Hometown Series Box Set

by Kirsten Fullmer

  When she reached his side, Elliot took her hand. Taking in her tattered jacket and giant scarf, he led her behind the curtains and into relative seclusion backstage. “What happened?” he asked, glancing around him, looking for somewhere to set his coffee cup.

  She shook her head. “My mom and dad… I was… it’s crazy…”

  Balancing his cup on a stack of set supports, he smoothed his hands up her arms, his eyes searching her face. “What’s crazy?”

  She looked up to meet his gaze, her face a blank mask of disbelief. “My dad just told me… that he and my mom… and it seems impossible.”

  “Like what? Is he sick? Is your mom—”

  “Nothing like that,” Lizzie snorted, shaking off his grip. “Just stuff about when they were young that I never knew.”

  Elliot shoved his hands in his pockets, at a loss as to how to handle Lizzie. The situation had been a mess before, and apparently now it was somehow worse. Her coolness to him was concerning––okay, more like offensive––seeing as how none of this was his fault, but he knew she was in a bad situation so he took a deep breath and counted to five.

  He tried again. “Are you hungry, have you eaten?”

  She waved him off, too upset to consider food.

  The voices onstage grew louder as the chaos grew to fever pitch.

  Desperate to understand what was happening with Lizzie, wanting to reach her, regain the closeness they had shared, Elliot leaned down to kiss her forehead, and for a moment she thawed under his touch. She was warm once again, open, and she welcomed his attention. But then, as if a door slammed in his face, she stepped back.

  “I want to help you—” he started, but she turned her face away.

  “You can’t fix anything here, Elliot,” she said flatly.

  “I might…” he offered with a grin.

  “No, everything has derailed. Things I was sure of are wrong—everything is weird. I actually thought I had a handle on my life.” She rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air. “Ha! I didn’t know the first thing!”

  “What can I do?” he asked, all the while realizing that backing away might be his only option at this point. After all, he was a huge source of contention with her mother, and problems with her parents seemed to be at the root of her distress.

  Lizzie tried to tuck her hair behind her ear over and over, but curls kept popping back up. “You can’t do anything. I don’t have the slightest idea what to do myself, to be honest. I don’t know how to make my mother back off, I don’t know…anything.”

  Elliot retrieved his half-full coffee cup. He glanced toward the noise, then back to Lizzie, his expression miserable. “Let’s go see if we can at least get the kids under control, shall we?”

  After staring at the floor for several more seconds, she finally nodded and followed him back toward the group.

  * * *

  Lizzie followed Elliot as he shouldered through the crowd, careful not to spill his remaining coffee. The stress level onstage was palpable. Mr. Chatterton stood sweating under the lights, wringing his hands and moaning under his breath. Tara looked forlorn and overtired. Justin seemed oblivious to the crowd, his focus solely on Tara.

  Beatrice was speaking to anyone who would listen, waving her hands dramatically, snippets of her brassy nasal voice wafting toward Lizzie as they approached.

  “…these things happen, happen all the time. I saw something like this once, the lead broke her collar bone, and the whole show had to be called off.” She nodded for punctuation. “The show never did go onstage…”

  Unhappy teens, their parents, and townsfolk backed away from the woman; then, another unsuspecting person would move toward the center of the group and get a depressing earful. Winnie and Becky had already removed themselves from the woman’s chatter to stand near Tara.

  Through the strain of the last few days, Lizzie had become more and more detached, and now, as she stood on the crowded stage, she felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience. Voices faded in and out, and her vision swam under the heat of the lights. As she watched her mother, her father’s words came to her and she tried to imagine her mother living in a VW bus, acting with her father on a stage such as this. How was it possible that the overbearing, uppity woman had ever been anything other than the high-society socialite she pretended to be? And for how many years had she hidden the secret of Lizzie’s conception? Wouldn’t the ladies find that a juicy tidbit to spread around the club? She tilted her head to one side, watching her mother babble, attempting to imagine the woman in a flowing white dress with flowers in her hair. To top off the scene, Lizzie tried to picture the hippie version of her mother next to Harold, then thin and sporting a full head of hair.

