The Real Thing

by Lizzie Shane

  “I’m only concerned about your safety.” Stiff. Offended.

  Maggie ground her molars. “Then you can take comfort in knowing I was perfectly safe, eating s’mores and staring at a fire.”

  “All night?”

  “Yes. I stoked a fire for four hours straight and it was the best night I’ve had in years,” she snapped—every word one hundred percent true.

  Maggie had spent hours coaxing the fire with the fireplace poker while Ian had teased her about her inability to let it burn without nudging it. At first, Sadie had chattered about the baseball game she was going to that weekend—providing a dramatic play-by-play retelling of the moment her friend had officially invited her. Then she’d grown increasingly creative in her attempts to wheedle Ian into extra s’mores. But eventually Sadie’s gushing had wound down and they’d all stared into the fire, finding shapes in the logs as they burned—the one Sadie insisted looked like a wolf. Another with a branch sticking out like a child raising his hand. They’d just sat. All night. And it was amazing.

  Ian hadn’t even kissed her—and she was barely sad about that. The night had been that good.

  “Maggie,” Mel repeated, overusing her name as she always did when Maggie was misbehaving. “This is serious. There’s a rumor the studio is considering replacing you with someone cheaper. Someone easier to work with.”

  “There’s always a rumor,” she snapped. “And any time a woman gets enough power to start having influence they say she’s difficult to work with.”

  “This is a credible rumor,” Melanie insisted. “I’ve heard it’s one of the Baker sisters. You need to come back. Now. This is damage control—”

  “Melanie, I’m not ready.” She was reasonably certain Mel was overreacting—she was paid to worry about every little detail of Maggie’s life so Maggie didn’t have to, and sometimes she took that worrying too far. But also, Maggie just wasn’t ready to leave yet. “Stop calling me. I’ll be back when I’m back.”

  She disconnected the call, wasting no time before shutting off the phone. She glared at the peeling wallpaper without really seeing it.

  It had started out as such a good morning. Last night had been…magical.

  She was always playing a part. Even the role of Maggie Tate. She’d started acting by pretending she was someone else. Someone better. Before it was about the applause it had been about going through the make-believe motions of being happy. Though she’d definitely craved the applause. The approval. The validation of being loved. Adored. Freaking revered. But it never filled the empty space.

  She was never going to be rich enough or famous enough or successful enough to magically become happy. Not as happy as she’d been last night when she just curled into the corner of Ian’s couch and watched the fire for hours on end.

  Did she still want to be an actress? Had she gotten everything she could from it? Was it her time to move on? It seemed like something people simply didn’t do. They clung to fame with their fingernails. People didn’t simply give up the limelight. Her entire industry seemed to revolve around the fact that everyone wanted more. Everyone was hungry. To simply walk away once you had finally made it to the Promised Land, once you were finally in…

  Was that crazy? What would she even do if she did leave? Who was she if she wasn’t an actress? If she wasn’t playing the part of Maggie Tate, what was left?

  She looked around the kitchen, wishing Lolly was here.

  If she could just talk to her. Ask her what to do. Lolly had never been shy about giving advice. It was the whole reason they’d fallen apart. Lolly hadn’t been able to stop telling Maggie to forgive her father and Maggie hadn’t been able to hear it any more. But now she wished she could talk to her aunt. She’d give anything to rewrite the last year of her life, to have one more conversation with Lolly.

  Had Lolly wanted that too? Was that why she’d written the letters? But why not send them? Why not reach out? Why wait until it was too late?

  If she could just find another letter, maybe Lolly would explain.

  Maggie pushed back her chair, determined to search all day and night if that’s what it took. There had to be more letters. There had to be answers.

  * * * * *

  The rain stopped on Thursday and Ian went from killing time to having several jobs needing his attention—but he’d also promised to help Maggie with the dump run, so after he finished the patch job on Mrs. Anderson’s roof and before he headed over to start rebuilding the deck for Mr. Kim, he grabbed a couple orders of fish and chips from a hole in the wall that hadn’t been around when they were growing up and headed over to Maggie’s.

