Eleven Years Ago
Joy Moore
EXCERPT FROM UNTITLED JOINT MEMOIR WITH BENNY ABBOTT
My first year with Xander was, in a word, dreamy.
He was kind and thoughtful and respectful of my schedule.
I read the scripts he was considering. He offered feedback on the logos and websites I designed.
We watched movies with my feet in his lap and made love on his pillowtop mattress.
He brought me coffee in bed, and sometimes eggs, and sometimes sourdough toast with butter and jam.
We went to film mixers and craft lectures and trade shows and film festivals.
He met with movie directors and scriptwriters.
I met with art directors and copywriters.
We traveled: to Big Sur, and Yosemite, and Joshua Tree.
We worked out together, and napped together, and everything was calm and easy, and in my head I tossed around words like adult and grown-up and settled.
I liked those words. I was pretty sure he liked them too.
The only downside to our twosome was that I was spending less and less time with Benny, who had no interest in being the third wheel on our outings. “Go on, go on, have fun,” he always said, but after a year I could no longer stand it.
“We need to find Benny a girlfriend,” I told Xander.
“Funny you should mention it,” he said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“Do you have someone in mind?”
He did. This someone, Luna, was a friend of a friend he’d met through a film mixer, and I’d be lying if I said his intentions were wholly altruistic.
Luna had access to the Magic Castle—an uber-exclusive private club for magicians and their guests—and I’d been trying to finagle an invitation for ages.
Magic, believe it or not, is a great equalizer for people with narcolepsy.
When you subsist on naps, you’re always playing catch-up, always puzzling out what you’ve just missed.
But in the game of illusions, there are no outliers.
The puzzle is the entire point. What just happened?
How’d they do that? Everyone’s playing catch-up together.
The four of us met on a Thursday night at the trick bookshelf in the castle lobby. Luna was petite and lovely, with dewy dark skin and short corkscrew hair, and I knew without any words having to pass that Benny liked what he saw.
“I’m Joy.” I extended a hand. “Thanks so much for getting us in.”
Luna’s smile was so pretty I had immediate teeth envy. “It’s all good. My cousin was happy to share his passes.”
“He’s a magician?” Benny asked. We were all dolled up for the strict dress code, and this was the first time I’d ever seen him in a suit and tie. He looked handsome.
“Sadly, yes.” She grinned. “Who wants to say the not-so-secret password?”
I raised both hands. Luna laughed and told me what to do.
I spoke to the owl, and the bookshelf slid open to the grand salon.
We had an hour to kill before our dinner reservations, so we got drinks and strolled through the different rooms. We watched Irma the ghost tickle the ivories, quizzed the fortune-telling owl, wandered the museum in the haunted basement.
We didn’t have time for a show in the close-up gallery, but we saw some impressive card tricks by the roaming magicians.
“This is what your cousin does?” I asked Luna after one such magician changed an ace of spades to an eight of hearts in my tightly closed hand.
“Recreationally,” she said. “He’s actually a lawyer. We work at the same firm.”
“Abracadabra-ing money from people’s wallets,” Benny said.
I tapped my fingers to my forehead. “I know I have a joke for summons in here.”
“Must be haunting you,” Benny said.
I snorted and turned to Luna. “What kind of law do you practice?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “I saw marriages in half.”
“A lawyer with a good sense of humor,” I whispered to Xander a few minutes later as we climbed the stairs to the restaurant level. “Nicely done.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I think they could make a good pair.”
We had a cozy, low-lit four-top in the main dining room, and I took this seated opportunity to grill our new friend.
By the time our appetizers arrived, we knew that Luna was born near Santa Cruz to a single mother.
She completed her undergrad at UCLA, followed by her law degree at USC.
She owned a home in the Hollywood Hills, which she presciently, luckily, purchased at the bottom of the market crash.
She had no siblings, disliked exercise, and, judging by the amount of food she ordered, was blessed with a fast metabolism.
She loved books but was lukewarm on live music.
“We can work on that,” I said.
Luna shook her head, amused. “Do you always ask this many questions?”
“Only with lawyers,” I said. “Which brings me to my next—”
“Objection,” Benny said.
“I was just—”
“Badgering the witness.”
“Sorry.” I held up my hands and lolled my head back. “No further questions, your honor.”
Luna glanced back and forth between me and Benny with a one-sided smile.
“They’re insufferable, aren’t they?” Xander said, buttering his roll.
