Forget About It Page 19

  She started pulling the groceries out of the bag. “I bought you some grapefruit, some prepackaged salad, and some of those yummy Slim-Fast shakes.”

  “Uh . . . ‘yummy’?” I protested.

  “You know,” she said, trying to sound sympathetic and failing miserably, “it would be totally natural—not really your fault at all—if you put on a few pounds while you were lying around in that hospital bed.”

  “Oh . . . thanks.”

  “I also bought you some fat-free salad dressing and those mini-carrots, but don’t eat too many of the mini-carrots.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because they’re not an unlimited vegetable. Stick to greens mostly and think of the carrots as a treat.”

  “Yeah, like chocolate truffles or Cheetos. Carrots are not exactly a treat, Mom.”

  “You’re not exactly a waif, Jordan,” she said. Thanks for pointing that out, Mommie Dearest.

  “No, I’m not a waif,” I said with a shrug. Ladies and gentlemen . . . my mother. Poster woman for subtlety. “But you know what? I’m okay with it. I’m comfortable with myself . . . weight included. And your obsession with my weight is just selfish and mean-spirited.”

  “I am your mother, and therefore your best friend. If I don’t tell you these things, who will?” I loved it when she pulled that one. That was a familiar one in the repertoire. “You’re frowning.”

  “Yes, perhaps I am. And perhaps I’ll develop a wrinkle from it. I’m human. It’s part of life. ” She started looking between my eyes and then moved to the rest of my face. I started feeling flushed. Here she went. Inspecting me. As much as it felt good to stand up for myself, it was uncharted territory and it made me feel a little shaky. Maybe she wouldn’t notice anything else wrong?

  “Do you exfoliate, dear?” Maybe not.

  “Exfoliate?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Do you?”

  “Yes. All the time.”

  “What do you use?” Shit. She knew I was lying and I had no idea what to answer here.

  “A scrub?” I said, more asking than telling.

  “Yes, of course a scrub. Which one?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, show me,” she urged.

  “I ran out,” I bluffed.

  “Right. Buy some exfoliating cream. Clarins makes a good one. I have to go. Sam is waiting in the car. There’s a sale at Gucci.”

  “Samantha’s here?” I asked. “Why didn’t she come up?”

  “This has been very hard on her, dear. You not having your memory and all that. She’s been very upset.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she has been,” I said. “You tell her I hope she feels better real soon.”

  “I will, dear. Kiss.” And she air-kissed me, because physical contact is reserved for manicurists and masseurs.

  After she left I looked out my window, which faced the street, and I saw my mom’s car double-parked. Samantha was dancing to the car radio, leaning her head out the window, catching some sun. She did that twirly arm thing and sort of weaved her head. She was grooving, working through the pain she felt from worrying about me.

  But I didn’t care. Nothing could get me down. Because Travis was making me dinner. And if a piano had dropped on my head, I swear I’d have apologized sweetly to the movers for getting in their way.

  * * * * *

  When I arrived at Travis’s apartment, I was greeted by the most vivid and beguiling aroma—garlic, sweet oils, herbs. Over his shoulder, the place looked amazing too. He’d set a beautiful table, with cut flowers in a cloudy-green glass vase as a centerpiece, and he was holding a tall candlestick when he opened the door.

  “Is that a candlestick in your hand or are you just happy to see me?” I asked.

  “It is a candlestick and I am very happy to see you.” And I was a human candle, melting a little right then. He invited me to sit, but I wanted to watch, and it was a show of impressive synchronization, from cutting board to stove to sink. The man seriously knew his way around the kitchen. All six square feet of it.

  We were midway through dinner and having an amazing time when he realized that the candle was still unlit.

  “Dammit. I forgot to light the candle. ”

  Through my mind danced all the metaphors about lighting his fire, lighting his candle, shedding light. So I grabbed the matches on the table thinking, This’ll be cute and lead to banter. And with such good intentions, naturally, I burned my finger and flung the burning match onto the rug, where he immediately stamped it out.

  “Ouch!” I said and I shook my hand a little, to draw attention away from the rug (no harm done, it turned out). Without thinking, he took my hand and kissed my finger.

