Page 36 of Same Time Next Summer

“So I was sitting in this meeting and everything felt like an itchy sweater. I was having a hard time concentrating, and I couldn’t stick to the script. There had to be a more fun way to get people to work together. So I said ‘flash mob.’ ”

“ ‘Flash mob’? Seriously?” Wyatt’s smile is so big, like this is the best thing he’s ever heard.

“It just came out. ‘Flash mob.’ It was like a fart in an elevator, there was no taking it back and it sort of filled thespace.” This has never been funny until right now. Seeing Wyatt laugh and hearing the words come out of my mouth, I feel laughter move all the way through my body. My shoulders are shaking and I have to wipe my eyes and nose on my sweatshirt sleeve.

“So,” says Wyatt when he’s caught some air. “They did it?”

“Yep. My boss was horrified, but she couldn’t disagree with the client, who loved the idea. And once I’d suggested it, it was my problem. I had to choreograph the whole thing, to ‘Dancing Queen.’ Which was also my suggestion, I have no idea why. And then they wanted gold pants. It was a total nightmare. I could have just sent them on a ropes course and watched.”

Wyatt is leaning back on the sofa, looking at me like I’m sixteen. He looks amused and delighted, and I can’t remember the last time I was amusing or delightful to anyone.

“Thirty people in the lobby dancing in gold pants. It’s like with two words I unwrote the firm’s entire mission statement. The client loved it, but of course my boss is out of her mind because I went so completely rogue and it cost us so much time.” My head is in my hands, and I’m not laughing anymore.

“You really never thought any of your ideas through to the end.”

“That hideous tree on my wall is a case in point.” I look up at him. “So, the not-so-funny part is that things aren’t looking good for me at work. There’s a chance I’m going to lose my job.”

“Seems worth it to me,” he says.

Hardly. If I could go back in time and snatch those two words back, I would. But just talking to Wyatt about it makes me feel better, and I briefly wonder if Dr. Judy would tell me that this is what addiction looks like. A quick euphoria after having the thing you’ve been craving. I start to feel like maybe it was the friendship that I was mourning all those years. There is not one person on earth I can open up to like I can to Wyatt.

The laughing has brought us closer together on the futon. I mentally measure the space between his thigh and my knee.

“Tell me about your girlfriend.”

“She’s seriously not my girlfriend. It’s more like a work arrangement.”

“You don’t even have a job.” I don’t like the way this sounds, so I study his face to see if it stung. It didn’t. He seems completely at peace, with himself and with me. He puts his hand on his thigh, and I resist the urge to touch it. It’s the same but not the same, and I wonder if the feel of it would still change my skin into something else. “But you have health insurance, right?”

Wyatt laughs a big laugh. “I do.”

“Good,” I say, and I can’t stop myself. I reach over and take his hand in mine. It’s not like I’m holding his hand but more like I’m examining it. I run my fingers over the back of it and then trace them over his palm. I know immediately that this was a horrible mistake, because I can feel my skin melting into his, exactly the way I remember it. I cannot take my hand away, but I am afraid. This thing, this childhood madness, left me so broken. It’s taken me a decade tocreate a life that feels safe. Touching Wyatt makes me afraid I’m going to rip the seams out of everything I’ve sewn.

He stops me by placing his other hand over mine. “Maybe you should go, Sam-I-am.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Do you like that song?”

“I do,” he says. “Now get out of here.”

41

“You slept late,” is all anyone is saying to me. I did. I slept until nine o’clock and through a surfing date with Gracie. Even Jack’s up.

“How was your trip to Margaritaville?” I ask, giving him a hug.

“I don’t know how that happened,” he says. “I’m sorry. I feel like crap.”

“Want me to make you a Bloody Mary?” asks Granny.

“No, thank you,” he says.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “Mom’s margaritas are deadly. I should have warned you. Want to jump in the ocean real quick? It might help.”

“I need to get out of this sun.” Jack makes his way back out the front door and up to the garage apartment.

Since Gracie and I missed the waves, we take our surfboards out to just float around. I feel a small tilt in the Earth’s axis, a combination of mild anxiety and glee. I’d really like to talk to my mother. I need to tell someone that I made a quick trip back to myself and felt easy for a while.But if I told her exactly how open Wyatt and I were and how much we laughed, I’m afraid she’d panic. To my mom, Jack is more than a fiancé, he is the bubble wrap that she’d like me to wear.

Gracie and I are floating around when she sits up on her board and waves her arms at the shore. Her eyes are better than mine, but I can tell from the motion we’re getting in return that she’s waving at Wyatt. In minutes he’s paddling out to meet us.

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