Chapter 11
11
L ow
“Welcome to the Lowdown with Low Reed,” I say into the microphone, trying my hardest to sound professional while sitting in pajamas, my hair piled onto my head in a topknot so wonky it’s flopping to one side, and only halfway into my first cup of coffee. I overslept, something I never do, and didn’t have time to get dressed before we were set to be on air. As for Nick, he looks like he could get up from this interview and step onto a Tom Ford runway during Paris fashion week, minus the make-up and designer trench coat. I swear he’s wearing cashmere. Who brings a cashmere sweater to a sleepover?
Not that what we did was a sleepover. Not that we did anything. After our gingerbread house-making moment, he went to his room, and I went to mine, except for one unfortunately brief encounter in the kitchen while we both searched for water. Did I say unfortunately brief? I meant just unfortunate. I think. Anyway, I literally bumped into him after closing the refrigerator door—me clad in a thin pair of silk pajamas and him entirely shirtless—of course he was. Needless to say, water splashed on his chest, and I was embarrassed. We did that awkward you-step-this-way-and-I’ll-step-the-same-way dance people do when trying awkwardly to get away from each other, and I hightailed it back to my bedroom. I swapped out the silk for flannel this morning. And because the gods of good grooming hate me, Nick clothed himself in that. I couldn’t possibly feel less dowdy than I do right now. I take a deep breath and concentrate on not looking at him.
“Our special guest today is here by request—namely, your request, dear listener. My neighbor, Nick Masters, who is coincidentally a master of leaf blowers, chain saws, and axes that he uses on a rotating basis, but usually only during my airtime, as you all well know.” I laugh at my little joke. He does not. “Thanks for being brave enough to show up today,” I say, offering him a smile that I desperately wish was topped with a little lip gloss. Sadly, my lips feel chapped, which just adds to the whole frumpy look.
“Thanks for being brave enough to have me on,” he says with a wink.
And now I’m glaring at him because I’m the host. Why would I need to be brave? My suspicions tap-dance their way across the desk, then start doing backflips off the stapler. Maybe this was a bad idea, but I’m already in it.
“So, the issue today and every day is boundaries. Let’s talk about yours, Nick. Or, more accurately, what seems to be your lack of them.”
“Sure.” Nick readily agrees, and now my suspicions are doing handsprings right in front of me. “And when we’re done with that, we can talk about why saying ‘no’ to everything is so important to you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “No is a powerful word.”
He raises one back. “So is yes if it’s delivered in the right context.”
“Name one,” I challenge.
He smirks. “Would you like to go to dinner with me?”
“Ye—” I sputter out before I realize what he’s done. My glare intensifies. “No, I wouldn’t. See, that isn’t hard to say, is it?” It was very hard.
“Seemed very easy, actually. But is it the truth?”
No, it’s a lie. “Yes, it is the truth.” Lie, lie, lie.
Nick upturns both hands in an oh well gesture. “That’s too bad. I really wanted to try out that new sushi restaurant at the marina.”
Wait, so do I! He’s playing dirty, and I don’t like it one bit. But I will not say yes. Saying yes would strip me of my power, make me the weaker of the two of us, and undo all the good I’ve managed to accomplish in the past two years.
So why does no seem like such a defeating word in this context? Maybe I’ll say yes later, once we’re off the air. Yes, that’s a good plan. One I will absolutely stick to, no matter how lovely a yes might sound now.
“I guess you’ll have to try out the sushi place by yourself.”
Almost immediately, messages start to pour in.
“Are you crazy?”
“His voice sounds so hot!”
“Get it girl, before it goes away.”
“I’ll eat sushi with you! I’ll eat a lot of things with you!”
That last one is all sorts of uncalled for, and I move to delete the comment before Nick can weigh in. Of course, that would require someone with super-stealthy hand movements, which I do not have. By the time I pick up the pen I nervously knocked off the desk in my flustered state, Nick is already speaking into the microphone.
“Thanks for the offer, Kim,” he says, “but sushi is really the only thing I’m interested in right now. And if Low won’t go with me, I guess I’ll have to venture forth on my own.”
I roll my eyes at the sound of his offhanded charisma. Venture forth? No one outside of a Disney prince says “venture forth” anymore. He’s not even trying to be not charming.
