Chapter 22
JOHN
Olivia has been silent and probably mad at me for the first half of this eight-hour flight, ever since we boarded. All day, really. I’m not sure what she’s mad about this time. Or what she’s still mad about. That’s not true. I know she’s mad at me. About me. For being me.
She is eight percent dark matter—immeasurable, unknowable.
I remember when we were growing up, being able to walk away from her whenever she suddenly turned against me.
I could easily turn down the volume on the part of my brain that was screaming Why is she mad at me now?
!?! But this question continues to rumble through my head, louder than the plane’s engine.
I’ve been drifting in and out of sleep, thinking only of Olivia when awake.
The sex has been better than I’d anticipated.
Better than sex with anyone else, which was anticipated.
It’s better and…more…than anything I’ve ever experienced.
I find that troubling. I am not yet fully obsessed with her.
I don’t think. Am I? There’s a point of no return, and I don’t believe I’ve reached that point yet.
She is a black hole of sassy sexiness and sexy sassiness, but I’m starting to realize that the void is in me.
I’m realizing it because George Merrick flat-out told me this yesterday.
Or this morning. I have no idea when I am anymore.
I have no concept of time or space except in relation to this woman.
Fighting her gravitational pull now requires the same amount of fuel and effort as it takes to keep this plane in the air.
And that was Merrick’s point. At first, I wasn’t even sure why he cared so much about my own character as opposed to the founders’.
But then I realized he knows about root systems. As the main investor, I control funding and the board.
I could always fire the founders, and they answer to me.
He’s so intelligent, and I’m grateful for the time I got to spend with him, even though he was judging me.
I showed up to his garden at 10:00 a.m. sharp, right on time but still tired. I’m not used to being this tired. If I’m in love, shouldn’t I have boundless energy?
He commented on how tired I looked, and I made a comment about my girlfriend being a black hole.
I said it in an affectionate way. He looked at me and nodded, handed me a pair of shears, and told me to deadhead the spent flowers.
He showed me what to do and proceeded to leave me to it while he pruned shrubs nearby.
It was the simplest thing, but I was acutely aware that there were exactly no times when I was growing up that my father did that—showed me how to do something and then trusted me to do it.
“You know what kills most plants in vertical farms?” Merrick asked, his attention seemingly focused on pruning.
“Energy costs,” I answered quite seriously.
“Aside from that,” he said. I could hear him smiling, and I was so proud.
“It’s a lack of light. Even when they have everything else—water, nutrients, perfect temperature—without light, they don’t grow.
They exist. But they don’t grow.” He paused to toss a handful of stems into his wheelbarrow.
“You’ve optimized everything, but you’ve been growing in the dark. ”
Ah. This is about me, I realized. “And Olivia is the light?”
“You must let her in, dear boy.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“No. But it’s fundamental. You can’t optimize your way around fundamentals.”
I don’t know that to be true, but I didn’t say anything.
“I see who you are, John Brandt,” he continued.
“I know you because I was you. You think the girl is the black hole, pulling everything in, warping everything. But you’ve got it backwards.
The real void is within you. You have an emotional void that you’ve been filling with work and optimization and achievement.
What you think is your life’s work. But your real life’s work is to fill that void with love. ”
I heard the sound of, well, of this brilliant man breaking wind. He waited for all the gas to pass, and neither of us acknowledged it, and then he continued, as if nothing had happened.
“Yes, I was you. Root-bound. In the same optimized, small pot. Circling the same patterns, trapped in my own perfect system. Until my wife disrupted everything.” He yanked something up by the roots, startling me.
“Forced me to transplant. To break out of my self-made constraints. It was uncomfortable. Terrifying, even, because it felt like I was dying. But it was the only way I could grow into something bigger and better than what I had been.”
I understand exactly what he was saying, although it’s…a lot. Of metaphors. To describe how scary it is to fall in love.
Still. What am I supposed to do—not keep the plane in the air? I’m not the only person on this plane. I have employees. My employees have families. I’ve invested in people and companies who also have employees and families.
How do people have ongoing relationships like this without losing everything they’ve worked for?
It’s entirely possible they don’t. It’s quite possible that I’ll have to choose.
Solve the problem of world hunger and limit my interactions with Olivia?
Or lower my standards and goals for making the world a better place in order to incorporate loving and fucking Olivia into my daily schedule?
Thinking about it makes me uneasy. Thinking about anything besides Olivia is impossible when she’s around.
Is it really this black and white?
Perhaps not.
Perhaps I just need to let the light in and get a bigger pot.
She’s still ignoring me, but I can tell she’s not asleep.
We’re in the center of the plane, in first class.
I made sure Sanjay booked this airline to JFK so we would only be separated by armrests, a narrow side table, and a divider that can be raised or lowered.
I’ve kept the divider lowered, even though Olivia’s emotional divider is still up.
It has been a quiet flight. No noisy kids.
There’s a sweet young couple sitting in front of us and a cute elderly couple who have been split up on either side of us.
I put my phone away ten minutes before boarding, gave Olivia my full attention.
I didn’t say anything to her beyond asking her which side of the plane she wanted to be on and asking if she was sure she wanted to drink champagne during the flight.
It’s dehydrating, I reminded her. But I didn’t stop her from drinking it.
I wasn’t being judgmental. She slipped her earbuds in as she sipped her champagne.
She played her music so loud that I could hear that it was Nine Inch Nails.
Respect. I did tell her she was free to scowl when we aren’t in public, but I can’t stand seeing her the slightest bit unhappy.
This is more than annoyance. There’s some kind of pain lurking beneath her beautiful surface.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I pull a pen and notebook out of my bag and tear out a piece of paper. In my least messy handwriting, I scribble:
Hi. P.S. I like you. P.P.S. I like you a lot. P.P.P.S. How can I make you happier?
