Under the lights of the bathroom, he examined his hand where his knuckles had come into contact with the photographer’s cheekbone as he listened to Harry’s voice grow increasingly angry in the next room.
“It’s already out,” he said a moment later, appearing in the doorway of the bathroom. “Everyone’s running with it.”
Graham looked up from the stream of water as it coursed over his sore hand. “What about her?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level. “Did they get a clear shot? A name?”
“Unidentified female,” he said. “For now, anyway.”
He breathed out. “Good,” he said. “Can we keep it that way?”
“I’ll try my best.”
“I know you will,” Graham said, turning off the faucet and grabbing a towel. “And I know I shouldn’t have done that. It’s completely my fault.”
“That’s true,” Harry said, but there was an uncharacteristic softness in his eyes as he leaned against the doorway. He should have been furious. Graham had seen him lose his temper over so much less: a parking ticket, an unhelpful publicist, a greedy producer, and even once, a child actor with a fondness for practical jokes.
Until tonight, Graham had managed to avoid any significant scandals, and Harry had every reason to be livid right now. He would be the one to have to deal with the lawyers, to try to plead with the photographer not to sue. For the next few days, he’d be coordinating with publicists and sweet-talking reporters. He’d be convincing Mick that Graham was still focused on the movie. He’d be trying to keep Ellie’s secrets from spilling out, trying to tamp down every bit of information he could, as if it weren’t as slippery as water.
And some of it was there, in the set of his jaw and the twitch of his eyelid, an anger that was simmering just below the surface. But there was also an unfamiliar sense of restraint in him too, and for this, Graham was grateful.
“Just tell me what you need me to do,” he said, feeling for the first time in a while that this wasn’t just business, that they were a team.
“Go get some ice on that,” Harry said, nodding at Graham’s already bruised knuckles. “And let me do my job.”
In his hand, the phone began to ring again, and he winked before bringing it to his ear, already listening intently as he walked back into the other room. With nothing else to do, Graham grabbed the ice bucket from a table near the closet and stepped out into the hallway, standing for a moment with his back against the door.
He knew there were actors who did this kind of thing all the time, and it would never occur to them to feel bad about the mess they’d made or the manager who would have to clean it up, much less worry about the guy they hit. But even though there was no other way the scene could have played out, Graham had never punched anyone before, and the sound of it—an audible crunch of bone on bone—rang in his head even now.
He held the empty ice bucket under his arm like a football as he lumbered down the hall. At the bank of machines, he watched the cubes of ice tumble down in a rush of noise and frozen air, and then he shoved his entire fist inside, wincing at the cold.
When he stepped back into the room, Harry was hunched over the computer. The phone at his side was on speaker, and Graham could hear the familiar voice of Rachel, his publicist, rattling off a list of news sources.
“All of them?” Harry asked, his voice strained.
“Within the hour,” Rachel said. “The broken camera didn’t help things either.”
“Sorry,” Graham said, slumping down on one of the beds, and he could almost hear her whole demeanor change, a shift like a tuning fork, sudden and vibrating.
“Hi, hon,” she said. “Didn’t know you were there.”
“Yeah,” Graham said. “I’m here.”
“What happened?” she asked with forced lightness. “You’re usually my easiest client.”
Graham must have looked ill equipped to answer this, because Harry stepped in before he could speak. “We’ll call you back, Rach, okay?” he said. “Just keep us posted.”
“Okay,” she said, just before hanging up. “But try to stay out of trouble.”
When she was gone, Harry glanced over at Graham. “You look awful,” he said. “Why don’t you grab a shower? It’s gonna be a long night.”
Afterward, Graham pulled on the same sandy shorts from the beach and the same striped polo, which still smelled of salt from the ocean. When he emerged from the bathroom, Harry was on another call, and Graham fell back on the bed, his eyes heavy as he listened to one half of the conversation. In spite of all the noise—the rise and fall of Harry’s voice, the intermittent buzzing of the phone on the table, the relentless churning hum of the computer—it didn’t take long for him to fall into a dreamless sleep.
When he woke, it was still dark out, and across the room, Harry had the computer balanced on his lap, his face lit by the white glow of the screen. There was no part of Graham that wanted to see what was on there, to discover what had been dredged up during the night. He didn’t care what they said about him; his only worry was for Ellie.
“Anything?” he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, and Harry startled, looking over at him blearily.
“About you?” he said. “Loads. You want to see?”
Graham shook his head. “And her?”
“Still nothing,” Harry said with a tired smile.
He felt a rush of relief. “You’re amazing.”
“It’s why you pay me the big bucks.”
“It certainly is,” Graham said. Then he slipped into the bathroom, where he stood at the sink. In the mirror, his eyes were rimmed with red, and there was a shadow of a beard across his jaw that made him look vaguely threatening, like he actually was the kind of guy who went around knocking out photographers. He felt a sudden clawing need for air.
“Do you mind if I take a quick walk?” he asked, stepping back into the room, and Harry nodded without looking up from the computer.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ve got this under control for now.”
