Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
I WAKE UP LIKE I’VE BEEN DRUGGED, THE WAY YOU DO after a too-long nap. The room is dark, and what feels like the last of the daylight is coming in from outside. Dan has leaned our painting against the window, and the sight of it makes me smile. He is standing with his back to me, shirtless in jeans. I wonder how long he’ll keep facing that way so I can keep looking at the way the light comes in and hits his shoulders and the way his Levi’s grip his thighs.
He puts an arm through the sleeve of a white button- down, and I ask, “What time is it?”
“Oh, hey. I didn’t want to wake you up. It’s seven thirty. Do you still want to come?” He’s turned around, half shirted and half not. He’s in the process of dressing, but my brain registers him as undressing.
I stretch my arms over my head. “Sure.”
He sits on the bed, and I scoot toward the wall. “You don’t have to. It’s going to be a lot of idiots and Brooke, and it might be weird.”
“Brooke?” I prop myself up on my elbows. “That’s her name?” And the thought arrives fully formed in my mind: I cannot compete with a girl named Brooke . No one can. I’ve known plenty of Brookes, and they’re all worse than Jennifer. Brooke’s tall and plays competitive sports. Brooke looks great without any makeup. She has pretty things and they’re monogrammed because it’s not enough to get something for Brooke; you need to go the extra mile. That’s how treasured Brooke is with her effortless hair.
“Are you okay?” To my absolute terror, Dan is reading my face.
“I slept too long. Give me five minutes to get dressed.”
*
WE DRIVE TO the beach just as it’s getting dark. Aidan and Paula have brought wine. Dan has a case of beer. We park and leave our shoes at the top of the path and walk down through the dunes to the beach. I’m in jeans and a white cotton sweater, and I can tell from the way the cool sand hits the bottoms of my feet that it’s not going to be enough. Dan’s next to me in khakis (rolled up just once to allow us a glimpse of the spectacle that is his ankles) and his now buttoned shirt, untucked and unironed. I wish I were responsible for all this rumpling.
Someone’s dug a big pit and started a fire and put a huge galvanized steel tub in there. People are standing around the pit in the last of the evening light, and I have the sense that I am watching a commercial for something that I want to buy. There’s an ease to the group as they stand around shoeless and talking. It reminds me of the scene of the first kiss in True Story, the one I’d been dying for through the first thirty-six pages of the script the first time I read it. It’s at a party at the beach where their eyes find each other over and over again. I feel that newly familiar shift in my heart just thinking about it.
“Danny!” they call as we come into sight, and Dan puts up a hand in greeting. There are lots of backslaps and fist bumps, and I am aware that Dan is very aware of me. He introduces me as his “friend Jane from LA” and never once turns his back on me. If someone is speaking to me, he’s watching my face to see how I’m reacting. When I smile, he does too. It’s like we’re at the prom and his mom has given him specific orders to be a thoughtful date. I am also aware that I am being sized up by his friends.
A guy named Charlie hands me a beer and says, “So, Jane, huh? What are you doing with this guy?”
Working. Hanging out. Relaxing for the first time in decades. “The Finnegans think I lost a bet,” I say and they laugh.
Dan laughs, which is kind of a relief. I was trying to change the tone but might have overcorrected. He puts his arm around me and gives me a quick squeeze. “As you can tell, I’m still killing it with the ladies.”
Laughs and the clinking of beer bottles. Most of his friends still live on Long Island; one couple is in from Boston. We take in the Los Angeles jokes: How do we decide if we’re going to drive or rollerblade? Does our medical insurance cover plastic surgery?
“Do you come for the whole summer?” I ask the Boston couple.
“No,” she says. “We wish. We’re just here to see his parents and go to the music festival this weekend.”
Charlie says, “Jack Quinlan was actually here today. Surfing. Really badly.”
“Here? Like right here?” I ask.
“Yeah, I saw him around noon, and a bunch of girls were hanging out waiting for him to finish. They said he was here yesterday too.”
Dan turns to me. “Sounds like we have our plans for tomorrow.”
