The Inspiration (20 page)

He slaps his open palms over his face and groans loudly. “You’re killing me here, Ava.”

This argument is getting us nowhere. “Do you want to come in? I have beer and great old black and white episodes of
The Twilight Zone
.”

He rocks back and forth on his heels. “I don’t want to watch
The Twilight Zone
. I’m living in the fucking twilight zone,” he says as he walks into the apartment. He goes to the couch and crumples onto it, falling back against the cushions. He closes his eyes and lets out a low groan.

“Are you okay?” I ask tentatively.

He shakes his head. “No…I’m not.”

Guilt bubbles up inside of me. I’ll have to think twice before I send anyone a bunch of snarky emails again. “What can I do, Max? I feel terrible that I hurt you. What can I do to make things better?”

He opens his eyes slowly and gives me a sideways glance. “Look, I know I’m not easy, and I’m certainly no prince, but could you cut me some slack? Can we call a truce and try to get along before I lose it?”

I nod. “Sure.” I certainly don’t want him to
lose it
on my account.

He looks up tentatively. “Maybe we could even hang out for a while and forget all the stuff we’re fighting about.”

“Okay.”

“You’re sure?” He looks like he doesn’t believe me.

I smile. “What do you want to do tonight?”

His eyes light up like he’s just figured something out. “Go get some socks and a jacket.”

What? Socks and a jacket? Art boy is kidnapping me?
I’m beyond intrigued. I raise my eyebrows.

“I want to go bowling.”

B
owling?

He stands up from the couch with a completely straight face and waits.

Has he lost his mind? Maybe he has and I don’t want to agitate him further. I go to my bedroom for my hoodie and socks, and switch out my flip-flops for my Nikes.

When I rejoin him in my living room, he’s pacing in front of the window.

I hesitate. “Max? Why are we going bowling?”

“Because it’s fun, and mindless, and you get to drink beer while you play. Are you okay with that?”

“Sure. And I’ll be nice. I promise.”

He takes a deep breath and gives me the first smile since he showed up on my doorstep. “All right then, let’s go.”

I follow him downstairs and we get in his car. After we’ve driven several blocks, I ask, “So, where are we going bowling?”

“Burbank.”

We’re bowling in Burbank?
Now it’s getting even stranger. Despite being the home of Disney, Warner Brothers and NBC, Burbank is the closest you can get to Podunk in Los Angeles.

I watch him as he drives. He’s totally focused on the road, but I’d pay money to know what’s going on in his head. We pull up to the Pickwick Bowling Alley, a flat old brick building, where I expect everything to be aged and worn from the speckled linoleum floor to the 1950’s style seating around each bowling lane. It’s Mayberry from
The Andy Griffith Show,
and I half-expect Opie to walk by any moment. When we get inside, it’s exactly as I’d pictured. It’s kind of quaint, actually, and I’m glad it doesn’t have the loud music and laser lighting of the newer bowling alleys.

We rent our stylish bowling shoes, which are an impossibly funky suede in wide stripes of burgundy, olive green and dirty taupe.
They must make them ugly so people don’t take them home,
I think, as I finish tying the laces. We don’t have any trouble getting a lane, considering the late hour. While I set up the overhead scorecard, Max buys a couple of beers.

Other than simple directions, like where I can pick out a ball and that I should go first, he really hasn’t spoken much. I’m beginning to wonder if the whole evening will be like this. I still haven’t discovered the secret to cheering him up, now that we’re here in Burbank, dressed in funny shoes and sticking our fingers into different sized balls.

I bowl the first ball. Max watches me while he takes a hit of his beer. Unfortunately, my ball goes into the gutter halfway down the lane, but I’m too unnerved by this whole scenario to be embarrassed. On my next try, the ball rolls down the entire lane at an angle and, just before falling into the gutter, it takes out the corner pin. Max writes “one” with great flourish on the scorecard.

We trade places and he saunters over to his ball. I get a clue how the rest of the game will go when he snaps the ball up and aims, his body still as a statue. He unfurls and gracefully slinks forward like a tiger—if a tiger could hold a bowling ball. The ball spins as it makes contact with the wooden surface of the lane and shoots forward like a rocket.

The resulting explosion of pins is impressive. He’s still in a dipped position, his shoulder and arm muscles beautifully defined. He springs up and turns to me.

I smile. “Hmm, looks like you could give me some pointers.”
Closet bowler,
I surmise.

As the game progresses, I get a little better with each turn. After all, I haven’t bowled in years, and it takes some getting used to. Max’s improvement is in his attitude. He seems to lighten up with each play until he’s smiling and joking about my unusual techniques. I overplay my goofiness, finally provoking him into giving me a mini-lesson, which involves touching as he moves my arm back to show the right motions. At one point, he even rests his hands on my hips to correct their position.

Every time he touches me, it feels as if his fingers are searing my skin. When he swivels my hips forward a second time, I flush and turn away. Who knew bowling could be erotic?

After several pointers, I have success. On the eighth frame, as soon as I release the ball, I have a good feeling, and I jump up and down and cheer as the ball slides along. When it meets the pins, there’s no explosion. Instead, the pins seem to wobble and slowly surrender one by one. When the final pin falls, I let out a whoop, run to Max and jump up into his arms.

He throws his head back, laughs, and wraps his arms around me. I slide down his body until my feet meet the floor, and my victory hug becomes something more than buddy-like. The desire I have for this beautiful, flawed man is surging through me, and for a moment, I cling onto him feeling every definition of his body against mine.

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone this much, and I ache from it. The desire is so big, so overpowering, that I’d let him take me right here in the bowling alley if he wanted to.

I wonder if he can feel all this. I imagine it’s obvious. He carefully pulls away, as if he’s afraid I’ll break.

