The One That I Want Read online

  Instead, I found myself wishing he didn’t have to go at quarter to seven, and not just because I missed my daughter and didn’t want to be alone in the house. I wanted to be with him.

  He sighed. “I think I’m gonna go into a carb coma if I eat another bite. They’ll have to roll me into Hotel Royale tonight.”

  I laughed and we both glanced at the clock. 6:46. Damn.

  “I know you have to leave now,” I said, “but thanks again for the party yesterday and for today. Every bit of it.”

  I walked him to the door.

  He paused before pulling it open. Took a step closer to me…and then another. Put his arms around my shoulders and waited until I raised my gaze to meet his.

  Then he said, “I can be a few minutes late to the theater.”

  I swallowed and licked my lips.

  He grinned. “I warned you about that, Julia.”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  And he brought his mouth down on mine.

  It wasn’t a peck this time. No little brush across my lips. It was fully engrossing. Utterly transporting. Dane had pulled me so far out of myself that I was all but levitating. Even in my most imaginative state as a teen, I could never have fantasized this kiss. It wasn’t a sensation I would have known could exist when I was that age.

  When he stepped back, he shook his head and said, “I’m not leaving until you tell me when we can see each other again.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “How about tomorrow afternoon and night?” he countered.

  “Deal,” I said, and he kissed me again. Then he slipped away.

  In a zombie-like haze, I wandered back to the kitchen, finished putting everything away, and then meandered through the rooms of the house, one by one, until, at last, I came to a stop in front of my bedroom dresser. I stood and stared at it for the longest time.

  On one side, there was a family photo of the three of us, taken about two years ago when Analise was in third grade. On the other side, there was a picture of just Adam and me, taken on our wedding day. I picked that one up, kissed the smiling face of my late husband, and set it down again.

  Oh, my heart. I still missed him. I’d always miss him, and I knew it. But it seemed our daughter wasn’t the only one who had changed significantly in a relatively short period of time. I just hadn’t realized until this very moment that I had, too.

  I reached for my gold wedding band, twisted it on my finger a few times and then, finally, pulled it off.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next several days were, as I tried to explain to Shar on the phone at the end of the week, the kind that a person would always look back on and remember in chunks, rather than as distinctly individual days.

  I’d felt this way even while they were happening.

  That they were grouped as a set.

  That one day blended into the next like watercolors on wet paper.

  That certain themes echoed for me over and over again within those merging twenty-four-hour periods until I didn’t know when or where the ideas originated anymore.

  It was like living within a romance film montage—those joyous moments in every movie where the characters were shown interacting in a bunch of different scene snippets, all set to music. Viewers watched the onscreen couple talking, laughing, ice skating, feeding each other pasta, or whatever, but the only words that were heard were those of the lyrics to the song playing loudly.

  For Dane and me, it was like having the soundtrack of LOVE FM ballads on high in the background as we chatted, ate meals together, and made out behind closed doors.

  Dane and I spent so much time together—but in very few locations—that, later, I could no longer disentangle where, exactly, we were when one conversation began or another one ended. All I could say for certain was that, from the moment he picked me up on Monday afternoon (the day following our camp visit) until Friday (when all hell broke loose), he and I were almost constantly together. Conversationally, we were as intimate as two people could get, but physically, we’d self-imposed some limits.

  Dane had been quick to remind me that he was leaving Chicago at the end of July, and that he knew I was still processing the death of my husband. He said it didn’t feel right to push our relationship too far, too fast. Logically, this made sense to me, of course, so we only gazed at each other on the rare occasions that we were out in public. We held hands in elevators and other semi-private spaces. And, in the privacy of his hotel or my house, we kissed. We didn’t go much beyond that—at least not initially—but there was lots of deeply enchanted kissing.

  “Back up,” Shar said to me. “You need to explain what you mean by the ‘deeply enchanted kissing’ bit because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know how when you kiss someone and you’re not only enjoying what’s happening in that moment but, also, there’s a part of you that’s daydreaming—simultaneously and spectacularly—about what your future with this person would be like? When you project all kinds of fantasies onto someone else that are totally fictional, but you don’t realize it at first because, for a while, the fantasies feel just as real as what’s actually going on?”

  “No,” my best friend said.

  I tried to think of another way to explain it.

  “Take the Cinderella Story as an example,” I said. “Every little girl wants to be Cinderella at the end of the fairy tale. She gets whisked away from the meanies, her sad life of drudgery is over, she’s going to be a rich princess with a handsome prince, and she’s even got a fairy godmother waiting in the wings, looking out for her best interests, right?”

  “Yeah, okay. I follow you that far. But what does this have to do with enchanted kissing?”

  “When people in the real world look at life as if it’s a fairy tale, we might find ourselves projecting that happily-ever-after ending in any kind of Cinderella/Prince situation we’re in and not even bother to question the daydream. If the guy looks like a prince and acts like a prince—”

  “And kisses like a prince?” Shar interjected.

  “Yes. If all of that is true, it makes it so easy to buy into the enchantment. Too easy. But something very important is missing when we do that.”

