And then she was gone.
It was probably just a moment of panic. He was probably overreacting. But still, Graham couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been walking away from more than just the crowds and the cameras.
The sun had already set behind the steeple of the church when they docked for the second time, but the day was far from over. They were scheduled to shoot another scene outside one of the local bars this evening, and as he crossed the road toward his trailer, Graham could already see the enormous lamps being set up, a small oasis of artificial twilight on the otherwise darkening street.
A production assistant was calling to him from across the lot, but he wasn’t needed on set for another twenty minutes, so he kept his head down, pulling his phone from his pocket as he walked. He scrolled past e-mails from his agent and publicist, his business manager and a girl he’d met at the gym before leaving L.A. But there was still no word from Ellie, and as he bounded up the steps of his trailer, he hit the call button, listening to it ring. He was already assembling the message he would leave if she didn’t pick up—something casual and upbeat to hide his growing worry that she hadn’t responded to his e-mail—but when he opened the door, he was pulled up short by the sight of Harry, who was sitting at the small table inside. He lowered the phone again, fumbling to switch it off.
“Who was that?” Harry asked, setting aside a sheaf of papers.
Graham didn’t answer. He reached into the mini fridge for a bottle of water, then sat down opposite his manager.
Harry smiled, but it was a smile with a warning inside it. “The redhead?”
Graham tipped his head back and took a swig of water, his eyes on the ceiling. When he’d finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, in a voice that didn’t entirely sound like his own, “What redhead?”
“C’mon,” Harry said. “Everyone saw you chasing her earlier.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You’ve got to cool it with these locals.” He leaned back in his chair and scratched the back of his head. “You think I haven’t seen this happen before? You get out of L.A., and suddenly there are a thousand girls screaming your name—”
“It’s not like that.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” Harry said, though he didn’t sound convinced. “But the point is, this isn’t the right moment for you to suddenly turn into some kind of skirt chaser.”
Graham snorted. “When is the right moment for that kind of thing?”
“I’m serious. We’re at a crucial juncture here, and your image is important. I don’t need you out with a different girl every night.” He pulled a tabloid from beneath the stack of papers on the table in front of him, sliding it over to the edge. “Just one.”
Graham regarded it warily, surprised to see a glossy photo from yesterday’s shoot. It had been taken during the moment when he first lifted Olivia for the big kiss, the two of them still in motion, eyes shut, arms entangled, a moment that could easily be construed as more than just acting when taken out of context. The caption below read: “On-screen chemistry or real-life romance?”
“Nice work,” Graham said, letting it drop.
Harry beamed. “It’s why you pay me the big bucks, remember? Though you’d make my life a whole lot easier if you’d stop chasing the redhead and just take Olivia out to dinner one night.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s your job to make my life easier,” Graham said, standing up from the table. He reached over to toss his water bottle into the overflowing garbage can beside the fridge, and then, for good measure, sent the magazine flying in there as well. “And she has a name, you know.”
“What is it?”
But Graham was already out the door.
In the street, the set had come to life again. After a disappointing day out on the water, there was now an undercurrent of energy to the place, everyone moving with purpose, animated by the idea of a clean slate and a fresh scene.
It was almost fully dark, with only a pale smudge of pink along the edge of the water. A block away, enormous lights flooded the sidewalk in front of the bar, the site of Jasper’s unraveling, and Graham knew he should be turning his mind to the scene ahead. But he paused to slip his phone out of his pocket one more time, anxious to see whether there was any word from Ellie. Instead, he was surprised to find a message from his mom.
Up ahead, a wardrobe assistant was waving him over. But Graham made no motion to follow her, pausing to cup a hand around the glowing screen of his phone as he read. His eyes skipped over the words: a string of excuses, a list of previous plans for the holiday weekend, worries about air travel and the cost of the trip, suggestions that they might be out of place with his “movie friends” anyway, apologies and promises to make it up to him when he returned to California.
In spite of all this, it still took a moment for the full weight of the message to become clear to him.
They weren’t coming.
He should have expected it. There’d been no reason for him to think their answer would be anything but no. Still, it wasn’t until he lowered the phone that Graham realized—against all logic—he’d actually been counting on seeing them.
The wardrobe assistant was now standing before him, and she cleared her throat loudly. He glanced up, feeling a bit dazed. She was short and round-shouldered and at least ten years older than Graham, but she was still looking at him with a kind of awe, as if he were doing her a great favor by finally acknowledging her.
“They’re ready for you,” she said, and he nodded, tucking the phone back in his pocket, his face carefully neutral.