  “All better,” he said. Yeah, I thought. All better.

  “This is delicious,” I said, breaking a long yet strangely comfortable pause in the conversation. “You weren’t kidding about your talents in the kitchen.”

  “It’s—it’s just something I’ve always been interested in.”

  “You’re an incredible cook.”

  “Thank you,” he said earnestly. “That’s the kind of reaction I’m hoping I’ll get.”

  “From?”

  “From people who eat my food,” he said quietly, not looking up.

  “What people?” I asked. “Are you having a taste test?”

  “Remember I told you about the lighthouse and my dad and all that? It’s all part of my grand plan . . .”

  “Do tell.”

  “Well, I want to open a restaurant. Right next to the lighthouse. A lighthouse-themed restaurant, you know, beachy, breezy, boat paraphernalia, stringed colored lights. Lots of fish on the menu. The whole nine—”

  “And you’ll be the chef?”

  He nodded, smiling up at me shyly.

  “Then with the money I’m making from the restaurant, I want to restore my dad’s lighthouse, and who knows . . . maybe even turn it into an inn, like a bed-and-breakfast. Lighthouses are definitely an endangered species, but the stories behind them, the whole idea of searching and finding safe harbor, protection from the storm, a beacon in the midst . . . ” He looked at me and winked. “People will just eat it up. And I’ll be there with a cash register and a credit card machine.”

  “You joke, but what a great dream.”

  “Well, I’m going to make it real.”

  “I have no doubt,” I said, the room growing warmer and warmer somehow. Watching him talk about the restaurant he hoped to open and restoring his dad’s old lighthouse made him light up like the East River on the Fourth of July. But his face suddenly changed.

  “God, I feel awful. Here I am talking about my dreams and you can’t even remember yours. And it’s because of me!”

  Then, once again, I started to feel really uncomfortable. There he was, being the perfect guy, and there I was, totally falling for him and hoping that he was falling for me too . . . and it was all based on a lie. He felt guilty because of the accident, and I felt even more guilty about lying to him. It was great. Both of us completely riddled with guilt and nothing we could do about it. Or rather, something I could have done about it. I could have said, “Oh by the way, that whole amnesia thing, it was a lie. I’m fine.” But I was waiting for the right moment. Perhaps in my will.

  “Oh, stop,” I said, trying to play it down. “I’m sure I’ll get my memory back any day now. Really. Let’s not talk about that. C’mon . . . how are you going to make this dream a reality? Tell me everything.” He looked pained. I raised my eyebrows and gave an encouraging nod to say, I actually care! This is not bar or cocktail party talk. Lay it on me, every excruciating morsel!

  “Well,” he said, leaning closer to the table, “I’ve worked hard and been saving up for years, and I’m finally in a good place. I’ve got enough for a good chunk of the down payment, and with interest rates still reasonable right now, I can get a loan for the rest. I’ve got the plans for the restaurant ready to go. Blueprints, design, budget, menu, traffic
studies for every season. I’m hoping to get started early next year.”

  “This could be huge. Cover story in Food & Wine. Lines stretching into the bay. People bitching about how they can never get a reservation. Huge!”

  “I want to take you to the location,” he said quickly.

  “I’d love it.”

  So we just kept talking all night, and I swear there was not a single uncomfortable pause. Our words chased each other’s in perpetual motion. We’ve all had those rare occasions in life of discovering another person we want to dive into and swim around in, and this was one of mine. And I realized that I was probably never once truly comfortable—not on any level approaching this—with Dirk. Maybe it was because Dirk wasn’t comfortable with himself and Travis seemed to be the exact opposite. Maybe it was just because Dirk was wrong for me. Whatever it was, as we sat there, I felt so at ease, like I was following his light to my own home port.

  The clock surprised us. It was extremely late, so late it was almost early, and I made my way to the door to say good night. I wanted a kiss so badly that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t know where to stand or how to act or what to do. I could tell that he wanted to kiss me too, but he didn’t know how to broach the subject. He seemed nervous all of a sudden.

