When it was over, Annabelle, looking as smitten as a schoolgirl, gazed at Jeremy. “Wow, Rhett Butler was right.”
“Yeah?” Jeremy asked, still a bit breathless. “About what?”
“When he told Scarlett, ‘You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how.’”
Jeremy could feel his face flush, his heart flip. You’d think he and Annabelle hadn’t already kissed like that a hundred times. Just never in one of her favorite places. He regained his cool and gave her a sly look. “Full disclosure: I plan on taking the ‘and often’ part of that quote very seriously.”
Striking her best Scarlett O’Hara pose, Annabelle exclaimed, “Why, Mr. Butler, as God as my witness, I should certainly hope so!”
Wildlife was kind of a big thing around Cambria. Or at least for a city girl like Annabelle. She had already slotted in a visit to see those legendary elephant seals, which would hopefully be beached up the coast a bit in San Simeon, a town perhaps better known as the home of Hearst Castle. Surprisingly, Annabelle had not scheduled them for a stop at the famed publishing magnate’s onetime estate. (“165 rooms! 123 acres of gardens!” barked the landmark’s website.) Jeremy was sure it would be at the top of her list, but she declared the place “wildly overrated.”
Jeremy reminded her that the great movie Citizen Kane was based on Hearst, as if that alone was reason enough to see the tycoon’s grand digs, but Annabelle wasn’t sold.
“Still,” she said, “I’ll go if you want to. Wouldn’t want you to feel like you missed out or anything.”
“Gee, why would I want to see one of the most famous homes of all time when a few minutes away are these grotesque sea creatures flopping around the beach?” In truth, Jeremy didn’t care if he saw either attraction, but couldn’t resist teasing.
“Did you know they’re the largest seals in the entire Northern Hemisphere?” asked Annabelle with delightful earnestness.
“Now how would I know that?” Jeremy answered.
“You’re a writer. Writers know things. And now you know something else!” She smiled that smile and he was putty. He’d happily visit the elephant seals.
It was twilight, and they were driving to Annabelle’s favorite restaurant in town for dinner, an Asian fusion place called the Wild Ginger Café located on the eastern half of quaint, laid-back Main Street. But first, back to the local wildlife: one of Annabelle’s (and presumably Gil’s) rituals was to search for the deer that would emerge around early evening to forage for food in a nice residential neighborhood near a grassy tract called the Fiscalini Ranch.
With Jeremy at the wheel, Annabelle directed him through the dimming grid of sidewalk-less streets. She was on the lookout for the mini herds of deer that, she promised, would near-magically appear in driveways and yards chomping away on fragrant grasses, weeds, and wildflowers.
Oh, and there was a kind of game attached to these sightings. “You pick a number,” Annabelle explained, “say, twenty. Then you pick something good that will happen if you see twenty deer.”
“Is that twenty total or twenty all at once?” Jeremy asked in full sincerity. He wasn’t one to look a gift deer in the mouth.
“Well, either, I guess,” she considered. “As long as you hit twenty. Of course, the higher the number, the bigger the wish. You can’t say, like, ‘If I see one deer I’ll win a million dollars.’ That’d be ridiculous.”
Jeremy was tickled. There were actual rules. “What would one deer buy you? Just for argument’s sake.”
“Oh, you’ll never see just one deer.”
“Okay, two then.”
“Not much: a good song will come on the radio next. It won’t rain tomorrow.” She pointed out the passenger window at a thatch of willowy pink flowers. “Jeremy, stop, look!” And there, like they just stepped out of a storybook, stood a trio of leggy deer, busily chewing grass and gazing back glassy-eyed. She snapped photos of the lithe animals just before they vanished.
Annabelle turned to Jeremy with a wide-eyed grin. “Huh? Did I tell you?”
Jeremy had to admit he was a bit gobsmacked by the sight of the deer. There was something otherworldly about them. Had he ever even seen one up close like that? For real?
“Wow,” he told Annabelle, “that was cool.”
