Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood

by Abby McDonald

  And Theo.

  Not that he was staying, Grace reminded herself firmly. He was heading back to the East Coast next week, to start his summer job teaching sailing in the Hamptons.

  “That sounds fun. Preppy, but fun,” Grace had teased when he’d told her about his plans.

  “Tell that to my grandma. Coates men don’t soil the family name with manual labor.” Theo’s voice had been light, but Grace could tell there was tension there.

  “Right,” she’d agreed. “Because yachting is up there with coal mining and lumberjacking. Oh, the shame!”

  “Is lumberjacking even a word?” Theo had grinned, and just like that, the tension was broken.

  “Here, catch,” Grace said, tossing a canvas bag down at Theo. He caught it deftly, peering inside.

  “What is this stuff?” Theo pulled out a miniature blowtorch and a handful of metal pins.

  “Design elective last year,” she explained. “I had to do an art project, so I picked the most scientific one I could.”

  Theo pulled out one of her finished pieces: a pendant in the shape of a periodic element, pins welded together as electrons and neutrons. “You made this? It’s great.” He looked at it a moment, then laughed.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, it’s just . . . it’s the sign for gold, and you made it out of silver.” Theo turned it over in his hands. “That’s cool.”

  “You’re the first person to get that.” Grace smiled. Their eyes met for a moment, and she turned away, awkward. “Science geeks, we be crazy!”

  “So which box?” Theo asked. “Keep?”

  Grace wavered. “Storage,” she decided. “No, wait, trash.”

  Theo put the bag in the storage box. “Maybe you’ll want it one day,” he told her with a smile. Grace sighed. “At this rate, we’ll need ten lockers! And that’s not even counting Hallie’s collection of Vogues.”

  “What are you saying about me now?” Hallie’s voice came from down the hall.

  “Nothing!” Grace yelled back. “Be careful,” she whispered to Theo as footsteps came closer. “She’s been kind of . . . emotional, since Juilliard.”

  He nodded, arranging his face into a cautiously sympathetic expression, but when the door swung wider, Hallie danced in. The black mourning garb was gone: in its place was a floaty vintage print dress and fifties starlet lipstick. She was humming an indie rock song, as carefree as if the past month of tantrums had never happened. “Hey, Theo!” Hallie held out her hand. “Up high.”

  Theo slowly high-fived her, sending Grace a confused look. Hallie waltzed over to the storage pile. “Oh, our old teddy bears, cute!”

  “Umm, Hallie,” Grace asked carefully. “How are you feeling?”

  “Great!” She beamed.

  “Did you take some of Mom’s pills?” Grace checked. “Because you know the doctor says to be careful —”

  “Relax!” Hallie grinned. “I’m not high.”

  “OK.” Grace was still suspicious. “Drunk?”

  “Grace! I’m fine. Even better than fine.” Hallie beamed. “We’re moving to Hollywood!”

  “Beverly Hills isn’t technically Hollywood,” Grace corrected, but Hallie just rolled her eyes.

  “It’s close enough. Don’t you see?” she declared. “I wanted to be an actress, and now I will be! I don’t need stupid Juilliard, I can get all the experience and contacts I need in L.A. Train with the greats, go to auditions . . .” She struck a pose, knocking into Grace’s stack of old school reports. Theo leaped up to keep them from tumbling down. “It’s perfect.”

  “Uh-huh,” Grace murmured. Hallie narrowed her eyes.

  “It wouldn’t kill you to be more supportive. I thought you wanted me to move on, embrace the change. So I’m embracing it!”

  “That’s great,” Grace said quickly. “I’m really happy for you. Have you started packing yet?”

  “Packing can wait!” Hallie danced back across the room. “I’m going to go celebrate. Mirabelle and the gang are dying of jealousy!” She paused, looking back and forth between Grace and Theo. “You should do something too.” She gave Grace a suggestive look. “Go out. Get crazy.” She winked, slamming the door behind her.

  “Wow.” Theo blinked. “Where does she find the energy for all those mood swings? I’m exhausted just looking at her.”

