“How come every time we kiss each other there’s an emergency?” I asked, running my tongue along the seam of his lips.
He groaned, but then the phone seemed to get louder, more persistent, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead, standing.
“Hold that thought,” he said, taking his coffee and Max with him.
I settled back against the chair, tilting my face up to catch the first rays of sun. A hummingbird flew past, hovering for a moment in front of me, wings a blur of motion, its head the sultry red of a pomegranate. I wanted to write a poem about this bird, seeking sweet nectar.
If the original calculations were correct, we had at least another five days here. I stretched my legs out, surprised that I was looking forward to five more days being off social media, five more days when my agent and Paris and fans couldn’t reach me.
Five more days with Calvin, exploring every inch of his leanly muscled body, memorizing the way pleasure moved through him, moved through me. Maybe we could go for a hike. Maybe he’d take me to the ocean, ravaging me on the sand. Maybe I’d stay up all night reading to him. Maybe—
“Lucia?” Cal said, stepping out. For a second, the sun’s rays sparkled behind him.
“Hey,” I answered. “What’s up?”
“That was Gabe. The road crews worked faster than they originally expected. By midnight tonight they expect both slides to be officially cleared.” He swallowed hard. “It means you’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.”
◊
CALVIN
“You’re more than welcome to stay another night,” I said, shifting nervously on my feet, “especially since the expected time for people to be able to access the roads again isn’t until after midnight. But, yeah…that’s about it. You are officially no longer trapped in Big Sur.”
There was a cheer from the camera crew and Ray was already half in motion, a whirling dervish. If we had cell service here he’d be on a bluetooth, coordinating logistics like an air traffic controller. But he didn’t have that, so he just barked instructions at people and pulled Taylor and Lucia into the corner. I couldn’t hear what he was saying and Lucia’s face was unreadable: professional, nodding in agreement.
I sighed heavily, glancing at the calendar, looking around at the store. I’d meet with the investors tomorrow night—for my “final decision”—and then I needed to call Edward, confirm my start date back at work.
I was suddenly filled with dread. With the sunlight streaming through the wall-to-wall windows, details I hadn’t seen for a week were springing to life. The way the index-cards in the children’s section weren’t white, but yellow and shaped like tiny stars. The hand-written love note my grandmother had written—who knows when—that my grandfather had framed next to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle calling The Mad Ones a “cultural touchstone for poets, street kids, bohemians. A magnificent display of literature, a Mecca for book-lovers,” and stuck to the side of the frame, a post-it note with a message scrawled in blue ink: And I fell in love here. Married fourteen years this spring.
No indication of who wrote it, just a memory my grandfather saw fit to leave there, as he saw fit to leave all the memories here, woven into the walls, pinned to the ceiling, shoved haphazardly into coffee mugs and tea kettles.
Everyone was whirling around me, so no one noticed that I grabbed my grandfather’s journal and settled behind the cash register, sipping my now cold cup of coffee, my delightful morning with Lucia now a distant memory. It was the journal where he recorded his darkest, most anxious thoughts. His regrets, his fears. I needed him to talk me out of the small kernel of an idea that was forcing its way into my consciousness.
From the mid-nineties:
People don’t want to spend the day wandering around a bookstore anymore, collecting novels, discussing their favorite authors. Or just sitting in a chair and letting the day slip away. Everything is move-move-move, checking things off a list, our culture pushing people to be too busy, too overbooked, always in a hurry. I don’t know if The Mad Ones can stay alive in a culture like that. It is the very antithesis of the American desire to stay in constant motion.
And from just five years ago:
Sometimes feel like I am the only one left who likes to read.
Nothing else—just one line. And it didn’t come as a surprise to me either. Just one year out of college I had almost entirely stopped reading. Too distracted, too tired, too stressed out from work.
As soon as I moved up here though, it was all I could do. I kept a count by the bed, and in five and a half months I’d read 128 books. Almost one a day. It was exhilarating, like falling in love again.
And then, from just two years before he died:
Living here is a choice I made, fifty years ago, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Today I visited my children and we had a lovely dinner where my son, for the first time in years, didn’t try to get me to move to the city, into a retirement village. We didn’t argue about my lifestyle, and I was able to look around and honestly congratulate them on their new house. I didn’t suggest they were corporate drones in a system of greed. And they didn’t remind me the Summer of Love had been dead and gone for decades. We’d reached an impasse—both seeing the other’s life choices as distinctly theirs to make.
A reminder that Big Sur is only as isolating as you make it. Years when I didn’t make it down for holidays or birthday parties: a choice. Or when they didn’t come up for poetry readings or concerts I held: a choice. It’s a small, wild town but it’s not in Madagascar. Molly and I certainly didn’t expect to have children so different from us, in almost every single way. And it’s not been easy, but I think we’ve taught each other patience. Respect. Each of our lives are our own— “wild and precious” as Mary Oliver calls it. What a gift. And what a privilege.
I remembered that dinner. I’d come home for it, and remembered how happy I was just to see my grandfather. He’d brought me books, as usual, and we sat together, talking about them excitedly. Usually our family dinners would have at least one tense moment when my mother or uncle would chide him for his “dirty hippie lifestyle” but they didn’t this time, somewhat content to let the evening linger happily.
