Chapter Thirteen #3
“I mean like not obsess over Jasper’s appearance.”
“I’m not obsessed. Are you obsessed?”
“Oliver. No. I’m not.”
“You sure?”
My jaw tenses. As if I purposefully brought Jasper to L.A. and this is somehow my fault? “It was never about his looks anyway.”
“Right. He’s naturally got a great personality. You already told me he was good in bed.”
“What are we talking about right now? Are we fighting about this?”
“No.” He’s never sounded less convincing. “It’s just, Katherine is beautiful too. But also someone you could imagine running into at the grocery store.”
“I can imagine running into Jasper at the store. I have. It’s not that shocking.”
“Yes, but how would you feel if you bumped into me and Cindy Crawford was on my arm?”
“He wasn’t on my arm tonight. I was sitting with you. I didn’t even know he was in L.A.”
I climb into bed and he follows.
“Have you two been talking?”
“You’re blowing this completely out of proportion.”
“I’m not. I know you want me to be this totally secure, new man but I can still be upended.”
“That’s not what I want.”
“I’m different. We both are. And you don’t want the old me.”
“ You don’t want the old you! You were miserable. And I’m not here because you feel more confident.”
“You lit up when you saw him.”
“I was surprised. I get upended too.” I won’t lie to him. “You’re right. He’s that kind of guy. He just is. I’m sure everyone at the table wanted to fuck him.”
“So you admit it?”
“Jesus, Oliver. Why did you invite him to the party?”
Oliver sits up in bed and runs his hands through his hair. “This is too much. There’s too much pressure.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I need to feel like I can have room to be ugly.”
“Then you’re off to a good start.”
“Seriously?” he says, but it echoes through the room more like Fuck you.
I want to storm off but there’s a house full of people and I don’t know where to go.
I get out of bed and step out onto our patio, inhaling the cool, salty air.
Fighting is good. We’re talking about our feelings.
Don’t walk away. This is healthy. Of course he’s rattled.
We’ll take a few moments to ourselves, apologize, and move on.
I relax when I hear Oliver get out of bed—but he doesn’t join me.
Instead the bathroom door closes with a slam.
Was it louder than usual? Angrier? He’ll come back.
Any second, he’ll come out here. We’ll tell each other it was a passing moment.
We both care. That’s all this is. But when the bathroom door opens, Oliver doesn’t join me.
He turns off the bedroom light and I hear him settle onto the bed.
I’m taken right back to the suffocating space we used to live in after fighting.
There was no coming to find each other. We both groped for more space between us, not less.
Back in the room, even in the dark, I can feel Oliver’s agitation.
“I’m taking a shower,” I announce to his back.
Under the warm water, I close my eyes and breathe. The water runs hot, turns my skin pink, and the shower doors fog up.
I hear him before I can see him through the steam. I take a step back, inviting him under the water. He silently complies then pulls me to him so we’re both getting wet. He lifts my arms over my head and lightly traces his fingers up my torso.
He presses me up against the tiles and parts my legs with his knee.
I try to close them again, teasing him in resistance.
But there is no foreplay. No tender kisses up and down my thigh.
He knows what he wants. He kneels on the shower floor before me.
When he looks up, his eyes are repentant, his lashes beaded with water.
“I’m sorry for tonight. The whole night,” he says.
I don’t answer. His hands slip to my buttocks.
He squeezes tight and buries his head between my legs.
His mouth is on me, his lips wet and soft.
His tongue, deep inside me. Every sensation is heightened, the tension of our fight still coursing through me.
I reach for him, trying to pull him to stand, but he bats me away.
“No,” he tells me. “Just you.” Oliver licks me long and slow, and when I shiver he takes me by the hips and moves me closer to the warm water.
I bury my hands in his hair. My edge is so close that I want to slam on the brakes.
Live in this moment where Oliver devours me for a little longer.
Oliver lifts his head and kisses my thighs, my hips, my stomach. I can’t take much more. I grip his shoulders. “Please. I need you inside me. Now.”
He stands, his gaze level with mine. He kisses me, the water running into our mouths. I lean against the wall and nearly slip before Oliver catches me. He presses his weight into mine. My breathing is ragged, my head light and floaty.
“I’m sorry too,” I tell him.
After our shower, we climb into bed. My legs are still shaky with pleasure. Oliver falls quickly and soundly asleep.
But I am wide awake. Eventually, I give up on sleep and quietly make my way to the deck. I slide the doors shut behind me and take in the predawn light. The sky is a moody blue, just beginning to lighten. On the beach below, I see Petra, her back to me, sitting on a striped blanket near the shore.
