Hilary Fields - Bliss

At length Sera stumbled to a halt. “Anyhow, that’s about it. The whole sordid story. My failures, my shortcomings, and the chef-shaped monkey that just won’t get off my back.” She stared down at her barely touched plate. What a waste of foie gras, she thought, apropos of nothing. She wasn’t sure if she felt liberated or nauseated. Or maybe liberation itself was a bit of a queasy thing. It all depended on how Asher reacted.

Her date leaned back in his chair, crossed his long legs at the ankles, and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m disappointed, Bliss.”

“I’m sorry?” Oh, crap-covered-crap. He’s totally disgusted now. We probably won’t even make it to dessert. And I so wanted to know how the sweets in this place would stack up to my own… But it wasn’t the potential loss of pastry that had Sera’s heart squeezing painfully in her chest.

“I don’t see why you should be,” said Asher. He saw her look of confusion and unfolded his arms, reaching forward to touch her again. This time it was her wrist he captured in a gentle vise. “Don’t see why you should be sorry, that is. I’m only disappointed because, after all that buildup, I expected you to tell me you smothered kittens for a hobby or baked straight razors into your layer cakes.” He shook his head, speaking urgently. “Bliss, from what you’ve described, you’ve done nothing to be ashamed of—nothing that you could help anyway—and the things you couldn’t help at the time, you’ve since put to rights as best you could. You’ve been paying penance for events that happened long ago, and paying far too much, if you ask me. Isn’t it time to let them go?”

Sera sighed, turning her hand over in his, tracing her fingers across the jeweler’s scars and calluses that marked his sensitive flesh. She’d thought the Blake years were behind her, that she was no longer the sad, messed-up woman she’d once been. Yet when Austin had showed up, he’d brought with him a whole lot of baggage she’d hoped to leave behind forever. Part of her still feared Asher would see her as Blake always had—someone pitiable, flawed. Someone who couldn’t satisfy.

“I’m trying,” she said, giving Asher a wobbly smile. “But there are times I still feel… I don’t know… wanting somehow.”

“Let me tell you something,” said Asher. “That was one deeply petty little man I met the other night. He cannot steal what you possess now.” His grasp tightened. “Bliss, you’ve got a spirit that shines out, that’s so infectious I smile each time I see you coming. That is the woman with whom I want to dine—and not just dine, if I’m fortunate, but laugh, and chase dildo-thieving dogs, and slay my unfortunate shrubbery. That’s who you are to me, Bliss. Not a failure. Not wanting.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Asher,” Sera said, letting the tears spill, and damn the mascara. Her voice caught. “There’s something I’m ‘wanting’ very much right now.”

She stood up, came around the table, and showed Asher exactly what—and who—she wanted, making herself at home in his lap and giving him a deep, wholehearted kiss.

* * *

Their server waited as long he could, but eventually the strain on his arms began to take its toll. He cleared his throat politely. “Ah, sorry, hot plates over here…”

Sera blushed, removing herself to the correct side of the table. Asher discreetly adjusted his napkin over his lap as the embarrassed waiter placed their entrées on the table and made himself scarce.

“Hungry?” Sera said a little too brightly.

“Ravenous,” said her date.

They dug in with a will.

“Perhaps you will tell me something of how you came to be a chef,” Asher suggested once they’d sated the only appetite that was polite to attend to in public. As soon as the plates were removed, he’d returned his hand to hers, absently tracing the bones beneath her sensitized skin, drawing swirls across her knuckles.

Sera smiled, the outstanding elk tenderloin in peppercorn sauce having mellowed her mood. She was high on a cocktail of haute cuisine and hot date, and it felt fantastic. “It all started with bundt cake,” she said.

“I’m sorry?” Asher looked blank.

“It’s a type of pound cake that’s made in a tube-shaped mold,” she explained. “The pan can be anything from a simple ring to a fanciful castle complete with turrets.”

“Ah,” said Asher, not looking particularly elucidated.

“Anyhow, when I was a little kid, like barely five or so, I discovered this old bundt cake mold in our kitchen cabinet. I think it was a gift from some Austrian great-grandmother, but no one could really remember how it got there. At first I thought it was something you used for making sandcastles in the playground, but my mom showed me how you could bake a cake in it. I was so fascinated by the precision of the cake, how it came out so perfectly shaped, I got hooked. I mean, it was food, but it was also a toy! I guess most five-year-olds go through a phase like that. I just never grew up.” Sera smiled at her own silliness. “I started begging my mom for Jell-O molds, mini tart pans—anything that could bake up into a cool shape. Mom was kind enough to indulge me. I loved the flavors, too, of course—I didn’t get these curves from eating salad,” Sera said, gesturing dismissively at herself, “but it was the architecture of pastry that really roped me in. Maybe a little bit like the work you do with metal,” she said.

Asher nodded his understanding. “Perhaps,” he said, smiling. “Though I don’t often get to taste my work when I’m done. But go on, Bliss. Where did the bun cake take you?”

Sera didn’t correct him; she thought “bun cake” was adorable. “Well, from there, Mom started helping me bake everything from whoopee pies to meringues, even though I have a feeling Aunt Pauline was actually more interested in cooking than Mom was. Still, she always indulged my obsession. It was one of the things I remember best about her—standing in the kitchen by her side when I was little, testing out recipes and frosting cakes. She always made time for us—‘kitchen time,’ she called it.” Sera smiled wistfully at the memory.

Asher turned her hand over delicately, beginning to trace the lines of her palm and draw idle patterns up her wrist and forearm that made Sera shiver. “I’ve never heard you speak of your mother before,” he noted.

