Chapter 32
32
Eleanor
After a long day at work, Dawn catches me in our hallway. My key is already inserted into my lock when she opens her door and says, “It’s pizza night.”
Before I can get in a question, she gestures to the inside of her apartment while tapping her foot, like it’s not only a given that I will be attending, but I am somehow late for this event we have not planned.
“Give me a second, let me go change,” I say, to which she sighs. Inside my place, Syrup and Salt greet me at the door, meowing with desperation. “I know, I know. You’re hungry.”
I feed them and change, then head over to Dawn’s for our supposed pizza night, texting Carson along the way.
Eleanor: Dawn’s invited me over again. Not sure how long it will be.
Carson: Don’t worry about it. I’ll be home all night. Have fun.
I’ll miss you , I type, then delete.
Eleanor: Talk later.
“It’s just cheese,” Dawn tells me, opening the box so I can take out my slice. “I don’t like any toppings.”
“That’s perfect,” I say.
“We’re watching Twilight on Clarke Street .” The movie is cued up on her TV screen, with a bucket of popcorn resting on her coffee table and two glasses of wine already poured for us.
“Also perfect,” I tell her. “I’ve never seen it.”
This gets me another look of scorn, which I take to be disappointment at my lack of knowledge of the classics. Only when we get about four minutes into the movie do I realize she’s disappointed in me because she’s in this movie.
My favorite thing about Dawn is the way she throws me into situations without context. When I got back from Trove Hills in July, she knocked on my door that very morning, handing me a bag of her old dresses.
“Tatum forced me to do this,” she said.
“Do you want me to donate them for you?” I asked, confused.
“Why the hell would I want you to do that?”
Eventually, after several more questions and more than one frustrated run-in with her in our hallway where she asked me when my next fancy event was, I realized she wanted me to wear the dresses she’d given me. And so I do. Whenever we have a bigger press event that requires something formal, I pull out an old Dawn Flores dress for the occasion. Now she’s got me at her apartment for a pizza night we never discussed, playing a movie of hers from the 1970s, and it’s up to me to figure out why.
“I’m so excited to watch one of your movies with you,” I say, switching between young Dawn on the screen and the Dawn that sits beside me now.
“Eh.” She grabs a handful of popcorn. When I linger on her too long, she nudges my attention back to the screen. There’s a young man in the scene with her. Handsome. Blond hair, blue eyes. Familiar, somehow.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
Dawn stares at me, expectant.
“Do I know him?” I continue.
She continues staring. I want to get out my phone and google it, but something tells me it’s the easy way out, and she wouldn’t like that.
Several minutes later, when the man on-screen reaches for his neck, dipping his chin down to look at young Dawn with something like longing, it finally clicks.
“This is Joseph Donovan’s dad,” I say.
Dawn grins. “Thought you’d get a kick out of seeing him, since you’re doing all that press for Joseph’s play. I’ve known his dad for—shit—almost fifty years now. Had to show you this.”
Pleased with myself for figuring it out, I finally settle into my seat, taking a bite of the cheese pizza. “The world’s small, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes,” she says. “And sometimes it’s big enough to get lost in.”
We continue watching young Dawn, so fresh to the scene. She has an arresting presence, capable of showcasing hurt and yearning and fear all in a single glance. It’s mesmerizing.
“We should get you in some new projects,” I say, my PR brain spinning its wheels, already thinking of the angles. “I can think of more than a few outlets we could pitch.”
Dawn shoots up from her couch and heads to her kitchen. “What would you even say?” She decides right now is a great time to do her dishes.
“Whatever you wanted me to,” I tell her sincerely. “We could talk about your early career, where you’ve been. What you hope to do next. There’s a real taste for this kind of thing right now, if you wanted it.”
“I don’t think so,” she calls out. “I could never be who I was.”
“They wouldn’t want you to,” I assure her. “But the door is open, if you ever want to walk through it.”
After a few more minutes of clanking, she returns to join me on the couch. We say nothing else about what I’ve offered, but it lingers in the air. And in that loaded silence, I make a decision.
I will help Dawn Flores return to the spotlight.
···
It’s late when I finally get back to my apartment. Syrup and Salt both wrap around me, meowing with desperation as I text Carson again.
“You already had your dinner,” I remind my cats.
Salt backs off, embarrassed to be exposed. Syrup, however, in his infinite innocence, continues to pester me with cries, following me throughout the apartment. They both chase me to the couch, where they jump up, one on either side of me, almost gnawing off my fingers as they each enjoy a squeezable cat yogurt.
My phone rings with an incoming video call. Knowing my cats aren’t quite done with their snack, I open my laptop to take the call there instead, nudging off Syrup and Salt in an attempt to click accept on my MacBook.
Since we reconnected, Carson and I video chat almost every night, unless one of us is too tired or too busy. But we never miss a Saturday, no matter what.
If I transcribed our conversations for strangers to read, they’d never know the longing that sits like a deadweight in my heart. They couldn’t feel the way I hold my breath every time Carson goes quiet. Every silence scares me, because I’m afraid if we’re quiet for too long, I’ll forget about the pleasantries and say what I really feel, and neither of us will know what to do with it.
“Hello there,” I say as I finally manage to answer. Both my cats crowd the screen, eager to get back to their yogurts.
“Are you being accosted by your cats?” Carson’s on their bed in a black tank, hair wet from a shower. The pixelation of the video call paints them like my memories do, with a soft generosity, gentle in the rendering of their features.
