He laughed again, and she snapped her head down, so she wouldn’t have to see the way his eyes danced at her. And there it was. Jake’s book. Three stacks of the damn thing, including one copy on top with a worn cover and weary, folded pages.
“That’s the restaurant copy,” the man said. “Feel free to enjoy it while you’re here. Just don’t leave with it. If you want a copy of your own, you just let me know.”
She nodded and slipped off her shoe to retrieve the twenty-dollar bill she had hidden in there.
“Oh, no charge for pretty ladies,” he said, winking, and then he thrust Jake’s book toward her. “I can tell you want to read it. Go on.”
She took it in one shaky hand and sat at the table farthest from the counter. The pages of the book were worn and soft, like fabric. She checked the copyright date. Brand new and well read. She flipped again to the photograph on the back jacket. The chipped tooth. The familiar eyes. She could hear his voice now. There was a quiet, dark quality to it. A resonance and a rasp. “You’ll call me. You’ll change your mind.”
She’d be damned if she was going to start at the beginning with that cocky list of conquests, so she placed the book on its spine and let it fall open.
“You are meant to live an enraptured life,” it began.
Enraptured, huh? What would that feel like? She skimmed down a bit.
“Ride the wave of your life, like the crest of an orgasm. Ride it to completion. It is there for you.”
What kind of trash was this? But as she read the words, she felt a softness and a heat at the junction of her thighs. A flutter. What would it be like? To be with him? To open up to him, to ride this enraptured life? She read on.
“Your every day is to be enjoyed. To be savored, to be captured and triumphed over. And, friends, it is possible that you have far less time than you think. Too many people think they are safe, but no one is safe. No one. So you must grab life. Today. Grab it by the balls…”
“Oh, please,” she said aloud. Embarrassed, she popped up her head in time to see the man behind the counter grin. She flipped to another section, closer to the beginning.
Here, she read a warning about the things in life that she would someday see. Possibilities and inevitabilities and events and horrors that she would surely be called to endure. As she read, she felt a sadness rising from the pages. It was a forlornness, buried deep in the subtext, which, she was sure, was evident to her only because her training as a physician helped her to read between the lines. She had always been the best in her class, in fact, at understanding people’s true motives, at uncovering or simply noticing the truth that lay beneath.
Here, in Jake’s writing, there was a haunting; a deep, deep pain. A regret. Something she couldn’t put her finger on precisely, but it was undeniable. She felt the card he had given her, poking the tender flesh at her waist. She flipped to his photo again, not meaning to, and his face peered up at her. It was there. It was subtle but, for her, unmistakable. Pain. A mystery. A secret.
Her breath quickened, and she flipped the pages again, moving closer to the front now but careful to avoid the opening paragraphs.
A subheading caught her eye. “The Girl from the Hallway.”
Her heart stopped and she felt a rush of air all around her, followed by a profound stillness. She swallowed, and then she began to read, first in great gulps and then more slowly.
“My journey toward wanting to live in this way—only for the day, only for the moment—began in what would become my biggest regret. I was a shy child and, as a teenager, incredibly introverted. I was scared of many, many things, people, and situations. For four years, I had a head-over-heels crush on a girl in my class. She was the most gentle and intelligent person I had ever encountered…so different from everyone else. She was mature and nurturing, with a strong voice and kind eyes.
“I’m sure she’s curing cancer by now or tending to refugees in some war-torn nation. She was kind to everyone…yet she didn’t know I existed. Just before the end of our senior year, she asked a group of classmates to study with her for the biology exam. We were to meet by her locker, and, to my surprise and nervous delight, I was the only one who showed. And so we sat there, and we looked over our nucleotides and our mitotic processes, and I couldn’t bring myself to say a word. I think I babbled one or two things, and I know that I kept staring at her, the way her eyelashes swept downward as she blinked. The way she knew all the answers. The gentleness about her.
