14 Samantha
14
SAMANTHA
X AVIER WAS SITTING across from me at a tiny table at In-N-Out, giving me one of his contemplative gazes.
I couldn’t believe he came.
It felt obvious that he wasn’t from here. I couldn’t really tell you what it was? But there was something extremely Minnesota about him.
His hair was windblown. I didn’t think through the freeway–full sun thing when I put the top down at the airport. I just thought it would be cool at the time. But he looked great anyway, even disheveled.
“How’d you like your burger?” I asked.
“It needed mustard,” he said.
“Ha!”
I got one of his sideways smiles.
God, I missed his face.
I picked up my vanilla milkshake while we looked at each other.
“Why don’t you follow anyone on Instagram?” he asked.
I lowered my drink. “From the Murkle’s account?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re following it?”
“Of course.”
“I’m waiting for the perfect collab,” I said.
“You don’t have any takers yet?”
“Oh, I have lots of takers. But I’m letting them fight over us, gladiator style. When I first got started, I reached out to all the brands to see if they wanted to do cross-promotion, but we weren’t big enough for them yet. Now we are and they’re all sliding into my DMs like heeeeey .”
“Aren’t they based in Minnesota?” he asked. “Is that how you ended up there?”
“Yup. I got recruited while I was working on the Wendy’s marketing team. Hey, I thought you did volunteer stuff on the weekends,” I said.
“I do. I canceled it. To be here.”
I gave him a soft smile. Then I sat back in my seat and studied him. The ice-blue eyes, strong jaw, thick eyebrows. “Why are you here, Xavier?”
Contemplative gaze. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why did you let me come?”
“I don’t know either.”
“I like you,” he said.
“I know. I like you too. But I live really far away now.”
“I am aware.”
“So neither of us has any idea what we’re doing. We’re just… doing it,” I said.
“It appears that way.”
“You know this probably isn’t a good idea, right?” I said.
“I’m trying not to think too much about it,” he said.
I picked up my shake again and sucked on the straw while he watched me. “Do you want to go to the beach?” I asked.
“I want to go wherever you want to go.”
Forty-five minutes later we were in Santa Monica.
“There are some things we’re going to do here,” I said as we walked down Ocean Avenue toward the pier. “They’re tourist things and I’m doing them for you.”
He glanced at me. “You don’t like them?”
I shrugged. “I mean, I do? But I’d never do them unless I was doing them with someone from out of town. Like, if you live here you don’t actually come here .”
“Where do you go?”
“I don’t know. Restaurants, shows, farmers markets—that kind of stuff.”
I watched him looking around as we navigated the flood of people. He did it like he was assessing the danger. He probably was. The pier was kind of wild these days.
“Have you ever been to California before?” I asked, while we crossed the street to the ramp.
“Never,” he shouted over a guy dressed in a Ronald Regan costume yelling into a microphone. “This is the first time I’m seeing the ocean.”
“Wooooow. Really?”
He pulled me to his other side to put his body between me and a bedraggled man heading toward us, muttering to himself. Then he took my hand, giving everyone the flat, sort of scary expression that was his signature look.
The hand thing made my heart do somersaults, but the protective thing—this was my currency.
I didn’t get to shut my brain off very often. Most women don’t. The constant situational awareness that we have to practice is exhausting. But Xavier made me feel like I could mentally check out. I could just be here bopping around, enjoying being outside and surrounded by these eccentric weirdos and not have to worry about how safe I was because he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
I couldn’t remember the last time I felt like that with someone. Definitely with my dad, but not really with the men I dated. Not that they made me feel unsafe, but Xavier made me feel like the second I was with him, I entered into his care.
I trusted him.
Also, he’s really tall and he frowns a lot. Not sure anyone would mess with him.
We walked down the pier’s wooden planks, looking at the amusement park rides and vendors offering everything from your name on a grain of rice to caricature drawings, along with lots of Santa Monica merch. An old guy with a tip jar and a shitty amp was singing “My Heart Will Go On.”
“How is your mom?” Xavier asked while we stood at the edge of a crowd watching a man on a unicycle.
I shrugged. “As well as she can be under the circumstances. My stupid brother came home. He’s driving me bonkers.”
“How?”
“Existing?”
We kept walking.
“How are the friends?” I asked.
“Good. Asking about you.”
“And what did you tell them?”
We got to the end of the pier and leaned over the railing between fishermen, looking at the ocean.
“I told them the truth,” he said, turning to me. “That you gave me the most unforgettable night of my life, then told me to forget it.”
“Come on, Eileen, I’m sure you’ve had much more memorable nights than that one,” I said.
“It was my first alien abduction. You always remember your first.”
I laughed and he put an arm around me and we stared out over the water.
Seagulls hovered and squawked.
It was a little cold. The sun was shining and it was breezy. It was a beautiful view. Perfect for his first time laying his eyes on the sea.
I couldn’t recall the first time I saw the ocean. I’d been too young to remember. The Pacific was just so ingrained, it was a part of my very foundation. And even though I didn’t remember the first time, I had plenty of family memories over the years.
These were the kinds of things that Mom still remembered. Core memories so old, they’d be the last to go.
She was forgetting from the present backward. Her life on rewind, people and places and experiences blurring and vanishing. Maybe at the end all that would be left would be a memory like this one.
Xavier pulled me closer and I leaned my head against him. He was warm and firm and protective. I felt… peace.
A final memory like this one wouldn’t be so bad.