Chapter Eight

 

Luca

 

Roxie was gone by the time I woke up the next morning. I climbed out of the blankets that seemed to have had their own plan during the night and spread out so there was only one between me and the hardwood floor, and dragged myself into the bathroom. This was much more than I expected it to be. I hadn't anticipated the pendulum swing of emotions or the swarm of friends and family who seemed like they were happy for Roxie but also waiting for disaster. I wondered what it was that made them think of her that way. She was unpredictable and impulsive, sure, but I hadn't been able to quite figure out why these people were so obsessed with her. It was like she was on display at an exhibit and they were all standing there, watching her, just waiting for the next thing she was going to do. In this situation, I guess I was the next thing she was going to do. There had to be something more about her past than the fact she had been publicly cheated on and broken up with that made her the focus of, what seemed like, her entire hometown.

But I realized it wasn't really my concern. I wasn't there to figure out the inner workings of her mind or the social politics of the tiny town where she grew up. I was there to be her fake date and make her look as good as possible. Despite our conversation from the night before, I was still completely committed to my role. And that meant I needed to find her. It didn't seem like very good form for the passionate and attentive boyfriend to not know where she was or what she was up to. I savored the hot water and steam of the shower. It felt wonderful to wash off the stress and worries of the day before. I thought I was accustomed to traveling. My family had traveled extensively my entire life, and I thought nothing of hopping on my jet and going to a different state for dinner or heading to a tropical island for the weekend. That did absolutely nothing to prepare me for what it was like to deal with the frustrations of the airport or the rental car situation.

It wasn't until I was about to step out of the shower that I realized we didn't have our luggage. Thea had told us not to bring it with us from the main building the night before, and although Roxie had her overnight bag, I was still waiting for my belongings. After making my bed on the floor, I had forgone pajamas and gone to sleep in my boxers, but I figured that would probably be against dress code for any of the resort activities planned for today. I wrapped a towel around my waist and walked out of the bathroom and into the living room of the cabin. It smelled like freshly brewed coffee and I realized how much I wanted a cup. I noticed my bags sitting on the floor a few feet from the door and smiled with relief. Holding the towel with one hand, I grasped the handle of my largest suitcase and brought it into the bedroom with me. Since Roxie had already stepped out for the morning, I didn't bother to close the bedroom door. I dropped the towel to my feet before opening the suitcase on top of the bed and had just released the clasp of the strap holding my clothes in place when I heard what I thought was the front door closing. Before I had time to hide myself, there was a gasp behind me.

I turned around and saw Roxie standing in the doorway of the bedroom. She had her back to me, but her hand was over her eyes. The other hand gripped a cup of coffee and she held it up to the corner of her eye to further block her view. But I knew she had seen everything. I didn’t mind.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't realize you were up yet. Awake yet. No longer in bed."

I withheld my laughter, not wanting to embarrass her even further than she already was. I took a pair of pants out of my suitcase and stepped into them.

"I am. Out of bed, that is. It's all right," I said. "You can turn around now."

Roxie slowly lowered the cup of coffee away from the corner of her eye and turned just slightly so that she could look at me over her shoulder. When she saw I was no longer fully exposed, she turned around. Her cheeks were flushed with color, making her look even more attractive than usual. She had changed out of her pajamas and was fully dressed, makeup done, and her hair swept up into a neater, more controlled version of the bun she had worn the day before. She looked elegant and beautiful, but I found myself missing the wild aspect of her style on the airplane. That seemed to have embodied Roxie’s personality far better.

"I was out on the back porch," she said. "I know the rest of this week is going to be chaotic, so I wanted a few minutes to drink a cup of coffee and just enjoy the quiet."

"There's a back porch?" I asked. "I didn't even notice last night."

Roxie nodded.

"It's really beautiful out there. Want to grab a cup of coffee and I can show you?"

