CALVIN

Late at night I’d finally found the passage I was looking for—the narrative Ray needed:

Spent the night at Fenix too drunk and too stoned to drive home. Readings for a full week at the bookstore, culminating in Pete, the owner, letting us have a giant party. He closed the restaurant off from other patrons, and I sat around with a bunch of writers and idealists, talking the night away around the giant pit fire in the middle of the room. Someone kept jumping up and reciting their favorite poems from memory—Keats, Walt Whitman—and others would do the same, pulling out creased and dog-eared copies of their favorite books from their pockets, their bags, their cars.

I loved being in the same room with people who all had to have a copy of their favorite book on them at all time, for a moment like this. A perfect moment. “And your very flesh shall be a great poem,” Walt Whitman had said, and I felt that. Saw grown men cry, stanza after stanza, because they thought it was beautiful.

Isn’t this what we’re alive for? Why else were we put on Earth if not to enjoy the written word? And in the morning, blinking against the harsh sunlight, Pete fried up bacon sandwiches and served strong coffee on the deck, the fog misting over the cliff-side. Nothing could have been better than grease and coffee, fog and ocean, a night well-spent on the floor of an abandoned restaurant as night turned into day. And the day turned into magic.

I’d never been inside Fenix when it was empty, usually it was so crowded with tourists that you waited hours for a table. But the rockslides had effectively stopped business for a few days, and Pete Jr. (the son of the former owner) was more than happy to let Ray and the crew use their location.

“There was a lot of crossover between these two places,” I told Ray, who was scratching his notes into a notebook, nodding along. One half of the restaurant was now hair/makeup/wardrobe, and every cell in my body was aware that Lucia was in the room. Barely dressed. “Parties at the bookstore would end up back here, and vice versa. Fenix was more about the music though, and between the late 1950s and early 1970s the number of cultural icons—in music and literature—that passed between the two was pretty extraordinary.”

“Kind of a bell-bottoms and acid type of thing?” Ray asked and I nodded.

“Spontaneous poetry readings and musical performances happened all the time. A lot of once-in-a-lifetime memories.”

“Jimi Hendrix, whipping out his guitar after dinner and playing a set,” Ray said, grinning. “I fucking love it.” He glanced back at Joanna. “Janis Joplin hair,” he called out and she nodded, as if that was a thing a person would just instinctively know how to do.

“I can see it,” he said excitedly, and then left me, walking over to Lucia and Taylor. “Okay I got it. You two have just fucked in the bathroom and now you’re enjoying drinks, right before The Beatles show up.”

I swallowed a grin, shaking my head and settling on a bar stool. I’d come along to provide “inspirational narrative” (Ray’s words) but also there was nothing to do at the store—no customers. The internet cafe was closed (no internet) so I couldn’t guiltily check my emails and ignore the ones from Edward inquiring about my exact start date back at the company.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about Lucia. Barely 24 hours and my thoughts were bordering on obsessive. Or maybe compulsive.

Okay both. I’d re-read her poem so many times I had it memorized. Analyzed what it could possibly mean, what her feelings for me were. If you could have feelings for someone you’d barely known a week.

Could you?

It was still a little stormy outside, and it turned the restaurant into a cozy, bohemian hole-in-the-wall. I grabbed a cup of coffee, settled on a bar stool, and took out my books: the Flannery O’Connor collection and a slim volume of Mary Oliver. Lucia’s love for her had re-ignited my interest—plus, since she’d left me something last night, I’d been searching for something to leave her. But I couldn’t find the right fit. The right tone to express my gratitude. I wasn’t a writer, but I imagined you would have to make yourself pretty vulnerable to do what she had done last night.

And maybe that was why she’d spent this morning avoiding eye contact with me.

Lucia was still in a short, clingy robe and Joanna was transforming her hair (Janis Joplin hair) into a snarled mess. Big as a house and kind of dirty looking. She was grunting with the effort while Lucia sat there, cool as a cucumber, and flipping through a magazine. I wandered over as non-awkwardly as I could, and as soon as Josie saw me she half-spit out her water.

Lucia must have told her.

“Mornin’,” I said, lifting my mug of coffee in greeting.

