Seeing Julia (33 page)

“Now that wasn’t so bad, was it? Admitting what you
want to do
and have
done to you
with Jake Winston is the first step in achieving that particular goal.”

“He’s not part of the plan.”

“Well, he should be.”

≈ ≈

“You knew him.” Kimberley stands above me pool side, casting a long shadow, blocking my sun and doesn’t hesitate to wake me. “Or rather, he knew you.”

“Who knew who?” I ask.

She sighs and holds up a legal size sheet of paper. I did dossiers on everyone, all of us, per your memo.” She gives me one of her just-deal-with-it looks. “Miranda just sent everything over about three hours ago and I decided to play around with it for fun and you’d
asked
. So, I’m just flipping through everything and it’s starting to form a pattern and so I decided to work it up and this is what it looks like,” Kimberley says.

She lays out ten sheets of paper in a kind of time line. There are photographs and one long line with dates and names and small captions.

“I did it on everyone.” She hesitates. “You, me, Brad, Christian, Stephanie, Jake, Savannah, even Bobby. You better take a look at this, Julia.”

Kimberley is the best at her craft … the best. Her job is to ensure a public persona that matches the goals set out in the strategic PR plan of whomever she’s working with, which really means knowing more than the client. So, she knows the secrets, sometimes, before they do. She has a wide ranging network and her mind really does work like a think tank of twelve men. She makes the connections between people, places, and things all the time. There are no secrets by the time Kimberley has vetted her client.

There are no secrets here, either, as I look at what she’s put together. And this feeling of exposure and even a resurgence of pain comes to me as I view the connections she’s put together of my life.

“Start here,” she says. “His parents went to Yale with yours. It makes sense because Jake’s father is also a writer, Jonathon Winston. It looks like they kept in touch with your parents pretty regularly. There’s correspondence Miranda found in that box you keep from New Haven. Don’t look at me like that, Julia. You disappear I don’t know where you’ve gone; you didn’t call when you were supposed to. It took some time to figure out you were in Malibu. So, we started going through the things at your house to try and determine where you might have gone.” She gets impatient and points to the time line. “They visited you and your parents that summer. You went to Athens two months later. After that, Julia Hawthorne disappears. There’s not even a school registration with that name. You’re off the radar for almost three years, in Chicago.”

I nod, trying to chase away the memories that come with those lost years.

“Then, you met up with me in August of 2000 after you turned eighteen. We’re in L.A. with Bobby.” She draws a vertical line from my life time line to the one below marked Jake. She looks at me. “Jake’s
there
, Julia. He transferred from Texas University to UCLA in the fall of 2001; he played football with Bobby. Here’s the team photo with his name listed. He must have known Bobby or you. Do you remember him?”

“No.” I get up and start pacing along the edge of the pool. “I don’t know. All I ever saw was Bobby. I’ve got to sit down.” I slide into one of the deck chairs and put my head on the table and feel the cool glass.
Jake is part of my past?

“Look, I don’t want to upset you. I just think it’s more than a little interesting Jake’s popped up into your life at various touch points. He was your first kiss; right?”

“What? I … well, I guess he was.” My mind is reeling and it must show on my face.

“You talked about it, once, when we first met up on the way to L.A. on the plane ride. You said there had only been one guy who moved you and that was the guy you met before your parents died. You couldn’t remember his name or his face just that he had golden hair and a perfect smile and blue eyes.”

How is it you remember this conversation and I don’t?”

“I don’t know. I can’t explain my clairvoyance. Just hear me out. You told me about him on the plane,
before
you met up with Bobby. Look, I loved Bobby, too. Don’t get me wrong, but Julia, the two of you connected right from the start. I’m thinking, maybe, just
maybe
, that connection had more to do with finding someone who reminded you of your first kiss, Jake Winston, than Bobby Turner, himself.”

“You know this whole new Julia needs to share every fucking thing with you has really gotten to you. I think you’re taking things a little too far.”

“Don’t get pissed at me. Look. I just see the pattern. The ties and connections are all there. He’s been in your life at several junctures. Your first kiss, at UCLA, he’s Evan’s best friend, and now, again when Evan’s … gone.” She continues to draw vertical lines through my life time line as well as Jake’s.

“What’s your point?”

“God, just look at the pattern. Forget you for a moment. Look at him. He’s at UCLA for a year, and then he transfers to Yale. He graduates with a B.A. in English Literature and goes to Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut. Okay, maybe his ties to school are with his parents, but you used to live there. He’s friends with Evan and Christian from the start so that’s 2003. You meet Evan in July of 2008 and marry him in January of 2009. Jake’s been friends with Christian and Evan, since 2003. But, you never meet him, even the day of your wedding. And what happened that day? He was supposed to be the best man, but he’s a no show.”

“He said he came, but he wasn’t there very long,” I say.

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. I didn’t see him. Stephanie said he was up at the front of the chapel with Evan, but when I came down the aisle; he wasn’t there. Evan said he just left without an explanation. They didn’t speak for two months after that, and then they worked it out,” I say. “Jake had proposed to Savannah by then, and moved to London. I don’t know. I was focused on Evan and having a baby. Then, Evan and I had our big fight over Elizabeth in March.”

“Was he speaking to Jake by then, again?”

“I don’t know. Savannah was working at Hamilton Equities by then. She and Jake must have started dating some time the year before he left for London. He said he wanted to start over.”

“But, Evan is getting it on with Savannah in late March,
here
, betraying you and Jake.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“Evan is out of sorts because of your reaction to Elizabeth. He’s angry and he already knows a girl who looks a lot like Elizabeth and so he does his normal pattern and hooks up with Savannah. I think it explains it a little bit. He wasn’t speaking to Jake. Savannah was there and willing.”

