271 Days #9
They sat on a worn leather couch inside the empty Lodge with their mugs of tea; she drank chamomile, while he drank peppermint.
He found the cupboard where they stored wood and built a fire in a cold brick hearth.
Watching him build yet another fire lit up the stem of her reptilian brain.
She felt all her cavewoman ancestors giving her an encouraging thumbs-up.
“Me like him,” they grunted.
When he was done, they sat on the couch and talked—not about parenting and unknowable futures, but about the present.
They dissected Gary (Rhea informed Danny of his name) and Lisa (Danny informed Rhea of her name).
They admitted to their initial skepticism, but after discussing the couple at length, they decided Gary and Lisa were the real thing.
“I’ve actually never seen a couple get along so well,” Danny said.
“And they work together? That’s gotta be so stressful.”
“Maybe whenever one of them gets stressed, instead of arguing, they dance?”
They talked about how neither of them grew up in a house that embraced dancing and how hard it was to feel comfortable on a dance floor. Rhea told him she had a massive emotional release after dance therapy, and he confessed he saw her run out the door and had to fight the urge to follow her.
“I just didn’t want you to have to be alone with…whatever it was you were feeling. But I was also like, Relax, man, this woman barely knows you.”
Rhea smiled and said, “I feel like I know you a little bit.”
“Good,” he said, and they briefly held eye contact, flames flickering on their faces.
“But how did you see me leave? You were supposed to be looking at the ground.”
“Oh, I was, but I may have broken the rules and looked up at you once or twice.”
She shuddered at the thought of him watching her flail to the beat but covered with coquettish composure.
“You’re a rebel,” she said with one eyebrow raised.
“You’re a good dancer.”
“What?”
“What? You don’t think you are?”
“No one has ever said that to me before….”
“Well, then no one has ever watched you dance before.”
She wanted to lift up the couch with Danny on it and throw it through a window.
She wanted to stand up, drag the coffee table out of the way, and perform a full striptease, complete with pole spinning and a lap dance.
Her desire for him was so all-encompassing, she had to dig her fingernails into her thigh to ground herself.
He smiled at her with his asinine eyes, and for a moment, she wished she were back on the dance floor so she could scream into the void.
Instead, she sipped her tea and listened to the rain tapping on the roof.
They kicked their shoes off and got cozier on the couch.
They discussed how eye-opening the workshop was, listening to Gary and Lisa talk about their healthy relationship.
Growing up, neither Rhea nor Danny had great relationship role models.
Danny’s parents seemed to genuinely despise each other.
“They fight constantly. And seem to feel very gratified when the other one makes a mistake or fails in some way.”
“Fascinating to choose a life partner and then root against them for eternity.”
“Exactly…One time, we were all at the airport about to fly internationally, but my dad realized he left his passport at home. And I saw my mom’s eyes light up; she actually smiled, she looked thrilled…right before she eviscerated him.”
Danny had spent a long time learning that marriage was not supposed to be a competition, battle royale, fight to the death-do-us-part.
“What about your mom? Did she ever get married?”
Rhea was getting used to the feeling of being asked questions, but it was still slightly jarring each time he did it.
She told him her mom never got married but was always bringing home men who were obviously wrong for her, obvious even to toddler Rhea.
There was the guy who called her “Rita” the entire time he lived with them because he couldn’t have cared less about her existence.
The guy who sold cocaine and was arrested by the DEA at their apartment.
The guy who slapped her mother in front of Rhea, then bought them a car because he felt so bad about the whole domestic abuse thing, and a month later, stole that car and disappeared.
Danny listened to all this with pain in his eyes. Rhea tried to make light of it to take the pain out of his eyes.
“So, yeah, the bar is pretty low for me when it comes to men,” she said with a chuckle.
“I’m so sorry you had to live through all that,” he said with no chuckle. “Man, your childhood really makes my whining about my dad’s passport seem ridiculous.”
“It’s all relative.”
“Even so…it must require a lot of patience to listen to other people complain about their childhoods.”
“Not really—don’t worry, your childhood still sounds terrible. And your parents’ marriage sounds terrible too. Is that why you’re single at your age? Does marriage scare you? What is your age, by the way?”
