Deja vu All Over Again

by Larry Brill

  “So you’d move heaven and earth, would you? I don’t know about heaven, mister, but this is what pain feels like on earth.” She held the roses in both hands and swung at him again from her doorway. Nate rushed Julie from the porch. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to comfort her. But first and foremost, he wanted to stop her from bashing him. She backed away to slam the door in his face, but Nate was too far into the house by that point. She wheeled and stomped down the short hallway and into the living room, tossing the flowers against the wall.

  Nate knew when Julie opened the door that things were worse than he feared driving over to her house. He had tried to convince himself that his sudden departure would go largely unnoticed as long as FesterButt kept his mouth shut. He had promised Nate at least a day. If he hadn’t left his goddamned phone on the floor of the principal’s office, he would have called Julie. He would have had some advance warning. They didn’t give him the time to say good-bye to anyone on campus, just pack up his stuff, and Bob, the campus cop, escorted him out and around the back of the building, keeping an eye on Nate until he drove away. He considered calling her from his mother’s home phone but decided to wait, knowing they would have the evening together to talk about it.

  He showed up in his tuxedo, and she was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and blue jeans. He was carrying roses; she was carrying a grudge. Her face was as hard as a botched Botox job, and her jaw clenched as she took the bouquet and battered him with it. Their date to the gala that, to Nate, had become the prom they had missed out on the first time around, was doomed.

  Nate followed her as she stormed ahead. Julie shook both hands in the air, furiously, as if she had washed them in contaminated water and then found she had no towel.

  “You bastard!” She liked that one, Nate noticed, because as she vented her anger, she used it a lot, along with liar, stupid, and asshole. But when she skidded to a stop in front of him, hands on her hips, and said, “Fuck you,” Nate knew he was really in trouble.

  She went to her purse on a credenza near the kitchen, turned and threw something. He used his elbows to protect his head as he ducked and knocked it to the floor. He recognized his cell phone. Festerhaven must have loved blowing the whistle on him.

  It was one of the few times that words failed Nate. Words were, after all, his life.

  “I can’t do this. I can’t do this again,” Julie said. “I can’t go from hating you one day, kissing you the next, and then being ready to kill you. On. Off. On again. Back and forth and never serious. Just like school. The same thing, over and over and over. How could I be so stupid?”

  He never meant to lead her on. He was just a stupid kid back then. He should have asked her to go steady long before the senior prom. Maybe as early as grade school, but certainly by the time they were old enough to date. He hadn’t thought it through; he just wasn’t ready to grow up. For the first time, he could see how it might have looked that way to Jules. It must look that way again.

  “And to think, I convinced myself you had changed. You have, but in the worst way. You were deliberately using me this time. I wouldn’t have figured it out yet if Tina Farnham hadn’t shown up at school this afternoon, looking for you, but you had already left by then.”

  Tina Farnham did what? Why hadn’t anybody told him? Oh. His phone, right. Sitting there on the floor at his feet now. He noticed the screen was cracked. That took some serious anger. “Believe me. There was nothing deliberate about it.” It was a weak excuse. What would be the best way out of this mess?

  “They told us all about the story you wrote. You. Me—and by the way, I am not frumpy and repressed the way you made me out to be. Russell. Carla. All of it. All of your Hollywood friends are laughing at us. When you said you were writing about your life, coming home and living like a teenager again, I didn’t think this is what you meant. I read what you wrote. The worst part, you have been messing with my life. You went out and stole my boyfriend. You deliberately ruined our relationship so you could have a good story to sell. You stole the man who loved me. Russell confirmed it, too. He told me all about how you and that woman set him up. Did I say fuck you yet? And I want you out of here. Right now.” She sputtered with tears on her cheeks and pointed to the phone, cracked and lying at his feet like roadkill. “And those disgusting pictures.”

  Julie moved a step closer, closing the distance between them. She pointed her finger at Nate. “In all the years we’ve known each other, all the disappointments, this has to be the worst.”

