Parts Unknown

by Davidson, S. P.

  “But isn’t it fun to read a book, and get away from all that stuff for a while? Pretend you live at the School for Superheroes, and have magical powers? That’s what I was doing when I wrote the book.” Laughter. “No matter how tough things might be in real life—books can let you escape for a while.

  “So, I’m going to read to you from Chapter 5 . . . how many of you have read the book?” Almost every kid’s hand shot up. I almost raised mine. “You’ll remember, that’s where Arthur and Dana start hatching a plan to destroy the Academy of Darkness. But first they have to deal with Dana’s inconvenient new power, which is that her body has become so elasticized that she has trouble walking, and has to slither along the floor like a snake, which causes no end of teasing . . .”

  I’d forgotten how his voice sounded, and listening to him was almost as much of a shock to my system as seeing him. He was so thoroughly in control of the situation—he always had known exactly what to say. How to persuade anybody to do anything. Or, well, just me.

  The reading over, Josh settled himself at the book-signing table, pen at the ready. I was near the end of the long line, so I had ample time to peer around the people ahead of me and watch Josh sign books. His head bowed, thick dark hair shot here and there with silver now, he signed swiftly with quick jagged strokes. The pen was thick, black, and certain in his hand. The line moved slowly but inevitably, until finally I was just ten people from the front, then five, then three. As I got closer, I felt as nervous as I did in high school, back in Mrs. Vanderberg’s Biology class, giving an oral report on frog anatomy. My knees actually started to shake. I felt myself flush all over. My stomach lurched. I should just leave, right now. That would really be the smart thing to do.

  Too late. The boy ahead of me walked away with his mother, cradling his signed book like a precious object, and I was next. I gulped, nauseous, and marched to the table as if to certain doom. Josh glanced up briefly, his eyes not meeting mine. “So who should I make this out to?” he asked.

  “Vivian,” I choked.

  “Vivian. Alright, then.” He started to scribble, the white star at the top of his Mont Blanc pen winking crossly at me.

  “Vivian Lewis,” I managed. He dropped the pen.

  He looked up.

  “Oh, my god,” he said.

  ~ ~ ~

  We sat outside the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at the other end of the Grove, on shiny pastel-colored Adirondack chairs. We sipped foofy coffee drinks and covertly assessed each other.

  It was intensely awkward. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. And this was the one person I couldn’t stop talking to, years ago.

  Josh seemed to be having the same difficulty. He’d half-begin sentences, then stop and take tiny sips of his drink, making it last so he could drink instead of speak.

  Finally I asked, “So, how do you like Santa Fe?”

  “It’s good. I needed to get away from Los Angeles. And Santa Fe seemed remote, and artsy, and different. It was as good a place as any to try to be a writer. I worked at a law firm there for a few years, then quit to finish the novel. I met Caroline there,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

  “And I hear you have a baby!” I exclaimed encouragingly. “You must be so happy.”

  “Yeah,” he smiled, that full-tilt, no holds barred grin I still remembered from so long ago. “She’s everything to me. Amanda’s amazing. She’s what I live for.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “My daughter—she’s a handful most of the time, but having her was the best thing that ever happened to me, too.”

  We sipped our coffees in silence. Eventually he said, “So, you’re married, then.”

  “Yes—I’ve been married to George for four years. Four years as of last week, actually.”

  “That’s great. I’m happy for you.”

  “Thanks.” My coffee was almost done. I’d leave in a few minutes.

  So this was how it was going to be. That whole week of fantasies—so silly. We were just two strangers after all, who’d known each other once a long time ago. Having a coffee, chatting about our children, and soon saying genial goodbyes. I could tell George about this afternoon, after all. What a relief.

  Without warning, a horde of preteen boys descended upon us. “Mr. Barnes! Mr. Barnes, is that you?”

  “Can I have your autograph?”

  “Can you sign my t-shirt?”

  “Sign my arm, okay? Here’s a pen!”

  “I love your book, when are you writing another one?”

  “Sign my butt!”

