The One That Got Away (4 page)

Eventually I stopped feeling that treacherous little leap of hope every time I checked my email, or my phone rang. I stopped “nonchalantly” asking Danny who he'd been hanging out with when he got home from a night out with friends. When SXSW rolled around, I let Nicole march me around to all the parties tarted out in biker boots and a miniskirt, because she promised the distraction would help me forget. So I hover-pissed in graffiti-covered toilet stalls at music venues all over the city. I dated guys who picked me up at them. Then, after what was supposed to be a cleansing break from the male of the species, I got entangled in a messy on-again, off-again relationship with a wildly talented—and even more wildly narcissistic—blues guitarist, which culminated a couple years later in a five-alarm screaming match under the streetlights outside the Continental Club.

And then I met Noah. Recovering from the aftershocks of that intense, unstable relationship, and the years of crappy judgment that had preceded it, I was wobbling like a vase somebody has jarred with their elbow. Then Noah reached out his hand to steady me. It was so blessedly effortless to be with him: he was seven years older, seven years kinder, and it was obvious from the
moment I met him that he would never dream of accepting a greenroom blow job from a tongue-pierced backup singer named Des'rae. He would never dream of cheating on me at all. And by the time I let him inside my body for the first time, I was certain that when the sun rose on the next day, he'd want to spend it with me. And the next day, and the day after that, just like that sunrise, he'd always be there.

He made it so easy for me to fall in love with him. Somehow, his divorce a year earlier hadn't made him bitter, it had just made him lonely; he welcomed me into his life as if I were exactly what he'd been waiting for. I was wide-eyed at my good fortune. He had a ruggedness to him, which, mixed with his courtly Southern charm, reminded me of my stepfather, John, the best man I've ever known. I looked into his beautiful eyes, the color of oxidized copper—and I knew I was seeing my future.

A ping from my phone shakes me from my reverie. It's a photo, from Noah himself, who has taken a couple of rare days off work to hike the Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia: against a backdrop of spiny blue ice, his feet are planted in the snow, arms flung wide into the glaring sunlight. His grin is as cheerful as his persimmon-orange ski coat, which he bought last year for our expedition to Iceland to chase down the northern lights.
This place is beyond cool
, says the text.
Can't wait to show it to you
.

Warmth glows in my chest.
Wish I were there now
, I write.
Until then
…I tug down my tank top and snap a photo of my cleavage. It's far from the world's most spectacular cleavage, but he sure likes it.

Never had a hard-on on a glacier before
, he writes back.
First time for everything
.

As I dawdle in bed, trying to summon the motivation to get
up and go for a run, I catch a whiff of aroma in the air and sniff incredulously, but it's unmistakable—someone's brewing coffee. According to my clock it's only 9:14, which means Eamon must be up; Danny only wakes up before noon on weekends under threat of bodily injury or global apocalypse.

Crushing an impulse to hide until Danny gets up, I hoist myself out of bed and shuffle downstairs in my PJs. The kitchen is awash in sunshine, and the eat-at counter is neatly set with three places. Precisely folded paper napkins under all three forks waver in the breeze from the open window. Eamon is standing behind the counter, slicing up a green pepper, and greets me with a smile. I feel irritated that he has not somehow become uglier overnight.

“Hey! What's all this?” I ask, gesturing at the enticing array of eggs, ham, and veggies spread out on the steel counter in front of him.

“It's the least I can do for you guys, for putting me up for the weekend,” he says. “Coffee?”

I stretch out both hands for the mug he passes me, and take a cautious sip. “Well thank you, but where did you get it all? Danny and I are lucky if we have an old withered apple in our fridge.” I plunk down on one of the counter stools opposite him and steal a strip of pepper.

He realigns the pepper strips into a perfect row and begins dicing them with controlled little flicks of his wrist. “Actually it was one withered apple, three cartons of takeout, and a couple half-empty bottles of wine. I went out for a run and stopped at that corner market on my way back.”

“You've already been out running? What time did you wake up?”

