Could You Be Loved?

"Vin... please... ohhh... don't!" she muttered under her breath as her body flexed with discomfort. Her hazel gaze wordlessly begged him to be careful.

He sighed deeply as he eyed her intensely with his own dark chocolate brown stare. He was trying to be as gentle as possible. "Stop being such a baby. You know it's gotta hurt a little first. You'll feel better when it's over. Trust me."

"Ow! Careful... that's hurts," she whined as she fidgeted.

He tried comforting her. This tenseness would only make it worse and prolong the discomfort. "Shhhh... easy... give me a second," he said soothingly.

She panted loudly, "You're pushing it in deeper!"

"I can only pull it out... ughh... if you stop moving so much!" he said exasperatedly.

Sweat began to bead on her upper lip, as she squirmed and gasped again. "I don't think I can take much more of this poking and prodding. Pull it out already, please! Basta ya!" [Enough already!]

"Easy, now. I... I.... I've almost got it," he said, silently willing her to be still.

"Just leave it in already, damn it," she sighed weakly. Her dark wispy bangs were beginning to cling wetly to her forehead and the sides of her cheeks. She blew a breath out slowly from between her full pouty lips, trying to let the pain flow through her, willing herself not to stiffen up.

"Ta-da!" his face split into a huge, proud grin with deep dimples framing his smile as he presented the tweezers and the offending splinter to her.

"Whew... thanks, Vin. You know, being a righty, I never could get the hang of removing a splinter from my right hand." She smiled faintly, inspecting her palm.

Vincent lifted the guilty item, a wizened gardening claw, the guilty item. Examining its beaten-up wooden handle, he suggested, "You could just spring for a new one. This one's seen better days. All it's gonna do is give you splinters again."

Antonia snatched it none-too-politely from his grasp, only realizing his surprise at her actions a bit too late. Sheepishly, she said sheepishly "This was Therese's. I kept all her gardening tools. I'll just sand paper the handle or wear gloves when I use it from now on."

Vincent smiled as he watched her clutch the claw like a priceless object d'art. He was the same with things that he had kept that had belonged to Therese. He could see Antonia's mind was elsewhere, so he decided to change the subject. "Are you about done out here, Tone? We really need to start looking over this week's schedule of pick-ups."

Antonia surveyed her somewhat small, but lush garden. "Yeah, I'm pretty much done with the weeding and picking in the vegetable patch. You can pack up the veggies I picked and put them in your truck. Let me just clip some mint for iced tea. I asked Joy to come by and pick up some mint for the shelter. Actually, why don't I leave the crates of veggies out here for her too? Joy can deliver them, unless you need to go to the shelter yourself today."

He thought for a moment, debating what he might need to do today at the shelter. "No. I don't have to, though maybe I should give Joy a hand."

"No, Vin... Sheila and Matt are at the shelter today. They can help Joy unload a few crates of veggies."

Vincent scratched his darkly bearded chin absent-mindedly. "Well, I guess so."

Antonia raised her clasped hands in a prayerful gesture. "Vincent, listen to me. And I mean this in the nicest way. It's one thing to be useful. It's completely another thing to be used. It's all well and good for you to want to help out your own staff. But you just end up doing more of the work, dude. If you're going to be a good administrator and manage the shelter properly, you need to learn to delegate more and not pitch in left and right whenever somebody whines a little."

Nodding slowly, he concurred. "You're right, I don't delegate enough. But it's tough to just stand by sometimes."

Antonia released her hands and ran them through her disheveled layers of brown hair. He had such a knack for exasperating her with his excessive guilt over whether he did enough. "Judas Priest, Vincent! You don't 'just stand by!' You're like a whirling dervish sometimes. I swear you make my head spin the way you bounce around at the shelter doing five things at once."

She took a deep breath and made herself shut up. She was starting to nag him just like Therese used to... well, maybe not as affectionately as Therese used to. She put a smile on her face as she gathered her small gardening shears to collect the mint. She looked down at her white t-shirt.

Ewww, it wasn't all that white anymore! She was soil-covered and sweaty. Oh well, she thought to herself, time to toss these duds in the hamper, as she distractedly wiped her hands on her cut-off denim shorts.

