270 Days
Rhea woke to the horrific sound of knuckles on wood. She was alone in bed; was the whole evening a dream? She sat up and looked around; her wet, balled-up raincoat by the door was proof that the events had actually occurred. That and the minty, smoky taste of Danny still on her tongue.
She opened the door to the kind-eyed woman from the front desk.
“Hi there! Sorry to bother you, but…just wanted to make sure you were all ready to check out.”
“Oh, um, yeah—what time is checkout?”
“Two hours ago…”
Rhea gasped, “Oh no, I’m so sorry—”
“No, no, don’t worry at all, just need to make sure we can turn your room around in time for the incoming guests.”
Everyone at Esalen was unfailingly kind. If this were a normal hotel and Rhea had slept two hours past checkout, she imagined cops would have escorted her out in handcuffs.
Instead, the woman said, “Don’t rush, and you can just leave your key on the bed when you’re done packing up.”
“So, the workshop is over?”
“Yep, hope you enjoyed it!” the woman said over her shoulder as she walked away.
Rhea had missed the final session of intimacy exercises. What if they’d saved the best one for last? The one that would have finally made her a perfect human?
She looked at her cellphone. There were no new messages, not even from the guy she just made out with; was her phone suddenly unable to receive texts on this rural California coast? She fired off a test text.
Rhea: I think my phone’s being weird. Let me know if you get this
Louisca: Got it
Her phone was officially able to receive text messages.
She quickly got in the shower, slathered conditioner on her matted hair, and began combing it out.
Most men did not touch her hair. She assumed they were too intimidated by the curls since they were most likely used to running their hands through the American majority: silky, straight strands.
Maybe they were afraid their hands would get stuck and Rhea would have to cut them out like gum.
Danny, however, was not most men; he had managed to tangle and mat her hair worse than she knew was possible…
and she could not wait for him to do it again.
She zipped into a cream Rachel Comey jumpsuit and stuffed everything inside her suitcase.
She silently said goodbye to her room, her ocean view, and the otters down below.
She wheeled her suitcase back over the bridge, feeling a shroud of grief.
Part of her wished Esalen was a cult; then they would never let her leave.
It only took one weekend for her to forget about the real world and feel like the workshop was her entire life; Wild Eyes was her sidekick, Uh-Huh Same was her adversary turned ally, Gary and Lisa were her mentors, Danny was her love interest, and she would most likely never see any of them again.
Well, except Danny…she was definitely going to see Danny again… right?
She walked past his room. The door was open, and a twenty-something hippie was making his bed. She had to resist asking the hippie if she could take the used towels home with her so she could huff them like glue.
She closed her eyes and heard his low voice whispering, “I’m crazy about you.
” Did that mean he wanted to see her again?
Did that mean he wanted her to call him as soon as she woke up?
He could have left a note, but instead, he’d just abandoned her.
Surely he should have at least texted by now, if only to make sure she hadn’t died in her sleep.
Middle-aged people die in their sleep all the time.
She felt vulnerable and longed for her safety blanket, Warm Wendy.
She shifted her car in and out of drive six times, feeling a little disappointed the workshop had not fixed that particular tic.
She drove away from the property, determined not to think about Danny Beckett for the rest of the drive.
She would not think about the weight of his body.
The feeling of his hands on her face, buried in her hair.
The way warmth emanated from him. She was not going to imagine herself sticking her cold feet between his legs on chilly mornings… .
Her phone rang and she knew it was him without even looking, because he was thoughtful and sensitive.
Because he knew how vulnerable she must have felt, waking up alone, uncertain of where they would go from here.
She looked at the touchscreen on her dashboard: It was Tiny.
She felt guilty for her astronomical dismay at seeing her dear friend’s name on her phone.
“How dare you hang up on me?” Tiny said.
Rhea filled her in on the sultry predawn details.
“Well, I can’t help but feel one hundred percent responsible. Jason told me to keep the stupid golf course thing to myself.”
Rhea assured her the night was destined to go the way it did, regardless of any eerily accurate psychic predictions.
“And how do you feel now?”
“I don’t know…do we think it’s weird he hasn’t reached out yet?”
“You guys stayed up all night. He’s probably at home sleeping. He’s gonna reach out…and when he does, what are you gonna say?”
