The air seems cleaner, the colors sharper, my head . . . quieter. It’s like I can actually hear myself think. And hear God talk. And that’s usually a good thing . . .
—Travel Journal of Will Sinclair, Abbeyglen, Ireland
I’m debuting me homemade banana-cranberry scones for a taste test.” Erin’s dad passed around a basket at the dinner table and waited for each one of us to take one. He watched our faces in nervous anticipation, wearing an apron that said “I Gave Up Big Guns For Sticky Buns.”
“Well?”
“It’s great, Dad,” Erin said.
Liam crammed the whole thing in his mouth. “It’s my favorite.”
“That’s what you said about the chocolate chip last week,” Sean said.
Erin reached for the butter. “And the strawberry before that.”
“Is it my fault Dad keeps topping himself? He’s a genius.”
“Don’t ignore your dinner.” Erin’s mom passed the platter of fish around the table. “Finley, how are you getting on at school?”
“I like it. So far most of the girls have been really nice.” I cut the battered cod into tiny pieces as the day’s stresses twisted and twirled in a tattered ballet in my mind. My song, my audition, English project, Beatrice, Beckett. I’d thought this foreign exchange program would be one big vacation.
Erin bit into a fry, or as she called it, a chip. “Beatrice has been beastly to Finley.”
“Really?” Nora asked, her face full of concern. “I’m glad you finally got away from her, Erin. Ignore her, girls.”
Liam pushed up his sleeves. “I’ll take care of it if you want me to. Sometimes these things just need a man to step in.”
“That’s not really necessary.” I circled my fry through some ketchup, holding back a smile. “Besides, I know her type. She’ll forget about me eventually and move on to a new target.” I hoped it would happen soon. I was running out of energy to deal with her.
“Is it not any good?” Nora gestured to my plate. “Do you want something else, then?”
“No, it’s great.” I swallowed a bite of fish and felt the grease seep over my tongue. Taking a drink of water, I forced it down my throat. Along with my growing unease.
I felt overwhelmed.
Strange.
Just . . . off.
I couldn’t explain it. But everything was out of place. Spinning.
Heads turned as a knock came from the door leading to the guests’ dining room, and Beckett Rush walked in.
“Welcome!” Nora jumped up and went to the cabinet. “I’ll get you a plate. I’m so glad you could join us after all.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“No!” the entire O’Callaghan family said.
Erin just stared in her starstruck trance. “Hey.”
Sean pulled another chair to the table, and we squeezed together ’til you couldn’t fit a dishrag between us. My knee touched Beckett’s as he sat beside me, and I saw him look at me out of the corner of his eyes and smile.
Nora sat a plate in front of him. “Your father didn’t want to join us?”
“No. He had meetings tonight.”
“It’s a shame we didn’t have another room for him here,” Nora said.
“He’s fine with the rest of the crew.” Beckett helped himself to some fish and chips. “They’ve got a great hotel about thirty minutes down the road with the many amenities me da’ requires.”
“And why didn’t you stay there?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“And miss this?” He took a bite of fish and his eyes rolled back in bliss. “Heaven.”
Erin’s mom laughed. “Stop that.”
“It’s true.”
“Tell us how the movie’s going,” Sean asked. “I know Erin’s dying to hear all about it. Right?”
“Um . . .” Her mouth opened and closed like a guppy. “Yes.
Yes, I would.”
That response had actually been understandable. I called that progress. Next she’d be able to articulate a few more syllables and make normal human eye contact.
Beckett talked about Fangs in the Night for a few minutes, but then turned the questions back on the family. He asked Sean about running a bed-and-breakfast and listened intently as Sean told him about two overflowing toilets on the second floor. After quizzing Nora about her day, he discussed video games with Liam.
When Beckett’s plate was cleared, Nora brought out the coffee and apple crisp for dessert. Soon, amid the clank of cups on saucers and forks on plates, the room was full of stories and laughter. I sat back and watched as the family smiled at one another. Finished each other’s sentences. Laughed before the punch line arrived.
And it made me miss my family.
