XOXO

I’ve seen it. Jesus, have I seen it. More times than I care to admit.

I took a second to look at the photo of her in lingerie again as I was getting in the car on my way here.

My driver tried to steal a glance at my phone’s screen, so I almost fired the nosy bastard.

“Thank you,” she says through a sniffle. “I think in a day or two I’ll be good as new.”

I hoped that my grandmother’s sausage kale soup would have super healing powers. I need Arietta now.

No, I want her back at the office now.

Her presence there makes my life easier.

Still standing in front of me smelling like every good memory I have of the flowers in Sicily, she sighs. “Did you get a chance to check out the new filing system, sir?”

I nod. “I did.”

She waits for something I’m not offering. I should tell her she did a remarkable job, but that’s for another day. I need to get the hell out of here because I can’t stop staring at her.

Just as I’m about to stand, that fucking rooster crows again.

Arietta turns around. “That’s my phone.”

I’m transfixed as she marches across her apartment on bare feet. Her ass sways with each step.

She cocks a hip when she picks up her phone from the dining table. “Sinclair’s in the lobby. She bought some groceries on her way home. I’m going to go down and help her carry everything up. I’ll only be gone for a few minutes.”

I should be a gentleman and offer to help. Instead, I lean back on the couch, cross my legs and try to hide my raging hard-on. “Fine.”

Scooping up a set of keys from the small table in the foyer, she slips a pair of white sneakers on her bare feet. “I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home.”

As soon as the door shuts behind her, I turn to the small dog staring a path through me. “Keep your distance, doggy.”

He tilts his head slightly before he closes his big brown eyes again.

I push to my feet, unsure of what I’m supposed to do.

I know what I want. I want to wander through the apartment, so I can picture Arietta here when she’s not at work.

My better judgment takes over as my gaze drops to a photo album on the coffee table in front of me. Next to it is a poetry book.

I pick up the photo album first and thumb my way through a few pages.

I stop at an image of a man and a woman on a beach with a blonde-haired girl. The wind is whipping their hair against their faces.

The child is missing a top front tooth, but that smile is unmistakable.

It’s Arietta.

She can’t be more than six or seven years old in the photograph. I stare at it, wondering if she’s always carried light with her. If the people around her have always benefited from the joy she brings with her into a room.

I snap the album closed and exchange it for the poetry book.

Sitting down on the couch again, I place the book in my lap. It’s not a book devoted to a great wordsmith of our time. It’s a collection of simplistic rhymes bound together in hardcover form.

I scroll through the table of contents, wondering if Arietta made a contribution, but I come up empty.

Still, I skim through it, scanning the words, taking note of a page that has been haphazardly taped back into place.

I flip to the middle to find a piece of folded paper stuck in the binding.

I pluck it out carefully. I unfold it once and then again so I can read what’s written on it in blue ink.

My To-Do List

Move to NYC! The Big Apple! Gotham! The place I belong!

Live in an apartment that’s filled with fresh red and pink roses!

Dance in the rain. Splash my feet. Sing along to the music!

Adopt a dog!

Be kissed like heroines in movies are!

Fall in love! Deeply. Passionately. Forever.

Be proposed to close to the stars.

Get married in the fall with the leaves turning colors.

Have a baby...or two.

Never stop smiling.

I read the list again. Not one item on it would match a to-do list of my own. I’m a lifelong New Yorker. Flowers are a fool’s investment. They never live beyond a few days. You might as well toss your cash in the trash.

I fucking hate the rain, and my history with dogs will never convince me that I need one as a pet.

The remaining six items would land on my to-don’t list.

I fold the paper in half and then again and shove it back into the book exactly where I found it.

Arietta’s a dreamer. I’m a doer.

It’s only one of the many ways we differ.

I’m twelve years older than her.

I’m her boss.

I turn when I hear a key in the lock of the door. It’s time for me to leave. I don’t belong here. I belong behind my desk in my office, making my financial dreams come true.