Bohemian

by Kathryn Nolan

  Those fucking lips. I felt the strongest urge to bite that bottom lip. Tug it between my teeth and see what it tasted like.

  This was concerning.

  She was still standing in the “Fiction, Women” section, so I pulled out a mug with Virginia Woolf stenciled on it. The warmth of the hot coffee was comforting against my palm as I walked back towards her, steeling my limited confidence.

  She took it from me, our fingertips just grazing each other.

  “The older one grows, the more one likes indecency,” she quoted, eyes on mine with her honey voice.

  Surprised, I said, “That’s from a Virginia Woolf short story, right?” Forgetting, for a moment, I was talking to a woman who had once walked down a runway with nothing but peacock feathers glued to her body.

  Because Lucia Bell was potentially flirting with me, using an obscure quote from an equally obscure collection of stories.

  A small, secretive smile. “She’s a favorite,” she finally said, voice lowered.

  “So you do like books,” I repeated and her smile grew.

  “You could say that,” she replied, taking a long sip of her drink. Tilted her head. “It’s no latte, but I guess it’ll have to do.”

  I laughed, still surprised, and I wanted to ask her more, but Ray called her over, breaking the moment.

  “Thanks for the coffee, Cal,” she said, tossing a wink at me.

  I gawked after her before I could stop myself.

  ◊

  LUCIA

  This bookstore—Calvin’s bookstore—was like something out of my wildest dreams. When I was little, before modeling became my life, all I wanted was for my parents to drop me off at a bookstore like this one, where I could lose myself in words for hours.

  If they’d taken me here, I would have never left.

  It wasn’t huge. Calvin was right when he said it was intimate. Except every room had giant windows that made you distinctly aware of the wilderness outside, pressing in. A fire crackled in the fireplace. None of the chairs matched. My mug was chipped and faded and I pressed it to my chest.

  I loved Virginia Woolf. How did Cal guess? And why did I feel the need to impress him with my knowledge of her works? I usually kept the bookworm side of myself locked away.

  Not that I’d read much these past years.

  I avoided the poetry room, but I wandered towards the far wall. Half of it was taken up with framed posters advertising readings: Maya Angelou, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, Amiri Baraka. It went on and on, writers I recognized and writers I didn’t, but their presence on the wall telegraphed something special: a night of words. A night of communion.

  Scattered throughout were tiny half-pages of poems and selections from literature, slid haphazardly into frames or taped onto old photos. From the look of them, Calvin’s grandfather must have typed them on an old typewriter.

  I closed my eyes, imagining him sitting here, reading. Falling in love with something he’d read and needing to share it with the world.

  The one closest to me was Pablo Neruda:

  No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams.

  You will go, we will go, together over the waters of time.

  I tapped my finger against the paper, feeling an electric buzz. It was thrilling and scary and I hadn’t felt it in a long time.

  At the far end of the room was an old cash register and a long desk similarly covered with stacks of books.

  I was sensing a theme.

  Behind the table sat Cal, engrossed in a slim novel. I walked closer, still semi-interested in the walls, but sizing Cal up at the same time. People didn’t usually do things like read around me. I expected his ardent adoration: some cartoonish, jaw-drop-to-the-floor, eyes-bulge situation. I would play it cool, of course, treat him like just another fan.

  You need the attention.

  I shook that thought away and slid a little closer. He turned the page, head in hand, totally absorbed in whatever was on that page. Not on me: the 5-foot-10 blonde bombshell standing in front of him.

  I sighed loudly, but he didn’t look up. I was half-tempted to take my top off but decided against it.

  “Reputation,” Lu.

  Cal had thick, dark brown hair. A five o’clock shadow that was almost a beard. Those big glasses which he could have pulled off as “hipster” if he had more confidence. Instead, he just looked like a nerd, one step away from using a finger to push his glasses up his nose.

  “This place is perfect, Lu,” Ray said, walking up behind me.

