Carly is staring at me, and I don’t want to start crying or something embarrassing, so I laugh. “Next up for me is senior year of high school,” I say, and shrug. “You know, SATs, APs, college apps.” I try to sound lighthearted, but the truth is I’m dreading it. Now that I’ll be starting senior year with a blank slate, I’m in desperate need of some direction. And probably a guidance counselor.
She laughs. “Ah, I always forget you’re a baby.”
“Thanks, I think?” I toss a crouton at her, but I miss, and it bounces off the shoulder of a burly camera guy at the next table.
After lunch, Ruth sends me on my weirdest errand yet. She hands me an armful of five oversized feathers that look like they were procured from various exotic birds. I am to take them to makeup and let them decide “which one works.” Works for what, I have no idea. She says they’re for a photo shoot, but doesn’t elaborate.
When I arrive in makeup, I find a woman parked in the makeup chair, her hair pulled up in a bun so tight it looks like an amateur face-lift. Joanne, one of the makeup assistants, is painting the woman’s face with a rainbow of primary colors. There’s a red diamond over her left eye, and a blue triangle on her cheek. Joanne is working on an orange star on her neck when she notices me.
“Are those my feathers?”
“Uh, no, these are someone else’s,” I say. She rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing. I pass them to her, and she holds each one in turn underneath the woman’s face.
“I like this one,” she says of a bright blue-and-green peacock feather. “What do you think?”
“It’s nice?” I say. “I don’t really know what it’s for.”
“Design is going to photograph her and use the image for a big banner that’s going to hang in one of the final shots. Huge, like two stories.”
I pause and really look at the makeup job and the peacock feather, along with the others now lying in a row on the table. I tilt my head a bit, then reach for a red-and-orange one that’s so bright I’m sure it doesn’t belong to any bird that occurs in nature. Positioned beneath the model’s face, it serves as the start of the rainbow in the pattern.
“Maybe this one?” I say.
“Good eye,” Joanne says, then reaches for the yellow makeup and begins working on some blending around the woman’s jawline.
She hands me the other feathers to take back to props, and as I turn to leave I notice there’s someone sitting in the last makeup chair all the way at the far end of the room. I almost missed him, because the bright lights of the makeup mirror cast a glare in the corner, but as soon as I see the scrollwork of fake black tattoos, I know it’s him.
I don’t know if he noticed me before, or if he’s noticing me now for the first time, too. He shifts in the makeup chair and inhales, like he’s about to say something, but the door to the makeup room opens and Ashley, another member of the crew, comes in with a brush and a tube of something.
“This should do it,” she says, then squirts a dollop of what turns out to be black paint onto a small palette and sets back to work on Milo’s tattoos.
He still looks like he might say something, but if it’s going to turn into a repeat of the conversation we had in his trailer, I’m not interested in an audience. I quickly make my way out into the hall.
“Dee, wait.”
I turn and see Milo coming out of the makeup room after me. His hands are in his pockets, his shoulders rolled in, taking a good three inches off his height.
“I’m sorry. I have nothing else to say in my defense except that I was an ass.”
“Yes,” I reply. I have nothing else to say either, apparently.
He shifts uncomfortably. I don’t know what he was expecting me to say, but that wasn’t it. “I really should have told you about Lydia. I have no intention of starting up with her again, so I just wanted to ignore the whole situation. But you’re right. Hiding it made it worse.”
“Yes,” I say again.
“I, um…” He starts fiddling with a string hanging off his shirt, tugging at it and wrapping it around his index finger. The hem of the shirt pulls unnaturally with the thread.
I hear my mother’s words echo in my ears. You’re a big star, too. I take a deep breath, claiming the oxygen as my own, then reach out and swat his hand away. “Gloria’s gonna kick your ass if you tear a hole in that shirt,” I say.
A smile quirks at his lips, but it’s faint. “Can you forgive me?”