“Yay, Ava! You did it…strike!” He smiles.

I step away and take a deep breath. “I guess the lesson paid off,” I reply, trying to sound cheerful, as I struggle to regain my composure and push my desire out of my mind.

As we finish our game, Max announces that he’s hungry, so we go get something to eat. Once again he takes the lead, and we pull up to Dupars, a coffee shop in Studio City that has watched many decades come and go. The place is empty except for a group of Goths in a booth in the back. Our waitress, Marge, wears a uniform that reminds me of an old-fashioned nurse’s getup, complete with the little white cap. She has faded orange hair and tree stump legs and a cheerful disposition as she serves us stacks of pancakes and bacon.

We dig in with gusto. When Max finishes, he leans back and pats his stomach with a satisfied sigh.

“You look like a new man,” I comment with a smile. “If I’d known it was this easy to make you happy, I would’ve taken you out for bowling and pancakes long ago.”

He grins. “I know. This was just what I needed. We should do this again sometime.”

“Sure, I had a great time—even though I thought you were nuts when you first showed up on my doorstep.”

“Did you now? What if next time I show up in the middle of the night and take you swimming?”

“I’d insist the pool be heated.”

He laughs. “You’re pretty great, Ava. You’re going to make some guy very lucky one day.”

“Hmm, maybe.”

He tips his head to the side as he regards me.

When we turn to my apartment, it’s so late he insists on walking me to my door. Before we part, he gives me a big hug.

“Thanks, Ava.” He sighs, and for a moment I can
feel
Max—his sadness, his emptiness, his need to just be okay and to go out bowling with a friend with no other agenda. Before he lets me go, I decide there will be no more nasty emails, no more fighting, and no snarky comments. It’s time to figure out a way to be friends with Maxfield Caswell.

Sunday, I’m finishing the first draft on another chapter when my phone rings.

“What are you up to?” It’s my new best friend and he sounds happy.

“Thinking about you…because I’m working on your book.” I laugh.

“Oh, for a moment I got really excited, because I was thinking about you,” he jokes.

“Were you?” I say with a flirty tone.

“Yes, will you play with me today?”

“Wow, two offers to play with you in the same weekend. And why do I get this honor?”

“Because you’re more fun than anyone else.”

I smile, loving how special he’s making me feel. “Okay, so what are we doing today?”

“I’m going to drag you to thrift stores all over town.”

“Ooo, hold me back! It’s a dream come true! Now why on Earth would I want to do that?”

“’cause it’ll make me happy and I want your company.”

“I’m such a pushover.”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Okay, but I’m expecting a good meal out of this, at least.”

“You bet.”

After he hangs up, I feel an unexpected thrill, even though thrift-store shopping is probably the last thing I would choose to do on a Sunday.

Max arrives in an old flatbed truck. “It was my mom’s. She used it for hauling stuff—like the plants she always bought from the nursery.”

It makes a lot more sense to use this for our outing than his Porsche.

Max pulls out a printout of thrift stores and we pick the closest one to visit first. From there, we’ll head toward downtown.

As we pull up to the Salvation Army, I ask him what we’re shopping for.

“Paintings—and they must be hand-painted. No prints and they don’t have to be good.”

I’m not sure what I expected, but I definitely wasn’t expecting that.

“Paintings of what?”

“It could be anything. I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Are you redecorating?” I tease him, knowing that anything we find in a thrift store won’t be hanging in his home.

“Actually, I’m going to incorporate the paintings we find into a new series I’m developing. It’s like when rappers sample parts of other musician’s songs. That’s why I have my camera,” he gestures to the case on the center console. “The pictures I take may become part of the work, or at least part of the story.”

I’m fascinated. The mind of an artist is bewildering to navigate.

When we step out of the truck, he takes a picture of the thrift shop’s storefront. As we go inside, the sights and smells of a million disparate objects that have all once belonged to different people hit me. There are racks of clothes, stacks of dishes and shelves of books. Everything has a forlorn look, nothing matches and it makes me feel a little sad. It reminds me of those early days in L.A. when I frequented places like this for things I needed.

The efficient thing about looking for paintings is you can quickly scan through the store for anything to consider. This store disappoints because all we find is a framed Scooby-Doo poster and a needlepoint of a vase of flowers that’s starting to unravel. Max takes a shot of their offering and we head out.

In the second store, we have better luck. Hanging crookedly on the wall are several prints and paintings. Max chooses a brown-hued landscape and a large, poorly executed painting of a ship at sea. He not only takes pictures of the store, but several of me paying for the painting with the cash he’s handed me. He takes the receipt and carefully folds it into his wallet, explaining that it might end up in the art as well.

By the time we’ve snaked our way downtown, we have more than a dozen paintings crammed behind the seat of the truck. My personal favorite is the paint-by-number masterpiece of horses running across the plains, though I can’t wait to see what he does with our finds.

He looks not just happy, but inspired. He keeps opening up a leather journal, making notes and drawling little thumbnail sketches. Being able to intimately watch his creative process develop is something I’ll always remember.

“Okay, time to feed you!” He smiles as he pulls into a parking lot by the train station. There’s a sign that says Phillippe, The Original French Dipped Sandwiches.

“Is this where we’re going?” I ask.

“Yeah, I promised you good food and you’re going to get it!”

If the long lines of people at the front counter waiting to place their order are any indication, then he’s right about it being good.

Max shoos me away to find a table, and I score a little wooden booth near the vintage candy counter. There’s sawdust on the floor and old-fashioned linoleum-topped tables with wooden stools. Vintage photos of the establishment over the years surround the sign on the wall that says Phillippe’s has been open since 1908. The place hasn’t changed much.