CHAPTER 3
Leo’s missing.” Weezie’s call interrupts me in the middle of Wheel of Fortune and my glass of wine.
“Missing what?”
“I mean, we can’t find him. Bruno pulled the trailer right in front of his building to drop him off, no small feat he tells me, and it was empty. They didn’t stop for gas or anything on their way. I’m just, well I’m kind of freaking out.”
“Well, he’s not here. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that he’s been kind of off these past few weeks, drinking too much and sort of disconnected unless he’s on camera. I’m worried.”
“Okay, well he’s not in my house. I don’t have enough space that I wouldn’t notice a grown man hiding. Want me to check the tea house? It’s really the only other shelter and it’s raining out here.”
With a sigh and an eye roll, I put on my coat and boots and make my way out the back door to the tea house. Through the rain I can see that it’s dark. The door is shut, so that it looks like a dead end rather than a beginning. As I get closer and wetter, I start to lose patience with this sad, spoiled man who has the balls to just disappear and make everyone worry.
I throw open the door, maybe too aggressively, and no one’s there. I stare for a few seconds at the empty daybed, the perfect place for him to hide out and get a little extra attention he doesn’t need.
My wine doesn’t taste good anymore when I get back inside. I text Weezie and tell her he’s not here. She reassures us both that if something had happened to him it would already be in the news, which is good. We’re both feeling maternal, I can tell, and we agree to call each other if we have any news. I’m glad to be in the loop, though I don’t know why I even care. It could be because he’s the lead in the movie I wrote, but of course his meeting a tragic end would just increase ticket sales. I try to review his whole persona to see if there’s something about him I like. He’s entitled and rude and never says thank you. I settle on the fact that I like the way he talks to Bernadette. I like the way he notices things. A noticer is a person who can never be entirely self-absorbed, though he’s pretty close.
I lock up and tell my kids to go to bed. They want me to read a chapter of The Hunger Games, which is too dark and too old for them, but I agree because I want to feel fierce. They fall asleep on either side of me, and I decide to let them sleep in my bed. I drift off with Katniss on my mind, relishing in having reclaimed my domain.
The sunrise wakes me up if I forget to pull the curtains. This is the primary reason why I never, ever pull my curtains. I creep out of bed so as not to wake my kids and head down to the kitchen to press the button on the coffee maker. The sun is rising, those people are gone, and today I’ll write. I feel Bernadette’s signature giddiness bubbling up in me.
I throw my morning sweater over my nightgown and take my coffee out onto the front porch. It’s glorious. The sky is a brilliant pink. The rain has stopped and everything has a just-washed look to it, like green peppers that have just been misted in the produce section.
“Hi.” I swing around at the sound of this greeting and spill half my coffee. Leo is sitting up on the porch swing, wrapped in his duvet, feet tucked under him.
“People are worried about you.”
“I know. I’ll call. But come sit for a sec before it’s over.”
I’m too stubborn to sit, so I turn back around to enjoy the rest of the sunrise before I’ll have to dismantle this guy. When I face him again, he is giving me a soft smile, a younger unguarded smile of someone who is actually pleased. He says, “Your nightgown is see-through. You have nice legs.”
I make a mad dash to the swing and hide my legs under myself. “You’re a real piece of work,” I say, accepting half of his duvet.
We sit in silence for a while watching the colors dissipate from the sky. I don’t want to ask the questions that I know will suck me into his self-pity. And he doesn’t seem that interested in telling me why he spent the night on my porch in the rain.
After a while, I say, “You need to text Weezie.”
“Fine.” He grabs his phone and types a few words. “Happy?”
“I was, about five minutes ago. In fact, I was ecstatic about today. But then I find a squatter on my porch and I’m worried I might have to call the cops and have a bunch of cars on my lawn again.”
“What were you going to do today?”
“Write.”
“Another depressing love story where there’s no love?”
“No.”
Bernadette brings a glass of orange juice onto the porch, rubbing her eyes. “Did I miss it?”
“You did,” Leo says, making room for her on the swing.
“Leo! What are you doing here? Did you sleep there?”
“I did. Wanted to make sure you weren’t lying to me about the sunrise. And you weren’t. It was spectacular.” Bernadette beams at him as he gives her the last bit of his duvet.
