By a strange — well, maybe not so strange — thought process, helping Brad unload Dad’s latest haul brought me to Raphaella. I lugged a spinning wheel directly into the showroom, thinking it would partially fill the empty space made by the loan to the opera house, then looked across the street to the ugly old redbrick building itself. Was she there? Fifty yards away? Ignoring me?
By the time I had signed the waybill, thanked Brad and sent him on his way, Raphaella had taken over my mind like an invading army, and I was good and angry. Why had she dismissed me so abruptly on the phone? We had had a nice talk in the shop that day. She had seemed relaxed, friendly, not eager to get away. I was sure she wasn’t being friendly because of the deal we had made about the furniture.
So why the brush-off?
Okay, she didn’t want to go anywhere with me. Fine. But she could at least have told me why. Or at the minimum, she could have been polite. What was I, a leper?
The more I turned thoughts over in my head, the angrier I got.
I shrugged into my jacket, put the “Back in a minute” sign in the window, hastily locked up the store and stomped across the road. The stage door at the rear of the building was unlocked. I climbed a set of dimly lit stairs and found myself backstage in a confusion of chairs, dangling ropes, garment racks hung with old-fashioned gowns and morning coats, props of all kinds.
Voices coming through the curtains from front stage indicated that a rehearsal was in progress. When my eyes had adjusted to the gloom I caught sight of Raphaella on the other side of the backstage area, sitting in the glow of a small lamp, a headset on, a clipboard on her lap.
She was wearing black denims and a scarlet T-shirt that said “Tax the Rich.” The lamplight fell on her bare arms and the curves of her upper body. Desire surged through me like an electric current, burning away my anger.
I approached quietly. Intent on her work, she didn’t notice, but spoke softly into the mike and made a notation on her clipboard. Unselfconsciously, she reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing the birthmark, lending a trace of vulnerability to her beauty.
My heart pounded in my ears. My throat went dry. I whispered her name.
Calmly, she looked up, pressed her finger to her lips to signal quiet. She pointed to her watch, held up her hand with the fingers splayed, five minutes, and turned her attention to her notes.
I stood watching her, my resolve leaking away as each minute passed. What was I going to say to her, now that I’d dropped the idea of telling her off? How would I justify interrupting a rehearsal? Now she’ll really think I’m a loser, I thought. A little puppy too stupid to realize he’s not wanted.
“All right, everybody, that was fine,” came a man’s voice from the other side of the curtain. “Take ten and we’ll do the third scene.”
Raphaella stood up, her dark eyes sparkling in the lamplight. I figured I had about five seconds to persuade her to talk to me or she’d brush me off again. But I still couldn’t think of what to say. I opened my mouth to speak.
But instead of talking I stepped toward her, took her in my arms and kissed her.
In an instant, thoughts darted through my mind.
Her lips are full and soft, just as I imagined.
Her hair and skin smell wonderful.
Her arms are hanging loose at her sides; she’s not responding.
The small of her back is firm and slender.
Her lips aren’t responding either.
The swell of her breasts burns against my chest. God.
I could be charged with sexual assault for this.
I flashed back to grade one and Evvie McFadden, the love object I had kicked in the shin.
But slowly, Raphaella’s arms rose to embrace me, one hand behind my head. Her breathing quickened. I kissed her harder, then broke away.
“I know it sounds corny,” I said hoarsely, “like I took the line from a bad movie, and you probably don’t want to hear this, and —”
“Shut up and say it.”
“I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you.”
“But you don’t believe in love at first sight, remember?” she whispered, and this time she kissed me, long and hard.
“Hey!” someone yelled from across the stage. “Are you guys gonna come up for air soon?”
“This,” my father crowed triumphantly, “is not for sale.” He held a bashed-up book with half the leather cover missing.
“Who’d want it? It’s just an old book.”
“It’s more than that, kiddo.”
“So?”
“Tell you later,” he said, putting the book back into a box filled with other old volumes.
Dad and I were poring through the stuff he had bought at an auction on a farm out in Oro. I hardly paid attention to his excited ramblings. My every nerve still tingled from being with Raphaella a short time before. Our great love scene had drawn a few laughs and barbed comments from the cast of the WME, and Raphaella had sent me away, saying she’d talk to me as soon as rehearsal was over.
I was in shock, at the boldness of my action and — more — at her reaction. Who would have guessed that, rather than scream “Rape!” or punch me or bite my lip in disgust, Raphaella would wrap her slender arms around me and squeeze as if she’d never let me go? I couldn’t figure it out. And at that moment I didn’t care.
My father was as churned up as I was, for a different reason. Strictly speaking, he hadn’t participated in the auction at all. He had preempted it by contacting the Toronto lawyer handling the Maitland estate and offering a lump sum for the entire contents of the house. The remaining items — lawn tractors, patio furniture, two cars, some old farming equipment — went on sale to the public.
“He thought he was pulling a fast one on a country bumpkin awed by his big-city sophistication,” Dad said, still going on about the lawyer. “He pulled up in his luxury SUV, wearing a Peak Outfitters parka, brand-new hiking boots, every inch the outdoors man from downtown, and talked to me as if I was a cretin. I played along, trying hard not to drool out the corner of my mouth or say ‘aw shucks’ while we worked out the deal.”
All I knew of the Maitland farm was that it was old, one of the original pioneer homesteads in Oro going back to the early 1800s. According to Dad, who was up on all that stuff, the original farmhouse had been added to and refurbished over the years. The last surviving Maitland, who lived in California and had left the farm unused for two years after his mother died, finally put the whole place, chattels and all, up for sale.
Dad really had scored a big one this time. Along with a lot of junk there was furniture, some of it priceless, original paintings, silverware, lamps, carpets, blanket boxes — enough to keep Olde Gold Antiques and Collectibles stocked for a long time. The loot, as Dad called it, would keep me busy for another century, it seemed.
I set the boxes aside, mumbling that we had enough cracked-leather-bound Dickens and Thackeray and Haliburton and Susanna Moodie to outfit a geriatric library. But nothing could ruin my mood that day.
I had kissed Raphaella and she had kissed me back.