Rock Candy

I’ve spent a good portion of my life so far nervous to lose those things that are intangible; moments, which are already memories in my mind before they’ve deserved the right to call themselves so. I call it ‘mourning tomorrow yesterday’, a self diagnosed rare affliction, which to keep me humble has to plague more than just myself; because I possess the other affliction of being too self absorbed, which ironically is not rare at all. On any given day I could pass by a dozen other self absorbed people and we would hold conversation but it would all be futile because we are checking our reflection in the other’s eyes. I think I look my best through a sea moss haze, but that is most likely because I like the beholder better than my own reflection. That is my foil, for all my self righteousness, that I like him better than myself.

It was the last Summer of our youth, overripe fruit on low hanging branches, foamy poolsides and expensive dinners; oysters and sashimi spreads on his patio table, oleander petals in my Paloma. He talks of surfing and smoking and all his most hedonistic habits. I am only half listening, attempting to pick the skin off my apple, tearing at the seams of my lemon, destroying the fruits of some other’s labor. Worrying hopelessly about how this moment will be lost among all the others. He notices my disposition, and decides to distract me with sugary platitudes; he tells me how good I am, how my goodness consumes him. It only serves to validate my pain so I feel more comfortable wallowing in it. I can’t pick myself up again because he’s suffocating me with goodwill. Only when I flash my veneers and take a bite out of my fruit does he stop, resuming his conversation and forgetting completely about my dejection. He lives the life of someone who believes nothing is serious— of someone who’s never had to be serious for anything.

This is because he had been born to parents who were once hailed for their beauty and talent, and he learned this about them at a very young age from the people that stuck microphones and cameras in his face at the events he would attend without ever fully understanding what was being celebrated. He knew not of what they did but what came of that, the praise and humdrum and the careful way in which people addressed them in public; beautiful people, good at what they do. But what did they do? He did not know that part, and seemed entirely unconcerned by it. He was not curious, or ambitious, rather the regular Hollywood bred child who lived off IV drips of sunshine and silicone. He cared deeply for his cellophane world, cocktail parties under the pergola in his father’s backyard; dressing rooms with the skinny angels his mother called her co workers.

Sometimes he let me inside this world, but it was clear I didn’t belong. That world— the one he inhabited, the sort of things that set him apart from everyone else, I could never keep up appearances. I was also once promising, not too far away now but my memory convinces me otherwise. Too late I realized my success was transient, attempted to have my cake and eat it too. I soon found that there was no cake and I was only eating myself; I tasted of rock candy and tar. Hedonism is not a practical philosophy, now I am bedridden with an IV in my arm, but at least my sheets are Egyptian cotton.

In the end he smothers me in compliments, praise to make up for all my mistakes, just like how he was raised; every failure is to be ignored, to be masked by ego. He tells me he loves me, and I watch my reflection in his eyes, unable to repeat his lies back to him.

There’s this aversion I have to love, not the concept, just the word. I love to act on love, ponder it, write it in my songs, but never would I utter it aloud to anyone. Especially not when I mean it. I could allude to it in a thousand ways, with song lyrics or rose petals or ribbon. Could utter love in my thoughts and out materializes the most familiar of faces, one I know better than my own. But I could not say why I love, because nothing ever makes the same impact as it does in my head. My love deserves more than a fleeting utterance right before a sweet kiss. But I do, in fact, love. I think he knows that.

I feel it most impenetrably on days when I stand on California beaches, my feet in the sand, watching him ride waves and join them when he gets too cocky. The ocean prefers humility, a virtue he doesn’t possess. I will him to look over at me on the shore, but my heart must not be in it because he never does. He’ll stay out there forever if time allows, but time is never on anyone’s side, and the sun is setting over the horizon before he plants his feet on solid ground, wet and sandy and when he hugs me I writhe away and laugh. Loud and abrasive, free. He kisses my cheek, I whisper his name just to taste it on my tongue, lick the sugar off my lips. We drive home damp and content, our teeth bleached and blinding. I want to be with him every second of every day, I think that is not so unreasonable.

The next morning’s forecast calls for rain, hot fat drops that warm the sidewalk and make everything smell like vetiver. It shouldn’t last longer than five minutes, but it’s something. Feels exponentially important now that we’ve been going on nine days of dry heat. Sometimes I wonder if there’s any place on Earth closer to hell than Los Angeles.

We lie on separate couches in the living room of his Malibu beach house, starchy cotton sheets blanketing us, incense burning, sea breeze floating in through the slats in his bifold doors. It’s still hot, too hot to do much of anything. He puts on that record we both like, Morrison Hotel, Indian Summer, and wait for the rain.

