Deena Goldstone - Tell Me One Thing

“What?” I said.

And that’s when he said it. “You are the love of my life, Anna.”

I heard my intake of breath in the quiet kitchen. I was staggered. I couldn’t say a word.

He grinned at me. “That’s a good thing.”

“I know,” I said, overwhelmed with the wonder that we had found each other. Owen, understanding without another word being said, gathered me into his arms.

I LOOK BACK NOW AND THINK, If only, if only we had been able to keep the world at bay . But that’s the dream of any woman newly in love. We all have pasts. We all have secrets waiting for the right time to tell. There is no way for the now not to be contaminated by the lives we’d lived before.

WE WERE VERY CAREFUL AT FIRST. I continued to write in the early morning hours, even if it meant leaving Owen’s bed at first light. I continued to walk Bandit and Huey and Dewey and my other clients’ dogs. Most days Owen was home when I got there to pick up Bandit but not always. We made dates. We didn’t willy-nilly overrun each other’s life within days or even weeks of sleeping together. Neither of us, it seemed, wanted to rush things. I understood my natural reticence to plunge headlong into any new thing. I wasn’t sure why Owen felt the same way, “reticent” not being an adjective I would ever associate with him. At the time I thought he was respecting my pace, not pushing for more time, more of me, because he understood I would have been uncomfortable.

And then we had the opportunity to go public. The head of Owen’s nonprofit, Christina Johar, was hosting a party to welcome two new photographers into the fold. “We should go,” Owen said one day as we sat in his dining room, having our mid-afternoon coffee, Bandit snoring at our feet, and I readily agreed. I was more than curious about this other world of Owen’s, his professional life. I was hungry for more of him.

We drove into the Hollywood Hills, east of Vine Street, “Old Hollywood” as it was known because when the film industry was in its infancy, this was where all the talent lived. As we climbed higher and higher on streets that narrowed and bent in hairpin turns around themselves, Owen told me a little about his boss. She was married to an Indian doctor, hence the “Johar,” but had grown up outside Atlanta on a sort of plantation. “Minus the slaves, of course,” he added and I shook my head, smiling, as he knew I would.

She had impeccable manners coupled with a steely sense of purpose and therefore managed to accomplish a myriad of things while retaining the affection of almost everyone she dealt with. Owen adored her.

When the iconic Hollywood sign — enormous white letters blazingly lit and spread across a hillside — popped into view, Owen pulled the car over to the curb and let one of the parking valets whisk it away. In front of us was a long and very steep set of stairs that led, presumably, to the house.

We climbed hand in hand, our breath becoming more ragged the higher we got until finally we crested on a flat pad of land that held the house. The view was spectacular. We could see the few tall buildings that made up the downtown skyline. This was 1976 and the major downtown building boom of the 1990s was fifteen years away. When we turned west, we could see straight to the setting sun, pink and orange tendrils gripping the horizon line at the Pacific Ocean. A 180-degree vista.

And then there was the house. I’m sure it had been designed by some mid-century architect, although I couldn’t have told you who. But someone had had an idiosyncratic vision and built a structure that seemed to float on air, out over the hillside, anchored by massive steel beams plunged into the rock. Through the floor-to-ceiling panels of glass that stood in for the front walls, we could see groups of people holding drinks and milling about. Floating out of the house was the forced laughter and busy chatter of cocktail party talk.

Instantly I regretted my decision to come. I was never much good at small talk or glib conversation, and the scene in front of us seemed like an obstacle course I was ill prepared to navigate. I said nothing, but that didn’t stop Owen from answering me anyway. “We don’t have to stay long.”

I rested my chin on his shoulder and we both took in the brightly colored scene in front of us. “Is there a safe harbor in there?”

“I’ll find you one.”

And we walked in.

Christina greeted us at the door. She was a woman somewhere around forty, I guessed, who looked like she spent a great deal of her life making sure she was beautiful. Even I, who wallowed comfortably most days in sweats, could tell how expensive her clothes and jewelry were and marvel at the amazing cut of her blond hair, which swung with every movement of her head and settled right back into place.

She embraced Owen briefly and then turned her considerable scrutiny on me. “Anna,” she said, “we must talk,” and grabbed my hand and led me through the crowded living room and out the enormous glass doors onto the terrace. Looking backward as we traversed the living room, I mouthed to Owen, “Safe harbor?” and he shrugged, as if to say, Maybe, maybe not .

“I’ve wanted to meet you for months,” she said as she led me to a corner of the terrace where the view was even more spectacular.

“Really?” I was genuinely surprised. Owen had talked about me at work?

“Well, we’re all mad about Owen, you know. I’ve known him for years and years. Did he tell you that?”

I shook my head. He hadn’t.

“From his days in New York. When I was single and he was single, of course, and we …” She trailed off.

“Had a relationship?”

“Oh no, no,” and she laughed. “I was going to say when we helped each other through, but that makes it sound like we were in trouble when really we were in that section of life when nothing makes sense. The beginning of your twenties — oh, so confusing.”

I nodded. I was in the beginning of my twenties and she was confusing me. My eyes sought out Owen through the open terrace doors, and as Christina continued on about how she had met Owen — at a gallery opening — and how coincidental it was that they lived within three blocks of each other, and how they’d meet at a restaurant halfway between their apartments at least twice a week, I saw him standing in front of a wall of bookshelves talking to a man who, even from this distance, seemed intense and brooding. The other man was doing all the talking, gesturing as he spoke, touching Owen’s chest to make a point. There was something about what I was witnessing that made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t have named it then.

At a certain point Owen looked up and saw me watching, and the expression that flashed across his face made no sense to me. It looked like grief. I shook my head at him and instantly he smiled, said something to the man, and moved across the living room toward me.

Christina watched him come, stopped herself mid-story, and said quietly to me, “He’s crazy about you. Remember that.”

We left soon after and on the way home, I did all the talking. Owen answered if I asked a question, but that was all. We pulled into his driveway, got out of the car, and started walking to the back door.

“It’s still early,” I said. “Do you feel like dinner? I really didn’t eat anything there.”

He took my hand, shook his head, and led me into the house, into the bedroom. He kissed me with an urgency that felt like a test — did I feel the same way? He undressed me quickly and took me to bed with a single-mindedness that unnerved me. Afterward, he gathered me against his body, my head on his chest, and said nothing as he stroked my hair. His heartbeat raced beneath my ear. I listened for a long time till it gradually slowed enough for me to drift off to sleep.