Page 44 of Under the Stars

I learned that early when I discovered—according to the internet—that my mother was too fat, that she was too thin, that she was addicted to cocaine, that she looked like a dog, that she looked like a horse, that she had had multiple cosmetic surgeries, that she had given up a child for adoption, that she was a man, that she was a lesbian, that she was an alien, that my father was Brad Pitt, that my father was Bill Clinton, that my father was O.

J. Simpson, that she had tried to abort me, that she had used a surrogate to have me, that she had poisoned Steve, that I had poisoned Steve, that she had killed a boy in a boating accident when she was a kid.

That people made up these stories I could understand—people will do a lot of things for attention.

That people actually believed them blew my mind.

And they did believe them—that was the crazy part—believed them passionately.

Would take any little piece of contradictory evidence and twist it into a knot and throw it away, like they wanted so badly to believe in this story, needed so badly to believe in this story, for whatever reason—it ratified their own convictions, validated their own life choices, I don’t know—that they weren’t even capable of accepting that it might be false.

So I gave up the internet when it came to personnel research. It wasn’t just that the information was unreliable.

It was that you really didn’t want to know what was out there.

—

I call Sedge. First it goes to voicemail; half a minute later, he calls back.

“Hey, sweetheart. Sorry, should be hitting the road in about an hour now. Fucking meeting keeps going on and on.”

“What meeting, Sedge?”

“What meeting ? What does that mean?”

“I mean Monk Adams just told me you’re running a billion-dollar company or something.”

There is this pause. I don’t know what’s inside it—confusion or embarrassment or guilt.

“Is that a problem for you?” he asks.

“Wait, so it’s true?”

“It’s not exactly true. I mean, I sold the business a few years ago. For a lot less than a billion dollars, by the way. Not even close. But I retained some ownership and—you know, a board seat, so—”

“Stop. Hold on. Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“Was I supposed to tell you? I thought you knew. It’s just—I don’t know, everybody knows what I do for a living. Did for a living.”

“Everyone in your circle, Sedge. But I’m not in your circle, remember? Your little preppy club where everybody went to school together. I’m from California. I cook food for a living. I don’t exactly read the Wall Street fucking Journal in the morning.”

“Audrey, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t—I just—why are you mad ? Isn’t this a nice surprise?”

“What are you trying to say? Are you thinking I’m some kind of gold digger? Like everyone else does, apparently? Is that why you didn’t tell me? It was a test ?”

“What the hell. Of course I don’t think you’re a gold digger. Who thinks you’re a gold digger?”

“Then why did you keep this from me?”

“I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you—”

“All that shit I gave you about being a trust fund baby? That didn’t clue you in?”

“I thought—I don’t know, I guess I thought it was just our joke. I had no idea you didn’t have any inkling, any curiosity about my life. I mean, any rational person—”

“So now I’m irrational.”

“—a simple Google search would have—”

“Oh, fuck you.”

I hang up. Take a deep breath. Call him back. He answers on the second ring.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have hung up. And I shouldn’t have said fuck you . That was—how do you put it. Out of line. I’m just feeling a little ambushed right now and—and the Google thing was the exact wrong thing to say.”

“Audrey,” he says, in a supernaturally calm voice, “can we talk about this when I’m back on island this evening? Face-to-face? Glass of wine?”

“I really don’t think there’s anything to talk about, Sedge. I feel like you’re not the same person I thought you were. The person I thought I could trust .”

He lets another pause drop. “Are you breaking up with me, Audrey? Over this ?”

“I don’t know if breaking up is the term I’d use. I mean, we weren’t together together, were we? It’s only been a few weeks.”

“Wow,” he says. “Okay. I get it.”

“Look, I don’t mean it that way. You were the one who said it was my call. That night we got together. That it was okay if I just wanted—you know, a good time. To press my reset button.”

“And it turns out, that’s all you wanted? A good time? What happened on the boat the other day, Sunday, that was just a good time to you?”

My chest shakes. My fingers are so cold, I can’t feel the phone in my hand. In a high voice, I say, “It’s just I’m still technically married, remember, and once Meredith gets the okay to start filming at the start of August—”

“Wait, what are you talking about? You’re leaving ?”

“I thought you understood that.”

“You’re saying you were planning to just take off in a few weeks? When your mother leaves?”

