I dance her toward the back of the floor to avoid Sam’s gaze. We’re swallowed up by the crowd, and it feels like we’re in our own bubble again—separated from time and logic. My hands are dipping lower, and her hips are swaying into mine. I can’t resist the invitation, and now we’re grinding together. I’ve danced this way with dozens of girls, but none of those girls were like her.
I know so little about Elizabeth, but I don’t care right now. Favorite colors, foods she dislikes—none of that shit matters. She is important. We could be important together, if I were a different guy—one who was normal and sweet instead of all hollowed out. I bet the guy she’s chasing after would know how to make her laugh if she cried, or remember to grab her elbow when she’s stepping over an uneven patch of sidewalk. I couldn’t even leave her alone like she asked me to.
She moves her hands up to my face. It makes my cheeks go pleasantly numb. “I can feel you thinking.”
“Hmmm. Mark the date on your calendar.”
She laughs. “Lies. Doesn’t that pretty mouth of yours ever tell the truth?”
“You’re one to talk about pretty mouths,” I say, and then I bite her lip. She sucks in her breath as I savor the taste of her strawberry lip gloss.
“Tell me the truth.”
I pull her in even closer, and I groan. “About what?”
“You act like everything rolls off of you, like water off a duck’s back.”
“We don’t know each other well. How do you know that’s not true?”
Her fingernails lightly score my back as they move low on my waist. I am so hard right now that breathing is a chore.
Her gaze locks on me, her eyes like liquid emeralds. She reaches a hand up to the space between my eyebrows and smooths it down with her finger. “I think you worry a lot and have for a long time.”
I pull her into a hug then, but we keep dancing. It feels so good to have her arms around me, stroking my back, comforting me. I have the strangest urge to cry, which is ridiculous. It makes me resent her, but she feels so good that I let go of my anger. We move together, around and again, and she spins me right to a place I’ve never been. I kiss her ear and then her neck, because I can’t not do it. She starts to shake, so I kiss her, and it’s better than it was last time because it’s slow and wet and so soft, like a whisper. Her tongue wisps across mine again and again, until I’m making love to her mouth. I have never been so turned on and twisted up, and it’s all I can do not to push her against the wall and take her like she’s mine. But she isn’t.
I pull back to see her gazing at me like I’m hot fudge dripping down the back of her fingers. That look is about more than arousal, though, and that’s why I don’t kiss her again. This is a woman who deserves a man she can trust. A man who will love every inch of her.
She puts her forehead on mine, and we stand like that for a minute while we both come back to ourselves.
“What do you want from me?” she asks.
Her lip is trembling, so I put my thumb on it.
“Everything. I don’t think there would be anything left after I was done with you.”
She closes her eyes. “But what would I get of you?”
Fear cuts through me, quick and fierce. I’ve never had to spell out what I have to offer, and the list seems pathetically short. I tease Elizabeth about her innocence, but when it comes to relationships, I’m the amateur here.
“I don’t have a whole hell of a lot to give. And I don’t believe in love the way you do.”
“So cynical,” she says shaking her head.
“Long story.”
She steps out of my arms, and I miss her already. She leads me off the dance floor to a private corner, pulling my arm hard enough that it jolts my shoulder.
“Don’t try to suck me in with your sob story.” Her hands are arcing through the air as she talks. “I’m sure this angsty thing is effective with other girls, but I don’t want to hear it.”
“You think this is an act? That I’m doing this to get laid?”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I couldn’t stay away from you.”
I pull her to me and kiss her again, but this time there’s anger between us and it’s not sweet or gentle.
She pushes me away, and we are both agitated.
“I’m not going to let you work this out of your system by fucking me.”
I cringe when she says this, because I know it’s the truth.
“You don’t have a clue what you want, and you don’t care if I get hurt while you figure it out. That’s bullshit, Jude.”
She crosses her arms and lowers her chin, like she is gearing up for a fight.
It hits me right in the chest that Ryan was right. He warned me there would be hell to pay for being an emotional hermit, and that bill has come due. I could fall in love with this girl, no doubt about it. But I don’t have the first clue how to do that, and I’m going to create a trail of wreckage. If I care about her, I will leave her to her college boys. I see that now.
“I’m sorry I’m so fucked up.”
She shakes her head. “You think I need someone perfect? What I need is a real connection—someone who’s in it all the way. And I don’t feel stupid for wanting that.”
“I never said you should.” I want to reach out to her again, but I know that time has passed. “I don’t know how to do this—any of this. I wish I could be different.”
I put my cheek against hers to feel her warmth. We stand like that for a minute, until I know I need to let go.
“Never getting a chance to know you is a big price to pay,” I say.
She surprises me by putting her hand on my cheek. “If it makes you feel any better, you are the biggest mistake I am ever going to regret not making.”
She’s not willing to put her heart on the line, and neither am I. She’s smart, but I’m a coward.
“Be well, Elizabeth,” I say, and this time I kiss her longer and deeper.
She leaves me standing there in the corner.
CHAPTER 6
Elizabeth
The light of morning isn’t making it any easier to forget Jude, and getting up feels more difficult than usual. I liked the girl I was last night: sexy, strong, and decisive. Jude brought that out in me.
