Fix You

by Beck Anderson

  I shrink a little. I hope I haven’t upset him. “Sorry. Sorry I brought it up.”

  He shakes himself out of it, tucks the phone back in his coat pocket. “No. It’s no big deal. I promise. Now, tell me what’s next.”

  I bring a little pep to the whole tour director shtick. “Like I said, it was hard to decide. But we’ve got a little while before the boys come home. You’ve seen the wagon trail; you’ve done the Basque thing. Next is a sacred spot for a lot of Idahoans.”

  He adjusts his ball cap like he’s readying for battle. His smile returns, and he looks at me mischievously. “Okay. Take me there.”

  I cross my fingers that my friend Barb got my text this morning. We pull into the east end of campus at Boise State. I park in the lot facing the river.

  “I thought you said the river was too cold to do anything.”

  We’re out of the car. “Oh, we aren’t going there.” I take him by the elbows and turn him to face the other way. “We’re going there.” Boise State University’s stadium looms large above us.

  “What?” He looks confused.

  “The blue turf is hallowed ground around here. But even if you don’t follow football, it’s cool. You’ll see.” I walk with him toward a gray service door on the backside of the end-zone bleachers.

  Now he just kind of looks nervous. “Is there something going on today?”

  I wonder if he thinks I’m selling him out—using him for something.

  The door swings open right about then. Barb pokes her head out, blinking a little in the sunshine.

  She spots me and calls, “Hey, girl! Come on in!”

  Andrew and I go inside, and the gray door swings shut behind us. Barb gives me a huge hug. She’s in her best Boise State blue and orange.

  “Barb, this is my friend Andrew.” Barb shakes his hand. “Barb’s the Director of Development for the Athletic Association. Andrew’s my friend from Indio. He’s in town for the weekend. He’s never been to Boise.”

  Barb nods and smiles her big, wide smile. She’s sixty-five and, bless her heart, has no idea who this man across from her is. She’s not his target demographic.

  She puts out her hand. “Pleased to meet you. Kelly brought you to the right place if you’ve never been to Boise. No trip to the Treasure Valley is complete without a walk on the Smurf turf. But we’ll go up into the Sky Club too. Kelly hasn’t even gotten a chance to see that.”

  He looks at me. She turns around and heads toward another door. She swings a big set of keys around on a bright orange lanyard. She’s chatting away now.

  Andrew whispers to me. “She has no clue who I am.”

  I nod. “True.”

  He smiles. “That hasn’t happened in a while.”

  Barb has opened the door and ushers us through it. We emerge on the north side of the end zone. The whole stadium of forty thousand seats towers above. We are the only three people in it. The blue field stretches out before us.

  Barb is done with the official tour talk. She smiles encouragingly at Andrew. “Go ahead, hon. You can walk on out.”

  He takes my hand and walks out on the turf. It makes me grin uncontrollably to have his hand on mine. I am apparently ten years old.

  “I feel like someone should be cheering for us right now.” He smiles. I think he’s getting a kick out of this.

  “I like how springy it is.” I show him what I mean: I let go of his hand and do a couple high skips down the field.

  He follows me at a dead run. I take off even faster, running hard now. I may be giggling as he pursues me. I’m too fast, though, and am able to loop around to meet Barb back at the sidelines.

  He gives up and walks back to us, laughing. He’s still some distance off when Barb elbows me in the side.

  “You’ve been holding out on me, Miss Kelly. You have a new flame.”

  I grimace. “Oh, Barb, he’s just in town for the weekend. We’ve only met one other time. He never comes to Boise. It’s nothing.”

  Andrew has just attempted a ridiculous-looking cartwheel as he approaches us. I laugh out loud. He yells at me. “That was just for you. Count yourself lucky!” He jogs toward us.

  Barb jabs me again. “Nothing, huh? Whatever you say.”

  10: Required Reading

  BARB TAKES US UP to the Sky Club after that. The view is a knockout. I’m oohing and aahing as much as Andrew. I’ve never been much for football, and I’m certainly not on the who’s who list of Boise movers and shakers, so I’ve had no reason to come up here.

