by Lark O'Neal
“Bigger than that.”
The newscaster is saying, “—KILR Gossip reports the two unknown actors were discovered making commercials for the N Zed tourism industry.” A clip of our dolphin moment shows as she keeps talking, and I think how gorgeous the whole thing is, and I think of their noses and bodies bumping us, the sound of their laughing, and I’m smiling even as my stomach turns over in nervousness.
She goes on, “Torches is the international romantic bestseller written by then 19-year-old sensation Mercedes Williams, who has made tens of millions on the book. Directors wanted unknown actors, to bring power to the story itself.”
Into the phone, I breathe, “Wow. This is kind of…um…unexpected.”
He laughs, that big, full-throated sound that is so compelling. “Girl, we’re in for a ride.”
Katie has come to stand beside me, a glittery leaf swinging in her hand. “The girl who wrote it was only 19?”
I nod. They show a shot of her, too, an author shot of her at her desk, a big brown and black dog beside her. Mercedes Williams. I know she’s my age, but it’s still kind of crazy to see that she is as young as me. She’s different looking, with wide-set, almond-shaped eyes and pale, very curly hair. “She grew up in foster care, did you hear that?”
Katie shakes her head, and Kaleb says, “Are you talking to me?”
I laugh. “Sorry, no. Katie is here, too.”
“Hi, Kaleb.”
The story goes on, blah, blah, blah, shows a scene in Colorado and the sharp blue sky, and I let go of a breath. “This is unreal.”
“Yeah. Are you ready?”
I grin. “I am if you are.”
“Always.” He laughs softly, and the sound stirs the hair on the back of my neck. “I can’t wait to see you, Jess.”
“Me, too.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Katie pretends she hasn’t been listening, and hangs the fish or whatever it is on the tree. “When will he be here?”
“Tomorrow, he said.” The story is over, and I click the TV off. Suddenly, this stretch of quiet time at the winery, hanging out with my dad and doing nothing much, seems like a precious dream, like something I’m going to remember with longing someday. Pressing a hand to my upper belly, which has gone completely hollow, I say, “All of a sudden, I’m really scared. Everything is going to change, isn’t it?”
She turns, brushing glitter off her hands. She’s wearing khaki shorts and a pale green tank top, her hair loose and glossy on her shoulders and her eyes are kind when she says, “Yes. But that’s not always bad.”
“I know. I’ve just really been happy here, and I don’t know that I want to leave.”
“I’m glad you’ve been so happy, Jess. It has meant so much to both your dad and me to have you here.”
“Me, too.” With a sigh, I sink down on the ottoman. “I feel like I was finally figuring things out and now it’s all going to go upside down again.”
“That’s how it happens, unfortunately. Things keep changing, and keep changing. All the time. We want to stay in one place sometimes, but it doesn’t work that way.”
I bow my head, thinking of Tyler and the tumultuous feelings he stirred up. The same intense attraction and the same anger that he can’t see me for myself. And now Kaleb is coming home and I know how I will feel when I see him, when I smell his watermelon and twilight skin, when I feel his strange and beautiful eyes on me. I drop my face into my hands. “It’s been so peaceful without guys to mix me up,” I say with a sigh.
Katie starts to laugh and sits down beside me, an arm sliding companionably around my shoulders. “Right. Men mix it up. They make it interesting, too.”
I nod.
“Is this about Tyler visiting?”
“No, not exactly. It’s Tyler visiting and then Kaleb coming home, too. I’m going to have to decide eventually. I thought I’d have it figured out by now, and I just don’t.”
“It’s not always easy,” she says sympathetically. “Can I give you a couple of pieces of advice?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve known Kaleb since he was born, and he’s the most patient creature who ever lived. He’s also tenacious and he will never give up on something, even when it’s not in his best interest sometimes.”
I swallow, recognizing the truth of those words.
Katie’s hand slides down and takes mine. “But if you cross a line with him, he’ll turn his back so completely that it will be like you never existed.”
