Chapter 13
The “luxury cabin” Angus was renting had seen better days. Natalie surveyed the living room. Clearly the photos in the listing had been taken years earlier, before a parade of guests had overrun the place with their pets and kids and parties. The large couch across from the fireplace had gone from invitingly squishy to an injury lawsuit waiting to happen. Angus plopped down on it, then got up, wincing and rubbing his butt.
“They really should replace this,” he said. “I’ll leave them a card for Stoat and Sons.”
The decor was Cabin Americana: a sculpture of a fish, mouth splayed open in a howl of pain, pinned to an oval-shaped slab of wood. An odd triptych of signs that read, Who says you can’t have wine with breakfast? then If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion—The Dalai Lama, then I’m not too drunk, you’re too sober! But, oh, the windows. A whole wall of them lined one side of the cabin, looking out onto trees and, beyond that, the promised lake.
Natalie threw open the sliding doors and inhaled. A stone-step path led down to the water. There was a large dock made of planks of sun-bleached wood with a tied-up rowboat rocking gently in the water. On the dock sat two Adirondack chairs, inviting relaxation in their low-slung seats.
“Should we change into our bathing suits and jump in?” Gabby asked, bumping Nat’s hip with her own.
“Absolutely.” Nat’s fingers itched. She would just check her email before they did so. But when she pulled her phone out, she had no service. “What’s the Wi-Fi here?”
“The owner said it had been on the fritz, but she was going to send someone out to repair it, and in the meantime, we should just use data.”
“I don’t have any signal.”
“Huh, me neither. That’s weird,” Gabby said. “Well, work has been exhausting lately, and what with all the stressful election news, I think it could be nice to unplug!”
No. Not nice at all. Natalie could have an email sitting in her inbox RIGHT NOW telling her that an editor was offering her a book deal. She’d read it and shriek with joy, and everyone would rush over to ask what had happened. And then how much nicer this weekend would be. (How much better she’d feel about seeing Rob too, with that armor to put around herself.)
“Come on, bathing suits,” Gabby said, dragging her back into the house. “Before the sun sets and it gets too cold!”
But as they went to grab their suitcases by the front door, a car came squealing into the driveway, dirt and dust rising around it. “That sounds like Melinda,” Gabby said.
Gabby, Nat, and Angus traipsed out to the front porch, the welcoming committee. Melinda threw open the door to the car as an unfamiliar man unfolded himself from the passenger seat. “Everyone, this is Dante. My lover.” Dante had a shaved head and the build of a wrestler, but Natalie didn’t have time to register much else about him, because after a speed round of introductions and a quick tour of the cabin, Melinda and Dante ran off to the bedroom into which Nat had been planning to lug her suitcase, slamming the door behind them.
Angus, Gabby, and Natalie gawked at the closed door.
“I thought I was sharing a room with Melinda,” Nat said.
“I thought so too,” Gabby said. A grunting began from the bedroom, and the three of them backed away into the front hallway. “I’ve never heard Melinda mention a Dante before in my life.”
“Well,” Angus began, “I guess you’ll have to get cozy with—”
From outside, the sounds of crunching gravel, then a car door slam. “Rob!” Angus shouted, and flung himself out the door.
Natalie’s stomach plummeted. No. She was not about to live a romance novel trope. Couldn’t Gabby just sleep with her and Rob with Angus? But that was the thing about married friends—they didn’t see it that way anymore. Of course Gabby and Angus would share a bed, and of course they’d get the biggest one. Their marriage conferred legitimacy on them, made them the senior statespeople of their group. The true grown-ups.
Gabby nudged her and said under her breath, “You used to think he was kinda cute, right? Maybe you could have a little hanky-panky before you and Jeff go official. Live a little!”
“I think I already have lived a little.”
She’d lived a lot, actually, over the past few years. Since Conor, she’d had one other boyfriend, but it hadn’t lasted more than four months, at which point he’d revealed that his ultimate goal was to move to Alaska and have lots of children who ran around the wilderness, a life that did not appeal to her at all. (She wasn’t sure if she wanted children, but if she did, she certainly didn’t want to set them loose to roam with grizzly bears.) And somehow, without noticing it, she’d moved beyond the point where she was willing to keep dating someone if it didn’t seem like they had a future.
