Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
I CAN’T EVEN IMAGINE WHAT MY HAIR LOOKS LIKE. I haven’t blown it straight since I’ve been here—there’s really no point. The humidity, plus the wind on the open ocean, must have it completely out of control. I’m in the back seat of Brian’s car putting it into a braid, and I catch sight of myself in the window. It’s mostly just the outline of me, but I recognize this person. She’s younger; she’s still a believer in fairy tales and true love. For a reason I don’t understand, I smile at her.
Dan’s on the phone. “No, that’s a nightmare,” he’s saying. “She’ll hate it. Okay, fine, I’ll hate it. No. Fine.”
Brian drops us off in the Finnegans’ driveway. “Call me if you get bored later, Jane.” He gives me a teasing look through the open car window. He is equally as handsome as Dan—the chiseled features and full l ips—but I’m not attracted to Brian like I am to Dan. The pull is specific to him, the way he moves in the world.
“Fuck off, Brian,” Dan says without looking up from his phone. Brian laughs and drives away.
“What am I going to hate? Or am I not the she?” I ask.
He looks up at me and holds my gaze for a second. “You’re the she.” It’s not a proper sentence. It’s practically gibberish. But it hits me right in the center of my heart. He runs a hand through his hair, which is nearly as wild as mine. “I might need a hat,” he says.
“I might need a salon,” I say.
“You don’t,” he says.
I think this is a compliment, and I don’t know where to put it, so I look past him at the house. “So what am I going to hate?”
“A lobster boil. Tonight at the beach. With my high school friends. Aidan says it’s going to be low-key, and I usually trust him on stuff like this. But still, we’re going back in time, it will be a whole thing.”
“Sounds fun,” I say. “To see how you spent your time.”
“That wasn’t how I spent my time, unless Aidan or a girl forced me.” His phone buzzes. “Huh. Guess who’s at Chippy’s Diner. Let’s go.”
“Jack?” My voice does a weird thing and I clear my throat to cover it up.
“Yep, let’s go.” He starts walking to where the bikes are leaning against the garage, and I cannot for the life of me understand how this is all so easy for him. My feet are cemented in the ground. And my hair. I just can’t do this with this hair.
Dan wheels the bikes back to me. “Come on.”
“Like this?”
“Like what?”
I grab the bottom of my braid.
“You look good, Jane. And this script is good. It’s all good. Let’s go.”
He gets on his bike, so I do the same. As we ride, my mind races to tomorrow. Tomorrow Dan and I will call Nathan and tell him how well it went with Jack, that he’s currently reading the script and brainstorming ideas. Nathan will say how good I am at my job. Dan will tell his family at dinner how calmly I handled things. He’ll say I was a pro.
I do not engage with my reflection as we walk through the doors at Chippy’s. I’m doing guided self-t alk in my head: I’m a pro. The hostess tells us we can sit wherever we want as I scan the booths along the window.
Dan says to her, “Aidan said Jack Quinlan was here?”
“He was!” she says. “Left me a forty-dollar tip, which I guess he should have. Chippy let him leave out the back.”
“When?” I ask.
“Like five minutes ago. You two want a booth?”
Dan turns to me. “Come on.” I follow him to the back door, and we are in an alley with a dumpster, a Chevy truck, and no sign of Jack Quinlan.
“This is annoying,” Dan says to the dumpster. He turns to me and reads the thoughts that are crossing my face. I try to hide them, to arrange my features so that they say, I’m a pro. No problem.
He reaches for my arm. “Do you need water or something?”
“For what?”
“I don’t know, you look really stressed.”
And I guess I am. I’m disappointed and relieved all at once. I want to make this movie and keep my job as much as I don’t want to ever see Jack Quinlan again. I hate mixed feelings, and I hate when they all release at once. I look up at Dan with tears in my eyes, and he pulls me into his arms. Right there in the alley by the dumpster. His chest is as solid as it looks but also warm as he wraps himself around me. I rest my head against him and listen to the thrum of his heart as I breathe in the ocean-soaked smell of his shirt.
“This is all going to work out,” he says into my hair. “We’re going to make this movie, one way or another.”
“How can you be like that? Just so sure.” I look up at his face, and we are mere centimeters apart. I see that his eyes have a darker ring around the outside. My gaze moves across his mouth before I can stop it, and I tuck my head back down against him.
“I’m just sure. I know how something feels when it matters. Like Star Crossed wasn’t it. I knew.”
