King Leopold settled once having been around the familiar presence of Grant and Faun, of whom he had recently come to know from her visits at the house and when she’d come to look after him just the other night. And when they waited together in the yellow Volvo as Grant ran in to purchase King Leopoldo’s doggie bag and essentials, the giant puppy managed to get himself into the front seat of the car and try to sit on Faun’s diminutive (by comparison) lap, whimpering sadly and lapping her small featured face with his giant tongue, and soaking her in the process ….always a cat person, herself—for the main reasons of size, convenience and—well—smells, Faun resisted the first instinct to gag and shudder because—really, she was a push over when it came to animals of all sizes. So, well, what could she do?—she let him because Faun realized the poor little—big—dear….was now an orphan. Poor thing. Her heart went out to him.
Even while, logistically, it was impossible for him to get onto her lap. Especially with the steering wheel there. So, instead, she let him rest his massive head on her lap—and half the front of his body. And while they sat in the parking lot of Walmart (the only still-open store around at this time) King Leopold lay like that with the occasional showers of affection. And in between playing ‘body guard’ (in the form of a barrage of terrifying, and terribly threatening loud bouts of barking) every time someone walked past the car.Which turned out to happen rather a lot.
So she was relieved when she saw Grant walking towards the car,
“oh look! There he is! Look King Leopold!”
When Grant opened his side and realized there was someone sitting in his seat, he laughed,
“good thing I bought dog treats—and….what’s this, Leopold? You know what this is?”
King Leopold barked excitedly at Grant
“Yes, it’s your favorite! Now, go retrieve it!” and Grant tossed a great big mastiff size bone into the back seat.
It right shook the car making loud, arresting metallic sounds as he did so.
Grant slid into the seat and shut the door. And just as it started to rain again.
Pulling up Faun’s driveway now she started to wonder about ….what was to happen now. Between the mysterious deaths of her landlords ….and what was to happen about the bookshop and ….her own apartment…. but how could she even think to bring such a topic like this up now? Of course she would never dream of bothering Grant with questions like this right now.
But as she stopped and parked Grant suddenly said,
“listen, don’t worry about your place—you signed a lease, nobody is going to throw you out, and it’ll be awhile before any of this makes sense but—I’ll make sure you’re safe and —I’ve already worked out your salary, if you approve, we can discuss it, but, if you give me your bank information, I can deposit it directly—we owe you the past few weeks and skip next month’s rent for your trouble.”
He didn’t wait for her reply and got right out, opening the back seat while saying,
“do you want dinner Leo? Daddy’s got dinner, come on boy!”
Faun watched the giant beast chase after Grant as they ran down the drive in the rain
It was a moment she sat there not knowing what to do.
Was she to follow them inside that way?
Or should she just go home?
It had been such a long day. For both of them. So much had happened.
And what he just said to her….kind of capped off the evening. So to speak. Englishmen can be so hard to read….and rather customary —she wasn’t sure if that was his goodnight. So she sat there for awhile watching the rain soak the windshield.
Then her phone rang.
She didn’t recognize the number and yet it was the oddity of the numbers that made her answer,
“are you coming in?” it was Grant, “I think the king is expecting you—“ there was a loud bark in the background
“I’ll be right there,” she said.
So there she went down the drive to the gate, past the now soaking wet overgrown garden and up the porch; he’d left the door open with just the screen door and she could see them inside as she walked up.
Grant seemed to have the dog settled with a giant bowl of food,
“I’ll have to figure out what he eats, I’m sure that stuff is crap —I didn’t know what else to get,” he said as she walked into the kitchen; but his majesty didn’t seem to mind, Faun was thinking, as she watched the beast devour the contents in the bowl
Faun noticed Grant had set a large bowl of water on the floor next to the food bowl
“You mentioned tea,” Grant said, and removed a tin from the shopping bag as the tea kettle whistled on the stove. They both jumped, “this thing is ancient!” Grant said, shutting off the stove and finding the cups and saucers
“Let me do that,” Faun said and reached for the tin, “Republic of tea—Mango Ceylon, that’s my favorite.”
