“It’s fine,” he said, moving beside her to examine the contents of the pantry. He pulled out a nearly empty box of crackers and a can of tuna. “We’ll have a smorgasbord. A little of this and a little of that.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning against the sink. “We probably should’ve gone into town. I can’t believe I’m feeding you stale crackers.”
“Are you kidding?” he said, sweeping an arm around the room. “Not just anyone gets to eat at Chez O’Neill. I’ve heard this is one of the most exclusive establishments in Maine.”
“That’s true,” she said with a grin. “We only cater to A-list celebrities.”
They rummaged through the refrigerator, spilling everything out onto the counter and then standing side by side as they assembled the meal, a random assortment ranging from microwave popcorn to apple slices, two leftover pieces of pizza, and some frozen peas. What looked less than appetizing went right to Bagel, and the rest made it to the kitchen table, where they arranged the dishes in front of them as if it were a buffet.
“So,” Graham said as he pulled out a chair. “Did you ever figure out if you’re doing that poetry course?”
Ellie looked surprised at the question, and he smiled, because it was the same way he’d felt when she mentioned his drawings earlier, like she’d plucked the thought straight out of his head. She stood on tiptoe to grab a bowl from a high shelf, and when she turned around again, she nodded.
“I’m going in August,” she said, but there was a catch in her voice. “I’m pretty excited about it. They have this one professor there that—”
“So you figured out how to pay for it?” he asked, and Ellie went stiff. She turned her back to him again, dumping a partially empty bag of tortilla chips into the bowl. Already, Graham was regretting the question. When they’d talked about this over e-mail, it had been so easy for her to tell him these things, but something had shifted now, and the question no longer felt quite right in person.
“Not exactly,” she said lightly. “But I’ve got another month or so to figure it out.”
“How much more do you need?” he asked, and she looked embarrassed.
“Enough,” she told him, her face coloring. There was an awkward silence, and Graham realized his mistake. Part of him had wanted to rescue her, to swoop in with the money she needed, but he could see now that this would only make it worse. And by bringing up the issue of money so casually, he’d managed to remind her again of who he was: not the boy on the other end of the e-mails, but the movie star who was sitting in her kitchen. He could feel the easy rapport between them turning brittle, and he cleared his throat as she set down the bowl of chips, desperate to change the subject.
“This looks good,” he said, and he could see her shoulders relax. “I’ve never had fortune cookies with chips and salsa before.”
“Well,” she said with a slow-blooming grin, “we’re on the cutting edge of the Chinese-Mexican fusion movement here at Chez O’Neill.”
“I like it,” he said. “Three stars.”
“What?” she said, sitting down across the table from him. “Only three?”
“That’s the most you can get, I think.”
“That doesn’t seem like a lot,” she said. “I’d prefer ten.”
“How about two thumbs up?”
“Now you’re confusing this with the movies,” she said, licking some peanut butter off her finger. “Speaking of which, how’s it going?”
“The movie?”
She nodded.
“Okay,” he said.
“You don’t sound very excited about it.”
“No, I am,” he told her, reaching for an apple slice and popping it into his mouth. “It’s nice to be doing something different. And the director’s really… interesting.”
“Think you’ll work with him again?” she asked. “I mean, you must get your pick, right?”
“I guess,” he said. “But I haven’t figured out what I’m doing next.”
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“Something that matters.”
She tilted her head to one side, considering this. “You mean something that matters to you?”
He nodded. “Hopefully.”
“You’ll know it when it comes along,” she said. “But it must be kind of fun to be playing a new character. I saw the trailer for the first movie, and there was that part where—”
Graham sat forward. “Wait,” he said, laughing. “You only saw the trailer?”
Ellie reached for her water and took a sip, hiding behind a blue plastic mug that was emblazoned with a smiling whale.
“You never saw the movies?”
“Well, the third one isn’t even out yet,” she said, setting her mug back on the table and picking up a fortune cookie.
“Yeah, but the first two?”
She shrugged. “Quinn tried to drag me to the first one, but it’s not really my kind of movie.”
“I thought every teen girl in America was obsessed with them,” Graham said, amazed. It had been an embarrassingly long time since he’d met someone who hadn’t seen those films, or at least pretended they had.
“You’re thinking of you,” Ellie corrected. “Every teen girl in America is obsessed with you.”
He laughed. “So I take it you’re not a big Graham Larkin fan?”
“I am now,” she said, cracking open the fortune cookie. She drew out the little strip of white paper with a frown, then laughed. “It says: You will receive a fortune cookie.”
“No way,” Graham said, and she passed it over so that he could look for himself. “That’s the best fortune ever.”
Ellie took a bite of the cookie. “Well, it’s the most obvious, anyway.”
“Most fortunes don’t ever come true,” he said, shaking his head at the tiny scroll. “But this one already did. I mean, would you rather have a fortune that promised you a delicious cookie and came true instantly, or one that promised a million dollars and never came true at all?”
“At the moment, I think I’d take a million dollars,” she said, brushing the crumbs off the table so that the dog, who was beside her in a flash, could finish it off. “The cookie wasn’t nearly as delicious as advertised.”
