Sometimes I'll listen to a really good album or watch a really good movie, and the thing it most makes me want to do is write a story somehow inspired by it. So when I heard 'Tis the Damn Season from Taylor Swift's new album, it was an impossible idea to resist. The story below is not perfect by any means (sorry, that's just my obligatory perfectionist writer disclaimer), but I thought I'd share it anyway. Even if it did somehow end up being over 5,000 words long...
Elmwood
I was running late to the party, probably to no one’s surprise, and found myself shutting the front door of my mother‘s ‘08 Honda on the empty street at half past nine. The usually dim street lights looked especially bright against the backdrop of the clear, black sky. The morning’s snowfall had already seeped halfway into the dirt, and the icy slush was loud beneath my feet as I made my way down the sidewalk. Loud for a night like this. But maybe not for a street like this one.
Elmwood Street had always been a thing of folklore here. They used to tell stories about it when I was in school.
Mr. and Mrs. Jameson owned the large house at its center, and their two sons and three daughters each owned a smaller place somewhere along the road. Perhaps it was because of the close proximity to each other that everything the Jamesons did was fraught with drama and relayed through gossip. Everyone in town knew about the eldest girl’s affair before her husband finally caught them. And everyone was there when the blond son crashed his brand new Porsche into the twenty foot gazebo by the town square. The only normal one of the family was Mr. Jameson, supposedly, but then, he was a quiet, somber sort of man. Probably better at guarding his secrets than the rest of his clan.
My friends and I used to drive down Elmwood when we were bored, pointing at the houses and craning our necks for a view of the closest thing our town had to celebrities. The only one we really ever saw was Mindy, daughter of the eldest Jameson son, but she was two years ahead of us in school and always surrounded by a group of pretty friends or boys who literally followed her. The rest of the Jamesons were ghost-like, popping up here and there out of nowhere, then retreating to the refuge of their comfortable homes. They were mysterious and infamous all at once, and they defined our town, in a way, until the day they quit it six years ago.
It happened in the same year I left, but weeks later so I didn’t get to see it. One by one the houses were put up for sale, and then one by one away they went, to Europe or New York or wherever. Something must have driven them away, but Lexi, the only high school friend I’d kept in touch with, said they obviously went looking for me, driven mad with boredom when I left because I’d been the only interesting thing about the place. Of course she was exaggerating to have her fun. There had never been anything interesting about me, at least not while I still lived here.
But things were different now that I’d been in L.A. for so long. People made something out of you when all they saw were carefully worded social media posts and all they heard were stories about your auditions and booked commercials (no doubt circulated by my mother, never mind the fact that there were only two commercials, and I got cut out of one). Every time I came back for the holidays I could feel people looking at me, and it wasn’t just because I’d developed a case of Californian narcissism.
Wasn’t that why I was invited here tonight, to the old house of the Jamesons, now owned by Owen Adams, quarterback of our high school class? Lexi was the one who told me they wanted me to come, and by them I guess she meant Owen and his thin, younger wife, who I’d never even met before.
But everyone would be there tonight, Lexi had said, though when I asked about our old friends she said she wasn’t sure they’d been invited. It was mostly going to be the old sports teams, the cheerleaders, the theatre kids—a big deal at our school, actually, and yet I’d never found myself among them—and a few others (Lexi included) who were well liked because they got along with everyone.
So here I was, party dress and all, crunching through the sodden snow, and hating the fact that I’d let Lexi convince me to RSVP via email yesterday morning. Funny how when your dose of teenage popularity finally arrives at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, it’s more unsettling than it is welcome.
I rang the doorbell once, shifting my weight from one uncomfortable heel to the other until the door flew open. A brunette woman I’d never met before looked me up and down, a half empty champagne flute in one hand, a small gift bag in the other.
“Diana,” I said, before remembering she wasn’t a bouncer and there was probably no physical guest list. I cleared my throat. “I mean, hi. I’m Diana Stevens. You must be Alaina Owens?”
At the sound of her own name, Alaina’s skeptical expression vanished, instantly replaced by the smile of a perfect hostess. “Yes. Of course. Diana. So glad you’re here.” I was sure, by the way she said it, that she either had no idea who I was or desperately wanted me to think so.
She held the door wider for me. “Come on in.”
