LUCIA

 

I’d written a poem last night.

It hadn’t been easy. After soaking my aching body in a hot bath for hours, I found my journal. Re-read some of my favorites, laughed at some of the poems from middle school, high school. So earnest, so much drama. But still more real than some of the things I’d said and done as an adult.

I had a word on my lips. Craving. A favorite of mine. Loved the hard ‘v’, the way it made you bite your lip when you said it. The long ‘a’ sound, so sensual.

I wrote half a stanza, and it was the worst thing that had ever been written. In all of human history. Ever.

I rolled it up, tossed it in the trashcan.

Wrote another one. Still the absolute worst.

And again. Still bad. But not as bad as the first.

After two hours, I was still drafting, half in journal form, half poetry. Just…putting words on the page.

My favorite writing instructor at the creative writing camp always encouraged us just to put words on a page. That even that simple act was better than nothing—better than giving up. And so I did that.

Another hour passed. The night with Calvin played on an endless loop in my mind and I focused on the crucial, delicate details: his hair falling over his forehead, the flexing of his ass beneath my fingers, the way he somehow managed to be two people at once: rough and gentle. Shy and loud. Sweet and filthy. It was the dichotomy that had me hot and aching after four hours of writing.

I only had one stanza—eight lines—to show for it, but it was enough. It was the first poem I’d written in seven years and when it was done and finished and I’d left it for Calvin, I walked back through the woods with tears streaming down my face.

The release. Like a hundred-pound albatross flying off my shoulders. Like wildflowers had suddenly burst into bloom, all over my skin. The writer’s block was broken, and more than that I’d felt something split open inside of me, something I’d kept locked up and hidden for years. I couldn’t put it back now—hoped, prayed, would do anything to keep it alive, even when we left Big Sur.

Because between my night with Calvin and the hours of writing sensation had flooded back in, sharp and poignant.

The only side effect was a sudden burst of nerves that Cal wouldn’t like what I’d read.

Unfortunately, those nerves became a hailstorm that wouldn’t cease, keeping me awake until the pink light of dawn. What if he thought it was bad? What if he didn’t like it? What if he told me I sucked at writing poetry?

I tried deep breathing, meditation, counting sheep. I remembered now the scariest part of writing: other people’s opinions. In school, when I could make it to a creative writing class, reading my work out loud—for criticism, for feedback—was the worst part. The praise always helped: something small and precious to think about later, letting it play on repeat in my mind. But the criticism stayed with me in a different way, crystallizing into something hard and immovable.

That happened later with modeling. It was that damn Sports Illustrated cover. Buried at the bottom of the marriage proposals and lewd sexual comments was one. Just one. Now, with hindsight, it was so innocuous it was almost funny.

What’s with her ears? The person had written. I mean, she’s hot and all, but is it just me or do her ears kind of stick out? Especially the left one.

I’d never spent more time looking at the human ear than I did that weekend. Looked at my ears from a million different angles. Looked at other people’s ears, examined baby pictures (Did they stick out when I was born? What about later?), paged through magazines and newspapers.

“Can you get plastic surgery done on your ears?” I’d asked my mother, as casually as possible, on the way to a family function.

“You can pay someone to do plastic surgery on any part of your body,” she responded, half in the middle of a phone call with some studio executive. She was barking into a bluetooth every few minutes, and our usual conversational style involved me receiving an answer from her every three minutes.

“Hmmm,” I’d said, looking out the window, trying to catch a vague glimpse of my ears in the reflection of the glass. I compared my mother’s ears, which looked normal. Maybe…too normal.

“Did you get plastic surgery done on your ears?” I’d asked her, and three minutes later she responded with, “Of course not. Although I have had thousands of dollars of plastic surgery done in other places. You know that. Why, are you interested in something?”

Her lips. Her forehead (botox). A bit of lipo in the thighs. Also, in retrospect, offering to get a seventeen-year old plastic surgery should qualify as child abuse.

But she was nothing if not supportive.

“You know, you’re not always going to look like that,” she’d said, and I’d sunk lower in my seat, dismayed. Three minutes later she continued. “Women are constantly engaged in a battle with time. The oldest war there is.” I rolled my eyes, but was secretly listening. “You’re going to need plastic surgery at some point or you won’t book jobs any more. Just the way the world works.”

The anxiety eventually died away, only to be replaced with a fascination of the next criticism of my body. Or my hair. Or my shoes. Or my teeth. Or the way I spoke to a reporter.

I’d once paid an absurd amount of money to have my (mostly) naturally blonde hair dyed to a rich, mahogany brown. I’d loved it, but the comments from my fans were so swiftly bitter (and upset, like they were taking it personally) that I’d dyed it back.

I tossed and turned in bed, hating the highs and lows of my confidence, remembering changing my hair color with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. My stylist had tsk-ed tsk-ed—she’d have to bleach it out—but I didn’t feel good about myself until after it was changed back and the encouraging comments came back.

When had my skin become so thin? Afraid to share my writing. Terrified that some stranger I’d never meet thought my ears were weird? When did I let strangers start to control the color of my fucking hair?

