Ella couldn’t wait to tell Mimi about her afternoon, how all of a sudden she was having an adventure. It might all fold in on her—it probably would—but it was something for now.
Mimi answered the door before Ella’s fingers tapped on the wood. Ella laughed. “How’d you know I was out here?”
“I hear it all.” Mimi winked. “Not really. Just heard footsteps heading my way. I hoped it was you.”
“It’s me,” she said.
“Come in. Come in.”
Ella stepped inside and Bruiser ran straight for her, jumping as high as he could, which was about mid-shin on Ella. He barked. Of course he barked. His tiny little paws swept across Ella’s legs. She leaned down and tucked her fingers behind his ears, scratched his head and greeted him in a baby voice she’d never used before. “Hey there, Bruiser. How was your day?”
“He’s had a rough one,” Mimi said. “I wish they could figure out what’s wrong with him. If you’d met him last year you’d love him better than you do now.”
Ella smiled. “Let’s take him to a different vet.”
“I’ve tried three. It’s a mystery.”
“Then let’s try four.”
“I just don’t have the money for that. Plus, it really isn’t fair on the little guy. He hates the vet.”
“I’m sorry,” Ella said. “I really am.”
“It’s fine, darling. Others have worse problems than I do. A barking dog isn’t enough to kill me. At least not yet.”
“God, I hope not.”
“Well, you look like you’ve had a glorious day. All sun-swept and smiley. Tell me about it.”
“I met Hunter at the farmer’s market and just had fun. That’s all. But I’m about to run to the grocery store and I thought I’d see if you needed anything.”
“I don’t need a thing. Now sit down and let me get you that promised pound cake. I made it fresh this morning just in case my wish came true and you stopped by again.”
Ella laughed. “You need bigger wishes.”
“Oh, I have those, too.” Mimi walked to the kitchen and took down two delicate plates. Painted pink and crimson flowers circled the outer edge of the china. Mimi hummed to herself as she cut a slice of pound cake, yellow and thick with a thin brown crust like baked bread.
“That looks so good,” Ella said.
“Sit down and enjoy.” Mimi placed the china on the side table next to the blue chintz chair. Ella sat down and picked up the plate.
Mimi took a bite of the cake and closed her eyes while she finished. “I will never grow tired of this.”
Ella took her own bite and savored the buttery texture, the melted crust on her tongue, the sugary aftertaste. “I will never ask how many calories are in this. Ever. Because it doesn’t matter, I will eat it anyway.”
“Thatta girl.” Mimi took another bite and then placed her plate on the coffee table. “Now tell me more about Hunter.”
Ella recounted the day, and she loved talking about it. She loved telling Mimi every detail.
“Well,” Mimi said. “It sounds like you’re having a great time. You do know that eventually you will run into Sims.” She clapped her hands together. “And I do wish I could be there for that.”
“I know. I know. I have to stop. I have to tell Hunter the truth. He’s leaving tomorrow so I won’t keep this up, but … oh, you must think I’m a terrible person.”
“Far from it, my dear.”
“It’s not the best way to deal with a broken heart, but it’s seemed to help these last few days. I’ve tried everything else. Almost. I have a whole list of things to do to get over it and I’ve tried all of them.”
“Well, I’ve heard it said that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone,” Mimi said.
Ella’s laughter came with a burst, pound cake still in her mouth. “God, Mimi. I’m not sleeping with him.”
“Why ever not?” she asked.
Ella shook her head, then wiped her mouth and leaned forward. “I love Sims. After my mom died, he came along like a miracle. I’ve loved him ever since.”
“Ah, the hole in the soul created by death.”
“What?”
“That place where someone is lost. You just up and stuffed Sims in there.”
“I did not replace my mom with Sims. That’s not even possible. I just love him. I’m keeping busy until he wakes up and comes back to me. I mean, I know what I’m doing is just a silly distraction to stop thinking about losing the one thing that seems to be everything. Like your bookstore—I’m sure it meant everything to you. How did you get over losing it?”
