I hope I know what I’m doing.
I’m at JKF standing outside the Admirals Club talking to Grandma on the phone. It comes as news to me that there is such a thing as the Admirals Club, which is a special lounge where rich people can wait for their flights without having to mingle with the common folk.
Gareth goes straight to the bar and orders a Scotch, neat, while I dig in my purse for my last twenty. “It’s on me,” he says, tapping his fingers on the polished bar.
I locate my money at the bottom of my bag, where it’s crumpled into a green ball. “Oh. I’ll have...I’ll have a Diet Coke. And I’ll...I’ll get the tip.” My mind races as I say this. Do I ask for change for my twenty? Or is twenty dollars even enough of a tip for the whiskey the bartender is pouring from a bottle shaped like Aladdin’s lamp?
He grabs my hand and shakes it until I release my twenty and it disappears into the darkness of my bag. “Here’s a tip. When a gentleman is tryin’ to buy you a drink, say thanks and keep your money in your purse.”
The bartender places a cocktail napkin on the bar and sets the soda on top of it. He’s chuckling and nodding like Gareth has delivered a universal truth, like the world is round or all squares are rectangles. Maybe it is a universal truth. In the international airports. The private clubs. The alternate universe inhabited by the thin and beautiful.
As the bartender slides my soda down the counter toward me, he smiles and looks me in the eyes the way few strangers ever did in my pre-NutriNation days. Somehow it feels really phony to me.
Gareth has moved on. He’s on the phone and is pretending to watch the stock market ticker whizzing by at the bottom of the television screen. I call Grandma, and she’s the first person who doesn’t respond to my news like I’ve just won the lottery or something. I can see her frown through the phone.
“This sounds like some kind of harebrained deal, like what your momma would cook up, girl. And I ain’t too happy about any plan that involves leaving school on account of a man,” she says.
“I’m not leaving school. They’re going to let me make up the work. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Even as I say this, it strikes me, down in some place I can’t allow myself to acknowledge, that she’s right. That I do sound like my mother. That I don’t think life is ever about a single, onetime shot. Every day is filled with opportunity. Every day can be made into something special. “The stuff I design will go in real stores. Then I’m going back to school.”
“Well. I guess we’ll see now, won’t we?” Grandma says.
Gareth doesn’t talk much on the plane. He gives me a geography lesson on Argentina, then reclines his first-class seat and goes to sleep.
Salta, he said before passing out, is in the northernmost part of the long and thin country. Normally, he flies by private jet. It’s faster and he can have the plane drop him on a landing strip a couple miles from his ranch.
Because we’re in a hurry for reasons no one has explained to me, Gareth didn’t have time to find a pilot. We’re flying commercial, and the flight isn’t nonstop. We have to land in Buenos Aires. Gareth said this several times, shaking his head in disbelief like he’d found out that the pilot was on a suicide mission to circle the sun or something.
We’re on the plane for eighteen hours. Did I mention that?
We’re on so long that I have no idea when day ends and night begins. So long that I wonder how the people back in coach are able to resist the temptation to oust us from our more comfortable seat beds in an airplane revolution.
Clearly Gareth has traveled way more than me and has a whole strategy for dealing with the flight. He’s got noise-canceling headphones, a million books loaded on a Kindle and some kind of weird mask he probably ordered from a late-night infomercial that covers your eyes and ears.
I have one book, a romance I finish before we even hit South America, a few magazines and a sweater I’m knitting from the brand-new, lipstick-red jersey yarn I special-ordered from London. I get through a whole sleeve as Gareth snores. At this rate, I’ll easily be able to wear my holey stitch design on the plane ride home.
He shows signs of life as the plane taxis down the runway at the Salta airport. Outside, the climate feels similar to Phoenix, which is always warm and dry in September. There’s a limo waiting at the curb. Gareth ducks in without saying a word to the driver.
“What time is it?” I ask Gareth.
“A little after four. Did you sleep on the plane?”
I shake my head.
“Probably for the best. You’ll sleep well tonight.”
There’s a glass panel between the limo driver and us and I can see my refection in it. I can almost see the airplane grime that covers me. The weirdest part of the whole thing, though, is that I’m traveling with someone I barely know. I don’t know what the rhythms are to Gareth’s life. When does he eat? Or sleep? Or exercise?
“I need a shower,” I say. “How long does it take to get to your ranch?”
“About two hours,” he says.
I slump in the seat, getting ready for a long ride. But he says, “I thought we’d stay in town for a few days.”
“Really? Why?” I ask.
He doesn’t look at me as he gives his first two reasons. He’s checking his phone, reading messages that mostly appear to be from Nathan. “The ranch is in the middle of nowhere. It’s easy to get lost. I don’t like to drive up there at night if I can avoid it.”
