The Idea of Love

by Patti Callahan Henry

  NOTES:

  Scene where she and her love (let’s use the name Flynn for now—good, solid name) are feeding the birds and one of them lands on her shoulder, and she screams and laughs only to have Flynn accidentally hit and injure the bird in a quick move to help her. They take the bird to the vet and discover there is nothing to be done: the bird dies.

  Blake smiled. Yes, good scene. It can happen quickly, just to show their bond over the littlest things in life. And to foreshadow a death to come, the fragility of life.

  He wrote in his notebook for another hour, dumping ideas he could go back to and look at later, scenes he could sift through. When he’d finished, he opened the minibar and poured himself a JD. He’d asked the front desk to double-stock the bar. After the warmth settled into his chest, he checked his cell phone. It was brimming with text messages and missed calls. He settled back into the couch with drink number one and sifted through his messages. Ashlee. Ashlee. Ashlee. His mom. Ashlee.

  Great.

  He threw back the drink. He wouldn’t count this one; he drank it too fast to count it. The texts from Ashlee started off with kind questions.

  How is your day?

  What’s going on?

  Any notes for me to dictate?

  And descended into

  Where the hell are you?

  Are you alive?

  If you’re not dead, I’m going to kill you.

  He typed to her in return.

  Hey, sweetie, I’m good. All is good. Just really busy and getting words down on paper. I’m not dead and please don’t kill me. Xo

  She answered immediately. She missed him. She loved him and wanted him to hurry home.

  Ashlee was like a changing weather system, unpredictable like the thunderstorm today. It was part of what had drawn him to her in the first place. But it was getting tiresome, the flashes of anger followed by the cloying sweetness. Blaming him for a bad day and then seducing him in the next breath. Berating a waitress and then hugging her when they left the restaurant. Before he’d left for this trip, he’d told Ashlee that he loved her. Why the hell had he done that when he didn’t love her at all? “Whoops, didn’t mean it.” Yeah, as if that would work.

  He’d been desperate when he left. His world had been coming undone, unraveling in ways he’d never anticipated. He’d grabbed on to Ashlee like a raft, and he’d climbed on up. Even if he didn’t love her, he didn’t want to hurt her. At all. He wanted to undo the damages he had done. But that seemed impossible.

  His agent was ignoring his calls.

  His ex-wife hated him.

  His daughter wasn’t speaking to him.

  Amelia, his daughter. She was the one he missed the most. She was the one who broke his heart. Yes, Marilee shattered him with her hatred, but his heart, only his daughter could break that. The ache he felt when he thought of her, which was a million times a day, helped fuel his need for JD. Marilee had poisoned Amelia, told her everything. Who the hell tells a fifteen-year-old girl about the misdeeds of her father?

  Well, People magazine for starters. After that, his ex-wife.

  It had been like a plug pulled out of a tub, the way his daughter’s love disappeared. Instant. All of a sudden and with sucking force. It wasn’t hate that remained, it was worse—disdain and disinterest. No matter what he did or bought or sold or said, Amelia was resolute in her loathing.

  There was only one thing he wanted to fix more than his career: his relationship with Amelia. He’d tried. For a year he’d tried. He wouldn’t give up, but here in Watersend, he would try to fix something he had some control over.

  The worst part of it all was that he’d made all these mistakes during the best part of his life. He’d done the damage when he thought he was flying high, living the life, being The Man. He’d been invincible and strong, not once seeing the havoc he wreaked with every step he took. Too oblivious in his own glory.

  He picked up his cell phone and called Ella before he even realized what he’d done. Her voice, soft, answered, “Yes?”

  “It’s Hunter.”

  She laughed. “I thought I’d heard the last from you.”

  “No. I just realized how much of your precious time I’d taken up and I thought I should thank you before I leave tomorrow. Can I take you out to dinner?”

  She hesitated, silence, and then a little cough. “Sure.”

  “Great. You pick the restaurant.”

