More Like Her

by Liza Palmer

  No, nope. This dude is seriously out of my league. Audrey Hepburn circa Breakfast at Tiffany’s would have to look long and hard into a mirror to wonder if even she was worthy of this guy. Nope. Maybe Jeremy can get me stoned later and make a move on me. I’ll woo him into submission with “Sweet Home Alabama.” I’m just about to get into my car when—

  “Frannie?” Sam calls from down the driveway. I stop midlaunch. I’m off balance and awkward as I turn to face Sam.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s right around the corner, right? Why don’t I just drive?” Sam asks, holding the passenger-side door open for me. I’m holding on to my open driver’s-side door.

  In a fugue state, I pry my fingers away, grab my purse and slam the door. I beep my car locked. I blink and try to loosen up. Force my eyebrows down. Breathe. Smile, for crissakes. He’s asked if he could help me pick up some pizza, not take me from behind as the entire group of thwarted non–Boston butt–eating partygoers looks on.

  It’s okay to let him know that I want his company. Accepting Sam’s invitation to allow him to drive doesn’t have to be a prelude to a restraining order. Conversations about cranks and pod people who do things I would never do swirl in my brain for the briefest of seconds.

  “Frannie? I said I could drive?” Sam says. The drawl of his voice licking over my name sends shivers up my spine and tingles to previously unknown parts throughout my body. I gulp.

  “That would be lovely,” I say.

  Chapter 8

  In the Air Tonight

  As I walk past Sam and slide into the low Ferrari, I feel like I’m living someone else’s life—someone who gets to ride in Ferraris with southern gentlemen who hold the door open for them. As the door slams behind me and Sam walks around to his side, I have just enough time to check out my body—how did I look from that angle? Was my shirt down and my jeans up? Do I look like I should be in a Ferra— Sam opens the driver’s-side door. My internal dialogue must wait. I’m still unable to say anything. He starts the car. I can feel the purr of the engine inside my body, holding on to the aortic valve of my heart and tightening. I shift in the biscuit-colored seat and take in the antiquated dashboard. The stereo emits a low muffled song. I strain to hear it. I can’t quite make it out.

  “What is this?” I ask, my finger pointing at the stereo.

  “It’s a stereo,” Sam says, smiling. He cranks the steering wheel hard as he reverses down the driveway, his arm easily resting on the back of my seat.

  “You’re funny,” I say, nodding and laughing.

  “For a speech therapist you should really try to be more specific,” Sam says.

  I nod and laugh, my mind racing through a Rolodex of jokes: too cheesy, too mean, too obscure.

  Sam continues. “It’s David Gray.”

  “I love David Gray,” I say. Quiet. Sam quietly sings along with the music. Barely audible.

  I continue. “It’s just on Lake Avenue, so back down Hill Avenue and right on New York Drive,” I say, pointing in the direction we should be going and trying to break my gaze away from Sam’s quietly moving lips.

  “Sounds good,” Sam says, cranking the steering wheel again, putting the car in gear. Soon we’re humming down Jill and Martin’s street, the Ferrari’s engine still holding my heart tightly.

  “So, power steering wasn’t really part of the design then?” I ask.

  “Uh, no. I’m afraid not,” Sam says, smiling. We turn down Hill Avenue.

  As the silence permeates the space, I realize that it’s that terrifying point right after you’ve met someone when you wish you could talk to them for days. There’s so much you want to learn about them. But you have to hold yourself back from asking questions you simply don’t have the right to know the answers to yet. You are acutely aware that you barely know him.

  We drive in silence with just the hum of the Ferrari’s engine and David Gray in the background. It comes to me that the person I really want to know about is me. If I focus on Sam, I won’t have to understand the new things I’ve started unearthing about myself. It’s really win-win. Set up a completely unavailable guy as an obsession, spend years swooning over him . . . and you get to hold the painful realization that you don’t know who you are at bay. Of course, the shell cottage and legion of feral cats loom large . . . alas, it’s not a perfect plan. The scarier alternative: somehow during the last three months I’ve excavated enough about myself to understand that the kind of man I want is Sam. The kind of man I need is Sam. That this is no rebound.

