I HOVERED IN THE WINGS at Bar Verdant in Austin, Texas, two days later, clutching the neck of my violin so tightly the strings were cutting into my fingers. All I’d done for the past two days was work on my new vision for the gala and think about what I was going to say to Jasper, who now stood center stage, crooning into his microphone, while at least fifty girls swooned in front of him. He was coming to the end of one of his more upbeat songs, and when the last drumroll faded, the crowd went crazy, screaming, cheering, and clapping. Some girl in a black tank top threw a bright pink bra at his feet.
What, exactly, did she expect him to do with it?
I was supposed to walk on stage now. That had been my plan. To walk out between songs. But now, Jasper bent to pick up the bra and twirled it around his finger.
“Thank you, darlin’,” he drawled.
“It has my phone number on it!” she shouted, and the people around her hooted and whistled.
Oh. So that explained it.
Jasper raised his eyebrows, then made a show of shoving the bra into the back pocket of his jeans.
Okay. So maybe instead of going out there, I was just going to barf on my shoes.
The next song began, and I realized with a stomach-lurch that (A) I had missed my window of opportunity; and (B) he’d just launched into “Meant to Be,” the song he always dedicated to me.
And as he began to sing, he just didn’t seem that into it.
My already shallow spirits sank even lower. What was I doing here? Clearly, Jasper had meant it when he’d said we were over.
“Are you going out there or what?” Evan Meyer whispered in my ear. “I mean, I went to all the trouble of getting you past security.”
I turned to look him in the eye. He’d spent more time with Jasper the last few weeks than anyone else. “Right. And why did you do that, exactly?”
“Are you kidding? The two of you are a publicist’s dream!” he exclaimed, as Jasper neared the chorus. “If you get back together, my job will be so much easier.”
It was all I could do not to strangle him with his own scarf. Instead, I rolled my eyes and turned away.
“Wait wait wait.” Evan touched my arm lightly with warm fingertips. “I’m just kidding. Well, no, I’m not. That’s all true. But honestly, Cecilia, Jasper has been miserable without you. And I kinda like the kid. I’d rather see him happy than mopey.”
“Really?” I asked, feeling only a little bit guilty that Jasper’s misery was making me happy.
“Really. Now get the hell out there!”
Evan gave me a little shove and I tripped onto the stage. Wow. He was pretty strong for a little guy. The bass guitarist noticed my stumbling entrance, as did some of the audience members, who gasped, but Jasper was too into his performance, his gaze trained on the swaying crowd.
He finished the chorus and began the second verse. I held my breath, lifted my violin, and began to play along. The crowd cheered and Jasper glanced over his shoulder.
To his credit, he didn’t miss a lyric, but I could see the total shock in his eyes. I walked slowly toward him, my whole body shaking as I tried my hardest to keep up with the melody. Our eyes were locked as he sang his beautiful words, and I played the notes from my heart.
Jasper lifted the microphone off the stand and approached me. The spotlight followed him. The girls in the audience were going crazy, which was a surprise, since it was pretty clear every last one of them had been daydreaming of going home with my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Whatever.
Whoever he was, he was mere inches away now, singing his lungs out, gazing into my eyes. And then the song was over. I held my bow to the strings until they stopped vibrating. My hands never stilled, though. In fact, my whole body was vibrating.
“Hey,” I said to him, against the din of the crowd.
And then he pulled me against him and kissed me. His lips tasted salty and his hands were warm and strong against my back, and the only coherent thought my brain could form was, Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.
When I finally pulled back, I wasn’t sure what was louder, the screams of the girls in the front row or the pounding of my pulse in my ears.
“I know you can’t come home right now, and I know we have a lot to figure out,” I told him, breathless. I had to shout in his ear to be heard. “But I know that we can do it. I know that we belong together,” I said, and my voice cracked. “So when you do come home, you’re coming home to me.”
Jasper’s lips touched my earlobe. “You bet I am,” he said.
And then he picked me up and twirled me around for all the world to see.
* * *
We stood on the balcony of Jasper’s Austin hotel room the next morning, watching the sun come up over the Colorado River. Jasper held me from behind, his arms around my waist, and I leaned back into him. We’d been up half the night talking. And smooching. And crying a little here and there. But for the most part, it had been good. One of those nights I’d only ever read about in books where everything comes out—hopes, fears, stupid daydreams, stories, and memories you thought you’d forgotten—and you emerge on the other side feeling like you’ve never known anyone better in your life.