"Come on, let's go in and get a drink, I need to freshen up and then we can get started on this week's agenda. I'm gonna go jump into the shower real quick. I've been out here for almost four hours." She stretched her arms over her head, and then extended them behind her back, getting rid of whatever kinks she could. She slowly rolled her neck from side to side as she led the way into the cool interior of the house, sliding the patio screen aside. As was their habit, they each kicked off their sandals and left them outside on the cement patio.

Antonia's mention of the mint made a connection in Vincent's mind that had somehow slipped by the wayside and been lost until today. As he turned to shift the screen door back in place, he asked, "Is that you? You make the fresh mint tea for the shelter?"

She gave him a funny look. "I thought you knew. Mint tea is an excellent aid to digestion and many homeless people suffer from gastro-intestinal problems because their food sources are rarely the best. Face it, dumpster-diving isn't like eating at a four star restaurant, ya know?"

"I know how good mint tea is, I was raised on the stuff, remember? Tea is as popular as coffee in the Middle East. My folks kept their tea habit when they came here. I just didn't know it was you making it. I thought it was an anonymous contributor." He sounded almost slighted or hurt by the fact that he wasn't aware of this.

"Well, I don't go around announcing everything I do, Vin." Antonia laughed lightly, shaking her head.

"I know you don't... it's just that I usually know everything that's going on at the shelter."

"Vin... it's just mint tea. You don't have to worry about me taking over the shelter or anything."

Now it was his turn to give her a funny look. "I wasn't thinking that at all, Tone... I couldn't run the place without all your help, I just..."

Antonia shrugged her shoulders, kindly dismissing Vincent's concerns as unwarranted. "I know what you were thinking, Vin, and you can't possibly know absolutely know everything that goes on at the shelter, even if you are the founder. That's the whole point for having your staff and volunteers to help out, right? Ease up on yourself, compadre."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ...25 minutes later... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Antonia grumbled loudly. "!Coño!!Que jodienda!" [Damn it! This is so fuckin' frustrating!]

Antonia ran a hand through her still-damp hair. Trying to stretch the contributions seemed a lot tougher some weeks over others. It was an hour since they had come inside from the late morning sun.

While Antonia was no longer heated by the sun... the shower had helped to cool her down somewhat... but she was now mentally heated by the frustration of trying to draw out the shelter's sources to the breaking point.

"!Que dios nos ayuda con este toyo! [God help us with this mess!]

Vincent snickered quietly. Antonia always swore in Spanish when things really annoyed or agitated her. It was a personal trait of hers that he had always found amusing ever since he'd first met her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

About six years ago, Therese and Antonia met at a series of art history lectures. Therese was a very pretty, tall, slender black woman, with a delicate lilt to her voice and Antonia would often notice out of the corner of her eye that they always reacted to the same parts of the lectures. During the intermissions, they started chatting over coffee and tea.

Turned out that Antonia was a librarian and something of a detective when it came to finding information. Therese mentioned the shelter that she and Vincent ran and their constant need for information regarding what services they wanted to offer, educational programs, housing resources, getting people to contribute money, time and resources.

After a time, Antonia jumped up on board as the shelter's resident trouble-shooter and eventually one of the shelter's produce connections. Antonia also helped design the weekly menu for the kitchen at the shelter and taught nutrition classes there as well.

Upon meeting Vincent, Antonia realized she had found kindred spirits in both him and Therese. The three of them were vegetarian and all three were first generation-born Americans. Therese's family originally came from Jamaica, Vincent's family was Middle Eastern from Egypt, while Antonia's family came from the Dominican Republic. All their parents came to the U.S. in the 1950's and 1960's to seek out better opportunities than were available in their native homelands. They had all been raised with very strong altruistic tendencies and they often gave each other grief about how much they did for others, though they rarely seemed to cut themselves slack, until the other two made mention of it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Vincent watched as Antonia nibbled on her lower lip as she tried to organize this week's worth of 21 menus based on this week's contributions. Vincent felt the same way as Antonia did regarding the nuisance of being at the mercy of other people's willingness to give. He was often frustrated by the nature of trying to keep a shelter running smoothly. But he always made an effort to not get upset over how much others were willing to give or do. That was out of his hands and getting annoyed didn't resolve the issue.

"...The road of life is rocky and you may stumble too..."