Josie gave me a slow look, up and down, appraising. Nodding to herself.

“Good morning to you too, Calvin,” she said, testing blush on her skin. She tossed me a wink and I coughed a little on my coffee, sliding my glasses up my nose. Lucia didn’t look at me, still staring at her magazine. Josie noticed and tossed me a sympathetic look.

“Hey Cal, thanks for standing in for me, man,” Taylor said, walking up to clap a hand on my shoulder. “That was maybe the worst food poisoning I ever had.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I mumbled, “but also…you know, it was no big deal. Any time.” Yes, any time. Any time, please let me run my hands all over Lucia’s near-naked body.

“I saw the shots, though. Ray showed them to me,” Taylor said, allowing himself to be pushed into a fur jacket, no shirt, ripped jeans and combat boots. He looked retro and way too handsome for his own good.

I looked down at my Chuck Taylors, my old X-Files shirt that said The Truth Is Out There. I hadn’t shaved, and I felt scruffy and un-glamorous, like your best friend’s little brother that you take to the prom because you feel bad for him.

“Oh yeah?” I asked, not wanting to hear his assessment of my modeling debut.

“Wait, I haven’t seen them yet,” Lucia said, finally looking up.

“Really? They’re great. Phenomenal actually. You two have real chemistry,” Taylor said, pointing between us and smiling. All three of us—me, Lucia and Josie—went still as statues.

“Huh,” I finally said, after what felt like a million years, “that’s so funny. Guess I should give up my exciting career to go into modeling.”

Taylor laughed, shrugging. “I don’t know, man. There was something about the two of you. Ray was going crazy about it.”

Lucia and I finally made eye contact—just for a second, but an electric shock went through me when her blue eyes landed on mine.

Like clockwork, Ray appeared, dailies in hand. “You talking about the shoot the other day? I have some of them. Untouched, obviously but…” Ray laughed in disbelief, handing them to Lucia.

“But what?” she asked, before glancing down.

“Shay might want to use these. They’re incredible,” Ray said simply.

I looked at the photos in Lucia’s hand, sure he was pulling my leg. But he wasn’t.

The one on top was me, hands on either side of Lucia’s head, leaning us back into the rock. Storm clouds in the background and rain on our skin. Our lips, almost touching.

We looked fiercely in love.

Fuck.

“Who knew?” she said, tilting her head. Her fingers were trembling just a little. “Calvin the supermodel.”

“Er…right,” I said, laughing nervously. This was too much—too awkward. I needed to get Lucia alone, to tell her how much her poem meant to me. I hadn’t responded in kind, like I usually do, so maybe that’s why she seemed skittish this morning.

“So, I’m going to find the bathroom and, um, well, use it,” I said, backing away slowly, bumping into about six techs and spilling coffee down the front of my shirt. “So…” I quickly glanced at Lucia, “So, yeah.” I finished lamely, turning away, praying that she got the message. That she would follow me down the winding, dark hallways.

But she didn’t.

In the bathroom, I took off my shirt, scrubbed the coffee stains out of it. Put it back on. Examined my appearance in the mirror. Wondered, briefly, how someone like Lucia could ever find someone like me attractive. I put my glasses back on, ran my hand through my hair.

I mean, really. Dramatic shots in the rain were one thing. Reality was different.

I looked back down the hallway. Nothing. Jesus, didn’t people always do this in the movies? Now I’d just been awkwardly in the bathroom for a really long time.

So I washed my hands resignedly, shrugging at my reflection. Opened the door, and came face-to-face with Lucia. Her Janis Joplin hair like a lion’s mane, eyes dramatic with black eye shadow. That short fucking robe clinging to her lithe body.

“Sorry,” she said, biting her full bottom lip, “I thought you were kind of, you know, wanting me to come back here but I wasn’t sure, and then Ray was asking me all of these questions and you were still in the bathroom so I thought maybe you were just, you know, in the bathroom, so I wasn’t sure, but now here I am and we’re only allowed breaks for 5 minutes,” she finished, breathless and adorable.

I smiled. She smiled. And then I placed my palm against her chest and pushed her into the open pantry closet across the hall. Kicked the door behind us, and in total darkness, pulled her in for a soul-searing kiss.

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