The Idea of Love Read online

  Blake stopped and took a breath. This might work, but he needed more. So much more. He lifted his extra cell phone, the one with the “Hi, this is Hunter Adderman” voice mail. He pulled up Ella’s number. It was too soon; he’d appear desperate if he called her now. He’d scare her off and he was starting to feel like this could be something.

  When he stood, the carpet was crisp under his feet. He was glad he was wearing socks. It felt like they’d washed the rug and left the soap, like his hair felt when he was so hungover that he forgot to rinse out the shampoo. He tried not to think about what went on in hotel rooms.

  He bent over and opened the minibar: M&M’S in a tube; granola bars; orange juice; tiny bottles of rum and vodka. No more JD. Shit. It was only JD for him. Anything else made him feel like hell the next day. Well, Jack could kick his butt, too, but only if he forgot not to have the fifth one. He counted backward in his head. How many mini bottles had been in the fridge? Two. Definitely only two. And didn’t two mini bottles count as only one drink?

  Rental car keys in hand, Blake patted his back pocket to make sure he had his wallet before walking into the hallway. The aroma of carpet freshener and Clorox hit him and he shivered. God, to be back in his house in L.A. His tea olive trees would be in bloom right now, filling the yard with fragrance. But if he went home, he’d lose home. A conundrum for sure. What he wanted was what he would lose if he didn’t find the story.

  A story. The story.

  He climbed into the Ford Taurus. Who the hell bought a turquoise car? It was the last on the rental lot and he had been desperate. Again.

  The bar he’d found the first night here was a few blocks away. A pub. Exactly what he needed until he’d let enough time go by before he texted this Ella.

  Everything here seemed softer with the sun filtering through the oak trees and the moss dripping like the South’s version of the icicles they’d never see. When he’d first arrived in the South, another town, one he can’t remember now, he’d reached up to touch the hanging moss. It was coarser than it looked, rougher on the palm than it appeared. What an odd thing it was. Spanish moss, it was called. Shrouding the streets and alleyways, it was a curtain, a beard, a veil. He grabbed his cell phone and dictated that description into his recorder.

  The pub was dimly lit. He stood still for a moment to let his eyes adjust. Mirrors on the back bar returned his reflection and he saw himself squinting. He turned away from the image. He looked tired. Sad. And he hated that.

  He sat on a barstool and ordered from a thin waitress in a black T-shirt claiming that Guinness was the answer to life. “Jack Daniels, straight up. A double,” he told her. This would put him at four if he had two at the hotel. But they were spread out over time, so maybe they didn’t count.

  He scanned the room, twisting around to see a group of women seated at a round table. Six of them. Or was it seven? All coiffed and wearing cute sundresses and wedged heels, and not a man in sight.

  Blake drank his JD slowly—it warmed him inch by inch—and watched the women. Surely one of them had a story. When women got together, what did they talk about? Not baseball scores or football stats or the crisis in the Middle East. If women were huddled together at a bar and all dolled up, it was time to talk about love.

  “I’m going to sit at a table,” Blake told the bartender. “I want to get something to eat. Can you transfer my bill over there?”

  “Sure thing,” she said. “Someone will come get your order in a minute.”

  He sat down next to the group of women and pretended to be interested in the menu.

  Blake was right.

  They were talking loudly about men and love, and something they revered as fate. And they were oblivious to everything around them. Lucky him. As conversations go, it was hard to follow. He had to get past nicknames and loud laughter. He focused without looking at them, trying to catch the disconnected phrases that dropped like clues in a scavenger hunt.

  He told her he loved me but she won’t accept it.

  Clucks of sympathy. Curse words for the male of the species.

  Well, he has been a dream. I’m not kidding. It’s like telling the truth freed him up. We’ve been fine. I mean, I feel bad for her but …

  If she’d wanted to keep her man she should have gotten her life together.

  There was one voice that dominated the conversation—a woman who had a new love. Her lover had left his wife for her. And it was all so romantic, full of flowers and letters and poems, angst and waiting and finally—true love.

