Page 45 of It's a Love Story

Clem: Against your will?

Me: No like a hug. Then he touched my hair and we rode bikes and painted. I think I’m on a collision course with his mouth and whatever’s on the other side of it Clem: Ok, wow. That’s his tongue Me: I’m delirious. How’s work? And have you seen the hiking guy?

Clem: Work’s good, but no I realized we were hiking because he’s cheap Me: Ugh.

Clem: It’s fine because I wanted to be home tonight to undo whatever you did to our bookshelves Me: Yeah, that was a bad idea. Thanks Clem: Love you. And it’s okay if you’re having fun. People do that all the time

CHAPTER 19

IWAKE UP LIKE I’VE BEEN DRUGGED, THE WAY YOU DOafter a too-long nap. The room is dark, and what feels like the last of the daylight is coming in from outside. Dan has leaned our painting against the window, and the sight of it makes me smile. He is standing with his back to me, shirtless in jeans. I wonder how long he’ll keep facing that way so I can keep looking at the way the light comes in and hits his shoulders and the way his Levi’s grip his thighs.

He puts an arm through the sleeve of a white button- down, and I ask, “What time is it?”

“Oh, hey. I didn’t want to wake you up. It’s seven thirty. Do you still want to come?” He’s turned around, half shirted and half not. He’s in the process of dressing, but my brain registers him as undressing.

I stretch my arms over my head. “Sure.”

He sits on the bed, and I scoot toward the wall. “You don’t have to. It’s going to be a lot of idiots and Brooke, and it might be weird.”

“Brooke?” I prop myself up on my elbows. “That’s her name?” And the thought arrives fully formed in my mind:I cannot compete with a girl named Brooke. No one can. I’ve known plenty of Brookes, and they’re all worse than Jennifer. Brooke’s tall and plays competitive sports. Brooke looks great without any makeup. She has pretty things and they’re monogrammed because it’s not enough to get something for Brooke; you need to go the extra mile. That’s how treasured Brooke is with her effortless hair.

“Are you okay?” To my absolute terror, Dan is reading my face.

“I slept too long. Give me five minutes to get dressed.”

*

WE DRIVE TOthe beach just as it’s getting dark. Aidan and Paula have brought wine. Dan has a case of beer. We park and leave our shoes at the top of the path and walk down through the dunes to the beach. I’m in jeans and a white cotton sweater, and I can tell from the way the cool sand hits the bottoms of my feet that it’s not going to be enough. Dan’s next to me in khakis (rolled up just once to allow us a glimpse of the spectacle that is his ankles) and his now buttoned shirt, untucked and unironed. I wish I were responsible for all this rumpling.

Someone’s dug a big pit and started a fire and put a huge galvanized steel tub in there. People are standing around the pit in the last of the evening light, and I have the sense that I am watching a commercial for something that I want to buy. There’s an ease to the group as they stand around shoeless and talking. It reminds me of the scene of the first kiss inTrue Story,the one I’d been dying for through the first thirty-six pages of the script the first time I read it. It’s at a party at the beach where their eyes find each other over and over again. I feel that newly familiar shift in my heart just thinking about it.

“Danny!” they call as we come into sight, and Dan puts up a hand in greeting. There are lots of backslaps and fist bumps, and I am aware that Dan is very aware of me. He introduces me as his “friend Jane from LA” and never once turns his back on me. If someone is speaking to me, he’s watching my face to see how I’m reacting. When I smile, he does too. It’s like we’re at the prom and his mom has given him specific orders to be a thoughtful date. I am also aware that I am being sized up by his friends.

A guy named Charlie hands me a beer and says, “So, Jane, huh? What are you doing with this guy?”

Working. Hanging out. Relaxing for the first time in decades.“The Finnegans think I lost a bet,” I say and they laugh.

Dan laughs, which is kind of a relief. I was trying to change the tone but might have overcorrected. He puts his arm around me and gives me a quick squeeze. “As you can tell, I’m still killing it with the ladies.”

Laughs and the clinking of beer bottles. Most of his friends still live on Long Island; one couple is in from Boston. We take in the Los Angeles jokes: How do we decide if we’re going to drive or rollerblade? Does our medical insurance cover plastic surgery?

“Do you come for the whole summer?” I ask the Boston couple.

“No,” she says. “We wish. We’re just here to see his parents and go to the music festival this weekend.”

Charlie says, “Jack Quinlan was actually here today. Surfing. Really badly.”

“Here? Like right here?” I ask.

“Yeah, I saw him around noon, and a bunch of girls were hanging out waiting for him to finish. They said he was here yesterday too.”

Dan turns to me. “Sounds like we have our plans for tomorrow.”

She arrives and there’s no question in my mind that it’s her. Brooke is wearing a gauzy maxi dress with a soft ivory fisherman’s sweater over it, like her bedroom floor is covered in beautiful things and she just picked two of them at random and they happened to work perfectly together. Her eyes are light blue, and her nose turns up the exact right amount. Everything about Brooke is exactly the right amount.

The Boston couple hasn’t seen her in a while, it seems, because there are hugs and compliments exchanged. I hear Brooke apologize that she’s such a mess. She’s been crazy busy. I would like to see the recording of how crazy busy she’s actually been.

“Danny,” she says and throws her ivory-sweatered arms around his neck. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

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