I asked Caroline if I could copy Samuel’s poem. She dug into her purse and handed me the laminated card.
“Keep it. It’s yours, anyway.”
Samuel spent those days alone in his hotel room or running. Always running. Caroline and I rescheduled his appearances, telling our colleagues he had a bout of food poisoning. In reality, he’d gone into a creative explosion—I was somewhat acquainted with them, as he’d had them in college. I was sure when he emerged he’d have written something heart-rending and beautiful—yet another tragedy of the beast. I checked on him every few hours to make sure he was shaving, sleeping, eating the room service food I ordered. He’d gaze up at me with shame-filled eyes. My chest tightened each time I passed him. I’d pause and give his shoulder a squeeze. Samuel would place his hand over mine and draw it to his lips. Then it was back to avoidant eyes and fidgeting, flying fingers.
When I wasn’t with Samuel, I read mental health books. Caught up on my TrilbyJones projects. Planned the Lyons benefit concert. I paid a visit to Samuel’s Aunt Lucia and Uncle Carlos (Sofia’s family in Mission Viejo), apologizing profusely that he was too sick to see them.
“You can make it up with a drive along the coast in that gorgeous car,” Tía Lucia said, her pleasant face so like Sofia’s. Of course, Lucia passed along Samuel’s “food poisoning” news to Sofia and made her worry. But honestly, I was so incensed with my surrogate madre, I didn’t care.
I also toured LA with Justin. He was a breath of fresh air, with thumbs ups and goofy grins that would melt the PBR-soaked heart of any hipster.
“Did you know the Santa Monica Pier is celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary?” I read from my tour book as we sauntered along wooden planks crusted with sea salt, past caricature artists and whimsical amusement rides.
“Uh, yeah. If you’d get your head out of that book and actually look at the pier, you’d see banners all over the place that say ‘100 Years of Summer Fun.’”
“Right.” I tossed the book in my beach bag and adjusted the straps of my sundress. The Pacific Ocean was warm and sunny. If I closed my eyes, the roar of surf sounded like strong winds cutting over my mountains. I felt a pang of homesickness, and this time it showed.
Justin tweaked my floppy straw hat, his eyes sparking. “You are a beautiful woman, Kaye. I mean it.” I ducked my head, taking a great deal of interest in my snow cone.
“Justin…”
“If I were a straight man, I’d do my best to steal you from Cabral right now. You’re too pretty to go to waste.”
I smiled, not caring that my teeth and tongue were stained pink by cherry syrup. “Thank you for showing me LA.”
“He’ll come around,” he said kindly.
On Thursday, Samuel went to his doctor’s appointment with Caroline and flipping left me behind. While the man who supposedly loved me sat in a mental health specialist’s office with another woman supporting him, I took out my fear and fury on a rock-climbing wall.
What if something bad has happened?
He’s safe at the doctor’s office.
He should have asked me to go instead of Caroline. (Tighten your grip on the belay rope…Hoist…)
If you’d asked to go along, he would have said yes. He loves you.
If he loves me, why won’t he trust me? (Wedge your foot onto the notch…steady…)
He trusts you. He doesn’t trust himself.
But he’s never actually said “I love you” since he returned, has he? (Hoist…strain for the next notch, now hold…breathe…)
No, he hasn’t. But neither have you.
How can I possibly risk telling him? (Careful…you don’t need any more broken bones.) He’s the one keeping secrets, not me.
He’s a man, Kaye. He’s scared to tell you because he doesn’t want to seem weak. Remember, on your camping trip, you said you weren’t strong enough to be with someone who is mentally ill. What was his reaction?
He was shaken, badly.
He doesn’t want to burden you…not seven years ago, not now. It may not be right, but that’s how he is.
True. (Wedge your foot again…) Yet he asked me to put my career on the line for him without telling me his secrets. Isn’t that burdening me?
His judgment is clouded.
That’s another thing—how long has his judgment been clouded? Since April? (Tighten your grip on the rope…Hoist…) What if he comes back from the doctor completely normal and he realizes he doesn’t really want me back?