Bob Marley's "Could You Be Loved?" played on the stereo as they tried to organize the schedule of pick-ups and contributions.

Vincent's tan, lean frame lay across the full length of Antonia's sofa, reading the accounts as he held them over his eyes, to block some of the early afternoon sun that lit up Antonia's living room. His bare feet were crossed at the ankles and rested on the arm of the sofa, waving to the beat of the music.

He said, "Monty's Deli will have at least 20 pounds of deli meat for us on Thursday."

Antonia muttered softly, "Yuck," thinking he wouldn't hear her.

Vincent heard her and smiled as he continued skimming through the manifests, "When they're back on their feet, they can become vegetarians like us. But for now, the folks in that shelter will take what we give them."

She sighed as she placed an errant strand of her feathery auburn hair behind one ear. "I know... I know. They'll gladly take what we give them. I just wish we could get more fresh produce donated on a regular basis. Just because they've been homeless or can't afford to find three square meals a day doesn't mean they don't deserve good nutrition."

Vincent chided Antonia. "Patience is a virtue, dear."

She hissed, "I wish I could afford a place with a bigger garden, caramba!"

He gazed at her from over the top of the manifest, shaking his head slowly in amused disbelief. He couldn't believe that this was the same person that was always telling him that he did too much. Apparently Antonia couldn't see the forest for the trees, Vincent thought. "You manage to be very generous to the shelter with the space you have." He tried to defuse her mood by flashing his bright smile at her... which he knew often lightened her right up, but was met with a perturbed look on Antonia's face.

She snorted in a rather unladylike manner, waving a hand dismissively through the air. "Well, that's obviously because I only keep enough for lil ol' me and everything else goes to the shelter. If I could find the extra time and supplies, I'd love to approach Nick at the housing projects on Tremont and see if we could utilize part of their community garden space for produce." She wrote a note to herself about making that phone call.

Antonia sat on the floor, resting her back against the upholstered base of the sofa, using her bent legs as a desk for her ledger and date book. With one hand she took notes, while the other hand raised a cup of coffee to her lips. She sipped as she watched Vincent pencil in reminders and changes to his own notes.

He reached down beside him for his glass of mint tea and took a sip. As he returned the glass to its resting place, he sighed, "I'll call Karolina at the dairy farm up in Untermyer and see if she'll be able to stick to her 45 gallons of milk that's she's been supplying us. I need to visit David on the eighteenth and... "

Abruptly, Vincent stopped speaking.

Antonia didn't turn to see why he'd stopped talking. She knew why. Now she was simply waiting to see if he knew that she knew.

He hastily sat up, his long dark hair swaying about his shoulders as he braced his head in his hands, letting his notes and pencil drop around his bare feet. He grunted, "Damn, sorry about that."

"Don't be... it's just paper," Antonia muttered softly.

"No, I mean..." Vincent's voice caught in his throat, unable to work around the instant lump that had decided to appear.

"Yes, Vincent... I know..." she said sympathetically, "Therese will be gone 3 years on the eighteenth."

He shook his head softly in incredulity, "It kind of snuck up on me." He rubbed his beard with both hands as though trying to wake himself up from a disturbing dream. "I mean I still think about her all the time... but the date just kind of hit me, ya know?"

Antonia sighed sadly. "I figured as much... you've completely buried yourself in the running and organizing of the shelter. She wouldn't approve, you know, working yourself like you do till all hours."

He nodded absently at the point she made. An ardent tone entered his voice. "Yeah... maybe... but she would've understood. There's a need for this shelter, you know that as well as anyone, and it certainly won't operate itself. Therese herself pretty much kept herself in the thick of it, until the chemo got the better of her."

Vincent gazed out the window as he recalled both the good and bad times he'd shared with his Therese. Sometimes it felt like it was just yesterday that they had received the news about her illness. Other times it felt as though decades had passed by since he'd last heard her throaty laugh or seen her start her day off by selecting a matching caftan and head wrap, humming as she danced around their kitchen with him as they prepared breakfast together.

He heard more than saw Antonia rise up from the floor to gather the fallen papers. She sniffed several times, as she bent and scooped up the pages. He could sense her trying to stem tears before they got away from her. He turned away from the window, asking innocently, "Catching a cold?"

