Nate was a pleasure to watch even if the rest of the band was not. Behind his drums, Nate was in a different place and time. When he played, he took her with him. She leapt at any chance to escape the chaos of questions Isaac had left in her head. He had given her a glimpse of something she could not understand. The engraving on the watch on his wrist implied that she had given it to him, but comprehending how it had come into his possession was like trying to figure out where a circle ended or began. She had tried for a whole year to see Isaac again and find out how he had gotten it, but her wall refused to let her see him. Neither had Mr. Westin shown up with any new letters. She had almost convinced herself that she hadn’t seen Isaac’s watch and its engraving at all.
“Come on,” she said, tugging Nate’s arm. “Let’s go inside. Your set’s about to start.”
“Hang on a sec.” He ducked inside the van. He came out holding two wrapped gifts, one slightly larger than the other. “Happy graduation, roadie. This one is from me and this one is from your dad.”
“My dad?”
“Yeah. He sent it to the hotel. He wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Oh.” Andrea bit her lower lip, remembering how her dad’s smile had slipped off his face when she told him she had no intention of attending her graduation. He had quickly pasted it back on and told her that he was fine with whatever she decided, but Andrea saw how his new smile fell short of his eyes.
Nate offered her the smaller gift. “But you should open mine first. I’m sure that it will look pathetic compared to whatever your dad got you. And before you get too excited, let me tell you right now that I got it at the hotel gift shop. I didn’t have time to go shopping. Sorry.”
“You really didn’t even have to bother with getting me anything.” Andrea tore open the blue wrapper printed with the hotel’s logo. She opened the box and pulled out a snow globe containing Seattle’s Space Needle. Andrea shook the globe. A storm of silver glitter swirled around the tower. Andrea laughed. “Thank you. I love it.”
“Next time we’ll go see the actual needle.”
“Next time.” Andrea smiled. Nate did not know it, but these two short words were the best gift he could have given her. It held the promise of an hour, a place, and a date in the future, the kind of certainty she did not know with Isaac.
Nate handed Andrea her dad’s gift. “Open it. I’m dying to know what he got you. I shook it. It sounded a lot like car keys to me.”
“You wish.” Andrea ripped the wrapper, revealing a red leather box. She lifted the box’s lid. A 1950s Omega Seamaster caught the light from the bar’s flickering neon sign.
—
Every second that ticked over the face of Andrea’s graduation present made her believe that she was getting closer to solving the mystery of Isaac and his letters. The blank steel on its back reminded her that she wasn’t. She strapped it on each day, not knowing how much longer it would have to wait until she engraved it with the words she had seen on Isaac’s watch. Three centuries was a huge leap for even the loneliest heart to take.
Her eyes flitted around her dark bedroom as she lay in bed. Without the dog-eared Neil Gaiman and Agatha Christie books on her bookshelf or the mountain of clutter on her desk, the room belonged to a stranger. Sleep was not going to find her on her last night in it. She rolled out of bed and dragged her feet past the boxes she had stuffed her childhood into. Her battered cello case leaned on the wall between a “Toss” and “Keep” pile. The studio apartment waiting for her in Los Angeles barely had room for a bed, much less for Isaac and his secrets. Andrea hauled her cello over to the boxes destined for the attic. Her fingers twitched around its handle, begging her to let them say goodbye to their old friend.
The cello screeched beneath her bow. She took her time tuning it, making sure every string sounded just right. It deserved a proper farewell. She arranged her fingers over the strings and played the opening strains of “Le Cygne,” the thirteenth movement of Camille Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of Animals. The melody tugged at her heart. She shut her eyes to see it better. An apple orchard stretched before her. She was three measures into Isaac’s melody when she realized that she had strayed from her swan song.
“Hey, kiddo.” Her dad knocked on her door.
“Just a sec, Dad.” She set her cello and any hopes of a glowing crack aside and opened the door.
“Can’t sleep either, huh?” Andrew said. “I’m making tea. Want some?”