He loves you.
Which he, though?
With an angry cry, I sobbed against the wall, just once. I clung to the notch under my fingers to steady my teetering body. Then I took a deep, determined breath, and continued upward.
When I returned to the Roosevelt Hotel after my climb, sweaty and aching from exertion, I found a happy Samuel. He beamed at me, exuberant and carefree, and I didn’t know whether the doctor had stuck him with pure sunshine or if this was yet another symptom.
“How was your ‘studio meeting?’” I asked acidly.
Samuel’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully and there was that unnerving look, as if he could see right through me. “Productive. I think we got to the bottom of some things.”
“You and Caroline?”
“No, I went by myself. I took a cab.”
“Oh.” Flaming monkey. I’d spent the entire morning freaking out over Caroline for nothing. “I would have come with you, you know.”
“You wanted to go?”
I nodded.
His entire face unclouded again and his mouth curled. “Then come with me now.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the elevators.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
I pulled back and gestured to my Spandex shorts and ponytail. “Er, Samuel, I’m a sweaty mess.”
“I don’t care. Unless…” He halted and frowned. “Did you have plans with Justin instead?” His voice carried that same smidge of jealousy I heard when he spoke of Hector, and I knew to tread carefully.
I poked his shoulder. “Nope. I’m all yours.”
He grinned. I let him lead me to the elevators, through the hotel, and out to the Bentley rental. But when he began to climb into the driver’s seat, I acted quickly. If he drove in his current mood, we’d be dodging highway traffic at ninety miles an hour.
“Can I drive?” I begged. “I’m loving the Bentley, and I probably won’t get the chance to drive it again.”
Samuel grandly stepped back and held the door open for me. I slid in and prayed I wouldn’t knock off someone’s side mirror.
We cruised south on Interstate Five, back toward Santa Ana. The top was down, and the wind noise made conversation impossible. Still, Samuel babbled on and on about the dashboard features—I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he pointed to different buttons.
“Where are we going?” I shouted over the roar.
“Newport Beach!”
My mouth fell open, then snapped shut as wind rattled my cheeks. “That’s all the way to Mission Viejo! Your aunt will kill you for not visiting!”
“What?”
“Tía Lucia!”
His eyes widened. “Shit! I should see her!”
“Maybe next time!” I smiled at him and kept my eyes locked on the road, hoping he wouldn’t see pity there.
An hour later, as we exited the interstate, I asked him where I needed to go. His lips quirked and he turned to me, handsome and wind-ruffled, eyes shielded by sunglasses.
“I’m buying you a Bentley.”
Sweet mother of Tom. I slammed the breaks before I ran a stoplight. “No! Oh no, no, no, no, no!”
“Come on, Kaye. Let me do this for you as an apology for being such a beast last week, and to say thank you for all the crap you’ve put up with. I don’t want to lose you over this, I’m so goddamned petrified you’ll leave me when I love you so much, so I was thinking, instead of flying back to Denver for Rocky Mountain Folks next week
, we could get away with several extra days of vacation since everyone believes I have food poisoning, and road trip. Think of all the amazing views! Vegas, the Grand Canyon, the mountains, we could even stop along Route 66 at one of those old kitschy diners, and we could do Leadville again, that old West saloon? It’s supposed to be haunted…”
I don’t know how I held back the tears. My knuckles whitened against the steering wheel. No, please don’t tell me you love me. Not like this, not now. His face was bright and innocent and happy, and it made me want to weep.
“Why are we going all the way to Newport Beach for a car?” I asked, swallowing down the lump in my throat. He went on about how he’d seen a television spot for a Bentley dealership that was having a back-to-school sale (only in Orange County, I swear). I was so caught up in my thoughts, when he placed his hand on mine briefly, it freaked me out.
“Hands off!” I screeched, grinding the steering wheel, and he flinched away, remorse spilling off of him in torrents.
