Premiere: A Love Story

by Ewens, Tracy

  Sam thanked Bobby and floated to the elevator. She started to sweat and was uncertain. Just like the diving board, she kept telling herself.

  Sam stepped off the elevator and put her hand on the cool exposed stone lining the hall. She turned left, and Peter was standing in his doorway. White T-shirt, faded jeans, and socks. He looked tucked into his home, rumpled and gorgeous. Peter was always good looking, but standing in front of her, he was a man, a strong, accomplished, incredibly sexy man with a shocked look on his face. She could tell as she approached that Peter was reconciling her being in New York. She decided not to worry about that. She had something to say, a ladder to finish climbing.

  “What? Sam . . . you’re here. Is everything okay, did something happen?”

  The whole thing felt like a dream. She remembered being a kid, and every time they went to some spectacular place like Paris, she would stand on the street and think, Oh my, am I really here, is that really the Eiffel Tower? She felt that way now looking at Peter, in a place she’d never been before. It all felt surreal. She was short of breath but managed to get out: “Yes. Yes, something happened.”

  “Oh, Christ, I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

  Peter led her into his home, and Sam was instantly filled with warmth, brownies on a winter day, warmth. He was everywhere. It smelled like him, and everything faded. She wanted to stay there, forever wrapped in him. There was a half-eaten bowl of ice cream on the dark wood coffee table. The television was on, but muted. A scene from The Philadelphia Story was frozen in black and white on the flat screen hanging on a brick wall.

  She loved everything about him. Now she needed to get the words out. All the conversations she’d had in her head over the past few weeks, all the doubts, everything she told herself she should be frightened of on the trip to Peter’s door faded away. She slid her hands around his waist and touched her forehead to his. She felt brave and gently said, “You know that part in the play, the part where everything comes to a head, and it all changes?”

  “What? Jesus, Sam, please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Everything’s fine. What’s that called? I can’t remember. Hell, I can’t remember anything. The part where the plot builds up and then ‘boom’ everything . . .”

  “The climax? Are you talking about the climax? What does that . . .”

  “Yes, that’s it! The climax.”

  Sam took a deep breath.

  “Peter, this, this right here, is the climax. This is where the characters have a revelation.”

  “Sam, you’re not making any sense. Do you want to sit down?”

  “No, I definitely do not want to sit down.”

  She pulled him close, and Peter had no idea what was going on. Her body was pressed to him, he could feel her cold hands on his back, and she was standing in his house. This was either a cruel hallucination or Samantha Cathner had just flown across the country, and she looked like she was about to kiss him.

  “Sam.”

  He felt her breath on his face.

  “Peter.”

  She touched the side of his face, as she had done so many times in their life.

  “I’m scared. First, I felt rejected and angry, but then you came back, and now I’m scared.”

  “What? Sam, don’t . . .”

  “Do I scare you, Peter?”

  Shitless, he thought, but she was so close and all he could mutter was: “yes.”

  “Good. Well, I’m climbing up the ladder, I’m making the gesture. I’m reaching for you this time. You are enough, Peter Everoad, you have always been enough.”

  He felt like he was going to die. Every system in his body raced with feelings he’d pushed away for so long. All of them knotted in this throat.

  “I flew across the country to jump off the diving board with you. Remember?”

  Sam sounded crazy now, but she could see in his eyes he knew. He remembered.

  “I want you too. I need to be with you too. I want to be there with you at the awards ceremony tomorrow night. I want to be in your life: New York, Pasadena, wherever. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m scared you’ll let go again, but I’m more afraid of missing one more memory with you.”

  “I won’t let go, Sam. I promise.”

  With that Peter held her face, and Sam looked like a woman on the edge. They both looked into each other, down into the vast, unknown, dangerous water. Her breath caught for a moment as his lips touched hers and then they jumped.

  Peter’s mouth was urgent. He kissed her and held her so close she could barely breathe. They clung and everything they’d held in for so long simply opened. Sam was no longer Sally and Peter was definitely not Phillip. They had grown in their hurt, lived some life, and maybe it was all worth it. Peter buried his hands in Sam’s hair, and trembling, they barely made it to the living room.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve imagined you right where you are?” Peter asked, quietly stroking his fingertips along her bare shoulder.

  “Of course, it was impossible for me to imagine you any more beautiful than you were the last time we were together, but you are. And I have to admit, in most of my fantasies we did at least make it to the bed.”

  Sam rolled over, feeling the living room rug across her skin, and gently kissed him.

  “I’d like to see that bed,” she smiled.

  “Your wish is my command,” and with that Peter slid into his boxer shorts and scooped her up in the blanket that covered them. Sam laughed as he carried her to the bedroom. Peter had learned some things since leaving Pasadena, and every part of her body was grateful.

  “Oh, Peter!” Sam exclaimed, completely captivated by his bedroom.

  This room was where he had brought all the best pieces of Pasadena with him. She recognized the chest his grandfather had given him when they graduated from high school. Everything was familiar. He put her on the bed, and she stood up, slipping into one of his shirts lying at the end of the bed. Sam fastened one button and walked over to the wall.

  “Of course, you’d ruin my perfect chivalric moment.”