  I turned, nodding, because he was absolutely right. “Where are we shooting?” I asked.

  “This is our first and main location, so I want you and Taylor here a lot. There’s tons to work with—the details, the fireplace, the color of the books, the feel of the walls. The camera’s going to love it and you’re going to look gorgeous together.”

  “And when does the rest of the crew get here?” I asked.

  “Should be tomorrow morning. You can start meeting with wardrobe, see what looks good. We’ll work our way through the other locations during the three days that we’re here. Tomorrow morning, we can start talking hair and makeup.”

  I nodded along, half-listening. I’d been doing these shoots since I was 15 years old. And they were all the same. Hair. Big makeup. Some ridiculous piece of clothing literally taped to my body. Glitter. Five-inch heels. At this point, I’d perfected all kinds of looks: pouty yet serious; irritated yet turned-on; carefree yet grounded.

  Modeling was a study in contrasts. The viewer wanted you to be everything and nothing—a body to project their own feelings onto; a face to worship or hate—sometimes both at the same time.

  I pulled out my phone automatically to scroll through my social media accounts.

  No Service.

  I sighed in frustration. I wouldn’t be able to win back lost followers if I couldn’t post sexy photos from Big Sur.

  So I sighed again, extra loudly, and strode right up to Calvin’s cash register. He was still reading, completely absorbed. I remembered the feeling—except that I was annoyed at his lack of attention.

  I looked up at the framed photographs over his head. More authors, some of his grandparents. And then I saw it—I sucked in an actual gasp, fingertips to my lips.

  “Are you okay?” Calvin asked, finally looking up. Except my surprise was real, not feigned.

  “Oh…yeah,” I said, debating if I should share, but before I could stop myself I said, “Is that your grandfather with Mary Oliver?”

  Calvin looked up to where I was pointing, smiled and nodded. “It is. He adored her. She did readings here several times. She and her wife would stay in the cabins where you’re staying.”

  I want to stay in her cabin.

  “Can I stay in her cabin?” I asked out loud, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

  Cal looked astonished. “Um…yeah, I can look back in the records and see if I can find out where she stayed. Not a problem, Ms. Bell.”

  “Lucia,” I said automatically. “Or Lu…or really, you can call me whatever.”

  He broke eye contact, looking away. “Oh, okay. Sorry…just, how do you…?

  “She’s my favorite poet. Ever. Like ever, ever.” I said and for a moment I was 13 years old again and having a very grown-up conversation about poetry with fellow readers I’d bump into at bookstores.

  Calvin’s smile was tentative, head tilted. He put his book down (I could finally see the cover. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. I knew that book. A sexy romp through Paris.).

  “I spent my summers up here with my grandfather for years and Mary Oliver was one of the poets we’d read together. Her words blend perfectly with Big Sur. There’s so much nature here, it’s almost…” He thought for a second, “forceful. She captured that so well.”

  I nodded eagerly, in love with this feeling again. I had missed it. “That’s so true. I always read her in the concrete jungle that is Los Angeles. Doesn’t have the same effect. Reading he
r here though?” I said, twirling my finger towards the big open windows, “Would be fucking fantastic.”

  He laughed, softly, almost nervously and managed to hold my gaze for five whole seconds this time before blushing and breaking it. His eyes were a dark, dark green, like the forest outside.

  On an index card taped to the cash register, someone had written, “Word of the Day: Lilting.” I stilled, looking at it.

  That word again.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  Cal looked where I was pointing. “My grandfather would choose a word completely at random every day and write it on an index card. I have a cardboard box in storage with all of them, dating back to the late fifties when he first opened the store. Sometimes when poets would come by and he’d ask them to write something on the spot, he’d give them the Word of the Day for inspiration.”

  “Did you choose this one?” I asked.

  “No. He chose it on the day that he died. It was his last one. I just keep it up there for…” he trailed off, clearing his throat. I looked up at him. “Well, I just think he’d like it. It’s one of my favorite words, actually.”

