“So did she have the things to connect the triptych panels?”
“Yep, and this.”
“She made you do her recycling?”
“It’s art.”
He reads the 7 Up slogan. “‘Crisp and clean and no caffeine.’”
He flips and rotates the green soda-can sculpture like he’s working on a Rubik’s Cube, puzzles it out.
Until he realizes it’s his initial.
E.
20
Long Lunch
July 19, 1996
One week after my picnic with Cal in San Diego
WHERE I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE | The empty honeycomb
WHERE I WAS | Catalina
“My favorite analyst.” Cal’s head appeared over my cubicle wall. “Are you the only one here?”
Not quite. There were distant hums and clicks from Stephen printing presentation booklets, but otherwise the office was dead. A bunch of other people had the week off, and the handful of the Sears gang who weren’t away had bailed early for drinks at the Lux rooftop bar down the block, urging me to join them.
Maybe I’ll come at five, I’d said.
This summer Stephen had me filling swag bags. Goody bags for the press, stuffed with stress balls and visors, golf tees, and eyeglass wipes. Some embellished with CommPlanet’s logo—the globe with a wedge cut out so it looked like a swirly blue, Pacman-like C—or NoozeButton’s chunky, shadowed red N. The rest were stamped with the symbols of sibling brands that I knew little about, except that everyone was sure they were going to be huge.
Once again, we’d circled the gigantic oval table in the conference room. Not collating presentations this time but filling bags, double-checking their contents.
Duck, duck, goose, I’d said.
You’re funny, Stephen had said, unsmiling.
So much was the same. Laps around the conference room table. Humorless Stephen. Cal grinning over my cubicle wall when he dropped in. The trickling fountain in the Poppy Café courtyard.
We’d had three coffees and one lunch.
But other things had changed. I had changed.
I was less afraid of what Cal thought of me this summer; there was power in not caring so much.
He drummed his fingers on my cubicle wall. “Care to take me up on that sail? Meet me at four? It’s dead here, they won’t miss you.”
* * *
“Down here,” he called when I stepped onto the deck of the Summer Hours an hour later.
I hesitated at the foot of the stairs, taking in the gleaming wood, the tidy bench seats and narrow oval table. And finally, his face. He looked amused. As he scanned my dove-gray pantsuit, he raised an eyebrow jokingly. “Slightly formal attire for a deckie.”
“I didn’t have time to change.” I didn’t make time, because I didn’t think we were actually sailing. I took off my blazer, grateful that at least I wore a sleeveless blouse, and rolled my tailored pants up as high as they’d go. Not the slinky, backless getup I’d imagined wearing on our first...whatever this was.
“I thought we’d have a picnic on the island.”
“How far is it?”
“A little more than twenty miles.” It seemed so important to him to go through with the sail. Part of me wished I wasn’t so resistible.
But maybe:
1. He wanted to give me another chance to change my mind. As if a few stops and starts, his insistence that I think things over, made what we were about to do less wrong. 2. He was worried some marina neighbor would stop by the slip, five o’clock Coronas in hand, and find us together. Or 3. He hoped that disconnecting from the mainland would relax me.
Maybe it was all three.
At first I helped him with little bits of work—winching and tying up the odd line—but when we were safely out of Balboa Marina, I settled near the bow, one arm and one leg hooked tight around metal safety cords, and let the wind flap under my blouse. Once in a while he’d yell, “Tacking—hold tight.” Then the boat would tilt, dipping me so close to the waves I could almost have dunked the tip of my ponytail in seawater, or lifting me so I felt like a mermaid carved on the prow of a ship. Each time, he watched me until we leveled out.
Halfway to the island, dolphins started swimming with us. Four or five of them, impossibly close to the boat, just saying hello. I pointed, silently, and turned back to smile. He shouted over the wind, something I couldn’t hear. It might have been “beautiful.”
Catalina was like pictures I’d seen of Mediterranean fishing towns, with orange cliffs rising up from turquoise water. We anchored off a thin strip of empty beach and sat next to each other on the gently rocking boat, our bare feet dangling off the side, while he pointed out things on the island. “There are wild buffalo over there in a field, left here after a movie shoot.”
“It’s so peaceful,” I said. “I thought Catalina had ferries.”
“They dock in Avalon, in the big tourist harbor. The other side of the island has a totally different feel.”
“I’d like to live here.”
“Another bit of trivia. Marilyn Monroe lived here once.”
“To hide out? It’s perfect for that.”
“Stars do hide here.” He nodded toward the top of the island, where tiled roofs peeked out from clusters of trees. “But no. She lived here when she was Norma Jeane.”
The sun was directly overhead, but we had a soft breeze. He pulled his baseball cap off, slipping the plastic band over his wrist and releasing a smell of fresh sweat. It made me remember why we were here. Not to watch dolphins. Not to talk Catalina history.
We rowed the dinghy to shore and hopped out by a thin crescent of beach, wet up to our knees. I cupped water in my hand and splashed the back of my neck while he dragged the dinghy and stowed it in the shade of the bushes.