  I put my coat on and he walked me to the elevator.

  “I had a really nice time,” I said as he followed me in. And now here came the pauses. Seven . . . six . . . five . . . “Your cooking is out of this world,” I added. “Very impressive. You’re gonna do it. And you should feel every bit as confident as I do.”

  “Wow,” he said, seeming genuinely touched. “Thanks. And thanks for coming.” Three . . . two . . .The elevator door opened and he walked me outside.

  “It was my pleasure.” Up went his arm and a taxi stopped for us.

  “I’m glad,” he said as he opened the door for me to get in.

  “Okay then,” I said, giving one last cue to kiss me. “I’ll talk to you soon.” Standing on one foot. Hand on the door, chin somehow still lingering.

  “Yes, you will.”

  “Good night, then.” Kiss me!

  “Good night,” he said. And I had no choice but to get in and close the door. No kiss. But I was still in a dreamy state of bliss. Probably better that he didn’t kiss me. I’d be completely useless at that point. They’d have found me wandering the streets, marveling at window displays, fascinated to see vendors scraping overcooked marinated lamb across their griddles, waving gleefully to complete strangers. I’d fallen for Travis, for a second time. And this one was bound to mess me up even more than the first.

  20.

  what if

  when harry met sally

  was right?

  or

  can men and women

  be just friends?

  I jumped on my computer when I got home and started researching lighthouses. I was struck by how varied they were—fascinating, beguiling somehow, just like Travis had said. Many of them, at least. Others were quaint little cylinders of white, some charming with their conical hats, some like majestic castle towers, some bland and utilitarian . . . but I had a feeling the one his dad had tended would be pretty special. I stumbled onto a few very good lighthouse Web sites, dedicated to lighthouses all over—history, structure, keepers’ odd lives and dirt pay (the traffic staffers of their day), the Sisyphean restoration efforts of the lighthouse faithful in little seaside communities, and how lighthouses were lit with wood and coal, then oil, then high-wattage bulbs, then extinguished altogether when modern navigation technology rendered nearly all of them wistful relics.

  But actually, I’m not sure any of them ever had a practical purpose. I think they were all born metaphors. A beacon to bring the lost at sea home. Or guide them to safety around the rocky shoals in stormy seas. A light in the mist. A solitary sentinel. Designed not by architects but by poets. Shamelessly capitalizing on the ready-made romance was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in a poem called “The Lighthouse.” It gave me an idea. I wanted to do something special for Travis, not because I was feeling incredibly guilty, which I was. I wanted to do it because suddenly, making Travis smile seemed like the most important thing in the world to me. I pictured his smile and it felt like a burnt orange sunset in my stomach. Then the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. Remember me?” asked a very annoyed-sounding Todd.

  “No, I don’t remember anything, remember?”

  “Where have you been?” he snapped.

  “Nowhere. Here. Why, what’s wrong?”

  “I’ve left you three messages.”

  Shit, I thought. I had become that girl who ignores her friends when she meets a guy. I hated that girl.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” I said. “I just got in now and jumped on the computer. I haven’t even checked my messages yet. Everything okay?”

  “Fine. Now. Let’s go drink some caffeine.”

  “I would,” I said, “but I’m so tired.”

  “That’s what the coffee’s for,” he retorted.

  I sat and thought about it. If I went, then he would feel better and I would feel better for finally paying some attention to him and everyone would feel better. I was just about to say I’d go when he asked, “Where were you, anyway?”

  “I was at Travis’s.”

  “Oh. Well. Say no more.”

  “What?”

  “That accident sure has been convenient, huh? You get a promotion, a new boyfriend . . . Any day now Ed fucking McMahon will be pulling up at your front door.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I began. “We haven’t even kissed.”

  “I need to know this?” He was yelling now. “Please keep the details of your sex life to yourself!”

  “What details? I just said nothing happened! What is your problem?!”

  “No problem,” he said. “I’m just not used to getting blown off for people who run you over. If I bounced a brick off your head, would I have gotten a call back?”