“My mom makes pancakes. And bacon sometimes.” She might as well hang a FOR SALE sign on me.
“Oh jeez. It’s six forty-five. Is Arthur up?” I leave the two of them swinging on the porch and switch into morning mode. Once Arthur is in the bathroom, presumably making progress toward getting ready, I change into my running shorts and sneakers. Today is still a writing day, and I’m not going to get derailed by Leo Vance on my porch.
I come downstairs and find Leo and Bernadette sitting at the counter in a comfortable silence. Leo eyes my legs again and smiles like we have an inside joke now. I make more coffee, mainly because I’ve spilled most of mine. I start frying bacon and scrambling eggs. I have three English muffins left, which would have been perfect if I didn’t have a breakfast crasher. I decide to go without.
Arthur comes downstairs clean but with the look of sleep still on him. “Mom said you were here. Why?”
“He wanted to see if the sun really came up on our porch,” says Bernadette. “Which it does,” she adds with a conspiratorial smile to Leo.
“The sun comes up everywhere, dummy.”
“Arthur,” I say, overly sternly, like suddenly I’m pretending to be Mrs. Cleaver. I place the steaming breakfast plates in front of the three of them and hear myself say, “Refill?”
The kids shoot me a look. “Refill,” in the form of a command, not a question, was something Ben used to bark over breakfast. He’d slide his mug toward me, sometimes looking up, and sometimes not. I’d reply, “Of course” as I poured, and someone who didn’t live in our house might have thought I meant, “Of course I’d be happy to pour more coffee in your cup so you can drink it.” Those who had been simmering in this pot for a while would hear the undertone: “Since I made the breakfast and I’m going to clean up all the dishes and you’re really just going to sit there the entire day, of course I’ll take it the rest of the way for you and fill up your coffee too, you lazy . . .”
“Sure,” says Leo, who has probably never poured his own coffee, so he doesn’t know this is a loaded topic.
“Did you get wet sleeping on the porch? Seems kind of fun but also soggy,” says Bernadette.
“Half fun and half soggy. Plus there’s a reason people sleep on mattresses instead of wood.” Leo stretches his arms in the air like he’s trying to work the kinks out, exposing two inches of his perfectly toned abs. I have to look away.
“Well, you’ll be back at your house tonight, right?” asks Arthur.
“Sure.” Leo’s looking for something at the bottom of his mug. “It’s an apartment. But it’s not that much more comfortable there.”
Okay, here comes the pity party for the guy who lives in a penthouse. I need to regain control of the morning. “Guys. Clear your plates and grab your backpacks. Bernie, you have art today so bring your portfolio thing.” They get up and carry plates and find their stuff.
Bernadette gives Leo yet another hug. “Come back sometime for another sunrise. Or even a picnic. It’s fun here, I swear.” Honestly, we are going to have to redo the whole talk about stranger danger.
“Thanks,” he says. “And the bacon’s good too.”
We’re standing at the top of the steps to the garage, door open and backpacks on. Leo’s not budging. “So, maybe Weezie can send a car for you?” I suggest.
“Right. I’ll text her,” he says, not reaching for his phone.
I drive my kids to school and return home through my tunnel of magnolia blooms. Leo’s back on the porch swing, wrapped in his duvet. I park in the garage and gather my thoughts. After a series of deep breaths, I head upstairs into the kitchen. He’s moved his plate to the sink, which is frankly more than I expected.
I normally stretch on the porch before I run, but I don’t need to hear any of Leo’s wisecracks, so I do it in the kitchen. By the time I walk onto the porch it feels like his ride should be pulling up any second. “So, safe trip back to the city,” I say.
“You’re leaving?”
“I’m going for a run.”
“Wholesome.” He lets his duvet fall a little. “It’s warming up.”
“Yes. Okay, good-bye. It was nice to meet you. Safe trip. Again.” I’m walking down the porch steps, and I know he’s watching me. I’m too self-conscious to start running, so I walk down the driveway until I’m sure I’ve disappeared into the magnolias.
Two miles out and two miles back. I return drenched in sweat and sparkling with endorphins. My porch swing is vacant. My porch swing, I think.
I’m more surprised than I should be to find Leo with his feet up at my kitchen table. He’s doing my Thursday crossword now, and I notice he’s making an impressive go of it. This annoys me, and I know that’s petty.
