Page 95 of The Spirit of Love
“Two minutes alone and you start stalking?” a female voice says from behind Jude.
He turns to reveal Tania, who slips a bottle of wine into his hands.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” she says, then looks at me. “Oh. Hello.” She smiles, showing radiant white teeth. “You’re Fenny, right?”
Jude clears his throat. “Fenny, you remember Tania?”
“Impossible to forget Tania!” I say peppily as my heart plummets. “Hi.”
I make myself put my hand in hers. I can’t be jealous. Can’t be jealous. Can’t be jealous. But I’m so jealous. And a little shocked that, two nights ago, Jude said that thing about our kiss being more than a kiss. It must not have been much more because he’s already over it. He’s spending the weekend with Tania. He needs wine and honey and firewood with Tania.
“I really can’t believe I ran into you here,” he says.
“I’m struggling with the odds myself.”
“Would you like,” Tania asks, “to have brunch with us? We’restaying just up the road at the Banning House. The view is to die for. Literally.” She glances at Jude, then squeezes his elbow in what’s clearly an inside joke.
“I’m sure Fenny’s busy,” Jude says before I can answer.
I nod. “I’m about to meet some friends.”
“What about tomorrow?” Tania says. “Tomorrow might be even better for us, right, Jude?”
They’re anus. An us I’ll probably have to run into twelve more times before the weekend’s over because that’s how small this town is. I suddenly want to crawl into the top bunk bed in my cabin onThe Midlife Crisisand embrace the full meaning of the ship’s name.
I look at Jude. He’s looking at me, distinctly uncomfortable, unfairly attractive. Our eyes are on each other’s lips again, and I can’t stop myself from thinking about what it was like to kiss him.
Tania must know by now how good he is at kissing. Does she know other things Jude’s mouth can do?
I think of Sam. The note I left. I don’t regret it. Not even now.
“You two enjoy your weekend. I think I’d just be in the way.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
On the top bunk ofthe kids’ cabin aboardThe Midlife Crisis, I sit between Olivia’s sleeping dog, Gram Parsons, and my two new stolen Garibaldi stuffies. I vow to go back later and pay for the souvenirs, but I couldn’t stand in that market with Tania and Jude another minute longer. I was halfway to the yacht before I realized the fish were still clutched in my hands.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of this, fellas,” I say to the fish and the dog.
Before us is my laptop, my reclaimed camcorder, and my phone. The yacht is quiet. Captain Dan took my friends on a bike ride across Catalina’s western rim—everyone except Masha, who is taking a nap in the cabin next door to mine.
Someday I’ll have a life where I can join my friends on aerobic island larks, but not today. It’s time to do what I should have done weeks ago. It’s time to figure out what the fuck is going on.
Last night Sam said he tested out my camcorder, that he’d filmed some “dumb stuff” to see if it still worked. Maybe it will be just dumb enough to help me. I turn it on. When it powers up, I cry. It feels like a miracle. I scroll to find the most recent footage. And there he is.
Sitting on the couch he’d sat on the first night he brought me to the cabin. He placed the camera on the coffee table, probably propped on his copy ofThe Tempest.
Late-afternoon sun comes in through the window, gilding his skin. I can see him fully for what feels like the first time. Smiling into the camera, effortlessly at home in his skin. How at home, how uninhibited, how enviably free he is as he flicks his hair back from his beautiful eyes and smiles.
“Found your camera, Fenny. It washed up on the beach, looking for you. But all it found was me.” There’s a pause while Sam looks out the window, the one that faces the sea. There’s longing in his expression, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer and there’s longing in it, too. “Where do you go when you’re not with me? What are you doing all the way over there right now?”
I watch this clip a second time, trying to find the connection between this man on the couch and the man I just ran into at the market. They’re so different, and yet, there’s something between them. Something connects them, something more than me.
I didn’t ask for this mystery to fall into my lap; I was simply trying to live my life. In the past month I have cared about them both. I’ve been inspired by—changed by—them both. I’ve been driven slightly bananas by them both. And sure, if I could make the perfect-for-me man, I would take Sam’s honeyed drawl when he predicted I’d be a great kisser, and I’d meld it with Jude’s thoughtful contemplation of myZombie Hospitalmotifs. I’d take Sam’s zest for adventure, tearing through canyons on zip lines he built himself, and link it to Jude’s focused generosity when he’s guiding an actor through a demanding scene. I’d take Sam’sbrawn and Jude’s depth, Sam’s confident lips and Jude’s sure dance steps. Sam’s heart, Jude’s mind, Sam’s warmth, Jude’s wit. Their laugher and their eyes and their hands.
I’d make one man.
And he’d be perfect.
