Epic

by Lark O'Neal

  She answers on the third ring. “Hi, Jess. It must be you with that weird number.”

  At the sound of her voice, everything in me just gives way. “It’s me, Electra,” I say, and bend into the phone, the air going out of me. It takes everything I have not to sob. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

  Chapter SEVENTEEN

  “Is everything okay, baby?” Electra says. “You sound a little worn out.”

  “I’m okay. I’m just in this strange place in my head, and I started feeling lost and scared, and then I got my period and I just…” Tears well up in my eyes, but I don’t want to have to redo my makeup. I take a breath and look up at the top of the very steep mountain overlooking the town. “I just wanted to hear a friendly voice.”

  “I’m happy to be that for you. It sounds like you’ve been having yourself quite a time. Must be tiring.”

  “We work very hard, and they’re actually waiting for me now, but I had to talk.”

  “Something in particular, child?”

  “Have you ever had feelings for two guys at once?”

  “Oh, Lord have mercy.” Her laugh is low and hoarse. “Of course I have. We all do at one time or another.”

  “But what if I—” I look over my shoulder, lower my voice. “Want them both, you know?”

  “Baby, it’s normal. You’re not married.” She pauses. “One of them is Tyler, I guess.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the other must be Kaleb, because you’ve written his name fifty times.” Her dry tone makes me smile, makes me feel more centered. Hearing it transports me to the kitchen where she fed me so many times, where I felt safe and cared for. “At least they’re on different continents, so old crazy-hands can’t beat anybody up, right?”

  She’d liked Tyler to start with, but the fight had soured her. You don’t need a man with that much violence in him, baby, she’d told me, and that was when I knew I had to get away.

  “Right.” I glance back, and Ian is waving at me. Come on. “They’re calling me, Electra. I have to go. I’ll email you later, ‘k?”

  “Be true to you, girl, you hear me?”

  “I do. Thank you.”

  The call lifts my spirits, and I can get back to the filming without so much heaviness. Kaleb is waiting on the shores of the lake, hair blowing, slight smile on his sexy lips, and I’m really going to hate telling him we aren’t doing anything tonight.

  After a while they only need to film with him and Colin and the older guy, so the rest of us head back to the lodge. The catering company has brought in a big spread of hot food—meatballs and pasta and pies, both sweet and savory. I’m avoiding Darcy, but she traps me at the table.

  “Sorry about this morning,” she says with a saucy little toss of her head, and spreads a napkin in her lap. “No surprise.”

  I glance across the table. Two of the crew are talking over some kind of blocking. “Shhh. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Suit yourself, bro.” She gives me a head-on look, very serious for her. “Don’t use him, hear me?”

  It startles me. “What are you talking about?”

  Her eyes are as hard as I’ve ever seen them. “You know.”

  “I’m not, Darcy. Swear.”

  But after dinner I take my iPad to a corner away from the others and wonder if she’s right. Is Kaleb my camp boyfriend? Am I going to dump him for Tyler when all this is over?

  Of course that assumes Kaleb has strong enough feelings for me that it would hurt him if that happened. As if I’m some perfect version of a girl and he’s so madly in love with me that his heart would be so broken.

  I think the problem is more likely that, one way or the other, I’m going to be the broken one. Far from just using Kaleb, I’m discovering powerful feelings for him, just as powerful in their way as my feelings for Tyler.

  Speaking of… There’s nothing in my in-box from him, but there’s a long note from Electra.

  To: jessdonovan@cheapnet.com

  From: ElectraMckinney@greatmail.com

  Subject: choose yourself

  Dear Jess. Sorry we couldn’t talk longer earlier, but I want you to know you can call anytime. I’ve got that cell in my pocket all the time, even at work, and right beside my bed in the middle of the night, so you never worry about that, hear?

  About those young men you’re worrying over—you’re testing life right now. Testing the boys to see who will fit and who won’t, who’ll be a good partner and who seems like he might be but won’t. That’s all. It’s like any experiment. You have to wade in there and test things before you know anything at all.

