The Seat Filler: A Novel Read online

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “I think this tastes like lemonade’s hardened older brother who has a full tattoo arm sleeve and a criminal record.”

  He laughed, but I did take another drink. It tasted better now. Maybe his laughter had done that.

  Or it was the alcohol.

  Probably the alcohol, which was warming my insides and making me feel very relaxed. It really had been a long time since I could afford such quality liquor. “So if this is supposedly your favorite, what is your actual favorite?”

  He leaned forward, a gleam in his eyes. “If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone. It would ruin my street cred.”

  “I’m pretty sure you don’t have any street cred, but I promise not to tell.” With my free hand, I made an X across my chest. “Cross my heart.”

  “So I went to Hawaii, trying to vacation.”

  “Trying to vacation?” I couldn’t help but interrupt. “How does that work?”

  “My agent wanted me to relax, but it didn’t work so well for me. I’m one of those people who needs to be doing something, working, or else I get in my own head, and that’s not good. Anyway, I went down to the hotel bar the first night, and the bartender recognized me and gave me their house special. It was a piña colada.”

  I gasped with joy. “Please tell me you drank it out of an actual pineapple and that a tiny pink umbrella was involved.”

  He held up one hand, as if telling me to slow down. “No, it was in a regular glass. I didn’t want it, but I tried it just to be polite. But it was literally the best drink I’ve ever had. I kept ordering them and then had to be helped back to my room.”

  That made me laugh, and some detached part of my brain wondered if it was a little too loud.

  “Whenever I’ve ordered them anyplace else, they’re never as good. And if anybody saw me drinking it . . . my reputation would be shot. Our captain once said that real men drink whiskey sours, so . . .”

  “So that’s what you drink in public?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t really drink in public because of that whole thing with my parents. The last thing I would need is to be out of control where somebody could take a picture of me. But it’s what I drink when I hang out with my army buddies.”

  I took another drink. It really was improving with familiarity. “Do you see them very often? The guys from your unit?”

  “My company, not my unit. I’m one of the few bachelors in the group. So they’re busy. I’m busy. Our lives are pretty radically different, but we do try to keep in touch via email and text. It helps with the guilt.”

  “The guilt?” I questioned. “Why would you feel guilty?”

  “From leaving them early. I really struggled with it in the beginning, and it still flares up from time to time. That I was pretending to be a warrior in movies while they were actually fighting. Logically, I understand that it wasn’t my fault and things just happen, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling what you feel.”

  If anyone knew that you couldn’t stop feeling what you feel, it was me. And this was actually a really good drink. Why had I thought it tasted bad before? “You did what you were supposed to do.”

  “I know that, but it’s like getting cast in a part, going to all the rehearsals and all the fittings, and working with your director and castmates. Then it’s opening night and it’s time for you to go onstage, but you’re the only one who isn’t allowed. You’ve put in all this time and effort, but you don’t get to see any fruits from your labors.”

  “You sound like you miss it.”

  “I miss a lot of things about it. The structure, the discipline, how everything had meaning and purpose. I miss my buddies the most.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. “And back to your guilt thing, you didn’t ask to get blown up and sent home. And I hope those friends tell you that.”

  “They’re some of the best men I’ve ever met, and yes, they’ve done their best to help mitigate my guilt. They’ve been some of my biggest cheerleaders and encouraged me to keep making movies and helping veterans out. But if I’m being honest, I’m the one who envies them. They’ve shown me what I’m missing out on.”

  “The white picket fences and family?”

  “Yes.” He took a long drink this time, nearly finishing it off. “Speaking of family, you should tell me about your parents.”

  “That was a very smooth transition,” I assured him. “Not at all awkward.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Why do you want to know about them?”

  “Finding out about someone’s parents makes you understand them better. What makes them tick.”

  I had another quick drink. “And you like understanding people better?”

  “It’s kind of my job. Plus, I want to get to know you better, chum. Also, I told you all about my dysfunctional parents.”

  That was true, and it seemed only fair that I do the same. “Well, Dr. Freud, my story is fairly boring. I’m close with my mom, who was pretty much a single parent my entire life. She and my dad got divorced when I was two years old.” My glass was nearly empty, which seemed very sad to me.

  “Why did they split up?”

  “Mostly because my father was a player who wasn’t ready to settle down and then cheated on her. I also think it had something to do with my older sister dying as a baby. From SIDS,” I added before he asked how. The few people I’d ever told about my sister always asked how it happened. “I think I was supposed to replace her and it didn’t really work that way. Sometimes when I was younger, I used to blame myself for not being enough. Not filling her shoes so that he would want to stay with us. But he slept around and that, understandably, ended things.”

  “I’m sorry. I had an older brother who died.”

  Before I could stop myself, I totally overreacted. My eyes flew open wide, and my mouth hung down slightly. “You did? I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “How would you?”

  Right. I wasn’t supposed to have any knowledge about him or his family. I tried to compose myself, because I was not behaving normally. I might have been a bit buzzed. “What happened?”