—
Andrea slipped into her usual seat at the bleached pine breakfast nook.
“Have you finished packing?” Andrew asked.
“Nope.”
“You know it’s not too late to change your mind.”
“I’m moving to L.A., Dad, not Mars.”
“I wish you were. Martians are less scary.”
“Unfortunately, there aren’t very many openings for PR assistants on Mars. Besides, I won’t really be alone. Nate’s apartment is just a couple of doors down from mine.”
“So…is he…um…still with that band of his?”
“Yes.”
“Good for him.”
Andrea smirked. “I thought you said that you didn’t care for drums?”
“Yes, but I still have to admire the guy for sticking with his passion.”
Andrea folded her arms over the table. “You mean unlike me?”
He answered her with a heavy breath and pulled a tin of green tea from the shelf. “Did you know that the San Francisco Symphony has an opening for a cellist? I’ve heard you play, Andrea. You’re still very good. You could easily—”
“Dad, please. We’ve talked about this. You do realize that I can do other things, too, right? Believe it or not, I actually learned a thing or two in college.”
He dropped tea bags into their cups. “Does it have a name?”
“Does what have a name?”
“Your song.”
“What song?”
“The song you just played upstairs. You used to play it all the time.”
“Oh. That.” Andrea fixed her eyes on a whorl on the table. “It doesn’t have a name.”
“It’s an excellent piece.” The kettle whistled over her dad’s voice. He emptied it into their cups and settled into the chair across from Andrea. “It deserves a name.”
Andrea watched the steam curl over the rim of her cup. “I guess so, but—”
“But what?”
She wrung the strap of her Omega. The image of its twin on Isaac’s arm snaked under her skin. “I don’t know how it ends yet.”
Her dad’s gaze drifted to the date he had circled with a red marker on their kitchen calendar. It was the day she was moving out. “Endings are always the hardest part.”
Andrea sipped her tea. “Any expert advice?”
The lines around her dad’s eyes crinkled from a smile that made him look more sad than happy. He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “It’s not a question of knowing how to end a song, kiddo. It’s about deciding when the time has come to let it go.”
—
Nate strode into Andrea’s new studio apartment carrying a large pepperoni pizza box in one arm and balancing a stack of DVDs in the other. He set the DVDs on the floor next to the TV and the pizza down on the only table Andrea owned. Her coffee table wobbled. “I can fix that for you,” he said, pointing to the table’s uneven leg.
“Don’t worry about it.” Andrea arranged a bowl of popcorn and a couple of glasses of Coke on the other end of the table to counter the pizza’s weight. “There. Fixed. See?”
“If you say so.” Nate pulled out a small gift box from his pocket. “I got you a housewarming present.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed Nate on the cheek. “Thanks,” she said, lifting the box’s lid. She pulled out a small white plastic hook. Her brow furrowed. “Oh…uh…this is great.”
Nate chuckled. “One thing I’ve learned from living on my own is that you can’t have too many hooks. There’s always
something to hang on them. Keys, towels, corkboards, and…um…pot holders.”
“Pot holders?” Andrea laughed. “Do you even own a pot? Or a stove?”
Nate grinned. “Well, no, but now that we’re neighbors I was thinking we could have movie nights and cook dinners together. And of course by we I mean you. It’s only fair. After all, I’ve already done the hard stuff. I bought the hook. I’ll even hang it for you if you want.”
“How thoughtful. And after I cook dinner, would you like me to do your laundry for you and rub your feet?”
“You read my mind.”
Andrea punched his arm. “Come on. Let’s eat. The pizza’s getting cold. What are we watching?” she said, eyeing the DVDs Nate had brought.
“I think you will be pleased with the selection we have for this evening, madam. Five Graves to Cairo, an oldie but goodie from 1943 full of espionage, action, and hidden treasure. Next, we have Sneakers. Admittedly, this is more caper than spy film, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for anything about ultimate-super-secret-encryption-decoding machines. And lastly, we have Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a critically acclaimed movie starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch—”
“Stop.” Andrea waved her hand. “Say no more. You got me at Cumberbatch.”
