Chapter Fourteen
“We need to bring something to Tao’s.”
Danny grabbed a shopping cart and strolled into the produce section of a supermarket across town.
“Why did we come to this market?”
Danny ripped off a plastic produce bag. “As opposed to . . . ?”
“An Asian market?”
We’d passed by at least three on the way to this store.
“This is closer to Tao’s house.”
“Or do you mean it’s closer to Fosselman’s?”
I asked. I’d caught his longing gaze at the ice cream shop when we drove by. Too bad they were closed. If I recalled correctly, Danny liked their lychee ice cream. “Don’t lie.”
He replied with a sheepish, albeit guilty smile.
“I thought you were supposed to cut back on sugar.”
“It doesn’t hurt to look,”
he said, picking out some oranges. I would’ve just tossed the most orange-colored ones into a bag, but Danny took the time to check for ripeness, and he weighed them before bagging the ones he wanted. There was something sweet about watching him do such a simple task. Danny pushed the cart toward the refrigerated aisle. “What are you doing next weekend?”
I tried to ignore the uptick in my heart rate. It was nice of him to ask instead of assuming I had no life now that my career had tanked. “I’m going out of town with Nat. She’s doing press at South by Southwest.”
“Nat gets to bring an entourage?”
Danny whistled, impressed. “That’s some A-list shit.”
I laughed because Nat would disagree, but she was on her way there. According to the Nielsen ratings, Beyond the Dark was hardly a household name, but through the power of its small but mighty fan base, it had caught enough of Hollywood’s attention that Nat was turning away projects for the first time in her life. “She’s getting her due. So are you.”
Danny lifted a shoulder. “You could say that.”
“Come on. You don’t have to be humble. I saw all the testimonials on your website.”
“That’s to attract business. I don’t really care about it. It’s just work.”
I wish I knew how to adopt that philosophy. I used to come home from the office and immediately fire up my laptop on the kitchen table. The line between my professional and personal life blurred, and it was hard to distinguish where one ended and the other began.
“Do you mind if I pick up a few things for myself while we’re here?”
Danny asked as he compared bunches of bananas before settling on one.
“Yeah, sure.”
I really couldn’t get over this domesticated version of Danny. I couldn’t remember the last time I had roamed in a supermarket. I used to get so busy with work that I’d pick up any kind of fast food on the way home or leech off my parents. I never kicked the habit, even after dating Josh. He worked long hours, especially during tax season, and we spent most of our time together eating out because it was convenient and frankly better than anything we could’ve made ourselves. These days Nat did most of the shopping, choosing farmers markets over our local store. “Do you do this a lot?”
“What? Feed myself?”
Danny chuckled at the absurdity of my question. “It beats the alternative.”
“I—”
It was silly to be so fascinated by it when he put it that way. “I’ve only ever seen you at school. I’m not used to seeing you do this,”
I said, as he bagged green onions. “Did you always cook for yourself?”
“Here and there, when my parents had to work late. You know, easy stuff like spam and rice. I started again after my divorce, but I try to eat healthier.”
Danny side-eyed me when I missed my cue to act surprised. “You knew about my divorce, huh?”
“Kind of,”
I said sheepishly. “Felix told me.”
“Just like high school.”
Danny didn’t seem to be bothered by the gossip, though. “I thought you would’ve found out from Facebook or something.”
“I don’t really use social media.”
“I should’ve known. You didn’t reply to my invite for months.”
Had he been waiting for my response? I put the thought aside because I had bigger questions. “How come it didn’t work out? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Danny shrugged. “We met in college and dated a couple years. After we married and started living together, we realized we were very different people. It was as amicable as it could be. We didn’t have many assets to divvy up, so it was quick. But that’s the way I see it. If you asked my ex-wife, she’d probably say that I didn’t communicate well.”
“Hmm, interesting.”
“What about you?”
Danny said, giving me a friendly jab in the arm. “How come you’re not married yet?”
“Are you my mother?”
I laughed, but I knew Danny wanted a real answer. “I came close. I was engaged.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
Since Danny knew how that led nowhere, I kept it short. “But,”
I began, bracing myself for Danny’s reaction, “we both put our careers first and we couldn’t find a compromise.”
“Hmm, interesting,”
he said, giving me a taste of my own medicine.
“Whatever.”
I rolled my eyes. “We are who we are. At least we know that much.”
We strolled through the market, passing every aisle. There weren’t any other shoppers at this hour, so some employees were using the downtime to restock shelves. I wasn’t sure if it was the bright lights or the eerie quiet as we went about this mundane task, but shopping with Danny was sobering. My life before wasn’t normal. Even though I’d barely had any time to do basic things for myself, it didn’t bother me. I never had a reason to change my career because it had been this big, often celebrated part of my life. But how rewarding could it have been if it left me looking in the opposite direction, searching for meaning?
Danny stopped and turned around when he noticed I was no longer beside him. “Do you need something? A lucky charm?”
I didn’t understand Danny’s question until I noticed the four-leaf clover Mylar balloons floating down the seasonal aisle where I’d stationed myself. “I wouldn’t turn one down,”
I said. “Or a pot of gold. You wouldn’t happen to have one of those, would you?”
“What’s going on?”
Danny leaned his elbow on the shopping cart handle. “You were ready to go to a rager a minute ago.”
Yeah, well. That had been the liquor talking. Now reality was like an alarm clock trying to wake me up while I kept hitting the snooze button every ten minutes. “I don’t know if I should tell you. It’s kind of a bummer.”
Danny walked back to me, dragging his cart behind him. “We literally talked about my divorce in the produce section, Rach.”
He had a point.
