I try again. “Look at Hunter, Beau. They’re so relaxed. They don’t seem fazed by you at all. At all. Like you’re supposed to be here. That’s all I mean.”
He nods and opens his door. “Let’s find food.”
We get out of the car. In the parking lot, he’s got his sunglasses on, and I try not to fidget too much. He walks next to me. I don’t know—maybe it’s because Peter was average height, but I keep noticing how tall Andrew is. He’s got a long stride, obviously, but he’s also got a smooth way about him. He moves through space at an almost languorous pace.
We go inside. The shades come off. He grabs a cart and pushes it along, elbows resting on the handle. So far, we’re down the first aisle, and no one has even looked in our direction. He isn’t hurried, and he seems completely at ease. I’m impressed.
“What do the boys like to eat?” We’re in the produce section.
“Nothing in a five-mile radius of these vegetables, I’ll tell you that much.”
He chuckles. “Men I have something in common with.”
I pick up a head of romaine and a bag of spinach. “We’ll do a salad, and they can drench it in ranch. It’s still a vegetable, I guess.”
We pass the beer and wine aisle. I ignore the regular knot in my stomach and act as a good host. “Do you want to get a bottle of wine or something?”
“Naw, I’m good. I’d rather save my calories for Moon Pies. And I have a shoot coming up, so I can’t go too crazy.”
“I guess that’s an occupational hazard.”
“If you want something, don’t let me stop you, though.”
I’m relieved. “I don’t drink, really. It’s a long story from long ago. Nothing you want to hear about in the grocery store, trust me.”
He looks curious but seems to respect the tone in my voice. “Maybe you’ll want to tell me another time. But it means you’re a good influence on me. The producers thank you for keeping me beer-gut-free before the movie.” He smiles. “When I retire from acting, though, I plan to let myself go, Elvis-style. It’s PBR and deep-fried peanut butter and banana samiches all the way.”
He slows the cart a little to check out the apples.
The guy restocking the bananas looks at us. For longer than normal.
Andrew doesn’t miss a beat. He stands up a little taller, turns his body to face me. He motions with his eyebrows. I was right. He whispers conspiratorially as he steers the cart toward the deli case. “The produce guy has made a positive ID. Time to move along.”
I follow his lead. He doesn’t speed up, and he doesn’t look at the guy again. He just continues to amble along. We get a chicken without further incident.
We use the self-checkout and make for the parking lot without another sideways glance.
“That was impressive. It’s a little like a Jedi mind trick or something. No one noticed you except that one clerk.”
He bumps my shoulder as he steers the cart. “I told you I had the ninja skills. Pushing the cart is very un-movie-star-like. It works every time.” He takes the keys from me and unlocks the back to toss everything in. He flashes all of his gorgeously white teeth. “Buying deli chicken isn’t glamorous either. I don’t think people want to meet their favorite hero while he’s buying dinner or cat litter or something. Too normal. Ruins the mystique.”
“I saw the governor in Target one time. He was looking at dishes. I played it cool.”
“Good move.” He tosses the keys back to me.
As I turn to get in the car I hear her.
“Kelly!” It’s a yell—a bark, really. But it’s a bark I usually love. It’s Tessa, my friend. Right now I’d run her over with my car if it meant avoiding what’s about to happen.
“Oh, God, Andrew, no Jedi trick in the world is going to save us from this. You better get in the car.”
“What?”
“You should get in the car. This is my friend Tessa. You’ll want to take cover. Trust me.”
She’s trying to steer an overloaded cart straight at us. She’s sporting a shiny Patagonia down coat zipped up over her doctor’s wife figure, and by the way she’s walking, I can tell her antennae are up. She’s always had a keenly honed sense of curiosity about anyone else’s life. Her zest and candor are two things I usually love about her, but presently, I can’t think of anyone I’d like to avoid more.
Andrew has his hands full of grocery bags, and he’s clearly trying to decide if fight or flight is appropriate.
