Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
THERE’S KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’S DOOR. THAT’S WHAT I think when I wake up in Dan’s arms and the first rays of sunlight creep through the little window. Dust particles fly around in the light, and I have a sense of being in the upside down. I have spent a lifetime being on guard. I have worked so hard mastering how to be, and here I am flipped inside out. All of my raw bits are on the outside, and lying here with Dan, I am sleepy and sexy and playful. I rest my hand on his chest and memorize the rhythm of his beating heart. I have the strangest feeling that I want to protect him while also climbing inside of him for safety. It makes me think of Reenie and Cormack; it makes me think of True Story.
These are my thoughts as the knocking gets louder and the talking starts. It’s the brothers.
“He’s locked the fucking door,” one of them says. Dan groans and tightens his grip on me.
“Knew it,” says another.
“Well, obviously.” Knocking turns to banging. “Danny, get up, we’re going surfing. Ten minutes.”
“He’s totally whipped. He’s not coming.”
“Get your ass up, Danny.” Banging. This sounds a little like Connor, but honestly, they all blend into one.
Dan kisses me. “I am in hell,” he says. “They’ll never leave and never shut up.”
“Go,” I say.
“You want me to go?”
“Never,” I say. I want to take it back, it’s too much too soon, but he smiles like he feels the same way.
More banging on the door. “Okay, I’ll go. Will you sleep?” he asks. He’s arranging my hair behind my shoulder like he’s memorizing me. I run my fingers along his string bracelet.
“I’ll try,” I say.
He gets up out of bed, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him standing and naked. I reach out to touch the side of his leg, all ropy muscles carved out of marble by an overzealous craftsman.
“Okay, assholes, I’m coming. Back away from the door and get me a coffee.” He puts on swim trunks and a sweatshirt and kneels by the bed to kiss me goodbye. “Promise you’ll be here when I get back.”
“Promise,” I say.
I fall asleep imagining them all in the borrowed truck, busting on Dan for our locked door. There is nothing about this week or this morning that I will ever forget. The periwinkle blue of his bathing suit, the seasoning on the kebab. The whipped cream in my coffee and the way he watched me drink it. The watercolors and the slow dance.
*
I WAKE FROM a deep sleep at eight and immediately remember why I’m naked.
It’s Saturday, the day of the music festival, and our last chance to track down Jack. I check my body for nerves and don’t find any. I feel soft toward myself, and I wonder if it even matters if I talk to Jack at all. But it does; I owe a debt of gratitude to True Story for opening my heart to the waves of feeling that are running through me right now. It’s like I’ve seen through a little wormhole to an alternate universe where this kind of love exists and I could have it. I want my mom to know this too.
I call Clem. “Are you up?”
“It’s five a.m., you’d better be dead,” she says.
“Sorry. I know. You’re never going to believe who had sex.”
“No!”
“Yes!” I let out a little squeal for emphasis.
This is obviously big news, and she must agree because I can hear her sit up in bed. “Okay, please tell me it was Dan and not Jack Quinlan, who you then proposed to after.”
“Dan. And mean.” But I’m smiling. I wonder if I’ll ever stop smiling. “And it wasn’t sex sex, it was like love sex. I can’t even explain it, Clem.”
“Wow. Okay, love sex. This is wow.”
“Like fireworks but also talking and I like him so much I can barely function.”
“See? A man-bun can be a good look on a lot of guys.”
“I made up the man-bun. I was wrong about everything about him and I just had love sex and I’m losing my mind.”
When her screaming subsides and we’ve hung up, I put on my running clothes and find Reenie and Cormack in the kitchen with empty plates and full mugs. They’re sharing the newspaper. The ordinariness of it takes my breath away. Ruby’s in the backyard singing to the potatoes.
“Good morning,” I say.
“Jane,” they say together and put down their papers.
“Sorry about those jackasses this morning,” Cormack says. “I’m glad Danny gave in because that could have gone on for hours.”
“I went right back to sleep,” I say. This would have been fine to say yesterday, when I was sleeping in my own bed in my own pink pajamas, but now I feel like I’ve drawn them a picture of something sordid. While I feel the color rise to my face, Reenie gets me a cup of coffee and invites me to sit.
“That was quite a party,” I say.
“It was,” Reenie says. “Just perfect. And what’s the plan for today?”
“I don’t know about today, but tonight’s the festival, so it’s sort of mission accomplished or bust. I feel pretty good though. About that.” About everything.
“It’ll be fine,” she says. “Can I make you some pancakes? Eggs? An omelet?”
“Thank you, but I can make myself something after my run.”
“You don’t want to miss breakfast,” she says.
“Most important meal of the day, I hear.” I hold my coffee in both hands and take a sip.
“Love happens over breakfast.” Cormack smiles at Reenie. “If you want to know the secret to a happy marriage, that’s it.”
Reenie places her hand over his for just a second. And I wonder how much information transfers between them through a single touch like that after all of these years.
“What does that mean?” I say. “If you don’t mind me asking. ‘Love happens over breakfast.’”
“It’s just something Cormack said when we were first married. Romance happens over dinner. The candlelight, the wine.”
“Everyone looks a lot better than they usually do,” Cor- mack says and laughs.
Reenie rolls her eyes. “Well, yes,” she says. “That’s the romance of it. But at breakfast everything’s just as it is, in the light of day. No one wears lipstick to breakfast. And this is where you talk about your day and the part of the roof that might leak this fall. You bring your real self to breakfast.”
“Warts and all,” says Cormack.
“No one has warts,” Reenie says and shakes her head. “Now how about you skip that run and I make you some pancakes?”
I think of the way she melts the butter and warms the syrup in that tiny yellow pan on the stovetop. And I decide not to run.