Chapter Eighteen #3
“I mean, I felt bad for blaming him, but every time I tried to talk it out, Ben just got more and more callous and self-interested. So when Ben walks around like Mr. Charming, taking all the credit for the camp or the farm running smoothly when it’s mostly Neve who does the real work, I don’t know.
I don’t like it. He talks a big game about being from here and caring about the community, but I feel like he would sell anyone down the river for an acting gig, you know? ”
“Well, actors who want to make it have to be like that. It’s sad, really. That’s why I don’t date actors, as a rule.”
“Yeah, and often when I look at him, I can’t help but think about who Damon might have become. It feels unfair.”
I reached out and squeezed his hand. He wiped a tear from his eye, then pulled his hand back. “Anyway, we need a vibe shift.
How about some campy, digust-art cinema?”
“Perfect.”
He clicked the remote.
I spent most of Saturday with my mom. I woke up feeling like I was counting down the minutes until I could be alone again,
but we had a surprisingly successful pedicure date at a cute little place called the Bloomfield Beauty Co. We sat side by
side on plush white chairs, both reading the novels we’d picked out at the bookstore—me, Carley Fortune’s first novel Every Summer After, and my mom, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. We occasionally chatted with our spa attendants, who were so kind to us and didn’t bat an eye at my mother’s
eccentric way of doing human-to-human interaction. At one point, she went upstairs for her Botox appointment and I didn’t
make any rude comments about it. To bodily autonomy, I thought, sipping a latte while having the second pedicure of my entire life.
Once I got over the shyness I felt at having a stranger touch my feet, the process felt so luxurious.
The room smelled like lavender and pine.
They played a mix of music that reminded me of a more carefree time, Solange and Tame Impala and the Bloc Party.
By the time my feet were being massaged in oil, I could feel all of my anxiety melting away.
We picked up some sandwiches at the Agrarian, the place I’d biked to just a few weeks earlier, and then I drove us, getting
only mildly lost, to the secret beach for locals. Dave had drawn a map for me on the back of an envelope before we left, my
heart jumping at the way his hand brushed mine when he passed it to me. I felt some guilt at not being a local, but the lines
were long at the provincial park, and I knew that something more rustic would be up my mom’s alley. By the time were driving
home before dinner, we’d fallen into a kind of peaceful routine. Because I knew we would have so much time together that summer,
unlike any other time in my life, I didn’t feel any pressure to talk. When she would make critical remarks, I tried a technique
where I would just stare at her until she got uncomfortable or ask her to explain in detail what she meant, which produced
the same result.
Dave and I talked about watching movies again that night; my mother raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t say anything. This
was the one upside to having a mostly incurious mother. The first night, we’d stayed leaning on the armrests on either side
of the couch, like strangers sharing a bench at the bus station. It was an odd physicality, both for the fact that we’d just
had such a vulnerable conversation, and because he’d once held me tight to him during a rainstorm under a tree, closer than
my body had ever been to another person. But at the same time, I didn’t feel like showing with my body how much he still meant
to me, how much I might wish I still knew how it felt to grip his shoulders or sweep my finger across the stubble on his face.
It was also strange to be watching John Waters, a director known for just showing the explicit rawness of humanity, and feel
like I couldn’t express myself.
On Saturday, we adopted a more neutral position, like friends sharing a couch, with our own blankets. We watched I Saw The TV Glow, because the kids at camp were obsessed with it. Hailey said she’d watched it sixteen times. We occasionally paused the film
to turn to each other and discuss the movie, as though we were students in a film class.
“Imagine just being able to think, like, let’s use hand-painted animation for the sky . . . How beautiful is this?” Dave asked,
as we stared at the screen.
“Do you miss it, being creative?”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Absolutely.”
“I still write.”
“You do? Can I read anything?”
“No, no way. It’s just for me.”
“Please . . . I miss being a witness to your considerable imagination.”
I wanted to kiss him that night, not just because he was handsome and we shared a past, but because everything he said made
my brain light up with revelations. It reminded me of how Marlon described his second date with Kris, when they went to the
AGO and saw the Basquiat exhibit. Marlon wasn’t sure what to feel about Kris because he was so reserved. Marlon basically
monologued through the first date and the start of the second, and then Kris took a deep breath and locked eyes with him and
very quietly told him what he thought about the painting in front of him. Marlon claimed that by the end of the sentence,
he knew he was in love.
“Maybe someday,” Dave said. “If I write something interesting enough. You know I still have a DVD at my old place of Buckeye I’d grown so attached to our nightly movies. But of course, he would have plans. He’s a handsome man with a Tinder
account who co-parents a child. The weekend was ending, and Ben had been in the city. We’d see each other again the next day.
I didn’t know what to think.
Try not to overthink everything, Marlon texted. That is your number one problem. Just be in your body. Be in the present. Resist the urge to control everything.
Marlon knew me so well it both angered and comforted me.