  God, what an old story. As if this guy wouldn’t leave her at some point for the next good thing. She, the one talking with such self-importance, told the girlfriends about how it was to move into his house, to have everything she ever wanted. How true love is always worth the wait. Blake turned his head slightly and lifted his chin in what he hoped was a subtle gesture, to see which woman was talking. It was the dark-haired one with the bright red lipstick and the low-cut sundress.

  Cosmopolitans and white wine were the drink of the night, obviously. Except for this woman who drank liquor—Scotch, maybe. Another woman with copper hair and gray roots caught Blake’s gaze and he looked away in what he hoped was a casual gesture. She didn’t buy it.

  “Can we help you?” she asked.

  All six women stared at him. “Pardon?” he asked in a smooth voice, lifting his JD to take a sip.

  “You were looking at us.” The woman with the copper hair pointed at him and wagged her finger in feigned admonishment.

  He had two choices here: deny and move tables, or tell the truth and try to charm them. “How could I not stare at you? My God, you ladies light up the room. And me from out of town? I’m not used to such beauty all gathered together. We don’t have women like you where I’m from.”

  They laughed, all of them except the dark-haired woman who had snagged her married man.

  “So forgive me for staring but I don’t rightly see how I couldn’t unless you blindfold me,” he said.

  “Or you move tables,” the dark-haired woman said.

  “Shush,” another said. “That’s rude.”

  “No,” Blake said. “That’s funny.” He looked directly into her eyes but he couldn’t see what color they were from where he sat. Too dim. “You’re right. I could just get up and move.”

  “Yes,” she said, but this time the word had a little laugh behind it.

  He picked up his drink and nodded. The copper-haired woman spoke again. “Where are you from that you don’t see women at a bar? Alaska?”

  “I didn’t say I don’t see women. I see them everywhere. All the time. Hordes of them trying to look good. I live in L.A. But nothing like all of you.”

  “Really? God, I’ve always wanted to see L.A.,” the dark-haired woman said. “You’re probably in the movies or something, aren’t you?”

  “Kind of,” Blake said. This time he would tell them who he really was, and what he really did, because it would impress them. He was taking a chance here, but he wanted to be in on their conversation. Nothing good came without risk. Or so went the oft-repeated sentiment. He’d used it once, in his second movie, the pivotal moment when the character needed to make a tough decision.

  “How do you ‘kind of’ be in the movies?” one asked.

  “I write them. I’m not in them.”

  “Oh.” This came from a blonde who had just spilled some white wine on her blouse, oblivious to the stain growing on her right breast. “Name one.” She rolled her blue eyes with the too-dark eyeliner.

  “Love Interest,” he said.

  “Oh, my God,” voices screeched and overlapped.

  “Really?” the dark-haired woman asked.

  “Yes, really.”

  “So you know Tom Hanks?” she asked.

  “Yes, he’s a friend.” Blake was in his element now.

  “Sit,” the dark-haired woman said. “Tell us everything you can about movies. The most we can brag about is that Forrest Gump drove through
Watersend on the way to Savannah.”

  “And not even Forrest.” He pulled up a chair and laughed. “Just Tom.”

  “Whatever,” the blonde said. “Forrest to us.”

  From there, the conversation took its usual turns. These women didn’t really want to know about him or his screenplays; they wanted to know about the stars and the way movies were made and if he lived in a huge house overlooking the ocean. Yes, he did.

  After a while, and slowly, one by one, the women looked at their cell phones and groaned as they exclaimed that their husbands were waiting at home, that their kids needed to be put to bed. As luck would have it, as it hadn’t been lately, Blake was left with the woman who had just stolen another woman’s husband. True love for sure.

  “So.” She leaned forward. “Only we remain.”

  “Yes,” he said. “So…” What the hell? He might as well get right to the point. “Is your love story like a movie?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said with such emphatic hand gestures that Blake thought she might hit herself in the face. “I loved him the minute I saw him. I’m not kidding. He was standing in the kitchen at my sister’s house and I walked in and stopped in my tracks. I stopped.” She held up her hand in a stop motion, palm facing Blake. “And so did my heart. Just like that, I knew.”