Even later, once his costume was on and his hair was gelled and he’d been deemed camera-ready, he wore a similar expression, a well-maintained blankness, a way of making room for someone else entirely: Jasper and his problems, Jasper and his thoughts, Jasper and his complicated feelings for Zoe.
But the rest of it was still there too, just below the surface: Graham and his problems, Graham and his thoughts, Graham and his complicated feelings for Ellie. And so much more: his reluctance to see Olivia, his annoyance with Harry, his disappointment with his parents, his impatience to get this whole damn scene over and done with so that he could find Ellie, the one sure antidote to everything else that was crowding his head.
They finished shooting early. But this time, it wasn’t because of the weather, or the lighting, and it definitely wasn’t because Graham couldn’t conjure up the right combination of emotions. In fact, as soon as they’d wrapped for the day, as an army of workers emerged as if from nowhere to begin breaking down the set, Mick walked over and clapped him on the shoulder.
“That was some pretty intense stuff,” he said. “Think we could see that kind of thing again tomorrow?”
Graham’s laugh was rough. “I’ll see what I can do.”
But what he was really thinking was this: He wanted just the opposite. He wanted calm. He wanted Ellie.
On the way to her house, he tipped his head back to gaze at the wash of stars above, which had been wiped out by the klieg lights on the set. Now they were thick as static across the navy sky, and Graham was reminded of the box in their basement at home where his father kept an antique telescope. The wood was intricately carved with little suns and moons, and as a kid, Graham had wanted nothing more than to haul it upstairs and point it out the window, to capture the stars in those curved panes of glass. But he saw it only once a year, when Dad laid a cloth across the dining room table and lifted the telescope as carefully as he might a dying person.
“Can’t we try it?” Graham always asked, leaning in close to watch as his father polished the wood and cleaned the lenses with the same velvety cloth.
“It’s too valuable,” Dad would say. “You don’t want anything to happen to it.”
But that’s exactly what happened to it: nothing. As far as Graham knew, it was still sitting down there in the cobwebby basement, and what he had always accepted as practical now struck him as a colossal w
aste.
By the time he reached the hill that sloped down to meet Ellie’s driveway, he was half jogging. The lights were on in the kitchen, and he forced himself to slow down as he reached the steps, taking a deep breath. At the door, he raised a hand, but found he couldn’t knock.
He paced from one end of the porch to the other, then back again, not quite sure what was wrong with him. Suddenly, he felt paralyzed. He paused in front of the doorbell, then turned away, slumping onto the wooden swing, where he sat with his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. What was wrong with him? He’d never been this unsure of himself when it came to a girl, not even in his old life.
He was still sitting there like that—hunched and miserable, unable to bring himself to knock—when he heard footsteps from inside, and his stomach churned. But when the door cracked open, it was Ellie’s mom who stepped outside. She raised her eyebrows, but said nothing, and Graham rose from the swing.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “I was just about to knock.”
One side of her mouth inched up into the beginning of a smile, a look he’d seen echoed on her daughter’s face. “That’s what I thought about ten minutes ago,” she said. “I figured I might as well kick-start the process.”
He cleared his throat. “Is Ellie home?”
“Yes,” she said. “But it’s late.”
Graham knew this was his cue to leave, and he felt a flash of annoyance. He straightened his shoulders, digging in. He refused to walk away. Not yet. “Would it be possible to see her for just a minute?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, and he was surprised to see a look of genuine pity cross her face. It took him a moment to understand what it meant, that look, to feel the full impact of it square across his chest.
It wasn’t Mrs. O’Neill that was blocking his way. And it wasn’t her who was saying no.
It was Ellie.
The realization threw him into a stupefied silence, and he found himself completely unable to ask the next logical question: Why not? or What happened? or, worst of all, What did I do wrong? Instead, he simply directed his gaze to the uneven boards of the porch.
“It’s just not a great night,” Mrs. O’Neill said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
The next question came easily, though he suspected that the answer to this, too, would probably be unwelcome. “How about tomorrow?”
She hesitated, opening and then closing her mouth. After a moment, she gave her head a little shake. “Good night, Graham,” she said, and then she stepped back into the house, leaving him alone on the porch.
From somewhere inside, Bagel let out a bark at the sound of the door. As he backed off the steps, Graham looked up. There was only one lit window on the second floor, and in the wedge of visible space, he could see a bookshelf. For a moment, he let himself imagine it—Ellie curled up on her bed, the dog at her side—and the thought seemed to crack at something inside him.
He’d read the scripts. He knew how the story was supposed to go. Boy meets girl. Girl likes boy. Boy kisses girl.