  There were about a dozen of them, and Josh genially obliged them all, down to autographing someone’s underwear band. He looked around when they’d gone, a shine of mock fear in his eyes. Then he pushed his chair next to mine, grabbed his jacket, and covered both our heads with it, so that we were inside this makeshift protective tent-slash-Nautica jacket. “They’re on to us,” he stage-whispered to me. “Take cover!”

  It was the old, silly Josh again—and all of a sudden, laughing, I felt those gears slide back into place. It was all so easy. Hiding under the jacket on that hot, hot day, the sunlight splashing down on the pavement like a living thing, his throaty laugh, mock-suspicious eyes peering out. I was laughing so hard suddenly that tears were springing from my eyes, trailing helplessly down my cheeks as I tossed my head back and shouted with a pure childish joy, caught up so totally in the moment that I forgot, for the first time in weeks—in years—to think, to examine. I could just be, right there.

  Our eyes met. “It’s good to see you again,” said Josh. “More than good.”

  “Likewise,” I said.

  That night, I determined: No one would have to know. No one would get hurt. It would be my secret, forever. If he would have me—I would have him. Just once, then back to regular life.

  No one would have to know.

  No one would get hurt.

  Chapter 13

  Monday morning, I perched nervously on the edge of a wooden chair at the miniscule Starbucks on Beverly Boulevard, covertly eying the door. He was in town till tomorrow, and we’d planned to meet this morning, after I dropped Lucy at preschool.

  I’d told George nothing. “I had a great time at Buddha’s Belly,” I’d said. “Sorry I’m late—Astrid and I were talking so long I forgot about the time.” He looked tired, anyhow, and distracted.

  “That’s okay,” he’d returned. “I don’t get to spend enough one-on-one time with Lucy, and we had a lovely day. We went to the pony rides at Griffith Park. It was a lot of fun. Listen—did you dye the eggs yet for our little Easter hunt tomorrow? Lucy keeps talking about it and I want to make sure we’re all prepared first thing in the morning.”

  Lying turned out to be as easy as losing my virginity. All that build-up and worry, and in the end, it was no big deal.

  The door snicked shut behind Josh, and our eyes locked. We sat in those little wooden chairs next to each other, not touching, and sipped our coffees. I kept spilling mine, my hand shaking, so nervous. And the whole time I kept telling myself, We’re just friends. Everything’s fine, we can just be friends. At the same time, that treacherous internal voice kept saying, It’s true, I love him. I still love him. Over and over.

  Meantime, my mouth was saying lots of things I wasn’t really aware of. I told him about my endless days with Lucy, the tantrums, the palpable relief of leaving her at preschool every day, and feeling free and light, a burden lifted.

  “So, are you still close with your family?” I asked eventually.

  “Yes, I am. It was rough, when I quit the law firm to finish that novel.” He couldn’t stop stirring his coffee with one of those little wooden sticks. “You remember—about my dad. Being kind of an asshole about self-sufficiency, and wanting me to be a good family provider.”

  “He must be proud now,” I offered.

  “Oh yeah, he’s always talking about me. Making me sign books for his clients’ kids. It’s kind of embarrassing really.” But I could tell
Josh was happy. He had cemented his place as a success, was the writer he’d always wanted to be, and had made his family proud too. Everything he’d ever wanted.

  “It sounds like everything’s going really well for you,” I said lamely, and he nodded.

  “I have you to thank, actually. You were the one who got me started writing, and you were the first person to really believe in me.”

  “It was nothing,” I said shyly. “You did the same for me.”

  He told me how he spent each day writing, in the little adobe casita behind his main house in Santa Fe. The blue tile floors, reflecting the light, and the temple bells on the gate, jingling to alert him to his wife’s arrival, punctually at 10 am and 2 pm daily, bringing snacks and coffee, so he wouldn’t need to get up or be disturbed from his writer’s trance.

  “It sounds like the perfect life,” I said jealously. “All day to yourself to write, and someone at your beck and call, awaiting your every whim.”