  And remember, Jess, sex is natural and normal and meant to be explored. No shaming yourself. Just try not to make promises you can’t keep, not to anyone. Be honest with yourself, and listen to your heart. It will lead you.

  It might not seem like it right now, but you know what’s best for you. Keep your goals front and center, and everything else will work out, all right?

  Send me an email when you can. I’m loving hearing about your adventure. Also, I thought you’d like to see I haven’t killed your plant yet. Here it is:

 

  Love,

  Electra

  I smile, and write back a very simple note:

  Better now. Hormonal crazies today. This is Kaleb, by the way. Those curls…!

  And thanks for the plant picture. He looks great.

 

  There’s no other email and I’m not in the mood to read, so I wander over to Facebook and post a status update with a selfie I took at the lake yesterday, then go over to Tyler’s page. I realize I don’t know if Kaleb has one and remind myself to check later.

  On Tyler’s page, there’s a gossip mag style picture with a headline:

  BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT? ONE OF SNOWBOARDING’S GLAMOUR PAIRS SPOTTED IN CHILE. COULD SOMEBODY BE MAKING AN OLYMPIC RUN?

  It’s a photo of Tyler wearing a thick winter sweater, sitting at a bar with a woman who has the wind-whittled look of an athlete. Everything about her is straightforward—shiny, stick-straight blonde hair to her shoulders, no bangs, no jewelry, very lean. She’s beautiful in the way of a carved blue mountain top—breathtaking, really, and harsh. She and Tyler are clearly close in every way, heads together, toasting the camera with drunken smiles.

  My heart starts to beat way too hard. Why is he wearing winter clothes?

  I read the headline again. Olympic bid?

  The person who tagged him wrote: “You’re outed, bro.”

  My heart is racing, thready. I’m not sure if it’s some weird jealousy over the woman, or the implication that he’s been doing this massive, amazing thing and didn’t tell me about it.

  All the clues add up, of course—bruises, the teetotalling—but it seems weird that it would be court-ordered. And if it was, why didn’t he tell me? This is such an important, enormous step for him, and I would have loved sharing in it, sharing in the struggle and the nerves and all the rest of it.

  I open an email to Tyler:

  Something you want to tell me?

  The mood doesn’t leave me. I’m so keyed up that I drag on my heavy coat and boots and hat, and go out to walk by the lake, watching clouds moving over the surface, breathing in the sharp cold.

  Be honest with yourself, Electra said.

  I take in a long, deep breath of the cold air. Be real, I say to myself. Is this about Tyler—or me? Am I making trouble with Tyler because I have such strong feelings for Kaleb now, too? Am I creating drama to get out of making a decision?

  I don’t know.

  A boat bobs up and down on the water, gently rocking, and something about it eases me.

  Get real.

  What if that woman in the picture is somebody Tyler has strong feelings for? A blister of jealousy rushes through me, but I’m the one who said we shouldn’t be exclusive, so I’ll have to live with the consequences.

  I also don’t want to know anything more about
it. That’s his life right now, and whatever we have together is separate. Something about that eases me a little. I remind myself that just as there’s a world made only by Kaleb and Jess, there’s also one made by Tyler and Jess. Separate.

  Equal? I don’t know.

  The anger is burning again. Why am I so upset?

  It’s snowboarding. Training for the next Olympics. He trained his whole life for that, then shattered his hip right before he was going to go. I hadn’t realized that he’d made two tries, and that the second time was cut short when he went to jail for killing a guy.

  Yeah, there’s that, too. That violence. Secrecy. I know he’s trying to change, that he had an awful childhood, and it’s very possible that doing something that means as much to him as snowboarding does will get him on the right track.

  But in the meantime, he hid this enormously important thing from me. Again. It hurts more that it’s something so huge and he didn’t trust me enough to bring me into the secret. It could have been something that bound us together.

  Instead, he shared it with other people and not me.

  That’s lonely. It’s the loneliness of my mother hiding my life and father from me, the loneliness of being on the outside, which I have always, always been.

