“It’s unbelievable,” I whispered back. “Plus the two you guys brought? This is going to be a fun night."
“Okay, we’ll make room,” squealed Marie. Before anyone could protest, she shimmied her body, clad in a dark gray, metallic tunic minidress and stilettos, around all of us, and started pulling over chairs to gather everyone at one large table, calling over a waitress to order drinks. We all helped to set up. I caught Will checking out Marie’s ass as she leaned over to pull the table toward her. The waitress brought our drinks. Marie sat down, and continued, “We all don’t know each other very well—”
“—we just met half of them—” interjected Amelia.
“—so I think we should play a game,” Marie finished.
Amelia groaned. “No body shots this time.”
“No. That’s later. We’re going to play Two Truths and a Lie.”
“Marie. They—just—met—you,” Amelia argued.
“And now we’ll really get to know each other. If someone figures out your lie, you have to drink.”
Sara looked worried. Georgie looked amused. And the two guys with them plainly didn’t know what to think. “And we all have to play,” Marie finished. “I’ll go first.”
Will started, “Darlin’,” but Marie shushed him with a quick kiss. He got a look on his face like, “She does what she wants, and I think it’s funny.”
Marie cleared her throat, looked everyone in the eye, delighted, and announced, “I have voted for a conservative. I eat bacon. I only own vegan footwear.”
Amelia started to talk, then stopped and looked at her, and then started again. “Wait, I thought you said it was two truths and a lie, not two lies and a truth.” Sitting back in her chair, Marie looked satisfied. Amelia continued, catching on. “Wait, you either voted for a conservative or eat bacon, and neither of those would happen and hell hasn’t frozen over, so who are you and what have you done with Marie?”
“I’m gonna guess that Will got her to vote for something conservative, after careful discussion and persuasion,” said Ryan.
“Ding, ding, ding,” said Marie.
“Naked persuasion,” muttered Will, and I stifled a giggle.
“Wait, shit, that means I have to drink,” said Marie. “Okay, Ryan’s turn because he got it.”
“Fuck,” said Ryan. “Okay. Let me think.” He paused for a second and then spoke. “I surfed a huge wave at Teahupo’o. I was Freshman Prince when Amelia was Homecoming Queen in high school.” And then he grinned wickedly. “I’ve let Amelia tie me up naked and do naughty things to me.”
“Ryan!” squealed Amelia. “Lucy is my client.”
Jake burst out laughing. “It’s gotta be Teahupo’o. That’s a crazy wave.”
“You got it,” said Ryan, and he took a drink.
“Jake’s turn,” ordered Marie.
He shook his head slowly, like he couldn’t believe he was doing this and fingered the label of his beer bottle. And then he looked up at everyone and spoke in a clear voice. “I go for a six mile run every day. I never want to be anything but a lawyer. I fell for Lucy the moment I saw her.”
“Holy fuckballs,” said Marie.
My body seized up. Did he just say what I think he said?
“Wait,” said Amelia. “Those are all true. Aren’t they?”
Jake looked at her and shrugged, saying nothing.
Now it was Sara’s turn to talk. “I think the lawyer is not true. I think you have other dreams.”
“That’s it,” said Jake, and took a drink.
“Mister Privacy, my ass,” I said, whispering in his ear. “What happened to Jake-I-don’t-tell-anyone-in-the-office-about-my-business?”
He looked embarrassed. “Figured I’d try on sharing for a change,” he whispered back.
“It’s a good step,” I agreed.
As the night went on, our group got louder and louder, and drunker and drunker. Hilarious Marie was the life of the party, and I could tell that if I spent any amount of time with her, I’d become her new best friend. Will pulled her onto the dance floor when they started playing a slow song, and sheesh, watching them dance was mesmerizing, they were so good.
Still not feeling well, I took it easy. After we finished our drinks and ordered new ones, the music got louder, and I pulled Jake out onto the dance floor. He wasn’t the best dancer I’d ever been with, but he also wasn’t the worst. He held me close and smelled wonderful, a familiar scent, like he belonged to me. I loved it.
