Page 20 of Counting the Days

He wanted her to put on the two most comfortable, least flattering items she owned. She looked at her beloved cozy-mornings-on-the-deck outfit with horror. Her feet were crunched into silver torture devices, toes longing to be stretched out, heels aching to be firmly on the ground; they screamed up at her,Listen to the man! Put on the flat boots!But she could not wear a wide, comfortable shoe in front of a cute guy she barely knew.

“Please? Trust me,” he said.

—

As Danny drove his electricFord pickup truck through the canyon, with Rhea wrapped in her wool coat on the passenger seat next to him, he could not help but feel like he had just committed some sort of crime. He thought of his father gruffly telling his mother what to do and prayed he had not come across anything like that man.

He would have felt guilty letting Rhea be cold, but he also felt guilty suggesting what she should wear. He didn’t know if his intense desire to take care of women was something he was born with or some kind of psychological defect that developed throughout his life, but being a man in the modern twenties, it was a trait he constantly grappled with.

Women were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, he knew that, so why did he have such a burning desire to take care of them? He judged himself, hoping it was not some buried need to infantilize them he’d inherited from his controllingfather. Holding open the door for a woman or making sure she got to her car safely felt like a misdemeanor. Accidentally ordering for her at a restaurant or telling her to wear a coat felt like a felony.

To add to the list of offenses he had already committed that evening, asking Rhea to cover up her body definitely should have been illegal. Her curves were ripped from the pages of his fantasies: round and inviting hips, generous cleavage bursting out of that ridiculously small dress, and he asked her tocover it all up?

He was reminded of a moment in adolescence, in the cafeteria, when Molly Brenna was taking off her sweatshirt. Her T-shirt clung to her sweatshirt, so when she pulled the outer layer up, the inner layer came with it. The entire population of Long Beach Middle School held their breath and stared at Molly’s filled-out bra, some with envy and others with lust. Molly had developed early and was often the subject of conversation in both the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms.

Without thinking, Danny jumped out of his seat and told Molly to put her arms down. He spared her further humiliation but invoked the wrath of many of his fellow students who had been enjoying the view. Growing up with three sisters made him sensitive to the hardships of being a girl. He had not wanted Molly Brenna to be humiliated, and he did not want Rhea Darby to be cold, which meant he had to step into the shoes of a hardened criminal, tell a woman what to do, and sacrifice a stunning view.

But it was not just her body; everything about Rhea intrigued him. She was funny and odd—his favorite combination. He could not predict her next move, which put him off balance in a way that made him feel alive. After the baby shower, he wanted to reach out to Tiny and get Rhea’s number, but whenthey parted ways, he couldn’t tell if she was just using the group photo as an excuse to end their conversation.

He scolded himself when he saw her name on the schedule, scolded himself for not making the first move. Also being a child of the prehistoric eighties, he too had been brainwashed into wrongly believing men were genetically predisposed to initiating romance…and modern men had to do that without being aggressive or forceful. He felt he now had to make up for a deficit in his manliness…and he had to do that without being controlling or toxically masculine.

The truth was, he had not reached out because she intimidated him, the way she dressed, her sense of humor, her abundance of thick, curly hair that spilled over her shoulders and down her back, reminding him of some kind of pagan witch. Before meeting Rhea, he didn’t know he had a particular fetish for witches, but when she was showing him around and making jokes about her dying yard, he imagined her dancing naked under a full moon and decided witches were the sexiest creatures on earth.

He looked over at her, trying to read whether she also thought he should be convicted. There was always the possibility that she liked being taken care of. Depending on who was observing him, Danny was either Prince Charming or Al Capone. He knew Rhea had not enjoyed covering up her dress or taking off her metal shoes and putting on the boots, but she had been good-natured about it, and he hoped the evening he had planned would make it up to her.

—

Rhea also hoped the eveningDanny had planned was worth her bulky outfit. She had never before gone on a first date dressed as a sheep. Oddly enough, adding layers of clothing made herfeel stripped down and vulnerable. Her carefully curated outfits filled her with a sense of control.

A surprise, last-minute outfit change was almost more than her anxiety could handle. She played it off as best she could, but she believed men were like crows, deeply attracted to flesh and shiny things, and although the man next to her had requested she cover her flesh and remove her shiny things, she still feared he might lose interest and fly away.

Danny turned right onto the Pacific Coast Highway, which meant he was taking her to Malibu. Rhea scrolled through a mental list of every restaurant in Malibu, trying to figure out which one had a particularly “soft” floor, but her list was cut short when he abruptly turned left into the Topanga Beach parking lot.

There were no restaurants on Topanga Beach; it was just a small strip of rugged coastline with a lifeguard station. The sun was almost below the horizon as they got out of the truck, and Danny removed a large gray bag from the truck bed, only adding to the mystery.

“What are we doing here?” Rhea could not stop herself from asking.

“You’ll see,” he said as they walked toward the aging cement stairs that led to the shoreline.

Most beachgoers were standing near their cars, wiping sand off their feet or preparing their sleepy children for the long drive home. Rhea and Danny had to make way for a surfer carrying his dripping board up the narrow steps. Some braver surfers, who possessed no fear of what lurked beneath the quickly darkening waves, were still floating in the water, unable to resist the swell.

As Rhea and Danny walked across the sand, she reluctantly felt grateful for her flat boots.

“Well, you weren’t lying. The ground is soft,” she said, and he smiled.

She felt a little silly. Even with the very large clues of the Pacific Coast Highway and “soft” ground,sandhad never entered her head. Eventually, Danny stopped walking and looked at her.

“So…I had an idea. And I hope you like it.”

He unzipped his bag and removed a Pendleton blanket. He spread the blanket out and motioned for her to sit. Also from the bag, he pulled out a bundle of firewood.

“Are you…gonna build a fire?”

“That was the plan.”

“Is that legal?”

“We’re gonna find out.”