He and I are capable of such highs together. The lows are what scare me. He almost made me give in. I almost begged him to take me home and deliver on all the promises his body made. But he’s lying to himself. We’re past the point of having a couple nights together without feelings getting in the way—well, my feelings at least. Despite his warnings, I would have fallen in love with him. My heart’s built that way—deep and stubborn and true.
He would have fed me scraps of his life, and I would have swallowed them gratefully. And then he would have dropped me when he was done, and told me he had been honest the whole time. Had it been leading me on to tell me he wanted everything from me? To hold on to my body as if he were drowning?
Sam is heading out to work, so she comes up and gives me a hug.
“He’d be a wild ride, Lizzie. You sure he’s not worth the risk?”
“I’ve been down that road before.” What I don’t tell her is, when people say you can’t die from a broken heart, they’re lying.
I’ve worked damn hard to put what happened after my last breakup in the past, where it belongs. But I learned an important lesson: I can be broken down. But also, with some help, I can pull myself back up. And I’m still standing.
Somehow, though, Jude feels like my first real test, because I don’t trust myself with him. I know he would be so easy to get lost in.
I get up and get dressed for work, happy for the distraction and the time to get excited about my first date with Ryan. Tonight is about the future, not the past.
I head into the senior care facility where I work and see Mrs. Diamato in the hallway. She’s my favorite patient, so I’m glad she’s perky today. It means we’ll get to chat.
D
ealing with older people is always a good reality check. My friends think I’m nuts to work with the elderly, because it can be sad and depressing and it’s ridiculously underpaid. Ryan gets paid the same amount for grinding coffee. But I know it’s good practice for nursing, and I find comfort in learning what the end of our lives will be like. Besides, I know there are a lot of worse things than dying of old age.
Mrs. Diamato is ninety-one and can’t get around without her wheelchair. Being old is not for the faint of heart, that’s for damn sure, which is why no one wants to talk about it. Our bodies strip away a lot of our choices and, too often, our dignity. That doesn’t mean aging has to be viewed as graceless or miserable. We all surrender to nature in the end. There shouldn’t be shame in that, and hopefully we learn a lot along the way. Some of the best advice I’ve been given has come from my patients.
This makes me miss my own grandparents, who left a big hole in my life when they died. My dad’s parents lived in Missouri, and we didn’t see them often, but Grandpa Bill and Grandma Nancy lived twenty minutes from us on a small farm. They had chickens and goats and sometimes lambs, and they loved to drink cheap wine and tell us stories about the old days. They made us work hard—collecting eggs, picking fruit, even milking goats. They’d always sneak us cookies at the end of the day and keep a fridge full of soda for us.
I wheel Mrs. Diamato back to her room and get her settled.
“Did you forget I was on duty?” I ask her.
“I never forget a damn thing.”
That’s for sure. Unlike most of my patients, Mrs. Diamato’s mind is still strong. She claims it’s a curse.
“I wanted to see something besides these walls,” she continues.
“Well, I brought a book on Pompeii for you. You said you always wished you’d visited.”
I pull the book out of my bag, and she sits and thumbs through it, trying to see the pictures. I get her meds ready and tidy up her bedside table, until she lets me know she needs to go to the bathroom.
“I can do it myself, girl. You can just stand right outside.”
“Last time you did that, you almost fell, so I’m going to come in with you,” I tell her. Falling down at Mrs. Diamato’s age is catastrophic. She would die from the complications, if not the fall itself, so I’m determined to win this battle. She snipes at me for a few minutes, but we manage to get the job done. You have to have a lot of nerve to work with patients, because most times you’re telling them you know best, and no one on this earth likes to hear that.
Once she’s settled again, I tell her how nice her family pictures are.
“My great-grandkids sure are cute. At least that’s one good thing my grandkids done for me.”
Mrs. Diamato grew up working the canneries when San Jose was orchards and the computer chip hadn’t even been invented. She only got through the ninth grade, but her mind is sharp as a tack.
“Seems like your family does lots of nice things. They visit a lot and bring you See’s candy.”
“Don’t want to live with me though.”
“You think they’d be able to take care of you?” She doesn’t speak, and I don’t know if she heard me.
“I s’pose not,” she finally says. “It’d be hard for them to see me like this all the time, anyhow.”
Mrs. Diamato asks me to brush her hair out, so I grab the brush and move behind her. We have our best chats when I do this, maybe because we’re not looking at one another.
“How does your fella feel about you working here?”
“How do you know I have one?”
She laughs, but it’s more like a cackle. “Girl as pretty as you’s got at least one. Maybe two.”
“I haven’t always had the best luck. You know how men are—you were married for a long time. What was that like?”
She cackles. “Better and worse than how people make it out to be. Joseph was a stubborn son of a bitch, but boy, he could make me laugh. Make sure you like the man you pick, because you’re stuck with him forever.” She gets quiet for a while, and I know she’s feeling sentimental. I focus on smoothing out her thin hair a section at a time, being careful not to tug too hard.