He looks so impossibly sad and sorry and pathetic. Milo Ritter, his blue eyes clear and his soft blond hair falling over one eye, is seriously asking for my forgiveness. And he should. Because he definitely was an ass.
And as soon as I think it, I know I’ll forgive him. I break into a smile.
“I guess I can,” I say. I glance around to make sure no one’s in the hall, then reach up and grab a handful of his shirt, pulling him down to me. Our lips lock, and his hand snakes around my back and pulls me closer.
When we break, he grins. “Easy on the wardrobe,” he says. “Gloria’s gonna kick your ass.”
I smooth out the fabric of his shirt, pausing to let my hand linger on the muscles in his chest. But there’s one last thing that I don’t say. I’m afraid our relationship is a deer in the woods I’m trying not to spook for fear that it’ll bolt back into the darkness.
Shooting wraps next week. Production will pack up and go. I’ll be spit out of the vortex.
And Milo will, too.
Then what?
RINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRING
Our doorbell clangs through our house with a metallic racket that nearly causes my legs to collapse beneath me. My parents never replaced the ancient metal bell with a newer, more soothing model like I suggested. The original doorbell is literally a metal bell with a metal knocker that rattles like one of those old-timey alarm clocks, only much, much louder. It’s enough to make your fillings jangle.
“I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” I shout, hurtling myself out my bedroom door and down the hall. I skid through the foyer, stopping myself by grabbing on to the heavy iron doorknob on our front door.
“If you think I’m letting you leave here with that boy without saying hello, then that time I dropped you on your head as a baby did more damage than I thought.” I glance over my shoulder to see my dad leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest in what I imagine is meant to be an intimidating stance. Unfortunately, my dad is a five-foot-six-inch historian whose blond hair is getting awfully wispy on top and who has a difficult time keeping his round, wire-rimmed glasses on his nose.
“Please don’t embarrass me,” I hiss at him, trying my best to give him the puppy dog face that usually works on him. He doesn’t move.
My parents have always been pretty welcoming to whoever I happen to be dating, even when he shows up wearing shiny black pleather pants and a four-foot wallet chain, yet they can’t help but be suspicious of Milo. I don’t blame them. They’ve seen his face plastered all over the glossy tabloids under headlines such as RITTER TANKS, TURNS TO DRUGS? and LYDIA AND MILO’S WILD NIGHT! after all. They’re smart enough to know that most of that is crap, but they’re parents. It’s their job to remain skeptical.
I open the door and immediately break into a wide smile at the sight of Milo, clad in another tissue-thin V-neck, this one gray, paired with preppy khaki shorts and a pair of navy boat shoes. It’s a totally bland outfit, and he’s rocking it so hard I want to shimmy-shake with the beat.
“Hi! Let me grab my purse,” I say, holding up a finger indicating that he should wait on the porch and maybe not come in to tangle with my dad, who is clearing his throat behind me. I see Milo glance at him, then step into the foyer.
“I’m Milo Ritter,” he says, and reaches out to shake my dad’s hand like he’s any of the other totally normal nobody guys who’ve picked me up for dates (pleather pants aside). I almost laugh at how clichéd it is, watching my dad give Milo the firm, professorial handshake that he usually reserves for donors and
students who don’t want to turn in their term papers. It would be slightly intimidating if Milo weren’t a good head taller than him. “Good to meet you, sir.”
I take the moment of their innocuous greeting to grab my purse from the couch, but when I get back I find my mother has wandered out of her office in full-on draft mode. Her hair is a frizzy mess, her glasses are falling down her nose, and she’s got a yellow no. 2 pencil stuck behind each ear.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she’s saying, transferring her empty coffee mug to her left hand so she can shake Milo’s. “I’m Marilyn, Dee’s mother.”
A flash of recognition crosses his face, and I brace for it.
“Marilyn Wilkie? As in, the romance writer?”