—
“It’s so early.”
“Jet lag.”
I sit beside Petra and she tucks the blanket over my legs.
“You smell like sex.”
“I showered!”
“It’s a vibe,” she teases.
“Maybe I should have my picture taken. ‘Sitting on the beach, just got fucked…’?”
Petra laughs, but it’s shallower than usual, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
“You all right?”
“I haven’t been to the Malibu house since Mitch died.”
“Oh. Petra.” I turn to face her. She watches the tide and bites at her bottom lip, trying and failing to keep her eyes from filling with tears.
“I thought it would be easier if I had more people here, a house full. Mitch and I had so many happy times here. I thought maybe I’d feel some of that.
Like happiness would be stored here and I could drink from it.
” She laughs and presses her palms against her eyes.
“Like some stupid fountain.” She takes a deep breath, but it catches in her throat, shaky and misbehaving.
“I even brought some of his ashes. Just in case I wanted to scatter them in the ocean…. Don’t worry, I’m thinking it too.
So fucking cliché, I know.” I notice it now, a plastic bag in the sand near her feet.
“It’s not. I wasn’t.” I pull the sleeve of my sweatshirt down over my hand and brush the tears from her cheeks.
“It feels like he’s going to walk through the door any minute. I actually froze this afternoon when I heard a truck pull into the driveway.”
“It won’t always be like this. This new.”
“That’s sad too.” Petra rests her head on my shoulder. “Tell me something good.”
My mind races and my thoughts are vapor. The sky is good, brightening. It looks like it’ll be a nice clear day. “Something good. I get to be here with you.”
“Hmm.” Like try again.
“I’m excited about the party. I’m not nervous anymore.”
“Something true, Diana.”
“Weirdly I like you even more this morning than yesterday.”
“Because I cried.”
“Because you are the richest person I know and yet your husband’s ashes are in a Ziploc baggie and not an urn made of gold and rubies and I find that strangely comforting.”
She laughs. “Okay, that’s good. Of course, full disclosure, Brina went out and bought us six different urns. They’re inside and I hate them all even though they are objectively very beautiful.”
“And made of rubies and solid gold?”
“Yes, that too.” She settles back into me.
The sky is now a pale blue tinged with orange.
Soon the rest of the house will be awake.
“I miss his arms. They were massive and so strong and when he held me, I felt like nothing could hurt me. It was like he was made of some other material than the rest of us get, something sturdier. Rock, but not cold—still warm and unpredictable like the rest of us. But you couldn’t knock him over.
Nothing would shock him or scare him away.
” She laughs, a tiny bit sheepish. “Even me.”
She pulls her knees to her chest. “I don’t like it here without him.
I want to do all of it less. Sometimes I hate the rhythm of a day.
When there’s too much quiet I get scared to be alone and when there’s too much noise I’m angry he’s not part of it.
And I don’t have anyone to tell how shitty I feel at the end of the day.
I just pretend all day long. But at least with Mitch, I had someone to tell that I felt like a fraud or I felt ugly or nervous. Or scared.”
“You can tell me.”
“Okay.” Petra turns to me, her eyes glistening and worried. “I’m scared I won’t survive this. That my grief is bottomless and I’ll just keep falling.”
I pull her into me and her shoulders shudder, crying into my chest. After a few minutes, she pulls away and wipes her eyes on the blanket.
“Maybe we scatter the ashes this afternoon,” I say. “At the party.”
“No. The party is going to be a scene. Just wait.”
“What about now?”
“It’s not too depressing? Just the two of us?”
“I don’t think so. Or maybe just you? I didn’t know Mitch.”
She seems to consider the idea, watching the low tide come steadily nearer. “Maybe later.” She tucks the bag into her lap. “He would have liked you.”
“Yeah?”
“He would have ribbed you a little, of course. ‘Jump in, Diana! Just fucking jump in!’ That’s what he used to say all the time. Feet first. Jump in. For everything.”
Petra brushes the sand from her hands, then the blanket, busying herself to keep from crying again.
When she’s satisfied everything is tidy enough, she lies back on the blanket, one arm tucked behind her head and the other draped across her eyes.
This is how I would draw her. “Stay with me for a bit?” she asks.
We linger like this until the sky is a bright baby blue and the morning’s first pack of surfers have paddled out. Inside the house everyone is still sleeping. As Petra heads to her room, I want to call out and invite her into our bed just so she doesn’t have to be alone.
I watch her go and listen as she gently shuts her bedroom door. I hear the taps turn for a bath. In my room, I slip out of my sandy clothes and curl into Oliver’s warm body, which feels more and more like home.