Текст книги "How to Fall"
Автор книги: Rebecca Brooks
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
Chapter Twelve
Julia couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this excited. Not even her arrival in Brazil had caused this kind of giddiness to bubble through her like champagne. Then she’d been nervous, self-conscious about being alone, uncertain of what was to come. Stepping off the plane, she’d been afraid that getting too hopeful was bound to set her up for disappointment. And so when she’d walked out of the airport to a gray day as dark and uninspiring as the skyscrapers that cut against the sky, it was like the city had been giving her what she’d expected.
Now, though, everything was different. Some part of her knew she couldn’t afford to get wrapped up in Blake. But it was too beautiful a day to give in to the warnings that she was leaving, he was leaving, so she’d better not get attached. There was so much to see as they ventured outside after their nap. The beach was directly across the street; all they had to do was step out of the hotel and they were transported to another world.
Families and couples and people lounging alone watched the waves roll. Gaggles of teenage girls bronzed from the sun eyed shirtless boys running and shouting to get a kite airborne, the bright tail swooping along the shore. Julia didn’t know what she wanted to do first—walk or swim or head downtown or stand and watch the life unfold around her.
But Blake seemed to know where to go. He walked purposefully down the sidewalk so strewn with sand it was more like an extension of the beach.
“Coconuts,” he said as they stepped aside to let a throng of women in practically nonexistent bikinis pass by, chattering loudly in Portuguese as their laughter carried down the beach.
“What?”
“I want a coconut.”
“Okay.” Julia had never had a fresh coconut before, but she’d also never had guava juice on a hotel balcony or lain on her back to open her mouth to a beautiful man. And both of those things had been pretty darn enjoyable, so she figured a coconut probably was, too.
She wasn’t disappointed. They approached a vendor camped out along the sidewalk, and Blake held up two fingers and rooted in his pockets for change. The vendor had a giant cart filled with enormous green globes, fibrous outsides streaked with brown from where they’d been torn from the trees. The man took a machete the size of his forearm and lopped a flap off the top of each coconut with one easy stroke, making an opening to slide in a bright plastic straw.
Julia hadn’t realized how heavy they were, laden with cool water. It was sweet and slightly fruity and like nothing she’d tasted before.
They sat in the sand, watching the waves and the kids with the kite, and talked about the places Blake had traveled and Julia’s other trips, up to the Wisconsin woods, east to New York City, long drives with Liz to Toronto and Omaha. She hadn’t thought about them as really traveling—not like what Blake was doing—but he hung onto her every word, interested in how vast and varied North America was.
“Did you ever think you’d be sitting on a beach in Rio, sipping from a coconut, talking with an Aussie?” he asked, tipping the coconut to get the last drops of liquid inside.
Julia shook her head. “To be honest, as soon as I arrived in Brazil I thought I’d made a terrible mistake. Walking around São Paulo by myself wasn’t exactly what I’d been hoping for.”
“What were you hoping for?”
She thought for a minute, knowing she could brush him off but wanting to give a real answer. Wanting to remember what it was she’d dreamed of when she clicked to buy her tickets. She’d never thought about traveling to Brazil before she saw the sale on an advertisement in her inbox and decided that a trip was exactly what she needed for her Christmas, her birthday, and her life.
“I don’t totally know. An adventure, maybe. Something different. Something I could do for myself, where I didn’t have to take care of anyone or look after anyone or answer to anyone at all.” She paused and winced. “I guess that sounds sort of selfish.”
“No,” Blake said slowly, mulling over her words. “That sounds like a very good idea.”
“I guess sometimes you have to step back and think about yourself before you completely burn out—or explode.”
She knew, though, that she’d never really explode in front of her friends or colleagues. She’d just keep plugging away like she always did, trying not to rock the boat, until she made herself so small she disappeared.
“You should be thinking about yourself. What you want, what you need. It seems strange that getting away helps bring us back to what we’re really looking for. I guess it’s like having a giant time-out from life.”
“Where you can sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done?”
“Something like that.”
“And what is it you’d done that you needed to think about?” she asked, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, keeping her voice light and playful but aware that she’d slid from joking around into more serious territory.