“I never tried it, I took a guess,” he shrugged, “you said you don’t drink milk—thought you might like this—it’s coconut and almond, unless you like it without.”
“It depends—either way—I’ll try it,” she was momentarily dazed by the fact he remembered what she’d said. Or had heard her. Most men never bothered to hear things like that—in her experience.
“I didn’t think of food—unfortunately….” and to demonstrate, he opened all the empty cupboards to show her. “Are you hungry? You must be—it’s late.”
“Don’t worry about me—unless you are? I have food—I can make something and bring it over,” and as she said this, she waved her hand at the door she had entered there through by the salmon couches
He glanced at her hand and smiled,
“you wouldn’t have to go all the way down the driveway—“ and now he suppressed a chuckle as he walked towards the little dinning room. He kind of waved at her as he went that way and once in the dining room he faced her but pointed to his right where on her side there was only a wall, “there’s a stairwell through this door—which goes actually up to the room I told you I stay in when I’m here but this door —which is on other side of the laundry room—is the door that leads into—“
but now she understood,
“Oh! My apartment! That’s my kitchen door!” and she ran into the dining room where he stood so that she could see.
“Huh!” she said and reached into her clutch bag for her keys, “I wonder if one of these keys opens that lock, I was afraid to try it,” and when she did, it easily turned. The door itself took more effort—as it seemed not to have been opened in awhile. But then it swung open
Had she come home in her normal way—the porch from the driveway—with her apartment you entered directly into the kitchen from the porch. And, although s rather small kitchen, it was a fully updated kitchen with green granite counters, stainless steel appliances and polished wood kitchen cabinets.
“How funny,” Faun said as she considered the days they must have been facing each other without realizing it, standing on either sides of the same wall.
King Leopold came over to investigate now too.
It was a rather odd set up. Her apartment was on two floors. While the kitchen and sitting room was down stairs, you had to go up a narrow staircase to reach her bathroom and bedroom….which meant they shared the same bedroom wall as well.
“There’s a bathroom, in the kitchen—which is odd—see?” she said, “Arthur called it the ‘field hand’s washroom’ he said this house was on farm land years back when it was first built and after a day in the fields plowing, they’d come home all muddy and so would wash when they came in the door,” she opened the door to the small bathroom that looked like it still had the original plumbing—a very old toilet with the chain pulley and a narrow black tiled square unit with an old shower head with hot and cold turning levers, like the old sink with an antique mirror above it.
“He never told me about that—that is interesting. Have you flushed it?” Grant asked her
“Yeah—a few times. I wasn’t sure of it at first, but Arthur said it—“ and now King Leopold barked upon hearing the name said again…. And for a moment Faun stopped talking to bend down to pet him and touch his face. Then continued talking to Grant while looking at King Leopold, “will likely outlast the other plumbing—I think he kept it because he ….liked antiques—like the old cash register at the shop….and the safe.”
“I know ….he did like his antiques—well—I think our tea has steeped by now.”
Faun followed Grant back through the door to the other kitchen and shut the door between closing it but leaving it open a crack
And, yes, in fact, the teas were steeped and now Grant held up the coconut-almond mild,
“shall I?” he stood beside the cup and saucer closest to Faun and twisted open the cap of the container
“Why don’t we have it in here?” Grant walked back into the salmon colored sitting room, “although, these sofas you will find not the most comfortable.”
“Well, my place only has room for a loveseat —and mine is more shabby than chic, to be honest—but then I don’t even have a tv—oh, you don’t say tv, do you? Oh, yeah, you guys call it—telly—“
He had been watching her without being obvious about it; among all the drama, she had been such a good sport, he was thinking and, had she not been there he —would not have admitted it to himself but, he would have been quite a reck right now …. But now as she said this he laughed suddenly and without thinking he put his index finger to her lips and stared down into her face.
It hadn’t been a planned move. It surprised the both of them.
