Chapter Twenty-Six #2
I didn’t have a chance to answer before he leaned in and kissed me gently on the lips and then pulled back to look at me again.
How did this movie star–looking man actually like me? It was so strange, for it to be real and not real at the same time.
I didn’t have to answer because Marlon, definitely wine drunk, beeped the horn on my car and yelled, “I’m not gonna give you
five stars if you keep us waiting!”
Ben’s smile said, I’m here. I want this. He wasn’t pushing me, but he was standing in his certainty under a full moon, looking handsome as hell. We hugged. I fit perfectly
in the nook of his shoulder. My smile was genuine as I got in the driver’s seat beside Marlon. Kris was asleep in the back
seat and Hazel was lit from below by the glow of her phone as she texted.
“You look happy, kid,” Marlon remarked as I started the engine.
“I don’t know what I am.”
I commandeered the radio with a medley of Lilith Fair songs that, due to the alcohol consumed that evening, meant we group-sang
all the way home, the windows down, the smell of summer in our hair. I turned the music up loud so that I wouldn’t have to
talk about how I was feeling. But when I pulled into the parking lot of the hotel in Wellington, Marlon made me get out of
the car so we could have a little check-in. I told him about the heat I had with Dave, but his persistent uncertainty about
whether or not we fit into each other’s lives. How Ben had stepped up. Marlon felt the defining question was easy.
“Who’s the best in bed?”
“It’s not like that. I’ve made out with Ben, and it was fun, but we haven’t slept together. I mean, I’m attracted to them both, but if Dave is even in the same room as I am, I feel like I might go blind at any second, you know? I can feel his presence everywhere, like even in my teeth.”
“Whoa. That is some once-in-a-lifetime shit.”
“I know.”
“But you know what? Remember Jerrod, the guy before Kris? It was so intense with him. But it was too intense, you know? And with Kris it was just good from the jump. Hot, but also other necessary things. Safe.”
“I think Dave and I could have all the necessary things, but I’m not sure what he wants.”
“At some point, you’re just going to have to close your eyes and jump. Make a decision. It might not be the right one, but
you have to make a choice.”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure that Dave wouldn’t rather me just choose Ben and get on out of town.”
“Well, that’s good information to have. Major points against Dave. And if someone can’t answer you, their answer is no.”
“He did answer me. In a way. I just think he’s being serious, thinking about all the important things, like he’s a dad. And
we live three hours apart. How would it work?”
“Well, sometimes obstacles are there to be overcome, and sometimes they point out the truth of it all,” he said.
“How did you get so fucking wise?!”
I pulled up photos of the house in LA that Ben was renting. It was a cute bungalow with fruit trees in the front yard. I handed
Marlon the phone.
“I could be living here. This fall? It could be my second impulsive life decision in six months.”
“Silver Lake?”
“Los Feliz.”
“Oooh, a sun porch.”
“Apparently you can see Griffith Observatory from it. Would you visit me?”
“Uh, oh course,” he said, scrolling through the photos.
“Oh, he’s got good taste. This is a good neighbourhood.
He’s wanting to include you in his life, his future.
This is a man who knows what he wants. He started out a bit flaky, but I don’t know, he’s kind of leading the race right now, if I’m being honest. What does your gut say? ”
“I never know how to answer that!”
“Just take a quiet moment and let your body tell you.”
“OK, OK, enough self-help, you go have hotel sex before Kris falls asleep again,” I said, pushing him toward the door. I usually
found Marlon so helpful, but this was a decision that no one could make for me. He was right, I had to get quiet. I sat in
my car for a few minutes, the hum of the AC drowning out the sounds of drunk hotel guests milling about. I placed my forehead
on the steering wheel and I tried to ask my body what it wanted. No answer. But I did think about the lives of my friends
who had gone to LA. Some were doing very well, and all of them were working, even if they weren’t quite doing exactly what
they dreamed of. No one was doing the Christmas movie hustle. Many were also married to others in the business. I had envied
their lives on Instagram, even if they weren’t showing the real truth of it all. But choosing Ben shouldn’t be about work,
or the practical details of life, like an enviable sun porch on a cute rental house.
When I got back to the cabin I could hear the sounds of The Incredible Journey, Dave’s favourite kids’ movie, playing through the open windows of his cabin.
Finn had arrived. If he hadn’t, I might have banged on Dave’s door.
Okanagan was still sleeping on the bed. I gave him a brush, looking for injuries under his thick orange and white fur.
He seemed fine, unburdened by regret. He got up and meowed at the screen door that I’d been latching closed so he couldn’t push his way in or out.
He stared at me, mad. “No murders for you for a while, kid.”
Eventually he gave up and went back to bed. I fretted about all the wedding details and tied the last of the ribbons around
the burlap gift bags—they contained a hangover kit, mints, and a commemorative key chain with Sarah’s and Kate’s initials
on them. I steamed my dress and looked over the last scene of my script. I cursed the espresso I’d had after the meal because
I felt every muscle in my body as it moved, my head full of bees. Eventually I paced on the porch, just staring at Dave’s
cabin like an utter psychopath, its windows now dark. I couldn’t decide anything until we had a moment together, alone and
open-hearted, ready to put it all on the line, without chickening out like I had the last time we tried to talk. Should I
start a campfire, lure him out with smoke, like a witchy queen? No. That was even more insane. I couldn’t keep pushing, and
we agreed to talk after the wedding. I knew what it was like to have him, to feel fused together in a way I’d assumed permanent
and once in a lifetime, and I knew devastation of having that connection cut with no warning. I got into bed and kicked about,
listless, mind and body refusing to rest.
