Amber texted the four numbers without explanation. And thank God, because there was no way she was going to cook for Hunter at the Crumbling Chateau.
Evening arrived and the white ibis gathered above, extended against the sky, white on blue. Ella sat on the concrete bench in the courtyard at the back of the apartment. Weeds filled the garden areas once bloated with flowers. A dried-out concrete fountain held two beer cans, an empty bottle of vodka, and a pack of cigarettes. Ella noted each detail as if distraction was her best coping mechanism. Which it was, in a way. Thinking about the almost Gothic surroundings of her apartment building, about what to cook for Hunter, and how to sustain the facade just one evening longer, kept her from thinking about Sims.
A door slammed and Ella startled to see Mimi exit the building with Bruiser straining forward, his leash taut in her outstretched arm.
“Mimi!”
“Oh, darling, hello there.” Mimi waved, and in doing so, released Bruiser to the freedom he obviously craved.
The fluff of white bolted toward the parking lot. Ella ran after him while Mimi hollered: “Bruiser. Stop, Bruiser!”
Ella never did understand why so many owners thought that yelling at their dogs was a good idea. No dog she’d ever seen had ever responded to the frantic screaming commands of their owners. Ella caught up to Bruiser just as he ran to the middle of the road, scurrying toward the oak tree on the other side. She stepped on his leash and his tiny head jerked back with a high-pitched yelp. A squeal of tires and a holler from Mimi combined in a grating jangle. Ella glanced up to see the hood of a white SUV van, one of those windowless utility vans she always associated with scary movies and kidnappers.
A greasy-haired man poked his head out of the window and yelled, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Catching this dog,” Ella said, lifting Bruiser to her chest. He barked. Of course he barked.
“I almost killed the both of you. Get the hell out of the road before I run you over.”
Ella stepped aside and joined Mimi. “Here you go,” she said, and handed Bruiser to her.
The van drove off, a plume of toxic smoke blooming from its tailpipe in a final insult. Together, Ella and Mimi walked across the street to the tree Bruiser seemed determined to find.
“Sorry about that,” Mimi said.
“No problem,” Ella said. “I’m so glad to see you.”
Bruiser finished his business, and then circled around the oak tree until he found a soft patch of grass and clover blossoms gathered in a crochet pattern. Quiet. Ella exhaled and sat in the grass, Mimi on a bench. Ella drew her knees up to her chest. “What a gorgeous afternoon.”
“Isn’t it, though,” Mimi said.
“Sure is,” a deep voice answered.
Ella knew the voice. How quickly she’d come to feel comfortable hearing it. “Well, hey, you,” she said to Hunter.
“I return to town just so I can see you almost get killed?” Hunter reached his hand down to pull Ella to her feet.
“Idiot driver,” Mimi said from the bench.
Hunter turned to her. “Hi, there.”
“This is my friend Mimi,” Ella said. She searched quickly for lies to back up the truth. “She lives … next door. This is her dog, Bruiser.” She pointed to the miraculously quiet dog.
“Well, you must be Hunter. The guy from California,” Mimi said.
“The very one.” Hunter offered his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Mimi said.
Bruiser lifted his head at the sound of Mimi’s voice, sniffed the air with his padded black nose, and decided it was time to start barking.
Mimi shook her head. “Sorry.”
Hunter bent down and ran his hand along Bruiser’s back, once, twice. Bruiser stopped mid-bark and lifted his head to the sun. “He’s awful cute,” Hunter said.
“Sometimes, yes,” Mimi said. “Most of the time, he’s just annoying, but I love him anyhow.”
“What are you doing here?” Ella asked. The Crumbling Chateau stood accusingly behind her. She averted her gaze as if that would be the one thing to expose her lies.
“I was just driving to the hotel when I saw you two in the street. Aren’t you like a mile from home? That’s quite the walk.”
Mimi glanced at Ella and in Mimi’s eyes, Ella saw the complicit acknowledgment: I’m with you here. I’ve got this.
“Yes, it would be a long walk,” Mimi said, “if we’d walked it, but Ella drove here so Bruiser could sit by his favorite tree.”
“So thoughtful,” Hunter said.
“Yes, she’s quite the girl,” Mimi agreed.
“Well.” Hunter stood. “I need to hit the shower. I guess I’d better be getting back to the hotel I thought I’d left for good. See you in a couple hours?” He looked to Ella.
