Chapter 28 The Pop Shop #2
It was that same feeling of panic he’d had when Blair had appeared at the pool house demanding to read the chapters he’d falsely promised her. He’d thought to himself then that he didn’t “do” panic, but what was this clammy-hands, stomach-churning, shaky-legs feeling if not panic?
He tried to tell himself he was having a fight-or-flight reaction, and that neither response was indicated.
There was a rushing sound in his ears, too, that was preventing him from hearing what his father was saying; the pop shop tableau didn’t come with sound.
But Blair’s mouth was moving now, too, and he needed to know what she was saying.
With his will, he somehow unmuted the scene. She was introducing herself, but only by name.
“I know who you are, Miss Kellermoon.” His dad’s tone was infused with disdain. It was embarrassing. It was enraging.
He stepped forward, drawing their attention. “Dad. Why didn’t you tell me Ed Jensen died?” It was the wrong question. Well, it was the right question, but this wasn’t the time for it.
“You didn’t need the distraction.”
“To take a day to go to a funeral?”
“You were about to leave for a Boundary Waters trip with your high school kids. I didn’t want you to not go.”
Jack swallowed his rage. There was no point in arguing about this. Arguing with Art Branksome was always futile, and more to the point, it wasn’t going to bring Ed back, or rewind time so Jack could do right by Allie.
“But you didn’t even tell him later? I mean, setting aside the fact that he had a right to know, that Allie would have assumed you’d have passed on the news, you just were never going to tell him?”
Jack had come to understand, even appreciate, what he used to call Blair’s stridency.
But to understand it, to understand where it came from and what it meant, you had to know her.
His dad did not know her. He didn’t want his dad to know her.
He held up a hand to signal her to be quiet.
She didn’t like that—she shot him an incredulous look—but she did stop talking.
“What are you doing here with this Hollywood person, Jack?”
Jack didn’t know what he was doing here with Blair.
Playing house, he supposed. Playing cabin.
Playing pop shop. Playing being the key word.
Living in a made-up land. He took that point, even though that wasn’t what his dad probably meant.
Dad was probably concerned that he’d sold out to Books with Blair.
“Why don’t we talk later, Dad? I’ll come by your place this evening. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were in town?”
“Why didn’t you tell him Ed Jensen died?”
Jack and his father swung their attention to Blair, and Jack very much feared they were giving her the same look.
Jack didn’t know how to protect Blair from his dad, but he reminded himself that he didn’t have to. She was a grown woman. Also: protecting Blair wasn’t his job.
“Why don’t we talk now?” his dad asked. “You can canoe home with me.”
Home.
The flash came back. A turquoise pool.
Jack would freely admit to being mixed up right now over what the word home meant.
He’d spent the last few days facing the fact that this place—Allie’s place—had been more of a home to him than his dad’s cabin.
He’d spent the last few months facing the fact that his mother had been more of a parent to him than his dad.
Hell, Ed Jensen had been more of a parent to him than his dad.
And as for Jack’s place, the condo—he no longer feared he’d be forced to sell it, but was it home, or was it just the place where he lived?
The panicky, shaky feeling was getting stronger. He didn’t like his dad seeing him like this. He didn’t like being like this. “I can’t talk right now, Dad, but I’ll come over in a bit.”
A black bird against a turquoise pool.
Why was this happening? That book was done.
“You should go, Mr. Branksome.” Blair was eyeing Jack as she spoke to his dad, and how had he gotten to the point where Blair Kellermoon was ejecting his dad from his presence?
It wasn’t Jack’s job to protect Blair, but it wasn’t her job to protect him, either.
“Dad,” Jack said, willing his message to land.
“Give me an hour to… deal with things here.”
His dad looked back and forth between Jack and Blair, nodded curtly, and turned and headed down the steps.
Blair and Jack watched him drag his canoe out and, as if by silent agreement, waited until he’d paddled out a good way before turning to each other.
“Holy shit,” Blair said.
Jack sighed. “The thing is, he wasn’t wrong.”
“What? Yes, he was!”
