2020-02-28 - Saudade

It is Friday evening. The Funeral Home is quiet as Beth puts the final touches on Esme's mother. She is curling and styling the dead woman's hair. Her makeup has already been done. Ciprian isn't allowed to watch when the bodies are embalmed or dressed or when the more gruesome steps are taken but she does allow him to sit downstairs once they are dressed. She does it mostly because of her stalker but she does enjoy talking to him while she works. "Do you remember her?" She asks him, presumably of the dead woman whose curls she is currently cooling in her hand.

Ciprian looks at the woman briefly, but it is only briefly. He's not about to throw up or anything, but it is clear that he would not have made it as a mortician if he isn't even super comfortable with seeing dead people when they've been fully finished. "I don't," he admits after a moment as he looks back to Beth. "She looks beautiful, though. You really do a good job." And this, at least, is sincere, even if hanging out with the dead will never be his favorite thing.

"She's not embalmed so all I did was bathe her and put some mortuary cosmetics on her." Beth says with a slight smile when he compliments her work. She releases a curl from the wide barrel of the curling iron and coils it up to cool it. "And close her mouth and eyes. But this is really just what she looked like." Her smile widens ever so slightly. "Her name was Maybel Wilkinson. She's Esme Wilkinson's mother. Angela and I spent a lot of time at her house when we were little." She looks back to the woman, "It's bittersweet being able to do this for people I know."

Ciprian says, "Well, I think your taste in clothing is excellent." It'ssort of joking, but not totally so, and Ciprian certainly doesn't spend too much time on it, since that would be kind of weird, let's be honest. Instead, his eyebrows raise, and he says, "Oh, wow. I'm sorry." He looks over to Maybel again, this time a little bit longer, as though she has suddenly become a person and not just a corpse, and now it's easier to be here and do this. "I can understand that," he continues as he looks back to Beth. "But at least you get to help people move through it.""

"Generally it's what the family chooses for them." Beth says in amusement before she adds, "But my scrubs are cute as fuck." Her expression softens a little. "It's okay. It's still not my loss. It just feels more significant." She finishes the last curl and begins brushing and styling the hair. Hairspray is used to keep it in place. She nods her head in agreement before she adds, "It feels...well, not good. I think the word is still bittersweet." She begins hooking up the straps to the lift to transfer the dead woman from the table to her casket. "What are we having for dinner?" She wonders aloud. As if she weren't currently handling a dead body.

"Yeah. Bittersweet seems like a good descriptor." Ciprian leans back as she starts to do what she needs to do with the body, continuing, "I knew this guy from Brazil, and he taught me this word they have in Portuguese, saudade. It doesn't have a direct translation, but bittersweet is a part of it. It's like...a deep feeling of the absence of something or someone you love, and part of it is knowing that they won't return, or you won't go back to that place again. Nostalgia is close but not right. What you said just made me think of that."

When she asks what's for dinner, though, he lets out a laugh. "I hadn't thought that far ahead," he admits. "Maybe when we've been together longer, I'll be able to think about food while hanging with dead people."

Beth listens as she works and when he finishes she says, "So there isn't the sweetness of bittersweet then? It's just a longing for something that is gone forever?" She looks thoughtful a moment before she says, "I think I can understand that." She lowers the body into the casket and hides the straps. The casket is closed. She rolls the entire thing into the cooler and closes the door. Once it's closed she says, "I am so desensitized I could be up to my elbows and thinking about dinner." She admits with a laugh. "I forget that other people don't see this every day." She goes over to the sink to take off her gloves and wash up to her elbows.

"Exactly," Ciprian says with a little smile. "I really liked that description, you know? I feel like I've felt that way before, but I just never had a word to describe it until I met Joćo." His smile widens a little bit there, and he stands up, moving toward her to settle his hands on her hips. Apparently he's not so grossed out by things that he's not going to touch her. "How about tacos?" he asks. "I feel like tacos are always a good choice for dinner."

Beth smiles as well when he comes over to put his hands on her hips. She dries her hands off and turns to face him. "Tacos sound great." She says. Then she goes back to Saudade. "Is it always about love or is it about other things, too? Like being homesick while knowing you can never go back?" She places her hand on his upper arm in a comfortable manner like she is content to just stand there in her embalming room touching him.

