Authors: Beck Anderson
He scoots next to me, and I feel his hand on my shoulder. “In ten years? In ten years I may or may not still have a career. I may or may not still have my hair. And you don’t think I’ve ever screwed up? God, let’s not start in on that list. Despite what everyone in the world thinks, I’m real. I want a partner who’s real. A real woman who’s raised two boys alone for two years. I want you. I want you, flaws and all. I can only hope you’ll want my very flawed self in your life too.”
I roll over to look at him, stunned by his admission. He wants a partner? Like a girlfriend or a life partner or a wife partner or what? I didn’t see that coming. “I don’t know what to say.”
He hands me a tissue. “Don’t say anything.”
“Just once I’d like to look like a normal human being in front of you.”
“You’ve got a bit of the ugly cry going, that’s all.”
“And everything’s okay? You were so distant after lunch. You weren’t having regrets?”
He frowns. “I was pissed at Jeremy, pissed at myself. And getting seven million calls from my publicist about totally unrelated stuff that distracted me. I didn’t even notice Franca. She was trying to keel haul you in that store, wasn’t she?”
“It felt more predator than pirate, but yeah.”
“If I was perfect, I would’ve had a clue about how you were feeling. I wouldn’t have let Franca get you away from me. Are we agreed that I’m by no means perfect?”
I nod. I’m smiling a little now.
He grins too. “Except my teeth, they’re perfect.” I hit him with the pillow. “No, really, I paid a lot of money for these suckers. They’re gorgeous.”
I sit up and kiss him.
“Watch it. You may still be a little snotty.”
I push him over on the bed.
24: Three for the Road
O
H
, T
HE
D
AYS
B
ETWEEN
Ventura County and our Christmas visit drag—so slowly that I think I’m going to lose my mind. I’m worse than a kid, the way I’m counting down. I’m almost ready to make a paper chain like we used to in grade school, but I remind myself that I’m an adult. But an adult who happens to know a small boy who will make a chain with eleven rings on it for her…
I’ve enjoyed shopping for the boys and my folks, but shopping for Andrew is at once insanely fun and acutely terrifying. I remember this from the early days with Peter. I want desperately to pick something that’ll tell him, “I’m cool. I’m amazing to be with. If you love this gift, you’ll love the giver even more.” But at the same time, if it looks like I’m trying too hard, I worry the gift will scream, “This one’s totally clingy! She wants to marry you straight away! Run!”
I think the boys are happy about the new developments in my life. I hate to say I’ve been a nag, or overprotective, but I suspect I’m less meddlesome to them now that I have a few things of my own going on. And they do like Andrew. Anyway, they try to be helpful and suggest gifts for him, but very often the discussions sound like this:
“Mom, he’s totally cool. How can you possibly get him something cool?”
“Are you saying I’m not cool?”
“Mom. Of course I am. Get real.”
“So what’s cool?”
“You should totally get him—”
And this is usually followed by something that eight- and eleven-year-olds think is legit: a car, a sound system for a car, a game system, bling…Often things they would like to own themselves. Once in a while the suggestion is a puppy. That’s a totally transparent one, but again, this is like Hunter hoping Andrew would let him drive. They’re occasionally under the impression that adults have misplaced their brains altogether.
I waffle, I vacillate, I have no idea what to get him. Finally one day I give up. The perfect gift is going to have to wait. Instead, I buy him a warm coat for his next visit to Boise, whenever that might be.
I also shop for three little people who are a lot easier to please: Tessa’s girls. Their birthday on December eighteenth (five days until LA, but who’s counting?) is a nice diversion from the Christmas countdown. And having only boys, I enjoy shopping in the Barbie and pink-sequin sections of the store for them.
Beau, Hunter, and I pile in the car and head over to Tessa and Joe’s for the girls’ party. I can’t even believe it. Genevieve, Jasmine, and Josie came into the world after Peter died, and here they are turning two. Life moves on mercilessly.
Another merciless event is the conversation I’m about to have with Tessa. I’ve been to Ventura County, and I’ve
been with
Andrew, and she’ll see all of this coming from a mile away. Because I have no poker face. My only hope is she’ll be too busy with the hoopla of the party to notice me.
We park down the street from the house. Joe and Tessa live on one of the “best” streets in Boise in one of the “best” neighborhoods. Tessa makes a house quite a home too. Their white house is rambling and shabbily chic, but definitely chic. She doesn’t have dog hair on her couch, I can guarantee that. But she welcomes everyone in as her family.
The place is packed with her real and adopted families right now. All manner of friends, kids, grandmas, aunties—everyone packs into the living room, the kitchen. The party spills out into the backyard, even though it’s freezing. Kids howl with glee upstairs, probably jumping on beds, judging by the barely perceptible swaying of the living room chandelier.
I take our presents into the living room. The boys have friends here, no doubt, and they’ve gone off in search of them. I wander to the kitchen in time to see a pony walk by in the backyard with Jasmine perched on it. She’s bundled up in a parka and looks thrilled.
“I know, it’s totally ridiculous. Pony rides for two-year-olds in the backyard in the middle of December.” Tessa stands at the doorway, looking out at the line of tiny kids waiting for a ride. All of them hop up and down, either from excitement or the cold. The pony and the pony’s handler look very blasé about the whole situation.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” I kiss Tessa on the cheek.
“How are you?” Tessa looks at me for a second, slips her arm around my waist, but turns to keep an eye on the toddlerpalooza out in the yard.
“Fine.”
“I heard you took a trip.” She shoots me a sideways look.
“How’d you hear that?” Tessa knows everything.
“Your mom answered your phone and told me. Come on.” She pinches my side.
“What was that for?”
