“Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you could crack your head open doing that?”
Annie let out a yelp and the chair toppled backwards onto the hand-laid Italian tile. She saw stars bursting in the darkness behind her eyes and blinked rapidly to clear them. “Fuck!” she swore, rubbing the back of her head and rolling off the chair onto the floor. Her head was tender and already swelling, and she thought she could feel the wetness of blood. “I think I’m bleeding. Who’s there?
Where are you?”
“Right here. Are you okay? I’m sorry.”
Annie saw the shadowy figure move out from underneath the kitchen table.
“I don’t know if I’m okay. I think I’m bleeding.” She tried to stand but immediately felt woozy again and had to sit. She rubbed the swelling on the back of her head, wondering how bad it really was. “Could you turn on the light, please?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” he replied, steadying her with a hand on her arm. It was a warm hand, large, with a firm grip.
“Gee, thanks, buddy. Fine, I’ll do it myself.” Annie sighed and started to stand again. His hand on her arm kept her from moving.
“No, please, don’t.” It was a request, but it didn’t sound like one.
“Why? I think I’m really hurt.”
“Here, let me see.” His hands were in her dark hair, moving over her scalp, finding the aching knot and massaging it. At first, she winced and pulled away, but then let him continue. God, it’s been too long since someone touched me like this.
“You’re not bleeding,” he assured her.
“How can you tell? It’s too dark in here. Let me turn on the light, and—”
“No!”
Annie jumped. “Okay, weirdo… who are you?” He moved away from her.
“Hello?” There was no response, but she could make out his shape back under the table. Annie sighed and rubbed her head again. With her dizziness abating, she stood and headed for the light switch. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m—”
“I’m asking you.”
Annie’s hand hesitated on the switch.
“Please,” he implored her. “Don’t do that.”
“Why?” she asked again. There was no response, just a deep silence from the darkness under the table.
In the quiet, she could hear the party continuing in the living room. She turned her eyes to the dim outline of the door and heard Chloe direct, “No, no! Kitchen is off limits!”
Annie smiled gratefully. At least the door was being guarded for a while.
“Hey, are you still there?” She cringed, mentally slapping herself for asking such a stupid question.
“Yeah.”
Something in his voice drew her to him. There was a strength in it, a certainty that shouldn’t be coming from underneath a kitchen table. She moved away from the door and back toward the voice, getting down on her knees to peer underneath. She thought she saw the shimmer of a pair of glasses. She saw his hands resting in his lap and found herself searching for the glint of a ring.
A moment later, she smiled at her effort.
“So… why are you in here? Why don’t you want me to turn on the light?”
“I don’t…” He cleared his throat. It was the first time she had heard him hesitate. “I don’t want you to see me.”
Annie sat back on her heels, unmindful of her skirt. There was no reason to worry about him glimpsing her panties in the dark! She let out her breath, feeling unsure and a little ambivalent about her sudden desire to reach out to him, this strange guy sitting alone in her sister’s kitchen. Empathic by nature, she knew what it was like to want to get away from a party like this.
“Can I join you?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure, come on.” He patted the tile floor and she crawled under, leaning against the wall next to him. It wasn’t a big table, pressed into a little breakfast nook. It only sported two chairs since only Chloe and David lived in the huge old Victorian house, but Annie and the stranger both fit comfortably enough underneath.
“So… you just wanted a break from all of that?” She waved her hand toward the door.
“Something like that.”
“Me, too.” Annie sighed and leaned her head back against the wall. She had forgotten about the bump and winced when she made contact. She brought her hand up to rub the sore spot-at least it was something to feel.
“I noticed.” He chuckled.
She flushed. “You didn’t hear what I said out there, did you?” That thought made her cringe with embarrassment.
“Yeah.” He sounded sad, but she didn’t sense a lot of judgment or a big guilt trip coming.
“Whoops. I was hoping you didn’t know what a bitch I can be,” she admitted. “First impressions and all…”
“Maybe it’s better if we all start out knowing who we really are. Wouldn’t that be a great change? Instead of just looking at people and assuming you know who they are…”
Annie waited for him to finish, but he didn’t, so she went on. “Actually, I’m not really like that. Most of the time. I mean, sometimes, sure, aren’t we all? But tonight, well, let’s just say there were extenuating circumstances.” Annie remembered John crawling across the circle, his eyes flickering between the hemline of her skirt and the V of her blouse. She couldn’t recall if he was licking his lips, but she could have sworn he was. It was always the same—even with her own brother-in-law.
“Were there?” He sounded interested, but Annie didn’t want to go there.
“Something like that.” They sat in silence for a moment, but it was a comfortable one. “I know what it’s like, not wanting people to judge you on appearances.”
“Do you?”
Whenever he asked a question like that, he seemed to want to know more. A man with a genuine interest in what she had to say was something Annie was unfamiliar with. Perhaps it was just that she found it hard to believe a man when he was looking at her. “Maybe not like you,” she said. “I mean, maybe it’s not the same, but I’ve spent my whole life being the beautiful one, and it’s just as hard as being unattractive. At least, you know, by society’s standards, or whatever…” Her voice trailed off and she wondered how that had sounded out loud.
“So I shouldn’t hate you because you’re beautiful?” She laughed, embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have made that comparison. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but maybe I am, a little. Maybe you can’t help it when everyone looks at you a certain way.”
“So, how is it the same?” Again, there was that interest.
Annie glanced once more at his hands. She loved a man’s hands-large, strong, yet capable of being so soft, so caring. His long legs were stretched out beyond the table’s edge, and she could see he was wearing boots. Darkness was funny. The way your mind used shapes and lines to fill in the blanks, how you could see some things and not others.
“Well,” she began, “it doesn’t matter, attractive or unattractive, really. At either end of the spectrum, people still judge you. They make assumptions about you based on how you look. They treat you differently. Do you know what I mean?” She found herself eager for him to understand. Her heart raced with the wanting.
Relief flooded her chest when he said, “Yeah, I do.” His fingers brushed hers in the darkness. “You have beautiful hands, Annie. So delicate.” She flushed at the compliment, but didn’t respond, wondering if he had been looking at her hands with the same ulterior motive. Compliments often felt more like sharp barbs to her than anything else, but this particular arrow landed softly, with precision.
“What about that girl out there, the one sitting next to you?” he went on.
His words jarred her, and she turned to look at him even though she could only see the outline of his profile in the darkness. “A little overweight, not conventionally pretty…”