Way North, a novel by Randy Evans

Chapter Twenty

Too Hot to Touch

This same Friday night, Stretch and Nick showed up at the benefit supper... reluctantly.  Sheriff Lassiter greeted them at the door, “Well, it’s awfully nice of you guys to stop by.  We just ran out of spaghetti, but pizza’s on the way.”  The large hall was filled with people of all ages, and Nick knew many of them in one way or another.  The children yapped and squabbled like dogs, the adults tried to socialize and supervise the children, and a group of men congregated around a keg of beer in the back room.  Stretch made a beeline to the tap, almost falling on the linoleum floor, slimed with spilled food and drink. 

Zizi had heard a bit about Nick through Charlene. He volunteered once a week at the hospital reception desk.  He was single, a widower.  People described him as reclusive, preferring to keep to himself out on the river.  She thought, “But then why did he come into the hospital once a week?  If he were as hermit-like as people described, why wouldn’t he just stay crawling around out on the river?  And here he was at a fundraiser, a largely social gathering.”

Zizi dated a few interns during her residency in Cairo, but she was inexperienced with men, and highly fearful.  Her objective had been to graduate from medical school, and find a safer place to live.  Now she wanted to expand her horizons.  Her mother and father had shared a loving and intimate relationship, so now in her early thirties, she began to think what it would be like to give up her hard-won autonomy and trust someone. Loneliness often ached deep, and now that she had completed medical school and started a new life in America, the ache deepened.

In order to meet someone, a man, she had to know how to establish contact, a way of greeting someone like Nick.  What could you say that wasn’t too formal or too familiar?  In her culture, people just didn’t approach strangers on the street or in other public places.  In Egypt, women did not speak first.  Zizi made a list of what she heard others say--nothing worked--either too casual or too formal.  She practiced safe greetings designed for the other person to make the first move, like “hello” or “good evening.”

  

When Nick approached the buffet line, she stood nearby talking with Charlene. “Hi, handsome!,” she blurted.  Embarrassed for Victoria, Charlene laughed.  Victoria had no idea where “Hi Handsome” came from- like the blood curdling scream that came forth from Victoria the day she was laid off at the mill, the greeting spilled out from a deep well at the base of her spine.  She wanted the greeting back.  She wanted to disappear.  Some perverse demon had taken control of her speech. 

 Things got worse quickly.  At the next moment after Zizi turned to greet Nick, she reached for a piece of garlic bread too hot to touch.  She recoiled.  Her hand was scorched, embarrassing her further.  She just wanted to fly away to a quiet place and lay down.  Nick reached out instinctively, and opened her clutched hand for inspection.  He seemed close, warm, intimate.  He engaged her in help, comfort and conversation amid the noise of the hall. He was a refuge, a shelter from the din all around her.

The focus of his attention and chivalric behavior astounded Zizi.   Strange new feelings of responsiveness and surrender crept over the edge of her consciousness.  The Scorpion’s death grip on life began to loosen.  The feminine in her had been trashed by the gang rape in Cairo.  She had built layers of scaffolding around her natural feelings to sustain the illusion that she could be unhurt by anyone.  She had equipped herself with physical, mental, and emotional protection.  Now she could feel her “off limits” zones invaded by this odd man.  Jolted, vexed, disoriented, weakened, exposed, confused, and overcome all in an instant, Zizi felt like her armored skin was scaling off.  

Nick had not expected this evening to be at all eventful.  He attended as a penitent, practically ordered there by Sheriff Lassiter.  Now he held this beautiful woman’s hand, trying to act gallant, and feeling caught up in an absurd, immediate attraction.  Like Zizi, he had reasons of his own to keep his distance.  Still grieving the loss of his wife, he had suspended his interest in women, seeking the beauty, tranquility, and pure waters of  North Michigan as an asylum.  

The two of them stood alone in the crowded hall like two herons in the middle of a marsh filled with song birds.  They lost themselves in a solitary world, together. To Zizi, he glimmered like a bright sun.  She glowed in his light, enraptured, smiling up at him.  She felt a knot in her head untying itself--a rug knot or a surgical knot that she had learned to tie tight and perfect, one that would stay tight and perfect, now unwinding effortlessly.  Nick, smitten by Zizi, admired her magnificent dark skin and black eyes.  Zizi’s arm felt soft as the end of a tired rope. Nick stumbled a few words amid the relentless noise around them, but she could not tell what he said.

For Nick and Zizi, the movie now playing was one neither of them had ever seen.  If there had been an audience, people would have gagged on their popcorn.  She was ready to follow Nick like a pack animal.