Chapter Six Lightheadedness
Chapter Six
Lightheadedness
The parking lot is crammed with cars. It’s a gorgeous, sun-drenched Sunday afternoon, and the park is teeming with young families, strollers, dogs, and runners. There’s a long line at the ice cream stand.
I find a parking spot, shut off the engine, and check how I look in the rearview mirror.
I’ve worn my hair down today, and I used my straightener, so it’s smooth, dark, and shiny.
My mascara hasn’t smudged, but I need some lipstick.
I dig into my purse to search for it, quickly apply it, and snap the top back on.
With one last look at myself in the mirror, I grow self-conscious as I rub gently at the scar below my jawbone and the longer one down the left side of my neck to my collarbone.
The scars on my forearm are especially grotesque, which is why I wear long sleeves most of the time, even on hot days like today.
I wish they’d fade more with time, but they never seem to.
But whatever. There’s not much I can do about that.
I turn to Scooter, who’s sitting in the passenger seat beside me, grinning from ear to ear. “Ready for a walk?” His mouth snaps shut, and his eyes pin to mine. “Then let’s get going.”
I step out and move around to the passenger side, where I clip the leash on to his collar. He leaps out of the car and onto the asphalt and darts in multiple directions. He sniffs everywhere, dragging me forward, tail wagging. I barely have a chance to lock the car door.
Then I see Nate. He’s walking toward me from a parking space near the stone wall along the water. Trotting beside him like a little queen—not dragging him—is an adorable long-haired dachshund.
“Hi there,” Nate says. “This must be Scooter.”
Scooter’s tail starts wagging in double time as he sniffs Dolly’s nose. They circle around each other and get tangled up in the leashes. Nate and I scramble to restore order. Only then do I focus my full attention on him. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he says with a grin.
If I’d entertained any notions that he might be less handsome in the light of day, when I’m sober, I was dead wrong. This guy could be a movie star.
“What a great day,” I say, squinting up at the bright blue sky.
“Couldn’t be better. Thanks for coming.”
“Thanks for the invite.”
We watch our dogs socialize and make sure they’re okay with each other. Then our eyes meet again, and we smile. My cheeks are going to hurt if I keep this up.
“Shall we walk?” Nate asks.
I secretly love that he uses the word shall. “Sure.” I head toward the path along the water. Scooter leads the way for all of us, his long tail wagging up a storm.
By the time we pass what was once known as Hangman’s Beach and are heading toward the point, chatting, I’m consciously aware of my libido, which seems to be waking up after a long hibernation.
Nate looks darn good as he stops to let Dolly do her business at the edge of the path.
I can’t help but admire his muscular physique under faded blue jeans and the way his white T-shirt stretches across his back and shoulders when he bends to pick up her droppings.
A little shiver of excitement dances up my spine, and I’m strangely relieved—because I was beginning to fear that all my sexual impulses were long dead, never to be resurrected.
Unaware of my eyes on him, Nate straightens, ties a knot in the poop bag, and strolls along the path to drop it in a trash can.
As I watch him, I think about Jacob, and I contemplate how young we were when we first fell in love.
Jacob was never muscular like Nate. He was thin and lanky, but only because he’d never had the chance to mature and grow into a man’s body.
I wonder what he might have looked like today if we’d never hiked up Cape Split . . .
Quickly, I shut my eyes and remind myself that it’s not healthy to slide into that old pattern of obsessing over the unanswerable question: What if we hadn’t gone?
Nate and Dolly return, and I steer my gaze toward the mouth of the harbor. The sky is blue, but a ribbon of fog hangs low over the horizon. It’ll probably roll in later and bring a damp chill with it.
“Hey,” Nate says. “You look lost in thought.”
I force a smile. “Sorry. I was just thinking about something.”
I glance down at Scooter, who’s been sitting and staring at me anxiously for the past few minutes. Sometimes I wonder if he can read my mind. Maybe not in words but in feelings and memories.
I start to walk, and he remains at my side, glancing up at me frequently. Clearly he’s worried.
“I hope this isn’t too personal,” Nate says, “but after you left last night, Kevin told me about a conversation he had with your friend.”
My stomach drops, and I stare at the path in front of me. “With Becky?”
“Yeah. She mentioned that she lost her brother a few years ago at Cape Split, and that you were with him. That you both fell off the mountain. I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine that.”
