The First Husband (6 page)

I looked away, covering my reddening face, pretending to still be asleep. But it was no use. I was caught—and Griffin was on his way over to sit down next to me on the edge of the bed. I pulled the sheets up higher, trying to gauge how weird it would be if I pulled them over my entire head.

“You’re awake,” he said.

I nodded, sheet over my chin.

He squinted his eyes, as if thinking about something. Then, instead of offering it up, he gave me a smile.

“So I’m off tomorrow, which is the good news,” he said. “What do you say you come surfing with me? I know a great place up near Malibu. A place worth seeing. And if it goes well, I’ll take you dancing after.”

I couldn’t help but smile back at him. “Oh . . . so I’m being tested now?” I said.

“What, you think you’re a shoo-in or something?”

“If not, I’m about to fail,” I said. “I don’t surf.”

“But you like dancing, right?” he said.

“Very much . . .” I said. “I like it very much.”

And my smile disappeared. Because I did. I loved dancing. But Nick never took me. The thought of going made me so happy, and then so sad, almost simultaneously, because I couldn’t help but think that this person I barely knew, he was the one willing to give it to me.

“Weren’t you saying something about being the opposite of yourself?” he asked, teasing me.

I was.

“So surfing and then dancing. Tomato, then tomah-to. Do we have a deal?” he asked.

We did.

“
I
t’s just dinner, right?” I said. was looking in the mirror, checking myself out in my little yellow bikini. It was the only bathing suit I could find—and it wasn’t the one I’d wanted to find. While it was decent on the top—it had that Marilyn Monroe–like quality to it, the halter hugging at the right place on my neck—that didn’t,
couldn’t
, make up for the way it curved up fiercely in the behind region, revealing too much of my backside. Plus, ironically, and not in a good way, it was the same exact shade of yellow as my magic dress.

“It’s
just
dinner,” Jordan repeated back to me.

She was on the other end of the phone, lying on the couch with Simon in Venice, the other Venice. Occasionally I could hear him murmur something in the background, trying to help out—not because he particularly cared, but so she would get off the phone and they could go back to watching their movie for the night. That had been their plan, to watch AFI’s top hundred movies while they were away. Tonight they were on
Stagecoach
. If I thought he could hear me, I would’ve told Simon what he already secretly knew: regardless of when Jordan and I got off the phone, it was over for them and that movie.

“Actually,” I said, “it’s not just dinner. It’s a whole day that includes a beach and . . . travel.”

“One date. With the rebound guy,” she said. “That’s good for everyone.
You’re going
.”

“It involves me wearing a bathing suit.”

She paused. “That is a little cruel,” she said. “Have you been to YogaHop recently?”

I could hear Simon in the background, talking:
Hasn’t she already been naked with the guy? Isn’t that what you’ve been gabbing about for the last twelve hours?

And suddenly, Jordan’s voice got distant, further away. I imagined she covered the telephone’s receiver in order to answer him, but I could still make out her muffled voice:
That,
she said,
is a completely different thing than swimwear.

“Exactly!” I shouted. “Thank you, Jordan! Thank you for getting it.”

I started to undo the top of my bikini, my fingers working their way through the knot, but then Jordan was back on the phone.

“You’re going,” she said.

Griffin picked me up in a 1957 Chevy pickup truck. Bright blue with light-duty wheels. A small white line of visible paint along the doors. I was sitting on the front steps waiting for him when he drove up.

At first I thought I had imagined it. A 1957 pickup truck was the vehicle I fantasized about. With all the fancy cars in Los Angeles, this was one you’d rarely see, and it was my favorite.

“This is what you drive?” I said.

He was wearing faded jeans and a relaxed T-shirt, and as he walked around to my side to open the door for me, he looked like an advertisement standing next to the truck. Like an advertisement for a handsome guy.

“What, you like it or something?”

I nodded. “You could say.”

He kissed me hello, soft and slow, on my lower lip, like he had done it a thousand times. Like he had the right. The way he pulled it off, he almost did.

“You did say,” he said.

I smiled, a little confused. “Wait, what do you mean, I did say?”

“The other night. You told me you loved this truck.” He leaned toward me. “So I found one for the afternoon.”

“You
found
one?” I said.

“Yes.”

I got inside, running my hands along the dashboard. “Where? ”

He shrugged. “A shady guy owes me a favor.”

I looked up at him. “Really?”

“No, but it sounds cooler than I just rented it from the place the hotel recommended.”

I bit my lip, touched. “Thank you,” I said. “For risking your life and calling in that favor.”

He closed the door behind me, clicked it locked. “Buckle up,” he said.

