Surprise Me

by Deena Goldstone

  “Only one of us here is old enough to remember the fifties.”

  “I watched Happy Days reruns,” Isabelle insists, head still bent over the list of possible dinners. How can she choose? She wants pretty much all of them. And then she feels Daniel’s eyes on her face and looks up. “What?”

  “I can see the years of motherhood in your face.”

  “Meaning I look older and haggard.”

  “Meaning there’s a sort of…gravitas there now.”

  “That’s good?”

  “Yes, good. Beautiful, even.”

  “Oh, Daniel.” And she sighs in pleasure and they grin at each other stupidly, just so glad to be sitting opposite each other, contemplating a meal together—the simplest of things, until Pauline interrupts, order pad in hand.

  Daniel knew Pauline would be working tonight. She works every dinner shift except the Monday and Thursday nights she comes to his class. From the very first discussion she presented herself as direct and unstoppable, so he expects exactly what she says. “So who’s this now, Professor?”

  There hasn’t been an instance in all the years Daniel has lived in Winnock that he’s brought a woman to dinner who looks like she could be a date. This one, however, Pauline sees immediately, is far too young for him, younger than his own daughter in all probability.

  “Isabelle, Pauline. Pauline, Isabelle, one of my former students.”

  “When you taught at college?”

  “Chandler, in Los Angeles,” Isabelle fills in. “Daniel taught me how to write.”

  Daniel shakes his head, deflecting the compliment, muted as it is.

  “And so you’re a writer, too, then?” Pauline asks.

  “No.” Isabelle looks carefully at Daniel as she says, “He didn’t teach me how to continue to write.”

  “My fault,” Daniel says, and then, to override whatever next question Pauline is itching to ask: “Now, what are the specials tonight?”

  Pauline points to the large blackboard next to the cash register, where “Chicken Pot Pie with Morels,” “Three-Alarm Chili,” and “Clam Up and Eat the Chowder” have been carefully lettered in chalk by Luca, whose job it is to cook the daily specials.

  Daniel orders the chili, because he’s come to know that Luca is a gifted chef. There’s been talk of his going to the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont, but Daniel suspects that Aldo wants to hang on to him.

  Isabelle orders the Yankee pot roast because she’s here in Yankee territory.

  “Excellent choice,” Pauline tells her as she writes it down. And then, because she can’t leave without more conversation: “Do you know the Professor teaches a bunch of us, women only, it turns out, every Monday and Thursday night over at the adult school?”

  “I’ve heard,” Isabelle says. And then, teasing Daniel again, “It gets him out of the house. A good thing.”

  “We read novels and discuss them. Sometimes new books, sometimes the older ones that most of us never read in school, or else if we did, we’ve forgotten.” She shakes her head at the passage of time. “For all of us it’s been a while since we sat in a classroom, but that doesn’t stop us from having opinions.”

  “And yours among the most vehement, Pauline.”

  The tiny woman shrugs. “I know what I like.”

  “That’s a good start,” Isabelle says, but she’s looking into Daniel’s eyes as she says it.

  When Pauline leaves to deliver their order to the kitchen, Daniel leans forward across the table and Isabelle does, as well, and he says very quietly, “There are a lot of eyes watching us.”

  Isabelle peeks at the few customers sitting at the counter, the two other couples in the booths down the line from them, even Luca behind the counter as he begins to ladle out Daniel’s chili, who all cast covert glances in their direction. Daniel with a stranger, a young stranger, an attractive stranger. My!

  “Does it bother you?” Isabelle asks as quietly as she can.

  “No,” Daniel says, and he sits back. “I’ve come to understand that people here are well-meaning.”

  Isabelle sits back, too, and looks at him, really looks at him. And he allows it. He doesn’t flinch or deflect her scrutiny. “This place suits you.”

  “I believe that’s so.”

  “There’s a part of you that isn’t struggling anymore.”

  “Ah, Isabelle…” There it is again: her ability to see into his heart.