“Sedge,” I say, “we both knew this wasn’t a permanent arrangement.”

This time, he’s silent for so long, I’m afraid the connection dropped. Then I start to hope that the connection dropped. Before he could have heard what I just said.

His voice comes on.

“Actually, Audrey,” he says, “only one of us knew that.”

—

If I had to distill my relationship with Sedge Peabody into a moment, if I could take only one of the hours we had spent together with me into the future, I would choose last Sunday morning.

Saturday’s our big night at the Mo. Until the kitchen closes at nine, Taylor and I are flying from fridge to stove to counter, flat-out.

We have most of the kinks worked out by now, and I always invest in prep so the service itself goes as smoothly as it possibly can, but by half past ten I’m like a deflated balloon.

Whatever he’s up to during the week, wherever he is, Sedge always turns up at the Mo on Saturday, before closing, and waits for me at the bar.

He drives me back to Greyfriars, pours me a drink while I run upstairs to shower and change out of my kitchen clothes that reek of fry oil and whatever else.

Sometimes I have the energy for sex, sometimes not.

Either way, he spends the night, because the important thing—the magic thing—is to wake up Sunday morning and find him next to me.

I’ll open my eyes, and he’ll open his eyes.

He says Good morning, and I’ll say It is now.

We will kiss. The kissing always takes some time, because the thing about Sedge, he doesn’t like to be rushed on a Sunday morning.

We make love with an abundance of care. Leave no inch of skin untended.

By the end, I might be braced against the wall, or clinging to a bedpost for dear life, sobbing, crying for mercy.

Sometimes all of them at once. Then stupor.

Staring at each other in a kind of shared bewilderment, like Did that just happen? Is this even real?

Not even daring to speak. To name this thing out loud and ruin it.

Last Sunday was no different, except it was.

Something to do with the anticipation you derive from a pleasurable routine, well established; with the raw appeal of Sedge himself—the kind of sexiness that steals up on you inch by inch, as you laugh at some shared joke, as he swings you over a puddle; as you notice how unexpectedly athletic he looks with his shirt off, each muscle in its place; how the ball of his shoulder gleams when he steps from the shower or the pool or the ocean.

Whatever it was. Some new dimension opened up inside the tangle of our Sunday morning sex that left us both a little more senseless than usual. I remember lying there, feeling the thud of his heart against my skin. Tasting his hair on my lips.

At last Sedge lifted his head and examined my face. Hey, there. What are you thinking?

Nothing, I told him.

You look scared, he said. Don’t be scared. I got you.

I shook my head. Sedge smiled and dropped a kiss on my lips.

Hoisted himself out of bed, pulled on a white T-shirt and the pair of linen pajama pants he keeps in the chest of drawers in case of Meredith, and went downstairs to make coffee.

Five minutes later, he delivered a fragrant cup between my hands and said, You want to go sailing with me today?

I said, That depends on how well you can sail, and Sedge grinned and said, Club champion six years running, to which I replied, Could you be any more of a cliché, Sedgewick Peabody?

It was a gorgeous day on the water. We sailed out of the Little Bay marina, Playmate cooler stuffed with homemade sandwiches and Spindrift ( Confession, Sedge said, mouth full of sandwich, I’m only in this relationship for the unbelievable fucking food ) and sailed northeast, past Watch Hill, until Newport came into view.

We anchored off the coast for a bit, idling in the sun, making out, slipping down into the cabin when things got serious.

We dropped our clothing along the stairs, tumbled naked onto the bed, Sedge up inside me so fast and so hard, I was grabbing the comforter, the pillows, anything to anchor me.

I felt the leading edge rush up and tried to keep it at bay, but you couldn’t hold back a tide like that.

Sedge rose on his elbows and watched it break all over me.

When the waves began to ebb, he kissed my mouth and started again.

For the next hour or so, we existed in this lazy dream-world of skin and sweat and kisses, trying this and that, trading favors, laughing, the pitch of bliss so true and perfect that when he finally let go, came inside me with a gentle roar followed by total collapse, we didn’t have to speak.

It was like we were saying the words inside each other’s heads.

Until he rolled his face toward me and said, out loud, Food is your love language, isn’t it?

And before I could think it through, I answered Yes.