The Idea of Love

by Patti Callahan Henry

  “So what else can I tell you about Watersend?”

  “Well, I like to get to know the city by the person. So tell me a little bit about you.”

  “Trust me, the town is much more interesting.”

  “I’ll decide if that’s true,” he said.

  “Okay, fine. I’m here to prove you wrong. I was named after Ella Fitzgerald. My mother was obsessed with her. So embarrassing fact number one is out of the way.”

  “I think that’s kind of sweet.” Hunter leaned forward.

  “Sickeningly sweet.” Ella wanted to chug the rest of her Bloody Mary. Her tongue was itching for it.

  “So what else about you?” he asked.

  “I was born and raised in a city two hours away. I went to college close to here, Durban College. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it. After graduation, I wanted the big city, you know? Something so opposite of here that I could become a different person and start over…”

  “Why would you want to start over?”

  “Youthful fantasy.” Ella stopped.

  “What were you studying?”

  “Fashion,” she said.

  “Are you still in fashion?”

  “Yes, I’m a wedding dress designer,” she said.

  “Oh, what a great job. You must just love that.”

  “I do.” She said this like a woman who knew how lucky she was. “With all the destination weddings and engagements in a coastal town, I’m plenty busy.”

  “Yes, Watersend does seem romantic. And with this little café and the umbrellas and park, it’s like Paris almost.”

  “But not quite.”

  “You’ve been?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Her voice went soft, downy, as if recalling a real memory. “Tell me about you,” she said.

  “Me? Boring.”

  “We all think we’re boring. And maybe we are to ourselves.”

  “I write travel books, history books, coffee table books that people buy and look at once and then use as decorative stands for the Waterford crystal bowl they won at the golf tournament.”

  He was funny, this Hunter from L.A. It felt good to laugh.

  * * *

  It was like he’d tapped water from stone. He was in now.

  “So did you get engaged here like the rest of the world?” he asked.

  “Yes. Not very original is it?”

  “Love is always original to the person in it. It feels like no one in the world can feel the way you do. Like you’ve discovered the word itself.” He’d said this one sentence so many times he could feel the words rounding out in front of him before he spoke.

  He could tell she agreed by the way she softened, by the way she looked away as if trying not to cry. “Yes,” she said in a whisper.

  He wanted more. Her response hinted at a good love story. But how did he ask? He sat silent; sometimes this worked. If you gave the other person space, they wanted to fill it up as if it were an empty bowl.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally spoke. “I’m being personal.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “But I don’t want to talk about my personal life. Okay?”

  A swell of frustration filled his chest. “Okay,” he said. “I understand. I really do.”

  “Listen, it was a pleasure meeting you and I wish you the best of luck on your book, but I need to go now.” She took a bite from the celery stalk before dropping it back into the glass.

  “Can I call you?” he asked. His food hadn’t even arrived and she was about to leave.

  Her eyebrows dropped into the cutest Y, like a little road to her nose. “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I’d love to ask you a few more questions. I’ll buy you dinner if that’s bribery enough.”

  She nodded. “I guess so.”

  He pulled out his cell phone. He’d have to trust that she would give him the real number, and not lie to him as he had to her. “What’s your number? I’ll just enter it in my phone.”

  “Here.” She pulled out her own cell. “I’ll call you so I’ll have your number, too.”

  “Great idea,” he said.

  That’s how he got Ella’s number. That’s how he felt like maybe, just maybe, something good was finally going to happen. He knew about peaks and valleys. He knew all the philosophical ways to look at failure, how the word crisis was just another word for change. He’d heard it all. Bullshit. He didn’t need failure to learn something new. He had liked everything in his life exactly the way it had been.

  Still, he liked this Ella here and he would call her. He’d wait so as not to freak her out but then he’d call.

  “Wait,” he called after her.

  She turned and lifted her sunglasses. “Yes?”

  “I thought you said you were waiting for someone.”

  “I lied,” she said.

  He smiled. This girl had nerve. “I’d love to meet your husband, too. Ask him a few questions about the town from his perspective.”

  “You can’t,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “He’s dead.” She paused, and then walked back to the table. “I’m sorry. That was rude. He’s passed on.”

  Blake stood and reached for her arm, but then dropped his hand. “I am so sorry. What happened?”

  “Drowning,” she said.

  “Oh, God,” Blake said.

  She nodded. “It was so unnecessary. He was trying to…” She closed her eyes as if she could see it all again, a reenactment. “My hat flew off and I reached for it. I wasn’t thinking. It was all instinct, you know? I lost my balance and I fell out of the boat. Sims dove after me, but it was the motor … it hit him in the head. There was nothing to be done. It happened so fast. And it was all for a hat, a stupid wide-brimmed hat, the kind you see in every beach shop.” She opened her eyes then, and Blake saw the tears collected in them. “I’m sorry, but I have to go now,” she said.

  He readied himself to console her, but she turned away, her purse draped loosely over her shoulder. A broken V of white birds slung through the sky and rounded a corner as if to follow her. Blake’s palms tingled. This was it. This woman, she had the story. He knew it. And he had to be careful.

  two

  It was that kind of day. The sky a bowl of blue, dotted with birds. The air so warm it caressed the skin. And everyone smiling, taking photos, and holding hands.