She arrives and there’s no question in my mind that it’s her. Brooke is wearing a gauzy maxi dress with a soft ivory fisherman’s sweater over it, like her bedroom floor is covered in beautiful things and she just picked two of them at random and they happened to work perfectly together. Her eyes are light blue, and her nose turns up the exact right amount. Everything about Brooke is exactly the right amount.
The Boston couple hasn’t seen her in a while, it seems, because there are hugs and compliments exchanged. I hear Brooke apologize that she’s such a mess. She’s been crazy busy. I would like to see the recording of how crazy busy she’s actually been.
“Danny,” she says and throws her ivory-sweatered arms around his neck. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”
He hugs her back, more quickly than I’ve ever seen him hug anybody, but the hug takes him away from me for the first time tonight. I can feel the air next to me where he used to be. “Yeah, for the festival and my parents’ anniversary.”
“I’m coming to the party,” she says.
“Oh, great,” Dan says, catching Aidan’s eye. “This is my friend Jane from LA.” I should have a name tag that says that.
Brooke doesn’t seem like a person who shakes hands, and I do not want to hug her, so I give a little wave that probably makes me seem like a kid.
“Hi,” she says. “Fun.” She falls into conversation with the Boston couple, and Dan guides me by the elbow toward the safety of Aidan and Paula.
Eventually we gather around a long low table, and the contents of that big steel tub are laid out in front of us. Buttery lobster, corn, and potatoes have miraculously been cooked to perfection in a hand-dug hole. Paula’s brought little hurricane lamps, and the whole feast is lit up like a masterpiece. Dan sits first and pats the spot on the sand next to him. We’re cross-legged but still close to make room for everyone. We have metal camping plates, and we just grab what we want from the middle of the table. Brooke is across from Dan, one seat down, with nothing on her plate.
“Like it?” Dan asks me. He’s leaned in like it’s a secret.
“Yes,” I say and take another bite of corn. I am warm from the beer and the candlelight and the feel of Dan’s knee against mine.
“Me too,” he says. “I’m glad you came.” There’s something about the way he’s looking at me that makes me think an impossible thing: I am interesting and true and beautiful. I like this thought so much that I have to look away.
“And they’re not idiots,” I whisper into his ear. I get very close saying this and can smell him, freshly showered and like cedar and Earl Grey tea.
“I guess they grew up.”
A guy named Seth at the end of the table asks, “So, Danny, how’s showbiz?”
“Good,” he says. “Jane and I have a script we really like, so . . .” He trails off.
“What was the one you did last year?” Charlie asks.
“ Grapevine ,” he says and takes a bite of corn.
“Yeah, I looked for that in the theaters but couldn’t find it,” Brooke says. “But still it’s good that you had work, right?” I could not dislike her or her false concern more.
“It was a great movie,” Aidan says before Dan can respond. “Won an award at the Austin Film Festival.”
Dan raises his beer bottle to Aidan and nods.
“That’s great,” Brooke says. “I mean the award. I wish we could have seen it, like a real movie.”
“Well, maybe the next one,” Dan says.
“It was definitely a real movie,” I say. It’s the first thing I’ve said to the table and my voice comes out too strong.
Paula says, “I loved it.”
Dan doesn’t seem to care that Brooke is diminishing his work. He says, “Jane thinks it was a little small. Or quiet?”
“That’s so you,” Brooke says with a laugh.
I wipe my mouth because I’m sure there’s butter there. “It’s quiet,” I say with the total authority of a person who has seen the movie, which I haven’t. “But not small. Dan was hired by Vinny Banks, who is a legend in Hollywood. He’s in his sixties now and is super picky about the films he makes. So the whole thing was kind of a big deal. Not just the fact that Dan’s an award-winning cinematographer.” Aidan smiles at me across the table. I grab a lobster claw and busy myself with it because I feel like I’ve talked too much. I do not like seeing a person diminished. And if that person is Dan, with artistic integrity for days, it turns out I absolutely hate it. Dan’s leg presses harder against mine as the conversation continues around the table. The Boston couple has a toddler who they left with the grandparents. Charlie just bought a house in Montauk. Seth and his wife, Lucy, are starting a graphic design business together. I am reminded that we are at the phase of life where everyone is doing a thing. Brooke asks what Brian’s been up to, and Aidan shoots Dan a look.