“Well…” Mimi settled back into her chair. “I don’t think there is a way that any human can get through life without at least once feeling like you have lost everything that means something. More than once usually. If there is such a person who says they haven’t, they’re the luckiest person in the world. Or a liar.”
“So what do you do when that happens?” Ella asked.
“I’m not so sure there is something to be done. It’s something you be.”
“I don’t get that at all. I’m being for sure, but here is what I’m being—mad. Sad. Humiliated. Lethargic. Pissed off. And I don’t want to be any of those.”
“Well, those things first.”
“Now you’re going to tell me that the next step is accepting it. I know. I’ve heard it. I’ve read it. Acceptance.”
“You don’t want me to say that?” She smiled that damn coy smile. Ella wanted to be angry with Mimi, wanted to roll her eyes, but she couldn’t. There was some kind of wisdom wrapped up in her laugh and her quick retorts and possibly in her pound cake.
“Accepting the unacceptable,” Ella said. “That’s what you’re asking me to do.”
“I never said you had to do anything like that, but if you could find a way to do that, my, wouldn’t you have all the answers in the world?”
“Exactly,” Ella said. “And I feel like accepting it means saying that I’m okay with it this way. That I want it this way.”
“Nope. I think it means—and what do I know—but I think accepting it means you recognize that you can’t do anything about it. You can’t fix it. You can’t change someone’s heart. You can’t make someone love you.”
“God, Mimi, I feel just so much better now.” Ella flopped back on the chair and dropped her head onto the cushion. She took the entire wedge of remaining pound cake with her, stuffing it into her mouth, eating it whole.
“I don’t have what you’re looking for, Ella,” Mimi said. “But I know this—you have what you’re looking for.”
“And what is that?”
“You don’t really think I’m going to tell you, do you?”
“And why not?”
“You don’t get off that easy, missy. You expect me to give you the question and the answer, too?”
“Mimi, you sure you weren’t a philosopher instead of a bookseller?”
“Fairly sure.”
“Okay,” Ella said. “I’m game.”
“That’s my girl!” Mimi replied.”So do you know what it is? That thing you’re looking for?”
“It’s the pound cake,” Ella said around the huge bite in her mouth. “That’s what I was looking for.”
Mimi laughed. “You know, something else always happens. Something. And then there is always something you can do, say, create, read, breathe, eat, make, laugh, and then—who knows what—something always happens next.”
“Not always something we want,” Ella said.
“Not always but sometimes it is.”
“You are infuriatingly optimistic, Mimi. Hell, haven’t you ever loved someone so much that you thought you’d die without them?”
Mimi closed her eyes and one tear, a long trail of some lost sorrow, nestled into the folds of her face. “Yes,” she said. “I have.”
“What happened to him?” Ella asked.
“She. It’s what happened to her. My daughter.” Mimi’s voice cracked, fractured.
“Oh.” Ella jumped up from the chair and stumbled over the corner of the flowered throw rug before she knelt at Mimi’s side. “I’m so sorry.”
Mimi patted the top of Ella’s head. Bruiser barked. “Thank you,” she said.
“What happened?” Ella asked.
“She was four years old. A rare case of viral meningitis in the days when we didn’t have a doctor here who knew exactly what to do.”
“Your husband … your family. It must have been terrible.”
“It was. But there wasn’t a husband, or I guess he was a husband. Just not mine.” Mimi took in a long breath. “I don’t talk much about this because it’s so long ago. Someday you’ll say the same, how long ago it all seems. But I was just out of high school and fell in love with a married man. I didn’t know he was married and I loved him, so maybe I just didn’t want to know. But by the time I found out that I was having his child, I did know he was married. So I never told him. I couldn’t make him choose because there wasn’t a choice—he already had a family. I never told my family who he was either. No one has ever known. Not even now. When she died, when my Rosie died, I lost my heart and I thought for good. I escaped into a life of books. I built that life and it was a good one. I never married. I never had another child. Books and friends filled my life and still do.”
“Oh, Mimi.”
“That’s enough for now, sweetie. It really is. I need a nap.”