  “I think it’s like photosynthesis,” Grace replied, going back to packing. “She absorbs drama and conflict from the universe, and turns it into pure emotion.”

  “Still, I think she’s right about one thing.” Grace looked up. “Going out,” Theo explained. He stuck his hands in his pockets, suddenly looking awkward. “I was thinking tomorrow night? As a good-bye. I’ll be leaving next week, and you need to give the city a send-off. . . .”

  “But there’s so much to do!”

  “It can wait,” he reassured her.

  “I guess . . .” Grace suddenly realized: he’d said “tomorrow night.” Aside from that first movie, all their hanging out had been in daylight hours: museums, parks, usually with baby Dash around as chaperone. This would be different.

  “Come on,” Theo insisted. “Hallie shouldn’t be the only one to have some fun.”

  He looked at her across the room, brown eyes warm behind his glasses, and despite herself, Grace felt her resolve slip. She had so little time left, she shouldn’t spend it all with boxes and packing tape. This wasn’t about Theo, she decided, it was about the city — her home. She deserved a good-bye. “OK,” Grace finally agreed. Theo grinned.

  “It’s a date.”

  Grace knew that Theo hadn’t meant “date” like date. But still, she felt a flutter of nerves when she opened the door to find Theo wearing a dress shirt and tie, his hair smoothed back into something resembling a neat style.

  “Fancy,” she teased, hiding her dismay. She’d picked a skirt and sweater almost exactly like the half dozen other skirt-and-sweater outfits Theo had already seen her in. After all, there wasn’t anything to get dressed up for; they were just hanging out, like normal.

  Right?

  Theo coughed, looking awkward. “You look great.”

  Grace felt herself start to blush. “Thanks.”

  There was a pause.

  “You, umm, ready to go?”

  “Sure!” Grace startled. “Let me just grab my coat.”

  Grace hurried down the hall and ducked into the mudroom, scrambling for the lip gloss she knew Hallie always kept in her coat pocket. Was it too late to put her hair up? Grace wondered, smearing on the pink balm. She caught sight of her reflection, and immediately wiped it all off again. No, she was overreacting again. Theo was just a nice guy who had been raised to wear something other than a ratty T-shirt from time to time. Tonight was nothing special.

  She grabbed her coat and hurried back, hoping to get Theo out of the house before Hallie could —

  “Hey, Theodore.”

  Too late. Grace returned to find Hallie sizing Theo up with a careful stare. “Where are you kids going?”

  “Out,” Grace answered shortly. She pulled on her parka and turned to Theo. “Ready?”

  But Theo was nothing if not well mannered. “How’s it going?” he asked Hallie.

  “You mean, besides moving across the state because your sister is a thieving selfish bitch?”

  Grace gasped. “Hallie!”

  “What?” She shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “We all know the truth, there’s no point dancing around it.”

  Theo looked amused. “I’ll tell her you said hi.”

  Hallie turned to Grace. “Don’t stay out too late,” she said with a smirk. “I’d tell you to be good, but you don’t know how to be anything different.”

  Grace glared, and hustled Theo out the door. “I am so sorry!” she told him, the minute they were outside.

  Theo gave her a grin. “How is it we spend most of our time apologizing for our sisters?”

  “Because they’re insane?” Grace suggested, then stopped. �
�I didn’t mean —”

  “Oh, you did, and she is.” Theo laughed. “You know, she’s got Dash seeing a child psychologist?”

  “What?” Grace stopped. “He can’t even talk!”

  “She’s worried he’s traumatized by all the change,” Theo explained. “So now some guy comes for an hour every night to watch him play and make notes about his sociability.”

  “OK,” Grace agreed. “You’re right. Our sisters are crazy.”

  Theo had planned a whistle-stop farewell tour of the city: trying to cram a visit to every major tourist spot into just a few hours. They took a cable car up to Chinatown, browsed the used bookstores along Little Italy, and tossed pennies in the Japanese fountains in Golden Gate Park. By the time they climbed the cliff staircase at Ocean Beach, Grace felt as if her feet were about to give way, but as Theo led her out to the cliff-top lookout point, her exhaustion disappeared.