The wind carried a scent of the river, a taste of water. Hunter’s hair blew into his eyes. “Yes,” she said. “See you soon.”
“Would you like to join us?” Hunter turned to Mimi.
“No, but thank you so much,” Mimi said. “I’ve got quite a schedule tonight and couldn’t possibly make it.”
Laughter caught itself under Ella’s chest. Mimi there, joining in the liars club.
“Well, next time then,” Hunter said.
He left awkwardly, not knowing if he should hug Ella or Mimi or neither or both. In the end, he just waved over his shoulder and walked toward the ugly turquoise car at the edge of the curb.
They waited until the car was well out of sight and then, as if on cue, Mimi and Ella busted out laughing, the kind of laughter reserved for the best moments between best friends. Who knew, Ella thought, who ever knew where a friend would be found?
“He came back to town?” Mimi asked.
“Sort of,” Ella said, sitting next to Mimi now. “His flight was canceled.”
“I’m sure it was,” Mimi said.
“Really, it was. So I told him I’d cook him dinner. I think I might have taken this one step too far.”
“Where are you going to do this dinner?”
“My house. Sims is on a little vacation with the love of his life.”
“Well, this is just getting better and better.” Mimi patted Ella’s leg. “Way better than pound cake, and that is saying so very much.”
Ella took Mimi’s hand and held it in her own. “I am so glad you ended up being my neighbor.”
“Me, too, dear. Me, too.”
* * *
The gate to enter her garden and house was locked. Ella pushed against it just in case Sims had been his Sims-self and not locked it. The gate rattled against the lock. Ella kicked at its base. Even before she stuck the key in the lock, she knew it wouldn’t work. She’d have to climb over. Or cancel.
She formed the words in her mind. I’m sorry, Hunter, I didn’t mean to invite you over. It was foolish to think I could have someone in my dead husband’s house. Then she thought of Sims and Betsy, tasting wine, making love in a vineyard, eating at French Laundry and getting drunk. Disgusting.
Change of plans: she would cook Hunter dinner, allow him into the house, get rid of him quickly, and pack up what she wanted to take.
She’d have to climb over the fence. She’d done it before after locking herself out, so no problem. Really. It wasn’t some elaborate fence; just an ornamental enclosure. With two quick steps in the loops of the iron gate, she was at the top. She poised herself to take a little jump and land softly, but her T-shirt caught on the spike. Instead of the soft landing she had hoped for, she tumbled sideways, a sharp pull under her arm. Her right ankle took the brunt of it, twisting underneath her at an angle she was fairly sure her ankle had never bent before.
On the ground, she assessed her body. Slowly she sat and then bent over to pull her foot onto her lap as if she was in lotus position, ready to meditate. Her ankle was swollen. She yanked off her sneaker. She pushed on the anklebone with one finger and yelped out loud. A bird flew in haste from the feeder, seeds scattering wildly.
The cobblestones had always been quaint, an intimate part of the path in the entryway, but as she dragged herself across the garden, she cursed each ragged edge. The moss between the stones, soft lichen she had purposefully planted, was staining her pants. When she reached the bench she pulled herself up and hopped on one foot to the front door.
She would have to cancel. What the hell was she thinking? Her ankle was throbbing like it had a heartbeat, her clothes were ruined, and like most things lately, she hadn’t thought through what to do next.
Folding onto the iron bench, Ella reached into her back pocket for the phone. She’d call Hunter with a quick sorry, I’m sick. Her hand, sliding into her back pocket, recoiled from a quick stab, a bite of some sort. “God, enough already,” she hollered to the garden.
She stuck her finger in her mouth, the metal taste of blood on her tongue. Lifting herself up she looked for what could have bit her. Please don’t let it be a brown recluse. But the bench was empty of anything but the small white petals of the azalea blooms, extravagant waste on the ground and seat. Slowly, she reached again and realized what had bit her: the shattered iPhone screen and its glass shards. The only way she was going to cancel with Hunter was to get in the house, and soon.
She rehearsed her speech as she hopped to the front door. I’m sorry; I’ve been lying. I am a made-up person in a made-up world. Please go. Hurry. Don’t look at me.…
The key slid into the front door and Ella pushed it open. This was her house. Yes, her house. Damn you, Sims. Everything in here, from the way it smelled, to the paint colors, to the framed photos, and even the scatter rugs, were her doing.
