Bittersweet

by Domingo, Sareeta

  We both start to smile as he penguin-walks me over to the waterbed, and by the time he drops me onto it and we both begin to undulate uncontrollably, we’re full-out laughing.

  “I … I think we should maybe admit defeat for tonight,” I manage eventually.

  Greg nods, exhaling hard. He rolls off me, pulling up his jeans as we lie side by side, his movements making me rock back and forth. I turn my head and pull a face, and he leans over and brushes the back of his fingers down my cheek.

  “Hmm. Next time we try this it’s going to be in the right environment—no cell phones, no waterbeds… no clothes.” His eyes twinkle deviously at me in the light from the television, almost making me want to try it again right here and now.

  “I look forward to it,” I murmur, and he reaches over and kisses me gently.

  “You have no idea,” he whispers. He lowers his lips to mine again, then sighs as he pulls away. He stands to turn out the lights in the bathroom and overhead, then he walks around to the other side of the bed, and I shuffle up and under the covers. I look up at Greg as he pauses just before beginning to undo his jeans once more.

  His lips turn up a little. “Should I leave them on?”

  I shrug—but then nod vigorously. He laughs softly and climbs in next to me. He lifts his arm and I snuggle into him, the rocking motion of the waterbed somehow soothing rather than silly now. He hums quietly, and then reaches over me for the remote to shut off the TV, and darkness falls around us.

  I listen to him breathing for a while and I can tell he’s still awake. I lean back a little to look at him, just about making him out in the cracks of light coming through the blinds.

  “Greg?” I whisper.

  “Yeah?” The bed bobs up and down a little as he pulls his arm out from behind my neck and props his head up on his hand.

  “You know how you told me before that I scared you?”

  He nods, and reaches over, almost like an impulse, to brush a hand down my arm.

  “Well, I’m scared too. I mean, my life is in Dogwood, and yours is too, for now, but… What if the show gets cancelled? Or they decide to shoot somewhere else? Or—”

  His hand comes back up to rest on my shoulder, and my words come to a halt. “I know,” he says, his voice low and deep in the darkness. “I told you, I need this show to be a success too. And not just because of what’s waiting for me back in New York.” I frown, wondering if he just means having to face the failure, or something more. But he exhales quickly as though he’s trying to ignore it, and continues. “I don’t know what I’ll do if it’s not. If I can’t be around you.” He swallows, and the tone of his voice makes me melt and panic at the same time. “Cathy, I … I think I’m in—”

  I reach up and cover his lips with my fingertips. “Don’t,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.” I pull my hand away, feeling like my muscles have frozen. We’re quiet for an agonizing moment, but then he squeezes my shoulder, reaches around me, and pulls me closer to him. Finally I feel my body relax a little, and close my eyes.

  “It’s OK,” he whispers in my ear.

  My words are half muffled into his warm, strong chest as his arms tighten around me. “I just … I can’t hear those words, and then you have to go.” I swallow, surprised to find myself on the edge of tears.

  “I understand.” Greg’s shallow breaths betray the fact that he’s trying to control his emotions too. Eventually he presses his lips to my forehead, and I hear his heart begin to slow. “It’s going to be fine anyway. I wore my lucky underwear every day for the first couple weeks of shooting, so obviously the show’s going to be a hit.”

  “Oh, obviously. Hygiene be damned, huh?”

  I hear him chuckle in the darkness. “Hey, I wore them to the cookout too, and now you’re in my arms. I should call them my get-lucky boxers.”

  “Hmm. Starting to feel happier that you kept your jeans on now,” I retort through a smile, but it fades as we fall quiet and my mind starts to churn.

  I debate with myself for what feels like an eternity before I take a breath and speak again, my voice soft and cautious. “What did you mean earlier, when you were talking about what’s waiting for you back in New York?” It’s been bothering me, and I know we’ve already gone through a lot tonight, but I have to ask. “There’s not someone back there waiting for you, is there? I mean, you said you didn’t want to go back there this weekend, and maybe it’s just your family, but—”

  He pulls away from me and flops onto his back, making me a little queasy from the waterbed’s movements. After a while I look over and see he’s staring up at the ceiling.

