Expiration Dates: A Novel (18 page)

I meet Jake at the parking lot on Ocean Avenue that's a short walk to Santa Monica Beach. He arrives in the old, beat-up Chevy.

“No breakdowns on the Ten,” he says. “New record. I still have no idea why I take this thing anywhere.”

He's wearing khaki shorts and a blue long-sleeved T-shirt. His hair looks red in the sunlight.

“Why do you, anyway?” I ask. I shove my hands down into the pockets of my jean shorts. I can feel them vibrating.

He looks at his car—a heaping pile of rubbish, really—and then back to me. But I realize I already know as soon as I say it.

“She gave it to me for my twenty-second birthday,” he says. “It was always a lemon. But I love the damn thing. I like to drive it fast, with the top down, which is a douche move. But it feels alive to me, you know?”

I nod.

“Should we walk?” I ask.

He takes my hand, and we cross the street and walk down the wire-gated pathway to the ocean. It's almost six and the sun is still overhead, the whole beach bathed in light.

“I think four thirty will be perfect,” he says when we're down there. “It'll give us at least an hour, even in the fall.”

Fifty paces down, the ocean yawns and exhales. There are no waves along this stretch of beach really. It's made for toddlers and paddleboarders.

The sand underneath us is wet and heavy, and when my feet sink down, I wiggle my toes, letting it fold in between them.

I once read that there are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on earth. It seemed impossible. It always seems impossible to believe the things we cannot see.

“Jake,” I say. I squeeze his palm.

The thing I remember from the night I met Jake is that I was in a hurry. I'd just come home from work fifteen minutes before I was meant to leave. I didn't have time to take a shower, I didn't even have time to be too intentional about my outfit. I didn't necessarily want to go. There is something that happens when you've been single too long—you decide what things will be before you experience them. I figured Jake was a nice guy. That we'd have minimal chemistry. That the whole thing would be a night I could have spent on my couch with Murphy.

And then I got the note. What is that saying? “Man's greatest fear is not that he is inadequate but that he is powerful beyond measure?” Something like that. I never really understood it, but I do now. Because power is responsibility.

All my life I had been waiting for the note that would tell
me it was finally time to stand still. That the long, broken road was over. That
he
was finally here. But when it came, all I felt was fear. Fear that he wouldn't be who I'd imagined. Fear that I wasn't ready. Fear that I wouldn't feel the way I was supposed to. Fear that I'd fuck up even this, this thing I was meant for. But what I was most afraid of, maybe, was that it was over. It's hard to be single, but it's also something you can get good at. And I was good at it.

It's easy to love the things we are good at.

“Yes?” Jake threads his fingers through my own.

Yes, I wanted epic love. Weak-in-the-knees, movie-kiss-in-the-rain epic love. What I never realized, not up until this very moment, is that I got it—everything I'd been asking for. I'd been on the back of a motorcycle in Paris and across the Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise. I'd been on the beach in Santa Monica at sunset. My life has been filled with magical moments, I was just so busy waiting I didn't see them when they were here.

Density
, I think. I try to hold on to this moment. I try to fall to the depths of it. And it's there, in the reflections in the water at the very bottom, that I know what I need to do next.

It's easy to pretend you do not know while you're waiting, but it's impossible once the truth arrives.

“I can't marry you,” I say. I see myself at the surface—coughing, sputtering—new life in my lungs.

Jake turns to look at me. His hand is still in mine.

“Daphne.”

“I know,” I say. “Believe me, I know. I've done a lot of bad things in my life, but this takes the cake. And it's idiotic, to boot. You're the one. You're so clearly the one.”

I think about Jake in the mornings, bringing me an espresso and a water with fresh lemon juice. I think about him cooking for us in the kitchen at night. I think about the way he knows how to fix a leaky faucet and how he now lays my medicine out for me, every day, in a smiley face on a bright yellow plate. As if to say,
Let's be happy in this
. As if to say,
Only good things here.

