17. Octavia
Chapter 17
Octavia
F all in Scarsdale, New York is either magical or it’s diabolical.
Of course when I was younger, I lived for the diabolical days. I remember one day in particular that the weather forecasters were just plain wrong. A front they said was going to swing south came north instead.
It dumped six inches of snow overnight, and when I woke up, it looked more like a winter wonderland than anything I’d ever seen outside of a snow globe. I was absolutely entranced. My mom? Not so much.
When she saw they were still holding the audition, but public transit into the City was closed down, she swore a lot. Apparently she had an audition she’d now miss thanks to the storm.
“If we didn’t live in the bumpkiss middle of nowhere, I could still go, but thanks to your dad’s job, we’re stuck out here, away from the epicenter of the acting world.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “Maybe they’ll get it cleared up soon, and then?—”
“What do you know about snow?” Mom shook her head. “Just go clean up your room.”
I’d learned by then that when Mom was in a bad mood, nothing I did helped. Instead of arguing that my room was already clean, I ducked out of the kitchen without finishing my now-soggy cereal. I walked around my room, wondering what I could possibly clean. It took a minute, but it finally hit me—my closet had a box full of old toys from when I was a kid. I could go through them and pull a few things out to keep. I could donate the rest. It was only a few weeks until Christmas, and I’d heard that was the best time to donate toys. Parents who were on a limited income could pick them up at the donation center in time to put them under the tree.
About halfway down in the box, I found my favorite dress for playing dress up, Belle.
The enormous, glittery golden dress had a massive skirt, an off-the-shoulder, drape neckline, and long sleeves with tiny sequins sewn at odd intervals. At the time, I thought it was the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen. Since I didn’t go to church very often as a kid, I didn’t own many dresses. I knew I should donate it so another little girl could enjoy it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it if it still fit.
Alone, hiding in my room, trying it on seemed like a good idea.
To my utter shock, even though I was almost thirteen, I could zip it up! I remember spinning around in my room, wishing I had a friend here to tell me how it looked. Sadly, I couldn’t see for myself.
Mom had covered my full-length mirror, my dresser mirror, and the bathroom mirror after my accident, “so you won’t feel bad every time you look at yourself.” But it had been more than a year and a half, and I’d had loads of painful surgeries and also recoveries. Mom was homeschooling me, to her great dismay, and I wondered—with a dress this stunning on, how bad could I really look?
I whisked off the sheet covering my mirror, and I stared at myself.
The gown was a little too short, showing my ankles, and the bodice was tight, since I was just starting to have the beginnings of a chest, but with the sparkles and the pin-up floofs decorating it, I didn’t even care. I stepped closer, looking at my own face.
It wasn’t like everyone else’s, but it wasn’t grotesque. In fact, it sort of looked interesting and unique.
Where the unmarked side of my face had tiny holes and hairs, the burned side was smooth and rippled. On that side, I looked a little like a statue. I rummaged around in the box until I found the gold shoes that went with the dress. They had tiny, one-inch heels, and I slid my feet into them. Then I posed again, turning my left side, my damaged side, facing the mirror.
I smiled, and I looked really nice.
When I took this off, it was definitely going in the keep pile.
My door burst open, and Mom froze, holding my backpack in her outstretched hand. “You left this in the kitchen.” Her lips compressed into a flat line. “What on earth are you doing?”
I blinked. “I—well, you said to clean my room, but it was already clean, so I thought I’d go through my old toys, and I found this?—”
“Go through? It looks like you dumped out every toy you ever owned into a massive pile.” But when her eyes tracked up to where I was standing, her eyes widened precipitously. “What on earth are you doing right now?”
“It still fits,” I said lamely. “Can you believe it?”
“I’m downstairs, depressed that I can’t audition for my play, and you’re up here frolicking around in the most ridiculous outfit I’ve ever seen?” Her lip curled. “Why would you uncover the mirror? You’re the only person in this house who’s not forced to—” Her nostrils flared, and her mouth snapped shut.
Forced to look at me? It had to be what she was going to say. That was the moment I realized how horribly ugly I was. My own mother wished she didn’t have to look at me. When she left, I tore that dress off and stuffed it in the trash can. The shoes were heavy enough to keep it tamped down. I stuffed all my toys back into the box and never donated a single one. In fact, I never opened that box again.
So when we land in La Guardia, I check the weather on my phone to see if it’s a snow day. They’re rare this early, but not unheard of. Thankfully, it’s fifty-eight degrees—a lovely fall evening in New York. No snow. No delays.
“You excited to sleep in your own bed tonight?” Bea asks.
I shrug.
“I am,” Jake says. “If you’re indifferent to your place, you could always come back with me.” He winks.
My heart races, but not in a good way. It occurred to me last night, as Jake was kissing me good night in front of my hotel room, that if things keep going well, one day he’ll want to see me as bare as I was in that dressing room. He’ll want to touch my shoulder.
The whole idea makes me sick.
“I’m kidding.” Jake’s brow furrows. “I’m not in a hurry.”
