Chapter 7 #3
“Okay, here goes. I think I used to believe in destiny.” She put her fork down and glanced around them.
“But I don’t know anymore. I don’t know if destiny was the name I gave to things I liked, or if I was really destined for this life in some way.
Either way, I’m not complaining. I mean, not complaining much.
” She bit her lower lip. She’d done a lot of complaining in his presence.
“Okay, I’m not constantly complaining…and as I hear myself talk, I realize I need to work on that.
But the point I’m trying to make is, how can I really know that I was maybe meant to be an artist?
How can I really know that I made the right decisions all those years ago?
I guess that’s why this contest is so important to me. That’s what feels like destiny.”
“And if you don’t win?” he asked. “Will you consider that destiny, give it up, and say you were never meant to be an artist? Or will you keep trying?”
“I honestly don’t know. How sad is that? I don’t even know how committed I am.”
“Ahh,” he said with a flick of his wrist. “Does anyone ever know how committed they are? Isn’t everything really an in-the-moment decision? Trying to decide what it all means before you’ve even painted the pictures puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on one contest.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” she said. “You’re a smart golfer.”
“Nope. Just had my fair share of therapy,” he said, settling back. “I had to see a sports psychologist a few years ago because I couldn’t get out of my own head.”
And he was a man who’d had therapy. And admitted it. Was she being pranked? Had Julie found this man and put him here to prank her? “You did?”
“I did. Have you ever heard of the yips?”
She shook her head.
“It’s when a pitcher in baseball suddenly can’t throw accurately.
In other sports, when you lose your play.
It’s an anxiety thing. I was playing a tournament in Ireland and had the lead up until the back nine.
Then it was me and an Irishman who everyone was cheering on, obviously.
We were neck and neck. He’d go up a shot, and I’d shave one.
Then I’d go up and he’d shave two. He made some amazing shots, and in the last three or four holes, I convinced myself he was a lot better than me, and judging by the crowd noise, I didn’t deserve to win.
It was easy to convince myself, too, because some of the shots he made looked so easy.
Out of a bunker. Out of the rough. Clean down the fairway.
On the last hole, I bogeyed—went over par—and not only didn’t come in second but added enough strokes to come in third. On the very last hole.”
“Oh, wow,” she said.
“After that, I couldn’t get out of my own head. I was so focused on other players that I began to not only forget what I did well, but just how to play in general. I started tanking.”
“What happened?”
“I found the sports psychologist who helped me turn it around. But if you had asked me after Ireland what my future was, I would have told you I was quitting.”
“So the moral of the story is, I should get a sports psychologist?”
“Or maybe, don’t let one contest decide your fate. Make it at least two.” He smiled.
Amy laughed.
They finished the meal with him talking about some places he’d played around the world. When they were done, she began to clear without even thinking about it.
“Hey,” Harrison said, taking the plates from her hand. “I am going to remind you one more time that this was a full-service dinner, and I meant it. I only let you make the salad because I like talking to you. But I’ve got it.”
An offer to do the dishes could give any woman sparkly feelings, but then add to that this was the second time he said he liked talking to her (to her, the person who made Ryan’s eyes glaze over and Jonah said was so extra), Amy’s sparkle was on full blast. “Okay,” she said, and handed him the plates. “Thank you. That was delicious.”
“You are very welcome.” He grabbed a few more things and went into the kitchen with a bit of a limp.
Amy was enjoying his company so much (another surprise that in a mere twenty-four hours, she had changed her mind about him being anything but a welcome addition to her retreat) that she wasn’t ready to go hide in her room just yet. But she did take the opportunity for a quick appearance check.
Okay, not exactly a femme fatale, but she was okay with what she saw in her bathroom mirror.
She looked a little windblown, but her makeup had held up, and she did not have that harried-mom look like she did when she ran Ethan to school in the mornings, usually still in her pajama bottoms and that very old and faded Texas Longhorns hoodie.
She was dabbing on a bit of blush when her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Julie. “Hey,” she said, answering on speakerphone. “Did you get hold of Sam?”
On the other end of the line, Julie snorted. “Finally. And in usual Sam fashion, she insisted there was nothing wrong with the sound system, and that you were being too sensitive. But then, she got an email from her guest complaining of the same and agreed the volume was too loud.”
“I appreciate it. For the record, I live with males who play video games. I am not too sensitive. That music was a foghorn.”
“Oh, and she says if anyone is moving, it’s the freeloader. That would be you.”
“Sam is as delightful as ever,” Amy mused. “But you tell her, I am not moving.”
“I did. So tell me everything,” Julie said eagerly. “Have y’all made out yet?”
“For God’s sake, Julie,” Amy complained. “Are you still in middle school or what?”
“No, but I’d go back for this. And honestly, I wouldn’t mind a couple of do-overs from eighth grade. So what’s happening? Are you still not talking to him?”
