The Idea of Love (18 page)

Hunter thrust his glasses up on his nose with a nervous gesture. Before she knew what she'd done, Ella reached forward and took them off his face and put them on her own.

Expecting a change of view, something warped or too close or too far away, she squinted when everything looked the same: his face, the kitchen, the food. “These don't work,” she said. She knew it sounded stupid; it wasn't what she meant.

Hunter stood up and took the glasses off her face. “Just for reading, but I keep them on because I'm always reading.” He ambled, taking his time, to the sink, where he rinsed his plate and refilled his wineglass.

They chatted a little more, about nothing really, about how the world was too fast, or was it too slow? How he was worried about finishing his book on time, how hot it was here because of, well … what they always say when they are from out of town, the humidity.

The music switched and Sinatra sang about the moon. The air felt yielding and silken, like Ella could sink into it. She thought about how quickly her world had changed, like she'd stepped into an underground well she didn't know was right there in her backyard. She glanced at Hunter. “Do you think the world has a hole in it?”

“You mean in the universe, like a black hole?”

“No,” she said. “Right under our feet. Like the earth has a hole, and it's always there looming right below the surface of everything we do. We could step into it without knowing it was ever there.”

“I don't know, Ella,” he said in a soft voice. “Maybe there is?”

“Maybe? Well there is. I didn't know this about the world because no one told me and if they had, would I have listened? Probably not. We don't know until we know. We can be walking along, singing our song, doing our dance and the earth gives way and there we are, falling … and there's nothing to grab on to. After that happens once, even once, you will walk carefully, always looking before you take a step, always wanting a sure-footed way to avoid the gaping black hole. I want to tell everyone in the world, ‘Be prepared. Grab on to something now.'”

“Wow,” Hunter said. “You've given this some thought. So, maybe that's what we're always doing—grabbing on to things in case the ground gives way?”

“You can say ‘maybe' because it's never happened to you. You wouldn't say that if it had. If your life had caved in, you would know that anything you grab on to doesn't stop the fall. Life is like this thin bubble. It looks for all the world like something real and round and full. But it's not.”

“Your husband's death,” Hunter said, taking a breath. “It changed the way you see the world.”

“I didn't know before that it was so fragile, so casually meaningless, so indifferent.”

Hunter didn't say a word. What could he say?

“What about love?” he asked. “Don't you want to grab on to that when it comes again?”

“No. If it ever comes again, which I can't imagine, I want it to walk next to me, hold me. I don't want to grab it like a life preserver, like it's the one thing that will keep the ground from giving way. Love can't stop bad things from happening.”

“No, it can't. It can't stop the tragedies, but surely it can help.”

“And this from a man who doesn't believe in love?”

“In theory I believe it can save you. Sometimes…”

“In theory,” Ella said, and smiled at him. “Yes, in theory everything is true.”

“I love talking to you, Ella. I love the way you see things, like you're looking out a different window than the rest of us schmucks.”

“Right now I think I am, and so I should probably shut up.”

Hunter stood, but before he went to clean away the dishes, he kissed her on the forehead. “You going to be okay alone?” he asked. “Should I call one of your friends?”

That was it—one innocuous comment and she burst into tears. There was nothing to be done about it really. She just started and couldn't stop, like grief was running amok, as her mom used to say.

One time when Ella was in high school, she'd gone to the huge dictionary in the middle of the library, the one on a podium, and looked up “amok.” “A murderous frenzy,” she'd read. She'd gone home and told her mom to stop using that word, but she'd never stopped and what Ella would give to hear her say it now.

Hunter leaned over and draped both arms over her shoulders, pulled her toward him. She knocked his glasses off as she put her head on his chest, her arm swimming through the air, weighing too much, to bang into his face. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“That's okay,” he mumbled into her hair. “They don't work anyway.”

Contentment, a feeling so foreign that she had to search for the word, came over her and the tears stopped. Just like they'd been turned off. Quit. And she was laughing, looking up to him and laughing.

She was never sure, even later, who kissed whom. Did she lean forward or did he? Or did they both? She liked to think they both did, simultaneously with the same intent. It was such a long, delicate kiss that in the middle of it she thought of the word “cashmere.”

The kissing, it went on so long it moved into the category of making out, something she hadn't done in years. Even when she and Sims made love, he kissed her gently and moved on. Hunter was so warm, moving closer, kissing her but making sure her foot stayed put, that he didn't jostle her around. Then he picked her up, just like she was the pillow off the banquette, so easily. She didn't object or speak, just kept doing exactly what she wanted to do: kiss him.

He carried her to the living room and set her down on the chaise longue, the same one she'd fallen asleep on only a few hours ago. She pulled him toward her, wanting more of what they'd started, whatever that was. She closed her eyes and waited for the weight of him. It didn't happen. Her eyes popped open, a spring-loaded shock to see him standing above her looking down.

“You need to get some sleep.” He smiled in that way people do when they are about to disappoint you. “I need to go,” he said.

“Go?”

“Yes. I'm not going to take advantage of a Percocet.” He tried to laugh, but it came out like a cough.

“Oh…”

He walked away, talking over his shoulder. “I'll get your ice, a glass of water, and the other half of the pill.” Then he halted in his steps and turned. Ella saw their reflection in the hallway mirror: his back and her looking at him. God, she looked so pitiful and needy. Her hair was a mess, and that mascara she'd put on hours ago formed two raccoon eyes. No wonder he was leaving. Hell, she'd leave herself if she could.

“Do you have anyone to take care of you tomorrow? Get you to the doctor or whatever?” he asked.

“Of course I do. Just leave,” she said and sounded … again, pitiful.

“Okay.” He turned away and she closed her eyes. His footsteps were muffled as he headed down the hallway and into the kitchen. The freezer opened and shut with that hiss she knew. Hunter's sounds were quieter in the house than Sims's, not that he took up less space, but that he was gentler with the space he did fill.