“Around six-thirty. Can't sleep later than that unless I'm sick or hungover. My body doesn't know how to sleep late—too many years of getting out of bed at four or five to go to practice.”

“It must be weird not to be doing that anymore,” I observe.

“It's weird as hell. It took a while to catch up with me, 'cause I was so busy with appearances and whatnot after the Olympics. But when I got back to Berkeley in September, I felt like I should be getting back into my normal routine, but instead it was like, okay, now what? I'm still working out every day, but it's the first time since I was a kid that I'm swimming without any particular goal. Other than trying not to get fat,” he adds.

I snort. Danny has been whining about getting back to “competition weight” for the last seven years. “That's got to be disorienting.”

“Yeah, it is. I can't say I don't miss it, but it was definitely time to move on to something different.”

“Why not coaching?” I ask, reaching for more pepper.

He shoves the neatly diced pepper aside and reaches for a new one. “A lot of reasons. I wanted a break from the grind, but mostly I think I'm still too close to it. If I started coaching right now, I'd be jealous of my swimmers for still being able to compete. I don't want to live vicariously through other people.”

While he talks, I watch him go to work on the second pepper, his hands deft and quick and precise. I've never seen anything like it. Of course he would have the right kind of muscle memory to excel at knife skills.

A memory bobs to the surface of my brain: lying on my side in my bed at five-thirty in the morning, Eamon stretched warm and satin-skinned against my back, my arm extended in midair. I had made the mistake of teasing him that swimming looked more like brute force than a microprecision sport, which had prompted a six-minute demonstration of the proper arm position for a freestyle catch. My self-conscious laughter faded as he patiently corrected me again and again, adjusting the angle of my wrist, massaging my tensed fingers until they relaxed. A quick kiss at
my temple, then his soft voice: “Raise your elbow—tiny bit more—let your hand drop—more—yep. You've got it.” Satisfied, he curled his arm around my waist and rested his cheek on mine.

I was enchanted. And now that infuriates me. Unwilling to look at him, I jump up from my stool and throw open the door to the fridge as if I urgently need to top off the milk in my coffee.

“And besides,” he continues, oblivious, “I can always coach down the road, but the stuff I'm trying to do with USAS relies on people still having some idea who I am.”

“Strike while the iron is damp,” I mutter.

I settle back in my seat and reach again toward his little heap of diced pepper, but he swats my outstretched hand away. “Hey! Stop stealing that, or there won't be any left for the omelets.”

I shake my bangs out of my face, unrepentant. “Whatever, just put less in Danny's.”

“Why don't you make yourself useful and go kick him out of bed?”

I can't help returning his knowing grin. Danny requires food, caffeine, and at least sixty minutes of warm-up time in order to qualify as a human being after he wakes up in the morning. It's a testament to how much he loved swimming that he was able to tolerate the practice schedule for so many years.

My knock goes unanswered, so I poke my head around his door. “Hey, Danny boy, time to get your ass out of bed,” I say to the long mound in the middle of his blankets.

The only response I receive is a short grunt of denial.

“Eamon's making omelets,” I wheedle. “And there's coffee.”

A long pause, then he rotates far enough to squint at me over his shoulder. His Popsicle-blue eyes are bleary, and all the parts of his elfin face look slightly misarranged. “What the hell is he making omelets with?”

“That was my question. He got a bunch of veggies at the corner
market on his way back from a run. He's been up since six-thirty, being fit and productive.”

Danny shudders. “Christ, he's inhuman. What time is it, anyway?”

“A little before ten. Come on, this whole house-hunting thing was your bright idea, anyway.”

“Fine,” he groans, peeling back his covers as if they were an especially stubborn onion skin.

“Look what I found,” I call to Eamon as we enter the kitchen a few minutes later.

“Ugh, what is the matter with you?” moans Danny when he catches sight of Eamon, monitoring a bubbling omelet. “It's Saturday. Why are you up so early?”

“You know I can't sleep in,” says Eamon. “And what happened to
you
? Back in the day, you used to be up at the ass crack every day too.”