“I’m really glad I came to Austin,” I said.
“I second that.” Jasper kissed the top of my ear.
I turned around to face him and placed my hands on his chest, up close to his shoulders.
“From now on, when things get crazy, we take a deep breath and think of each other first,” I said.
“That’s the deal, Red Sox. Whether there’s a camera in your face or your mom is on your butt or some French dude wants to take you for a ride on his . . . what do French people drive, anyway?”
“Tricycles?” I suggested.
Jasper laughed. “I like it. Yeah. His tricycle.”
“And whether a fan is accosting you or Evan is whispering in your ear or we have a date you know you should keep.”
He bit his lip. “We think of each other first.”
“Deal?” I said, and leaned back to offer my hand.
He grasped my fingers and pulled me into him, and just before his lips touched gently down on mine, he whispered against them, “You’ve got a deal.”
* * *
“Honestly, ma’am, I’m not sure how we can spin this one. The girl was caught on camera with a paint can in her hand.”
I paused outside my mother’s office, my heart in my throat, as I clutched my laptop to my chest. It wasn’t every day I walked in on high-level government employees talking about me.
“He’s right. We managed to sell the broken arm as a run-of-the-mill accident, but between the threesome thing and this—”
“I was not having a threesome!” I blurted, stepping into the room.
“Cecilia!” my mother snapped, standing up from behind her desk. “I’m in a meeting!”
“Yeah, a meeting about me,” I replied, glancing at the two men sitting in chairs before her. “And as for the paint, that wall is a tradition. Every night someone writes a new message up there. Ask around town. They’ll all tell you. It’s not a vandalism thing, but a community thing. Everyone checks the wall each morning for inspiration!”
“And you thought ‘You can’t be brave’ was inspiring?” Tash asked sarcastically. She was standing behind my mother’s desk with her iPad ready, as always.
“I didn’t get to finish!” I replied. I looked my mom in the eye. “Mom, let me have a press conference or something. I’ll explain everything.”
The man on the left snorted. “If you try to explain, it will just sound like excuses.”
“He’s right, Cecilia. The only way around this is spin,” my mother informed me. “We could say it was an art project. That the photos were taken out of context.”
“They were taken out of context! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” I shouted.
Everyone stared at me. I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I can’t live like this anymore, with photographers watching my every move.” I put my bag and laptop down, sat on the arm of the nearest couch, and looked up at my mom pleadingly. “Mother, you have to move your campaign headquarters back to Boston.”
“Excuse me?”
“I apologize for interrupting your meeting,” I said. “But you’re ruining this town, and everyone hates me for it because they know you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. Please, Mom. Just go home and take the press with you. I promise I won’t get caught doing anything else stupid. At least I’ll try really hard not to. And I’ll make some campaign stops with you . . . as long as they don’t interfere with school.”
My mother lifted one eyebrow ever so slightly. “You’ve decided to go to Harvard?”
My throat closed over. “I’ve decided to go to school.”
There was a beat of silence. The two men seemed afraid to move or even blink. Tash was on high alert.
“May we have the room please?” my mother said.
They were out of there in ten seconds flat, taking their briefcases and computers and tablets with them. My mother rose slowly from her desk. She walked around it and then leaned back against it to talk to me, crossing her arms over the front of her red silk blouse.
“Tell me you’re not talking about that design school.”
I pressed my lips together. “Before you say anything else, I have something to show you.”
My mother waited as I took a few cloth samples out of my bag—my hands trembling—and opened my laptop. I had an entire PowerPoint presentation ready, full of photographs of centerpieces, wall swags, floral arrangements, lighting concepts, and table settings.
“I’m calling it ‘patriotic chic,’ ” I told her, turning the screen so that she could see. “Understated elegance with a nod to the colors of the flag. Everything will be muted, elegant, but still completely American.”
I’d found photos from a wedding held in Washington, D.C., a few years ago—one in which a congressman’s daughter married a justice’s son. They’d used burgundy, cream, and navy instead of red, white and blue, and the effect was sophisticated and luxe.