  “Okay.” She was quiet for a moment, and there was running water in the background. A shower? A sink?

  Blake looked outside. No, it was rain. “Do you have a window open?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “I hear the rain. I wish I could open the window here.…”

  “Yes. It’s pouring.”

  “So, what restaurant?” He wanted her to say, just come here with my open window and the rain and I’ll cook for you.

  “How about the Patio? You’ll like it and it has a great view of the park.”

  “Perfect,” he said even though it’s not what he meant.

  * * *

  The restaurant was packed—spring Friday night. But Ella had called in a favor and reserved a corner table. It was stupid, choosing Sims’s favorite restaurant. She was tempting the fates. Messing with the gods, her mom would have said. And you can only do that so many times.

  Ella arrived early so she could take a breath and scope out the restaurant. She didn’t recognize anyone, so she settled back in her seat. Hunter walked in and spoke to the hostess, who directed him toward Ella. “Over there,” she said.

  Hunter smiled and waved as he wound his way through the tables to the back corner. He leaned over to hug her. “Glad you didn’t have plans,” he said. “I know it was last-minute.”

  “Oh, I had plans,” she lied. “I just changed them because I know you’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “Oh, okay.” Hunter sat and unfolded his napkin, placed it in his lap. He picked up the wine list. “What are you in the mood for tonight?”

  Ella leaned forward and smiled. “Malbec. You?”

  “Ah, first a real drink. Then wine.”

  They talked about the small things, nothing important; the weather and the architecture of the restaurant, and the waitress’s pretty smile. They ordered their food—salmon for her, steak for him—sharing their side dishes until they’d emptied the first bottle of wine and ordered a second.

  “Are you getting excited about going home?” Ella finally asked him.

  “I am. But I have some messes to clean up when I get there.”

  “Tell me more about you. Why are there messes at home?”

  “I did some people wrong and I need to fix it,” he said, and twirled the wineglass on the table, his thumb and forefinger around the stem of the glass.

  “We all mess up.”

  “Yes, but then we all have to find a way to fix it, too. And I’ve been gone for months. I’m happy about going home, but there are … things.”

  “What is home like?” She closed her eyes and smiled. “I mean, is it totally different from here? What does it feel like?”

  “It’s beautiful. As beautiful as it is here, but not in the same way.” He smiled at her and she saw the crinkles around his eyes deepen. He really was handsome in a craggy sort of way.

  Silverware clattered to the floor somewhere across the room and Hunter startled. They’d been quiet for a few minutes and he must have gone off somewhere in his mind. Ella laughed. “Where’d you go?”

  “Huh?”

  “In your head. You were so far away.” Ella cut into her salmon, but didn’t take a bite. She really wasn’t hungry at all. “What are you so worried about?”

  “Let’s see. I can list them. A daughter who isn’t speaking to me. An ex-wife who hates me. An assistant I need to fire. And break up with. And—” Hunter held up his hands. “That’s enough right there, although there’s more.”

  The warm feeling under her heart was so unfamiliar that at first she thought she
was embarrassed. But it wasn’t embarrassment. She was happy to be talking to him about real things. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That is a mess. Maybe you should just not go back?”

  “Sounds nice but I’ve tried the running-away thing. It doesn’t fix itself just because I’m gone. If it would have, it would have by now.”

  “And your daughter?” Ella leaned forward thinking of Mimi’s daughter, of losing a daughter in any way.

  “She hates me, too,” he said.

  “Why—?”

  “Because I was selfish. Stupid. I made a mistake.…”

  “We all make—”

  Hunter held up his hand with a sad-type smile. “Don’t say it. I know what you’re going to say and it’s not going to make me feel any better. Yes, we all make mistakes. But mine are screwups more than mistakes.”

  “What’s the difference?” Ella asked.

  “One that does real damage to someone you love.” He closed his eyes. “Yes, that’s the definition.”