“It’s refreshing, really,” Bea says. “To meet a girl who’s not tripping him with her six-inch platform heels and trying to dump him into bed.” She snorts. “Bunch of tramps, in and out of our place like?—”
Jake kicks her.
“Make him buy new sheets first,” Bea says. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“Eww,” I say. “Just, ew.” I grab my bag and hustle out of the plane before the people behind us get any ideas.
Not that there are many. We’re in first class, thanks to Jake’s face. They upgraded all three of us the second we checked in together. They said it was to keep anyone from bothering him, but I think it was because the flight attendant liked him and he insisted we all had to sit together.
The flight attendant in question’s snapping photos of her and Jake as I wheel past. There are definitely some obnoxious things about dating a famous person. Jake catches up with me about two minutes later, taking my bag off my shoulder and slinging it over his.
“Why were you in such a rush?”
I shrug.
“I’m driving you home,” he says. “I had someone from my agency drop off my car.”
“What about me?” Bea asks.
“Please,” Jake says. “As if lover boy isn’t waiting at the exit with a rose clenched between his teeth.”
I can’t help my snort. But then, as we turn the corner past baggage claim, Easton’s literally standing there with a goofy grin and a bouquet of red roses. None of the flowers are clenched between his teeth, but I swear, Jake was pretty darn close.
“See?” Jake hisses. “Pathetic.”
“At least my boyfriend wants to sleep over.” Bea lobs that one over her shoulder as she jogs toward Easton.
“Ouch,” Jake says.
I drop a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not you,” I say. “Trust me. You are—I definitely—” I cough. “This isn’t coming out right.”
He slides his free hand through mine. “You don’t need to explain. At some point, it’ll feel right, and trust me. It will be right.” His sly smile’s adorable.
When we walk outside, I don’t expect his ridiculous sports car to literally be waiting outside in the car-pickup line. A man hops out of the driver’s side and hands him the keys. “Pickup on Sunday?”
Jake nods. “Thanks.” He hands him something, and then he’s loading my bag—thank goodness it’s small—into the tiny trunk of his electric blue Nissan Z.
“Who was that guy, and what did you give him?” I ask, once he’s pulling out into traffic.
“I have no idea who he is,” Jake says. “Which is why I tipped him.”
“You let someone you don’t know drive your car?” I’m surprised. Most guys I know act like their car’s their baby, at least if it’s nice.
Jake shrugs. “Stuff never matters a lot to me. I mean, I try to take care of my things, but it’s not worth stressing about.”
“Really?”
He merges so fast, I’m flung back against the seat. “It’s only money, O,” he says. “If your problem can be solved with money, it’s not a real problem.” He winks.
I might be in trouble, because he says things like that, and I think he’s pretty clever and balanced, too. I really, really like him. “So if you don’t care about pedestrian things like money, then why did you buy a car that cost. . .” I pause. “Actually I have no idea what this would cost, but I’m guessing it was more than my Honda.”
He glances at me sideways. “No one has ever asked me why I bought this one, not even Bea.” He turns back to the road, but his brow is furrowed. “Actually, it’s stupid, the reason I picked this monstrosity.”
“Wait,” I say. “Don’t you like your own car?”
“It’s fun to drive.” He grunts. “But I would have bought a less obnoxious color if this hadn’t been my dream for more than a decade.”
I’m confused.
“My dad promised me once that if I’d help him with a big job, he’d get me a Nissan Z. It was the car our mark drove. I had to do some dangerous and pretty scary things on that job, but it worked, and at the end, he didn’t break his promise.” He chuckles. “I failed to clarify that I wanted one that was larger than a pack of gum.”
“He gave you a matchstick car?”
“He said that lesson of hammering down details was more valuable than a car would have been. I should’ve known he wasn’t going to buy me a real car. I was nine, but I was pretty sore about it for a while. After staring at that stupid car for ten years. . .”
“I guess when you got your first big paycheck, you knew how to spend it.”
“Exactly. This was the first thing I bought,” Jake says. “The rest of my money’s saved. I’m actually not a very big spender.”
That doesn’t surprise me. He doesn’t wear brand names I haven’t seen him paid to market. And if all his dad valued was money, it makes sense he’d be slow to spend his once he got it. “I bet that makes you an anomaly in Hollywood.”
“It’s why I spend all my free time here,” he says. “And why my agency got me an apartment in LA. I refused to buy a ridiculous house, and they got sick of paying hotel bills, which I always insisted they cover in the contracts as a New York resident being asked to travel for work.”
“Maybe your dad’s lesson was worth something after all.” One of my favorite songs starts on the radio before he can respond, and I start to sing along.
Jake goes utterly quiet.
After a moment, I stop. “Why aren’t you singing?”
“There are very few things in the world I like as much as hearing you sing.”
That makes me blush. “You can’t just say stuff like that.”
He drops his hand over mine. “I plan to keep speaking the truth so often that you finally accept it. I’m not sure who convinced you that you’re less than you are, but I’m going to be the one who undoes that damage.”
