Fix You

by Beck Anderson

  He kisses me again, his lips parting into a smile. “The feeling’s mutual, but don’t pass out on me.” He stays close, our foreheads touching, and I can feel his hot breath on me. It’s a delicious sensation.

  I want him to kiss me again. I snake my hands into his coat, feel his warm back against my cold hands.

  “You’re freezing!” He shudders. “We should go.”

  This was not what I was thinking. Not even close. “I’m fine.”

  “No, hypothermia’s not fine. I can’t freeze you to death on our first real date.”

  “But—” I try to protest. He kisses me again, and now I’m shivering uncontrollably. I can’t tell if it’s the weather, to be honest. It could be pure physical exultation. But he’s made up his mind.

  “We’re going. You’re an ice cube.” He kisses me one more time. Then he takes my hand and takes me home.

  14: Short Goodbyes and Long Distances

  THE ROAD IN FRONT of us twists just in front of the headlights. There are banks of snow on both sides, and tall pines climb into the pitch black night. Peter pushes the tiny sports car through the curves, revving the engine to a high whine.

  We don’t night ski. I don’t recognize this road. I can’t tell where we are, and it feels like with each curve, Peter races faster. The tires squeal and skid.

  I look at him, but he looks out at the road, oblivious to me in the passenger seat. I open my mouth, and no sound comes out, but noise explodes outside the car—a deer comes up on the hood. The front windshield shatters, and everything goes black.

  I sit up. I’m somewhere near the car, still in the cold night, still on the mountain road. My legs are splayed out in front of me. They won’t move.

  I see the wheels of the car over the side of the road, downslope. One wheel is still turning, and smoke rises from the car.

  Andrew is at my side. He picks me up, carrying me in his arms, carrying me away from the crash.

  I start to cry. I yell as loud as I can. “No! Peter’s still in the car! Peter’s in the car!”

  Andrew can’t hear me. He keeps walking.

  I wake up, startled. I’m clutching my pillow for dear life. I sit up, listen to see if I’ve woken the kids. It’s quiet. I can’t help but look at the picture of Peter and me on my nightstand. I don’t know what to do, and my heart pounds. I lie down and cover my head with the pillow, closing my eyes as tightly as I can. I don’t know how long I stay frozen like that, but I finally fall asleep again.

  The next morning, I’m up and dressed before it’s light out. After the nightmare, I slept terribly, convinced I would oversleep and Andrew would leave without me. I think part of that comes from an underlying disbelief that he actually exists.

  I sit at the kitchen table, trying to focus on the newspaper, when he shuffles in. His hair’s messy and sticking up in the back. He looks tired.

  “Good morning.”

  He nods a little. “Morning.”

  “Did you sleep okay?” I don’t know why I’m asking—it’s clear he didn’t. I’m an expert at ignoring the obvious.

  “Okay, I guess. I started thinking about work, and then it was hard to get settled.”

  I have a hard time imagining what he could be troubled by. “What’s worrying you?”

  He’s into the cereal, pulling out a box and looking for a bowl. “Aw, nothing big. I have a ton of stuff to do to get ready for my next role. I’m worried about the way my last project is getting handled in post-production. There are a lot of hands on a movie before it’s done, and sometimes it doesn’t end up looking anything like how it felt when you shot it.”

  “What do you like least about acting?”

  “Doing press. It’s three or five minutes at a time with people you don’t know who ask the same questions over and over. And some of them are out for blood, or a scoop, or some sort of slip-up from you.” He pours milk into the cereal and almost overdoes it—this subject distracts him. “But it’s not a hard day’s work at all. I hate to say anything bad about it because one summer in high school I helped my uncle with his roofing business. And I can tell you I would much rather have to talk about a movie with a lot of people than strip shingles off of a Pennsylvania roof in one-hundred-percent humidity in the middle of July.” He plops down next to me and eats his cereal.

  “Are the people nice?”

