Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 01 - Wild Nights (29 page)

“We involved our family. It wasn’t real to start with. She switched back to my partner, long before I knew it. I just switched. Neither of us regrets it.”

“I don’t want to have this conversation again. It was easier thinking nothing was nothing.”

“Doesn’t it feel better knowing that we’re all in this together?” he asked.

“Not really, I don’t want to be in it with all your other women. I know it sounds childish, but I can still hear her voice answering your phone; that stuck. It doesn’t feel like history.”

“She only answered it because I left it in there. I was asleep on the couch.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t have a car. It doesn’t matter; the point is nothing happened. I admit I tried. You were there, yelling at me every time I managed to get you on the phone. It didn’t feel too promising. I wanted to move on. You still got in the way. I couldn’t put it together in my head. It was all off notes.”

“I thought we were going to tell each other the truth.”

“That’s the truth.”

“Is that for real? I’ve never heard of that,” I said.

“It’s a new one. We are human,” he said.

“So you claim. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You wouldn’t stop talking. I thought my ears would fall off. I got pissed and the moment passed. It’s not the easiest thing to put out there, especially after you dragged Chana into it. I thought it wouldn’t matter, it sounds like it does.”

“So a real nothing?”

“That’s one way to put it. After that, you could be my only option.”

“So now everyone is going to pity me?” I asked.

“You know what? You’re like wrestling an octopus,” he said. “I’m the one who deserves pity. You’re only pitied in Ottumwa.”

“Is that where she’s from?”

“Some “O” place.”

“Jon.”

“Don’t, Hannah. It just doesn’t matter. I don’t even know her last name.”

“That doesn’t mean it was nothing.”

“Fuck me. Pull up now. Please. I can’t take this. It’s like being trapped in some rogue algorithm.”

“Okay, you’re right. I don’t want to get you swearing. So what’s the difference?”

“Besides the fact that I couldn’t get it going?” he said. “That is extremely extremely different.”

“Besides the bragging. We both know that’s temporary.”

“Everything. You? Besides god.”

“I just like all of you. I felt the real free.”

“You’ll get over liking all of me. Feel free to do that.”

“Not you, you’re required to keep liking all of me,” I said.

“I know how it works,” he said.

“I don’t want to talk about us anymore, I don’t want to jinx it. You know, except when I do.”

“Fine with me.”

“I wish I had some magic answer about Chana, old dad. It isn’t fair we get stuck with regret. Tell her the mistakes are okay. Hearing that from you will be important. I think it would have helped to hear that from my father. The next few years are the hardest. Are you sure her boyfriend is an idiot?”

“Yep, I hope he drowns before he becomes a regret. I’m thinking about hooking him up with the Maui wall riders; speed up his demise. I figure I’ll comp them free meals for life.”

“That would break Chana’s heart.”

“He’s a menace in the water. She can ride rings around him. She’s going to be embarrassed when she comes back to earth.”

“Leave him alone, she’ll figure it out. Do you play golf?”

“No, do you?”

“No. But Ed says he’s going to get you playing.”

“I’ll try if he tries paddling.”

“I don’t have a big picture of that. May I ask you something?”

“Unless it’s a history question.”

“How do you know it’s not something you should see the doctor about?”

“I tested it. I have a scenario worked up that involves that black dress of yours. Doesn’t take much.”

“Am I in the dress?”

“The whole time, plus or minus.”

“Mine’s more impressionistic.”

“I don’t have time to hear it now, I’d never get to work. I’ll call you the same time tomorrow. Put some words to it by then. Bye.”

“Bye.”

What more was there to say? He’s fast, just the way I like it. I was beginning to feel uneasy about it all. My track record said fast, right before the crash. On top of that, I wasn’t feeling charged up about going to India anymore.

Margaret and I spent the rest of our time packing up and sending our material to the first location in Udaipur. They were going ahead to Delhi to get acclimated, while I went through Honolulu.

