Worth the Wait

by Karelia Stetz-Waters

  They’d placed a ladder up against one of the walls. A crew member—Merritt thought his name might be Setter—had climbed halfway up.

  “There’s nothing up there,” Merritt said.

  Greg laughed genially. “There doesn’t have to be.”

  Merritt took a seat behind the counter, watching another crew member climb an A-frame ladder until his head disappeared into the forest of lamps hanging by the window. A moment later his colleague handed him a halogen lamp, and he added it to the collection.

  “You know you’ve already got a few there,” Merritt called out.

  The man popped his head out. “Oh, where?”

  They were fun, Merritt thought, friendly and hardworking. They had designated roles, but the hierarchy seemed flat. Greg was the boss, but he acted like a coach, tweaking settings and nodding his approval. Merritt remembered Avery strolling beside her through the tree-lined streets off Hawthorne. We don’t even own a house, Avery had said. The show is home. Merritt could see it.

  A soft touch on her arm brought her into the present moment. Avery stood behind her in a yellow sundress. It looked like casual cotton, but it must have been tailored for Avery. Her breasts swelled beneath the bodice. The dress accentuated her waist. Her heels were a lighter shade of creamy yellow, and even though Merritt had never been a fan of high heels, she admired the curve of Avery’s leg beneath her white nylons.

  “You look lovely,” Merritt said.

  “I’m a mess.” Avery touched her cheek. “Look how much makeup Tami had to put on.”

  Her skin was flawless, but, on closer examination, it was heavy with foundation.

  “Are you okay?” Merritt asked.

  “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.” She held her side. “And who wears tights in the summer? But my legs are all bruised up.” She lifted one foot, but the movement unbalanced her and she stumbled against Merritt. Merritt steadied her and then let her go quickly.

  Merritt remembered Avery reclining in the bathtub. She remembered the feel of Avery’s hair beneath her fingers and the look of pleasure that had spread over Avery’s face as she leaned her head against the rim of the tub. Merritt could have carried her to the bed and gently made love to her, at least kissed her and awoken beside her. She’d seen Avery’s hurt embarrassment when Merritt had turned her down. And Merritt cared. That was the dangerous part. In thirty-three days—as Greg kept reminding everyone—Avery would sail away with Alistair, the crew that was her family, and Merritt would be left caring. Caring if Avery was hurt. Caring if Avery was happy. Caring if Avery’s lovers touched her the way Merritt longed to. Would they appreciate her innocence and her fervor? Would they realize that she had not had the requisite one-night stands, bad girlfriends, and awkward firsts and lasts that left most women her age experienced in all the ways sex could go wrong (and occasionally right)? Merritt wanted to make sure all Avery knew about sex was luxuriating in pleasure. That thought solidified her resolve to say no. The more Merritt cared, the more it would hurt when Avery left. She wished her body recognized that logic, but the closer Avery stood, the more Merritt ached to touch her.

  “I can’t believe they made you work,” Merritt said.

  “The show must go on. Greg wouldn’t have put me on, but Venner’s stomping around talking about budget and how we’re behind schedule.”

  “You just started filming.”

  “And we’re already late because of Pine Street. We can pull it off. We always do.”

  “Have you decided what your quintessential Portland will look like?” Merritt asked.

  “Maybe we’ll install those carpets that look like real grass. For nature. Portland loves nature.”

  “Who doesn’t like shag carpet that look like grass?”

  “I sunbathed naked on a green roof in Berlin,” Avery said a little mournfully.

  It was a lovely image.

  “I was fifteen. I thought I was a rebel. I think that was the last time I was.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  The thought sparked a longing that cut through Merritt’s calm. Their night together. Their bodies intertwined. Oh, and that moment when she had ridden her orgasm to a gasping conclusion. Sex had never been like that before, and every fiber of her body wanted to know if it would be again.

  “You know Berlin is one of the greenest cities in the world,” Avery said. “You should go sometime. You should come with me.” Then, as if embarrassed, she added, “Or go with a girl you like.”

  Someone called for Avery.

  “I’m on,” she said, looking relieved.

