Chapter Ten #4
“No need to rush off,” Dad says. “Juniper’s curfew isn’t until midnight now that she is a woman of advanced age.”
“ Dad, ” I groan. “I have never had a curfew because I’m always in bed by ten, but more important, you shouldn’t be up on that leg yet. It’s not good for the bruising. You’re supposed to keep it elevated all weekend, remember?”
Dad waves me off.
“I’m fine, kid. Now kiss your young James good night if he’s not going to stay and come inside. The weatherman said the mosquitoes are biting this week.”
James and I stare at each other for what feels like a full ten minutes as Dad makes a big show of saying he needs to go “check on the game” before closing the door behind him.
“Is there even a game to watch?” I ask James.
He shrugs, his eyes luminescent in the porch light.
“Not sure,” he says with a slight smile. “But I doubt it.”
I see the curtain move from the corner of my eye.
“Maybe it’s your game he’s interested in,” I joke weakly. “He’s watching us again.”
“I figured,” James says, searching my face. “We could fake it,” he adds. “If that would make you more comfortable. It’s dark and he won’t be able to see if our lips actually touch.”
I try to find some indication of what he’s feeling, but his slightly upturned lips are impossible to decipher. Politeness? Amusement?
“Are you laughing at me?” I ask.
“Maybe a little,” James says. “Also a little at your dad. It’s like he fell out of a sitcom.”
“Or like he’s taken a hit from a horse to somewhere other than his leg,” I mutter. “We certainly don’t have to do anything just because he’s being weird.”
“We’re committed now,” James says, his voice growing husky. He leans in close enough that I can feel his lips move when he adds, “Might as well keep playing pretend, don’t you—”
I don’t let him finish. I can’t let him finish. If he got to turn a pretend kiss into a real one and we moved past it, then I’m allowed one, too.
James inhales sharply when I stand on tiptoe to press my lips into his, but it only takes a second for his hands to find my hair again and angle us just like when we were on the live.
It’s odd how familiar this feels. It’s only the second time— the last time, probably —but my tongue already knows the feel of his.
The way we move our noses so that they’re not bumping, the way my hands go to his chest like a cat kneading a blanket…
it feels choreographed, but not in the forced way. Not in a fake way.
I’m not sure which of us breaks the kiss this time, but I know it takes us much longer to accomplish.
There are two false starts, both broken by James who, the last time, makes it almost all the way to his Jeep before he groans and comes back to hold my head between his hands once more and kiss me until the stars swirl a bit in the night sky.
“We’re even now,” I tell him when we part. “No more real kissing after this, right?”
James pushes a piece of my hair behind my ear.
“Right,” he mumbles, his lips coming back to mine. “Right. In just…just a minute.”
It’s more than a minute later when we break apart to breathe again that I ask, “Would we be real? If I was just me and you were just you…do you think we would be real?”
James’s eyes are heavy as he looks down at me.
“I’ve had to pretend for as long as I can remember,” he says.
“With Rosemary and Lily, and before that with my mother so she wouldn’t worry and my father so he wouldn’t be angry.
I’ve become so good at it that sometimes I’m not sure what is real anymore.
If you pretend something into a habit and a habit becomes your way of life, can you still call it pretend? ”
“I’m not sure,” I whisper.
James dips his head to press his lips against my ear.
“If I didn’t have to play,” he says, “I would still want to play with you.”
I’m clinging to him, which I’d probably feel more embarrassed about if I was confident that my legs would hold me up on their own.
(Which I’m not.) There’s a small bubble of privacy here, a liminal space of our own making that comes after stolen fake-pretend-but-maybe-also-real caresses but before the inevitable end.
I don’t want to leave that space just yet.
“How do you feel about breaking my curfew?” I ask James.
—
I would’ve thought the studio would be eerie at night, but instead the building itself looks like it was built for darkness. The straight-edged landscaping lights make neat beams across the flat front that blend seamlessly into the interior sconces when James uses his keycard to let us in.
There’s something, too, about just the two of us entering the recording room, knowing that there is no chance of anyone else entering the building.
“What do you want to record?” James asks. “Something with cockles, maybe?”