“I was so pissed,” I say and look up at him again. “I mean, clearly. But you were right.” Dan takes a coil of hair that has sprung out of my braid and tucks it behind my ear. There is a miles-wide disconnect between how I know I look and how he’s looking at me.
“We’re going to see Jack on Saturday night at the festival for sure, and he might write us a song. But if he doesn’t, we’re going to make this movie another way, one hundred percent guaranteed. It’s that good, Jane. It’s that true.”
“That,” I say. “That’s the thing that made me want to punch you out. You’re just so sure of what you think.”
He smiles and says, “I know what I know.” He lowers his forehead onto mine, and for a second, I know what it would feel like to have a guy like Dan feel sure about me. In that same second, I want desperately to know what it would feel like to be kissed by him. His arms are tight and protective around my back; his eyes are straight on mine. He would kiss me with intention, like it would matter.
“I think I need sugar,” I say.
He lets out a breath and releases me. Among the tornado of thoughts in my head right now, the clearest one is that I do not want to be released by Dan. If I hadn’t said anything, he’d still be holding me and I’d still have my head snuggled into the warmth of his chest. I am no longer a monkey starved for touch; I am a person starved for Dan.
“Let’s get ice cream and I’ll show you something good,” he says.
*
WE HAVE CHOCOLATE chip cones in our hands as we bike to the end of town. This requires slow pedaling and extreme concentration on my part. Dan pulls ahead and looks back and smiles at me in a way that reminds me of The Notebook. I roll my eyes and let my legs stick straight out, mimicking Allie’s ease and sense of fun for just a second.
We’ve turned right, away from the ocean onto a country road. Crops that might be wheat grow on either side, and oak trees dot the landscape. I speed up so I can ride next to him. “I see what you’re doing,” I say.
“What am I doing? Besides getting ice cream all over my arms.” He licks the side of his cone where it’s dripping.
“You’re trying to sell me on The Notebook with this bike- riding-and-ice-cream montage. Like you’ve stuck me right into the movie. You’re so transparent.” I smile at him as I bike ahead. He catches up laughing.
“It does sort of feel like that, except you’re not falling for me, and I’m never going to build you a house with my own hands.”
“The plumbing would be terrible,” I say. And please let him be right about that other thing. Dan is not Solid Partner material, and falling for him is a recipe for disaster.
We ride side by side for a while, and I ask, “Is it believable to you that Allie never got the mail?”
Dan laughs. “What?”
“He wrote to her every day for a year. I mean, in three hundred and sixty-five days, she never once helped her mom out and grabbed the mail on the way in? And she’s waiting, expecting, to hear from the love of her life. You’d think she’d stalk the mailman.”
Dan’s quiet, considering this. “Okay, I’ll give you that.”
“I mean, if you meet ‘the one’”—I risk letting go of my handlebars for air quotes—”you check your mail.”
Dan doesn’t say anything.
“I don’t want to ruin your favorite thing. I was just thinking about it, because I’m coming around to the ice cream and the bikes and the country-road montage.”
We pedal around a bend, and there’s a big red barn with three smaller buildings around it in the distance. He motions with his head toward the property. “That’s actually my favorite thing.”
*
I AM SO thirsty by the time we’re inside the barn. Like dust bowl thirsty. Dan hugs a woman named Elana, and her husband, Claude, comes out with a big pitcher of ice water. I gulp down an entire glass before I am ready for polite conversation.
“Jane and I are in town for the music festival.”
“You could have stayed here,” Elana says. “We have your old room.”
“Thank you,” he says. “But we’re staying with my parents.”
She reaches out and takes his hand. “Well, wander around all you want. We have a tour starting in ten minutes, but you know where everything is.” She gives his hand a squeeze, and they leave us alone. Dan’s face is so relaxed in this quiet place, talking to these quiet people.
I pour a third glass of water and look around. The barn is full of large-scale paintings, oils and watercolors. All unframed.
“Your old room?” I ask.
“It’s an outdoor museum—well, the rest of it is outdoors. I worked here and taught kids for a while during high school, and sometimes I’d just stay. They gave me a room over the barn, and I would sleep there if I was working on something late. They have a darkroom in the little building out there. After high school, for the two years before I moved to the city for college, I moved in. That was the first stage of my big rebellion.”
“What did your parents think?”
“I’m not sure.” We’re walking around the barn, looking at the paintings. “I like this one,” he says. It’s a painting of a woman stretching. You can see the shadows between the discs of her spine.
“Your parents said nothing?”
“Yeah, so my dad just thought I was being lazy, putting off my life. My mom thought it was about a girl.”
