The Shortest Way Home

by Miriam Parker

  “Of course that’s Thunder!” I said. “Although I was really expecting a leather jacket and a beard.”

  “He’s a class act,” Celeste said. “And he needs me.”

  “The question is do you need him?” I asked.

  “That’s always the question, isn’t it?” Celeste said. “I just want someone to love.”

  “Don’t we all,” I said. “Everyone wants love.”

  We sipped our wine in silence.

  “I think you need to ask Thunder to dance,” I said, giving Celeste a little push. I just hoped Ethan wouldn’t find me to ask for just that thing. His presence in the room was hanging over me like a final paper. I knew I was going to have to deal with him, but I was still procrastinating.

  “Maybe I just will,” Celeste said, and sauntered over toward Thunder in her slinky black dress. As she did, Jackson transitioned to “Luck Be a Lady,” as if he knew exactly what Celeste was doing. Thunder went right along with it. The song seemed to play forever, and neither one of them was complaining. At the end, he whispered something in her ear and she smiled.

  The band took their final break. The first song on their break mix was “Say You Love Me,” and that got the crowd moving. I looked over and saw Jackson and Linda dancing. Glowing. I had never glowed that way with Ethan.

  The song changed to “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers. The whole crowd joined in when they sang, “I’d like to hear some funky Dixieland.” Jackson took Linda by the hand and spun her all around the dance floor. By the end of the song, he and Linda were the only ones dancing, but everyone was clapping. Linda had tears in her eyes. I had a little bit of fear in my heart. She was finally happy. She had faced her fears and embraced her future, while I was still avoiding so much. I still didn’t feel ready to face anything, but it had come on a nonstop flight to face me. Linda would be off on her next adventure and I would be here, in limbo, until I, too, dealt with what was waiting for me, both in the cottage and in my childhood home.

  * * *

  —

  The room was swirling slightly, the crowd thinning a bit. I made sure that the girl who had taken tickets at the beginning gave everyone a coupon for a free tasting good through July 31 on their way out. I said thank you to as many people as I could; I shook hands, gave air-kisses, recommended wines for the next night’s dinners. Lots of drunk people bought wine. It was amazing. The night had been a great success. It had hit that pitch that a party hits where there’s just enough chatter and music and dancing that everything feels in equilibrium.

  I took a final photo of the empty room, empty wineglasses and bottles everywhere, party decorations strewn about, a random pair of pink heels left to the side of the dance floor. I posted it to the Bellosguardo Instagram with the caption, “You know it’s a great party when all the wine is empty, the band is gone, but the shoes are still ready to dance.” I shared it on my personal @realhannahgreene feed with the caption “If you know anyone who has cold feet tonight, please contact me.”

  I followed the servers out into the parking lot. Instead of going back up to the cottage, where I knew Ethan was waiting, I headed around to the side of the tasting room. Some of the servers were smoking cigarettes and drinking wine straight from the bottle. I had never been much of a smoker, but I loved the idea of taking breaks and gossiping. I smiled at Rory, the sous chef, who should have been gone by now. He’d arrived at six o’clock in the morning. I approached and he held out his pack to me. I took one and put it in my mouth. I hadn’t had a cigarette since high school, but for some reason tonight it felt like the right thing to do. He lit it and I took a deep inhale, remembering how to do it without coughing.

  “Aren’t you tired?” I asked as I exhaled.

  “I don’t get tired,” he said. “Had a few glasses of wine from your stash up there after we finished cooking. Nice place you’ve got here.”

  “Tell your friends,” I said.

  “I’ve lived here for a long time and I’ve never come over here. I wonder why.”

  I sighed. There was the problem. “Well, maybe now you will?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Do you like living here?” I asked.

  “It’s not bad. Beautiful. Good weather,” he said. “And I like mountain biking and surfing.”

  “And you cook for a living?”

  “Cook, wait tables, bartend, you know. A little of everything.”

  It was different than in New York or even at Haas, where people defined themselves by what they did for a living, or what they wanted to do. Here, it was about leisure time. Your hobbies, your interests—that was what you focused on. How you made money was just incidental to the other things. Iowa had been like this. People asked friends what they did on weekends as a family—in our case, we would go to Drew’s soccer games, have a barbecue, or take the canoe out on Buffalo Creek (if Dad was home). If it was just my mom, we would go to Target, work in the garden, make microwave brownies, and watch a movie on Lifetime or TCM. I remembered being surprised when I first moved to New York and the first thing people asked me was, “What do you do?” And when I told them I worked at Tiffany’s, they were impressed.

  But what did that all add up to in the end? I filled my lungs with smoke, noticing the head rush. There had to be something in between. That was what I wanted. I didn’t want life to be monotonous or an accumulation of goals and accomplishments. I wanted it to be fun. Was that too much to ask for?

  “Don’t you think every day should be fun?” I asked Rory as we finished our cigarettes. If anyone would agree with me, it would be him.