Hunter returned to her side, and she feigned the soft sounds of slow breathing and the slight twitch of early sleep. He fell for it; she knew he did because he just stood there at her side. He placed the ice on her ankle with a dry towel and if she opened her eyes she knew she'd see the pill and a glass of water on the end table.

“Bye, Ella,” he whispered. “It was great meeting you. And I'm so sorry.”

*   *   *

He might be a scumbag lately, not giving his ex what she wanted, stealing love stories under pretense, sleeping with his assistant, but he would not, could not take advantage of Ella. No way.

The hotel room was stifling. Housekeeping had turned off the air conditioner, probably in some revolt to his sixty-four-degree thermostat, where he'd kept it for days now. He punched the numbers down, pushing harder than was necessary and thought of the console at Ella's house, the Elvis Costello blaring from the speakers. No. He would stop thinking about her now; only the story mattered. He'd obtained everything he needed from her, from her house, from her town.

The computer was open on the bed and he plugged in his cell phone to download the photos onto his computer for safekeeping. Then he started to write on a pad, something he hadn't done in years, and it felt good.

Note
s: While the two lovers are fighting their love for each other, he is living in a house surrounded by a cloud of wisteria. She is working and living in a terrible tenement house, fending off her feelings for a man she can't have. Often, she wanders past his house, wondering what he is doing inside. And he does the same thing—driving by hers, hoping she will walk out.
Split screen showing them pining for each other and walking past each other's homes.

Blake put his head back on the pillow and found himself remembering her kiss, still warm on his lips. Then he grabbed the pad and began to write again, furiously.

Notes
: Their first kiss was when he offered to teach her to sail. She didn't know how, and yet she worked at the marina for him. This will foreshadow how he sacrifices himself for her. He is teaching her to do the one thing that will take his life.

Added characters
: The quirky mother who says things like “Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story” and constantly mixed up her words to say things like “Let's stay in a shore-far hotel” instead of a four-star hotel. Who uttered clich
é
s that were never meant to be clich
é
s, who wore mascara to bed and wouldn't be seen without it.

WHAT IS HER HAPPY ENDING
? Does she discover she is pregnant? That he isn't dead? (They never found his body?) Both? No, that was stupid.

Can't let a little truth get in the way of a good story
, someone once said to him.

Well, this was a good story and he would write it. He already saw it unspooling in his head. Reese Witherspoon would be perfect for the lead.

For the rest of the night, Blake wrote notes, sent e-mails, and packed. By 5:00
A.M.
he was out the door and on the way to the airport, exhausted and thrilled. This trip had been successful. It had worked—the harebrained scheme. No damage done.

ten

Blake jolted awake as the plane skidded into LAX. Sunlight flared through the streaked window. He squinted to look out at the tarmac. Home.

He pulled out his cell, turned it on, and looked at the rolls of texts and missed calls.
Ashlee. Ashlee.
He closed his eyes because he stupidly realized that the only reason he looked so quickly was because he had hoped that one name would pop on the screen:
Ella
. But she would only text his second, Hunter Adderman phone. And really, why would she text him at all? He made sure, in his own self-destructive way, that she would never speak to him again.

He does this. He breaks things into so many irretrievable pieces that what he wants, what he really wants, he will never get. If he really wanted Ella to call or text or even just say good-bye, he wouldn't have done what he did.

He was the first to stand when the jet bridge bumped into the side of the plane and the cabin door opened with that airtight swoosh. The baggage claim was packed and people were hugging and grabbing bags and “going to get the car.” He stood alone and rubbed at his face. He was exhausted but he had something he needed to do before he went home to shower and shake off the weirdness of the last few days.

L.A. traffic wasn't any better on a Sunday and after the freedom of wide open roads, these clogged highways seemed interminable. When he finally arrived at his old house, Marilee's house, his throat was tight and his eyes itched for sleep.

*   *   *

The gate was closed to the driveway of the Tudor-style house where his ex-wife lived. Blake lowered the driver's-side window and pushed the code to get in. Waited. Nothing. He tried again. Nothing.

He pushed the button on the lower left side and a voice came over the speaker. “May I help you?” A male voice, smooth and cultured like he'd been taught how to answer in some intercom-answering class.

“Yes, it's Blake. Open the gate.”

“Let me check with Marilee.” His voice distant as he hollered into the well-padded house. “Honey?”

Her voice echoed back. “What?” Blake knew that voice, that irritated what-the-hell-are-you-bothering-me-for-when-I'm-working-out voice.

“Blake is at the gate. Can I let him in?”

“Shit. Why not.”

A long screeching sound and then the gates swung open. Blake drove around the circular drive to park directly in front of the house. His lawyer and his ex-wife had both warned him not to act as if he owned the house, although he did own the house. So, he'd told them, if he wanted to act like he owned it, he would.

The front door opened and Marilee stood in the doorframe as if she were posing for a photo, which is what she'd done most of her life. “What are you doing here?” she asked in her spandex outfit.

Blake put on his best face, a smiley one. “I'm here to see my daughter.”

“You look like hell,” Marilee said.

“Thank you, darling. You look radiant yourself.” He'd been warned about this—the sarcasm. The petty meanness, which displayed his lesser self (according to his overly therapied ex-wife).

She rolled her eyes, a habit she'd passed on to their daughter. “She's still asleep.”

“It's eleven in the morning. Could you please get her up? I want to see her.”

“You know I let her sleep in during the weekend. She works so hard during the…” Marilee's voice trailed off because Blake walked toward her, and then around her and into the house. His house. The one he'd lived in when he'd believed in love and family. Before he turned into the villain in one of his own movies—the bad guy instead of the love interest.