“You coming down?” Grams calls up to me the next morning as I sit on the bed next to my packed suitcase.
I take a deep breath, then lug it down the steps to find her standing in the entryway to greet me, even though it’s still pitch-black outside.
“Cup of coffee?” she asks, and I nod, following her into the kitchen.
She pours us both a cup, and I try not to get emotional that it’s the last one for a long while that I’ll have in the slightly chipped white mug I’ve been using since I arrived. How long will Grams save it in the back of her cupboard? I swallow a big gulp.
“You were in a good mood when you came home last night,” she says, and I raise my eyebrows at her.
“Who, me?”
She gives me a look. “Arden. The whole town saw you two kissing. Word gets around fast.”
“What?” I say, leaning back on the counter. “She kissed me.”
“You be careful, okay?” she says, dismissing this, coffee cup held between both of her hands. “Especially out there in Hollywood. She’s gonna be in over her head, and you’re gonna need to be there for her.”
It should be hard to picture Caroline there with me, but it’s just… not. The more I’ve thought about it, the more confident I feel about this all working.
I know she wanted to go to Columbia, but there are also plenty of good journalism schools out in LA. I mean, heck, she might not even have to go to school anymore. I’ve got a ton of connections, people who could hook her up with a job at any magazine or newspaper she wants to write for.
“I’ll take care of her,” I say. She looks like she wants to say something else, but her eyes flick behind me to the clock hanging on the wall just above her.
“You better get going,” she says, and I nod, taking one more swig of coffee before we pull on our jackets and head out the door.
“Well,” she says, squinting into the distance as we stand on the welcome mat. “I’m going to miss…”
I tear up.
“That car.”
I follow her gaze to the Corvette in the driveway. I shake my head, pretending to be disappointed.
“You know, I thought you were going to say—”
The words aren’t even out of my mouth before she wraps me in a hug. “I miss you all the time, Arden,” she says, and I clench my jaw to stop the tears from flowing. “Every day.”
When she releases me, she digs in her jacket pocket and pulls out a small present, wrapped in red-and-white paper, tied with a string. “Merry Christmas,” she says, handing it to me.
“Thanks, Grams,” I say, smiling at her in the glow of the porch light, trying to remember every wrinkle around her dark eyes, every strand of her salt-and-pepper hair, the way I feel standing here right now.
She wipes quickly at her face with the back of her hand before pushing me forward. “Open it later. Now get out of here. You’re going to miss your plane.”
I nod and pocket the gift as I turn toward the driveway and pause.
“Oh, I almost forgot…” I spin back around to face her, digging in my pocket until I pull out the keys to the Corvette. “Merry Christmas.” I place them into her palm and close her fingers around them.
She opens her mouth to protest just like I knew she would, but I hold my hand up to silence her.
“It’s done and paid for. And it’s exactly what you deserve,” I tell her, and her face softens. “Plus, I just don’t think anyone else would look half as good driving that car.”
“Well, I can’t argue with ya there,” she replies, squeezing my hands. “Thank you.”
I nod before walking slowly to the other rental car I’d had dropped off this morning, my suitcase wheels ricocheting off every crack in the pavement. I squeeze it into the trunk with my other bag before pulling open the driver’s-side door.
Taking a deep breath, I glance up to see Grams still standing there in the glow of the Christmas lights I put up, one hand raised in goodbye.
Before I know it, I’m closing the door and jogging back up the drive, wrapping her in one more hug.
“Come visit me, okay? Call me anytime and I’ll book you a ticket,” I tell her.
“I only fly first class,” she jokes, making me laugh.
“Damn right you do. I’ll miss you, Grams,” I say, and she nods, as both of us give in to crying now.
“I know, sweetie. I know.” She squeezes me tighter and I wish I wasn’t leaving her. I wish I wasn’t leaving Barnwich.
But soon I’m driving along Main Street to Caroline’s house. Soon I’m parking outside. Soon I’m texting her I’m here so I don’t wake up all the Becketts. I already said goodbye to them all last night. Riley only let me leave if I promised to come to see her play at states if they make it, and this time I felt confident about saying yes. Besides, I’m actually afraid of what she’ll do if I don’t.