  Avery headed toward Greg and the crew. Her gate was stiff, but her smile was easy. The crew greeted her with hugs and a chorus of, “There’s the daredevil. Put Venner in his place, didn’t you? That was epic.”

  * * *

  Filming television was remarkably boring, Merritt discovered. After the second hour of standing in the lumber section, trying not to breathe too loudly because a man named Tom said they were getting a lot of ambient, Merritt was certain she would not fall in love with a life in show business. She watched Avery climb up the ladder to nowhere and exclaim, “Oh my gosh, you won’t believe what I found.” Then she watched her again. And again. First the crew reshot for better light, then better sound. Then Greg eyed the scene and said they needed Alistair, who was filming an exploration scene in the basement of the Elysium. Then they waited for him. When he arrived it began again.

  “Oh my gosh, look what I found.” Avery hung on the ladder, her pretty heels balanced on a middle rung.

  “Put the picture frame in her hand,” Greg said. “Where’s Setter? Setter get that picture frame for Avery.”

  Now Avery handed an ornate gold-leaf picture frame to Alistair. He held the frame up and put his head through and beamed.

  “And cut,” Greg said. “Okay, go again.”

  By the time Avery finally climbed down from the ladder, she looked winded. She limped past Merritt and disappeared behind a tall chest of drawers, but she trailed her hand behind her as if inviting Merritt to follow. When Merritt found Avery, she was slumped in a wicker chair beneath the gazebo, one hand on her side. Merritt sat down beside her. She wanted to gather Avery up in her arms and rest Avery’s head on her chest…which was exactly why she shouldn’t do either of those things.

  As she’d drifted off to sleep the night before, she’d fantasized about Avery kissing her …there…where she had allowed so few women. Now she felt guilty, like she had as a teenager. Thinking, You’re so pretty, was innocent. Imagining every twist and turn of Avery’s tongue in her when Avery was a real person, sitting right next to her, sore from a bike crash, said, You don’t know I’m a stalker yet. Maybe it was even worse because Avery had offered it and Merritt had turned her down. I’ll dream-stalk you, but I won’t sleep with you, and I’ll make you feel bad about that.

  “You sure you don’t have a cracked rib?” Merritt asked.

  “They checked. I’m fine,” Avery said as though that were disappointing news. She looked up at the painted beams of the gazebo. “This place is beautiful. I could sit here all day.”

  “I do,” Merritt said. “Sometimes after hours, I just come down here and listen to the fountain, think about my uncle, read a book.”

  “Where do you get all the merchandise?”

  “People usually come to me. They can see that I love this stuff. Some salvage places treat their inventory like junk. People don’t want to see their grandfather’s harpsichord piled up with scrap metal in the corner…even if they don’t know what to do with it themselves.”

  “What are your favorites?”

  “The chandeliers.” Merritt thought. “Or the coal stoves, the light switch covers. I once had Masonic Lodge archways. And I love the barnwood. You get twenty-by-twenty beams that were cut out of one tree. And cornices.”

  “That’s just about everything.”

  “Yeah.” Merritt stood up and walked to an ornate birdcage in which
she had arranged a display of old jewelry. She opened the birdcage and took out a locket. “This one’s not for sale. My uncle gave it to me.”

  Merritt remembered her uncle standing on the balcony waving as she left for the senior prom. He had given her the locket to tuck in her pocket. A lover’s locket, he’d said, opening the silver oval. Friends and lovers who couldn’t be together would give each other these. Inside two women’s faces were painted: one delicate, one stern. They both looked sad. Merritt had fingered the locket as she’d driven to Avery’s house. She was part of that history, tied to those women, to Uncle Oli and his boyfriend, Kurt. She’d loved the whole world as she’d driven to Avery’s house. Then she’d arrived. Avery’s father looked surprised. She left hours ago, he’d said. Maybe Uncle Oli had known. Maybe that was why he had given her a gift that said, You’re not the only one who’s been unhappy.

  She placed the locket in Avery’s hands. Avery held it reverently.