“Let’s get back on topic, shall we?” I say, swallowing down my irritation in one gulp. “Boundaries.” I tilt my head at him more as an attempt to get into work mode than anything else. I am professional. I can separate my work life from my personal life, even if it doesn’t appear that way now. “What comes to mind when you hear that word, Nick? Just off the top of your head. First thing you think of.”
“Bitter. Someone afraid to let anyone in. A person afraid of their own shadow, so to speak.”
My eyes narrow. I am not bitter. Drawing in a deep breath, I exhale slowly as if to prove it. Are bitter people as calm as me?
“Well, that’s an interesting way to look at things. But boundaries are put in place for our personal good…”
“Such as?” he says.
I blink. “Such as, what?” It’s a weak comeback and an even weaker question, but I’ve never been asked that on air. Prepared speeches are my forte; off-the-cuff responses are not.
Nick raises an eyebrow. Thank God my listeners can’t see him. “Such as…give me a reason to consider boundaries ‘for my personal good.’”
I’m not happy with the way readers can hear the air quotes he put around those words—anyone with ears would notice it. But it’s a valid question. One I nearly have an answer for.
“Because without them, we’ll get taken advantage of. Case in point, we all might have people dropping off an endless array of Do-It-Yourself projects on our front doors because they are, in fact, too lazy to ‘Do It Themselves.’ And then where are we? We’re overwhelmed by an enormous mound of incomplete projects stacked six feet high in our garages that no one person could possibly complete.” A personal example that I immediately regret, but it’s the truth. I let out some air. “There’s an example for you.”
Nick studies me for a long moment as an uncomfortable stretch of dead airtime fills my brain with shouts of “Say something! Say something!” Finally, he does.
“Or…and hear me out…people could be dropping off their endless array of Do-It-Yourself projects because you asked them to. Because the alternative involved sitting at home alone with nothing to do except drink whiskey and wallow in your overwhelming feelings of guilt and grief. So, that’s another way to look at it.”
I swallow, stunned that he went there.
Equally stunned that I never considered this to be his motivation.
And even more stunned to discover my view has been a narrow one. I’ve always prided myself on being open-minded. Apparently, in Nick’s case, I am not. It sucks when a core belief about yourself is shaken, a list of “I would nevers” ripped in half and tossed into a fire while you stand by and watch it burn. My skin heats. My pulse skitters. My mouth won’t work, and it desperately needs to. Careers die by dead air, and I can feel mine dying now. Nick must sense something is happening, because he clears his throat.
“But you’re probably right. I need to practice saying no a little more often.” He nods at me, prodding me to speak. I don’t, so he keeps going. “So, tell you what, you say yes to sushi with me, and I’ll say no to the next person who asks me to help with a home repair.”
A plan. He offered me a plan, and this has me snapping out of it and reaching for the proverbial life raft.
“Fine,” I say, my voice still shaky. “We’ll have sushi, and you say no at the first opportunity outside of picking up the check, which you totally will.”
“Ah, women’s lib at work,” Nick quips with a wink.
“I’m more of an equal opportunity girl myself. You have the opportunity to take me to dinner, and you also have the opportunity to pay for it.”
Nick grins. “And where does your opportunity come in, exactly?”
“I have the opportunity to eat great sushi, or so I’ve been told.”
“This doesn’t seem all that equal…” he mutters into the microphone.
“It is, Nick. Trust me on this. Pick me up at 6:00?”
“No,” he says rather forcefully. “I’ll pick you up at 7:00.”
Six works better for me. I open my mouth to say so but close it when Nick winks.
He said no.
A very emphatic no.
Touché, I suppose.
In the end, we did go there for a bit, onto the subject of his wife. My listeners had questions—lots and lots of questions. How did she die? How long were they married? How do you move on from the shock of the sudden end of a short marriage? How do you handle the guilt? Nick answered what he could and glossed over the things he couldn’t, but what struck me the most was his openness. He explained that you don’t move on. You live with the sudden end of things in the same way one learns to live with the loss of a limb or a devastating diagnosis: in befores and afters, in what was and what will be. It’s an immediate severing of the old life and a slam dunk into the new one. Turns out not all slam dunks win ballgames. Some break your wrist. Some cause the ball to bounce in and right back out, leaving you flailing and embarrassed to fumble so publicly.