The waves surged in and out, the ocean a living, breathing thing. Julia wasn’t surprised when Blake shrugged.
“Work, mostly,” he said. “Things got really crazy on set, and I felt like the screenplay and production were completely taking over my life. Which is what I wanted, obviously—I’m definitely not complaining about creating a popular show.”
Julia nodded. She suspected there was more he wasn’t telling her, but she realized this was the first time he’d really mentioned anything about his job. Or the fact that, from what it had sounded like from Chris and Jamie, he was a pretty big deal. “Just because you’re fulfilling your dreams doesn’t mean you don’t need to take care of the rest of your life,” she said, waving her straw at him as she lifted the coconut and tilted it back to drink up the last bit inside.
A thin stream trickled down her chin and Blake brushed it up with his thumb, cupping her jaw for a moment in his hand. “Insightful.”
“Normal,” she corrected him.
“No, some people seem to think that when you’re ‘famous’ or ‘successful,’” he punctuated the words in air quotes like he didn’t really mean them at all, “you have everything you could possibly want. Except for more fame and success, since, like money, one can never have enough.”
Julia had a definite feeling that “some people” meant his ex-girlfriend, whoever she was. She must have liked Blake’s popularity—maybe a little too much.
“And what is it that you still want?” Julia asked.
He looked over at her. Looked at her, looked past her, looked through her. Maybe even looked into himself. Finally he answered. “To be happy. Is that too simple? Or too hard? Too impossible to even think about? I want to write—I’ve always wanted to write. So I just want to do it. I want to write and create and make things happen on screen. Make sure my mom is taken care of—don’t laugh.”
Julia didn’t.
“And—” he looked away, gazing down the beach at the humpbacked dome of Sugar Loaf Mountain rising like a crooked finger where the line of sand curved away in the distance. “It’d be nice if there was someone else who shared that desire, who wanted something simple. Meaningful work, a close family, good friends you can count on, who like you when you’re down as well as up.”
“That doesn’t seem like too much to ask for,” Julia said, following his gaze down the beach.
He turned and looked back at her, squinting into the sun. “Doesn’t seem like it, but I haven’t had it so far. Maybe it’s time to revise my expectations.”
Julia shook her head. “Don’t settle for anything less.”
“See?” He smiled. “Insightful.”
“No. Just trying like everyone else not to fuck up.”
“Well, not everyone seems to be trying for that. So I’d say that, in and of itself, makes you a rare bird.”
“Do what I say, not what I do. I’m the one who spends more time at work than at home, and I can assure you that I’m not bringing in any more pay. I’m too much of a sucker to say no.”
Blake chuckled. “It sounds like you really care about your job, though.”
“I care about the students,” she corrected him.
“At least you always know why you’re doing it.”
Julia nodded. Sometime in the future, when she was grading tests on the weekends or trying to get through to a student who just didn’t care, she was going to have to remember those words.
He reached for her coconut and she passed it over, watching him stand and brush the sand from his shorts. He moved with such grace, so easy in his body as he slid his sandals on and walked back to the vendor. When he returned, he was holding the coconuts balanced in both hands, each one split open with a stroke of the vendor’s machete to expose the creamy white inside. He passed her a little piece of the coconut that the man had cut off, showing her how to use it like a spoon to scrape out the flesh.
It was smooth and slippery, firm yet soft, sweet with a distinctive flavor all its own. They sat for a while hacking at the pieces and slurping them up while Julia declared that she could never go home because now that she’d discovered eating coconuts on the beach, how could she return to a life without them?
Blake scooped up a piece with his little coconut-spoon. “Maybe you can start an import-export business.”
“Then I’d definitely know why I was doing it.”
“Yeah, purely selfish reasons. Making sure you have a constant supply of fresh coconuts.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of bringing it to the cold, deprived masses in Chicago. I guess they’re not as cold and deprived in Sydney.” She paused. “Or wherever it is that you live.”
“Sydney.” He nodded. “There are coconut palms in Australia, but Sydney is definitely not the same as Rio. I’d say we’re still just as deprived.”
“I’m not going to tell you what the current temperature probably is in Chicago with the wind chill because I don’t want to ruin my day by reminding myself of what’s waiting for me.”
“Good plan. All thoughts of home life officially banished today.”
