How can I leave all that behind? The glamour is fun. The fame. The money. I’m too young to retire and do nothing. That sounds awful.
And yet, how can I stay? I’m tired to my very bones.
With a cup of oolong tea at my elbow, I open my laptop and download the scripts my agent has sent. Six of them, and she’s starred two. I save them for last, and open the others one by one, read the treatment and the opening pages. No. No, no, and no. The ones my agent starred are slightly better, but the part I would play in each one is a woman who exists only in her relationship to other people. None of them have agency. They’re on screen to prop up a husband （or be killed by him） or be a mother who is annoying or “bossy” （much like the part in Going Home Again） or—in the case of the last one—provide comic relief when she falls in love with a con man.
How is that funny? A lonely woman reaching out and getting taken?
Old men are not cast as props for their families. Why is it so impossible for Hollywood to even see a woman over fifty? What happened to wisewomen and elders? It’s a pet peeve lately. Georgia O’Keeffe was over sixty when she finally started traveling the world. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on the court into her late eighties. She wasn’t propping up a bunch of men. She placed her body squarely in front of them.
I peer through the deepening gloom to the shimmers on the ocean beyond the window, tapping my front tooth with a thumbnail. Where are all the good parts?
A knock at my door startles me. It’s nearly dark, with the softest spill of bluish light holding out against the storm over the sea. My heart races as I stand up and go to the door, listening. “Who’s there?” I call.
“Joel.”
I swallow, feeling threads of yearning and nerves and terror as I open the door. He’s standing on the porch, one foot out, his hands on his hips like an old-time sheriff, a peculiarly singular tic that he had even when we were young that somehow makes me lower my guard. The stance makes me notice that his shoulders are still straight and square, his posture good. Instinctively, I pull my shoulder blades down my back, trying to stand up. “Hey. I didn’t expect you back today.”
“I wanted to make sure you were all right.” He cocks his head. “After everything.”
“I’m good, thanks. I walked on the beach with Phoebe and Jasmine and it settled me.”
“Good. I won’t keep you, then. Lock your doors.”
A shimmer of twilight catches on his cheekbone, his lower lip, and a wave of yearning washes over me, pure and direct. “Joel, will you stay? I made macaroni and cheese.”
“You cooked?”
“I cooked everything in my father’s house,” I protest. “You know that.”
“But I’ve read about you,” he says in his low voice, “and you stopped cooking when you left home.”
It thrills me that he’s been following my life. “Sometimes there’s no other choice.”
“I don’t know about that,” he says. “I manage pretty well with a microwave and my friend Marie Callender.”
I’m glad he’s lightened the mood. He had a knack for that, easing my heaviness. “Stop. You don’t really eat frozen meals all the time?”
He shrugs, and I realize he’s still outside the threshold, rain pouring down hard just beyond the shelter of the porch roof. “Come in. You’ll be soaked.”
Maui comes running, barking three minutes too late. “Some guard dog!” I say. He wags his tail cheerfully.
Joel comes in and takes off his coat. “Can I hang this up?”
I point to the hooks behind the door. Inside, the air is warm and humid and smells of toasting cheese. Joel is tall, taller than me, which is always a nice surprise. Dmitri wasn’t, but I didn’t mind. It’s just nice when a man is. Like now.
Okay, stop.
But I think he might be as nervous as I am, because as I turn to close the door properly, he turns from hanging his coat and we bump into each other, my left shoulder against his middle chest and belly. A puff of scent comes off his shirt, the faintest tinge of cologne mixed with soap and fresh shaving. It nearly buckles my knees.
He catches my elbow, as if I might fall. “You smell amazing,” he says, and the timbre of his voice is ever so slightly rough.
“So do you.”
For a beat, we don’t move, as if noticing these things is something that should be acted upon. And I’d like to act. All I can think about is acting. Reaching for him, kissing him, pressing our bodies together. It both feels like a million years ago and like last week that we knew each other so intimately, learning every corner of each other’s bodies, the sounds we made and the things that—