I followed her into a grand foyer, completely coated in rich mahogany, and it suddenly struck me that for the first time ever I was in the Jameson mansion. I wondered if the Adamses had renovated any of it when they’d moved in, or if they’d left it untouched in hopes that some of the magnetic allure of its last owners might rub off on them. I wouldn’t have touched a thing either if I’d bought it, but only because it had always seemed so old and regal on the outside, and I had no doubt its insides matched.
“Can I take your coat?’ Alaina’s voice beside me almost made me jump, which was stupid, because I’d known she was there a moment ago.
Always so lost in your head. The familiar thought flashed through my mind as I handed Alaina my coat and the wine bottle I’d brought for a hostess gift. It took me a second to remember that the thought was once a voice. A voice whose owner I saw for the first time in years just hours ago.
At least he wouldn’t be here tonight. There’s no way he would be, because Lexi would have warned me.
“Everyone’s already in the dining room,” Alaina told me as she hung my coat in the small closet beside the doorway.
A subtle jab at my lateness, probably. Perhaps if she’d known why I was running so late, she wouldn’t have felt it appropriate. But how exactly did you work the hour you spent trying to calm your mother down from a panic attack over your father’s remarriage announcement into casual conversation?
I suppressed a sigh as I made my way through the tall corridor on my left, following the muted laughter and conversation at its other end. The paneled walls were bare save for one large family photo.
Alaina, Owen, and their two sons, neither of whom could have been older than ten. It would have been a good spot for a photo, except that it wasn’t the sort of photo that belonged in such a hallway. The family was standing somewhat awkwardly in front of Cinderella’s castle at DisneyWorld, scores of tourists surrounding them. The harsh shadows created by the bright Florida sun only made the whole scene more surreal against the walls’ deep mahogany paneling.
No, not the right place for that sort of photo at all. I would have put a landscape painting there instead, and kept Disneyworld’s tourists out of it.
Not that I was going to tell Alaina that.
Finally, we reached the end of the hallway, which opened up into a massive living room. Unlike the dim corridor, it was so brightly lit that I had to resist the urge to shield my eyes at the contrast. Surely they must have renovated this room, because there was no way the Jamesons, who’d been well into their sixties when I left, would have spent hours in a living room like this one.
It wasn’t that it was ugly. In fact, most people would have called it beautiful.
Bright white walls on all sides, and a chandelier half the size of a small car hanging from its ceiling. Winding staircases stood at either end, their steps and banisters also white. The entire room, really, was white-washed. The cream colored sofas were decorated with white throws and pillows. The coffee tables were white with silver trimmings. Even the Christmas tree at the back of the room was the same color, which made it blend in so much that at first I hadn’t noticed it. It was too much white for my liking, but I was also aware that this was what people considered modern. This was how people designed their homes in L.A. too. Especially those who were new to their millions.
“Wow,” I told Alaina, who’d come to a stop beside me by the couches. “Did you guys remodel?”
“Yes.” She beamed as she pointed out some of the changes they’d made—as I’d guessed, there were a lot of them—and when she was finished, we moved on finally to the dining room. It was there that the laughter and voices were coming from.
I felt a familiar tightness in my chest as we approached them, then chided myself for mentally returning to high school. Ridiculous that I should be nervous about facing a bunch of old classmates at once. Hadn’t I stood in front of hundreds of merciless casting directors?
But my feigned courage vanished quickly when we finally reached the room, and I took in the amount of people here. Most were in the dining room, sitting or standing behind the especially long table, which had been set but had no food on it yet. But there were even more people in the kitchen, sitting on stools behind the appetizer-covered island or surrounding the breakfast table by the window. I should have known a house like this would have had a kitchen like that one. Bigger than my entire L.A. apartment.
I was still holding the white elephant gift I’d brought and turned to ask Alaina where I could place it, mostly to avoid the curious glances already turning toward me, but she’d already left me, and was halfway toward the kitchen.
There was no way I was going in there though, packed with people as it was. Instead I wandered further into the dining room, looking for Lexi, until I finally spotted her on the other side of the table.
She caught my eye after a moment and tossed me a smile. But before I could wave, her attention returned to the slender man in front of her, who I couldn’t recognize with his back turned. I watched the way she laughed at something he said, and wondered if things were really as wonderful with her fiancé as she always made it sound over the phone.
