by Lark O'Neal
God, I miss you.
Xoxoxo
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject:
26 July, 9:14 pm
Long day here. Really long, hard and disappointing. I was hoping to find something from you in my inbox, but I realize you’ve probably been working since I sent that first email this morning, or maybe you’re traveling or you were asleep and then had to go to work.
Sorry, I shouldn’t even have commented on it. And what I should do is erase this email and start over, but I’m not going to. I’m going to go have a beer with a friend of mine, the first one I’ve had all week (that’s a hint). I’m also not in Colorado anymore, which is part of why the hours are so fucked up. If I tell you where, you’ll guess the secret, and I guess maybe I want to keep that awhile longer.
Write when you can. Tell me about your world.
Love,
Tyler
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Christchurch
Saturday, 27 July, 20:43
Dear Tyler,
So sorry to be out of touch again. The internet here is not the same as it is the in US, trust me. Not at all. My dad says the infrastructure isn’t there yet, and that makes sense to me.
Also, I have to admit I haven’t even been near the computer for two days. I just read your emails and I feel terrible that I haven’t been responding, but honestly, I am SO TIRED I can’t even see straight, and we’re going to fly to Queenstown in the morning. It’s sort of a day off because it’s a travel day. I really need it. I’d really like to sleep about 24 hours in a row, but now we’re all packed into hotel rooms and it’s crowded and everybody wants to party (which I don’t mind, but it’s not the same as when we were going home to the sanity of my dad’s house at the winery).
Today, we filmed in Christchurch, focusing on the happy aspect of the town, because they want tourists to come back. It’s crazy, Tyler, seeing what those earthquakes did. I remember hearing about them, sort of, in that way that something happened in some far away place that was Bad, but it didn’t really register. I also didn’t know there were two, really big ones. The first one did a lot of damage, but mainly in the downtown area, but the second one nearly killed the city. It wrecked the suburbs, too, and downtown became so dangerous they had to close off giant portions of it. A bunch of people died.
It was haunting to see the big open spaces where buildings were knocked down. Even worse to see some old church with no roof, like a ruin from centuries ago, or walking downtown and seeing this little courtyard kind of mall area, fenced off, with grass growing through the pavement. Imagine the whole of downtown Colorado Springs suddenly empty and broken, with deserted shops and windows broken and buildings half-demolished, and other open spaces where your favorite restaurant used to be. It made me cry, which sort of made me ashamed, because Kaleb and Darcy lost their entire house. Their mom had to leave to find work because the business where she worked fell down. Darcy could not stop talking about it, telling me in exact, endless detail about the house and what it had in it, and what happened in the first earth quake and what happened in the second and how they couldn’t find their cat (they did find him eventually—that’s the cat who lives at the winery, the one I told you about). She was right on the edge of hysterical, and then her brother took her aside and they went for a walk and she was better when they got back. I don’t know where their mom is, actually. I keep meaning to ask why they’re living with their aunt, and I keep forgetting.
Because there’s nothing else to think about, right? :)
Crazy. It feels like I’ve dropped into another life, and it’s kind of surprising when I realize we’ve only been filming for a week. It’s such an intense immersion with all the other people and the life and it takes everything over. I haven’t even really had much time to read, which is pretty weird for me.
I do have my iPad back, which is what I’m typing on. Whether this email will go through or not is another question. Seriously, you just can’t imagine how slow the internet is. Sometimes I try to send something and the little wheel spins forever, and then it doesn’t send. Really irritating! Not sure I can actually send a picture because it’ll eat up so much bandwidth.
I’m still loving the work, though, that’s the thing. If you had told me a month ago that I’d like acting, I’d have said you were cracked, but it’s like living in a book, being in a book. Being a character, right? I get totally lost in it, and I’m getting some good feedback from the director and a couple of the other actors. And I’m sure I won’t do any more after this, but for now, it’s a blast.
