by Kyra Davis
We eventually stop to watch the waves crash into the ragged rocks that pepper the coastline, feeling the wind in our faces, holding hands, and just . . . breathing. “It’s incredible, isn’t it?” I ask, breaking the silence.
“The view?” he asks.
“No,” I say, tossing my hair behind my shoulders and pulling my camouflage jacket around me a little tighter. “I mean us. Did you ever really believe we’d get back together, after all that time?”
“I didn’t believe it,” Brad says quietly, wrapping his arm around my waist. “I knew it.”
“How?” I ask, peering up at him, studying the way the light plays in his eyes.
“Physics,” he says simply before turning me to him so we’re now facing each other. “When I met you all those years ago, I felt a force, something invisible that was just pulling me to you. And now I know what that force is: gravity. We are each other’s gravity. We will always fall back together. So you see, it’s simple physics.”
“Good God, are you a lawyer or a poet?”
He puts his forehead against mine. “I’m a man in love.”
I giggle and wrap my hands around his neck. “We’re gross. Like, sappy cliché gross.”
“You have a problem with that?” he asks.
“None whatsoever.” I turn in his arms so my back is pressed into his chest, both of us now looking at the view again. “Can I tell you something?” I ask.
“Anything,” he assures me.
I hesitate a moment before blurting the words out. “I’m scared.”
He shifts his upper body to the side so he can see my profile. “Of what?”
“I was a mess when you first got to know me. A total mess. And you didn’t see me heal. I wouldn’t let you. I pushed you away and went through this whole process on my own. Now we’ve had this whirlwind romance while living almost four hundred miles apart, and if I move here . . . if I move in with you the way you want me to . . . that’s when you’ll really get to see who I am today. To know someone, really know them . . . you can’t do that while rocking out at their concert in an LA club or dining out at some new restaurant. To know someone you have to go grocery shopping with them. You have to see how they handle it when their computer freezes right before they need to send out an important e-mail, or their car breaks down on a day they have a bunch of plans. You haven’t seen those things. And what if, when you do, you decide that I’m not the person you or June need me to be? Because Brad?” I twist my head a bit so I can see him. “I can’t be anyone other than who I am. If I could, I’d be my father’s golden child, not Kasie.”
Brad studies me for a moment, then looks out at the sea, his arms tightening around me. “I once told you that you were the most messed-up and the most together woman I’ve ever met,” he says. “Do you remember that?”
I give a small nod as I watch a pelican dive into the water.
“I meant that. You walked away from me because you knew that wasn’t our time. You knew that you had a process to go through and you gave yourself room to go through it. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but people don’t do that.”
“I’m not sure I’m following,” I say slowly.
“When people are going through hell, especially when that hell involves emotional issues and a degree of self-destruction, they don’t usually have the clarity to see what they need. They only see what they want. They want comfort, they want to feel better, they want someone else to shoulder some of their burdens. But you, you saw what you needed, which was to carry your own burden and find a way to whittle it down to something manageable. You did this while you were drinking like a fish, faking orgasms for a 900-number, and dealing with the occasional urge to run into traffic.”
I shrug, my shoulders moving up and down against the hardness of his pecs. “Maybe I just really absorbed the life lessons of that Rolling Stones song. You can’t always get what you want, but—”
“Okay.” Brad laughs, cutting me off. “Trust me when I tell you that you have always been much more together than Keith Richards. No one is like you, Mercy. And I know you’re together because you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. You wouldn’t have come back to me. You have always been stronger than me in that regard.”
“Stronger than you?” I ask, incredulous.
“You were right about my white knight complex, just like you were right about Nalla,” he says. “And like I said, I’m not unselfish. I would have stayed with you even if it wasn’t good for you and . . .” He pauses and then takes a deep breath; I think I feel a slight tremor in his hands. “I would have stayed with you even if it wasn’t good for my own daughter. I wouldn’t have been able to see it.”
“Oh, Brad, you don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. I even let Nalla mess with her head, and I never felt half as strongly about her as I do you.”
“That’s totally different,” I counter. “She’s her mother.”
“She’s not really,” Brad argues. “Not in the ways that count. And I couldn’t see that because I wanted June to have a mom, and to be honest, I wanted help. I wanted to share the load with someone other than my own mother. And I was arrogant enough to think that I could fix Nalla. You are the first person who basically told me that my urge to fix people isn’t healthy. It took me a while to get what you were saying, but now that I do, I’m so grateful that you said it.”
I’m quiet for a moment as I let that sink in. “Brad?”
“Yes?” he says as he places a kiss on the top of my head.
I smile and put my hands over his. “Do you think you and I are fated to be together?”
“No,” he says simply.
“No?” I crack up and then he laughs a little, too. “Then what the fuck is this?”
“Destiny,” he replies. “Fate is out of our control. Destiny is something you can work toward. We worked toward this. We’ve controlled our own destiny.”
“Brad?” I say again.
“Yes, Mercy?”
“Will you feel me up?”