“Great,” said Graham, reaching for his sweatshirt. “I won’t be long.”
He closed the door behind him with a quiet click, hurrying down the hallway and into the elevator, then rushing blindly through the lobby and out into the still-waking world, the orange-streaked sky and the coolness of morning, where he stood on the sidewalk and took a great gulp of a breath to calm his thudding heart.
The hotel sat at the far end of the village green, where it presided over the shops and the harbor from a high perch, and when Graham lifted his eyes, he was surprised to see that the town was already busy. He’d expected to see a few fishermen and maybe a jogger or two at this hour, but there were people everywhere, setting up tables near the gazebo and unloading boxes from their cars. A few bleary-eyed children twirled on the grass, and a dog howled from where it was tied to one of the lampposts. It took Graham a moment to realize it was Bagel.
He looked around for Ellie, feeling an inexplicable bolt of panic. If he’d read the news before leaving the room, maybe he wouldn’t feel quite so exposed. But now it seemed like the whole world must know something he didn’t, whatever details of the previous night the blogs and newspapers had chosen to splash across their pages.
On the other side of the green, a woman was struggling to wrangle a billowing tablecloth in the wind, and the colors—a brilliant red, white, and blue—were a sudden reminder.
It was the Fourth of July.
A group of women with trays of cookies and cupcakes brushed past, too busy to notice him as he stood there, paralyzed with indecision. He knew he should go back up to the room, check in with Harry and find out exactly what parts of the story had leaked and just how much trouble he’d landed in. He should examine the photos, call his parents so they wouldn’t be surprised—a thought that filled him with a wobbly kind of dread—and get the game plan from his publicist. He should explain to Mick what had happened, apologize to the photographer, take responsibility for his actions.
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But all he wanted was to run in the other direction.
When he saw Mrs. O’Neill—standing on a chair to pin the end of a banner to the gazebo—the memory of Ellie’s plans for the day scissored through him, and before he could think better of it, he took off down the street. He tugged up the hood of his sweatshirt to hide his face, moving past the people setting up with his hands shoved in his pockets. At the end of the street, he turned off along the harbor road, past the boats swaying gently in the quiet waters. All of the lobster for today’s celebration had been caught already, and where the docks would usually be busy at this hour, there was only silence. Later, people would undoubtedly be out on the water to watch the fireworks, but at this early hour, even the Go Fish listed sleepily, excused from a day of filming, just like Graham.
By the time he reached Ellie’s house, the chill was gone from the air. He’d expected she would be asleep, or on the road already, or else busy inside, so when he rounded the corner of the driveway, he was surprised to see her framed by the open mouth of the garage. She was holding a small backpack, her hand on the door of the car, a salt-rusted sedan that had surely been around for years.
“Hi,” he called out, and she whirled around, her eyes wide and a guilty blush spreading across her cheeks. But when she saw it was only him, she relaxed again, letting out a shaky laugh.
“I thought you were my mom,” she said, opening the car door and tossing the backpack inside. She was wearing jeans and a purple tank top with a pair of sunglasses perched on her head, and she had about a thousand new freckles spread across her cheeks after spending yesterday at the beach.
“I get that a lot,” Graham said, walking over to lean against the trunk. “Typecasting.”
She smiled at this, but it was quick to fall flat again. “Did you see?”
He didn’t have to ask what she was talking about. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I couldn’t bring myself to look. But Harry said they didn’t get your name.”
Ellie lowered her eyes. “Not yet, anyway.”
They were both quiet for a moment, and then she cleared her throat.
“I have to get going,” she told him.
Graham nodded. “I’m coming too.”
She looked at him sharply. “No, you’re not.”
“What time are we leaving?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard her, but she only frowned up at him, her eyes narrowed.
“I get it,” she said. “I get that you want to get out of here today. But last night changed things. This is important, and you’re way too conspicuous.”
“I told you,” he said, attempting a smile, “I’ll wear a disguise.”
Ellie shook her head again. “Sorry.”
When she turned to head back into the house, Graham followed her without an invitation. “What do you think will happen?”
She spun to face him, her green eyes measuring him. “There are a million different possibilities,” she said. “We could stop for gas and someone might recognize you. Some twelve-year-old girl in the next car could look over and start texting all her friends. We could have photographers following us on motorcycles.” She paused and shook her head. “You,” she said. “We could have photographers following you on motorcycles. This is going to be tricky enough without having Graham Larkin as a wingman.”
He was stung by the way she said his name, like he was someone she didn’t even know, but he refused to back down. They were in the kitchen now, and Ellie opened the door to the fridge, peering at the shelves like she’d forgotten why she was there in the first place. He walked up beside her, feeling the cool of the artificial air on his bare legs.
“I have to do this alone,” she said, her voice soft.
From where he was standing, he could see the freckles sprinkled across her pale shoulder, and he could smell her shampoo—something sweet, like lavender. He swallowed hard, but didn’t say anything.
After a moment, Ellie shook her head. “You’re too conspicuous,” she said again, but this time, the words were wavery and Graham took a step closer.
