Grace drops her half-eaten onion ring back in the paper carton. She has yet to meet my eyes. “You’re overthinking this.”
I lean forward, forcing her to look at me. “Am I?”
There’s a flicker of panic behind her expression, though she’s trying her best to hide it. “It was a bad accident, Shelby.”
“I know. But my memory therapy has lasted twice as long as the physical therapy. Why?”
Grace releases a sharp, incredulous laugh. “You’re so casual about it. Are you forgetting what a wreck you were? I’ve never seen you so bad. I mean, you barely had time to recover physically before the trial—” Her eyes flash, and she clamps her mouth shut.
I turn to her sharply. “Trial?”
Grace presses a hand to her temple. “I…” She swears under her breath.
A needle of ice cuts through my stomach. “What do you mean trial, Grace? Tell me.”
She shakes her head. “It wasn’t a big deal. It was about the accident. Insurance stuff… I don’t even really know. But it was super stressful for you, okay? They probably erased that memory too.”
The words seem difficult for her to say. I frown, straining to remember anything about a trial.
“Forget I even said it, okay? After all the therapy you’ve been through, your mama would be royally pissed if she found out I was bringing up old stuff.”
I stare at Grace, hoping for more of an explanation. But she’s closed up completely. I won’t get another scrap of information. We sit in silence, our milkshakes melting.
“Let’s go,” Grace finally says.
I wordlessly start the car. Her expression brightens. “Want to binge-watch season three of Celebrity Date Wars?”
This makes me smile in spite of myself. “Do you even need to ask?”
• • •
Auden told me that our next date would re-create a “very important first.” To say I’m jittery as I get ready would be an understatement. My stomach won’t unknot, and my mind flies to a million places at once.
Standing in my bathroom, I give my reflection a stern look in the mirror. You aren’t going to kiss him. It doesn’t matter if you used to be boyfriend and girlfriend. He hasn’t earned kissing yet.
I grab my dark red lipstick and apply it. Cam said once that guys don’t like kissing girls with lipstick on because they don’t want to get any on them. Maybe Auden will get the message? I still don’t know what I need to know about him. Not even close, and I can’t let myself get carried away.
We’ve arranged to meet in the school parking lot again. It’s a Saturday night, and Auden’s worried that most other places will be too crowded. Too many chances that we’ll be seen together.
Pulling into the lot, I draw in a slow breath and park next to him. Auden jumps out to open my car door for me and escort me to the passenger side of his.
“You look great,” he says, with a confident smile. He’s not nervous around me anymore. Maybe I should be worried about that.
“Thanks.”
“I like your lipstick. I guess you’re hoping I won’t try to kiss you.”
My gaze snaps to his, but he’s smiling. I raise my chin defiantly. “That’s right. So don’t try anything.”
Auden closes the passenger door with a chuckle and comes around to the driver’s side. “Don’t worry,” he says, starting his car. “I’m saving the re-creation of our first kiss for a special occasion.”
Butterflies in my stomach. I could smack him for the effect he has on me.
We drive in the direction of town and then veer off into one of the newer, nicer housing developments called Vista Valley.
“Are you taking me to your house?” I ask, my guard coming up fast.
Auden gives me a sidelong smile. “Not exactly.”
He pulls into a cul-de-sac, up to a pretty two-story house. I search my memory, but there isn’t the slightest flicker of recognition.
“This is your house,” I say accusingly, folding my arms. “And from the looks of the dark windows, your dad’s not home.”
“Yes, but we’re not going inside. I promise not to try and lure you into my bedroom…yet.”
I roll my eyes.
He gets the door for me again, but after helping me out, he doesn’t let go of my hand right away. Dual urges prick at me. One says pull away, but the other keeps my hand in his warm grip.
He leads me to the side of the house, through the tall, white vinyl fence, and into the backyard.
The landscape is more simple than I imagined. No elaborate flower beds or faux Tuscan decor or whatever I assumed rich people put in their yards. Just grass and an empty wooden deck. I suppose a single father and teenage son wouldn’t spend much time out here sipping iced tea in patio chairs or grilling up steaks.
That said, Auden has done the best he can for tonight. A love seat sits in the middle of the grass. It faces a large white screen, which hangs on the fence. A projector sits on a bar stool on the other end of the yard, humming softly in the darkness.
“We’re watching a movie?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, escorting me to the love seat. “The very first movie we watched together. We watched it right here. Just like this.”
I sink into the comfy, worn couch. A large blue quilt is folded beside me.
“It was summer when this originally took place,” Auden explains. “I’ve made a few minor but necessary adjustments.”
“There’s only one blanket.” I say, raising an eyebrow. He’s broadcasting his hopes to snuggle pretty clearly.
“Well, better get this started,” he says ignoring my question and cheerfully busying himself with the projector.
I smirk as I toss the quilt open over my lap.
Blue light illuminates the screen. The projector whirrs to a start, and the backyard goes dark. And then a black-and-white Warner Brothers logo flashes, heralded with old-school trumpets. My brow furrows with surprise as the image of an old map of Africa appears, along with the names Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
“Casablanca?” I ask as Auden comes over.