I think I fell asleep, because when I lift my head again the sky is darker and the record has changed, The White Album. Most noticeably, he is off his couch, his sheets bunched up on the ottoman beside it. I smell it before I hear it, the vetiver. I blink away the sleep and rise slowly from my couch, the strap of my slip dress falls, I roll a shoulder and consider the wardrobe malfunction fixed. In the brief moments that he’s disappeared from my sight I find that I miss him terribly. Feebly I stand, my legs pins and needles, approaching the storm. I step into the threshold between the sunroom and the world outside. There’s no wind to carry the rain in, so I remain dry, but when I poke a foot out it’s like stepping into a hot shower. The patio steams and the pool water dances.

He appears at my side with a blunt hanging from his lips; rose petal paper, he’s always preferred them. He went through a brief stint where he favored honey, but it ended almost as soon as it started. He’s a man of his world, all wrapped up in his cellophane. 

He brings the roses to my lips and tells me about a party he wants to throw with all his fair weather friends, here, at his father’s concrete monolith on the hill. He enjoys parties, because he enjoys attention, he loves when the room converges around him and people sing him praises and shower him in compliments. I am selfish, and think my attention should be enough for him, and he should not need anybody else. I hide my ill temper by wordlessly stepping out into the rain.

He intimidates me sometimes, no matter how many years pass, there’s still moments where he feels like a stranger. Someone to impress. I am constantly trying to keep up appearances with him. He does it so naturally, whether it’s the real him or the birthright media training, it makes me jealous all the same. He notices my jealousy often, and is always quick to snuff it out before it marinates for too long. He tells me we don’t have to throw the party, but now I feel too coddled, so I tell him I will help plan.

The rain has long since gone away now, the heat is back but now it’s damp and everyone is sweating. The air smells like smoke and roses, like it always does when he’s around. He leaves bits of himself everywhere, perhaps it’s why he’s always with me, even when he’s not. Now he is, a drink in hand and laughter bubbling on his lips, but I find I miss him anyway. There’s things about him I miss even when he’s right beside me; his eyes, which are on me now and for that I am grateful, yes, but I was born greedy. And greed does not understand portion control, so I am insatiable. Eyes are not enough for me.

We always end up by the poolside after everyone else has gone home. Our sacred routine; him, I, this soapy pool under luminescence. Him with a blunt tucked between his fingers, me with an ache in my chest. He plays with his lighter, the glow of it shines his hair a thousand shades of blond. I try to count every strand on his head.

He’s covered in golden ink stains from earlier in the evening, when I was drunker and had a pen between my fingers and his hand in mine. The drawings are illegible, bleeding sharpie lines that make him gleam in the night. He is made God by moonlight.

 I can hear the ocean again, waves lapping on the rocks. His place always feels like a memory, even when I’m in it. I experience it like I’m looking back in time, and I never know how I’m feeling in that moment, in that now. I just know that the records always play and the air smells like roses and the ocean lulls on. And he is there, that is the most important part. 

Eventually we grow too tired, and I find my belongings in his bedroom. Nail polish: silver, half empty. A silk night dress hanging in his closet, next to his suits. Ribbon I used once to tie back my hair, satin ivory wrapped around his bedpost. A sample size of my perfume, salt air and fresh linen. He keeps it tucked in his bedside drawer, sprays it on his pillow when I’m away, for nights when he misses my skin.

He is not the only offender. I keep his things too: an old sweater that once belonged to his father. A pocket notebook he used to write his favorite song lyrics in, ‘Why is the bedroom so cold? You’ve turned away on your side’. He didn’t mean to leave that with me, but I read every page, made all the connections. There are words he is waiting for me to say, I am too caught up in his to interrupt.

I keep all his interviews in a shoebox under my bed, cliché, but I can’t help myself. My dreams are sweet because his words are so near, whispers on my lips as I recite them back to myself. Try to imagine what it’s like to be in his head.

I get into bed on my side, he pulls me over to his. I feel his slow breathing, the rise and fall of his chest. In bed we are equals, there are no expectations of us, no appearances to keep up, my vanity slips away in favor of holding him close. 

I might make him breakfast in the morning, his favorite, waffles with blueberries and a Piña Colada. I might take him to the beach so he can swaddle himself in the Pacific. I might fill his pool with bath soap and soak our heads under chlorine foam. 

I might say ‘I love you’, even, I think that finally it is worth it to say so.