  Did she know how stupid she sounded? Really? Her heart stopped? She loved him the minute she saw him? Blake took another swig of his drink. Was this the third or fourth? Probably the third. Tonight he could have a fourth because this woman was about to tell him a story. There might be parts he could use. “Go on,” he said as he motioned for another drink.

  “Well, it totally is like a movie because the minute he saw me he knew, too.” She leaned forward and whispered, “But he was married.”

  “That complicates things,” Blake said.

  “Yes, it does. So we’ve had to work through that. You know, find our way to be together.”

  “Find your way?”

  “Well, I guess that sounds kind of cheap, but I promise it’s not. He had to find a way to tell his wife, and that wasn’t easy because she’s really fragile. I didn’t want to be the one to hurt her, but love … you know, it’s just so, so strong.”

  God, who did this idiot think she was fooling? Blake looked at her again. She’d seemed so pretty from across the room. Maybe because she’d been surrounded by other pretty women or because the lighting was dim or because he was on his second JD. But she wasn’t pretty at all. She was desperate and harsh. Her lipstick bled into the lines around her mouth and her hair was fried as if she’d put a curling iron in it one too many times. “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “Love is just so strong. That’s why I write about it.”

  “Why,” she said with a whine that made her sound like a four-year-old. “Then why does it ruin so many lives?”

  “Because it’s powerful.” He was on autopilot now. Words said without meaning, a language used in a foreign land, a second tongue. The waitress set another glass of JD in front of him and he took a long slug.

  “Powerful. Life changing. Exactly,” she said, and then looked at her phone. “Oh, shit. I gotta go. I didn’t realize how late it was. He’ll have been waiting for me for twenty minutes.”

  “It was nice to meet you,” he said, and nodded at her as she stood up, wobbly and grabbing the edge of her chair back.

  “You, too. I can’t wait to tell him that I met someone super famous.”

  “You okay to drive?” he asked.

  “Oh, sure I am. I’ve only had one drink.”

  She walked to the front door, and after she opened it she stood there long enough that when she left he still saw her outline, a wobbly halo of dust mites, in the entry. The door slammed shut and he leaned back in his chair. For a moment she’d looked as though she might be changing her mind about leaving and come back to sit with him. He was really glad she hadn’t.

  He glanced down at his own phone and saw one message from his daughter, an answer to his text asking, How are you? Her answer: Just fine, Dad. He exhaled his disappointment. He was getting nowhere fast with Amelia and being gone this long was not helping. The rest of the text messages—six of them—were from his assistant. Call me. Where are you? Great idea. Seriously great idea you sent me. Are you okay?

  Blake texted her back and apologized, told her he missed her and would call later, although he knew he wouldn’t. He would sit in this bar until he took a cab back to the hotel to pass out.

  three

  The dog was barking again: The sound was so loud, so full of misery that Ella imagined a small dirty animal living with a sweaty fat man who forgot to feed him. That dog needed to stop barking. God, for just five minutes.

  Ella dropped down on the couch, a sagging brown corduroy number that had been left there by the previous tenant. The room appeared in front of her like a still from a bad movie. A thick black cable snaked across the floor where it hooked up to the back of the TV. A wooden coffee table had magazines stacked in a lopsided pile. A bed, unmade with white sheets and a watered-down blue bedspread, was across the room and against the wall. And in the tiny kitchen, her one good pot sat on the chipped counter, like a gleaming jewel at a garage sale. This is what the landlord deemed “furnished.”

  She’d come here to Crumbling Chateau after Sims had handed her a suitcase with what he thought she might need—a couple of dresses, pjs, yoga pants and tops, underwear, T-shirts. That was four months ago. Now she had most of her clothes and a few kitchen necessities because Sims had been oh so generous and left them with the manager. He hadn’t even had the courage to face her.

  Ignore him.