What is your super secret mission? When can I know? I’m glad you’re so excited about it, whatever it is. Give me another hint and at least I’ll have the fun of a riddle.
Are you painting? Is that part of it?
I loved your sexy email, but I’m sitting in a room with five other people and I canNOT write one in return.
Xoxoxox
Jess
PS I’m trying to attach a pic of me, Darcy, and Kaleb. Crossing fingers it goes through. Send me one of you, too!
Chapter SIX
I read her email over breakfast Saturday morning. The picture comes through just fine, showing Jess in a red down jacket, a red skull cap on her head, her hair flowing down on one side. She has her arms around two people, a voluptuous girl on her right, dark haired and saucy with a lot of cleavage showing. I smile.
It’s the guy on the other side who is unsettling. He’s tall and broad-shouldered and exotic looking, about Jess’s age, maybe. His smile is less overt, but he’s standing really close, and her head is leaning his way, his head leaning her way. Subtle body language, and again, maybe just my jealousy, the worst part of me.
But something in my gut says otherwise. I look at him for a long time, evaluating maybe. He has the look of mixed race guys all over the world, curly hair, cafe au lait skin, tilted eyes. If I painted him, I’d paint the eyes extra large, angled and yellow like a tiger’s. That’s what he looks like, a tiger.
Tiger tiger burning bright, I think, and rub the ache in my belly. I could lose her.
My own fucking fault. We were solid, together, real.
The spluttering heat of my old buddy anger licks at my lungs, my gut, sending blips of adrenaline into my elbows and knees. Do something!
But it’s not so urgent. Maybe it’s the training that’s draining away some of the need to wreck something, anything. Maybe it’s just that I’m finally tired of knowing that what I’m wrecking most often is my own life. Sitting there in a faceless apartment in a city thousands of miles from home and from the woman I most want, I brush my fingers over the Mary Oliver quote tattoo on my side: what will you do with your one while and precious life?
One of my anger management counselors kept telling us that we didn’t have to do what we’d always done. We could change.
What I have in front of me is a chance to be better than the worst part of myself. What I have is a chance to prove I’m worthy. Tiger Kaleb is not my enemy, he’s the opponent I need to sharpen the blade of my life, make it something worth living.
Later, I’ll write an email and make it funny and upbeat.
Today, it’s time to train.
I slam down a Red Bull and four eggs and head out. The day is gray and spitting snow, but the weekenders are here and it’s gonna be tougher to train. Alice is waiting, cheekbones like the blades of scissors beneath her heavy black sunglasses. She’s wearing a green stocking cap that comes down on her forehead and a snowboard jacket from a company she promoted for years. This one is green and blue with sunshine bursts all over it.
For one second, I remember unzipping that coat and finding nothing beneath it. She was so fit and strong and nimble that sex was killer, but neither one of us had anything much left for relationships and eventually it fizzled
out. Or maybe she dumped me for a new guy. It’s hard to remember.
It’s way early, but there are already a lot more people drifting in, kids and parents, old folks in their sleek ski outfits. “Let’s go up to the half pipe,” Alice says. “Try some tricks.”
I give her a high five. “Dude.” It’s about time. She’s been holding me off the work every boarder wants to do, the aerials and spins that make the sport what it is. One part of me gets that I needed the basics, to build up timing and remind my body of its memories. Some of it has come back like I was out here yesterday, but not everything. She’s had me on every kind of basic move everyday all day until I was ready to gag.
Still. I got it.
“Let’s do it.”
It’s a hard-ass day, but better than I would have predicted. Again, we’re working the basics, running turns and flips and landings. It’s better than I expected because I’ve been spinning on the deck with the Manitou kids. I can pull off a 5, then a 720, and Alice is stoked.
So am I. It feels good. Real. Like life might have something to it again.
By the time we head back in, I’m covered with dings and bruises and slams. The hot tubs are crowded, but I can’t face sleep without a soak, and it’s getting real now. Someone is going to recognize me. I’m surprised that it hasn’t happened already. Alice has business of some kind, but she declares the week at an end. “I’m ordering a rest day tomorrow. Tonight, let’s eat and have some beers and you can out yourself.”