I met with Margaret’s agent about the contract; I knew he was a straight shooter. He said the deal was clean, to just sign it. I did. He welcomed me to his stable and said I was very lucky and very young to break through. On top of being tired of the horse analogy, I could really hear the depreciating creep directed at women in his voice. I decided to take a page out of Margaret’s playbook and told him there was no luck involved; I’d earned it. I realized Margaret was teaching me how to be in the world. It’s a father’s lesson, and not one my mother knew how to teach. She was all about apologizing and not firing painters.

“You are Margaret’s protégée,” he said.

Eric and I talked a few times. I told him about Jon. He wasn’t holding his breath. Who could blame him? He did like the fact that he went by one syllable. Mom had finally come out of hiding. Her hands were back to normal; he had no idea what was going on under her clothes. He talked to Arthur; she was still going to meetings. She had started talking about Bettina and Amber in the present tense; she might be in some kind of denial phase. She still hadn’t called me.

“Do you think I should call her?” I asked.

“It’s up to you. Anna and I don’t have any idea how it hit her. She mentioned at brunch that she imagined you were off to India by now. We told her you are still home. Maybe just call her to say good-bye. If nothing else, you’ll have swept your side of the street.”

“Where’d you hear that street sweeping thing?”

“Anna and I started going to Alanon. You’ve gone. We figured it was time we went.”

“What do you think?”

“We’re surprised there’s an alcoholic under every rock. Listening to the people has made us realize how much harder it was for you to be there alone. I told the Sharpie story, that okay?”

“It’s fine. How’d it play?”

“Buy stock in Sharpies. I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing a lot of gloves around town.”

“Oh boy. You have to keep me posted!”

“Are you taking your cell?”

“I’ll have it in Hawaii. After that I’ll be in touch.”

“Have a great time,” he said. “Anna can’t wait to see you on the front end of this picture.”

Jon and I talked at the same time every afternoon. We told each other bits of our life—past, present and future. I tried to put words to my fantasy; he was quiet on the other end. He was interested in Grandma’s canary and appreciated “Wild Nights.” He liked the part about being done with a compass and chart. He was a full out romantic. Conversations unfurled like ribbons.

I told him the family story; how my parents had gone out for three nights in a row and he proposed. That they’d seen the movie
A Man And A Woman
on one of those nights, and that I’d been weaned on the image of a woman running around the French countryside in a garter belt and smoking Gauloises. Which, in light of my father’s affair and the black lace bra at age fifteen, didn’t sound all that far-fetched.

His parents had taken a more rational approach; they’d dated all through college and still lived in the house where he was born. His father was a banker, his mother taught freshman English. They played a lot of beach volleyball and were crazy about Chana. His grandparents raised his mother after both her parents were killed in a car accident. She’d been in the car. He would tell me more when he saw me. He had a brother and sister-in-law, both psychologists. They had two kids. He said he’d take a pass on the smoking, but he liked the garter belt idea.

He talked about the housing foundation. He hated that we ran off and threw money at Haiti, but had such a half-assed response to Katrina. He only got involved in projects where he had some say over how his money was spent. That was a whole side to him that you wouldn’t know looking at him. It must be what Mike meant about him not being as laid back as he looked.

We voted the same way. I know people on opposite sides of the fence can get along, but why try? He had no idea why anyone cared who married whom, or what they did in the privacy of their bedroom or family. He tried to integrate environmentally sound practices in the restaurants, but he didn’t make it his mission. They were making a bigger point of it in their next housing project. They had a new Board member, a retired management consultant who was pushing them all outside their comfort zone for fundraising, but it was paying off.

He wanted to hear about my job, what my typical day was like. We agreed we lived similar lives. We spent our days swinging back and forth between repetition, and problem-solving on the fly. Between seriously tedious people and genuinely interesting people. It was always different. It was challenging.

Some days he filled in tending bar when only one sad drunk showed up. Some days I spent hours running around town for minutia props that were only going to be on-camera for two minutes, and then only in the corner of someone’s eye. He needed to be behind the bar. I needed to find the prop. Did any of it matter? When I thought about it, what seemed to matter was that we both said we would, so we did. We both showed up.

