Girl Act (26 page)

“She didn’t get everything,” I said, “I mean, yeah, she got a new guy, a new location, but she lost me,” I added.

“I couldn’t lose you,” he said in a quiet voice that made me catch my breath.

“A weekend won’t change us,” I said.

He nodded. There was silence after that as he drove me to Laurel’s, where Tristan was waiting on the porch. I got out and waved for him, and he ran over. We hugged, and then he went around the side of my father’s car and started talking with him.

I walked over to Laurel’s front steps and sat down, and that’s when I remembered that Leah Bloom’s mother had placed a Craigslist ad asking women to marry her son. And it had worked! So why couldn’t I ask a woman to date my father and like his dog? I could! I would!

Tristan raced over, “I’m going with your father to put the books in his place,” he said. I grinned, because he was so totally cute I couldn’t believe it.

“Goody,” I said, and I watched them drive off.

Laurel’s mom came out front, “Bet they’re having a romantic morning walk along the beach,” she said.

“Hand-in-hand,” I added. She smiled. Laurel was her one and only and she doted on her too much I used to think, as in ‘spoiling’, but now I just thought, why not? Why not spoil the ones you love?

“Would you know how I could find my father a girlfriend?” I asked.

Laurel’s mother Lynn was ultra-chic and ultra-hip, and she knew a lot of people. She was also very private and could keep a secret. After all, my father is known around Harvard and with the NYU crowd, and if someone saw my ad about my dad, they could tag it on Facebook or worse, it could go viral.

“I know a terrific matchmaker, but would your father be willing to meet with her?” she asked.

“Lynn, my father doesn’t know how to get started unless it happens to him, but I’ll meet with her. Is it expensive?” I asked.

“She owes me a favor. I’ll set it up, so it’s free for you,” she said.

“Really? I mean, are you sure?” I asked; shy to take a gift.

“Just say thanks, and I’ll make the phone call now,” she said. That’s why Laurel was always able to travel, to fall in love a hundred times, and to finally end up with Anthony, because she was taught to say ‘yes and thanks’.

“Thanks! I want my father to be happy,” I said. She nodded, and we went into the house together.

That night I met with Madge the matchmaker at her home in Jamaica Plains. She lived in one of those old Victorians that are stunning on the inside, but left unkempt on the outside. She was Laurel’s mom’s age, and was happily married to a man she’d met through a newspaper ad (pre-internet days). I had to bring two pictures of my father, and I showed her the write-up that Harvard had printed about esteemed faculty—he got top billing. She thought he was very ‘dashing’. I told her his faults, and about Twist, his new dog. I also told her it couldn’t be a ‘date’. It would have to be set up as a chance meeting. She found the “undercover dating’ style of it exciting, and knew she could find the right woman to meet him in a ‘pretend’ way. I got goosebumps just hearing her talk about my father falling in love again.

“How long have you wanted this?” she asked, catching me off guard for a second.

“I think it hit me the hardest during my second year at college, because I wanted him to have love. Of course, I had wanted it after my mother left, but that was too soon and he was too bruised and heartbroken.”

“Leave it to me, I’ll see that love happens,” she said as she took my contact info, and that was that.

“Thanks so much,” I said, hugging her.

Then I raced outside to find Tristan still sitting in his Land Rover, waiting for me.

“What was that about?” he asked.

And I told him the truth because I felt that Madge the matchmaker was the real deal.

“I’m glad I’m not female,” he said with an extra-smug British tone.

I laughed. I mean, women do think about falling in love more than men, at least in my opinion they do—I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

We went out to eat at an Indian restaurant in Central Square. It was our first official date and I was so aware of that fact—only it felt good that we had already shared so much: Cassidy, Gabriel, Laurel’s wedding and now my father’s love life.

“Would you want to move with me to Rye, a beautiful section of New York State, because my Aunt Helen left me a fixer-upper house with six bedrooms?” I asked nervously, over a plate of curry.

“Absolutely, but is that before or after Panama?” he asked as he passed me the computer printout of a round-trip ticket that my father had booked for the following weekend.

“Yikes, that was fast,” I said.

“He said you don’t have to use it.”

“Let’s go to Rye right away. I’m not crazy about going to Panama, but a promise is a promise and I owe that much to my aunt, even if it’s family-style manipulation,” I said.