A sword of warning moves through my middle at the thought. “That would be terrible.”
“Yes.”
“We have to work together for a whole movie.”
“That’s neither here nor there.” Her fingers are dry and cool. “I’m worried about broken hearts.”
“His?”
Her smile is gentle. “Yours.”
It gives me the hollowest feeling in my chest, as if I’m not quite understanding something, and the feeling scares me so much I push it away.
Katie says, “I don’t know Tyler. I mean, I’ve seen the photos and he’s very good-looking, but he’s got a bit of a history, doesn’t he?”
It’s undeniable. I nod.
She strokes my hand lightly, touching my knuckles. “I do know Kaleb. He might be one of the best people I have ever known.”
I smile. “Well, he is your nephew.”
She grins back. “Yeah, more like my son since I’ve never had kids of my own.” She takes a breath, meets my eyes. “But you’d have to know what his life has been like to know how well he’s turned out. There’s just something…different about him. A core of—”
I think of the day in Kaikoura when we stood beneath the whale bones. “He’s an old soul,” I say.
“Yes.”
“People tell me I’m an old soul, too.”
She inclines her head. “Maybe. It is remarkable that you’ve come through everything in your life so well, too.”
I can feel a hesitation. “But?”
“But I worry about you anyway.”
I laugh. “I’ve lived on my own for three years!”
“I know. And you’ve done well.”
“Thanks.”
“Come on, girl,” she says, standing. “Let’s get this tree finished before your dad gets back.”
I cross over to the box, and dig around in the paper to find another ornament, and my fingers catch on an envelope, which I pull out and open curiously. A sheaf of photos, all old Polaroids, faded and strange, but the one on top is my mom and me. “Oh, my God, Katie. Look!”
In the photo I’m about four, with pigtails and a little romper suit. I’m grinning up at the camera with a dirty face, and my mom is behind me, laughing. She’s so young and healthy looking that I realize she really was too thin when she died. I shake my head and hand it over to Katie, and look through the others. There are more of my mom and Dad and me, and some of family I recognize, others of people I don’t know.
“This must have been around the turn of the century,” Katie says, and there’s something odd in her voice. “That’s when your dad started trying to buy the winery. Your mom wasn’t too happy with him.”
I flip to the next photo and feel a swoop of dizziness, unpleasant and unsettling, at the next shot. My dad and two other guys, shirtless, on a beach, their hair blowing in a stiff wind. They all look shaggy and nobody has shaved for awhile. My dad looks almost exactly the same, which makes me think it’s a good quality to be happy. The guy in the middle is the one who keeps drawing my eye, though. He’s bigger, with a belly and a shock of dark hair. Urgently, without knowing why, I shove the photo at Katie. “Who is the guy in the middle?”
“Oh, that’s Billy. Your dad grew up with him. He lives up north now, somewhere near the Bay of Islands.” Her mouth twists and she hands the picture back to me.
“You don’t like him?”
She shakes her head, turns back to the tree. “All he’s ever done is drink and surf and c
hase women.”
A sharp pain stabs through my eye as I look at it again, and I get up abruptly. “I’d better go get ready. My dad will be here any second.”
“But what—?” She follows me, like a mom. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about,” I say, and it’s true. “I just don’t feel that great. Maybe we drank too much champagne last night.”
She smiles. “Maybe we did.”
* * *
Upstairs, I braid my hair tightly, again thinking about the fact that I’m going to have to cut it. I wrap the length of it around my arm, and it covers the entire length of my forearm, the strands pale wheat and a silvery color mixed with honey and even a little bit darker shade. It stabs my heart to think of not feeling it around me, not swishing over my back. Looking in the mirror, I wonder what I’ll look like without it, if I’ll even be interesting at all.
Stop says a voice in my head, and I toss it back over my shoulder. I don’t have to cut all of it, just enough to look like the person in the book. For this much money and the amazing chance to bring this book alive, I’d shave my head. Hair grows back.
