Winter Jacket: Finding Home (26 page)

“Hey.”

I recognized the voice, even though she’d only spoken one word.

“Sonja, hi.” I hastily wiped my hands across my face to remove any traitorous tears.

“What are you doing out here by yourself?” She jerked her thumb towards the doors I had fled through. “You’re missing out on quite the party in there.”

“I know. I just needed to get some air.”

She walked closer and rubbed at her bare arms. “It’s nice out here.”

“You’d better keep your distance with that glassware,” I joked uneasily. “This dress is dry clean only.”

“You should wear more dresses,” she observed. “You’ve got the legs for it.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Sonja was clearly flirting, and I had no good reason to deflect her advances.

“This is pretty,” she said, touching her fingers to the silver bracelet that wrapped around my wrist. Her hand was damp from the condensation that had formed on the outside of her glass. It was an unnecessary touch. It was the kind of move a person made to let you know they were interested.

“Thanks. My mom got it for me on one of her many vacations to the Caribbean.”

Her hand fell away from my arm, but she lingered in my personal space.

“I’m glad I found you,” she continued in that same quiet, serious tone. “I was hoping to get to talk to you at Troian’s wedding, but you disappeared at the reception.”

“Yeah, uh, too much alcohol. I called it an early night.”

“How are you feeling now?” she asked, her sapphire eyes piercing into me.

Sonja was a beautiful girl, and in her cocktail attire, she was more stunning than usual. The full moon shone against her pale skin and strawberry hair. I wondered what she tasted like.

I didn’t have to wonder for long. While distracted by the moon and the graceful curve of her lips, I found myself pinned against the balcony’s ledge when her mouth pressed hard against mine. It was an aggressive move, and the force of the kiss reminded me of when she’d shattered my glass the night of the pilot premier.

I closed my eyes and forced myself to kiss her back. I didn’t have a reason not to, I reminded myself. Her free hand slid up my arm and beneath the curtain of my hair. Her fingertips pressed solidly at the base of my skull. She tasted like citrus.

Her hands wandered, eager and aggressive. They rounded my breasts, traveled across the flat plane of my abdomen, and toyed with the bottom hem of my cocktail dress. Her fingers were warm and dry. My knees wobbled and my right hand lashed out to brace myself against something.

When we broke apart for air, her bright blue eyes beamed up at me from beneath heavy eyelashes. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that,” she breathed. She licked her lips, no doubt tasting my previous drink as I had hers.

I had been drinking all night, but not so much that I could mistake who I really wanted. Her eyes were the wrong shade of blue.

“I’m sorry.” My hands covered hers, stopping her from doing anything else. I swallowed, my mouth having suddenly gone dry. “I can’t.”

I heard her call after me as I rushed out the door. “Elle, wait.”

But I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t stop and go back. I had wanted my exit to take place without anyone’s notice, but Nikole spotted my frantic escape and followed me to the valet stand. “Nice Irish goodbye, Graft,” she chuckled.

I ran my fingers through my hair. “I know. Not exactly the best etiquette. My Minnesota Nice must be slipping. Will you say goodbye to Troian for me?”

Nikole sipped her drink. “Sure, but why the early exit? The night’s just getting started.”

“I know, but I’ve got a script to finish.”

“And your lipstick is smudged,” she pointed out.

My hand immediately went to my mouth.

“Who’s the lucky lady?” Nik pressed.

“Sonja the intern.” There was no use denying or lying. “But we only kissed. I stopped her before anything else happened.”

“Why?” Nikole wasn’t one to tiptoe around feelings or beat around the bush.

“You know why.”

She nodded knowingly. “Hunter.”

I licked my lips. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Everything happens for a reason, my friend.”

“How long until I figure out the reasoning behind this though?”

She shrugged. “Are you going to be okay getting home?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I’m gonna catch a cab.”

“No drunk dialing anyone tonight, okay?” she sternly warned me.

“I’ll be good,” I promised. “Plus it’s like three in the morning back home.”

Nikole gave me a wistful smile. “Home.”

I, too, realized my choice of words. “Yeah. I caught that, too.” I sucked in a long breath. “Do you miss it?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But then I think about how awful winters are back there, and how perfect the weather is here. Plus, this is where Troian is.”

“And home is where Troian is,” I said nodding.

The sad, wistful smile she gave me was too much. I hated the sympathetic look.

A yellow taxi pulled up to the hotel’s curb. “I should grab this,” I said. “When you tell Troian I said goodnight, can you not tell her about Sonja?”

“And rob her of an opportunity to tease you forever?” Nik laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Your secret is safe with me, Elle. Have a good night.”

I waved once more before climbing into the back of the taxi. I gave the driver my address, and we pulled out into the busy Los Angeles city life.

I flipped through my phone on the ride back to my apartment. A part of me felt obligated to tell Hunter that I’d kissed a girl, but I realized it was unnecessary. We weren’t together anymore. She’d been the one who’d broken up with me, and she’d made it explicitly clear that while I remained in California, we had no future together.

I sagely put my phone away so it couldn’t get me in trouble that night.

I arrived back at my apartment, feeling restless and unhinged. My laptop sat on the dining room table, but I couldn’t focus long enough to write. There was no way I’d be able to fall asleep and nothing on television captured my interest. In the absence of something to do, I cleaned.

I took everything out of my refrigerator and scrubbed out its insides. I wiped down every surface, dusted every belonging that wasn’t tied down, and scrubbed at the stubborn grout in the shower. I cleaned out my closet and made a pile of clothes I intended to donate.

