Page 5 of Bloom

“So you want me to not respond at all?” I sigh.

“Yes,” he says. “Just wait for it to die down. These things usually go away on their own, as long as you go away with them.” I’m psychic, I mouth to my mother.

“Fine, so I won’t say anything. But I can at least look for an internship somewhere else, right?”

“Eleanor, I don’t think you’re grasping what I’m saying. The last thing you need is to be anywhere near a TV camera. In fact, you shouldn’t even stay in town. Go someplace where no one knows you or will recognize you and stay there until school starts. And do so silently. Don’t even use your real name.”

We hang up, and my mother — again — looks relieved. What the hell? “Go to the beach with Ginny,” she says. “It’s the perfect solution.”

I feel depressed and elated at the same time. I really need to intern this summer, but a small part of me is doing a wee victory dance, picturing a montage of me and James holding hands on the beach and saying meaningful things to each other as we watch the sun set.

“I guess I thought maybe you might need someone around,” I tell her. “For moral support.”

She laughs. “You don’t need to worry about me.” And I have to admit she doesn’t look like a woman whose husband just publicly humiliated her. She looks, in fact, happier than she has in a long while. I feel oddly disconnected in time, as if I’ve landed somewhere in the future where it makes sense that so much could have taken place. Where it makes sense that my abandoned mother could be so blissfully happy. And that she could want me to go away. The world is moving too quickly, and it makes me want to go to bed and wait for it all to slow down.

Chapter 4

It’s not a long drive — about three hours, most of it in Maryland. On the way, Paulina, the lead producer for “Tonight with Edward Ferris”, calls. I let it go to voicemail — I’ve had enough threats from that office for one week. Oddly enough I don’t spend the whole drive thinking about my internship. While I have brief moments of anguish as I consider the past two days, I spend the bulk of that three hours thinking about James.

The boy I remember doesn’t exist anymore. He’s an adult now, and I’m sure he’s changed. But the boy I remember was beautiful, and I’d stared at him so long and so hard that I could sculpt his face with my eyes closed. The blade of his cheekbones and his nose, the slight swell of his upper lip, the long lashes so at odds with his hard jaw. His eyes reminded me of the tea that used to steep on their back deck, a honeyed brown shot through with sunlight.

I spent as many hours as possible at Ginny’s house, largely for the thrill of watching him come home at night. There was always something so focused and certain about him, a sense that no matter what was going on around you, if you were with him it would all make sense, feel safe.

He was left in charge of us, occasionally, when the nanny had to go. He watched “The Princess Bride” with us one night, begrudgingly at first, and then with reluctant laughter. I looked over at him … at his tawny skin and his easy smile and the way his eyes crinkled up when he laughed, and thought that no movie hero could hold a candle to him. There was a character in the movie who kept insisting things were “inconceivable”. For years afterward, James made a point of saying “inconceivable” to almost anything I told him, just to make me giggle. I’d always respond with the movie’s follow-up line: “I do not think it means what you think it means” and he would laugh too. It felt like a small victory, pulling that laugh out of him.

I stop just outside of Rehoboth to clean up, and am slightly appalled by myself. My career is shot. My family is all over the paper in the most embarrassing way possible, and everyone thinks I’m sleeping with a married guy my father’s age. But what am I doing? I’m standing in the Royal Farms bathroom wondering if James Campbell will think I’m pretty.

“This is so silly,” I tell my reflection in the mirror. “He’s probably not even that cute.”

The house is only a block off the beach, slightly run-down but nicer than I expected for a beach share. It’s owned by James and Ginny’s parents, who used to rent it and long ago decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. I think it was the summer that someone took a dump in each of the dresser drawers, in every room of the house. Or maybe it was the year someone spray-painted “keep the deposit” on the living room wall.

I knock on the door, and no one comes, though I hear a surprising amount of noise inside. I should have asked Ginny precisely how many housemates we have. I ring the doorbell, and still there is nothing. I open the door tentatively, hoping against hope that I’m at the right house. The house is swarmed by 20-somethings holding red plastic cups, so at least I’m not interrupting a bar mitzvah or wake.

“Hellooooo, beautiful,” says the first guy I see. “Welcome to the party.”

“Hi,” I say. “I’m looking for Ginny? Ginny Campbell?”

“Ginny!” he shouts, over the crowd. “My future wife is here looking for you!”

Heads turn, but I recognize none of them. I stand there awkwardly, wondering if this kind of party is an everyday event here. If it is, I may be heading back to DC.

“Elle?” screeches a voice, and then my best friend is rushing across the room toward me, beer sloshing from her cup as she runs. “You’re here!” she squeals. Ginny is small and fair and has delicate features — almost in direct contrast to her personality, which is large and loud. I used to wonder if she or James was adopted — physically they couldn’t be more different.

She asks about my drive and if I’ve eaten and where my bags are without waiting for an answer, all the while dragging me across the room. She opens the sliding glass door and pulls me toward the keg.

“Hey boys!” she shouts. “Your new roommate has arrived!”

Four heads turn, but I’m only looking at one.

He wasn’t a fantasy. He wasn’t some figment of my 14-year-old baby hormones. James Campbell is 100% as beautiful as I remember. Only now, he’s grown-up hot. Steamy hot. A head taller than any guy at the keg. Tan. His brown hair already turning light with the sun, his eyes just as striking, as impenetrable, as they were.

His brows come together. “Elle?” he asks with disbelief.

“Hi James,” I say, sounding shy despite strenuous efforts not to.

“Hi,” he says, but his tone is remote, as if he doesn’t understand why I’m here.

I turn to Ginny. “He knew I was coming, right?” I ask under my breath.