  Not because he couldn’t wait to see her again. They were friends. They’d always been friends. And he’d promised to help her. That was all there was to it.

  The other night, when they’d sprawled by the fire, eating s’mores and talking about nothing, had been great—in a purely platonic way. Maggie without the act, without the air kisses or over-the-top flirty smiles, was incredibly fun to be around. They’d always been good at doing nothing together and the other night had reminded him that sometimes he needed to turn off the worry in his brain and just do nothing too. She was good for him.

  As a friend.

  And if he was attracted to her…well. He was getting good at ignoring that.

  Ian pulled into the driveway and the door of his truck creaked, announcing his presence as he jumped out. A rapid-fire series of barks from Cecil inside the house greeted him as he climbed the porch steps and Maggie was opening the front door before he reached it. “Cecil, hush, it’s Ian.”

  “I come bearing fish and chips,” he announced, holding up the bag. “And I’m here to get the dump stuff. Lunch first?”

  “My hero.” She sighed, feigning a swoon.

  He rolled his eyes at the dramatics. “All right, Garbo.”

  Maggie giggled, holding the door open for him as he came inside. Cecil squirmed excitedly around their feet—and Ian’s momentum stopped suddenly when he got a good look at the inside.

  Maggie grimaced, taking the bag from his hands. “I know. It’s kind of a disaster. I got a little obsessed with the idea that Lolly had left more letters and started searching.”

  Cupboards had been opened and partially unpacked—or completely unpacked and partially repacked, it was impossible to tell. Boxes filled with papers were scattered on the kitchen floor, their tops open—and he could see twice as many through the door into the living room.

  “Did you find anything?” he asked, instead of the question he wanted to ask which was Did you sleep last night?

  Maggie grimaced, sinking onto her chair. “No. And I’m starting to think there aren’t any more letters. That it wasn’t some master plan of Lolly’s to speak to me from beyond the grave but rather that she actually just forgot she’d written them all those years ago and they don’t mean anything more than that.”

  “It’s possible,” he acknowledged, taking his own seat and doling out the fish and chips. “She never talked to me about them. Or my mom.”

  “Did she tell you she was giving me the house?”

  “Actually no, she didn’t. I assumed it would go to—” He broke off, realizing next of kin might not be a phrase he wanted to use, but Maggie had already seen what he was heading toward.

  “My dad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she give him anything? You were at the reading of the will.”

  “I was,” Ian agreed. “And there wasn’t anything in it for him—but I know she sent him a box about a month before she passed. I don’t know what was in it, but it was when she was on a kick of giving people things to remember her by.”

  Maggie nodded, her eyes shadowed—and he was reminded again that Lolly hadn’t even called her to let her know what was happening. “I keep thinking she was trying to give me some message by giving me the house, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Maybe it’s just a house.”
<
br />   “I think she had a reason.” He just hoped it wasn’t some kind of misguided matchmaking scheme.

  Ian studied the movie star in Lolly’s kitchen. Her blonde hair had been pulled up into a sloppy ponytail and she wore a soft, faded denim button-down shirt over a pair of cut-off shorts. They were both a little big on her, and if she was spotted by the press she’d probably be on some worst-dressed list before sundown, but he couldn’t stop stealing glances at her.

  The oversized shirt hung off her shoulders, seeming to emphasize her delicate frame. Her wrists were thin, almost bony, her hands small as they reached for another fry. Maggie May… always irresistible. But Lolly had to know her great-niece well enough to know she wouldn’t stay in Long Shores.

  Ian bolted down his lunch, scraping back his chair. “So where’s this dump stuff?”

  * * * * *

  “Are you sure it’s okay to throw this stuff away?” Maggie worried at her lip, holding up another item from the dump pile they were transferring into the bed of Ian’s truck.

