four
Vivian
Despite my fantasies, it never occurred to me that I’d actually see Dash again. I was a public school librarian with a reading habit, and he was a mysterious and gorgeous athlete with the grace of the wind. Our paths had no reason to cross. So I just put my hands under the sheets and took care of my business, letting the whole thing fade over the weekend.
Except that one time I looked up Youder’s interview on the Internet. Which I counted as one time even though I watched it about a hundred. I never closed the window and looked it up again. So, one time. Blow kiss. Blow kiss. Blow kiss.
He for sure thought I was hot, which was true in my little world, but from a guy who could have anyone he wanted, it was a Big Deal.
I bounced into work on Monday with springs in my shoes and a smile on my face.
Jim was getting coffee in the faculty room.
“Good morning!” I said, dropping a bag of apples on the counter.
“You look chipper.”
“I am. It’s just nice out. You know, the smog’s all gone in winter, and the sky’s blue. The air’s crisp but not too cold.”
“Probably a good time to ask you for a favor.” He poured half and half from a tiny plastic pre-serve cup and ripped open another.
“Another Dreamfield trip?”
“Ah, no. I have this thing on Thursday night. The Petersen’s doing a fundraiser party, and I’m a donor.”
The Petersen Automotive Museum stored classic and prototype cars in its comic-book behemoth building on Fairfax and Wilshire. He couldn’t make enough to donate that kind of cash. We worked for Los Angeles Unified, after all.
I grabbed a cup from the stack by the coffee pot. “How much do you have to donate to get invited to stuff?”
“Small potatoes. But I won a raffle. It’s formal. Want to go with me? Not a date or anything. Just I have two tickets and no sisters.”
“Don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“Not anymore.”
“Ugh, sorry.” After my breakup with Carl, simple sympathy was all I’d wanted to hear, so that was all I gave.
“Yeah, well…” He drifted off as if looking for words.
Seeing a big muscular guy broken-hearted hurt my insides. I blamed it on too many romance novels. “You all right?”
“She’s going to be there with this guy…” He shook his head. Smiled to deflect. Shrugged to lighten the words. “Movie producer. She says they’re friends, but I think it doesn’t matter.”
I took a sip of the cheap black coffee. Cream and sugar never helped it, so I just drank it black in all its bitter badness.
“You want me to make Michelle jealous? I’m all for it, but…” I didn’t like seeing my friends hurt, but I’d met Michelle. She was a bodybuilder. I looked down at myself. There was nothing wrong with me, but a bodybuilder I wasn’t. “I’m not the ‘make the ex-girlfriend jealous’ type.”
“You’re joking.”
“My friend Francine? You’ve met her. She might do the trick, and she loves cars.”
“Okay.” He put down his coffee so he could talk with his hands. His mother was Sicilian, and he’d gotten his gestures from her side. “I want you to know it’s not like that between us. You’re my friend. I enjoy the hell out of you in a totally platonic way. But you’re gorgeous. Even with the glasses and baggy shirts. You’re bomb sexy. Not for nothing.”
I looked at my coffee and cleared my throat. He wasn’t lying, but that didn’t make him right. “If I argue, you’re going to think I’m fishing for compliments.”
“I won’t think that. But don’t argue. Come on. If you’re sexy enough for me, you’re sexy enough. It’ll be fun. They have games and exhibits. It’s crazy. I’ll drive so you can have a drink.”
Why not? I had contact lenses and a closet full of designer dresses. If I didn’t make Michelle jealous, so what? I could keep Jim company and have a good time with him.
I was totally putting on mascara for this.
“Let’s go have fun then,” I said. “I’ll take a cab over to your house, and we can go sit in the Batman car. I have a dress that will knock you over. I hope she sees it.”
“You’re a good sport, Viv.”
The bell rang.
“This is going to be the height of my week,” I said.
I grabbed my bag of apples, turned on my springy little heel, and walked out.
Carl hadn’t been a bad sort. There was nothing technically wrong with him. He wasn’t scary or arrogant. Wasn’t too confident. Just an approachable, low-key guy who didn’t shine too bright or demand too much. I’d felt comfortable about him right away, and we slipped into three years together without thinking. He took my virginity without hurting me or being intentionally gentle. He freaked out a little after at what he’d done and who he’d be for me for the rest of his life. I told him to take it easy. It wasn’t that big a deal.