I nodded and grabbed my shirt before leaving the bedroom and walking through the cabin to the tiny kitchen that was tucked in the corner. Another thing I hadn't noticed the night before. I probably wouldn't have this morning, either, if it weren't for the enticing smell of the coffee luring me there. A welcome basket had been set up on the counter of the kitchenette and Roxie reached for one of the single serving coffee pods set inside. She popped it into what looked like a baby version of the coffee maker Greg had in his kitchen and pressed a few buttons. The little machine chugged to life and a few seconds later let out a triumphant stream of the dark brew. It only filled the mug 3/4 of the way, but at that moment it was everything I could have asked for. I took my first sip of bitter coffee as I followed Roxie out the back door. Blue and white curtains covered the glass panes, so I couldn't see beyond them, but as soon as she opened the door, I could see why Roxie chose to go out there for her moment of solitude that morning.

I felt like I had slept forever, but the sun had just made its way over the horizon when we stepped out onto the porch. It illuminated the trees that covered the back of the cliff where the resort sat. Beyond them, I could see the ocean glistening in the sunlight of the new day. The sound of the waves crashing on the beach below was rhythmic and peaceful, and I got a mental image of water washing up on the sand. I drew in a deep breath of the clean, salty air and felt myself relax.

"It's so quiet out here," I said.

Roxie made a murmuring sound of agreement.

"After being in the city for a while, it's easy to forget what quiet is like. I remember when I first moved to New York from Maple Grove and everything was so overwhelming. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't concentrate. There were times when I would go sit in the bathroom with the door closed and the shower on just trying to drown out all the noise. Then I got used to it. It just kind of became part of the background. Now I feel like my brain is searching for the car noise or the sirens."

"Or the neighbor standing on the street corner screaming."

I leaned against the railing and she leaned beside me. She laughed softly and took a sip of her coffee.

"There always seems to be one of those. Have you ever stopped to listen and figure out what they're really saying?"

"No," I said. "But it's been a while since I've had neighbors like that. Maybe they're easier to understand now."

"You don't live in the city?" Roxie asked.

I realized that with everything we had talked about before this trip, that was a topic that had somehow never come up in our conversation. I chuckled at the thought and she looked at me strangely.

"What's funny?" she asked.

"I just realized we never talked about things like that. Basic things. Where we were born. Where we grew up. Where we went to school. We talked about our siblings, but that was the end of it. We were so busy trying to convince everyone we knew each other, that we didn’t bother with the details that would make us actually know each other."

She laughed but didn't pry any further. I hadn't meant the comment to distract her or to stop her from finding out more about me, but it seemed she thought I was changing the subject. We both looked out over the ocean and the waving leaves of the trees.

"I've never seen trees like those at the beach," she said absently.

"New England beaches," I said. "My family used to vacation in places like this when I was younger." Because we own most of a town in Maine... "I remember thinking the beaches looked like this because the area was smaller. There wasn't as much space, so the cliffs and the woods and the beach were all smashed up together rather than spread out like in other places."

Roxie laughed again.

"I like that explanation," she said. "Seeing it makes me miss home. Maple Grove has trees just like this, but the ocean is a couple of hours away. A couple of hours in the other direction, though, and you're in the mountains."

"So just like this," I said, "but spread out."

"Just spread out," she agreed with a smile.

We smiled at each other for a few seconds, and then I turned away, taking a final sip from my mug.

"What's on the itinerary for today?" I asked.

"Well, I'm supposed to meet Thea for breakfast in a little bit and we're going to go over some details for the wedding. Then everyone is going on a hike."

I chuckled and started back into the cabin.

"What?" Thea asked, following me. "What are you laughing about?"

"Nothing. Just thinking about the hike."

"What about the hike?"

I rinsed my mug in the sink and put it on a towel on the counter to dry.

"It's just funny to think about you hiking, that's all."