I have now had a beer and two glasses of crisp white wine and not enough potatoes to soak them up. I can feel it in the dizzy way the conversation flows down the table. The light is hazy coming from the hurricane lamps and illuminates all the laughing faces. It’s forever before Brooke actually picks up a piece of corn and bites into it. Her eyes are on Dan and, oddly, so is my hand. My hand has moved to his shoulder. My fingers trace the seam of his white shirt, and they plan to keep it up until she peels her eyes away.
My hand has surprised him, and Dan turns to me.
“I hate her,” I whisper. “Like for real.”
Dan laughs and leans his head toward me a bit. My smile is so tipsy wide that it could break my face. “You’re getting under her skin too, I think.”
“Because she’s still in love with you and thinks we’re together?” I’m whispering because we shouldn’t be talking about this, but also because the softer my voice, the closer he has to lean into me to hear.
“No, because you’re cool.”
Words I have literally never heard before. This makes me feel so bold that I turn completely to face him and lean in like I’m going to whisper something in his ear. The smell of his skin and the brush of the stubble on his cheek make my body go hot, like it’s been switched on.
“What?” he asks, just an exhale of a word.
“Is she watching right now?” I ask.
“Probably.”
“Good,” I say and lean in so that our mouths are a breath apart. “Because she’s the worst.”
“I thought I was the worst,” he says.
We have both turned completely toward one another now, as if we have left the party and started our own. I can almost feel his lips on mine and taste the lemony lobster that got there before I did. This is as close as I’ve ever come to initiating a kiss in my life. I am acutely aware that this is all on me. I leaned in. I did the whispering. I am the one who turned her head so there’s just the butterfly touch of his lips on mine. If he kisses me, this kiss will take.
“You’re definitely the worst,” I say.
Dan laughs, and the laugh pulls him an inch away. I can’t help but think how I knew this would happen, my making him laugh actually moved him away. There’s cool air between us and I want him to come back.
“Come back,” I say so quietly that he leans back in to hear.
My eyes watch his mouth, the way I’ve been doing for days now. I just want to know what it feels like, just for a second. I think I might be ravenous for the taste of him. His breath is on my lips and I brush mine against his and liquid heat floods my body. It’s barely a kiss, but his eyes go dark, like he felt it too. I could leave it there, a touch as casual as an arm resting on a thigh, but I cannot. I lean in and kiss him for real, tasting him for the first time, all salt and sunshine, and a current runs through my core with such force that I grip his thigh to ground myself. It’s as though my hand on him is a starting gun, the signal he was waiting for. His hands are in my hair to pull me closer, and I pour myself into him. Dan parts his lips, and I see colors behind my eyelids, a sherbet sunset, a deep blue ocean. The kiss is explosive. He cups my face when he pulls away and smiles into my eyes. It should be raining and we should be standing in front of the house he built me. We’re both breathing hard, inches apart, staring into each other’s eyes as he takes his hands from my hair.
“Danny, come help with the fire,” says the most annoying voice in the world.
Dan holds my gaze for a second. My heart is hammering, and my hand rises to touch my still tingling lips. He looks over his shoulder. Everyone’s gotten up from the table. They’re carrying bottles over to the pit where the lobster cooked. He offers me a hand, helps me up, and then releases it too quickly. “I think you got her attention,” he says, as if that were the whole point of that life-changing kiss.
“Yes,” I say. I am vulnerable, open and wanting in a way that is not safe. I feel a shifting of the earth beneath me. The words bubble up inside of me: Kiss me again, a million times . And this terrifies me. I want something too much, so much that it will burn in the fire of my want. I need to snuff it out. “Trained actress,” I say. “You’re welcome.”
He narrows his eyes in a questioning way, but then turns toward the fire. “Right. Well done,” he says.