I try a preemptive strike. I trot over to Tessa, who’s luckily having a heck of a time getting her cart moving. Part of this is due to the three insanely cute black-haired girls in it. And all the groceries piled in around them.
“Girlfriend!” Tessa’s not even looking at me. She’s got her eyes on Andrew. She’s going to roll the cart over my toes in a second.
“Hey, Tessa. Hi, girls.”
The triplets chime in. “Kelleee!” They are almost two, and they are little chubby-knuckled queens of the walk. Joe and Tessa tried for five years to get pregnant. They spent thousands on IVF to bring children into their lives. The month they found out they were having triplets, Peter and I found out he was sick.
“Who’s with you?” Tessa doesn’t mince words.
“A friend from Indio. He’s on his way to Sun Valley.”
“You don’t have any friends in Indio. You have your parents. And they don’t count.” Tessa tries to look past me to check out Andrew more fully.
Why does everyone feel compelled to remind me I have no friends in Indio? “Thanks. Thanks for that.”
The girls are into the groceries. Josie has a box of graham crackers and has torn the top off. Genevieve and Jasmine pull Twizzlers from a hole they’ve made through the bottom of the grocery bag straight into the package. Tessa hasn’t noticed yet.
Andrew’s stowed the groceries in the car and has come to stand next to me. He puts his hand out. “Hi, I’m Andrew.”
I can’t believe his bold gesture is a good idea.
Tessa shakes his hand. Just as she lets go, she figures it out. Her big sunglasses can’t hide the top of her eyes as they go wide in recognition. Silly me, I didn’t recognize him with his sunglasses on, but she sure did.
“Pleased to meet you. Tessa.”
She might actually be at a loss here. I’m stunned that she’s stunned.
“Andrew and I are friends from Indio.” I have a moment where I’d like to tell her I told you so, that I do have friends from Indio—this one friend, at least. I love her, but she’s the bossy sister I never had, and sometimes I like to be right. She and Joe are right ninety percent of the time, and I may claim a half percent or so. The rest is too nebulous or trivial to matter.
“What’re you doing here?” She looks right at him.
“Buying groceries.” I answer. “The boys are waiting at home, so we better get going.”
“Okay.” Her mouth may be open a little. Her keys dangle from her hand. The girls aren’t even trying to be sneaky anymore: They’ve pulled an entire baguette out of the bag and are gnawing on it like little raven-haired hyenas.
“It was nice to meet you.” Andrew gives her a wave and goes to the car.
I’m about to follow when she grabs my wrist.
“Oh, no you don’t. Do you know who that is?”
“God, Tessa, I’m not that dense. Yes, I do.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“In Indio. I told you.”
“Well, you might get away from me right now, but don’t think I’m not tweeting about this as soon as I get in the car. I should’ve taken a picture! Damn, why didn’t I do that?”
I poke her arm, hard. “Because. That’s why.”
“What?” She fumbles around in her purse.
“You will not ruin this for me. He’s my new friend.”
“Oh, come on! This is too amazing!”
“Tessa. Please.” Now I’m quiet.
Tessa suddenly notices the girls. “Girls! How many times do I
have to tell you, stay out of the groceries!”
“Yeah, stay out of it.” I give Tessa my best pleading smile with lots of nervous teeth.
She sighs. “Whatever. If you don’t text me this weekend, I’m coming over and breaking in.”
She might actually do that.
“I promise. I have to go.” I kiss her on the cheek, pat each little monster on the head, and hustle back to the car.
“That’s your friend?” Andrew looks at me as I start the car as fast as I can and pull out.
“Tessa. She and her husband are my best friends. They’ve put up with a lot.” I wonder if he can feel how her thumbs are itching to tweet about him. “Let’s go.”
We head home. Andrew brings his stuff in along with the groceries, and I realize in a moment of horror that his bag was in the back of the car all afternoon. But the boys must not have noticed.
After a very pieced-together dinner, the boys go to bed. Tomorrow is Friday, and they will go to school.
I will be left with a guest to entertain. What I would like to do is press pause and spend the day cleaning the house so I can then relax and hang out with my new friend without trying to steer him around messes all day.