Nick fumbled publicly, at least among the people in this town, this corner of the state. His wife died. Suspicions arose, not about his involvement in her death, but about his commitment to her life. What kind of man chooses basketball over a trip with his new wife? He’s asked it of himself; news outlets and town gossip asked it as well. But the answer was as simple as it was complicated. The kind of man who didn’t have the foresight to see the future. The kind of man who just wanted to watch a ballgame with friends. The kind of man who remains wracked with guilt over that decision while simultaneously grateful to be alive, judgment notwithstanding.
He is the kind of man who volunteers his time to the whole town because he has something to prove. They need him. His life isn’t a waste. He’s a giver, and who can hate a giver? Aside from himself, that is. Turns out self-hatred doesn’t fade easily even when you want it to.
But it can, with the help of people determined to show you that hate is a wasted emotion when weighed against the fragility of life.
Life is short. For people like Nick, helping people makes the time we have a little more fulfilling.
“You know what I’ve decided?” I ask, taking a long drink of water to cool the burn from the dollop of wasabi I just mistakenly downed. It’s all I can do not to sneeze from the heating sensation traveling to my sinus cavities. Why does wasabi burn even the places it doesn’t touch? I take another drink.
“What have you decided?” Nick asks, dipping his dragon roll in soy sauce like a civilized person. I don’t see him reaching for water.
“That I don’t really like sushi.” I pull apart a roll and take out the bit of crab, then roll it back up and dip the piece in soy sauce. My chopstick skills are on point. “I mean, it’s alright, but ten times out of ten, I’d rather have a steak.”
Nick looks at me like I’ve grown an extra head. “You could have said that when I asked you out on a sushi date on air . ‘Actually, Nick, how about we have steak? Or chicken? Or anything but sushi.’ I mean, it would have made sense to me.” He pops a piece of salmon in his mouth.
I make a face at the seaweed and eat it anyway. Seaweed is chewy. Also, seaweed is seaweed, and that freaks me out a little. What human in history plucked a strip of seaweed out of the ocean and thought, “This might be good with a little rice, ” and whipped it up? I take another long drink of water and consider ordering Saki just to get the taste out of my mouth. I’m still mulling over the idea when something occurs to me.
“So, this is a date?” I command myself not to grin but start doing it anyway.
“It’s sort of a date. Maybe.” He glances my way, and a corner of his mouth tilts. “Still trying to decide.”
“Well, what would make it actually a date then?” I ask, using a napkin to wipe away a drop of soy sauce that dropped to my lap. Praise be to the makers of black denim. They saw my mess-making ways long before I did.
“I’ll let you know after I see you in that cute Santa suit.” He gives a single laugh like it’s the most amusing thing he’s ever said. I haven’t known him long, but I’m positive it’s not. I give him a look.
“It’s Mrs. Claus to you, and my outfit better not be cute.”
“Trust me, it’s cute,” he says around another bite of sushi. The grin he levels my way would have a dozen girls clamoring to be his fake wife for an afternoon. Sadly, I’m smug about being the one he asked.
“Why on earth did I agree to this?”
“You didn’t have a choice since you needed a date for your book thing.”
“My ‘book thing’ is this Saturday night. Don’t forget.”
“Oh, I won’t forget.” He winks. “I’m already thinking about what to wear.”
“A suit,” I say. “And not a Santa one.” He laughs, and the sound is musical. I’m trying to remember the moment he went from being my grandmother’s annoying neighbor to someone who captivates me. I’m also wondering how it happened so quickly.
“It definitely won’t be a Santa one.” He raises a hand to summon the waiter. “It’s a three-hour drive, so I’ll pick you up at 2:00.”
And since turnabout is fair play, I shake my head. “Pick me up at 1:00. I want Starbucks and donuts on the way out.”
“You’re a cheap date.”
My stomach does a quick dive and flip at the word date . “Oh, that’s just on the way there. I haven’t told you everything I want on the way back.”
He smiles at me. “Can’t wait to find out.”
I smile back, knowing deep down the time he shows up hardly matters, nor the food or what he wears or even what I wear, for that matter. Turns out I’m suddenly more excited about the date than about the prospects of a publishing contract.
Time changes things when you least expect it, especially when you’re having too much fun to notice.