“Yes. They’ll be lodging a complaint with the Supreme Court imminently, suing me for failing to feed them enough.”
“Taking it to the highest court in the land. Those are definitely your pets.”
“Some might say they have firing energy.”
We both laugh.
“How was Dawn?” Carson asks.
“She’s so funny,” I tell them. “She showed me one of her old movies, because she wanted me to know she was in it with the dad of one of the actors from the play I’m working on. But I think she just wanted the company too. And to remind me she’s a good actor. Which she really is.”
“That was nice of you to watch it with her,” Carson says.
“Honestly, I like her company too,” I admit. “She’s hilarious. I’m trying to get her back into acting. I think she wants it. But she doesn’t want to have to ask.”
Carson nods. “I get that.”
My cats finish their dessert, jumping off the couch in almost eerie unison, leaving me alone to have this conversation in private.
Carson and I get into summarizing our day. They tell me about putting their foot down with the park district, finally getting the mural design started on the wall. I take them through the dinner I just attended with some producers.
“We ran into my old boss near the end.”
“ No ,” Carson says, scandalized. “What happened?”
“He congratulated me on the position at Atlas. I thought for a second he was going to mention the Anthony email in front of the whole table, but he didn’t.”
“Probably because he knows he was wrong to fire you.”
“Anthony and his fiancée, Kelsey, are still together, by the way,” I say.
“Of course they are,” Carson responds.
“Kelsey blocked me on Instagram.”
“She doesn’t want to accept that what you said was true, and that it will happen again.” Carson stops, leaning back. “I shouldn’t say that. I guess my dad changed.” They move closer to the screen. “What if there really are others? A dozen Brother Bens all throughout Illinois? What if there are children from whatever doctor conferences my dad used to go on when I was a kid? What if there really is an army of Wards?”
“Then I consider you the captain. Or the sergeant. Whatever the main one is. You rule them all.”
“Eleanor, I can’t be their leader. I never asked for this. I’m not ready for this power.”
“What is this army of Wards even fighting?”
“Our demons.”
We laugh.
We always laugh.
“I thought it was getting cold in Illinois,” Carson says. “But today it was eighty degrees.”
“When do the leaves start to turn there?” I ask. “We’re still green here in New York.”
“Should be pretty soon. But right now, it looks the same as it did when you were here.”
In the weeks since we’ve been talking again, this is the first mention of my time in Trove Hills. I squeeze myself into the opening, just tired enough to keep my defenses low.
“I miss it,” I say. The conversation drops down into me, the deadweight lifting a little at this admission. “I miss you .”
Carson doesn’t say anything for a while. I watch their chest rise and fall, and I sync my breath to theirs, trying to stay brave.
“I miss you too,” they say.
I pick up my laptop, walking us into my bedroom. Something about the tall windows out in my living room exposes me too much. People might be able to see. I can’t let anyone have access to this moment.
There is only one light on in my bedroom. It’s small and glows warm, casting a halo around my nightstand. I walk toward it, moth to flame, settling under my bedsheets. My face becomes half shadow, half light. I set my laptop down, spreading my legs so that it can rest between my knees. It shows me from the hips up, with my comforter covering the lower part of me.
“You look nice,” Carson says.
“I remember a time when you’d call me beautiful,” I respond.
“You’re always beautiful to me,” they say. “You know that.”
“I wish I could hear you say that in person. I wish you were here right now.”
Carson leans in, like they might see more of me if they get closer to the screen. “What would we do if I was?”
“You know what we’d do,” I say, breathy.
“Do I?” they question.
“ Carson ,” I say, my need cracking me open.
They turn off the overhead light in their room, hiding away the same as I am, half shadow, all longing.
“I want you to tell me what we’d do,” they say. “Spell it out for me.”
“You’d probably push me up against something,” I start. “A wall. A door. Your lips would be on my mouth as you’d reach for my thigh.”
“You’d let out your gasp,” they add.
My hand wanders down under my comforter, the movement in full view of the screen. Touching myself the same way, I do as they said—I gasp.
“That’s the one,” they confirm, a lazy grin spreading across their face. “I’d probably whisper in your ear next.”
“What would you say?”
“ Such a good girl ,” they coo, soft and low.
“You’d touch me then, right?”
“Only if you wanted me to,” they say.
“I want you to,” I tell them.
“Then I would.”
On their command, my hand moves to my clit, re-creating the gentle way they’d tease me.
“Talk to me,” I request, yearning for the sound of their voice, the one they use only for me when we’re alone.
“Close your eyes,” they say, full of their gentle command. When I do as I’m told, they sigh, loud enough for me to hear. “Very good. Are you wet?”
“Yes,” I tell them.
“Is it for me?”
“Yes.”
“Good girl.”
My eyes still closed, I listen for the sound of their breath, using it as a tempo to pace my own.
“I want you to touch yourself too,” I say. “I need you here with me.”
“I am. I’m right here, baby. Right here.”
The raw edge in their voice breaks me. Together, we become a ragged chorus, words of praise and longing mixing together with the noise of our desires. Every whimper they let out unlocks a wilder piece of my own, and I feel as close to them with this computer between us as I could if they were in the room.
Closer maybe, because this way we can be sure to fall apart together, unraveling in perfect synchronicity.
It’s only when it’s over, and we both come back to ourselves, that the loneliness kicks in. The stark emptiness of my bed. The hollow sound of my apartment. Carson on a video screen pales in comparison to the real thing. We have undone each other, just as we intended to. But I don’t know how to piece myself back together anymore.