We sit at the kitchen table. He seems fidgety. Now I’m worried. Here it comes, the part where he has total second thoughts and tries to escape.
He looks up at me, sheepish. Oh, God, I’m right.
“This is so embarrassing. I’ve got to have a smoke. I’ve been good all day, but to be honest, I’m dying right now. Do you mind?” He stands.
I’m so relieved it’s not about me, I practically jump up too. “We can go up on the deck.”
We step out. The night is clear. The inversion has lifted. The moon has haze around it, and there’s a slight stir of wind.
He stands at the railing and lights up. I can see his shoulders visibly lift and release, the tension going out of them. I sit on the chaise lounge, the one Peter liked to sun himself on when he was sick. He used to joke that he was cooking himself with vitamin D. I shiver. I think it’s less from the cold than from the memory, but I pull a blanket over me just in case. Sometimes it feels like Peter is in my skin. I shake at the strength of his impression, still so strong, sitting here on this chaise.
Andrew hasn’t turned around yet. He looks out over the valley, bathed in the hazy moonlight. In fall and winter we have a clear view. In summer the trees obscure it.
“This is different. Not at all like my hometown. It’s so open here; the view just goes on.”
“Where are you from?” I’m curious. With my limited Googling, I don’t know that much about him.
“Harrisburg. State capital of Pennsylvania, did you know that? A little town outside of it, actually. Lots different than here. Very lush and green, but with a working-class, rust-belt vibe.”
He turns around and shivers. He’s cold. This is a sign of his age or his residence in LA: the man is wearing a hoodie. A sweatshirt does not cut it in Boise in November.
“You’re freezing. Come sit down.”
“I smell like smoke.” He stubs out his cigarette, looks for a place to put it.
I have a mom-ish moment, but I resist. I want to say something about the smoking. It’s bad for you, stinky habit, people who care about you don’t want you to get sick…But this is a grown man. It would be a welcome change to relate to someone in my life as an equal. It’s been two years. Plus, I’ve been around enough to know that people don’t quit things like smoking because of someone else. That thought threatens to open a door I don’t want to walk through tonight, memories I don’t need to recall in the presence of a new person.
Anyway, he has to make a decision to quit on his own, so I shrug all of those thoughts off in the cold night air. Now’s not the time for any of that.
I lift the edge of the blanket. Andrew comes and sits next to me. We are shoulder to shoulder, sitting on the chaise with our backs to the wall. I have my feet pulled up under me to stay warm. He stretches his legs out, and I have an impression of him as a thoroughbred for a minute. No one would ever mistake me for anything coltish. I’m run-of-the-mill average height. Run-of-the-mill average everything, actually.
“Tell me about acting.” I feel good. I’m having a normal conversation. I’m not behaving like a total doofus. For once.
He settles in under the blanket. I try not to notice that his leg and mine touch. He doesn’t seem to notice at all. “I started in high school. I was a runner, in track, hurdles, but I got shin splints spring of my junior year. A girl I liked was in drama, so I tried out for the end of the year production of Heidi. I was the grandfather. Got to wear a gray wig and beard, use lots of spirit gum. It was awesome.”
“After that?”
“I got lead parts in all the productions my senior year, and my shin splints hadn’t really healed, so I stuck with drama. When I graduated, I went to LA and stayed with a friend of my mom’s from high school. I was lucky, I guess, because I started getting commercials right off the bat. And I was sleeping on her couch, so I didn’t have to pay rent.”
He’s finally decided to put the cigarette butt in a planter with a dead geranium next to the chaise. He grins a little. “The rest you can look up on IMDb. That’s kind of weird. Just Google me.”
I blush. Been there, done that. It’s good that it’s dark out here. “Uh-huh.” I clear my throat. “You still like acting a lot?”