“When our study session was over, I knew that this was it. She would go somewhere and she would do something amazing with her life, and she would never think about me. And, right then, something came over me. Before I knew it, I had her up against the lockers. It was the most awkward but magical moment of my life. I kissed her. It was my first kiss, but believe me when I tell you, I really let her have it.” Jess laughed out loud. He really had. “I’m sure she must have thought I was a crazed animal. And then it was over, and her blue eyes got very, very wide, and I ran. Literally. I ran away like a scared dog. And I never spoke with her again. I even faked an illness and had to make up the final exam outside of class so I wouldn’t have to face her.
“And this…this is the thing I have never forgiven myself for. Shortly afterward, something happened in my family and we cut all ties with the town. So I couldn’t ask around. I knew none of her friends. But I thought about her every day. I still do. And this was the thing I vowed never to repeat. I vowed, then, never to let a moment pass me by. I vowed to seize every moment. To never again experience that kind of regret. To never let another person who was important to me slip out into the world.
“Now there are other reasons I will never try to find her. But I warn you never to let there be a girl from the hallway. A girl who haunts your dreams.”
Jess leaned back in her chair. Her heart thumped in her chest, and then she leaned forward, her dark hair shrouding her face and the book. She read the passage twice more.
She could feel her face flush. The man behind the counter asked, “Doing okay, my lady?”
“Perfect.” She grinned. “Yes. Sure.”
She gulped. Now what should she do? Did she dare go back to the wedding and tell Jake she’d read about herself in the book? Could she face him now?
Maybe she could call him. No, she had left her phone back at the church.
If she saw him, if he saw her… He would be expecting something. Something he might write about someday. A chill went through her.
She could always pretend she didn’t know; that she’d never read that part of the book. She could always let him go back to Malibu. To his amazing life with that leggy blonde woman everyone was always talking about. To his high-flying, paragliding ways.
And then she remembered his arrogance. The Jake Lassiter she had liked was the guy from high school. The shy introverted one, not the one who…what was it? Rode life on the crest of an orgasm.
Jess shook her head. He didn’t yet know she knew. He never had to know that she knew. And what was this about having to cut all ties with the town? About the other reasons he would never try to find her?
But could she really have been so powerful that she had haunted someone’s dreams? Her hand flew to her mouth. Could she really have upended someone’s life, without even knowing it? Could she have been the one who spurred Jake Lassiter to live some great life? Could she have been the one who inspired him to teach an entire generation of young people how to seize their dreams?
This was getting ridiculous, all of the places her mind kept going. Still, she felt an energy surge and pulse through her. She felt a chattering, not from cold, but from a deep, deep tremble that was growing inside her. It was as though something were shaking her from the inside. Her breath snagged. Had he ever thought about her while making love to another woman? Had she ever been the object of his fantasies?
Jess stood and waved to the man behind the counter. She placed the book on top of the stack and thanked him again for the coffee. Th
en she tripped along back toward the church. The wind blew against her dress and she held her scarf straight out behind her and lifted her face toward the sky. A sense of adoration for nearly everything pushed along inside her. And then there was the shaking, which just wouldn’t stop.
***
Before she knew it, she was back near the church. She didn’t know what she would do when she saw him. She still hadn’t made up her mind whether to tell him that she had read it. That she knew how he felt, but her chest expanded and she pulled her shoulders back, filling her lungs with the bright spring air.
Monica was in front of the church, loading gifts into the back of Mom’s vintage Volvo.
“Where did you disappear to?” she asked.
“Oh, I had to slip out for a moment.”
“For a moment? A long moment. You missed everything.”
Jess looked at the pavement and twisted her foot. “Has everyone left?”
“Not everyone,” Monica’s eyes flashed. “Looking for anyone in particular?”
“No.”
“Well, if you’re looking for that dirt bag, Jake Lassiter, he disappeared with the maid of honor. Apparently, that’s his flavor. Tall, blonde, easy. They left ages ago.”
