The Idea of Love (16 page)

The van drove off, a plume of toxic smoke blooming from its tailpipe in a final insult. Together, Ella and Mimi walked across the street to the tree Bruiser seemed determined to find.

“Sorry about that,” Mimi said.

“No problem,” Ella said. “I'm so glad to see you.”

Bruiser finished his business, and then circled around the oak tree until he found a soft patch of grass and clover blossoms gathered in a crochet pattern. Quiet. Ella exhaled and sat in the grass, Mimi on a bench. Ella drew her knees up to her chest. “What a gorgeous afternoon.”

“Isn't it, though,” Mimi said.

“Sure is,” a deep voice answered.

Ella knew the voice. How quickly she'd come to feel comfortable hearing it. “Well, hey, you,” she said to Hunter.

“I return to town just so I can see you almost get killed?” Hunter reached his hand down to pull Ella to her feet.

“Idiot driver,” Mimi said from the bench.

Hunter turned to her. “Hi, there.”

“This is my friend Mimi,” Ella said. She searched quickly for lies to back up the truth. “She lives … next door. This is her dog, Bruiser.” She pointed to the miraculously quiet dog.

“Well, you must be Hunter. The guy from California,” Mimi said.

“The very one.” Hunter offered his hand.

“Nice to meet you,” Mimi said.

Bruiser lifted his head at the sound of Mimi's voice, sniffed the air with his padded black nose, and decided it was time to start barking.

Mimi shook her head. “Sorry.”

Hunter bent down and ran his hand along Bruiser's back, once, twice. Bruiser stopped mid-bark and lifted his head to the sun. “He's awful cute,” Hunter said.

“Sometimes, yes,” Mimi said. “Most of the time, he's just annoying, but I love him anyhow.”

“What are you doing here?” Ella asked. The Crumbling Chateau stood accusingly behind her. She averted her gaze as if that would be the one thing to expose her lies.

“I was just driving to the hotel when I saw you two in the street. Aren't you like a mile from home? That's quite the walk.”

Mimi glanced at Ella and in Mimi's eyes, Ella saw the complicit acknowledgment:
I'm with you here. I've got this.

“Yes, it would be a long walk,” Mimi said, “if we'd walked it, but Ella drove here so Bruiser could sit by his favorite tree.”

“So thoughtful,” Hunter said.

“Yes, she's quite the girl,” Mimi agreed.

“Well.” Hunter stood. “I need to hit the shower. I guess I'd better be getting back to the hotel I thought I'd left for good. See you in a couple hours?” He looked to Ella.

The wind carried a scent of the river, a taste of water. Hunter's hair blew into his eyes. “Yes,” she said. “See you soon.”

“Would you like to join us?” Hunter turned to Mimi.

“No, but thank you so much,” Mimi said. “I've got quite a schedule tonight and couldn't possibly make it.”

Laughter caught itself under Ella's chest. Mimi there, joining in the liars club.

“Well, next time then,” Hunter said.

He left awkwardly, not knowing if he should hug Ella or Mimi or neither or both. In the end, he just waved over his shoulder and walked toward the ugly turquoise car at the edge of the curb.

They waited until the car was well out of sight and then, as if on cue, Mimi and Ella busted out laughing, the kind of laughter reserved for the best moments between best friends. Who knew, Ella thought, who ever knew where a friend would be found?

“He came back to town?” Mimi asked.

“Sort of,” Ella said, sitting next to Mimi now. “His flight was canceled.”

“I'm sure it was,” Mimi said.

“Really, it was. So I told him I'd cook him dinner. I think I might have taken this one step too far.”

“Where are you going to do this dinner?”

“My house. Sims is on a little vacation with the love of his life.”

“Well, this is just getting better and better.” Mimi patted Ella's leg. “Way better than pound cake, and that is saying so very much.”

Ella took Mimi's hand and held it in her own. “I am so glad you ended up being my neighbor.”

“Me, too, dear. Me, too.”

*   *   *

The gate to enter her garden and house was locked. Ella pushed against it just in case Sims had been his Sims-self and not locked it. The gate rattled against the lock. Ella kicked at its base. Even before she stuck the key in the lock, she knew it wouldn't work. She'd have to climb over. Or cancel.