At midnight, we gathered to watch the ball drop on the television screens at the front of the restaurant. As we all counted down the seconds to the new year, I really felt excited for the new year with my new boyfriend. It was going to be a good year.
When the clock struck midnight and the restaurant played “Auld Lang Syne,” Jake leaned down and kissed the hell out of me, lifting me up and swinging me around at the end. I saw Ryan catch his eye appreciatively, like, “Dude, nice one.”
Getting tired, I made my way to the restroom to leave. As I left, I saw Jake pull his cell phone out of his pocket and answer it. The first time all night that I’d seen him do it.
When I got back from the restroom, I couldn’t find him. I called over to Georgie, “Where did Jake go?”
“He said he had to go, it was an emergency, and he left you some money for a taxi.”
Wait, what?
“What was so important that he had to leave?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Georgie, “but he looked panicked and said he had to go immediately, and to apologize to you.”
There had to be an explanation for this, right? I hoped that he was okay, or that whatever had happened, was going to be alright. But if it was work-related, I was going to be pissed. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, but I was seriously worried about whatever his emergency was, and how he had just left without saying goodbye. It was weird—I wanted a reason for his rudeness, but I also didn’t want him to have a real emergency.
Ryan called a car for me and sent me home in style, and I went to my bed and undressed, slowly. I’d texted Jake in the restaurant and in the car, to no answer. Finally, I just texted, “Whenever you get this, call me or come by. I need to see you.” And then I tried to go to sleep.
My phone pinged, waking me up, at the same time that someone knocked hard on my front door.
Jake.
Grabbing my phone as I crawled out of bed, I glanced at the time. Five in the morning. And a text from Jake, saying that he was outside. Ignoring my robe and my sleepy face, I ran down the hall and flung open the door.
My boyfriend stood there, exhausted, serious lines etched on his forehead, his hair completely disheveled.
“What happened?” I asked. “Come in, come in.” Instead of waiting for him to move, because he seemed to be made of granite, I grabbed his hand, closed the door and locked it behind him, then pulled him down the hall into my bedroom. He followed me, looking defeated, not saying anything. We got to my room and looked at each other. Poor guy was completely lost. “Are you okay, cariño?” I whispered.
He let out a breath. “My dad. He had a heart attack and went into cardiac arrest. It’s bad. He was up here in Santa Barbara visiting friends, so he’s at Cottage Hospital. Luckily, he was at a restaurant that had a defibrillator. They acted fast, and managed to save him.”
“Oh no,” I gasped. “I’m so sorry. Did you go see him?”
He nodded. “They made me wait. When I finally got to see him, they didn’t let me in the room for very long, and he was asleep. I’ll have to go back tomorrow, I mean today, at visiting hours.”
“Okay.” It was so late. He needed to rest. “Nene, come to bed.” I started unbuttoning his shirt. “You need sleep.”
He nodded and just stood there, tired and done, in my bedroom, letting me undress him, while he rubbed his eyes and ran his hand along the back of his neck. I did this simple act with as much care as I could, easing the clothes off of him, helping him with his
shoes, getting him down to his light blue boxers. I got under the covers and made room for him.
He crawled into bed next to me and wrapped me in a fierce hug, front to front, shoving his face in my hair. He shook, and I held him, trying to squeeze all the pain out of him, let it transfer to me, let me help him.
“Lucy,” he choked. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“I don’t know. But the doctors will take care of him. The thing you need to do is get some sleep so that you can be rested to go see him tomorrow.”
He didn’t respond verbally. Instead, he just held me tighter. He was struggling to keep it together.
“It’s okay to let it out,” I whispered into his chest.
Shaking his head into my hair, he refused to say anything. But that was okay.
After a while, his arms relaxed around me, and I could tell that he’d fallen asleep. I wiggled so that I was comfortable and fell asleep, too.
