201 Days #2
“We’re so excited to meet you!”
“Recognized you immediately from your picture!”
All of this was said at the same time. The women talked over one another at a breathtaking pace. They had an unusually strong East Coast energy for people who were born in Long Beach.
“Dan talks about you constantly—”
“I feel like I already know you—”
“You’re even prettier than your photos—”
“But your photos are all gorgeous—”
“Dan sent us so many—”
“Okay,” Danny interrupted, “this is obviously gonna be humiliating for me, so I’m gonna go out back and pretend it isn’t happening. You good?” he asked Rhea with an expression that apologized for his sisters but also communicated she had no choice but to stay here and bond with them.
The sisters seemed cordial, but Rhea could sense something else in their eyes. The sister to her left: If you hurt Danny, I’ll kill you. The sister to her right: If you don’t like me, I’ll die. The sister directly in front of her: Danny will always love me more than you.
“Of course, I’m good. I’m so excited to meet you all,” Rhea lied.
Danny disappeared through the house as the women backed Rhea into a corner.
“Dan never lets us meet his girlfriends—”
“We thought he was gay for the longest time—”
“He’s so picky—”
“We thought he’d never settle down—”
“But he’s so serious about you—”
“I could tell from the first time he met you—”
“I was the first person he told—”
“What? That’s not true, he called me on his way home from the party—”
“It wasn’t a party. It was a baby shower, right, Rhea?”
“Whatever, he called me and said, ‘I met someone I can’t stop thinking about—’ ”
“We were like, ‘Who is this woman who put such a spell on our baby brother?’ ”
“I love your dress—”
“It would look terrible on me—”
“I wish our parents could meet you—”
“Oh, they would love you—”
“But Dan doesn’t invite them to anything—”
“He hates them—”
“Mostly our dad—”
“I’m sure he’s told you—”
“We thought he was gonna stay single forever just to spite him—”
“Our dad’s an acquired taste, but you’ll be fine—”
“If Dan ever lets him meet you—”
“Oh yeah, our dad’ll love you, don’t worry—”
“Well, we’re not sure love is an emotion he’s capable of—”
“But he’ll be perfectly nice to you—”
“Oh, yeah, perfectly nice.”
Rhea had never been on the receiving end of such a barrage. She had yet to speak, and wondered if she ever would again. Out of the corner of her eye, another sight made reality fold in on itself: Wild Eyes and Uh-Huh Same drinking beer on Danny’s couch.
“Greta?” Rhea said.
Wild Eyes’s real name had permanently wedged into her brain and flew out of her mouth at the perfect moment.
Wild Eyes looked up and grinned. Rhea looked back at Danny’s sisters.
“Oh, yeah, you go say hi—”
“Don’t let us keep you—”
“We’ll talk your ear off—”
“It was so nice to meet you—”
“Can’t wait to chat more later—”
“She’s so pretty—”
“So pretty—”
The three sisters retreated and kept talking as they moved through the house as a unit, a garrulous Cerberus. As Rhea approached Wild Eyes and Uh-Huh Same, she also recognized the unknown man Danny had spent much of the retreat talking to.
Apparently, Danny was the kind of person who stayed in touch with people he met at retreats.
Meanwhile, Rhea was the kind of person who hid behind a food truck when she saw someone she knew at the farmer’s market.
Rhea had left Big Sur knowing she would never see any of those people again.
Danny had gotten all their contact information and invited them to his Fourth of July party.
They hugged hello and demanded that Rhea sit.
Rhea learned that Wild Eyes lived not too far away in Ojai, and the unknown man, whose name was Han, lived in Manhattan Beach.
She also learned that Han was a couples therapist. This explained why Danny had spent so much time talking to him; Han was a very focused listener.
They began peppering Rhea with questions about her new relationship; their romance reigniting at the soulmate retreat had clearly had an impact on the group. Rhea filled them in on the past two magical months without mentioning the taboo subject of parenthood.
Wild Eyes and Uh-Huh Same informed Rhea they had sadly still not met their soulmates, but not for lack of trying.
Han explained he had been married to his soulmate for thirteen years.
Han’s husband was in Danny’s backyard, wrangling their children.
Han only attended the soulmate retreat to discover new ways to better assist his clients.
Rhea decided to take a risk. It was not every day she had access to a relationship expert, so she looked around to make sure Danny was not within earshot and said, “Han, do you mind if I ask you a relationship question? Or will that make you feel like you’re at work?”