  “That’s who I would have been.” Merritt pointed to the stern woman.

  Avery shook her head. “You’re this one.” She pointed to the pretty, delicate woman. “I don’t know how you can’t see it. You know, back at Vale I watched you for a month before I worked up the courage to talk to you.”

  “You were my lab partner.”

  “I traded with Ella Thistler. It took a while to convince her. All the girls at Vale had a crush on you.”

  “They did not. You’re making it all up. Flatterer.”

  “Remember Lucy Grier?”

  Merritt was surprised to realize she did.

  “She had a crush on you. And Ron Craten. If guys count, there were dozens.”

  And you, too, but not enough.

  “If you hadn’t been my friend, I would have hated you,” Avery said.

  “I’m sure the girls lusted after you too.”

  “Hardly. The Hollywood Girl. That’s what they called me. It wasn’t a compliment in Portland.”

  “They were jealous. You were exotic. You had an agent.” Merritt took the locket back, letting her fingertips brush Avery’s palm…which she shouldn’t have. The desire that warmed her body told her so. “I like the thought of these women together. Maybe they were lesbians. Maybe not. Maybe they didn’t even have words for what they felt, but they had this locket. Western civilization always wants perfection. The ancient Japanese thought if something was rough or scarred, if it gave you this sense of profound, spiritual sadness, that was better than perfection. The called it wabi-sabi. It means ‘the beauty of imperfection.’ Nothing lasts forever, but nothing is finished.”

  “Can’t something new be important?” Avery asked.

  The gentle intimacy to their conversation was too alluring. Merritt changed the subject. “I said I’d let the Pride House host a fundraising dance here on the last day of summer. The Nostalgia-rom. It’s like prom for grown-ups.”

  “With strippers?” Avery asked.

  “Not that adult. It’ll be very hipster. Porn-staches. Lumbersexuals.”

  Avery shifted a little closer to her. “I wish I had gone with you.”

  Above their heads the sun shone through the skylights. No matter how carefully Merritt cleaned her merchandise, Hellenic Hardware was always dusty. The dust caught in the sun’s light, making shafts of gold, like the trunks of enormous, golden trees.

  “If I had gone with you, it would have been special,” Avery added.

  If anyone had asked Merritt if she still cared about a fifteen-year-old prom, she would have scoffed. Balding football players who peaked at eighteen and had nothing else to show for themselves except a beer gut longed to go back to high school and relive the glory days. Not Merritt. Except that she did.

  Someone called from the lobby.

  “Avery. You’re up next. You’re spilling a can of ball bearings, so let’s get this one right on the first take or we’re stepping on balls all afternoon.”

  Ball bearings took another three hours. Merritt got a part in the scene. Avery reached for a can on a high shelf. Merritt said, “Don’t drop—” And the ball bearings cascaded across the floor. Merritt was pretty sure she’d be picking them out of displays for years to come. Long after Avery had left, she’d walk downstairs in bare feet and step on one. That or she’d move a wardrobe, releasing a pool of ball bearings. They’d slide under her feet, and she’d go down hard. She watched Avery reach for the can, the bruises on her arm barely covered by makeup. She wanted to draw Avery another bath. She wanted to slip her hand under the water this time. She wanted to caress Avery in places that would make her forget her everything. Who was Merritt kidding? She was already going down hard.

  Chapter 18

  They finished filming in record time. Merritt was amazing. Over the years, they’d invited dozens of people on the show: tour guides, contractors, home owners, crafters. They’d even had prize winners who entered competitions and then got a walk-on part in the finale. Most of those people froze up or started rambling off script, disappointed to learn that, yes, there was a script. Merritt was different. The cool that followed her like her own mountain shadow played perfectly on-screen.

  Avery texted Alistair as they finished up. Almost done.

  Alistair: Fast. How’s Nostalgia?

  They had always veiled their texts in fake names and euphemisms. There was no way to film for fifteen years and not find your phone in the crew’s lost and found a dozen times.

  Avery texted Like a .

  Nostalgia give in yet? Alistair replied.