The next morning, I awoke with a start, coughing still, but Jake was already up and out of bed, putting on his pants.
“Sorry to wake you,” he said.
“Where are you going? Stay.”
“Visiting hours are soon. I gotta go.”
I nodded. “Can I come?”
He paused. Then finally he said, “Yeah. But they don’t allow kids. Rob can’t come.”
“I’ll call my parents. They’ll love a few extra hours with their grandson.”
An hour later, we walked into Cottage Hospital, hand in hand. When we were finally allowed into Mr. Slausen’s room, I was struck by how much Jake looked like his father. Even though he was sleeping, the elder Mr. Slausen had the same distinguished face as the younger. Something to look forward to.
“Hey, Dad,” Jake said, reaching out and holding his father’s hand. I noticed how Jake’s artist’s fingers looked next to his dad’s older hand. They had the same shape, just Jake’s were younger, the skin smoother.
His dad didn’t respond. “I just wanted to come and say hi, you know. I hope you’re feeling better.”
He let go of his dad’s hand and pulled over a chair by the bedside, then reached out and held it again. “Dad, it’s incredibly rare that you survived what you went through. Incredibly rare. I am so grateful they got to you fast. So now you gotta do it, you know? You gotta get better. Because you survived it and it’s like six percent of people who do. So don’t let me down, Dad. I know you’ll get better.”
I’d never heard Jake talk like this. He sounded earnest, almost like a kid. He also had almost an East Coast accent that I had never picked up on before. Slipping into a pattern from his youth.
But then he looked over at me. “Dad, this is my girlfriend, Lucy. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You gotta get better so you can meet her, okay, for reals now.”
We stayed until visiting hours were done. Then, instead of going home, I asked if we could go to the beach.
Once we got there, we took off our shoes and walked along the water, watching the waves crash and feeling the cool sand from the winter day. New Year’s Day. A day of new beginnings.
Neither one of us talked as we ambled the entire length of the cove and then headed back, hand in hand, looking out at the water. But when we passed by a group of intrepid January sunbathers, Jake spoke suddenly.
“I’m not going to do it anymore,” he declared.
“What?” I had no idea what he was talking about.
“I’m not.”
“Not going to do what?”
“Wait until I have a wakeup call like him to do what I really want to do.”
Yay, I thought. But what I said was, “Oh?”
“I’m not going to be a slave to my job anymore. I don’t like it that much.”
“No?”
“No. I like some parts of it, but no.”
“‘Kay.” So happy he figured this out. So happy he did it without me pushing him too hard. So happy he came to this decision on his own.
He stopped walking and grabbed me. “You’ll help me, right?”
“Of course. Help you how?” We stood on the beach, feet buried in cool sand, the waves crawling in. Then we didn’t move in time, and a low wall of water got us. Feet all wet but we didn’t move.
“Help me figure out what I’m going to do. You remind me of a dream I had. A dream that I could do my art, and, well, I don’t want to scare you, but have a family, and just live. Alive. Not be holed up in an office. Not be so irresponsible that my family suffered. But just be able to have a normal life, the kind that I didn’t get growing up.”
“That doesn’t scare me.”
He moved his head to the side and his eye color flicked to a deeper blue than I’d ever seen it, like all of a sudden he was alive. And he looked at me with a passion I’d never seen before from anyone, let alone him. “Good.”
Jake leaned over, wrapped his arms around me tightly, and kissed me on the beach, a desperate, giving-taking-needing kiss, the kind that you remembered afterward, not just because your lips were kiss-stung and swollen, but because you remembered the way it made you feel. This kiss made me feel essential to his life. Like I was a requirement for him to be able to breathe or to function. No other world existed except the world that I was creating with him.
A phenomenal kiss. I loved it.
And I admitted it—I loved him. I’d tell him soon enough.
