Chapter 24 - Scott
“What?”
“We were engaged. A long time ago. It doesn’t matter.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“I didn’t see any reason to mention it. I didn’t figure the show was going to delve that deeply into our past.”
“Oh.”
“There’s not much to say about it. It just…didn’t work out.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want to get married, that’s all.”
That’s true, but the real reason I don’t want to talk about it is I’m not exactly proud of how it went down. We were both young, it was right after college. I bought this house, but I had other projects going in the city.
I met Mary Memorial day weekend and we came back to my place. I’m pretty sure she came home with me because I was the kid from the movie. It was a fun summer. Working like crazy during the week and partying even harder every weekend.
My parents came out to stay in August and that’s when things got weird. Mary was really excited to meet them. And my mom loved her. So I proposed. It wasn’t so much that I was madly in love with her, I just figured that’s what you do at that age. You meet someone, you get married. I bought her a ring in the city and asked her on the beach one night. She was thrilled and I realized how wrong it was that I wasn’t.
When I broke it off, I apologized, profusely, told her to keep the ring. She took it, er, rather poorly. It’s a small community but I haven’t run into her since. Until now. Of course, that’s one reason I don’t come out here very much.
“Chels—”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re only fake engaged, right? You didn’t need to tell me.”
Right. I didn’t. The fact that she’s being reasonable about it doesn’t make me feel better at all. It makes me feel about a million times worse. Because now that I’ve met her. Been with her—well, not been-been, just spending a lot of time with her—I realize, this is how you are supposed to feel.
“Fork?” she says, grabbing her dessert.
I walk away from her and pull open a drawer. She swipes the utensil out of my hand.
“Thanks,” she says, then turns and walks away.
I hear the door shut to her room. Quietly. Not slammed. It couldn’t be more obvious that she doesn’t give a shit, not about my previous engagement and not about me.
Why should she? That wasn’t part of the agreement. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and wince. I’ve never looked more miserable. And, I realize, this is how Mary must have felt when I told her it was over. I thought I was done feeling bad about that, but apparently not.
I glare at my dessert but shove it in the fridge. I’m sure it would be tasteless right now. And what I was really looking forward to was trading bites with Chelsea.
How ironic,I think as I crawl into bed. Mary loved me, but I didn’t love her. I know now, more than ever, that breaking it off was the right thing to do. Mary deserves to have someone love her, the way I love Chelsea. And that wasn’t me.
I love Chelsea,I repeat slowly. No doubt about it. What a fucking mess.
I turn over and stare out the window. It’s so much quieter here than in the city. But instead of relaxing me, my thoughts seem very loud and insistent.
She doesn’t care about you, remember? Don’t remind me. And Mary made it clear she thinks I’m a world class asshole, so Chelsea is probably wondering exactly what I did to deserve that wrath.
I did the right thing, I whisper to the wall on the far side of the room. Chelsea’s on the other side of the wall. Somehow it’s worse than having her a couple of floors below me. I mean, she’s right there.
I shut my eyes, willing sleep to come. It doesn’t. I want to get up and go knock on her door. But I can’t. If I tell her…okay, I’m not even sure what I’d tell her. I’ll have to think about that. But I can’t tell her now, I need to wait.
Once the show is over, then we’ll talk. I’ll tell her then. Because if she doesn’t feel the same way—and lord knows she probably doesn’t—it will be a heck of a lot easier to avoid each other.
It’s settled, I tell myself. We’ll get through the show first, then I’ll tell her. I shut my eyes again, determined to get to sleep now.
I get up at seven. Aside from the show I have another plan. I’m going to act like the perfect fiancé. If I can’t tell Chelsea how I feel yet, at least I can give her a taste of what really being engaged to me would be like.
She’s in the kitchen when I get there. And so is her bag?
“Oh good,” she says. “Can I put this—”
“In the truck?” I say. “I thought we were staying another night, but sure.”
“No,” she says, blushing. “I meant in your room. I mean, I put the guest room back together. Figure if I stick this in your room…”
“Oh, sure.”
We grab for the handle at the same time. Our fingers brush and we jump apart.
“Let me,” I say at the same time as she says, “I can do it.”
She lets me take care of it. When I come back, she’s sitting at the table with a cup of coffee. I pour myself a cup and join her. She’s set out the muffins and Danish we picked out last night.
“So, what are we doing today?” I ask.
“I got something from Vivien, last night,” she says, tapping on her phone. “She wants lots of PDA.”
“Oh.” I stare very hard at my coffee.