  “God, I love this view.” Grace walked to the very edge of the observation deck and clutched the stone balustrades. The bay was chilled and windswept before them, sun just sinking in the distance. Grace knew they had beaches in Southern California — golden sands, gentle waves — but she would miss the coastline here the most. The waves shifted, dark and stormy even on the clearest days, and the cliffs cast shadows over the water below.

  “Dad brought me up all the time as a kid,” she told Theo, smiling at the memories. “Hallie would have a theater class over in the Presidio, so we’d come here. There used to be a museum right here at the top,” she added, “full of old arcade games. I would make the fortune-teller keep spitting out new futures until I got the one I liked.”

  “What did it predict for you?”

  “Fame, fortune, eternal happiness. You know, the usual.” Grace remembered the way her father would always follow the same routine: first the arcade, then a bracing walk across the beach — heads down against the winds, wrapped in their warmest winter gear — then finally a hot dog from the stand up by the cliffs, before meeting Hallie with ketchup stains on their fingers and mustard on their shirts. But soon enough, Hallie quit the theater group over some fight, and their dad started spending weekends at the office, and their Saturday rituals became a thing of the past.

  The moments they’d shared, she’d never get back. Grace shivered.

  “Hungry?” Theo’s voice brought her back to the windy cliff top. For a moment, she’d forgotten he was even there.

  “Always.” Grace turned away from the ocean, trying to smile. “Where to?”

  “Right here.” Theo nodded behind them, to the white building where the ramshackle museum had once stood.

  “Oh.” Grace paused, taking in the sleek cars parked out front, and the uniformed guy loitering at the valet stand. She swallowed, feeling that flutter of nerves return. “Sure,” she exclaimed brightly. “Looks great!”

  Inside, the restaurant was all bleached wood and wraparound views of the ocean, filled with the low hum of adult conversation and the dignified ring of silverware on expensive china. Grace carefully placed the heavy linen napkin on her lap and gave Theo a nervous smile over the arrangement of lilies between them on the table.

  This was way out of her comfort zone.

  At least Theo looked as awkward as she felt: Grace could see him flushing slightly. He reached for the bread basket, and knocked his water glass — righting it just before it spilled.

  “Phew.” Theo made an exaggerated expression. “Close one.”

  “Yup.”

  Silence.

  Grace sank in her seat, hiding behind her menu. Why couldn’t they have just grabbed sushi from their usual hole-in-the-wall, and eaten off paper plates on her living room floor? Sure, it wasn’t exactly atmospheric, but right now, Grace would happily take half-packed boxes and the distant sound of Hallie’s arty rock playlists than this stifled, awkward silence.

  “So . . . what are you getting?” Theo asked. Was it her imagination, or did he sound nervous?

  “Umm.” Grace hadn’t even glanced at the neat calligraphy. She quickly scanned the list, trying to decide what —

  She yelped. “Thirty dollars, for pasta?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Theo reassured her. “It’s my treat. Get whatever you want.”

  But Grace couldn’t let him do that. Theo might have a trust fund waiting for him when he turned twenty-one, but she knew he wasn’t the kind to coast on family money a day before then. This meal would be paid for with part-time tutoring earnings, and the last of his summer-job savings — and Grace could never stand for that. “Theo, I can’t let you do this!”

  “It’s fine, really.”

  “But we could get, like, our body weight in hot dogs for what they’re charging.” Grace looked back at the menu. “Fifty-dollar lobster plate? Does it come with a side of solid gold?”

  A mischievous smile curled the corner of Theo’s lips. “What if I told you it wasn’t technically my treat?”

  Grace paused. “What do you mean?”

  He looked around, and then leaned closer, sliding a credit card across the table. Grace turned it over. “Portia Weston?”

  Theo shrugged. “I figured she should give you a farewell dinner, at the very least.”

  Grace’s mouth dropped open. “You didn’t!”