"Good." Dinner settled, Ciprian moves a little bit to let her shift that way, and he nods when she speaks, continuing, "It can be homesick, too. Joćo described it as, 'the love that remains.' So, it could be related to anything. A place, a person. An experience you had that you know you'll never have again. Even a possession could evoke it. There's actually an official day of saudade that's celebrated in Brazil, where you remember your lost loved ones or places you miss."

"Why does just talking about this make me sad?" Beth wonders aloud before she smiles. "Now you have to cut the lettuce. For making me sad." She leans in to brush her lips against his before she reaches for his hand to begin leading him upstairs. "How did you meet Joćo?" She asks as she starts up the stairs.

"Right?" Ciprian's smile widens a little bit, even though his own smile is a little softer than it might normally be. "If that's my punishment, I'll take it. It could be a lot worse." He meets the kiss, and while he doesn't draw it out too much, he probably would have rather it gone on longer than it did, let's be honest. He certainly doesn't have to be pulled too hard to follow her, and as he does, he says, "He was at Harvard when I was, in the philosophy department. We met at a poetry reading, if you can believe it."

"You like poetry?" Beth asks, and while she sounds surprised she doesn't sound like she's mocking him for liking it. "I guess a man who writes a lot of poetry would use words like Saudade." The door to the main floor is opened. She continues on up to the next flight of stairs. "And a philosopher? Sounds like a cool dude. Did you keep up with him?" She gets to the top of the stairs and opens the door to her apartment. She goes to the hallway to strip out of her scrubs and drop them in the laundry while replacing them with loungewear.

"I do like it," Ciprian says with a nod. "I don't write it, though, so don't set your heart on a lot of romantic love poems." He lets out a little laugh at this, following her up the stairs. "We're friends on FriendZone," he confirms, "and he has a daughter about Ashira's age. They video chat sometimes. He moved back to Brazil, and he teaches at a university there. His wife does, too."

Beth snaps her fingers as he warns her away from expecting poetry. "But who will write poems about my wide ass if not you?" She grins after she says this, and steps back out into the living room. "Sounds like a real cool dude." She says again as she moves into the kitchen and opens the fridge.

Ciprian just shakes his head, but there's another chuckle as he does. "I guess you're going to be greatly disappointed," he says as he shuts the door behind him, starting further into the room. "He is," he confirms. "I'll take Ashira down there sometime when she gets a little older. Maybe for her 10th birthday. That would make her year."

"Brazil would be a pretty cool vacation at any age." Beth says in agreement as she starts taking things out of the fridge to make tacos. She stops when her phone chimes with a text and scrolls through it briefly before she releases a sigh of relief. "That thing? That's been following me? It might be dead." Another exhale, this one louder, is released from her and she pulls out a chair to sit down a moment. "Thank god."

Ciprian is reaching for the remote to turn the TV on when she says this, but his head whips toward her, his eyes widening. There's just a tiny hesitation, as though he can't quite figure out whether he's heard right or not, before he's starting toward her quickly. When he gets there, he doesn't say anything, just leans down to wrap his arms around her, and as he does there's a sigh of relief that escapes him as well.

Beth is stiff in his arms a moment before she leans back into them. Her head rests on his chest and she lets out a few calming breaths. She lifts her arms to hug his. She is quiet for a few moments before she says, "I've realized I need to learn more. About all of this. I can't just ignore it anymore because it's just too dangerous."

Ciprian squeezes her a little more tightly, and he doesn't say anything to what she's said, just nods. He's silent for a while, actually, though after several long moments, he lets out an audible sniff, and turns a little bit so that his face is facing behind her, even though they aren't really in a position for her to see his face even if she'd looked for it.

Beth smiles gently when she hears that sniff and her arms tighten around his a touch more. She turns her head to look back at him but instead of mentioning his man-feelings she kisses his forehead. She then faces forward and sits there a few moments longer before finally she says, "Thank you. For being here for me. I don't think I've ever really had someone outside of my family care that much."

Ciprian takes a moment, both to hug Beth a little more and compose himself. He smiles at the kiss, even though his eyes are a little bit red. "Well, I don't know how much help I was," he says, "but hopefully some. I..." He cuts off for a moment, before he continues, "I just didn't want anything to happen to you." It doesn't sound like what he was going to say, but that's apparently what he's sticking with for the moment. He lets go of her, reaching up to press the corners of his eyes for a moment before he says, a little more quickly. "So. Tacos."