He returned to the water and copied me, scooping up seawater to douse himself. Then he bent over and wet his hair, shaking it and sending cold drops my way. “Now. A little hike... Steep, but worth it.”
I followed his hard-flexing calves up a narrow, sandy trail until he disappeared into a cluster of green.
And then I was with him, in a shady spot at the top of the cliff. Like a room made of wind-bent trees, cool and dark.
I touched the satiny leaves. “What are these?”
“Catalina mahogany. Unusual, aren’t they?”
We spread the plaid picnic blanket out in the darkest corner of the tree room. I nibbled a wheat cracker, not tasting it, but polished off half the cold wine in my glass in one gulp.
He didn’t eat much, either, I noticed.
“William Wrigley once owned Catalina,” he said. “They call it ‘the island that gum built.’”
I set my plastic wineglass down on my plate and sat closer. I touched his knee, my hand covering the four shiny, pale pink scars.
“He owned the Chicago Cubs so they used to have spring training here,” he said. Mr. Trivia suddenly.
“That’s interesting,” I whispered, not moving my hand.
“And you know there are few cars allowed? Everyone has golf carts.”
“You could be a tour guide.”
He set his plate down with a laugh. Then he kissed me, slow and gentle. Still a question in it. I lay back on the wool picnic blanket and slid my fingers into his hair.
Time slipped, the way it does so rarely. I’ve read that time only slips when you’re drugged, or doing something you’re meant to do.
After five minutes, or an hour, he pulled away and whispered groggily, “We should get back, don’t you think?”
I shook my head and unbuttoned his shirt, pulled him close again. “No. We should stay.”
He lifted off my shirt, then his, bunching them under my head. He rolled my bra straps down, unhooked it in the back. A twig snapped and I tensed, pressing against him
so he’d cover me, even though we hadn’t seen a soul since we’d left the boat. But it was only a bird.
I lay back with my eyes closed, my bra tangled around one wrist and his mouth on my neck as he unzipped my pants. Then, as I held my breath, his mouth moved lower, and that was almost enough. His hand rested, warm, over my underwear, then slid the tight cotton to the side, and I nearly came from those clever, clever fingers, but he stopped, turning my breath ragged. He pulled my drenched underwear below my hips and kissed my belly button. And lower. For a second I worried about what I might look like, but then his tongue found a spot that made me entirely liquid and I didn’t care about anything but the possibility that he would stop.
I balled up the bra in my hand, squeezing it over and over, digging my fingernails into the soft fabric.
And when I came I laughed, it was so good.
He settled close by my side, running his fingers in a lazy triangle, from my left hip bone to my right, up to my belly button, back down to my hip.
“You’re laughing?” he said. “I’m here all week.”
“That was... No one’s ever.” My temples were wet with tears. I wiped them with the heels of my hands.
“Never?”
I shook my head.
“And have you also never?”
I could have lied. Instead I simply didn’t answer.
“Then let’s definitely wait for that,” he said.
I kissed him, pulling at his shoulders until he was above me, propped on his elbows. I bent a leg so my thigh pressed up on him through his thin swimming trunks.
“We don’t have to rush anything. We have time, you should make sure you...” But he hadn’t moved, and I was below him, wearing only a bra around my wrist, and now his eyes were half-closed.
He shut them and let himself sink closer, whispering something unintelligible into my neck before rolling away to sit on the blanket.
A valiant effort. A moment’s suspense. But I’d won. He was slipping off his bathing suit and rummaging in a pocket. I closed my eyes. A snapping, a soft kiss on my breast, and then he was above me again and it was happening for real. He moved carefully but it hurt. A deep, pinching pain.
When the edges of the pain softened to a dull ache, I opened my eyes and watched him.
Such hard work, such a strange thing, really. But kind of nice. I studied his face, memorizing how it looked the moment his expression changed from taut and closed off to completely unguarded, not too different from fear.
* * *
After, he kissed my neck and dozed, his arm draped over my stomach. I wasn’t remotely sleepy. I could have run a marathon. Could have entered a tri, and won. That was what it felt like.
Victory.
Despite the soreness between my legs, despite how wrong everyone would think it was. I could say I felt guilty but I didn’t. Not then. Not yet.
“Cal?”
“Hmm.”
“You’re thirty-three, right?”
“’Fraid so.” He looked at me, biting his lip. He brushed the damp hair off my forehead and kissed it. “What are you thinking, you wide-awake person? That I’m ancient?”
“I was thinking about Knightley and Emma.”
“What’s Night Liunemma?”
“Mr. Knightley and Emma Woodhouse. From Jane Austen. Our age difference is less than theirs.”
“Ah.” He lay quietly for a minute, staring up at the ceiling of leaves. “You’re working hard, trying to make this okay. You’re worried about what people will think.”
“No.”
“Sure you are.” He kissed my forehead again.
“Anyway. Why does anyone have to know?”
He laughed. “No, you’re not worried in the slightest.”
I lay on his chest and listened to the soft island sounds. Birds and waves, the beating fabric of an awning or sail in the marina far below.
* * *
On the way back, hours after sunset, I leaned over the bow guardrail, wind whipping my hair.
