Page 78 of It's a Love Story

I lean back in my chair and swing my legs onto the desk. I’m in flip-flops at work, and suddenly “dress for the job you want” takes on new meaning. I almost feel like I woke up this morning and put on a costume to dress up like myself. I wiggle my toes. A helicopter fight is so noisy. It’ll sell tickets and make for a great trailer, but we won’t laugh or cry. We won’t learn anything about ourselves. We’ll just be hiding in all that noise.

I have the watercolor Dan and I made together in my desk drawer. I swiped it from the windowsill before I left the house. It’s sloppy and dotted with little bursts of beauty, a bit of a blur, like the week we were together. It bothers me that I don’t have a photo of us together. I don’t know why I would, but it strikes me as strange that I would have had such an intimate relationship with someone and have so little evidence of it. That last part’s not true. The evidence of my time with Dan is in how clear I feel for the first time in decades. I don’t know anything about what’s going to happen in the future, but I know that I have spent a lot of time lying in the past, pretending that I didn’t want to get invited to the ball because I never thought I could be invited. It wasn’t Dan who showed me who I was, but I got quiet enough around him to see myself and just live in my body for a while. I have a truer version of myself back, and that’s what I can see clearly. Who I am, what I’m capable of, and where I’ve been terribly afraid to trust my own instincts. I also have this bracelet, which feels more concrete and shows no sign of disintegrating. I roll the beads between my fingers, and I can feel Ruby there, or at least her sense of certainty.

I take outTrue Storyand read a few scenes for comfort. Those characters show up flawed and fall in love anyway. Their connection is the kind of love I never understood, the kind where the love is the reward for being yourself. It’sThis is who I amfollowed byI’ll take it!When I was with Dan, I jumped in without a mask or a script or best-practices bullet points. I was vulnerable with him, if just for a little while. I felt what it was to be loved, and I don’t know how to turn away from that.

I pick up the phone and do the thing I’ve been dreading. The last step in shutting downTrue Storyis telling the writer. Kay picks up on the first ring. There’s no pretense to Kay, and it’s a little contagious. The first time we met, she told me thatTrue Storywas loosely based on her relationship with her late husband, and I cried. It was the first time I’d ever cried at work, and I think it’s why she sold it to me.

“I’ve been thinking about you!” she says.

“Me too,” I say. “How are you doing?”

“Good,” she says. “I’m working on another script. It sort of came out of nowhere, and now I’m up at dawn and walking around my house talking to myself in crazy voices. It’s such fun.”

“I’d love to read it when you’re ready,” I say.

“Oh, good,” she says. She’s quiet on the line, and I remember that I’m the one who called.

“So I have some bad news. Clearwater isn’t going to move forward withTrue Story.”There’s a little hitch in my voice as I hit the last few words.

“Well, that is disappointing,” she says.

“I know, and I’m sorry for both of us. I tried. I did a lot of stupid things to try to make it happen. I really wanted to see that movie made.”

“You will, Jane. Don’t worry. The option’s up in six weeks, and I had other people interested. I thought you were the right fit. I still do, just maybe not Clearwater.”

“Yes,” I say and sit up straighter. “I am the right fit. I have some ideas, a few of which are totally reckless. But I think that’s what I’m about right now, so please don’t resell the option without giving me a chance.”

Kay laughs. “I knew it, you’re brave.”

We’re quiet on the phone for a second. Then I ask, “Was it love at first sight? With your husband.”

“Oh God, no,” she laughs. “He was wearing this awful bowling shirt and smelled like old cigarettes. I only went out with him because my roommate blackmailed me.”

“And then what happened?”

“Everything,” she says.

This makes me smile because this is a thing I’m starting to understand. Everything. A look, a kiss, whipped cream in my coffee. Standing on a hilltop together looking out at a pond. His hand possessively behind my hip on a catamaran because he wanted me to be his. A little girl dancing for her grandparents. It’s everything.

“Why do you ask?” Her voice sounds wistful, like my question has taken her to another place.

I think of how strong my mom is to have kept trying again, over and over. I think of how afraid I’ve been for so long, hiding behind my own fear and a carefully chosen rotation of dresses. I believe in love now; I’ve felt it and can not unfeel it. It’s an imperfect thing, and it changes and breaks and heals the way people do. I could have had love like that, or at least I could have tried.

“I fell in love, and I chickened out,” I say.

“Oh, Jane. Don’t let that be the end of your story. You’re braver than that.”

CHAPTER 36

ANHOURLATERIAMSEATEDUNCOMFORTABLYONtop of theDON’TGIVEUPbillboard in West Hollywood. It’s directly in the sun, including the metal ladder on the back that scalded my hands as I climbed up. This feels like hijinks, something Janey Jakes might have thought up and something Dan would never, ever do. But Dan is a once-in- a- 1 ifetime person and I am having once- i n-a-lifetime feelings. I know how much I hurt him. I broke this beautiful thing, and I might not be able to fix it, but I want to try. Or at least explain. So I sit on a small platform on top of the billboard that is surprisingly not covered in hawk crap. I’ll stay here as long as I have to, even though it’s hot in the sun and soon I’ll have to pee.

I spent the drive over here debating whether this was the best or worst idea I’ve ever had. I cannot accept the fact that this is over. Every night I imagine myself back in the cave of that bunk bed with him. And then I imagine him in my house, walking around my kitchen. I want him to look up at me from my dishwasher and smile at the way I’m smiling at him. I want him to experience the contrast between my made bed and my candy-wrapper closet and love me anyway. I picture him standing in front of the bookshelves I painted robin’s-egg blue last summer, picking something out to read because we have all the time in the world. I miss a thing I never even had.

I watch his apartment building now from my perch, and I imagine what it’s like in there. I bet he hasn’t called the super about his oven. I’ve seen him load a dishwasher, and while I was processing a lot of other thoughts and feelings at the time, I did like the orderly way he did it. He’s a visual person, and I bet everything in his apartment is something he likes to look at. He’s a visual person, which is why I’m counting on him to look out the window and see me here, waiting.Don’t give up, Dan.

I watch the traffic roar by on Sunset Boulevard. The ridges of the platform press into my rear end. I shift a little to get comfortable. A teenager with a dog stops and looks at me for a second. He shakes his head and walks away.

I sit and breathe in the foolishness of what I’m doing, the complete absurdity of my plan. I don’t even know if Dan’s home. And if he is, he could sleep all day or leave the house without ever looking out his window. But I know that Dan likes to look out a window. He likes to see anything through the confines of a frame or the rectangle of his camera lens. And I also know that I don’t care about looking stupid anymore. I am lovesick. I am putting myself out there, for him. I know what it feels like to have something wonderful, and I want it back. I give a half-hearted wave to a couple who are looking at me curiously.

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