Twice in a Blue Moon

by Christina Lauren

  “ ’Bout time,” he said. It was dark but I could hear the smile in his voice. “I was getting sleepy.”

  The urge to reach out and hold his hand spread through me like an electric wave. “Sorry. My mom called to see how things are going.”

  He turned to me in the dark. “Is she jealous, with you and Jude all the way out here in London?”

  “I wondered the same thing.” I sat up and crossed my legs, looking down at him. Inside, I felt keyed up, sort of jittery.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “She asked me whether I told you about Dad.”

  Sam smiled up at me. “You mentioned me to your mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?” He waggled his eyebrows. “What’d you say?”

  “That I met a guy named Sam.”

  Playful disbelief took over his expression. “That’s it?”

  I hoped he couldn’t see my flushed neck and cheeks in the darkness. “What am I supposed to say?”

  “That I’m handsome, and both talented with words and know my way around a farm.”

  This made me laugh. “I’m not sure you’re talented with words or farms; I haven’t seen proof.”

  “I notice you didn’t argue with me about being handsome.”

  “Are you trying to impress my mother?”

  He pushed up onto his elbows, giving me flirty eyes. “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her you’re nice and—”

  “No,” he said, waving me off. “I mean when she asked whether you told me about your dad.”

  “Oh.” I bit my lip. “I lied. I said I hadn’t.”

  This seemed to surprise him. “Would she be mad?”

  “I don’t know.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and noticed that his gaze was following the path of my fingers. “I don’t think she would?” I looked up at him and then winced. “But I was thinking about it the other day, and I realize this sounds totally spoiled, okay? But part of me wants to get to enjoy the perks of being Ian Butler’s daughter a little.”

  “Why on earth do you think that makes you sound spoiled? Everyone in your position would want to be able to see how the other half lives.”

  “I think because that life ruined my mom, and here I am, wanting a reason to go back there.”

  “Did it ruin her?” he challenged me. “Or did she just have a shitty marriage?” He ran his fingers through the grass. “Roberta had a crappy first husband. Got her pregnant so young, cheated on her. She was different after that, I bet, but then she moved to the farm and fell in love with Luther and they’ve sort of become these bedrock citizens. Everyone relies on them for advice and help and just wants to soak up their wisdom. She’d’ve never met Luther if she hadn’t had a bad one the first time around, and I know she’d never tell me not to get married just because it didn’t work for her once. I don’t imagine your mom would want you to avoid something just because it didn’t work for her.”

  I could see the storyteller in him, the biographer. He didn’t even know my mom, and still he drilled down to something so quintessentially true about her: she would never tell me to stay away from LA if that’s what I really wanted.

  The idea of chasing that dream—of really stepping out into the sun and owning that legacy—set something afire inside me, and when Sam caught my eye and held my gaze, I could tell he saw it too.

  four

  ON OUR SIXTH DAY in London we watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. The crowd was heavy and our bodies were pressed close as we all jockeyed for the best vantage point through the gilded iron fence. Sam’s proximity made me drunk. I would never have anticipated how longing could be so dizzying, how it could feel like he belonged to me without any proof or history at all.

  In the jostling, Sam looped his pinky around mine. I was a tiny fish; he had me hooked. It felt almost criminal the way the physical reaction snaked up my arm, down my torso, between my legs.

  He looked down at me and smiled, winking.

  “Don’t forget to tell your mom I’m an all-around talented guy,” he said quietly.

  I think he knew exactly what he was doing. Was it a good sign or a scary one that he seemed to enjoy how flustered he made me?

  On a particularly crowded train on day eight, we let Nana and Luther have the only empty seats. Sam insisted I take the bar near the bench in the back, while he stood behind me, easily able to reach the handle directly overhead. It took a few minutes of a rocky ride for me to realize that he’d chosen that spot to protect me from the group of rowdy guys just behind him. And, with him standing so close, I felt the heat of him along the full length of my body, his front pressed to my back, rocking against me as the train slipped around curves and bends in the track. I was flustered and flushed by the time we reached Westminster station, tense with an unfamiliar ache.

  Sam just grinned knowingly as we parted ways off the elevator, telling me under his breath that he’d see me later.

  At nine, I found him sitting on the grass, facing the door when I emerged. As usual, the garden was empty. I felt grateful for this location in a new way; yes, it was a beautiful view, but the surrounding monuments were also a pretty capable distraction from the jewel of the garden; no one else was ever out here with us.

  Sam smiled as I approached, watching me walk the entire distance from the back door of the hotel to where he was sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back on his hands. In the past two days, it seemed like everything had shifted; we’d stepped across the unspoken line from acquaintances into this new intimate awareness. I still felt clumsy in it. I wasn’t nearly as casually flirtatious as Sam, which made me feel young and inexperienced and constantly hyperaware of everything I said. It was growing simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting.

  I was barely seated before he told me, “You are so fucking gorgeous. Do you know that?”

  He didn’t look away or soften the moment at all, and my first instinct was to duck my head or pretend I needed to tie my shoe, or do something else dismissive and bashful. I’d never had a guy say something like that to me, let alone practically growl it.

