Secondhand Heart

by Kristen Strassel

  “Who? Anyone who’s good has been booked for like a year, and we should be able to do it.”

  “You’re going to be pretty pregnant, and I am so not creative.” Ev might have kept saying we, but I knew she meant me.

  “Daisy, why do you have a problem every time I ask you to do something? I feel like you’re fighting me every step of the way on this.”

  It had to be the baby stirring up the lack of reason inside of her. Or I wasn’t fooling anyone by trying to act cool about this. “I’m not. You’re freaking out every time I don’t like an idea. Or I think something might not work. I could yes you to death if you want—“

  “Yes. That’s what I want! I didn’t ask your opinion.” She stopped when I gasped. “I’m sorry if it’s harsh, but it’s true. This is hopefully the only wedding I’m ever going to have, and I’m spending a shit ton of money.”

  This is hopefully the only wedding I’m ever going to have.

  “I get it.” I mumbled. “I’m just used to saying what I think when people tell me things.”

  “Get over it,” Ev scoffed, then smiled. “I appreciate this, Daisy, I do. But please, just do it my way.”

  “Is this what you tell your clients?” I asked.

  “Sometimes.” She smiled. “Okay, enough talking. We need to get to work.”

  I gnawed on my straw and listened to Ev rattle off a thousand little details about the wedding. It was all she had talked about since she picked me up for this trip. Usually she talked about what she and Roger had been up to, or work, or Mom and Dad.

  “I heard you went out with Cam the other night.” At first, I thought I heard her wrong. I never thought she’d change the subject, and I was scared to even try.

  “Oh, yeah. It was good. We went to the baseball game.”

  “I suggested that.” Ev beamed. “He was so stoked when he found out you liked sports.”

  “I had a feeling you had something to do with it. Guys never assume that girls are into baseball. I was thrilled to do something cool.” I paused, working up the courage to ask my next question. “Did he say anything?”

  Ev took long enough to answer that my heart fell into my stomach. “He had a good time, but he’s worried you didn’t.”

  Fuck. “Why?” I knew the answer.

  “He knew you were upset about Jordan,” Ev hesitated. “He’s worried that maybe it’s too much for you. This, right now.”

  “But we’re just friends. Once we got passed that, everything was cool. I had fun. He hugged me at the end of the night, didn’t try to kiss me or anything. Now I know why.” We headed down Main Street towards the first thrift shop Ev wanted to check out. I stopped dead in my tracks, pissed at myself for not being able to put on a brave face.

  Ev stopped once she realized I wasn’t beside her. I couldn’t see her eyes behind her giant sun glasses, the outdoor version of the ones she had on the other day. She frowned, so I knew what she was thinking. Putting her arm around my shoulders, she gently urged me to keep walking. “He doesn’t want to screw things up. I think that’s a good sign.”

  “It is.” I hadn’t screwed things up yet, that was even a better sign. My heart leapt from the pit of my stomach to my throat, beating like butterfly wings. We stood on the threshold of the thrift shop. “Now let’s kick this bridesmaids’ dress’ ass.”

  I’d totally planned on letting Cam make the next move. After all, I made the first contact. It was his turn. But after my conversation with Ev, I felt like he’d lobbed the ball back to my court.

  “Don’t let that hot piece of ass slip through your fingers because you’re playing by some dumb rules that don’t really exist,” Bree insisted. I’d gone over her house to hang out and figure out a bridesmaids dress strategy. We hadn’t found anything, first try. “It’s not like it’s any easier for the guys to reach out. Everyone’s afraid to hear no.”

  “Oh yeah. I’m sure Cam hears no all the time.” I rolled my eyes. “Who was the last one to crush his dreams, the fans who throw himself at his feet everywhere he goes, or those half naked skanks at the bar?”

  “The record company, his wife? Just for starters.” Damn Bree for being right. Cam was just as much of a mess as I was, forced to start over.

  I did the scary thing. I called Cam.

  “Hey, are you up for a little adventure?” I asked. Bree and I decided to just assume that Ev was right, and he’d been into the date.