“Oh no, go right ahead….”
“I have this friend who is in a perfect relationship, but she wants kids, and her boyfriend doesn’t. Do you see that a lot?”
“Oh yeah, that’s a tough one.”
Rhea felt Wild Eyes scanning her face for information, activating her clairvoyance. Wild Eyes shot her a look: Your friend is you, right?
Rhea ignored her.
“And what do you usually suggest they do?”
“Well, couples therapy helps. They need to make sure they’re able to communicate honestly with each other. Both of their desires are valid; sometimes just airing out all their feelings and having an open dialogue can help bring a solution to the surface.”
Rhea hated this advice. They aired out all their feelings in the hot springs and that did not go well.
“Mmhmm…and what if they tried that and it didn’t work?” As Han considered this, Rhea continued, “Like, what if, maybe, the guy doesn’t want kids just because of some solvable psychological issue? Have you ever seen that?”
“Well, sometimes people are afraid to have kids because their childhood was so painful. They don’t want to repeat their parents’ mistakes, but the more inner work they do…they can grow beyond their parents’ limitations and realize they won’t repeat those same patterns.”
Rhea pondered this.
“But is there anything she can do? Like, to help him realize that stuff?”
“It’s hard to say without speaking to them, but the more she supports his inner work and shows him the kind of stable, loving parent she would be, that might make the idea of raising a child together feel safer…
. They just have to get in communication to discover exactly what the other person needs—”
“Right, yeah, communication, totally. I’ll let them know.”
Wild Eyes stared at her. What are you up to?
“I’m gonna go get a drink. Anybody want one?” Rhea asked.
They declined, and Rhea got up, feeling a pair of wild eyes on her back.
As she walked through the house alone, she felt herself coming out of fight-or-flight.
She stopped blinking and was able to take in her surroundings.
She noted all of Danny’s solid, well-made furniture and the lack of art or photographs on his walls.
His bare walls made her feel relieved. He wasn’t superhuman; he had flaws; he still needed her for something.
She imagined decorating their home with framed images of her in her wedding dress, Danny in his tux, and family vacations all over the world with the Lost Boys.
—
The sun was setting as Rhea opened Danny’s back door.
Reality folded in on itself a third time as she stepped outside his house and inside her vision board.
The yard was expansive and immaculately landscaped in a drought-tolerant fashion.
Granite pathways were lined with succulents; cacti jutted out of gravel borders; of course, several garden beds lined the back fence…
and the whole thing was surrounded by a ring of olive trees.
She saw a fire pit and braced herself for a barrel sauna, but there was none.
She was grateful; the yard was so eerily similar to the one on her vision board, a barrel sauna might have given her a panic attack.
There was a white bounce house in the shape of a castle in the center of the yard; child screams poured out of it.
Rhea had never seen an upscale bounce house before.
Somehow, the air pump keeping it inflated was whisper-quiet.
She made a mental note to tell Zoe about it; she had a feeling Zoe would love to own a bounce house if it didn’t make her seem middle-class.
She spotted Danny drinking beer around the fire pit with six other men who were all around Danny’s same age and general degree of handsomeness. Danny saw her approaching and stood up because he was a perfect gentleman.
“They’re a lot, huh?” he asked while pulling a beer out of a cooler, opening it, and handing it to Rhea.
She realized he was referring to his sisters. “Oh, no, they’re lovely.”
He gave her a look.
“Well, they have a lot of energy,” she conceded.
“I didn’t start talking ’til I was four.”
“Are you serious?”
“Swear. My parents kept taking me to all these specialists. For a while, they thought I was deaf. And the whole time I kept thinking, How could I ever get a word in? And my parents talk even more than my sisters.”
“Wow.” Rhea tried to imagine how that was possible. “Even your dad?”
“Especially him.”
“Really? I pictured him sorta silently skulking in the corner. What’s he talk about?”
“His favorite topic right now is rectal cancer; it runs in my family, it’s gonna kill me, and I should worry about it twenty-four hours a day. It’s just relentless. But the weirdest part is, they all know they talk too much. They constantly talk about the fact that they never stop talking.”
Rhea laughed. “Well, it’s why you’re such a good listener.”
Danny smiled. “I’m really glad you’re here. I want you to meet some people.”