  “If every day was fun, you wouldn’t appreciate the fun days,” he said.

  That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.

  * * *

  —

  The servers smoking around me buzzed about where they were going after, who was driving, who was leaving, who was hooking up with whom. I listened for a little while, trying to figure out the dynamics. I was a little bit jealous of the girlfriend chatter that was happening around me. I didn’t feel comfortable enough with Celeste yet to really talk with her, although she had been a good friend to me; same with William and Linda. Weirdly, the person I felt closest to at this very moment was Everett.

  * * *

  —

  I had already finished my cigarette, so there really was no more reason for me to stand out there other than procrastination. So I headed back toward the tasting room. I passed a couple making out next to the front door. At first I tried to look away, give them their privacy, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I knew who they were. I looked more closely to discover it was Linda and Jackson. I smiled. In a way Linda was embracing the life she had always wanted. I hoped nobody had seen them, so they had time to figure out what it meant, so that others (like Celeste) didn’t decide for them. Or maybe they didn’t care. I passed through the tasting room, which could have used a good cleanup, but I decided to leave it until the morning. I trudged slowly toward the cottage to what I expected would be a major fight.

  Miraculously, though, Ethan was asleep on the couch in the living room when I returned, so I tiptoed by into the bedroom. The kitchen had been cleaned up and there was a note from Annie, the chef, thanking me for the chocolate-covered espresso beans I had left for her and the staff. My body ached and my head hurt, so I just took off my clothes and slipped under the weight of the down comforter.

  CHAPTER 21

  I didn’t sleep well that night despite being exhausted from the party. While I was lying awake, I tried to make a list of the things that I missed about Ethan. He was supportive and smart, bought the best plane tickets, got the best hotels for the best prices. He was nice to my brother and my niece and nephew; he had been kind to my mother the one time he had met her. And he was rich, which made life just a tiny bit easier. It also made life more complicated because . . . I stopped myself. I had to stop thinki
ng about negatives. He was here. To support me on a big day, and I had shunted him to the side. The real thing was that Ethan loved me a lot. He thought I was destined for great things and was willing to support me. But he also wanted me to stay home and teach French to our babies. Argh, I said to myself. It’s hard to avoid the negatives, isn’t it?

  Rory did have a point: If every day was fun, how would you appreciate it? But I saw how miserable Linda was with Everett and I saw what tragedy did to my family. And I looked at couples I knew in grad school, folks who had been together for five or six or ten years, and there were only a few who seemed to really enjoy life together and looked forward to seeing the other person, no matter what.

  That was one thing that I was realizing more and more as I got older, that you can change lots of cosmetic things about your life. You can get a graduate degree and have your pick of cities to live in and careers to pursue. You can move from coast to coast, from apartment to house to apartment to cottage and back again. But at the end of the day, you’re still yourself. I was still the slightly shy book-reading girl who wanted more. The one who would sit on the front steps of our small house on an unremarkable street in Winthrop and wish I lived in the bigger house with the nicer yard one block over. Was I always going to be that way? Was there ever a point when it would be enough? I didn’t want to always be striving, but I also didn’t want to be bored. And it wasn’t about who my partner was; it was about me. How to figure out my own internal rhythm so that I was satisfied. Not because of anything that anyone else did for me, but because of what I did for myself. And wasn’t that what this whole summer was about? Figuring out what I wanted for myself? I was trying. That was what I needed to tell Ethan, I decided as I fell asleep.

  I woke up a few hours later, not feeling rested at all, to the smell of toast. Wonder Bread toast. A smell I could never forget and would forever love. I rolled out of bed and groaned because my back still hurt from the long day of standing and lifting and hostessing. And my sleepless night didn’t help things. I splashed water on my face, ran my hands through my hair, and put on jeans and a University of Iowa sweatshirt. Loungewear felt too intimate. And it was a chilly Northern California morning. I chose Iowa over Berkeley to show my independence. I was myself, even though I was still, at age thirty, trying to figure out who that person was.

  * * *

  —

  I emerged from the bedroom and he was indeed in the kitchen, wearing a T-shirt that read WEWORK on it and his hideous yellow-and-blue Cal shorts. He knew those shorts drove me crazy. But there was a plate of Wonder Bread balls, and a second plate of toast slathered with peanut butter and raspberry jam and a French press full of coffee.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning,” I said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Weird, I know,” he said. “Wonder Bread?”

  “You know me so well,” I said. I settled myself at the island on a stool and he poured me coffee and pushed the plate of peanut butter toast toward me.

  “Good party,” he said.

  “Did you hang around for a while?”

  “For a minute. I talked to your friend Celeste. She’s a character.”

  I grimaced. What had she said to him? “I know,” I said.

  “She grilled me about you. She really likes you. Thinks you’re a bit hard to read.”

  “She just says that because I won’t give her any details about my personal life. I’m an open book, really.”

  “Personal life?”

  “You know, she wants to know what’s going on with us,” I said.

  “I want to know that too,” he said.

