23. Anna
ANNA
My phone buzzes. Delia. T-Mobile confirmed. National. Call me.
I sit at the counter looking at recipes. "Do we have garlic powder?"
Watch Nina out of the corner of my eye. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to cook dinner."
"I already made cauliflower enchiladas; it's in the refrigerator."
"I want to make dinner."
"Don't ruin my kitchen, please."
"When have I ruined anything?"
"Remember the flood in the bathroom."
"You're going to hold on to that?"
She opens a cabinet. Sets the garlic powder on the counter. "I'm going home." She grabs her things. Leaves.
The second her car pulls out of the driveway I start moving. It's hard to make chicken and veggies special but I found a recipe that looks promising. I get to work and hopefully he doesn't come home too soon. I text him to check. I've got enough time.
I use every burner. I miss cooking. I have to restart the video a few times — this woman goes so fast. Chicken's in the oven.
I set my timer for thirty minutes. We're good.
I set the table on the terrace. The city below us. Candles. The good plates.
I hop in the shower. Shave my legs.
I dress. Sexy but not too obvious. A simple little black dress I won't be able to wear in a few months. I killed myself for this body, not this —
Hair and makeup simple.
I put on music low enough that it's just there.
Luke comes home. He looks around immediately.
"What's this?"
He looks at the table. The candles. Me in the black dress.
"I made dinner."
"You made dinner?"
"I can cook."
"I didn't know that."
"Well you still don't until you taste it."
"It smells amazing. Can I take a shower? How much time do I have?"
"Fifteen."
He goes upstairs.
I continue in the kitchen trying to time it perfectly.
He showers. Comes downstairs in a white shirt and jeans, no shoes, hair still damp.
He looks at me across the candlelight.
"You look beautiful," he says.
"Sit down."
"Is there a special occasion?"
"Maybe."
"You booked that commercial?"
"Oh, yeah I did," I say.
"Congratulations. That's a national, that's great. Fucking T-Mobile. You can compete with the AT&T girl. She's made like millions off those."
I plate his food.
I jump up. Shit, I forgot water. I get a bottle of sparkling water from the refrigerator.
"You don't seem excited?"
"I am."
I watch him take a bite.
"This is really good. Holy shit. You can cook too?"
"What do you mean too?"
"Well, you're smart, you're hot, and you can cook. You're the whole package."
You have no idea how much of the whole package I am.
I feel a tear coming and wipe it quickly and laugh. This is the time to tell him. I don't.
He leans back in his chair. Relaxed in the way he gets when there are no cameras and no one asking anything of him.
"This is nice. Thank you."
"It is nice," I say. "I have to tell…"
“It’s been a rough week. But we're getting it." He reaches for his water. "I think this is going to be a good movie. Maybe even great. I mean you never know, but I got a good feeling."
"Yeah?"
"Max is great. Rebecca is so helpful. Her ability to shape a scene — her instincts are killer. She's like three levels beyond my understanding of what it takes to make a scene work."
"That's why she's the best."
He sets down his glass. "I feel good about this. This time next year I could have everything I ever dreamed of."
"And what is that?"
"Everything I ever dream of?"
"Yeah, what does that look like when you picture it."
"Just to hit that level of A-list, you know, where Tom Cruise is. Jennifer Lawrence. Where Rebecca is. That level where you want to make a movie, the money is there. You make it because your name guarantees success."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"What if something gets in the way of that?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Anything."
"Anything that gets in the way of that is an obstacle. A problem I have to deal with."
"So Danny's great to work with?"
"Yeah. Funny — I thought I would hate that guy. He's the opposite of what I expected."
"Which is?"
"A younger version of me." He laughs. "But he's got his shit together."
"He and Jen seem good."
He looks up. "They are."
"They figured it out. With the kids and everything."
"Yeah." Something softens in his expression. "Danny's got it figured out in a way most guys in this town don't. But he'll never reach that superstar level."
"Why not?"
"He's not ambitious enough."
He considers it the way he considers things that haven't occurred to him before. Not evasive. Just genuinely thinking about it for what might be the first time.
"And you are?"
"Yeah." He looks at me. "You?"
"I don't think I am."
"I kind of want what Danny and Jen have."
"Yeah, but she doesn't have a full acting career. You're starting to kick ass."
"I would put that second to have a kid. The family."
"You would?"
"I would."
He gives Zeke some chicken.
I think about the duffel bag in my closet. The tests wrapped in tissue underneath seventy-five thousand dollars. The math I've done that keeps coming out the same.
If I tell him, he might ask me to come with him. It could go that way too.
"Luke—"
"My goal right now is to focus on this one thousand percent. Give it everything I've got."
I pick up my fork.
"I don't think I've ever been this happy," he says. "And I have you to thank for that."
"No."
"I do. You helped me clean up my act. I was out of control. You did this." He looks at me across the candlelight. "Thank you."
I look back at him.
I don't say anything.
After dinner we sit out there for a while. The candles burning down. Luke with his feet up, talking about Morocco, about the shoot, about Danny. I listen to every word.
I clean up.
He helps.
We walk Zeke together. The night is perfect. Cool breeze. Stars are out.
This is it.
We had a nice dinner. Just him, me and Zeke. I have it. Everything I want. It's just not said out loud. Is right here.
I don't want to ruin it.
The house is quiet. Zeke lifts his head from the couch and decides we're not interesting enough.
Luke takes my hand at the bottom of the stairs.
He turns me toward him. Looks at me in the low light of the entryway the way he looked at me when I came downstairs earlier — like he's been waiting to do this since the terrace.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi."
He kisses me. Slow. His hand coming up to my face the way it does, tilting me toward him.
I kiss him back.
He picks me up. I wrap around him. He carries me upstairs in the dark, both of us quiet, the city blazing through every window.
He lays me down, and I let him. I want him to. I want all of it tonight.
He's different. Slower. More deliberate than usual, like something in him has shifted without him knowing why.
His hands move over me carefully, like he's relearning something he already knows.
His mouth finds my neck, my shoulder, the place below my ear that makes me go still.
Every kiss deeper than the last. Every touch more careful.
I pull him closer.
It's magnified — everything is magnified.
His weight above me, the warmth of him, the way he looks at me in the dark like I'm the only thing in the room.
I feel it everywhere. Whatever is happening inside me, this life between us that only I know about, makes every sensation sharper, fuller, more than it's ever been.
Like my body understands something my words couldn't say tonight.
His body is gentle with me in a way his heart hasn't caught up to yet.
I close my eyes. Let him take me deeper.
His breath against my skin. My hands in his hair. The city outside the window, enormous and indifferent, and in here just the two of us and the thing between us that has no name yet.
I don't say it out loud. But I feel it.
When it's over, he pulls me into him and stays there, his lips against my temple, his hands in my hair, not saying anything, just holding on.
Like his body knows.
After, I lie there listening to him breathe.
His arm across me. His chest rising and falling. The particular weight of someone who has fallen asleep easy, the way people do when they have nothing unsaid.
I had three chances tonight. Over dinner. On the terrace. At the bottom of the stairs.
I didn't take any of them.
I watch the city light move across the ceiling.
He leaves in a week.
I press my hand flat against my stomach under the sheet, the way I've been doing since the bathroom two days ago. The same gesture, the same nothing to feel yet, the same something I'm not ready to name doing its quiet work underneath everything.
He'll be in Morocco.
I'll be here.
I tell myself that until I almost believe it.
Luke shifts in his sleep. Pulls me closer without waking.
A tear rolls down my face. Just one. Quiet. I don't wipe it.
I miss him already.