  He arched a brow, taking the bent lamp from her hands. “You want to keep a busted lamp that Lolly probably picked up at Walmart or a yard sale? For sentimental reasons?”

  “We don’t know if there are sentimental reasons. That lamp could mean something to Lolly. Maybe that’s why she kept it in the loft rather than throwing it out herself.”

  Ian arched a brow. “Does it mean something to you?”

  “Well, no, I don’t think she even had it when I used to visit—” The lamp went flying into the truck bed landing, with a clatter on top of the other items already mounding there. “Ian!”

  “If it were valuable to Lolly or significant to someone she cared about, she would have given it to that person or made some plan to have it donated to a historical society that specializes in ten-year-old Walmart lamps. It’s yours now. If it’s not special to you, it’s junk.” He pointed to the truck. “Junk goes to the dump.”

  “You’re ruthless, you know that?”

  “If we dither over every lamp, I’m gonna be here all day.”

  Guilt immediately swamped her. “I’m sorry. I’m taking you away from work—”

  “Maggie, stop. It was my choice to come. But I’m not gonna get sentimental about some broken junk Lolly was hanging onto because she was frugal and she thought she’d get around to fixing it some day.” He shook his head. “Your place in LA must be overflowing with crap if you get this attached to a bent lamp.”

  “Actually it’s like something out of a magazine. A designer picked all the furniture and decorations. There isn’t much in there with sentimental value—which makes it easy when I have to film on location. I get a condo in whatever city we’re filming in and as long as Cecil is with me it’s just like home. But this is different.” She waved a hand in the truck bed. “This is Lolly’s stuff. Even if it isn’t worth much, she picked it out. It was hers.”

  “This is never going to work if you’re trying to keep the house as a shrine to Lolly and refuse to get rid of anything she touched. You wanna know what helped when we were going through my dad’s stuff? Pick a few things you know you want to keep. Things that will always remind you of her. Things that really mean something. Set them aside and when you’re dithering over whether you should keep something or give it away, go look at those things and ask yourself if this item you’re agonizing over means more to you than they do. If it does, trade it out for something in the keep pile. If it doesn’t, it goes.” He met her eyes, his hand resting on the lip of the truck bed. “It’s tempting to cling to their things, but it doesn’t bring them back.”

  “I know,” she murmured, still eyeing the broken items in the bed. “I’m just scared of getting rid of something she loved. I hadn’t seen her in so long. How do I know what was meaningful?”

  “Because it’s meaningful to you.”

  She swallowed, nodding.

  It had been easy to give the clothes to Sadie. That had felt like giving a piece of Lolly to someone she loved. But the dump. It had seemed like a good idea at first, practical, but as she’d watched Ian’s truck fill up with broken and useless items she’d started feeling more and more like she was doing something wrong. Like she didn’t have the right to throw away anything of Lolly’s. Like she was losing another piece of her aunt with every bit of junk that went into the truck bed.

  “Is there any more?” Ian asked.

  Maggie glanced over her shoulder toward the house where Cecil was supervising from his belly on the porch. “No. That’s all of it.”

  Ian arched an eyebrow. “So you’re keeping the bent ski poles for sentimental reasons?”

  She raised her chin stubbornly. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  He snorted. “All right. You’re the boss.”

  He started toward his truck door and she trailed behind. “Thank you. I don’t think I could have done this without you. You’re my hero. You know that?”

  “Oh no. No. There will be no singing of ‘The Wind Beneath My Wings.’” A laugh burst out of her, but Ian was still shaking his head as his truck door creaked open. “This is not a Beaches moment. Watching that movie once was traumatic enough.”

  Her jaw dropped. “No. You didn’t.” The summer she turned thirteen she’d been obsessed with the movie Beaches, and Ian had displayed a thirteen-year-old boy’s disdain for the film. “I must have begged you to watch that movie with me a hundred times!”

