The Idea of Love (14 page)

“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.”

“Did you used to come here with your husband?”

Ella shook her head. “This is where I come alone. It's my place. I've never come here with anyone. Until now.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “A girl has to have something that's just hers, right?” She smiled at him and he felt his heart do something unfamiliar: it rolled over. Her hair fell in loose curls to her shoulder and he wanted to touch it. No, he wanted to write about it.

He'd thought this was the place where he could get more information out of her, but instead he stared at her with his mouth gasping for air like a fish. He looked stupid; he could feel it and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't take this any further. He'd lied so terribly there was no going back now. He had to leave.

Bright blue letters on a wooden board indicated the way to the bathrooms at the back of the restaurant. Hunter pointed at the sign. “I'll be right back.”

Ella nodded. Hunter stood and looked down at her. She would hate him for what he was about to do. But it was for the best. Definitely for the best. And he could just add one more hater to his list. This would be the last time he lied. It had to be. If he stayed any longer, he would have to lie some more and he needed to be finished.

Before he opened the back door of the restaurant, before he stepped into the alley to leave, he stared at Ella. He wanted to remember her looking the way she did now, before she discovered he was a fraud and an asshole. Before she looked up and realized some sleazy, slick guy from L.A. had duped her. She smiled at the singer and took a sip of her sparkling water and then, as if she could feel him staring at her, she turned to look at him. Her eyebrows dropped in a look of confusion. Hunter opened the back door and she understood.

She didn't flinch. She didn't scowl or holler out. She sat with certitude and watched as if she knew that this was exactly what he would do, as if he'd told her that he was leaving. But he couldn't do it; he didn't want to do it. Their eyes locked in an unspoken language and Hunter smiled at her, closed the door, and wound his way through the tables to return to her side.

*   *   *

Blake flopped on the hotel bed fully clothed. He stared at the ceiling where a water stain looked like a VW bug. He wanted to write that down. He wanted to write everything down. The way he felt, the way this town enveloped him with something close to happiness. He wanted to write about the way Ella covered her face when she laughed, the way her bangs fell across her forehead, the way he felt hearing her laugh.

It would be cowardly leaving town without telling her the truth. He knew that. He couldn't keep saying “just one more time.” It was like the JD and the affairs and the lying. Just one more was never enough. This Ella. He didn't want to hurt her. He needed to get out while the getting out was good.

Already the scenes for the screenplay were running through his head. The courtship, the sailing lessons, the heartache and longing until they were finally together.

Blake started to dictate.

“What,” he asked into the recorder, “is the death accomplishing? He saves her but what else?” He paused and then answered himself. “Finally proof of love. This character, this lovely woman, always doubted his love. She was never sure because he didn't know how to show his love, he didn't know how to say the words. Because he was always quiet and brooding, she never was sure. Now she is sure. Now she knows.”

Blake stood up then and paced the room. He was missing something. He spoke again. “But where is my happy ending? The happy ending aside from the fact that now she knows he really did love her? We don't want to end in the dark valley.”

And there were so many other blanks to fill in. Best friend? Mentor? Secrets? B plot? Blake needed to sketch these out, find out where to place each one.

The most important thing of all: What does his character (she) want? And why can't she get it? This was the crux of it all and he knew that better than anyone else. She wants her husband back—but he's dead so it's impossible. How would he work around this? That was the mystery and fun of it all—finding his way. The elements were there, and now it was time for the exhausting, dangerous, frustrating alchemy of screenwriting.

He sat on the stained couch. Weird how things become familiar. He was getting sentimental, which was a good sign. As for the story itself, he'd know more by the time he landed in L.A. Home. He just wanted to get home. He smiled and opened the mini-fridge, yanked out a tiny bottle of JD, and gulped it down before he was able to think what number it was or if he even gave a shit what number it was.

Home. Hell, what was it anyway?

Home used to be nowhere Florida, the place he grew up. It had been long enough now that he could call L.A. home. Twenty-five years longer than he'd ever lived in the cesspool of a town his parents had thought would bring them the dream—water and sun and fun as a family. What a joke.

Living with four brothers and two sisters in a three-bedroom house with two bathrooms wasn't the dream at all. It was a nightmare. Why it bothered only him was still a mystery. Smack in the middle of the sibling lineup, he always felt like he didn't belong—he wasn't in the older responsible group or the younger, fun-loving group. He was the outcast, the one they teased, “lovingly teasing, honey,” his mother used to say. “Don't be so sensitive or you'll never survive in this family.” And she was right. He didn't survive in the family. He, to this day, didn't speak to anyone of them on any kind of regular basis.