Ella stood and looked down at the old woman. How old was she, exactly? How long had it been since she suffered such an unimaginable loss? “Thank you for telling me, Mimi. I wish I knew something better to say. Something more than ‘I’m sorry.’”
“Oh, stop. Now go enjoy your little fling and come back for more cake later.”
“It’s not a fling.” Ella shook her head. “And I need to stop. It’s wrong.”
“Oh, the dualism of youth.” Mimi smiled. “Everything is so black and white for you. Go enjoy some in-between for once.”
Ella laughed, and she wished, fervently for the first time in a long time, for something other than Sims’s reconciliation. Instead she wished she’d known Mimi forever.
* * *
It was torture, pretending he didn’t know every line of the film, every camera angle and lighting mistake. That he didn’t know what lines littered the cutting room floor. Blake still abhorred the fact that his favorite line had been nixed. (“I want to come home to you.”) And, God, how he hated that actress who had slept with everyone on the set while playing the innocent on screen. He wanted to talk about all of it with Ella, and that was the problem. He wanted to share it with her.
“That part,” he’d wanted to say. “That part was when the actor had a hundred-and-two fever and pushed through, but got everyone else on set sick.”
Blake had acted like an ass, and he knew it. Getting up, checking his phone—he’d been rude. He didn’t know how else to be in that situation.
Now his hotel room was frigid. Shit. Icicles should have been hanging off the ugly mauve curtains. He’d left the air conditioner on high. He clicked it off and tried to open the window before he realized it was a fake knob. The window was permanently shut. He dropped onto the couch and pulled out his notebook. He didn’t feel like dictating today and he most definitely did not feel like talking to Ashlee and hearing about the dinner party or the movie preview or any damn thing. He also, oddly, didn’t want Ashlee knowing any more of this story. He just wanted to write down ideas. One by one. A scene list. Yes. It was coming together. He probably didn’t even need to see Ella again—his imagination was churning and returning.
NOTES:
Scene where she and her love (let’s use the name Flynn for now—good, solid name) are feeding the birds and one of them lands on her shoulder, and she screams and laughs only to have Flynn accidentally hit and injure the bird in a quick move to help her. They take the bird to the vet and discover there is nothing to be done: the bird dies.
Blake smiled. Yes, good scene. It can happen quickly, just to show their bond over the littlest things in life. And to foreshadow a death to come, the fragility of life.
He wrote in his notebook for another hour, dumping ideas he could go back to and look at later, scenes he could sift through. When he’d finished, he opened the minibar and poured himself a JD. He’d asked the front desk to double-stock the bar. After the warmth settled into his chest, he checked his cell phone. It was brimming with text messages and missed calls. He settled back into the couch with drink number one and sifted through his messages. Ashlee. Ashlee. Ashlee. His mom. Ashlee.
Great.
He threw back the drink. He wouldn’t count this one; he drank it too fast to count it. The texts from Ashlee started off with kind questions.
How is your day?
What’s going on?
Any notes for me to dictate?
And descended into
Where the hell are you?
Are you alive?
If you’re not dead, I’m going to kill you.
He typed to her in return.
Hey, sweetie, I’m good. All is good. Just really busy and getting words down on paper. I’m not dead and please don’t kill me. Xo
She answered immediately. She missed him. She loved him and wanted him to hurry home.
Ashlee was like a changing weather system, unpredictable like the thunderstorm today. It was part of what had drawn him to her in the first place. But it was getting tiresome, the flashes of anger followed by the cloying sweetness. Blaming him for a bad day and then seducing him in the next breath. Berating a waitress and then hugging her when they left the restaurant. Before he’d left for this trip, he’d told Ashlee that he loved her. Why the hell had he done that when he didn’t love her at all? “Whoops, didn’t mean it.” Yeah, as if that would work.
He’d been desperate when he left. His world had been coming undone, unraveling in ways he’d never anticipated. He’d grabbed on to Ashlee like a raft, and he’d climbed on up. Even if he didn’t love her, he didn’t want to hurt her. At all. He wanted to undo the damages he had done. But that seemed impossible.