  “Me too,” I said, and Calvin’s smile was a lot less timid.

  ◊

  LUCIA

  Dark storm clouds gathered in the distance as Cal walked us from the bookstore to our cabins. It was about a quarter mile through the forest on a tiny, worn path.

  “My grandfather built these about thirty years ago. When The Mad Ones was at the height of its popularity, he wanted to extend it somehow, offer something more for the writers who were visiting. So he developed these cabins as writers’ retreats. And the writers would spend a lot of time in the store—holding spontaneous readings. Drinking with my grandfather. Being active in the Big Sur bohemian scene at the time.”

  My heart gave a little squeeze, but I ignored it.

  “Hey, Cal,” Taylor said, stopping in the middle of the trail. Cal turned around, expertly avoiding eye contact with me. And mostly with Taylor too.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I ask kind of a dumb question?”

  “Oh…of course.”

  We were standing under a canopy of awe-inspiring Redwoods. I so wanted to ask Josie to catch me in some kind of accidentally-on-purpose shot for Instagram—laughing into the sunlight against the trunk of a Redwood tree. Perfecting my “I know I’m a model but I’m also a real person” brand.

  But of course we couldn’t do any of those things because we didn’t have the fucking internet.

  “Why is your bookstore called that? The Mad Ones? Kind of a weird name,” Taylor said.

  For the briefest of seconds Cal glanced at me. Someone who read obscure Virginia Woolf stories probably knew that reference. But I shrugged, tossing my blonde hair. Playing it cool. Too many people around to impress.

  “It’s Jack Kerouac,” Cal said.

  “Who?” Taylor asked.

  “He’s a famous author, a Beat poet actually. He was a big part of the literary scene in San Francisco and spent a lot of time in Big Sur. He wrote a book called On the Road, which was my grandfather’s favorite. It came out the year before my grandfather opened this bookstore. And the name, weird as it sounds, is from that book.”

  “How does the quote go?” Josie asked. “I bet you know it by heart.”

  “Oh man,” Calvin said, reddening slightly. “I didn’t realize there’d be a quiz. I just finished re-reading it the other day…” He ran his hand down his jaw, thinking. “It’s something like: The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time…”

  We all stood in silence, the words settling over us like a heavy wool blanket. I breathed in this moment—goosebumps on my skin. Desirous of everything at the same time.

  “I can’t entirely remember the ending right now, but that book had a real impact on my grandfather’s life. So…anyway. We’re almost there,” Cal finished awkwardly and then turned back, indicating we should follow.

  We turned one more corner and then I saw the cabins, six of them. Tiny and built almost like row-homes, squeezed together. Each had a postage stamp-sized front porch; a railing and a chair. A small table perfectly sized for a cup of coffee.

  And then…

  “Holy fuck,” Josie said next to me and I turned, seeing the view fully for the first time.

  Up ahead, Calvin shrugged, but there was pride in his voice. “So…this is why writers wanted to stay here.”

  Because the cabins were perched on a cliff that overlooked the coast of California. A rocky, untamed beach. Wildflowers and small, brightly green bushes. On a clear day you could probably see down the coast for a mile, totally uninhabited. All yours. Behind the cabins stretched the woods, dark and mysterious.

  “I wish I could take a selfie here,” Taylor said and I had to fight the urge to reply, “Same.”

  I walked over to the cabins, which couldn’t be more than a bedroom and a bathroom.

  “They’re basically studios. You can use the kitchen in the bookstore while you’re here or there are some restaurants close by,” Cal said.

  “Internet?” I said, hopeful.

  Cal shook his head. “Not even a little.”

  I nodded along, trying to be nonchalant. I strode up to the closest cabin, walking onto the porch and plopped myself down in the chair. As I looked up and into the ocean, my fingers started itching again. Stronger this time. It felt like the ocean would swallow me whole; the roar of the waves drowning out any thought I had beyond this present moment.