  He’s mid-bite but answers anyway. “Mostly. I dunno—there do seem to be more egomaniacal people in the business. And shallow. Lots and lots of worries about looks and stuff you have and stuff you need to get. I guess it’s partly the subject. I mean, it’s the movies. We’re all about creating a false impression. I guess you can’t expect people to be very honest when they lie for a living.”

  “Except for you.”

  He’s done eating and dumps his bowl in the sink. “Of course. I remain unchanged, the same humble, kind boy I’ve always been.” He gives a sarcastic cough.

  “Uh-huh.” I smile. “Saint Andrew.” I look at the clock. “We better go.” I hop up to find shoes and a coat. The boys decided to say goodbye last night. Andrew might be a world-famous movie star, but they weren’t willing to give up sleep to take him to the airport this morning.

  He sighs. “Maybe everyone’ll be too tired to talk on the way back.”

  “You can hope.”

  He walks out of the kitchen. “I’m going to find my headphones right now so I can put them on at the first sign of an attempt to make conversation.”

  We pack his stuff into the car and sneak out before Ditto realizes a car ride is happening. The boys don’t even stir.

  As I drive Andrew to the terminal, I start to chatter. I guess I’m nervous about saying goodbye. “What was your favorite part of the trip?”

  “I liked the part where I kissed you.” He has a sly grin.

  I feel myself blush hotly. I hate the blushing, but I love what he said.

  “No, really, what’d you like best about Boise?”

  “No, really, I’m serious. The part I liked best was hanging out with you and the boys.”

  One thing he has in common with Peter is his honesty. Peter never played coy about how he felt about me. Andrew’s apparently not a game player either. I’m thankful, because I suck at games. All kinds. “Me too.”

  We pull up to the terminal.

  “Okay, you need to drop me. If the plane’s here, I don’t want any of those creeps anywhere near you.”

  I don’t think he’s joking. But I hope he’s exaggerating a little. I don’t like the thought of him having to work with people like that all the time. It can’t be good for a person.

  I set the parking brake and get out on the pretense of helping him with his luggage. Which is one bag, so the pretense is a stupid one. But I’m just not ready to wave and drive off.

  He closes the back and slings his bag over his shoulder. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” We stand there. This is going smoothly. Or not.

  “Come here.” He pulls me close and kisses me briefly. I step back, happy but also worried someone might see. “Kelly, I’m confident no one is going to spot me kissing you goodbye at six a.m. on Sunday morning in front of the Western Air Terminal in Boise, Idaho. If anyone does, he deserves props as the most brilliant paparazzo of our time.” He dances around a little. It’s biting cold.

  “Next time you come we’re buying you a decent jacket. You can’t run around Boise in a hoodie, I swear.” I realize I just said that he was coming back here. Well, I’m going with it. He can be the one to burst the bubble of my delusion.

  He hugs me again and kisses me, a strong, deep kiss. “I better get going. I had an awesome time. I’ll call you this week.” He kisses the tip of my nose playfully. Then Andy Pettigrew slings his bag over his shoulder and strides away.

  I don’t stand there and watch the takeoff, though I’m tempted. I’m trying to shake the feeling that I’ve fallen into a movie, so I avoid the Casablanca-esque plane taxiing moment. I will admit to thinking that when he
walked away it would’ve been the right moment to hear some power chords or a Shins song, though. I can’t help it.

  15: Working Vacations

  AGAIN THE BOYS AND I go back to our lives. This time it’s a little easier—at least the boys were witness to this last encounter in Fantasy Land. The fact that Hunter and Beau remember Andrew’s visit helps me brush off the feeling that this is a weird X-Files episode. David Duchovny is waiting around a corner, I just know it.

  I worry a lot at first that the boys have bragged at school, or that they’re getting a lot of guff for making up shit about Mom’s new friend. But it becomes clear that Andrew’s request to “keep it on the down low” (which doesn’t help to debunk his secret gangsta thug persona with the boys, language like that) hit home with both of them. I honestly think they’ve kept it to themselves. Maybe they enjoy sharing a secret with each other. They don’t count me because I’m old, and how could I possibly appreciate how cool my new friend is, anyway?