I’d been reading so long that when I looked up most people were gone, including Lucia. As quickly as she’d appeared in my life, now vanished.
I thought about my grandfather’s words: What a gift. What a privilege.
I shivered, the meaning not lost on me. Tomorrow night I sold the store, and after that I had no idea what my future held.
But I had today—Lucia’s last day in Big Sur. Our last chance to spend time together before reality rushed back in.
What was I going to do?
◊
LUCIA
Josie and I were packing our bags like we were going off to our own executions.
“It’s not that bad,” I said, wondering why on earth I’d packed so many clothes since I’d ended up wearing the same yoga pants and giant sweater the entire time. My journal was sitting on the nightstand, safe with the now four (four!) poems I’d written.
“It is,” she said, completely miserable. “It’s bad, Lu.”
“What are you going to do, quit your job and live with Gabe in a bar in the middle of Big Sur?” I asked, feeling desperate.
“I am. Just like you’re going to quit modeling to live in this bookstore with Calvin.”
My heart shouldn’t have been able to slam against my chest so loudly. So excitedly, at the prospect of waking up each morning next to Calvin Ellis.
“We need a reality check,” I said quickly, coming around to the bed and grasping her hands. “Look at me,” I said and she did, eyes already half-filled with tears. I swallowed hard, since we couldn’t both be crying.
“You just met Gabe. One week ago.”
“Right.”
“How well do you really know him?”
She sighed. “I guess…I guess I know him as well as you can know someone in a week.
But—”
“No buts,” I said firmly, since I knew what she was going to say. The same thing I would say: But it’s different than that. Different than anything I’d ever felt before.
“What conceivable future do you have?”
“None. Which is why this is so terrible. I mean, my career is in LA. My contacts are in LA. There isn’t a big need for makeup artists here. And Gabe? This place is his life. He’s who everyone comes to for wisdom over a drink. For a kind word. He’ll probably be the Mayor in twenty years.”
I was nodding. “Which means leaving here to move to Los Angeles with a woman he barely knows is just not in the cards, now is it?”
Josie’s face hardened. “Lucia, who are you trying to convince here?”
I closed my eyes. Busted. I leaned forward, letting her wrap her tattooed arms around me. “I’m sorry. I thought…with your history…I don’t know. Do you want to be talked into something? Or talked out of something?”
“I think I just want to be sad,” she whispered.
“Okay,” I said, “I can do that.” I leaned back, and she looked so miserable my heart physically hurt.
“I’m guessing Calvin isn’t interested in continuing to see you after this?” she asked.
I scoffed. “I haven’t…we haven’t even…I mean, whenever we’re together we have mind-blowing sex and amazing conversations. But we haven’t once said anything…” I couldn’t even continue, since it was so far beyond any realm of possibility. “I think we both knew…it couldn’t last past this time. And he knows about Paris, so.” I shrugged, attempting to appear nonchalant and failing terribly.
“Here’s a radical idea,” Josie said, tilting her head.
“Oh no.”
“Don’t go to Paris.”
My jaw dropped open dramatically. “Turn down an opportunity of a lifetime for a guy I hardly know?”
“You always say ‘opportunity of a lifetime’ as if modeling is the only life you’re ever going to have.” Her tone softened. “You’ve been unhappy for the past year. I know you’ve ignored me the past three fucking times—”
“I didn’t ignore you,” I said defensively, “I heard you. I really did. And I appreciate your concern. But I’m just tired. Burned out. Paris will be different. It’s a launching pad.”
“Or it’s more of the same. The same bullshit. The same fake people. You having to smile and nod and eliminate all the interesting parts of your personality.”
I sighed. “Josie, don’t make this harder on me. You know I need to do this. To stay relevant, to stay on top.”
What if instead I let this Shay Miller shoot be my last one, go out with a loud, provocative bang, and then took some time to re-evaluate what I want to do next?
Yeah, right. You’re a little fame addict.
“You’re thinking about it,” Josie said, smiling. She shoved me lightly. “Plus, if you go to Paris, I won’t be there. You’ll have some boring, stodgy makeup artist who won’t be your best friend in the entire world.” The thought of being separated from her for two years felt like too much burden to bear.
“I mean, who will listen to me obsess over Calvin and whether or not he’s dating another supermodel?” I sighed dramatically, although I was secretly serious.
She laid back next to me, our hair a blend of dark and light. “How could he ever date someone again after he’s dated The Lucia Bell?”
We laughed, a moment of levity in the middle of a shitty day. Which was a shame, since the morning had started so beautifully, so peacefully, watching the sunrise with Calvin.
What if every day started that way?
“You know Paris won’t change a thing with us,” Josie finally said, softly. “But in all seriousness, I want you to go for you. Or not go, for you. It’s your life, you need to decide what’s best for it.”
A knock on the door, half-startling us both. “It’s probably Ray, trying to figure out if we can helicopter out of here earlier,” I said. Which was funny, since a week ago I would have tried to do the same thing. My cell had run out of batteries on Monday and I hadn’t even charged it, content to let it stay at the bottom of my purse.
