by Sherry Wood
“Hey, come on, don’t be like this,” he sweetly requested. She relaxed in his arms.
“We’re talking about a writer and a musician here, they don’t have a lot of money,” Brian said.
“I know,” she turned to look over her shoulder. “I just want to take a bath – that was a long commute.”
“Okay, I’ll be back in a bit – I have to go out to the suburbs so I might be gone for a little while.”
“Fine,” Saphire said, sounding somewhat disappointed.
“Listen,” Brian said, watching her from the bottom of the stairs. “It’ll take some adjustment but you’re really going to like Chicago – it’s such a great city,” he said, nothing but love for everything. He turned his head and looked down at the floor, waiting for a response. Anything would have done. “You’re still glad we did this, right?”
He waited and when she didn’t say a word, he turned and walked out.
Brian rented a car and drove around Chicago for a while. It felt intimate, driving these streets – like running his hands over a long lost love. He went to old neighborhoods he used to hang out in when he was a teenager, like Wicker Park and Rogers Park. Sometimes he just drove and it didn’t matter where because this was Chicago and he loved this city.
Many things went through his head, playing out like a montage – memories, some cold and white and others warm and red. Nights he spent here as a teenager, the first girl who ever kissed him under a tree in Grant Park, or the film he saw at Music Box with his mother and how she cried tears of joy and they went out for Italian after. If he had a box to put his favorite memories in, those would be them.
He wiped tears away as he carried on to his childhood neighborhood. Brian had a sensitive side. He could cry on cue, which helped him get the part in that soap as Clark, a gay man who decided to come out during his first year in college. He missed playing that character – he missed having a job, period.
CHAPTER 8
“This is so amazing!” Vanessa cried out, looking over at the ocean as they drove towards Brian’s house. “The sky is so blue…it’s just so pretty – the air – that salty smell…I can’t believe we’re here, can you?”
John wanted to ask Vanessa not to talk so loud, as he was still dealing with quite a hangover. The coffee they grabbed after landing at LAX was helping lift the fog a bit, though.
“Yeah, I just need to get used to driving again,” John said, trying not to sound so sour.
“You’re doing fine,” she said. “You want me to drive?”
John was considering that. “Yeah, do you mind? I need to call Morey.”
“Why?” Vanessa asked, taking in the sights.
“He wants me to call him.” John shrugged.
Vanessa shook her head for a minute. “Pull into this Sonic,” she said. John turned and pulled into the parking lot. Vanessa quietly reviewed John’s choice of attire. He woke up feeling like crap and with little time, so maybe that was why – but he looked pretty sloppy. John was a handsome geek who graduated top of his class and was a whiz at computer programming, but it was music that he loved the most. He usually wore a shirt advertising some band to prove it. Today he had on a Black Sabbath shirt and stained jeans.
“Man, it's hot here,” he grumbled.
“It's summer – it's hot everywhere.” Vanessa was in a great mood and determined to not let anything spoil it. She got out of the car and a few boys chowing down on burgers checked her out. Vanessa was leggy and her thick reddish-brown hair bounced around in a perky ponytail as she walked over to the driver’s side. John got in on the passenger’s side and saw he already had a text from Morey. Where u at bro? I miss you – drinkin alone
“So why do you need to call Morey?” Vanessa asked, starting the car, which seemed to approve of her driving it more than it did John. “You just saw him last night – he misses you already?” she grinned playfully.
“Ha haa – and yeah, actually. This band is his whole life, he’s just freaking out,” John said dismissively. “I’m just going to text him – thank God for the amazing new age of passive communication.”
“He needs a hobby,” Vanessa said, rather cut and dry. She was driving kind of fast – John even thought she was speeding until he checked and saw she was going right at the speed limit. “This summer, especially,” she added. John didn’t say anything – he hadn’t told her that he told Morey he could come up and visit. “Man, how awesome does the air smell here?” she said.
“It smells like…plastic and pine.”