  Isabelle drives them home along the same road she walked earlier that day, when she was consumed with anger. But not really at Daniel, she now knows. She needs to read the book again. She suspects it’s beautiful and that she’ll be proud of it. She’ll tell Daniel that later. She’ll try.

  It’s pitch-black, the trees forming a tunnel of darkness, punctuated only by the car headlights as they sweep the scenery in front of them. They’re the only people on the road. They could be the last two people on the earth. Even the moon is hidden behind the tops of the trees.

  Neither Isabelle nor Daniel speaks. They’ve never made small talk and they don’t now. He hasn’t asked about her son, and she hasn’t told him about her encounter with Alina. There isn’t room in the car for anyone else, just the two of them and the unspoken question between them. What will happen when they get back to Daniel’s cottage?

  Daniel leads the way in, stooping a bit to fit beneath the low doorway. Isabelle follows. He turns on a small table lamp, which fills the low-ceilinged space with a soft warm glow, and they look at each other, waiting. And then Isabelle turns off the light and the room is lit only by moonlight reflecting off the surface of Foyle’s Pond and Daniel reaches for her.

  They stand that way, with their arms around each other, her head against his neck, his hand in her hair, and they wait. For permission—no. For courage—maybe. But mostly to make sure this is right. They’ve given each other so much over the years, been each other’s lodestar. Are they risking all that now?

  Isabelle moves first. She steps back from his embrace and takes his hand and walks them toward Daniel’s bed. Slowly they undress. Unhurriedly. There’s a different kind of urgency working here. It’s an undercurrent, a hum of desire, the imperative between them so different from her need for Casey’s body and the oblivion their sexual energy creates. No, this is something else.

  She wants Daniel because she’s always wanted him and will always want him, she knows. Not to the exclusion of all else but to anchor her in some deep way.

  They stand naked in front of each other in the dark room, their bodies silhouetted against the long windows, and it is Daniel who reaches out and brings Isabelle into his embrace.

  She feels enveloped, safe, his substantial body so different from Casey’s lean muscles that it could be a different country. And when he kisses her now, she has no doubts, and he feels it, feels her body’s energy flow toward him, and he smiles in the dappled darkness.

  “At long last…”

  “Oh, Daniel—it’s been forever.”

  And they lie next to each other on Daniel’s unadorned bed and touch the parts of each other they’ve yearned to touch and stroke each other until Daniel moves on top of her and enters her at the exact moment she thinks she’ll die if he doesn’t and there’s a tenderness to it. And a gratitude that carries them through.

  “Oh my God,” she whispers as they finish, and Daniel rolls them both onto their sides, their faces inches apart, their arms still wrapped around each other.

  “ ‘Oh my God’ in a positive sense?”

  “Daniel—you know.”

  And he does. He knows that they’ve waited six years for this night and that it has been worth the wait.

  —

  DANIEL WAKES JUST AS THE SKY is lightening to the sound of Orphan scratching at his door. Carefully he disentangles his limbs from Isabelle’s, grabs his jeans, the dog’s bowl and food, and steps outside the cabin. It’s freezing, but he knows that if he lets Orphan in, he will wake Isabelle, and it’s too early.

>   He sets out the dog’s food and stands there watching him all but inhale the dry kibble, his tail going like an out-of-control metronome, happiness exploding from his body. Daniel knows exactly how he feels.

  He looks up at the sound of a car door opening, like a crack in the still morning air, and across the meadow Jesse Eames is getting ready to hoist himself into the cab of his red pickup, but he stops and turns instead to see Alina running from the open door of her barn, barefoot, in a white bathrobe, her hair flying around her shoulders, into his arms. And Daniel watches as Jesse grabs his daughter, and she kisses him, and his father’s heart swells with even more happiness. So Alina loves this man. How glad he is for that.

  Quietly he opens the door into his own cottage, slips in before Orphan can follow, and discards his jeans as he crosses the cold wood floor. Isabelle is turned on her right side, toward the wall, away from him, and he slips into bed behind her and spoons her body with his.