“No ride?”
“They must be really busy,” he says. I’m suspicious. “Where’s the rest of the paper? I looked outside.”
“I don’t get a paper. My friend just saves the puzzles for me.” And as soon as I’ve said it, I’m embarrassed. And then my embarrassment makes me feel a little ashamed, which makes me angry, and I don’t like any of these feelings. Leo Vance was paid fifteen million dollars to star in The Tea House. And I’m living on borrowed crossword puzzles.
“I’m going to go shower,” I say, already heading upstairs. I grab my softest jeans and my favorite grubby sweatshirt and take them into the bathroom with me. I wash my blown-out hair and leave it wet so that I’ll look like me again today.
“What if you let me stay for a week?” Apparently, Leo’s ride isn’t coming. He is following me on my way to the tea house, hot on my heels and kind of ruining my vibe. I have my laptop, my special candle, my two sharpened pencils, and a mug of tea. And I’m trying to ignore him.
“No.”
“I won’t bother you.”
“Too late.”
“You can write all day, maybe I’ll take some walks. And I’ll sit on the porch a lot and look at the trees. If you stay very still you can see them breathe and wave at each other.”
I stop and turn to him. “Are you on LSD?”
“No. I just need to get out of the city. Let me stay here; you must have a spare room. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars a day.”
“I don’t have a spare room. Go to a hotel.”
“Then I might as well go back to my apartment in New York. It feels like a hotel. And I hate hotels.”
He stops as we approach the open tea house door. “Wow.”
“You just spent two days in here.”
“I wasn’t looking.”
Determined to ignore him, I put my laptop down and line up my mug. I build the fire before sitting at the table, placing one pencil to the left of my laptop and tying my hair in a bun and securing it with the other. He stands staring at me.
“What’s all this?”
“It’s a ritual; I’m starting to write. Next comes the candle.”
“Oh boy.” He lays down on the daybed, arms folded behind his head. He’s facing the steel windows on the back wall, looking out into the forest. The sun’s at ten o’clock so the forest is getting a little light. Today the palette is a mix of white flowers and brand-new celery-green leaves. It’s beautiful to the point of distraction, which is why I write with my back to it. “I really like it here,” he says.
“You’ve said.”
“Let me stay a week, that’s seven thousand dollars, and you’ll never see me again.”
Seven thousand dollars would more than cover new gutters on my house. New gutters would cut back on the rot I’ve seen slowly encroach on my hundred-year-old windows. I might even be able to fix the leak I’ve been ignoring in the attic. There might be money left for a trip to Disney World this summer, a last-chance trip before I wake up with a couple of teenagers.
Alternatively, seven thousand dollars would take a bite out of next year’s real estate taxes, giving me the luxury of not having to scramble.
“Have you ever felt like you’re disappearing?” he asks. “Like you’re sure one day you’re going to wake up and find that the truest parts of yourself have been replaced by someone else’s plans?” Um, I just wrote a movie about it. I believe you read the script?
How many times did I wake up next to Ben and wonder, Where did I go? His face would reflect either indifference or mild distaste, and I’d try to remember back when I was a person who deserved to be loved. I didn’t know what Ben was looking at, but it wasn’t me. I was gone.
Leo’s face is wide open, and I can see he’s made himself vulnerable. He’s in some kind of a free fall that room service can’t fix.
“Yes, I have. But how is staying here going to help? Isn’t there a retreat or an ashram that would do a better job getting your feet on the ground? With better food? And professionals?”
“The sun comes up here, Nora.” A normal person, or frankly my ten-year-old, would tell him that the sun comes up everywhere. That’s how the sun works, genius. But I know exactly what he means. There is something about the way the sun comes up right here that seems to wash the whole world clean. It touches every single leaf as it rises, leaving me both grounded and inspired. It was here that I started to find my lost self again.
“Fine. Seven days. Six nights. Today is day one. You can stay out here.”
“Out here?” He stretches and looks around. “That’s perfect. Where will you write?”
“Maybe you could be somewhere else between ten and two on writing days?”
“Ten and two?”