  But, man, what a view. The focus of this building perched at the top of the stadium is the blue football field, obviously, but the spectacular bank of floor-to-ceiling windows faces downtown and the foothills too. The hills are dusty white, and the buildings glitter a little in the afternoon sun.

  We stand for a while, and I’m proud of myself. I enjoy the moment, and I don’t chatter, don’t try to fill up the quiet.

  “It makes everything seem easier when it’s calm like this, doesn’t it?” He puts an arm around me.

  I don’t exactly know which everything he’s referring to, but I do know the feeling. “Yeah.”

  He turns and walks back to the elevator where Barb is waiting. Back at the stadium entrance, we say goodbye to her and head home. Andrew’s quiet in the car.

  We’re in the drive-thru for Fancee Freeze milkshakes, and I’m eager to hear how I’ve done. “Well? What do you think?”

  He smiles as I hand him a chocolate shake. “I like Boise. It’s cool.”

  I slurp my shake as we drive off, headed home. “I love it. Did you like the tour? Did you have a good day?”

  He closes his eyes for a minute. “Definitely. Your tour goes beyond passing muster. You might consider doing this for a living.”

  I grin as I steer. “Good. So we’ll go home. You can relax, and I’ll go get the boys.” I think ahead for a second.

  And gasp. “Oh!”

  He pauses, mid-drink. “What?”

  “How’re you going to get home? You’re leaving on Sunday, right? Do we need to get you a flight?” My mind is suddenly calculating how much a very last-minute fare is going to be.

  He crinkles up his eyes, embarrassed. “Um, I have a ride.”

  I’m not following. There’s a surprise. I seem to be the last to figure out anything around here lately. “What do you mean?”

  “Private jet. It’s coming for me. On its way back to LA.”

  “Oh. Well, of course.” I try to sound like I know. I don’t.

  He chuckles.

  We’re quiet for the last few minutes of the ride. I wonder what he’s thinking about. I try not to think about what I’m thinking about right now. It’s not appropriate, to be honest.

  Okay, it’s not that terrible, but I haven’t thought about anything remotely like this in probably two and a half years. I want to kiss him again.

  I almost run into the mailbox as I pull into the driveway. I probably need to stay away from the daydreaming while operating a motor vehicle.

  Then we’re home. It’s quiet. The boys are due to be picked up in forty-five minutes. I’m happy to have Andrew here, but I’m tired. I look at the dishes in the kitchen sink, contemplating how to avoid cleaning up.

  He comes into the kitchen. “Leave them.”

  “Okay.” He doesn’t have to twist my arm on that one. I turn around to face him.

  “Come sit in the living room. Relax for a minute.” He takes my hand and leads me in.

  There is a stack of books next to the couch. I put them there probably three weeks ago, hopeful that I would plow through them. I think I’m twenty pages into the one on top.

  Andrew flops down on the couch, and I cringe, because in the fading afternoon light, I can see the dog hair flutter up in the air.

  “Andrew, there’s dog hair all over. Ditto rules the roost when we’re gone. I also think he uses my toothbrush when I’m not looking.” I try to pull him up off of the couch, guide him to a less-hairy perch.<
br />
  “Sit down. I want to look at your books.” He pulls me down to the couch with him.

  “At least you’re not wearing black.” I sit, trying to relax about it. He ignores my reaction; his attention is on the pile.

  “Have you read all of these?” He trails a fingertip down the spines of the books.

  “Some of them. I may be a few pages into the one on top. I buy books. The joke was that Peter would read everything in the house. I bought ’em; he read ’em.”

  Andrew smiles. “He suffered through a lot of chick lit, then.”

  “Hey, you may recall I said I was a teacher. Mixed into the girl crap was always some good stuff. Then I could have him tell me what they were about while I was grading the hundred millionth essay.”

  He plucks the bottom book from the stack. It’s an old, thin copy of In Our Time. He thumbs through it. “What’s this one?”

