by Jolene Perry
“No one’s as good as your first, chérie.” I wink.
She smiles. It was the perfect thing to say to her. “Arnaud.” She lets out another puff of air. “What will I do?”
“Whatever the hell you want. Like usual.”
She laughs. “This is why I love you so much, Antony.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes. I’m still being stretched because I want to run into Amber’s boat and talk with her and hold her and tell her how Hélèna may marry Arnaud, and just needed away. And I never thought a day would come when Hélèna would come at me like this and I’d tell her no.
The way I feel about Amber is starting to scare the crap out of me, but is also keeping me sane. I’m not sure how to reconcile the conflicting feelings there, so I push them away and know that moving forward with Amber is better for me. The real me, not the guy I try to be or wish I was. The real guy.
“You need to get out of here.” She looks around. “This place is changing you.”
“Going to college in New York next year.”
Her thin dark brows arch higher. “And what about your little American girl then?”
Another problem I hadn’t given much consideration to. “I don’t know yet.”
She smirks. “Well, if I haven’t given in to Arnaud, you know where to find me. Right now, I just need a ride to the airport.”
“You’re leaving?” I ask.
“Don’t sound so relieved.” Her eyes narrow.
“I’m sorry. We just hadn’t talked about how long you’d stay or…”
“Look at you.” She squeezes my cheek across the table. “Cute as ever.”
Great.
“I need some time. I’ll meet you on your boat in a little while.” She re-crosses her legs.
“I do like you, Hélèna. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you.”
“It’s that we have very different ideas on what we want to do with our time together.”
She’s right.
“Thank you.” I stand and start back to the boat. Blissfully alone.
Dad climbs out of his car and gives me a wave. Okay, well I was alone. And right now Dad’s probably safer than any other company I might have.
“How are things?” he asks.
“How the hell should I know?” I step in next to him.
“That Hélèna.” He shakes his head. “She’s more self-aware than most thirty-year-olds I know, and she has the body of a …”
“Underwear model. I know.”
Dad gives me a sideways glance over that one.
“She was my first,” I admit.
“Wow. Okay.” Dad swallows a few times.
“Amber has the right to be pissed, and we kind of argued the other day. It was just bad timing all the way around.” I run my hand over my hair.
“What are you going to do?”
“Hélèna leaves tonight.”
“Already?”
“She’s not getting what she wants here, and she’s kind of running away from someone, and…”
“Looking for an escape then?” Dad asks.
“I guess.”
“It says a lot that she came to you.”
I hadn’t really thought of it that way. But it wasn’t just for an escape, part of it was a wish for something more. I really hope that I don’t wonder someday if I did the right thing here, even though I know the way I feel about Amber is a lot more real than whatever Hélèna and I have.
“No guess. It does. I’m glad you’re that kind of guy.”
“Maybe. Most likely I’m just in the process.” I stuff my hands in my pockets, needing to do something.
“We’re all in the process, Antony.”
We take a few steps in silence.
“How you doing with Mom?”
“Don’t kick me when I’m down, Dad.” I feel his words like a punch. I shove it back, down, with all the rest of the Mom stuff that I can’t deal with yet.
He puts his arms on my shoulder and gives my back a few quick rubs. “Sorry.”
So now Hélèna needs some time alone. I have no idea what to say to Amber yet aside from what I’ve already said. I lie on the back deck of Dad’s boat on the bench seat and close my eyes.
Two sets of footsteps on the ramp wake me up.
“Come with us,” Hélèna says in her soft accent.
What? Hélèna? My heart starts thumping.
“I don’t think so.” Amber’s voice.
Holy shit. Hélèna and Amber are talking. This is either going to be awesome, or the worst day of my life. I lie still, feeling very out of control, but also too chicken to sit up.
“He loves you.”
“Well, he has a funny way of showing it.” I’m picturing Amber right now, scowling with her perfect lips.
“He didn’t kiss me back.” Hélèna sighs. “And it’s a shame too. He’s a good kisser.”
Now I want to wring her neck.
“He said he did.”
Hélèna laughs. “Well, if he did, he’s really lost his touch, because it felt like he was pulling away the whole time.”
“I don’t get him, and you, or…”
“Relax, Amber. Antony was fun for me, that’s all. That’s what I wanted from him. Probably it messed with his head to be with someone like you.”
Silence.
“I messed with him?” Amber asks.
Hélèna really needs to work on her English.
“No. Me, silly. I messed him up for someone like you.”
“Oh.” Amber’s voice still sounds sort of lost.
“Come with us. It will give you two some time together in the car, okay?”
Hélèna’s powers of persuasion on men are remarkable. I’m curious to see if she’ll be able to pull this off as well.
“Okay.” I know Amber well enough to know exactly what her face will look like right now. Her shoulders will be slumped down, almost in defeat, and if I’m lucky, she’ll be holding in a smile.