“Right?” She grinned. “Okay, we saw three. So what’s the total number we’re shooting for tonight? And what’s our wish?”
“I don’t know, you decide. Or is it like a birthday wish? You have to keep it to yourself or it won’t come true?”
Before she could answer, Jeremy noticed a cluster of neighbors hanging out in a shared driveway, drinking wine and eyeballing a passing deer as if it were the mailman. “Look, number four!” called Jeremy with glee. He was into it now.
“So cute!” Annabelle turned to him, excited. “Let’s go for twenty-five deer in …” she checked her watch, “the next fifteen minutes. If we get there, Offensive Measures is going to get made and be a big hit!”
Okay, now Jeremy was really into it. “You’re on!” he declared. “But does that include the four deer we already spotted?”
Annabelle thought for a second and brightened. “Why the hell not?”
Thirty-six deer later and a guaranteed movie smash under his belt, Jeremy followed Annabelle’s directions out of the darkening neighborhood and across Highway 1 to Cambria’s East Village for some delectable Vietnamese BBQ pork, prawn curry, and banana-mango sorbet.
CHAPTER
26
When they returned to the hotel, Jeremy and Annabelle parked and went for a late stroll on the boardwalk, which they had all to themselves except for a pair of hearty joggers and a teenage boy walking a rowdy springer spaniel. It was chilly and pitch-dark save the dim light emanating from the row of hotels across the way and the occasional pair of headlights sweeping down Moonstone Beach Drive. The ocean, with its steady melody of crashing waves, was inky and only vaguely moonlit. Annabelle brightened their path with one of those boxy floating lanterns, which she wielded with authority.
They replayed the past few hours: the deer hunting; the tasty, strikingly plated food at the Wild Ginger Café; its charming outdoor patio where they sat under twinkle lights and a welcoming heat lamp; Jade, the eatery’s chatty if self-effacing Singaporean owner and chef who admittedly lived for her business; and the cheery lesbian couple from Bakersfield at the next table who told Jeremy and Annabelle their life stories between courses.
The evening had been free of any particularly deep discussion; Jeremy just assumed Annabelle and Gil feasted at the Wild Ginger many times and that Jade was circumspect enough not to mention the late professor in front of his widow and her new guy. Annabelle, for her part, never brought up Gil throughout dinner when she certainly could have. In return, Jeremy kept Cassie tucked away in his mental vault, and just enjoyed Annabelle.
But wasn’t that counter to what they’d agreed upon just that morning in the car? Cards on the table? Hearts on their sleeves? Jeremy had questions; shouldn’t he be asking them? Certainly the thoughtful and observant Annabelle had more memories to share, reveries to reveal. Yet she promised she’d let Jeremy know if she wasn’t “fine,” so wasn’t that enough? Did he want her to bring up Gil right there on the shadowy boardwalk so he could talk about Cassie, who he was feeling a bit sentimental about and had no idea why?
Until it hit him.
His hand laced in Annabelle’s, Jeremy stared up at the blackish sky with its sprawl of winking stars and recalled one of his and Cassie’s dating rituals. Now and again, on a particularly clear night, they’d drive up Laurel Canyon to Mulholland Drive, park in one of the famed road’s many scenic turnouts set above the twinkling San Fernando Valley, sit on the roof of Jeremy’s old Volkswagen Jetta, and make out like they had the last tongues on earth. Sated, they’d then try to identify as many of the sky’s most visible constellations as t
hey could, and even made up a few goofy ones of their own (“Look, it’s Rectumulus!” “There’s Sergeant Major Minor!”). He hadn’t thought about their stargazing ritual in ages.
So he told Annabelle about it.
She listened intently, even laughed at his and Cassie’s fake constellation names. From the boardwalk, they gazed into the heavens and successfully located the dippers, Orion, and Cassiopeia (which, of course, further evoked Jeremy’s ex-wife, but what could you do, that’s what the thing was called).
