Bad Love

Chapter 2

Jasmine's typical day began with her waking up at 5 a.m. She attended to her morning ablutions after which she immediately got to work getting Lucy's breakfast and lunch ready. For lunch Jasmine was making her avocado sandwiches. The avocados were perfectly ripe having been purchased a week earlier. Jasmine scooped the edible part out into a bowl and added salt, pepper and a drop of lemon juice to get it just the way Lucy liked it. Using a fork she mashed all of this together and spooned it out onto two slices of extra hi-fibre brown bread with the crusts cut off. Rounding off Lucy's perfectly balanced lunch was a box of apple juice, a bundle of grapes and an orange, and a rice cake. As she did every time she prepared Lucy's lunch, Jasmine took a moment to look down admiringly at the perfectly packed lunch box sitting on the granite countertop; she'd completed her first task of the day and it was an unqualified success. With fifteen minutes still to go until she had to get started on Lucy's breakfast, Jasmine made herself her first cup of coffee for the day and took it out on the deck to enjoy along with the early morning sea breeze.

Lucy didn't need any help preparing her lunch, or her breakfast, she was an extraordinarily mature and independent child. Jasmine did as many things as she could for Lucy because there was nothing that gave her more pleasure. Jasmine's life had become nothing more than an addendum to her daughter's and she was okay with that, because being a mother she knew that it was true what women said, that it was a love the likes of which only mothers understood. Most of the time Jasmine spent with her daughter she spent marvelling at the girl, at her remarkable maturity and poise.

If waking up in the morning and helping Lucy get ready for school was the high point of Jasmine's day, driving her to school was the low point. It meant seven hours of personal time which, on most days, she was at a loss for what to do with. Today was different, Andrew was at home sleeping and she needed to be there when he woke up to welcome him and make him feel at home.

Returning from leaving Lucy at school, Jasmine's curiosity about their houseguest overpowered her. There were four of his boxes in the garage, three of them were labelled books. She opened one of the boxes, looked inside and found books by Norman Mailer, Raymond Chandler, Raymond Carver, Henry James, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence. Having once had ambitions of being a serious reader herself once upon a time Jasmine understood that Andrew was reading literature of the highest level and was instantly suffused with anxiety and shame. The last book she'd read was a Douglas Kennedy novel, before that it was The Kite Runner, and currently she was reading Anita Shreve. She opened the fourth box labelled music hoping to find some contemporary music that would alleviate some of her anxiety but instead found a 5CD complete recording of Mozart's Violin Concertos by Anne-Sophie Mutter, a complete recording of Bach's cello suites by Yo-Yo-Ma, and a Kiri Te Kanawa recording of Tosca. And those were just the three she'd picked up. There was a great deal more to Andrew than they'd thought. Feeling frazzled, Jasmine left the garage and entered the house. She had a shower and a second cup of coffee. She took her coffee into the living room and thought that she would watch some TV while she waited for Andrew to wake up, only to end up falling asleep on the couch.

It was while Jasmine was asleep, having sat waiting for him for two hours, that Andrew finally woke up. He came upon her sleeping on the couch in her sweats, and even looking as unflattering as she did he still found her impossibly beautiful. Not wanting to disturb her sleep he left the living room and made himself a cup of coffee that he took out on the balcony. The view down to the beach and the ocean was unobstructed and magnificent. Andrew enjoyed it while he imagined becoming intimately acquainted with every contour of Jasmine's body, her taste, her scent, her rhythm.

Without the slightest idea as to the nature of the thoughts going through his head, Jasmine walked up behind Andrew on the deck to welcome him to his new home.

"You're up late," she said as she approached him at the railing, trying for affability.

"I could say the same to you," Andre responded with affected ease.

"Oh, yeah," she said, feeling silly, "I don't usually sleep during the day but on Mondays Bradley always wakes me up when he leaves, then I have to get up early to get Lucy ready for school."

"I saw you preparing her lunch this morning; I stood in the kitchen doorway and watched you for a little while, you didn't notice me you were so engrossed."

"Really?" Jasmine asked, feeling embarrassed wondering what he might've inferred from her putting so much effort into and deriving so much pleasure from the simple task of preparing a lunch box.

"I think it's great that you care so much about your child, that's such a rare thing nowadays."

"Thanks," Jasmine said, relieved, "I know I shouldn't be so obsessive but I can't help it."

"Still, it's nice to see."

"Listen, Andrew, if you ever want to talk about anything, like your parents, I want you to know that you can talk to me," Jasmine offered, somewhat awkwardly.

"Thanks, but that won't be necessary," Andrew responded unguardedly.

Fearing like she had overstepped, Jasmine became disconcerted again. She felt sloppy standing before him in sweats when the T-shirt that he was wearing hugged and accentuated his muscular frame that had been hidden beneath the suit that he'd been wearing at the funeral. His eyes, soft and disarming at first glance, she felt penetrating her. He was more of a stranger than she'd thought when she was rooting around in his boxes and she needed to collect her thoughts before she spoke with him again. She changed and left the house to run errands until it was time to fetch Lucy from school.

Unlike Jasmine, Andrew was fully prepared to meet his new housemates. As soon as Jasmine left the house he went through the kitchen cabinets looking for ingredients and spent the time that she was gone cooking.

Jasmine and Lucy returned home to the unexpected smell of food. They followed the scent into the kitchen and there found Andrew busy at the stove. He was cooking spaghetti and meatballs, which he knew from conversations he'd overhead was Lucy's favourite food. At the dinner table that evening Jasmine looked on pleasantly as her daughter greedily shovelled huge helpings of spaghetti and meatballs into her mouth. The times when Lucy felt comfortable enough to break free from her inhibitions were precious to Jasmine, they were so few and far between.

After dinner Andrewstayed in the kitchen to clear away the table and wash the dishes while Jasminetook Lucy for her bath. For the rest of the night, Jasmine couldn't stopthinking about the spaghetti and meatballs, about all of the trouble thatAndrew had gone through to make it and if he'd done so because he knew that itwas Lucy's favourite dish.