He cocked his ear to listen for Ella, but it was the sound of crickets that persisted, a kind of white noise that made this place seem so right. Why right? He didn’t know, since everything he was doing—lying and stealing stories—was wrong. He walked toward the house and saw that the gate was closed but the front door was wide open.
“Ella,” he called her name softly, almost hoping she wouldn’t answer so he could snap a few photos.
There came a burping, or croaking, he didn’t know which. A frog? He aimed his phone at the house and took almost twenty photos in quick succession: the wide front porch, painted white but with a pale blue ceiling; the iron gate; the climbing roses on the banister; the cedar shake in pale gray with louvered shutters painted one shade darker.
What he couldn’t catch in the photo was the sweet scent, one he couldn’t label, not thick like gardenia and not sweet like honeysuckle, but something in between. He quickly hit the record button on his phone and said, “The fragrance surrounding the house is something otherworldly, something made of sea and flowers.”
That was enough for now.
“Ella.” This time he called louder.
He tapped her name on his cell phone contacts. It rang once and went straight to voice mail. His hands wound through the thick curls of the gate. He hollered her name louder this time. Once. Twice.
She appeared at the front door, disheveled as if he’d caught her in the middle of sex.
His thoughts embarrassed him.
“Hi, Hunter.” She hobbled toward him on crutches. “I’m so sorry. I fell asleep. And my phone is broken and the groceries are still in the car and…”
Her hair was squashed up on one side, pushed backward and, frankly, it was adorable. She’d been asleep; he could tell. She unlocked the gate and he opened it as she stumbled backward, caught the edge of her crutch in a cobblestone and landed, hard, on her bottom, with a thumph.
“Oh, I’m sorry. God, are you okay?” Hunter bent down and picked up her crutches, which had scattered sideways. “Let me help you.”
He held out his hand and she took it. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m a klutz. I know.”
“What happened? You were fine an hour ago.”
“I fell, twisted my ankle.”
“When?”
“Right after seeing you. I just flat out tripped walking to the front door. That’s why the groceries are still in the car. I’m sorry.” Her voice faded with each sentence, disappearing ink.
“It’s okay,” he said. “More important, are you okay?”
“I think it’s just twisted.”
Blake looked down now, at her foot, which was blue and swollen. “I think that might be more than twisted.”
“It hurts.”
He looked at her closely now. She was pale and she was almost crying.
“Let’s get you inside. Get some ice on it. I have some pain pills in my briefcase.”
“You carry pain pills with you?”
His laugh, the stilted one that came out, sounded false.
“I have a bad leg from an old break and when it flares up…”
She smiled halfway. “Sims has an old injury that does that, especially when it rains. His knee.” She paused and looked toward the house. “Had an old injury.”
Sims. It was a nice, solid name for a husband.
A high-pitched squeal broke the conversation and they both turned to see a beat-up Toyota, faded red with rust stains like amoebas on the passenger’s-side door.
“Our food,” Ella said.
A young boy, looking almost too young to drive, jumped out of the car. “Hi, Mrs. Flynn.”
“Hi, there JoJo, how are you?”
“I’m good. Just totally wow, I didn’t know you moved back into the house. Totes great.”
“Hunter, will you grab the food and take it inside while I pay?” Her voice was sure and steady this time, like she was directing a stage crew.
“Got it,” he told her, and took the paper bag.
Ella’s voice followed him as he entered the house. “Just put it on the bill. And tell your mom hello from me.”
Small towns. Blake could order Chinese food a hundred times and never know the name of the kid who brought it. The front door led into an open hallway flanked to the left by a dining room and to the right by a living room—two wings of equal proportion and depth. The floors, wide planked hardwood, were nicked and battered, but smooth.
Sure, he had imagined her house. It was the way his mind worked—placing people in their environments. But he’d been completely wrong. He’d imagined something more shabby chic, white large-cushioned couches and chairs, pale cream and maybe pink. An image from the movie Something’s Gotta Give.
He waited in the hall as she came toward him on crutches. She focused on every step, as if this was the first time she’d ever used crutches. He wanted to hug her, draw her close, and carry her into the kitchen.
“Straight ahead,” she said. “The kitchen is at the end of the hallway.”
They worked their way into a room so filled with light and white and beauty, it was as if someone had purposed each and every thing in the room to make him feel welcome, peaceful. Gray and white, paired with dark wood and thick whitewashed beams overhead made him feel as if the room enfolded him.
“This,” he said quietly, “is the most amazing kitchen.”
“Oh, thank you.” Ella sat on the long banquette that had been built against the back wall. The padded backboard was made of cream linen with a pattern in brass nail heads. She pulled a chair toward her and plopped her hurt foot up onto it. “It took almost two years to get it just right. I think I went a little crazy but … voilà.” She spread her hands out.
“First things first,” he said, and put the Chinese food on the island. “Where are your Ziploc bags? I am going to get some ice on your foot. Do we need to get you to a doctor?”