  “Just hear me out.” He should have seen Julie would find out what he had done to sabotage her relationship and been ready for it. He was so concerned about her being heartbroken when Festerhaven broke off the engagement, he didn’t stop to think about what would happen when his role in that shit hit the fan.

  Julie shook her head. “You ran away rather than face me after your fling with Eppie Johnson. You ran away from your marriage. You ran away when life got hard, coming back home to live this fantasy of yours, pretending to be a teenager again. And now that you’ve gotten what you need out of us, out of me, you quit and you’re running away again.”

  That was unfair. He might be a relationship wrecker, but he wasn’t running out on her. He didn’t run away to college. She had a boyfriend and he had a scholarship down south. “I came back after school let out for the summer, but guess what? You were in such a rush to get married, you had dumped me like a hot potato the moment my back was turned. We were only eighteen, for God’s sake. And as for my marriage? My marriage? You want to know how shitty that ended?”

  He was seething now. Take a breath. Let it go. He bit hard, swallowing the details, he was losing it and they badly wanted out. He might tell her later; he might never, but this wasn’t the time. “You don’t know diddly about my marriage. I worked at it harder than anything in my life and stayed with it long after its expiration date.” He began pacing. “How could you be so smart and so blind at the same time? I didn’t quit this morning, the man who loved you—as you put it—fired my ass and had Bob the cop kick me off campus. He didn’t tell you that part, did he? Why did he want to get rid of me like that? Yeah, he wanted to screw me for proving what a bastard he really is, but this was the only way he could get back at you. He couldn’t stand the sight of you being happy. And you were going to be happy while I was around.”

  He told her she didn’t deserve to settle for Festerhaven. “I never told you what a dickhead he was because I didn’t want to hurt you. He went out of his way to do it. That’s the man who loved you. And for the record, that woman you found him with? She wasn’t the first. Probably not the second or third, and she wasn’t going to be the last.”

  He wished he could shove that last bit back into his mouth. It tasted like shit coming out, and he felt even worse as he watched her stiffen.

  “You are a liar.”

  “No, I am an idiot. But don’t blame me because you couldn’t see Festerhaven for the cheating asshole that he is. Is that what I ruined for you? He was doing that without my help. Wake up and smell the frappuccino, babe.”

  “Great. Even if it’s true, you went out and helped him. And now you want to excuse what you did telling me you fixed Russell up with another woman to save me? You did this all for my benefit? How dare you think you know what’s best for me and then try to run my life. I don’t need rescuing. At least not your kind.”

  “I did it out of selfish desperation. It was either that or be forced into shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond to find you a wedding gift, watch you go off and marry the wrong guy again, and spend the next forty years of my life wishing I had done more.”

  Julie stepped even closer; her dark eyes were boring painfully into his. What happened next, Nate could have scripted. Julie swung her right hand, flat-palmed and aimed at his face. He knew it was coming but surprised himself at how easily he caught her wrist and stopped it several inches from his jaw. And he did it without flinching. Then he pulled her body against his, so close he could feel her p
assion through his skin. He was Rhett Butler and she was Scarlet O’Hara. Cue the music. Her anger would fade, but passion would engulf them. Julie’s chin tilted up, defiantly daring Nate to kiss her. So he did.

  Or so he tried.

  In the next part of the scene, something Nate had never written and couldn’t anticipate, Julie pulled a ninja move on him. She rammed her knee into his groin and stomped the heel of her shoe into his foot. Nate made a mental note—never get into a tussle with a woman who aced her self-defense class at the YMCA. Damn, that really hurt. Julie put a leg behind his knee, tugged his arm and threw him over her hip to the floor.

  Or so she tried.

  Julie had neither the strength nor the balance to make it work, and they both wound up sprawled, Julie on her stomach and Nate on her back.

  “Get off me.”