We never fought either, which had seemed great. Who wanted to fight? I didn’t. I wanted to come home and relax, watch some tube, have sex (or not), and go to sleep. So that was what I got. Everything was copasetic.
Then there was a day like any other. I came home from a rough day at Hobart. It was a Friday, and I was looking forward to going out for a drink with Francine and a few of Carl’s friends. He was on the couch after his own rough day of cranking out coffee and saying “yes” a hundred times, binge-watching a show about people who actually did things.
I asked him if he wanted to come with me to meet Francine and the guys.
He kept his eyes on the TV. “Nah. You go.”
“It’s okay. I’ll stay here with you.”
I texted Francine to bail on Friday and plan for Saturday and plopped onto the couch.
I don’t know if it was ten minutes into the show, after a few jokes and bonding comments, or an hour later. I just don’t remember. His feet were entwined with mine and half-buried in the space between couch cushions.
“I’m bored,” he said.
“Wanna go out? It’s not too late.”
“No,” he said, poking at his popcorn as if he was unsure what he wanted out of the conversation. “I’m bored overall.”
“I get it,” I said, not getting it at all. “Maybe take some art classes? You can do nights at the coffee shop.”
“Listen to me!” he hissed. “I’m dead inside. I’m dead in this apartment. I feel like I’m a rat in a glue trap.”
For months, I couldn’t get over how he’d seemed angry at my suggestion. How he’d tightened his jaw as if I was a complete imbecile. He’d never spoken to me like that. We’d never raised our voices at each other. I thought that was the mark of something good and strong, but it left me unprepared for his venom that night.
“This is going absolutely nowhere in the biggest hurry.” He tossed the popcorn aside as if he’d just had it with everything.
My eyes must have been the size of saucers. I’d never been so surprised by anything he’d done.
“Okay?” I tiptoed around his emotions, which seemed more toxic and messy than usual. “So what do you want to do?”
He leapt off the couch. “Be done! Just done! I can’t be here anymore!”
“With me? You’re breaking up with me?”
“Yes!”
In retrospect I understood that he really wasn’t angry with me but had to whip up his emotions to initiate the breakup. He was a complete pussy, but I didn’t really believe that until months later. At the time, I was convinced I’d done something to piss him off.
“What did I do? I don’t understand.”
He leaned on one foot. He had a flake of popcorn on his T-shirt. I always remembered that. Focused on it. The way he didn’t notice it. I thought it was because he was so mad at being stuck with me that he was a mess, but no. He always had crap on his shirt. He always looked as though he’d just rolled out of bed. He didn’t give a shit and blamed it on me.
Pulled between the sure knowledge that this horrible turn of events was my fault and the fact that it had nothing at all to do with me, I stood, upending the popcorn onto the carpet. “I’m moving out.”
The words came out of my mouth before I’d thought them out, but I knew they were right. I felt the relief in my guts, the lightening of my shoulders, the way every corner of my mind was suddenly illuminated.
“You’re a loser, Carl. You’re the biggest loser I’ve ever met. I’m not responsible for making your life exciting. No woman is. And I swear to God, you’re going to regret this until the day you die alone in some cheap studio in East LA.”
He left while I packed, probably to meet Francine, Victor, and Larry, which was what I’d wanted to do in the first place. I was mad and hurt and victimized by my own hard words to myself.
I moved back in with Dad and then… nothing. I was the same. I went out more, read a ton of books, made some friends, got deeply involved in my job, and ran away from romance. Even when Carl tried to bring back the friendship, I pushed him away. His idea of friendship involved kissing me, and as heartbroken as I was, I wasn’t interested in going backward.
Carl got his life together because he had to. He’d taken the risk of breaking up with me, and he had to prove he’d been right to do that. At least that was how it looked from where I sat. He got a job at Disney as a receptionist, then he got promoted to development. I saw him at Trader Joe’s buying wine. I didn’t even recognize him, he was so cleaned up and put-together. I was stopping for apples on the way back from work, and I looked as if someone had wrung me out.
Maybe it hadn’t been Carl. Maybe it was me. Maybe I really had been a dead weight on him. Maybe I was my own dead weight—living with my dad, working a government job that paid in the smallest satisfactions.
I made conversation with him at the checkout, deflecting from talking about myself so I could hear all about his blossoming adulthood. Every one of my victories and good days seemed clouded by the fact that I’d kept my boyfriend from reaching his potential. He’d been a loser because of my presence in his life.