I hadn’t completely unpacked my luggage from Troian and Nikole’s wedding, worried about the memories that might re-surface, so I tackled that next. I put away travel-sized shampoo and conditioner and unpacked the clothes I never got around to wearing.

Tucked inside the inside zipper where I typically packed socks and underwear, I found a folded up piece of white computer paper. My heart dropped into my stomach when I unfolded the paper and realized what it was: a colored-pencil drawing of a cuttlefish and the red hermit crab from the children’s picture book Hunter had given me. Someone—presumably Hunter—had created a mock page for the story whose illustrations and dialogue matched the pacing and repetition of the real book.

Black printed words jumped off the page: “In January, Hermit Crab came across a cuttlefish hovering above the ocean floor. ‘How lovely you are!’ exclaimed Hermit Crab. ‘Would you like to live in my house?’ ‘Oh yes, thank you,’ said the cuttlefish. And the Hermit Crab and the cuttlefish were happy together for a very long time.”

When had she put the drawing in my luggage? Had it been at the wedding, or had it been there for much longer, and I hadn’t noticed it before? And more importantly, why hadn’t she said anything about it?

I found myself out on my second balcony of the long night. A light had burned out in the parking lot below, leaving my balcony darker than usual. I stared out at the neon signs that seemed to float in the sky, and above them, my constant companion, the moon. A siren called out in the distance. There were always sirens and alarms and the constant din of moving traffic.

I held the folded up piece of paper clenched in one fist. Tears—real tears—the first in what felt like a lifetime, silently fell down my cheeks. My heart felt like it was breaking all over again. If this continued, the pieces would soon be too small for me to ever reconstruct it.

A few short months ago I had had everything I could ever want. My career was stable, but still provided me with challenges to keep me from going stagnant, I had a nice home in a quaint little city, I’d repaired a relationship with my mother, and I had love. I was loved, and I had returned that love with every available fiber of my soul. But it hadn’t been enough.

A tortured sob bubbled up my throat.

I heard a short cough, and I instantly straightened. “That you, Frank?” I hastily wiped at my face. I slipped Hunter’s drawing into my pocket, out of sight, but not out of mind.

“Yup.” I could see the red ember glow of my neighbor’s cigarette. I was sure he’d heard me crying, but we didn’t know each other well enough for him to ask me what was wrong.

“Mind if I bum one of those?”

Frank’s shoes dragged on the balcony platform as he shuffled toward me. He produced a pack of cigarettes from the front pocket of his denim shirt and flipped the cardboard lid open. His arm stretched over the balcony’s edge so I could take one of the proffered cigarettes. I hadn’t smoked since graduate school—I hadn’t had need to.

He handed me a lighter from the open pack and cupped his hands around mine to block out the wind long enough for me to light up. I took a long drag from the cigarette and let the acrid smoke fill my lungs before exhaling in one long, grey plume.

“Long night?” he asked.

“Yeah. And it’s not over yet.”

We smoked in silent solidarity until I reached the end of my cigarette. I dropped the butt onto my balcony and crushed the dying embers with the toe of my shoe. “Thanks for the cigarette.”

“Any time.”

I let myself back into my apartment through the sliding glass doors. I fished a bottle of beer out of the back of my refrigerator and sat down at the dining room table with my laptop.

I lifted the lid, and the laptop whirred back to life, opening to my unfinished episode. With one last fleeting glance towards the moon, I took a deep breath and began to write.

+ + +

I dropped the thick stack of paper on Troian’s desk. “It’s done.”

Troian looked up from whatever she’d been working on and flipped through the first few pages of the script for my episode. “You took care of all of those changes Jackson wanted, too?”

“Uh huh,” I confirmed.

“Did you work nonstop this weekend or something?”

“Yeah. Something like that. I need to talk to you.”

Troian sighed and removed her reading glasses to rub at the bridge of her nose. “You’re breaking up with me.”

I sat down in the chair opposite her desk and leaned forward. “I don’t belong out here.”

“I’m sorry you’ve been unhappy.”

“I haven’t been unhappy.” I was, but not because of the TV show.

“Do you blame me for Hunter?”

“Of course not,” I insisted. “There’s no one to blame for that but myself.”

“Are you sure? Because I don’t want our working together to have ruined our friendship.”

“No, I know. And I don’t want that either. Which is why I’ve got to resign.”

Troian’s mouth curved down. “You were never a fish out of water in the writer’s room, you know.”

“Thanks. But everything else about this gig has been completely disorienting. These aren’t my people out here. This isn’t my life.” I had been writing about a make-believe world while living in a make-believe city.

“One could argue you didn’t give it long enough for it to be your life.” She immediately held up her hands. “
One
could argue. But not me.”

“Are you going to have a hard time replacing me?”

“Don’t have such an ego. You’re not that great.”

“Thanks, Boss.”

“Plus, since we’ve gotten the full season run, the Writer’s Guild requires that I give out two freelance assignments to non-staff writers. Maybe I’ll see if Sonja the intern wants to sit at the big kid’s table. Give her an audition.”

I hoped I wasn’t blushing and I hoped Nikole had kept her promise. “I bet she’d love that. Good thinking.”

“Hey, I’m not head writer just because I’m a pretty face.”

I turned to leave, but paused at the doorway when Troian spoke again: “Are you going back for Hunter?”

“No,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “I’m going back for me.”
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I left Los Angeles at the end of December, feeling hopeful and encouraged. I was leaving on a high note, after all; the show had been picked up for a second season and I’d held my own among veteran television writers. It was a triumphant return, not a retreat from a life I couldn’t hack.