“I've been looking for you for a very long time,” I say. “And when I found you I just felt so lucky to have you that I didn't realize I had it wrong.”

“You had what wrong?” He shakes his head. “Is this about the baby thing? It's fine. We don't have to do it. I just wanted to talk—”

“No,” I say. “And yes. You want kids. That's OK. You should have the things you want, Jake.”

“I never said that. You're twisting my words. I was trying to have an open conversation with you. If you're getting married, it's natural to talk about—”

“But I don't know if it's what I want. I don't know if I can. And I want to accept that, but you don't have to.” I look at him. I see the pain in his face.

Pain is not bad
.

“You couldn't save her, Jake. And I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for you. But you can't make up for it by trying to save me.”

Jake runs a hand down his face. “That is a really shitty thing to say to me,” he says.

“Yes. But I'm not wrong.”

I feel us both give to the weight of the moment. Everything settles into the sand. And then, all at once, I have the intense instinct to change my mind. To take it all back. I'll never be with
someone this perfect for me. I'll never find someone this understanding. I'm ruining it. I'm ruining it because I do not yet know how to hold it and hold myself at the same time.

“For the first time in my life I've been honest with the people around me about who I am,” I say. “I don't know what it's like to live and not apologize to myself, or for myself. I need to find out.”

Jake nods.

“This does not feel real,” he says.

“I know.”

He drags a foot back and forth, making tracks in the sand.

“So now what?” he says.

I used to think the unknown was impossible—that all it brought was pain and fear and a red-blinking clock, counting down the minutes. Now I know that's not true, at least, it's not the only thing that is true. The unknown can be beautiful. A surprise can be flowers on your doorstep. It can be a piece of paper that ends up changing your life.

What is blank space, really, but an invitation?

Jake pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He squints his eyes closed. I see it all there—the hurt and disbelief. Of ending up here. Of starting over.

“You deserve something easy and joyful and uncomplicated,” I tell him.

He looks at me. I see the green in his eyes, reflecting off the water. “But I don't want that,” he says. “I want you.”

We are powerful because we affect each other's stories, all of us. We are here to impact each other, to knock into each other,
to throw each other off-balance, sometimes even off track. I've always hated the phrase “There's a reason for everything.” As if my illness were built into my story; as if it were inevitable; as if it were a good thing and not something I would blink away in an instant if I could. But here, now, I think even if there's not a reason for everything, there may be a reason for everyone.

“You do want that,” I say. “You just don't know it yet. You've been used to hard for such a long time.”

Jake stuffs his hands into his pockets. The sun is setting now. The oranges and pinks give way to cool blues. And at the end of a warm day it's still breezy at the beach. In another twenty minutes, we'll need sweaters.

And that's when a group of teenagers walk by. They're wearing low-slung jeans and hooded sweatshirts, and every last one of them is carrying a pair of Doc Martens black boots, laces tied, slung like ice skates over their shoulders.

My eyes widen. I look to Jake. He sees, too, reaches into his back pocket and takes out his notebook and a pen. He looks incredulous. He writes something down.

I study him. As he's scrawling I see his Adam's apple move.

“What is this about?” I say. “Really.”

He caps his pen and deposits both back into his pocket. When he looks up, his eyes are red.

“Of course,” I say.

A wink. A smile.
I'm watching you
, or
Everything is going to be all right.

Love is a net. It can catch you long after the person is no longer there.

“When you are ready,” Jake says, his eyes on the sea, “someone is going to be very lucky.”

I feel the ocean exhale. Relief at relinquishing to its shores what it can no longer hold.

“We'll see,” I tell him.

He nods. “We'll see.”

Kendra and I are having a cup of tea on Irina's deck. Inside, Irina pours herself a glass of wine. I see her open the refrigerator, take out a bowl of berries, and walk outside to join us. Her backyard is all stone—slate floors, built-in rock benches, and a wall of greenery behind us. There's a firepit in the center, although it's warm enough now to not need it. Her backyard is my favorite oasis. An unholy marriage of spa, redwood forest, and English garden.