His agent was ignoring his calls.
His ex-wife hated him.
His daughter wasn’t speaking to him.
Amelia, his daughter. She was the one he missed the most. She was the one who broke his heart. Yes, Marilee shattered him with her hatred, but his heart, only his daughter could break that. The ache he felt when he thought of her, which was a million times a day, helped fuel his need for JD. Marilee had poisoned Amelia, told her everything. Who the hell tells a fifteen-year-old girl about the misdeeds of her father?
Well, People magazine for starters. After that, his ex-wife.
It had been like a plug pulled out of a tub, the way his daughter’s love disappeared. Instant. All of a sudden and with sucking force. It wasn’t hate that remained, it was worse—disdain and disinterest. No matter what he did or bought or sold or said, Amelia was resolute in her loathing.
There was only one thing he wanted to fix more than his career: his relationship with Amelia. He’d tried. For a year he’d tried. He wouldn’t give up, but here in Watersend, he would try to fix something he had some control over.
The worst part of it all was that he’d made all these mistakes during the best part of his life. He’d done the damage when he thought he was flying high, living the life, being The Man. He’d been invincible and strong, not once seeing the havoc he wreaked with every step he took. Too oblivious in his own glory.
He picked up his cell phone and called Ella before he even realized what he’d done. Her voice, soft, answered, “Yes?”
“It’s Hunter.”
She laughed. “I thought I’d heard the last from you.”
“No. I just realized how much of your precious time I’d taken up and I thought I should thank you before I leave tomorrow. Can I take you out to dinner?”
She hesitated, silence, and then a little cough. “Sure.”
“Great. You pick the restaurant.”
“Okay.” She was quiet for a moment, and there was running water in the background. A shower? A sink?
Blake looked outside. No, it was rain. “Do you have a window open?” he asked.
“What?”
“I hear the rain. I wish I could open the window here.…”
“Yes. It’s pouring.”
“So, what restaurant?” He wanted her to say, just come here with my open window and the rain and I’ll cook for you.
“How about the Patio? You’ll like it and it has a great view of the park.”
“Perfect,” he said even though it’s not what he meant.
* * *
The restaurant was packed—spring Friday night. But Ella had called in a favor and reserved a corner table. It was stupid, choosing Sims’s favorite restaurant. She was tempting the fates. Messing with the gods, her mom would have said. And you can only do that so many times.
Ella arrived early so she could take a breath and scope out the restaurant. She didn’t recognize anyone, so she settled back in her seat. Hunter walked in and spoke to the hostess, who directed him toward Ella. “Over there,” she said.
Hunter smiled and waved as he wound his way through the tables to the back corner. He leaned over to hug her. “Glad you didn’t have plans,” he said. “I know it was last-minute.”
“Oh, I had plans,” she lied. “I just changed them because I know you’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Oh, okay.” Hunter sat and unfolded his napkin, placed it in his lap. He picked up the wine list. “What are you in the mood for tonight?”
Ella leaned forward and smiled. “Malbec. You?”
“Ah, first a real drink. Then wine.”
They talked about the small things, nothing important; the weather and the architecture of the restaurant, and the waitress’s pretty smile. They ordered their food—salmon for her, steak for him—sharing their side dishes until they’d emptied the first bottle of wine and ordered a second.
“Are you getting excited about going home?” Ella finally asked him.
“I am. But I have some messes to clean up when I get there.”
“Tell me more about you. Why are there messes at home?”
“I did some people wrong and I need to fix it,” he said, and twirled the wineglass on the table, his thumb and forefinger around the stem of the glass.
“We all mess up.”
“Yes, but then we all have to find a way to fix it, too. And I’ve been gone for months. I’m happy about going home, but there are … things.”
“What is home like?” She closed her eyes and smiled. “I mean, is it totally different from here? What does it feel like?”
“It’s beautiful. As beautiful as it is here, but not in the same way.” He smiled at her and she saw the crinkles around his eyes deepen. He really was handsome in a craggy sort of way.