The way we were. Before we changed. Before we were one less. God, it’s so unfair. Why would you pick my family to tear apart? Why take my brother? Why not some loser on death row? Some child abuser who deserves it. My brother was good. He was kind. He lived every day for you. And for what?
I pressed my napkin to my lips, then rested it on the table. “I think I’ll just go for a little walk while there’s still some light out. See that ruin on the property Erin mentioned.” I smiled at Erin’s parents. “Work off some of that amazing dessert.”
“Would you like someone to go with you?” Nora asked.
“No, thank you. I won’t be long.”
I grabbed my coat off the peg near the door and headed outside. The gray sky threatened to rain, and by the smell of earth and moisture, I knew it wouldn’t be too long in coming. I put my earbuds on and pulled up my own creation on my iPod.
I barely got out of the yard before I saw a familiar Labrador running along beside me. “Go home, Bob.”
His soulful green eyes stared into me, as if he was sending me comfort and love. The world was so simple to a dog. I scratched his head and stopped. “You have to turn back. Beckett will think I kidnapped you.”
“That’s right, he will.” Beckett walked toward us in his brown jacket, his hands stuffed in his pockets and a baseball cap on his head. “Bob, don’t trust this girl. She looks innocent, but we know her type.”
I turned off the music. “I’m sure you do. And every other type.”
He clutchd his heart. “Another sweet insult from your lips. Are you like this with all guys or—”
“Or just infamous troublemaking actors?”
His smile faded as he walked beside me down the hilly driveway. “Why’d you leave?”
“I wanted to walk.”
“You were sitting in there like you’d lost your best friend.”
“Delayed jet lag.”
“Really?” He slowed his steps and watched me. “Interesting.”
“Go back inside, Beckett.”
“I hired you to be my assistant. So if anyone is going to be bossing someone around, it’s me.”
“I’m off the clock.” I kicked a rock with my shoe. “Go find one of your groupies.”
“And end this riveting conversation?” He tossed a stick for Bob, and we both watched the dog race after it like a life was at stake.
I turned my attention back to Bob’s owner. “Why do you stay at the B and B?”
“Because they cook good.”
It was true, but I didn’t buy his reason.
“So where’s our next tourist stop?” he asked.
“They’re not just tourist stops.” It was more than that. It was like using the same map my brother did all those years ago, my longitude and latitude matching his. “I don’t know where we’re going next. I’ve been too busy with homework and practicing lately to think about it.”
The night wind blew past us, and I huddled deeper into my jacket. South Carolina girls were not used to forty-degree temps in September.
“What’s it like—going to school?”
I stopped at the sight of some wildflowers along the side of the road and reached to pick one. “School?” I shrugged. “Hectic. Busy. Loud. You go to a bunch of classes and learn a ton of stuff you care nothing about and will probably never use, and you pray the morning flies by so you can get to lunch and see your friends. You sweat through the indignities of PE and wish you had a double block of English and study hall because the rest of it is just grueling.”
His lips spread into a smile. “It sounds grand.”
“Right.”
“No, I mean it. You’re lucky.”
“I passed out in pig dissection last year, hit my head, and had to wear a giant Band-Aid on my forehead all week.”
He took the flower from my hand, and my skin tingled where his fingers brushed mine. “But you have those memories.”
“And you don’t.” His voice had been neutral, as if he’d just been making casual conversation, but the tinge of sadness in his eyes had given him away. “Did you go to school on the set?”
He nodded. “Usually me, a few other child actors, and a tutor. I graduated last year.”
“So no prom, no homecoming dance, no smelly gym class.”
“No.”
“Do you regret that?”
My breath stopped as Beckett reached out and tucked the flower above my ear, a wistful smile about his lips. “I regret a lot of things.” His face was inches from mine as he studied me.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get that experience,” I whispered.
“Nobody said life was fair.”
“It should be.”
The air stilled, suspended with unspoken words, heavy thoughts, and two people who couldn’t look away from one another.
Finally Beckett smiled, and that dimple popped.
The moment broke like a bubble in the breeze.