  Impossible.

  “—don’t you think so, Lizzie?” Tara asked.

  Lurched back to the moment, Lizzie shook herself, banishing all thoughts of what her mother and father had done in that bus. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked, blinking to focus on her friend.

  Justin turned to speak with Winnie, and Tara shrugged out of her jacket, sweat beading on her upper lip from the lights. “I said I wish we had someone to take that poor girl’s place so the kids didn’t have to cancel the play. They’ve worked so hard.”

  “You don’t have anyone in town who was an actress?” As the words left her mouth, the horror of her thought process took hold, but Lizzie immediately backed away from the idea. There was no way on earth she was going to entrench her mother any further into this community or encourage her to stay for one more minute.

  “No, I don’t think we…” Tara reeled, her face ashen grey as she crumpled to the floor.

  With his back turned, Justin didn’t see her going down, but Elliot did. Without hesitation, he dropped his coffee cup and dived forward to catch Tara before she hit the ground. Everything moved in fast-forward as pandemonium broke out. Winnie and Justin both bent by Tara’s side as Becky demanded that everyone move back to give her room. Mr. Chatterton nearly fainted, but Lizzie led him to a nearby bench, careful to step around the spilled coffee, where the poor man fought to gain control of his wildly bobbing Adam’s apple.

  Justin lifted Tara’s hand and patted her cheek. “Tara, honey, wake up!” Frantic, he glanced behind him up at Elliot. “Get me some water and something for her to eat.”

  Elliot immediate asked if anyone had water and three water bottles appeared, held out by wide-eyed students.

  Winnie glanced up to search Justin’s face. “Did she eat today? She’s been doing this sort of thing far more often lately.”

  With a shout, Becky stopped digging through her duffle-sized purse to wave a cough drop toward Justin. “Here, give her this!”

  Since Lizzie was standing next to Becky, the candy was passed to her and she fumbled to unwrap it for Tara. Maybe it was the confusion, maybe the long day, but for some reason she couldn’t make her shaking fingers find the edge of the wrapper to open the cough drop.

  Tara’s eyelids fluttered and all attention focused back on her as she struggled to sit up. “What…why…?”

  “She’s comin around!” Becky bellowed, her arms spread wide, startling Lizzie into dropping the cough drop.

  “Honey, you fainted, but you’re okay,” Justin assured Tara calmly, supporting her with his arm behind her back. “Here, drink this.” He placed a water bottle in her hand.

  “Aw crap…” Tara moaned, her eyes darting among the concerned faces of her family, friends, and half the town.

  Lizzie bent to retrieve the cough drop and handed it to Justin, the wrapper still in place.

  “Eat this, baby,” Justin instructed Tara, tucking the cough drop into her hand.

  Tara opened her hand and her nose wrinkled. “Why would I need a cough drop?”

  Justin sat back on his heels and ran his fingers through his hair. “Look, I know this isn’t really the place, but don’t you think you should tell me what’s going on?”

  As if on cue, silence fell acr
oss the crowded stage, all eyes on Tara.

  The poor girl glanced from face to face, her embarrassment and hesitation obvious, but she didn’t argue.

  Justin cupped her cheek with his palm, drawing her attention from the crowd. “It’s okay, honey, I think I already know. I just—are you happy about it?”

  Obviously shocked at his admission, Tara flushed, her head bobbing in a nod as tears filled her eyes. “Are you?” she squeaked, hanging on the seconds for his answer.

  Winnie stood with a grunt, her hands fisted on her hips. “What’s happening here?”

  Becky gasped and clasped her hands to her chest, causing her jewelry to jangle. “Oh, I think I know! Is it true?”

  Tara and Justin, however, were oblivious to the crowd, wrapped up in each other and lost in the shared moment. Justin grinned, and pulled Tara awkwardly to his chest to rock her back and forth, quietly whispering in her ear how much he loved her and how very happy he was to have a child with her.