“Deal,” she nodded, picking at the last scraps of coconut clinging to the inside of the shell.
“Good. Now that that’s decided, what’s on the agenda next?”
Julia looked down the beach, hugged by the mountains and the buildings behind. “Anything? Everything? You know what’s good here—I’m up for whatever you want.”
Blake shook his head. “None of that. You have to decide what it is you want to do.”
“I see.” She leaned in close. “Is this another one of those times when I have to declare what I want, and then beg for you to give me exactly what I’m asking for?”
Given how little clothing most people on the beach were wearing, she felt no compunction about sliding her finger up his bare skin, raising the hairs on his forearm, before kissing him on the ear.
“I don’t know which I like more, when you ask or when you take.” His lips tasted like coconut, sweet and sticky, and he wrapped one arm around her neck and slid her hair out of her ponytail as he pulled her close.
“Is there anywhere with a good view?” she asked. “It seems like there’s so much to see with the city nestled in the mountains like this.”
Blake jumped up and extended a hand. “Your wish is my command,” he said as he helped her up, planting a kiss on her temple. “I know just the thing.”
It turned out that asking for a good view in Rio was like standing in the middle of the beach and asking to see sand. They started by taking the cable cars up to Sugar Loaf Mountain, Pão de Açúcar in Portuguese, a peak on the mouth of Guanabara Bay. First they went up a smaller hill that stretched beside the mountain. Then the cable car took them straight across from one peak to the other. It had glass windows all around and gave them a view of the whole city as it grew out of the mountains, the buildings a small attempt to mirror the peaks rising up to the sky. It was dizzying and terrifying and so beautiful it seemed unreal to float from one mountain to the other, water below them and the sky above.
When they finally reached the top, Julia was amazed to see rock climbers scaling the nearly vertical sides. Some people even climbed all the way up, sleeping on the ledges when they needed a break. The thought made her stomach clench.
“That is. So. Terrifying.” She pointed to the small figures inching their way up the sides.
Blake laughed. “I guess we know the limits of your adventurous spirit.”
She spun to face him. “You would do that?”
“Hell no! There are about a million other ways I’d rather die. Top of that list being quietly in my sleep when I’m old.”
“Or at least with both feet on the ground.” She shuddered, unable to pull her eyes away.
“But I like the idea of it,” he clarified, “even if I wouldn’t do it myself.”
“You want to be that adventurous?”
“In my next life. Maybe.”
“You keep working on that,” she said. “I’m happy to spend all my lifetimes watching other people do crazy things.”
“Always on the sidelines?”
“Sometimes you have to know who you’re not,” she said emphatically, even as another voice inside her wondered if that were really true.
“What if who you’re not changes?” Blake asked as he grabbed her hand and led her around to the other side of the peak, and it was like he was reading her mind.
She didn’t have an answer for that.
Later they crossed the city and climbed up to the famous Christ the Redeemer statue, one hundred feet of concrete and soapstone on a twenty-foot pedestal standing with outstretched arms. It topped the Corcovado Mountain in Rio’s Tijuca Forest National Park, an enormous rainforest that Julia couldn’t believe was in the middle of a city. Sugar Loaf and the Redeemer looked like they were facing each other, two points flanking the sprawl of buildings below them, endless blue water and mountainous green on either side. They were in the city, surrounded by concrete and throngs of tourists taking in the views. But they were also above it, surrounded by color and light, breathless and floating over everything on street level that hardly seemed to matter at all.
“Does this qualify as decent enough views?” Blake asked as he came up behind her and helped slide the strap of her patterned red sundress back up her shoulder from where it was starting to slip.
“I had no idea a city could even be like this,” Julia said, not sure where to look first.
“I told you Rio was amazing.”
“It’s so close to São Paulo, yet so completely different.”
“To be fair, I think São Paulo is a great city if you give it a chance. But you probably have to know where to go and what there is to do. It’s not like this, where you can basically go anywhere and find something amazing.”
“There’s a rainforest in the middle of the city. The middle! How can that be?”
Blake laughed. “Sounds like you’ve been converted.”
“I’m with Chris. Remind me why I’m not moving here?”
