An Elf's Rose

CHAPTER FIVE


Orli padded silently into the sunlit kitchen. His shadow, Maude, the death-row pardoned mutt, clicked her nails on the granite tiles in his wake.

Robert Bloom sat at the kitchen table, having tea and reading the paper, his teeth clamped on his pipe, sweet smoke drifting around his head. He looked up, startled, to see Orli sit down opposite.

Orli was dressed in his usual uniform of baggy yoga pants and oversized T-shirt, but it could not conceal his cat-like grace and lithe strength. He wore his hair completely loose this morning, floating around his shoulders like a silk cape. Robert felt a twinge of ancient pain in his badly mended broken heart. He kept his face impassive, though, never wanting his son to think he loved him only for his mother’s sake.

“Not doing your laps this glorious morning?” Robert asked him.

“I will in a bit. I wanted to talk to you before you left for tennis.”

“Of course.” Robert smiled. It must be important if Orli was interrupting his morning swim. “There’s tea if you want it.”

“Mmm, not right now, thanks.” Orli slipped a business card across the stainless steel table to his father, a half-smile on his face.

“What’s this?” Robert folded his paper and picked up the business card.

“That detective. Farrell. He told me to call on him if I ever needed anything. He said I should think about joining the police force. They could use a man like me.”

Robert chuckled. “Oh, no doubt.” He looked at his beautiful son. “Everyone could use a man like you. You’re not really considering?”

Orli sat back. “Nah. I just find it amusing that one minute I am human scum, the next, I’m an asset to the force.”

“That’s the way of the world, Orli.” Robert handed the card back to him.

He tapped the card against the table and looked closely at his father. “Are you angry with me?”

“Angry? Why do you ask?”

“Last night you seemed so…I don’t know. Distant.”

Robert sucked on his pipe and blew puffs up towards the slowly revolving ceiling fan. “As you know, I’m not a man that wears his heart on his sleeve.” He continued, ignoring Orli’s snort of amusement. “It’s just that I thought, what if it had gone the other way? What if it had been my son that had been knifed? Too many people that I’ve loved have died accidental deaths. I don’t think I could survive yours.”

Oleanleaned forward and grasped his father’s hand. “That’ll never happen. I promise.”

“Your mother promised she’d grow old with me.” A bleak smile lengthened his lips and he squeezed his son’s hand. “Life deals out the hand and we have to play it, like it or not.” Neither spoke for a stretch of time, each with their own thoughts.

“Dad,” Orli began, turning the business card round and round. “How was it when you – when you met mother.” He sucked on his bottom lip. Robert felt that twinge again, having seen that same gesture before, on another beloved face. “How did you know you were in love?”

They looked at each other for a bit. Orli knew his father really didn’t like talking about mum. It dredged up too many painful feelings. But sometimes, he so desperately wanted to talk about her, call her up in his memory, make her come alive again, even if only for a short while.

Robert smiled crookedly at Orli’s frown. “One day you jrealrealize that being with the girl is more important that breathing. Or, it is breathing, and you’d never taken a breath in your life before she came along.”

Orli said nothing, staring at the small card in his hands. Robert sighed. “I’m not very good at the romantic stuff, Orli. I’m sorry.”

He looked at his father. “No, that was – very beautiful.”

rt art averted his eyes and puffed on his pipe. “I have a present for you.” He nodded toward the kitchen island. Orli could see some sort of flat box on the black granite. He walked over and picked it up. He grimaced, his eyes sliding towards his father, an eyebrow going up questioningly.

Robert picked up his paper and shook it out, pointedly ignoring his son’s disfavor. “Men must always be prepared, whether for battle or for love.”

Orli left the bright sunlit kitchen as silently as he had come, with Maude’s clicking nails following him out.