“About what?”
“The baby stuff, Ree. Where do you stand? Are you still on the fence?”
“I don’t know!”
“I’m pretty sure ‘I don’t know’ and ‘on the fence’ mean the same thing.”
Rhea had crossed a bridge for Danny last night, the bridge to a childless existence.
“What if being a mom would make me really happy?”
“If I’ve learned anything from lotsa money and privilege, it’s that nothing makes you happy, Ree, you’re either happy or you’re not.”
Rhea drove in silence, listening to Tiny breathing heavily, presumably trying not to throw up.
After many minutes, Rhea broke the silence. “Well, if Danny is on one side of the fence and there’s no Danny on the other, then…I’m on the Danny side.”
“Congratulations, my friend. It sounds like you’re no longer on the fuckin’ fence.”
—
Rhea took a bath in her rusty claw-foot tub, her hand hanging over the edge, clinging to her cellphone.
When her skin was pruned and the water tepid, she dried off with a towel in one hand and her phone in the other.
She tried to read a historical fiction book about Albert Einstein’s wife, and she tried to watch The Great British Baking Show; every distraction was futile.
She tried yelling, “Just text me!” at her phone, to no avail.
She tried to eat an Amy’s frozen lasagna. She tried to attend a YouTube Pilates class but ended up sitting on her mat staring off into space while the gorgeous teacher’s soothing voice said, “Raise your arms straight up and pull your abs in tightly.”
She did not want to pull her abs in tightly; she wanted to talk to Danny.
She decided to get some work done and began scrolling through merchandise for the shop. She found herself on a local potter’s Etsy page ordering more handmade ceramics than she normally would have. She was using her boutique as an odd kind of retail therapy.
To prevent herself from spending every dollar of Topanga General Store’s seasonal budget in one sitting, she had to switch tactics.
Instead of distracting herself from the fact that Danny hadn’t texted her all day, she needed to convince herself that it was totally normal and reasonable for her to text him.
She worked on that for about an hour, telling herself to just go for it.
She pulled out her phone but could not go through with it.
Instead, she took a shot of tequila. Not something she normally did alone, but desperate times call for tequila.
She didn’t even know what she was going to say to him.
Hey, I just wanna make sure you know I’m willing to throw my future away for you.
Not that she would be throwing it away; she would be sharing it with him.
She pulled her vision board out of her closet.
She cut out pieces of construction paper and taped them over all the children.
She stood back and looked at her child-free future.
The beautiful husbands were still glued in place, and with Rhea and Danny’s combined incomes, they could no doubt afford the Craftsman home.
Although it would probably feel haunted and empty with just the two of them rattling around in there.
She would have much more time to dedicate herself to her charitable causes. She could probably stand to take on a brand-new cause. She rifled through National Geographic and glued a picture of a skinny dog on the board to represent her future work with stray animals.
She searched through some old Vogues and cut out images of fashion boutiques.
Maybe she would put all her baby-making energy toward becoming a driven career woman, finally franchise Topanga General Store, and make her FIDM teachers proud.
She would never have to worry about maternity leave or spending less time with Louisca and all her regulars, who had become like a weird shopping-addicted family.
Her future could still be blindingly bright.
She took a deep breath, pulled out her phone, and searched for “Danny.” Several Dannys appeared, but when none had the last name “Edible Gardener,” she remembered she had deleted his number to prevent this exact thing from happening: succumbing to her own weak-mindedness.
Rhea weighed her options:
Be patient and let him make the first move.
If he never reaches out again, take that as a sign they were not meant to be together.
Remember she was living in the modern twenties, track him down, and text him like a sexy, take-charge, badass feminist.
She pulled out her phone and sent a text.
Rhea: I need Danny’s number
Four minutes later, Tiny responded: Uh oh. What happened?
Rhea: Nothing bad. I just deleted it a few weeks back and I wanna text him
Tiny: Should I give it to you? Or are you going to regret not waiting for him to text first?
Rhea: I don’t know
Rhea: I hate dating
Rhea: I hate this feeling
Tiny: It’s not that late…
Tiny: He could still text
Rhea: You’re right. I’m gonna wait
Rhea waited three minutes.