He’s nods, beaming. My heart squeezes a little. I keep forgetting that he knows me. Better than anyone.
But I don’t want him getting too confident about how much he’s hitting it out of the park. Trying not to let him see my smile, I pull aside a corner of the blanket, opening a space next to me. Auden sinks to my side. The warmth of his body beside me sends a wave of heat over my skin.
“I think this is revisionist history,” I say as the opening credits roll.
“What do you mean?”
“The first movie we watched together happens to be the most romantic movie ever made?”
He gives me a sly look. “I knew what I was doing then, and I know what I’m doing now.”
I nudge him with my shoulder. “You know, your cockiness is going to get on my nerves one of these days.”
“Yes. Yes, it will.”
We both laugh as the music shifts and the movie begins.
Casablanca isn’t only one of the most romantic movies ever made, it’s also one of the best movies ever made. When I was twelve, my love of movies started to shift into a passion for film. Mama had started dating again after her marriage with Stepdad Part One fell apart, and she seemed to be gone all the time. I turned to the company of good movies. I knew that if I wanted to be an actress, I’d need to study the greats, so I decided to watch all one hundred movies on the American Film Institute’s “100 Years…100 Movies” list.
I admit I didn’t quite swoon with admiration over Citizen Kane like I was supposed to, but then I got to number two on the list: Casablanca. Watching the movie then, during that tumultuous time in my life, something changed inside of me. As Ilsa tearfully tells Rick how much she still loves him, a crack opened in my heart that I knew could only be fil
led with a love as true as that.
That scene, which I know so well now, plays again, and my heart beats furiously in my chest. So much so that I’m worried Auden will somehow feel it. The crack in my heart is still there. Or is it?
I must be squirming nervously because Auden glances over. I force a weak smile and turn back to the movie. I can’t meet his intense eyes right now. Not feeling as vulnerable as I do. Instead, I lean back into couch and try to still my pounding heart.
On the screen, Ilsa and Rick fall into the kiss they’ve been waiting so long for, and I momentarily forget to breathe.
At that moment, a hand closes around mine beneath the blanket, lacing our fingers together. I look up at Auden. His eyes aren’t intense but warm and filled with love.
Breathing doesn’t get any easier.
Our eyes stay locked for a long moment. I finally turn back to the screen, but I can feel his gaze linger on me, and we keep our fingers interlocked for the rest of the film. We don’t break the grip until the closing, when Auden wordlessly pulls a pack of tissues from his pants pocket and hands me one. I laugh a little but take it.
“I’m guessing you’ve seen me cry at a lot of movies,” I say, dabbing my eyes.
“I have.”
I sniff. “Grace thinks it’s weird.”
“Well, I think it’s sweet.”
“You’re probably the only one.”
He scoffs lightly at the comment and shakes his head. “Maybe here in Orchardview. Outside of this one-stoplight town, there are plenty of people who watch movies for art, not explosions.”
His words make my pulse jump again. “You’re a film buff too?” I ask, tracing a circle on the quilt over our laps.
“Much more than that, Shelby.” He sits up. “Can I show you something inside? I promise that is not a terrible pickup line.”
I can’t help but smile. “All right.”
I follow him into the dark house. “Sorry about the mess,” Auden says.
It’s cluttered inside but mostly ordinary. A pair of jeans hang on the stair railing. Soda cans sit in the sink. An empty pizza box is perched on the coffee table in front of the couch. This is definitely a man cave. Auden kicks aside a pair of sneakers, and we head up the stairs. He pauses at his door.
“I was going to wait to show you my room. A. Because it’s not the cleanest right now, and B. Because I think it might trigger some memories if I present it right. We spent…a lot of time in here.”
My face burns with blood. “Oh.”
“Not like that…necessarily.” Even in the dim hallway, I can see Auden blushing too. “I just mean that we hung out here a lot.”
“Well, there’s no need for formality and grand setups, remember? It’s fine how it is.”
He nods. “You’re right. Of course you’re right.” He opens his door, and my breath catches at what I see.
If I didn’t know better, I would think that I’d decorated this room myself. Movie posters hang on the walls. There’s a large TV and a bookcase filled with DVDs. There’s even a mock Oscar statue by the laptop on his desk. I step in and circle, taking in every detail.
“This looks like a messier, boy version of my room.”
Auden folds his arms, amused. “That’s almost exactly what you said the first time you saw it.”
I sink onto his unmade bed. “Either you and I have an awful lot in common, or you are pulling off an CIA-level scheme to make me think so.”
“Trust me, if this were all an elaborate ruse, I’d have made sure my room was clean.” With his foot, he scoots a plate with dried-on food under the bed.
“What is it you wanted to show me?” I ask, still taking in the posters on his walls. He’s got some great ones. Star Wars, of course. Inception. Amadeus. Gladiator.
He goes to a waist-high cabinet beside his bed. Brushing a crumpled T-shirt off the top, he opens the doors to reveal a stash of digital tapes, two external hard drives, and the most beautiful camera I’ve ever seen. The camera makes the one I use as school historian look like a toy bought with five hundred tickets at Chuck E. Cheese’s.