“That’s right!” she replies. Her eyes light up, and whatever plot problem that was weighing her down drifts away. Mom always loves getting recognized, which really only happens at book conventions and signings, when she’s standing in front of a full-color portrait of herself and whatever book she’s promoting. I’m sure it’s making her year that someone like Milo Ritter knows her name.
“You read romance novels?” I can’t keep the shocked, almost mocking tone out of my voice.
“My mom,” Milo says to me, then turns back to my mother. “She’s a huge fan. I think she’s read all your books.”
“Well, isn’t that just a kick! I’ve got a new one coming out. It’s sort of a departure—” Mom says, but I cut her off with a Please don’t look. Once she gets started talking about her work, it’s nearly impossible to get her to stop, which is why I know the plot to her entire Scottish rogue series despite having never read a single word.
“I’ll have to get you to sign a book for her,” Milo says with a warm smile, and my heart melts like a pat of butter on hot toast. “I’ll swing over to a bookstore sometime soon and then come by.”
Mom gives me an I like him nod of approval.
“Where are you two off to tonight?” Dad asks, affecting his deep professorial voice.
“Dad, we really ought to get—”
“Vintage movie night at the Parkland Drive-In. Triple feature of the Back to the Future trilogy,” Milo says.
Dad sighs, clutching at his chest. “It really hurts that my childhood is considered vintage,” he says.
“Better than antique, dear,” Mom replies.
“True,” Dad says, his voice still faux-deep. “Well, on your way there, have Dee take you to Central City Park. She can show you where she—”
“Dad!”
Milo gives me a side eye and a slight smirk, and I know that one’s going to come back to bite me at some point during the night. I’d really prefer not to tell the embarrassing story about why my parents are so hesitant to loan me the car, and why there’s a magnolia tree at the north end of the park that may never be the same.
Right on cue to add to the Wilkie Family Fun Night, Rubix lopes into the foyer, his nails click-clacking on the wood floor. He wanders up to Milo, does a lazy lap around his legs, and then lets all 110 pounds of yellow dog collapse in a heap on his feet. Not at his feet, like most respectable dogs, but on his feet, rendering Milo immobile. I shoot Rubix the stink eye. Traitor. But he just lets out a howling yawn, then settles his head down on his front paws.
“Hey, why don’t you take Rubix with you?” Dad says, bending down to give the old dog a scratch behind his enormous ears. “He could use some adventure. You could walk him around the drive-in.”
At the sound of his favorite word, Rubix’s tail thumps heavily on the floor, but he doesn’t lift his head or move from Milo’s feet.
“Very funny, Dad,” I say, then turn to Milo. “Rubix is afraid of loud noises. We tried to take him to the drive-in once, and he drooled an ocean in the front seat and cried through the first hour until we took him home.”
“Aw, poor guy,” Milo says. He bends down and gives Rubix a double-handed scratch on his big, droopy cheeks.
“Yes, yes, very sad, now we have to go,” I say. I shoot Mom a Help! look.
“Yes, say good night, Ron,” Mom says, winking at me and dragging my dad back down the hall.
“Call if you’re going to be later than eleven!” Dad shouts before disappearing into the kitchen.
“Dad, the showing starts at nine. They’ll just be starting the second movie at eleven!” I turn to Milo, who’s grinning, relaxed as ever, his hands deep in his pockets. “I’m sorry. There’s really no excuse for them.”
“They’re parents,” he says. He steps to the door and gestures for me to go out ahead of him. “That’s what the good ones are supposed to do.”
The Parkland Drive-In is one of my favorite places in Wilder, and not just because it has the most literal name on the planet. It’s been around since the fifties, though the tinny speakers on the poles have been replaced by a low-frequency radio station that you play through your car stereo. I think that’s the one and only update, though. The snack bar is still a tin-roof shack where they make sliders and chili dogs and giant vats of popcorn by hand. It’s only ten dollars a car for however many movies they happen to be showing that night, and with tonight’s triple feature, it’s a killer deal. And since the first movie doesn’t start until sundown, which comes at almost nine, it won’t end until almost four in the morning.
