After years of graduate school and slave hour work and wages, I decide to take an entire summer off. I will use the time to visit different locations around the country and pick a new place to live. And I will say yes to everything. All of my life I have been great at saying, “No, Thank You,” and it is time for this Bartleby to be that easy.
So I enlist my favorite cousin, Emily to accompany me and act as my personal assistant. She has nothing better to do and agrees to join me on the Connecticut to Chicago leg of the trip. My sister in Chicago greets us with deep-dish pizza and beers and throws a giant party the next day. But we can’t stay because Chicago is way too cold a place to live. Emily, enjoying herself thus far, decides to try out the Denver leg as well. Our friends welcome us in Denver with more beer and live tunes and we think, “we can live here.” But we continue our journey to Los Angeles and when we arrive we know instantly Denver is out.
It is one AM and I do not want to call my summer landlords for the key at this hour so Emily suggests that we stay with a friend of hers until morning. He is awake and gracious, offering us his bed, a shower and a party the next evening.
The party is incredibly fun and at about eleven-thirty, wearing a solid buzz, I walk into the living room and my life changes. There, near the DJ station, in an otherwise empty room, I see a sexy boy playing the drums to the beat. He looks up, right at me and I look right back, hard. When enough time has passed, I turn around, walk out of the room, find Emily and tell her we need to leave immediately because I am completely turned on by a boy at the party that I just eye-fucked and I can’t possibly get any cooler. She understands and we take off.
For the next few weeks I hope to run into him, but that is not my luck. Just over a week before I am to begin my return journey home to the East coast (but resigned, for certain to move to Los Angeles for good in one year), I am invited to another party at Emily’s friend’s house. I am thrilled for the invite and happily attend, but have trouble concealing my disappointment when the drummer doesn’t show.
After dinner, we are talking about my years as a lounge singer in NYC and my new friend says he’d really like to hear me sing. I tell him that I’d be happy to sing for him if he finds me a piano or guitar player and he says, “My friend Mr. Jazzy plays the jazzy guitar.” I ask him to introduce me later and I walk out onto the porch, nearly into THE DRUMMER.
“I’m Mr. Jazzy,” he offers his hand, assertively and I know he is not going to let me get away.
“[Redacted],” I respond, accepting his offer. “The Mr. Jazzy who plays the jazz guitar?”
He laughs, “No, I don’t play the jazz guitar.”
“Oh, well my friend just told me that Mr. Jazzy plays the jazz, actually jazzy guitar. Is there another Mr. Jazzy I haven’t yet met?” I look around and have already met everyone else at the party.
He laughs again. “I think he was just trying to make me look cool.”
My heart is pounding out of my chest. The next few hours are spent in that heavenly one-on-one conversation that everyone at the party knows better than to interrupt. We talk about hanging out again/going to a movie and I suggest Thursday, but he tells me he is going camping and I know I am leaving a week after. When he realizes his friends have fallen asleep waiting for him, he takes my number and excuses himself to drive them home.
A few days later, I receive an invite from our mutual friend to go camping. And I agreed to say yes to everything, so I call my cousin Bryce and tell him I am going to need a tent and a lesson on how to set it up. By Thursday I am a professional camper (one of the many benefits of going to college for so long is that I can tolerate studying for almost anything).
The first night is relaxing, as we drink Jameson around the campfire and retire to our separate camps. It is so scary to retreat alone, but I know it will be worth it once everything clicks. And things are starting to fall into place. I can feel the tension – it can’t be long – perhaps he will try and sneak into my tent.
The next day we all hike to the waterfall. And then there were two. Was there a secret call on which everyone else was in? And he asks me if he can kiss me. I say no. Too much drama. But he insists and I know, out in the middle of the Sequoia National Forest, the most beautiful spot of nature that I’ve ever seen, that my resistance will wear easy. He tastes like truffles.
We spend the next few glorious hours beneath the waterfall and I store every last image of it in my thoughts for the painful year ahead. My brain escape has always been the beach in Aruba, but now it is here, among nature and the most sensitive, needy and delightful boy I’ve ever known.
When we return to the city, I am changed. I’ll probably never hear from him again, but Mr. Jazzy has cast his spell and cleared the space I need to decide to become the woman I want to be.
When he texts me a day later, I cry. I’m not sure I can handle him in real life and his purpose has been served, but I so enjoyed him and I am still saying yes to everything, so I spend the next two days in additional bliss and smile most sincerely when he asks me if he can make me coffee before I leave to drive back to Connecticut. I need a man who wants to make me coffee in the morning. I need a man who likes to see me smile. I smile all the way back to Connecticut.
We keep in contact until late January, texting and sending each other small gifts in the mail, when I hear he’s taken up with someone much younger and resign that it is his path. It stings that someone so totally attractive isn’t meant for me, but I’ll never deny him any happiness as I fully credit him for guiding me to reprioritize where I need to be and reminding me that it is really fun to be with someone who is nice and wants to make me happy, even if it isn’t forever.
I see him in Los Angeles occasionally and though he now loves a rock star’s daughter and we don’t make an effort to see each other outside of our comfortable friend group, every time I catch a glimpse of the mischief in his eyes (and often when I just think about him), my body heats up as I am fantastically transported right back to the waterfall.