She’d gone out with plenty of people. There was the Christmas tree salesman who’d invited her back to his “place,” aka the van he was living out of for the month, the one in which he’d driven down all his trees. She’d found pine needles in her hair for weeks afterward. The second time they’d hooked up, he’d asked to come back to hers, and she’d realized he was more excited by her shower than by her.
Then there was the woman with whom Natalie had a glorious six-hour date, pouring out their hearts to each other. By the end of the night, Natalie had been convinced she’d met her true love, but Lily had declined Natalie’s overture for a second date after finding out that Natalie had never been in a relationship with a woman before, only had the occasional hookup. Lily couldn’t “teach another baby queer how to do everything,” and also, was Natalie actually looking for a romantic relationship with her, or did she just want someone to replace the best friend who had clearly given her some abandonment issues?
There had been the married couple Nat had gone home with, in a brief moment in which she was trying to believe she was more adventurous than she actually was. The vibes had gotten worse the moment Nat had stepped inside their apartment. It became clear that she was either going to save their marriage or ruin it, and either way, they’d hate her afterward, so when they offered her ecstasy so that they could all “loosen up a little,” she declined and slipped back out the door.
And in between, there’d been so many others: men she kissed at bars without even knowing their names, men she went on two dates with but couldn’t bring herself to kiss at all, crushes on unavailable men, people she stopped contacting, people who stopped contacting her.
“Besides,” Nat continued to Gabby, “I thought you said at the wedding that Rob didn’t do one-night stands.”
“Look, he still seems a bit formal and rigid to me. But I’d find it very entertaining if you could loosen him up.”
Nat suppressed a sigh. She was not dating for Gabby’s entertainment, even if Gabby sometimes made her feel like it.
The last time Nat had gone over to Gabby and Angus’s for dinner, they’d taken her phone and swiped through one of her dating apps for, she swore, a full half hour. They were just “so curious” to see what was out there, because they’d never had to go on the apps themselves. Gabby pronounced all her judgment on the people who popped up, swiping them away before Nat even had a chance to decide for herself.
After she’d left their apartment, they’d probably turned and held each other tightly, murmuring, “Thank God for you,” all little arguments about loading the dishwasher melting away in their gratitude.
Being the dating jester had grown exhausting. She was tired of opening every coffee with her coupled-up friends by reciting the gory details of her love life. She hated checking for a wedding ring every time she met a man, was exhausted from forcing herself to go to parties when she’d rather not just in case the love of her life might be in attendance.
And then Natalie met Jeff, who had the healthy glow of a camp counselor. (Because he had been a camp counselor for many years!) He was extremely competent, full of plans, nodding in fascination at everything she said. When setting their first date, he sent her three options of well-reviewed places at which he’d already made reservations. At the end of the night, he smiled at her with such pure happiness before leaning in to kiss her, and it was very sweet, even if part of her was calculating how much longer she’d be able to kiss him and still make her subway train.
They’d only been on three dates so far, but if things kept going the way they were—easy, nice, promising—a “define the relationship” talk was on the horizon. And if he wanted to go exclusive, to put a label on things, she would. Happily. She imagined that being able to say she had a boyfriend would feel like finally getting a good night’s sleep, something that no longer seemed like it was in store for her this weekend.
Rob and Angus walked in the front door, Angus keeping up a steady monologue while Rob carried a small rolling suitcase. He wore a short-sleeve button-down. Weren’t lakes for T-shirts? (Though, to be fair, she’d packed her cutest sundresses in anticipation of this trip. She’d lost the power by sending him those embarrassing emails, but she could at least look good.)
“Rob,” Gabby said, and walked over to give him a polite hug, the hug of two people who respected each other but weren’t particularly close.
“Thank you for having me,” he said.
And then Gabby and Angus looked at Rob and Natalie, and there was simply nothing else for them to do but acknowledge each other.
“Hi!” Nat said, far too loudly. “Wow, long time!”
“Ages,” he said.
Natalie hugged him while endeavoring to keep as much of her body from touching him as possible. As he gave her back a stiff pat—the kind of back pat an emotionally constipated father gave his son after a strong showing in his Little League game—she wanted to open up the lid of the nearby trash can and crawl inside. How much was he thinking about her email?
Her head had fallen into the crook of his neck. His pulse beat against her cheek, quick and hot. A low moan of pleasure rose up from behind the door of Dante and Melinda’s room, and Natalie startled.
Rob extricated himself, looking in the direction of the noises.
“I worry that we may be hearing a lot of that this weekend,” Gabby said.
