Chapter Thirty-Four
I buzzed myself into the building and noticed that a new lobby display entitled “Starlight Palms Throughout the Decades” had been set up.
A wall of frames displayed various photos of former guests from when the place was still a resort. Some were even very famous, like Robert Redford and Doris Day.
In the glass case were memorabilia like coasters, swimming caps, beach towels, cocktail glasses, and valet keychains.
As I perused the photos, I found a small picture of Ruby.
My fingers traced over the glass as I studied the image.
She was lounging in a cabana with four other friends.
One of them, a woman, sat behind her at a table with a cigarette dangling between her fingers.
Over her modest one-piece swimsuit, she wore a flowy linen shirt.
Her gaze was solely on Ruby while two men and another woman laughed hysterically with each other, cigarettes dangling from their fingers.
The other woman was Hollis. It had to be. It felt so odd to see the two of them like this in a glass case, like they were just another relic of the past. And yet, their story was still very much alive.
I walked back to my office and settled at my computer with an inappropriate amount of beverages.
Ice water, raspberry tea, and a coffee I had no business drinking after six o’clock at night.
As I waited for the computer to run an update, my thoughts wandered back to the display case and how, at a certain point, our lives become memories.
Inactive chunks of time. Things that had been or could have been, but would never change.
For so long, Eli had felt like a memory.
But then he reappeared in my life, opening our book. Unsettling the dust.
I knew that life was supposed to be a journey and not a destination. I’d seen those words on hundreds of inspirational posters and embroidered pot holders. But that felt so easy to say when your journey was worthy of a destination.
I knew all the countless reasons why Eli and I were a bad idea. I knew all the things it could ruin. My job. My living situation.
The computer screen lit up and I opened the document I’d been tinkering with.
My job. My living situation. Those things were not worth risking by giving in to hormones and lust.
Because that’s all this was.
* * *
My time off for the next few days was spent running errands with Ruby.
Having her gown for the awards ceremony tailored.
Hair and nail appointments. Last-minute shopping.
It was the kind of busywork that kept me out of the apartment.
In between all of that, Ruby would type text messages to Hollis or sometimes even attempt to write them out like a script.
Some versions were as simple as a hello while many were paragraphs long.
(I knew this because the text size on her phone had to be at least twenty points.) Every text was deleted before it could be sent and every piece of paper torn.
Eli was hardly around. He came back late just about every night, and I told myself it was easier this way.
I’d come home from New Orleans and I’d get serious about finding a place of my own. Then Eli and I would once again be a memory. A piece of time so far removed from the present that there was no point in untangling it.
* * *
The morning of Leonard’s living funeral, I left my little homework assignment under his doormat.
To my surprise, I didn’t hate what I’d written.
After several failed attempts at resurrecting The Wunderkind, I used the character survey from the writing workshop instead and ended up with a few aimless pages about a postal worker who delivers letters from the afterlife. It was actually sort of . . . clever.
The invitation Leonard sent out specified that the dress code was Disco Western.
When he came by my office to ensure I had something appropriate to wear, I told him I was hoping to swing by the costume aisle at a party store beforehand.
His upper lip curled in disgust and he told me he’d have options for me in the morning that were not made of flammable textiles.
And options there were! The contents of the bag he’d left in my office this morning looked like Elton John and Dolly Parton had a baby and then donated their wardrobe to a less fortunate middle-aged woman.
I pulled out a multicolor fringe cape and then slid on pink leather gloves. It was what my childhood self probably imagined fancy dress to be.
“Very funeral appropriate.” Eli hovered in the doorway, wearing snug black jeans and a pearl-snap shirt with a cactus embroidered on each chest pocket. His hair was longer than he usually kept it, and I wondered if he was busy or just not paying close enough attention to himself.
“You really dropped the ball on the disco part,” I told him.
“I’ll be the Western to your disco.” He gave me a once-over. “You’re really pulling your weight.”
“Leonard was concerned about my wardrobe options, so you can thank him for this.”
He fisted his hands into his pockets as we stood there in silence for a moment. “We let it get weird, didn’t we?”
I sighed. It at least felt good to acknowledge it out loud. “It’s probably for the best.”
He shook his head, his expression turning serious. Almost annoyed. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever you want, Vera.”
He walked away and I stood there for a moment, watching my reflection in the framed print of the original Starlight Palms hanging in my office.
I needed things between us to be okay. I told myself it was because of work and the apartment.
That was the tidy reason. But he was back in my life all of a sudden and it was hard to believe that it wasn’t for a reason.
Even if that reason was to resolve the abrupt way things ended almost two decades ago.
“Eli,” I called after him, peeking my head out my office door.
He was already halfway down the hallway with his fists clenched at his sides. For a second he paused and just stood there before turning around.
“I want . . .”
His mouth fell open, but he held his words at bay.
“I want us to be friends,” I finished, and felt embarrassingly proud of myself.
He was quiet for a moment before he rolled his lips together and shook his head. “I don’t think we want the same things.”
A heavy dread settled in my chest as I felt punished for what felt like bravery to me. I glanced back to make sure we had the hallway to ourselves before I walked down toward him.
He took a step closer but then paused, letting me establish the space between us.
I wanted to touch him. His shoulders. His forearm. Just to let his warmth seep into my skin. I didn’t trust myself, though, so I stood just out of reach for both our sakes. “I need this job,” I told him.
His face was blank as he nodded.
“And I really need the apartment.”
Then his measured features morphed into disappointment and anger.
“What? You think I’d kick you out because you don’t want to dry hump on the couch like a couple of teenagers?
” He scoffed. “Ya know, I was a little shit back in college. I know that. But it was so, so easy when you always expected the worst of me.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I said in a low, urgent voice.
“Just because I expected you to act like an asshole, that gave you the right to be an asshole? You hated me in college. What else was I to expect from you besides the worst? And I’m sorry for being worried that getting physical with you could fuck up my very fragile living and working situation. ”
“I would never kick you out, Vera. Hell, I’d go find a place of my own before I did that to you. Just say the word if that’s what you want.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not asking you to leave your own apartment. I want you there. I just . . .” The supply chain between my brain and my mouth came to a grinding halt, because I didn’t actually know what the hell I wanted.
He watched me carefully and when he realized I had nothing else to say, he gave me a curt nod. “I’ll see you at Leonard’s thing.”
“Okay.” The moment he turned away, all the words I might have said fell into place and I pushed them aside along with any remaining hope that things might return to normal between us. Whatever the fuck that looked like.
As he walked in the opposite direction, I stood there in my cape and gloves, reminded distinctly of a time nineteen years ago when I stood in an empty hotel room with a sheet wrapped around my chest and a veil discarded on the floor.