Sims hadn’t moved or changed a thing. Photos hung on the wall leading to the kitchen—a montage in white acrylic frames, which Ella had spent days arranging. She couldn’t calculate the hours of her life embedded in this house. Did those add up to make it more hers? Did the time and love make the house an integral piece of her or was it really, as she was told many times, just an object, a possession? But she loved this house. It was hers. The end. Feelings didn’t know right from wrong. She’d been exiled, and tonight she would stick her Ella Flynn flag in the ground or her plates in the sink, whatever metaphor worked.
Their married life slammed into her chest with such blunt sadness that she closed her eyes to catch her breath.
Loss pressed down on her with a stifling pressure. All she wanted, God, all she wanted, was to have all of this back. To come home and throw her coat over the chair, toss her keys in the bowl on the table. To pour a glass of chardonnay and light a candle, always the mimosa candle, and start dinner. She’d shuffle through the mail and separate the recycling from the bills. She wanted it all just the way it was before he came home and decided to tell her the truth.
The truth was overrated. If Sims hadn’t told her about Betsy, she wouldn’t know, and he’d be just as happy ambling through the door. Sims would be carrying on and she’d think he was busy at work while she waited at home. She would go to work, hang out with her friends, and ignorance would be bliss. At least for as long as it lasted.
With the code Amber gave her, Ella turned off the alarm system. She would follow through with the night. It would be the last time. One more time she would pretend to be that girl and then say good-bye to Hunter for good. But for now, this was her house and she would do exactly as she pleased.
She hobbled down the hallway to the bedroom. The bed was askew, sheets and pillows twisted. Nausea kicked in. She made her way to the closet and saw that her clothes were still there. They hadn’t been replaced by Betsy’s gauzy—and gaudy—outfits. That had to be a good sign.
In the kitchen, she picked up the house phone to order Chinese food. Whatever groceries she had in the backseat, she wasn’t going out to get. She was putting her foot up on a cushion with a bag of ice.
She rummaged through the hall closet and found a pair of old crutches from the time Sims had twisted his knee in a “friendly” softball game. With the weight off her foot, she wandered around to the bedroom closet where she changed into a pair of white jeans and a loose silk top. Then she hopped through the house, touching things, fluffing pillows, and finding small items missing. The tray where she dropped the mail. The vase she kept on the coffee table even when there weren’t any flowers (which was rare). Her favorite cashmere throw blanket with the fringe on the edges.
She wanted Hunter to be late so she could wallow in the misery, which was ridiculous. She made a mental list in her head of all the things she must find and put back right, or take, when Hunter left.
While looking at a photo of Sims and herself, framed and on the side table, she was overcome with exhaustion. She plopped down on the brown suede chaise longue and closed her eyes. She could sleep for days, maybe weeks. The grief, the pretending, the sleepless nights—what the hell was it all for?
Her body was heavy, holding her down on the chaise. Her ankle throbbed. She wanted out of her body. No, she didn’t want to die. Not that. Quite the opposite: she wanted to live fully and creatively, but here she was trapped in a body pinned down with grief, and exhausted from wanting, wanting, wanting. If she could just escape it for a few minutes. Let go of it all.
Let go. Who the hell came up with that good advice? She closed her eyes. Colors danced behind her eyelids, the familiar evening light and the way it danced into the living room at this time on a spring evening. Familiar. Tenderly familiar. And then she was asleep, dreaming.
* * *
A brick wall enclosed the garden, ivy covering the wall in crisscross patterns. The iron gate, obviously ancient, was locked and withholding. The house itself—gray cedar shake, weathered to what looked like suede—stood strong, built to withstand any flood.
What a perfect set. Literally perfect.
The thought embarrassed him. It wasn’t a movie set. It was the house where Ella lived. He needed to take some photos and notes. This house was meant to hold a love story. A good, Southern, dripping-with-charm love story to save his career. (And his life.)
He cocked his ear to listen for Ella, but it was the sound of crickets that persisted, a kind of white noise that made this place seem so right. Why right? He didn’t know, since everything he was doing—lying and stealing stories—was wrong. He walked toward the house and saw that the gate was closed but the front door was wide open.
“Ella,” he called her name softly, almost hoping she wouldn’t answer so he could snap a few photos.