“We’re talking,” Amy said slowly, unwilling to throw Julie any bones just yet, but knowing she would. Some things were too good to keep to oneself. “Actually…we just had dinner.”
“No,” Julie said gravely. “You cooked for him? You said specifically you would not cook a single thing for two weeks!”
“He cooked for me, believe it or not. Steaks, because I know you’ll ask. And…martinis.” She put down her makeup brush and examined herself. She looked good. Fit, anyway. Not a beauty, but not unattractive, either.
“I hope he didn’t cook martinis, but, Amy, this is fabulous. My God, how long has it been since you’ve been on a date?”
“It was not a date, so don’t call it that. It was a neighborly thing to do, that’s all.”
“Neighbors have sex all the time,” Julie opined.
“First of all, you say that like you have any knowledge of what neighbors do all the time. You live in a high-rise with twenty-somethings for neighbors.”
“Tech professionals, actually.”
“And two, stop. I’m not you.” She could never be Julie.
Julie was fifty-four and still hung out at bars and country clubs, dating anyone and everyone.
She’d never had any qualms about it, either.
Julie had always viewed sex as a necessary bodily function, and relationships as phases.
Whereas Amy had always thought she was a one-man woman and still scarred from a Catholic upbringing when it came to sex.
“Okay, but you get my point. It would be great if you could, you know, enjoy yourself. He’s handsome, he cooks, he’s obviously okay to be around if you are having dinner.”
“He’s more than okay, he’s fun. But I don’t just fall in bed with a warm body. I don’t know him well enough for that.”
Except that she’d thought about doing that more than once this evening.
No, her reluctance came from a much deeper place than a few flimsy morals.
What if she wasn’t any good at it? Could she even do it if she was rusty and old?
A divorce did a lot of things to a person’s confidence.
Even if one’s ex insisted it wasn’t her, or their sex life, or anything else but himself, one couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it was her fault for being less than spectacular in the bedroom department.
Julie had costumes. Amy had never worn a costume for sex in her life.
And to be fair, it wasn’t like she’d been champing at the bit to hop into bed with Ryan in the last few years. Kids had a way of draining all the youthful energy out of you.
“Don’t overthink it,” Julie said, somehow reading her mind. “It’s just a hookup. A mutual scratching of itches. You don’t have to marry him, you know.”
“But…” Amy looked at herself in the mirror. Why was it so hard to have sex for sex’s sake? Could she take her clothes off in front of a stranger?
“But what?” Julie prodded her.
“But…I don’t know. I feel too old for this.”
“For sex?”
“For flirting. For knowing how to even get there. And it would have to be in pitch-black conditions because my body isn’t what it used to be.”
“Neither is his. Listen, you don’t have to flirt at all and hope he makes a pass. The rules have changed since you were sixteen, Amy. We’ve evolved! You simply ask him if he’s down for fooling around. People get together just for sex all the time.”
“Right…I heard it’s usually neighbors.”
“Exactly,” Julie said.
“What if the sex is awful?”
“Well, then you obviously have to come home early and ghost him.”
Amy laughed. “Obviously. But what if I am awful?”
Julie said nothing for a moment. Then, “Amy…do you like sex?”
“Yes!” she said emphatically. “I mean…from what I remember, I really do. But it’s been a long time and Ryan and I—”
“If you like it, and you get that tab A goes into slot B, you can’t be bad at it. Trust me.”
Amy didn’t know if she could trust Julie at all. She probably knew how to do it in swings and in airplane bathrooms. “Yeah.” She sighed. “Well, thanks for the advice, Jules, but I think I’ll just do what I came here to do.”
Julie groaned. “Speaking of which, how is the painting going?”
“Awful. I thought I would be so inspired that I’d be knocking them out.
But my muse is slow to get with the program.
She thinks she is on vacation. I did one sketch and I hate it.
I have to find my sea legs. I’m going to start fresh in the morning.
” She heard a sudden gush of water, like someone had turned on a hose.
She realized it was coming from outside.
She went to the window and opened the blinds.
The skies had opened; a deluge had taken the place of a gentle rain.
Great. She wished there was a fire in the living room. And some brandy. Wait…she could make a fire. She’d made dozens of them when Jonah was in Boy Scouts. “Hey, I have to go,” she said.
“Just let yourself breathe, Amy. A healthy physical release could be good for your creative flow. Also, the snowstorm. You’ll be painting while it snows outside, just like an HGTV show.”
“It’s not going to snow, and maybe you’re the one who needs help with the creative flow.”
“One hundred percent, I do,” Julie said cheerfully, because she was incorrigible.
“I’ll talk to you later,” Amy said and hung up, wondering if she could be as incorrigible as Julie. Or even half. Just once, she’d like to step out of her life and be someone else. She just didn’t know if she had the courage to do it.