  Lizzie took in the scene, still in a haze. Interest in her friend ran deep, but so many conflicting emotions battled through her mind, she couldn’t concentrate long enough to figure out the puzzle before her.

  Finally, Justin pulled back and grinned up at the crowd. “We’re having a baby!” he shouted.

  A buzz of excitement rippled through the crowd and everyone cheered. Winnie tugged her hanky from under her watchband to dab at her eyes, her face glowing. “Don’t that beat all…”

  For some reason, as soon as Lizzie understood what Justin had said, her eyes went straight to Elliot, where they caught his and held. His expression softened and he smiled wistfully, nearly tearing Lizzie’s heart from her chest.

  Nothing felt right. She wasn’t who she’d thought she was. Elliot wasn’t for her. And instead of being the daughter of high-society Boston parents, she was the love child of a couple of scraggly hippies. They’d lied to her all these years, letting her believe that she was born to be elite and rule the world, making her feel like an alien in her own family for wanting the life she should have had in the first place. Her mother had been ruthless, forcing her to conform, and it was all a lie! They’d known she wanted to be free to live on the farm. They’d seen her struggle and mourn for her granddad and they still didn’t tell her. They’d kept their past, and her past, from her— for her entire life!

  As if Lizzie weren’t in control of her own body, her soul cried out and words burst from her mouth, loud and fast, almost like a machine gun. “My mother can play the part of Miss Hannigan, she knows all the lines!”

  Once again a shocked silence fell over the crowd gathered on the stage. The eyes of the group darted back and forth from Lizzie to each other in surprise. Mr. Chatterton was the first to respond, his face lighting up as he stood from the bench, his gaze searching the crowd for Beatrice.

  Justin glanced from Lizzie to Elliot in question as he helped Tara stand, and Elliot shrugged as if to say he’d had no idea.

  Becky and Winnie and the kids all turned to gape at Beatrice, who had her palms pressed to her chest, her eyes wide, as she took a step back. “Oh—I don’t think—”

  Tara stepped forward, still a little unsteady on her feet, with Justin holding her elbow. “Is it true? Can you save our play?”

  Beatrice froze, her eyes darting from face to face, her mouth a tight red lipstick-letter O.

  The crowd erupted into cheers of encouragement as they realized the play would continue. Kids scurried across the stage resetting backdrops and wiping up coffee. One girl shoved a script at Beatrice as another plopped a scraggly grey wig onto the older woman’s head.

  Lizzie watched as desperation filled her mother’s face. The woman’s eyes frantically scanned across the crowd and finally found Lizzie, piercing her to the core, questioning why she would say such a thing, wondering how she could possibly know.

  Unsure why she had done it, unless it was for full-out revenge, Lizzie shrank back in horror. She’d never divulged a secret to hurt someone in her life, let alone her own mother. She really didn’t know who she was!

  In the hubbub, no one but Elliot noticed as Lizzie escaped behind the curtains, tears already filling her eyes and a huge lump forming in her throat. He caught up to her as she ran through the dark toward the spa. Reaching for her hand, he pulled her to a halt. “Lizzie, what on earth is going on? You got your mother the leading role? Why…?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Trying to tug her hand free, desperate to escape before she broke down, Lizzie struggled in Elliot’s grip. Finally, turning toward him, she frowned down at his hand holding her firm.

  Elliot loosened his grip. “Please talk to me.”

  Unable to hold back the tears any longer, Lizzie melted. Hiccupping sobs wracked her body and she covered her face with her hands, horrified that Elliot was seeing her fall to pieces.

  He pulled her into his arms, one hand smoothing her curls as she cried on his chest. “It’s okay, baby, let it out…”

  Darkness surrounded them in the starlight, muting the distant noise of the crowd back in the barn. The cool breeze blew over their heated skin, caused the couple to shiver.