He laughs, and this time the laugh is rich and full. I love the way it rumbles in his chest, vibrating against me. One of his hands moves up, under my jacket, under my shirt, over the thin fabric of my bra, where he toys with me until my nipples are hard and rough against his palm. I reach up, putting my arms around his neck, arching my back, pressing my butt up against his groin as I feel his desire growing for me. I close my eyes and give in to the sensations. The clean air, the seduction, the love . . .
This is what it’s supposed to feel like to breathe.
CHAPTER 43
Six years later
BRAD GAVE ME a ring, and it might just be the coolest ring ever. A cluster of diamonds cut and set to look like a blooming flower. And I do mean blooming: the little leaves wind up the side to where the flower is placed in its white gold setting as if opening up to the world for the first time. It’s an engagement ring. I’m engaged to Brad Witmer . . .
We’ve been engaged for four and a half years.
That’s my fault. I’m not really in a hurry. I don’t care about a piece of paper. Not when I have Brad. But he definitely wants to get married. So we will.
Soon.
Pretty soon.
Eventually.
Honestly, it’s not that big a deal. It’s just that if we’re going to have an actual ceremony, I want to do it right, and as pathetic as it is, I’m not sure what “right” is for us. But what I do know is we’re both swamped. For one thing, we’re getting June ready for the college application process. College. She’s putting together a portfolio so she can get into the CalArts character animation program. She’s seven-friggin’-teen, and in a year she’ll be leaving us! I cried on her birthday. I made her a big round ice cream cake and then I cried all over it. Fortunately she just laughed and gave me a hug, told me she loved me, and assured me that she likes a little salt on her frosting.
She said she loves me. And I love her, too. I know she’s not mine, but the
re are days when that’s easy to forget. She calls me M, which initially brought back bittersweet memories of Traci. Traci with her wild party-girl ways, her unconditional acceptance of me, and her well-meaning but misguided advice. I really did care about her.
Traci died of an overdose while I was in Belgium. She’s buried at Forest Lawn. I visit her sometimes when I’m in LA, although not as much anymore. I wish I could say that when I stand in front of her grave I only think about how much I miss her. But really? When I stand there, I’m thinking, This could have been me. Maybe that’s wrong, but I can’t help it. And sometimes I think, This could have been Ash.
Last time I saw Ash was on TV two years ago. June and I had been watching a Grey’s Anatomy rerun while doing our nails and then, out of nowhere, I heard a very familiar voice say, “Glad to be of service.”
I jerked my head up and there he was. Ash. He was wearing a bright orange vest, playing a clerk in a Home Depot commercial. He was still attractive but not in a way that could really turn heads. He smiled a little too broadly at the camera and I think I saw a tiny flicker of desperation in his eyes, but perhaps I imagined it. And then the camera moved on to the younger, perkier clerks demonstrating their customer service skills.
“Wow,” June had said while giving me a sidelong glance. “I didn’t know you found Home Depot commercials so captivating.”
“I don’t.” I forced a little laugh and went back to doing my nails. “I’m not interested in Home Depot at all.”
I have no doubt that Ash is unsatisfied with the state of his acting career, but at least he has a pulse. Most people in their thirties and forties will occasionally find themselves wondering what the friends they’ve lost contact with are doing today. But when you spend your youth partying the way I did, you mostly wonder if those long-lost friends are still alive. So many of them become fatalities of a war they didn’t even know they were fighting.
But not me. I’m a deserter. I get to live. And what a life. For all intents and purposes, I’m a stepmom to a truly wonderful girl and my partner is the love of my life. How many people can say that?
Speaking of which, things are getting kind of crazy for Brad, too. He’s now the right-hand man for San Francisco’s DA, and while this DA was just reelected six months ago, there’s some talk that he may not run again, in which case . . . well, Brad might run. I’m a little nervous about that. I mean, finding dirt on me would sort of be like finding sand on the beach. It’s hard to miss. Plus I’m not exactly your prototypical political wife. Granted, my hair is no longer pink. It’s still blond . . . with lavender highlights at the tips. Brad seems to think that my free-spirited style choices and rocker sensibility will be helpful to him, that if the voters saw he was married to me they would know he was not only hip, but also open-minded.
I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.
Anyway, Brad says that if San Francisco can’t handle having a DA who’s married to a former phone sex worker with purple hair, we’ll just move to Berkeley. And he keeps reminding me we have at least three and a half years to figure it all out.
And me? I am touring All. The. Time. It’s crazy. If you’re into indie music you probably know my name. And if you aren’t, you won’t . . . or at least that was true until about three months ago. I’m not sure how it happened, but I seem to have stumbled onto a hit. This song I wrote, “Try Again,” is getting serious airplay, and all of a sudden everybody knows me. My incredibly low-budget music video currently stands at just over thirteen million hits two months after its release.
Can I say that one more time? Thirteen million friggin’ hits!
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I do still swear, I’m just more selective about when I do it. But I’m getting off topic.
Thirteen million hits!
