“Yeah. I’m sorry about that.”
This sounded to Sam like something you’d say when you bumped someone’s shoulder in the hall. Not after you’d totally abandoned a person who was in love with you.
“How’s LA?”
“Fine,” he said. “I mean, not fine. I guess that’s why I’m calling.”
Sam felt her heart open up, right back to that place where she would do anything for him, where she loved him so much that the thought of his not being fine actually hurt. “Why? What happened?”
Wyatt let out a breath. “I tried. I guess that’s what happened. I’ve just been surfing and writing songs and pumping gas since I got here, kind of imagining myself as a rock star.”
This was exactly what Sam had been imagining him doing, though also waiting tables. She was lying on the couch now with her eyes closed, taking in the sound of his voice. “So what did you try?”
“Last night I went to an open mic thing in the Valley. There were a bunch of shitty bands performing, and I got up and sang a song I wrote.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Well just my luck, this big record producer was there, and he went out of his way to tell me that my voice sucks.”
“He did not say that, there’s no way.”
“Okay, well, he said my voice could never carry a band and wasn’t strong enough to record well, which is a nice way of saying I suck.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Sam loved Wyatt’s singing voice, but she knew enough not to say so because it would sound like something your mom said to try to make you feel better.
“Yeah. So I guess now I’m a guy who surfs and works at a gas station. Not an aspiring rock star. I feel like I have nothing left.”
“I know the feeling,” Sam said, looking up at a crack that ran halfway down the living room ceiling. It reminded her of the crack in her bedroom ceiling that she’d spent the past year staring at, willing it to spontaneously close and heal her. Dr. Judy was trying to get her to stop all this magical thinking. She sat straight up on the couch. “Wait. Why are you calling me now?”
“I guess I just woke up sad,” he said. “I needed someone to talk to.”
Sam heard the strangest sound come from deep in her throat. It was a laugh, but a hard laugh; if a goose could laugh, it would have sounded like this. “You needed someone to talk to? You?”
“Yeah.” Wyatt sounded small and clueless. And selfish. Sam could feel her heart constricting. She did not want to comfort him.
“I don’t know how to break it to you, Wyatt, but I’ve also needed someone to talk to. You see, my boyfriend, who said he loved me, who was my whole fucking life, just kind of dropped off the face of the earth. Not really sure who I was supposed to call to get through that. It’s not like you were picking up the phone when I needed you.”
“I know, Sam. It was a hard time for me too. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry.” Sam remembered how ineffective these words were when her dad was apologizing to her mom. She felt the sloppiness of these words, a casual nod to the rubble after you’ve totally destroyed something. Sam paced the length of the living room and felt the anger spread throughout her body.
“I am. And I want you to forgive me because I really need you right now.”
Fireworks. Cataclysmic explosions. Sam could feel all of this anger erupting. She felt it burning through any last bits of depression or longing, and she was startled to discover that she was smiling.
“I needed you then. So you don’t get to come back for me now.” She heard the front door open, and her parents rolled Gracie’s stroller into the living room. “And in other news,” she said, smiling at her parents, “I got into NYU today. So that’s what I’m doing. Don’t call me again.” And she hung up.
“Darling! That’s fantastic!” Laurel said, taking her in her arms.
Bill dropped his backpack and joined in the hug. “I’m so proud of you, Sam.” When Laurel was in the kitchen inspecting the proof of her admission, Bill asked, “So who was that on the phone?”
“Nobody. Absolutely nobody,” said Sam.
PART 2
NOW
40
My mother serves margaritas before dinner, and I only have half of one. They are that deadly kind of margarita that tastes so sweet that it leaves you wanting tortilla chips and another margarita. I’ve learned this lesson, so I switch to water. Jack, as it turns out, has not learned this lesson.
Jack has a strict two-drink maximum, but he has three margaritas that I see, maybe more. “These are delicious,” he says at first. “These are delicith,” he says later. Jack rests his hand on my shoulder as Gramps grills my dad about his art sales.
“So how’s the art world? You still making those big swirly things?” Gramps has never understood my dad’s work and can double over laughing when he talks about how people were conned into paying good money for it. This has never bothered my dad a bit.
“Not lately,” he says. “People want straight lines and earth tones, they tell me. It’s taking me some time to connect to that.” He looks out at the view his swirly paintings paid for. I feel myself soften as I watch him. For a long time I felt like his dry spell was an appropriate punishment. But looking at the earnest way he searches the horizon for an idea, I miss seeing him thrive. “Takes time,” he says.
“Must be nice,” Jack says.
“It is nice,” Hugh says, measured. “Doing something you love. You must feel that way about being a doctor.”
“I guess. But digging skin cancer out of goddamn sun worshippers all day, I wouldn’t do it for free.”
This feels overly negative for a sunset barbecue. I say, “Well, I like my job.”
“Bossing people around?” Travis says. “It’s like they invented a whole industry for you.” I laugh, remembering all of the summers I orchestrated adventures on the beach. A race to the jetty, the sandcastle contest. A million games of Capture the Flag. Of course, back then I just made up games because I wanted to play them. Now I organize people to keep them in line.
“Ah yes, Sam and her flash mob.” Jack gives me a sleepy smile, and I hope to God he’s not going to say any more about this. “I’m going in,” he says, and kisses the side of my head.
I should go with him and make sure he gets to bed okay. But the weather is perfect and Granny’s made pesto.
* * *
By eleven o’clock Travis and Hugh have gone home, and everyone is in bed. I try to read Wetlands of Westerleigh and find myself reading the same sex scene six times. I can’t understand where the body parts are in relationship to each other. He has both hands on the back of her neck and is pulling her hips toward him. How many hands does this guy have? I realize I am missing the point and should go with the feel of the whole thing. I wonder whether if I read this to Jack he’d think it was funny or if he’d just say, “Someone should have caught that.”
When I think of Jack with his perfectly shaved face and aqua blue eyes, I wonder at the improbability of the two of us ending up together. Sometimes I follow this train of thought in the middle of the night, watching him sleep the sleep of a man who’s worked a full day and exercised twice. For sure we are together because of Jess Landry, a secretary at Human Corps. The office threw her a baby shower on a Monday in the conference room. They’d over-catered and I was mildly broke, so I wrapped up two extra sandwiches and left them in the shared refrigerator for my Tuesday and Wednesday lunches, which is why I showed up at my Thursday haircut with thirty extra dollars for the extravagant blowout. Which (I’m positive) is the only reason Jack ever for one second considered me to be a person he might date when I got into that cab.
The million times I’ve traced back what brought Wyatt and me together, I get as far as my dad’s painting Current and making all that money so he could buy this house. If Current was actually inspired by that old sky-blue VW Bug, then I guess it was the moment he bought that car. Something as tiny as a Bug or Jess Landry’s fertilized egg could change the course of a person’s life. Or something as huge as a shift in the weather pattern that heats up the East Coast enough to make a boy fill the water bottles at the house with the ice-cold water. I am overwhelmed thinking of all the factors beyond my control that have conspired to change the course of my life. I really hope they’ll let me keep my job.
Wyatt’s in the treehouse. He’s just started with a slow melody, and it reminds me of the ocean. I’m putting on sweatpants and a sweatshirt over my nightshirt and am walking out the back door before I’ve really thought it through. My mom is right: we need to get it all out in the open and then bury it safely. And with Jack on a once-in-a-lifetime bender, this may be my only chance. I make my way into the Popes’ yard and see his feet dangling over the side of the treehouse. I am up three rungs of the rope ladder when he stops playing.