  “He had cerebral palsy. He died from pneumonia when I was four. I only have these vague memories of him. And sometimes I wonder if they’re actual memories or just photos I’ve seen that I’ve transformed into memories. I sometimes think that’s why my parents were so focused on me, because they’d spent so much of their time caring for him and they just transferred all of that to me.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I’m glad you have some memories of him.” Now I understood why it was important for him to visit sick kids in private.

  “Yeah.” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “But we were talking about you, not me. Are you close to your dad?”

  “Not really. He moved to Arizona and got remarried and has a new family, new kids. I just wasn’t ever very important to him. I mean, sometimes he emails or texts. When he remembers he sends me birthday and Christmas cards. I have half siblings I’ve never met. His wife is super into social media and I’ve found it’s painful to see pictures of their happy family, so I stay away from it. But that’s not the only reason I stay away from it.”

  Wow. Had I really just said that last part out loud? I hadn’t meant to. Or maybe I’d just imagined it. It was currently hard to be sure.

  I was guessing it had been completely internal when he took the tumbler from my hand and put both of our glasses on the floor. “I’d offer to get you another one, but you might have to drive home later.”

  Wait. Had he said “might”? Or did I imagine that, too? I was a tiny bit tipsy, and in the past I had misinterpreted things people had said when I was drunk. Like the time a woman in college said to me, “I like your shirt,” and what I’d heard was, “You should come over here and pour your beer on me and scream in my face because you think I insulted your clothing.”

  So, I could have misheard him.

  “Are you goin
g to ask your parents to help you out financially?” he asked.

  “Nope, it’s fine. I got a job today. I’m going to dog sit Mrs. Kravitch’s dog for the next two weeks. You and I are going to be neighbors! Do you know Gladys?”

  A look of disgust curled the edges of his mouth. “I know Mrs. Kravitch. Rhymes with—”

  “Hey,” I cut him off. “Be nice. I like cantankerous old ladies.” I planned on being one someday.

  “She’s the lone holdout on the HOA board and is the one keeping me from getting my fence for Magnus.”

  Oh. I hadn’t known that. “Maybe I can talk to her when she gets back.”

  “I already tried laying on the charm. It didn’t work.” I had a hard time picturing that such a thing could be true. I mean, I was only barely resisting it, and he wasn’t even really trying with me. I tried to picture what it would be like if he focused his full-blown charm on me, and I imagined it would probably be a little like walking out onto a darkened stage and having a bright spotlight beamed right into your eyes.

  Gladys was a stronger woman than I’d given her credit for.

  He rested his arm across the back of the couch, and it reminded me of us being in the car together last night. But this time, instead of feeling afraid that he was going to make a move, I found it oddly appealing. And wondered what he would do if I laid my head against his forearm.

  He had really nice biceps. Did he know that? He must, since he obviously worked out to have them.

  “Thank you,” he said with a grin.

  Oh crap, that part had definitely been out loud. It seemed that my inhibitions had been lowered without me realizing it. “You know you have good genes. I already told you that.”

  “You did,” he said with a smile. “So, is your father the reason you don’t date?”

  He was a little like a dog with a bone, wasn’t he? But I found myself only slightly annoyed. “No. You’re not going to give that up, are you?”

  “It just doesn’t seem fair to deprive the men of this great city the opportunity to date you.” He thought he was so adorable, didn’t he?

  To be fair, he was.

  That feeling I had last night was back. That Noah Douglas was trustworthy. Considering all he’d told me about his life and his family, it was clear that he kept his own secrets locked up tighter than Fort Knox . . . Wouldn’t he do the same for me? And maybe if I said the words out loud, to somebody else, it wouldn’t feel like this ridiculous, terrible secret. I might find relief saying it.

  I mean, it was so dumb. What I’d been carrying around was stupid. And the accompanying panic attacks were even dumber. He was going to think I was ridiculous. How could he not when I already did?

  I knew it was supposed to be a bad idea to tell him, but I couldn’t think of a single reason why. He was my friend. My good friend. And very, very, very trustworthy.

  “I am trustworthy,” he agreed.

  Okay, I was definitely tipsy, and all the things I thought were just inside my head I was apparently saying out loud. Maybe that was a sign that I was meant to say them. Meant to tell him. My mom was a big believer in signs, and I’d always dismissed them. Maybe I shouldn’t have.

  And he was just my friend. That was the boundary we had agreed on. So there wouldn’t be any temptation to make it more, right?

  “Do you have secrets?” I asked.

  “That’s the thing that’s hard about my life—when someone’s interviewing you and you’ve developed this rapport, there’s this constant struggle between opening up and giving everything away but wanting to keep something for myself. I live in this twilight kind of world where my ability to do my job relies on my ability to be human and live a regular life, but I can’t do that. I’m always straining for normalcy and settling on what I can get. It’s one of the reasons I read. I get to experience so many different parts of humanity through stories and plays that I wouldn’t get to otherwise.”

  “That’s a long-winded way of not answering my question.”

  He laughed and said, “There are parts of my life I keep private from the press and the public, but they’re not secrets. I think a real secret, something I had to guard from everyone in my life, would be too hard for me to keep. It would weigh me down.”