Then I felt guilty, so…I let him buy me a car. Not a Bentley. At the dealership, I talked Samuel down from his luxurious aspirations to a used BMW convertible for twenty-five thousand. (The salesman, of course, was no help. I paid the guy three hundred dollars to shut his wheel-dealing trap and follow us to the Roosevelt in the BMW.) Whenever Samuel came down from this episode, I’d give him the car and he could either sell it or keep it in Boulder to use when he moved. If he moved.
I also had to convince him not to buy a Bentley for Caroline and Justin. “You can take them out to a nice restaurant when we get to New York, Samuel. They don’t need cars as thank you presents.”
Whatever Dr. Gupta gave Samuel helped. After he went on his car-buying frenzy (why, oh why, hadn’t Justin gushed over a candy bar instead of a Bentley?), his moods finally began to level out. Just in time, too. I’d been two digits away from calling Alonso and Sofia, I’d been so panicked. It wouldn’t have been a polite conversation.
Over the next couple of days, the wildness left his eyes and the nervous energy drained from his body. He ventured out for meals. Finished his restless writing. Ran in the morning instead of at night. I watched him closely until I was sure he was stable enough to have the conversation chomping at our ankles.
My timing was precise—five forty a.m. I’d only sat in the hotel hallway for six minutes, clad in running shorts, tank top, and sneakers, when Samuel’s door opened and he appeared, also in shorts and sneakers.
“What are you doing on the floor, Firecracker?” He crouched next to me. His fingers, at last, were fidget-free.
“I want to join you. You’ll have to bear with me; I’m not very fast.”
He smiled—not a leer, not odd and over-bright. It was gentle, genuine. “I’d love it.”
Our soles slapped the pavement as we jogged along a quiet, low-lit Hollywood Boulevard. It was too early for morning rush hour, too late for party crowds. The sky was hazy and pink as the sun peeked between buildings. The air was already sticky—it would be hot today.
Samuel slowed his pace considerably for me, so he wasn’t even breathless. Even so, I lagged (running was not my sport). I watched Samuel’s muscular calves, tight bottom, and beautiful back move beneath his sweaty T-shirt in rhythm to his strides. He knew I was ogling, but didn’t seem to mind.
“How is your…next book chapter…coming along?” I huffed.
“Not so well. I think you know that.” His eyes darted down to me, then forward again.
“Perhaps I can help.”
Samuel said nothing for several minutes. We rounded a corner and he halted, leaning against a bus stop bench. “I deleted it.”
“All of it?” I collapsed onto the bench, stunned.
“Most of it.”
“But you’ve been writing for a week!”
He razed me with agonized blue eyes. “It was sixty pages of nonsense, Kaye—so bad, it was the first time I’ve ever deleted my work. I loathed every single word. The only thing that’s left is one flipping page.” His fingers wove into his damp hair and tugged. He looked so sad, and the destruction of his words hit me harder than anything else in this messy ordeal.
Tears pooled in my eyes and I wiped them away before they spilled over. “Can I read the page?”
He didn’t answer, only hung his head. So I whipped out the big guns. I motioned for him to sit next to me. He did, careful to leave a foot of space between us. Reaching into my zip pocket, I removed a folded sheet of paper and pressed it against his chest. Samuel opened it with trembling hands.
“Our friendship vows,” he said, air whooshing from his lungs. “I thought this might be a resignation letter.”
“I already told you, I’m in this. But I want to remind you of these vows, because it’s easy to forget them.” I insinuated myself under his sweaty arm. “First, I will make myself available when you are down, as well as happy. I will provide emotional and physical warmth.”
“Kaye, you didn’t have the whole story when we wrote those.”
“I’m not finished. I will fight for you and your reputation. Which apparently is going to be a much bigger job than I originally thought, but it’s manageable.”
“Firecracker—”
“I will always want the best for you,” I continued. “I will be honest and truthful, even when the truth is difficult. I’m going to be truthful now, Samuel.”
He buried his face in my hair, then kissed the top of my head. “Go on,” he said quietly.
“I know you’ve kept things from me—important things. I’m asking you for honesty. Because without it, this—” I motioned between us “—doesn’t stand a chance.”