“Yes. I have a loose schedule. The sunrise-and-coffee thing depends on the time of year of course, but then I get my kids to school by eight, run until nine, shower and clean up until ten. Write from ten to two. Nap until two forty-five, get my kids at three. Homework and dinner. Wheel of Fortune and wine. Bed.”
“Well, that does sound pretty loose. Spend much time in the military?”
“Hey, it works.” I’m well aware that I’m not going to get anything done today. Apparently, I have a houseguest, and it’s already ten-thirty so the schedule is shot. I’m staring at a blank page and the blinking cursor of doom, and I know I’m not going to be able to throw myself into a new project with the Sexiest Man Alive dozing behind me.
I look up and he’s staring at me. “Am I bothering you?” he asks, but doesn’t seem sorry.
“No. Well, maybe. I can just tell it’s not going to happen today.” I close my laptop and gather my pencils and mug. “I’m going to cut my losses and run some errands. You can rest out here.” There’s weight to the way I’ve said “rest,” and I hope he hasn’t noticed. Rest. As if a single man who wears makeup and plays make-believe for a living really needs a rest.
“Can I tag along?” he asks.
“On my errands?” I must have made it sound more interesting than it is. “I’m just going to the grocery store.”
“Sign me up,” he says, swinging his feet onto the floor. “I’d like to see your grocery store.”
He follows me into the kitchen, and I grab my bag and my car keys. I freeze at the top of the steps to the garage. There’s a little bit of bacon grease on the sleeve of my sweatshirt, and I’m okay with that, but I don’t want Leo Vance to see my filthy garage. I don’t want Leo Vance to get into my dirty Subaru.
“You okay?” he asks. I turn and look at him and am hit with the full impact of who he is. He sparkles a little, and I wonder if he still has any makeup on from yesterday’s shoot. Whatever it is he’s looking for in the country can probably be found on the porch, but he will find no healing in my garage. “Let’s go,” he says and opens the door to the stairway. He’s heading down ahead of me, and there’s no turning back.
My garage is technically big enough for two small cars, but with the lawn mower, the wheelbarrow, my compost bin, and a big sack of fertilizer, you sort of have to walk sideways to get in. There’s a sweet smell of decay with hints of mold and manure, and I can’t get the garage door open fast enough.
“Earthy,” Leo says and opens the passenger door. He sits down, and we both survey the state of my car. There’s a layer of dust over the dashboard and two juice boxes by his feet.
“Arthur’s just recently started sitting in the front seat,” I say, as an explanation, as if he was going to think I’m the one chugging juice boxes as I drive. My cup-holder is sticky with something and filled with coins and gas receipts. I can’t blame Arthur for that.
Leo kicks the juice boxes to the side and puts his window down as I pull out of the garage. The magnolia trees that line my driveway are particularly flirtatious this morning, exploding with giant blossoms. It’s like their hormones are reacting to the presence of an actual man. I’m almost embarrassed for them.
“So, how far to the grocery store?” he asks. He’s looking straight at me and waiting for a reply as I make my way down my driveway to the main road and struggle with the answer.
Of course, I should take Leo to the Whole Foods in Pheasant Landing. I’ve only been a few times, but it is gorgeous and shiny. It’s the Leo of grocery stores. It’s fifteen minutes away, and we’d have to get on the highway, but it seems more his speed than where I shop. I’m having a hard time picturing him in the Stop n’ Save. It’s closer and much cheaper, but it’s pretty shabby, inside and out. On the plus side, it has the self-scanners so I can effectively get through the store without speaking to another human being, and on Fridays it almost always has canned goods on sale. I am at the end of my driveway: Left to the Stop n’ Save or right to the highway? I am seven thousand dollars richer than I was when I woke up this morning, so I could turn right if I wanted to. But I can’t handle another guy forcing me to run up my credit card bill, so I turn left.
I pull my station wagon into the Stop n’ Save parking lot and kill the engine. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?”
“I do not. That’s why I’m here.” He gives me a youthful, expectant smile.
“Midnight in Jakarta,” I say. He looks at me, puzzled. “The smile. It’s the one you gave your parents, the shopkeepers, even the chief of police in Midnight in Jakarta.”
“That’s creepy,” he says.
“That you recycle old movie smiles? I agree.”
“That you notice.” He laughs and gets out of the car.