“Because you agree with Jamie that sometimes it’s nice to go home.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about anything having to do with the h-word,” she reminded him with a grin.
“Right, you caught me. I have no reason whatsoever why you shouldn’t move to Rio.”
“Except I don’t speak Portuguese.”
“You can learn.”
“And I probably couldn’t get a job.”
“Everyone needs math teachers.”
“If I’m doing the same job somewhere else, isn’t it just my same life transplanted?” she asked, gazing up at the impressive statue above them.
“I have no idea what the answer to that is. All I know is that it doesn’t snow here.”
“That’s a good enough incentive for me. What about in Sydney?”
“Coldest temperatures we get are in July, where sometimes it’s all the way down to eight. I don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit, though.”
“About forty-six,” Julia said, doing the quick computation in her head. The thought made her laugh out loud. Forties in Chicago in the dead of winter would be considered downright balmy.
“What, that doesn’t count as cold to you hearty Chicagoans?”
“Sorry, but you’re a total wuss.”
“Sometimes it even snows!”
“Yeah, like it snows in Florida and everyone freaks out from a dusting.”
“In Brazil when it drops into the seventies, everyone reaches for a sweater.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Sounds like a good life to me.”
“Okay, you teach math while Chris opens up an inn.”
“What about poor Jamie?” she asked.
“He’ll love being the house boy.”
“And you?” she laughed before catching herself at her presumption that he’d fit into their little foursome.
But it was a game, a silly fantasy to joke about as the bright sun and blue sky and endless ocean made her giddy with the thrill of so much to take in. Blake thought for a moment and then declared that he’d be the one writing the screenplay about their perfect existence. “Or else some reality show where we all move to paradise and then drive each other crazy.”
Julia laughed. “That’s probably more realistic.” She paused, then decided to go for it. What did she have to lose? “You don’t think there’s something, I don’t know, weird between Jamie and Chris?”
They were standing leaning over a railing under the statue, looking out over the view. Blake gave her a puzzled frown. “What do you mean, weird?”
Julia shrugged, not sure if she should have brought it up. She hardly knew them and it seemed like Blake and Jamie had become pretty good friends. She didn’t want to say anything wrong or step on any toes. “I don’t know, it’s probably nothing,” she backpedaled, trying to be conciliatory.
“No, no, I’m not offended. Tell me what you mean.”
“It just seemed like… I mean, even with the way Chris was joking about moving to Brazil, or wanting to keep traveling forever. Like on some level, she really meant it.”
Blake shook his head. “I don’t think so. She and Jamie have been talking about how they’re going back to Melbourne and getting married.”
Somehow, the news that they were preparing to seal the deal made Julia all the more certain that something was up. Who joked about running away before getting married…unless some part of them was itching to go?
“And yet she’s talking about opening an inn with Lukas, while Jamie is talking about how he’s ready to go home. To me it seemed a little off.”
“She’s definitely joking. They have such a good thing going on.”
“I guess,” Julia said reluctantly. “I don’t know if it’s something I’d joke about, but I suppose everyone’s different. Anyway, where do you want to go next?”
They let the conversation slide, moving on to more discussions about the city they were in and the cities they lived in as they walked down from the mountain, winding through the steaming rainforest before they emerged on the street below. It was a surprise to be back on concrete, like they’d passed through a portal from a completely different world. It wasn’t long before they were swept up again in the surge and swell of the moving city, hopping a cab to a restaurant in Julia’s guidebook for a late lunch.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about their conversation. She wasn’t as certain about Chris and Jamie as Blake seemed to be. Or at least as he wanted to be. Had he really believed what he’d said? Or did he want to believe that their relationship—or any relationship—could last?
She couldn’t tell, but there was no way she’d ask. It wasn’t like they were in the relationship business themselves. Besides, it was no use dwelling on things that didn’t concern her when she had such a perfect travel companion. They rested when they wanted to rest, walked when they wanted to walk, and poked in and out of little stores along the avenues. They tried to guess all the different fruits for sale and bought roasted corn and grilled meats and cheese on the streets to try everything they could. When was the last time she’d laughed this hard? When was the last time she’d had this much fun? Not thinking about work, free of any obligations, not feeling like she had to worry about anyone else. She felt as liberated as the ocean, its one obligation to keep exploring the endless shore.