  “The first Hemingway I ever read. It’s a collection of short stories. My junior year in high school, my English teacher assigned it to us. I remember reading a lot of it and not getting it. Then I came back to it in college and fell in love with it. Now I read it every so often for fun. I wanted to read it again this fall, so I pulled it back out.”

  He looks at the worn-out binding. “You’ve read it a lot.”

  “Hemingway is my man. I’ve been inside his house in Sun Valley. I bet even Mr. I-Fly-in-Private-Jets can’t lay claim to that.”

  “How’d you manage it?”

  “Two of my friends and I crashed a reception on the property. I crept in the back door behind the caterers.”

  “What was it like?”

  “Eerie. I don’t think it’s changed since his last wife died. There was a stack of mail on top of the fridge, even. Very normal and lived in, but like it was frozen in the nineteen sixties.”

  “You’re a daredevil, then? Breaking and entering?”

  “Only entering. The caterers had the door open, and my friends dared me. And no, usually I hate taking risks. But it was Hemingway. Totally an exception.”

  “Why do you like him so much? I thought he was a terrible womanizer.”

  “For his writing. It’s clean. A lot of what’s important goes unsaid, but it’s in there. And he loved Idaho, so I give him a lot of points for that.”

  He looks at the book again. “Can I borrow this?”

  If he wants me to fall completely in love, he’s on the right track. “I would love it if you borrowed it.”

  He stretches back on the couch, swings his legs to rest on my lap. “What’s your favorite story in here?”

  “‘Big Two-Hearted River,’ both parts. The first time I read it I thought it was the most boring thing in my life. But then I reread it, and it definitely grew on me. I won’t say anything more about it—you read it and report back.”

  “Okay, Professor McBossy.” He looks for the table of contents.

  “I’ll just be curious how you see it. Since you’re such an old soul and all.” I like sitting here with him. I like the weight of his legs on my legs. I like that he appears to be at total ease.

  “How I see it?”

  “It’s one that’s especially up for debate—what it’s about.”

  He pulls me down to lie with him. I rest in the crook of his arm, reading along as he starts the story. We’re quiet and still. My mind leaves the print in front of me. What’s going to happen? In two days he will board a plane. Then what?

  But I resist. I’m in the chute. Now is not the time to pull up and try to see the end of the run. To do so would mean a slip, a tumble, and a disastrous crash. Worrying about what lies ahead is pointless. It is unknowable, and for once I want it to remain that way.

  11: Family Home Evening

  THE BOYS ARE EXCITED that Andrew’s still here. It cracks me up, because they’ve completely claimed him as their guest, not mine, and they seem sure he regards me the way they do. Moms do not hang out with cool people, and they were certain a boring day with their mom would send him packing. Part of me is with them on that one. Although I still think they have a picture of him buying a hotel downtown, renting a gigantic Hummer, and rolling through Boise in said Hummer, playing rap music really loudly. I see more of a complete evaporation into thin air, followed by the moment when I wake up and realize I’ve been institutionalized for delusions.

  But he’s here. And he helps me clean up the kitchen, in fact. And when he asks Hunter if he wants to go with him to buy a take-and-bake pizza, Hunter is all over it. (Later Andrew reports that Hunter asked if he could drive home. So maybe Hunter just thinks this is a new adult to try to scam or that movie stars are so cool they’ve turned into permissive idiots.)

  Beau and I vacuum and use our magic hair-away sponge on the living room. Maybe we can all hang out there and actually relax in a dog-hair-free environment.

  Hunter and Andrew come back with pizzas and movies, and the rest of my night is bliss. We sit on the couch, and the boys drag in all manner of sleeping bags and comforters to crash on the floor. We eat pizza, watch movies, and laugh at the boys’ silliness.

  It’s time for the last movie. Hunter picks up the case and announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, our last selection is HMS Furious.”

  This is one of Andrew’s first hits, about World War I—a very epic action movie with lots of epic, emotion-filled speeches and epic explosions and just epically big stuff, you name it.

  Andrew groans.

  “What?”

  “There’s a lot of lip gloss in this one.” He sighs.