"Why?" Roxie said, sounding defensive. "You think that just because I live in the city, I don't know how to get out in nature anymore?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, let me tell you something, buddy. I grew up in a tiny, country town in the middle of nowhere. We played outside when we were kids. I was almost never inside during the summer. You just wait. You think I don't hike? You’ll see.”

 

Roxie

 

I don't hike.

Turns out that whoever said 'you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl' didn't know shit about hauling ass out of said country after getting wrung through the emotional cheese grater. I might have spent my summers biking and swimming when I was younger, but all that went into the witness protection program the second I stepped out of the grass and onto the cement.

"How are you doing back there?" Luca asked from in front of me.

I tried to adjust the backpack on my back, stumbled a few steps, slid down an incline made from particularly nasty roots, and latched onto a nearby tree, swinging around it to land on my butt on the path.

"Nailing it."

Luca came back to me and reached his hand down. I took it and he pulled me back up to my feet.

"I thought you said you hiked."

I brushed myself off, trying to ignore how sexy Luca managed to look in his jeans and black T-shirt. If I had peeled him out of a lifestyle magazine yesterday, today he had come straight from a photoshoot for a luxury outdoor clothing brand. But not the type of clothing anyone actually bought to wear outside, just so they look like they might consider it. Luca had worn it outside though, and he was the hottest thing these trees had ever seen.

"That root came out of nowhere," I said.

He gave me a teasing look and continued down the path. I heard my phone jangle in my pocket and I fished it out, relieved to see it had survived the latest topple. I snapped a picture of Luca lacing his hiking boot earlier and sent it to Terri, who had been asking me for more evidence I hadn't just taken a picture of a gorgeous fellow flyer. I read her text to myself.

"You better call Smokey the Bear. That man is so hot he’s going to start a forest fire."

"You are ridiculous."

I shoved the phone back in my pocket. Besides, I had thought of it first.

Luca glanced back over his shoulder and waited for me to catch up to him.

"Are you going to be OK?" he asked.

"I'll be fine," I said.

"Hey. That's my word."

He nudged me playfully with his shoulder and I couldn't help but smile. Hiking on a summer day through towering trees as the temperature climbed with each passing minute, wasn't exactly my idea of the perfect nature day. I hadn't been excited about trudging through the wilderness to the middle of nowhere, only to immediately turn around and head back the same way we came, but now that I was out here with Luca, it might actually be enjoyable.

Might.

"I don't find this amusing, Bradley."

I turned around and saw Heather struggling her way up the path behind us. Her hair was pulled up into a death-defying ponytail on the top of her head, and she was wearing a neon pink assortment of spandex that barely covered her chest. The bag on her back looked like it was holding little more than a bottle of water and I assumed it was only there to complete the ensemble.

"At least I'm doing better than her," I whispered to Luca. "Do you think she wore that in case she gets lost and needs us to be able to see her easily?"

"I think she wore that because she hopes there's a Zumba class at the end of this."

I laughed and turned, but managed to lose my balance again, stumbling forward into Luca's arms. He grabbed me and held me close so I didn't actually hit the ground. Our bodies touched, and I felt my breath catch in my chest.

No, brain. Stop it. You stop it right now. That's not an option. This is fake. Faux-mance.

Remembering Luca's absurd word from the airport helped take the edge off the heat I could feel building between us, and allowed me to take a step back from him. I reluctantly dragged my gaze away from his caramel eyes and looked ahead down the path.

"We should probably catch up with the others," I said. "I wouldn't want Thea to think that something's wrong."

"OK."

That night after dinner we were released from official wedding duty and I took a long shower to remove the last remnants of the hike. After getting dressed, I sat cross-legged on the couch with the box of memorabilia my parents had brought on the floor in front of me. I thought they were going to take the box back to Maple Grove with them, but when the luggage was delivered the night before, there it was, sitting among the suitcases and bags like it belonged there. I figured I would give it back to them at the end of the week. For now, I might as well do a little digging.