  “No. There’s nobody. Well… No. Something happened, just before I left to come here. I-I told you I was running away from something?”

  I can hear my breathing get faster. “Yeah.”

  He waits, quiet for a while, and I’m dying to turn on the light but maybe he’ll find it easier to open up in the darkness like this. “I was with someone, before. Becky. I-I thought we were in love. I mean, we lived together, we were happy… We met when we were both in a show, a long-runner off-Broadway, just before I got the bigger gig that got the ball rolling on all this Bittersweet stuff.” He stops and swallows, and I realize. “B.” The calls on his phone. They probably weren’t from Bethany at all. I hold my breath and he carries on. “Anyway, Becky stayed on with the other play, and my best friend Paul, he got my role. Then their play ended and they were both out of work for a while.” He sighs. “Long story short, I guess he thought he could have my role in everything. I came home early one day and found the two of them…” I hear his jaw clench. “Together.”

  I understand every euphemism in the book in that one word.

  He exhales a short, ironic laugh. “So I guess you’re right about actors, huh?”

  “I’m so sorry, Greg. That’s awful.” I roll onto my side to face him again, and reach a hand up to stroke his cheek, my fingertips tickling against the stubble already starting to grow there. “I know it sounds weird, but knowing that helps. I get why maybe you’ve been trying to keep your distance, been trying to push me away. God, I thought I had trust issues, but that must have been—”

  He shakes his head. “Cathy, there’s a lot that you don’t… What happened with Becky and Paul really fucked me up. I… It made me—” He pauses again, like he’s considering what to say, or whether to stop. I hear him breathing, fast and anxious again. “I just wasn’t ready for you. I never expected you,” he whispers. “I was done. I came here thinking I’d forget all about that stuff, about … having my heart broken. I’d focus on work; I’d leave it all behind.” His voice wavers and it’s all I can do not to pull him to me. “And then just like that, you.”

  I open my mouth to speak, but then he leans over, his mouth finding mine in the darkness, and presses his lips against mine, gently, slowly, running his hands through my hair like I’m something delicate, something to be cherished. He doesn’t do anything more than that, but it’s one of the most beautiful feelings I’ve ever felt.

  Eventually, still wrapped up in one another, we fall asleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  My eyes fly open suddenly, and I notice morning sunlight seeping through the cracks in the navy-blue blinds. I also notice that Greg’s arms aren’t around me any longer, and that the noise that woke me was him. He’s grinding his teeth, his face is crumpled in an angry frown, and his arms and legs are thrashing.

  “Greg!” I say, then reach over to try and shake his shoulder, but pull back as he flinches violently. “Greg, wake up!”

  A few moments later he stills, and his eyes open. He’s still panting hard, and his big blue eyes are wide and disoriented.

  “You were having a dream—a nightmare, I guess,” I say gently, risking reaching over to him again and laying a hand on his arm. His breathing eventually slows, and he blinks hard a few times.

  “Oh… Sorry, I… Yeah, I guess I was.” He sits up, rubbing his forehead, his face still looking drained. I
want to ask him what the dream was about, but I don’t want to make it any worse. I just hope to hell it wasn’t about me.

  “You all right?” I ask, and he gives me a weak smile.

  “Yeah, sorry. I get those sometimes.” He leans over and kisses my cheek, then gets out of bed before I can try and comfort him any more. He walks over to the bathroom and shuts the door. I stare at it for a moment, swallowing hard. Maybe talking about what happened back in New York has made his walls go up now, in the cold light of day? Waking up from a bad dream can just make you feel kind of weird though. And the way he held me last night…? Warmth spreads through me just thinking about the tenderness he showed me. I really need to ditch this paranoia.

  The Aqua suite looks even more aqua in the morning sunlight when I get up and pull up the blinds, squinting. I glance back at the bathroom door, but it stays shut, so I step over to the chair where my clothes are draped and check if my shorts are dry. They are, so I pull them on and brush my hair again. When I hear a flush, I decide to edge over and knock on the bathroom door. Greg opens it and I can see he’s washed his face and looks a little more together. Without saying anything, he pulls me close and wraps me in his arms. I exhale in relief, but when he pulls back and tries to lower his head to kiss me, I shake my head with a grin.