If only, she thought to herself as they strolled hand in hand along the avenues. If only it didn’t all have to end.
Chapter Thirteen
It was late afternoon by the time they walked back in the direction of Copacabana Beach. When they passed a small internet café, Julia paused. “I know there’s no talking about home,” she said, “but it’d be nice to let some people know I’m still alive.”
Blake reassured her that they were allowed to break the rules for good things—like rubbing it in everyone’s faces that they were in eighty-five degree weather with a constant ocean breeze, alternating between the rainforest and the beach.
He didn’t mind stopping by the café, either. It was probably a good idea to check in with Jed Anderson, the top writer working for him, about new material for the show and anything that might have come up in his absence. He was supposed to be shaping the arc of the next season, ramping up the dramatic tension between Celia and Reese. But thinking about them made him think about the actors that played them, and focusing on Kelley and Liam certainly wasn’t how he wanted to spend his time away. Psychological torture was more like it. He’d been trying to limit his computer access as a result, checking in with his mom and a few friends when he had the chance but keeping his distance from work. With Julia now at the forefront at his thoughts, it seemed a little less awful to open up his email and see what was going on with the show.
The café was small, an entryway on the first floor of a larger building, and there was only one computer open in the line of units with dividers separating each cube. Blake paid for an hour and motioned for Julia to get started. He’d take whatever time was left. It didn’t look like any of the boys engaged in a series of shoot ’em up computer games at the terminals were leaving anytime soon.
Julia settled into her kiosk, a frown of concentration stealing over her face as soon as the mouse was in her hand. Blake decided to wait outside to escape the dark confines of the café and watch the street life go by. He bought a cafezinho, a little cup of coffee from a street vendor so small it was just a few cents for even fewer sips, and strolled around the block admiring how even from the street, down in the belly of the city, he still felt nestled in the mountains as flashes of green peeked between the buildings every time he turned.
Would Julia tell her friends about him? He had no idea what to expect. Not that he’d ever know what she said in her emails, but he couldn’t help feeling curious. Would she say that she was alone? Had met a friend? Was with someone?
That strange and ambiguous preposition could cover all the bases from thoughtless fuck to friend with benefits to actual relationship material.
So which one was he?
Blake sipped the scalding coffee, savoring the bitter bite on his tongue. It wasn’t exactly pleasant to imagine Julia tossing him off to the side with a few quick strokes of the keyboard, either by gossiping about him with her friends or else neglecting to mention him altogether.
But she’d given no sign that this was anything more than the most casual of flings. It wasn’t a one-night stand, but it wasn’t much more than that, either. Just a few days in each other’s company before the real world called and they went back to their regular lives. She was giving him exactly what he’d said he wanted: everything, and with no strings attached.
He’d already shown that his plans could be changed. If she wasn’t going to reveal what she thought about what would happen on January first when she boarded that plane for Chicago, then he wouldn’t get into it, either.
Wasn’t that the whole point of the prohibition against speaking about home? Neither of them wanted to think about the weather, the work, the demands pressing on them. Right now they were supposed to be having fun.
And they were—the most Blake could remember having in ages. A few days with Julia had already sent his mind into overdrive. He wasn’t thinking about The Everlastings like he should have been, but about new show ideas, new characters, new possibilities for the future and his career. The ideas were little wispy things, no more substantial than the clouds streaking over the bay. But if he watched them, worked on them, reached for them long enough, they would eventually turn solid in his mind. That’s when he’d be able to grab hold.
Somehow he’d thought that The Everlastings was going to be his one show, the project he and Kelley and Liam would work on until…well, he hadn’t been able to fathom a future that didn’t have the three of them working together. His best friend and his girlfriend. His team.
Now, though, he was having the first inklings that there could be a different future for him. He could create a new series, and with more experience under his belt, it might even be better than the first. There was no reason to think he couldn’t do it again, especially while he still had major network support. He crushed the paper coffee cup in his palm, feet tapping on the sidewalk like they did when he was excited about an idea and couldn’t keep still. He’d write to Anderson and ask what was up with The Everlastings. He wouldn’t talk about any other projects. But he’d keep his mind open, waiting for whatever new things might come.