At first, I decline, but she’s insistent and I give in. It sounds good. Beer and some hearty food, maybe some dancing in the club, a long lie-in tomorrow.
It won’t be to rekindle our long-dead romantic relationship, and both of us are clear on that. There’s nothing left of whatever that once was, and I’m not in the market for another woman, not when I’ve got so much to do to earn the one I want.
Maybe I’m at the tail end of the rush in the gym, because when I get to the hot tub, nobody is there. I slide in with a groan, feeling it in my elbows and knees and my aching left hip. The muscles are getting knotted over the old injury. Massage tomorrow, too. There’s a guy in the hotel who has hands like hams, strong enough to get the work done, but it makes me goddamned sore.
I’m drifting, letting the water bubble around my neck, my knees, when a voice says, “Fuckin’ A! Tyl-er Wild-er.” My nickname for a decade, lilting in just the way a fifteen-year-old would say it. The voice is raspy, distinctive. I don’t even have to open my eyes to know who it is. John Hussellbeck. I grin. “Hustler. What’s up, dude?”
He sinks into the water, a big guy with powerful legs and lean torso. His gig is pure power—he can launch himself like a rocket. “I heard you were back.”
“You did?” I frown. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
“FrontMan thought he saw you earlier this week. When d’you start training? Are you headed for the Olympic trials?”
I raise my eyebrows, make a noise like a horse through my lips. “As if. Been outta the game awhile.”
“It comes back,” he says, and I remember that he was out for a year with a wrecked shoulder. The scars are still there, criss-crossing his collarbone.
“Yeah.” I hold out my right arm, bruised down the outside in a wide rectangle. “Eventually.” I lower it back in the water. “How about you? You making a run, too?”
He nods. “Slalom and half-pipe. We’re headed to Wanaka next week if you want to bum along.”
“Yeah, next week?” I think about Jess, hanging out in Queenstown, right over the mountain from Wanaka. I also think about the reminder that she would be working.
With Kaleb.
“I might be up for that,” I say. Maybe if I spend a couple of weeks training half pipe at Wanaka then Jess’ll be finished with the commercials. “I’ll have to talk to Alice.”
“She’s training you?”
I nod.
“A girl?”
I meet his eyes, nod again.
He shrugs. “Whatev, dude.”
Back in my room, I get dressed to go out, jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt. My hair is longer than it’s been in a long time, and it’s getting streaks and shine from the days outside. The other thing is, I haven’t been shaving, and my beard is growing out, red and blonde and glittery gold. I run my fingers over the whiskers, considering. For the first time, there’s actually enough there to have some kind of facial hair if I want to. Impulsively, I shave away everything but the goatee. It looks good, and I shoot a selfie and upload it to my pics.
Then I sit down, take a deep breath before I start a reply to Jess. For one long minute, I look at the photo of her and Kaleb again, to remind me what I’m doing here.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: The Secret
Hi, Jess. Your picture came through. You’re so freaking gorgeous, girl, and you really look happy. (Also, Darcy—I see what you mean. ;)) I’m attaching a picture of me here, too, with my newly minted goatee. What do you think? I kinda like it, and it might be my new talisman, a symbol of this new thing in my life.
Another hint? Hmm.
I pause here, trying to think of what hint would be intriguing but not give it away. I run through the obvious ideas, snow, cold, mountains, blue skies. Bruises? Yeah.
Okay, I know. Hint 2: I have bruises. Lots of them.
I am going out tonight, in just a little while. Long hard week and I’m ready to let my hair down. Hope you get to do that, too, when you get to Queenstown. There’s a bar I love there, right on the lake, called Bardeaux. Check it out if you can. I’m sure the crew will have lots of suggestions, too. And watch out for the Aussies, no kidding. The town will be packed with them, big guys in packs, getting drunk.