  “No fair,” I say, smelling mint on his breath. “Give me a second.” I shoo him out, pee, and brush my own teeth thoroughly. When I’m vaguely satisfied with my appearance, I head out again and tap him on the shoulder. “Now.”

  I lean up on my tiptoes and feel his hands edge around my waist. I peck against his lips gently at first, until he hums a little, like he does, and I reach my hands up around his neck to pull his mouth, his tongue, him, closer. As I slip one leg in between his and begin to push my hips forward, he groans a little at the back of his throat.

  “Damn,” he whispers, stepping away with a grin. “You’re going to ruin my plans to do this right.”

  I chuckle. “You mean do me right?” I reply, and he smacks my butt lightly in response, then turns away to start grabbing his stuff. I resist the urge to pout, but fresh worries do begin to trickle into my brain as I recall both of our concerns about him having to go back to New York. Maybe that was what his nightmare was about? Or maybe I’m flattering myself a little too much there.

  “We should go settle up the bill and get that tow—I’ll need to get the car back to production ASAP,” Greg says, stuffing his wallet into his back pocket and looking around for the car keys. I fold my wrinkled-up silk shirt and put it in my purse along with some of the vending machine snacks for the road. I look down at my motel shirt, and then over at Greg’s matching attire.

  “Um, you think we should change?” I say.

  He lets out a laugh and shakes his head. “Nah, it could be like when Brad Pitt starts dressing like whoever he’s dating.”

  I head over to the door, shaking my head. “So you’re the Brad in this scenario?” I say, raising an eyebrow. “Somehow I doubt waitresses are his thing.”

  Greg follows me out the door and we take one last look at the Aqua suite before he pulls it shut. “Well, they’re definitely mine,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss me just next to my ear.

  We head downstairs and cross the parking lot, and Greg pays the bill. We call a cab back to the restaurant, where at last we’re able to get a mechanic to come look at the Corvette. Turns out to be a pretty simple fix, so we don’t need a tow, but I’m a little less into the whole vintage car thing now that I feel like we could break down any second while hurtling along the highway. Still, as the afternoon sun beats down on us I’m glad of the wind whipping through my hair to cool me down.

  When we finally pull onto Main Street as the sun starts to set, I feel a sinking sadness that our spontaneously extended date is finally over. Greg pulls up in front of my building and makes me wait until he can come around and open my door for me again. As I climb out and stand next to him, I reach up and brush his hair back from his face. He closes his eyes for a second and then smiles down at me.

  “Well, that was definitely a memorable date,” I say, grinning down at our matching T-shirts. “I had a great time. Thank you.”

  Greg kisses me and then sighs. “Shooting starts at the crack of dawn tomorrow,” he says. “I don’t know how much I’m going to be around for the next few days.”

  I nod. “Me too. Got a lot of shifts coming up and I wanted to work on some new ideas for specials. Ana’s given me some pretty good inspiration. And you have too,” I murmur, nuzzling into his neck with my lips. “I feel like I need to call your people to schedule a … meeting.” I raise my eyebrows at him and he pulls me closer.

  “I’m going to check my diary as soon as I get home,” he says in a low voice, then kisses me again. It starts hot, but then softens into something deeper, and I pull my lips away and nuzzle my face into his chest, taking a deep breath of him.

  “So when will we get to know how Bittersweet’s actually doing?” I ask, my voice muffled. “The first show must air pretty soon, right?” I can hear the desperate hopefulness as I speak. I look up at him and he gives me a half-smile.

  “Well, seeing as the pilot is already in the can, yeah. We’ve shot a few of the openers and I think the season premier is the week after next.”

  “Awesome,” I say. “How could it not be a success anyway, right? I hear the guy who plays Ethan is super hot.” I slip my tongue past his lips and he grips my waist tightly for a minute or two before letting go. I take a step back, even more bummed out that there’s a possibility I won’t feel his lips on mine again for a few days.