  He looked at me closely. “You’d think,” he said. I watched his hands. The cuticles were red and raw, like they’d been before when I knew him. I wondered what worried him these days. What he didn’t have.

  My stomach lurched. “Well,” I said brightly, “let me show you the neighborhood.”

  “Sure,” he agreed. “I haven’t visited this part of town for years, really.”

  It seemed natural to lean against him a little as we left Starbucks, tossing our cups in the already overflowing trash can near the door. I walked him up Beverly Boulevard, past the storefront synagogues and the second-run movie cinema, the stylish restaurants and cafes butting up to anachronistic TV repair shops and tailors from another era.

  “It’s funny,” I said. “It’s like we were living our lives in parallel all these years. We got married. We both have a young child. We’ve struggled with our art. You’ve been more successful than me, obviously. Still--”

  He finished for me, “It’s like separate lives, but the same life.”

  Down the side streets, lined with beautifully restored 1920s-era stucco homes with tile roofs, subtropical plants leaking lushly out of side yards. The neighborhood crazy woman, who today was wearing only a slip and tube socks, pounded by, shrieking about spiders and Marmite. Pointing out the sights to Josh, I felt I was seeing them for the first time myself, even that sad woman washed clean and bright by my happiness, fizzing out of me like rainbow-colored soap bubbles catching the light, spinning in space.

  “I’ve started painting again,” I told him. “Just recently. It’s been a long time. But I’m getting back into it. There’s so much . . . stuff just waiting to burst out of me. When I paint . . . it’s like I’m possessed, now—I feel like my body knows what to do, on its own, and my hand just has to follow along. It feels amazing.”

  “I know what you mean,” he agreed. “It’s like that with writing. Sometimes, I have no idea where the words come from. They just . . . flow, and I try not to get in their way. It’s magical.”

  I smiled at him shyly. “I knew you’d understand.”

  He rubbed my shoulder, his touch an electric shock. “I always did.”

  Then we were crossing Wilshire, and it was still only 10 am. I had planned to take him to the LA County Museum of Art, but, we discovered, it didn’t open till noon. And, there was my apartment—just across the street. “Want to see my paintings?” I asked impulsively. The sulphurous smell of tar from the La Brea Tar Pits, wafting on the breeze, stinging our noses. My shoulder tingling, still, from his touch.

  Pinching his nose, he grinned. “I’d love to! I’m honored that you asked. That you’d like for me to see them.”

  I knew, as I led him up the front walk, the jacaranda tree dusting our heads with purple petals as we passed under it. I knew, as I opened the front door. I knew, as we stepped inside and he pulled me hard into his arms, that all the promises I’d made to myself were lies. Everyone was going to get hurt, and I didn’t care. I wanted this feeling so badly I was willing to sacrifice everything, just for the pure joy of kissing him, right now.

  I hadn’t understood how much I’d needed him, all these years. Feeling his arms around me, I felt all the empty spaces in me fill up completely. “You’re the water in the cracks of my sinking ship,” he murmured into my hair, and it was absurdly poetic, yet entirely true. I twined my fingers through his hair and kissed him, my lips rubbing his, over, under, biting his bottom lip, sucking hard. He pulled back and framed my face in his hands. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, “just so beautiful.” All the years slipped away, and we were just two kids again, in awe of the power each of us held over the other.

  I couldn’t stop touching him, trying to memorize all the pieces I’d forgotten. His arms, thin and strong, spattered with thick dark hairs. The strange red mole on his neck. We were leaning against the wall, his hands unbuttoning my shirt, caressing my breasts. Each movement he made was somehow spiritual—each finger touching me a vow of some sort, a brand, coalescing love into touch.

  There was our bed—my bed, George’s bed. George existed in some alternate universe. In fact, it wasn’t his bed after all. It was my bed, Josh’s bed. I had never wanted someone so badly. “I love you,” he whispered. “I never stopped.”

  But later, lying on my back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, I said, “This might not have been a good idea.”