“Not now.” She ran her finger along the edge of the table. “Let’s eat and then we can see if the swelling goes down. I really don’t think it’s broken or anything. I just landed sideways.” She pointed across the room. “Second drawer down on the right for the Ziplocs.”
Blake opened the drawer. “Nothing here…” He turned back to Ella but she didn’t look like Ella, her face was blanched. Her lips were sucked in as if they’d disappeared into her mouth. “You okay?”
“Um, yes. Just open the drawer one down. Or up. Hell…”
To make her laugh, because he suddenly felt like that was exactly the thing to do, he opened all the drawers in the kitchen in a wild flurry. It worked, and she laughed out loud, slamming her hand over her mouth. He found them—the baggies and Saran wrap and tin foil—in a drawer on the other side of the kitchen. Blake filled up a large bag with ice, and wrapped it in a towel, which he gently placed on her ankle. He reached into his briefcase and took out one small Percocet and handed it to her. “Let me get you a glass of water,” he said, rising again.
She swallowed the pill and then looked up at him. “That’s the first real pain pill I’ve ever taken, except Advil. If I pass out or start babbling, just tuck me in bed. Don’t tell a soul.”
“Maybe you should have started with half.”
She held up a crescent moon of the pill, the other half. “You read my mind. I bit it in half.”
“I’d hate to have to remember CPR from my junior high class.”
“Don’t save people much?”
“Not even myself.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes looking at each other, their eyes connected but wavering, looking away and then back, shy.
“I’m already feeling better. The ice and all…” She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. “Would you mind turning on the music? I have a house system on the back wall right there. Just push it on and pick a playlist. And the wine refrigerator is next to the sink. Please feel free to pour whatever you want.”
He ambled across the kitchen to the lighted console built into the wall and
pushed the on button. Names of various playlists popped up. “What a variety,” he said, scrolling through them with his forefinger on the screen. “Rihanna. Sinatra. Daft Punk.”
“Daft Punk?” she said. “What the hell is that?”
“My daughter listens to them, but I’m not entirely sure. This playlist looks like a multiple personality test.”
“My sister-in-law has young kids. They must have been playing with it.…”
“Well, I’d like to think I could guess which one you want me to pick, but I’d hate to get it wrong.”
“You choose,” she said. “Go ahead. Your call.”
For the first time in as long as he could possibly remember, he hesitated about his choice of music. Not because he didn’t know what he liked, but because he cared, he actually cared, what she thought about him. What would she have chosen? What was the best next move for him?
“How about this Elvis Costello list?” he asked.
“Love,” she said. “Just love.”
“Hey.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Did you move out for a while after his—”
“Yes, I did. Why?”
“Just wondering because the delivery boy sounded surprised you were back in the house.”
“It was just a couple of days.”
Blake touched the playlist and music blared, reverberating, from the speakers. “Damn.”
“Oh, my God,” Ella shouted. “The volume is on the right. Turn it down.”
Blake punched at the console, not able to turn the volume down fast enough. Elvis Costello sang “Waiting for the End of the World” so loudly that the words were mangled. When it was down to a tolerable level he turned to Ella with laughter. She wasn’t laughing.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “The housekeeper must have been messing with it.”
“She probably added the Daft Punk playlist,” he said. She smiled and he loved it. He would never grow tired of that smile.
* * *
The world, or at least the one surrounding her at the moment, had a slight fuzziness to it as if she were covered in bubble wrap. She bounced up against that world, her voice soft and her mind softer. This was nice. Really nice. Except for the fact that Betsy had moved things around in her kitchen. The thought of Betsy touching anything in the house would have made Ella’s skin crawl, if it weren’t for the painkiller. What would have been a sharp pain under her ribs was more like an annoyance, like a far-off siren.
Elvis Costello sang about “Alison.” “Doesn’t it always sound like he’s singing about Alison? In all his songs, he sings about her,” Ella said with her eyes closed and her head back.
“It does. You’re right,” Hunter said. “You’re funny.”
He puttered around the kitchen, pulling out plates and distributing the Chinese food in little piles. He drank wine and hummed along to the songs. Once every minute or two, he’d turn to her and say something like “I met him once.” Or “Oh, good, you got kung pao, my favorite.” Or “Do you eat with chopsticks?” (Yes, she did.)
This was so nice. Ella sat there without a need to say or do anything, to fix anything, to know anything, to impress anything. Hunter moved around the kitchen as if he’d been there before. This gave her a slight thrill to know that Sims would never know they touched the dishes and ate and drank and listened to music. With great relief, she didn’t even miss Sims. Missing him had become an ever-present companion like a swarm of bees around her body all the time. For now the bees had gone to the hive.
Hunter came to the table and placed the plates down and then crouched low and looked at her. “Thank goodness you didn’t take the whole pill.”
“Huh?” She looked to him.
He sat down and then pointed at her plate. “Eat.”
She took a bite and then leaned back. “Tell me about your family, Hunter. Something good. Or bad. Or interesting. Or boring.”