  Nate took his time. He was laughing. He didn’t care if that only made her angrier. It couldn’t get any worse. It couldn’t get any more ludicrous. He offered her a hand up, but Julie put on her sulk face and backed away, scooting butt and heels away from him on the floor.

  “Jules, I love you. I have always loved you. I have loved you since we were this high.” He held a palm toward the floor at his knee.

  “Wrong. You’re not in love with me. And I was stupid to think so.”

  “That’s not right. And it’s not fair. You don’t know—”

  “This is pathetic. This homecoming story you dreamed up, trying to rewrite the past? Second chances, isn’t that what you said on the beach? It was a lie to use me. Shut up,” she said. It was a bark. And then she stared up at him, putting her arms around her knees.

  She slapped his hand away when he tried again to help her off the floor. He didn’t mind this time. She stood up without him. Julie didn’t get it. Worse, she didn’t want to get it. “I am going to count to ten. I want you out of here by the time I get there. If not, I’m calling the police.”

  She started counting. One. Two.

  “Jules, you can’t treat me like a child.”

  “If the sneaker fits… Three. Four.”

  Shit. He hated to slink away, but Julie wasn’t about to turn and face him.

  “Five. Six.”

  He stomped to the front door in what he thought was a defiantly tactical retreat. He scooped up the bouquet of roses and slammed the door on the way out. Then he stewed on the front porch.

  Nate plucked a single rose, pounded his fist on Julie’s front door and then barged in. She came out of the kitchen as Nate approached, wiping a tear from her eye with the back of her sweatshirt sleeve. Then she rubbed the eye with her finger as if she were merely trying to get rid of a speck. She turned her face away and held up a palm in that speak-to-the-hand stance. Nate grabbed it and folded her fingers around the stem of the rose. He held her hand in his.

  Nate let go of his anger. He softened but spoke in a measured, determined tone. “You can go on hating me from now until whenever. I didn’t come here to write that damned story. That just sort of happened and things got out of hand. That’s been my whole life. I let things happen and they get out of hand. It’s so rare that anybody gets a second chance like the one I had, and I fucked it badly. You’d be goofy to give me a third chance, but that’s for you to decide. I didn’t leave everything I had, such as it was, to come here and rewrite the past.”

  “Okaaay.” Julie dragged out the word, unconvinced and waiting for more. “That’s sure what it looks like. What are you trying to do?”

  “I’m trying to rewrite the future.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Tina Rides Again

  Friday morning it was the talk of the campus. Nate had resigned and wouldn’t even finish the school year. He was moving back to L.A. to write a movie about them for Tina Farnham. He came. He conquered. He slunk away.

  Reaction was mixed.

  Barbara, the English and drama teacher, was frustrated.

  “I’ve called Nate three times now,” she told Beverly as she nuked a breakfast burrito in the lounge microwave. Julie wanted to ignore them as she squatted behind the open refrigerator door. She was tired. She was grumpy. She hadn’t slept last night. She was clearing the collection of last month’s leftovers from the bottom shelf of the refrigerator so the staff would have room to grow mold on a new month’s worth of neglected lunches.

  “What did he say?” Beverly asked.

  “He isn’t answering. I’m only asking to audition for a part. I’m sure he could arrange something. After all, I’ve covered his classes more than anyone else.”

  “And nobody could play you better than you.”

  Seth Naylor was disappointed.

  “Angela and I were going to ask him to be our baby’s godfather.”

  “You’re pregnant? So soon.”

  “Not yet.” He blushed. “But we’re working on it.”

  Students admired him. The office staff envied him, and Russell refused to talk about him, except to say “that son of a bitch” as he slammed a file of paperwork on the top of her in-basket.

  As for Julie, she loved him. And it hurt.

  Second lunch period, she passed the fountain, where, at the start of the school year, she accused him of not growing up. She was on her way to Carla’s science classroom, and she decided that while it might be true Nate hadn’t changed over forty-some years, she wondered what that said of her for falling back under his spell and loving it. She should be stronger than that.