“I know, and then I quit swimming and got a life.” Danny slumps disconsolately onto a stool and grasps the mug of coffee Eamon shoves at him.

“And now you're dissolute.” Eamon ignores the baleful stare Danny shoots him over his coffee mug and flips the omelet. We all know the accusation is ridiculous; Danny's schedule might have shifted, but his work ethic is firmly in place.

“I'm a bar owner; it's in the contract. And besides, at least I'm not
retired
,” Danny mutters into his mug.

Since Danny refuses to be seen driving his car—a scruffy Toyota that predates the Flood—any more than is absolutely necessary, that leaves my modest little Civic as the vehicle of choice for the driving tour of Austin. My car resembles a bomb site at the best
of times, and I wince to see that today it is even worse than usual: the backseat and passenger side are strewn with an untidy potpourri of gas receipts, half-empty water bottles, material samples, and battered rolls of drawings. Danny attempts to secure shotgun on the grounds that he is older, but Eamon claims two additional inches of leg. I half-expect them to break into an arm-wrestling match at any moment.

“Oh, for god's sake,” I say. “How
old
are you two? Danny, get back there. Pretend you have manners.” He slumps into the back with a deep sigh. I crane around until I can see him. “And no kicking Eamon's seat, or I
will
turn the car around.”

He gives a bark of laughter and settles back against his seat, arms crossed.

“He can't help himself,” Eamon explains. “He's like the extra older brother I never needed. Speaking of which, how
are
your thirties treating you, Danny?”

Danny, who just celebrated his second straight thirtieth birthday, shoots him a nasty look.

“So,
anyway
, this is Barton Hills,” I begin, gesturing out the window at the rows of tiny bungalows, interspersed with the occasional sixties-era ranch house, half-visible behind lush trees and landscaping.

“Only reason I could afford the house is that it needed so much work nobody else could be bothered with it,” Danny volunteers from the backseat. “Ree here was the ace in the hole—she did the architectural planning in exchange for rent. We did most of the renovation work ourselves.”

“The thought of you wielding power tools scares me,” says Eamon.

“Oh, that was back when Danny was still into screwing things,” I crack, and Eamon slaps a palm over his laughter. Danny is four months into a self-imposed dry spell inspired by a nasty breakup, and he's getting goddamn touchy about it.

“Ha-ha, Sarina,” Danny says.

“This neighborhood is nice,” Eamon observes, shooting me a wink. “Are all the lots about this size?”

“This size or smaller.”

He makes a disappointed noise, and Danny pipes up. “Why, you need room for your six-car garage?”

“No. My pool.”

“God help us,” mutters Danny.

We spend the day driving all over Austin, from the posh neighborhoods in the hills to the west of the city, with their bloated mansions and scrupulous landscaping, to downtown, with its new high-rise apartment buildings like the one Noah lives in. He actually hates his place—he's been fantasizing about having a lawn to mow for as long as I've known him—but he agrees with me that an apartment is more practical until we're ready to buy a house together. Until then, he grows herbs and tomatoes on his little balcony that overlooks West Riverside. Every summer he kills them, but every spring, he tries.

To my surprise, Eamon seems eager to move ahead with buying a house—we've identified a few neighborhoods today where he is interested in looking at properties. And I think he is probably serious about hiring me to help him renovate whatever he finds. But I have to figure out the scope of the job before I can figure out how best to get out of doing it.

After a couple rowdy hours of live band karaoke at Danny and Jay's new hipster saloon, Clementine, I realize my webcam appointment with Noah is fast approaching, so I make an early exit. Eamon, yawning, elects to come with me. When we get back to the house, he asks if there is a printer he can use.

“I thought I'd take a look at some real estate listings to see if
there's anything I want to check out while I'm in town.” He pauses for a moment, then continues. “Actually, would it be too much to ask you to come with me tomorrow if I spot anything that's worth a visit? I'd love to get your opinion.”

Balls
. I had no intention of spending any more time with him, but real estate is like porn for me. “I've got muay thai class till eleven, but I could go after that.”