  Ella repeated his words. “‘One that does real damage to someone you love.’” She took a long sip of her wine. “Yes, that’s a screwup.”

  “See?” Hunter hit his forehead with his palm. “I’m an idiot and I don’t know how to fix it.”

  “You say sorry. You say sorry until you can’t say it anymore. You can do that, right?”

  “Tried that,” he said, and made a check mark in the air.

  “Can I ask what it was?”

  “I cheated on my wife, a very public thing.”

  “Yes, that’s … bad.” Ella didn’t even try to hide the hit in the chest that those words gave her. I cheated.

  “I know. It’s bad.” The dining room grew louder; a quartet played in the far corner. Hunter reached across the table and tapped the top of Ella’s hand. “I shouldn’t have told you. Now you think I’m a terrible person. Which I guess I am.”

  She really liked this man. She liked his brown-gold eyes and his sense of humor, his quick retorts and fun questions. And yet was he any different than Sims? A cheater? She obviously didn’t know anything about men. Or life.

  “Betrayal,” she said, and leaned forward. “It changes everything. The lies. The deceit. She must have felt like such a fool. Why the hell would you do that?” For a moment in her anger, Hunter became Sims, a man choosing to betray his wife. Ella dropped her fork on her plate and it clanged, an exclamation point.

  His eyes, focused on her, were damp with the beginning of tears. “I don’t know why I told you. It’s a terrible truth. I could try and explain, offer you the reasons it happened. Not the excuses because there aren’t excuses. But there were reasons. My marriage was bitter and sad. But it doesn’t really matter because when you put the facts on paper, when you say them out loud, it’s sordid, it’s cliché, it’s hurtful. I know.”

  “Couldn’t you have just told her that you weren’t happy? That things were changing? Why lie and sneak around and make hushed phone calls and hide e-mails and pretend to work late?” Ella’s voice rose and she couldn’t stop it. She wanted to, but the words were pouring out as if they’d been waiting. Why? She always wanted to know why.

  “It’s like you were there for all of it.” He exhaled and looked away. “I don’t know, Ella. I don’t know why. It was awful. I’m sorry. I feel terrible. I can’t fix it. I can’t go backward. You hate me.” He paused as if all those sentences exhausted him and then said, “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “I don’t hate you. I just don’t understand.” She fought back any kind of emotional display. Hunter was not Sims. She was judging without understanding.

  “I’m trying to understand. I really am. Sometimes I think my ex was relieved that I did that. That I cheated … because now she has a real reason to hate me. But the worst part is that I don’t know how to make it up to my daughter.”

  “I don’t know if there is a way to make it up to somebody. I don’t think that’s what forgiveness is about,” Ella said. She knew exactly what Sims would have to do to make it up to her: apologize, run back to her, admit that he made a mistake, and then prove his love by being there, staying there. “I think maybe the only way to make things right is by being present, by really being there for her. Going to her and not allowing her to push you away. Run back to her. Don’t give up.”

  “I’m not talking about my ex.”

  “I’m not, either. Your daughter…”

  “Yes, I don’t think my time on the road has helped things at all. I send e-mails. I’ve sent presents. I’ve called and texted.”

  Ella shook her head. “Not what a girl needs. I mean, it’s nice to get those things, but being present is more important. Being there, next to her.”

  Hunter leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I can definitely try that.”

  “I just know what I needed when someone … I mean, if someone betrayed me.”

  “Your guy. He wouldn’t have ever done anything like that, would he? Cheated on you. Embarrassed you.”

  She shook her head, unable to answer.

  “What do you think made—” Hunter asked.

  Ella cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Please. You can ask me about Watersend or tell me more about your life. But not me. Not me anymore. I’m tired of me and I’m tired of being sad.”

  “Ah, that has to be progress.”

  “Yes. So, tell me, why didn’t you like that movie today?”

  “I was just preoccupied.” Hunter cut into his steak, stared at it as if it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. “I think it’s one of the director’s best. But I liked Driftwood Summer better.”