  A figure approaches, bundled up, and I straighten, trying to look more composed. It’s Kaleb, of course.

  “I was looking for you. Everything okay?”

  “No,” I say. “No, it really isn’t.”

  He pulls me into his arms, and I lean on his chest, feeling the solidity of him, reveling in the ease I feel with him. “Kaleb, you never want to talk about Tyler, but I feel like I’m lying if we don’t.”

  His chin is resting on my head, his arms around my back. “All right, then, talk. Tell me what you want me to know.”

  I sort through the tangled things that seem important, thinking more in pictures than words, and then I sigh. “I don’t know.” I look up, put my hand over his heart. “I want to be clear with you, I guess. I’m very confused.”

  “Yeah.” He takes my arms above the elbows. “You’re thinking too much, Jess. You don’t have to figure it all out right now. Let’s just hang, all right? Can we do that?”

  I look up at him, wondering if it really is just me making everything into a drama. Maybe he’s not all that serious about this stuff. Maybe he’s just in it for some fun. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  He reaches into his pocket and puts a package of condoms in my hand. “I’m ready to play if you are.”

  I blush to the roots of my hair. “Oh, that’s the other thing.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t. It’s that time.”

  He laughs and tugs me into him. “Oh!” He kisses my head, my face, then my lips. “I don’t care. We can sleep together anyway.” His hands are enormous, covering my whole jaw. “We don’t have to do anything. Anticipation.”

  “Torture, you mean.”

  His grin flashes. “Maybe a little.” Then, more seriously, he traces my cheekbone. “It’s not all about that anyway. We’re old souls, you and me. We know things.”

  I think of him standing by his broken house in Christchurch, looking so world-weary, smoking a cigarette. “Maybe things nobody else wants to know.”

  “Maybe.” He brushes my hair off my forehead. “You like me more than you want to, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, and meet his eyes. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

  “You mean a strong and powerful Maori warrior who’s handsome enough to be Maui?”

  I laugh. “Well, that, too. But…it’s hard to put into words. You’re smart and ambitious and wise and sexy, and you like plants and the water, and…”

  He laughs softly. “I’m also a bastard at times, Jess. Sulky. Mean when I don’t get my way.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen that, too. Yesterday.”

  His heavy lashes sweep downward, hiding his eyes. “Yeah.”

  “What was going on there?”

  He shakes his head, brushes a finger over one of my earrings. “My own shit.”

  I lean into him, my head against his chest.

  “Are you telling me that you’re falling in love with me?” he asks quietly.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Are you telling me not to take it seriously?”

  “No,” he says roughly, and tilts up my chin and kisses me. “I fell the day you leapt into the water with those dolphins, and every minute since has just taken me deeper and deeper. I’ve never felt this way.” He traces my lower lip and adds fiercely, “Ever.”

  I remember what Electra said about honesty. “I am falling in love with you,” I say. “But I have feelings for Tyler, too. That’s the problem.”

  “I know.” His eyes are clear and coppery, his mouth serious. “May the best man win, eh?”

  And that, of all the things he’s said, makes the tears leak out of my eyes.

  He kisses those, too, and holds me, stroking my hair. “You are so much more than you think you are, Dolphin Girl,” he says quietly. “So much more.”

  For a minute I wish I could see what he sees, what Tyler sees when he paints me, maybe even what Ian saw to cast me in these commercials. I wish I could see myself clearly, flaws and gifts, ugliness and beauty, but maybe none of us can see ourselves that way.

  “I know I’m better for knowing you,” I say, and smile. We’re both shivering in the wind off the lake. “Let’s go inside.”

  “Good idea.”

  * * *

  Back at the lodge, however, some of the crew are bringing down bags and gear and loading the van. “‘Sup?” Kaleb asks one of them. “Are we headed somewhere tonight?”

  “Not everybody, bro.” The guy grabs a clipboard. “Wanaka to film some snowboarding. That’s you, Kaleb. Get your stuff. Leaving now, back late Wednesday, then to Milford.”