Jess nodded and forced the air into her lungs. Of course they had. Jake wasn’t the shy, introverted scared-of-everything schoolboy anymore, and he would probably say just about anything to sell books.
She felt small and alone, withered. She shook her head. Hadn’t she seen this dozens of times during her Psych rotation? Women who couldn’t get a handle on their emotions. They got mixed up with the wrong guy, and it caused them worlds of pain. Endless, agonizing pain. Jess straightened her spine and breathed deeply. How close she had been to making a colossal mistake.
***
Mom and Dad agreed to drop off Jess and Grandma before delivering the gifts to the bride and groom. Grandma had said she wasn’t feeling well, and Jess volunteered to sit with her at home while everyone else did whatever people do after weddings.
Jess felt sick and her mind was numb, but she knew that the best way to get her mind off anything was to throw herself into something else. Some task. Jess settled Grandma into her chair, covered her with a chenille throw blanket and placed her basket of yarn in her lap.
“I’d like some peppermint tea, Grandma, and since I’m making it anyway, could I make you some, too?”
“Well, that would be nice, dear, but only if you are making it for yourself, as well.”
“Of course.” Jess’s hands shook as she removed two mugs from the cupboard. She hated peppermint tea, but she wouldn’t need to actually drink it. Sometimes you really had to trick people into letting you take care of them.
She tried to focus on the teapot, on the faint ticking sounds the water made against the walls inside. But her mind went back to that hallway, so many years ago, the way Jake had pulled up ever so slightly on her jeans. The way he had pushed against her. How he had brushed so gently against her lips and then that molten-hot, open-mouth tongue-thrusting kiss. How many times had she replayed it in her mind? And this, just a kiss. Imagine what it would feel like to have his bare skin against hers. His warmth. To feel his strong, powerful hands explore her tender flesh. She felt a throbbing at the apex of her thighs and in her stomach. Her face flushed, and she focused once again on the tiny pings inside the teapot.
She shook her head and imagined herself folding the memory into a tight square. Creasing it first one way and then another, and then tucking it into the small drawer in her mind where she kept the things that she’d already handled and that she didn’t want to run across again. She envisioned it as a file cabinet. Steely gray and impenetrable. She opened the cabinet drawer and slipped the memory inside, just as the teapot shrieked. The steam hissed and spit from the spout as she poured.
“Here you are, Grandma. Let it steep and cool, now, before you sip.” She placed the mug on a crocheted coaster near Grandma’s chair and settled herself on the sofa, breathing the aroma from her own mug and blowing at the steam.
“So, where did you run off to today, dear?” Grandma’s voice was shaky.
“Oh, nowhere Grandma. I just needed to get some air. I went for a little walk. That’s all.”
“Well, I saw that Jake Lassiter throwing fruits at you.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. I found it incredibly rude.”
“Yes. Me too.”
“And then I saw him chase after you.”
“Oh.”
“Did he say something to make you leave the wedding, dear? Did he say something… unbefitting of a gentleman?”
Jess forced a laugh. “No, no, Grandma. Nothing like that.”
“Because I don’t trust him. There’s just something about him I don’t trust, and when you’re as old as I am, you know enough to listen to those feelings. He’s hiding something, and, I just…well, I just don’t like him.”
“Well…”
“Though it looks like I’m the only one in town who doesn’t…”
Jess didn’t respond, and Grandma continued. “I couldn’t help but notice that he’s really quite popular. Especially with the ladies.”
Jess swallowed and tried to take the conversation in a new direction. “So… Grandma, did you eat at the wedding, or are you hungry?”
“You know I can’t eat any of that party food. It gives me indigestion. And gas.”
“When was the last time you went in for a checkup, Grandma?
“Oh, it’s not a physical problem. There’s just a lot of creamy stuff I can’t eat.”
“Well, I’m hungry, too,” Jess lied. “And since I’m making dinner anyway, what sounds good to you?”