“Then let’s not take a car,” he said, an idea taking shape in his mind.
She turned, just slightly, but enough to find herself angled between Graham and the door. “What, then?” she asked, and he smiled.
“We’ll go by boat.”
From:
[email protected] Sent: Thursday, July 4, 2013 7:18 AM
To:
[email protected]oo.com
Subject: (no subject)
I’m running a few minutes late, but I’ll see you down there. I can only assume you’ll be the one with the mustache…
They agreed to meet at the harbor in an hour.
Graham went to get a few things in town, including the keys for the Go Fish from the prop trailer, while Ellie fumbled around on her computer, trying to plot the course from Henley to Kennebunkport. From what she could tell, if they made good time, they could be there in just over two hours. It wasn’t yet seven o’clock, so even if the news broke early, they should still be able to beat it there.
Outside, the sky already had the makings of a perfect summer day, and the water stretched out as wide and still as a great blue carpet. As Ellie walked into town, her backpack heavy on her shoulders, she counted the merits of their plan in the same way she might count the benefits of an extra ice-cream cone (calcium) or a few extra minutes of sleep (energy). There were a dozen ways she could try to justify taking the boat, but mainly, they were avoiding the biggest snag in Ellie’s previous scheme: the fact that she’d have to somehow borrow Mom’s car. She’d still been working out how to handle that particular issue when Graham had shown up, all confidence and conviction, and she’d let herself get carried away with him.
The truth was, it didn’t matter how she got there: by car or by boat or by high-flying hot-air balloon. No matter how she arrived, the ending would be the same: she’d have to face her father. And the idea of standing before him as he tried to register just who exactly she was—a look of confusion in his eyes, or worse, something even more dismissive, a look of annoyance—was almost too painful to contemplate.
Her reason for going was simple: she was planning to ask him for money. But she also knew it was a lot more complicated than that.
Closer to town, the road dipped away from the trees, curving toward the water, and where the air would normally be filled with the sounds of boats—the deep pealing bells and the blaring of the horns—there was now only the discordant notes of the band as they cued up on the green. From a distance, Ellie could see a blur of red, white, and blue, the usual chaos of food and music and games that colored the festivities, and she was counting on all of that to distract Mom later on, when it would no doubt occur to her that she hadn’t seen her daughter all day.
As she stepped onto the long boardwalk, hurrying past the shuttered bait shop, she craned her neck to see if Graham was already out on the boat. The film crew had been given a prime slip for the duration of their shoot, and Ellie knew the trickiest part would be getting out of the harbor unnoticed. The whole town would be up in the village, but it wouldn’t be long now before some of them would begin to load up their own boats. Today was a day for sailing and drinking, for bobbing out under the blazing sun until the sky flipped over into dark and the fireworks were sent scribbling out over all of it. For now, she took comfort in the fact that even if someone saw them, they would never guess their plan; it was only her mom she had to worry about.
Near the gated entrance to the harbor, Ellie was startled to see Quinn up ahead on the road. It was disorienting to run into her here, in this of all moments, and she couldn’t help feeling unprepared. They were far enough apart that she could have pretended not to notice her. But when their eyes met, she saw the slightest hitch in Quinn’s step, the smallest pause in her momentum. Ellie offered her a smile, and she came to a reluctant stop just a few feet away, the two of them regarding each other across the bed of yellow flowers that separated the boardwalk from the road that ran pa
rallel to it.
“Hi,” Ellie said, and Quinn yielded a polite smile. She was wearing a blue shirt from Sprinkles, and it took only a moment for Ellie to realize which one it was.
“You got the stain out,” she said with a grin, and something flickered to life behind Quinn’s eyes where before there had been only a carefully maintained coolness.
“It’s not great,” she said, holding out the hem to examine it. “But my other ones were dirty.” When she looked up again, she seemed to be considering something. “I still have to give yours back.”
“Keep it,” Ellie told her, and she smiled—this time, for real. “It’s the least I can do as your wardrobe specialist.”
“That day was sort of a mess,” she said, and Ellie knew she was talking about more than just the milkshake. She was talking about all of it, everything that had happened since the movie trailers had arrived in town.
“Listen…” Ellie began, but Quinn interrupted her.
“You’ll be at the party later, right?” she asked, her voice light. They’d gone together ever since they were little, year after year spent running through the green with a cupcake in one hand and a sparkler in the other. When they were ten, they stole a whole box of firecrackers and slipped down to the beach at the end of the night, setting them off one by one, and it had since become a tradition. Because of all that had happened this summer, Ellie had assumed this would be the year it would end. But now, the way Quinn was looking at her, she wasn’t so sure.
She glanced off toward the boats. “I don’t know,” she said quietly, surprised to discover that her throat was tight. She wished she could tell Quinn where she was going. It had always been the two of them through everything—every adventure and every expedition—and now there was this awful distance between them, and she tried not to think about all the stories they were missing out on, all the little moments and bigger milestones that had happened over the past few weeks without the other knowing.