“I thought so. You’ve had a crush on that guy since forever. What is it about him that you like so much anyway? The dark hair? The English accent?”
“All of the above.”
“Well, I hate to break it you, Dre. In this movie he’s blond and gay.”
“But is he English?”
“Yes.”
Andrea smiled. “Then what are you waiting for?”
Nate laughed.
He wouldn’t have, Andrea thought, if he knew the real reason why she liked the actor. Unlike the journals she kept, Nate did not know how, on the cold nights that her fingers found their way back to her small collection of yellowed pages and broken wax seals, she lent the actor’s voice to the words she had never heard their sender speak.
Nate inserted the DVD into the player and pressed play. He settled into the sofa bed and patted the empty space next to him. Andrea grabbed a slice of pizza and sat down. Her cheek found her old spot on his shoulder. It was more muscular than she remembered and warmer. Nate put his arm around her and drew little circles on her bare shoulder with his thumb. She kept her eyes on the TV, trying to ignore the ripples of heat spreading to her toes.
—
Nate waited at the curb outside Andrea’s office on his black motorbike. He picked her up from work on days when his band wasn’t booked on any gigs. “Hey, you. How was work today?” he said, handing her the purple helmet he had bought for her.
Andrea shrugged and strapped on the helmet. “If you consider spending the day on the phone confirming the guests for a launch event and collating a hundred press kits about a new flavor of milkshake fun, then you may say that I had the most amazing day of my life.”
“Hey. Don’t knock milkshakes. A chocolate one and Sylvia’s vegetarian meatloaf saved me from getting a black eye once, remember?”
Andrea hopped onto the motorcycle and hooked her arms around Nate. She cleared her throat and gave him a squeeze. “For the record, I saved you.”
“And one day, I hope to return the favor.” Nate twisted around, smiled, and adjusted the helmet strap under her chin.
A black leather glove covered Nate’s hand, but that didn’t stop Andrea’s face from flushing at his touch. “Can we…um…stop by Trader Joe’s? I need to pick up some artichokes for the pasta we’re having tonight.”
“Nope. Sorry, Dre.” Nate switched on the engine and sped down the road.
“Why not? It’s on the way home.”
Nate grinned. “We’re not going home.”
—
The sprawling domed white building was perched on a hillside on the eastern edge of the Santa Monica Mountains. Nate parked his motorcycle and pulled off his helmet. He raked his fingers through his hair, letting the blond waves fall where they pleased. Nate’s hair, Andrea thought, always somehow managed to find the right balance between perfection and disarray.
“I thought we’d change up movie night a bit tonight,” Nate said, walking up to the building. “I know you were looking forward to a Benedict Cumberbatch marathon, but I figured that spending the evening at the Griffith Observatory might be more fun than rewatching the Sherlock series.”
Andrea took in the sprawling views of downtown Los Angeles. She looked up at Nate and smiled. “Sherlock can wait.”
Nate checked his watch. “We have some time before the planetarium show starts. Want to take some photos to prove to your dad that I’m being a great, responsible friend and showing you the city’s sights? I can’t shake the feeling that Mr. L’s been stalking my Facebook page to check if I’ve dragged you into some dark, drugged-out rock band scene.”
Andrea chuckled. “He doesn’t think that.”
“Really?”
“Well, no.” She laughed and pointed to a large white concrete monument towering over the observatory’s front lawn. Six stylized statues surrounded the marble pillar. “Let’s take a picture over there.”
“Good choice. That’s the Astronomers Monument.” Nate positioned Andrea in front of the monument and stood next to her. He put his arm around her shoulder and stretched his other arm out to hold his phone in front of them. He adjusted the angle of his phone to frame the shot. “It pays tribute to six of the greatest astronomers of all time. Hipparchus, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Herschel, and Newton. Say cheese.”