  Which how-to-get-over-your-loss book had told her to live in the present? Ella had consulted so many that they all blended together. Notice. Be present. Stay centered. She tried. She really tried. She focused and noticed the statue in the middle of the fountain, the way the angel seemed to lift its wings to the surrounding water. And beside the fountain, the pink petals that dotted the putty-colored sidewalk. There were benches, too, curved iron ones that circled the angel and the pond.

  A man and a woman sat together on one of the benches. They were huddled together, almost burrowed into each other. Two as one. He stroked her hair. She wound her fingers through his belt loops, draped one pretty leg over his lap.

  Of course she was jealous of this couple. Their world went on even as hers had halted. This was as close as she’d come to acceptance, and the small victory warmed her. But as triumphs go, it was short-lived. Walking closer to the bench, Ella felt the ground shift beneath her. It was an earthquake. Something biblical. Nothing less than devastation.

  Sims. Betsy.

  Her husband. Her best friend’s sister.

  Good job, Ella, for your full presence and attention in this world. That’s what you get for noticing every detail. Every rotten detail.

  The affair. What else to call it? To Ella, there had been nothing out of place. Not so much as a hint of anything amiss in their love.

  Their marriage had been easy and peaceful, the way it should be when two people settle into something that passes from infatuation and passion to love and domestic harmony. They knew which coffee cup to use and who picked up the dry cleaning on which days. They each had their own side of the bed, each
with books piled high on the nightstand: history and biography for him; fiction and health for her. She fed the birds. He bought the birdseed. They didn’t fight.

  Their sex life had been good. The magazines all said that infrequent sex was the biggest sign of an affair. But not in their case. They made love. A lot. More than her friends. She knew this because other women talked about their dwindling sex lives, about how they pretended to be asleep when their husbands came to bed, or felt too tired for anything but the couch and TV. Ella never bragged that she and Sims made love a few times a week, that they tried to be creative, inventive even. They’d been married for over seven years and still she would thrill at a look he’d give her over the table, a sly touch when they were in public. She thought of him when he wasn’t around. She spoke his name when she was alone.

  But while she felt settled, somewhere along the line Sims had felt like he was settling. Big difference.

  Ella left the park, moving away from Sims and Betsy as quickly as she could without drawing attention to herself. She found a bench at the exit of the park and slumped there, her face in her hands, once again going over the excruciating details of the day she found out about Betsy. She did this often, reviewed those moments, as if she could change one thing about it and everything else would change also.

  Ella had been at the kitchen table when her world had shattered. It was her favorite place in their home, the rounded space where sunlight fell into the room from both sides of the house. Ella had painted the walls a blue so pale they looked almost white, until dusk when the evening gray pulsed in through the windows.

  This had been Sims’s house before it was theirs: a diminutive cottage facing east with a front garden that had been ruined by neglect until she arrived. The house was covered with cedar shake shingles weathered to gray. It had wide wood floors that she’d refinished during their first year of marriage, board by board, lovingly by hand.

  Their home wasn’t fancy, but it was a reflection of Ella and Sims, their partnership and deep love. Everything, every piece, had been chosen together.

  A porthole mirror hung in the hallway, as did an antique map of South Carolina. Next to the map stood a hutch made from an old boat hull. Sailboat paintings were everywhere, mismatched and hung without frames: a vivid reminder of their sailing life. Ella and Sims bought them at garage sales, flea markets, and art shows. They displayed the paintings among treasures they had gathered at festivals: chipped vintage plates with anchor motifs; blue-striped linen and grain sack pillows; folk art from local artists; crab-shaped pottery; and one of her favorites, a bubble glass jar she’d found on the beach and turned into a lamp.

  Sims had come home flushed the evening of the Debacle, as she had come to think of it. He was listening to music on his phone, singing along to “Jack and Diane” by John Mellencamp back when he was John Cougar and a lot more fun. He didn’t see Ella when he came in, she could tell that much by his distracted smile and far-off gaze. It was an empty house as far as he thought. She sat at the kitchen table sorting through sailboat sketches she’d found at a flea market, enjoying the few minutes of watching him unaware. So cute, her husband in a good mood, sweaty from a workout or a sailing excursion, she didn’t know.

  It was this flushed quality, the way he engaged fully in everything, which first attracted her to him. He was athletic and clean-cut, always looking like he should be wearing a suit. His hair, which now was starting to gray at the temples, had been dark without variation. His eyes were beautiful, with lids that fell low and dreamy, always looking like he just woke up. His chin was a perfect rectangle, like something drawn. She’d told him so on their second date. He’d laughed. And why not? He was relaxed in his body, comfortable as if there was no one else he’d rather be.

  There he was, moving about the house, singing to John Cougar and oblivious to her presence, which should have been her first hint. That’s hindsight for you: twenty-twenty.

  When he saw her, when he looked up, he startled. “Oh,” he said.

  She laughed. “Oh! Back at you. What’s up?”