  She didn’t respond, stunned and looking above the bed.

  “Sorry, it’s . . .”

  “Kinda cool, right?”

  She touched the canoe that was hanging on the wall over Peter’s bed like a headboard. It was his father’s.

  “It’s perfect, Peter.”

  “I always loved that boat, but it was insane getting it up here. Not a whole lot of canoes in Manhattan,” Peter laughed.

  Sam walked around the room. His bed was huge; she recognized it and the two leather chairs, one in each corner, from his dad’s fishing cabin. They had gone up there a few times in high school with Grady and their dads. Peter’s room was masculine and like a little outdoor oasis in this big city. He’d taken so much of what he cared about and brought it here, as if he could separate the good and take it away from what he considered the bad. His father was everywhere in his bedroom. There was a picture of the two of them fishing and a black-and-white picture of his father as a boy. That same picture had been on the mantel in his family home before his father died. Peter took Sam’s arm to move her back toward the bed, and she saw it, right there, on his dresser in a black frame. She looked at him and his cheeks flushed.

  “Yeah, all right, we’re even. It’s you, well your eyes, but it’s you.”

  They were her eyes, only her eyes, and a few freckles on her nose.

  “Oh, this is going to be so much fun. When did you take that picture, Peter?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his eyes at her as she began the same interrogation he’d given her about the bamboo photo.

  “College graduation. You were smiling while your parents were taking your picture so I took my own. You looked so happy that day with them. I knew, under the circumstances, if I’d asked you for a picture I wouldn’t have gotten the same smile, not after that night and . . . so, I stole it. I stole those eyes.”


  Sam remembered him avoiding her at graduation and thinking that he was simply keeping his distance to avoid the awkwardness of what happened. She would have never guessed he loved her that day or that he would want to steal her eyes.

  “Why?”

  She continued to question him, as he had her.

  “Oh, here we go again.”

  “Turn about is fair play, right? You wanted to know about the rainwater. You wouldn’t let it go.”

  “I know. Fine, I love your eyes, always have. They’re brown, but like a mosaic, and they change colors, I never know what I’m going to get when I look into your eyes. I wanted to take them with me.”

  “Only that part? Hmm, I noticed you didn’t take my mouth. Too complicated, this mouth?”

  “You could say that, but the mouth is great too. I love the mouth too.”

  He ran his thumb over her bottom lip, pulled close, kissed her gently. A warm smile crossed his entire satisfied face.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Very nice. Make love to me, show me some great pictures, and then . . . food. Yes, I’m starving, but it’s three o’clock in the morning, where are you going to get . . . oh, for a minute I forgot where I was, the city that never sleeps.”

  About forty-five minutes later the delivery guy knocked at the door. Sam made sure she was out of sight, to avoid looking like a little harlot who shows up at a man’s house in the middle of the night.

  Peter paid, handed the short, tired-looking, bald guy a tip and closed the door. While they opened the chicken, pitas, and tabouli, Sam asked about Bobby, the doorman. Peter told her the story of how he found this place and that Bobby had four children, all girls.

  “That’s why he’s charming. In a house with five women, he has to be,” Sam said as they sat on the living room floor and ate off the coffee table.

  They fed each other, laughed, and gazed at one another without the tension that previously forced them to look away. Everything felt fresh, without all of the baggage of home. Sam was not sitting with Peter from the past; she was with and loving Peter in the present. They discussed the last four years of the Oscars and the Tony Awards. They both agreed it was a disgrace that Shrek made it to Broadway, and Peter said they should see Jersey Boys while she was in town. They talked about new music and debated the virtues of iTunes. It was like she was getting to know this gorgeous man and she happened to remember what he looked like when he got his first dog. Sam realized why Peter loved being in New York. His apartment, his life, was so rich here, and he seemed so at ease. She loved it, loved him, maybe a little too much.

  Peter’s home was something you see in a hip, urban magazine. Old and modern mixed together. Oak hardwood floors, exposed brick, huge windows, and a long rectangular skylight above the entry. Sam imagined that his apartment must fill with the most beautiful morning light. It then dawned on her that she would see that light, and her stomach fluttered.

  After they ate, Peter showed her around the rest of the apartment with a grin on his face the whole time. He couldn’t stop smiling. She was actually here, in his world, his Sam, wrapped in his shirt.

  He had dreamed about her here so many times. Her laugh filled his hall, and Peter realized in that moment he had everything he had ever wanted. She opened him up, let so much light in that it was bright. Looking at her standing barefoot in his shirt, Peter hoped to God he didn’t screw this up again because there was no way he would survive if he ever had to give her back again.

  Sam walked through the house admiring Peter’s eclectic mesh of modern and cozy. There were old pictures of his parents and newer pictures of his mother and sister together in front of the Met. They must have visited him in New York too. There was a picture of him with Grady at a Yankees game. She also noticed a group picture. It looked liked a group of actors or an entire cast, with Peter in the center, holding a tattered script. He was smiling in a way she didn’t often see on Peter. He looked happy, so very happy. No wonder he left, she thought, trying to tear her eyes away from the pictures. She realized there were people here she’d never met who made him, his life, happy. It was an odd feeling, and Sam wondered if there were other women. She hadn’t thought about it before, and she wasn’t going to start now. She was being brave, moving forward, not dwelling on the past.