Andrea blanched. She wriggled free from Nate’s arm and darted past Isaac’s sculpture, keeping her eyes from his carved face.
“Dre,” Nate called after her. “Where are you going? I didn’t get the shot yet.”
Andrea wrapped her arms around her stomach and hurried across the lawn to the observatory’s door. “It’s cold. I want to go inside.”
—
The audience filed through the bronze and leather doors of the Samuel Oschin Planetarium. Andrea followed Nate to their seats near the center of the circular theater. A cool blue light suffused the large dome above her, mimicking clouds. Andrea watched them drift across the fake sky. The illusion did not make breathing any easier. Every inch of the Griffith Observatory seemed to bear Isaac’s imprint, from the principle of inertia that governed the operations of the gentle swaying of the Foucault pendulum at the W. M. Keck Foundation Central Rotunda to the laws of motion and gravity that explained forces acting on the planets at the Gunther Depths of Space exhibit. The observatory’s walls chafed her heart, ripping off the scabs that covered her longing for the boy in her wall.
“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?” Nate whispered.
“I told you. I got cold.”
“You look like you saw a ghost.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Dre, is something—”
“The show’s about to start.”
An actor strode to the middle of the theater, flourishing a small glowing sphere. His silky voice wrapped around the audience like a ribbon, capturing their attention for the length of his introductory spiel about how various cultures interpreted celestial phenomena. It missed Andrea. While the orb’s light pulsed to emphasize the actor’s words, all she could see was an apple that had burned bright and turned to dust. She dug her fingernails into the arms of her seat to keep herself in her chair.
Andrea watched the orb fade and give way to a digital laser projector that filled the darkened dome with stars. Groups of stars gleamed, forming the constellations ancient peoples invented to understand the randomness of the night sky. Naming the patterns of light and weaving their tales gave the stars purpose and sense. When sailors crossed the seas, Polaris, the brightest star of Ursa Minor, the son Zeus was forced to turn into a bear, guided their way. Andrea envied the certainty of their direction.
Nate slipped his hand over hers as the constellations a
bove them dissolved into a scene in the Great Library of ancient Alexandria. Andrea let him hold her. For the next thirty minutes of the planetarium show, she was determined to pretend that there weren’t two stars over her piece of sky, pulling her in opposite directions. She anchored her fingers in the closest one, convincing herself that it was the one that showed her the way home. The other star only led her to a wall.
—
Andrea’s second month in L.A. began as all the thirty days before it had: with dawn, a stretch, and the promise of dark-roasted coffee drifting over her nose. She yawned and rubbed her eyes open. The sun stretched its arms across her studio and brushed its fingertips against the rusted hinges of the cello case tucked into the farthest corner of the apartment.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.” Nate sat by the kitchen counter and looked up from a nearly empty bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. He had let himself into Andrea’s apartment with his key just as he did every Sunday morning. In exchange for her breakfast cereal, he made coffee. According to Andrea, the Sumatra Mandheling tasted better when he brewed it. “Coffee?”
“Yes. Please.” Andrea walked over to him and found herself smiling at the perfect mess of blond hair flopping over his forehead and the wrinkled navy-blue T-shirt he had slept in. The shirt had seen better days, but it made him look shipwrecked in the best way.
Nate poured coffee into one of the three mismatched mugs Andrea owned. A tattoo peeked out from under his wrist.
“Is that new?” she asked.
“Yeah. I got it last night.” Nate held out his wrist and showed off the latest addition to the gallery on his skin. His left arm was home to three swallows, one phoenix, and a chameleon. His right had a G clef formed by a blue snake entwined around a rose. Once, when they were stretched out on his couch for movie night, Andrea caught a glimpse of the jewel-toned dragon that lived on his left hip. But it could have been a koi fish. Andrea had glued her eyes on Jason Bourne’s face before she could tell for sure. The ink on his wrist was Nate’s first tattoo of words.
Love and Gravity Page 11