Outside, the sun was slipping beneath the horizon, the day’s warmth fading away with it. So much for that relaxing swim.
“Where should I put my things?” Rob asked.
“Well, I believe Melinda and Dante have already…claimed this one.” Gabby led them all down the hallway and opened another door, right off the living room. “So if you and Natalie don’t mind sharing, this is the room that’s left.”
Rob looked into the room, which featured a double bed crammed against the wall, then back at Natalie, then at the couch. “Natalie can have the bedroom,” he said. “I’ll sleep out here.”
The next morning, Natalie woke to the steady plink of rain.
She tiptoed into the hallway to use the bathroom. The couples were still cocooned in their bedrooms. Rob sat up on the couch, rubbing his neck with a grimace, his face creased from sleep.
They locked eyes and froze, as if maybe the other person wouldn’t notice them if they stayed stock-still. Outside, a birdcall cut through the rain.
“I never told Gabby or Angus about what happened at the wedding,” Natalie said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I didn’t either.” His voice was rough in that just-woke-up, pre-coffee way.
“So it’s best if we’re…civil to each other this weekend.”
“Yes.”
“And we can try to stay out of each other’s way.”
“Agreed.” He rubbed his neck again.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“It’s nothing.” She stared him down until he threw his hands in the air, scowling. “This couch is a torture device.”
“Poor Rob,” she said. “You require a bed of down?”
“No.”
“Twenty mattresses, but you can still feel one pea underneath. This couch is just too tough on your weary, ancient bones—”
“I am one year older than you are.”
“I’ll sleep on it tonight and you can take the bed.”
“No.”
“It’s no big deal. I’m not fussy.”
“I’m not fussy either!” He glared, thrusting his head up high, but the effect was ruined by the wince of pain he gave.
“I know you think I’m a selfish asshole, but I’m taking the couch. It’s settled. Now I’ll get out of your way.”
But the rain didn’t let up. Not through the pancakes Gabby made for them all or through playing an old game of Trivial Pursuit they found in a dresser, with its questions from the eighties and its outdated answers about the Soviet Union. Not through the hour after lunch when they retreated into their reading material—fluffy magazines for Gabby and Natalie, a self-help business manual for Angus, Rob tearing through a Kazuo Ishiguro book. “Since when did you start reading so much again?” Angus asked him, and Rob shrugged. On the other side of the sliding doors, the awning groaned in the wind and the rain fell in steady sheets. Natalie tried not to be too grumpy about Rob enjoying a novel.
Avoiding him when she couldn’t go outside and also wanted to stay as far away as possible from Dante and Melinda’s bedroom (they’d only emerged to grab some pancakes and water, then returned to their bed) proved too challenging. Natalie gave up sometime around early afternoon, when Gabby declared that they should all watch a movie. Her choice was either to share a small love seat with Rob or sit on the floor, which did not seem to have been vacuumed in the last decade. She settled for the love seat, looking out the wall of windows at the dreary scene outside.
The television was old-school, with a VCR and DVD player. “Hm, no Netflix or anything,” Angus said, so Rob got up and looked at the movie collection in the TV console, frowning. “What are you seeing there, buddy?” Angus turned to her and Gabby. “Rob here is a bit of a film buff.”
Of course he was. “What’s wrong? Not enough Jean-Luc Godard in the lake house collection?” Natalie asked. “Or are you more of a Tarantino guy?”
“I’m a good movie guy,” Rob said. “I’m just trying to decide.” He held up two options: The Portal Makers and Cruel Intentions.
“Yes!” Gabby yelled, bouncing up to grab both options out of his hand with the most energy that Natalie had seen from her on this trip. She’d been taking the “relaxation” part of this relaxing weekend away seriously, lounging up a storm, even neglecting the watercolor supplies she’d brought in hopes of taking some time to “get back to her art.” Now she looked back and forth. “Oh, I’m so torn. I have this memory of Tyler Yeo being the world’s best and cutest actor in Portal Makers and am worried that seeing it again would ruin that.”
“Cruel Intentions it is, then,” Rob said.
“You want to watch Cruel Intentions?” Natalie asked Rob. “Are you aware of what it is?”
“I want to rewatch Cruel Intentions. It’s a great film. Does exactly what it sets out to do.”
And that was how Natalie ended up watching a teen sex movie inches away from her mortal enemy.