He'd been the one reading the book in the corner, the one hiding in the library until it closed. He was the president of the literary club. He was the kid who cried at a good ending or went to the movies alone because everyone else in his family played a sport or an instrument or was on a real date with a real boy or girl.

Blake read books and wrote stories. While everyone else was funneling beer after the football game, he hid in the movie theater watching the newest release. He helped bring home the Latin Award for his dilapidated school. He'd never attended a single football game and he'd never known the cheerleaders' names. In the end, he did go to the prom because he'd looked at it like an experiment, a story he could write. He went with Maureen Blaskovich, a girl in literary club with wide eyes and a high-pitched giggle. She wore the same dress to school almost every day: a
Little House on the Prairie
calico type with a lace collar. On Fridays she wore cut-off jeans and too-large T-shirts that looked as if she'd taken them from her father's closet. If you looked closely enough you'd see that she was very pretty. But no one looked. Even he barely looked.

When she asked him to go to the prom, he'd been unable to say no. If she was brave enough to ask then he was brave enough to go.

That prom had been the impetus for his first short-film script and it had won an award at SoCal. And the virgin groping that was part of his first sexual experience had become part of his first screenplay. He and Maureen had never talked again. He had heard that she was nanny to the children of a famous musician. And when he saw her on the cover of
US Today
under a headline that said “Home Wrecker,” he realized she was much, much more than a nanny. He'd googled her. He called and she answered. They dated for a few months, the new and improved version of each of them unable to connect as the old and dorky versions had been able to do. They'd both remade themselves after South Florida, had become California dreamers and successful. And then they parted for some reason. He could never remember why.

The next screenplay he wrote was about two small-town dweeby kids who fell in love and then lost each other, only to find each other again years later, beautiful and successful and in love with each other still. His movies were much better than real life. It had always been true. He could write a great story, he just couldn't seem to live one.

He glanced at his cell phone and flicked through his contacts. He still had her number—Maureen, now going by Mauri. He pushed the call button and then quickly, before the first ring, the end button. No going backward.

The hotel room was spinning just the tiniest bit. He blamed fatigue. He set the alarm for 4:30
A.M.
, and also called the front desk for a wakeup call. He would get on that 6:00
A.M.
flight and go home, write a great screenplay, and get on with his happy, happy life.

Every successful movie, every well-received script had been something mined from his own life, and he would do it again. He'd just needed to get out of California, find some new inspiration. He didn't need a new life, just a new idea.

He woke up before his alarm and dressed in the dark. It was time to get the hell out.

eight

Ella's apartment was quiet, only the creaking of a settling building and the whir of an air conditioner doing its best to fill the room with cold air. Far off a siren wailed and then quieted. Hunter would be on his way back to L.A. When she'd left him last night, she'd wanted to know something more about him, something about his life so far away. She'd googled “Hunter Adderman writer.” Nothing. It was as if he didn't exist.

She'd slept well until only moments before when her cell rang with Amber's news that she was on her way over, that she was worried about Ella. Now Ella sat there in her pajama bottoms and tank top, wondering what she would say to her ex–best friend.

Amber knocked and Ella waited.

She wanted Amber to have to wait, too. No one, aside from Sims, had hurt Ella as Amber had. It was one damn thing to lose your husband, but to discover that your best friend was in on it? Or at least knew about it?

For a quick minute, Ella wanted Hunter there to see this, to hear it, to talk to him about it. Ridiculous.

Ella opened the door to Amber, who stood there in her adorable sundress, all blush pink and full of life as always. People often thought they were sisters. When they were at a bar or restaurant the guys would ask, “Are you two related?” and they'd laugh. Ella never saw the similarity, especially now as she looked at Amber, a vibrant, all-things-go-my-way girl. A woman who lived in her hometown with friends and family who had surrounded her for her entire life. Amber ran her parents' gift shop, and although it couldn't be true (it wasn't true of anyone), it seemed she was sprinkled with the best of luck all the time. Smooth sailing for the adorable one.

Amber flung herself into the room and hugged Ella. “I've missed you so much.”

Ella couldn't make her arms surround her friend. Not yet.

“You hate me,” Amber said, stepping back.

“No,” Ella said. “I don't.”

“It's not my fault, you know.”

“I know.” Ella walked into the kitchen, which only took a few steps “You want some tea?” she asked.