And when I opened the door to see Calvin standing there, I couldn’t fight the way a smile broke across my face.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he said.
“Calvin,” Josie said, tossing him a saucy wink.
I shooed her away, closing the door behind me. “I didn’t tell her anything, I promise,” I said. “Except that you’re a sex god. I did tell her that,” I finished, avoiding his gaze. His laughter caught me off-guard.
“Do you want to go on a date with me?” he asked, cheeks so red I thought for sure he’d pass out.
“Um,” I said, completely and totally surprised, and he immediately backed up.
“No worries,” he said, waving his hand. “You probably have things to do—”
“I’d love to,” I said, taking a step closer. “Sorry, you just surprised me is all. I don’t have anything to do tonight—”
“—and it’s your last night here, I thought, you know, why not make it special?” His smile was timid.
“Yes,” I breathed. “I’d fucking love that.”
His smile widened. “Also, I don’t know if this is weird or anything but today is my birthday. My 30th birthday, to be exact.”
“What?”
“It’s not a big deal. I’m not even sure why I’m telling you. I’ve never been a birthday person and to be honest I almost forgot—”
“You almost forgot your own 30th birthday?”
“Yes,” he said, looking sheepish. “But, to be fair, my birthday wish was to drink coffee while watching the sunrise with a beautiful, brilliant poet.” He reached forward, brushing my hair back from my shoulder. “It came true, so the day has already been absolutely perfect.”
My toes curled.
“Let me plan tonight,” I said impulsively. “For your birthday. I didn’t get you a gift, so let me do this.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You sure? Also, there’s not much to ‘do’ here, so if you need recommendations or something I can help.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Just pick me up in your car at eight. I’ll handle it from there.”
“Okay,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”
“I’ve already got some ideas,” I said, tapping my finger against my temple. Which was bullshit (I had none). “And I’m going to give you a 30th birthday you’ll never forget. Promise.”
I gave him a half-salute and a wink, and he responded by backing me against the door and kissing me passionately, both hands squeezing my ass. I looped my arms around his neck, kissing him back happily. When I was breathless and starting to grind against him, he stopped.
“I can’t wait,” he said against my lips.
◊
I pooled together all the random brochures that had been left in the tiny cabins, used Ray’s landline, and after a couple hours had put together not a half-bad night for Big Sur on a Tuesday after an incredibly damaging storm.
Cal was definitely going to love it.
We were definitely going to fuck.
And we were probably going to be arrested.
Not necessarily in that order.
Josie and I did an entire clothing montage straight from a 90s movie, but in the end I went with something simple: tight black jeans, ripped at the knees. A black tanktop (no bra). Hair up in a high bun. And my only nod to my glamorous life: blood-red lipstick.
“Cal’s about to have the best 30th birthday any straight man has ever had, in the history of the world,” Josie said, spinning me around to see my appearance. “And I will bail you out, of course. Unless you want me to let you guys stay in there, and it can turn into a sexy jail stay?” She waggled her eyebrows.
I tapped my cheek, thought about it. “You know, I bet Big Sur doesn’t even have a jail cell. You just have to sit quietly for a little bit and then say you’re sorry.”
“Aw, sweet.”
“But yes, please do bail us out,” I said, laughing. “And thanks for the clothing montage. And the support. And for not telling me that seeing Cal one last time tonight is only going to make tomorrow even harder.”
“You’re welcome. And thank you for not doing the same thing when I tell you I’m also going to see Gabe tonight.”
I gave a little cheer, tossing the red lipstick her way. “Lucky lady! You’re just now telling me?”
She looked bashful—so not Josie. “It’s after he helps you with your date.”
“Small role,” I said, pinching my fingers together. “I’ll only need him for like, an hour tops.”
“No, it’s good. He’s a good friend to Cal. I like seeing that. Clarke didn’t have friends the way Gabe does, didn’t have relationships the way Gabe does. Gabe is…” she splayed her palms out, “just really fucking kind.”
Oh Josie. The last time I’d seen her like this, Clarke had just proposed.
“I think that’s beautiful, Jo. Tell him what you’re feeling. Just be honest.”
She snorted. “I will if you will.” We stared each other down for about 30 seconds before I said, “Fine. I’ll do it.”
“Same.” She reached her hand out. “Pinky swear, chica.” I did it, my heart slamming against my ribcage.
“Let’s go be brave,” I said, and like clockwork, I heard Calvin knock on the door.
◊
CALVIN
When Lucia opened the door I realized two things: I was about to go on a date with the most beautiful woman in the world.
And I was totally overdressed.
“Jaw closed, Cal,” she teased, closing the door behind her. She was in tight black jeans that hugged every gorgeous curve. Her delicate neck exposed, cheekbones that could cut glass. Full lips glossed in crimson.
I swallowed, couldn’t find any words to adequately express how perfect she looked. So instead I brought my left hand from behind my back, producing a sprig of jacaranda I’d cut from the garden.
Bohemian Page 23