  It was exquisite. It was aching. It was scary and real. There was danger in that ocean—buried ships and the skeletons of pirates; red tide and great white sharks.

  And there was beauty in that ocean—an entire delicate ecosystem we might never lay eyes on. A world, free from the push and pull of societal pressures.

  I closed my eyes and let the thunder of the waves wash over me. When was the last time I sat and just listened…to anything?

  The others walked further down the cliff but I stayed. I desperately wanted to post a picture of this. Snapchat it to millions of people. Obsessively read their comments, their jealousy, their desire to be living my exact life. Calvin had stayed behind, but still at least six feet from me. Every time I’d move closer to him, he’d take a step back.

  It was like a fun little game we had.

  “Calvin,” I purred, tossing my hair. His eyes followed my golden tresses before re-focusing on my face.

  Gotcha.

  “What’s a girl gotta do to get some internet around here?” I crossed my legs, leaned forward. Gave him my best “I’ve been on the cover of Maxim magazine” pout. Calvin looked away.

  Okay, maybe not.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said, shuffling his feet. I was starting to wonder if subtle flirting was lost on Calvin. Except, shit, I wasn’t being subtle. In the absence of social media, I needed attention, dammit, and Calvin wouldn’t bite.

  “There’s an internet cafe in town. And service pops up sometimes in the oddest of places. It’s just spotty,” he said.

  I gritted my teeth. You’re only here for three days.

  “What do you do for fun around here?” I asked. “You specifically.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, when I inherited this place I didn’t exactly know how to run a business, especially an independent bookstore. I’ve spent a lot of time in the internet cafe googling things like ‘what are property taxes?’”

  I laughed, which seemed to spur him on.

  “Also, um…reading. A lot. I used to love to read when I was younger, but my job before this was really time consuming. Now I basically spend every night with a book in front of the fireplace or on that back patio.”

  I thought of my nights recently, being photographed at clubs. Bars. Restaurants. Strobe lights and dance music and re-applying my lipstick twelve times in a darkened bathroom. I pictured Cal’s nights.
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  I wasn’t sure which one I’d prefer.

  “Sounds quiet,” I finally said.

  “It is. But I’m starting to like it. There’s tons of hiking around here so I’ll take Max with me. Go to the beach. Take long drives. It’s really…” he stared off for a second. “Peaceful. Like going back through time.”

  “No internet. Cable TV. Like the Ye Olde Nineties,” I said and Cal laughed. He had a great laugh.

  “See? Models can make jokes,” I smirked. He made eye contact, for real this time, and held it.

  “Sorry, it’s just…it’s a little surreal making jokes with Lucia Bell.”

  “I get it,” I said. “First time I ever went to a real Hollywood party, with celebrities and movie stars, I kept thinking I was dreaming. But…and I know this sounds cliche, they really are just people. Like, food stuck in their teeth, awkwardly standing around, guzzling glasses of wine people.”

  “Hard to imagine,” he said. “So different from here. From this place.” He indicated the giant view behind him.

  “Yes,” I said softly, thinking. “It is.”

  The others were coming back. He threw me a conspiratorial look. “I checked my grandfather’s records. That’s the cabin Mary Oliver stayed in.” He pointed to the one all the way at the end, balancing almost precariously on the edge of the cliff. It looked the same as all the others but somehow different. Mine.

  “Can I…?”

  “Yes, absolutely. Should I put Taylor in there, um, I guess also?” He stumbled over the words a little.

  “Oh, Taylor?” I asked, confused. “Oh, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s just the other model on the shoot.”

  Cal laughed nervously. “Right, sorry I assumed. You’re both just…” he trailed off and I shook my head, dismissing the idea.

  “Plus, we’d never fit all of our outfit changes in these tiny cabins if we shared,” I said, shooting him a kind smile. He looked like he needed rescuing.