Fire Down Below Read online

  Ben sighed. “You’re right. It would be rude.” He took his hand off my leg. “Whew! That was a close one, wasn’t it?”

  I nodded, and we both grinned.

  His friends lived in a sedate craftsmen style bungalow near Green Lake with gray and white trim and an old fashioned country porch. There was already a group of people standing out on the porch, drinking wine and chatting as we drove up. They waved to us and watched as Ben parked alongside the house. Even sitting in the front seat, viewing them through the window, I could tell that this was going to be a long evening.

  “Ben!” A man in his late thirties with a booming voice, graying beard, and an exceptionally taut physique, cried out as we walked up the front steps. “I’m glad you could make it!” He turned to me, “And this must be Kate! Hi, I’m Bernard!”

  “Hello.” I gave a little wave.

  He introduced me to the other people on the porch, though their names barely made a dent in my synapses. All I kept thinking about was how out of place I looked. None of the women wore a stitch of make-up and all of them must have been at least fifteen years older than me. Everyone was tanned a rugged brown with deep crow’s feet lines, the kind you get from climbing mountains so high that when you reached the top there’s nothing but a Kleenex tissue of atmosphere between your face and the blazing sun.

  “Let me take that from you!” Bernard motioned at my cake box, which I promptly handed over to him. “Come on inside! I know Megan really wants to meet you. Ben has told us a lot about you!”

  We followed Bernard inside the house which was decorated in muted earth tones with an Eastern touch here and there. They had a large Buddha head on a bookshelf and some Asian prints on their walls. The house smelled like a variety of foods cooking—bread, garlic, and chicken—along with the scent of eucalyptus from a ceramic vase they kept filled with leaves by the front door. There were people on couches in the living room and a few more mulling around the kitchen which is where Bernard led us. Soft music played on the stereo, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

  “Megan,” Bernard said to a short brunette, chopping some kind of herb on a cutting board. “Ben is here and he’s brought Kate with him!”

  She looked up and immediately I could tell she wasn’t prepared for what she saw. “Hi,” she said, staring at my hair, my clothes, and then finally my nose ring.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said cheerfully. “Ben’s told me a lot about you guys.” Which wasn’t really true, but it sounded like the right thing to say.

  “Oh?” She smiled over at Ben. “And what did he tell you?”

  “That you’re good friends and go climbing together occasionally.”

  She nodded, smiling. “Yes, Ben has become quite the technical climber. If he plays his cards right we may even take him with us to Annapurna next year. ” I watched her as she finished chopping the herbs, adding them to a dish of homemade salsa. Something about her comment struck me as sort of condescending.

  I looked over at Ben to ask him if he was really considering climbing in the Himalayas when we were interrupted by a tall blonde girl holding a bowl of salad. “Where shall I put this Megan? Do you still want it in the fridge?”

  “No, out on the table would be fine, thanks. I think we’ll be ready to eat in a few minutes. Oh, Wendy,” she stopped her, “have you met Kate yet?”

  The blonde girl looked at me and then at Ben.

  “Hey, Wendy.” Ben smiled politely. “How have you been? This is my friend Kate.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said, still using my cheerful voice.

  She nodded.

  We stared at each other and, as much as I hated to admit it, she was very pretty. She had long wavy blonde hair pulled back loosely with a few tendrils falling around her face and, like every other woman there, didn’t wear a molecule of make-up. She was young, probably the same age as I was, so her face didn’t have any of the sun damage lines the others had. Instead she had this fresh outdoorsy sort of look, which confirmed what I had suspected all along, that Ben dating me was something of an aberration for him.

  “What have you been up to?” Ben asked her. “Are you still headed to Montana in the fall?”

  “Hmm?” She blinked slowly as she pondered his question. She had these large sky blue eyes that bulged out slightly and the more I studied her, the more her features began to take on a bovine quality. She even had something in her mouth and was slowly chewing it, just like a cow chewing her cud. “No, that’s all changed...I’m headed down to California as soon as the paperwork goes through.”

  We heard Megan calling out to everyone in the other room. “Time to eat!”

  People began to move into the dining room where some were already gathered around the buffet-style table. The food smelled delicious and there was quite a variety. I filled my plate with herbed rice, Indian samosas, some sort of chicken casserole and a large chunk of bread. I hadn’t eaten since lunch, so I was really hungry. Ben loaded himself up and I followed him into the living room to sit down. The couches were already taken, so we wound up sitting on the floor, which was a bit awkward for me since I was wearing a skirt.

  “Do you want something to drink?” Ben asked.

  “Yes, please. A beer would be great.”

  When he left I began eating and putting out friendly vibes, smiling at people and trying desperately to ignore how out of place I felt. All the conversations around me involved people I didn’t know, doing things I didn’t care about, at places I’d never been. So-and-so just got back from Denali and is already planning a trip to Peru. Yes, another so-and-so is going to France this summer to climb Mount Blanc. Oh really? So-and-so told me their funding fell through and they’re going to wait until next year.

  And on it went.