  “You’re cold,” she murmurs, but returns to sleep and he holds her and breathes deeply, savoring this moment as he has every second since he saw Isabelle in the woods the day before.

  —

  THEY WAKE TOGETHER WHEN THE SUN is clearly up, thick stripes of yellow light across the floor, bed, wooden table, and turn toward each other. Daniel strokes Isabelle’s hair away from her face, smiling, and she burrows into his chest.

  “Morning.”

  “I don’t want it to be morning,” she murmurs. “I want to go back to last night.”

  “Well, maybe,” he says as he begins to run his hand down her long back, “this morning will be better.”

  “There’s a thought. Better than last night? Is that possible?”

  He grins at her. “Flatterer.”

  And he kisses her gently, and then not so gently, and she moves her body into his, matching his rhythm—slow, deliberate, careful. She wants to be present as their bodies respond to each other again, not swept away. Present. With Daniel. As she is. As they are with each other.

  —

  LATER, WHEN SHE’S SITTING at the cleared-off wooden table and Daniel is at the stove making her scrambled eggs and toast and coffee, and Orphan is curled up, snoring, on his bed next to the hearth, Isabelle tells him she’s leaving later that day.

  “I figured,” he says, not looking at her.

  “Avi’s only five,” she says in explanation, and Daniel nods. “Maybe you’ll come visit us in Oakland.”

  Daniel puts their plates of scrambled eggs on the table and sits down opposite her.

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ll pick you up at the airport. All you’d have to do is get yourself on a plane. No driving necessary,” she adds, although they both know that the likelihood of Daniel getting himself on a plane is slim to none.

  “Or you’ll come back here.”

  “I’d like to.” Now they’re both in the wistful realm of “if only’s.” Then, because she doesn’t want to leave anything unsaid, she adds, “I’m going to read the book again. I suspect I’ll have a different reaction.”

  He grins at her, instantly happy. “Well, you’ll let me know.”

  “I will let you know—about the book, about everything, just the way I always have, only now I feel…” And she hesitates, struggling to find the words to describe what has happened between them. “I feel…more entitled to do it. Like these two days have given me permission.”

  “To…?” he asks carefully.

  She looks down at her plate, hesitates a minute, gathering her courage, then looks straight at him and says with conviction, “To love you.”

  Daniel nods, his heart too full to speak. And so they smile at each other, shyly, and Daniel takes her hand, which rests on the table, and brings it to him, opens her fingers, and presses his lips into her warm palm. Isabelle.

  October 29, 2000

  Daniel,

  Last night after I put Avi to bed, when the house was quiet and I had gathered up my courage, which somehow you always give me, I took out your book and began to reread it with a much more open heart. Daniel, it’s a beautiful book, as breathtaking as either of your first two. And the rawness is there, which makes the words jump off the page. And I feel honored to be the “inspiration” for Lanie.

  How wise you are to understand that my anger was only about my own disgust at my own inadequacies, my own small and unproductive life, and jealousy, yes, jealousy, that you were able to write a book and I wasn’t. So petty and unfair of me.

  But tell me why you made your character such a mess. Did you used to drink that much? And smoke that much? And self-destruct that much?

  Lanie might have saved Gus—interesting that you named your character after your father, but that’s a different conversation—but I don’t think I ever did that for you. I might have nudged you closer to where you eventually ended up, but it was completely without a plan and only because I needed so much from you that I grabbed greedily, and the result was a lifeline for both of us.

  So my version of events would be quite different, but yours is beyond great. The book is a wonder!

  Love,

  Isabelle

  Isabelle,

  Then write your version.

  Daniel

  Daniel,

  Arrrgggggghhh!!

  I.

  And then, because Daniel doesn’t want Isabelle to feel he has discounted the rest of her e-mail:

  Isabelle,

  And don’t think your words of praise haven’t made my day, my week, my month, and my forever.