And then? The possibilities were endless. But the one thing Graham knew was that it wasn’t supposed to involve this: standing alone on the wrong side of a door with absolutely no idea what had happened.
He’d thought this was the start of something. But clearly she’d changed her mind, and he felt stunned by how quickly the whole thing had unraveled, the end coming before the beginning really even had a chance to begin. His poor telescope heart—that fragile, precious thing—would have probably been better left in the box.
SAVED DRAFTS
From:
[email protected] Saved: Thursday, June 13 2013 11:27 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Dear Graham,
I’m really sorry.
From:
[email protected] Saved: Sunday, June 16 2013 3:02 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Dear Graham,
From:
[email protected] Saved: Sunday, June 16 2013 3:05 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Quinn,
I’m so sorry. I wish I could explain.
From:
[email protected] Saved: Tuesday, June 18 2013 5:15 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
G—
From:
[email protected] Saved: Wednesday, June 19 2013 8:07 AM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Q—can we please talk?
From:
[email protected] Saved: Thursday, June 20 2013 9:29 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Dear Ms. Bodine,
I wanted to let you know that I will no longer be able to attend the poetry course in August. Unfortunately, I don’t have the funds necessary to
From:
[email protected] Saved: Thursday, June 20 2013 9:38 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
From:
[email protected] Saved: Friday, June 21, 2013 7:18 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Hey Graham,
From:
[email protected] Saved: Sunday, June 23, 2013 10:10 AM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Dear Ms. Bodine,
I’m so sorry that I won’t be able to come to Harvard for the poetry course after all. Unfortunately, my plans have changed, and my parents and I will be on a family vacation then.
From:
[email protected] Saved: Monday, June 24, 2013 4:51 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Quinn,
This is crazy. We really need to talk. Can we meet up sometime?
Love,
Ellie
From:
[email protected] Saved: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 10:34 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Dear Graham,
I hope everything is going well with the movie…
From:
[email protected] Saved: Thursday, June 27, 2013 3:40 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Hi.
From:
[email protected] Saved: Friday, June 28, 2013 11:11 PM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Hello.
From:
[email protected] Saved: Sunday, June 30, 2013 7:31 AM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
Good morning.
From:
[email protected] Saved: Monday, July 1, 2013 8:24 AM
To:
[email protected] Subject: (no subject)
I miss you.
It was nearly impossible to avoid someone in a town like Henley. There were only so many places to go, so many intersections and stoplights and restaurants. There were only so many trees with trunks big enough to duck behind.
So after nearly three successful weeks of dodging Graham, Ellie was feeling pretty proud of herself. She’d seen him just twice from afar, and he was always flanked by enough of an entourage—paparazzi, film crew, and fans—to act as a warning signal.
Quinn, on the other hand, seemed to be everywhere. Although that didn’t mean they’d spoken—they hadn’t. In fact, they’d hardly said a word to each other in weeks.
“How’s Quinn?” Mom would ask, completely oblivious, whenever Ellie returned after a shift at Sprinkles, and there was nothing to do but plaster a smile on her face.
“She’s great,” she’d say, fighting back the words underneath those, which were too depressing to admit: I have absolutel
y no idea.
It wasn’t entirely her fault, this thing between them, and if Quinn weren’t so stubborn, it would have blown over weeks ago. Still, Ellie was the one who’d started it, and she wished desperately she could find a way to apologize. But she’d drafted e-mails without managing to send them and prepared speeches without managing to say them.
At work, Quinn had taken to bringing Devon as a kind of shield against any real discussion, and the two of them would sit at one end of the counter, talking and joking, while Ellie stood awkwardly at the other end, as far away as was possible in such a small space. Every now and then, Quinn would ask Ellie for a cup or a spoon using the kind of polite but icy tone you might adopt when speaking to a complete stranger you’d heard nothing but awful things about—but that was it. Even on the hottest days, when the sun bore down on the town with a spiteful intensity, she never bothered to ask whether Ellie had put on sunscreen anymore.
About a week ago, just as Ellie started to wonder if she’d actually managed to become invisible, she overheard them talking about a party at the beach.
“Big plans tonight?” she asked as casually as she could manage, but this was only met with a lengthy silence. When it became obvious that Quinn wasn’t going to respond, Devon cleared his throat.
“Just a barbeque,” he said. “Should be pretty low-key.”
“Which means no celebrities,” Quinn said without looking up.
Ellie swallowed hard. There was no way for Quinn to know what had happened between her and Graham. And it would have been so easy, right then, to let the whole story come spilling out, to watch it register across Quinn’s face: first as guilt for ignoring her at a time like this, then as regret for not being there, then as sympathy for what she was going through.