I must have dozed off for a bit, because I woke to Josie letting herself into the cabin about an hour later, mugs of coffee in hand.

“Where have you been?” I asked blearily, suddenly so happy for the presence of my best friend.

“Getting us coffee,” she said, tossing her tangled hair over her shoulder and pressing a hot mug into my hands. I gripped it, grateful for the warmth and the caffeine, and narrowed my eyes at her.

“You have sex hair again,” I accused as she slid onto the bed next to me. Her eyeliner was smeared and she looked as bleary-eyed as me.

“Me?” she asked, pointing at herself. “I slept here last night.”

“Funny, because I had horrific insomnia all night and didn’t see you come in once. You left while I took my bath.”

“I—” she started, and then sighed. Took an extraordinarily long sip of coffee. Then said: “I’ll only spill if you do.”

“Calvin and I fucked last night,” I said, and Josie basically shoved me off the bed.

“Details, mija,” she demanded, but I shook my head.

“You go first,” she whined.

I shook my head again. “Girl, you just lied to me about sleeping here. You go first.”

She bit her lip, carefully placing her coffee on the nightstand. And then dropped her head in her hands.

“I fucked up,” she said. “With Gabe.”

“I highly doubt that,” I said, stroking her hair.

I could see the appeal. He was huge, like a gentle giant, beard and man-bun and plaid shirts. Different from her, for sure, but Calvin and I were about as opposite as they came.

“It’s true and everything in the world is ruined,” she said, voice tiny against her hand.

“Did you have sex again? Is that what this is about?”

“Yes,” she said. She looked up, eyes wide again.

“Let me guess. Great sex.”

“Life-changing.”

“Aw, shit,” I said, clinking my coffee mug against hers. “Cheers to you. Why are you so sad, then?”

“Because I fucking hate men. And I never go back twice. But I did, with him…a lot actually.” A fierce blush—so unlike her. Josie’s attitude towards men now was slash-and-burn. “And I think…I like Gabe.”

“You like his dick, you mean.”

Her eyes met mine. “Yeah,” she lied. “That’s probably it.” I didn’t push her, knew she’d want to talk more about it later. But I did wrap her in a big hug. She smelled like Josie, but also woodsy, like bourbon. I was guessing that was Gabe.

“Whatever it is, I’m sure you can undo it,” I said. “You always can.” After a few minutes she pulled away, re-arranging her features until she looked as devious as she usually did.

“I’m guessing you like Calvin’s dick,” she said, eyebrow arched.

I did. I really did. Could a dick be beautiful? Because if so, Cal’s was. Who knew hiding under those layers of awkward, bumbling nerd was a perfectly straight eight-inch cock?

Josie snapped in front of my face. “Earth to Lucia.”

“Hello,” I said dreamily. “What were we talking about?”

She tossed a pillow at my face. “Tell me about how you made all of Cal’s nerd dreams come true.”

I shifted on the bed, tucking my legs beneath me. “It wasn’t like that,” I said. “It wasn’t…it wasn’t what you’d think. Calvin is…Calvin was extraordinary,” I breathed, and a look came over Josie’s face that told me she knew exactly what I was talking about.

“Yeah?” she asked.

I gave her the down-and-dirty details, and by the end she was gripping her mug so tightly I thought she’d break it.

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus.”

“I know, right?” I said.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Spend our extra days here bringing each other to earth-shattering orgasm over and over again,” I said. “And I, well…I wrote him a poem last night.”

“You did what?” she asked, head tilted.

“I wrote. For a long time actually. And it was terrible,” I said, smiling. “But then…it wasn’t so terrible. And I composed something. For Cal. About…about our night. And left it for him.” An uprising in my stomach; the anxiety back in full force. “But then all I could think about was that he probably hated it. And thus—” I said, pointing at the wrecked bed— “the horrific insomnia.”

“It’s like the ears thing all over again,” she said, sighing.

I nodded solemnly. “Yep. I can’t handle the heat, Jo. I’ve never been able to do that.”

“Stop,” she said, shaking her head. “Not many people could do your job. It’s not just…it’s not just once in a while. You are criticized constantly for every little thing that you do. I couldn’t do it. I’d never leave the house. I’d be terrified.”

I swallowed, thinking. Was that it?

“But also,” she said gently, “Lu, what are you going to do? About Calvin?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, sipping my now-cold coffee

“In a week, you’re going home. We all are. If not sooner. The road crews could finish tomorrow and Ray would have us out of here in a minute, back to LA.”

“I know. So?”

“So, you wrote a poem for a man you like who just rocked your world sexually. And you’re just going to…leave him? And not just back to Los Angeles, but all the way to Paris?”

I chewed on my lip, attempting a nonchalant shrug. “I just want to enjoy this week. You should too. With Gabe. We’ll take it one day at a time.”

“Sure,” she said, heading towards the shower. “I guess you’re right.”

“You know I am,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood. “Come on, it’ll be fun. A bonus week of sex and adventure in Big Sur. What could possibly go wrong?”

 

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