He smiles his beautiful smile. “I would love to come in, but I won’t.”
“I don’t have walls,” I say. “I mean, I do. But I guess I’d like not to.”
He seems to consider this. Leans in closely, kisses my cheek, his smooth skin against mine.
“Sometimes I get a piece of wood in my studio, and I can tell that it’s going to make the perfect, just the absolute slam-dunk of a perfect piece. A tabletop, a chair ...” He eases back in the driver’s seat, away from me, away from my cheek and his kiss. “But, man, that piece is going to take so much work. The sanding and more sanding and the staining and the polishing ...”
“I’m the wood,” I say, and I nod because I am and because it has been so long since anyone has seen through me. Not since Ben. Then: “Maybe you can make a piece for me? Out of one of those perfect slabs of wood?”
I think of all the times I asked Ben to write something for me, of all the times he failed me.
“Actually,” I say before he can answer, “maybe I could come down to your showroom, see how it’s done? Try my hand at it on my own.”
“It’s not the type of thing you pick up after one visit.” He smiles. “But sure.”
I think,You don’t know what I’m capable of, what I can do if I dream it.
I say, “I’d like that. To at least try.”
He doesn’t reply. Instead, he leans forward and kisses me for real. I step out of his car, and he drives off into the night.
I linger in my driveway, under the shadow of the impenetrable wall that I moved behind because of the stalker and also because it shielded me from the cameras and from lingering eyes and from probably a lot more than that too. I gaze up at the sky and wonder, for the first time in years, if perhaps I didn’t mistake isolation for safety, if I didn’t get confused and think that walls protected me, when what I learned at Tisch and a million times since then—in rebuilding my relationship with my dad, in sleeping in the open air under that Arizona sky—is that sometimes the only way to free yourself is to learn what you thought you couldn’t know. To knock everything down and start over.
39
BEN
DECEMBER
“Jesus Christ!” Tatum screams when she finds me sitting at the kitchen island, nursing a glass of merlot from a bottle I’d found open in the wine fridge and flipping through the December issue ofElle, for which she’s the cover model. Her hand flies to her heart, and her heels click against the bare wood floor as she skitters in surprise.
“Sorry, shit, sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“What are you doing here? Is everything OK?” She exhales, regaining her breath, drops her purse on the island, and reaches for an empty wineglass of her own in the cabinet.
“I brought over Joey’s gifts to put under the tree. Figured I’d stay. Sent Constance home.”
Her brow furrows, then relaxes. “Oh, OK. I mean, sure, that’s fine.”
I was doing this from time to time now: stopping by unannounced, with the honest intention of spending time with Joey—our custody agreement was fluid, and Tatum never minded—but then often loitering for longer, inviting myself to stay for dinner, suggesting we all watch a movie.
Tatum pours the merlot, swirls the wine, sips deeply. I know she’s been on a date. I can tell by the cut of her dress, by the hint of her makeup. Not the piled-on stuff she wears for work when a professional comes and fluffs her, not the uncomfortable heels and dress she’d wear for a junket or a dinner where she has to beonall the time.
“What?” she asks now, catching my stare.
“You look nice,” I say. “That’s all.”
“I was just ...” She waves her hand while holding the glass, and the wine tumbles over the lip, onto the white counter. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
I scramble off my stool and grab the cleaning solution from underneath the kitchen sink, then pass her the paper towels too. It’s as if nothing has changed, even though everything has. Or maybe it’s as if I wish nothing had changed, but really, it’s all gone to complete shit. I’m jealous, of course. I’m fucking jealous that she was on a date, spent an evening sizing up a guy who could occupy the space in her life that I once did. Amanda is working tonight; otherwise surely she’d be at my apartment, on my couch, in my bed. It’s happened so quickly, how we picked up like years hadn’t passed, like I hadn’t burned my old life to the ground and we were just, like, who we were back at NYU. It’s nothing like that: Leo is gone, and my dad is gone, and I’ve lived a whole life between then and now, a life with Tatum, but it’s easier to pretend that this isn’t true. Amanda hasn’t spent time with Joey yet; I haven’t mentioned her to my mom (and Ron) yet. It’s been only a month since we reconnected that afternoon on the beach, five weeks if we’re being specific, and to make those introductions feels too permanent, too real.
I know this is what Amanda wants. Permanence. She tells me she finally feels complete, like she always knew we’d find our way back to each other. I refrain from reminding her that she left me for a residency in Palo Alto, regardless of who officially broke up with whom. I refrain, also, from telling her that when she tumbles into sleep after a long shift in the ER and after we’ve slept together in ways that were akin to how we used to sleep together when we were twenty-five, I slip out of the bedroom and retreat to my computer, where I hone the manuscript I am writing for Tatum. Finally. I want to give it to her for Christmas, which leaves me ten days to get it right, prove to her that I didn’t overlook that promise I made to her for years on end.
It’s as if losing Tatum—even though we lost each other so slowly for so many years now—losing her for good has finally made me realize, stupidly, romantically, what I wanted all along. Amanda keeps me company; Tatum has my heart. It’s like a ridiculous romantic comedy that years ago, I’d never have even entertained, never deemed good enough to watch, much less embody. But we have detonated what we had, and in the rubble, I’ve seen the beauty of it too. Maybe the fact that I can finally uncover a silver lining in all that has gone wrong means that I’m growing, growing up. At forty-fucking-two. But finally. If I can’t, if all I can do is get mired down in the shitty ways that life has failed me, or I’ve failed life, I’ll never point myself back toward happiness. Not quick-sex happiness with Amanda. That high lasts only until I make it into the shower. Real, resonant happiness with Tatum that can’t be washed off in the shower because its grit and its depth has sunk into my pores.
Tatum cleans the mess on the counter, then winds her way into the living room, where the white lights on the Christmas tree bounce off the walls and make the whole room sparkle. The three of us had gone together, driving north toward Santa Barbara, to find it. Joey had run from tree to tree, screaming each time: “This one is perfect!” but Tatum wouldn’t settle until she found one that actually was. It was a rare afternoon when no one hassled her, when we could tromp through the tree farm and not encounter another soul for swaths of time that led us all to feel a little normal.
“This really was the perfect tree,” she says, staring up at the lights. Then: “Remember that tiny one we had years ago?”