Naturally, I went home and cried. Then I got over it. Then months went by, and I stayed numb. I had ups and downs, but they blurred into one another.
The Monday after Dash Wallace had blown a kiss behind my back was no more up than any other up. I was amped and happy walking to the library, swinging my bag of apples. I had a fun event to go to with a nice guy. Dad’s ball was almost finished in time. I had a job I loved. The sun was shining, and all the world was…
I turned the corner. The world was… weird.
The library was locked, and outside it stood a man in charcoal pants and a jacket. Pale blue shirt undone at the neck. I almost didn’t recognize him in dress shoes. I thought he was some overdressed LAUSD administrator coming with a surprise talk about a reduction in funding for libraries, how there was a public library three blocks away, how they were going to just have some shelves in the hallway, how they needed the space for a classroom. I was already listing the phone calls I would have to make to stop whatever it was he’d come to do.
Not until he was two steps away did I swallow a ton of professional antagonism.
“Are you Miss Foster?”
“Vivian,” I said, neck bent to look up into those damned blue eyes. “What brings you here, Mr. Wallace? If you want to make a big donation to the library, the children could use it.”
“You can call me Dash.”
Because he never gave interviews on camera, I’d had no inkling of how resonant his voice was. Out in the park, with the ambient noise of the wind and children, I hadn’t noticed it. But in the stark hallway of a brick-and-stone building, it vibrated against the center of my body.
“Dash then.” I unlocked the door. “You got past security.”
“I autographed a banner, and they patted me down.” He smiled, and I kept my cool. “Things have changed since I was in school.”
I opened the door and let him into my modest domain. I felt suddenly ridiculous that I had a full-time job managing this tiny room with two tables and kid-sized chairs. A couch. Two Ikea padded chairs. The windows had bars, and the top shelves were empty.
He didn’t know how hard I’d fought for a water cooler and that I paid for the cups. That I went to sales on weekends to find new books. How I fought to use the Dewey Decimal System so the kids would know how subjects were organized even though computer searches were now the norm.
“This is really nice,” he said.
I spun on him, this anomaly in a custom suit. Was he making fun of me? He was a god, expanding all over the simplicity of this simple room. Nothing had ever been so incongruous as his presence in my library.
The way he looked at me, those lips tightening just a little, his hands crossed in front of him—he meant it. Or he meant to be polite. I couldn’t tell past the glow of perfection. My every intuition misfired. His looks and stardom were short-circuiting my senses.
“Thank you.” I indicated the metal folding chair across my desk. “I have only one other grown-up-sized chair.”
He nodded and sat in it. I didn’t think the little library had ever contained a man like Dash Wallace. He was tall, of course, but he also cut the space he moved in like a scalpel, and when he crossed his legs, the angle of his legs against each other was the opposite of awkward.
“So…” Opening my apple bag gave my hands something to do. “If you’re not here to fund my palatial library, what brings you?”
“Well…” He cleared his throat. “First, I wasn’t trying to insult you on Friday.”
“What were you trying to do?”
“Make conversation.”
I dumped the apples into a big yellow bowl on my desk. “I’m sure I was oversensitive.” I shook out the last apple. It tumbled to the top of the pile, bounced, and went to the floor.
With a speed that defied the laws of physics, Dash shot his arm out and caught it. The rest of his body barely moved. His fingers tensed around the fruit just enough to hold it, as if he was about to throw it to second base. Those fingers. The way they curved. The flesh on bone. How would they feel against the curve of my hip? The inside of my thigh?
“You catch it, you keep it,” I said, looking away.
He put it on top of the pile. “Leave it for the kids.”
“Breakfast doesn’t always happen for the kids who get here at seven thirty.” I sat behind my desk, comforted by the furniture between us. “And they don’t all get a good lunch. The ones who fall between the free hot lunch program and lunchmeat on bread. There aren’t enough fruits and vegetables. And everyone loves an apple.”
He nodded, looking at my face as if reading a book. Was I babbling? Was he reading my attraction to him like a story he only needed to skim? He was sucking the breath out of me.
“You’re right,” he said, taking his apple back. “Everyone does.”
“I have a class coming in five minutes.” I didn’t mean for my voice to be husky and low. I cleared my throat. I’d done enough talking. I just met his gaze. Let him read my story. He was a beautiful man, and he knew it.
“I have a problem,” he said.
“Oh, looking for a place to make an endowment?”
“Let’s not start on my endowments.”