There came a burping, or croaking, he didn’t know which. A frog? He aimed his phone at the house and took almost twenty photos in quick succession: the wide front porch, painted white but with a pale blue ceiling; the iron gate; the climbing roses on the banister; the cedar shake in pale gray with louvered shutters painted one shade darker.
What he couldn’t catch in the photo was the sweet scent, one he couldn’t label, not thick like gardenia and not sweet like honeysuckle, but something in between. He quickly hit the record button on his phone and said, “The fragrance surrounding the house is something otherworldly, something made of sea and flowers.”
That was enough for now.
“Ella.” This time he called louder.
He tapped her name on his cell phone contacts. It rang once and went straight to voice mail. His hands wound through the thick curls of the gate. He hollered her name louder this time. Once. Twice.
She appeared at the front door, disheveled as if he’d caught her in the middle of sex.
His thoughts embarrassed him.
“Hi, Hunter.” She hobbled toward him on crutches. “I’m so sorry. I fell asleep. And my phone is broken and the groceries are still in the car and…”
Her hair was squashed up on one side, pushed backward and, frankly, it was adorable. She’d been asleep; he could tell. She unlocked the gate and he opened it as she stumbled backward, caught the edge of her crutch in a cobblestone and landed, hard, on her bottom, with a thumph.
“Oh, I’m sorry. God, are you okay?” Hunter bent down and picked up her crutches, which had scattered sideways. “Let me help you.”
He held out his hand and she took it. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m a klutz. I know.”
“What happened? You were fine an hour ago.”
“I fell, twisted my ankle.”
“When?”
“Right after seeing you. I just flat out tripped walking to the front door. That’s why the groceries are still in the car. I’m sorry.” Her voice faded with each sentence, disappearing ink.
“It’s okay,” he said. “More important, are you okay?”
“I think it’s just twisted.”
Blake looked down now, at her foot, which was blue and swollen. “I think that might be more than twisted.”
“It hurts.”
He looked at her closely now. She was pale and she was almost crying.
“Let’s get you inside. Get some ice on it. I have some pain pills in my briefcase.”
“You carry pain pills with you?”
His laugh, the stilted one that came out, sounded false.
“I have a bad leg from an old break and when it flares up…”
She smiled halfway. “Sims has an old injury that does that, especially when it rains. His knee.” She paused and looked toward the house. “Had an old injury.”
Sims. It was a nice, solid name for a husband.
A high-pitched squeal broke the conversation and they both turned to see a beat-up Toyota, faded red with rust stains like amoebas on the passenger’s-side door.
“Our food,” Ella said.
A young boy, looking almost too young to drive, jumped out of the car. “Hi, Mrs. Flynn.”
“Hi, there JoJo, how are you?”
“I’m good. Just totally wow, I didn’t know you moved back into the house. Totes great.”
“Hunter, will you grab the food and take it inside while I pay?” Her voice was sure and steady this time, like she was directing a stage crew.
“Got it,” he told her, and took the paper bag.
Ella’s voice followed him as he entered the house. “Just put it on the bill. And tell your mom hello from me.”
Small towns. Blake could order Chinese food a hundred times and never know the name of the kid who brought it. The front door led into an open hallway flanked to the left by a dining room and to the right by a living room—two wings of equal proportion and depth. The floors, wide planked hardwood, were nicked and battered, but smooth.
Sure, he had imagined her house. It was the way his mind worked—placing people in their environments. But he’d been completely wrong. He’d imagined something more shabby chic, white large-cushioned couches and chairs, pale cream and maybe pink. An image from the movie Something’s Gotta Give.
He waited in the hall as she came toward him on crutches. She focused on every step, as if this was the first time she’d ever used crutches. He wanted to hug her, draw her close, and carry her into the kitchen.
“Straight ahead,” she said. “The kitchen is at the end of the hallway.”
They worked their way into a room so filled with light and white and beauty, it was as if someone had purposed each and every thing in the room to make him feel welcome, peaceful. Gray and white, paired with dark wood and thick whitewashed beams overhead made him feel as if the room enfolded him.
“This,” he said quietly, “is the most amazing kitchen.”
