Page 13 of Square Waves (Big Fan #2)

XII

As I walk back to work, the air is warm in the sun, cool in the shade—a perfect Berkeley summer day—and I mull our lunch conversation. Where my tenacity has gotten me so far.

Maybe part of the problem is that I throw myself so hard at things.

I have no work-life divide in my current job.

I answer emails from bed and on my phone when I’m on vacation.

Donor events and speaking engagements mostly take place in the evening; they mostly involve dinner and drinks.

And my role, ultimately, is to be Cassidy Weaver .

What would it be like if I carried my personal hardships around in my personal life, and when I went to work, I got to put them down? Or at least tuck them out of sight?

When I think of Ms.Palazzo and a whole classroom full of kids—oof.

I don’t want to be a teacher. Too overwhelming.

But when I consider Jo’s teen... I kind of like the idea of meeting with her in an office instead of a coffee shop or randomly at a party.

Closing the door so we could speak in private.

Opening it again and letting both of us out.

When I step into the store, I pause to take it all in.

I’m halfway through my time here, and it looks completely different than it did when I first came through the front door.

It’s fully painted and half furnished, with those Villeneuve pieces hanging in the far corner and making the room sparkle with color.

New merchandise arrives daily; as soon as the shelving is all installed, it will be time to figure out where it goes.

After that, we’ll hang Leon’s pictures—I’ll get to see them. And then we’ll be open for business.

Well, Willa will be. I’ll get on a plane, head back to DC, and figure out what to make of my life.

I’m so swept up in surveying the space that I don’t notice Leon coming through the door from the back office. “Hey,” he calls. His hair is pulled away from his face with a few bobby pins, and it should look stupid, but instead it looks hot and feels... intimate.

“Hey.”

“Admiring your handiwork?”

“Please. It’s mostly your handiwork.”

“Careful, Cass.” He’s smiling at me, big and wide, from his mouth to his eyes. Helplessly, I remember how he tasted, what it felt like to have those lips on my skin. “That was dangerously close to a compliment.”

Our first conversation at the bar echoes in my bones. “Do you want a real one?”

He walks across the room casually, his hands shoved in his back pockets. My heart thuds with every step. “Are you kidding? Of course I do.”

“This place looks great. That’s in large part because of you.”

He’s a couple of feet away. Not quite close enough to touch. My fingertips are tingling anyway.

“And you, Cassidy, keep surprising me.”

“I like keeping you on your toes.” There’s no mistaking the flirtation in my tone, and I blush immediately at my own words.

“You do, huh?” His voice is steady but—something. Leading.

My stomach clenches, and, god, I feel something sweet and scorching happening in my chest.

There’s a noise from the back room, probably Willa hefting a box of clay, and it’s a good reminder that we’re not alone. And that we are technically coworkers—or at the very least, two people who promised their mutual friend that they wouldn’t create drama.

“Where did you have lunch?” Leon asks smoothly, and I wonder if he was as aware of that moment as I was. If he’s glad that it got broken or itchy and annoyed at having to get himself under control. Questioning what would have happened next if we had been alone.

“At Lulu’s. With Jenny Palazzo, actually. English?”

He laughs out a breath, like Of course you were having lunch with a teacher . “Jesus. She hated me.”

“I don’t think she hated you.”

“I always thought the two of you felt the same way about me actually. Slacker, loser, on and on.”

“Did it ever occur to you that might have been a compliment in its own weird way? It wasn’t just that you weren’t trying. It was that you could do more. You weren’t”—I break out the air quotes—“living up to your potential.” Saying that makes me feel like I’m one hundred years old, but it’s true.

“Why did you see her? A Leon Park ‘living up to his potential’ check-in?”

“We’ve been holding them weekly for ten years,” I quip back. “Had to do it on Zoom while I was away, but it was great to finally be able to regroup in person.” Then I sigh. “No. It was actually an Is Cassidy Weaver living up to her potential? meeting.”

“And?”

“Jury’s still out.”

Leon shakes his head, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with me. “Well, want to help me package orders while they deliberate?”

“If I get to be in charge of the bubble wrap.”

We head to the back together. Willa is at the wheel, and she barely looks up when we come in. Either she’s gotten used to us getting along, or she’s too in the zone to care. Possibly both.

The big table in the center of the room is covered in finished ceramics: beautifully painted mugs, bowls, and plates.

More complex serving platters. They’ve all been sorted by order with their address labels.

Leon demonstrates the best way to make sure every edge is protected for their journeys on trucks, their inevitable tosses onto porches.

I only stare at his hands a little bit while he works.

We have to share shipping supplies, but it’s easy somehow.

In the last week and a half, I’ve gotten used to being aware of Leon.

Moving around his body in space. At first it was because I was avoiding him, but now it’s something else.

It’s almost like a dance: him grabbing a piece of tape and passing the dispenser back to me or nudging a Sharpie in my direction just as I realize I need it.

Willa has music playing, and I glance over and realize that Leon is mouthing along with the lyrics.

“Do you still... make music? Is that how people word that question?” I ask as I seal a box.

Leon laughs. “I mostly watch others ‘make music’ these days. A buddy of mine played Outside Lands last year, so we had backstage passes.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah. We were in a band together back in high school.” He shears off a length of bubble wrap with one easy run of the scissors. “Made our debut at the tenth-grade battle of the bands.”

“I think I missed that.” Once, I would have thrown my Jasper makeout in his face, just to see if he’d react.

“You didn’t miss much. We weren’t very good. Or I wasn’t. Obviously he’s talented.”

I suspect Leon was too. Bailing on that one show hardly spared me from the sight of him sitting around on the benches at school strumming a guitar: the muscles in his forearms flexing, eyebrows crinkling with concentration. It really did feel like he lived to torment me then.

“Why don’t you play anymore?”

“Eh, I liked learning an instrument more than the rest of it,” Leon says. “Music was never really a passion.”

“ Passion ,” I repeat. “People are so obsessed with having passions. What if we just had jobs?”

“Well, Leon is an artist,” Willa pipes up.

I think we had both forgotten that she was in the room.

“I’m not an artist,” Leon says firmly. “I just like to make stuff.”

“And I’m, what, anointed by the gods or something?” Willa lobs back.

“Anointed by Goop. Are you saying Gwyneth is a mere mortal?”

Willa rolls her eyes theatrically, and I get the sense that they’ve had this argument before.

“There’s no test to take. They don’t give you a license.

You don’t have to call yourself anything if you don’t want to.

But are you really gonna tell me you spend that much time painting, and you don’t care about it?

You’re making art, Leon. That makes you an artist.”

“I mean, I do care about it, but...”

I can’t tell what the expression on Leon’s face means. He looks half pissed off, but half... pleased. Like he wants Willa to talk him into this.

She obliges. “It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. It really doesn’t.”

“I guess,” Leon grumbles, but I can see it for real now: how much he likes the idea of being an artist. And how scared he is to admit it.

“Also, Willa, I was thinking for these cups—” He walks over to her. “Do we want to try stacking them differently? Especially the ones with the crackle glaze?”

From there, Leon and Willa both get distracted by logistics, but I keep thinking about his paintings.

I’ve seen so many unexpected sides of Leon in the last ten days.

But they’re decidedly practical: ways he’s found to make himself useful.

Now I’m curious what he does for the joy of it.

What he makes because he can’t help himself.