“I’m not lonely. I like to be alone. There’s a difference.”
It was later that same night, except it was morning, after midnight. John had been asleep for almost an hour while Maggie and Cal sat on the couch, side by side, holding hands. The room was fairly dark, the light over the stove in the kitchen providing a little glow. Their conversation had come to a lull. Their comfort had reached a crescendo.
“We never made any sense together,” Maggie said in a hush.
“We were never together,” Cal teased.
Maggie elbowed him. “Must you always think in terms of your dick?”
“We make sense.”
“Nothing makes sense.” She sighed.
“It will.”
“Oh, this coming from the guy who has what figured out?”
Cal squeezed her palm. “Will you adopt?”
Maggie’s body shook as she started to cry. Cal let go of her hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Sinking farther into the couch, she leaned her head against his chest, and Cal held her, absorbing her subdued sobs and sniffles.
“You would be a great mother,” Cal whispered.
Maggie had been pinching Cal’s shirt but let go. As she began to walk her fingers up his chest, toward his face, she gazed at his chin.
She touched his lips.
“Maggie, don’t.” Cal sat forward.
“You’re lonely,” she groaned, planting a cheek against his upper back. “Why can’t you find someone?” Her arms wrapped around his middle, hands clasping near his navel.
“What? Like you?” He glanced over his shoulder, then looked forward again. “I’m not lonely. I like to be alone. There’s a difference.”
But occasionally, it kept him up at night. The thing he both denied and embraced. For the first time, he could fully admit — at least on the inside — that what he’d labeled so long ago had affected his life. On the outside, though, he would hide it.
But he was lonely.
There hadn’t been a time, at least since he’d left California after graduation, without sleepless nights, days of questioning his existence, hours spent looking at the ocean, waiting for it to spit out an answer. Even before he’d left Ojai, before E.W. died, Cal had become well acquainted with The Lonely.
“Go to bed,” he said sweetly. “We’ve stayed up too late.”
“Will you be here in the morning? I made up the spare room for you.”
Cal stood, stretched, and yawned, then he opened his hand, ready to pull her up. “Come on.”
Maggie placed her palm in his and stood. “Don’t go back to New York.” She stared into Cal’s eyes. “Please.”
“I’m a nomad right now.” Lifting his arms toward the ceiling, he stretched some more, bending side to side. “I’m Siddhartha.” He released a little laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. Blond locks of hair normally combed and groomed fell forward, sweeping across his forehead. “It’s a book.”
Cal had finally read it. The novel Jocelyn had given him in 1991.
Seeing her the other day had reminded him he’d neglected to read it, and not seeing her, being without her all these years, had been the reason he’d avoided it. When he’d moved to New York, he’d left the book behind, on a shelf in Ojai, not wanting to be reminded of her love or beauty.
Finding Joc the other day made him remember his promise, though. So, he sought out the book, not long after watching her cross the perfect little street and after he’d driven away, but prior to leaving Santa Rosa. He read it, cover to cover, in a haste, gobbling down its passages before arriving in Seattle.
Cal understood what Jocelyn had been trying to tell him — Siddhartha had been no haphazard selection on her part.
Now, he was glad he had waited.
At twenty-eight, he still might be considered quite young by some, but when Joc had given it to him, he’d been younger and wouldn’t have appreciated it. Even now, he couldn’t fully understand its themes. Sure, he understood it logically. The book’s intention — it wasn’t very subtle.
But to accept that the searching Siddhartha first felt necessary was in fact futile … Cal couldn’t feel that. Searching was all he thought he had. Searching propelled him forward. Continuing to catch the wave quelled The Lonely, brought him closer to a destination, a goal — it had to.
Cal thought about the lessons in the novel, wondering how Jocelyn could’ve known what he needed. What did she know about his masculine needs? Would he ever even know what he needed? Did he? What about twenty years from now, when he was almost fifty? Would he know then? Did Maggie? Did anyone?
Siddhartha had been concerned with what was holy, with seeking out teachers, concerned with living poorly. Cal was merely searching — without fasting or sacrifice, without even a creed. And it seemed, as he stood in the apartment of his two best friends, lonely and searching, he did need to find the ocean.
Jocelyn had known that.
She’d known Cal would need to find the water that would speak to him. Jocelyn had had the foresight to know the ocean would teach Cal far more than she ever had the time to.