  I smiled and nodded, trying to appear enthused, but not too enthused in case someone decided to ask me what climbs I’d done. I had to admit they were a well-traveled bunch, though I wondered how well-traveled you really were if all you did was go from one big mountain to the next big mountain.

  “Here you are,” Ben said handing me a bottle of beer.

  “Thanks.”

  He sat down, and as I watched him dig into his food, I got a rush looking at him. Those strong cheekbones and that squared jaw. I must have been an idiot in college not to have noticed him. It’s a thought that’s occurred to me more and more lately, although I do remember that he was kind of a dork too.

  I also noticed with some amusement that Wendy, who had taken a seat in the chair opposite us, was trying hard not to stare at me. I smiled at her the next time her eyes wandered my way, though she didn’t smile back. I wondered what things had been like between her and Ben and why they broke up. She seemed like my complete opposite in every way. I found it astonishing that Ben found us both attractive, since we not only looked nothing alike, but we had a completely different sort of energy. Wendy did everything slowly. There was a languid quality about her that I imagined a lot of guys found sexy, though to me she seemed sleepy. On the other hand I make espresso all day and drink way too much of the stuff.

  Megan came over near us and sat down in a vacated spot on the couch with a plate of food on her lap. “So, tell me how you two met again?”

  Ben put down his bottle of root beer. “We met at the café where Kate works, though we originally met during our freshmen year of college.”

  “Ah, that’s right.” She nodded. Even though it was Ben who spoke, for some reason Megan kept staring at me. She had these relentless blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, and as far as I could tell she never blinked. “And so you guys hit it off, huh?”

  I noticed the room had grown quiet around us as everyone followed our conversation.

  “Yeah,” Ben grinned. “We hit it off.”

  I met his eyes for an instant and I knew we were thinking the same thing—we really hit it off.

  “And so are you a student Kate, or do you just work at the coffee shop?” she asked, emphasizing the word �
��just.”

  “Nope, I’m not a student. I just work at the café.”

  “Hmm.” She frowned.

  “Kate is also a painter,” Ben said. “She’s incredibly talented.”

  I looked at him in surprise. He’d never said a word about my paintings. When I showed him my art he nodded, but didn’t say whether he liked them or not, and I assumed that meant he didn’t. This was something I had begun to notice about Ben. He tended to be stingy with compliments.

  “Oh? What do you paint?” Megan asked me.

  I explained to her that I was into a style of painting called photorealism where you paint the subject matter in such realistic detail that it looks like a photograph.

  She looked confused. “Why not just take a photograph?”

  “Well, I paint portraits. And I like to think when I paint someone I’m capturing something in their face that is missed by a camera lens. Often photos of faces seem flat to me. I guess you could say that what I’m really interested in painting is hyperrealism.”

  She stared at me. I sensed that she was searching for some derogatory comment to make, but failing that she turned away. “Is anyone ready for more food?”

  How rude. Clearly, she’d taken a dislike to me, although I couldn’t imagine why.

  “You should paint Ben!” Bernard yelled at me.

  I smiled at Ben. “Maybe I will sometime.” I had considered painting Ben, though in truth his face wasn’t the only part of his anatomy that I’d considered painting. I figured something that had given me that much pleasure deserved its own painting.

  The rest of the evening consisted of Megan and, mostly bombastic Bernard, regaling us with stories of their various climbing adventures, not that I felt regaled in the least bit, though I did try to appear interested and amused. People didn’t just talk about mountain climbing either. They talked about hiking, biking, snowboarding, and I think scuba diving was even mentioned. Everyone was polite to me in the way that people are when someone is so out of place that it is literally painful. I smiled and tried to act like part of the group, but I felt like the bimbo someone had accidentally invited to the neighborhood barbeque.

  It was a relief when we were finally able to leave. It took all my will power not to run out of the front door screaming, “Lord Almighty free at last!”

  “Thank you for inviting me,” I told Megan as we were leaving. “I had a nice time.”

  She shrugged. “Ben invited you, not me.”

  I stared at her with my mouth open. I looked around to see if Ben had heard her, but he was across the room saying good night to Bernard. All I could think was—what a bitch!

  Once we were in the car and driving away, I told him what she said to me.

  “Well, it’s true I did invite you.”

  “Yes, but she made it sound like I was unwelcome.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “That’s crazy. She’s only just met you.”

  “She hates me though.”

  “No, she doesn’t. Though I will say, Kate, that you could have acted a little more enthusiastic. You hardly spoke the whole night.”

  Now it was my turn to stare at Ben with my mouth open. What was I supposed to say to this?

  “You know what? Take me home. I’m not staying with you tonight.”

  He looked at me in surprise. “Come on, don’t you think you’re making too much of it? All I’m saying is that you could have been a little friendlier.”

  I didn’t say anything. It struck me then how Ben and I were too different. I stared out the window as we drove and had an intuitive flash where I knew with absolute certainty that not only did Ben not “get” me, but that he never would.

  We arrived at my house and I immediately reached for the door handle on the car.

  “Kate...,” he said, but I ignored him and silently got out, slamming the door behind me as hard as I could. Walking up the front steps, Ben waited in his car, presumably to make sure I made it safely inside, or maybe he was waiting for me to change my mind and go back to his apartment.