Luca walked out of the bedroom wearing cotton pajama pants and a white T-shirt, rubbing his hair with a towel. The smell of freshly clean man wafted toward me, and I resisted the urge to press my nose to him and fill my lungs with the smell. The only thing that would have made it better would be if I hung him out on the clothesline for a few hours to get that sunshine smell infused in his shirt.

"What are you looking at?" he asked, mercifully breaking me out of my musings.

"That stuff my parents brought me," I told him. "I can't believe they didn't just toss it. I haven't seen some of this stuff in decades."

"You're their daughter. They weren't just going to toss it. These are memories for them."

"My diaries from when I was in middle school are memories for them?"

"Well, maybe not your diaries, but the other stuff could be. Besides, it was your room. They probably couldn’t bear to go in there and just throw everything away.”

"I guess. It's just weird to be looking at all this stuff again. I can't believe I was ever like this."

"What do you mean?"

He sat on the other end of the couch and stared expectantly at the diary in my hands. It was purple and dotted with pink foam hearts. Smeared, faded ink showed where I had scribbled names of crushes only to blot them out and replace them.

"I'm not going to read you my diary," I said.

"Why not? Like you said, it was from decades ago. You're barely even the same person."

"No."

"Oh, come on." I continued to resist, and he nudged me with his foot. "Come on."

"Stop poking me."

Poke.

"Read it to me."

Poke.

"I'm just going to keep doing it until you read it to me."

Poke.

I sighed and turned so that I faced him.

"Alright, alright. So, this one is from sixth grade. I had just gotten into middle school, so of course, I was a grown-up."

"Clearly."

I cleared my throat and held up the diary as if I was reading a great piece of literature.

"Dear Diary. It's me. I have to write quietly because it is really late and I don't want my parents to catch me. They would kill me if they knew I was awake at 10 on a school night."

Luca chuckled.

"Wild woman," he said.

"Shut up. I was eleven." I settled deeper into the couch and continued. "They would kill me if they knew I was awake at 10 on a school night, but I just had to tell you this. I met the boy of my dreams today! Well, I didn't really meet him, but I saw him. Diary, he is so cute and so grown up. I think he might be in seventh grade. Or even eighth! He was in the lunchroom when I was. He bought pizza and orange soda. I wonder if he even noticed me. I doubt it. Why would he? I can't wait until tomorrow. I'm going to look for him at lunch again."

Luca was laughing again when I finished.

"That is some deep stuff right there," he said. "Earth-shattering."

"Oh, but there's more," I said. "This one is from a few weeks later." I cleared my throat again for dramatic effect. "Dear Diary. He looked at me! There have been a few times when I thought he might have looked at me, but I wasn't totally sure. This time, I know! He was carrying his lunch and he turned and looked right at me. He even smiled a little. I can't believe it!"

"A few weeks later and he looked at you? That is a serious slow burn."

"Again, eleven."

"Hey, by eleven I was already holding girls' hands."

"Hussy."

"What's this one?"

Luca reached into the box and pulled out a well-worn red spiral notebook.

"That's my quote book," I said, closing the diary and putting it aside.

"Your quote book?" he asked. "What's that?"

I blinked at him.

"It's a book of quotes."

"Life insurance quotes? Contracting quotes? Are you planning an expansion?"

I made a face at him.

"Quotes. Sayings that I overheard, or things people said to me that I liked. I started doing it when I was in a creative writing class. The teacher said that the best way to get ideas for our stories was to listen to the world around us. I guess it kind of builds on that whole ‘write what you know thing’. I started carrying around a notebook and writing down things I heard when I was walking down the hallway or having lunch. It expanded to things people said to me or I heard on TV. After the school year ended, I just kept doing it. It became kind of a signature for me. People loved getting into the quote book."

Luca opened the notebook and scanned through one of the pages.

"You cannot fly into flying. You must first crawl into walking. That's deep. Not the actual quote. But deep."

"What do you mean it's not the actual quote?"