“Diana?”
I turned at the sound of my name to see a thin girl with curly hair and large glasses smiling at me.
My mind scrambled as I tried to place her, but thankfully she saw the panic on my face and helped me.
“Jane,” she said, her smile never faltering. “I don’t blame you for not recognizing me. I’ve lost quite a few pounds since high school.”
Jane Stewart. The name came to me, as well as the many memories of her sitting beside me in one homeroom or another. Her last name was right after mine alphabetically, so we’d often been seated together in classes and ceremonies. We hadn’t been close, but friendly enough as being always placed together required. I specifically remembered the way she’d shrugged off her graduation robe after we walked off the stage, letting it fall to the ground with the words, “good riddance, high school.”
Those might have been the last words I’d ever heard her say.
“Of course,” I said, trying to remember the last update I’d seen on her Facebook. I was coming up blank though. She wasn’t on it much. “Jane. You look great.”
Though really, she always had. With her blue, almost violet eyes and thick, dark curls - the kind that took hours to fake if they weren’t natural like hers were. There was something else I remembered about Jane. Something I couldn’t really afford to think about, because it would remind me of someone else. All roads really did lead back to him in this town, didn’t they? Exactly why I’d spent so long trying to avoid it.
“Thanks,” she said. “So do you. I love your dress. You’re always so fashionable in your Instagram photos.”
Right. I almost forgot we followed each other there too. Her account was for her photography business though, and she really only posted photos of her clients every now and then. But I latched onto that, because, well, that’s what you do when the small talk calls for it.
“Only because I have to be, trust me. But speaking of photos, you’re amazing at them.” It was strange and unsettling how, despite meaning the words, I felt so fake saying them. But there was no time to analyze my perceived lack of authenticity at a party. I’d learned that lesson years ago. “You’re still doing weddings right?”
“Oh yeah, every now and then. But I’ve been trying to get into travel photography more. My husband travels a lot for work, and it’s a good way for me to join him.”
I hadn’t even known she was married.
Our conversation went on like this for a while, and eventually I knew enough things about the present Jane Stewart that it stopped feeling as forced as these conversations always did. In fact, it was nice to talk to someone like her. Someone who I didn’t feel was sizing me up like they had in high school. Someone who seemed genuinely interested. She fell into the camp of people everyone had liked in high school, though I knew, of course, that there’d been a few particularly vicious people who hadn’t.
The problem with even these kinds of conversations in this town though, was that one way or another people always brought up my acting career. And for someone who was supposed to want fame, I did a really bad job of coming to terms with it when it appeared here. The truth was, I’d take fame anywhere but here. If everyone in this town collectively wiped me from their memory, I’d be fine with it.
Everyone but one person, right? I gritted my teeth. Not the time, or the place, to be having thoughts like those. Really, what was wrong with me? It was as if seeing him, even if it had been only for an instant, had triggered the whole lot of them.
At least it took Jane Stewart a whole five minutes to get to the acting thing. That was somewhat refreshing.
“So I hear you’re our town’s claim to fame now,” she said, and I fought back a grimace, because despite not having much going for it, I doubted this place wanted to be known for the girl who had trouble finding the right sensitivity toothpaste on that March Madness commercial.
“God, no,” I said. And I was going to tell Jane the truth, which was that my acting was generally confined to small theater productions that never saw the lights of a camera. But before I could, something shifted at the doorway, and reflexively, I glanced toward it.
It was funny, almost, how I’d expected to lose my breath again the next time I saw him, just as I had at the deli parking lot six hours ago. But instead, my only reaction when he appeared at the doorway was to drop my gaze back to Jane’s and continue our conversation.
And yet even that one look at him was enough to make a full assessment. The same knit green sweater from earlier, but paired with a new black scarf. The same dark wash jeans too. Were they the same ones he’d loved in high school? Obviously not. But they could have passed as them. His hair seemed darker under the soft dining room lighting. And his smile... Well, that was the same way it always was.