I smacked him on the arm. “We’re perfectly sufferable.”
We laughed through the rest of the meal. By the end of the night, I was ready to put a ring on it. “You have to ask her out again,” I said, pulling Benny aside after an astonishing show in the upstairs Palace of Mystery. “If only so we can come back here whenever we want.”
Benny shook his head. “You’re too much.”
“So you’ll do it?”
He adjusted his tie with a sly grin.
“You already did, didn’t you?”
He gave me the wink and the finger gun, and that was that.
Later, in bed, Xander said, “What was that all about tonight?”
I rolled to face him; hands clasped behind his head, he stared up at the ceiling, light skin dappled with mottled moonlight. “What was what all about?”
“All those questions. That whole act you and Benny were putting on.” His expression was inscrutable. “I probably should’ve asked this a while ago, but you and Benny … have you ever…?”
“Of course not,” I said quickly.
He lifted his head. “Never?”
“Never.”
“Have you ever thought about it?”
A part of me wanted to be truthful. It’s complicated, I wanted to say. Because yes, there was a moment. But that bird had flown, hadn’t it? And there was no use making Xander unnecessarily jealous. I opened my mouth to deny, deny, deny, but it was already too late. I’d hesitated for too long.
“I figured,” he said.
“It’s not like that.” My heart raced. I pressed my cheek to his chest. “I’m with you. I’m all in with you.”
He rubbed my back and said no more.
BENNY AND LUNA became an item after our night at the Magic Castle. Within weeks we were all meeting for brunches in Los Feliz, bratwursts in Silver Lake, hikes in Runyon Canyon. Luna was whip-smart, emotionally stable, financially secure, and game for adventure. I liked her immensely.
“You seem good,” I said to Benny one evening as the two of us drank beers on the outdoor stairs between our apartments. It was one of the first crisp nights of fall after a brutal summer, and we’d just watched the sky change from gold to pink to purple to blue.
“I think I am.” He nodded. “How about you? Are you good?”
“I think I am.”
A car pulled into the driveway next door and honked, and a young woman ran outside to hop in the passenger seat. As they were backing out, I said, “Xander asked me to move in with him.”
“Oh.” Benny turned to me. “And what did you say?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” The question took me by surprise.
One minute Xander was poaching eggs, the next he was handing me a key.
He had a whole speech prepared. He wanted to make me breakfast every morning and fall asleep beside me every night.
He wanted to dote on me. He’d used those actual words. Dote on. I told him I’d consider it.
“You’re in the middle of your lease,” Benny said.
When I knocked on Benny’s door an hour earlier, his curls were still wet from the shower. Now they were almost dry and twice the size. Staring at the ringlet dangling over his forehead, I said, “The landlord said I could break it.”
“So you’re seriously considering this.”
Logistically, it made sense. I was sleeping over at Xander’s place more often, and he was driving me around a lot. It would save time and money, and I enjoyed poached eggs. “You like him, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
I could hear a but coming. “Go on.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Yes it does.” I tugged on his shirtsleeve. “It matters so much.”
He looked out over our quiet street on the hill. It was near dark, and the jacarandas in the front yard quivered in the soft breeze. When Benny moved in, the entire road had been blanketed in their purple flowers.
“All that matters is you’re happy,” he said. “And that he treats you well.”
No one could argue he didn’t.
Benny gave me a half smile. “I’ll miss living downstairs from you.”
“I’ll miss doing jumping jacks and dropping heavy things to bug you.”
“I’ll miss knowing you’re not napping when you do that.”
“I’ll miss stealing your mail.”
“I’ll miss farting into the air vents.”
I laughed. “I’ll miss siccing all of my solicitors on you.”
“I’ll miss siphoning your electricity.”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “I’ll miss this.”
He squeezed my knee and rubbed his thumb back and forth. “You know you can have this whenever you want.”
I wasn’t sure that was true anymore, but I didn’t call him on it.
I moved in with Xander a few weeks later. Benny threw me a going-away party, and we drank and danced and ate cupcakes, and at the end of the night Benny patted Xander’s back and said, “Take good care of her, will you?”
“Stop.” I smacked his arm. “I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”
“You tell him,” Luna said.
Benny raised his hands in surrender. “You all know what I mean.”
I did. Which was why, when I was hugging Luna goodbye, I whispered into her ear, “Take good care of him too.”
She squeezed me extra tight. “I’ll do my best.”