- - -
So, having Hélèna in the back seat, while Amber’s in the front seat and I’m driving, is about the most horribly awkward thing I can imagine. Amber’s quiet and looking out the window. Hélèna’s using her manners and speaking English, but there’s no way for her to sound…normal. This is definitely going in the stack against me. And the thing is, Hélèna’s trying to help. I know she is. But she’s bringing things up that I used to think made me one of the good guys, but will make Amber think I’m not.
Like how I pulled her from some backstage party at a theater in downtown Paris. About how I set up some big party at Jace’s house when she and a few other French college students came into town. How mature I am for my age. That I hang with people older than me. How I fit in anywhere. And part of me loves to hear these things, but it’s the part of me that I’m slowly realizing was the part that felt so much pressure to keep it up, the façade, the pretenses. I always felt like a fraud at those things. With Amber I feel like the real guy. It’s easy, but also really, really, hard because she’s fighting against all the things I used to be.
It’s the longest drive to the airport ever.
Hélèna pulls me into a long hug on the curb, and Dad’s right. She’s the part of my life that I’ve sort of left behind. I’m not as sad about it as I should be, which probably means something.
“I hope to see you soon.” She frowns with her full lips and huge doe eyes.
“We’ll see.” I shrug.
“As mysterious as ever.” Very softly she kisses me on each cheek, and then back for one more. Just so I know she’s still undecided, and might still give me a chance.
“Bye, Antony.” She waves as she steps back.
Amber’s sitting in the car, probably completely unsure of what she should be doing.
Hélèna knocks on her window.
Crap. I run around to my side to get in.
Hélèna stands. “Don’t you dare eavesdrop on a girl’s conversation.”
Shit.
I watch Amber through the windshield. Her eyes meet mine as Hélèna talks and a faint smile pulls on the edges of her mouth. Then her cheeks turn flaming red and she stares at her lap.
I suck in a huge breath and rest my hands on my head for a moment, like maybe I’ll feel better if I’m all stretched up or something.
“I hope you have a nice flight home!” Amber calls.
My head snaps back just in time to see Hélèna step into the doors of the airport. She doesn’t look back. She wouldn’t. Just enough so that I’ll wonder if she’s still thinking about me. Or so that I’ll know she doesn’t need me, or like me too much. I used to think that was hot. Not anymore.
I slide to sitting in Dad’s car. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Her smile is big and her cheeks are still fading from whatever horribly embarrassing thing Hélèna let slip.
“I’m sorry if she…”
“It’s fine.” Amber rests her hand on my thigh. “I’m fine. It’s okay.”
“Okay.” And as much as I wish I could read her well, I’m not sure if I do. “So, what did she say?”
“Yeah, right.” Amber shakes her head and leans just slightly toward me.
I start to move toward her, but stop.
She closes the distance and puts our lips together. And I want to pull her to me, and kiss her deeply and fully, but I don’t. I let her move away, and it sucks, but it’s a million times further than I thought I’d get with her for a while.
Something should be said. “I was kind of afraid I’d lost you after the other night, and then…”
“Your French girl showed up.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s do something before heading back. Is that okay?”
She wants to spend time with me. It brings more relief than I thought possible. “Anything.”
Amber and I spend the whole day in Seattle. No planning. No thought. We go to Pike Place, and we go to the museum. There’s a Monet exhibit, and we spend hours. We hold hands, and I’m trying to make myself okay with that being what we have right now. The problem was that I wanted the sweetness of Amber and the forwardness of Hélèna, and they don’t come in the same package.
I want the Amber package. And whatever comes with it.
We’re in the car on the Edmonds ferry that’ll bring us over to Kingston. Back home. I’m not sure if this is home for me or not, but it’s where I live right now, and I’m comfortable with that. “Holy shit.”
“What?” Her wide eyes look at me across the car.
“I live on a boat.”
“So do I.” She laughs.
“Yeah. But I, Antony Preston, live on a boat.”
“You’re cute.” She’s on her knees in seconds, leaning over the center console and kissing me. She’s kissing me in a way that makes me feel completely okay with pulling her across the car and into my lap. It’s tight, but doesn’t matter. We’re too close to care.
Is this Amber? What happened? Her hands are in my hair and her mouth is unrelenting in how she’s kissing me. Her hands reach down and slide up under my shirt. Mine. Her fingers tighten on my sides and onto my back. And as much as I want her bare skin under my fingers, I don’t do it. Isn’t this sort of huge? That I’m not pushing us as far as I can? And then the ferry signals that we’ve docked.
Amber’s face pulls back and our eyes lock.
“Wow.” I’m pathetic. That’s all I could come up with?
“Yeah. Wow.” She scoots off me and slides back to her side of the car, keeping as much of her touching as much of me.
I keep her hand in mine. “Thanks for today.” I’m officially an idiot.
“Thank you.”
The second we make it to the parking lot, she’s kissing me again. And then again as I stop behind her boat.
“Wanna follow me home?” I ask. Kissing her like this all night sounds pretty perfect to me.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She hugs me even more tightly, which makes me want to spend another night with her.
“Okay.”