"Yeah... I guess... maybe allergies," she murmured unconvincingly. She made a motion with her hand to wipe a tear from her cheek. He moved towards her and grabbed her hand before she could wipe the tear onto her dark green summer dress.

He smiled sadly at her, his concern for her obvious in his dark brown eyes. "You're as lousy a liar as she was. I'm sorry... I tend to forget that Therese wasn't just my wife, but your friend too."

Her voice shook with more unshed tears, "God, Vincent... sometimes I miss her so much. And I really wish she were still here to tell you to ease up and enjoy life once in a while."

Vincent's eyes darkened with emotion as he recalled his wife's playful badgering about him needing to lighten his load on occasion. She often mentioned that by doing different things, she was able to recharge her batteries. Which was one of the reasons that she had always made time for her art history lectures. Right now he couldn't help but play the role of nagger himself.

"Well, Therese would probably tell you the same. When was the last time you went out with your girlfriends to a concert or something? Or the last time you visited your brother Jose and hung out with him? You and that Nick guy seem to have a lot in common. Why don't you ask him out on a night on the town?"

"Uhhm... Vin? Nick's gay."

"Oops, never mind." Vincent had the common sense to look sheepish over Antonia's response.

Antonia chuckled sadly as she tossed the fallen papers and pencil onto the coffee table. "That's ok. He's a great friend. Therese said the same thing, she thought we were two peas in a pod. Sweet Therese, always playing... match maker." Antonia's voice hitched on the last words.

Vincent pulled her towards him to hug her, comfort her. Hell, who was he kidding? He wanted to be comforted as well... needed to be comforted was more accurate. He couldn't recall the last time he had hugged someone or been hugged himself. After Therese's illness, where he had to touch her constantly as he cared for her, once she had passed away, he had unconsciously withdrawn from human contact.

Being close to people hurt him too much, but contact is a human necessity you can only put off and ignore for so long.

He softly admonished Antonia as he squeezed her shoulders. "You slave away in that garden for six months or more out of the year, growing vegetables and herbs for the shelter, while you pull a 40 hour work week at the library and another 20 hours at the shelter. Not to mention you're always trying to locate us some grant money or get temporary housing or free medical attention for someone. Therese would beat you into submission and make you take some time off or something."

Vincent draped his long strong arms around Antonia's waist as her tears dampened the front of his denim workshirt. She was nearly a foot shorter than him, so he easily tucked the top of her head under his chin. Her hands rested on his slim hips as she tried to breathe deeply and compose herself.

He closed his eyes when his own tears seemed imminent. He tried not to shake, but his body betrayed him. Antonia clutched at his back as she felt the wave of emotion wash over him. She began to rock back and forth in the hopes of soothing him, whispering softly, "Ya, compadre... shhh... no sufres, [Enough, friend... shhh... don't suffer...]

She slid her hands up his back, distractedly toying with the curly ends of his black, silky shoulder-length hair. Antonia's own tears dissipated as she started humming along with Bob Marley's earnest voice. She rubbed Vincent's back in soothing circles, trying to both calm him and allow him his release.

Vincent pulled away from her slightly to gauge how she was fairing. He wiped his shirt sleeve across his eyes. Placing his hand under her chin when she wouldn't meet his gaze, he tilted her face up towards his. He smiled down at her, his tough little friend. Trying to make her laugh, he arched an eyebrow as he asked, "Do you know how green your eyes get when you cry?"

She grimaced as she tried to pull away from him. "I'm sure they're more red than green right now. Let me go throw some water on my face."

Softly he spoke as he kept his grip on her, "No... let me." He took the hem of his shirt and dabbed at the moisture resting on her skin.

Antonia giggled as she stood obediently in front of him. "Thanks... you're a prince." She cast her eyes down as she leaned towards him to leave a lighthearted peck on his cheek.

Not knowing that she planned a kiss, he moved towards her and her lips landed on his own for an instant. Her eyes shot open as she stepped away quickly, realizing that the soft warm skin beneath her lips had been his own lips. Her fingers brushed against her lips, still feeling the warm impression and the slight electric shock his lips had given hers. She could still feel his moustache brushing against her top lip as she gazed at him, frozen to the spot.