I told him Mike had called a few times to check in. He wasn’t ready to think about Mike and me in some future widower/widow scenario. To me it had felt like Mike could take it or leave it. It was a different and surprisingly calm place to be. A year ago I might have felt insulted, but it just felt reasonable. I didn’t tell Jon any of that. His refrigerator door was going to take some time to process. I wasn’t stuck on it. But I needed it to fade into my background too.

I called Mom; she was never home. I finally left a message that I would call from Hawaii and hoped that she was well. It was time to leave. I put the key to the house under the Buddha head, and took a long look at the party house and pool. I closed the gate and patted Sparky on the way by; the guys were going to use her, maybe they’d fall in love with her. I got into the town car the studio had sent and was away.

Jon was waiting for me at the exit gate. I hadn’t seen him since he’d walked down the steps at the beach cottage and disappeared. I hadn’t seen him since burying Bettina and Amber. Or drawing on my mother. Or since telling my new agent that I’d earned my way. I wondered if he would be romantic in the theory of distance and long phone calls, not so much in the practice of being there in person.

“Aloha,” he said.

We stood looking at each other. He was warm muscle and bone dense against me. All the wildness of the first night was still there. I was struck again by how nice it was to not have someone towering over me.

He put his nose in my hair, then ran his hand over the new smoothness. “This is different.”

“Not wild anymore. You like it?” I asked.

“I like it, I liked wild, really doesn’t matter.”

He smiled and put his arm around my waist and pulled me close. “That okay?”

“Yes.”

He took my carry-on and we headed for baggage claim.

“Good flight?”

“Except for the bounce on approach.”

“Yeah. That gets the tourists wailing and moaning. Not as bad as Maui. You hungry?”

“Not for food.”

He smiled. We drove in quiet to a small condo complex where he let us into an airy studio with a jungle-like balcony overlooking the water.

“Is this yours?” I asked.

“Victor and Kaia’s. They come here to escape the kids. Or make them, unless my math is failing me. I have one on Maui, we swap them around.”

“Does he have other restaurants too?”

“Yeah. Not like the place on Kauai. He runs a string of Spam and pineapple wagons. He calls it soul food.”

“I forgot about the whole Spam thing. Do I need to learn to love it?”

“You might have to choke it down from time to time.”

“I need a shower.”

“That’s an interesting segue. There’s one on the balcony.” He opened the heavy sliding door. A light breeze ballooned the curtains; he turned on an overhead fan that looked like palm leaves.

The balcony shower was enclosed with translucent shoulder high panels so you could see the water beyond. The air was so balmy; it was like there was no difference between the warm water and the warm breeze. It’s a blissful feeling to lose the edges and melt into the air around you. A sloppy afternoon rain started washing the air. He got undressed and then dragged a teak chair into the shower. He pulled me down on his lap just like the first night.

We made love off and on for hours. We ended up on the floor on top of a sheet, under the sweeping palm leaves. We’d both fallen asleep. I woke up to him looking at me.

“What happened to not watching?” I asked.

“I’m living my life. Are you hungry now?”

“Starving, and thirsty.”

“I’ll bet. You can really sing.”

“Is that good?”

“It’s like my nervous system is riding a sine wave.”

“That doesn’t sound so good.”

“It is.”

I put on the black dress and we headed to his restaurant.

I gathered from the double takes that they were used to seeing him with someone else. We sat at a small table by the window and had Liliko’i margaritas. It was a strange combination, but anything would have tasted good.

A waitress came over.

“Can I get you guys anything else, JT?” she asked.

“We’re good, Sara,” he said. “This is Hannah; Hannah, this is Sara.”

Sara and I agreed that it was nice to meet each other and she went back to work.

“They’re like family. You can be sure they’re all talking about you. I’ve never brought some one in.”

“I just figured I was a new woman.”

“Nope.”

“Is it going to be okay?”