The vast ocean spread before us, murky but nevertheless sparkly in the early January sunlight. I thought about the primordial soup that made up the contents of that water—all of the kelp and plankton and sea life living within it. So many creatures coexisted in the ocean, but we normally just looked out and saw water and surface waves, nothing more. The waters of this earth looked so deceptively simple and beautiful from above, almost monolithic, but underneath, and within them, one found peace and terror, creation and death, activity and entropy. It was complicated, but if you paid attention, you learned that within the waters, there was a constant source of growth and expansion and a whole lot of astonishing beauty.
I didn’t want to leave the beach. We kissed more.
But then, becoming self-conscious of the sunbathers who watched us but pretended not to, we walked hand-in-hand back to his car, putting on our shoes when we got off of the sand.
“Let’s get your son.”
We walked into my parents’ modest suburban house to pick up Rob, and my mother—who was no taller than me—reached up and pinched Jake’s cheeks. Oh, for crying out loud, he wasn’t twelve too. Then she looked at me and said, “Lucinda, he is muy guapo.”
“I know, Mom.”
My mom turned to Jake. “It’s so nice to meet you. I like how you call me to bring my Lucinda her soup when she was sick. Mijo, how are you? How is your papa?”
He gave her his melancholy half-grin, which was nevertheless devastating, and I saw my mom, not immune to his charms, falter a second and recover. “It’s nice to meet you in person, and thanks for asking, Mrs. Figueroa. He’s not doing that well. I’m going to go back and get him after I drop Lucy and Roberto home.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” said my mom. “I will pray for him.”
“Thank you,” said Jake politely, and he looked around the living room. A bookshelf held copies of my books. Pictures of me and Roberto and other family members were framed and put on the walls and on shelves. Neat but cluttered.
Then I realized that Jake didn’t have a family home like this and never would. I couldn’t give him a different past. We’d have to work on a different future.
My dad had been in the den watching television, but he came out and sized Jake up. My dark-haired, mustached father wore a plaid, button-down shirt, jeans, and a large belt buckle. He looked like he belonged in the country, even though he was a mechanic in the city. Standing next to Jake it was immediately apparent that height was inherited. My father came up to about Jake’s shoulders. Boy.
“It is nice to meet you, Jake. I wish your father a speedy r
ecovery,” said my dad formally.
“Thank you Mr. Figueroa, it’s nice to meet you too. And yes, I hope he gets well soon.”
“Now. You must eat. You need to keep up your strength to take care of your papa.” My mom took his hand and pulled him to the dining room table. “Sit down, I will bring you food. I have chile colorado, frijoles, arroz—”
“Mom, he’s not used to people fussing over him,” I started, but she completely ignored me. I eyed Jake, and he looked amused. Oh well, he did need to eat.
And I supposed he needed to also get used to having people take care of him.
“Lucy, did you have lunch?” called my mom from the kitchen.
“No.”
“I’ll make you lunch, too.” What was it with food being equal to love? I supposed that being fed meant that you were cared for. This was normal for me. My mom always took care of me like this. She worked in a grocery store, after all.
But I thought that even though this was normal for me, it was probably strange for Jake.
The more I thought about these things, the more I wanted to expose him to them, and make it so that they were his new normal. I was so glad that he was going to let me help him stop being a workaholic businessman and start being just Jake.
Then my son walked in the room, sock-clad, looking rested.
“What did you do today, mijo?”
“Watched the Rose Parade and football. Played games with abuelo.”
“How much Minecraft did you play?”
“Some.” Then he spotted Jake. “Mister Jake, you’re here!” And he ran over and gave him a hug.
Well.
Now I wasn’t jealous of my own child, but I noticed that he didn’t give me a kiss, but Jake got a full-on welcome with a hug.
Interesting.
But Jake needed a full-on welcome from a child. And I loved that my son seemed to really like Jake. The next thing I knew, Jake had asked Rob about his science fair project, and was agreeing to help him make something. Glory and hallelujah, I didn’t have to do it.
My mom served us plates of tacos and sat down with us. She turned to Jake.
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