During the years that Nick and I had lived in Los Angeles, we had gone to several of the most popular local beaches—Zuma, Manhattan Beach, all the way out to Redondo for a house party. But I had never been to the beach that Griffin took me to that afternoon: El Matador, this cliff-foot strand all the way out on the west side of Malibu. What they call a pocket beach because it’s so tiny, so secluded. It was like a vision, with its perfectly white sand and isolated sea caves. We actually had to waddle through the farthest cave, surfboards and equipment in hand, just to get to the spot that Griffin loved most.

“I can’t believe how incredible it is here,” I said, as he reached into his knapsack. He spread out an oatmeal-colored blanket.

“You never knew about this place?”

I shook my head. “I’ve been missing out, apparently.”

“We’ll make up for it,” he said. Then he smiled at me, squinting his eyes, tightly. He had forgotten to bring his sunglasses. I reached into my bag and handed him my extra pair. They were on the enormous side, oval-shaped and cherry red. Feminine and ridiculous on him.

“How do I look?”

“Perfect,” I said, and smiled.

He handed me a wet suit, the legs folded awkwardly. “You’ll need to change,” he said.

I stared at it. “You brought me a wet suit?”

He nodded. “It would appear so.”

“You brought me a wet suit, but you forgot your sunglasses?”

“You’re stalling,” he said.

I pointed my finger at him. “But . . . see . . . I thought when you said we were going surfing, and I told you I haven’t surfed, you would understand that
that
meant you would surf and I would lie here on the blanket.”

“What fun is that?” he said.

I think not drowning is a blast,
I wanted to say. But, all of a sudden, I couldn’t say it—because I could picture it, as clearly as if Nick were the one standing in front of me. I could picture him laughing at that. It almost made me fall down. I was suddenly and completely inundated by it. What had been lost in losing him.

I sat down on the blanket, trying to catch my breath. And trying to get a hold of my balance before I made a fool of myself.

Griffin bent down, so he was leaning on his knees, standing over me. “We should probably do it already,” he said. “Just get it over with.”

I looked at him. “What’s that?”

He sat down on the blanket, getting comfortable, holding up his index finger. “One,” he said.

“One?”

“One conversation in which you tell me everything you want about him and then we never have to talk about him again.”

“Just like that? Throw him out with the bathwater?” I joked. Then, I tried to say what I really meant. “I feel a little weird talking about him,” I said.

“I get that.” He nodded. “But don’t. You’re talking about him more by not talking about him.”

He was right. But, in a place where I was trying to be reductive, I didn’t know where to begin or end. So I sat there quietly, the beach heat kicking up, its strong breeze pushing my hair out of my face, leaving it bare.

“How about if instead of going into everything, I tell you the best thing about him and the worst thing?” I said.

He smiled. “Oh, so now you just want to make fun of me,” he said. “Fair enough . . .”

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not. I’m really not making fun. Maybe you’re having an influence.”

“Okay,” he said. “Then go ahead.”

“Well,” I said. “The best thing is that we’d camp together. We both traveled so much for work, me especially, but when we were home, sometimes Nick would get back from work at the end of the day and we’d put a tent in the backyard, and sleep outside. It sounds silly, I know, but we’d end up staying up most of the night talking, locked into one sleeping bag, watching the sun come up together. It made me happy. And it made me feel safe.”

Griffin smiled bigger, not threatened, not with any sort of judgment. “That is a good thing,” he said.

I nodded.

“What’s the worst?”

I looked right at him. “I don’t remember really feeling all that safe any other time.”

As soon as the words were out, I felt the weight of them. I felt the weight of what I didn’t want to know. That I had felt tested so much of the time Nick and I’d been together. And maybe part of that was my doing as much as his—growing out of my desire to keep him happy because I loved him so much, because I wanted his approval. But did the reason matter so much? In the end it was the same result. Maybe that was part of the reason I wanted to be away from home so much, so I didn’t feel so immediately affected by it. That part of Nick—that final 20 percent—that always seemed so out of my reach.

Griffin took my hand, kissed it fast, right on the wrist, and pulled me to standing. One motion.

“Let’s get in the water,” he said.

“Wait, that’s it? We’re not going to discuss this?”

“What’s there to discuss?”

Nothing. All of a sudden, I knew. Nothing. Or, I should say, I felt nothing. The anxiety in my chest, that tight ball, smaller. Benign. Because there was no denying it. It hadn’t just been there since the breakup. It had been there for a while before that. And maybe now—maybe in this instance with Griffin—I was breaking free of it.

“But what about you?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you tell me the same thing? About your last girlfriend?”

But Griffin was already removing my bikini top.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Getting you into your wet suit.”

His hands felt cold and good against my back, chilling me as he removed the straps. I started looking around the beach—there was another couple far out of the way, and a few surfers in the ocean. But, in this part, we were alone. We were completely alone.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t watch.”

Then he did.