He walked quickly, checking his watch. When he popped his head into the café Julia was still fixated on the computer, typing furiously and stopping every now and then to click through something on the screen. So he left, walked around the block in the other direction, and when he came back in, she finally looked up.
“I’m done,” she said, closing out the browser and getting up so he could take her seat.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to rush you.”
“Nope, that was perfect. I got in an email to my parents letting them know I haven’t been eaten by sharks and told Danny I was safe, and then Liz was online so we chatted for a little while she was at work.”
Blake nodded like these names meant something to him. Who the hell was Danny? If she had a boyfriend back home, he’d be damned… There was nothing in their undiscussed arrangement that said they were available, but the thought that she might not be as free as she appeared sent daggers into his gut.
Julia seemed to read something on his face and laughed. “Sorry, you have no idea who I’m talking about. My best friend, Liz, her brother Danny. She constantly wants to have fun; he’s the one worrying all the time. They’re the ones who’ll come peel my body off the floor of my apartment if I choke on a pretzel and die alone.”
“That’s a pleasant thought.”
“What else are friends for? All right, I’ll leave you to it. Do you want me to pay for some more time for you, since I took up so much of it?”
Blake shook his head, sure he wouldn’t need more than a few minutes to bring himself up to date on the news from the other side of the globe and share some quick thoughts with Anderson. He watched her wave to the kid behind the counter and step out of the café. Then he brought his eyes back to the screen before him, trying to shake off the mental image of her long legs in her sundress as she strode out the door. Her best friend and her best friend’s brother? That didn’t sound like a boyfriend. He permitted himself one small exhale of relief and then berated himself for being so paranoid. She hadn’t said she wanted anything from him. So he should stop acting like he had something to give.
Blake fired up his email, scrolled through a few messages from work, and sent back a quick note to a group of friends wondering where on earth he was since his last message, from before he’d arrived at the falls. He checked the news and looked up TV ratings in Sydney and any major headlines about his show. Then he scanned through a few articles with the expected smattering of fluff on Australia’s new “it” couple, gorgeous co-stars in love on screen and then in real life—and quickly clicked back to his email before he could torture himself anymore. He wanted to let his mom know he was in Rio until the first, even if he wouldn’t tell her why.
But when he started asking how the dogs were doing, it occurred to him that he hadn’t finished reading one of the previous articles to make sure there was no mention of him. He knew it was narcissistic to check, but actually the thought that he might have faded into silence while Kelley and Liam took center stage in the tabloids came as a welcome relief. If he wasn’t being talked about anymore as the jilted sidekick, then maybe he could get back to his life, get back to his work, and finally leave the whole mess behind.
He clicked on the history button to find the article. That was when his hand stopped cold.
Under his email and the websites he’d checked since logging on, there was a whole slew of websites about him. One after another: Joshua Blake Williams. The Everlastings. She’d even searched his full name.
His passport.
He’d taken hers and then she’d grabbed his in return. His name wasn’t that unusual but if she put in the whole thing and then something about Sydney and TV, it wouldn’t be hard for the search to reward her. J.B. Williams. His old life splashed across the screen.
He had no privacy on the net. Everything about him was known. She’d seen it all—the shit town where he’d grown up, the factory where his mom had worked until he could afford for her to quit. Jesus, there was even stuff about the writing scholarships he’d won. Why couldn’t she have just asked?
No talking about home. He didn’t even know the names of her best friends, and now she knew every single thing about him. He closed the browser quickly, his heart hammering in his chest, palms sweaty on the keyboard despite the AC. He sat there for a minute, watching the clock run down, and then he got up and left.
He stormed across the street, fists deep in his pockets, his mind churning. What the hell had she been looking for? Did she want to know what was wrong with him, why he’d left everything behind to go hang out in a hostel in the middle of nowhere for as long as he possibly could? Had she not believed him about the show? Did she want proof that he was famous? What must she have thought when she discovered everything he was famous for?
Because it wasn’t only the show that had made him a household name in his homeland. It was the screw-up. And she had seen that, too. It was impossible to Google him and not find out. His name was permanently aligned with Kelley Fielding, for better or worse. Until the internet exploded.