  Love,

  Daniel

  And so slowly, with great trepidation, without telling him at first, Isabelle begins to do just what Daniel commanded: she starts to write her own version of the time they spent together and beyond. Just as Daniel had.

  Part Three

  SUMMER 2014

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It is Alina who calls Isabelle and tells her to come. That Daniel needs her. And of course she goes.

  It isn’t hard these days for Isabelle to arrange her life so that she can quickly fly to New Hampshire. Avi, who is nineteen and in college at UC, Davis, is spending the summer between his freshman and sophomore years working as a white-water guide. Years ago Casey took him to Alaska so they could experience Mendenhall Lake, at the foot of Mendenhall Glacier. He couldn’t resist, Casey told her: “Two Mendenhalls going to see two Mendenhalls—a natural!” And Avi had been dumbstruck by the stark beauty of the landscape—the seven-thousand-foot-tall mountains capped with snow and the pristine, iceberg-studded lake. This summer he’s back to lead boatloads of tourists down the rapids of Mendenhall River.

  Casey has always understood something about their son that Isabelle might have missed: that he is happiest where the terrain is rugged, that he hates to be contained. Whatever he ends up doing with his life, it will be something without a desk or a schedule. Not unlike his father.

  Their relationship these days consists of travel to remote places: hiking through the austere mountain ranges of Pays Dogon in Mali, riding the rapids of the Rio Upano in Ecuador through the Amazon rain forest. They are always planning their next adventure, each trying to best the other in finding the most remote and original trip to take. It is here that they make their connection, here that they are most alike.

  But it is the ways in which Avi is unlike his father that reassure Isabelle about his future. Avi examines and mulls and thinks things through. He wants to know the why of things, and especially of people, in a way that has never appealed to Casey.

  She’s seen him weigh and appreciate Casey’s calling, but having lived with the consequences of it all his life, he also understands the inherent self-centeredness in it. He loves Isabelle but wishes she were easier on herself—less self-critical, less heavy-duty. They’ve had that conversation a number of times, always ending with her son saying, “Just chill, Mom, you know.” And she does know, but can’t often get there.

  Avi has no idea what he will eventually do with his life, b
ut he isn’t worried. Right now he wants experience for the sake of the experience, and right now untamed Alaska and the rapids of Mendenhall River fit the bill. So it won’t matter to Avi whether his mother is home in the Oakland hills or in the tiny town of Winnock, New Hampshire. He will be in the wilds of Alaska, exactly where he wants to be.

  In terms of the bookstore, Isabelle is confident that Julian can easily take care of Noah’s Ark while she is gone. He practically does that now. There are so many days Isabelle never makes it into the store. She is constantly grateful for the day, five years ago, when Julian, a longtime customer, came in and asked for a job. His partner of almost seventeen years, Craig, had just died, and Julian was coming apart at the seams.

  “I can’t stay at home and stare at the walls anymore,” he told Isabelle with an apologetic smile, “because they’re starting to talk back to me.”

  Isabelle’s instinct told her to say, Yes, come and work here, and she did so without hesitation, just as Meir had taken a chance on her twenty years before. And Julian has rewarded her by dedicating himself to Noah’s Ark in a way that would have made Meir very happy. The two men would have gotten along, she’s certain, although they would seem to be polar opposites—Meir large and sloppy to Julian’s fastidious thinness, Meir antisocial as a life creed and Julian living for his wide circle of friends. But both men would declare that they loved books in a visceral, unquestioning way, and that passion would have united them.

  Often when she tells Julian one story or another about Meir, she misses him with a sharp-edged sadness, as if his death eight years ago had happened only yesterday. Well, his presence is there, in every shelf of the store, every book she sells, the shop his legacy, which Isabelle honors every day. As does Julian.

  Michael will be the one to miss her, but she knows he won’t protest. When she met him, nine years ago, Daniel had been such a constant presence in her life for so long that it was like he was a relative, someone to be inherited along with the rest of Isabelle’s family—her impossible mother, her three fractious brothers, her gentle, regretful father. And Daniel.