  “It was okay,” Ella said. “It was so sappy and romantic. I saw what was coming from the first two minutes. And I was not once surprised. Sometimes those kinds of movies are good. Like When Harry Met Sally. You know she’s going to end up with him, but you’re surprised along the way by how she ends up with him. Not this one. It was two hours of my life I won’t get back.”

  Hunter moved in his chair, and then he busted out laughing. It was a quick burst of noise.

  “It wasn’t that funny.”

  “It was,” he said, and wiped at his eyes while he turned to the table. “It really was. I didn’t realize you were such a movie critic.”

  “I’m not. I just like a good story. That’s all. I don’t get what’s so funny.”

  “You.” Hunter took in a long breath and put both his hands on the table, palms up. “Give me your hands.”

  She did.

  “You are adorable. And funny. I’m sorry things have been so rough for you. I’m sorry for a lot of things.”

  His hands were strong and soft, and he wound his fingers through hers. The touch of another human made her feel weak, her chest full and warm. If she didn’t still love Sims, she would actually have a crush on this man she barely knew (who cheated on his wife and lived three thousand miles away). She pulled her hands from his. “Thanks, you’re sweet.”

  “You see,” he said. “That’s the problem. I’m not.”

  “That’s not true. You really are.”

  Hunter’s face changed then. His eyelids fell to half-mast. “I’m glad this was my last city,” he said. “I’m glad I met you.”

  “Thanks,” Ella said, and felt the too-much wine flowing through her thoughts, softening its edges, blurring the truth and the lies.

  With vivid detail, Ella saw Sims across the room just as the waitress brought the check. Maybe she knew she would. Maybe she came here wanting to see him. But whatever she had wanted when she made that reservation, well, she didn’t want it now. She didn’t want Sims anywhere near Hunter or the false life she’d created. Sims looked up from his dinner and caught her gaze. Betsy, her hair up in a bun, had her back to Ella. Sims looked away quickly as if Ella’s gaze burned.

  “Let’s go,” Ella said to Hunter, and smiled her best smile.

  They were halfway across the room when Hunter tilted his head to the left. “That woman over
there,” he said. “Don’t look yet, but I met her at a bar the other night.”

  Ella didn’t have to look; she knew. He’d met Betsy. Ella’s heart thumped and rolled. “And? Was she trying to pick you up?” Ella tried for light and breezy, missing it.

  “No, not me. Not anyone. She was with a bunch of women and went on and on about this guy. How they were made for each other. How they were … meant to be. She thought she was living the ultimate love story of all time.”

  “Because stealing someone’s husband is the ultimate love story?”

  “Ah, you know her.”

  “Only in passing.” Ella rolled her eyes. “As if she has any idea what love is.” Ella glanced around at Sims and Betsy, leaning toward each other, holding hands. “Let’s go,” she said again.

  “I haven’t really had this much fun in a long time,” he said. “I’m sorry we have to go.”

  “Well, let me take you to my favorite little bar.” Ella slipped her arm through Hunter’s and hoped that Sims took at least one glance, one furtive glance her way.

  * * *

  Hunter walked with Ella under gas lanterns and over cobbled sidewalks until they entered a small bar where a musician sat in the corner tuning her guitar. “I love this place,” Ella said. “I never see anyone I know and this girl is always here singing on Friday nights.”

  A strum of guitar chords from across the room, a screech from a microphone. Hunter placed his hand on the small of Ella’s back. He followed her into the room and stayed connected, his palm against the cottony fabric of her sundress. She found a table in the corner and they sat and ordered drinks—he a JD and she sparkling water. “We won’t stay long,” she said. “I know you have an early flight. I just want to hear her sing a couple of songs.”

  “What’s her name?” he asked, and not because he cared but because all of a sudden he found himself nervous and short on words.

  “Willa. Isn’t that the best name? She’s really good. She comes over from Savannah.”