Though I didn’t miss a beat in my conversation with Jane—we were discussing the play our theater program had put on during our senior year—I also didn’t—couldn’t—miss a moment of him. It was as if I could feel him moving down the room, could see him smiling and nodding at people as he passed. He was a bit of a hometown celebrity too, after all, having moved back here just months ago after years of living in London. But unlike me, he’d always known his move was temporary. He and his mom headed up there when his sister’s husband passed three and a half years ago. Then earlier this year, they came back.
They came home, he would have said, because if there was anything I knew about Wyatt it was that this place was his home, and it always would be. It was where all the memories of his father lived. It was the place he loved most in the world, the one place where he knew he belonged. These were all words he’d said to me which I could never forget, much as I’d tried to, because I’d spent so long trying to convince him away from them. But it hadn’t worked. Just like his attempts to get me to stay hadn’t either.
And now here we were, seven years later, collecting the glances of our classmates from opposite ends of the room. The difference was that he could handle it, while I—obviously—couldn’t. Everyone loved Wyatt. Everyone had always loved Wyatt. Because with Wyatt, you always knew what you were getting.
I was trying to ignore these thoughts as Jane and I talked, as a few others joined us, and as Lexi finally came to meet me where I was. I was more grateful for her distraction than anything. If anyone knew that I needed to stay away from Wyatt at all costs, it was Lexi.
“You okay?” she said to me, as the rest of our group discussed the immensity of the Jameson—Adams now?—mansion.
“Of course.” She’d brought me a glass of wine, which I now took a liberal sip from. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re really asking?”
I sighed. “Did you know?” I couldn’t risk finishing the sentence with that he was coming, because someone might overhear me.
“I swear I didn’t. I would have warned you.”
“I know.”
“I thought he’d gone back to England for the holidays, actually,” Her voice was so low now that I caught Jane shooting us a curious glance. “I hadn’t seen him around much.”
“Well, he’s definitely not in England,” I muttered.
“And you’re not in L.A.”
For a brief second, I almost wished I was. But the ache in my chest told me otherwise. It was an ache that was getting harder and harder to ignore.
A few minutes later, Owen and Aliana addressed everyone, letting us know the food was ready. They’d ordered catering from Micah’s Barbeque, everyone’s go-to spot back in high school, for the sake of nostalgia. This really was a glorified high school reunion, wasn’t it? Except Owen had gotten to carefully curate the guest list, so he wouldn’t have to see anyone he didn’t want to.
Smart of him, really. I should have given him more credit in high school.
Lexi and I found a spot at one end of the table, and I sat with the awareness that Wyatt was almost at the opposite end. Good. No chance for awkward glances. No chance for any glances at all. As the food was served—by an over dressed catering staff that I thought must definitely not have been from Micah’s—I almost forgot that he was even in the same room. I let myself get lost in conversation with Lexi and Stephen, the guy she’d been talking to, who was apparently a friend of Owen’s and no one we knew from high school.
After dinner, there was dessert, and then we all moved to the living room for the promised game of White Elephant. I set my gift down by the sprawling pile beneath the huge white tree. But before I headed back to find Lexi, I saw Wyatt setting his haphazardly wrapped one at the tree’s other end.
We caught each other’s gaze for a moment, and I almost said something. Hi. Or, how are you? Or even, it’s good to see you again.
But the words were stuck in my throat. Before I could force them out, someone said his name, and he turned away from me. I wouldn’t know if he turned back, because I was gone back to Lexi’s side before he got the chance to.
The next time I saw him he was sitting in one of the chairs that had been brought from the dining room, right next to Jane Stewart. There wasn’t much I could do not to remember that afternoon anymore, seeing them next to each other like that.
Suddenly it was as if we were back on that empty country road, laughing as we piled into Wyatt’s truck after Jane stuck a note to her windshield. Wyatt and I had been on our way to the drive-in theater at the edge of town when we’d come across Jane sitting in her car on the side of the road, out of gas and low on cell phone service. We’d driven her to the nearest gas station and back, even though that meant we’d had to park at the very back of the field for the movie. And it was there, in that field, in his truck, that Wyatt first told me he loved me.
I did my best to shake the memory away, focusing on opening the slip of paper Lexi had handed me.
23. Though, with over 50 people here, I wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
The game started off slowly enough. The first six people all picked out a present from under the tree. It was the seventh, Maia Alvarez, who stole Ashely Cardinal's Starbucks gift card. By the time we got to 20 it seemed like everyone wanted to steal something for the sake of it. Though, honestly, I wasn't sure most of the gifts were worth it.