"You were a lot of help." Beth insists, and when he says he didn't want anything to happen to her she smiles a little more. "I would feel the same. If our situations were reversed I mean." Her eyes mist up just a little too because he seems so teary. She smiles again before she says, "Right. Tacos. You can do the fixings and I'll cook the meat and beans." And then she heads towards the fridge to distract from what just did and didn't pass between them.

Ciprian nods, and he lets it drop, mostly because there are certain feelings right now that he's obviously trying to tamp down a little bit, and talking more about it right now won't do that. Instead, he says, "Sure thing." He starts toward the kitchen as well, before he continues, "Ashira's going to be really happy to be able to see you. She was begging me to have you over the other night."

"I miss her, too." Beth admits a little sadly as she gets things to make dinner out of the fridge. "I didn't think I'd get attached to her as quickly as I did." But clearly she is attached. And she may also be using that attachment as an excuse not to talk about the growing attachment and feelings between them. Once she has everything out of the fridge she puts some ground beef in a frying pan and turns the stove on.

"She has that effect on people, I think." Ciprian smiles, grabbing the shredded cheese out of the fridge, as well as other taco things. Lettuce, etc. "We'll make a plan to have you over this weekend if you're free. I promised to take her to the movies but I'm not sure what time we're going to go. You're welcome to come with us to that, too, but I don't know if you're interested in seeing Abominable in late release."

"Saturday I have a funeral, but after that I'm free for the rest of the weekend." Beth tells him as she stands at the stove. "And I'll go see a movie with you two. I don't know what that is, but it's spending time with people you care about that's important, right?" She turns her head to look at him a moment, smiles, and then adds, "Hey so I was talking to August Roen the other day. Do you know him?"

"Great. I know she'll be exited." Ciprian smiles back, his look lingering a little bit before it turns into a more thoughtful one. "August Roen...maybe?" he replies slowly, taking time with the name like it might make him remember something more clearly. "The name sounds familiar. Why, what about him?" He sets what he's gotten on the table as he waits for her to reply.

"He owns that business outside of town. It's uh...I think it's a nursery but also landscaping?" Beth shrugs a little before adding, "He's big into....all that. Well apparently he mentioned people like you. You know. Who can do what you do. I didn't tell him who you were or anything but I did mention that I know someone who is strong. Like you are." She turns back to the stove, "His card is on my coffee table if you want it."

"Oh, right. Yes, I think I've been out there with my parents when they were redoing their back yard." Ciprian quiets when she goes on, though, and his smile fades a little at what she says. He doesn't look angry or anything, just maybe thoughtful. "Oh." Again, there's a few moments' silence as he glances in the direction of the coffee table, before looking back to her. "Maybe I'll text him. Thank you."

Beth just nods her head and doesn't really push the issue. It's up to him if he wants to text August Roen. Instead she broaches another topic. "So, uh...did you ever find out what your ex wife wanted?" She flexes the package of tortillas with her hands before untwisting the tie closing the bag. A glance is tossed in his direction.

Ciprian moves to cabinet to take down some glasses for them, looking in the fridge for a bottle of wine. He looks over his shoulder when she asks about his ex, and he shakes his head, turning back around. "I never called her back," he admits after a moment, and maybe there's a tiny bit of guilt there, but it's hard to tell. Maybe not, too.

Beth nods her head in understanding when he says he never called her back. She puts some of the flour tortillas over the stove flame to cook them. "Well she kind of asked for it when she ran the fuck away and abandoned you with your kid instead of getting a regular divorce like a normal person." She quickly picks up a corner of a tortilla to flip it over.

"Yeah. She did." Ciprian can't argue with that, nor would he want to. Since it's the truth! "Oh well. She never called back, so she must have figured it out, whatever it was." He assumes, anyway. Hopes? Maybe. He pours them both a glass of wine then, and brings hers over, saying, "Here. To finally being able to go out without looking over your shoulder."

"Now that's something I can drink to." Beth says with a bright smile before she clinks her glass against his and takes a decent swallow. Her eyes linger on him a moment before her smile widens briefly. She turns off the stove and reaches over with her free hand to pull him closer by tugging gently on his shirtsleeve. She stands up on the balls of her feet to kiss him.

Ciprian takes a drink from his glass, too, before he sets it down as she pulls him toward her. He leans into the kiss, wrapping an arm around her, and it tightens a little as she kiss lingers. When it eventually breaks, he does pull back, but not very far back, and there's a little smile on his face as his eyes search hers.

"Cheers."