“Oh, I’m exceptionally observant.”
“Right.” He shook his head. “Then I guess you didn’t notice that ring on her finger?”
“Ring?”
“Yes. A ring. An engagement ring, Mizz Observant.”
I was speechless. John probably would have said “for once.”
He continued, “Sandy got engaged to a school friend of ours about a month ago.”
Engaged? Well, engaged or not, she was definitely interested in John. And he was interested in her as far as I could see. He could lie to me all he wanted, but I knew the truth. It wasn’t that I was jealous or anything. God, no! I simply called it like I saw it. “Well, it’s clear she’d rather be with you.” I decided that was a better tactic than ragging on him about any interest of his own.
“We used to date, all right? Back in high school, we were even Prom King and Queen.”
This baffled me. John was Prom King? This guy who could barely carry on a pleasant conversation was liked by enough people to be voted King of something? “Then I wasn’t that far off, was I? Why’d you break up?”
He scoffed. “I don’t know. We grew up, grew apart. Do we have to talk about this?”
“Of course we have to talk about this. I’m enjoying this! It’s the first time I’ve seen you squirm since I’ve been here.” This was payback for the torment he’d put me through the last couple of days.
John gripped the steering wheel a fraction tighter. “Sandy and I broke up when I went away to college. She’s been with Justin ever since, pretty much.”
Justin? John? Was this girl only into guys with J names? That wasn’t the real question I had for him now, though. I was taken aback by what he’d said. “You went away to college?”
“Yes,” he responded curtly. “I was accepted into a few different schools, actually, so no cracks about my intelligence.”
Okay, this was clearly a sensitive subject. I figured I’d ask the easiest question first. I suddenly had so many. “Where did you go?”
“NYU for a semester. Then I came home.”
“You went to school in New York, and you came back?” Of course. It was coming together now. He must have been in New York when I was there. No wonder Kenny and Martha tried to convince him to see me. “Why’d you quit? Was it too much of a culture shock?”
“No,” he said adamantly. “I loved it there. I mean, it was a culture shock, sure, but a good one. It was actually a dream to go there. Well, it was my dad’s dream, really. The last vacation I took with him was to New York. After he got sick, it became a sort of goal of his to send me to school there. I think he wanted me to go somewhere far away because he never had that opportunity. I didn’t want to leave, but...”
“But what?” These were the most words he’d spoken since I’d met him—or rather, met him again. I wanted to keep him talking if for no other reason than to provide a distraction during our long drive home.
He sighed. “But it didn’t work out. My mom was alone, and Ken and Martha were so accustomed to having me around to help. After my dad died, I had to take over in his place. Everybody supported my decision to leave for school, but I think they dreaded it, too. I remember calling my mom up at night, and she sounded miserable. Well, not at first. She tried to hide it at first, but after a time she couldn’t. I felt guilty—really guilty. So, when I came home for Christmas break, I decided to stay.”
“Oh,” was all I could muster. He seemed so sad. I was sad for him. I wondered what he’d given up for the sake of familial duty. “What were you studying?”
“Business,” he chuckled quietly without much humor. “Sure could use those courses right about now.” Then he sighed loudly and heavily. “I did try to see you. I mean, I saw you in your play, Our Town. After the show, I went to the stage door. Ken and Martha had given me your number, but I was too nervous to call out of the blue. So I thought I’d go to the door and wait and introduce myself. I don’t know why that seemed easier. You were terrific, by the way.” He shook his head. “I probably shouldn’t tell you that. It’ll just make you conceited.”
I beamed. “At least you didn’t say ‘more conceited.’”
“When you came out, you were with someone. A guy. I’m guessing a boyfriend? And you were so... unapproachable. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. You were a star, you know, and I couldn’t bring myself to speak to you.”
I didn’t know how to respond. It was so lovely and raw and endearing. “You thought I was good?” I joked so that he wouldn’t see how affected I was.
John laughed. “I knew it would give you a big head.”
“I’d say you should have just talked to me, but you were probably right not to. I wouldn’t have noticed you back then.” I quickly amended, “Not because of you. I was just very self-absorbed.” Or maybe I was Cooper-absorbed.
He nodded and didn’t say anything. Humor had always been my go-to when I felt uncomfortable, so I said, “None of that changes the fact that you and Mizz Winters have the hots for each other.”
John groaned. “Don’t start that again. Seriously, that is all in the past. I’m even going to be a groomsman in the wedding.”
“You don’t want her back?” I fiddled with a stray thread at the bottom of my shirt, so I wouldn’t look too interested.
“No. Why would you assume that?”
“You brought me to her house, and we didn’t leave with a cow. So that tells me you didn’t really need my help with ‘farm equipment.’”
“Would you be too mad if I told you I brought you along to act as a buffer?” John clenched his teeth and tensed his jaw—similar to his frog expression from our first truck ride.
“A buffer?”
He rested his left elbow on the windowsill and used his fist to prop up his head. “Sometimes I feel like... maybe Sandy does still have feelings for me, and I don’t know what to do about that. So I parked at the old place, hoping she wouldn’t hear, and I brought you as my back up in case she did. I thought maybe she’d think... Anyway, it was a stupid thing to do.”
