Page 62 of Same Time Next Summer

Wyatt: I can’t. I have to be here for Missy’s new album and I kind of hate how it’s coming together. Like the more famous she gets, the more she ad libs and the songs feel wrong

It feels too easy, the way he’s changed the subject. Like he’s dodged my saying I want him to come.

Me: Maybe you should write for someone else

Wyatt: Carlyle would probably kill me. Anyway, glad you made a decision. Let me know if you need anything?

Sam: I’m definitely going to need a friend

I’d rather have Wyatt as a friend than not have him in my life at all, but it’s a half-truth. I’d say more, but I don’t want him to change the subject again.

Wyatt: Deal. Good night, Sam-I-am.

He’s gone, and I am smiling at the phone. He could have just said good night.

I ride theelevator up to what is now Jack’s apartment. There’s a gravity to what I’m doing, plus it also feels like breaking and entering. Jack knows I’m coming. I told him I’d use my key and then leave it with the doorman. He’ll be home in ninety minutes, which is plenty of time for me to pack up my stuff and be gone. When I get to the fourteenth floor, I walk more quickly than normal to the apartmentdoor. I don’t want to see my neighbors. I don’t want to explain why I decided not to marry this perfect man. My family seems to totally understand. But people who know me less well, the ones who think I’ve got my act together, will think I’m making a horrible mistake, like I’m the girl in the horror movie who is running further into the house.

The key turns easily. I’ve brought two duffel bags with me and fill them quickly with my clothes. I fill a box with the stuff from my desk and a few framed photos of my family. I open and close the kitchen cabinets. Jack paid for all of that stuff, and I wouldn’t have any place to put it anyway. I stand there for a minute looking at my bags. I’m doing mental gymnastics thinking of how I could unpack them into a dresser that does not exist in a corner of Gracie’s room that is already occupied. I don’t know how I’ve moved so far backward in my life that I am sharing a room with Gracie, and I don’t know how I ever got so far from having a life that feels like mine. I look around this gray, gray room and I start to cry.

I don’t want this.I am sure of it. I say it out loud. I’ve been bowling with the bumpers up. Talk about pointless. I need space to regroup, and I need time in the ocean. I lug my stuff to the elevator and catch a cab to Penn Station.

58

Long Island is a great idea. The first night I’m there I eat popcorn for dinner and sit on the deck watching the waves reach their foamy hands out to me and invite me in. It’s still summer-warm but hazy, and the moonlight is diffused over the water. The limitlessness of the ocean beyond the horizon exhilarates me. I can’t see what’s just past that line, and if I swam out to it, there would be another line I wouldn’t be able to see past. I just know that what’s ahead of me is the rest of my life, starting with tonight. And then tomorrow.

There’s a light, constant breeze off the water that tickles my skin and makes me think of Wyatt. I’m confusing the feel of the breeze with the feel of his skin on mine. There was a time, of course, when these sensations would happen at once, the breeze skimming Wyatt’s hands on my skin. If I’m going to stay out here, I am going to have to get used to feeling him in the air, hearing him in the sound of the gulls. Now that I’m listening to my heart, I realize he’s been right there all along anyway.

On my second night, I decide I need to do somethingabout my bedroom. I start picking the sticks off my tree of life. Maybe now that my life is such a sticky art project, my room doesn’t need to be. When I’ve put them all back in my mom’s stick-collecting basket, I step back to take in what is now a poorly painted tree dotted with dried glue. The ugliness of it starts to close in on me and I open my window. The moon is low over the water and the salty night air blows in.More of this, I think. I grab a sweater and head out the back door, through the dunes, and up the rope ladder to the treehouse. Wyatt’s guitars are gone, and his rug has a few leaves on it, but the futon is still there with a painter’s tarp thrown over it for protection. I pull off the tarp and lie down on the futon, remembering what it felt like to be there with Wyatt, just talking, talking, talking. The next night I go back to the treehouse with sheets, a blanket, and candles.

I secure a part-time job working for Mrs. Barton fifteen hours per week running a reading enrichment program after school. It’ll be enough to cover my food bill. I should be padding my résumé and my bank account and angling for the next big thing. But it feels great not to. The thing about my old job was that there was no collaboration, no back-and-forth. I came in with the plan and that was that. In this life, working with kids, it’s like I’m offering an idea and they’re offering one back. We follow those ideas around until it’s time to go home. I wonder if this was my dream all along.

When I hear from Wyatt, it’s always late at night. If he calls and I’m in the treehouse, it’s an extra thrill. Sometimes I’m asleep and he’s on his deck watching the sunset. I always wake up to respond. I think a lot about what Dr.Judy would say. If I’m addicted to Wyatt, there’s no way this counts as sober.

Wyatt: Are you up?

Me: Why are you up? It’s even late there

Wyatt: Having a rough day. Wondered how your day was

I stretch out on the futon and take in the totally luxurious feeling of knowing he’s waiting for my response. Dr. Judy would flip.

Me: It was maybe my best day. We read a story about dragons, and I had construction paper and scissors for us to all make our own dragon. But this kid Miranda, like six years old, says dragon is like drag on. She takes her chair and drags it on the carpet to make her point. And I’m like wow this is phonics or something so we spend the whole rest of the afternoon dragging each other on chairs. And I did not get fired

Wyatt: I think you’ve found your calling

Me: What was so rough about your day?

Wyatt: I tried to quit my job and found out I can’t

Me: What does that mean

Wyatt: I tried to tell Carlyle I don’t want to write for Missy anymore, that I want to try writing that movie or just try something else. I can’t stand handing her a song and having her turn it into crap. He said he stands to make $100 million off her next album and if I don’t finish it he’ll ruin me

Me: He can’t do that

Wyatt: He actually can. He has a lot of power out here

Me: That’s horrible

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