Silverware clattered to the floor somewhere across the room and Hunter startled. They’d been quiet for a few minutes and he must have gone off somewhere in his mind. Ella laughed. “Where’d you go?”
“Huh?”
“In your head. You were so far away.” Ella cut into her salmon, but didn’t take a bite. She really wasn’t hungry at all. “What are you so worried about?”
“Let’s see. I can list them. A daughter who isn’t speaking to me. An ex-wife who hates me. An assistant I need to fire. And break up with. And—” Hunter held up his hands. “That’s enough right there, although there’s more.”
The warm feeling under her heart was so unfamiliar that at first she thought she was embarrassed. But it wasn’t embarrassment. She was happy to be talking to him about real things. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That is a mess. Maybe you should just not go back?”
“Sounds nice but I’ve tried the running-away thing. It doesn’t fix itself just because I’m gone. If it would have, it would have by now.”
“And your daughter?” Ella leaned forward thinking of Mimi’s daughter, of losing a daughter in any way.
“She hates me, too,” he said.
“Why—?”
“Because I was selfish. Stupid. I made a mistake.…”
“We all make—”
Hunter held up his hand with a sad-type smile. “Don’t say it. I know what you’re going to say and it’s not going to make me feel any better. Yes, we all make mistakes. But mine are screwups more than mistakes.”
“What’s the difference?” Ella asked.
“One that does real damage to someone you love.” He closed his eyes. “Yes, that’s the definition.”
Ella repeated his words. “‘One that does real damage to someone you love.’” She took a long sip of her wine. “Yes, that’s a screwup.”
“See?” Hunter hit his forehead with his palm. “I’m an idiot and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“You say sorry. You say sorry until you can’t say it anymore. You can do that, right?”
“Tried that,” he said, and made a check mark in the air.
“Can I ask what it was?”
“I cheated on my wife, a very public thing.”
“Yes, that’s … bad.” Ella didn’t even try to hide the hit in the chest that those words gave her. I cheated.
“I know. It’s bad.” The dining room grew louder; a quartet played in the far corner. Hunter reached across the table and tapped the top of Ella’s hand. “I shouldn’t have told you. Now you think I’m a terrible person. Which I guess I am.”
She really liked this man. She liked his brown-gold eyes and his sense of humor, his quick retorts and fun questions. And yet was he any different than Sims? A cheater? She obviously didn’t know anything about men. Or life.
“Betrayal,” she said, and leaned forward. “It changes everything. The lies. The deceit. She must have felt like such a fool. Why the hell would you do that?” For a moment in her anger, Hunter became Sims, a man choosing to betray his wife. Ella dropped her fork on her plate and it clanged, an exclamation point.
His eyes, focused on her, were damp with the beginning of tears. “I don’t know why I told you. It’s a terrible truth. I could try and explain, offer you the reasons it happened. Not the excuses because there aren’t excuses. But there were reasons. My marriage was bitter and sad. But it doesn’t really matter because when you put the facts on paper, when you say them out loud, it’s sordid, it’s cliché, it’s hurtful. I know.”
“Couldn’t you have just told her that you weren’t happy? That things were changing? Why lie and sneak around and make hushed phone calls and hide e-mails and pretend to work late?” Ella’s voice rose and she couldn’t stop it. She wanted to, but the words were pouring out as if they’d been waiting. Why? She always wanted to know why.
“It’s like you were there for all of it.” He exhaled and looked away. “I don’t know, Ella. I don’t know why. It was awful. I’m sorry. I feel terrible. I can’t fix it. I can’t go backward. You hate me.” He paused as if all those sentences exhausted him and then said, “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I don’t hate you. I just don’t understand.” She fought back any kind of emotional display. Hunter was not Sims. She was judging without understanding.
“I’m trying to understand. I really am. Sometimes I think my ex was relieved that I did that. That I cheated … because now she has a real reason to hate me. But the worst part is that I don’t know how to make it up to my daughter.”