It turned out Annabelle was an astronomy buff as a teenager, though all that remained was a passing interest in astrology. She’d been promising to read Jeremy’s natal chart and made a mental note to do so when they were back in L.A. “I have to see if we are ‘officially’ compatible,” she joked. But Jeremy, who was both intrigued by and skeptical of the pseudoscience, hoped she’d pass on the reading and had already hinted as much. Which only made her want to do it more.
Here was the difference: Jeremy worried an astrological reading might reveal too many incompatibilities (okay, maybe he believed a tad more in astrology than he let on), while Annabelle was sure it would show just how suited they were for each other and was excited to be proven correct. It made Jeremy realize that, once again, he feared being exposed as an imposter: not the husband, boyfriend, dad, son, film critic, screenwriter, provider, or overall man (pick one or more) that he imagined himself to be. But just because he disappointed Cassie didn’t mean he’d ultimately disappoint Annabelle. Did it?
Jeremy pondered all this as they walked back to the Hearthside Inn, Annabelle’s bobbing lantern bisecting the murk. She was quiet as well, either respecting Jeremy’s reflective silence or lost in her own tangle of late evening thoughts. Even so, she winked promisingly at Jeremy as he slid the key card into their door lock. Annabelle lit the gas fireplace as soon as they got inside; the faux hearth threw off more atmosphere than heat but that was okay—it was chillier outside than in.
Annabelle turned from the fireplace and looked at Jeremy, who was sitting on the bed, taking off his shoes. “I’m going to ask you something, and you need to tell me the God’s honest truth, okay?”
Jeremy didn’t love the sound of the question. “Is this another no-bricks thing?” he asked, truly not sure if he was up to utter candor right now.
“I know we talked about this earlier, and it may not be fair of me to ask again, and I totally don’t want to ruin the vibe now—but is there any part of you that thinks he may still have feelings, real feelings, for Cassie? Because I’m getting invested here, and if you think there’s even the slightest chance you’ll wake up one day and wonder, despite what you said earlier, if you should have talked Cassie into loving you and that’s what she’s been waiting for all along and this has all just been more of a trial separation than a parting of ways, then you really have to let me know so I can, well … recalibrate my investment.” Annabelle plopped onto the bed in emotional exhaustion and stared into her hands.
That was hardly how Jeremy expected the lovely night to end, and he wouldn’t allow it to. He sat down next to Annabelle, took her delicate hand in his, and verbalized the words he had thought to himself earlier.
“There’s a part of me that will always have special feelings for Cassie. She was my first love, the mother of my child; we became full-fledged adults together, went through so much: twenty-seven years start to finish. That’s a lifetime, Annabelle.”
Her eyes were welling up with either uncertainty or hope. Jeremy knew he needed to wrap up before the floodgates opened.
“But no, I don’t love Cassie anymore—and I don’t want to. I want to love you.” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her gently, his lips grazing the salty tears rolling down her cheek.
“Good answer,” Annabelle said, smiling through her misty eyes.
“Feel better?” Jeremy asked, stroking the waves of her hair.
She gave an appreciative nod and dabbed at her eyes. “Okay,” she said as she slithered out of her jeans. “Now let’s get busy, shall we?”
The rest of the weekend mirrored that first day in Cambria, a mix of long walks along camera-ready locales, shared stories about their pasts, discussion of the present, good eats, a bracing swim in the ocean, a trip to see the elephant seals (homely, prehistoric looking, oddly fascinating), moonstone collecting on a San Simeon beach, a visit to a picturesque winery, random chats with fellow tourists, and a second round of twilight deer spotting (they topped out at a mere twenty-two). They proved well-matched traveling companions, though Jeremy had to admit he said yes to a few more activities than he truly wanted to (he would’ve loved a post-lunch nap) just to make Annabelle happy, which also made him happy. She was an energizing force and that was a good thing for a guy with a history of momentum issues.