“Gooseberries,” she says. She sets down a bowl of raspberries and round, golden fruit. “Low glycemic index and excellent for your liver.” She smiles at us.

I pop one in my mouth. It's tart and sweet. Almost the consistency of a sour grape but juicier.

“These are good,” I say.

Kendra tries one. “Strange.”

“Strange and good is my favorite combo,” Irina says. She sits
down next to us on the custom pillow-clad stone bench and crosses her legs. She's wearing jeans and a sweater—a rare casual sight. “So, how are you?”

They both turn to look at me. We are here, in Irina's backyard, because I am newly single again. Or rather, the intention of this night is to both buoy and unpack that reality.

“Fine,” I say. “I got my last box on Wednesday.”

My old apartment was already rented, but as it turned out my landlord, Mike, had another property down the block. It's not as big as my last place, but it's newly updated, fresh paint on the walls, and with about a quarter of my stuff in it, it looks almost spacious.

“How was it?” Irina asks.

“He hates me.”

“Please. He doesn't hate you,” Kendra says. “He loves you. It's hard to love someone and not be with them.”

I take a sip of tea—spearmint.

“It doesn't feel like love right now,” I say.

When I went to pick up my last box, Jake wasn't there. All that was left was a note: “Your sneakers are in the hall closet.”

That's it. He hadn't even taken them out. But who could blame him.

“Oh, how the hell do you know,” Irina says. “You're an infant.”

“Not quite,” I say.

She waves me off. “You know love isn't enough—I've said it to you before—but that's basic shit. Everyone knows that. You need water and food and toilet paper, to start. Obviously. The thing no one talks about is what love actually
is
.” Irina uncrosses her legs and leans forward, elbows on knees. “Penelope and I have been
through nearly every iteration of this dance you can do. We've been committed and married and separated and friends. We've had every different kind of love they talk about, at a hundred different points. The key to love is this, baby: Can you move together?”

Kendra starts laughing. I turn to her next to me. “What?”

“I'm just remembering your first wedding,” she tells Irina. “You brought out that boa constrictor that everyone thought was real.”

“He was real,” Irina says, somewhat wearily. “He was sleeping.”

“She's right,” Kendra says. “Joel and I don't work because he's my person, we work because I feel like I can be every bad and impossible version of myself with him. I can change. And it's not even that I know he'll still love me, it's that it's not even a question, he has.”

“I just have no idea what comes next.”

Kendra puts her arm around me. Irina picks up her wineglass.

“Next we go to Italy,” Irina says.

“Italy?”

I look from Irina to Kendra, who shrugs.

“I'm producing the new Oceans. You may have heard? And I'd like you to come with me. But not as my assistant,” Irina says. “As a producer.”

My mouth drops open. I can physically feel my jaw unhinge.

“What? You don't think that's what you've been doing? You do notes, you handle schedules, you made a budget for our last feature. Listen, no one would like you to stay my assistant forever more than me, but it's time to look toward the future, Daphne. You're already producing. We're just going to make it official now.”

“I—”

“I've never had anyone work for me who was as determined and resourceful and who this came so easily to—” Irina looks to Kendra. “Honestly, you should take some offense to all of this.”

Kendra laughs. “I do.”

Irina turns her attention back to me. I look at her face. Her raised eyebrows, her bright red lipstick. There is a smile playing on her lips.

“So, what do you say?” she asks.

It's the easiest yes I've ever given.

Daphne, sixteen months later.

I'm balancing a shopping bag, a purse, and an iced tea when my cell phone rings. Hugo is calling.

“Hi,” I say. “Hi! I am about to drop a very cold and very large beverage.”

“Lovely visual. Where are you?”

“On Little Santa Monica.”

I'm headed toward the Le Pain Quotidien between Camden and Bedford in Beverly Hills. The wind is riled here, but then it always is in the fall. The Santa Anas land, and they stir everything up. Dust, dirt, skirts, last season's grievances. They're all up for grabs.