“Bagel seems to disagree.”
“His palate is similar to that of a vacuum cleaner,” she said, looking down at him fondly. “So are you ready for your scene tomorrow?”
He shrugged, but it wasn’t very convincing.
“I bet you were supposed to be learning your lines instead of hanging out with me all afternoon,” she said, leaning forward on her elbows. “Do you know them?”
“More or less,” he said, folding a piece of pizza in half. Bagel, who had taken up a new post beside him, thumped his tail a few times, and Graham tossed him the crust. “I’ve been carrying them around in my pocket all day, so I’m hoping there’s been some osmosis action.”
“I’m sure all the great actors rely on osmosis,” she said, then reached a hand across the table. “Can I see? We could practice.”
Graham sat back in his chair. “It’s okay,” he said, suddenly embarrassed. Acting on set was one thing; acting in front of the girl you liked was another. He wasn’t about to get into character in front of Ellie. “I’ll be fine.
“Come on,” she said, bobbing her outstretched hand. “It’ll be fun.”
“Fine,” he said, sitting up to pull the folded papers from his back pocket. “But I’m not doing it for real, okay? Just running the lines.”
“I don’t get to see the full Graham Larkin effect?” she teased, taking the section of script from him. “I guess I’ll just have to stop by the set tomorrow.”
“You’ll have to be a pretty good swimmer then,” he told her. “We’re gonna be filming out on a boat.”
“Okay, Ahab,” she said, studying the lines on the page. When she looked up again, her face seemed somehow different; her lips were pouty, and she was looking at him from underneath her eyela
shes. She tossed her hair in an exaggerated way, and it took Graham a moment to realize where he’d seen the gesture before: she was mimicking Olivia.
“Not bad,” he said, but he was also relieved when she dropped the act and examined the script one more time with a more familiar expression.
“Okay, here we go,” she said, clearing her throat. “ ‘Where are you going, Jasper?’ ” She stopped and looked up with raised eyebrows. “Your name is Jasper?”
He shrugged, and she continued.
“ ‘Come back!’ ” she shouted with a melodramatic flourish, loud enough to cause Bagel to lurch up, his collar jangling, his head cocked to one side.
Graham reached down and gave him a little pat. “That was great,” he told Ellie. “Not at all over the top.”
“I never said I wasn’t doing it for real,” she pointed out. “Your line.”
“ ‘I need to be alone right now,’ ” Graham said in a flat voice to underscore the fact that he wasn’t really playing along. “ ‘I just need some time to think.’ ”
Ellie tilted her head to one side. “I know I’m not an expert, but I’m betting you could do it with a little more feeling.”
“Everyone’s a critic, Bagel,” he told the little dog, who whined at him in sympathy as Ellie turned back to the script.
“ ‘You have no idea what you need right now. You have no idea—’ ” She paused there, her eyes still on the page.
Graham honestly couldn’t remember what came next. He’d planned to study his lines later in the hotel room, and his call time wasn’t until noon tomorrow, so he’d have the morning too. He’d memorized whole scenes before with less time than that to spare.
“You’re supposed to kiss me,” Ellie said, looking up at him with an unreadable expression. Graham’s stomach dipped, and he stared across the table at her, unable to formulate a response. The room was quiet except for the ticking of the clock above the stove and the soft breathing of the dog, and it took a moment for Ellie to shake her head. When she spoke, her voice sounded very bright. “It’s in the script,” she said, pointing at the page without taking her eyes off Graham.
He nodded quickly. “Right,” he said, blinking fast.
“You’re supposed to kiss me,” she said again, then blushed and held up the crumpled papers. “I mean, Olivia. Or—” She glanced at the words. “Zoe. Really? Jasper and Zoe? Who writes this stuff?”
She was back to examining the script now, but Graham wasn’t really listening. Her words were still rolling around in his head: You’re supposed to kiss me.
She was right, of course. He was supposed to kiss her. He was supposed to kiss her just a little while ago, when he arrived at the house. He was supposed to kiss her earlier today on the beach. And that day in town. And that first night, right outside on her porch.
Suddenly, it seemed there were about a million times he was supposed to have kissed her, even without the benefit of a script, even without any sort of direction. Almost without thinking about it, he placed his hands on the table and scraped back his chair. It wasn’t until she smiled at him that he realized he was smiling too.
“I think it’s important,” he said as he stood up, “to follow the script.”
“Yeah?” she said, her smile widening.
But a light swept across the darkened windows above the sink then, disappearing briefly before landing squarely in Graham’s eyes again. He stepped aside, blinking, and when he turned back to Ellie, she was up and out of her chair.
“Shoot,” she muttered. “She’s home early.”
“Who?” Graham asked, feeling disoriented. A moment ago, everything had been in slow motion, and now it was as if someone had yelled “Cut!” and the spell was broken. I was supposed to kiss her, he thought, and the whole evening felt suddenly like a song that had been switched off before the last bars had played, leaving only a wrenching sense of incompleteness.
“My mom,” Ellie was saying as she cleared the table. “She must not have been a fan of the book.”