But now suddenly he was looking down into her pretty upturned face, with those strangely slanted dark eyes he found himself now staring into. And her face, which —he noticed ….had become suddenly flushed by this action. And his proximity.
What was she saying?
He’d forgotten.
What were they doing?
She’d forgotten.
They stared into each others eyes.
The dog barked breaking their spell.
Grant blinked and shook himself,
“actually, there is a tv in here,” and as he said ‘tv’ he winked at her and walked over to the wall that faced the porch by the kitchen where there was what looked like a cabinet. But when he opened it, the two doors receded into the wall
“Oh that’s a—dumb waiter!”
As Grant said,
“it’s a butler’s lift.”
But instead of trays of prepared meals meant to be lifted upstairs, there sat a large flatscreen television the perfect distance from the largest salmon couch
“I usually find something streaming because I’ve found navigating the channels here is a lot like navigating the English Chanel,” he meant that to tease her for what she’d said and as he spoke he tried to find something now. He wanted to find something for them to watch to take their minds off of the somber events of the day. “Oh, what do you think of this—I’ve been watching a recent Viking find; it’s a group of archeologists on a recent excavation in Iceland.”
“That sounds great,” she said and actually meant it too and as she moved towards the kitchen to get their teas and brought them over.
They seemed to forget about food.
There was large old leather trunk that sat on the floor and seemed to serve as a coffee table and here is where Faun put their cups and saucers.
And, as there would have been no other place to sit that allowed for television viewing, as Grant moved towards it he looked at Faun and smiled letting her decide which side to sit. She picked a side and he sat on the side closest to the door and King Leopold jumped up and placed himself between them before resting his head on Faun’s lap where she had turned herself to prop herself slightly to rest her lower back against the arm rest and put her feet up on the trunk.
It as a good documentary. If it hadn’t been, Faun would not have been so absorbed in it. In fact, they hardly noticed when King Leopold jumped down to find his bone, and went to chew on it stretched out on the floor in front of the tv. So absorbed in the show, she’d hardly noticed she had kicked off her pumps and pulled her legs up onto the sofa. That is, not until she stretched out her legs on it and felt his legs were going in the other direction
….but he did not seem to notice. And it was at an exciting part of the documentary as they were showing the tools of some legendary Viking lord and all he said was,
“are you cold?” as they were both staring at the screen as the tools were displayed on the screen
“A little,” she said still watching the screen amazed; hardly noticing that he had pulled a heavy throw blanket across their legs
It was a two hour documentary and King Leopold fell asleep with his bone and somehow Faun’s legs had wound up nestled comfortably, but unconsciously intermingled with Grant’s grey flannel trousered legs, his own shoes on the floor not far from hers. And then it was hard to say exactly how it happened, when Faun’s phone rang inside her clutch bag; she had forgotten she put it on the side table next to Grant. And when she reached to get it, climbing over him in order to shut it off, he had, at the same moment, reached for her clutch bag in order to give it to her small—but his move had surprised her, throwing her off, so —she actually fell! —and awkwardly, right on top of him!
It was quite embarrassing to her! Slam! And she fell! —and right on top of him! As she landed, and chest down, on him —trapped by the fabric of her dress, as it tangled her and fixed her there —and as she did so, he caught her— with his long limbs to steady her from landing on the floor.
“Oh!” she nearly had the wind knocked out of her and when she looked up at him now her face was more flushed than before, and then —the phone stopped ringing
“Missed it,” he said in a half whisper as their faces were now only inches away
“I should—“ she had begun to say ‘go’ as she stared at his sensual mouth— while she tried to move to get up, but drawn by the warmth of him, and the way his eyes watched her, and, forgetting she was trapped, and instead it caused her to fall again, as he caught her. And then, it was hard to say which of them it was —who first made the move, because then she was kissing his mouth—or it was it he who was kissing hers?
But King Leopold interrupted the moment with that demanding bark that could only mean one thing
“He needs to go out—“ they both said at the same time
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