  He closed his eyes. “Don’t think about it, okay? Just—don’t think about it.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Tuesday morning, early, George was misting his orchids and clearing out the faded blooms. He was whipping up egg whites for the waffles just like always, but he looked unusually tired. He’d been tossing and turning at night for the past few nights, just as I’d been. I wondered if something was bothering him—some faculty disagreement, maybe—but I didn’t have the energy to ask. I was saving all of it for Josh.

  The unfamiliar number flashing on my cell phone that morning turned out to be Josh. “I’m staying for a week,” he said. “I’ve got an apartment rental, I found it on VRBO—I figured we’d be more comfortable that way. I want to see you every day.”

  It was amazing but disturbing, my fantasies becoming reality just like that. They were mine—my private little dreams. I didn’t think I’d actually believed they’d come true. But the fact that Josh felt the same—that changed everything. If two people could be connected that powerfully, after so much time . . .

  “That’s amazing, Josh,” I said. “Thank you. Just . . . wow.”

  “I’m right near you. I’m in this duplex on Vista Street. 210 and a half—what’s with these halves for addresses, here? So, you want to come over? See my, um, etchings?” I smiled at the teasing smirk in his voice.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  The building was the typical style of this Miracle Mile-area home: stucco, Mediterranean architecture, a red tile roof. A fountain burbled in the front yard; meant to evoke a Tuscan flavor, it ended up just looking kitschy surrounded by preternaturally green lawn. Every gardener in LA dumped fertilizer on the lawns in the winter, so that for a few weeks whole ZIP codes smelled like manure. Then new, pale green grass shoots would sprout. No lawn in this neighborhood was ever not green.

  I walked up an inside accessway to the second floor, and knocked lightly. Josh opened the door, looking momentarily nervous; his faded Dodgers t-shirt made him look boyish, couldn’t set him in any series of memories I had of him. Behind him I glimpsed bland floral watercolors on the walls and utilitarian furniture—vacation rental furnishings, like any nondescript furnished apartment or hotel room. As he waved me inside, I saw that the apartment was spacious, with gleaming tongue-and-groove wood floors, and a fireplace with what looked like original Batchelder tiles. An enormous metal chandelier, with numerous deadly looking poky parts, bristled above the dining room table. The kitchen beyond was a vision of preserved 1920s tiles—bright yellow, grass green, in diamond patterns.

  I saw all this in fast-forward, as Josh had picked me up an
d was bodily carrying me down the long, narrow hall. I felt so disoriented by the entire situation, I might as well have been Alice in Wonderland. Past a period bathroom, with small cream and black octagonal tiles set carefully in the floor. Past a couple bedrooms, featuring Levitz-style wood veneer furniture. He was staggering under my weight as we reached the end of the hall; he kicked open the door to the master bedroom with his foot. I was struggling by that point, trying to get down—I wasn’t sure I liked being carried—but he held me fast, then tossed me unceremoniously on the bed. “So,” he said, eyes gleaming. “We have ten years of fucking to make up for. Shall we get a move on here?”

  Looking into his eyes, everything tilted back the right way. It was Josh, after all. This is what I wanted.

  He felt so good, inside me. I’d never forgotten what it had been like with him, and had never experienced anything like it with anyone else. But afterward, I kept checking the clock. It was 10:30. Two more hours till I needed to pick up Lucy. It was plenty of time, but lying in his arms, I couldn’t help but compulsively look every minute or two. As if being late to pick Lucy up would immediately expose me, exhibit that big scarlet A I already was wondering how I would conceal.

  “What would you do,” I asked him, snuggled nervously in his arms, “if you met up with your one true love ten years after you last saw him? And you were both married, with kids. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

  He sat up a bit, and gazed down at me. “A person wouldn’t know the answer to that yet, would he,” he said carefully. “A person would just have to take it day by day. Being with the other person. And seeing what happened.”

  “What did you tell her?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

  “I wanted to see my family. That’s what I told her. Spend time with my mom and dad, and my sister’s family. Maybe take a little break. And LA was the end of my book tour. Time for some time off.”

  “You must miss Amanda, though.” Why did I keep pushing like that?