  Avery: If only I were 17

  Alistair: Wait

  Avery: Waited too long

  Alistair: I u, she must. What next?

  She didn’t have time to reply. Merritt had sidled up beside her.

  “What a day,” Merritt said. “I can’t believe you’ve been doing that for fifteen years.”

  They watched the crew pack up.

  “That was a holiday,” Avery said. “We’ve gone until ten p.m. You were brilliant.”

  Merritt shrugged, as if to say, When aren’t I?

  “Your cheekbones are going to look like Cara Delevingne made love to Michelle Pfeiffer.”

  Artless! She was flirting with Merritt like the teenage girls who threw themselves at Alistair. Her mother was right. She was clumsy. But she couldn’t help it. Merritt was gorgeous. Not mentioning it was like seeing a rainbow and not pointing it out to your friend.

  “You’re something else, Avery Crown,” Merritt said. “Flattery…”

  Avery hoped she would finish, Will get you anywhere.

  But Merritt just turned away from the crew and whispered, “I bet you talk to all the girls like that.”

  “There is no all.”

  It felt truer than ever. There was only Merritt, like a lone figure in a wide-angle shot.

  “I’m sorry about DX the other day,” Avery said. “She has no boundaries.”

  “I like her. She’s…” Even cool Merritt Lessing couldn’t finish the sentence. “Would you really knit me little sweaters?” She was teasing.

  “If you made me a birdhouse for really tiny birds.”

  “First ostriches and then really tiny birds. You are a woman of contradictions. Hey,” she said as though something had just occurred to her. “Do you have to go back to that miserable hotel?”

  “Do you have something better?”

  “I have my friends, and they are dying to meet you—and Alistair too.”

  Avery said she had to go back to the Extended Stay Deluxe to get Alistair, as if she had not texted him five minutes earlier. She needed to change. She needed to throw every dress out of her traveling wardrobe, try them all on, and then panic and send a production assistant to the mall to buy something that would invariably make her look like a pear.

  * * *

  The process took two hours. It would have taken all night if Alistair hadn’t come by her room, taken a pink gingham dress out of her hands, and said, “I am fifty-fifty on whether this girl is going to break your hea
rt and ruin your career, but if you like her, you need to know that this dress says, ‘I am going to plant wheat on the prairie.’ There is a line dance in Stone tonight, and I bet all the boys would like you. Some of them even have teeth.”

  Alistair was starting a free dental clinic in Stone. It would be up and running within the month.

  “She’s so—” Avery sat down on the bed. “I’ve got nothing to wear.” She leaned her head on Alistair’s shoulder. “I look like a dish detergent commercial.”

  “You will if you wear that one. Anyway, this morning you told me all hope was lost. If that’s true, just put on that Body Biscuit suit and some Jimmy Choos. Be like, you didn’t want to date me? I can still embarrass you in public.”

  “She cut the Body Biscuit suit off me.”

  “She cut it off you?” Alistair looked alarmed.

  “In a sexy way.”

  “Okay, if you two don’t wrap this up, I will date her. She likes you.” He picked a crumpled gray tank dress off the floor. “You’re beautiful. You can’t get out of each other’s way. Just grab her and kiss her.”

  “She’s too wounded inside.”

  “Wounded!” Alistair said. “Even I have partaken of the carnal delights”—he feigned disdain—“and I know no one is too wounded for casual sex.”

  I don’t want casual. It was what she’d asked for though. She wondered what Merritt would have said if she had thrown herself at her feet and said, Marry me, you androgynous goddess.

  * * *

  A few minutes later their driver deposited Alistair and Avery in front of King Chen’s in Chinatown, Avery in her dissatisfying gray dress. Merritt greeted them at the door with a polite hug.

  “You look nice,” she said to Avery.

  Nice! Of course she looked nice. Nice sold wall decals. Nice did the Brattleboro Home Show. Merritt looked like an indie director about to take the stage at Sundance, especially poised in front of the door to the dim sum restaurant. Everything in Chinatown looked like it had risen to glory, faded, and was trying to rise again. The red pagodas were faded, but the city had installed sculptures in the sidewalks.