  After a moment or two the sobs turned to sniffs and Lizzie pulled back, swabbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m not a crier, I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

  Elliot shoved his hand into his trouser pockets. “You’ve been under a lot of pressure.”

  She sniffed. “Nothing feels right anymore, I’m so confused.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked, dipping his head in an attempt to make eye contact.

  She glanced across the yard, the last hour still too strange and raw to put into words.

  Elliot drew his hands free of his pockets to pull her back into his arms, holding her close, his chin resting on the top of her head. “It doesn’t matter,” he whispered. “You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.”

  The warmth of Elliot’s embrace and his words of support touched a tender spot in Lizzie’s heart, and the feelings she’d had for him the day of the picnic returned in a rush. Thankful for a brief safe haven from the emotional rollercoaster that her life had become, Lizzie rested her head on his chest, soaking up his calm assurances. How could he manage to offer just what she needed, yet be so impossible to keep?

  Maybe he was right; she’d been under too much pressure. When her mother was around she was under attack. She spoke wrong, sat wrong, walked wrong, dressed wrong, thought wrong. Who could act normally under a stain like that? Add to that her father’s revelation about their humble beginnings, and she’d lost it.

  As if Elliot could hear Lizzie’s distress, he released her and took her hand, silently leading her across the yard to sit on the deck of the inn. With care, he settled her onto a deck chair and pulled up another to sit close, taking her hand again. The noise from the barn had turned to organized, if off-key, music. The occasional microphone squealed and Mr. Chatterton’s voice could be heard hollering instruction from time to time, but the rhythm of the evening had changed from chaos to performance mode.

  Neither Elliot nor Lizzie spoke, both staring over the covered pool into the forest. Moonbeams shone down on the yard, collaborating with the breeze to create dancing shadows. As her breathing slowed and her heart rate returned to normal, Lizzie realized how cool it had become, causing her to let go of Elliot’s hand. She tugged her jacket closed, folding her arms across her chest, then turned to him, her eyes tracing the line of his jaw in the darkness.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  She nodded. “A little, thanks.”

  He cleared his throat and Lizzie knew he had something to say but wasn’t sure where to start. The last few days had certainly given him plenty to be confused or unhappy about.

  “I’ll be heading home in the morning,” he began. “I need to meet with my father.”

  Pain and guilt fell hard on Lizzie’s shoulders as she realized she’d been consumed with her
own issues and hadn’t even considered that Elliot had issues back home. “I hope everything is okay…”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “Things are fine, I just need to get back. Work is piling up.”

  The harsh words of reality stung as Lizzie faced the fact that Elliot was leaving. She’d known all along that he would go, but now that it was happening. “I see.”

  He turned on his deck chair to face her, his elbows on his knees. “Lizzie, I don’t want to leave you right now, I hope you know that.”

  “Of course,” she said, trying to sound as if her heart weren’t breaking. Even though she’d told her mother over and over that she didn’t want him, she knew she’d miss him horribly. He offered an easy kind of support and humor that had been missing in her life.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you about my upcoming projects, but there’s never been a good time to bring it up.”

  She nodded again, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.

  Elliot rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. “I’ve not quite got my head around how to tell my father…”

  Lizzie leaned forward, concerned. “I’m sorry, is there anything I can do? I understand difficult parents.”

  He stood and pulled her up to face him. She kinked her head back to meet his eye and he chuckled, then led her to the deck steps and moved down a step so they could see eye to eye. Tracing his knuckle down her cheek, he sighed. “I’m going to miss you.”

  The lump was back in Lizzie’s throat, choking any words that she might have been able to mumble. The thought of facing her mother without his encouragement made her feel vulnerable and lost.

  His lips touched hers, the kiss warm and tender. She leaned into him, wanting to drown in the emotions he stirred, longing to make the moment last, to make a memory of Elliot that she could carry with her. The kisses were sweet and sad, and as she wound her arms around his neck, she wished she could melt into the comfort she found in his arms and live there.