  “I remember. Though in my memory it was closer to a million.” He shook his head dolefully, standing in the opening of the truck door. “I never should have listened to you. That movie was awful.”

  “Bite your tongue! It’s a classic.”

  “It was maudlin as hell.”

  “I think you mean beautiful and evocative,” she corrected.

  “I’m pretty sure I mean depressing and soul-killing. And after all that hype.” He shook his head. “Really, you ruined it for me by describing it as the best movie of all time.”

  Maggie fought a laugh. “In my defense, I was twelve years old and I wanted to be Bette Midler when I grew up.”

  “Which makes me what? The one who dies?”

  She gasped. “You really watched it!”

  “Well, you know.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Lolly liked it.”

  “So you would watch it for Lolly, but not for me?”

  “Oh, wow, is that the time?” he asked in mock shock, staring at his blank wrist. “The dump keeps short hours on Thursdays. I should get going. This stuff isn’t gonna dump itself.”

  “This isn’t the end of this conversation.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  She stepped back as he climbed into the truck and closed the door—and reminded herself to be civil. “Thank you.”

  “What are friends for?”

  Friends. Was that what they were now?

  Ian didn’t seem to want anything from her—which was unnerving, since she’d built her entire freaking identity around being what other people wanted her to be, but it was for the best.

  Friends was good, she reminded herself. Friends was what she needed.

  She was off men. Focusing on herself. Even if she trusted him in a way she wasn’t sure she’d ever trusted anyone else. Ian needed to stay in the friend zone. Where he seemed to want to be anyway.

  The driver’s window was down and he rested his elbow over it, looking out the window after he turned on the engine. “You know, for the record, I didn’t actually watch it for Lolly.”

  “No?”

  He shrugged one shoulder, his grin tipping up higher on one side than the other. “You wanted me to. Of course I watched it. What did you expect? I was such a sucker for you. I would have done anything you asked.”

  “Yeah?” Maggie bit her lip as the words seeped into her, reaching into her chest to fill all the spaces there with their warmth.

  Ian grinned, shaking his head. “It’s still a shitty movie. Take car
e, Maggie May.”

  He threw the truck into gear, lifted his hand in a wave, and backed out of the driveway, turning expertly where the two driveways met to point toward the road into town.

  Maggie watched him go until even the sound of the truck engine was gone. She sank down onto the bottom step of the porch, realizing as she did that she was smiling like a fool.

  Ian Summer had always been able to light her up inside like the Fourth of July, but she thought she’d grown out of that. She thought that kind of twitterpated, fizzy, anything-is-possible feeling went away when you got older.

  She’d never expected to meet someone who could look at her and make her feel special and normal at the same time. But she hadn’t expected Ian Summer to walk back into her life either.

  Friends. They were just friends.

  But the fizzy possibility feeling didn’t care, and she couldn’t stop smiling.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ian was whistling as he entered his house on Friday evening. Mr. Kim’s deck was coming along beautifully. If the weather held, he might even put in a few more hours on Saturday while Sadie was up in Seattle to see if he could finish the job ahead of schedule.

  It had been a good day. A day when the sun was shining and every board he cut was perfect. He’d worked until Mr. Kim had reminded him that he needed to get going or he’d be late. His gig at the Tipsy Gull was one of the worst kept secrets in town, and Mr. Kim had been known to make the drive down to the next town over to catch the show from time to time.

  Ian was still whistling as he walked into the kitchen where his mother was packing a cooler. “Hey.”

  “You’re in a good mood,” she commented as he snagged a bottle of water from the fridge.

  He shrugged. “Good week. You want a hand with that?”

  “No, I’m almost done. Sadie’s packing her things upstairs then we’re going to hit the road.”

  He leaned against the island. “Are you sure you want to drive back tonight? It’s a lot of driving for one day. You could always stay here tonight and I could drive you both up tomorrow.” He’d have to put off finishing Mr. Kim’s deck, but he could do that.