“John? Please tell me your mood will improve. Is it just your hangover?”
“Yes, that’s all it is.”
“Are you sure?” Vanessa checked. “You’re not freaking out about this are you?”
“Well it’s too late now if I am.” He tried to lighten up. “I’m sure it will be great.”
“Are you serious?” Vanessa couldn’t stop smiling – her face hurt. She was so excited. “We’re steps from the ocean, their house is gorgeous, and we have the whole summer to do what we want because we worked our butts off and saved money – if you think I’m spending a second being down about anything – I mean, what is there to be down about?”
“Nothing,” John smiled. “So, did I tell you that we actually had a decent crowd last night? After you left, the crowd must have doubled.”
Vanessa did a quick check at traffic behind her and turned onto Ocean Park.
“Oh yeah? That’s great.”
“It is – it was a really good show.”
Vanessa could hear John’s dissatisfaction with her in his tone. “I should have stayed,” she admitted. “I just had my mind on…well, this. And it’s very hard to hang out some place in a wet dress.”
“I understand,” John said, though he was still sulking.
“I just can’t believe it – I called my mom and told her that I was staying in a soap opera star’s house for the summer!”
“A star?” John said. “He’s not that famous.”
“More famous than us.” If Vanessa hadn’t been so focused on driving, she would have seen how much that hurt John. “Help me keep an eye out for the address,” Vanessa said. “Remember what it looked like? So gorgeous.”
“Well that’s 216 so…should be right up here.” John looked around. It was a beautiful street with houses hidden behind palm trees and willow trees and fancy water fountains. Vanessa pulled up into the wide, circle driveway and parked.
“I just can’t believe this,” she said. “It's like we won a whole new life.” She loved the rich smell of honey suckle and pine and saltwater.
“Oh John,” she gasped. “Look at this place!” After a minute of trying to contain her excitement, she let out a scream of joy and hugged John. John swung her around and laughed a little, allowing himself to get a little happy. But his head pounded at the sudden movement and screaming. Vanessa explored the private courtyard for a minute and noticed a book sitting on the picnic table. “Oh wow! John! Someone was reading Catherine Mars,” Vanessa stared at the book with a huge amount of admiration. She looked at the coffee mug on the table. Was it Brian’s, she wondered, experiencing a thrill throughout her whole body.
“Oh…?” John was half-listening while he texted Morey.
I’m in L.A., John started to text back. He paused, trying to think of something else to say as he pictured poor Morey alone in a bar. Morey had no friends. He was too loud and crazy for anyone to stand. I miss you too, he typed quickly, feeling kind of strange about it. He stared at it and deleted it and texted I will call you later, instead.
“Yeah, you know,” Vanessa walked back over to John with the book in her hand. “The writer I’m reviewing in my…” she stopped suddenly and stared at the trunk in fear. “Oh no…oh…oh no,” she said, dreadful.
“What…what is it?”
“I think I left it – the review! It's for the Tribune – and I think I left it at home!”
“Well, isn’t it on your computer?” John a
sked, not seeing what the big deal was.
“No! My computer has a virus, remember? I was lucky enough to print it out before it happened and the plan was to use your computer and finalize everything – we went over this, John,” she fussed as she pulled out the suitcases and set them in the driveway. Meanwhile John was getting restless and wanted to go into the house and check things out.
He looked down at Vanessa who was frantically taking things out of her suitcase and just throwing them around.
“Vanessa,” John said, somewhat amused and somewhat annoyed, picking up her clothes off the dirty ground. “Really? Is this that important?” John asked. “Don’t you want to finish exploring?”
“I’ve worked my butt off on this,” she said, glancing up at him. “How can you even say that? You know how much her work means to me. And I just – if this doesn’t make it into the paper…”
“Hey,” John calmly took her by her arm, trying to get her to stand up. “It’s not like you left it on the plane, right? You know where it is – it’s just a matter of getting it up here.”