A smile stretched around the pipe stem he held in his teeth. The box of condoms was gone.

~~~

After Rose got back from work that day, she ate supper with her family and, unlike the rest of them that parked themselves in front of the TV, she went to her room to read. She’d started Fellowship of the Ring again and was, like always, caught up in the story even though she knew it by heart.

Her favorite pastime was putting faces to the characters – usually someone she knew personally. Her older brother, Thomas, away at medical school in Boston, was Frodo – only way taller. Aragorn was her tio Luis, her mother’s younger brother, a bachelor who was looking for his Arwen. Gandalf was Mr. Reid from across the street, tall and stooped, with his bushy grey brows. She had never known anyone that made her think of Legolas – until now. Orlando was Legolas to her. Tall and strong, fierce when needed, but gentle and sweet to Hobbits. And lets not forget beautiful. She could just picture Orlando dressed in leather breeches and tunic, flinging arrows at Orcs. Or cutting them with his …. Rose shuddered. Let’s not go there. It was much to close to home.

The phone was ringing out in the kitchen, but Rose was too comfortable to get up and answer it. She heard her mother’s voice then, talking to someone. She fell back into her book, seeing Orlando running through the woods on light elven feet, his pale gold braid flopping on his back.

“Rose, there’s a boy on the phone for you,” her mother said in a rather accusatory tone at the doorway, startling Rose out of her reverie.

“What?” Rose squawked in surprise.

“He says he’s from your aikido school. Orlando? Have we met him?”
Rose stared at her mother open-mouthed. He had asked for her phone number – so he could check on her and make sure that she was alright – after he’d walked her to her car afterwards. It had never occurred to her he’d actually call.

“Um, well. Not yet. He was my teacher. He just probably wants to talk about practice or something.”

Her mother’s face was a bit suspicious but relented. “I want you to talk to him in the kitchen. Don’t bring the phone in here.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Rose wanted to run to the phone, but walked as sedately as she could manage.

“Hello?”

“Rosie,” Orlando’s velvet English voice whispered right in her ear. “Don’t your parents know what happened?”

“I – ah – didn’t tell them,” she whispered, her face coloring. “They came home late from a party so I didn’t – ah -- feel the need.”

“Why not? You’re not in the habit of deceiving you parents, are you?” he asked, his tone light and amused.

“Only when it suits me,” she retorted, making him laugh. “Besides, if I told them, they would forbid me to go back to the dojo.”

There was a moment of silence. “Are you serious? You’re eighteen, they can’t forbid you.”

Rose laughed humorlessly. “My family doesn’t see it that way. It’s a different culture, a different mindset. I am their unmarried daughter living in their house. They’re very overprotective.” Orlando grunted, whether in surprise or consternation, she couldn’t tell.

“Well, I can’t say I blame them,” he said softly. “If you were mine, I’d be overprotective too.”

A jolt of electricity hit Rose in the belly. Just say the word and I will be, she thought, her whole body in anticipation of the next sentence. But he changed the subject.

“Monday’s first day of the first level,” Orlando reminded her and Rose felt rather foolish. “Be prepared, it’s going to be tough.”

“I can deal with it. I survived your class didn’t I?” she teased back.

“Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea,” he laughed. “My class was kindergarten and you did finger-painting and stacked blocks. Sensei David is going to teach you to read and write.”

“Hmmph. You’re not scaring me.”

“Don’t forget to wear your uniform.”

“Of course not.”

There was half a minute of silence and Rose wondered if he’d hung up.

“I was wondering if you could stay after class,” he asked diffidently. “There’s the coffee shop across the street. I’ll buy you a Coke or whatever, and we could sit and talk.”

Rose was suddenly breathless and couldn’t speak for a moment. “Sure, that sounds good.”

“Gr I’ I’ll see you then.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

~~~

Rose’s first level class was a bitch. Orlando’s class had been a cakewalk compared to sensei David’s. She could appreciate, though, that Orlando had prepared them well. Although sometimes she felt that sensei David was trying to discourage them so badly that they would leave. So Rose got stubborn about it. Hell if he’s gonna make me quit! she’d think. She would be perfect just to spite him. She got no complements when she was correct in her movements, only an occasional grunt, as if he expected nothing less.

It was strange yet comforting to see Orlando in the back assisting as sempai. Rose got more encouragement from a wink from Orlando than anything sensei David could have said to her.

Afterwards, she changed to street clothes in the bathroom and he walked her to the coffee shop. Rose felt unaccountably shy towards him. It seemed it had been in another life that she had walked up to him and rested her head on his chest. He seemed a bit reserved as well. After ordering, though, he took her hand on the table and squeezed gently. He looked straight into her eyes and smiled. She smiled back reflexively, knees turning to jello.

“I really want to get to know you better,” he said softly. “I thought that this,” he waved his free hand at the coffee shop, “would be a good place to sit and talk and not have you feel uncomfortable.”

“Ok,” she said, as casually as she could manage, not knowing what else to say.

And so they did. Well, truth be known, it was Orlando who did most of the talking. He regaled her for an hour with stories of his childhood and his trouble-making years that lasted well into college. At one point Rose laughed so hard, she squirted Coke out of her nose. They bothghedghed uproariously at that, until her sides ached and her face was wet with tears. That triggered another story about one of his hair-brained escapades that included a few friends, a case of beer, a dare, and the “borrowing” of a horse to ride bareback in the middle of the night. That was the first time he broke a leg….

By the end of the evening, Rose’s face and belly were aching from laughter.

“Oh, God. Stop, please. Tell me something horrible so I don’t have to laugh anymore,” she pleaded.

“All right.” He grimaced at her and took a deep breath. “My mother died in a ghastly auto accident when I was ten which my father’s never recovered from and he deals with it by changing mistresses like he changes his underpants, so I have a dysfunctional role model for relationships with women.”

Rose stared at him open-mouthed, completely speechless.

He shrugged. “You asked for something horrible. That’s the most horrible thing I can tell you right now.”

“Well, you didn’t have to do it! Oh God, Orlando! I’m so sorry…” Rose’s eyes pricked with tears and she wiped them away with the napkin. I can’t believe he just told me that. She felt like she’d been entrusted with a revelation.

“Will you please call me Orli,” he said, her tears shaking him up a bit and wanting to change the subject. “No one calls me Orlando except sensei Akamura or my father when he’s annoyed with me.”

“No, I won’t. You’ll just have to get used to it.”

He stared at her in surprise. “What? Why?”

“I like ‘Orlando.’ It’s exotic.” Rose felt brave after what he’d told her. “It’s either that or ‘Legolas.’ Did you know you’re an Elf? “

Rose grinned as she watched his cheeks go pink. It was quite attractive.

“And you, my dear,” he told her, a mischievous glint in his eye. “are a Hobbit.”

They both burst out laughing.

They discussed Tolkien for another two hours, and Orlando led Rose back to her car.

“Would you want to meet again on Wednesday after class?” he asked her.

“I’d love to, Legolas. Bring your bow and arrows.” She giggled.

“I will. Sam Gamgee better not show up though,” he said, grey eyes glinting wickedly. “I’ll have to beat the crap out of him. He can’t have this Rosie.” He tilted her chin up and bent his head down and kissed her soft mouth.