“Can you just try to fit in?” I ask, gathering my shopping bags from the back seat. He’s in jeans and a white T-shirt and a black leather jacket that probably cost what my car’s worth. “Maybe lose the jacket?”
He takes it off and suddenly he’s all shoulders and abs and I have to look away from the excess of it. “Put the jacket back on,” I tell him.
He wants to know what the bags are for, and I just shake my head. I scan my Stop n’ Save card to use the self-checkout gun, and his mind is blown. “So, it just knows what you’re buying?” He’s turning the gun in his hands, peering into the reader as if he’ll be able to see the tiny men who are making it work.
“Yes, from the barcodes.”
“What about fruit?”
“I’ll show you,” I say.
An older woman who I don’t know is blocking the entrance to the produce section. She is a statue with her hands on her full shopping cart, mouth open. Leo says, “Hello.”
She says, “Leo Vance.”
“Yes,” he says.
“Leo Vance,” she says again, not moving an inch.
“You’ve got me.” When he’s given her more than enough time to speak, he goes on. “Okay then, we have some shopping to do. I’ve got the scanner.” He waves it at her and gives her a smile I can’t quite name, but I’ve seen it before on the big screen.
As always, I approach the produce section with caution. Some shit’s always going down in the produce section—women over-confiding about their marriages, odd confessions, inappropriate confrontations. Don’t get me started. So when I look up and see Anita Wallingford coming my way, I’m not surprised.
Leo has his back to us, auditing the banana selection. He’s mumbling about how cheap bananas are, even the organic ones, as he weighs them and prints out the label. Anita starts right in. “Hey, Nora! How’re you doing?” Pouty face. “I heard about you and Ben. Just awful.” I nod in agreement, hoping we can move on. “I can’t believe you didn’t call me. I mean I had to hear it from someone else, and I just felt so hurt.”
This is a stunner, even coming from Anita. Even in the produce section. I can only repeat the words that have registered. “You’re hurt because Ben left me?”
“You should have called me. I mean, I thought we were . . .” I feel a hand on my shoulder. Leo has turned around to meet her gaze.
“She’s been super busy. I’m Leo.” He extends his hand with what I assume is a smolder. I want to see it since he’s never smoldered me, except I can’t take my eyes off wretched Anita Wallingford. She looks at him and then at me, and then at him again. The tiny microcomputer behind her eyes is overheating. She might short-circuit. For a brief moment, I love the produce section.
“Good to see you,” I say, grabbing Leo’s arm and walking toward the deli.
“What’s wrong with that woman? And who’s Ben?”
“Ben’s Trevor. And I don’t talk about him in the supermarket.”
“So it’s a true story?” he asks. “You’re Ruth?”
“It’s mostly true, and I’m mostly Ruth.”
“Badass,” Leo says, nodding his approval.
I’m studying the chicken options. A whole chicken is $3.99 a pound, a whole chicken cut up is $4.25 a pound, and boneless breasts are $3.75 a pound. I swear sometimes the poultry section at the Stop n’ Save feels like the New York Stock Exchange, where prices move randomly and only the most savvy come out on top. I confess that I am a genius at buying chicken.
“Did you have a stroke or something?” Leo is watching me watch the chicken.
“No, just calculating. I think we’ll take these, so we’re not paying for the bones.” I grab two packages of boneless breasts.
Leo grabs a package of ground turkey. “Do you need this for your gross meatloaf?”
“Not on a Friday. Ground turkey goes on sale on Sundays. Almost always.”
“Huh,” he says. “When do we buy steaks?”
“Around Christmas.”
Leo doesn’t seem to have a lot of experience with bringing groceries in from the car, but he manages to fake it and carry a few bags up the porch stairs. There’s a black Louis Vuitton rolling suitcase by the front door, along with a large white paper bag.
“What’s all this?”
“Oh, I had Weezie send me some stuff from my place. And she picked up lunch from Louise’s. You like lobster bisque?”
“I don’t usually eat lunch. Why don’t I get this stuff put away and maybe you can go eat in the tea house?”
“Sick of me already?”
“A little,” I say. He gives me a playful salute and lugs his stuff out the back door.
I text Kate. I text Penny. I eventually receive a satisfying amount of shock and awe. Leo Vance is staying the week.