  He grinned back. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  Grace laughed. Her tension slipped away, and in its place, she felt a delirious kind of relief. He was still the Theo she knew, even in a dress shirt, surrounded by middle-aged diners murmuring over overpriced fish courses. Everything was OK.

  “Well, then,” she said with mock seriousness, picking up her menu. “We can’t turn down her generosity. That would just be rude.”

  “So rude,” Theo agreed, beckoning to the waiter. “Do you want to go first?”

  “Sure.” Grace turned to the waiter, trying not to laugh. “Maybe you can help. I can’t decide between the lobster and the truffled filet mignon. . . .”

  “Why decide?” Theo asked. “Get both!”

  “I’m never eating again!” Grace groaned three hours later, when they clambered off the bus and headed up the street toward her house. It was after midnight, and the street was silent; bright with the glow from condo windows and the streetlamps that they passed. “I’m serious, just lay me down and roll me home.”

  Theo put both hands on her shoulders and pushed her from behind, step-by-step. “But it was worth it. Those chocolates . . .”

  Grace moaned at the memory. “Now I get why you rich people are always throwing parties. You just want the food!”

  “We give good catering,” Theo agreed. He was toting two bags with their leftovers, boxed up neatly with foil swan twists alongside. “I call dibs on the salmon.”

  “No!” Grace wailed in protest. “The salmon and I have a connection. We’re destined to be together!”

  Theo laughed, pushing her in a meandering path up the middle of the street. Grace let him, the feel of his hands solid against her shoulders even through her padded jacket. For a moment she wished it were warmer, that she didn’t have a jacket on at all, that his hands were touching her —

  Grace caught herself. She’d never been drunk, but she wondered if this was what it felt like: loose-limbed and easy, like her careful voice of consequence and self-control was dozing in a corner somewhere. Grace wasn’t used to feeling so relaxed, so reckless. If she wasn’t careful . . .

  “We leave Monday,” she said instead. Monday. That was just three days until her life would change completely.

  Theo dropped his hands to fall into step beside her. “How do you feel about it?”

  “How am I supposed to feel?”

  “That wasn’t an answer.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be,” Grace shot back.

  Theo looked at her sideways with a curious kind of smile. “You’re a tough girl to read, Grace Weston.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to try harder, Theodore Coates.” Grace giggled. They we
re outside Grace’s house at the top of the hill now, the city spread behind them in a blanket of lights. She stopped, turning to stare. She could pick out streets, and the winding passage of traffic; the far glow of the Golden Gate Bridge. “I’m going to miss this view.”

  Theo pulled out his phone. He held it up to take a photo, then scrolled through his contacts list. “Now you can take it with you.” He smiled at her. A second later, Grace felt her phone buzz in her pocket with the text.

  “Can I get one with you?” Grace asked, suddenly feeling bold. She wanted something to take with her; a reminder of him, here, like this.

  Theo gestured for her to join him, and she scrunched in close; backs to the city. He held up the phone. “Say ‘chocolate truffles’!’ ”

  Grace laughed. He clicked to take the shot, then showed it to her. “No, wait, I look like I’m possessed.” Grace laughed.

  “You look fine!”

  “For a demon. Take another,” Grace insisted.

  “Girls.” Theo sighed. He put an arm around her shoulder to pull Grace in closer, then held up his phone. “Three, two, one . . .”

  The flash went.

  “Let’s see,” Grace demanded. Theo scrolled to the photo. “You weren’t looking!” Grace cried. She was smiling at the camera, caught midlaugh, but Theo’s head was turned toward her.

  “I was.” He shrugged. “I was just looking at you.”

  Their eyes met, and suddenly Grace felt just how close he was: his arm, still around her shoulder, his face, just inches away. His eyes were dark in the shadow of the streetlight, but something in them made Grace’s pulse skip.

  “I, umm, should . . .” Grace blinked, but she didn’t leave.

  “Right,” Theo agreed. But he didn’t step away either.

  The city hummed below them. Somewhere in the distance, Grace could hear the grind of a garbage truck — brakes squealing — but to her, it seemed like she and Theo were the only people in the world.