“You know I’m an actress, right?” I said in mock horror. “If you’d have just told me your plan, I would have played along.”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that for me. Not after yesterday’s fiasco.” He frowned.
I shrugged. “You would have owed me.” I had a feeling I could use a firm favor from him if I were to stay in this town for long. At the very least, I could have bribed him to get that mattress topper I feared Kenny and Martha might never find.
Trying to be discreet, I looked John over, assessing him as a viable mate. I guess I could see why Sandy would still want him. He was too good-looking for a hillbilly, and he seemed rather intelligent despite his accent. Actually, his accent was adorable. Ugh. Snap out of it, I thought to myself. You hate this guy, remember? I turned my attention back to prodding him for information. “Well, why don’t you get back together with her? She’s pretty and sweet, and I hear she makes a delicious cake out of birds...”
“Have you really never heard of Hummingbird cake?”
“Cake’s not really on my diet.” I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had a piece. I remembered the director and crew of Where’s Rosie making a big deal of my birthday every year and surprising me with cake, but my mother never let me eat it. One year, I was lucky enough to sneak a piece past her and almost to my dressing room, but the director—the very same person who’d gifted me the cake—snatched it away. He said I couldn’t afford to be adding pounds during filming. I told myself it was fair because I was in those pre-teen years, and my body was trying to figure out where to put everything. Thinking about that piece of cake now made me sad, though. How odd. As if not eating that one piece of cake was worthy of regret. If anything, I should have thanked him for it. I gained two pounds working on the set that season without the cake’s help.
“Well, cake should be on everyone’s diet,” John responded.
I laughed. “Let them eat cake?”
“I hope it’s not out of birds.”
John shook his head. “You don’t really think Hummingbird cake is made out of birds, do you?”
I shrugged. “How do I know what you people think is a delicacy?”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Pretend away.”
John glanced at me. “Do you like pineapple?”
“Of course I do. Pineapple is nature’s cough medicine.”
“I... okay, I did not know that. Anyway, I make an amazing pineapple upside-down cake. I’m not trying to brag or anything. It was my dad’s recipe, and it’s my mom’s favorite. I make it for her birthday every year.”
Sometimes I thought John couldn’t be a real person. One minute he was a total jerk, and the next, he seemed like a man created from a catalog of best qualities. I supposed he might have thought the same of me. We definitely had our highs and lows. It seemed we'd earned our mood swings with what we’d both been through in our lives.
“Would you maybe want to swing by the grocery store in town on our way home? I’ve got to get a few things.”
The question was simple enough, but the decision was complicated. I wasn’t really sure I was supposed to be seen in town—at least not yet. What if someone recognized me? On the other hand, going out into the world did sound appealing. Cabin fever had set in the first night I slept in my new bedroom. I briefly hemmed and hawed over my decision, then finally said, “Sure. Let’s go!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
When we got to the store, John took off his hat and placed it on my head. I should have been repulsed by the gesture. I was sure he’d never washed the thing. However, it made me giggle. Also, it smelled surprisingly good—like a man who sweats straight up cologne. What was wrong with me?
“This way, no one will recognize you.” He smiled. “Looks good on you.”
Then he got out of the truck. I felt like I’d had the breath knocked out of me momentarily. It was a dizzying feeling. He thought I looked good in his hat. Whoa. Get ahold of yourself, Chas. I opened the door and steadied myself as I got out.
“I won’t need much,” he said as he picked up a basket inside the automatic doors.
The store looked like it hadn’t been renovated since the 1980s. Everything was shades of brown and beige with yellow lighting that made my eyes squint automatically. I tugged the hat a bit lower to counteract the light’s intensity and to hide the repulsive face I must have been making.
“Hello, John,” an old, gray-haired man said as we passed the customer service desk.
“Afternoon, Bill.” John nodded but didn’t stop to chat.
We started in the produce section on the far end. John picked up a tomato and sniffed it; then, he picked up an onion and sniffed it. When he sniff-checked the romaine lettuce, I giggled. “What’s that about?”
“What? You don’t smell your vegetables before you buy them?”
I shook my head. “I don’t grocery shop. Too many people. I usually pay someone to do it for me.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I guess that makes sense.” Then he shoved a pepper in my face and said, “Smell it.”
“Okay...” I sniffed the pepper warily, not quite sure what I was supposed to get from the experience. “It smells like a pepper, I think.” He looked at me expectantly, so I continued, “A red pepper?” Oddly, it was hard to tell what color it was when it was so close to my face. “I’d say it smells like a fresh, red pepper. And that’s my highly scientific final answer.”
“That’ll do.” John smiled and placed the pepper in the basket before continuing on.
“You’re just going to put it right in there? You’re not going to put it in a bag or sanitize the basket first?”
He shook his head. “Why would I do that? I’m going to clean it anyway, and do you know where vegetables come from?” He eyed me quizzically. When I didn’t answer, he whispered mockingly. “The ground.”
I feigned horror at this. “Whaaaaat?” Perhaps I wasn’t as talented an actress as I’d thought because he laughed and moved to the fruit section.