“He’s a jerk, but he asked a good question. What am I doing here?” He left the “with you” part of that question unspoken. “I need to focus on the next book. I need to write a proposal.”
“Fine,” Blair said. “Then do it.”
“I can’t do it here.”
“So we’ll go back to Minneapolis.”
She was missing the point, which was that it was time to stop playing house.
“Or come back to LA with me.”
“That’s the last thing I need to do.” It might be the first thing he wanted to do, but, speaking of security blankets, Blair—and her house—couldn’t be his any more than he could be hers.
“What happened to Oh, Blair, the only reason I got my second book done was because of you. Being in LA was just the change of scenery I needed?” She was speaking in a snippy tone that startled him.
“What happened is that it was fun while it lasted, but it’s not a permanent fix.”
Jack was being vague. The pronoun it in that sentence lacked an antecedent. He would never do that in a book.
What was it? His time in the pool house? His… thing with Blair?
Thing: more vagueness.
“Of course it’s not a permanent fix,” Blair said, her voice shifting into an exaggerated soothing tone, as if she were talking to a child, which irritated the hell out of Jack.
She didn’t talk to her own kids like that.
“You remember when you told me you weren’t sure if you could write a book with your dad around?
Being at my house was a temporary fix, and maybe it could be again.
But I agree that you need a permanent fix.
Not just so you can write another book, but so you can be… mentally well.”
“You’re giving me mental health advice?”
It was a low blow, and he knew it. Regretted it the moment it was out of his mouth.
“Yes,” she said tersely. “History is repeating itself here, except it’s now my turn to give you unsolicited but correct advice. You have some stuff to work on. Maybe not as much stuff as I did. I don’t think we’re talking clinical stuff here—”
“Oh, thank you for that astute diagnosis. ‘Not clinical stuff.’ What kind of ‘stuff’ are we talking about then, pray tell?”
“A classic,” she shot back. “Daddy issues.”
“What?” He no longer regretted that previous low blow.
“Come on, you’re a writer. And you’re always trying to resist the obvious interpretation, the metaphor that’s too heavy-handed. Can it get any more obvious or heavy-handed here?”
“I guess not. I guess you’ll need to explain it to me like I’m a child.” She was already talking to him like that anyway.
“You’ve been trying to be like your dad, or to live up to the idea of him.”
That stopped him in his tracks.
“Look. I know I sound harsh, but as your friend, I can’t stand—”
“Are we friends?”
She must have inferred that his answer was no, because she sighed sadly. Looked at him a long time before saying, “Actually, I don’t think so. You want the benefits of friendship without the responsibilities.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. I do not.”
“You do. Drive-by friendship. You take what you need, and then you go. You clearly did it to Allie, and now you’re going to do it to me.”
She hadn’t just said that. “That’s not fair.” They were here, weren’t they? At the cabin he’d found for her stupid movie?
“The thing is, friends with benefits works that way, but friends-friends doesn’t.” She was gathering steam, talking faster and more loudly. “And friends with benefits are usually actually friends, are they not?
“So, yeah,” she said, not leaving space for him to answer her question. “I guess we’re not friends or friends with benefits.”
Right. What had he expected? A lifelong friendship with Blair Kellermoon?
Occasional visits during which they would have sex?
He regretted that he had ever started down this path, that he had opened the door to any kind of relationship, or association, with Blair.
It wasn’t too late, though, to nip it in the bud.
He looked right at her and said, “So then we’re not anything.
” He thought about the last time they’d argued, and parted ways.
She’d told him to fuck off and finish his book.
He wanted to say something similar. Fuck off and finish your movie. But the fight had left him.
“So then we’re not anything,” she echoed, and for a moment he thought her eyes had gone shiny, but he was mistaken. She was still standing inside, with the top of the door open. “I’m going to go now. I’m going to close this door.”
And then she did: closed the door, and the pop shop, and left him standing there wondering what the hell he had just done.
But then, history was repeating itself, apparently, because the top of the door opened again, and she said, quoting his own line back to him, “I’m here if you need me.”
And then she left. She really left.
He was still holding the leaves.