  Greg goes around to the driver’s side and slowly opens up the door to the Corvette. He looks at me for a moment more before getting in. “I’ll call you,” he says, slipping on his Ray-Bans and gripping the wheel.

  I watch him from the sidewalk, resisting the urge to rush over and lean down for one last kiss. Instead I wave as he pulls away from the curb—without, of course, a goodbye.

  *

  “Man, look at that little moony face,” Maxine says with a grin as she glances over at me while she re-sweeps the floor of The Salon, unsatisfied with how the intern chick’s done it. It’s late and she’s about to close up, but I have a half-hour until my evening shift so I decided to go fill her in on the weekend’s events. “Ooh, my boyfriend is sooo dreamy,” she says mockingly, leaning over and tapping me on the nose. “He’s going to be a biiiig TV star and I’m going to live in a mansion with lots of impossibly good-looking little rug-rats…”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, Max,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t even know if he’s really my boyfriend, or—”

  “The guy swept you off to a dreamy little restaurant in the middle of nowhere just because you expressed a vague interest in pasta, honey. He’s clearly smitten. I think that the term boyfriend is fair.” I roll my eyes, and she finishes sweeping, then goes to put the broom away, emerging from the storage closet with a sigh. “I know you’re worried about where it all might lead, but I think you should just trust in the fact that the show will be a hit. I mean, Jason Scott has never made a bad TV show. Trust me. Greg’ll be sticking around.”

  I swivel around in my chair and look in the mirror, making a face at Maxi through it. “I just… I know it sounds dumb, but I’m afraid this time, if I let myself get my hopes up and it doesn’t work out, this one will really hurt,” I murmur.

  Maxine comes over behind me and fixes my gaze in the reflection, then smoothes my hair back toward my ponytail soothingly. “I get it, honey,” she says, then her expression brightens. “I know—how about a party?”

  “Huh?”

  “For the Bittersweet premier! We can have a few people over, Greg… Whoever. We can watch, see if it’s complete trash, and if not, let the countdown begin to the day you guys can stroll on down the aisle or whatever!”

  “Hmm, no pressure or anything,” I mutter.

  “Well, whatever—either way I can’
t wait to see it finally hit the screen. Why not make an occasion of it?”

  I bite the inside of my cheek. I do want to see Greg’s TV show, especially as it feels like it’s going to determine my future, but I’m not sure if I want a whole bunch of people around while I do it. But I can tell Maxi already has her heart set on it, and it could provide a welcome distraction. “OK. Sure, why not?”

  “Great!” she exclaims, but then we both turn toward the door as we hear someone tapping on the glass. Max had already turned over the “Closed” sign, but the vaguely familiar blonde knocking on the door is clearly ignoring it.

  Max goes over to the door and unlatches it, and the young woman strides in.

  “Oh, hi. Ms. Keeler’s usual beautician has been delayed on her connecting flight to Richmond from Los Angeles, and she’s due for a remote on-camera early tomorrow morning on one of the breakfast shows. We need an eyebrow shape, lash extensions, and maybe a nude nail? The on-set artists suggested this might be a suitable place.”

  Both Maxi and I stare at the young woman, who only briefly glances up from her cell phone, where she appears to be typing out an email. She clearly doesn’t recognize me from the restaurant, and I’m glad.

  “Sure,” Max says, pursing her lips sarcastically. “I think I can just about do that.”

  “Great. She’s just in the car outside. I’ll bring her in,” Bethany’s assistant says, then turns and strides back out.

  “Well, what do you know?” Max breathes as soon as the door swings shut. “Shall I wax off her eyebrows?”

  I laugh. “I’ve moved on from my silent quest for her downfall,” I tell Max, somewhat smugly. “But still, I should probably get out of—”

  Too late, as the blonde assistant strides back in and holds the door open for Bethany, who looks around The Salon and nods, before her eyes alight on Maxine and me.

  “Oh. It’s you,” she says without any kind of greeting. She looks over at Max. “And didn’t you serve us food at the table-read too?”