The Vibe Manager

Chapter 10

Rafael took a seat beside Jade in the hotel lounge as she tried to dismiss Madre's warning from her mind — angry that her own matchmaker had tried to pre-shame her for her instincts.

Why should physical contact be something to avoid?

She'd been trained to understand people by listening to what their bodies had to say. Sensing where they kept things trapped in the muscles and nerves, and where they were free. 

Feeling and responding to that truth was something she honored above all else. Okay, this wasn't a therapeutic setting, but that was no reason to doubt the most basic form of communication she knew....

Then again, she had to admit that the matchmaker had her own expertise — she loved Nina because she believed with all her heart that people reached a state closer to perfection by being together. 

The matchmaker dealt every day with people's inner alienation, their arbitrary timetables, their religious imperatives and mysterious whims — and she didn't rush anyone.... If anything, it was the opposite. In a year of failed matches, she had never pushed Jade, never abandoned her. She asked only one thing: to trust her. After all they'd been through together, it was the least she could do....

She dutifully trained her attention on a small star-shaped lamp on the wall near Rafael's head, trying to distract herself from her own desires as he ordered their drinks.

Still, her mind wouldn't settle. Nina made matches on paper — but life wasn't papery, it was messy. 

That was why she could never tell Nina the whole truth about her finances — how heavily in debt she was from college, from jobs that didn't work out, from all the training and licenses that came afterward, from loans, from interest... 

Now she'd figured out what she wanted to do, she'd formed a plan for a business — and she'd put herself in more debt to find someone to love, to make the work ahead of her bearable. And after all that, the matchmaker wanted her to take her time!

"So much of the modern world annoys me," she blurted to Rafael, able to put only vague words to her frustration.

He glanced around the lounge, finding a handful of others chatting at the tables around them. "Sorry? What?"

There was no way to explain to him how convulted the route was that had put her there beside him. She felt her confidence falling apart.... Everything about a dream was so much better when you didn't have to worry about living it.

"Just putting together all the pieces of life — understanding how relationships and everything work now...." Her voice trailed off.

Rafael nodded, his mind divided between how much he wanted to kiss her again and Madre's words of caution to him.

"I would have preferred living in ancient times myself," he said, hoping to restart the easy conversation they'd begun in the park. "I mean, there was a time when you could have actually known all there was to know in the world. It was possible, once, for the human mind to master life, to understand every theory and philosophy—"

"Only because what they knew was so limited...."

"Of course," he admitted, thinking to himself that he didn't grasp the emotional world or  the rational world as well as he wanted to. "I don't know why I took the path I did, using math to do research. I guess I wanted something more grounded in the physical." His face brightened. "You know, these studies — they're surprisingly creative."

"Really? What are you doing with the monkeys?"

"Well, right now, we're looking at how chimpanzees respond to training on certain technologies, then to the removal of them. My colleagues are studying their moods and eating patterns, their reliance on what they've learned...."

"And there's math involved...?"

"We used it to structure a few of the initial tasks. After that, we had them work with manual tools, like a pair of scissors. Now they're being trained on a computerized version of the same task — cropping a photo, for example."

"You're kidding — they can use computers!"

"Crude versions, yes." He laughed. "With strong touchscreens."

The conversation meandered again, the way it had earlier in the park, and she silently thanked the matchmaker for finding her someone who cared about his work as deeply as she did.... 

She was so absorbed in talking to him that she forgot all the misfires that had led up to that night. Her mind emptied of the pain and confusion she'd struggled through — the day she'd found herself alone in the city without a key in her pocket to anyplace she could call home.... How she had nearly giving up on everything...

She didn't care about being famous or popular. She needed to do something she cared about. And she wanted to love someone — but that wasn't a need. It was a want.

After the breakup when she'd lost her apartment, her home — thank god some friends had helped her through — she would never let herself go through that again.

With Rafael, she didn't have to cover or even explain anything. He was in tune with her there, in the present, and the freedom she felt was freedom from all that had hurt her in the past. She'd barely touched her glass of wine, but she wanted to touch him...it was the most natural thing she could imagine.

By then, they'd moved so close together on the banquette that she could feel the heat radiating from his skin.

Her resolve weakened. Abruptly, she announced: "I have to go."

Rafael's face fell. His thoughts raced. Already, he understood that there was so much more between them than he'd expected — or could have imagined. He didn't know her at all but he felt her knew her completely. Why was she leaving?

"You must be incredibly tired from your flight," she said, reaching for her coat. "I'd love to keep talking. You have no idea how much I want to stay. But I have appointments back-to-back in the morning....."

Visbly disappointed, but without argument, Rafael rose to walk her out of the hotel.

They stood at the open door of her taxi, silently negotiating a goodbye. She stared at the lapels of his coat, wanting to reached up and touch them again. He looked down, trying to meet her eyes. The question, Will I see you again? hung in the air between them.

Rafael sensed that she was about to ask it, but instead of letting her speak, he ignored all caution and moved to kiss her again.

Their lips met even more forecefully than before, and within moments they lost their resolve and tumbled together into the waiting taxi.

They were utterly dislocated by the time they climbed out of the cab at her building downtown.

Rafael registered only crude sensory cues as to his surroundings — a brick façade on a run-down block, a bright stairwell, then the sudden onrush of the essential oils she used for treatments — the shadowy presence of some furniture, a folded massage table against a wall, soft cushions everywhere....

She lit a candle, and they abandoned all sense of reality and entered a world most ancient.

Later, all he could tell himself was that their energy streams had somehow altered that night, flowing and fusing together like rapids coursing with ever-increasing force. First he went into a dive, drowning willingly in her, and then, by the light of the single candle, the shadows of their bodies rose and spread across the walls. The room was flooding with them, overflowing in every direction—