My manager thinks this could be the start of something huge. My music is being gobbled up on iTunes and added to everybody’s Spotify playlist. Even my older songs are enjoying a resurgence. I would have been totally happy just being the “it” indie girl, queen of underground music and whatnot. That world was fine with me and I did pretty well. But this hit . . . well, it’s like I’m realizing dreams I had given up on years ago. I’m getting requests for interviews all the time. Spin, Pitchfork, and this morning I talked to Rolling Stone! That was amazing . . .
Until it wasn’t.
Now, as June is off on a road trip with her girlfriends, Brad and I sit in the living room of our small but very expensive home in San Francisco’s Sunset District listening to Brett Dennen sing “Only Want You” as we try to chart a path through the disaster zone that lies ahead.
“This was bound to happen, Mercy,” he points out. He’s only half out of his work clothes. Tie and shoes off, shirt on but open, belt and pants firmly in place. He sits next to me on our soft gray couch, ankle crossed over his knee, arm draped over the back of the sofa. His tone is casual, but I can see the concern in his eyes. And me? I’m huddled in the corner of the sofa, one knee drawn up to my chest while the other is stretched out so my toes can weave into the softness of the shaggy floor rug. Our Yorkshire terrier, Mammoth, is napping peacefully under the coffee table.
“No one has ever asked me about my name change before,” I say quietly.
“It’s an official document; when you became big inevitably someone was going to ask.”
“When I became big?” I look up at him. Even after all these years, I’m a little in awe of how beautiful he is, how incredibly powerful. And yet all that beauty and power won’t protect me from what’s coming. “Brad, singers don’t become big at my age! I can see forty from where I’m sitting!”
“You have years before forty, and you still look like you’re in your twenties—”
“Yeah, well I’m old enough to know that years go by in seconds, and looking twenty-something is hardly impressive in this industry. I swear, I look at the new ‘it’ girls of pop and they all look like they’re twelve! There was no way to predict that all of this would happen to my career!”
“I predicted it,” Brad reminds me. “You’re too good to go unnoticed forever. Anyway, it will definitely be up for public consumption if I ever get around to running for office.” He sighs and runs his hand through his short hair as he contemplates the situation. “You know, Mercy,” he says slowly, “I don’t know that this is a big deal.”
“Excuse me?” I ask loud enough to wake Mammoth, who pops up and trots over to me.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Brad continues. “Your father did. So what if that gets out. After what he did he deserves a little shaming.”
I press my lips together as I pick up Mammoth, holding her against my shoulder. “It’s not that simple,” I mutter.
“Why not?” Brad asks, almost exasperated.
“Because I have a sister, that’s why not!” I snap. “Because I’ve made a . . . a peace treaty with my past, and part of the deal is the past agrees not to haunt me as long as I agree to leave it the fuck alone!” Mammoth begins to squirm in my hands and I put her down and let her run.
Brad studies me for a long moment and then turns his eyes to the picture windows with a view of an overcast sky. “The other day I was talking to Mayor Donovan—”
“I swear to God, if you gave more money to his campaign fund—”
“When he was fifteen,” he continues, refusing to let me get to him, “a group of boys dumped the entire contents of his backpack into a dumpster filled with rotting food and maggots.”
“Oh God.” I put my hand against my heart, wincing at the very idea of it. Even Mammoth looks a little grossed out.
“He had to crawl in just to get his things while the boys watched and laughed as he tried to keep the maggots off his skin.”
“Seriously?” I curl into myself. “Where did he go to school, Nazi Germany?”
“You could say he got the last laugh,” Brad says, his eyes now trained on me even as Mammoth tramples his foot. “He graduated from Yale, married a beautiful woma
n who loves him. And now he’s the mayor of a major city. People say he has a political future. His life is good, great even, and yet he still told me this story. You know why he told me this story, Mercy?”
I bow my head, unsure if I want to hear the answer.
“Because that incident that happened forty years ago still shows up in his nightmares today,” he says gently. “Because he still harbors fantasies of revenge on the boys who did that to him, boys who are no longer boys. There’s something about the things that happen to us as children . . . they affect us differently and the memories don’t go away even when we do our damnedest to ignore them. You can’t tell your past not to haunt you, Mercy. You know that. The best you can do is decide not to be afraid of ghosts.”
I continue to stare at the ground. “I can’t do this, Brad,” I whisper.
“You can,” he says, reaching forward and taking my hand as he picks up Mammoth with the other. “You can, because this time you are going to let me help you.”
“And what about Kasie?” I whisper. “She doesn’t even know this ghost exists. Her entire childhood is going to be exposed as a lie and the whole thing is going to be hung out there for public consumption.”
“We’ll warn her,” Brad assures me. “We’ll do everything we can to prepare her. I’ll find out where she is and . . . and you can talk to her.”
I wince. I have no idea how this is gonna go down. How do you tell your sister that you’re not dead after she’s spent over fifteen years thinking you were? I mean, this is some Days of Our Lives shit! “Did I ever tell you that I crashed her college graduation?”