  “A glass slipper?” she suggested. “Is this your sneaky way of saying you need to go shoe shopping?”

  “No, Shar.” I paused. “We’re missing the Prince’s perspective. The Cinderella Story is told entirely from her point of view. It focuses on her struggles, her attitudes, her motives and needs. But what about the Prince’s viewpoint? How well do we ever get to know him and what he wants, aside from hooking up with that mysterious woman from the ball? What motivates a wealthy, powerful man like him to find that one elusive young lady whose foot fits the slipper? How much of the Prince’s interest in Cinderella has to do with her actual personality, rather than his projections about her? What does he really know about her, anyway, beyond the most superficial details? Or is his attraction really just a reflection of him falling in love with his own self image? Is he, maybe, captivated by the idea of himself as a hero? A man who can solve a mystery, successfully pursue an attractive woman, rescue her, and then earn her gratitude forevermore because, after all, he took her away from a hard life and handed her riches and a royal title?”

  “You may be over-thinking the fairy tale, Julia.”

  “I doubt it. But, even if I am, that’s the power of enchantment. And the danger of it. When both people are projecting fantasies onto each other and no one is seeing the relationship clearly. I might second guess myself and my own motives when it comes to Dane Tyler because, let’s face it, I’ve been infatuated with the public image of the guy since I was a teenager. But what I’d completely overlooked was that he’d been infatuated with the idea of me since he was a teenager. The Girl Next Door. And that’s just as fake—just as much of an illusion—as my enchantment with him.”

  There was a long moment of silence on the line. “What did he do to you?�
� my best friend asked. “Julia, did he hurt you in some way?”

  But I couldn’t tell her a quick “yes” or “no.” It was much more complicated than that. I needed to start explaining from the start of last week, not just its fiery conclusion.

  ~*~

  The more I discovered about Dane, the more I realized just how much there was that we didn’t know about each other. So much private history we had yet to discuss.

  And, yet, like a paradox within a paradox, I had the strangest sense of certainty that I knew the essentials about him. Many of his core values. Some of his fondest wishes and longstanding dreams.

  In a way, it was as if the most amazing part of my teen fantasy had come to fruition. Not just the fact that Dane Tyler and I had met—or even kissed—but that we were truly similar and we genuinely had important things in common. That he really did like me, once he’d gotten to know me, as I’d always suspected he would. My adolescent self would have felt so vindicated by this.

  He likes me. He really likes me.

  Monday afternoon, the day after our Camp Willowgreen adventure, he picked me up and took me to dinner at this little hideaway Lebanese restaurant in neighborhood Chicago. In a corner booth, we gazed at each other over shish-kabob skewers, saffron rice, and hummus, and then we went back to his hotel and made out like teenagers until midnight. Because it was late, he suggested that I stay over again, and he tucked me into his bed, just like he did after the VIP party.

  Unlike last Sunday morning, however, when I had to rush up to camp, we arose to a Tuesday morning that was completely devoid of all plans. With no pressing need to go anywhere, we lingered over our room-service breakfast, which turned into lunch. We watched old music videos together on TV and laughed about the hairstyles from the nineties. We shared more high-school stories. He told me about all of the girls he’d had crushes on who wouldn’t date him because he was “offbeat.” I told him about Kristopher and my circle of teen friends back in those days of Mirabelle Harbor High.

  It was early evening before he drove me home, but I invited him in for pizza.

  “Pizza Palacio delivers,” I said. “If I call them now, they can be here in twenty minutes.”

  Dane laughed. “How could I refuse? As long as we get sausage on it. And how do you feel about mushrooms?”

  So we had sausage and mushroom pizza and transitioned into watching an action flick together in the living room. It was completely comfortable and relaxing and, when he kissed me goodnight, it was utterly sensual. I collapsed into my own bed after he left, dreaming of him.

  But I scarcely had time to miss him. Wednesday morning, we’d already made plans to return to Highbury Park, visit Samuel at The Lovin’ Spoonful Bakery, and go for another fairly inconspicuous walk around the park. We checked in on his brother’s apartment, picked up local carryout, and somehow ended up back at Dane’s suite, laughing and talking until nearly two a.m.

  “This is becoming a bad habit,” I said, as he tucked me into his bed for the third time in a week.

  “Nah. I don’t think I’d call it bad,” he whispered, bending down to kiss my forehead, my nose, and then my lips. “I kinda like waking up and finding you wandering around my hotel room.”

  I didn’t want to admit it aloud, but I kinda liked it, too.

  Thursday, we made an adventure out of a mostly incognito trip to IKEA, since I needed to get a new bookshelf for Analise’s bedroom. (Her novels were overflowing onto the floor.) While in the store, we pretended Dane was a visiting Swede who spoke no English.

  Very few customers even glanced our way, but one of the workers did a double take when we were checking out. He said, “Hey, aren’t you—”

  “Johannes,” Dane said brightly and with a heavy accent, pointing to his chest.

  “Oh. Um…” the guy said, squinting to see Dane’s face better from under his baseball cap.