He’s up again, walking around the deck, looking at the odds and ends on the potting bench, picking at the dead flowers in the planters on the railing. “Mostly. The movies with big sets are the best. You know, like it’s nineteen eighteen, and there’s a whole train yard full of extras in uniforms. And I like the drama. The angst or the tragedy, and reacting in a situation the way someone totally different from me would. It’s a whole world to disappear into. It’s a great distraction from my life.”
“You don’t need to be distracted from anything.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. It’s complicated. Left to my own devices, I don’t do very well.”
I try to picture him working. But I am really cold. “Let’s go in. I’ll make you some tea.”
As I stand and pull the blanket around me to walk inside, he’s behind me. He steadies me, putting his hands on my shoulders. It feels warm, familiar, kind.
And here we are in another kitchen, having another cup of tea. It’s late, but I’m in no mood to get to bed. “It’s good to talk to somebody. I mean, I’ve got Tessa, but I don’t know, it’s just like I’ve been asleep, you know? Or absent.” It feels awkward, giving voice to the loneliness.
He sits across from me. His blue eyes take on a warm, smoky gray look. “I’m sure.”
We don’t talk any more about it. I’m grateful for that. When some of my friends come over or visit from out of town, I have to revisit the concept that is widowhood with each one of them. It’s not that I blame them, but they need the orientation to what it’s like to be left alone when someone dies. They’re just visiting, but I live in this land. Still, they all want to know what it feels like. It sucks being the there-but-for-the-grace-of-God person. They get to go home and hug a husband or a lover, and part of me knows it’s because they’re glad they aren’t me.
I steer my brain in a different direction. “So what do you want to do tomorrow?”
“I have no idea.” He shrugs.
“The boys’ll be in school, so we have the day to do whatever we want.” I’m not trying to sound suggestive, except to suggest that we can do adult-directed and grown-up stuff without two boys whining about everything or sullenly playing on their Nintendo DSes when they should be enjoying the beautiful day.
“Show me around Boise. Distract me.”
This’ll be a chance to be competent, to be more than a spaz who cries at the drop of a hat or who lives in a total disaster zone of a house or who is just me. “I can do that.”
He stands up. “I’ll get to bed. What time do the boys wake up for school?”<
br />
I can’t help it. I get a little choked up. Someone else will be in the house in the morning. I know he’s not a husband, or even a boyfriend, or…I wipe at the edge of my eyes with the knuckle of my index finger. I guess I’m almost crying.
He’s very close to me all of a sudden. His hand is on my cheek. And he kisses me, softly, on the mouth.
“See you in the morning.”
“Okay.”
He walks out of the kitchen and upstairs. The night is over. I try not to scream out loud.
8: Things Come Together
WHEN THE FIRST LIGHT comes into my bedroom the next morning, I’m up and out of bed in a new world’s record. I move as noiselessly as I can. I don’t want to wake the boys. The early morning is my time.
Ditto the dog stirs, and I immediately find the closest fleece available. I pull it over my head and grope around for my running shoes. I check on the boys upstairs—their room is still dark. I peek out across the deck, and the light in the bedroom above the garage isn’t on either. Everyone is still asleep. I think I’m safe to get a run in before anyone gets up.
To say that I feel like a rock star when I get out on my run is the understatement of the century. I’ve chosen what I like to call my Jesus-God-Sunrise route: out the back door and up the spine of the foothill behind our house. Usually about five to ten minutes into the run, depending on the time of year, the sun starts to crest over Table Rock and the Boise Front to the east, and it’s spectacular. Today in particular, I can’t help but think that if someone looked up here? Damn, I would look badass.
No one is looking up here, of course, because it’s kind of chilly and everybody else is keeping warm under the covers with a significant other or getting clean in a hot shower to get to work before too long.
I think about Andrew. Andy Pettigrew, world-famous actor, sleeping in the guest bedroom over my garage. Is Andrew a good sleeper? Does he snore? Is he a drooler?
I talk in my sleep. Less now than when I was younger. I think. Of course, now that I’ve been alone in my bed for two years, who knows. Hairy Ditto doesn’t complain about my nocturnal dialogues, and there’s no one else to comment.
Fix You Page 5