There is no connection to me, thank god. I guess our dinner at Dory’s didn’t catch anyone’s attention, but as the whispers continue, and grow louder, I’m hesitant to meet him in public. It wouldn’t take much for a photo from a phone to appear on a website, for colleagues who only speak with me when they need a signature to start asking me about my private life.
I wonder, sometimes, if I’m protecting him, or myself.
He nods, interrupting my reverie and popping a slice of grilled peach in my mouth before I can question him further. “I was headed to the bookstore and decided to see what I could come up with on the spur of the moment.”
“This is pretty impressive for spur of the moment.” It is also, quite possibly, the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.
“Almost finished.”
“There’s more?” I press myself up, stomach still resting on the soft wool blanket, upper body supported by my arms.
He unscrews the top from a tiny bottle and sprinkles droplets of something aromatic across my back and down each leg.
“Aromatherapy?” I ask.
“Natural insect repellent,” he replies. “You said you were sensitive and I demand you stay naked.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you.”
“I also have another blanket, if you absolutely insist on covering yourself. But that’s for emergencies only.”
“Or I could just put my clothes back on.”
He shakes his head, “Emergencies. Only.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“What did you buy at the bookstore?” I watch as he organizes every dish in a display on the blanket, then sits cross legged next to me, absentmindedly caressing me from waist to thigh as he hands me a glass of iced tea mixed with fresh lavender and lemonade.
“Nothing.”
I moan softly as I take a bite of lobster, still warm from the melted butter drizzled across the top. He grins as he watches me.
“I’m impressed,” I reach for my glass. “I can’t get out of a bookstore for less than $50, and that’s only if there’s a sale.” I walk one hand up his thigh, enjoying the bunch of muscle beneath my fingertips. “What are we going to do out here if we have nothing to read?”
“We have something to read,” he places his hand over mine, stilling my wandering fingers, “but I didn’t buy it in a bookstore.”
“Oh?” I sit upright, briefly conscious of my nudity against his clothing, but enjoying the feel of his eyes on me. I feel simultaneously vulnerable and free, seated next to him like this, one leg wrapped around him, one hand on his knee, naked as the day I was born.
“It’s a script,” he glances down and I see a stack of pages at the bottom of his bag.
“For a film?”
He nods.
“Let-” I reach for it but he grabs my hand, stopping me and looking in my eyes. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was shy, or self-conscious. A hint of vulnerability crosses his face and I can’t hide my surprise. “What kind of script is it?”
“It’s new.”
“Ok,” I shake my head in confusion. “I won’t tell anyone about it, if it’s a secret or something. We don’t have to read it.”
“I want you to read it. I want your opinion.”
He opens his mouth and I wait.
“It’s…something I’ve been working on.”
“Are you writing something?”
He nods again, glancing down, suddenly bashful and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, this giant, gorgeous creature, all sex and confidence, showing hesitation and nervousness. I lean forward and press a kiss against his lips, my hand gentle against his cheek.
“Show me,” I whisper against his lips.
He pulls out the pages, holding them in his lap.
“They’re not…it’s just a rough draft.”
“Show me.”
He picks them, “I mean, it’s not…”
“Show me.”
“Nothing’s finished, it’s just-”
I grab them out of his hand.
“What’s this?” I flip through the first few pages. “A monologue?”
“That’s the treatment.”
“Treatment?” I look up.
“It’s a film term. The summary of the script.”
I nod, reading the first few pages. I feel his anxious gaze on mine. When I look up, his eyes hint at that whisper of nervousness and I can’t help but think that, as attractive as confidence may be, the combination of confidence and vulnerability in a beautiful man is downright deadly.
“It’s a love story,” I say out loud, more to myself than to him. I look up in surprise. “You’re writing a love story?”
“I am.”
“When did you start this?”
“I got the idea a few years ago, and I’ve been tinkering with it, in-between films. I’ve taken a few classes on screen-writing, but it’s tough. People recognize me and…” he trails off. “I hired a few screenwriters as tutors, but of course, they just want their own scripts produced, so that’s all they talk about. It’s been a pet project.”
“I had no idea,” I say, flipping to the first page.
“Scene One,” I read aloud.
“When I moved out here, Angelo made the comment that I should keep busy.”
“Who’s Angelo?” I ask.
“My agent,” he smiles, “and surrogate chaperone. He was worried I’d lose my mind out here in Maine, so he said I should find things to do.” He grins down at me, “I found you.”
“I’m something to do?” I ask, laughing as he stuffs another slice of peach in my mouth, followed by a kiss.
“When I saw you were a professor of romantic literature, I figured you’d be the perfect person to help.” He kisses me again, his mouth warm and wet and mixed with the luscious sweetness of the peach. “The rest is an unexpected bonus.”
“So that’s why you wanted me to tutor you.”
He nods, “It was that or call the police on you. I figured this we would both enjoy more.”
I flip through the pages. “It looks like you haven’t finished.”
