She smiled up at me with all her teeth.
“I wish I could sing like you and Ariel. Did you know all the best princesses sing?”
I touched her little button nose. “Did you know that if you can talk, you can sing?”
“Not like you.”
“Do you want to try and sing with me?”
“I’m scared of singing to strangers. I only sing to my Elsa microphone.”
“Well, I used to be afraid of singing aloud to strangers, too.”
She opened her jaw, her blue eyes widening against the wind in disbelief.
“It’s true. Do you know what helped me sing in front of people?”
“Your mommy promised you a chocolate?”
“No. But I do love chocolate. What helped me is I would search for the friendliest face in the audience. Because when you’re new to singing in front of other people, there’s always one person you love in the audience.”
“So, I’ll make my mommy bring my Ariel Barbie next time I sing. I love her.”
“It’s nice that you love your mom.”
“I love my Ariel Barbie the most.”
“Oh.”
“Whose mommy are you?” she asked.
I fought to keep the smile on my windblown cheeks.
“I’m actually no one’s mommy.”
“Why?” she asked, patting my wanded curls.
Several years ago, I started seeing a therapist. She told me that the father wound I thought I’d skirted had in fact punctured deep below the surface. It was why as a teenager I was afraid to sing to a crowd, because I had a special kind of anxiety when it came to rejection. She also let me know that I was using the trauma of my childhood to put off my feelings about having children of my own. It was ironic, but in doing the emotionally exhausting work, I realized what I wanted for myself. I realized I wanted children, and I had just been told that they were nearly impossible to get. If only I’d stayed in the shadow of my childhood, convincing myself that the fear of being a neglectful parent meant I shouldn’t become one—convincing myself that the genes my father gave me could break some little kid’s heart one day. If only I’d stayed frozen in my past, then I wouldn’t be aching the way I was right now, staring at this tiny little girl who wasn’t even mine. I wanted to be able to say I was someone’s mommy. I wanted to give a child the emotional support I rarely got from my mother and the time of day I rarely got from my father. I could one day do both, but I didn’t have many days left to try.
“One day,” I whispered to the little girl, with hope strangled inside a sea of tears in my throat.
I patted her on the head, and she grinned and ran back to the other side of the boat, into her mother’s arms.
Maybe it was because there were the ashes of a successful dead old man inside me, or the fact that a little girl had just made my ovaries weep, but the service only reaffirmed that I needed to create a legacy. I pulled my shoulder blades back and untucked my phone from my purse, dialing Summer.
“Hey. Did you find anything on Asher?” I asked.
“Top of the morning to you, too. You used to be so much more timid about asking for favors, you know.”
“What can I say? Your lack of personal affection has rubbed off on me.”
“You wish. I was just about to call you,” she said. “I did some digging, and my colleague is best friends with Reyes’s PR person. Asher’s here, in New York City. Did you know that?”
Summer was a PR shark who had a Rolodex that boasted one degree of separation from absolutely anyone. I was not surprised in the least that it only took her two days to find Asher. But the knowledge that he was roaming the same streets as myself made my insides flip.
“Honestly, I had no idea we were in the same city.”
And it was the truth. Sure, Asher Reyes was People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, but he was wildly hush-hush about his private life. He performed the studio-mandated PR circus for one Oscar darling after another, and then he found remote islands to hide out on. He ignored personal questions in interviews, said very little about his family, and never commented on his relationship status. He was an enigma, and I liked keeping him that way. I stopped googling his name in my early twenties as a form of self-preservation. There was a lingering pang after our breakup, and for the first few years that followed, a giant “What-if?” consumed my mind: What if Asher Reyes was The One, but I met him too soon? I’d be lying if I said the thought didn’t also visit me into my thirties. But we no longer knew each other, and keeping up with a celebrity ex-boyfriend who didn’t keep up with me made me feel small.
“So, he’s going to be at the DGA event tonight.”
“The what event?”
“Director’s Guild. He’s speaking on some panel, and then there’s a cocktail hour after. It’s only for members, but because I’m the most amazing human ever, you’re on the list.”
A dizzying wave took over my body, and I gripped onto the boat’s railing to keep from tipping over. I would be seeing Asher, tonight. It had been eighteen years…
“You know, it’s a rite of passage to backslide around a big birthday,” said Summer. “The confirmation that time has passed and your ovaries are withering away is a perfect excuse to finally find and fuck your super-famous summer camp boyfriend. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken you this long.”
“I don’t want to have sex with him, Summer.”
“Sure, sure, sure,” she said. I could picture her in her spotless West Midtown office, rolling her eyes at me.
“I don’t.”
I didn’t. Having sex with Asher Reyes was the furthest thing from my mind. I wanted something more from him.
13
FIFTEEN
ALL I WANTED IN THE world was to have sex with Asher Reyes that summer. I wasn’t trying to rush us, but I had the entire sophomore year to think about what my long-distance boyfriend might look like naked, and what his naked body might feel like pressed against mine.
My insides were screaming with the thought as the large bus entered the gates of Buck’s Rock Camp grounds. I was sandwiched in a bus-full of loud New York City kids, while Asher’s flight in from San Diego had already landed. Knowing he was waiting at the bottom of the hill for me made my heart race faster.
The past school year, I spent nearly every night with the phone cord wrapped around my fingers, whispering so my mom couldn’t hear, discussing everything and nothing with Asher until my eyelids grew heavy and my cheek hit the pillow. And now, I’d get to do it in person. I could still taste our first kiss on my lips. Lilacs and salt and fireworks and Mountain Dew—explosions in the sky over the lake. I could taste our last—full of salty tears, blubbering voices making promises we actually kept. We’d made our long-distance relationship work since we left camp, even with him in San Diego and me in New York City.
We had spent every free moment of last summer together. We snuck out of our respective cabins after our counselors were asleep, our lips colliding under the moonlit gazebo. We pulled each other farther toward the outskirts of campgrounds and talked for hours under the stars. He’d read me poetry, I’d sing him a fresh love song. We were in love, intoxicatingly and blindly. And now, after three seasons apart, we’d get to do something about it.