His jaw shifted against my head as he weighed his options. Then, coming to a decision, he jerked me to my feet. “Let’s grab coffee to-go and walk back to the hotel, all right? We can talk there. Too many people…” Minutes later, we strode along Hollywood Boulevard, coffee cups and croissants in hand.
“Do you know why I wanted to do the Q-and-As with you?” he asked.
“Because we needed time to sort through our emotions.” I took a gulp of coffee, wincing as it burned my throat.
“Yes, but there’s more. I was buying time.”
“Why?” I studied his face as we walked, not paying attention to the sidewalk ahead. Samuel casually tugged me to his side before I plowed into a fire hydrant.
“I was afraid,” he said simply. “I wanted to put off this conversation as long as possible, but it’s past time, isn’t it? Weeks ago, you asked me why I never came back.”
“You told me it was a long story and you weren’t ready to fill me in yet. Which was kind of a cop out.”
“Well, it is a long story.” He shrugged, then saw the irritated set of my jaw. “Are you very angry?”
“‘Angry’ is an understatement. But I still want you to tell me.”
We made our way through the Roosevelt lobby bustling with suitcase-laden porters and people checking out, toward the elevators. On our way up, he wrapped an arm around my waist and tenderly kissed my shoulder, just once. I saw his face in the brassy reflection of the sliding doors—it was twisted with fear, as if he couldn’t bear to release me once the doors opened. But they did open, he did release me, and I did ask my question (in a bumbling sort of way).
“Why did you stay away from me, Samuel?” I asked softly. “I’m ninety-nine percent certain I know why, especially after the past week. I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Even now, I’m not entirely sure I wasn’t reading more into your…your behavior. Maybe I’m completely paranoid and Caroline was messing with my head. But, I think—”
“Kaye,” he said fervently. “You know me, so well. Don’t doubt yourself.” He smoothed several sweaty strands from my forehead and pressed his lips there. I tilted my face to capture his lips, but he backed away, his hand still on my face. Finally, he swiped his key and ushered me into his room.
“Wait here, please,” he murmured. I plopped onto a plush couch while he disappeared into
his bedroom. When he emerged, he held three things: his laptop and two orange prescription bottles. On the laptop screen was an electronic document, and I recognized the working title for his draft novel.
“Is that the page you didn’t delete?”
“Yes. It’s the only page that had a hint of sanity, which says a lot about those other sixty pages.” He chuckled, but it sounded forced. “I wrote it for you, after…after I treated you so badly your first night in LA.” That night wasn’t all his fault, but that was a discussion for another time. “It was a half-crazed attempt to explain how much I treasure you, even when I’m slipping into lows and highs. I know it’s bizarre and convoluted—”
“It will be beautiful to read. Thank you.” I rested an open palm on his knee. “And the prescriptions?”
He cautiously put them in my hand. I turned the bottles to read the labels. “Zoloft?”
“It’s sertraline—a low-dose antidepressant,” he explained, his voice quaking. “And the other is valproic acid.”
“Depakote.” My eyes fluttered closed, the weight of reality heavy in my hand. “A mood stabilizer?”
“Yes,” he rasped. “For my bipolar disorder—Bipolar II, to be exact. Money isn’t the only thing I inherited from my mother.”
My eyes held his and I simply nodded. I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t know much about Bipolar II, and “I’m sorry” wasn’t enough. Then I set the bottles down, took the laptop, and began to read the only page to survive destruction:
We try to watch for the slip. It sidles up—a warship creeching unaware over planks—and bombards our sides…
Chapter 8
Log Book
As explorers, skydivers will often journal
about their experiences and achievements
to document them for posterity.
“DON’T YOU THINK it would be fun to be married by Elvis at a chapel?”
“We’re not driving up to Vegas, Kaye.”
“I’m not suggesting we do it. I just think it would be unique.”
“It’s not unique, it’s cliché.”
“Boo to you. Who doesn’t love Elvis?”
Skygods (Hydraulic #2) Page 17