  “How little are you talking?” He sounded a little taken aback. I almost lost my nerve and hung up.

  I started to talk really fast. “I was thinking of the drive in, in Wellfleet. But if you don’t—“

  “That’s awesome!” Cam exclaimed, and I could picture those blue eyes lighting up over the phone. Relief crashed over me in waves. “We’ll take my truck, because we can sit in the back, bring food, and tailgate.”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Yay. I mean, anyone who didn’t have this sort of reaction about the drive-in was someone I didn’t want to know. One more test. “Would you be down for a horror movie? I totally want to see—“

  “Circus of the Damned?” What, we were already finishing each other’s sentences? And he was right? “Where have you been all my life?”

  “Waiting for you to open a bar down the street from my house, I guess.” Otherwise, I’d been so off Cam’s radar it wasn’t even funny.

  I was so stoked about this date. After I left Bree’s house, I spent the afternoon at the grocery store, picking out goodies. Then I made Italian sandwiches, tuning out my mother, who found nitrates and white bread offensive. If my sandwiches weren’t scandalous enough for her, I baked brownies to make sure she’d have a complete meltdown.

  “Don’t feel like you have to keep up with this guy’s eating, Daisy.” She couldn’t resist saying something.

  Ten, nine, eight, seven... “I don’t. We’re having dinner. A sandwich, chips, and dessert. I think that’s normal and healthy.”

  “You don’t have any vegetables!” She sounded like I’d just told her I failed the sixth grade. “This just isn’t clean eating.”

  “We’re going to the drive-in. I don’t think it’s exactly the place to bust out a salad. Anyway, I totally put pickles on the sandwiches.” I smirked, but it quickly faded with my mother’s tangible disappointment. “Please stop giving me a hard time about eating. I gained weight. I’m aware of it. I don’t need you nagging me.”

  “I just want to make sure you have the best life possible.” Mom didn’t look me in the eye.

  “Making me neurotic about everything I put in my mouth isn’t going to help.” My whole body shook with aggravation. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  “Cam Hunter can have any woman he wants.” Did she really just say that?

  My heart banged against my ribcage. “And why wouldn’t he want me?” I asked. She raised her hand to dismiss me, but I wasn’t letting her off the hook that easily. “No, really. I want to know. What’s so wrong with your daughter that a celebrity wouldn’t want to date me? Would you ever say that to size six Ev?”

  Mom pressed her lips together. She didn’t like being challenged. But there was no way I was going to let her get away with this. She acted like reality shows were calling about me because I was so morbidly obese I had to be forklifted out of my bedroom. Not true. My clothes fit more comfortably if they came from the plus sized shop these days, but that was all. I’m pretty sure that made me an average American woman. Not the freak my mom made me feel like every time I set foot in the kitchen.

  “What I’m saying, Daisy, is that you need to have every advantage that you can.” That’s all she had.

  “I’m not applying for an Ivy League school. I’m going to the movies.” I slammed my hand down on the counter a little harder than I intended. “And it’s our second date. Third, if you count the first time we met up, which wasn’t technically a date.”

  “It was a job interview.” Mom dismissed that.

  “Well, I gues
s fat girls like me have to screw our bosses to get ahead.” I enjoyed watching her face fall. “And I didn’t even get the job.”

  After my run in with my mother, I was fired up in all the wrong ways. I took Sandy out for a walk to calm down. She was just as anxious to get out of the house as I was. Instead of taking her down the walkway that led to the school like I usually did, tonight we walked around the neighborhood.

  I was sick of avoiding people. Ever since I’d been back in Plymouth, I’d felt like everyone had been disappointed and uncomfortable around me. I wanted my life back, whatever it was now.

  Sandy pulled me along, like she always did, because clearly humans had no idea where the good smells were. I always let her take charge of our walks. I thought it was more interesting that way.

  “Daisy!” Margaret, who’d lived on the street as long as I could remember, watered her flowers in front of her house. “I heard you were at the Pilgrims game with Cam Hunter.”

  “Yeah.” My face flushed at the mention of Cam. “We’re going out again tonight, too.”