John picked up a large pineapple next and didn’t give it the sniff test. I mulled over whether or not to give him a hard time about it but got distracted by something—someone, actually. A young man across from our partition of fruits seemed to be watching us. He quickly ducked his head when he saw me looking at him. I looked away, too, or at least I pretended to. He was still in my peripheral vision, though, and I was certain he was staring at me. Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure how to react anymore—not after the airport incident. Could this just be another guy who remembered me from his childhood? Or had I been discovered? Surely I was paranoid. Maybe he was simply entertained by the witty repartee of John and me, or maybe he was not so discretely trying to learn John’s produce selecting secrets. Whatever his motives, I was relieved when John and I rounded the corner and strolled down the next aisle. Thinking John would make fun of me, I didn’t mention the other young man or my worries.
John was completely oblivious as he perused the shelf in front of him. “You’re gluten-free and vegan, yes?”
I nodded.
“Right.” He then pulled a gluten-free baking mix off of the shelf, scanned the ingredients, and placed the bag in the basket. “I think I have everything else I need at home. Do you need anything?”
My sanity, I thought. Then, I shook my head and started walking down the aisle toward the front of the store.
“Are you all right?” John asked, catching up with me.
I shrugged. “Sure. Why?” Oh boy, I was going to need to take a bunch of acting classes when I got back to L.A. I was sure my body language and tone of voice had given me away.
“You’re quiet, but not in a sassy way. You seem troubled.”
I sighed. This guy was good. How could someone who’d known me for such a short time be able to read me so well? I glanced behind him at the shelf and was distracted again—this time intentionally. “Oreos.”
“What?”
“I haven’t had an Oreo in so long. Not since I was a kid. They used to be my favorite.”
John cocked his head as he was probably smacked with the suddenness of my subject change. “Oreos... are what’s troubling you?”
“No. The Oreos aren’t troubling me. I’m not troubled, okay? I’m fine.” I stalked further down the aisle toward the registers. “I’m ready to go.”
When I reached the end of the aisle, I turned right and collided with something. Someone. “Sorry,” I mumbled before looking at his face. It was the young man from the produce section.
He simpered and said, “No problem at all, sweetheart.”
I didn’t like the way he smiled at me or the way he said sweetheart. I continued walking and could hear John close behind. I was afraid to look back—afraid to see that “sweetheart” guy still staring after me. But I was also afraid not to look back. I needed John to be there behind me. I turned into a register lane where I felt a bit less exposed. John was behind me. I saw concern in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything. He simply started unloading the contents of the basket onto the conveyor belt.
“How are y’all today?” drawled the cashier as she began swiping our items over the scanner.
“Fine, thanks,” John replied as he maneuvered his way around me to get to the cashier.
While I watched the items glide along the belt, an image caught my eye. There was a row of magazine shelves in the lane. That was typical for grocery stores, but they all had one thing in common. Me. The first picture I saw was toward the bottom right of one of the magazines; it was my headshot from the first season of Where’s Rosie. Underneath were the words: “America’s Darling.” Below that was a picture of my mother captioned: “What’s Mother Hiding?” And below that image was a picture of Cooper. He had his arm draped over another girl. The caption read: “Cooper’s Moving On." I gasp
ed. I’d seen it firsthand before, but seeing it now with the rest of the world nearly tore me open from the inside out.
The centerpiece of the cover was another picture of me. It was by no means flattering. I knew exactly when the picture had been taken. Cooper and I were at a nightclub celebrating the release of one of his movies. I had stormed out because he was getting a little too friendly with one of the shot-girls. Someone must have snapped a picture of me then. I was a wreck. My makeup was smeared around my red eyes, and I looked like I was on something stronger than alcohol. I wasn’t. Somehow, in all my years in Hollywood, I had managed to stay out of the classic storyline of former child star turned hardcore drug addict. I had been drinking that night and crying, and someone had taken it upon himself to take a picture so he could sell my misery to the highest bidder. Above that awful picture was the phrase: “Where’s Chastity?”
The magazine next to it featured a similar storyline—this time focusing more on Cooper. He was with a different woman in this picture. And on the next magazine, more of the same. I felt dizzy and queasy. There they were, the reasons I was in hiding: Cooper, my problems, my mother even. They were all haunting me from thousands of miles away. Cooper with another woman; Cooper with more women. I couldn’t breathe. I was sinking to dark places inside myself. The smell of tequila, the feel of a cold, sharp blade, the even colder stone tile...
“Sissy? Sissy, stop!” John’s voice broke through my memory. I could feel his hands on my shoulders as if he was holding me down. I could feel the dampness on my face. I blinked the tears out of my eyes to see him kneeling next to me. How did I get here on the floor? His eyes were terrified. I looked around to see magazines shredded on the ground. Had I torn them? I must have blacked out, and that scared me. I grabbed John and pulled myself into his chest.
“What happened?” I panted through the hyperventilation.
He stroked my shoulders and whispered, “It’s okay.” Then he scooped me up in his arms to carry me out of the store.
I saw the old man from earlier asking questions, but my jaw was so tense all I could hear was a rumbling sound. John shook his head at the old man and walked me out.
Be It Ever So Humble Page 8