“We’ll use this color scheme, but take it a step further, draping the walls with silks and satins, and cream-colored hydrangeas will be the base flower for all the arrangements. Lit by candlelight, this is going to be seriously gorgeous, don’t you think?”
My mother scrutinized the photos as I clicked through, still as a stone gargoyle. I filled the silence with detailed descriptions of every sample flower arrangement, vase, and candlestick I’d found online, and weighed the pros and cons of each china pattern and flatwear set. At the end I’d added pictures of historical events in Nashville and Memphis—sepia-toned shots of rallies and speeches—that depicted the mood I was going for.
“Mom?”
She leaned back and sighed, rolling her shoulders. I braced myself.
“I like it,” she said.
I blinked “What?”
“It’s patriotic, yet elegant. Understated and refined. Well done, Cecilia.”
I almost dropped my computer. “Really?”
She stood up straight and strode to the far side of her desk again. “Never sound surprised when someone tells you you’ve done a good job,” she said pertly. “The response you’re looking for is, ‘I’m so glad you’re pleased.’ ”
I cleared my throat and clicked the laptop closed. “Then I’m so glad you’re pleased.”
Actually, I was freaking ecstatic. My insides were having a trampoline party.
My mother faced me across the wide expanse of her desk. “But I still think you should go to Harvard.”
“Mom, the Tennessee School of Design is a well-respected school,” I argued. “And if I go there, I can live here and commute. I don’t want to go to Harvard and become a lawyer. I want to spend my time with artists. I want to learn how to become a stylist, or an interior decorator, or a clothing designer. Maybe even an event planner.”
I expected my mother to snort, but she didn’t. “Cecilia, you’re one of the smartest high school graduates in the entire country. Do you really think those careers will be challenging or fulfilling for you?”
It was my turn to lift an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be like Matilda and style politicians. Or their daughters.”
My mother smirked. “So you want to be Matilda,” my mother said flatly.
“Why not? Matilda is talented,” I said. “And honestly? I don’t know. I want to go to school so I can find out what’s out there.”
“And don’t you think that Harvard will give you a broader pool of subjects to explore than the Tennessee School of Design?” she asked.
“I think that if I go to Harvard, we’ll go right back to where we were—you controlling every single thing I do, and me . . . well . . . hating you,” I said, standing. I was sort of amazed that my knees didn’t buckle beneath me. My mother lifted her chin, but there was a horrible, deep sadness in her eyes. “And I don’t want to do that anymore, Mom. I don’t want to hate you. I don’t . . . I don’t want to feel like that anymore.”
Tears brimmed in my eyes. My mother was so still it was eerie. There was a long silence. Then she pushed herself up straight and said, “Well, I don’t want you to feel like that anymore either.”
“Fine,” I said automatically. Then blinked. “Wait. What?”
“Go ahead. Go to this random university.” She walked slowly around her desk. “Defer your acceptance to Harvard. I guarantee that at the end of one year, you’ll be begging them to give you a dorm room assignment.” My mother smoothed her skirt over her backside and sat, opening up her laptop. “But if you’re staying here, you’d better get used to the townspeople hating you. Because those paparazzi aren’t going anywhere.”
“Mother, please. You won’t even consider moving back to Boston?” I asked. “I know you’d rather be there. It’s your home. And you can’t be happy about what this heat is doing to your hair.”
Her hand automatically fluttered up to touch her blond ’do. Which was, of course, perfect. I smiled—gotcha!—and she rolled her eyes.
“What you fail to understand, Cecilia, is that those reporters and photographers are not here for me. They are here for you.”
A snort of disbelief escaped me, but it was cut short when my mother opened a drawer and dropped a copy of OK! Magazine in front of me. The cover was a picture of my face, eyes half-mast, mouth hanging open, and the headline read “Sloppy Princess.” She dropped another on top of it with a thwap. Me and Jasper. And another. Me and Frederick and Duncan on the ground. And a fourth. Me on the red carpet at some random event of Jasper’s. And a fifth. Me, wide-eyed, caught with a can of spray paint in my hands.
“Make no mistake about it, my dear. These people are not here for my campaign. They’re not even here to cover the lauded Montgomery family.” She slammed the drawer shut and folded her hands on her desk. “They’re here to see what you do next.”