“Let’s go tonight,” he said, and we clinked our cups of Indian tea as a toast to the fixer-upper, Panama, and us.

Before eleven, we swung by the Harvard Inn and asked Gabriel if he wanted to drive with us; we were leaving right away.

“I was ready yesterday,” Gabriel said, as he started packing his stuff.

I called my father to tell him that we were heading to Rye and that we would grab Shadow on our way.

“You don’t have to go to Panama,” he said.

“I do, but it won’t change a thing between us,” I said.

“All right, I’ll change the ticket to fly out of JFK,” he said and hung up.

We went to Laurel’s and got our stuff. Laurel’s mom wanted us to wait, but we couldn’t. It was too exciting to hit the road and travel. Tristan and Gabriel stayed in the Land Rover in front of my father’s place, while I raced up to get Shadow. He was surrounded by his new books, while Twist was on the floor, relaxing, and Shadow was barking at me.

“I’ll call you when we get to Rye,” I said. My father glanced up from his book, but said nothing.

“I never would have left you for Panama,” I said.

“They will email your flight confirmation to your Smartphone,” he said.

“Email, I didn’t think you knew mine,” I teased.

My father nodded. His emotions were under lock and key, but I knew I could reach him.

“I never would have left you for Panama and her new life. NEVER,” I hollered as I headed to the door with Shadow on leash. I heard what I thought sounded like a slight crack in his emotions—but maybe that’s what I wanted to hear. I mean if it had been a movie scene, the script would have read:
father cries loudly.

Tristan and Gabriel took turns driving us to Rye, NY, while Shadow and I camped out in the back seat. He’s a big dog, but he knows how to curl up next to me. I watched Tristan and Gabriel talking, laughing, and sharing coffee, Red Bull, and stories, just to stay awake.

Before I knew it, we entered Rye, NY. “Hello Rye,” I shouted. It’s old fashioned, but not un-hip; it looked like a happy place to me. A place where people who work in Manhattan like to come home to in the evenings or on the weekends.

“Do I have my own room?” Gabriel asked.

“Of course,” I said.

The large faded yellow house stood down a gravel driveway. My heart was beating just looking at something that now belonged to me, a home. A house is a home. It really is.

All of us got out of Tristan’s Land Rover, and stood in front of it. It had been sitting abandoned for years, but still had character.

“Six bedrooms and three bathrooms,” I said.

“Look at all the windows,” Tristan said, eyeing all the work that needed to be done.

“I want to pick out my room first,” Gabriel said.

“Go for it,” I said, as I handed him the house key. He raced ahead of us. I liked having a brother; it felt like what I’d always imagined. Tristan held me back and folded his arms around me.

“Look at it,” he said, and I stared up at the old house, my house. It felt so new, the feeling.

“If you share your American house with me, I’ll share my UK house with you,” he said.

“You mean you have a home?” I asked.

“Yes, I’ve got a tiny house, just outside London, it’s terribly lonely,” he said.

I turned and kissed him. He was saying things to me that I had only imagined, you know, in all my larger-than-life movie fantasies—but this was real.

We went in to the smell of a very old house that had been sitting unused for years. There were dusty sheets covering furniture, and the windows had cobwebs on them, but the rooms were small, cozy and perfect.

“Come upstairs,” Gabriel shouted.

We raced up the wooden staircase to find that he’d chosen a small bedroom facing the overgrown backyard.

“This is mine,” he said.

“It’s yours, bro,” I said. He nodded, and we left him looking out of the window.

“Let’s find ours,” Tristan said, and we walked along the hallway peeking into the other bedrooms until we reached the one at the far end, which had a bathroom and a small bedroom near to it.

“We could fix this so the bathroom could connect to only our bedroom, if you wanted to,” he said.

I walked around the bedroom. It had a lot of window light funneling in that was beautiful, but the bathroom had not been tiled behind the vintage tub and sink. The floor was pine.

“Can you tile it?” I asked.

“You bet.”

The tiny bedroom on the other side looked like it had been a nursery.

“Might need to put a little baby in this room,” Tristan said with a wink as he caught me looking into it. Babies? Marriage? Love? Commitment? It all just swirled in my head.

“As you like, luv,” I said, in my best fake British accent.