  “Good for you.” Margaret beamed. “I loved him on The Spotlight. I voted for him every week.”

  “Thanks.” Just like that, Margaret made me feel so much better. I should send her down to my house to give my mother a lesson on how to be happy for me.

  My mom was gone when I got back, she must have had a party. I had to wonder how she treated the people who went to her parties. They were weight loss shakes, after all. Or was she easier on them than she was on me? After all, they were trying to change things. But so was I.

  Cam had all of his stuff in the doorway when I knocked. “Ready to go?” he asked, almost out the door already, holding a cooler. When Cam had asked me to meet him at his condo, I was psyched. It was right on White Horse Beach, my favorite place in town, and I’d dreamed about having one of those condos since I was a kid. Waking up, looking out the window, smelling the salt air first thing, sign me up. That would be better than any cup of coffee. So I was a little disappointed he didn’t invite me in.

  “Yeah. I left all my stuff in the car.” I’d told him I was going to make dinner, he was supplying the cocktails. I did everything in my power not to look over his shoulder. I wanted to see inside, damn it.

  “That’s cool. I just got a bunch of deck stuff, and I pulled the cushions off the furniture so we can sit against it in the bed of the pickup,” he continued as I handed him my cooler to put in the back for the ride down to the Cape. Cam seemed to be keeping a little distance between the two of us, and it made me uneasy. I hoped he was going because he wanted to, and not because he was going to have to face me at Ev’s wedding, no matter what. He probably knew as well as I did that Ev didn’t like hearing no as an answer.

  But he did sound really excited about our plans on the phone.

  And no one I wanted to know could pass up going to see Circus of the Damned. It did bode well for our relationship.

  There was something magical about going to the drive-in. It made whatever movie that you’d see that night just that much more special. It wasn’t so sterile, going into this pod and eating movie theater pod food. They couldn’t control you.

  Because Circus of the Damned was practically made for drive-ins, the place was packed. We wound up pretty close to the back. Cam backed into the spot, so we could pull down the hatch back and climb into the bed of the truck. I had a hard time hoisting my ass up the first three tries, and I wanted to die of embarrassment when Cam had to help me out. Once we had the cushions in the back, it felt like we were lying in bed. Amazing. Twilight was closing its curtain on the day, and if all we’d planned was looking at the stars tonight, it would have been enough of its own.

  “Cheers.” Cam handed me a bottle of Newcastle so cold to the touch it almost hurt. Fireflies buzzed by, making the night that much more magical.

  “Thanks. There are sandwiches in my cooler.” I sat up a little, if I kept laying here, after a couple sips of beer I would be a total slug before the previews even came on.

  Cam dug right in. “Awesome. It’s been a while since anyone’s cooked for me who wasn’t on my payroll.”

  “Like how long?” Cam’s personal life was still a mystery to me. We’d talked about his professional life, but that was it. There had to be something else that brought him home. More than Bree’s reports of the record deal falling through and the divorce. Plymouth wasn’t exactly a hot bed of country music activity. What made him go from the confident celebrity walking on red carpets with his gorgeous wife to here? You bet I’d been Googling every picture of Cam Hunter I could find since our “interview.” And now he was taking me out? I had a lot of questions.

  He sighed, then took a long sip of his beer, and leaned back into the cushions. He looked up instead of at me. “I’ve been separated since March.”

  Separated? That didn’t sound promising. “Are you totally divorced?” I asked.

  “Not yet.” His thumb rubbed the neck of the beer bottle. “Ashley, that’s my wife, she keeps playing games to put off signing the paperwork that would make it final, even though she says it makes her sick to even look at me. So I don’t know.”

  My whole body went numb. “Do you think you guys will work it out?” I didn’t even want the answer to this question, but I was kind of on a need to know basis here.

  “I’ve given up trying to predict the future.” He had the actual nerve to smile at me, then took a bite of his sandwich. “This is amazing.”

  “Thanks.” I still hadn’t touched mine. Although, if I puked it up all over him, he’d deserve it at this point. I was basically on a date with a married man. How gross was I? Was he?