  That’s how I felt. Weighed down. And I didn’t want to keep feeling that way. Did that mean I was going to confess? My mind was a little muddled, but this seemed like the right move. I needed a moment to decide without him possibly overhearing my brain talking to itself. “I’m thirsty. Could I have some water?”

  “Yeah, absolutely. I’ll be right back.”

  I’d never even come close to telling anyone else. I thought about things he’d said to me, how he’d joined the military to have a life that was more authentic, more real. Was I guilty of not being my truest self because I kept something like this a secret? Normally it didn’t consume a lot of my mental or emotional energy because I stayed away from attractive men and just lived my life.

  Until I didn’t.

  Until I ended up on the couch of a movie star that I was desperately attracted to, and maybe the best way to make sure that I didn’t have a full-blown meltdown in front of him was to tell him the truth so that he’d see why we had to stay just friends.

  Although, to be fair to Noah, he was so . . . compassionate. Empathetic. He’d been nothing but respectful toward me. And I didn’t think he’d make fun of me. Because he was a mature adult who had really lived and had his current life together. He wasn’t a frat boy or a high school football jock. Perhaps someone who had devoted his career to understanding the human condition would be understanding toward me.

  Maybe it would be cathartic. Liberating.

  He came back in the room and handed me a water bottle. He’d poured himself a bowl of cereal.

  Cold fingers of fear wrapped themselves around my spine, and I tried to temporarily distract myself. I was going to do it, but I was afraid, and my body was trying to buy some time to convince my mind it should choose differently. “You’re eating again?”

  “It happens all the time. I eat a ton of cereal. I don’t really ever feel full.”

  If I had been looking for a sign, there it was. That connection of “we’re the same” sparked again. He would get me. He already did.

  My heart pounded so loud in my ears that I felt light-headed. I breathed in deeply and realized that my limbs were shaking. I wanted to stop feeling this way. So I was going to tell him and get it all out.

  “I want to tell you why I don’t date.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Okay.” He kept eating, which surprised me. It felt like such a monumental occasion that it deserved him putting down his food and giving me his full attention. Or maybe this was better. He wasn’t staring at me, which would have made this worse.

  “You can’t laugh,” I told him. “If you laugh, I am walking out your front door and I’m never coming back. I’m serious.”

  He swallowed his mouthful. “I won’t laugh.”

  “Promise me.”

  Now he was the one making an X over his heart. “I promise.”

  This was it. I was going to do it.

  Swallowing back that nauseated feeling that was growing in my gut, I said, “I don’t date because . . . I’m terrified of kissing anyone. Like, just the idea of doing it makes me freak out. The times I’ve come close have caused full-on panic attacks.”

  There. I’d done it. I’d said it out loud, and despite my body telling me otherwise, the world hadn’t ended. I let out a shaky sigh of relief as the adrenaline started to fade away.

  And in the same moment, Noah coughed and sprayed milk out of his nose.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Sorry. That just went in the wrong way.”

  “More like it came out the wrong way,” I said, trying to lighten things up. Because other than hosing down his couch with two percent, he hadn’t responded, and his reaction seemed desperately important. But instead of letting h
im speak, I had to keep going, nervously. “I had that happen with a Twix bar once. That tasty cookie layer really hurts when it’s coming out of your nose. Then I smelled chocolate for, like, three days. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

  He hadn’t laughed. He might have turned into a milk sprinkler, but he hadn’t laughed. I at least had that.

  “Does that mean you’ve never kissed anyone?” he finally asked.

  “Not technically, no. Is that so hard to believe?”

  I could seriously almost hear the record-scratch sound as we descended into awkward silence.

  “It’s unusual. Which is why you heard disbelief in my voice. But that doesn’t mean it’s, like, a bad thing you should be ashamed of,” he said, putting his bowl down on the floor. “Does that mean you’re a virgin?”

  Heat rushed to my cheeks, bringing out my inner snark. “Of course not, because in between all the being terrified of kissing I was hooking up constantly.”

  “No, right. That makes sense. Sorry. I just need a second to wrap my head around this.”

  Now I was annoyed. “People can be virgins.”

  He held up both of his hands for a second, like he was trying to ward off my anger. “I know! That’s not what I . . . Sorry, I’d never considered that this might be your deep, dark secret. Being scared of kissing. And what do you mean, you’ve never technically kissed someone?”

  Might as well give him the full story. I took one of his throw pillows and put it in front of me, like a shield. “When I was fourteen, I was the only one out of our friend group who hadn’t been kissed, and it was really embarrassing. Everybody except Shelby used to tease me. So at Anna-Marie’s birthday party, they all decided that it was time for me to get kissed. And they announced that we were going to play Seven Minutes in Heaven.”

  His eyebrows furrowed.

  “Haven’t you heard of that game?” I asked.

  “I didn’t have a normal childhood, remember? I’m assuming it’s a kissing game.”

  “It is.”

  “Why is it seven minutes? That seems like an arbitrary amount of time.”