As I wait, I pull the gift Grams gave me out of my pocket and carefully unwrap it to reveal a framed picture. It’s the two of us standing on the bar of Edie’s Eatery, big smiles on our faces. I flip it over to see her meat loaf recipe taped to the back.
I picture it hanging on my stainless steel fridge at my house in Malibu or in the hands of a hired home chef. I wonder if they’d change it, garnish it, make it into something it’s not, something other than the perfect brick of meat it already is.
I jump when the car door opens and Caroline chucks a duffel bag into the backseat. When she slides into the front seat, she studies my face, frowning.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Everything’s fine.” I nod, stowing the picture frame in my purse and shifting the car into drive.
Still, she squeezes my hand as I pull away, telling me she knows it’s not.
I stifle a laugh as Caroline plays with all the buttons in her first-class pod on the plane, gasping every few seconds as she discovers a new feature.
“Arden,” she hisses. “Arden.”
“Yeah?”
“Look how far this seat goes back,” she says, and I watch for about thirty seconds as her chair slowly squeaks into a full recline. She pops her head up. “This is ridiculous!”
She practically passes out when the flight attendant takes our orders and the food and drinks come out.
“A whole-ass sandwich, all these snacks, and you just got a coffee?” She leans across the aisle. “What is wrong with you?”
“I’m just… not hungry,” I say, glancing out the window at the sea of white clouds, the ground below us not even visible.
“That means you’re nervous,” Caroline says through a mouthful of food. I snort and look back over at her.
“Me? Nervous?”
“Yes, Arden James. I know you.”
She’s right, obviously.
“What are you nervous about?” she asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know. The party. Being back in LA. Bianchi finding out the truth. Generally everything.”
“You know I’m a good journalist. Bianchi doesn’t have to know that we were ever fake dating,” Caroline says, then takes another bite.
Were. As in we were fake dating, but now we’re regular dating?
We stare at each other for a long moment, until I push my sunglasses back on and take another sip of my coffee. “You’re right.”
We still haven’t talked about… us. I keep waiting for her to say something, or wanting to say something myself, but even though I’m all in (I mean two hours ago I was already planning our future), I want to give Caroline a chance to see what she’s getting into before I put that kind of pressure on her. I want her to know what she’s signing up for, give her the opportunity to change her mind.
But I hope she won’t. Pretty much everyone in Barnwich told me to watch out for her in LA, and that’s what I intend to do.
Anyway, even if I wanted to, it’s not like I could lean across the airplane aisle right now to have a little chat about it. I look up and down the plane to see if anyone is watching, listening, already feeling the weight of what my life is going to turn back into once we touch down in LA.
“Well, I should get some more work done. Gotta have this to Cosmo by eight in the morning,” Caroline says as she pulls out her laptop.
“So you’ll finish it after the party tonight?” I ask, and she nods. “Let me read what you have so far.” I reach across to grab her laptop, but she moves it away just in time.
“No way! Not until it’s finished,” she says, surprising me.
“Come on. Are you serious?” I ask, but she just ignores me.
I watch her type away, wondering what she’s writing, how she’ll make me look, how much personal information she’s putting in there. I’ve never been interviewed by someone who really sees me before, and I’m both terrified and dying to know what she’s saying.
“Don’t you want some outside input?” I ask, leaning across the aisle to try to get a peek, but she angles the computer away again.
“Why don’t you order a backup sandwich? Maybe you’ll want it later in the car on the way to your house.”
“You want me to just… get a sandwich and put it in my pocket for later?” I ask, ignoring the fact that she’s dodging me.
“I mean, in your bag or something, but… yeah. You never know.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I shake my head and put my earbuds in, resisting the urge to kiss her for the thousandth time today. It weirdly makes me feel a little more reassured. Nothing’s going to change Caroline, not even Hollywood. We’re going to be able to make this work.
So the next time the flight attendant passes by, I get the backup sandwich.
You never know.