“Maybe we can just…fake it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
The doorbell rings as we are picking at our food, not speaking. I open it and Vivien sweeps in, spinning around. Gary follows and tries to smile at me, but just yawns.
“Sorry, we got up early,” he explains.
“Some shots of them eating and talking. Cleaning up. You know, just film everything. We’ll fix it in editing.”
“Right-o,” Gary says, winking at me.
I’m pretty sure he’s thinking what I am, specifically, that Vivien never gets tired.
Gary points the camera at us.
“Recording,” he says.
I walk back to the table and sit down, then reach out and grab Chelsea’s hand. She looks startled, but doesn’t pull away.
“How about we take a walk to the beach?” I say. “It’s still early, shouldn’t be too crowded yet.”
She nods. I start talking mindlessly about the beach, trying to fill her in on as many details as possible, without making it obvious.
We clean up the breakfast dishes together. I smile, in what I hope is a loving way, when she hands me the coffee mugs to put in the dishwasher.
“Good,” Vivien says. She taps the countertop. “Play it back for me, Gary. I’ll take a look at the footage while they get changed.”
“Changed?” Chelsea asks.
“The beach, bathing suits. Some shots of you splashing around in the water acting all engaged and in love. That would work.”
“Right.”
I take Chelsea’s hand and pull her down the hall into my bedroom, shutting the door behind us.
“You can change in the bathroom,” I whisper and she nods.
I decide to change in the closet. It isn’t a walk-in, more of a step in. It has an automatic light. And I realize, when I shut the door, that means it also goes off automatically.
“Shit.”
I crack the door and arrange my swimsuit face forward in my hands. I change in the dark, leaving my clothes in a heap on the floor. Then I open the door.
“Ah!” Chelsea screams, then covers her mouth. “I thought you left.”
“I changed in the closet.”
I realize I’m staring at her. No one would blame me, she looks amazing in her bikini, but I quickly look down at the ground. She grabs a top out of her suitcase and pulls it over her head.
“How far is the walk?” she whispers.
“Ten minutes, fifteen tops.”
But after twenty minutes we are barely halfway there. Vivien has Gary take shots of us going towards the camera, and then away from it. Finally, when she is happy with that, we start walking for real. Except Gary and Vivien are both walking in front of us, backwards.
“You guys need to talk,” she reminds us.
I see the panic in Chelsea’s eyes and know I’m going to have to pull us through this. Which I don’t mind. I’m the one who got us into this mess. But if Chelsea associates me with Vivien, I can’t see her wanting to be around me at all once the show is over.
“Maybe I should make a reservation for tonight,” I say, pulling out my phone. “Where do you want to go?”
The second the words leave my mouth I realize my mistake. Chelsea’s barely spent twelve hours in this town, most of them at my house. All she’s seen is the grocery store. She can’t possibly answer the question.
I’m sorry,I think desperately, but she just smiles.
“Which one is the one with that great shrimp dish I love, again? You know I get them confused. You take me to so many fabulous restaurants. I can’t remember the name of it. Guess I should have had more coffee.”
“I know exactly which one you mean!”
She smiles, a real smile. I reach out and grab her hand and squeeze it. I think even she’d admit we make a great team. We’re unstoppable. We—
“Cut.”
“What?” I say as we jump apart.
“Nothing. That was perfect. Let’s get to the beach already. Which way is it?”
Wordlessly I point down the path. I hate Vivien and Gary, well, not so much Gary, it’s not his fault. But the camera, definitely the camera. Even if I manage to forget about it, it’s still there, and sooner or later I’m reminded of that. And when I remember the camera, I remember that I can’t take anything Chelsea is doing for real.
Vivien starts down the path.
“Should I keep filming them?” Gary calls after her.
“No, we got enough of them walking. Come on.”
He follows her and Chelsea starts after him. I reach out and touch her arm.
“What?” she says, turning around.
“Nothing,” I say, because Gary has also turned to look at us.
He shrugs and keeps going.
“Thanks,” I mouth.
She leans in close. The smell of her mixed with the sea air is intoxicating.
“Hey, we’re a team,” she whispers. I can feel her breath on my neck. I want to catch it and put it in my pocket, save it forever. “Us against Vivien, right? We got this.”
She squeezes my arm and then hurries after Gary. I wait a minute then catch up with her. We walk onto the beach hand in hand, like a real couple and I realize, I don’t want to wait. Not until the end of the show, or even until the end of the weekend. I’m done waiting. Tonight, I’m going for it.