  That was item number twelve on her growing list of “how to get over a breakup.” Ignore him. It came from a Cosmo article. A “thirty-day detox” they called it. “Getting On with Getting Over Him.”

  1. Let yourself cry (all too easy).

  2. Show him that you can survive without him. (Yeah, good luck with that.)

  3. Find a hobby (other than getting over him).

  4. Remember the things that annoyed you (and wish there were more).

  5. Erase his text messages. (Nope. Not yet.)

  6. Get a pet. (Does a tortured mutt in the apartment below count?)

  7. Pursue your career with new vigor. (Does sketching dresses count?)

  8. Spend time with girlfriends. (Sure, if they hadn’t deserted her.)

  Blah. Blah. And blah.

  Accept.

  Move on.

  Abandon hope all you who enter here.

  Who knew how to get over a breakup? Not Ella. Not Cosmopolitan. Not a single book she’d read so far. Number one was still the easiest. Cry. That she could do.

  It was almost impossible to imagine how she’d ended up here. But she could explain it to anyone who asked. Which not many had. Not really. So she’d gone a little crazy. Anyone in her situation would have done the same.

  Sims had one other obsession besides sailing. (And obviously now Betsy, his true love.) Baseball cards. He’d been collecting them since he was six years old. He had boxes and boxes of them, labeled by year and by team. If he had ever agreed to sell his collection, or even a few selected cards, they could upgrade the house. But that wasn’t the point. (He’d told her this again and again.) It was the having of them that mattered. The finding and keeping and collecting and acquiring. The ownership.

  When she tells this story to the few people who ask, she says that she didn’t know why she settled on the baseball card collection. “Really,” she would say. “I was out of my mind with grief. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  But that wasn’t true. She knew exactly what she was doing.

  On the day of the Debacle she got up from the couch, removed the washcloth from her forehead, and threw it across the room. It landed with a damp thud. She was hurt. Angry. Betrayed. And she wanted Sims to feel the same way.

  She took a box. And not one at random as she would later claim. She chose the most valuable one. No se
nse in doing things by halves.

  The streetscape was dark that night. Thick cloud cover. No moon. She knew the way to the construction site at the end of the cul-de-sac. She had listened to the backhoe and jackhammer for months now while a neighbor renovated his house. The hideous Dumpster, red and black with graffiti she couldn’t read, squatted right in the middle of the driveway.

  Destroying those cards—tearing some, tossing some in the Dumpster, setting light to others—had been more fun than she would admit to anyone. The way the cards caught the wind and fluttered like birds, the precision with which a few of them slipped under the Dumpster like they were hiding. She ripped a handful in half without looking at the names and photos of the players she obliterated. She threw one on the ground, digging her heel into it until she made a hole in Roy Campanella’s head.

  If she’d asked herself in the moment why she was doing it, which of course she didn’t—reason can’t interrupt revenge—she would have said that she needed Sims to experience something of the ugly pain he had caused her, that he needed to lose something that meant everything to him, even if it was just some cold statistics on a set of cards.

  But the thrill hadn’t lasted. By the time she’d walked home, she was sick with what she’d done.

  “Where are they, Ella?” Sims had asked in a broken voice. He was standing at the front door, cell phone in hand.

  “In the Dumpster at the end of the road.”

  Sims ran into the house and grabbed the monstrous industrial flashlight, the one they used when storms knocked out the power. He bolted to the end of the road and called Betsy to come help him.

  The police came the next day, and with them, the restraining order. Her outburst—the Debacle—came under the heading of malicious damage to valuable private property. Since her name wasn’t on the deed (nice one, Sims), she could actually be “kicked out.” Ella didn’t even know this was a thing, being kicked out of your married home. Now she knew. If your name wasn’t legally part of it all, you weren’t the “owner.” And if you weren’t the owner, you could be removed. She could get a lawyer and fight the inequity of it all. And she would. Seven years of married life was worth something in the courts, after all. But that would have to come later. After the humiliation. After Crumbling Chateau.