My throat did something that made a sound, and my jaw clamped shut to prevent me from responding. He was smiling. I was dying thinking about his endowments.
“Sorry,” he said, and I remembered that blown kiss on the TV.
He thought I was sexy, and he didn’t know that I knew. Why was I letting a little joke between adults make me feel small? I should have felt terrific. He may or may not have wanted me, but he certainly found me physically appealing. I could choose to feel good about that.
I cleared my throat and decided on a new start. “Don’t be. I brought it up. This problem. It’s something I can help you with, I assume?”
He fingered the apple as if it were a baseball, thumb looking for stitches, turning, feeling, turning. A body in motion tends to stay in motion, and Dash Wallace was a man in motion. “I had something before your students came to my table on Friday. When they left, it was gone.”
My body went from warm and aroused to cold and tense. I had to work to not get defensive right away. “Really?”
“A glove. It was in my things under the table. I need it back.”
My kids. He was accusing my kids of stealing his glove. That was a problem. No matter how poor they were, they weren’t supposed to steal things. I felt personally responsible. I wanted to apologize profusely, beg forgiveness, sell something to pay for it.
But couldn’t he buy another glove? For Chrissakes, he had only one glove in the world? He’d signed a seventeen-million dollar two-year contract. Who did that then came to East Hollywood looking for a missing piece of equipment? How much was the most expensive baseball glove? Five hundred dollars? A thousand?
As if reading my mind, he said, “It’s not just any glove. It’s important to me.”
“I understand.” I didn’t. Not at all. I sat in my creaky chair.
He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. My desk. I couldn’t move. If I leaned forward, I could have kissed him.
“I came to you because I remembered you. If I went through my agent, he’d make a stink. I don’t want to make a big deal about it. But I need it back.”
His body held so much power, so much forward motion. His stare was a swing in my direction, and instinctively I curved. I held my hands folded in front of me, and all my tension flowed down from my shoulders. I squeezed my hands together as if I was cracking a walnut between them.
“I’ll ask the kids. If it doesn’t turn up, we’ll find a way to pay for it.” I wished I could swallow that last sentence back. There was no way I could cough up enough for whatever that thing cost, and the LAUSD would laugh me out of a job if I asked them for it.
“I don’t want money.” Ever so lightly, he tapped my desk with the tip of his middle finger. It was the only movement of his body, as if he was conserving his energy to spring. “I have the money. It’s the glove. That glove.”
“It’s the glove you love.” I smiled at my joke and felt like a dumbass at the same time.
“You’re a poet.”
“I know it.”
He laughed, really laughed at my silly rhyming game. Oldest joke in the book, and he laughed.
The bell rang.
“I’m so sorry this happened,” I finally said. “I’ll make it my business to get it back.”
He regarded me, my face, my eyes, my posture. The look was so deep I felt not physically naked but morally, as if he were stripping me bare to see if I was not only capable of finding his glove but if my desire to do it was real.
I scribbled my number on a scrap of paper. “Here. I’m personally responsible for this. You can call me and harass me any time.”
I slid the paper across the desk. He’d probably throw it in the trash and call the school’s superintendent, who would fire me outright for not watching the kids.
He took the paper and folded it in half against his thumb. “You buy the apples with your own money?”
“Yeah. Oranges sometimes, but the peels get messy.”
“You seem like a good person.” He slid the paper into his breast pocket.
My response burst out of the base of my throat without taking the usual route through my brain. “And you’re very handsome.”
I turned red—I knew from the hot tingle in my neck and shoulders—but oddly, his cheeks went a little red as well. He always seemed so cocky, in part because I only saw him on the field, but maybe he wasn’t.
You’re a school librarian. Did you even brush your hair this morning?
That little voice brought me back to reality. Dash may have turned a little red, and he may have been a little awkward, but that made him charming and sweet to more accomplished, more beautiful women. It did not put him in my league. I was triple A, and he was the majors.
The bell rang. He stood.
“Thank you.” He buttoned his jacket.
I didn’t look at him as I walked to the door and opened it. “I’ll ask around. Do you have a deadline? It could take time.”
“Opening day’s my deadline.” He handed me a card. “Call me if you find it. Or just have it sent to the address on the back.”
“I will.”
A line of second graders made their way down the hall, and they parted for him as if he was an unseen wall with a space all his own. He turned back as he walked, giving me a wave. I wished I hadn’t told him he was handsome, and I wished I didn’t have to interrogate the entire third grade on his behalf.