“I’m fully prepared to inflict physical pain here, Kelly Jo. And I have about fifteen minutes before Misty of Chincoteague out there leaves and the fits are thrown. So now would be the time to redeem yourself as a BFF and tell me what happened.”
“I went to see him.”
“On his movie set.”
“Yeah.”
“And you slept with him.”
“Yeah.” I blush. I can feel it. I hate that.
“And it was awesome.”
“Yeah.”
“You suck at this, telling me about your new romance.”
“Yeah.” I smile uncontrollably.
“I feel like this is a Choose Your Own Adventure. I’m just writing the story here.”
I approach the fridge, looking for somewhere to hide. “I know. I just don’t know what to say, or even where to start.”
“I can’t believe you. I’d be shouting it from the rooftops. You’ve been with a movie star.”
Two of the neighbor kids walk through to the backyard at this point, and I elbow Tessa.
“What was
that
for?”
“This is completely on the down low, Tessa.”
“What the hell for? What’s the point of dating someone like Andy Pettigrew if you can’t brag about it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe to be with someone you like?” I open a bag of Cheetos and start to mow through them. I will have orange hands and an upset stomach, but the occasion calls for some stress eating.
“Seriously, what are you so worried about?”
“The boys, for one. I don’t know what kind of attention we’d get if anybody found out, and I’m not ready for that.” I leave the part out where Jeremy has also forbidden it. That information would send Tessa into orbit.
Tessa has a handful of Cheetos now too. “I hadn’t thought about that. Would you get stalked? How would that work?”
I think back to Tucker, to the decoy van in Ventura, to the underground parking garage. “Maybe you can get stalked by association, I don’t know. I don’t know where this is going.”
Through the window, I can see Josie trying to feed the fat little pony old snow from the flowerbed. The pony doesn’t look amused.
“I’m impressed.” Tessa’s given up the Cheetos and now munches a celery stick. This is why she’s a doctor’s wife. She has the whole vegetable-eating thing going for her.
“Impressed by what?”
“Despite your best friend’s cautions, and despite your inherent chicken-ness, you’re in uncharted territory and going for it, my friend. Usually you’d be hyperventilating by now.”
“I heard your cautions, but I’m ignoring them, remember? And no, I wouldn’t usually be hyperventilating.” I feel the need to defend my honor.
“Oh, yes, you would. You don’t do change well. You know it.”
“Give me one example.”
Tessa twirls the celery stick in the kitchen air, thinking, and then points it at me. “Oil of Olay-gate.”
“What?” I know what. I’ve already lost this battle.
“Raise your hand if you went around town and bought up all of the old version of your favorite face scrub when you realized the formula was changing.” Tessa pauses for a second. “Oh, that’s right, it’s you.” She crunches her celery with authority.
“Okay. I don’t like change. But I think I have reason enough to hate it, don’t you?”
Tessa opens the sliding glass door. “Girls! Five-minute warning on Seabiscuit out there.” As she slides the door shut, much groaning from the little people outside can be heard. She turns her attention to me. “No, you’re missing the point. Girl who hates change and uncertainty is up to her eyeballs in the unknowable right now. Like I said, I’m impressed.”
“Yeah, well. If I think too much about it, I completely freak out. So I’m trying not to think.”
Tessa eyes me impishly. “Just keep thinking about what you’d like to do to him. That’ll keep you distracted.”
“Stop.” I grab for a celery stick.
“Okay, if you don’t want to think about it, I volunteer to think of all the things you could be doing to him. He’s a tall drink of water, indeed.”
“Who is? Are you girls talking about me? Stop, I’ll blush.” Joe comes in from the living room with his coat.
“Hi, babe.” Tessa gives him a pat on the ass. “We’re chatting about Andy.”
“It’s Andrew. And thanks for telling Joe about him.” I’m starting to feel snappish.
Joe gives me a quick side hug and puts his coat on. “My lips are sealed. Tessa’s, I don’t know. Now I have to get out there and break some little girls’ hearts.”
Joe goes out back and closes the slider behind him. Tessa looks at me. “Yes, I told Joe, but I get it. I won’t tell anyone else.” She pauses. “I can still think up things for you to do to him, can’t I? He’s fine.”
“Calm yourself. That’s my boyfriend you’re talking about.”
Boyfriend
sounds like he lent me his letterman’s jacket to wear. I’m a complete dweeb.
“Okay, Sandy from
Grease
. I will keep my impure thoughts off of your
boyfriend
.”
There’s a wail from the backyard. Joe and the pony handler must have just announced the end of the pony rides. Genevieve is heartbroken.
“I’ve got to get out there. Next time you see Andrew, I’m gonna need serious details. Take notes if you have to. Hell, you can borrow my video camera.” She opens the slider, calling over her shoulder to me. “Intimate details!”
25: Christmastime Is Here
F
INALLY
, I’
M
D
ONE
with the excruciating waiting. On December twenty-third, the boys and I fly to LA. When we arrive, my folks greet us, and we decamp to their main house in LA. We’re following the plan as it has been for the past two years. My mom took over Christmas after Peter died. I couldn’t stand the thought of hosting without my husband in the house, and it’s proven a lot less painful to be in LA for the holidays than I think staying at home would be.
We get settled, but I’m distracted. I can’t stand it, actually. It’s as though I’ve been put back in the skin of a quivering teenage girl. I think about him. I wait for him to call, to text. At home, I’ve been my normal self, but here I behave like I’m fifteen.
Maybe he’s mercifully psychic, because Andrew calls.
“Hello?”
“Did you make it in one piece?” He sounds like he has a cold.
“We’re here. Beau is interrogating Mom about the gifts under the tree. Hunter is scoping out the fridge. Pretty typical.”