I normally stretch on the porch before I run, but I don’t need to hear any of Leo’s wisecracks, so I do it in the kitchen. By the time I walk onto the porch it feels like his ride should be pulling up any second. “So, safe trip back to the city,” I say.
“You’re leaving?”
“I’m going for a run.”
“Wholesome.” He lets his duvet fall a little. “It’s warming up.”
“Yes. Okay, good-bye. It was nice to meet you. Safe trip. Again.” I’m walking down the porch steps, and I know he’s watching me. I’m too self-conscious to start running, so I walk down the driveway until I’m sure I’ve disappeared into the magnolias.
Two miles out and two miles back. I return drenched in sweat and sparkling with endorphins. My porch swing is vacant. My porch swing, I think.
I’m more surprised than I should be to find Leo with his feet up at my kitchen table. He’s doing my Thursday crossword now, and I notice he’s making an impressive go of it. This annoys me, and I know that’s petty.
“No ride?”
“They must be really busy,” he says. I’m suspicious. “Where’s the rest of the paper? I looked outside.”
“I don’t get a paper. My friend just saves the puzzles for me.” And as soon as I’ve said it, I’m embarrassed. And then my embarrassment makes me feel a little ashamed, which makes me angry, and I don’t like any of these feelings. Leo Vance was paid fifteen million dollars to star in The Tea House. And I’m living on borrowed crossword puzzles.
“I’m going to go shower,” I say, already heading upstairs. I grab my softest jeans and my favorite grubby sweatshirt and take them into the bathroom with me. I wash my blown-out hair and leave it wet so that I’ll look like me again today.
* * *
? ? ?
“What if you let me stay for a week?” Apparently, Leo’s ride isn’t coming. He is following me on my way to the tea house, hot on my heels and kind of ruining my vibe. I have my laptop, my special candle, my two sharpened pencils, and a mug of tea. And I’m trying to ignore him.
“No.”
“I won’t bother you.”
“Too late.”
“You can write all day, maybe I’ll take some walks. And I’ll sit on the porch a lot and look at the trees. If you stay very still you can see them breathe and wave at each other.”
I stop and turn to him. “Are you on LSD?”
“No. I just need to get out of the city. Let me stay here; you must have a spare room. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars a day.”
“I don’t have a spare room. Go to a hotel.”
“Then I might as well go back to my apartment in New York. It feels like a hotel. And I hate hotels.”
He stops as we approach the open tea house door. “Wow.”
“You just spent two days in here.”
“I wasn’t looking.”
Determined to ignore him, I put my laptop down and line up my mug. I build the fire before sitting at the table, placing one pencil to the left of my laptop and tying my hair in a bun and securing it with the other. He stands staring at me.
“What’s all this?”
“It’s a ritual; I’m starting to write. Next comes the candle.”
“Oh boy.” He lays down on the daybed, arms folded behind his head. He’s facing the steel windows on the back wall, looking out into the forest. The sun’s at ten o’clock so the forest is getting a little light. Today the palette is a mix of white flowers and brand-new celery-green leaves. It’s beautiful to the point of distraction, which is why I write with my back to it. “I really like it here,” he says.
“You’ve said.”
“Let me stay a week, that’s seven thousand dollars, and you’ll never see me again.”
Seven thousand dollars would more than cover new gutters on my house. New gutters would cut back on the rot I’ve seen slowly encroach on my hundred-year-old windows. I might even be able to fix the leak I’ve been ignoring in the attic. There might be money left for a trip to Disney World this summer, a last-chance trip before I wake up with a couple of teenagers.
Alternatively, seven thousand dollars would take a bite out of next year’s real estate taxes, giving me the luxury of not having to scramble.
“Have you ever felt like you’re disappearing?” he asks. “Like you’re sure one day you’re going to wake up and find that the truest parts of yourself have been replaced by someone else’s plans?” Um, I just wrote a movie about it. I believe you read the script?