I change into a bikini with shorts and a tank over it. My wetsuit is with the boards. There’s time to burn, so I open my iPad. There’s an email from Henry, telling me how he’s decorated the porch for Christmas with five strings of lights from Wal-Mart, and the dogs are going crazy. I think of the cluttered porch and all of his sculptures moving in the yard, and it makes me miss him a lot. Not the craziness or the mess, but his goodness, his kind, kind heart. I sent him a big box of beads and polished stones and feathers from a store in Nelson, and he will love it.
At the end, he says simply, “A man came to look at my sculptures, I think I told you. He wants to buy them all for his shop.”
I have to read it twice, then I hit reply and type, What?????? You sold them all? To who? How much money?
The email notifier dings as I send that. One new email. For a long, airless moment, I stare at the name, thinking, no way.
From: Mercedes Williams
To: Jess Donovan
Subject: So excited that you’re going to be Jules!
Hi, Jess. I hope it’s okay to contact you like this. I’m the writer of Torches—the book, not the screenplay, though I insisted that I had to be a consultant, on set, and approve the pages and all changes. (They are so surprised when a 20-year-old “girl” insists on things like that! Ha!)
I’m just so excited that you’re going to play Jules that I had to say hello and tell you that when I saw your head shot, I said, THIS ONE to everyone who would listen. You look exactly like her in my mind. I also saw the commercials with Kaleb and they are just brilliant. The shot of the two of you on the ferry in Milford Sound is outrageous.
Anyway, can’t wait to meet you. I’ll be in Aspen next Thursday and I hope we can have a coffee or something. Us 20 year olds have to stick together.
Love,
Mercedes
Goosebumps breakout over my whole body. Mercedes Williams has written to me. To me! I read it seventeen times, and then open a reply, trying to figure out what to say. After seven attempts at being hip, I finally erase it all and write:
To: Mercedes Williams
From: Jess Donovan
Subject: re: So excited that you’re going to be Jules!
Hi, Mercedes. I am sitting here on my bed like a crazy fan girl trying to figure out what to say to you. I’m so, so, so, so honored over all of this, that I looked enough like Jules that you wanted me to play her, because I gotta tell you I love your book so much, and I can’t believe I get to dive into the story and try to make it come alive for people. It’s one of the most amazing things that’s ever happened to me.
And, seriously, I’d love to have coffee with you. It’s so awesome that you’re going to be there on set. It must be totally incredible to know this story you wrote is going to be movie.
Have you been to Aspen? The book read like you’d spent a lot of time there, and I’m from Colorado, but I read somewhere that you grew up in LA. I was in Aspen when I was a kid. Once.
Enough—my dad wants to get one last session of surfing in before I leave, so I’d better go.
Love,
Jess
~~~
From: Mercedes Williams
To: Jess Donovan
Subject: re: So excited that you’re going to be Jules!
Jess—ha ha, fooled you. Never been to Aspen. I’d never been anywhere before the book went crazy. Never been to New Zealand, either, but you made me want to go.
Talk soon! Xoxoxox
~~~
To: Mercedes Williams
From: Jess Donovan
Subject: re: So excited that you’re going to be Jules!
Mercedes—me, either. Been anywhere, that is. Well, not counting Colorado and New Zealand. Born here, grew up in CO. Xo
J—so how did you end up in NZ now?
M—that is one long story and it will give me something to tell you when we meet. Can’t wait!
* * *
Late in the afternoon, my dad and I drop our boards and strip out of the wetsuits and dig into the picnic Katie sent. She makes these shrimp and cod fritters that are to die for. I make a little yelping sound when I see that’s what there is.
My dad, shirtless and barefoot in board shorts, chuckles. “She knew you’d be that happy.”
I dig in without apology. We’ve just burned ten billion calories dancing with the waves. “She is a really good cook.”
“She is,” he agrees. He fills his plate with fritters and white bread and cucumber salad with tomatoes and onions and some secret spice that takes it over the top. Then he opens a small jar and spreads beetroot relish over the fritters.
“Now why would you ruin that beautiful plate like that?” I tease.