He turns to face me. Somehow, he’s even more dark and handsome than when he stepped on the plane. The stubble on his face is forming a beard that borders on suggesting danger.
“You asked what inspires me. Well, you should see Salta, especially at night. There’s an exact spot in Julio Square where Lerma stood when he founded the city in 1582. There’s over four hundred years of life here. People walking in the cobbled square, working in the buildings, worshipping in churches that became more modern and more French and Italian as Argentina became a cosmopolitan country. I draw a lot of my ideas from the town. It’s where I come to see color and shape.”
He returns his attention to his phone and texts furiously for the rest of the drive. We arrive in Salta right before sunset. The sky could be made from cotton candy. Gareth misses the lights as they pop on and glow in the windows of little shops, the laughing old men clustered around an old-fashioned newsstand and something that smells like sizzling ribs on a grill. We travel through the historic district, which is filled with creamy, pastel colonial-era mansions with wrought-iron accents that are now an array of stores, hotels and offices.
Gareth checks us in to the Plaza Hotel. I totter along behind him, wishing I could imitate the jet-set way he marches through the lobby. The concierge has real, old-timey, metal keys that hang from green tassels and he gives Gareth only one.
I stare at the key as Gareth takes it. One key. One room.
Our bags are carried off by a bellman in a green uniform. Gareth takes me outside to a courtyard as a waiter brings out a bottle of white wine. “Salta is famous for its Torrontés wine,” Gareth says. He uncorks the bottle and pours me a glass. “Why don’t you take a few minutes and unwind out here while I unpack?” I nod and watch him climb the staircase that hugs the building and disappear through a set of double doors.
I call Grandma to make sure she knows I’ve gotten in okay. The patio walls have been painted a terra-cotta color that glows orange as the sun sets, and cobalt blue tile covers the floor. Through an iron gate I can see the brighter light of the street, where the blue doors are opening and closing, and people passing by in their bright clothing. It’s clear what Gareth means about the city. It has a pulse. A cool facade with a heart of fire.
Gareth is gone about thirty minutes, long enough for me to wonder if I ought to go searching for him. I start to have panicked visions of him waiting for me to go upstairs and seduce him or something. And believe me, I’m not experienced like that. When you divide your time between sewing with your grandma and blogging alone in your room, opportunities don’t tend to present themselves. I don’t even think I’ve seen enough romantic movies to be able to give a plausible performance.
I tell myself I’m being stupid. The room must be one of those giant suites for rich people. The kind rock stars trash with massive, epic parties. I’ll probably get up there and find Pete Wentz passed out on the couch. Otherwise, it’s a sexual harassment lawsuit in the making.
When Gareth returns, he’s already shaved and is wearing a new pair of jeans, a freshly ironed white shirt and a black blazer. I think about my rumpled skirt and gunked-up sweater. Then I imagine the poor bastard that had to run around with the iron.
“Wow. Is there a valet up there or something?” I ask.
“A valet?”
“The shirt. They ironed it so fast.”
“They? Cookie, I was making clothes professionally when you were doing the Cha Cha Slide at the middle school dance. I can iron my own damn shirt.”
He sounds irritated but as my mouth falls open, he grins at me. “I’m going to sort out some dinner for us. Take as much time as you like getting ready.” He presses the green tassel in my hand and continues into the main hotel building.
Get ready.
For what?
I get into the room and it is enormous. It’s got a sitting room, a dining area and a library where it looks like Sherlock Holmes should be hanging out smoking a pipe. There’s wood paneling as far as the eye can see. My luggage is sitting in front of the door to the suite’s smaller bedroom. I step inside. I’ve got my own little twin bed. From where I stand, my eyes trace the parquet floor to the larger room at the other end of the hallway. To Gareth Miller’s bed.
And now there’s one question.
What shall I wear?
I drag my suitcase to the bed, open it and rifle through the clothes I’ve packed. If Claire McCardell is right and when you know who you are, you know what to wear, then why am I standing here staring at my suitcase? Who am I? What am I trying to do?
In one hand, I hold a little black dress. It’s a GM Lycra minidress so short that, in my pre-NutriNation days, I would have considered it a shirt and been sewing up a pair of leggings to match. I drop the dress on the bed.
I pick up a blue-and-white-striped dress I made myself. It’s a midi-length version of McCardell’s Future Dress with a high neck and a bow that sits right below the chin. This is a dress that says I’m serious about fashion.
This is really it. The moment of truth. I could be the intern that falls into bed with my boss or the one who tucks myself into my own twin bed at the end of the night. I clutch the blue dress. Maybe I’m not ready to go to dinner in a dress that barely covers my ass.
Except what’s my big alternative plan? Stay a virgin forever? An impossibly sexy man, a man whose talent has preoccupied me for years, has brought me to an exotic land and has presented me with the perfect time and place. I think that what I want is to experience his world. To experience him.