“I really don’t want to talk about this.”

“I’m sorry. If it helps, you can imagine what my own dossier looks like, which I’ve already verbally shared with Brad.” She hugs me.

“You aren’t
married
.”

“Evan was faithful to Elizabeth, but it pretty much ended there, although his pattern shifts after Reid is born. No more women, just you.”

“I don’t feel any better. Who’s this?” I point to the line with another long list of names.”

“That’s Savannah. She’s very busy for a twenty-two-year-old, but I’m not judging.” Kimberley laughs. “She’s been with Jake since mid-2008, but she’s been with quite a few others, during that same time frame.”

My head is spinning with all she has put together and I already know how she does it. It’s amazing what’s goes on goes on in coffee shop conversations, lunch meetings, business meetings, what’s printed in newspaper articles and press releases, what’s written in online blogs, said in phone calls, revealed in photographs, found on the Internet.
Connections. Ties.
It just takes someone to look and connect it all together to see the patterns.

Kimberley nods. “I’m going for some iced tea. Want some?” I watch her saunter off toward the sliding glass doors; she turns back. “Oh, and she was never pregnant.”

“How do you
know
this stuff?”

“Trust me. I’d know.” And, Kimberley would.

I sit in the blazing sun and stare at the time line, photos of people and captions that make up my life. Ties and connections, even Dr. Bradley Stevenson talked about these with me, but I never saw them that way until now.

Kimberley returns and hands me a glass of iced tea.

“So, what are Jake’s complications?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’m wondering about that. Savannah Bennett and her family are big fish in Austin, Texas. Her upstanding family owns about half the town. The Winston’s are the literary darlings of that particular universe. Jake’s dad has done very well with his books. He’s made all the best seller lists. They live well. They have a place just outside of town—a ranch. It’s curious Jake didn’t settle there. But I guess he was out looking for you.”

“Will you
stop
? We don’t know that, Kimmy.”

“Right. It just looks like it.”

“You’re giving me way too much credit. I’m just the girl at fifteen who kissed him. Nobody remembers their first kiss.”

“You did.”

“I’m broken; my life turned tragic.” I shake my head and look over at her. “I had to hold on to something, a vague memory of a guy, who made me feel complete was just a fantasy of one of the last days of magic I had, before I got pushed into harsh reality and learned what the real world was like.”

“You’re not cynical. That’s what is so amazing about you. You should be, but you’re not. You’ll start over; you already are.”

Kimberley gets up and heads inside, to call Brad, I’m sure. It’s been at least four hours since she last spoke to him. I lie back on the lounge chair and attempt to recapture the lazy feeling I was enjoying before Kimmy mapped out my life for me.

≈ ≈

An hour later, Kimberley’s calling my name. “Julia, you have a visitor.”

I sit up. And spy her walking towards me and chatting up the guy walking behind her who seems somewhat familiar. I recognize his voice. Officer Grant. He’s carrying a bouquet of flowers. Kimberley walks ahead of him and gives me the be-nice-he’s-here-for-you look. I stand up, feeling awkward in my red bikini and sun hat, and force myself to smile.

“I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. These are for you.” He hands me the flowers and I take them and he’s just looking at me and I’m at a loss. I remember his voice, but that’s about it. “Brian Grant. My name’s Brian.”

I shake his hand. “Julia Hamilton, well, soon to be Hawthorne.” I look at a speechless Kimberley, who I haven’t informed of this news. “I’m going back to my maiden name. How are you? Thanks for coming by.”

“Sure.”

Brian smiles. He has a nice smile, his grey eyes crinkle at the corners, and he has dimples. He’s about six foot one and his hair is dark brown. I’m appraising him and doing this quick tabulation of all his characteristics and comparing each one to Jake Winston. He’s good-looking but not GQ good-looking like Jake which is a relief. Brian Grant is different in every way.
This is good. This is normal. I want normal.

“So, Julia, would you like to go out to a movie or something tonight? It’s my night off. I thought…maybe if you weren’t too busy you might like to go out…with me.”

I so don’t want to do this, but he has this charming hopeful look and I cannot turn him down. “Sure, that would be great. Let me change. Kimberley, do you want to come with us?” He looks disappointed, when I extend this invitation.

Kimberley says, “Oh, no, I’ve got a hair appointment. I’m late as it is.”

“You do?”

“Yep, late. Go ahead Julia, have fun.”

I’m up changing into jeans and silently swearing now that Kimberley and Officer Grant have interrupted my afternoon siesta, when she sneaks into my room. A few minutes before this, I heard her downstairs plying our guest with an iced tea and cheese and crackers, which is about all we have in the way of food around here. The new Julia has not been focusing upon her culinary efforts at all.

“Okay, I think you should do it,” Kimberley says.

“Do what?” I ask. I brush lip gloss across my lips and then finger-fix my hair. I can’t remember the last time I looked in the mirror or put on makeup, so I’m surprised to see this green-eyed woman with dark hair and subtle gold highlights and a hint of tan. I look good in my skinny black jeans and sleeveless white blouse. There’s the promise of the Julia from the UCLA days. My lips even curve upward in the hint of a smile.

I’m moving on. This is what moving on looks like. I’m going on a date with a normal guy.
A date. Me. The new Julia.

“You know if the timing is right, the moon is full, and it feels right; I think you should take it to the next level. I think you
need
to do this. He’s a nice guy. He’s a cop for Christ’s sake. I did a quick background check on him. He’s clean as a whistle.” I give her a withering look and she laughs. “I had the software program up. He’s been on the LAPD for four years, went to UCLA and everything. He kind of reminds me of Bobby with dark hair. Just think about it. Call it revenge sex against Evan. You
need
it. You are too wound up and since you sent Jake Winston away…”