“I haven’t. I’m not sure where to go with it. It turns out, I don’t know much about love stories.”
“Then why are you writing one?”
He shrugs, that bashful look returning. If the sun weren’t so bright overhead, I would swear I could see a hint of a blush on his cheeks.
“I’ve always liked love stories.”
“Really?” I stare at him. “But when we’ve talked about romantic books, you never brought this up.”
“I grew up in an old house, and both my parents worked. When I got home from school, I was often alone and I’d turn on the TV. We didn’t have cable, so I’d usually end up watching public television. Around the time I got home from school, they would be playing classic old movies.”
“Which ones?”
He smiles, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, “All the classics. Casablanca. An Affair To Remember. Roman Holiday.”
“You would watch those?” I know I’m staring, mouth agog, but I can’t help it. The picture of this man as a little boy, glued to a black and white tv, listening to Humphrey Bogart tell Ingrid Bergman how much he loved her, or watching Deborah Kerr sob in the arms of Cary Grant, is almost impossible for me to imagine.
“On repeat. I probably know all the lines.”
“David, I’m sorry but I have to ask, if those are the movies you love, then why…” I trail off, not sure how to phrase my question without sounding rude or insensitive.
“Why am I an action hero?” He smirks.
I nod, helplessly.
“You take what you can get as an actor. These movies are the trend now.” He plants a small kiss on my shoulder. “When I was debating over the role, Angelo pointed out that, once I finished the contract, I would be financially set. I could then spend the rest of my career making the sort of films I wanted to make. Plus, I’d have the name re
cognition to encourage studios to invest in my projects.”
I nod, mulling these decisions over in my mind. It was slightly disillusioning, hearing movie magic put in such stark, financial terms.
“I did have fun,” he laughs at me and kisses me lightly. “Don’t worry, but the pragmatic part of my brain has always had its eye on a different prize.”
I look down at the pages. “I’ll say. I’m three pages in and I haven’t seen a single cyborg.”
He laughs and reaches his hand around my back to gently pinch my butt. “No cyborgs, I promise. But I am struggling with the main characters.”
“What about them?”
“How to make them real, how to make them into people that an audience would care about.”
I nod. “That is the challenge, right? I mean, the joy of cyborgs is they’re so cool and weird and unusual. Plus, we have no context for cyborgs. But regular people? Creating regular people who fall in love is really about creating regular people your audience will fall in love with. How often does that happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I look down at the pages again, intrigued by the different fonts and stage directions, “how often do people fall in love?”
He doesn’t respond.
Overhead a bird calls and I look up at him, a smile on my face, but he’s staring at me, a strange, secret look behind his eyes.
“I don’t know,” he finally says, voice low, as if he’s sharing a secret between the two of us.
I cough, even though I don’t need to, reaching for any sound to clear the air between us, which has grown heavy and thick. I expect him to kiss me again, but he remains still, looking at me, as if trying to find the answer to a puzzle locked behind my eyes.
“Let me read this. Give me a few minutes,” I look down, breaking the spell, but he pulls the manuscript from my hands.
“We have to read it out loud.”
“Out loud? Why?”
“It’s a script. You can’t read it alone. It has to be shared.”
“Oh,” I shake my head, “I’m not an ‘out loud reader,’” I say, using my fingers as quotation marks.
“What is an ‘out loud reader?’” he asks, mimicking the quotation mark fingers.
“A performer. I don’t do that.”
“But it is a performance. How can you understand a script if you don’t see it performed?”
“I’ll just read it,” I say, reaching again for the pages.
“No,” he holds it out of my reach, forcing me to rub naked against his side as I stretch my arm towards the script. “It should be embodied.”
“I don’t do that either.”
“Why not?”
“I’m an intellectual, not a…body,” I finish, irritated in my inability to find a better word.
He grins at me, “Everyone is a body.”
“Yes, but my body is not where my successes are.”
“What the hell does that mean?” At my silence he laughs, “Damn, woman, you are full of riddles today.”
“I’m better with my brain.”
“You can’t have a brain and a body?” He asks, manuscript still stretched away from me, out of reach.
“I just feel better focusing on my brain,” I say, giving up my attempts to grab the papers and sinking back on the blanket.
“Why?” He asks the question softly, gently, his hand holding the manuscript returning to the ground and turning to face me.
I don’t answer him. I can’t. How do you explain feeling ugly and plain to the world’s most beautiful man? How do you explain moving through life in spite of your appearance, to someone who has succeeded in life because of their appearance? I may as well try to get Rihanna to understand the word “boring.”
Besides, to bring all that up would ruin the day, this beautiful moment, so ridiculously perfect and out of character that I’m half convinced it’s all a dream.
I wave my hand in front of my face, “It’s nothing. I just know what I’m good at.”
“You limit yourself, Jane. There’s no need to do that.” His voice is still low, almost a whisper, as if we are keeping secrets from the entire world, including the trees and the birds above. “You can have it all.”