  His face changed so dramatically that she thought maybe he was having a heart attack or something. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  Nothing good has ever followed the phrase “we need to talk.” Ella knew that. It was how the teacher pulled her aside about her grades. It was how she broke up with every boyfriend. It was how her dad told her about her mom’s death. Weneedtotalk.

  Ella tried to postpone the inevitable, whatever the inevitable was. “Look. I found these vintage sailboat prints. I’m framing them for the marina,” she said.

  “That’s nice,” he said without looking. His gaze was twitchy, his pupils large enough to make his eyes appear brown instead of dark green. He pulled out his ear buds and placed his phone on the table. He took her hands in his. The gesture felt stiff, wrong.

  “I was hoping I would never have to say this to you. I was hoping it would go away, that it would fade, that it wasn’t real.”

  She knew what he was going to say.

  He was dying.

  Stage four something or other. Months to live. Maybe weeks. This explained the absences and the appointments. The loss of appetite. The sudden withdrawal and exhaustion at night. The whispered phone calls and quick hang-ups.

  “God, this is so hard for me to say. I’m…” Sims didn’t finish.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay. We’ll beat this.” She started to cry, the tears gathering.

  “Baby, listen,” he said. “Ella. I need you to listen.”

  “I’m listening, Sims. I’m here. We are not giving up. We will face this together.”

  “Ella,” Sims said. His voice was strong now. Resolute. “There is no ‘we’ anymore. Not you and me anyway.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m in love.… I’m so sorry.” He tented his fingers on his forehead as if to balance the weight of his statement.

  What was he saying? Of course he was in love. They were married. He’d told her he’d loved her years ago, on a dock with a handful of black-eyed daisies from his neglected garden.

  “I’m confused,” she said, because she was.

  “With Betsy.”

  Then she understood. Everything. He wasn’t dying. He was In Love—capital L—with her best friend’s sister. He was flushed after being with her all day. The understanding came with a series of images, like a spliced film running too fast through a projector.

  The rest of the conversation was a blur, a mash-up of questions and accusations.

  How long?

  When did you start sleeping with her?

  How many times?

  Bastard.

  Have you been with her in our bed?

  Divorce.

  Separation.

  Love.

  Hate.

  She threw up—she remembered that part well—then fell asleep on the couch while Sims placed a cold washcloth on her face. As if he cared. As if he still loved her. It was dark when she woke up. He was gone. The ground caved in again, just like when her mom had died. She’d been walking along, staring at the sky, and then had fallen into a black hole. She’d barely survived the first time. It took everything she had to crawl out, and when she had finally seen daylight, Sims had been standing there.

  Now he wasn’t.

  * * *

  Blake sat on the hotel bed because the couch looked like someone might have died on it. What else would have caused that dark stain on the middle cushion, that dent on the armrest? It was the only hotel in town. He refused to stay in a bed and breakfast, somewhere charming where the host would chat to you over breakfast, asking what your plans were for the day and what you thought of the place.

  So there he was, at a third-rate hotel that charged first-rate prices. What the hell did it matter as long as there was a minibar, room service, and a bed? He always asked for extra pillows.

  Blake used a digital tape recorder. He’d al
ways hated typing. When he tried to make his fingers move across a keyboard, his thoughts were robotic and stiff. But speaking into a tape recorder—that was magic. It used to be, anyway. He’d dictate his ideas from the day, then send the recording to his assistant to type up. She would add these notes to the STORY CONCEPT files he’d been keeping these past months.

  “Hey there, Ashlee,” he said. “I’m in Watersend, South Carolina. It’s as pretty as a picture, which is such a bullshit platitude but still true. I have some ideas I’m going to need you to transcribe. I’ll call you later tonight. I miss you … hope you’ve had a great day and all that.”

  He stopped and rubbed at his eyes. How many times had he told himself not to get involved with his assistants? About as many as he’d told himself not to have the fifth JD. Next time, he’d hire someone ugly.

  He cleared his throat and took a swig of Jack Daniel’s from the tiny plastic bottle from the minibar.

  Pitch Fourteen

  Damn, had he already gotten to fourteen without a trace of anything good?

  LOGLINE: TITANIC meets MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE. A beautiful young widow must learn to love again after her husband dies saving her life in a boating accident.

  TREATMENT: A woman loses the love of her life when he saves her from drowning. She meets him—it’s not quite love at first sight, but it’s close.

  Ella, the main character, was meant to have a magical life. She is petite and has golden hair. She has a quick wit, and yet as soon as she speaks she becomes shy, withdrawing like the words scare her when they come out. She thinks she can never love again. She believes in The One. Soul-mate stuff. She is naive and beautiful. How can she ever love anyone again when the man she loved died saving her? He saved her for a life without him—a cruel irony.

  OPENING SCENE: a windswept ocean with a small boat being tossed around like a toy. Fades to present time …

  NOTE: (There has to be an obstacle or two. Consider obstacles.) They have adventures, wild outdoor adventures. What brings them together is what also destroys them. Is he willing to sacrifice everything for her? (What good is love without sacrifice?)