  “What about me?” I ask.

  “You’re not on the list,” he says, and tosses the clipboard aside. “They’re splitting the group to speed the production schedule. We’re running over budget.”

  “What am I doing, then?”

  “Ask Ian.” He lifts his chin toward Kaleb. “Get your bits and pieces, mate. We gotta get on the road in an hour.”

  Kaleb gives me a long, unreadable look.

  “Less torture, right?” I say.

  He finally smiles. “Come help me pack.”

  I trail behind him, feeling both frustrated and relieved, watching as he grabs his brush and razor out of the bathroom. None of us have been unpacking much—we’re moving too often, and there’s always something more interesting to do, like sleep.

  As he gets ready to go downstairs, Kaleb presses me against the wall and kisses me, his hands tightening around my ass. He makes a low noise and lifts his head, meeting my eyes as he touches my breasts, my waist. “We haven’t been apart since we met.”

  I laugh, realizing it’s true. “Wild.”

  Another kiss and he’s down the stairs. And I’m alone.

  Chapter EIGHTEEN

  I’m reading in bed an hour later, this time a worn, stained copy of a book of essays by Joan Didion I found in the hallway bookshelf. I’m trying to decide if I like them or not when Darcy comes in and starts changing into her pajamas. She brushes her teeth and turns down the cot.

  In amazement, I ask, “Are you sleeping here tonight?”

  “I’m tired of Mike.” She tucks her feet under the covers, looking much younger with her face washed clean of make-up, her curly hair pulled into a ponytail. Every freckle on her face shows. “You really like to read, don’t you?”

  “You don’t?”

  She shakes head. “Too slow for me. Give me a movie every time.”

  I prop my pillows up and lean on the wall. “What’s your favorite?”

  “Don’t laugh.”

  “No way.”

  “Twilight.”

  “Dude, I love that movie!”

  She sits up. “Really? Everyone ribs me.” Lifting a
shoulder, she says, “I just like easy stories, you know? Happy endings.”

  I nod, pick up the book of essays. “I like that, too, but I also like it when my brain is getting a workout sometimes, or something makes me think.” I roll over and scramble around in my bag for the Mary Oliver book. “Like this.” I flip open the page to read a poem Tyler first read to me at the lake, a poem about a grasshopper that’s really about paying attention, living in the moment. The words echo in my chest, and I realize I’ve been thinking too much, dithering too much, to really pay attention to anything.

  “That’s nice, for sure.”

  “The whole book is like that. She’s wise.” The poem makes me think of Tyler, of the photo of him with the athletic girl. It also makes me think of Kaleb, who is by far the oldest soul of the group of us.

  “Yeah.” She falls on her back, staring at the ceiling. “Kaleb likes to read, but it’s never been my thing. How about your boyfriend back home?”

  I measure her, my Spidey-sense suddenly suspicious of her arrival in our room after all these nights of not sleeping here. “He’s a reader. He gave me this book.”

  “He’s probably wealthy and white, too. Right?”

  “Why would you think he’s rich?”

  “You’re the kind of girl rich boys want to shag.”

  Narrowing my eyes, I ask, “What’s this about, Darcy?”

  “White girls,” she says without emotion, not looking at me. “Girls with long blonde hair and big blue eyes. All the Barbies in all the world who get whatever they want with a snap of their fingers.”

  “Seriously?” My low-grade annoyance with the entire freaking day suddenly flares. “Because my life is such a piece of cake.”

  She slides me a mean, sideways glance. “Who landed the advertisement? The pretty blonde Barbie from America.”

  I stand up, stung. “You don’t know anything about my life, Darcy. Not one damned thing. Before I found my dad, I was eating cereal twice a day and working at a crappy restaurant that actually fell down when a customer crashed into it. I had no idea how to pay my rent, and my old boyfriend broke into my house and tried to rape me, and the only thing that saved me was the woman who lived in front of me called the cops.” I grab my pillow and my book. “Believe me, blonde hair doesn’t bring any special favors.”