“I don’t know if there is a way to make it up to somebody. I don’t think that’s what forgiveness is about,” Ella said. She knew exactly what Sims would have to do to make it up to her: apologize, run back to her, admit that he made a mistake, and then prove his love by being there, staying there. “I think maybe the only way to make things right is by being present, by really being there for her. Going to her and not allowing her to push you away. Run back to her. Don’t give up.”
“I’m not talking about my ex.”
“I’m not, either. Your daughter…”
“Yes, I don’t think my time on the road has helped things at all. I send e-mails. I’ve sent presents. I’ve called and texted.”
Ella shook her head. “Not what a girl needs. I mean, it’s nice to get those things, but being present is more important. Being there, next to her.”
Hunter leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I can definitely try that.”
“I just know what I needed when someone … I mean, if someone betrayed me.”
“Your guy. He wouldn’t have ever done anything like that, would he? Cheated on you. Embarrassed you.”
She shook her head, unable to answer.
“What do you think made—” Hunter asked.
Ella cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Please. You can ask me about Watersend or tell me more about your life. But not me. Not me anymore. I’m tired of me and I’m tired of being sad.”
“Ah, that has to be progress.”
“Yes. So, tell me, why didn’t you like that movie today?”
“I was just preoccupied.” Hunter cut into his steak, stared at it as if it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. “I think it’s one of the director’s best. But I liked Driftwood Summer better.”
“It was okay,” Ella said. “It was so sappy and romantic. I saw what was coming from the first two minutes. And I was not once surprised. Sometimes those kinds of movies are good. Like When Harry Met Sally. You know she’s going to end up with him, but you’re surprised along the way by how she ends up with him. Not this one. It was two hours of my life I won’t get back.”
Hunter moved in his chair, and then he busted out laughing. It was a quick burst of noise.
“It wasn’t that funny.”
“It was,” he said, and wiped at his eyes while he turned to the table. “It really was. I didn’t realize you were such a movie critic.”
“I’m not. I just like a good story. That’s all. I don’t get what’s so funny.”
“You.” Hunter took in a long breath and put both his hands on the table, palms up. “Give me your hands.”
She did.
“You are adorable. And funny. I’m sorry things have been so rough for you. I’m sorry for a lot of things.”
His hands were strong and soft, and he wound his fingers through hers. The touch of another human made her feel weak, her chest full and warm. If she didn’t still love Sims, she would actually have a crush on this man she barely knew (who cheated on his wife and lived three thousand miles away). She pulled her hands from his. “Thanks, you’re sweet.”
“You see,” he said. “That’s the problem. I’m not.”
“That’s not true. You really are.”
Hunter’s face changed then. His eyelids fell to half-mast. “I’m glad this was my last city,” he said. “I’m glad I met you.”
“Thanks,” Ella said, and felt the too-much wine flowing through her thoughts, softening its edges, blurring the truth and the lies.
With vivid detail, Ella saw Sims across the room just as the waitress brought the check. Maybe she knew she would. Maybe she came here wanting to see him. But whatever she had wanted when she made that reservation, well, she didn’t want it now. She didn’t want Sims anywhere near Hunter or the false life she’d created. Sims looked up from his dinner and caught her gaze. Betsy, her hair up in a bun, had her back to Ella. Sims looked away quickly as if Ella’s gaze burned.
“Let’s go,” Ella said to Hunter, and smiled her best smile.
They were halfway across the room when Hunter tilted his head to the left. “That woman over there,” he said. “Don’t look yet, but I met her at a bar the other night.”
Ella didn’t have to look; she knew. He’d met Betsy. Ella’s heart thumped and rolled. “And? Was she trying to pick you up?” Ella tried for light and breezy, missing it.
“No, not me. Not anyone. She was with a bunch of women and went on and on about this guy. How they were made for each other. How they were … meant to be. She thought she was living the ultimate love story of all time.”
“Because stealing someone’s husband is the ultimate love story?”
“Ah, you know her.”
“Only in passing.” Ella rolled her eyes. “As if she has any idea what love is.” Ella glanced around at Sims and Betsy, leaning toward each other, holding hands. “Let’s go,” she said again.
“I haven’t really had this much fun in a long time,” he said. “I’m sorry we have to go.”