“Oh, thank you.” Ella sat on the long banquette that had been built against the back wall. The padded backboard was made of cream linen with a pattern in brass nail heads. She pulled a chair toward her and plopped her hurt foot up onto it. “It took almost two years to get it just right. I think I went a little crazy but … voilà.” She spread her hands out.
“First things first,” he said, and put the Chinese food on the island. “Where are your Ziploc bags? I am going to get some ice on your foot. Do we need to get you to a doctor?”
“Not now.” She ran her finger along the edge of the table. “Let’s eat and then we can see if the swelling goes down. I really don’t think it’s broken or anything. I just landed sideways.” She pointed across the room. “Second drawer down on the right for the Ziplocs.”
Blake opened the drawer. “Nothing here…” He turned back to Ella but she didn’t look like Ella, her face was blanched. Her lips were sucked in as if they’d disappeared into her mouth. “You okay?”
“Um, yes. Just open the drawer one down. Or up. Hell…”
To make her laugh, because he suddenly felt like that was exactly the thing to do, he opened all the drawers in the kitchen in a wild flurry. It worked, and she laughed out loud, slamming her hand over her mouth. He found them—the baggies and Saran wrap and tin foil—in a drawer on the other side of the kitchen. Blake filled up a large bag with ice, and wrapped it in a towel, which he gently placed on her ankle. He reached into his briefcase and took out one small Percocet and handed it to her. “Let me get you a glass of water,” he said, rising again.
She swallowed the pill and then looked up at him. “That’s the first real pain pill I’ve ever taken, except Advil. If I pass out or start babbling, just tuck me in bed. Don’t tell a soul.”
“Maybe you should have started with half.”
She held up a crescent moon of the pill, the other half. “You read my mind. I bit it in half.”
“I’d hate to have to remember CPR from my junior high class.”
“Don’t save people much?”
“Not even myself.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes looking at each other, their eyes connected but wavering, looking away and then back, shy.
“I’m already feeling better. The ice and all…” She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. “Would you mind turning on the music? I have a house system on the back wall right there. Just push it on and pick a playlist. And the wine refrigerator is next to the sink. Please feel free to pour whatever you want.”
He ambled across the kitchen to the lighted console built into the wall and pushed the on button. Names of various playlists popped up. “What a variety,” he said, scrolling through them with his forefinger on the screen. “Rihanna. Sinatra. Daft Punk.”
“Daft Punk?” she said. “What the hell is that?”
“My daughter listens to them, but I’m not entirely sure. This playlist looks like a multiple personality test.”
“My sister-in-law has young kids. They must have been playing with it.…”
“Well, I’d like to think I could guess which one you want me to pick, but I’d hate to get it wrong.”
“You choose,” she said. “Go ahead. Your call.”
For the first time in as long as he could possibly remember, he hesitated about his choice of music. Not because he didn’t know what he liked, but because he cared, he actually cared, what she thought about him. What would she have chosen? What was the best next move for him?
“How about this Elvis Costello list?” he asked.
“Love,” she said. “Just love.”
“Hey.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Did you move out for a while after his—”
“Yes, I did. Why?”
“Just wondering because the delivery boy sounded surprised you were back in the house.”
“It was just a couple of days.”
Blake touched the playlist and music blared, reverberating, from the speakers. “Damn.”
“Oh, my God,” Ella shouted. “The volume is on the right. Turn it down.”
Blake punched at the console, not able to turn the volume down fast enough. Elvis Costello sang “Waiting for the End of the World” so loudly that the words were mangled. When it was down to a tolerable level he turned to Ella with laughter. She wasn’t laughing.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “The housekeeper must have been messing with it.”
“She probably added the Daft Punk playlist,” he said. She smiled and he loved it. He would never grow tired of that smile.
* * *
The world, or at least the one surrounding her at the moment, had a slight fuzziness to it as if she were covered in bubble wrap. She bounced up against that world, her voice soft and her mind softer. This was nice. Really nice. Except for the fact that Betsy had moved things around in her kitchen. The thought of Betsy touching anything in the house would have made Ella’s skin crawl, if it weren’t for the painkiller. What would have been a sharp pain under her ribs was more like an annoyance, like a far-off siren.
Elvis Costello sang about “Alison.” “Doesn’t it always sound like he’s singing about Alison? In all his songs, he sings about her,” Ella said with her eyes closed and her head back.
“It does. You’re right,” Hunter said. “You’re funny.”