There was only one that I wanted, which had been stolen once already. A thick, brick colored blanket, that would look perfect thrown over the couch in my living room. Even blankets were expensive in L.A., so I might as well take advantage of it.
But by the time it was my turn, the tone of the game had shifted. Olivia Cabot had been number 22, and she'd gone to the tree for a new gift. As luck would have it, she unwrapped a Patriots baseball hat and coffee tumbler. A hush settled over the room as she did, and I knew we were all thinking the same thing.
If there was one thing Olivia Cabot was known for, it was for being one half of our class's high school sweethearts. She'd married Ryan a year after graduation, then followed him to Philly when he got drafted by the Eagles. A few years later they moved back to town and had a pair of twins, blue-eyed and dimpled. It was a small town fairytale, until about a year and a half ago, when it fell apart without a warning. The divorce got so messy that even I heard its most gruesome details from L.A., relayed to me by my mother and Lexi. There were rumors that he'd cheated, that she'd thrown him out overnight, and that the custody battle got so heated it took months and several lawyers to sort everything out. Owen had had the good sense not to invite Ryan tonight, thankfully. But there was nothing anyone could do to take back the fact that Olivia had opened probably the worst gift she could have chosen.
I already knew this moment would be repeated through town for weeks to come. Poor Olivia. Unlucky in love and white elephant games.
For her part, Olivia set the items down on the coffee table in front of her as soon as she'd opened them. Owen cleared his throat, and called out for number 23 immediately.
I stood up, deliberating for a moment.
I could take Olivia's Eagles gift, but then everyone would know why I did it, and maybe that would just embarrass her further. Better to just move on. Besides, what was I supposed to do with an Eagles tumbler and man's baseball hat? It wasn't like I had a boyfriend to give them to.
So I went for the blanket instead, setting off another long round of gift stealing. No one dared touch Olivia's gift, instead sticking to the coffee gift sets and small kitchen appliances.
Two people went after that, and then it was Wyatt's turn. Wyatt, who I knew hated the Eagles. Who had told me several times he thought they were the worst team in football. And yet it was Wyatt who walked right up to Olivia and asked for that hat and tumbler. She gave it to him with a grateful look in her eyes, then stood up to take something new from under the tree.
Wyatt sat back down without a word, placing the stolen gift at his feet.
I watched him remain completely engrossed in the game, as satisfied as if he'd genuinely wanted that present. As if he intended to use it. And I knew it was the worst thing he could have done, taking that gift. Not for himself, because I'm sure he'd just toss it into the trash can.
But for me. Because all it did was remind me that he was, even all these years later, still the same Wyatt I knew. Kind to the point of self sacrifice. Quietly considerate, but never willing to take the credit for it.
I let my eyes drop to the textured blanket in my hands, the spoils of my conquest. It was just a game, I know, and I’d been the one to play it the way it was meant to be played. But even in a game, he was who he was. And I was the only person I knew how to be.
In the end, no one took Wyatt's gift from him, probably because no one wanted to put Olivia through any more awkwardness. The game ended and other games started. Someone put throwback music on in the background, and people shuffled in and out of the kitchen on their way for more drinks. I stuck around for half an hour, letting Lexi drag me around from conversation to conversation and trying as best as I could not to look for Wyatt. But by midnight I was ready to be done with the whole thing, craving the comfort of a bed, and the silence of my childhood bedroom.
I said goodbye to Lexi, then to Owen and Alaina, and a few other people I'd talked to. I didn't even dare look Wyatt's way, but I did catch myself walking slowly on my way to the entrance. A strange sort of anxiety settled over me as I pulled my coat over my shoulders. Half desperation to stay—to talk to him, to hear his voice at least—and half an urge to get out of here as fast as possible.
I followed the second impulse, ignoring the part of me that wished I wouldn't. But before I could shut the front door behind me, someone stopped it. It opened again slowly, and there he stood, looking at me.
I let go of the door handle, and Wyatt stepped out onto the front step beside me, shutting the door quietly behind us.
"Hi," I breathed. I wasn't sure what the expression on my face must be. Relief, or fear, or resignation.