After folding it up into something vaguely resembling a heart, I drop it onto her side of the divider, along with the pen, making sure they land on the side table.
I watch her stare at it. My chest warms at the sight of the hint of a smile on her pretty face.
But now that she’s unfolded the note and read it, she looks sad again.
She picks up the pen and writes something, refolds the paper, and holds the pen and paper over the divider so I can take them from her.
It is not cool how nervous I am.
And it is really not cool how excited I am to read what she wrote:
Hello. P.S. I like you a lot too. P.P.S. I’m sure I’m just dehydrated. P.P.P.S. I didn’t expect to like you this much. It’s weird and scary. That’s all.
I’m going to have this framed and give it to her as an anniversary gift.
That’s my initial thought, before I remember that we aren’t married or engaged yet.
She has unbuckled her seat belt so she can turn her body to face me and look over the divider as I write on the other side of the paper:
I know what you mean. I hope we get used to it. I could get used to you… P.S. No more alcohol until tomorrow, okay? Long flights are hard on the body even without alcohol. And I want to be the only one who’s hard on your body for this trip.
Pure contentment spreads across her pretty face as she reaches over to take the paper from me and slips it into her handbag.
Then she reaches over the divider so I can hold her hand.
It’s not comfortable, but we stay like this until the flight attendant comes by to ask if she wants anything else to drink.
When Olivia asks for water, I squeeze her hand before letting go.
When we’re in the back seat of my hired car, Olivia asks, “So, are we going to do it New York–style while we’re here?”
“You’d better believe it. For one New York minute.”
“Ooooh. Nice. Thin crust, wide slice.” She leans in and says, “I can’t wait for you to fold me in half and devour me.”
I nearly swallow my tongue and choke on it.
It’s a good thing I don’t choke to death, because I really want to find out what thin-crust, wide-slice sex is, and I definitely want to fold this woman up and devour her.
“Unrelated, I emailed Louisa during the flight to let her know I want to meet with her when we’re back in the Bay Area.
To discuss another donation. She said she’s seen the pictures we posted. She thinks we look cute together.”
Olivia wrinkles her nose. “Really? Did she actually use the word ‘cute’?”
“She did.”
This girl’s smile is rarely this bright, but when it is, I feel like bursting into song. I would never burst into song—or burst into anything, for that matter—but it’s nice to know that I can feel this way. Sometimes.
“Thank you,” she says. “That’s cool.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
She looks serious again, all of a sudden. That did not last long. “I just want to say that if things were based on skill alone, I’m confident that I would have been featured already.”
“I have no doubt. If it were based on beauty, you’d be a principal dancer already.”
Olivia giggles and rolls her eyes. I don’t know if I’ve ever made her giggle before.
“I can’t wait to see you on stage again.”
She blinks. “Again?”
“I mean…” I could tell her. Why shouldn’t I tell her? “I mean, I went to that recital in Cleveland.”
“Right. It’s just…”
“What?”
“You really didn’t think I should be a professional dancer.”
“I was wrong.” That was the first time I’ve ever said those three little words out loud in my life, and I mean it.
She is even more stunned by my utterance than I am. Her lower lip quivers, but she manages to hide it with a small smile that reaches inside me, grips my heart, and then plucks it from my chest when she forms the quiet words, “Thank you, Johnny.”
My fingers reach out to touch her lips. I don’t even know why until she kisses them. My fingers understand her so much more than my brain does, I guess. I cradle her face in my hands. Her eyes are wet. I don’t understand. “What?”
“Are you acting right now?”
“What? No.” Why would she ask me that? “No.”
She unbuckles her seat belt and leans over to kiss me, almost frantic, like it’s a kiss goodbye, like we might never see each other again.
I smooth my fingers over her hair. “Hey. Hey. Are you okay?”
Olivia nods, kisses me one more time, and then settles back into the seat and looks out her window.
I can’t catch my breath. I feel queasy. I don’t ever want to be kissed like that again, like it’s the last time. I don’t understand what just happened. The past few days have been a roller coaster of emotions for me. I don’t do roller coasters. Or emotions.
I calm myself down by texting Sanjay and replying to some emails.
When my pulse has returned to normal, I ask her what she wants to do when we get to my apartment.
“I want to order takeout, eat it in bed, and watch dumb movies with you. Watch you squirm until we fall asleep.”
“How do you know I’ll squirm?” I ask.
She laughs. Is it possible she knows me better than I think she does?
She’s right.
I’m squirming.
We order pretty much everything off the menu from the restaurant on the corner, and she makes me watch Hot Tub Time Machine 2.
I actually liked the first one, but the sequel just makes me angry.
Not only because they don’t even attempt to make sense of the time-travel aspect—because where the fuck is John Cusack?
But mostly I squirm because her arm is around me and one hand is resting on my abs.
I promised myself I would refrain from having sex tonight because we cannot afford to have sex hangovers tomorrow.
I have three important meetings before checking out a potential investment in Midtown, and then we have the gala event tomorrow night, where we will have to pose for pictures.
I keep telling myself this while she’s clearing the dishes off the bed and while she casually removes her sleep shirt and climbs under the covers beside me, totally naked.
While she turns away from me and says, “Good night,” with her husky voice and a tone that says Good luck with that no-sex thing, buddy.
And then I drink a bottle of water, take a double dose of Vitamin C, and have New York–style sex with her—hot and dirty like Times Square in the 1970s—because she’s here and I’m here, and I may be a nerd but I’m not an idiot, and whatever power or resolve I once had to resist her got lost somewhere over the Atlantic.
I can’t believe how much this scares me, but fuck it.
I’m a genius.
I’ll figure it out.