She formed the words in her mind.
I'm sorry, Hunter, I didn't mean to invite you over. It was foolish to think I could have someone in my dead husband's house
. Then she thought of Sims and Betsy, tasting wine, making love in a vineyard, eating at French Laundry and getting drunk. Disgusting.

Change of plans: she would cook Hunter dinner, allow him into the house, get rid of him quickly, and pack up what she wanted to take.

She'd have to climb over the fence. She'd done it before after locking herself out, so no problem. Really. It wasn't some elaborate fence; just an ornamental enclosure. With two quick steps in the loops of the iron gate, she was at the top. She poised herself to take a little jump and land softly, but her T-shirt caught on the spike. Instead of the soft landing she had hoped for, she tumbled sideways, a sharp pull under her arm. Her right ankle took the brunt of it, twisting underneath her at an angle she was fairly sure her ankle had never bent before.

On the ground, she assessed her body. Slowly she sat and then bent over to pull her foot onto her lap as if she was in lotus position, ready to meditate. Her ankle was swollen. She yanked off her sneaker. She pushed on the anklebone with one finger and yelped out loud. A bird flew in haste from the feeder, seeds scattering wildly.

The cobblestones had always been quaint, an intimate part of the path in the entryway, but as she dragged herself across the garden, she cursed each ragged edge. The moss between the stones, soft lichen she had purposefully planted, was staining her pants. When she reached the bench she pulled herself up and hopped on one foot to the front door.

She would have to cancel. What the hell was she thinking? Her ankle was throbbing like it had a heartbeat, her clothes were ruined, and like most things lately, she hadn't thought through what to do next.

Folding onto the iron bench, Ella reached into her back pocket for the phone. She'd call Hunter with a quick
sorry, I'm sick
. Her hand, sliding into her back pocket, recoiled from a quick stab, a bite of some sort. “God, enough already,” she hollered to the garden.

She stuck her finger in her mouth, the metal taste of blood on her tongue. Lifting herself up she looked for what could have bit her. Please don't let it be a brown recluse. But the bench was empty of anything but the small white petals of the azalea blooms, extravagant waste on the ground and seat. Slowly, she reached again and realized what had bit her: the shattered iPhone screen and its glass shards. The only way she was going to cancel with Hunter was to get in the house, and soon.

She rehearsed her speech as she hopped to the front door.
I'm sorry; I've been lying. I am a made-up person in a made-up world. Please go. Hurry. Don't look at me.…

The key slid into the front door and Ella pushed it open. This was her house. Yes, her house. Damn you, Sims. Everything in here, from the way it smelled, to the paint colors, to the framed photos, and even the scatter rugs, were her doing.

Sims hadn't moved or changed a thing. Photos hung on the wall leading to the kitchen—a montage in white acrylic frames, which Ella had spent days arranging. She couldn't calculate the hours of her life embedded in this house. Did those add up to make it more hers? Did the time and love make the house an integral piece of her or was it really, as she was told many times, just an object, a possession? But she loved this house. It was hers. The end. Feelings didn't know right from wrong. She'd been exiled, and tonight she would stick her Ella Flynn flag in the ground or her plates in the sink, whatever metaphor worked.

Their married life slammed into her chest with such blunt sadness that she closed her eyes to catch her breath.

Loss pressed down on her with a stifling pressure. All she wanted, God, all she wanted, was to have all of this back. To come home and throw her coat over the chair, toss her keys in the bowl on the table. To pour a glass of chardonnay and light a candle, always the mimosa candle, and start dinner. She'd shuffle through the mail and separate the recycling from the bills. She wanted it all just the way it was before he came home and decided to tell her
the truth.

The truth was overrated. If Sims hadn't told her about Betsy, she wouldn't know, and he'd be just as happy ambling through the door. Sims would be carrying on and she'd think he was busy at work while she waited at home. She would go to work, hang out with her friends, and ignorance would be bliss. At least for as long as it lasted.

