Page 83 of Nothing Less than Magic
It’s a bumpy landing, and my stomach pitches as we speed down the runway. Mercy sakes alive, the baby stops crying. I can hear him cooing in economy as I reach up for my carry-on, only to have a tall gentleman wearing a UC Davis sweatshirt do it for me. I start to ask him if he knows a Professor Knox Hart, only to stop myself.
My phone rings the second I step inside the airport gate. Austin’s timing is impeccable.
“I’m here, parked at the curb in arrivals until they order me to leave.”
“You didn’t have to come, Austin. I was planning to Uber home or take a cab.”
“It was on my way,” he lies.
I rush out into the cold, remembering that I’m no longer in LA, and scramble into the passenger seat before the surly cop walking up and down the sidewalk can tell Austin to move on.
“You have a good time?” he asks.
“I did.”
We’re quiet on the ride home. But I’m secretly delighted that he’s chosen to pick me up at the airport. It feels good to be here with him, not alone in a cab on my way to an empty house.
“Should we pick something up for dinner or go out?”
“Let’s go out,” I say on a whim, the solarium restaurant in Beverly Hills and good French wine fresh on my mind.
Austin chooses a bistro not far from the condo. It’s known for its fried green beans and butterscotch pudding. In all the time I’ve lived here, I’ve never eaten at this particular restaurant. It’s a favorite with the ballpark crowd, and during home games, it’s impossible to get in without a reservation. Tonight, though, it’s nearly empty. There’s only a group of dressed-up women in the corner near a window facing the street. Judging by the wrapped gifts piled on one end of the long table, they’re here for an early Christmas celebration.
The host seats us as far away from them as she possibly can, but it’s a small place. And sound carries. One of the women has an annoying, honking laugh that fills the entire room and echoes off the walls.
“We can go somewhere else if you want,” Austin says.
“Nah, we’re already here, and the food is supposed to be good.”
My appetite is returning but only in fits and starts. I’d wager a guess that it has to do with the quality of the food. I peruse the menu and settle on the pork chops and braised greens. Austin gets the fried green beans to start us off. I’m anxious to see what all the hullabaloo is about.
As soon as our server leaves to put our orders in, Austin says, “I think I should move back in. My lease is up in January.”
He’s been staying nights at the condo but in the guest room. I don’t know if it’s to give me time to recuperate from my head injury or from him. But I think I’m ready to see where we go from here.
“That’s something we can definitely talk about,” I say, using my therapist voice. “I’m not going to lie, Austin, when it comes to you, I have trust issues. It’s going to take a lot of work for me to get over that hurdle.”
“I understand,” he says, and hangs his head like he’s ashamed of the way he walked out on me.
But I can tell it’s an act. In his mind, we’ve already bridged the gap from divorced to reconciliation. In his mind, he’s moving back in January.
In my mind, he may be right.
Chapter 22
The idea comes to me in the middle of the night, and the next day, I’m on a plane again. Ever since the accident and awakening from a coma, I’ve had this urge to tie up loose ends. And now seems like the time to tie up this particular loose end. To finally get closure.
It’s only a week before Christmas, a week before I fly to Los Angeles to eat Wallace’s perfect holiday turkey and open Uncle Sylvester’s wildly extravagant gifts. And maybe see Lolly, if she deigns to be in the same room with me when I’m not dying.
The minute I land, I have regrets. First off, I have no idea where I’m going, and I haven’t driven in months. At least the rental car is a Toyota. It’s a different model than my Prius, but everything appears to work the same.
I set my GPS and take off for the wild blue yonder. Twenty minutes on the road, and I’m as comfortable behind the wheel as I was before the accident. What do they say? It’s like riding a bicycle.
There is snow on the mountains and billboards for all-you-can-eat buffets and performances by has-been entertainers. A disembodied voice is telling me to take a series of turns until I’m breezing down a freeway entrance and driving across the desert, trying to get my bearings. It’s difficult to know east from west without the Pacific Ocean as a guide.
I second-guess myself at least ten times, afraid that my reception will be anything but welcoming. It’s been so long that I don’t even know if I’ll be recognized. But it feels like something I have to do, something that I should’ve done a long time ago.
My exit is less than two miles away, according to the map, and my pulse quickens. My palms sweat. At the exit, I pull into a Union 76 station just to get control of my erratic breathing.