  Once inside the house, I locked the door and went upstairs to my room. I could see the street from my bedroom window, but when I got up there his car was already gone.

  Good riddance, I thought. Asshole.

  I took a long hot bath and as I soaked I wondered if this was it then, if Ben and I were going to stop seeing each other. Despite my anger, I felt saddened by the idea. I think I really was falling in love with him. I knew one thing for sure though. I could not hang out with his friends, especially not that horrible Megan. Ben was either so dense that he couldn’t see how rude she was to me, or he didn’t want to see it.

  After my bath I brushed my teeth and put on my favorite flower print nightgown that I’ve worn in times of stress since I was sixteen. I tried to sleep, but felt too riled up, so I read for a while, trying not to think about Ben and all his pretentious friends that I’d wasted a perfectly good Saturday evening on. Around midnight I heard the sound of the doorbell being rung over and over again.

  I figured one of my roommates must have forgotten their key. It wouldn’t be the first time. It never occurred to me that it might be Ben, which is, of course, who it was.

  I stared at him. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who went around ringing doorbells in the middle of the night. Seeing him I felt angry all over again.

  “Stop it!” I hissed. “Are you crazy? You’re going to wake up the whole house!” Although in truth I didn’t think anyone was home but me.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. We’re too different.”

  He got a pained expression on his face and stepped in closer towards me. “Don’t say that. Please let me come in. I’m sorry you had such a lousy time tonight.”

  “Go home, seriously. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  He didn’t say anything, but stood there, worried. “Please, Kate.”

  I had to admit he looked miserable, and I knew it must have been hard for him to come here. I took a deep breath. “All right,” I sighed.

  As he followed me upstairs to my bedroom, I wondered whether we would end it and immediately knew I didn’t want that. Obviously there was all that fabulous sex, but I wasn’t ready to give up trying to make this work. I cared about Ben and I wanted us to figure this out.

  I sat down on the bed, and scooted until my back was against the wall, watching as Ben climbed next to me. It felt odd to have him here in my bedroom. It occurred to me that while he’d been here a few times we’d never even slept in my bed together. We always slept at his place. He seemed so big, filling the space in a way that I never did. The lamp on my nightstand put out a silky yellow light, sending both of our shadows across the wall.

  “I don’t want to stop seeing you,” he said bluntly.

  “You don’t think we’re too different?”

  “You’re totally unlike anyone I’ve ever been with, but I like it. I feel good when I’m with you.”

  I wasn’t ready to give in that easily though. “I can’t hang out with your friends. I’m sorry, but I just can’t. I felt totally out of place there tonight, plus Megan really was awful to me whether you noticed it or not.”

  He nodded. “I understand. Honestly, I don’t know why Megan was so rude to you. I thought about it after I dropped you off and all I can figure was that it must be because of Wendy. She and Wendy are good friends and Wendy never wanted to break up with me. I suspect Megan thinks there’s a chance we’d get back together again if I wasn’t seeing you.”

  “What business is it of hers though?”

  “None, but she’s...well, you saw what she’s like.”

  “Do you want to get back together with Wendy?”

  “No! I’m the one who broke it off with her. It’s finished.”

  I chewed on this for a few seconds. “Why did you break up with her?” I had to admit I was dying of curiosity. They seemed to have so much in common, plus Wendy was attractive. I honestly couldn’t
imagine why he would have dumped her.

  He sighed. “I don’t know. Why does anybody end a relationship? It just wasn’t working out.”

  “But you both like all the same stuff.”

  “Yeah, well...not necessarily,” he hesitated, “if I tell you the real reason, you’re going to laugh.”

  “Why?”

  “I shouldn’t tell you. It wouldn’t be nice.”

  “Oh, come on.” I pushed against him, bumping his shoulder. “You can’t throw that out there and then not say anything.”

  Ben gave me a wry smile. “Wendy and I didn’t have any passion.”

  “You mean, like, sexual passion?”

  “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

  “See, I told you, you were going to laugh.”

  “How is that possible? I can’t believe it!” Although truthfully, when I thought of Wendy, I could believe it. “But was it always passionless? Or did the passion die out over time?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “We never had it. I tried different things and I was always asking her what she liked or didn’t like, but she never seemed into it. She didn’t respond at all. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. I began to realize that I need this in my life.”

  “Wow...you’ve certainly got it in spades now.”

  He laughed, running a hand through his hair. “I know! It’s been crazy. It’s like going from zero to mach ten with no breaks in between.”

  I sat there grinning. I had to admit I was feeling a bit smug and self-satisfied. So Wendy was lousy in bed! “And you guys dated for a whole year? No wonder you’re so horny all the time.”

  Ben flopped over on his back and groaned. “I shouldn’t have told you any of this, it’s too embarrassing.”

  I lay down on my stomach beside him. “So it didn’t work out with Wendy—why is that embarrassing?”

  He met my eyes. “Because for the longest time I thought it was me. I thought I was doing something wrong and that’s why she was so unresponsive.”

  “It wasn’t you,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. “Trust me. You’ve got me in such a state of constant arousal that I can barely see straight.”