We agreed that Tristan would stay to vacuum and dust while Gabriel and I went out to buy beds, a fridge, and a stove. All I had to do was to get the electricity turned on in my name, and I didn’t need the deed to do that.

Gabriel and I walked past stores in Rye (a quaint, friendly looking American town, perfect for shooting a coming-of-age film in) and we bought everything we needed, including loads of gourmet food. I felt spoiled, I could have anything I wanted and yet what I wanted was to live with Tristan and Gabriel for the rest of my life.

“We need to make extra keys, pull over there,” I said, and jumped out. I walked up to the key maker. “I need two extra house keys made, please,” I said, and watched while he copied my beautiful key into duplicates.

“Here’s your house key, bro,” I sang out, as I got back into Tristan’s Land Rover.

“I’m going back to Harvard this spring,” Gabriel said as he started the engine.

“So, you’ll be home for the holidays and all summer, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. I might bring a girl back with me, okay?” he asked.

“You’d better. Love is number one, second behind a Harvard degree,” I said.

Then while we drove back to the house, he played a singer named Rodriguez singing,
Sugar Man
. I had yet to see the documentary and Gabriel gave me a scolding about that. But, wow, we were both transfixed and I felt that for Gabriel songs said it all—like movies for me.

Once inside we found Tristan examining the furniture with obvious appreciation for the way they were made. He gets high off wood. Go figure. The windows no longer had cobwebs, thanks to Tristan’s fast dusting. Shadow was fast asleep after playing in the back yard. We sat in the living room on the hardwood floor eating gourmet food out of containers while we waited for the beds to arrive. I felt almost like I was in the film
Out of Africa.
There’s a scene where Streep plays Karen Blixen and Redford plays the role of Denys Finch Hatton and they sit together in her suddenly bare home with a wistful bond between them. I looked at Tristan and Gabriel and my heart swelled. Everything felt cohesive and connected between the three of us. Still, we were all ready for a long nap. I pinched my arm just to remind myself that this was my cool life—it was mine, not some movie flashing by.

Tristan drove me to the JFK airport. “Make the most of it and then hurry home where you belong,” he said, as I undid my seatbelt and we kissed. My heart started to beat.

“Are you my boyfriend? You know, just in case my mother wants to know,” I asked.

“Tell her, you’re my girlfriend,” he said. I jumped out and waved good-bye.

God, I couldn’t wait to go to bed with him. He had decided that we should wait until I came back from Panama, just because he thought it was going to be an intense trip. I didn’t have an opinion, but I was dying to do ‘it’ with him. It was so hard to lie in the same bed, only spooning.

Before I boarded the airplane for Panama with my Louis Vuitton carry-on suitcase, I called Paloma, who was now good friends with the filmmaker’s soon-to-be-ex-wife. The film shoot had turned out to be a blast.

“I’m sex starved, I hope I don’t dry hump a passenger’s leg!”

“Girlfriend, I’m so proud of you for waiting. Because once you do it with Tristan, you won’t stop,” Paloma said, “Remember Holly Golightly in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s,
she ended up divinely happy and that’s what you’re allowing yourself to have,” she added.

“It has started to feel like that,” I gushed.

“Shut up and go see your Momma and clean up the past,” she said, and then hung up. Paloma doesn’t waste a second on bullshit—that’s why she’s my best friend.

The plane ride was smooth and I didn’t hump anyone’s leg. I exited the busy airport into bright sunshine, warm weather, and the language of Spanish. I was dressed in my white jeans with the words ‘THINKING HEART’ on the thighs, a white Marc Jacobs sleeveless blouse, and my black Pradas—from Laurel’s wedding. My mother didn’t meet me at the airport because she wanted me to meet her in the center of the city. At a location she said was easy to find. It wasn’t. And yeah, if I found a taxi driver who spoke English and knew the way then it would be. In my opinion, she got a D- in points for that decision. She said something about not being able to leave her job in time. Okay, whatever, just glad I was only staying for the weekend.

Fortunately a short, stocky, friendly-faced taxi driver hopped out of his taxi, “Miss America, I bring you anywhere, I am Pedro” he said. Eager to practice English, he told me he was fifty-four and the father of five kids. I laughed and gave him the address I had in my Smartphone. During the whole drive over, I helped with his pronunciation, during a typical tourist conversation.