I slip my headphones on to sit on my neck as James goes to the soundboard to switch it on.
“It’s late,” I say. “It’s probably the best…Well, if we have to record the wedding night scene together anyway, we might as well do it when I’m only half awake.”
James’s hand pauses on the soundboard like he’s lost his train of thought, but then he resumes his task.
“You plan to be only half awake on your wedding night?” he jokes.
“For Arabella’s that might be ideal,” I say. “And maybe for mine, too, honestly. Otherwise I’ll probably be too in my head about everything. I tend to overthink.”
“You don’t say.”
I wish there was grass nearby to hurl at his head.
It’s the first time I’ve seen James look nervous in the booth. He spends an awful lot of time pulling up the script on the studio iPad, and he rearranges his headphones at least twice before looking atme.
“Ready?” he asks. “Are we just going to run it through?”
I can’t help but feel a little smug about how this is turning out. I never would have guessed that I would be the more collected of the two of us.
“I think that would be best,” I say.
James clears his throat once, twice, a third time.
“When you’re ready, then,” he says.
And we’re recording.
I start with Arabella’s narration. How she goes to the bathroom and frets about what she ought to do before going out to the beach and the water and joining up with her vampire husband to—at long last—consummate their marriage.
I find I have no trouble envisioning her excitement mingled with anxiety. I imagine it feels not all that different from kissing James in our ever-shrinking liminal space. There’s an edge to it that isn’t wholly good or wholly terrible. It’s somewhere in between.
William only has a couple lines of dialogue in this scene, but they’re heavy hitters.
Despite his earlier nerves, James delivers them perfectly.
“Arabella, I’ve done all I can, but you must promise me that if you should feel any discomfort or pain, you’ll voice it. You have to tell me.”
I answer as Arabella, “Have faith: All is as it was meant to be.”
And just like that, the magic we’ve woven between us dies.
“ Oh god, ” James groans, flipping the recording switch.
“I’m aware, ” I retort. “It’s awful! But what do you suggest I do with it? There is no non-cheesy way to say that line. There just isn’t. Some things are meant to be read, not spoken.”
“There really isn’t,” James agrees. “That’s my professional opinion. If I were in charge, I’d cut this line.”
“And replace it with what?” I ask.
James is deep in thought for half a minute.
“I think,” he begins carefully, “Arabella ought to just say, Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something. ”
“Copyright infringement on The Princess Bride, ” I say. “Nice.”
“They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
“And what do ‘they’ say about outright piracy?”
James’s grin is rueful. “Don’t get caught?”
We silently gag our way through Arabella’s cheesy wedding night sentiment and finish the scene. It’s young adult, so the bulk of the action is off the page, but it’s recounted in flashbacks enough that the reader gets the impression that it was worth the wait for Arabella and William.
It should be at least mildly sexy reading these lines with James, but instead the late hour combined with the way my lips still feel swollen from our not-so-pretend kiss is making me slaphappy.
“Feathers,” I say with a giggle when James drives me home. I gesture wildly. “Just…feathers everywhere. The epitome of sexy.”
“I’m sure they didn’t notice when the feathers were released.” James rolls his eyes. “They seemed pretty concerned with other things.”
“I hope the sound engineers add a couple of random popping noises in postproduction to signify the pillow explosions,” I say.
When we arrive at my door again, I can feel the late-night giddiness of the liminal space snap back like a rubber band. James must feel it, too, because neither of us moves to get out of the Jeep when he puts it in park.
I don’t think I can bear another kiss like the one we shared earlier, so I lean across the divide and kiss him on the cheek.
“Good night,” I say. “I should go. You should go. You have a flight to catch tomorrow, right?”
“I guess so,” James says. “Be careful when I’m gone. Look out for walls that jump out at you, full mugs, that kind of thing.”
“Thanks,” I say, my hand resting on the handle. “And you be careful.”
James snorts. “It’s just meetings. Nothing dangerous.”
“Maybe not physically, ” I say, “but you know what I mean. Just…be good. Be well.”
James’s smile is small. “All is as it was meant to be.”
“Cheesy,” I confirm. “But hopefully true.”