  He is cool, though. Starting the first week, I get little texts each day: Here I am in LA. How’re the boys? Or: Development meeting in 90210. Lady across from me has taken “bee stung” lips to a horrifying new level.

  And at night, he calls. He actually calls, and we chat about what Hunter did in soccer practice, how my last run went, the crush Beau has on his teacher. He tells me about diva directors and scripts he wants to make into movies—the usual details of a ho-hum movie star life.

  The boys ask after him, and I keep them up to date on Andrew’s latest Hollywood adventures. They seem interested.

  But they stay quiet. And I am too. Barb from Boise State emails to ask me how my new “friend” is (heavy on the quotation marks), but I reiterate that he was just visiting and, as predicted, he’s back in California. Of course, I neglect to mention to her that he’s back in Los Angeles getting ready to shoot his next movie.

  Then there’s Tessa. She texts me constantly: the morning he leaves, the next day, the day after that. She asks again how he is in bed. The last time she does it, I send her this text: He’s gay. Get over it. We’ll see how long that shuts her up. I’ve been trying to avoid her since, but I promise coffee in the near future in the hopes of stalling her for a while longer.

  And I’m trying to get back into my rhythm here in Boise. I don’t even want to imagine how wonderful being with Andrew at Christmas might be. Each time I think of it, I try to shut my brain down before I start spinning It’s a Wonderful Life scenes with the two of us in them and Beau playing the part of ZuZu.

  The other time I shut off my brain is when I start to go down the jealousy road. Let’s see…The guy I’m dating is surrounded twenty-four seven by women younger, richer, and more beautiful than me. I don’t even know where to begin with that one.

  There’s a strong possibility that I could turn into a bathrobe-wearing crazy lady: forever reminiscing about my seventy-two-hour relationship, not washing my hair, eating too much takeout, and saving the boxes so eventually I show up on Hoarders. Or a crazy-cat-lady show. Though we haven’t had a cat since before Peter was sick.

  Peter. So far I’ve had that same nightmare two more times in the weeks since Andrew’s visit. I keep waiting for my subconscious to finish processing this new relationship, but apparently it’s got more to do. I find myself in a weird world, dating again, and when I have a self-aware moment, it often brings that ache back, the one under my collarbones. I’m thrilled to be dating Andrew, or whatever this relationship is, but I miss Peter, and if he were here, none of this would be happening. Bitter and sweet. A paradox.

  Relationship. Silly Kelly, using that word. Relationcation, maybe—it’s a little vacation romance. At the school where I taught, kids used to call them CTRs: choir trip romances. Many of these romances blossomed and shriveled within the distance from Boise to Elko and back. That’s where I should be categorizing this experience.

  That’s what I think until I get the call. The call that’s more than just an idle chat. I’m in Albertsons, staring at the five million different toothbrush choices, when my cell rings. I answer it without looking, fully expecting one of the boys.

  “So, there are only teal and magenta in the kind of toothbrush you and your brother like. Can one of you live with a pink toothbrush so you don’t use the other’s?”

  “I would sooner die than brush my teeth with a pink toothbrush. Brushing with that would mean the end of my social life as I know it. Or turn me into a nun.”

  It’s Andrew. “Andrew! What are you doing?”

  “Talking with you about toothbrushes, apparently.”

  “You see, this is why my life is so immensely gratifying. These are the life or death decisions I’m dealing with here.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “You mean besides shopping? We’re going over to Tessa’s for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I promised to bring the canned cranberry gel, so here I am. And the boys are keeping me busy driving them all over for all of their stuff.”

  “You told Tessa about me yet?” He sounds like he’s teasing me.

  “I told her you were gay. That’s shut her up so far.”

  “Ouch!” He laughs. “Well, you’re not the first person to think so. I’ll have to work on proving that wrong to you.”

  I grin involuntarily. And try to change the subject. “Where are you? Out in Ventura County now?”

  “Yep. We’ve been filming since last week. It’s going fine so far. I’m busy, and busy is good.”