  They walked down the hall, past a second bedroom on the right. There were more theater pictures, a couple of artistic ones that Sam appreciated, a close-up of an old stage light and one with the edges of a torn ticket. Great shots. The walls held programs of shows Peter had seen and his own Playbill, under a glass frame, right by the entrance to his bedroom. Sam was so glad she had jumped on that plane; no matter what happened she would never regret seeing this side of Peter, his life away from his childhood.

  They went back to the couch, talked more, nestled in each other’s arms, and watched the last half of The Philadelphia Story. Peter was aware of Sam’s warm body, his arms wrapped around her. She had let him in, her heart beat in concert with his own. As he watched, her eyes drifted closed and she sighed. He felt this strange pull and recognized what she had given him. He had a second chance, one he vowed to cherish.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sam woke to the smell of bacon and the feel of cotton sheets. It took her a minute to figure out where she was and then she sank into a smile. It wasn’t a dream. Peter had carried her from the couch in the early morning, taken her to his bed, and made love to her again. This time it was slow and achingly tender. The urgency was replaced by soft and total adoration. The warmth of the love they shared surrounded her as she reached out to touch the side Peter slept on. He had obviously gotten up to make the bacon that filled the house with its aroma along with the sound of the Police. Good Lord, did anyone still listen to the Police? Not even the alluring sounds of Sting, but old-school Police. Sam came around the corner wearing Peter’s shirt and trying to fluff her bedhead into something appealing. Many women would go in the bathroom, brush their teeth or their hair. Some supercrazy women might even put on makeup before walking out to see a lover. Sam decided she wasn’t most women. She wanted to be with Peter more than she cared about her hair.

  Peter turned, spatula in hand, as she walked into the kitchen, and the corner of his mouth turned up, making him look like a devilish little boy. Feeling quite sexy and fueled by that look, Sam said nothing. She kissed him slowly. Peter dropped the spatula and wrapped his arms around her. She pulled away and said: “Good morning.”

  Peter was in the jeans he’d worn the night before, not quite buttoned all the way, and a worn T-shirt. His hair was all over the place and he had at least two days of stubble as he stood in his bare feet with the morning light spilling into the kitchen. Sam sauntered over to the coffee machine feeling playful.

  Peter’s eyes hung on her as he bent to pick up the spatula.

  “Good morning to you too. That is officially my favorite shirt.”

  Sam laughed and poured some coffee. He took the bacon off the stove and stood behind her at the counter.

  “I can’t get enough,” he whispered into her neck.

  “I know.”

  His hands traveled up her body.

  “I keep thinking someone’s going to tell me this is all some kind of mistake or a dream.”

  Peter spread the top part of her shirt open and kissed her neck.

  “If it’s a dream, it is the best dream I’ve ever had . . .”

  He took her earlobe in his teeth and warmed it with his tongue.

  “And I’d . . . be perfectly fine never waking up again.”

  Peter’s new favorite shirt fell to the kitchen floor. His hands ran down Sam’s bare back, and, with that touch, breakfast would have to wait. They had let so many things get in the way, even if they’d yet to figure out the details, they both needed each other in the most desperate way.

  They eventually ate breakfast, took a shower, and dressed for their day in New York. Peter called it “Playing Tourist for a Day.” They wer
e going to take in all the tourist spots, some of which neither of them had ever seen despite Sam’s having been to New York several times and Peter being a local now. They hailed cabs and gladly waited in lines. The Empire State Building line was insane, but it was a great place to people watch, and they honestly didn’t care as long as they were together. Sam and Peter held hands, looked in windows, and gawked at the landmarks that made New York such a famous city. It was fun being a tourist and time truly stood still. It was as if they were two young lovers on vacation, isolated and suspended.

  They split a pastrami sandwich at Katz’s Deli and walked for miles in Central Park. The weather was warm, and they sat on a bench to talk like they had done their entire lives. It was a perfect day, and even though she knew it made no sense, Sam never wanted to go home. Home was complicated. Her relationship with Peter was complicated, and there were still things that would crop up and get in their way, but in New York they were off to a brilliant start.

  Later that evening, they were at the Drama Desk Awards. That afternoon Sam had found a great Elie Saab dress. It was sheer black, and she bought a pair of strappy heels to go with it. She wore her hair loosely back, exposing her neck. She felt sexy and sophisticated, inspired by the city and by being with Peter in his element. Sam met new people and was so proud of the things they were saying about Peter and his work. He was well respected and so humble. Sam was relieved to be off her feet as soon as the driver closed the door to the car. Peter pulled her legs onto his lap.

  “You are breathtaking tonight. I mean I know that’s overused, but there were times I looked across the room at you and actually couldn’t take a breath.”

  “And you were brilliant. Cute too, but brilliant. You belong here and your play, well now that you know I saw it, I can honestly say it is relevant, touching work, Peter.”

  “Didn’t win.”

  He started rubbing her feet.

  “Oh, poor baby. What’s that they say about just being nominated?”