  “Jesus, Todd. I’m sorry. You’re obviously having a bad day, and I wasn’t there for you, so let’s talk about it. What’s going on? ”

  “I’m going to get that cup of coffee now,” he said.

  “You might want to look into some decaf,” I said back.

  “Later.”

  “Todd, wait . . .” But he’d hung up on me. This more than sucked. I already felt guilty about lying to everybody. Todd was the only one who knew the truth, for fuck’s sake. Now he was going to be mad at me too? Not that anybody else was mad at me per se . . . but they would be if they knew. Beyond mad. Soaring through life, buoyed by the freedom of not being me, I looked down for what seemed like the first time. And right then I felt like all my insides had fallen out. Everyone, everything would turn on me, I realized. Except Todd. And here he was, beating them all to the punch.

  It was an unsettling shock, and just a little more drama than I was used to—especially coming from Todd. So I did the natural thing—indulged in some nervous escapism, refocusing on my lighthouse research and dreaming about Travis. And me. Me and Travis. Maybe I was dreaming so diligently because I was trying to forget everything I was pretending not to remember, but I was starting to feel as though I would never get tired of saying that. And if I did, then I could switch it around to Travis and me.

  Then I got startled by a knock at my door. Not the aforementioned knock of my mother who was the only person who could con her way in without a downstairs key besides . . . Dirk? At first I thought if I ignored it, maybe he’d go away, but no such luck. The knocks kept coming.

  “Jordan?” Dirk said, confirming my fear. I froze. Not that he could see me, but any move I made, I thought, he’d hear, and I didn’t want to have to deal. “Jordan! I just heard you on the phone. I know you’re in there.”

  On the phone? Had the mighty man been anxiously pacing in front of my door for the past ten minutes, deciding whether to take the plunge? I got up and opened the door. D
irk walked past me and looked around.

  “How are you?” I said earnestly, earnest having become my middle name.

  “Why haven’t you called me?” he asked.

  “I’ve been so busy.”

  “Busy?” he asked. “With what? You have no life.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I snapped, and Dirk almost jumped. He was definitely not used to the mouthy me. His eyes widened and his arms started waving frantically, like he was trying to swat away what he’d just said.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he pleaded. “What I meant was, you can’t remember anything from before, so I just don’t understand what you could be so busy with.”

  “Oh, right.” Dick. “Well, I’ve been promoted at work, so my workload has changed and I’ve been hanging out with my friends . . .” And falling in love. “And just . . . you know. Trying to remember.”

  “You haven’t called me,” he said, as if he actually cared.

  “You haven’t called me either.”

  “But you used to be the one that called me.”

  “Really?” I said. “Well, as some wise man with a marginal voice sang on the radio the other day, ‘the times they are a-changin’,’ I guess.” He looked genuinely disturbed. I don’t think it was because he missed me, but I think he was confused as to why I wasn’t being my usual doormat self and begging him to spend time with me so he could treat me like shit. Or maybe he just had a problem with radio stations that still played Dylan. He looked down and around, and for a second he had that little-boy look that was one of the things that originally endeared him to me. I felt bad. He wasn’t pure evil. He had a good heart under there. He just needed a bypass to replace the punk artery that sometimes ruled the roost.

  “So I heard you’re in a major lawsuit,” he said. “You’re probably going to get like seven figures.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “La La Schneider told me.”

  “La La, my sister’s friend?” I asked, not realizing I shouldn’t have remembered that and quickly correcting it. “I think I met her when I was staying at the house.” La La was the girl who’d had sex with Chris Tannenbaum in the seventh grade because they were “in love.” They were thirteen years old. Meanwhile, I was sixteen at the time and I had never even French-kissed. Dirk and La La, huh? The way I saw it, it was a good news/bad news situation. Bad news: Dirk was now also cheating on me with my little sister’s friends. Good news: I didn’t give a rat’s ass because I was crazy about Travis. Bad news: Dirk probably now had an STD because La La had contracted herpes at the ripe age of fifteen after sleeping with her seventeen-year-old camp counselor, her fifth sexual partner. Good news: I would not be touching Dirk again—ever. So as far as I was concerned, that thing could shrivel up and fall off.