I leave both dresses on the bed and hit the bathroom.
I’m in the shower so long that I begin to wish I’d packed a chair. I shave my legs twice, lather up with the hotel’s own brand of lotion and wash my hair. I rinse and repeat. I’m checking every inch of myself. Every weird freckle I’ve ever noticed. Every random hair. The stretch marks on my stomach have faded. A little. I’ve spent the last year lathering myself up with Mederma and Cocoa Butter. It’s working.
Slowly.
After a rough blow-dry of my hair, I twist it into a top knot and apply light makeup. Decision time.
I pull the short black dress over my head.
I guess I’m ready.
Or I could climb out the window. I’d survive the fall.
The suite has its own dining area, which I pass on my way to find Gareth. The room’s lit with tall taper candles, and tea roses have been set out on the table. Something in there smells amazing. It’s Provoleta, a gourmet Argentinean take on my favorite comfort food—grilled cheese. As much as it smells delicious, I’m so nervous I can barely choke down the sweet wine.
“How did you find out about this place?” I ask Gareth during dinner.
“This hotel?”
“This city. What made you think of buying property here?”
He smiles. “Ranchers talk. They’re always saying the grass is greener somewhere else, if you know what I mean. I heard about this place when I was a boy. It captured my imagination. I thought I’d be happy here.”
“Are you? Happy here?”
“I am right now, Cookie.”
We leave the dirty dishes on the table. Gareth doesn’t fuss with them. He kind of smirks while I stack my plates and refold my napkin. Rich people are like this. I guess you reach a certain income bracket and then there’s always someone waiting around to clean up after you. We end up milling around awkwardly in the sitting room. A table lamp bathes the room in soft yellow light and the windows open to the moonlight.
I’m holding my arms very close to my body, squeezing myself into a thin, stiff line. When you’re fat, you’re very conscious of the area you occupy. Of all the people in the universe, the overweight are the most conscious of personal space. We never want you to have to rub up against us. It’s possible that feeling never goes away, even if you lose weight.
I smile. A weird, fake smile where lips sort of catch on my teeth.
Gareth steps closer to me. “So...”
I’m not sure I’m ready for this.
I catch a glimpse of myself in an ornate, wood-framed mirror hanging on the wall. I’m flushed and overheated. There’s nothing especially romantic about my bug-eyed expression either. I’m more like the chief suspect in an episode of Law & Order than anyone’s love interest.
“We could, uh, watch TV or something,” he suggests.
Okay. I try to relax my face. “Sure. Right after that game of backgammon,” I say. I hope this sounds flirty, confident and sophisticated.
He leans down. Puts his hands on my hips. Kisses the spot right below my ear. His sharp stubble rubs against my neck. Together, we back toward his room.
The way he stares at me. With a hunger he didn’t satisfy during dinner. The rational part of me is internally screaming, He has done this a hundred times before. Models after shows. Interns working late.
But there’s power in this moment, which is the reverse of everything I have experienced until now. There’s no sitting around wishing and hoping and praying he wants me. I get to decide if I want him.
And I do.
I turn the lights off and try to tug that slutty thing GM calls a dress over my head.
Things start to hit me.
I take a few hot, panicky breaths.
Will Gareth see my boobs?
Will he touch my boobs?
Who is supposed to have the condoms?
Has everyone done that thing where they practice putting a condom on a banana? I haven’t done that thing. Not even one single time.
What happens after sex? Is it like in the movies where people snuggle for hours and have long conversations about important future plans?
Somehow, I can’t get my left arm out of the shoulder strap of the microscopic GM dress I’m half wearing. It gets caught in my hair, and I’m kind of twisting around trying to fix the mess. The whole thing is a so-not-cool, not even slightly sexy, dumbass dance.
I’m able to free my hair. I pull the knit fabric back down over me and trip over the bench at the foot of the bed just as Gareth snaps the light back on.
He comes to tower over me where I lay sprawled on the carpeted floor, with one of my legs stuck in an odd position on the bench. Gareth holds out one of his hands. I take it and he hoists me to a more normal seated position on the bench.
The bun that was positioned on the top of my head is sliding down to one side, leaving me with a ridiculous comb-over.
Gareth rubs his stubbly chin and covers his mouth so I can’t tell if he’s smiling or scowling or what. All of a sudden it hits me. His face is so unfamiliar. We barely know each other.
“You know...maybe...maybe we shouldn’t move...quite so fast,” I stutter.
He sits on the bench, puts his arm around me and gently guides my head onto his shoulder. “Well, good things are worth the wait. Always.”
Gareth kisses my forehead and I feel myself relaxing, my side molding into his.
“Besides,” he says. “This room really does have a very nice backgammon set.”