He puttered around the kitchen, pulling out plates and distributing the Chinese food in little piles. He drank wine and hummed along to the songs. Once every minute or two, he’d turn to her and say something like “I met him once.” Or “Oh, good, you got kung pao, my favorite.” Or “Do you eat with chopsticks?” (Yes, she did.)
This was so nice. Ella sat there without a need to say or do anything, to fix anything, to know anything, to impress anything. Hunter moved around the kitchen as if he’d been there before. This gave her a slight thrill to know that Sims would never know they touched the dishes and ate and drank and listened to music. With great relief, she didn’t even miss Sims. Missing him had become an ever-present companion like a swarm of bees around her body all the time. For now the bees had gone to the hive.
Hunter came to the table and placed the plates down and then crouched low and looked at her. “Thank goodness you didn’t take the whole pill.”
“Huh?” She looked to him.
He sat down and then pointed at her plate. “Eat.”
She took a bite and then leaned back. “Tell me about your family, Hunter. Something good. Or bad. Or interesting. Or boring.”
“It’s a big family,” he said. “I grew up in a place where the swamp met the land. That sweet aroma that’s outside your house? It would never have reached my door.”
“That’s wisteria,” Ella said.
“Wisteria,” he said. “Nice.”
“Your family,” she repeated. “Tell me something about you and how you came to live in California.”
He stared off toward the backyard and fence. She saw his eyes close and then open. Everything in slow motion, dragging, lackadaisical. He started talking, but it was as if he was on the phone to someone else, just reciting facts. “I have four brothers and two sisters. I grew up in nowhere Florida. Not near the beach, but out in the Everglades where the heat and the snakes and the alligators are closer than any beach you imagine when you hear ‘Florida.’ We were cramped in a three-bedroom house with only two bathrooms. I left the day I graduated from the asbestos-filled high school where I was tortured for giving a shit about my grades and the books I read. Movie theaters were my sanctuary, and I snuck away to them as much as I could. Eventually, I went to California to be a writer, for the big dream.” He stopped and now looked to Ella, his face awake with his words.
“You always wanted to write historical … stuff?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Not always. It’s just what I write now. I’ve tried other things.”
“Like?”
“Plays. Novels. Short stories. Stuff like that.”
“Did you decide this was what you were best at, so you stuck with it?”
“No. It’s just what pays the bills.”
“Yup. We do what we do to pay the bills, don’t we?” She paused. “So tell me more about your family.”
“Well, my dad passed away a couple of years ago. Mom is still in Florida. My siblings are scattered all over the United States and I don’t really see them, either. Let’s see—there’s Gary in Indiana, Charlotte in North Carolina, Savannah in Georgia…”
“Ha-ha, real funny. I get it. You don’t want to talk about your family.”
“They’re all still close and they try to get me to join them, but sometimes it feels like I’m not really related to them, you know? That someone made a mistake and put me with the wrong family.” He stopped. “Anyway, that’s all said and done. I’m fine with it.”
“No, who could be fine about not talking to their family that much?” she asked.
“I just am.” He leaned forward and rearranged the ice bag on her ankle. “There must be something wrong with me, I know that. I just don’t know what it is.”
“Don’t you love anyone?” she asked as if the words were coming from somewhere else.
He laughed. “God, what a question.”
Ella closed her eyes. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”
“No, it’s okay,” he said. “I love my daughter. Endlessly. Otherwise, I’m not sure I really believe in romantic love. I believe in desire, but that always fades.”
“Wow,” she said. “You’re quite the romantic.”
“If you only knew,” he said.
“Why don’t you talk to your mom?” she asked. “I’d give anything to have my mom back.”
“It’s complicated,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t call her or she me. Some things just can’t be unbroken.”
“But some things can be mended. I was reading this article the other day about repairing cracked bowls,” Ella said, and searched for the name of them, nudging through the clouds inside her mind. “You know, the kind where they mend it with gold. The kitties?” She dropped her face in her hands. “What is the word?”
“Kintsugi,” he said.
“Yes!” She clapped her hands together. “How’d you know?”
“Reader,” he said, and pointed to himself with a smile.
“Then you know, sometimes when things are mended they are even prettier than what they were before.”
“But, what if you’ve lost entire pieces of that bowl?” he asked.
Ella knew what that was like—losing pieces. “Right,” she said. “I get it.”