A insomnia expert once told me—OK, once told his followers—that when you can’t sleep, you should get up and do something that tires you out.
As though pulled both by this advice and by the full moon, I threw on the dress I’d discarded on the floor and went down to the lake.
The moon was so bright I didn’t need a flashlight, the path now so familiar to me with its twists and turns down to the dock.
The air smelled of cut grass, jasmine, and honeysuckle.
Once on the dock, I peeled my clothes off and dove into the water, not stopping to think about the snake or the many horror movie opening scenes that could start exactly this way.
When I crested the water and took in a deep breath, I thought about my first night in Prince Edward County, swimming in the Airbnb pool, musing about the different person I could become.
And here I was, still me, but also changed somehow.
I swam about lazily, listening to the forest orchestra before climbing back up to the dock.
I sat quietly on my knees, just the breeze in the trees, a loon call, the cicadas, and my own awkward pulse.
I knew what my heart wanted. But my logical mind was putting up a hell of a fight. When I stood up to head back, I turned
to see a flickering of eyes facing me, like stationary fireflies. A deer, about twenty feet to my left, standing in the marsh.
I stood still, trying to memorize the moment, wishing I could take a photo with my eyes. When I took a gentle step forward,
it ran.
“I’m not going to hurt you!” I called after it, like a child might.
I walked back naked and barefoot with my clothes and sandals in one hand, feeling lucky for that magical moment. I had never
stood naked in the forest before and it was strangely primal. I could sleep now; my body finally felt tired. The trouble with
that plan? As I rounded the final corner, tall grass on either side of me, I stepped onto the well-manicured lawn and ran
smack into a bounding Baby, who knocked me to the ground. Before I could scramble up and gather my clothes to cover up, I
heard Dave’s soft apologies as Baby licked my face.
“Baby, no. Elise, I’m so sorry, come here boy, NOW.” Baby did not follow any of his commands, only bounded off behind me somewhere.
I felt like he called me by my real name only when he was distant, Goldy when he was romantic.
“I was skinny-dipping, I didn’t bring a towel, and I didn’t want to put my clothes back on and ruin them,” I mumbled, trying
to cover myself up without much success as the force of Baby’s weight had sent them flying all around. I stood up as gracefully
as possible in the situation.
“Honestly, I’ve had dreams that start this way, a beautiful naked woman emerges from the woods .
. .” He was laughing, but not at me. He looked away so I could pull the dress over my head, finally.
To make matters worse, he was wearing cut-off jean shorts and a tank top and kind of sweating from running after the dog in the heat.
I hadn’t yet had this particular dream, but I was going to now.
“Baby doesn’t get much free-roaming time when Finn is here. So I thought I’d sneak out and let him run before bed.”
“I just saw a deer by the water’s edge. He probably smells him.”
“Wow, that’s pretty special.”
“It felt like a kind of magical moment, actually.”
He reached out and touched my arm, gently. It was agony, the softness of his touch. I wanted to pull him toward me or shake
off his hand and make a run for it.
“What?”
“Uh, nothing, you’re just so gorgeous,” he said, and then ran his hand through my sopping wet hair, giving the ends a squeeze.
“I wish we could go back to the water together, but I need to be close in case Finn wakes up.”
“Of course,” I replied.
“Do you remember when we used to midnight swim at camp?” He rubbed at the stubble along his jaw, smiling from the memory.
Our faces were so close now, I could feel my body being pulled toward him involuntarily. He put one hand on my waist as though
we were about to slow dance. I remembered how he’d touched me underwater under the moon, and how we’d laughed climbing back
up on the dock, kissing until we almost fell back in the water.
“Of course,” I whispered, “I remember everything.”
He leaned in to kiss me, sending shock waves all through my body when our lips finally touched. We kissed ravenously, like
we’d just outrun a predator and were finally safe. We fell onto the ground, rolling around, making out like teenagers. But
when he reached his hand under my dress, I stopped him. It felt like the hardest thing I’d ever had to do but my mind was
interfering with the pure pleasure of the moment. He held up his hands with a questioning look on his face.
“Sorry, Goldy, you OK?”
“We should wait, until we talk it through. This is momentous, right? We should just . . . I mean, this is not just sex. Between
us. Right?”
“Of course it’s not just sex.” He breathed hard against my neck. I sat up, straddling him.
“Daddy?” Finn’s panicked cry emerged from his cabin window. We jumped up.
He muttered, “Sorry, this is exactly why it’s complicated,” before running back to the cabin.
“I’ll go get Baby,” I called after him.
He turned to look back at me. “Thanks, Goldy.”
I wandered back down the path and called for the dog the way I’d heard Dave do dozens of times. He came to me quite easily.
I opened the door to Dave’s cabin and Baby went in without questioning it. I heard Dave’s voice softly singing the chorus
to “Float On” by Modest Mouse.
I returned to the cabin and got into bed. The big bed that still kind of smelled like my mother’s perfume.
I slept fitfully.