Page 8 of It's a Love Story

“But he always comes,” Dan says over his shoulder.

I pick up a few towels and fold them. “So you do this every week?” I ask.

“Mostly. It’s a pop-up camp, for when I have time.” He collects sandy paintbrushes into a canvas bag. “Which is a lot lately.” It really is preposterous how little care Dan takes with his hair, I mean, comb it once. Just once. But on the beach, and now with Louis riding piggyback, it looks more normal. It’s like if you first saw a cowboy in a ten-gallon hat at the mall, but then later you saw him out on the range and it sort of made sense.

“What?” Dan asks. I’ve been looking at his hair for too long.

“Have you ever come into contact with a hairbrush?”

“Was that a joke?” And over his shoulder to Louis, “Was it?”

“I think she thinks you’re messy.”

“Then maybe she’ll help us clean up.” He puts Louis down and points to three abandoned canvases down the beach. Louis runs to get them, and a man is waving at us from the pier.

“Always freakin’ late,” Dan mutters.

I pick up the stack of towels and follow Louis and Dan back up to the pier.

Louis hugs his dad, who’s in a blue suit and a crisp shirt. I wonder where he’s been today that’s made him late.

He says hello to me, and Dan says, “This is Jane.”

“She’s his stalker,” Louis tells him.

“I am not,” I say just as Dan starts to laugh.

“She is a little. I mean, showing up at my place of business. In a dress,” he says.

“It’s a sundress. This is the beach. You said five.” I can feel myself getting worked up. I turn to the late dad. “I’m his colleague, we have a scheduled meeting.”

Louis’s dad could not care less about me and my meeting. He just waits as Louis hugs Dan goodbye.

“See you, Peanut,” Dan says. The intimacy of the nickname startles me. When I was a kid, I used to imagine that my dad would have had a nickname for me, maybe Doodle, something to do with the squiggly outline of my hair, our hair. Louis smiles a smile that matches one that’s buried in my heart.

We watch them walk away, and the towels are heavy in my arms. “You okay?” he asks.

“Of course.” We start walking. He’s walking rudely faster than I, so I have to double step to keep up. “So can we brainstorm a little?”

“About what? You’re the one who’s got a soundtrack in the works.”

“Well, sort of. I just want to talk the whole thing through. I think we’re the only people who care if this movie gets made.”

We get to his car, an old white BMW sedan. I mean old, with a little rust but pretty leather seats. “Get in,” he says. “I’m starving.”

We toss his stuff in the back seat and get in the car. I haveDatelinevibes, and I can hear Keith Morrison telling the audience that I got into a car with the man I despised most in the world.Why?he’d say into the camera just before the commercial break.Why would she get in that car?

“Buckle up,” he says, and it sounds chilling.

“Why?”

“Because we’re in a car, Jane. And it’s the law.” He shakes his head and pulls into traffic. We drive five minutes down to Venice Beach and park in front of a skate-rental store. We get out of the car and Dan still isn’t talking to me. He’s just walking toward the boardwalk as if we’d previously agreed that I would follow him anywhere. There’s a hint of sand on the sidewalk, and I like the way it makes a sound under my sandals, like a crinoline under a big taffeta gown. We pass some artists selling paintings and sculpture and Dan stops to look. One of them, an older man, gets up out of a beach chair and slaps him on the shoulder.

“Is this new?” Dan asks. “It’s great.” They’re standing in front of a small oil painting of a pile of feathers. It’s actually beautiful, but what I’m really noticing is that Dan has his back completely to me, like I’m not here.

“And who’s this?” the man with manners asks.

“Sorry. Pedro, this is Jane. We’re trying to work together.”

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