“It’s a big family,” he said. “I grew up in a place where the swamp met the land. That sweet aroma that’s outside your house? It would never have reached my door.”
“That’s wisteria,” Ella said.
“Wisteria,” he said. “Nice.”
“Your family,” she repeated. “Tell me something about you and how you came to live in California.”
He stared off toward the backyard and fence. She saw his eyes close and then open. Everything in slow motion, dragging, lackadaisical. He started talking, but it was as if he was on the phone to someone else, just reciting facts. “I have four brothers and two sisters. I grew up in nowhere Florida. Not near the beach, but out in the Everglades where the heat and the snakes and the alligators are closer than any beach you imagine when you hear ‘Florida.’ We were cramped in a three-bedroom house with only two bathrooms. I left the day I graduated from the asbestos-filled high school where I was tortured for giving a shit about my grades and the books I read. Movie theaters were my sanctuary, and I snuck away to them as much as I could. Eventually, I went to California to be a writer, for the big dream.” He stopped and now looked to Ella, his face awake with his words.
“You always wanted to write historical … stuff?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Not always. It’s just what I write now. I’ve tried other things.”
“Like?”
“Plays. Novels. Short stories. Stuff like that.”
“Did you decide this was what you were best at, so you stuck with it?”
“No. It’s just what pays the bills.”
“Yup. We do what we do to pay the bills, don’t we?” She paused. “So tell me more about your family.”
“Well, my dad passed away a couple of years ago. Mom is still in Florida. My siblings are scattered all over the United States and I don’t really see them, either. Let’s see—there’s Gary in Indiana, Charlotte in North Carolina, Savannah in Georgia…”
“Ha-ha, real funny. I get it. You don’t want to talk about your family.”
“They’re all still close and they try to get me to join them, but sometimes it feels like I’m not really related to them, you know? That someone made a mistake and put me with the wrong family.” He stopped. “Anyway, that’s all said and done. I’m fine with it.”
“No, who could be fine about not talking to their family that much?” she asked.
“I just am.” He leaned forward and rearranged the ice bag on her ankle. “There must be something wrong with me, I know that. I just don’t know what it is.”
“Don’t you love anyone?” she asked as if the words were coming from somewhere else.
He laughed. “God, what a question.”
Ella closed her eyes. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”
“No, it’s okay,” he said. “I love my daughter. Endlessly. Otherwise, I’m not sure I really believe in romantic love. I believe in desire, but that always fades.”
“Wow,” she said. “You’re quite the romantic.”
“If you only knew,” he said.
“Why don’t you talk to your mom?” she asked. “I’d give anything to have my mom back.”
“It’s complicated,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t call her or she me. Some things just can’t be unbroken.”
“But some things can be mended. I was reading this article the other day about repairing cracked bowls,” Ella said, and searched for the name of them, nudging through the clouds inside her mind. “You know, the kind where they mend it with gold. The kitties?” She dropped her face in her hands. “What is the word?”
“Kintsugi,” he said.
“Yes!” She clapped her hands together. “How’d you know?”
“Reader,” he said, and pointed to himself with a smile.
“Then you know, sometimes when things are mended they are even prettier than what they were before.”
“But, what if you’ve lost entire pieces of that bowl?” he asked.
Ella knew what that was like—losing pieces. “Right,” she said. “I get it.”
Hunter thrust his glasses up on his nose with a nervous gesture. Before she knew what she’d done, Ella reached forward and took them off his face and put them on her own.
Expecting a change of view, something warped or too close or too far away, she squinted when everything looked the same: his face, the kitchen, the food. “These don’t work,” she said. She knew it sounded stupid; it wasn’t what she meant.
Hunter stood up and took the glasses off her face. “Just for reading, but I keep them on because I’m always reading.” He ambled, taking his time, to the sink, where he rinsed his plate and refilled his wineglass.
They chatted a little more, about nothing really, about how the world was too fast, or was it too slow? How he was worried about finishing his book on time, how hot it was here because of, well … what they always say when they are from out of town, the humidity.
The music switched and Sinatra sang about the moon. The air felt yielding and silken, like Ella could sink into it. She thought about how quickly her world had changed, like she’d stepped into an underground well she didn’t know was right there in her backyard. She glanced at Hunter. “Do you think the world has a hole in it?”
“You mean in the universe, like a black hole?”
“No,” she said. “Right under our feet. Like the earth has a hole, and it’s always there looming right below the surface of everything we do. We could step into it without knowing it was ever there.”
“I don’t know, Ella,” he said in a soft voice. “Maybe there is?”
“Maybe? Well there is. I didn’t know this about the world because no one told me and if they had, would I have listened? Probably not. We don’t know until we know. We can be walking along, singing our song, doing our dance and the earth gives way and there we are, falling … and there’s nothing to grab on to. After that happens once, even once, you will walk carefully, always looking before you take a step, always wanting a sure-footed way to avoid the gaping black hole. I want to tell everyone in the world, ‘Be prepared. Grab on to something now.’”
The Idea of Love Page 13