  “Like probably the best sandwich I’ve had in a long time,” Cam continued, oblivious, and talking with him mouth full. “Do you cook a lot?”

  “I know you’d think the answer was yes, but not really.” I stared at my sandwich, not at him.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Cam asked, still oblivious.

  My mother had given me such a complex when it came to food, I assumed everyone thought like her. “I like to cook, but I don’t do it very much. Any time I set foot in the kitchen, my mother harasses me. Kind of takes the joy out of coking.” Shit, I was going to ruin this date, too.

  “That sucks.” Cam said. I met finally met his eyes, blinking back the emotion. I knew I’d just made Cam uncomfortable again. But he was still technically married. And that made me uncomfortable. “She doesn’t know a good thing when she sees it.”

  “Like what? She drinks her meals. She thinks that’s the way to salvation.” I shrugged. “Like with these, she thought it was sacrilege that I didn’t use any vegetables.”

  He looked down at the sandwich. “It’s full of pickles.”

  I laughed. “I know, right? That’s what I told her.”

  “Well, first of all, you’re talented. And you’re absolutely gorgeous.” He smiled and my cheeks reddened. “So she’s got no idea what she’s talking about.”

  “Thanks, but it’s just a sandwich.” I finally took a bite of mine. The rumbling of my stomach overruled my stubbornness.

  Cam peaked in the cooler. “There’s more in here, too. Brownies?”

  “From a mix.”

  “So what? You actually gave a shit enough to do something cool, and thoughtful, and I think it’s delicious. No one’s done anything like this for me in a long time. What’s the matter?”

  It took me a minute to answer him. I was actually going to swallow my food before I spoke and killed date two. Only one more before I struck out. And he was right. The sandwich was pretty bomb. “I wish you’d told me about the wife thing.”

  Cam’s mouth fell. “It was all over the news, and the internet. I just figured everyone knew everything there was to know about me.”

  As if on cue, his statement was punctuated by a group of guys walking back from the concession stand, or the porta potty, who knows, and yelling “Cam!” and throwing their fists in the air
in solidarity. Cam mirrored the guys’ motion in response.

  “I haven’t been watching gossip shows.” I took a deep swig of beer.

  Cam chewed on his lip, I could tell he was upset. “Daisy, I don’t know what you were expecting.”

  He was one hundred percent right. I was assuming things that he hadn’t even put on the table. “I just thought we’d have fun and see a movie. And now we’re talking about…feelings and shit. I just want to forget all of that.”

  “Me, too,” Cam sighed. “Me, too.”

  We finished our dinner in silence, and the previews started a few minutes later. Thank God. Things got so awkward, so fast. I had no right to be mad at Cam. He never insinuated anything more than being friends. Sure, he flirted a little, but I also did my best to keep him at arms’ length. Still, he should have been a little more forthcoming about his wife before we started going out. Separated sounded like if she deemed him worthy of her, he’d go running and leave me in the dust like road kill.

  He had just said he needed a friend. Nothing more than that. I needed to get my expectations in check.

  I loved slasher flicks. So much. The grosser, the better. I knew that they were all cheesy with questionable story lines. I loved the bimbos who ran in heels in the woods, or went down in to creepy basements by themselves. Everyone knows that’s where the boogeyman hides out. Survival of the fittest, baby.

  Circus of the Damned did not disappoint. The movie was about a vampire circus leader who started doing live sacrifices on stage to satisfy his bloodlust. Instead of the crowd being disgusted by random people dying on stage, they ate it up. Pardon the pun. So the vampire had to come up with new and gruesome ways to top himself until he got caught.

  One poor, unsuspecting girl got ripped in half, and then he pulled the bones from the sinew and licked them clean. I covered my eyes, squealing like a girl, and turned into Cam.

  “So disgusting,” he laughed, and managed to put his arm around me somewhere in the exchange. After four beers and an hour of lying under the blanket, I’d softened a bit and didn’t pull away. I buried my head in his chest as the vampire deep throated an arm bone to suck it clean. Then, I just stayed there.