Page 48 of Backslide
“He’s right—I’ll scootch!” Lydia says. “There’salwaysroom for you!”
I look up into Noah’s pleading face and across the aisle to where Sabrina is gazing pointedly ahead, but Rita is giving me a point-blank stare like,be reasonable.
“Nellie, give the guy a break,” she says.
“Fine,” I grunt. I give in, scooting toward the window to make room.
I search the seat desperately for an armrest to pull down and separate us, but there is no such luck. We are simply next to each other and his oversized body takes up too much room to avoid. I squeeze myself all the way toward the wall to avoid his cooties. And, when my thigh accidentally grazes his, I jump away like I’ve been scalded.
Because I have.
Because what just happened in my room was embarrassing, sure. Never mind earlier in the morning when I basically flashed him on the deck. But, worse, it lit an ember in me that I cannot seem to extinguish.
I need some time away from this man to remember why I hate him. Why it’s safer to play keep-away. Because there is an ache between my thighs that says otherwise. I need some distance from the feel of his large palms running gently up my arms, then raking down my sides. The feel of his breath on my neck, giving me goose bumps all over, as he operated on my zipper—ever a surgeon. The feel of his eyes on me, searing up and down my body, when I swear I caught him stealing a peek.
I need distance from how easy it would have been for him to pull off my dress and keep on going, slipping off the little I still wore and tossing it to the side. To let the van wait. And how easy it would have been for me to let him do it.
Just the thought sends shudders through me.
Fuck. I’m in trouble.
It seems like the more I try to hang on to all the reasons I hate Noah, the more I remember how attracted I have always been to him—the chemical combustion between us. It was something I once attributed to our age when we were together, teenage hormones running rampant, but now I wonder if it’s justus. Or maybe things feel super charged because what we had together came first—before adulthood and dating and disappointments. Before Alfie and breakups and split rents and dinners. Logistics that sap allthe fun. Something that existed, raw and unfettered, before life got so complicated and exhausting.
I chance a glance up at Noah now, at his five-o’clock shadow and chiseled face. The open smile he shoots Rita as they banter about some sports teams I know and care nothing about. The way that smile reaches his eyes. The scar on his cheek from when he was twelve and fell into a barbed wire fence trying to catch a fly ball in a deserted Brooklyn yard. He still caught the ball. I know because he’d told me at least twice.
Feeling my eyes on him, he glances toward me, shoots me a questioning half-smile with narrowed eyes. A private one. An old-school one. But I don’t want it. I scowl and turn away. Throw it back.
Because we cut ties because he cut me deep. It wasn’t arbitrary.
Because he can’t be trusted to stick around when the going gets tough.
Because the boomeranging inside me is making me feel nauseous and confused—and the bumpy van ride isn’t helping. (No offense, John! No one is a better driver than you!)
Noah turns back to Rita, having been rebuffed by me. They laugh some more, rib each other like old friends. High-five. They sure seem chummy. I shoot Rita a look:Remember we hate him?
She shoots me a sheepish shrug.
“So,” says Noah, maybe catching our drift or thinking I’m sick of all the sports talk. “How’s work going for you, Sab? How did the last show end up doing?”
“Fine,” she says tightly, examining her nails. She doesn’t expand.
I know that takes major restraint for Sabrina, who is an artisan potter—literally wearing her own ceramic earrings recently featured inVogue—and loves nothing more than to talk about her creative process. Especially her last show in Silver Lake, which sold out lightning fast. It was a big deal.
Noah shakes his head like he’s confused. Maybe even a little hurt. But Sabrina is Team NSA for life. She avoids his eyes. And I love her for it.
I decide to follow her lead. I focus out the window and ignore what’s inside.
There are winding roads with kicked-up dust, kinetic shade under the canopies of massive oaks. We flicker in and out of speckled sunlight like we are captured in Super 8. There are sweet-looking fruit stands and creameries, with working barns and lofted terraces, and horses and cows that may or may not know how lucky they are to live in this Eden.
There are handmade signs for biodynamic farms and lavender fields, where they sell honey and soap; and large wineries with signs full of flourishes that mark lavish driveways like grand manors. There are ornate B&Bs in renovated Victorian homes and modernist hotels with sharp lines and sustainable style, designed to blend into the landscape. Indoor-outdoor spaces, everything delightfully blurred. And there are vineyards, of course, in every direction. Meadows and rolling hills bearing horizontal stripes, like so many French tees, a grid of grapes grown with love and care.
And then, finally, there is a town. One so sweet it looks like a soundstage. Only it’s real. Peoplelivehere.
I think about the mean cat at my crummy corner bodega and my faltering career and have some real questions about my life choices.
When we exit the van, I am feeling somewhat calmer, the view from the window a balm.
“How’s it going?” John asks quietly, out of the side of his mouth, as I exit onto the charming street.