“I was thinking about how disconnected I am. I can’t tell you the last time I came to a supermarket. What kind of life is that?”
I shook my head, embarrassed by what I’d admitted.
“That’s nothing to feel bad about. Everyone’s busy.”
“But why does it have to be that way? Like, what was all of this for? I put in so much time to reach the next step, always wanting more, when it turns out it was all meaningless. The awards were fake. The stable job was a lie. At this point, I thought I’d be at the prime of my career and my life, but I’m back to where I started, doing someone else’s grunt work.”
I huffed. “What am I supposed to do? I’m too old to start over. I don’t want to go back to revolving my life around work, until I’m starving for a break, looking up trips to Peru so I can get stoned out of my mind.”
Danny had been nodding encouragingly up until the last part. “Sorry? I’m not following. Are you going on vacation?”
“No.”
What was I doing? This was a pathetic midlife crisis. I couldn’t have just pampered myself or splurged on a new lifestyle like a normal person. I had to go and unload my insecurities next to a refrigerator piled with corned beef to the tune of some Kelly Clarkson song. “I keep feeling like I should know better by now, but I don’t know anything at all.”
I clutched my arms, trying to comfort myself after exposing my vulnerability. Danny didn’t say anything right away. He stood still as another shopper walked around us. At first, I thought I’d scared him, but as the seconds ticked by he remained present, waiting until calm settled between us. Finally he spoke.
“I get it,”
he said gently as he reached for me. His hand was warm on my arm. “It’s scary when we don’t know what’s next, but don’t let fear distort the truth. You wouldn’t have gotten this far if you didn’t do something right. Be gentler on yourself.”
“Thanks,”
I muttered. Danny was right, but it was still hard to hear. I was used to having answers. I stretched out my hand until it covered his to show my gratitude. “I didn’t mean to turn into an emo drunk and dump all that on you.”
“It’s not my first time at this rodeo,”
he said, wrapping me in a hug that ended too soon. “Every time you’ve felt overwhelmed, you’ve ‘dumped’ your feelings on me.”
“How did you put up with the melodrama?”
I groaned, thinking about all the stupid stuff I complained about when we were teenagers.
“I didn’t put up with anything. I listened because it mattered to you.”
My face flushed with heat, and I was certain it wasn’t from alcohol. This version of Danny had all the right words, it seemed.
“But what about you?”
I’d learned more about him this night than I did back then. “I wished you would tell me everything that was going on with you. I would’ve listened.”
It would’ve mattered to me too.
Before Danny and I discovered each other’s real identity, I was the one who tried to work out my messy adolescent thoughts and insecurities in our chats, because he’d respond objectively and without judgment. Once we met in person, the air of mystery disappeared, since we knew each other from school. I knew who his friends were and where he worked. I thought I knew enough about him that I didn’t press him to tell me more than he was willing to give. Looking back on it now, I see how lopsided our relationship was. If I’d dug a little deeper, things wouldn’t have ended in a misunderstanding.
“It’s always easier to look at someone else’s problems than face your own.”
Danny shrugged as if his blazer wasn’t fitting properly. “I’m trying to get better at it, though.”
He pushed the cart around the corner to the aisle of wine and spirits. I should have felt grateful to shift the conversation away from my existential crisis, but I didn’t want Danny to stop talking. I sped up until I was in front of the cart and then grabbed the edge with both hands to bring it to a stop. “So, tell me,”
I said, ignoring the puzzled look on his face. “What problems does Danny Phan have nowadays?”
“There’s a woman blocking my shopping cart. Does that count?”
He nudged the cart forward to shake me off, but it was going to take more than that. After a short standoff, he walked around me and with one hand picked up a case of Blue Moon. “You’re so direct.”
He didn’t have to say it like it was a bad thing. What was wrong with getting straight to the point? “You said you want to improve your communication skills. I’m giving you an open floor,”
I said, sweeping my arms widely. “You don’t have a single problem? Is life going swimmingly? You can say so if that’s the case.”
Danny side-eyed me. “Did you forget that I got poked in the butt tonight?”
He meant for that remark to stay between us, but his voice carried in the empty store. He probably would’ve rephrased it if he’d known there was an old lady behind him. Her jaw dropped before she backed away, but not without checking out his otherwise fine-looking ass.
Danny tried to salvage the situation. “It’s not what you think!”
he called out, but the lady was gone. He turned around with a glare. “You’ve caused me plenty of problems tonight. How about that?”
I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from snickering. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, you sound sorry.”
Danny tried for sarcasm, but I heard the hint of laughter. “You really sound like someone who was begging for forgiveness”—he checked his watch—“an hour ago.”
“How am I doing so far?”
“Terrible.”
Danny held the palm of his hand level to the floor next to his hip. “You’re like down here.”
I sucked my teeth. “I better try harder.”
“Please don’t.”
Danny twisted at the waist to stretch. “My body can’t handle any more chases or long walks.”
What could his body handle?
Mine warmed as thoughts of our rendezvous in the supply closet returned, but I tamped them down. We had kissed hours ago. Maybe that was all the closure I was going to get. I didn’t want to break this new camaraderie we were building. Besides, the timing couldn’t have been worse. I had no business starting any relationship, especially not one with Danny, when I was feeling this lost. If we were going to restart whatever this was, then I wanted to give it the best chance possible.
I stepped out of the cart’s way and walked slowly beside it. “So, is there anything I should know before we get to Tao’s?”
I’d heard plenty of things on the Mondays after his parties. The reactions ranged from “You had to be there”
to “Oh, it was sick!”
I wasn’t sure what I was in for.
Danny’s face remained neutral, giving nothing away. “Don’t go in with a game plan. Tao’s parties are unpredictable.”