"Whoever said that to you was either trying to sound intelligent and show off their knowledge of philosophers or trying to sound intelligent by ripping off a philosopher. Either way, it's an attempt at Nietzsche. 'He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance. One cannot fly into flying.'"

I felt my heart beating a little faster, and I reached for another of the books in the box.

"Yeah, that makes sense. I remember when I wrote that one. Steven Jennings. First-period geometry. He had a thing for me from the first day of class."

"I'm guessing you didn't share Mr. Jennings’ affections."

"He wore the same shirt three days out of the week and incorrectly quoted philosophers to me. No, I didn't share his affections."

"To be fair, you didn't know that he incorrectly quoted philosophers to you."

"The shirt is enough. And he smelled weird."

"Probably the shirt."

"No, the shirt was clean. It always smelled like fabric softener. That made it even weirder that he wore it all the time. He didn't do that the year before or the next year. Just that one. No, he just smelled weird. Like the inside of a hippie's sock drawer."

"I don't really have a frame of reference for that one, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that is not a pleasant smell."

"It's not. What else is in there?"

"Your milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. That’s a good musical reference there."

"That would be Evan, one of my really good friends at the time. He's now a drag queen in Atlanta."

"And did it?"

"What?"

"Did your milkshake bring all the boys to the yard?"

"Oh, you best believe it. I was quite the spectacle at the annual harvest ball."

"The spectacle, you say."

"Yes. Evan and I would burn up the dancefloor. Which probably isn't a metaphor I should use when I'm talking about a dance held in a barn, but there it is."

Luca got up from the couch and walked into the bedroom. He came back a few seconds later holding his phone. He fiddled with it for a few seconds and I heard the iconic song from my youth coming from the tiny speakers.

"Prove it," he said.

My mouth fell open and I shook my head.

"No," I said.

"Why not?"

"I'm not dancing."

"Don't think you've got it anymore?" he asked.

"Oh, I've still got it."

"Then prove it." He performed a little shimmy. "Show me what you got."

He clicked the button on the side of his phone to increase the volume of the song and continued to dance. The temptation was just too much. I jumped to my feet and into the center of the room with him. After a few seconds of warming up, I whipped out one of my old standby moves.

"This was my signature move," I told him.

"It's good," he said laughing.

The song changed, and we kept dancing, getting more enthusiastic as the music got faster. On the third song, Luca tried to execute a complicated spin and tripped over his own feet, stumbling toward me. He grabbed me by my upper arms and took me down with him. I hit the floor and rolled onto my back, laughing until tears streamed down my face. Luca had managed to land partially on the sofa and I watched as he dragged himself up onto the cushions.

"Was that your signature move?" I asked when I caught my breath.

He flipped over so that he looked up at the ceiling.

"It was supposed to be," he said. "But I think I might have gotten too old for it."

"Never too old to dance," I said through little bursts of continued giggling.

I got to my knees and scooted over to the side of the sofa.

"I think I might be ready to go to bed,” he said. “With the hike, the bonding ceremony at the top of the cliff, listening to Thea's father cry and give his speech in a language I didn't understand and have yet to identify, and getting taken out by my mad dance skills, it's been a long day."

I laughed again.

"Do you want the bed tonight?" I asked. "I could take the floor and we can switch back and forth."

Luca shook his head.

"No," he said. "I don't mind the blankets. You're the maid of honor. You need your sleep."

He reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from my cheek and I felt a sigh slip out from between my lips. I wanted to turn my head and kiss his palm, but I resisted. Instead, I stood and took his hand, helping him off the couch just like he had helped me off the ground during the hike. We walked into the bedroom and I climbed into the bed that had been freshly made when we got back from the strange and somewhat awkward chanting circle at the end of the hike. Luca tucked himself in on the blankets on the floor and I turned off the lamp.

"Goodnight Luca," I said.

"Goodnight, Roxie."