  Beau’s interested. He takes the bait. “What do you mean? The girls you had to kiss had gross lips?”

  I’m relieved to hear that kissing still grosses Beau out.

  “Naw. Watch me in the scenes where I give the big speeches, especially. I totally have lip gloss on.”

  The movie starts, and watching it with the Andy Pettigrew sitting next to me is the most hysterical and surreal thing I have ever experienced. It’s like having the DVD commentary in person, only funnier. He is viciously self-deprecating. Hunter and Beau are eating it up. They even join in. I know they’re bonding when they give Andrew a lip-gloss rating for every scene in which he appears.

  Then the movie is over. Hunter stands up and stretches. “That was so funny, Andrew. Thanks for hanging out with us.” He gives him a chest bumpish hug and heads upstairs.

  Beau’s asleep. His mouth is open. His head is soaked—this is a trait from my side of the family: head sweating at night when little. I don’t know why, but I’ve always loved it.

  “Beau.” He is totally out. I look at Andrew. “Brace yourself. I’m gonna have to wake him up, and he’s not going to be happy about it.”

  Andrew pulls himself up off the couch. “I’ll carry him.”

  “Andrew, he’s eight. And our stairs are scary and narrow. And he’s a sweaty little beast.”

  He looks right at me. His eyes are soft, vulnerable. I’m not sure what it means.

  “Let me, Kelly. Let me help.”

  “Okay.” I feel like I’m going to melt into a puddle of warm candle wax. Seriously.

  He hoists him up, makes a funny face at me like Beau’s really heavy, and carries him almost effortlessly. I guess his taut physique probably involves the routine lifting of heavy things. Silly me.

  He comes back downstairs.

  I stand very still.

  He takes my hand. I feel like I should say something, but it’s not there. He kisses me.

  This time, I kiss back. I put my arms around his waist. He has a hand at the nape of my neck, playing with the twisty tendrils of hair there.

  He pulls away and looks at me. “This was a good day.”

  “I like this part especially.” I kiss him again, softly. We stand in the middle of the living room.

  I feel suspended, floating in an in-between world. Part of me definitely wants to move this along. It’s the part of me that’s making my palms sweat.

  The other part of me wants to call it a night
. This has come along so fast. I’m mostly convinced it’s a delusion. But if it’s real, I want to do it right. No rushing.

  Andrew kisses me again, and I feel the buzz of warring voices quiet in my head. Maybe he can sense my reluctance. He seems to kiss me without great urgency. He pulls away again, wraps his arms around me in a tight embrace instead.

  “I should hit the sack.” He doesn’t make any move to let go after he says this.

  “Okay.”

  Finally he steps out of our hug. He grabs the Hemingway, uses it to give me a mini-salute. “I’m off to do my assigned reading.” He kisses me one more time and heads to the guest room. As I watch him walk away, I feel myself flush again. He is heavenly.

  I wander around for a minute, picking up a little, trying to regain my composure. I’ve never been much for cleaning up, and I do it now only to keep from completely overanalyzing what’s going on.

  I finally stop puttering around and decide to go to bed. I brush my teeth and get ready to sleep.

  I can’t find Ditto. I realize this as I am at my door. He’s not in my bedroom. He’s not on the couch in the living room. I go upstairs. He’s not in the boys’ room. I slip out to the catwalk, tiptoe to the door of the room above the garage. The light’s still on, so I peek in the window. Ditto is in the guest room, all right. He’s asleep on the bed, at the feet of my guest. Andrew is also asleep, still halfway propped up on the pillows. The Hemingway book is splayed out at whatever page he’s left off, turned over on his chest.

  I look up at the moon. The night is quiet and beautiful. I go to bed knowing sometimes it shouldn’t be as hard as I make it. Right now might be one of those times.

  12: Rolling on the River

  THE NEXT DAY, I decide we’re driving to Swan Falls. The boys groan.

  “Mom, Robert was supposed to come over and play Mario Kart with me.” Beau is put out.

  “We have a guest. We’re going to do something fun.”

  “You mean something tourists think is fun but turns into a big headache?”