  I looked up at him and smiled, and the expression on his face made my heart race. “Thanks.”

  He ran a finger beneath his lip, contemplating something. “I liked being with you on the train today.”

  “That was you behind me?” I deadpanned.

  Sam burst out laughing. “Okay, okay,” he said with a wild grin and snapped his fingers. “Lie down. Tonight is the clearest night we’ve had so far.”

  I settled on the grass, his instructions to lie down playing on a loop in my brain. Sam surprised me by putting his head next to mine, and stretching his body out in the opposite direction. We were a set of propellers, ready to take flight.

  He pointed out Jupiter, so bright above us, and told me, “I used to want to be an astronaut.”

  “So did Charlie,” I said. “She made a rocket out of a cardboard refrigerator box and still had it when I moved to town in fourth grade.”

  “Tell me more about her.”

  It was weird to feel so far away from that world, and so deeply rooted in this new routine with Sam. “She’s my best friend back home.”

  “Right.” He hummed. “Charlie is a rebel name for a girl.”

  “It is?” I turned my head before remembering that he was right there, and our eyes were almost aligned. He was blurry, but even so I could see that he was smiling. We both turned our faces back to the sky.

  “It totally fits, then,” I said. “Charlie is the best. Her mom is a former model. She’s so insanely beautiful, but basically her entire life is focused on maintaining her looks, which is hard to do where we are because there aren’t, like, gyms or plastic surgeons. They live up on the hill, in this McMansion. Nothing else around us looks like this house. It reminds me of a ski lodge in pictures of the Alps, with those sloped roofs and big windows.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, a rumble from somewhere
deep inside him.

  “A few years ago, her dad just didn’t come back from a business trip in China, where he’s from. Turns out her parents never really got married, so it’s just Charlie and her mom now.”

  In my peripheral vision, Sam lifted his hands, wiping his face. “Wow.”

  “Charlie went through a pretty rebellious phase that year, but she’s chilled out a little. As much as she ever will, I guess. Charlie’s pretty awesome. You’d love her.”

  Was this a sufficient description of Charlie? With her crazy style that stood out nearly as much as a half-Asian girl would anyway on River Road? With her love for stray dogs and the lemonade stands she’d organize to give money to homeless kids? I was growing to despise this CliffsNotes version of my life. I’d never done this before—let someone completely in from start to finish. I wanted to plug my brain into Sam’s and simply download everything in one go.

  Sam adjusted his position; I imagined him crossing one long leg over the other. “So, you have Charlie, and there was a boyfriend named Jesse. Who else?”

  Frankly, it was embarrassing to have the tiny scale of my life measured like this, but those two were and had always been the bulk of my social world. I couldn’t even think about Charlie going to UCLA, and Jesse going to Wesleyan, because it would remind me that I’d need to make all new friends at Sonoma State.

  “That’s pretty much it,” I said. “I mean, El Molino is a super-small school and I’m friendly with almost everyone, but I guess I was never one of those social butterflies who spent time with big groups of people. We had the popular clique, and they’re fine, but I’m not really part of it.” I pulled away a little so I could look at him. “I bet you were.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He shrugged and scratched his eyebrow. “But my school was really small, too. Like four hundred kids total. I had my group of guys I’d hang with. Most of them go to State with me, so I see them all the time. Eric. Ben. Jackson. A few went farther away—probably won’t come back. It’ll be interesting to see who’s still there with me in twenty years.”

  “So for sure you’re going to go home and run the farm?” I asked.

  My stomach did the familiar clenching-drop combination it did whenever I imagined staying in Guerneville and taking over Jude’s Café. Every time I tried to imagine that future, everything turned blank.

  “That’s the plan.” He took a deep breath. “I love it there. I know it as well as Luther does now. It’s so peaceful at night; the sky gets so dark you can see everything. But they’re getting older, and if Luther really is sick… I don’t know.” He paused, wiping a hand over his mouth. “I might be taking it on earlier than I thought. Which is fine, because let’s say someday I want to write a book? I can easily do it there. I keep telling them they can live there and let me take care of them for once. Roberta probably won’t hear of it until I’m married, though.”

  A tiny shiver worked its way down my arms. “Do you have someone back home?”

  Sam laughed at this, and the sound was so low he seemed much more man than boy. “No, Tate. There’s no one right now.” He looked at me, both amused and incredulous. “Wouldn’t they be pissed to find me lying on the lawn with the beautiful daughter of the most famous actor alive?”

  “It’s not like we’re doing anything,” I reminded him, but the words came out all wobbly, like I knew they weren’t entirely true.

  In response, he gave the moment a heavy, lingering beat of silence before he grinned over at me. “We sure aren’t.”

  I grew hot all over, and a nervous laugh escaped when neither of us spoke for five… ten… fifteen seconds.

  “What are you thinking about?” I asked him.

  “You.”

  I was positive he heard the way my voice shook when I asked, “What about me?”

  “That I like you,” he said with gentle urgency. “That it’s weird to already like you so much. That I want to spend time with you—alone—during the day, and get to know you better, but don’t know how we could make that happen.”

  “What would you want to do?” I asked.