“Well, let me take you to my favorite little bar.” Ella slipped her arm through Hunter’s and hoped that Sims took at least one glance, one furtive glance her way.
* * *
Hunter walked with Ella under gas lanterns and over cobbled sidewalks until they entered a small bar where a musician sat in the corner tuning her guitar. “I love this place,” Ella said. “I never see anyone I know and this girl is always here singing on Friday nights.”
A strum of guitar chords from across the room, a screech from a microphone. Hunter placed his hand on the small of Ella’s back. He followed her into the room and stayed connected, his palm against the cottony fabric of her sundress. She found a table in the corner and they sat and ordered drinks—he a JD and she sparkling water. “We won’t stay long,” she said. “I know you have an early flight. I just want to hear her sing a couple of songs.”
“What’s her name?” he asked, and not because he cared but because all of a sudden he found himself nervous and short on words.
“Willa. Isn’t that the best name? She’s really good. She comes over from Savannah.”
“Did you used to come here with your husband?”
Ella shook her head. “This is where I come alone. It’s my place. I’ve never come here with anyone. Until now.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “A girl has to have something that’s just hers, right?” She smiled at him and he felt his heart do something unfamiliar: it rolled over. Her hair fell in loose curls to her shoulder and he wanted to touch it. No, he wanted to write about it.
He’d thought this was the place where he could get more information out of her, but instead he stared at her with his mouth gasping for air like a fish. He looked stupid; he could feel it and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t take this any further. He’d lied so terribly there was no going back now. He had to leave.
Bright blue letters on a wooden board indicated the way to the bathrooms at the back of the restaurant. Hunter pointed at the sign. “I’ll be right back.”
Ella nodded. Hunter stood and looked down at her. She would hate him for what he was about to do. But it was for the best. Definitely for the best. And he could just add one more hater to his list. This would be the last time he lied. It had to be. If he stayed any longer, he would have to lie some more and he needed to be finished.
Before he opened the back door of the restaurant, before he stepped into the alley to leave, he stared at Ella. He wanted to remember her looking the way she did now, before she discovered he was a fraud and an asshole. Before she looked up and realized some sleazy, slick guy from L.A. had duped her. She smiled at the singer and took a sip of her sparkling water and then, as if she could feel him staring at her, she turned to look at him. Her eyebrows dropped in a look of confusion. Hunter opened the back door and she understood.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t scowl or holler out. She sat with certitude and watched as if she knew that this was exactly what he would do, as if he’d told her that he was leaving. But he couldn’t do it; he didn’t want to do it. Their eyes locked in an unspoken language and Hunter smiled at her, closed the door, and wound his way through the tables to return to her side.
* * *
Blake flopped on the hotel bed fully clothed. He stared at the ceiling where a water stain looked like a VW bug. He wanted to write that down. He wanted to write everything down. The way he felt, the way this town enveloped him with something close to happiness. He wanted to write about the way Ella covered her face when she laughed, the way her bangs fell across her forehead, the way he felt hearing her laugh.
It would be cowardly leaving town without telling her the truth. He knew that. He couldn’t keep saying “just one more time.” It was like the JD and the affairs and the lying. Just one more was never enough. This Ella. He didn’t want to hurt her. He needed to get out while the getting out was good.
Already the scenes for the screenplay were running through his head. The courtship, the sailing lessons, the heartache and longing until they were finally together.
Blake started to dictate.
“What,” he asked into the recorder, “is the death accomplishing? He saves her but what else?” He paused and then answered himself. “Finally proof of love. This character, this lovely woman, always doubted his love. She was never sure because he didn’t know how to show his love, he didn’t know how to say the words. Because he was always quiet and brooding, she never was sure. Now she is sure. Now she knows.”
Blake stood up then and paced the room. He was missing something. He spoke again. “But where is my happy ending? The happy ending aside from the fact that now she knows he really did love her? We don’t want to end in the dark valley.”
And there were so many other blanks to fill in. Best friend? Mentor? Secrets? B plot? Blake needed to sketch these out, find out where to place each one.