Auden takes the camera of the cabinet with the care of an OB delivering a newborn. He brings it over and sits beside me on the bed.
“It’s a Canon C300,” he says with pride.
“That thing probably cost a fortune,” I whisper.
Auden shrugs. “One of the few perks of living with my dad.”
“That’s quite a perk.” I dare to brush my finger along the sleek, black body of the camera. “So, you want to be a filmmaker, then?”
“Going to be,” he corrects. “The minute I graduate, I’m headed to film school. Either back to Manhattan at NYU or California for USC.” He pauses. “It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
His focus is on his camera, but I can read his silence. My throat constricts. “It depends on me?”
Auden sighs. “We don’t have to talk about this. It’s too soon. I don’t want you to feel weird.”
“Did we…talk about going to Hollywood together?”
His voice is soft. “All the time.”
A weight presses against my lungs. “And I was going to do it? I was really going to leave Orchardview?”
“You were close,” Auden admitted. “It’s never been an easy decision for you to think about.”
Words fail me. All I can do is stare at Auden’s camera. All I can think about is Mama’s disapproving frown. Puzzle pieces click together in my mind. The truth feels very close to the surface.
“Let’s change the subject,” Auden says.
I want to know more about our Hollywood plans. I need to know more. But I don’t fight his suggestion.
He stands abruptly. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. We’ll go for a drive or something. Unless you want to go home…”
Telling myself to live in the moment, I tap my chin, conspiratorially. “The night is rather young.”
“Exactly! As are we. I say we seize the day. Carpe diem!”
Back in his car, I pull on my seat belt with a smirk. “So, what are your grand plans for seizing what remains of this day? Because I was thinking something along the lines of a drive to the gas station to buy some snacks and a Dr Pepper.”
“I like the way you think, Ms. Decatur. I really do.”
We drive to the Go Station because it’s closer, though I would argue that the 7-Eleven has a superior syrup-to-water ratio in their fountain drinks and therefore a tastier Dr Pepper. But we all have to make sacrifices sometimes.
After getting our drinks and various treats, Auden remembers that he is almost completely out of gas. I lean against his car, watching him fill the tank under the harsh white flood lights.
A broad white Buick pulls up next to us. Recognition glimmers in me, and I lift on my toes to see. Sure enough, it’s Karen, my old boss from the movie theater.
“Hey,” I call out, waving.
Karen’s resting scowl warms to a smile as she gets out of the car. “Well, well, well. This is an interesting sight.”
Auden, who’s been tending to the gas pump, startles. I notice his cheeks color as he gives a somewhat forced grin. “Hi there, K.”
She eyes our drinks and nachos. “Looks like a party night.”
“Something like that,” Auden says with a laugh that’s undeniably tinged with nervousness.
I’m a little surprised at his reaction, and then it occurs to me. “Did you call in sick on a busy Saturday night so you could take me out on a date?”
I expect Karen to exchange a knowing smile of exasperation with me, but her brow furrows.
“Auden doesn’t work at the theater anymore.”
I blink, and Auden offers another tight chuckle. “Yeah, not anymore.”
Kay folds her arms. “Not since last fall, when…well, when
everything went crazy.”
The color drains from Auden’s face, but he forces another laugh, so false it makes me cringe.
“All full,” he says, returning the gas nozzle to the pump. A quick glance to the meter shows that he’s only put in about five gallons. “Nice to see you, K.”
“Nice to see you too. Don’t get too wild,” she says, with a wink.
“Hey, no promises,” he replies, again his cheerful tone ringing false. He gets into his car quickly, and I follow.
“Good call on the nachos,” he says, as we pull away. “Pretty sure I read an article once that said nachos are the only true superfood.”
“Is that so?”
Auden is clearly trying to refocus our conversation, so I don’t push for him to explain what Karen meant. But the exchange settles in the corner of my mind. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. But it’s another reminder that there are still pieces of my story that I don’t have.
Chapter 16
Mama has always called herself a “good Christian woman.” Whatever that means. For her, it doesn’t seem to include going to church on Sundays. So when she strolls into the kitchen in her old floral skirt, I assume she has simply been taken by the urge to dress a little fancier than normal.
“You’ll have to fend for yourself until dinner,” she says, sitting down in her chair to adjust her heels. “Blake and I are heading to Sunday services.”
I’m loading the breakfast dishes into the washer. “Church?”
“Of course.” Mama sniffs at my surprise.
I stack some cups on the top shelf of the washer, my mind spinning. They’ll be gone until dinner. That means I have all afternoon to myself. My heart skips a little. My phone burns in my pocket, practically screaming to text Auden and let him know. I have to tell him before he makes any plans. My fingers itch, but I don’t dare do it until Mama’s safely gone.
Blake comes out of their bedroom, holding the ends of his tie, which is draped around his shoulders. “LouAnn, would you help me with this?”
“I’m fixing my shoes.”
“Here,” I say, wiping my hands on my jeans. “I’ve got it.”
“Thanks, dear,” Blake says with a warm smile. As I loop his tie in a classic knot, I can feel his admiration.
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