“You’re right,” she realized, wiping sweat from her upper lip. “No, I can just call Brian.” And you’re not excited about that in the least, you don’t have a crush – you have to call him. You have an excuse. “Yeah, and just ask him to send the papers up here.”
John tossed his hands out expressively. “See?”
She laughed at herself for freaking out. “It's just weird that the book is out on the picnic table and it reminded me – that is cool,” she realized. “Or I wouldn’t have known and now I can call him – wow.” She followed John to the backdoor and waited as he unlocked it. A rather mucky smell of the chlorine from the pool greeted them as they entered the kitchen. The place seemed smaller than it looked in pictures. The living room was across from the kitchen, and a spiral staircase was on the other side of the room. The pool was viewable from the kitchen, and the door to the glassed-in patio was left cracked open.
“It smells like the YMCA in here,” John said, somewhat disappointed.
“We probably won’t notice after we get used to it,” Vanessa said. She sank down in the comfy couch and looked around at the withering plants. Then she heard the dog barking.
“Oh! Izzy!” she got excited and ran up the carpeted staircase to the bedroom. Izzy was an adorable shaggy dog with the cutest, biggest brown eyes Vanessa had seen. She was lying in bed and ran over to Vanessa right away.
“Aww, you like me?” Vanessa said, kneeling down and petting her. “You wanna go for a walk I bet, huh?” She stood up and waited as Izzy ran down the stairs.
“Izzy, this is John,” Vanessa said. “Say hey, John.”
“Hey John,” John joked.
Vanessa glanced at the pool. “Oh, I have to go for a swim, at least I remembered my swimsuit! I’m going to take Izzy for a walk first.”
“Sounds good,” John said, scoping out the kitchen. He opened the fridge. “Oh wow, they have two bottles of champagne in here.” He pulled the one with a note attached out. Vanessa walked over to it and read the note:
Welcome to our little place! We hope you enjoy yourselves ;)
Had Brian written it? Vanessa immediately wondered. She felt like a teenager with a crush.
“That’s really sweet,” Vanessa said as Izzy barked in the background, waiting by the door. “We didn’t leave them anything.”
“I didn’t think about it,” John said. “You wanna open this?”
“Well yeah, but let me take Izzy out first – then we can open it by the pool!” she said, excited as she walked over to where Izzy’s leash was hanging. She got a sense of what Brian and Saphire were like as she walked through the living room. The place was small, but it was cozy. It felt lived in, it felt like love, young love.
Huge paper lanterns hung from the ceiling in the kitchen. They were sort of obnoxiously big and made the place look even smaller, but the huge white sofa was so comfortable Vanessa could see herself falling asleep in it within five minutes of relaxing. And all the UK magazines sprawled out on the coffee table, and Island Margarita Bath and Body Works candles were everywhere, permeating the place just a bit.
“Well,” Vanessa smiled, delighted as she scanned the bookshelf against the wall. “He has every book by Catherine Mars,” she said, impressed.
“How do you know they’re his?” John asked. He seemed perturbed by something.
“Because he said he read, in the ad. I mean, his girlfriend’s a model.”
“You don’t think models read?” John was a bit taken back.
“Can they?” Vanessa joked. John seemed offended. She waited for him to laugh. “Oh come on, it’s a joke, Jonathon. Forgot to pack your sense of humor?”
“You seem…you seem very giddy,” he remarked.
“I’m excited, John!”
“Okay.” John pulled the door open to the pool room. “I’ll see you when you get back from your walk,” he said.
“Okay.” Vanessa was still marveling over the books. She took out another Catherine Mars novel, her debut, Liquid Floor. It was Vanessa’s absolute favorite book. She read it when she was a teenager, after a friend spread a nasty word about her around school. In Liquid Floor, a sad orphan discovers the floor is actually made of water and she dives through it and discovers a whole new world beneath.