“Me and Joseph had lots of tough years raising those kids. But we’d jump in the car in the summers and take long drives. We’d go to the Sacramento River and ride in inner tubes, or head all the way up to Mount Shasta. Those sure were nice times. I’m glad I did ’em with him. Guess that’s all you can hope for—to spend your time with someone who is worth a damn.”
I put the brush down and administer Mrs. Diamato’s medication. After a few minutes, she falls asleep. I watch her for a moment, until her breathing is easy and deep. I study the many lines in her face, and her silver, baby-fine hair. She is a reminder to me that, at the end of our lives, all we have are the choices we’ve made and the people we’ve loved.
I don’t think I was wrong to turn away a man who says he can’t commit, for one who seems capable of something real. I take comfort in that.
Putting on makeup never comes easily to me, because Mom and Dad didn’t like me wearing it. I’m rewarded for my efforts, though, when Ryan picks me up at my door. His jaw drops and he can’t seem to get a word out. I give him a peck on the cheek. To be honest, I’m hoping for more kisses like the one we shared at the library at the very least. I don’t feel ready to sleep with him yet, though, so I made sure Sam was going to be home tonight. That should cool his expectations and mine. I want to get to know Ryan, because this could lead somewhere worth going.
He takes in my green dress with the deep-cut V-neck. “You’re b-beautiful.”
So is he. He’s wearing an orange T-shirt, but he has a blazer on over it and a pair of well-fitting dark jeans. Perfect outfit for a young writer/teacher. Every girl at school is going to want to take his class someday.
He takes the sweater I’m holding and helps me slip it on. Even though Ryan has a car, we decide to walk. We head to Original Joe’s, a local institution. The waiters are old Italian guys who wear tuxedos, so you feel like you’re in a Martin Scorsese movie as you eat your ravioli.
“I’m g-glad you eat,” Ryan says as I devour a steak that’s two inches thick.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Kale chips. Gluten-free pasta. Vegan cookies.”
I laugh as I stab a mushroom with my fork. “Yes, you Californians are wacky. There’s always a label for everything. Like ‘bone broth.’ To me that’s just called soup.”
Ryan laughs. “I’m into healthy eating, I guess, but we’ve all gone c-crazy.”
“Thanks for reading my paper, by the way.” I e-mailed Ryan my paper after my embarrassing freak-out at the library, and he gave me good suggestions. “I might actually get above a C this time.”
“W-well, I’m sure if I were taking a million science classes like you are, I’d need more than a tutor. I’d need a miracle.”
I study him as he tells me more about his other classes. He comes to life—speaking faster and gesturing with his hands. My mind starts wandering to where I’d like to feel those hands.
“Who are you reading in your European Lit class?” I ask, to stay focused.
“Everything from Homer to Dante.”
I shake my head. “Because Shakespeare isn’t challenging enough.”
“I know. There’s a guy in my c-class who is learning Latin just so he can read the original texts of some of these books.”
“Good Lord. Guess you have to admire it. I get my fill of Latin in medical terminology.”
Our conversation takes us all over the map and all the way through dessert. Ryan doesn’t get as personal about his life as the last time we met. I decide not to press him, and I tell him stories about growing up in Utah instead.
“Give me an example of how overprotective these b-brothers of yours are.”
“Privacy didn’t exist in our house. No boys allowed in my room, obviously. So I had to take guys way out back on the property, behind a tree or something, to
do any making out. One time, Jeff and David filled up their Super Soakers and ambushed me and my boyfriend. They wet me from head to toe, and it was like fifteen degrees outside. I took off running after Jeff, screaming like a crazy person. He took a picture of me looking like a drowned rat and posted it online.”
“Sounds really f-fun, actually.”
“I guess it was. Plus, it all worked out because I got even by telling Jenny Davis that Jeff smelled up the bathroom every day, and she wouldn’t date him. I never did like Jenny much, so I considered it a good deed.”
When the waiter drops the check, Ryan pays. When they bring his credit card receipt back, he signs it, but he also grabs the pen off the tray and starts doodling on the white piece of paper that sits under his plate.
“What are you drawing?”
“You’ll see.”
When he’s done, he rips off the corner of the paper, and it’s a small cartoon sketch of me, eating a huge ravioli.
“It’s so cute. I can’t believe you did that in two minutes.”
He smiles but casts his eyes down, uncomfortable with the compliment.
After dinner, Ryan says he wants to drive me out to the East Foothills. I’m skeptical but game, so we walk back to the parking garage near my place to grab his car. We head past downtown and wind our way up some treacherous roads, and by the time we get to the top of the hill, it’s dark. Doesn’t matter though, because the lights of the valley are twinkling below us, and it’s humbling to think about everything going on down there. In some ways, I’m always outside Silicon Valley—never a part of its pulse—and seeing it spread out like this is a beautiful, overwhelming reminder.
We have to climb over a small gate to get to where we’re going, so I hike up my skirt and try to preserve my modesty. Ryan glances away, and I am impressed, yet again, by how much of a good guy he is.
He takes me to a tiny clearing where you can’t hear any cars, even though I know they’re nearby. It’s feels peaceful to have the cool night air filling my lungs, and it reminds me of home. He spreads a blanket on the ground and sits down.
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