“Anything, dear. Anything at all. I just can’t eat tomatoes or dairy or gluten or starch.”
“Okay then,” Jess said.
“And nothing with vegetables. They make me burp. But don’t go to any trouble, dear. Something simple.”
Jess stood too quickly and her head spun. As she made her way past Grandma’s recliner, the woman reached out and grabbed at her elbow. “After dinner, maybe we can work a jigsaw puzzle together. Sometimes they take weeks to complete, but we can at least get started.”
Jess nodded. This is what her life would be now. Overcooking gluten-free noodles for Grandma. Sorting the tiny pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and surreptitiously lining them up so Grandma could discover them on her own. So she could fit them together and reveal, over a great length of time, a photograph of kittens or sailboats or a range of mountain peaks that someone else had climbed.
***
Hours passed in this way, and now Jess lay in bed. She peered over at Grandma, slumbering softly in the corner of the room. The humidifier blasted warm moisture and released bubbles every twenty-five seconds. Jess had been lying there for an hour timing them with her mind, trying like hell to avoid thinking of anything else. Of her past, of her dreadful future.
The floor joists above her popped and moaned. She thought then how the house had been making these same restless sounds for longer than she had been alive and would probably continue long after she was dead.
A petal fell from the vase on her desk, then, which had been shoved against the wall when she had moved it back home. How she wished her dad would just throw the old flowers away. No flowers were better than dying flowers. She had always thought this. Her parents had always disagreed. The sweetness they released now was spoiled. It was a scent of slow, inevitable death. Of stagnation and decay. And the lilies that they always put in the basement, these were the worst. Jess felt as though the smell might actually crush her.
Then a thought. She sat straight up. She could change everything. Right now. With a simple phone call.
No. That’s what Jake expected her to do. She couldn’t give him the satisfaction. Besides, he’d no doubt be busy with Kelly’s sister. That tall blonde, the sight of who, in her tight, mint green dress, had made Jess feel frumpy and small. She imagined Jake loom
ing over the top of her now. What was it that Monica had said? That Kelly’s sister was his “flavor.”
Jess plunked back against her mattress, and Grandma stirred. She held her breath for a moment and stared off into the darkness. The only light in the room was from the power button on Grandma’s humidifier, illuminating everything with a bluish glow.
It was so still. So suffocating. Jess was seized by a sudden but benign energy—an urge to leap out of the bed. To tear the old posters off the walls and to shout at the top of her lungs. To cry and to scream and to rip at her hair. To dump the vases of old rotting flowers onto the floor. To destroy everyone’s arbitrary and nonsensical expectations of her. Of course, she did none of these things, but she yearned for something to happen. Anything.
She sat again. If Jake was in bed with that woman, then he wouldn’t answer his phone, and she could leave a message. A simple message. She could tell him that she had read his little book and that she just wasn’t interested. And that would close the “Jake Lassiter” chapter of her life. She could fold his memory tight, once and for all, and she could place it in her tidy mental filing cabinet and she could move on. This, she was sure, would make the fantasies stop. She certainly hadn’t asked for these lusty images, which kept bobbing through her awareness at odd and unwelcome times. And when Jake called her back, if he called her back, she simply wouldn’t answer. And that would be that. Jess would start taking control of things again.
She grabbed for her phone. Rushing, now, so she wouldn’t change her mind. She leapt toward the corner of the room, as far as she could get from her elderly roommate, and she sunk down low, buffeted by both walls, until her knees were in line with her face, and she dialed the number. The number she had inadvertently memorized while staring at the business card and cooking dinner for she and Grandma hours before.
Her heart pounded. What was she doing? She should hang up. But it was too late now. Her number would appear on his list of recent calls. Two rings. Three. When would his voicemail pick up? Her head felt like it might explode. The deep shaking had returned.
“Hello?” His voice was sleepy. “Jess?”
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