Becky, Becky, Becky. This always happens when she drinks. She talks about Jacob, even to strangers, and she cries.
“It’s been more than a few years,” I say. “Seven, actually.”
We continue walking slowly onto a grassy area, where Scooter sniffs through a lush patch of clover.
“Can you talk about it?” Nate asks.
I can, but I don’t like to. Nevertheless, I don’t want to be rude.
“A lot of what I remember about that day is blurred,” I try to explain.
“Like a fever dream. As if it wasn’t real.
” I pause and glance up at him. “My parents sent me to a therapist after it happened, and he was very focused on getting me to understand the stages of grief. He wanted me to categorize every thought and feeling I had, to try and sort each emotion into one of the stages, like putting pills in a pillbox for each day of the week. Looking back on it, I think he wanted me to understand that my feelings were normal. But he constantly pushed me to move forward through each stage to reach the final state of acceptance.”
“That sounds intense,” Nate replies. “And did you? Reach that final state?”
“Back then?” I chuckle bitterly. “I don’t think so. The whole process was too rigid, like a formula in a textbook. But I was all over the place emotionally, back and forth between denial and anger. I was a mess.”
Scooter leads us toward an empty bench close to the water.
“I’ve never lost anyone important in my life,” Nate tells me. “At least not yet. So I feel a bit . . . I don’t know. Lucky. And at the same time wet behind the ears because I have no personal experience with death.”
“Just enjoy the lucky part.” I give him a sidelong glance.
“Because that experience will come eventually, whether you like it or not. No one lives forever.” We move around the bench, sit down, and get the dogs settled.
“But grief isn’t just limited to death,” I add.
“You can experience grief from all sorts of things—like the death of a dream. Becoming a chef, for instance. You might not even be aware that you’re grieving about that. ”
Nate leans forward and scratches behind Dolly’s ears. “What’s your diagnosis, Dr. Sienna? Am I in a state of denial? Anger, more likely,” he adds.
“I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist. I was just thinking about you and your restaurant. I’m not sure why.”
Dolly moves into the shade beneath the bench, and Nate sits back. “First of all, I love that you’re thinking about me and my restaurant.”
I chuckle.
“So let’s talk about this,” he continues.
“Let’s imagine that I let go of that dream, and I make it through law school.
Then I finally conquer all the stages of grief and accept that this dream of mine is truly dead.
No cooking school in Paris or Italy. No restaurant.
No flavor creations with . . .” He pauses and looks up at the sky, thoughtfully.
“Cilantro and cream. Or foie gras and mint.”
“Yum,” I say.
After a moment, he bends forward and rubs the top of Dolly’s little head.
“It’ll be corporate tax law and calculators forever.
A life of quiet, passive resignation.” He regards me with humor.
“I think I might prefer to hang out in the anger stage. Then at least I could keep blaming my dad for everything bad in my life.”
I nod with understanding as I gaze out over the water. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
Nate lets out a groan. “Enough about my failed ambitions. I was hoping to impress you today. So much for that.”
He crosses one leg over the other, faces me on the bench, and rests his arm along the back of it. I feel a tingling sensation on the side of my neck, as if his hand is creating static electricity there.
“Becky told Kevin that you haven’t dated anyone since you lost your boyfriend,” he says.
I shake my head derisively. “Becky has loose lips when she drinks.”
“Will this get her in trouble?” he asks playfully.
“I suppose not. It’s not as if it’s classified information.” The sun is hot on my shoulders under my white cotton sweater, and I fan myself with my hand. “But what she said isn’t entirely correct. I have gone out on a bunch of dates, but none of them went anywhere.”
He leans a little closer, looks me straight in the eye, and speaks softly. “Maybe you haven’t gone out with the right person yet.”
A thrilling energy dances across my skin. I don’t think anyone has ever been so smooth and seductive with me. Not even Jacob. And I don’t hate it.
“You could be right,” I reply.
One side of his mouth curls up in a half smile, and he touches my shoulder with the tip of his forefinger.
It’s a gentle sweep, as if he’s brushing a tiny blackfly away, but I feel it all the way down to my toes.
The entire left side of my body erupts in goose bumps—the good kind—and I swallow heavily.
“If this were a first date,” he says, “would you consider it worthy of a second?”
“I’m not sure yet.” I check my watch. “We’re only a half hour in, but so far so good.”