  “You’re going to have to tell me about the car,” I say, summoning the courage from somewhere deep. Acting like this is just another guy, in just another car. And Angelina Jolie will play the part of Frances Reid in this evening’s performance. I turn down the stereo and wait.

  “It’s a 1973 Ferrari Daytona,” Sam says as we wait at the light on Hill Avenue and New York Drive. The stream of cars speeding down New York Drive keeps us from turning right just yet.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say, taking it in.

  Sam smiles to himself, his head shaking just a bit.

  “What?” I blurt before thinking.

  “It really is a beautiful car,” he says.

  “But that wasn’t what you were just thinking.”

  “No.”

  “You’re going to have to tell me now. Them’s the rules.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Clearly.”

  “Here’s the thing. My level of . . . suaveness right now is pretty high. Right?”

  “The car pretty much ensures a high score, although the use of the word suave will have to be a deduction.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “But continue.”

  “I got this car because of Sonny Crockett.” Sam finally makes the right on New York Drive and the Ferrari’s engine is humming again.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Sonny Crockett. From Miami Vice?”

  “Sonny Crockett as in Don Johnson, Crockett and Tubbs? Sonny Crockett?”

  “The one and only.”

  “And how did the power of Sonny Crockett draw you to the 1973 Ferrari Daytona?”

  “He drove one. It was black and a convertible, but in the first three seasons of Miami Vice he drove this very car,” Sam says, trying desperately not to smile.

  “So, you were a Miami Vice fan, I take it?”

  “It was instrumental in making the man you see before you today, darlin’.”

  Deep breath. Darlin’. Okay . . . just file it away. Can’t deal with that right now. “That would be easier to believe if you were wearing a pastel blazer with no socks and Italian loafers. A 1973 Ferrari Daytona does not a Miami Vice fan make,” I say.

  “Left or right?” Sam asks as we approach the stoplight at Lake Avenue.

  “Right, sorry. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m a bit taken aback. You can’t just spring that kind of information on a girl and expect her to be able to do something as pedestrian as giving you directions to Pizza Joe’s.”

  “My apologies,” Sam says, smiling and wrenching the old car to the right.

  We’re quiet for a few seconds. I’m smiling and kind of shaking my head. Sam Earley is a Miami Vice fan who thought my knowing this would change my opinion of him.

  “There’s nothing that can really top that,” I finally say.

  “Ha!” Sam laughs, his head whipping back as he shifts the Ferrari into a higher gear. His long fingers curl around the gearshift. It’s such a raw moment—a private moment. In the tiny humming cockpit of a 1973 Ferrari Daytona that was inspired by a horrible 1980s pastel cheese-fest.

  Life just doesn’t get much better than this.

  “It’s right . . . right there? See it?” I say, pointing to Pizza Joe’s.

  “Yeah, I see it.”

  “Are you going to need a soundtrack by Jan Hammer in order to get there?”

  “Ha!”

  “A speedboat and an impending cocaine bust?”

  Sam
is still laughing as we park in front of Pizza Joe’s.

  “I don’t think Philip Michael Thomas is doing much these days. We could give him a call and get the old team back together.”

  “Is there a statute of limitations on jokes about nerdy pursuits?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Sam says, turning the car off.

  “Now I understand your hesitation about sharing that information.”

  “No longer cool enough, I expect?”

  “Cool enough?” I say, my smile wide but confused.

  “For you.” My brain whirls. A catalog of possibilities of what he means spins by.

  Sam opens his door and climbs out, his lanky frame curling gracefully out of the low sports car. I start to follow his lead just as he’s slamming his door. I’ve been problem-solving this Ferrari dismount since I got in the car and realized it’s basically sitting just inches off the ground. It’s going to take every bit of leg muscle I’ve got, as well as a burst of adrenaline, not to look like a pregnant woman getting out of a hammock. I creak open the large Ferrari door and begin to heave myself out, only to find Sam standing over me with his hand extended.

  “I might be the poor man’s Sonny Crockett, but at least I’m well mannered,” Sam says, pulling my car door the rest of the way open and offering me his hand again.