Hunter thrust his glasses up on his nose with a nervous gesture. Before she knew what she’d done, Ella reached forward and took them off his face and put them on her own.
Expecting a change of view, something warped or too close or too far away, she squinted when everything looked the same: his face, the kitchen, the food. “These don’t work,” she said. She knew it sounded stupid; it wasn’t what she meant.
Hunter stood up and took the glasses off her face. “Just for reading, but I keep them on because I’m always reading.” He ambled, taking his time, to the sink, where he rinsed his plate and refilled his wineglass.
They chatted a little more, about nothing really, about how the world was too fast, or was it too slow? How he was worried about finishing his book on time, how hot it was here because of, well … what they always say when they are from out of town, the humidity.
The music switched and Sinatra sang about the moon. The air felt yielding and silken, like Ella could sink into it. She thought about how quickly her world had changed, like she’d stepped into an underground well she didn’t know was right there in her backyard. She glanced at Hunter. “Do you think the world has a hole in it?”
“You mean in the universe, like a black hole?”
“No,” she said. “Right under our feet. Like the earth has a hole, and it’s always there looming right below the surface of everything we do. We could step into it without knowing it was ever there.”
“I don’t know, Ella,” he said in a soft voice. “Maybe there is?”
“Maybe? Well there is. I didn’t know this about the world because no one told me and if they had, would I have listened? Probably not. We don’t know until we know. We can be walking along, singing our song, doing our dance and the earth gives way and there we are, falling … and there’s nothing to grab on to. After that happens once, even once, you will walk carefully, always looking before you take a step, always wanting a sure-footed way to avoid the gaping black hole. I want to tell everyone in the world, ‘Be prepared. Grab on to something now.’”
“Wow,” Hunter said. “You’ve given this some thought. So, maybe that’s what we’re always doing—grabbing on to things in case the ground gives way?”
“You can say ‘maybe’ because it’s never happened to you. You wouldn’t say that if it had. If your life had caved in, you would know that anything you grab on to doesn’t stop the fall. Life is like this thin bubble. It looks for all the world like something real and round and full. But it’s not.”
“Your husband’s death,” Hunter said, taking a breath. “It changed the way you see the world.”
“I didn’t know before that it was so fragile, so casually meaningless, so indifferent.”
Hunter didn’t say a word. What could he say?
“What about love?” he asked. “Don’t you want to grab on to that when it comes again?”
“No. If it ever comes again, which I can’t imagine, I want it to walk next to me, hold me. I don’t want to grab it like a life preserver, like it’s the one thing that will keep the ground from giving way. Love can’t stop bad things from happening.”
“No, it can’t. It can’t stop the tragedies, but surely it can help.”
“And this from a man who doesn’t believe in love?”
“In theory I believe it can save you. Sometimes…”
“In theory,” Ella said, and smiled at him. “Yes, in theory everything is true.”
“I love talking to you, Ella. I love the way you see things, like you’re looking out a different window than the rest of us schmucks.”
“Right now I think I am, and so I should probably shut up.”
Hunter stood, but before he went to clean away the dishes, he kissed her on the forehead. “You going to be okay alone?” he asked. “Should I call one of your friends?”
That was it—one innocuous comment and she burst into tears. There was nothing to be done about it really. She just started and couldn’t stop, like grief was running amok, as her mom used to say.
One time when Ella was in high school, she’d gone to the huge dictionary in the middle of the library, the one on a podium, and looked up “amok.” “A murderous frenzy,” she’d read. She’d gone home and told her mom to stop using that word, but she’d never stopped and what Ella would give to hear her say it now.
Hunter leaned over and draped both arms over her shoulders, pulled her toward him. She knocked his glasses off as she put her head on his chest, her arm swimming through the air, weighing too much, to bang into his face. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“That’s okay,” he mumbled into her hair. “They don’t work anyway.”
Contentment, a feeling so foreign that she had to search for the word, came over her and the tears stopped. Just like they’d been turned off. Quit. And she was laughing, looking up to him and laughing.
She was never sure, even later, who kissed whom. Did she lean forward or did he? Or did they both? She liked to think they both did, simultaneously with the same intent. It was such a long, delicate kiss that in the middle of it she thought of the word “cashmere.”