With the code Amber gave her, Ella turned off the alarm system. She would follow through with the night. It would be the last time. One more time she would pretend to be
that girl
and then say good-bye to Hunter for good. But for now, this was her house and she would do exactly as she pleased.

She hobbled down the hallway to the bedroom. The bed was askew, sheets and pillows twisted. Nausea kicked in. She made her way to the closet and saw that her clothes were still there. They hadn't been replaced by Betsy's gauzy—and gaudy—outfits. That had to be a good sign.

In the kitchen, she picked up the house phone to order Chinese food. Whatever groceries she had in the backseat, she wasn't going out to get. She was putting her foot up on a cushion with a bag of ice.

She rummaged through the hall closet and found a pair of old crutches from the time Sims had twisted his knee in a “friendly” softball game. With the weight off her foot, she wandered around to the bedroom closet where she changed into a pair of white jeans and a loose silk top. Then she hopped through the house, touching things, fluffing pillows, and finding small items missing. The tray where she dropped the mail. The vase she kept on the coffee table even when there weren't any flowers (which was rare). Her favorite cashmere throw blanket with the fringe on the edges.

She wanted Hunter to be late so she could wallow in the misery, which was ridiculous. She made a mental list in her head of all the things she must find and put back right, or take, when Hunter left.

While looking at a photo of Sims and herself, framed and on the side table, she was overcome with exhaustion. She plopped down on the brown suede chaise longue and closed her eyes. She could sleep for days, maybe weeks. The grief, the pretending, the sleepless nights—what the hell was it all for?

Her body was heavy, holding her down on the chaise. Her ankle throbbed. She wanted out of her body. No, she didn't want to die. Not that. Quite the opposite: she wanted to live fully and creatively, but here she was trapped in a body pinned down with grief, and exhausted from wanting, wanting, wanting. If she could just escape it for a few minutes. Let go of it all.

Let go
. Who the hell came up with that good advice? She closed her eyes. Colors danced behind her eyelids, the familiar evening light and the way it danced into the living room at this time on a spring evening. Familiar. Tenderly familiar. And then she was asleep, dreaming.

*   *   *

A brick wall enclosed the garden, ivy covering the wall in crisscross patterns. The iron gate, obviously ancient, was locked and withholding. The house itself—gray cedar shake, weathered to what looked like suede—stood strong, built to withstand any flood.

What a perfect set. Literally perfect.

The thought embarrassed him. It wasn't a movie set. It was the house where Ella lived. He needed to take some photos and notes. This house was meant to hold a love story. A good, Southern, dripping-with-charm love story to save his career. (And his life.)

He cocked his ear to listen for Ella, but it was the sound of crickets that persisted, a kind of white noise that made this place seem so
right
. Why right? He didn't know, since everything he was doing—lying and stealing stories—was wrong. He walked toward the house and saw that the gate was closed but the front door was wide open.

“Ella,” he called her name softly, almost hoping she wouldn't answer so he could snap a few photos.

There came a burping, or croaking, he didn't know which. A frog? He aimed his phone at the house and took almost twenty photos in quick succession: the wide front porch, painted white but with a pale blue ceiling; the iron gate; the climbing roses on the banister; the cedar shake in pale gray with louvered shutters painted one shade darker.

What he couldn't catch in the photo was the sweet scent, one he couldn't label, not thick like gardenia and not sweet like honeysuckle, but something in between. He quickly hit the record button on his phone and said, “The fragrance surrounding the house is something otherworldly, something made of sea and flowers.”

That was enough for now.

“Ella.” This time he called louder.

He tapped her name on his cell phone contacts. It rang once and went straight to voice mail. His hands wound through the thick curls of the gate. He hollered her name louder this time. Once. Twice.

She appeared at the front door, disheveled as if he'd caught her in the middle of sex.

His thoughts embarrassed him.

“Hi, Hunter.” She hobbled toward him on crutches. “I'm so sorry. I fell asleep. And my phone is broken and the groceries are still in the car and…”

Her hair was squashed up on one side, pushed backward and, frankly, it was adorable. She'd been asleep; he could tell. She unlocked the gate and he opened it as she stumbled backward, caught the edge of her crutch in a cobblestone and landed, hard, on her bottom, with a
thumph.