“So you’re a big senior, or sixth year.” Beckett cleared his throat and looked toward the darkening sky above us. “I’m sure the daughter of hotel magnate Marcus Sinclair and sister of two celebrity brothers has her whole future planned out.”
“In October I audition for the conservatory. If I get in, I’ll study there. Double major in violin and composition. That’s if I pass the audition.”
“Of course you will.”
“It’s my second time to try.” I hadn’t meant to say that. Something about the music of nature and the dimming light loosened my tongue. “Music is my life. The only thing that’s made sense the last few years.”
“I can’t imagine you failing at anything.” He raised his eyebrow, turning his statement into a question.
“That first audition . . . I didn’t even make it into the building.” The old shame barrelled through me as the memory unfurled. “My parents let me out at the entrance. I went to the auditorium while they parked, walked up the steps, went to the big double doors.” I could still feel the metal under my skin. “Then I turned around and walked away.” The doors had been so heavy, my arms couldn’t seem to open them. My head wouldn’t hold the tempo of the audition selection. My fingers wouldn’t stop shaking enough to even grip the violin. “I just couldn’t do it. My parents found me sitting on a bench in front of a dorm.” Hands belted around my knees, humming my piece, and crying hot tears. “That was six months ago.” When I got a new counselor. A lady who told me I wasn’t crazy. Just broken.
“And how’s that new song coming along?”
“It has to be perfect this time. And it’s not.” Last time I had prepared a generic audition piece. But this composition would be personal. It would be Will’s.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re too hard on yourself?”
“All my life. And you?” It was time to turn this conversation around. “Is acting the career you want?”
“Who wouldn’t want my life?”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“So it doesn’t.”
“Do you ever miss your mother?”
“I never knew her, so no. But I miss what could’ve been.” He tilted his head. “It’s nothing like what you went through, is it now? It was a horrible story, about your brother. How do you get over something like that?”
“You don’t.”
The stitches on the old wound unraveled within me as I thought about the answer. “I held on to hope that he was alive for almost a year.” I wiped my nose and told myself to stop. I’d never even told my counselors that. “I prayed by the hour during those months. I had faith then. And where did that get me? Where was God when my brother died? When my world imploded?” My voice broke and I covered my face. “I have to go.” I dashed past Beckett and walked as fast as I could.
With Bob running ahead, Beckett caught up with me in three strides. He reached for my arm and pulled me to a stop. “Wait.”
“I should be over this. I know I should. But I’m not.” Through my tears, I saw concern staring back at me. And it just added another knot to the dark tangle inside. “I want to be me again—to have faith, to feel hope, to feel . . . something. Something besides this . . . this . . .” Ugliness. I closed my mouth and just shook my head.
“Hey. It’s okay to be mad.” Beckett slid his arms around me and enfolded me in a hug. “But you can’t give up on your faith.”
“What do you know about it?” I asked against his jacket.
“I watch a lot of TV.”
He rubbed circles on my back while I held on, despite my better judgment. I blinked away the last of the tears. “I just spilled my guts to a vampire.”
“It’s one of our many tricks.” He took a step back, and the wind filled the space between us. “Before I’m done with you, you’ll be craving type O and hanging out with bats.”
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and touched the screen. “Do you recognize this?”
His hand on mine, Beckett drew the phone toward him. “It’s a Celtic cross.”
“I have to find it.”
He looked at me and gave a low laugh. “They’re all over the country. There are thousands just like that.”
No, there couldn’t be any just like that one. “This one apparently captured my brother’s attention. And I have to find it. It’s the last thing he put in his journal. If I don’t locate it, my trip is incomplete— my audition piece, incomplete. I will find this.”
“It’s going to be next to impossible.”
“It was important to my brother. And now”—I shook my head, knowing I sounded like I’d lost it—“now it’s become this obsession.” I seemed to have quite a collection of those.
Clouds darkened overhead, forming a canopy of gray. “But what if you’ve let your grief become your guilt?” His voice was as soft as the night breeze. “It’s okay to let it go.”
I shook my head and moved out of his grip. “I can’t,” I said.
“Not now. Not yet.”
And sometimes I feared . . . not ever.