Vanessa flipped through the book – adoring the smell of the old pages, all the memories of being a child and discovering the magical world of literature. A picture of Brian fell to the floor. She quickly reached down to pick it up. In the photo, Brian had the cutest, most genuine smile. His eyes gleamed with a sort of innocent eagerness. He was gorgeous. She had seen him on TV, but that was different – that was Clark Haywood. This was Brian Cave. A woman stood next to him in the photograph, smiling with her arms protectively around him. She was very pretty, tall and had broad shoulders for a woman. She possessed great natural beauty. Vanessa turned the picture over and read what was written on the back. Me and mama, 1999, Jarvis Beach.
She quickly put the picture back in the book when she heard John’s footsteps as he came skipping down the stairs.
“I thought you were in the pool?” she said, flustered. She felt like she’d lost track of time. How long had she been standing here?
“Had to get my swim trunks,” he said, smiling. He seemed in a better mood now. Maybe it just took a moment to settle in, for the unsure hour of 4 pm to quietly hand itself over to five o’clock. It was time for dinner and maybe a movie, for night to applaud the day then share its devilry.
“I found it,” he said, happy and relieved.
“Found what?” Vanessa asked, trying to stop thinking about Brian. “Your swim trunks,” she smiled and pointed at them.
“No, the amp,” he had his thumb up so it pointed behind him at the stairs. “Brian said he had one.”
“Oh, right.”
John walked over and wrapped his arms around her.
“You’re still checking the books out? Thought you wanted to go for a swim.”
“I do,” she said. “And poor Izzy – no, I just got lost in…” she pulled the book out. “This is my favorite book ever.”
“Liquid Floor?” John commented. “Sounds like a Sci-fi book.”
“It's not – well it is kind of,” her face lit up when she spoke of the author. “Ms. Mars does not care about genres. When she’s right, she’s free. She spent some time in an orphanage when she was little, and in order to deal with her loneliness, she made up this entire world beneath the floor – and she found out that instead of being an unwanted child, that she actually had a child from another life – and it just goes on and on. It's great to read when you feel trapped in a sad little world.”
John just looked at her like he was waiting for her to stop talking. Izzy started barking by the door.
“Well, I’ll take the dog for a walk and when we come back, we can open the champagne.”
“Okay,” John smiled and walked off towards
the pool.
CHAPTER 9
Brian made his way through the backdoor of his childhood home. It had been a long time since he’d been back at the old brick house. It was exactly the same as before. Every piece of furniture in the same spot, except for some old recliners that had been moved to the back screened-in porch. He walked through the kitchen that still had a cat calendar from 1982 hanging on the wall. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that, so he laughed. He made his way down the hallway to her room and pushed the door open and saw her sitting up in bed, reading.
“Mama,” his face broke into a bright smile and all worries slipped away when he saw she was fine. He ran over to her and crawled into bed like a two year-old.
“Mama,” he actually started sobbing. He’d missed her so.
“My baby boy,” she said, delighted. He sat up and she patted his knee and studied his face. “Oh you couldn’t get handsomer – well it’s just not possible,” she fussed. Even though Louise was old, it was very easy to see where Brian got his looks from – those kind eyes and nice, thick head of hair.
“Now…” she slowly tried to sit up even more.
“You want me to get you an extra pillow?” he asked, already looking around for one.
“Oh no, please, I just want to look at you. Why, it’s been so long!” she tossed her hands up in the air, her eyes wet with tears.
“How are you feeling?”
“Oh,” she waved her hand. “Little cough, just a pest, no big deal.” After a minute, Louise’s beautiful smile was back in place. “I’m just so glad to have you here,” she shrugged. “That’s the best medicine. A month ago, when I relapsed, my doctor says he’ll get me something better – stronger. I said, so you’re going to put my son on a plane?” she chuckled. Brian felt an enormous amount of guilt.
“I know, I’m sorry.” He lifted his pretty blue eyes up from the bed and looked at her after a minute.
“That a mustache?” she tossed her hand up and he ran his fingers across it.