“Sounds consistent,” I say, and he laughs.
“This is a place where it’s okay to be quiet. I could spend a whole day, a week, painting something. And I had no idea what I was going to do, but I finally started to feel like I knew what I wanted.” He shrugs, like what he said was a small thing.
“What was the next stage of your rebellion?”
“Studying photography. Then moving to LA. They did not approve.”
We stop at a large watercolor painting of a forest. Dan takes my arm and pulls me away from it so that we can see the whole thing. “There’s no limit to how many greens you can find in nature,” he says.
I must make a face because he says, “Before you crack a man-bun joke, I just mean I like this one because it feels like a real forest, every single possible shade of green. Water- color’s just about how much water you add—it’s simple and unruly, kind of like the forest.” He reads my face again. “Okay, maybe too much? Is my gramophone showing?”
“No,” I say. We’re facing each other, shoulders squared, and I wonder if he can read my thoughts. I want him to say more things about the forest. Or about paint and the color green. I just like the way his face goes serious when he’s talking about something that matters to him. Something that matters so much to him that he wants to teach it to a bunch of little kids at the pier. Dan’s not chasing anything; he’s inviting the rest of us to a secret place. Dan is that dangerous kind of person who can make you believe in anything.
“Want to try?” he asks.
I don’t have a chance to answer before he’s walking into a storage closet to retrieve a stack of watercolor paper and paints. “Come.”
I follow him outside and up a grassy hill behind the barn. I regret my choice of the slippery-bottomed flip-flops that were adorable for our biking montage but are terrible for hiking. Yellow wildflowers welcome us to the top of the hill where a pond appears in the distance, a pale blue oval like an aquamarine. It’s surrounded by tall beach grasses the color of wheat.
“Give it a try,” he says. There’s a breeze up here, and I like the way it’s hitting the back of my neck and giving me a little relief from the heat. I close my eyes and turn my face to the sun, and I can still see the pond in my mind. The breeze makes tiny ripples in the water before it bends the grasses. I open my eyes and Dan’s watching me, and it occurs to me that I don’t know what time it is. It occurs to me that Dan doesn’t care what time it is; he just knows what he knows. I look back up to the sun and guess that it’s around four. “You seem exactly ready for watercolors,” he says.
So I sit on the ground with the little paper flat between my legs. Dan has a thermos of water for paintbrush dipping, but he gives me a sip first. I take too big of a sip and a little bit spills out of my mouth and he laughs. I wipe my smile away with the back of my hand.
“You’re a mess,” he says. My shorts and tank top are dry but filthy. Dan doesn’t seem to mind the mess. He’s eyeing the loose curl he tucked away earlier, and I silently will him to do it again.
“Want to hear something crazy?” I ask.
“Everything you say is a little crazy, Jane. Doesn’t bother me a bit anymore.” He smiles with his eyes, and I wish he met one of my criteria for a partner, though I can’t think of what any of those are right now. My only thought is that I want to climb on top of him and pull covers over our heads and stay there. I want to taste his bottom lip. I want to know what his hands would feel like on my skin, and I want to, just for a bit, feel what it would be to have his focus all over me. The force of this want has a pulse, and it terrifies me. These are thoughts that belong to someone like my mother. These are the thoughts of a woman who’s about to get crushed.
“So what’s crazy?” he asks and snaps me out of it.
I laugh a little and rest my head on my knees. “I think I might be relaxed.”
“Perfect time to paint,” he says and places the thermos cap of water in front of me. I dip the paintbrush and make an oval of blue, but the oval won’t stay put, there’s too much water mixed in and it starts to bleed. It’s like the pond is leaking.
“Can I?” he asks. He has a bit of green on his paintbrush and he’s eyeing my painting.
“Sure,” I say. He scoots closer to me and our knees touch. Our knees press together as he reaches between my legs to paint, his arm on my thigh. That delicious hug in the alley has broken the seal between us. We’re allowed to touch now, and at every point of contact, my skin tingles like it’s waking up. I steady my breath and watch him add vague, watery trees behind the pond. The bottom of the greenery blends into the edges of the pond, and instead of looking like a hot mess, it looks like we’re seeing it from a distance. He rinses his brush and dips it in red, dotting the field with poppies while his forearm rests on my thigh. I watch his face as he paints, just inches from mine, his eyebrows knitted together and his lashes in profile. I feel like he’s let me into his private world, the one where he is entirely in his senses. He turns and catches me watching. His eyes smile and mine dip to his mouth. He notices and leans in a breath closer.
