Page 111 of Turnabout Is Fair Cosplay
“Then you experiment. You dabble. And you use that amazing mind of yours to find patterns.”
I stare at the copy of the script in front of me. I like running lines with Mike. I like being in his kitchen. I like not having law clients call to yell at me. I like not having lunches turn into an hour of consoling human beings who take their corporations way too seriously and need to learn the distinction between legal counsel and actual counseling. This matters—what’s happening in this room matters.
But I’m too scared to say it.
We run lines. I eat cookies and help myself to blackberries and cranberry juice. I persuade Mike to let me film his monologue and post it to his Instagram, and eventually he agrees.
“Thanks for the cookies,” I say in parting.
“Take them.” Mike hands me the jar. “Now we’re even.”
I’m confused.
“You let me sleep on your couch. I finally made you cookies. Turnabout is fair play. Your favorite phrase. Remember?”
“Sure.” Except now I wish I could forget.
Chapter 34
I glance at the new deck over the garage as I head down to the beach. It looks spectacular. Mike finished it last week, and I barely recognize it without the piles of power tools and construction flotsam. I stood on that deck before Mike ripped it up a few months ago. If demo hadn’t been imminent, I would have moved my Bali bed down from my patio. I wanted to sleep out here. The sound of the waves is palliative, and seeing the ocean enhances the sound. You’d think I would have spent more time at the beach when I lived in Del Mar, but life got busy. Here, on the other hand… The ocean is my unavoidable neighbor.
I take the stairs down to the gate, double-check that it locks behind me, and cross Neptune to take the wood steps down to Windansea.
I should have brought my headphones. Exercise is boring without a book to listen to. I last ten minutes before my run turns into a walk. Mom says that the beach is one of the few places on this planet where it’s possible to align all your chakras at once. I’m this side of desperate enough to try. Because I can’t shake my feelings for Mike or my hopes for a future with him.
I peel off my shoes and stuff them with my keys, phone, and socks, then sit on a rock. I place my feet on the earth—well, sand—and let the rhythm of the waves unblock my energy. It’s not working, but the sunset is pretty. I think I like best how the waves still glow orange and pink even after the sun dips below the horizon.
There are couples out here. Cuddled close, using each other as windbreakers against the relentless ocean breeze. I am no couple. Even when I had a boyfriend in law school, we never reached that level of comfort or compatibility. And now I know why. People do not cuddle with cacti. I could advertise free hugs for the rest of my life, and I’d still be on this beach alone.
No matter.
I shake out my socks, dump my keys and phone on the rock next to me, and put my shoes back on. Other people come to beaches and do stuff. There’s the gentleman with the stick slapping the waves. There are people running. Always running. There are surfers. There are meditators.
Do they all wish that they weren’t alone right now as desperately as I do?
I don’t want to be alone. This vibing thing and quitting law started because I lost myself. I was actively dreading living my life, staying up as late as I possibly could with whatever book I could find because I knew as soon as sleepclaimed me, the misery would start fresh. Mind-numbing, tedious, inconsequential work of corporate liability this and restructuring that. Hours of work, piles of contracts. All destined to be shredded in the next merger or settlement. What did I care? I was supposed to be a shark, a gun for hire.
I had feelings to the tune of so many hundreds of dollars an hour. It didn’t matter if a lawsuit was frivolous, so long as it was winnable. Our job was to get our clients money, more money, as much money as possible. Because money will solve the problem.That’s what money is for,to quote my dear old dad.Money is for solving problems.
But money solved none of my problems. It just created more—exhaustion, loneliness, despair. I’ve been more than happy watching the money drain out of my bank account since moving out of my parents’ house.
Maybe Mike is on to something. Maybe finding something you love is more important.
Except I love Mike, and I’m still on this beach alone.
I don’t realize the tide is coming in, and I’m definitely not prepared for the big wave that breaks against my rock. I’m not just splashed. I’m drenched. I wipe my eyes in time to see my keys and phone drifting out to sea with the receding wave. I run after them—not easy to do in the choppy ankle-deep water, but another wave breaks.
I’m even wetter than I was before, and my keys and phone are gone. The ocean claimed them—another trinket for her collection of curiosities.
It’s dark when I pound on Mike’s back door. I hear shuffles before it swings open. And there he is in gray sweats and a T-shirt that hangs from his shoulders but grips his biceps and…oh.
I’m terrified by how much I love the sight of him. If I could stumble backward into the dark and spend the night on my Balibed, I would. But I’m sopping wet, and no one tells you how cold it gets near the ocean. It’s the damp that makes it feel so chilly.
“My dear Lady Disdain.” Mike’s brow furrows. “What happened?”
“I’m locked out.”
“And you’re wet.”