“Favorite spot?” Milo asks after he’s paid the attendant.
“Middle of the middle,” I reply, and he shifts the truck into drive and aims for a spot. He finds the last one in my preferred viewing location and backs the truck in, then hops out. I follow him around to the back, where he drops the tailgate and gives me a boost into the flatbed. There’s a thick blanket and a small cooler of glass-bottle Cokes.
“Sorry, I didn’t bring any pillows,” Milo says. He climbs in behind me, and the truck bounces and creaks under his weight. “I didn’t want your dad to think I was, well…”
“Not a problem,” I say. Milo settles into the truck, his back resting on the rear window, and I settle myself into the space between his knees, leaning back and using his chest as my pillow. He reaches into the cooler and pulls out two Cokes, twisting off the caps and handing me one.
“To summer,” he says.
“To summer,” I reply, and we clink the bottlenecks and take long swigs. It’s been only three weeks, but already I feel like a different girl from the one who sat outside the Coffee Cup worrying about how it was going to be the worst summer of her life. It’s been crazy and amazing and frustrating and interesting, but it hasn’t been the worst. Not by a long shot.
Up ahead, lightning bugs dance in front of the screen until the projector roars to life. Milo reaches back and slides the window of the truck open and leans in to crank the radio so we can hear the jingle that goes along with the dancing hot dog and popcorn telling us to visit the concession stand. Then everyone starts honking as the screen goes black, calling for the movie to begin.
The screen lights up, the symphony plays the booming theme over the Universal Pictures logo, and then there’s the camera panning over the sea of ticking clocks in Doc’s laboratory.
As Marty starts his race to get to school on time, I feel Milo’s breath on my ear, and then it’s lower, moving down to my neck. I lean back into him, breathing in and feeling myself melt. His lips start their journey from my collarbone, up my neck, on along the line of my jaw. His finger traces the path ahead of him until he’s slightly tugging, and I return his kiss with the deepest of sighs.
We make it all the way to Marty McFly falling out of the tree before we give up on watching the movie entirely. We sink down into the bed of the truck, our legs tangled as our lips meet. Milo’s hands go up to my hair, mine on his cheeks, and I feel like I want to devour him, he’s so delicious.
But each time he kisses me, I sense the tally of remaining kisses getting smaller, like someone is tearing the pages off one of those page-a-day calendars. I don’t know how many are left, but it doesn’t feel like enough. And each time his lips meet mine I want to ask him h
ow many, give me a number, please, I just need to know. Is the number bigger than I thought? Infinite, even? But I don’t want him to stop kissing me now, so I don’t ask. I’m not ready for this to be our last kiss.
Or this one.
Or this one.
It seems greedy, but it really doesn’t feel like there will ever be enough. Of this. Of him. Of time. How can there ever be enough?
And so the first movie ends and the second one begins, and my lips ache from kissing him. I’m nestled deep into the nook of his shoulder, one leg thrown over him. It’s only midnight, but I’m exhausted from the day and the night, and exhausted from wondering. But still, I don’t ask.
The next morning, I walk into the kitchen to find Mom sitting at the table in the breakfast nook, a spiral notebook flipped open to a fresh blank page. It’s a sure sign that her book release is imminent, and she’s trying to distract herself from the hoopla by diving headfirst into a new project. Her pen is poised over the top line, but her gaze is out the big picture window into the backyard, where Rubix is working on a hole right in the middle of the yard. She taps her pen on the blank page as she stares out the window, the motion leaving a constellation of ink marks on the otherwise blank page. As I watch her, I’m struck by how much I see myself in her, and not just the crazy hair and the freckles.
Outside, Rubix lets out a bark, then drops face-first into the dirt and begins to roll around like he’s got ants in his pants.
“That damn dog,” Mom mutters, but I notice a small smile.
My Unscripted Life Page 17