  Dane ducked his head a little more and plastered a weird grin on his face that made him look positively demonic. “Hej! Hur går deŧ?” he added with feeling.

  The man looked at me with growing concern.

  I just shrugged. “I think it’s a greeting.”

  “Right,” the guy said, hurrying to ring us up so we’d leave.

  We barely made it to the car before we burst out laughing. I was holding my sides, doubled over in the passenger seat, wondering when the last time was that I’d laughed this hard. Before meeting Dane, it had been a long time.

  “Oh, God,” he said, wiping the corners of his eyes. “I never realized how valuable learning to say, ‘Hi! How goes it?’ on the set of Scandinavian Knights would be. Dreadful director, but the dialect coach was awesome.”

  “So, Johannes, you can actually speak some Swedish?”

  “Only a handful of phrases,” he said. “Most of them filthy.”

  “Well, you’d better brush up just in case I got the wrong size bookshelf and we need to go back.”

  “Det finns ingen chans.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “There’s no chance,” he translated with a grin. “I’ll drive you if you need to return, but you’ll be going in by yourself. That’s a role I should probably retire. Plus, the real world is wearing me down today.”

  I knew the reason for that. He’d been stopped countless times in the hotel lobby for autographs as we were trying to leave this morning. And some newspaper person had been pestering him with phone messages at the hotel. He wasn’t sure how she’d figured out his room number, and I didn’t know all that had been said between them, but it set him on edge.

  Even so, he’d been unfailingly polite to everyone. Still, I could tell he was getting irritated with all of the intrusions.

  “Yeah, I don’t blame you,” I told him. “It’s got to get old, not being able to go out without always having to be on guard in case you’re recognized.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he murmured.

  We got back to my house that afternoon and Dane helped me assemble the bookshelf for Analise in the middle of the living room. It wasn’t a difficult task, but the finished piece was heavier than I thought. We both ended up a little sweaty after lugging it into her bedroom and filling it with her books.

  Dane sniffed his shirt. “I should probably head back to my hotel, take a shower, and change clothes.”

  I laughed. “Well, you know you’re welcome to shower here, although I don’t have those fluffy white robes like the ones you have waiting for you at your suite.”

  “True, but you have other inducements.” He pulled me close to him and gave me a parting kiss that left me with nothing but pure wanting.

  When he stepped away, he grabbed his car keys and walked to my door. Deep within me, a knot filled with longing—one that had been building in my stomach all week—tightened.

  I exhaled slowly in an attempt to relax and loosen the tension. But, truly, it was useless.

  Dane spun abruptly toward me. “Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Sigh like that.”

  “Oh…I was just, um, I had too much carbon dioxide in my lungs,” I joked.

  “But why so deep? So much like you were trying to rid yourself of something else that was mixed with it? Is it annoyance at me? Relief at getting to be alone for a while?”

  I wasn’t sure what came over me. A bolt of honesty? Momentary insanity? Maybe I was just drained from fighting the strength of my attraction toward him. Fighting two decades of fantasy.

  So, I said, “No. Neither. I just—I just want you to this crazy degree, Dane. But I know you’re leaving town soon, and my daughter will be coming back home in no time. And I don’t know. My body and my head are at war, both trying to deal with the reality of you.” I shrugged. “That’s all.”

  His expression froze and he betrayed no emotion, at least none I could read. “What makes you so sure I’m leaving?”

  I squinted at him then pointed at his hand. “Well, right now you’re holding your car keys a
nd standing at the front door. I thought it was a logical deduction. Plus, you told me so.”

  “No, I mean, what makes you so sure I’m leaving town?”

  “Because you told me that, too, Dane. Remember? You’re planning to go to New York City for a few days and then back to L.A. in August to shoot a film.”

  “Well, plans can change.” He tossed his keys to the floor and strode back to where I was standing. “I want you to a crazy degree, too.”

  “I…really? I mean, earlier you’d told me that you didn’t think we should—”

  “Seriously, Julia? I’m an actor. I lied.”

  I got as far as saying, “Oh,” before he started kissing me again. Passionately kissing me, in a way that signaled he wouldn’t be stopping until we weren’t wearing anything and it was tomorrow morning.

  I broke away for a breath. Also, I suddenly needed to think. Switching gears like this threw me. It was one thing to fantasize in the privacy of my mind about stripping off Dane’s clothes and getting down to business. It was another to realize it could begin happening in, like, under a minute.

  I hadn’t slept with anyone but Adam in over twelve years. What if, when we got to the big moment, I wasn’t ready after all? What if I disappointed Dane?

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “What else did you lie about?”

  He grinned. “I was worried admitting that fib to you would bite me in the ass.”

  “Then why did you tell it?”

  “Because it was the right thing to say. You know it was.”

  I pondered his words. “What else would you lie about just because it sounded like a better line than the truth?”

  “Julia, I know you know I’m an actor, but you don’t understand it, do you? Acting isn’t just a profession. It’s a way of being. Most actors don’t choose this. We are this.”