Competing voices clamored in her mind. Part of her devotedly watched Ryan Phillippe woo a virginal Reese Witherspoon. But another part of her kept shouting about Rob’s proximity: Aren’t you bothered? And then there was the part that she’d barely been able to turn off all weekend. The part that kept intruding even when she was nodding along with conversation or watching Sarah Michelle Gellar teach Selma Blair how to kiss. The part waiting on something potentially life-changing. Like a song stuck in her head, it ran on a loop: Is there something in your inbox? The delay is good, right? It means that hope is still alive! She wished she could skip time forward just to know. Intellectually, she told herself to prepare for rejection. But her heart couldn’t quite believe that rejection would come. Things HAD to work out. After all she’d poured into this book, all she’d given up?
Somewhere in the midst of all this mind clamor, the movie ended, and it was still raining, and they made spaghetti for dinner, cracking open a bottle of wine to share, pulling on cozy sweaters as the temperature dropped.
During Natalie’s second glass of wine, the lightbulb above the kitchen table burned out with a faint pop. “I’ve got it,” Rob said, and hunted around the cabin for a new bulb. When he found it, they all cleared their sauce-stained plates, and he climbed onto the table. He stretched his arms up to unscrew the fixture, the sleeves of his shirt falling, revealing a hint of shoulder, a small spray of freckles. He caught his bottom lip between his teeth in concentration. Natalie had never noticed before quite how full that bottom lip was.
A beep emanated from Rob’s pocket, startling Natalie.
“What was that?” she asked.
“A notification.”
“You’ve got service?”
“I didn’t until now. There must be a patch of it up here,” he said. Still standing on the table, he took his phone out and pressed a button, his face unreadable.
“Oh damn,” Gabby said. “I kind of liked being off the grid. It was very calming.”
“Mm, yes, so zen,” Natalie said. At the prospect of checking her email again, her heart started beating so fast she thought she might faint.
“Well, tell us,” Angus said, “what’s the news from the outside world? Has there been an apocalypse without us knowing?”
“Not seeing anything about the apocalypse.” Rob shoved his phone back in his pocket.
“But something happened,” Angus said. “I know that forehead wrinkle. Spit it out.”
“I got the job at Arizona. Assistant professor.”
“Buddy! Yes!” Angus said, throwing his arms up in the air as Gabby clapped her hands. “This calls for champagne!”
“No,” Rob said. “That bottle is to celebrate your new job.”
“Pshaw, that’s old news at this point! I insist.” Angus practically ran to the fridge, pulling out a cold bottle.
“Angus,” Rob said sternly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Not listening,” Angus said, banging open the cabinets in search of fresh glasses.
“Congratulations,” Natalie said to Rob through gritted teeth, and he gave her a stiff nod. Casually, as he climbed down to the floor, Natalie climbed up onto the table. “Just going to make sure I didn’t miss anything important real quick,” she said in response to Gabby’s questioning glance. “And then I’m ready to celebrate!” Sure enough, her phone began to buzz. It took maybe five seconds for her email to load, though it felt like years, and during this interminable wait, Natalie strove to appear like the lake to the others, lovely and calm on the surface, even if all sorts of murky flotsam tangled underneath.
Her agent’s name appeared, twice. Natalie couldn’t catch her breath. She clicked the first email. A forwarded rejection: So sorry to say this…Then the second, a paragraph of praise followed by Unfortunately…
She swallowed hard. She would not cry, as much as she wanted to throw herself down and wail right here on the dinner table. She zeroed in on a message from Iman, sent as a follow-up to this second rejection.
Still waiting to hear back from Leslie Wickham at Penguin, and she seemed quite passionate about this. She’s been passing around the manuscript at her imprint to generate excitement. I’ll follow up with her now. Remember, it only takes one yes!
Only one yes. She’d focus on that. Besides, Leslie was the dreamiest of her dream editors, the one who’d edited a couple of Natalie’s favorite books over the past few years. If Leslie said yes, these other rejections wouldn’t matter at all, and someday Natalie wouldn’t even remember the sting. She’d look back and say it was fate, that everything had led exactly where it was supposed to.
Natalie looked up and caught Rob staring at her in a level, searching way. She shrugged and stuffed her phone back in her pocket, then grinned with what she hoped looked like joie de vivre. “Let’s have that toast!”
Angus popped the cork of the champagne, sending it flying off somewhere into the living room. “To Rob!”
“And to Angus,” Rob said.
It only takes one yes, Natalie repeated to herself.
“To us all,” Angus said. “Making moves, making dreams come true!”