  “Stop,” I said.

  “Fine,” he said. “It was a good party. The wine was good. And so was the music.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “But did I see the band leader dancing with the woman who hired you? Isn’t she . . .”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s a long story.”

  “So, it’s been a crazy summer so far,” he said.

  “It has,” I said. “What about you?”

  “Okay, I guess. We’re just trying to figure out what to do next since we didn’t get that funding. Graham and Jesse are bummed because they really wanted to quit Google and now they have to suck it up and stay there.”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Sounds like we’re in the same boat all of a sudden,” I said. “Start-up mode.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s why I’m here . . .”

  “So boring,” I teased. It was actually nice being with him. That was what I had forgotten when I was trying to think of positives. The positive was that we had known each other for a long time at this point and we were friends. We felt comfortable around each other. I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time. That said, we were obviously both avoiding the topic that he had come here to talk about: our relationship.

  “I’ve learned a lot in New York,” he said finally, after a longish silence.

  “Oh yeah?” I asked.

  “I mean, living with my friends, with Graham and Jesse, and working with them, but also being disappointed about what happened between us. It’s just taught me that friends and community are really important. And that it’s really more about the process than the end goal.”

  “That seems mature of you,” I said. I knew it was hard for him; he was a black-and-white thinker—he had spent so many years with the opinion that either things worked or they didn’t—and gray areas were difficult for him.

  “I’m all about flexibility these days,” he said. “Now that we didn’t get the funding, we’re figuring out other ways to make it work.”

  “I think we both needed to step outside of our comfort zones for a little while,” I said.

  “But can’t we do that together?” he asked. “Why do we need to be apart?”

  “It’s only been a month,” I said. “You’ve been alive for whatever twelve times thirty is. And that’s a lot more months than one.”

  “Three hundred and sixty,” he said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “You know I’m not good at math, so what percentage of three hundred and sixty is one?”

  “Point two percent,” he said.

  “Right, so I think you could wait until point four percent or point six, no?”

  He inhaled deeply. “But this isn’t a math problem, Hannah. I love you. And I want to be with you. I don’t care what you’re doing with your life anymore. If you want to run a winery, go for it. I just want us to be together. I looked for you for a long time . . .”

  I didn’t know what to say in response. I was scrambling for words when Celeste burst through the front door. I was accustomed to this by now, so I wasn’t even surprised, although I was annoyed, as I was having an important conversation.

  “Linda is gone!” Celeste said. She was frantic, waving her phone around, her purse falling off her shoulder, her hair slightly less perfect than usual. “The nurse just called me. She didn’t come to check on Everett this morning and so Selma and I searched the house and we can’t find her. Selma kept saying it was okay, but clearly she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “Oh no,” I said, feigning surprise. “Are her things gone?”

  “I don’t think so,” Celeste said.

  “So . . . maybe she’s just sleeping off her hangover,” I said.

  “Has anyone checked that saxophone guy’s house?” Ethan asked. “They were kind of hot and heavy.”

  I shot Ethan a look of death.

  “Oh . . . ,” he said. “Was I not . . . ?”

  Celeste either didn’t hear Ethan or chose not to. She was frantically typing into her phone.

  “Do you want some coffee?” I asked.

  “I don’t need coffee!” Celeste said. It was true—she was pretty amped up. “Text me if you see her! Or h
ear anything!”

  Celeste ran out of the cottage and I sat down on the couch. “God,” I said.

  “I don’t understand,” Ethan said.

  “Understand what?” I asked.

  “Why I can’t say that I saw her with the saxophone guy.”

  “That’s obviously where she is,” I said. “But I just don’t want them to be discovered yet.”

  “You people are all crazy,” he said. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  * * *

  —

  While Ethan was in the shower, Celeste came back into the cottage. She looked around and, not seeing him, said, “Do you want to take a break from here to go look for Linda? I was thinking about it and I think if you found her at Jackson’s it would be easier. You’re a neutral party.”

  “I’m not entirely neutral,” I said.

  “But you won’t judge her—you’re not married; you’re having relationship issues; you’re a good sounding board for her.”

  “I feel weird about it,” I said. “I mean, I just want her to be happy . . .”

  “Perfect,” Celeste said. “You remember how to get to Jackson’s?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  Celeste drew me a map on the back of Annie and Rory’s thank-you note and patted me on the back. “You’re doing a good thing,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  I didn’t really want to go and confront Linda, because I knew exactly where she was and I knew why. But I did like the excuse to get out of the cottage that contained my crazy friend and the boyfriend I had no idea what to say to. I knew that I was being evasive regarding Ethan. And I knew that what was going on between Jackson and Linda wasn’t my fault: She’d been feeling unfulfilled before I got to Bellosguardo. And she had already technically left once. And Everett had told her not to feel badly about going. But it was possible that my throwing the party and introducing Jackson back into her life had been a catalyst. Even though she had suggested him, I was the one who enabled it to happen. I could have said no. I felt a tiny bit responsible.