  He’s shared a few details about his project with me. It’s a Western—The Last Drive—and it’s one of those “end of an era” kind of Westerns where the range is getting all fenced in, and the sheriff in town has to make peace between the greenhorn homesteaders and the longtime cowboys who like their range open and their horses trusty and their little dogies running free. Something like that. He’s playing the sheriff.

  It sounds interesting enough, but I’ve resisted the urge to go online and research to sound more “with it.” If I were dating a real estate guy, I might look at some of his houses so I could talk about them with him, but I wouldn’t feel obligated to go get my broker’s license. Likewise, I’m trying not to nerd out on movie stuff just to entertain him or sound smarter than I really am. Not that I’m not interested, but I figure I’m his friend, not his biggest fan. I don’t know. It just feels important that I have a line there and stay on this side of it. Kathy Bates waits on the other side of that line.

  Consequently, I didn’t venture into the who’s-playing-your-love-interest conversation with him, and I haven’t heard, so I am assuming it’s not a big part of the movie. And if it is, I’d rather not know. This is coming from the same place that prevents me from doing a lot of research into his former real-life loves. He dated that one girl from Redcoats Rising, and I do recall a few pictures in the tabloids of him with dates—a model once, I think, and a tennis player. But I’m hoping he’s not been a player, a la the young Warren Beatty, and I don’t remember him ever being part of a hyphenate. You know, Andralina, or Pamdrew. So I’m going with the ignorance-is-bliss coping mechanism for now.

  I come back to our conversation. “Have you met your horse yet?” Last time we talked, he was excited to meet his horse.

  “Yes, and she loves me dearly already.”

  “How can you tell?” There’s something goofy coming, but I play the straight man.

  “Today when she stepped on my toe I only had to have two grips help me get her to move. Last time four of them had to haul her off of me.”

  The grips are the sturdiest members of the film crew, from what Andrew’s told me.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Petunia. But in the movie she’s Querido.”

  “Ooh, what’s that mean?”

  He laughs over the phone. He sounds happy. I like that. “It means my love or my dear. Pretty, no?”

  “I miss you.” Well, I said it. Chalk one up for the non-subtle lonely girl. Great.

  “I miss you, which is w
hy I’m calling. Do you want to wait until Christmas?”

  He’s talking about our planned Christmas visit. “Don’t I have to wait?”

  “Do you?”

  “Are you going to answer each of my questions with another question?”

  “Am I?” He laughs again. “No, really. I think I can swing it for you to come down next week. Do you have anyone who could look after the boys for a few days?”

  My brain is racing. Who? “Mom’s always offering to come up and give me a break. It would probably involve me telling her about you, though.”

  There’s an exasperated fuff of air on the other side of the phone. “Honest to God, you still haven’t told your folks about me?” He sounds annoyed, but it’s fake annoyed. I think.

  “Umm, I was going to tell them when we got down there for Christmas. That way I would have proof on hand—you know, you’d be there so they couldn’t institutionalize me.”

  He’s quiet for a minute. It sounds like he’s muffled the phone. “I’m back. Listen, I’m due on set. Here’s the plan. Call your mom. Tell her I’ll have someone pick her up in Indio or LA—where are she and your dad right now?”

  “In LA.”

  “Okay, I’ll have someone pick her up and get her to you in Boise. Then you’ll switch places. You’ll fly down here. A quick visit. Now, go make the phone calls. Make it so.”

  “I will see what I can do, Jean-Luc Picard. You’re a huge nerd.”

  “You’re the one who knows the name of the captain. Of course, I’m sheriff of a town and ride a horse named Petunia, with whom I have a hot date right now. We’re in a dead heat for nerd supremacy. Call me tonight, and we’ll finish plotting.”

  “Okay. Talk to you soon.”

  The line goes dead. This’ll take some doing, but I’m totally game. I’m going to see him again.

  16: There’s One in Every Bunch

  I CAN’T AVOID HER ANYMORE. Tessa’s my friend, and I’d like to keep my friend, and after a while, people won’t be friends with other people if they are constantly avoiding them.