When I saw the glow on the beach from the kids’ Crystal Cove bonfire, a bright amber dome, my mood flickered darker for only a second before brightening again, stronger than any memory.
21
Time sheets
August 1996
WHERE I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE | My cubicle
WHERE I WAS | The boat. And the island. And the Cellar
The end of summer was hot and sticky. Long, sweaty afternoons in the rolling master berth of the Summer Hours, long nights when I twisted in my sheets, too keyed up to close my eyes.
We met as often as we could. I took long lunches, or slipped away at 4:30 or 4:00 or 3:45. My small work assignments had never felt mission critical, and now, though I needed the money, they seemed utterly pointless.
But one morning after I failed to unpack a shipment of swag (retractable dog leashes with the CommPlanet logo), I found a blue Post-it on my computer screen from Stephen:
Rebeccca. Pls see me immed. Thx. S.
I walked to his office with my heart in my throat. Sure he’d dropped by my cubicle the evening before and found the box untouched—and me MIA.
Stephen scowled at his computer screen, tapping furiously. “Sorry to tell you this...” he said, pausing and shuffling through some papers in his black wire In tray.
I knew it. Punishment would rain down on me, right through the five high-rise floors above my head. Punishment and disgrace and ruin.
“...but you’ll have to redo your time sheet for the last five days.” He tossed me the yellow triplicate form. “We have new department codes. You need to put 14, not 11.”
* * *
At the annual boondoggle, this time at a Santa Barbara resort, I again watched Cal from across the conference room. Thinking about how he’d look later.
Knowing how he’d look later.
The two of us stole away after our agreed-upon seventy minutes (me) and eighty (him). We met at the boat, laughing, flushed from our separate escapes.
And no one noticed.
Sometimes we sailed to Catalina, to our shady spot on the hill.
Often, we didn’t make it out of Balboa Marina, and had to stifle our cries, still our sticky limbs, when voices approached above.
This summer, he did not say, Don’t pretend you’re someone you’re not.
He said, “You’re so...” and trailed off. He said it and shook his head, marveling.
The Friday three weeks after our first time, we lay in the bedroom of the Summer Hours, late-afternoon sun seeping in behind the curtains over the high windows. On our stomachs, him over me. Positions altered only by inches from how we’d been rocking together moments before.
“You’re so...”
“I’m so what?”
“You’re the word person,” he hummed into my shoulder blade.
“Aggressive.”
“No.”
“I think what you’re trying to say is you’ve corrupted me.”
He bit my shoulder blade. “Wrong again. Hot enough for you?” He lifted the hair from my neck, blew on my sweat-glazed skin.
“Let’s sail somewhere private to swim. I have a little time.”
“I have a better idea. The coldest place in Orange County. It’s like a cave, you’ll love it. Dark, air-conditioned, and utterly discreet, for those who worry about such things.”
We hadn’t met anywhere public since we’d started sleeping together. Only the boat and our hiding place on the island.
If it was light out when we sailed, I tucked my hair down my shirt as I navigated the swaying white ramps, walking briskly until I was safely on board. Even then I insisted on staying below, like a stowaway, until we were out of the marina.
We were careful, the few times we spoke in the office. Careful to keep our voices casual instead of in
timate, careful not to chat too long over my cubicle wall.
But off land he was sometimes reckless and laughed at my elaborate efforts at concealment.
Once when I’d arrived to find four men on the neighboring boat drinking Coronas, I’d retreated and called from the Crab Shack up PCH, insisting I couldn’t come until they’d left.
“Those clowns wouldn’t say anything.”
“You have a pact? All the men in the marina?” I meant it as a joke.
But there was a slight pause as he assessed this, and then tuned his voice to a lower, more serious tone. “All I meant is you worry too much.”
Maybe you don’t worry enough. I’d waited until they left.
* * *
“Get dressed! You’ll love this place.”
“I really shouldn’t go,” I called from the boat’s bathroom as I splashed my face. I’d blown my mom off all summer, and the evidence of her lonely evenings—blue-and-yellow video cases from Blockbuster, dinner leftovers carefully Saran-wrapped in the fridge—plucked at my heart when I saw them in the morning.
And it didn’t seem smart to go to a restaurant, no matter how discreet.
When I looked up from the sink, Cal stood behind me. Dressed in a fresh white shirt, hair brushed. I was naked, face dripping.
I watched his reflection lift my hair, kiss the nape of my neck. I closed my eyes as his mouth moved to my shoulder, his hands sliding down my back to my hips.
“We’ll go another night,” he murmured. “I’ll just have to sit in the air-conditioning with my ice-cold drink all alone. Poor me.” Hands between my legs now. One exploring from the front and one from behind. I wanted to step wider but the bathroom was too small.
“Poor you.” I pressed my forehead against the mirror.
6:00 p.m.
The Cellar restaurant in Fullerton
We hid in double darkness. A curtained booth inside the candlelit underground dining room. It was stone walled like a wine cellar, with the same damp, chilly air. A place so clearly for new lovers that the velvet curtains might as well have surrounded beds instead of tables.
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