  Sam sat up, reaching to brush the damp chill of the lawn off his back. “I dunno. Just walk around. Talk more like this, but in the daylight so I can see you properly.” He turned and looked down at me, a smile slowly lifting the corners of his mouth. “Lie down together on a different lawn somewhere.”

  * * *

  “You want to spend the day alone?”

  I didn’t miss the edge of hurt in Nana’s voice.

  “Not because I don’t want to be with you,” I insisted. “I’m leaving soon, to school in Sonoma, and I like the idea that I can walk around a big city alone and navigate it by myself. I just… want to try for a few hours.”

  I held my breath while she lifted her arms, clasping pearls at the back of her neck. “I suppose I could visit Libby tomorrow without you.”

  Libby, from deep in Nana’s past, owned a tiny London hotel. Even the way my grandmother said Libby with a particularly lilting emphasis on the first syllable made me see that she thought her old high school friend must be impressively cultured.

  “Exactly,” I said, exhaling at the appearance of this convenient excuse: an old friend. “You wouldn’t want me there, either. I’m sure I’d keep you from gossiping your faces off.”

  Nana laughed, swatting at me with her sock before sitting to put it on. “You know I don’t gossip.”

  “Sure, and I don’t like pie.”

  She laughed again, and then looked up at me from where she sat at the edge of the bed. Her expression straightened from her brow to her mouth, and, at rest, her lips pulled down in a natural pose of displeasure. “Where will you go?”

  I tried to look undecided, but the plan flashed in my head like a marquee. Gambling that she wouldn’t follow to check up on me—I didn’t think even Nana was that paranoid or controlling—I said, “Not sure. Maybe Hyde Park?”

  “But hon, we’ve planned that for next Tuesday.”

  “Maybe I could go out on a paddleboat?” I tried to make it sound more like it had only just occurred to me, and not like Sam and I had already discussed the idea. “It looks fun, but I don’t think you’d want to do that with me.”

  Nana wouldn’t step foot on a paddleboat, but wouldn’t want to stop me from doing it, either. She nodded slowly, bending to pull on her other sock. I could see I’d won.

  “I guess you’d be fine.” She looked up. This was such an enormous leap of faith for her. She would never let me even go to San Francisco or Berkeley alone.

  And here I was, asking to walk around London alone—as far as she knew, that is. “You’re sure you’ll be fine?”

  I nodded quickly, working to speak past the sun rising in my chest. “Totally fine.”

  five

  “YOU ARE A MASTER manipulator.” Sam handed a few pounds to the man at the Bluebird Boats rental kiosk and looked over his shoulder at me. “I thought for sure she’d say no. How did you get Jude to go for it?”

  “I told her I wanted to be independent and ride a boat. I knew she didn’t want to go on the lake, so… ”

  He reached out for a high five, and we followed the man along the dock to where our blue paddleboat was tethered to a wide metal hook. The mechanics of powering the boat with our feet seemed pretty straightforward, but the man explained it anyway: how the pedals worked, how to steer, what to do if we got stuck far out and the wind picked up across the lake. Had he not looked up and seen the freight engine that was Sam standing right in front of him?

  “If we get stuck,” I said, hooking my thumb toward the mountain of a man beside me, “I’ll just make him climb out and tow me back to the dock.”

  The man sized him up with a raised brow. “Well, off then. Stay on this side of the bridge, all right?”

  Sam steadied me with his hand on my arm as I climbed into my seat, before following me in. The boat dipped noticeably under his weight. “We’re going to be paddling in circles,” I joked. “Maybe
you should only use one foot.”

  He looked at me, eyes glimmering. “You’re in an especially good mood.”

  I liked that he saw it. He was right, too. I was nearly light-headed I was so giddy to be out on my own, especially with Sam. We had only a handful of days left together, and I was already dreading having to say goodbye.

  We backed up and play-fought over who got to steer, finally agreeing that I’d go first, then he’d get a turn.

  “Girls usually like to be driven around,” he said when he ceded control of the simple lever.

  “Careful,” I growled darkly, but playfully, over at him. “You wouldn’t want to sound sexist.”

  With a sweet smile, he held a hand to his heart. “I sure wouldn’t.”

  It was windier on the lake than it was on the paved trail, and steering proved harder than I’d expected. Paddling was comical. I was pushing with every bit of strength I had and still barely managed to keep us moving in a straight line.

  “Canoeing is way easier,” I whined. “Mental note to request they stock canoes when we return.”

  “Or kayaks.”

  “We have these huge lines of canoes at the beach in town,” I told him, already breathless. “They used to be metal and would get hot as hell in the sun. Now they’re these thick inflatable ones. Yellow rubber. You’ll see tourists all over the river, tipping over where it gets gnarled just before Jenner.”

  “You get a lot of tourists?”

  “In the summer, yeah.” I stopped, working to catch my breath. “Wine country. The river. I get it—it’s a nice place to stay… for a few days.”

  He laughed at this and again, we veered left because he was pedaling so much more forcefully than I could.

  “Lend me one of your legs,” I said.

  He reached over, tickling my side, and then shifted his hand behind me, letting it rest around my shoulders. “This okay?”