Alpha Incorporated

V - ii DISHONOR NOT YOUR EYE

Isabella knows she has the kind of body that men like. Her friends back home are envious of her slender figure, petite but not tiny, athletic without being overly muscular, the flat tummy and the oh-so-important thigh gap, well-proportioned boobs and bum, as the magazine in the check-out line puts it. Most times Isabella would love to trade her shape for the more rounded look of Tammy, or the butchy frame of her friend Ally. They aren't the ones who are always being stared at; they are not undressed by men's' eyes on the bus or subjected to the grinding of a man's pelvis on the way to the dance club washroom. But tonight, lying here naked in the soaker tub as this man steps out of her dream and into the bathroom, she is glad that she has the body that she does. Tonight, she wants his attention, she wants to be naked. She has given him permission.

The door is already open. William Fryer enters the room and Isabella turns to him. Her eyes are level with the top of the tub as she turns to look at him. She presses against the back of the tub and slides a little higher—just a little—so he can see her bare shoulders and her face. She wants him to see that her lips are curled into a welcoming smile. Underwater, her heart is pounding.
Fryer is careful to turn his eyes away from her and he looks to the floor, to the wine glass. Isabella regrets not having the glass in her hand, so he would have to move above the tub in order to fill it, or at least he would have to take it from her. But she left it on the tile floor, and William, sweet William, fixes his gaze to the wine glass as he fills it.

He places the bottle on the floor, next to the glass and says, "here, I will leave you the rest of the bottle. My glass is full, downstairs." And he turns, and walks out of the room.

Isabella's heart sinks. He didn't even look at her. He avoided her the whole time. Was there something wrong with what she did? It's like he is embarrassed, or more like he is ashamed, as though he was the one who was naked. It was as if he ran out of the room as fast as he could. Maybe she had misread him. She reaches for the wine and notices that he has closed the bathroom door.

William Fryer sits across the table from Isabella. It is a small, grey, circular iron table, two cast iron chairs facing each other, the Pacific sunset to her right. On the plate before her is Fryer's creation. The pastry that encases the creamy goo of seafood is charred in places, sticky in others. She hopes the scallops and shrimp inside the cream sauce are fully cooked, as they look a little translucent. But she doesn't say anything. He has worked so hard on this meal, she would rather die from food poisoning than hurt his feelings right now. Across the table, in the candlelight, she sees the poor man still has flour in his hair. He is perfect in his imperfection.

They talk. Isabella can't believe how much they have talked over the past three days. She is used to running out of things to say. Usually, before long, comes this awkward silence that leaves her scrambling to come up with something more to talk about. She is not, by nature, a talkative person. But not with William. Things just flow out of her: her childhood, her youth, her dreams, her fears. There is something about the way he smiles when she speaks, or how he seems to listen, so attentively, to everything she has to say. She wonders how it is that he doesn't get bored with her continual rambling, but he doesn't seem to. He actually asks her questions and prompts her further, like he wants to know every little thing about her.

She wishes he would be a little more open about his past. He still hasn't revealed a lot about himself. It is almost like he is ashamed of something. It seems obvious to Isabella that he prefers not to talk about himself tonight, and tonight, Isabella will give him that peace.

Throughout their dinner and the desert that follows—an ice cream cake that, thankfully, he bought on the way home—Isabella is thinking about what will happen after dinner. She knows that she wants to be with William tonight. She wants to see where things go, to test herself, to see if she is ready. She has never felt like this before; the burn of excitement, the grip of fear. Not fear of William—she trusts the man like she has trusted no other—it is the fear of herself, the fear of losing herself to this man.