“It’s your turn,” he says.
“What?” I think I’m holding my breath.
He releases my eyes and looks down at the painting. “Fill in the bottom, make it sort of earthy.”
“I don’t know how,” I say.
The two inches beyond Dan’s lips are like a vortex pulling me in. “That’s the fun of it though,” he says. “You get it started, and then the paint’s going to do what it’s going to do. It just sort of takes over.”
“Like a laugh,” I say.
“I guess. I was thinking of a kiss.” He looks away, squinting against the sun.
“What?” I am sure I’m delirious and deeply dehydrated because I think he just said something about a kiss. Out loud.
“A kiss is like that. I mean, if it takes. Sometimes a kiss doesn’t go anywhere. But sometimes it starts and makes decisions all on its own.” He’s looking at my mouth as he says it, and I wonder if he’s imagining the same kiss I am.
“I’ll take your word for it,” I say and dip my paintbrush into the brown. “And I will admit, because I am relaxed and maybe sun-drunk, that the kiss in The Notebook was a great one. The one in the rain?”
“Oh, I remember it,” he says. I’m looking at our painting, but I can feel his eyes on me.
“That movie came out when I was twelve, and I remember thinking, wow, I hope that’s what kissing is.” I turn toward him and his eyes are heavy on mine.
“And has it been?”
“Nope,” I say. My heart is daring him to lean in, just a bit, and show me that kiss. But it’s also beating like I’m about to jump out of a plane. My want and my fear are in their usual death match, and he smiles at me in the most tender way. It pulls at my heart and reminds me how easily I can be crushed. I turn back to our painting. The earth beneath the pond is too dark, so I add water to the brown to lighten it. Dan covers my hand with his and guides me to paint short brushstrokes to add texture to the earth. His fingers on mine, like they belong there, and the way he’s inviting me to create something with him, it’s all too much.
I say, “I think if I was from here, I’d stay.” He takes his hand away, and I hate myself for breaking that moment. I rinse my brush and take a little yellow to add the grasses.
“You’d think,” he says.
“So why LA? You could have worked in film in New York?”
“Yeah, I always thought I might go to LA at some point, but it all accelerated when Aidan got married.” He gives me a long look, like he’s not sure if he should go on. “I brought a girl I’d been seeing for a while to the wedding, and she decided right then that she wanted to get married. Aidan looked good in a tux, so I would too, she said. Like we were exactly the same.”
I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit. There is something coming over me that is both unfamiliar and unsafe. I’m feeling all the Jennifer-at-the-bar vibes. She got to touch his chest enough times to consider marrying him. “How old were you?” I ask, and turn my traitorous face back to the painting.
“Twenty-four,” he says. “Suddenly I knew I had to get out of here to really start my life, separate from my family. I’m sure she’ll be there tonight. She always turns up. And wow, actually, we need to get going if we’re going to buy beer and I’m going to smell less sweaty.” He stands up and offers me a hand. It’s safe to say I’ve had too much physical activity today. A run and a boat ride and a long bike ride and a hike up a hill. That’s probably what’s making me delirious. That’s probably why I keep holding on to his hand for unnecessary seconds while we stand there looking at our painting. I liked making something with him. I liked the feel of his forearm pressed against my inner thigh. I like the way I can’t tell which strokes were his and which ones were mine. I hope we get to make this movie and that it’s exactly like this.
“Thank you,” I say. For showing me something new. For helping me get relaxed enough to make art.
“You’re welcome,” he says. We’re just standing there looking at each other. “Let’s get this home safely.” He drops my hand, takes the painting from me, and places it in my bike’s basket with exaggerated care.
We bike back to his house in silence, and I take a shower sitting down. That’s how tired my body is. I wash my hair and brush it out and climb into bed for a nap. I have a missed text from Clem: Found him yet?
For a second, I don’t know who she’s talking about.
I reply: We almost did and I kind of freaked out. And Dan held me in an alley
Clem: Against your will?
Me: No like a hug. Then he touched my hair and we rode bikes and painted. I think I’m on a collision course with his mouth and whatever’s on the other side of it Clem: Ok, wow. That’s his tongue Me: I’m delirious. How’s work? And have you seen the hiking guy?
Clem: Work’s good, but no I realized we were hiking because he’s cheap Me: Ugh.
Clem: It’s fine because I wanted to be home tonight to undo whatever you did to our bookshelves Me: Yeah, that was a bad idea. Thanks Clem: Love you. And it’s okay if you’re having fun. People do that all the time