No shortage of drunks here, either. My rooms are over a nightclub and the music plays until four am on the weekends. Tomorrow’s a day off so I don’t care, but this morning was a bit rough.
You asked if I was painting, and I’m not at the moment. No time, though I saw a guy I wanted to paint today. Maybe that’s a good thing. First time I’ve been intrigued by a face other than yours since we met.
I’ve had lots of time to read at night, so I cruise the leftover books shelves downstairs. Have you found those places yet? Every hotel nearly always has a shelf or ten of books that people left behind. Lots of glitz, usually, and often books in languages I can’t read, but there’s always something in English. This week, I read a thriller from the eighties (The Osterman Weekend) that was dark and gritty and kind of depressed me in the end to tell the truth, so I went back last night and found To Kill a Mockingbird. Such a great book. Cleansed my palate. What have you been reading? (Because I know you have been. Even if you’re so tired you can barely see straight, I know you have been reading.)
Thanks for writing about Christchurch. It was so vivid and you put me right there with you. I was there once, a long time ago. There’s some good shredding outside the city and a bunch of us flew over there and hung out for a week or so. It was pretty, the Garden of...Canterbury? I can’t remember. The Garden City. Full of flowers and Olde English style buildings. Sad to think it’s all fallen down now.
It’s funny how a whole city can change like that, from an earthquake or a flood or economic problems. Think about Detroit. Sometimes I want to go there and see what it looks like with all those empty buildings. The pictures are amazing.
Gotta go, sweet Kiwi. Love to hear more travelogues. Do you know where else you’re filming? Guessing it’s not all Queenstown. Maybe Milford Sound? That’s a big one, but it takes forever to get there.
I’m thinking of you tons, Jess. Glad you’re enjoying all of it so much.
Xoxox
Tyler
For a minute after I send it, I sit at the table and look at the picture, zoom in on her face. I miss her, but in a way, not Skyping is easier. If I talk to her, actually talk, I’m not sure I can talk about anything but trai
ning, and I’m still not sure enough of what’s going on here to tell her.
Is that a mistake?
I’m thinking it might work out that I’ll be in Queenstown next week, or maybe the week after. Maybe we’ll be there at the same time, and I can surprise her with the news that I’m training for the Olympics. I imagine walking into the Bardeaux and seeing her there, see her launching herself into a big hug. Then me telling her what’s happening, how the training is going, that I might rock it. Her eyes will shine with pride and happiness. I imagine that she’ll stand on her toes and put her hands on my face and kiss me.
The daydream eases my worry over whether I should tell her about the training, be real with her. The surprise will be worth it.
Now, a few beers, show my mug to the bros, and try to forget ache of missing her, the worry that I’m losing her.
chapter SEVEN
In the space between the oblivion of sleep and the reality of waking, I drift in and out of a beery doze. I’m dreaming of flying high, catching air as I spin through nothingness, sky-snow-board-snow-sky, whirling, landing perfectly. Again. And again.
I dream that I’m curled around Jess, her smooth naked body next to me under the covers, hair against my face. My dick leaps to attention, and I’m in her, biting her shoulder, hand on her supple breasts, nipple hard against my palm. As she makes those soft, panting cries, I come like a geyser, driving all the way into her. Relief. Even if it’s only my own hand.
In the empty bed, I keep my eyes closed a minute longer, wishing that I could open them and find her coming out of the bathroom, her hair tangled from sleep, those long eyes blinking at me. Is this what love feels like? It’s like having a thumb cut off, noticing it every minute.
I’ve thought I was in love before. With Alice, once upon at time, and a girl in high school named Cora, who had great tits, so high and fat and pink-tipped that no guy could help staring, wanting to plunge into them. We were an item for a year, but she hated my intensive training schedule and dumped me for a guy who was headed for law school. Broke my heart to smithereens, but I never missed her when I was off training. I never even thought about her unless she was right in front of me. Or rather her tits, always bobbing so lusciously whenever she moved.