“Forty-two…You?”
“Thirty-eight years…and ninety-four days.”
A strapping young bachelor and an advanced-maternal-age hag sipped their tea.
“And no, marriage doesn’t scare me. I’m all for the idea of marriage, but I refuse to settle for an unhealthy one. That and the, uh, not-wanting-kids thing has…ended some of my more serious relationships.” That same thick sadness showed up in his voice and he cleared his throat.
They silently agreed to change the subject, not wanting it to lead them apart again.
They refilled their mugs several times and talked for hours.
Neither of them wanted to bring the night to an end, knowing the workshop concluded tomorrow afternoon.
Summer camp was winding down; this weekend would be the last time they got to be near each other.
Eventually, the kitchen staff entered the Lodge with sleepy eyes. They nodded hello to Rhea and Danny and started prepping breakfast for hundreds of hungry people; nothing got the appetite going like soaking naked with strangers.
“What time is it?” Rhea wondered.
They looked behind the couch at a clock on the wall. It was five in the morning.
“Wow.”
“I had no idea.”
They each waited for the other to say the inevitable.
“I guess we should go try to get a little sleep before our last day,” Rhea said.
“Yeah…”
They put their shoes back on and left their empty mugs in a plastic basin. They walked to the door and observed the pouring rain. Without hesitation, Danny took off his hoodie.
“You’re wearing this, don’t say no.”
Rhea found herself eagerly accepting, not to protect her hair from the rain, but to be enveloped in the smell of him, to have a part of him wrapped around her body.
“Thank you.” She pulled the hood up over her head.
In the past, when a man offered her his jacket, it made her feel like he thought she was a fragile doll, far too delicate to withstand the elements.
But when Danny did it, she felt cared for, like he would rather be uncomfortable than watch her be uncomfortable.
She wondered if chivalry was all about intention; did they see her as weak and helpless or did they want to take care of her because she was precious?
The hoodie smelled like firewood and something indescribable, a salty, sweet essence that was purely Danny’s. A scent she feared she would never get a chance to experience again after she gave the hoodie back. The thought of not getting to breathe him in again was excruciating.
“Ready?” he asked, and she nodded.
They ran through the rain, laughing at the intensity of the downpour.
Rhea had not run through rain in years, not since Florida.
She wanted to freeze time and forever run through the rain with Danny next to her, his scent wrapped around her.
They reached his room; he entered and grabbed her suitcase while she waited on the covered porch.
“Lead the way,” he said, still holding her suitcase.
“No, that’s okay, you stay here, I can manage—”
“Rhea…”
“No, you’re soaked. Go inside and warm up—I got this, seriously.”
Danny stepped out into the rain with her suitcase.
“I’m just gonna have to guess then,” he said as he walked down the dirt path.
She ran after him. “You’re going the wrong way!”
He switched directions and she led him to her room, past the garden and the saltwater pool and over the bridge. In Rhea’s open doorway, he put her suitcase down. He was dripping wet, wiping water off his face.
“Thank you. You really are a gentleman.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t make it easy.”
She laughed and unzipped the hoodie. The thought of him walking back to his room, wet and cold, was even more painful than the thought of giving up his scent. She realized chivalry worked both ways; he was precious to her, too.
“Here ya go.” She winced as he wrung it out. “Thank you for letting me wear it.”
“Of course.”
He hesitated in the doorway…or maybe she hesitated in the doorway.
“Well, good night,” he said.
“Oh, um…” She craned her neck to look up into his inquisitive eyes. “Yeah, good night.”
He stepped out of the doorway as she entered her room and closed the door. She watched out the window as he pulled the hood tight around his head and trudged through the downpour. When he was out of view, she flung herself on her bed and screamed into her pillow.
She got up and paced around her room, blinking. She picked up her cellphone and sent Tiny a text: Help me
Rhea’s phone buzzed immediately.
Tiny: What’s wrong?
Rhea: Why aren’t you sleeping?
Tiny: I haven’t slept since I got pregnant. So many things they don’t tell you.