Us for Life - Feltson

Chapter 4

Emma stood on the deck in Tom's garden, bent over at the waist, gassing the entire area with dry shampoo as she got the smell of cooking turkey bacon off herself. She flipped her head up, combing and fluffing. No sleek, red carpet styling today, just herself after a shower, trying to restore her smell to that of apricots instead of hickory smoke. She felt natural, honest, open to anything, exactly what she needed to be today. 

She glanced up at the frosted glass in the window on upper floor at the back of Tom's house, where he would be getting himself ready for their day together.  He cleaned up so nicely -- ridiculously nicely -- but she hoped he wouldn't make a fuss today. Maybe a shave, but nothing out of the ordinary. Normal -- she wanted to get a proper sense of what it would be like for them to be together while being normal, not as movie star kids at work, not as adults at an event, not even as friends, but as people who might have what it takes to be in love, moving through their daily lives.

And what did it take to be in love? Who could answer that? Maybe it meant something different for every pair of people in the universe.

Walking back into the house, Emma pulled a clean blouse out of her gigantic handbag and went into the main floor powder room to change. 

Stop, Emma, she told herself even as she rifled around for her makeup bag. You wanted natural, girl. Take your own advice. Don't make too much of a fuss yourself. 

But she couldn't help it. She could hear the water running in the bathroom upstairs. She could hear him, and she was nervous. This wasn't actually a low risk experiment. They had both raised the pitch of what each of them had at stake so incredibly high. If the day went badly, he wouldn't hate her, but he'd already said he wouldn't be able to keep her in his life as a mere friend anymore. Those stupid excuses she'd heard before about remaining friends being too painful, or some rubbish -- wasn't keeping something of a relationship always better than losing everything? Hadn't it always been enough for her, all those teenaged years not with Tom but near him?

Whatever Tom did with their friendship, if the day didn't go well, she'd have to press on with the baby project somewhere else, somewhere unknown, somewhere without him. At the thought, she reached for her lipstick, as if cosmetics were an anti-anxiety treatment.

By the time she finished her makeup, the water upstairs had run dry and Tom's footsteps were sounding on the floorboards above her head. She jammed her supplies back into her bag, frowning at the mirror. The lipstick -- it was too much, but she was stuck with it for now. 

She stepped out of the powder room to find him arriving at the foot of the stairs.

His eyebrows lifted when he saw the bag clasped in her hand. "Oh. You want to go somewhere?" he asked.

She leapt at the excuse. "Yes. Yes, it's so nice and sunny here. Let's drive out of the city, to somewhere quiet. No pictures -- maybe some scenery, if we happen upon something nice."

"Scenery. Got it," he said. "I'll get my keys."

The freeways out of the LA area were not at all scenic. But once they cleared them, they were driving into the California version of a countryside, following high, twisting roads along the Pacific coast. 

"It gets more and more beautiful the further north we go," she said, leaning toward him to see out his window, into the west as he drove. "As soon as I think it can't get anymore breathtaking -- voila! If we go all the way to Canada, does it turn into heaven or freeze solid?"

He laughed. "Depends on the time of year, I'd reckon. Have you never come this way by car before?"

"No, there's never any time when I'm in LA," she said. "The most scenic things I ever see are those dry, scrubby hills and palm trees growing out of the pavement. When can we get out and set foot in it?"