“I thought you had a hot date.”

I smile. I shift my bag up onto my shoulder. “We've been over this,” I say. “It's not a date. It's just coffee.”

“Does he know that?”

“He does,” I say.

“You better hurry. If you're late he might get the message you're not interested at all.”

“Hugo!” I say. “It's not even two thirty yet. And this phone call isn't helping. I'm hanging up now.”

I am in need of caffeine today—hence the iced tea—but now I just feel jittery. All the bubbles in my stomach jiggle and begin to pop. During our five-month stint in Rome I picked up a bad espresso habit I'm having a hard time shaking.

“Not yet,” he says. “I have more things to say.”

I'm standing on the corner of Camden. I look down the block at the restaurant on the left-hand side. I think about what is waiting for me in there.

Time is a funny thing. The way it doubles back and leaps forward. The way six years can pass in a blink but a moment can stretch to a decade.

“OK,” I say. “But fair warning. I'm almost there.”

I start walking. And then I'm outside the door to the restaurant. There are some tables out front, on the sidewalk. A couple in their sixties shares a sandwich, two teen girls bend their heads over iced coffees.

I look in, through the glass, and there he is. He's gesturing to the waiter—laughing. I see the relaxed bend of his legs, the friendly gesturing of his arms. I am all at once bowled over by the reality that there are still new stories to tell. That not everything is known or explored. That there are great and wondrous things ahead. That nothing is promised and yet, and yet…

I am about to walk inside when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

“Excuse me, Miss?”

I turn around and see a woman. She's in her mid-fifties, wearing a blue button-down and a pair of wide-legged black pants.

“I think you dropped this?”

She holds out a piece of paper to me. No bigger than a postcard. I think about the box under my bed. I still have it. All those sheets of paper. They are photographs, now, snapshots of a past. They each tell a story, one I am grateful for.
Without you
, I think.
Without you I would not have everything that came next
.

The woman holds the paper out to me. Right there, right between her fingers. And as she looks at me expectantly I begin to laugh.

She is confused, at first—how odd! A funny piece of paper? But then she joins in.

Joy is contagious
, I think.

I take it, and she leaves, waving over her shoulder as she goes.

“Have a great day!” she calls to me.

It could be a fallen bill or a hastily written-down number—some other explicable thing from the depths of my bag. But it could also not be.

“What's going on?” Hugo asks through the phone.

I don't answer.

I hold it between my fingers—this promise, this premonition—and just as I'm about to open it the wind picks up. It plucks the paper straight out of my hands. It carries it—down the block and into the street, where it mingles with other lost items—receipts and wrappers, envelopes and candy, the forgotten cigarette, the apple core.

I consider grabbing for it—chasing it down. I could catch it, maybe, if I moved fast, if I moved
now
. But then it's too late—the
moment passes me by, and it's indistinguishable from everything surrounding it.

I look at the swirl of dust and paper and dirt—people cover their faces. One woman struggles by with an umbrella.

“Ay!” she says. “This weather!”

I smile into the street.

Goodbye
, I think, although that is not the right word. What I mean is something else, something that is not possible to convey in a singular expression. Something that is not at all an ending.

And then I turn back toward the door, and walk inside.

I hear Hugo's voice through the phone. Calm and steady and familiar. “You look beautiful,” he says.

I hadn't realized I was still holding it. And then he gets up from his seat by the window and walks over to me. He takes the phone off my ear and out of my hand.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

We stand that way, grinning at each other, until a waitress comes over. We are in the way, could we please take a seat? Hugo holds his arm out and gestures toward his table—toward his half-drunk coffee and the leather jacket looped over the back of his chair. I think about our first meeting, in that parking lot all those years ago. How much has changed, and changed again. I could never have seen this. I have no idea what happens now.

“Here we are,” he says, somewhat nervously, somewhat, even, earnestly.

Here we are.