Outside, the headlights went out, and Graham could hear a car door slam. Bagel went trotting over to the back door, and a minute later, Ellie’s mom appeared, her face tightening when she noticed Graham standing there in the middle of her kitchen, his hands in his pockets.
It had been a long time since he’d met someone who looked at him with such open suspicion. In his old life, he’d been great with parents; he was a nice kid, charming enough to win over most anyone. And in his new life, he’d gotten used to people falling all over themselves in an effort to please him. But the way Ellie’s mom was eyeing him now, with a peculiar kind of mistrust, was something entirely new.
Graham shifted from one foot to the other and attempted a winning smile, which seemed to have no effect whatsoever.
“I thought Quinn was coming over,” Mrs. O’Neill said to Ellie, her eyebrows raised as she dropped her purse on the kitchen counter.
“There was a change of plans,” Ellie mumbled. “You remember Graham, right?”
Mrs. O’Neill nodded, but didn’t offer a smile. “Nice to see you,” she said, though she managed not to make it sound that way. “Enjoying Henley?”
“Yes,” Graham said, biting back the “ma’am.” “It’s lovely here.” He cleared his throat and dropped his eyes to the floor. He’d never used the word lovely before in his life.
“And how long are you all in town?”
“Another few weeks,” he told her. “But I wish it was longer. It’s really a lovely place.” He coughed, his face hot. It seemed impossible that he’d just said the word lovely twice in under a minute. “Actually, I just invited my parents out for the Fourth,” he said quickly, feeling himself begin to ramble, but unable to stop. “I thought they’d like it here too.”
From across the room, Ellie gave him an encouraging smile. “That’ll be fun,” she said. “How long will they be here? We could give you some ideas of stuff to do while they’re in town.”
“Probably four or five days,” Graham said, thinking even as he did just how unlikely that was. But he felt suddenly desperate for it to be true. “My dad and I are pretty into fishing, so we’ll probably do that for some of the time.”
“Sounds like fun,” Ellie said, casting a glance at her mom. “Well, it’s late…”
“Yeah,” Graham said, taking a step toward the door. “Yeah, it is.” He gave Mrs. O’Neill an awkward little wave. “Thanks so much for having me.” Then he turned to Ellie, smiling at her from what felt like a great distance, even as he wanted nothing more than to cross the room and finish what they’d started. “I’ll see you”—he was about to say “tomorrow,” but thought better of it—“around.”
And with that, he was sidestepping the dog on the way to the front hallway. Even as he made his way out the door and onto the porch, he was surprised to hear them begin to argue, their whispers drifting through the screen, harsh and raspy and much too loud.
Outside, the night had cooled off, and he stood there for a moment, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Maybe she was one of those mothers who didn’t want her daughter spending time with boys. Or maybe it was just that they’d been alone in the house after dark. Or that she’d had a bad day. But whatever the reason, Graham knew it was best to make a quick exit, and he took a deep breath before stepping quietly off the porch.
He was almost to the end of the driveway when he heard the screen door bounce shut behind him, and then the sound of Ellie’s bare feet on the pavement as she ran to meet him, shaking her head as she approached.
“I’m sorry—” she began, but that was as far as she got, because Graham couldn’t wait any longer. He leaned in, his lips meeting hers, which tasted faintly of peanut butter, and he closed his eyes, and he held her by the shoulders, and he kissed her.
It was exactly as he’d thought it would be, like the first time and the millionth time all at once, like being wide awake, like losing his balance. Only this time, it wasn’t just him; this time, they we
re losing their balance together.
From:
[email protected] Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 10:43 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: Re: if you get lost…
I’m glad you didn’t get lost.
Ellie woke to the smell of pancakes: a peace offering. Ever since she was little, this was all it took to signal the end of a fight. She and Mom had never argued very often, but when they did, it was a strictly nocturnal affair. The unspoken rule was that the next morning was a clean slate, and all of it—the dirty looks and the sharp words—would be left behind, leaving only heart-shaped pancakes in its place. The best kind of truce.
This morning, however, was different. Mom stood at the stove in her flannel pajama pants as usual, a cup of coffee in one hand and a spatula in the other. But when Ellie slid into her seat at the table, Mom only tossed her a thin smile before turning back around again.
It was Ellie’s fault for cutting short their argument last night. By the time Graham left, she’d been vibrating like a tuning fork, shaking with anger over her mother’s behavior.
“You can’t just be rude,” she’d whispered, once she was certain he was out of earshot. “It’s not his fault. I was the one who invited him over.”
“Without telling me,” Mom said, glaring at her. “I have no idea what you’re doing hanging around with some teen heartthrob in the first place—”
“Mom,” Ellie said, flushing.
“You know what’s at stake here, and yet you deliberately go behind my back—”
“We were just eating dinner,” she said, raising her hands in exasperation. “And the reason I made him come here is so we wouldn’t get caught by any photographers in town. So it’s not like I’m—”
“If you don’t think they’ll find out anyway, if you don’t think everyone will know in about two seconds, then you’re even more out of your league than I thought.” Mom put two fingers to her temple like she had a terrible headache, and then let out a slow breath. “I mean, do you even know this guy, Ellie?”
“Yes,” Ellie said, her voice low and fierce. “I know him. I do.”