The most important thing of all: What does his character (she) want? And why can’t she get it? This was the crux of it all and he knew that better than anyone else. She wants her husband back—but he’s dead so it’s impossible. How would he work around this? That was the mystery and fun of it all—finding his way. The elements were there, and now it was time for the exhausting, dangerous, frustrating alchemy of screenwriting.
He sat on the stained couch. Weird how things become familiar. He was getting sentimental, which was a good sign. As for the story itself, he’d know more by the time he landed in L.A. Home. He just wanted to get home. He smiled and opened the mini-fridge, yanked out a tiny bottle of JD, and gulped it down before he was able to think what number it was or if he even gave a shit what number it was.
Home. Hell, what was it anyway?
Home used to be nowhere Florida, the place he grew up. It had been long enough now that he could call L.A. home. Twenty-five years longer than he’d ever lived in the cesspool of a town his parents had thought would bring them the dream—water and sun and fun as a family. What a joke.
Living with four brothers and two sisters in a three-bedroom house with two bathrooms wasn’t the dream at all. It was a nightmare. Why it bothered only him was still a mystery. Smack in the middle of the sibling lineup, he always felt like he didn’t belong—he wasn’t in the older responsible group or the younger, fun-loving group. He was the outcast, the one they teased, “lovingly teasing, honey,” his mother used to say. “Don’t be so sensitive or you’ll never survive in this family.” And she was right. He didn’t survive in the family. He, to this day, didn’t speak to anyone of them on any kind of regular basis.
He’d been the one reading the book in the corner, the one hiding in the library until it closed. He was the president of the literary club. He was the kid who cried at a good ending or went to the movies alone because everyone else in his family played a sport or an instrument or was on a real date with a real boy or girl.
Blake read books and wrote stories. While everyone else was funneling beer after the football game, he hid in the movie theater watching the newest release. He helped bring home the Latin Award for his dilapidated school. He’d never attended a single football game and he’d never known the cheerleaders’ names. In the end, he did go to the prom because he’d looked at it like an experiment, a story he could write. He went with Maureen Blaskovich, a girl in literary club with wide eyes and a high-pitched giggle. She wore the same dress to school almost every day: a Little House on the Prairie calico type with a lace collar. On Fridays she wore cut-off jeans and too-large T-shirts that looked as if she’d taken them from her father’s closet. If you looked closely enough you’d see that she was very pretty. But no one looked. Even he barely looked.
When she asked him to go to the prom, he’d been unable to say no. If she was brave enough to ask then he was brave enough to go.
That prom had been the impetus for his first short-film script and it had won an award at SoCal. And the virgin groping that was part of his first sexual experience had become part of his first screenplay. He and Maureen had never talked again. He had heard that she was nanny to the children of a famous musician. And when he saw her on the cover of US Today under a headline that said “Home Wrecker,” he realized she was much, much more than a nanny. He’d googled her. He called and she answered. They dated for a few months, the new and improved version of each of them unable to connect as the old and dorky versions had been able to do. They’d both remade themselves after South Florida, had become California dreamers and successful. And then they parted for some reason. He could never remember why.
The next screenplay he wrote was about two small-town dweeby kids who fell in love and then lost each other, only to find each other again years later, beautiful and successful and in love with each other still. His movies were much better than real life. It had always been true. He could write a great story, he just couldn’t seem to live one.
He glanced at his cell phone and flicked through his contacts. He still had her number—Maureen, now going by Mauri. He pushed the call button and then quickly, before the first ring, the end button. No going backward.
The hotel room was spinning just the tiniest bit. He blamed fatigue. He set the alarm for 4:30 A.M., and also called the front desk for a wakeup call. He would get on that 6:00 A.M. flight and go home, write a great screenplay, and get on with his happy, happy life.
Every successful movie, every well-received script had been something mined from his own life, and he would do it again. He’d just needed to get out of California, find some new inspiration. He didn’t need a new life, just a new idea.
He woke up before his alarm and dressed in the dark. It was time to get the hell out.