The kissing, it went on so long it moved into the category of making out, something she hadn’t done in years. Even when she and Sims made love, he kissed her gently and moved on. Hunter was so warm, moving closer, kissing her but making sure her foot stayed put, that he didn’t jostle her around. Then he picked her up, just like she was the pillow off the banquette, so easily. She didn’t object or speak, just kept doing exactly what she wanted to do: kiss him.
He carried her to the living room and set her down on the chaise longue, the same one she’d fallen asleep on only a few hours ago. She pulled him toward her, wanting more of what they’d started, whatever that was. She closed her eyes and waited for the weight of him. It didn’t happen. Her eyes popped open, a spring-loaded shock to see him standing above her looking down.
“You need to get some sleep.” He smiled in that way people do when they are about to disappoint you. “I need to go,” he said.
“Go?”
“Yes. I’m not going to take advantage of a Percocet.” He tried to laugh, but it came out like a cough.
“Oh…”
He walked away, talking over his shoulder. “I’ll get your ice, a glass of water, and the other half of the pill.” Then he halted in his steps and turned. Ella saw their reflection in the hallway mirror: his back and her looking at him. God, she looked so pitiful and needy. Her hair was a mess, and that mascara she’d put on hours ago formed two raccoon eyes. No wonder he was leaving. Hell, she’d leave herself if she could.
“Do you have anyone to take care of you tomorrow? Get you to the doctor or whatever?” he asked.
“Of course I do. Just leave,” she said and sounded … again, pitiful.
“Okay.” He turned away and she closed her eyes. His footsteps were muffled as he headed down the hallway and into the kitchen. The freezer opened and shut with that hiss she knew. Hunter’s sounds were quieter in the house than Sims’s, not that he took up less space, but that he was gentler with the space he did fill.
Hunter returned to her side, and she feigned the soft sounds of slow breathing and the slight twitch of early sleep. He fell for it; she knew he did because he just stood there at her side. He placed the ice on her ankle with a dry towel and if she opened her eyes she knew she’d see the pill and a glass of water on the end table.
“Bye, Ella,” he whispered. “It was great meeting you. And I’m so sorry.”
* * *
He might be a scumbag lately, not giving his ex what she wanted, stealing love stories under pretense, sleeping with his assistant, but he would not, could not take advantage of Ella. No way.
The hotel room was stifling. Housekeeping had turned off the air conditioner, probably in some revolt to his sixty-four-degree thermostat, where he’d kept it for days now. He punched the numbers down, pushing harder than was necessary and thought of the console at Ella’s house, the Elvis Costello blaring from the speakers. No. He would stop thinking about her now; only the story mattered. He’d obtained everything he needed from her, from her house, from her town.
The computer was open on the bed and he plugged in his cell phone to download the photos onto his computer for safekeeping. Then he started to write on a pad, something he hadn’t done in years, and it felt good.
Notes: While the two lovers are fighting their love for each other, he is living in a house surrounded by a cloud of wisteria. She is working and living in a terrible tenement house, fending off her feelings for a man she can’t have. Often, she wanders past his house, wondering what he is doing inside. And he does the same thing—driving by hers, hoping she will walk out. Split screen showing them pining for each other and walking past each other’s homes.
Blake put his head back on the pillow and found himself remembering her kiss, still warm on his lips. Then he grabbed the pad and began to write again, furiously.
Notes: Their first kiss was when he offered to teach her to sail. She didn’t know how, and yet she worked at the marina for him. This will foreshadow how he sacrifices himself for her. He is teaching her to do the one thing that will take his life.
Added characters: The quirky mother who says things like “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story” and constantly mixed up her words to say things like “Let’s stay in a shore-far hotel” instead of a four-star hotel. Who uttered clichés that were never meant to be clichés, who wore mascara to bed and wouldn’t be seen without it.
WHAT IS HER HAPPY ENDING? Does she discover she is pregnant? That he isn’t dead? (They never found his body?) Both? No, that was stupid.
Can’t let a little truth get in the way of a good story, someone once said to him.
Well, this was a good story and he would write it. He already saw it unspooling in his head. Reese Witherspoon would be perfect for the lead.
For the rest of the night, Blake wrote notes, sent e-mails, and packed. By 5:00 A.M. he was out the door and on the way to the airport, exhausted and thrilled. This trip had been successful. It had worked—the harebrained scheme. No damage done.