“She and my dad died when I was just a teenager, and Pauline raised me after that,” Sera said, hating and simultaneously soaking up the flash of sympathy she witnessed in his eyes. “It was a car accident. A cabbie fell asleep after a too-long shift and plowed right into them as they were crossing Third Avenue. It was instantaneous.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

She’d heard as much from dozens of people over the years. A simple sentiment, easily expressed. But when Asher said it, she truly felt his sympathy, and more—empathy.

“You know something of that pain, don’t you, Ash?” she ventured.

“I do,” he admitted. “My wife died of ovarian cancer four years ago. I thought I would die with her.”

Sera’s eyes filled. She clasped her other hand around his, stilling his abstract tracings. “I’m glad you didn’t, but I can understand why you wanted to.” She paused. “Do you want to talk about it? I don’t want to ruin a lovely evening with more heavy conversation, but…”

“It’s all right, Bliss,” he assured her. “I would have brought it up in any case, because I wanted to be sure you fully understood why it was so important that I went to Israel when I did.”

He’d spoken of it, that night together in her store, but she sensed he had more to say. “You mentioned needing to make peace with your wife…” She trailed off delicately.

“Yes,” he said softly. “As I said, I went home to lay my wife’s spirit to rest, at least in my heart. When I met you, I knew it was time. My world had been about her loss for so many years—my art, my work; everything suffered. I left Israel to escape my memories, running from all our mutual friends, family—anyone who had known our life together. I came here hoping to hide from the pain, but of course, it traveled with me.

“I suppose that’s why so much of my jewelry looks the way it does,” he mused, as if it were occurring to him for the first time. “Maybe I was trying to recapture some of the music and harmony of that time. My wife had been a violinist, you see—a very accomplished violinist with the Tel Aviv Symphony Orchestra. We met when she commissioned a new instrument from my workshop. I was a luthier, and an amateur musician myself. We fell in love almost immediately, and for a time our life was full of music and laughter. We envisioned our future, planned out the names of the children we’d have. In fact, when Tali’s belly began to grow, we thought at first that she was pregnant. We were so happy. But our happiness turned to horror when we learned the truth.”

Asher’s eyes were unseeing, lost in memories. “The tumor spread quickly, and there was nothing anyone could do. Tali was gone in months. And I…” His voice thickened. “I could no longer make music. I couldn’t even listen to it, or be any part of its creation. I had no trade, and everything in our home reminded me of what I’d lost. So I left. I came to the American Southwest looking for spaciousness and a place where no one knew me; where I could let the past go. Eventually, I discovered I could parlay my skills with woodworking to metal smithing, and with my jewelry business and managing the other properties I’d purchased as an investment, I made a life for myself here.” He rubbed his jaw, thoughtful. “I have been content. But now…” His green eyes sharpened, locked on to Sera’s gray ones. “Now… I think I can be happy.”

Their waiter chose that unfortunate juncture to bring out the dessert tray. He was forced to cool his heels for quite some time as Sera made her happiness known to Asher with another passionate kiss.

She thought nothing could top the delight of this moment.

But their date was just getting started. For a nightcap, Asher took Sera to Japan.

Well, Japan by way of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Still savoring the lingering flavors of some desserts Sera had to admit were nearly as good as her own, Asher drove them up the winding mountain road that led, eventually, to the Santa Fe ski basin. He wouldn’t say where they were going, only that it was a can’t-miss destination for tourists and locals alike.

They turned off the road into a driveway with a sign that read “Ten Thousand Waves.” “I’d be impressed with one wave,” Sera commented as they pulled into the parking lot and drove up a ramp lit only with Japanese paper lanterns, “considering how far we are from any ocean. You want to give me a hint where we’re going, Ash?”

Asher only smiled. Apparently, he was a guy who loved surprises, and Sera was discovering she didn’t mind being on the receiving end of them, provided they came from this one-of-a-kind man. Certainly, tonight’s were turning out to be pure pleasure. The delectable meal, the free and open confidences he’d shared… the way he’d reacted to her confessions.

She hadn’t dared hope Asher would take her past in stride the way he had. She’d known he was kind, that he seemed open and accepting, but now he knew the worst—her years of drinking, how she’d let Blake bully her… hell, he even knew her deepest, darkest secret, thanks to the way she’d blurted out the truth about her anorgasmia. Yet he still seemed to want her. Asher was like the proverbial dream come true.

And now, he’d taken her to this amazing hidden oasis.

A slice of old Japan had been transported to the snow-dusted New Mexican mountains. Under a star-strewn sky, breath steaming in the chilly autumn air, they trekked up a long, winding stairway cut switchback-style into the side of the hill. Zen-looking stone steps and frost-touched wildflowers interspersed with more paper lanterns lit their path. At the crest, they were greeted by a tranquil, pagoda-style building of mellow aged wood illuminated gently from within. “What is this place?” Sera asked softly. It seemed appropriate, somehow, to speak in hushed tones.

“It’s a spa,” Asher answered. He put a gentle hand on Sera’s lower back and guided her within. Inside, a koi-pond fed by a rushing waterfall made a susurrant sound, disappearing beneath a weathered plank walkway. Up a short flight of rustic wooden stairs, the interior opened out into a warmly lit building with a curved front counter to Sera’s left. The lobby boasted a discrete space for purchasing lotions and potions, a small snack bar, and a spacious waiting area. This last, she observed, was occupied by a dozen or so almost laughably relaxed patrons wearing kimono robes and dreamy smiles, sipping cucumber water and chilling out on wooden benches. Beyond the glass rear doors, Sera caught sight of another, larger koi pond and waterfall, as well as a traditional rice paper–walled building nestled among the pine and spruce trees.