  Carla had called, insisting she had to come over for a cup of coffee in her homeroom. Julie had given her the full story after Nate left the night before, and she couldn’t imagine what more Carla had to say. Now, suspicious curiosity hit her as she reached for the doorknob. Carla could have waited until the end of the day, but no, she had to see her right away.

  And, “Whoa!” was all Carla said when Julie pressed for a reason.

  She paused at the door and collected herself just in case. Damn him. If Nate was in there with Carla, using her to get to Julie and make his lame case again, and if she was helping, out of some misguided attempt to nudge them toward reconciliation, then Julie would be out the door faster than…

  “Oh.”

  Tina Farnham stood with Carla and the young, black, freckled fellow from her entourage. Carla was pouring coffee from a pot she had pulled off the stand over a Bunsen burner. Tina used a fingertip to pull her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose. “I think we need to talk,” she said.

  Carla winked at Julie as she explained how she had “found” the young man’s tablet. When he called the office trying to locate it, someone put him in touch with her. “DeSean said he would swing by and pick it up. And look at this; he brought a friend with him.”

  Julie pointed to the iPad on the edge of the table. Tina’s assistant was drumming it with his fingers. Julie apologized for causing trouble, though she didn’t want to call it theft. She doubted Carla would feel the need.

  “I told them we read what Nate wrote about us,” Carla said.

  “We shouldn’t have. That was rude and unforgivable.” And so typically Carla, she thought.

  The actress offered her own apology for the stir their unannounced arrival on campus caused the day before. That was where the whole mess started. “But that’s neither here nor there. I thought you could tell me something about Nate. The poor boy was absolutely suicidal last night.”

  Julie felt a lump in her throat. “Suicidal?”

  “Positively.”

  “Positively,” her assistant echoed.

  “In fact, Nate would hate me if he knew I was here today. But”—Tina sighed—“we may never see him again.”

  “Why? What’s happened to him? He hasn’t tried to, you know, do it again, has he?” A wave of nausea swept over her like nothing she had felt since those bad oysters she ate at Charlie’s Crab Crate and Sushi Bar. Nate had assured her that he had moved on from the things that troubled him enough to attempt suicide, and he sure acted like the happy, goofy, irreverent, i
rresponsible, troublemaking Nate she knew. Could he have been too proud to admit he was still harboring suicidal thoughts? She could have handled their fight last night a little better. Sure, he was a jerk, but he was a sensitive jerk. Now it was her fault this time. Visions of YouTube videos and squashed dogs and pathetic little puppy paws trying to escape from under Nate’s broken body flashed in her mind.

  “Do what again?” Tina asked with a blank face. “Nothing happened that I know of, although he must have had one heck of a hangover.”

  The panic faded, but her breathing took its time returning to normal. She was disgusted with herself for even thinking it and disappointed that she could forget how angry she was at him.

  Tina told Julie that she had a long chat with Nate after the fundraiser. It was a smashing success, raising money to build super-industrial icemakers for the penguins in the arctic.

  “I’m pretty sure penguins live in the Ant-arctic,” Carla said. “You know, the South Pole?”

  “Whatever. We raised over three million. Everybody wants to jump on the ice wagon now. Struck a real blow against global warming and for saving those little rascals. Wherever they live.”

  “I’m glad everything is working out for you,” Carla said. Julie appreciated the sarcasm in Carla’s voice. The girl had her back.

  “Did you know that most penguins mate for life? I didn’t. I learned that from him last night. We had a little party after the gala up in the suite. Nate showed up late, missed the gala but stayed late and we talked until, I don’t know, dawn. We haven’t done that for a very long time.”

  Curious. Nate and the actress, did they have a history? “He’s very good at that. Talking till dawn. You’ve known him for a while?”

  Tina ignored the question, leaned on one elbow and drew circles around the rim of her cup. “I would like to be your friend. Do you prefer Julie? Or Jules? He kept calling you that. When he wasn’t talking penguins last night. Can I call you Jules?”