“Hi,” he said, his voice low but clear in the quiet of the night. “Don’t worry. No one saw me leave behind you.”
“I wasn’t worried,” I said, and the hammering of my heart confirmed it. I wasn’t worried about that. I was worried about why I wanted you to follow me.
Wyatt smiled, the knowing kind of smile that found a trace of humor in my answer. “Well, maybe you should have been. People like their share of rumors in this town, you know.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I know.”
His smile faded, but the warmth in his eyes didn't.
And I knew then, just like that, that I’d been wrong about what I imagined he thought of me for years. He didn’t hate me. He didn’t resent me. He had once, I knew, and he’d had every right to after the way I left.
But he didn’t anymore.
That was the thing about Wyatt. You could always read how he felt in his eyes, as long as you knew how to pay attention. He was transparent in that way. Every bit as open as I was closed. As fearless as I was guarded.
"Eagles, huh?" I said, trying to keep my tone light.
He shrugged. "I'll find something to do with it." Then he slid his hands into his jacket pockets, glancing away from me. "I saw you at the deli earlier. Thought I’d seen a ghost for a moment.”
“I didn’t die,” I said softly.
“I know. In fact, I’d heard you were in town. I just didn’t believe it.”
“Until you saw it for yourself?”
“Until I saw it for myself.”
“Well, I’m here. In the flesh.”
“So you are.” He glanced down at his shoes. “I haven’t seen you in five years, you know. Unless you count the toothpaste ad.”
“I don’t. And I know. I remember.” It had been five and a half years, actually, since the last time I saw him, before earlier today at the deli. I’d flown into town for my mom’s birthday to surprise her, but despite my attempts to lay low, had soon been guilted into going out to eat with her and dad. They were still together then, though I hadn’t realized until years later how bad things had already gotten.
We’d gone to Leah’s, mom’s favorite place, and one of my least favorite in the world. It was like a smaller, dingier Luby’s, and it always reminded me of lazy Sunday afternoons. The kind where you’d finished all your homework and were desperate for something to do that might dispel the boredom that pervaded every inch of this town.
But I’d gone, of course, because my mom had wanted it. I would’ve refused if I’d known he would be there though, eating with his own mom in a booth by the corner. It had only been two years then. Two years since I walked away from him at the bus stop. But in that moment it felt as if it had only been a week. He must have felt it too. I could see it in his eyes. In the way they studied me—my freshly cropped hair, then a shade lighter, and my new, trendier clothes—and in the way they fell from my face immediately.
“I wanted to say hi to you.” His voice was so low now that I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “That day, and earlier at the deli. But I also didn’t want to have to say goodbye again.”
And yet he’d followed me out here now, when he’d been so close to avoiding it.
I looked at him and wondered if he felt it too, even after all these years. That magnetic pull that had always been there, even when there’d been an ocean between us. I wondered if John Mayer songs reminded him of me the way Zeppelin always reminded me of him. If he ever passed Dairy Queen and remembered the day we’d spent hours in one of its parking lots, eating our weight in blizzards and listening to the radio broadcast of our school’s championship football game.
Neither of us said anything for a moment, and I shifted my weight from foot to foot, my perpetual nervous habit. There was so much more I could say to him—so much I should say, probably—and I knew there must have also been things on his end. But perhaps it was the stillness of the night that kept us quiet. Behind us, the muted sound of laughter and conversation continued from the mansion. But the street in front of us was silent. And for a minute or two, so were we.
It was Wyatt who finally spoke again, with a question so simple I didn’t see it coming.
“Can I walk you to your car?”
The right answer - the only answer - was no. No, thank you. It was great to see you, but I really should be going now.
I said the words in my head, and they were easy enough there. It was from my head to my mouth that they disappeared, along with the resolve I’d clung to for years. The same resolve I boarded that bus with. And the resolve I used to convince my mom to spend the holidays with me in L.A. the first three years after I moved there.
So instead of speaking, I did the only thing I could do.
I nodded.
We made our way wordlessly down Elmwood's famous sidewalk, and I knew, even as I walked beside him, that I was heading somewhere dangerous. But for the first time in seven years, I couldn't find it in myself to care anymore.
This was Wyatt, after all. Wyatt, who knew me better than anyone. Wyatt, the one person I'd always known I might lose it all for.
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