  “A definite plus,” I say, my voice catching in pure terror. I curl my fingers around his hand and swing my legs out and into the gutter. It’s either that or step up onto the sidewalk and risk looking like a pole-vaulter midleap. Sam’s hand envelops mine, and in the time it takes me to panic about how this whole thing is going to work and and and, he has me out onto the sidewalk in one swift, nimble motion. The door is slamming behind me and his hand is resting on the small of my back as we ease into Pizza Joe’s.

  “I’m sure my mother has spies put here to make sure California hasn’t eroded my proper southern upbringing away,” Sam says. What just happened? How . . . I mean, how did I get out of that car so easily?

  “A very real concern,” I say, hitching my purse over my shoulder as I wonder what other freakish mutant powers this man is hiding.

  Sam and I head into Pizza Joe’s. He holds the door for me as I hurry embarrassedly in front of him.

  Pizza Joe’s is a local mom-and-pop establishment in Altadena. Its no-frills exterior belies the majesty within. Red plastic booths and a man behind the counter flipping pies high into the air. Four types of pizza to choose from and red checked boxes for takeout. The real deal.

  After fumbling through the pizza guy’s uncomfortable realization that we are the people picking up the “go fuck yourself” order, we begin the process of taking the pizzas to the car.

  “I’ve got it,” Sam says, taking the top four pizzas and backing out of the restaurant. The pizzas are dense and heavy. I take the next two and follow him out to the car. He has the trunk open and is shifting items around as he balances the four pizzas in one hand. He sets the pizzas down and looks over to me.

  “This is going to be a tight fit,” I say, handing him the two pizzas I have. Sam takes the pizzas and stacks them in the trunk. I begin to walk back into Pizza Joe’s for the rest. Sam reaches out and takes my arm, sliding down to my hand and then quickly letting go. I pull my hand back. Instinctively.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. Can I grab his hand back? Why? What did I just do?

  “No, I’m sorry . . . I wanted to get your attention and it seemed absurd to call your name when I’m standing a foot away from you,” Sam says, stepping up onto the curb. So tall. I look up at him. I gulp. I literally gulp.

  “Oh, not a . . . not a problem,” I say, turning around again.

  “Frannie?” Sam says. I turn back around. “I was going to do the hand thing again, but then I thought we had the whole conversation about it . . .”

  “Maybe I should just stop running away,” I say. He has no idea how globally I mean this.

  “Nice inadvertent segue.”

  “I’m queen of the inadvertent segue,” I say, apropos of nothing.

  “I wanted to apologize for the way I left things the other night,” Sam says, stepping ever closer. My breath catches. My brain freezes.

  “Oh?” I say, my voice crackly and quivering.

  “I shouldn’t have left so quickly.”

  “It was the Justin Timberlake sing-along, wasn’t it?”

  “It most certainly was not.”

  “Please, it wasn’t even a—” I lay a peacemaking hand on his arm. And I’m struck dumb. Sam watches as my hand travels from his arm to his chest.

  “I . . . uh . . .” My hand is now resting on Sam’s chest, his soft gray sweater just underneath, the crisp collared plaid shirt crackling and pressed just below.

  I pull my hand back. Quickly. Urgently. I feel like I’ve just been pushed out of an airplane and I’m frantically checking to see if there’s a parachute or an anvil strapped to my back.

  “It won’t happen again,” Sam says, looking me in the eye.

  “See that it doesn’t,” I say.

  Sam leans in. And down. He turns his head and watches me. Watches me watching him. Do I want this? he’s asking himself. I have no idea what I look like right now. I’m not ready for any of this. I’m not ready to be here with this man. Not ready to handle what’s standing in front of me. How can this be happening to me? Men like Sam don’t happen to me. Men like Ryan happen to me.

  Well, fuck that.

  I reach up and touch the side of his face. Warm. Warmer than I thought he’d be. His skin is stubbly and soft at the same time. His jawline right under my palm. His eyes locked on mine. Light brown. Spoked and outlined with cinnamon. And before I know what I’m doing I’ve laced my hand through his hair and I’m pulling him toward me. It’s as if I’ve been wandering the desert and what he’s offering me is the first drink of water I’ve had in my life.