She climbs onto her boat and I notice every movement, the way her legs easily push her up the ladder and the way she steps across the back deck. One last wave and she’s inside.
What a long, long, crazy day.
Twenty-One
I feel strengthened, fortified, after my evening with Amber. My computer hums to life, and I’m determined to get through some emails today. Determined. Dad sits across from me with his cup of coffee and scrambled eggs. He’s working on edits of another of his novels.
I start at the beginning. I open a file for notes from my friends, notes from the Today Show people and NBC, lawyer and accountant stuff goes in another file. I create one from Mom’s manager who’s sent a million.
Now. Where to start?
Mom’s friends. The people who are my friends, who I know are worried about me, who I barely spoke to at services in New York or Arlington. Flashes of both those days hit my chest like machine gun fire—hard, fast and unrelenting. My breath hitches, and I open the first one. It has to be done, right? I’ve built up some good defenses over the past weeks, or however long it’s been. I’m ready. I can handle it. And now I sound like some shrink or something.
The letters blur together one apology after another.
…so sorry about Liv, she was so loved…
… can’t imagine anyone with more life in them…
… if good people never died, your mom would live forever…
… she was the most amazing kind of person…
…she was working hard, Antony. She believed in the things she reported. She loved what she did, but not nearly as much as she loved you. Her biggest fear in sending you to your father’s was that you’d feel deserted there. She wanted you to know him more than anything, and it gave her the chance to do something she knew you’d love, knew you’d be proud of. We all loved your mom. I don’t know anyone who didn’t…
Don’t cry. The stupid generic sentiments don’t hit me, but the last one did. She didn’t desert me. She wanted me to be proud of her. Me of her. How crazy is that? Her smiling face hits me again and again. I can’t make it go away. Can’t push it down. It’s all coming to the surface and shit, there’s nothing I can do to stop it. The pain is searing, ripping at me like it hasn’t since I sat staring at that damn metal coffin. The fucking thing gets her instead of me. Why did this have to happen to her?
Dad’s arms are around me from the side. Am I crying? My body’s convulsing, shaking in the sobs I’ve been holding down. I feel like a baby. A five-year-old. But no five-year-old could feel this. Feel this much. It’s like I’m being torn apart, unable to breathe, unable to speak. My knees come up, as if shrinking myself will shrink the pain. Only it doesn’t shrink it. Instead the more the tears fall and the more I shake, the looser everything inside me becomes and the more it all needs to be poured out.
He doesn’t offer me a drink this time. I’d probably throw it up anyway.
“You’re okay, Antony. Your body needs this.” His voice is quiet.
How can my body need something that’s shredding me this way?
There’s no telling how long Dad and I sit together. But for the first time I get that he really loves me. Loves me as a son. We’re not strangers anymore, we’re different, but not strangers.
I hope that shitty moments keep coming with realizations that preserve my sanity.
- - -
I feel hollowed out. Caved in. Something. Something that makes me only a shell of Antony. I need alone time. I start up the dock, and Amber’s standing behind her boat.
Her eyes wi
den as she sees me. “Antony.” She steps forward, touching my arm. “Are you okay?”
“No.” No part of me is okay. “I just need to be alone for a bit.”
She takes another half-step toward me but stops. I’m amazed I noticed. It’s like I’m both in and out of my body at the same time. Putting my arms around her right now would be dangerous. I’m like a rickety pile of bones—one wrong movement and I’ll topple into worn out old pieces.
“Alright,” she whispers.
I reach out and touch her cheek. Her shattered ice blue eyes stay focused on mine. “I’ll be back in a bit. Heading to Point No Point Beach.”
She’s nodding as I turn and force my legs to move. They still feel like someone else’s legs, cause I’m only half here.
- - -
The beach is empty. Just me. Well, and Dad’s Prius. And the chained load of Mom. The sky is grey and darkening quickly, both with incoming rain and night. The wind is cutting and the tide is all the way out, so far that the sand has turned back into small pebbly rocks. Mom would love this place. I knew it the first time I came here, and I feel it again now. She’d sit with me and point to the whitecaps, the ferryboat, the gulls barely making any headway in the strong wind.
Soak it up, Antony. She’d say. Every experience is a once in a lifetime experience, because no matter how hard we try, nothing’s ever exactly the same as it was the first time.
I suddenly wish I’d had her cremated. She’d never been to this beach before. She would have liked to be buried somewhere new. Like on another adventure. Right now I’d love that. Spreading her ashes would be like setting her free. Like part of her is caged up inside me, and there’s no way for me to let her go. It feels impossible—as if my chest, my head, my body, won’t relinquish her, even though I know I need to. I need to. She’ll always be a part of me. There’s no way I’ll ever forget her, but I’m still hanging on to too much.
Why did I leave Amber behind? Maybe she’d know what to say or what to do. How to pound it out of me.
How do I bring Mom here? How do I let her go?
I walk into the wet sand. I should write something. Something good, impressive, meaningful.
Nothing comes.