They did, however, hit a speed bump late Saturday afternoon. As they lounged on their private patio and sipped winery-bought Syrah from borrowed Hearthside Inn wine glasses (which they would eventually purloin—shh!), the topic of Matty arose.
“You did a wonderful job with your son. He’s a terrific man.”
“Thank you, but I can only take half the credit. Cassie was—is—a really good mom. I can’t fault her there.”
Annabelle was about to pour herself more wine, and then passed. “It’s admirable, you know.”
“What is?”
“How you give credit where it’s due. Not every jilted husband would do that.” She reconsidered, poured them each another half glass.
“Yeah, I’m a frickin’ saint,” Jeremy said, his mood darkening.
Annabelle hesitated. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No. Though, frankly, the word ‘jilted’ sounds a little weird. It’s not like I was left at the altar or something.”
“Of course not but, well, I think you know what I mean.”
“I know what you think you mean but it makes me sound like kind of a … what’s the word? A cuckold.” Jeremy drained his wine glass in one gulp and set it back down on the little glass table that sat between their mesh-back chairs.
Annabelle studied him a moment over her wine glass. She watched him eyeing a pair of joggers sprinting along the boardwalk. A flock of gulls—or were they sandpipers?—soared overhead.
“I was giving you a compliment,” she finally said. “Sorry if it didn’t come out that way. And not to debate someone who uses words for a living, but I don’t think cuckold is the right one. Unless she was cheating on you behind your back. Was she?”
Jeremy sighed. “I don’t think so, no. And, look, I didn’t mean to snap. At you of all people. You are the saint.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “But this divorce … I have a lot of work ahead of me, a lot of stress and, if I’m being completely candid—”
“That is the weekend theme.”
“So, talking about it like we did—and don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we did—but it only reconfirmed for me what I’ve known all along and what I’ve been trying to avoid: that it’s going to be a shit show and I’m kind of freaking out about it.” He looked back out at the churning Pacific over the patio’s waist-high banister, a brooding look on his face.
Annabelle rose and curled an arm around his waist. They took in the splendid view that added a hundred bucks to their room rate. “Who wouldn’t freak out about what you’re going to have to go through?” she said. “You think Cassie’s not freaking out?”
Jeremy looked at her inquisitively.
“Did you really buy what she told you about changing lawyers delaying her from getting started? As my grandma Iris used to say, usually accompanied by the world’s biggest eye roll, ‘Please, Eloise.’”
“Actually, yeah, I did buy it. Why not? She’s a lawyer herself, I’d say she knows what she’s doing. A lot more than me, anyway.”
“Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. But trust me, she doesn’t want
to be facing this any more than you do. And if you were in touch with her more, you’d probably see that.” Annabelle grabbed the wine bottle and their glasses and took them back inside. Jeremy followed her.
“You think I should be in touch with her more? I mean, it seems like she wants as little to do with me as humanly possible.”
Annabelle corked the wine bottle. “I think you’re going to have to grab yourself by those lovely balls of yours, straighten your spine, and prepare to do battle. It’ll hurt, it’ll piss you the fuck off, it’ll make you say and do some things you won’t be proud of, and it’ll be over.”
She moved off to the bathroom, rinsing out their wine glasses in the sink. Jeremy appeared in the doorway. “Are you talking from personal experience or just your general wellspring of common sense?”
“You mean from when I divorced Andy? Not really. We were kids, we had virtually nothing. We just said ‘I’ll take this, you take that,’ and he was off to Canada.” She dried the glasses with a washcloth. “I’m actually talking from getting to know the kind, sweet, brainy, sexy, slightly neurotic, and strangely under-confident man I see before me.”
Jeremy raised an eyebrow and leaned against the counter. “You think I’m sexy?” he asked, fishing for a punch line, not a compliment.
“What do you think I’m hanging around you for—a part in your movie?” Annabelle put her arms around his waist and gave him an informative kiss.
“See, even you know no one ever sleeps with the writer to get ahead,” he joked, and kissed her again.
The Last Birthday Party Page 18