“You’ll learn, lamb.” He grins at me. With his curly hair loose and too long around his face, his beard tidy, and his sunglasses, he looks way younger than he is, and I’m proud that he’s my dad.
I make a noise, like a buzzer. A rejection beep. “I don’t get the whole beetroot game here.” They even serve beets on hamburgers at McDonalds. I shudder exaggeratedly.
The beach is bustling with families and couples and other surfers riding. A guy with a long, tanned torso and a thick shock of dark hair gives me the eye. I don’t mind it, and then I think about what Tyler said, that my days of being anonymous are nearly over and I should enjoy it. I think he’s nuts, but I gather the quiet, sunny afternoon with my dad close anyway, trying to press the memory close. Taking a bite of the fluffy/dense, meaty/bready fritter, I savor it and the sunshine on my head. “I wish you could make a box of memories and then take them out whenever you wanted and then put the day on like a favorite shirt.”
He laughs. “That would be great. I’d keep today, right now.”
“Me, too. I love surfing with you.”
“Yeah.” He focuses on his plate for a minute. “I’m glad you got the part, but I’ll miss you, love. It’s been so great to have you here, and now I think you’re going to fly away and I won’t see you anymore.”
It stings the back of my throat. “I know.” I look out at the water, the layers of green and blue and palest white along the ruffled edges of waves, and the vast bold blue of the sky. “I’m sort of afraid to leave, like all of this will disappear.”
“No. It’s here, and your home is here, now.”
“Yeah?”
He takes my hand. “Always, Jess. That room is yours for as long as you live, you hear me?”
I smile. “Whew. I really have been feeling this weird sense of terror.” I take another fritter from the container. “You and Katie should come to Colorado when we’re there. It’s beautiful.”
“Maybe.”
“Kaleb and I will pay your way.”
“Ah, that’s right. You’re the posh ones now, aren’t you?”
“They’re giving us a lot of money.”
; “And we’re going to set up some budget plans for you both, I reckon.”
“That’s a good idea.”
He nods. “We’ll work it out before you start getting paid, automatic deductions and such.”
“I never even thought of that.” Brushing sand off my palm, I add, “Not like I really spend money, though. I never got the habit.”
“You’d be surprised how easy it is to pick it up. And how fast it can go.”
I am skeptical. What does a person really need, after all? A home, some clothes, maybe a car. “Do you think I might get a car eventually?”
“Do you want to?”
I raise my eyebrows. “I’d start with learning to drive the Mini.”
He laughs, and I love this about him, the way he laughs so big, his teeth showing and the sound robust and full of pleasure. “I can teach you to drive, lamb. It would be a pleasure.”
So on the way home, he finds an open parking lot and teaches me how to manage the “wrong” side of the road. I practice around the little town, and then he drives the main highway back to Marlborough. When we get close to Long Cloud, he pulls over and says, “It’s all yours. Take us home.”
It’s terrifying and thrilling. The car rumbles, a quiet roar, and it pulls under my hands like a horse that wants to run. “Don’t be afraid, girl. Give her some gas.”
So I do. The road is empty, the fields around us open and low, giving me full view of the world around us. On the left are the dun-colored hills and the faint line of the ocean; to the right are fields of vines, coming into ripeness, and beyond them, jagged high peaks with white tops. The sunroof is open and all the windows, and we fly down the road, INXS on the CD player, and I laugh. “This is great!”
My dad laughs, too. “Slow just a wee bit for this turn, then as you come round it, hit the gas again.”
I follow directions, feeling the car under me respond to the road, and then as if she knows I want to go faster, she leaps ahead, and I leap with her. “Whooo, whoo!” I cry.
And then the winery is just ahead and there are a couple of cars parked by the road and I have to slow down. It’s only as I slow to a crawl to turn into the narrow lead to the house that I realize there are a couple of guys standing by the cars. They have cameras and when they see us, they rush forward, shooting, yelling out, “Hey, love, give us a wave!” and “Jess, look at me!”