  And then I can’t get enough. I’m clutching fistfuls of gray sweater as we’re thrust against the Ferrari; Sam’s mouth is warm and wet. There’s no thought except the desire to have him closer. There’s no fear except that I won’t be able to get enough. There’s no doubt that what’s happening is terrifyingly free and new. Sam wraps his arms all the way around me and is pulling me close—pulling my entire body close—because, except for my lips, my body is arched outward at a safe distance. His hands are on either side of my waist, dangerously close to my ass, and he pulls me in. Up and close. Everything, every part of us pressed against one another. He brings one hand up and laces it through my hair, closer . . . closer . . . closer. His fingers long and determined. He makes the slightest noise as I arch into him, letting my body take over. My face flushes as I realize it’s a good noise . . . an intimate noise.

  “Sir?” The pizza guy clears his throat from the now opened door of the pizza joint. I wrench my face away out of a sudden sense of propriety. Sam’s lips are millimeters from mine. He doesn’t turn around and I can feel his warm breath on my face. He dips down and gives me one more kiss. Long. Sweet. Unhurried. As he pulls away slowly I realize that my hand is curled around his belt. Pulling him.

  “You don’t want those pizzas to get cold, sir,” the pizza guy says again before letting the door swing closed. Sam looks from me to my hand at his belt. A raised eyebrow. I don’t move. I pull him closer. Sam smiles. His lips are red, his face flushed.

  “I’m going to need that back, darlin’,” he drawls.

  “For now,” I say, letting him go. I take a deep breath as if I’ve been underwater. The world comes back into focus. The cars on the street. The chill in the air. All of it. Sam watches me as I tune back in. My face flushes, because as the hum of the traffic returns, so does my own personal mythology. I’m not the girl who makes out with men like Sam on street corners pressed up against Ferraris. I’m not the girl who pulls men closer by their belt buckles.

  I’m not the girl men choose.

  “Wait here. Be right back,”
Sam says, kissing me once more. As he goes back into Pizza Joe’s, I feel my smile slowly wane. My brow furrows as Sam’s absence yields a far more heightened emptiness than I’ve ever felt before. An emptiness that quickly begets questions: Was I too wanton? Was I pawing at him? Was he as invested as I was? Did I just make a prize idiot of myself? For those fleeting moments there was no inner monologue. I wasn’t even cognizant enough to be proud that I was “in the moment.” It was just Sam and me. Sam is watching me from inside Pizza Joe’s. He looks distracted as he takes the remainder of the pizzas. He lifts them easily and makes his way out to the car once more. I stand next to the open trunk, the smell of fresh pizza wafting, and watch Sam as he shuffles the pizzas around in the shrinking Ferrari trunk like a real-life version of Pizza Tetris. Sam finally gets the pizzas set and slams the trunk.

  He pauses. It takes me a second to realize as I focus back in on him. He looks . . . torn.

  “What is it?” I ask, my heart thumping out of my body, my own mythology screaming inside my brain.

  “Nothing . . . nothing, darlin’. We’d better get these pizzas back,” Sam says, smiling. He leans in for another kiss and it’s already different. No longer wild and swirling, the kiss is measured and . . . considered. Something has already changed. I hate that my knee-jerk reaction is to think it’s something I’ve done.

  Sam takes my hand and leads me around to the passenger side, opens my door and deposits me safely inside. The door slams behind me. In the span of fifteen minutes my entire life has been altered in a way that is so . . . cruel.

  There is more.

  That middling life I thought I was destined to live—with its all-balls love and half-assed requests for classic rock mixes—is a crock of shit.

  There is more.

  There are people out there who have X-ray vision. They can see through my walls, armor and scrims and filters right down to the Real Me. And the saddest thing in the world? I haven’t forgotten who that person is. She’s in there and waiting. Like Sleeping Beauty locked high in a tower, she’s been patient and aware of the coma I’ve been in all these years. As Sam folds into the Ferrari and starts the beautiful hum of the car once more, I realize the one hitch in someone having X-ray glasses is that I’m utterly exposed to him. It’s one thing to want someone to keep looking, to swim over moats and dodge flaming arrows to find you. It’s quite another when you ask yourself, really ask yourself, if you’re finally ready to come out into the open. No matter what.