I feel a tightness in my throat, a brief sting behind my eyes. A part of me wants to believe him, to rip off the years of frustration and irritation at being the smart one, the polite one, the quiet one, while everyone else was funnier, prettier, sportier, more successful, more sophisticated. As much as I love my life of books, I do feel sometimes like I am reading about life instead of living it.
I hear my mother’s voice. Women like us.
But these feelings are mine, and hardly something David Jacobs, People Magazine’s only three-time Sexiest Man of the Year, would understand.
Besides. Depressing childhood anxiety is a great way to ruin a lovely nude picnic.
“You know what your problem is?” He bends his head, the breath of his words tickling my ear.
“What is my problem?” I whisper back, the two of us like children, exchanging secrets in our clubhouse.
“You don’t know how good you are.” His teeth lightly close around my earlobe and pull. “You’ve lost all perspective.”
My fingers reach for the front of his jeans, popping the button of his fly, feeling his hard heat pressing against me. “That must be it.”
“Let me remind you.”
And before I can register his movement, he’s flipped me over, legs in the air, salad plates and lobster rolls going everywhere. I laugh as I frantically try to move the food, protecting Philippe’s sacred blueberry pie, but he’s on me, covering me, distracting me.
David kicks off his jeans as I pull his shirt overhead. My mouth travels down his chest, my hands farther south.
Sorry Philippe, I think to myself, my last thought before my mind goes blank.
25
David
It’s early August and the evenings are growing shorter. Jane and I are finishing our second meal at Dory’s, only the second time we’ve been out in public. I don’t know why we don’t go out more often. Between our two houses, or the weekly entertainment that is dinner with her friends, perhaps we don’t feel the need.
Or, I wonder as candle light flickers across her face, perhaps we’re hiding each other from the world. I am protecting her from photographers, magazine covers, invasive questions from nosy reporters. And perhaps she is hiding me from something, from some part of her life.
I finish signing the check and move to stand up. Our bubble, just the two of us, is so pleasant, but I don’t know how long it can last.
“Oh, wait,” she pauses. I am mid-stand, but sit back down.
“What is it?”
She hesitates, that adorable pause she does. I wonder if she knows she does that, the hint of nerves. Or perhaps it’s a surprise. She did it back at my house, when I opened the car door for her. She did it the first time I met her, distrusting that I wouldn’t look as she skulked, naked and delicious, from my pond. She even does it in the evenings, on her doorstep, or on mine, as if after two months together she still requires permission from me.
“What is it?” I ask again, leaning forward. Both of her hands are underneath the table, otherwise I would reach for one.
“Some of my students just walked in.”
“Is that a problem?” I glance behind me.
She pauses again, eyes darting from my face to over my shoulder, where I see a group of four co-eds standing in front of the large panel of glass at the entrance.
“No, but…”
I smile. “Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”
“No!” She shakes her head. “I’m just…”
“Just…?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” She squares her shoulders and looks me in the eye. She places both of her hands flat against the surface of the table, as though preparing to launch herself from her seat through the glass and onto the sidewalk.
I feel like I am staring at a general prepared for battle.
“What is it?” I reach for one of her hands, pressing it gently beneath my own.
“I don’t like gossip,” she finally says.
“We have that in common.”
“I don’t want anyone to misconstrue…”
“Ah.” I lean back in my chair, removing my hand from hers and resting it on my thigh. “You’re worried everyone will start talking about us.” I grin.
She nods.
“I can read the headlines of the papers now ‘Hot Professor Lands Mediocre Actor.’”
She laughs, “I thought you hated being in the news?”
“I do,” I grin. And pause. Something about being associated with Jane, about people knowing about my relationship with Jane, feels comfortable. Welcome, even. As if by making us public, I make us more secure.
“They’ll say we’re in love.”
“What?” She looks up sharply. “I doubt it.”
“We could pretend to be,” I smile again. Enjoying the way her cheeks turn pink all the way back towards her ears. “Give them something to talk about.”
She shakes her head, vigorously enough for a few pieces to fall from her bun and land across her cheek, her movements rattling the table beneath her palms. “No one would ever believe that.”
“Why not?”
She opens her mouth. A short, sharp exhalation of air. A cross between exasperation and indignation. Or perhaps even a laugh, small and sad and unfunny. She’s about to say something, some clever, witty remark, but she stops herself. A shadow flashes across her features. A pass of pain and sadness and even a hint of shame, in less than a second, sweeps across her features.
And then it’s gone.
“No one would ever believe that,” she says again. Simply. Like she’s stating the weather. She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “So there’s no need to worry. Let’s go.”
She stands, pushing herself up from the table and jerking her bag across her shoulder. I follow her, and as we pass the group of four students waiting at the entrance, I see one of them look up. The first one, a young woman in light pink sweatshirt leans over to her friend, who looks up and whispers, not quietly, my name. The other two turn, see Jane, whip back around, heads spinning so quickly I worry they’ll hurt themselves.
Jane Air Page 16
