’d get her white picket fence, and a blasted good orgasm, too.  All she needed was another plan.