For some reason, that makes tears well up in my eyes. “No one did that.”
“Someone,” he says. “Otherwise, you’d know how stunning you are. In appearance, in talent, and in friendship, you’re as good as it gets. Other than Bea, there’s never been someone I couldn’t get enough time with.” He glances my way. “Until you.”
On the next song, he sings with me, and that’s even better.
The drive to my place flies by, and before I know it, we’re parked and he’s unloading my bag.
“I can take it from here.” I hold out my hand.
He steps close—way too close, so that we’re almost touching—and then he bites his lip, lowering his head until we’re eye-to-eye. “I’m going to kiss you right here, Octavia Rothschild, so that you know exactly how much I like you. I’m going to kiss you so long, and so hard, that you have not a single doubt in your mind about all the many things I want to do to and with you.” He smiles, and his dimples. . . his wicked dimples . . .and then he kisses me.
It’s every single thing he said it would be.
Fireworks, an explosion, barking dogs—none of it would even register if it was happening right beside us. The world ceases to exist beyond Jake’s arms, Jake’s mouth, and Jake’s words still ringing in my ears. And then, slowly, reluctantly, he pulls away.
“And now I’m going to carry your bag upstairs and place it in your entryway, and then I’m going to turn around and come back downstairs and get in my car.” He runs one finger down the side of my face, on the left side.
My bad side.
“I’m doing this so you don’t have to get as spooky as a horse eyeing a rippling Texas flag. Got it?”
I laugh. “Do horses hate Texas flags?”
“Texas flags specifically?” He shrugs. “No idea, but they hate every other flag I’ve ever seen near them. I had to ride in?—”
“ Memory of Tomorrow ,” I say.
“Stupid name, but it was a decent film,” he says.
I laugh. “And you rode that white horse.”
“Horse people call them greys,” he says. “They get downright unreasonable about it, even if the horse isn’t grey at all.”
“I didn’t realize you were funny without a script,” I say. “What a relief.”
“You.” He shakes his head and points at me. “I’ve known you were funny all along. It’s one of the things I like best about you.”
Jake grabs my bag, and then he clicks the key to lock his car. He grabs my hand, and we’re suddenly headed up.
“How do you know where my apartment is?”
“Did I mention that my agency is your agency? Bradley’s appallingly bad at choosing passwords—it’s literally his birthday—so I can get anyone’s address that you want.” He squeezes my hand. “Ask me how fun it is to toilet paper Tom Cruise’s house.”
“You didn’t.”
He shrugs. “How else would I know he shouts and pumps his arm like an old man when he runs out wearing Sponge Bob boxers?”
“Sponge Bob?” I’m laughing harder because I have no idea whether he’s serious.
“Sponge Bob and Patrick,” he says. “Not even Squidward.”
I’m laughing so hard when I open my front door that I’m worried I’ll snort.
“Octavia?” My mother’s standing in the kitchen in her underwear.
I scream.
Then I cover Jake’s eyes. “What on earth are you doing here?” I shout.
Mom hasn’t moved a hair, but she is glaring. “You said you’d be gone for two more weeks.”
“I didn’t say you could move in! Why would you be in my apartment?” I look around at the haphazard piles of crap all over my apartment. “And did you bring Oscar the Grouch with you? What is all this garbage?”
Mom wasn’t the tidiest parent around, but we didn’t live like this.
Jake pats my hand and whispers, “Can I have my eyes back?”
Mom swears loudly. “Is that Jake Priest?”
I clamp my hand down harder. “Go put on some clothes, Mom, right now.”
Mom actually arches her back, thrusting her chest out. “I am dressed.”
“I swear, I will kill you myself,” I hiss.
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. Fine !” She saunters across the room and finally ducks into my bedroom.
I release Jake and collapse onto the couch in my family room. “My mom’s here.”
“So—you want me to go, right?” He’s glancing back at the door to my bedroom, which is still wide open. I suppose if you’re comfortable strolling around in your undies, why would you bother closing the door just to put more clothing on?
Mom comes out a moment later, clearly as curious as Jake. She’s pulled an oversized t-shirt over her head, but that’s it. I really wish I couldn’t see the backside she’s always bragging still looks like a teenager’s.
It doesn’t.
But it looks much better than someone who’s almost fifty-four has any right to look. “I’m Miss Phillips.” She bats her eyes.
Bats her eyes. Like she’s auditioning for Gone with the Wind.
“Mom, this is Jake Priest.” I can’t help it if my tone’s a little flat. “Now, can you please do me the favor of explaining why you’re here, in my apartment, without my permission or even any notice?”
“I needed a place.” She shrugs. “Mr. Phillips was bothering me.”
Her husband Roy’s a real jerk.
Other than Dad, they all have been. “That’s when you get a hotel.”
Her eye twitches. “I would, but the thing is, I’m between jobs.”
She’s always between jobs. Roy’s probably canceled her credit cards again. I don’t even blame him. She spends money on the most ridiculous things.
“Can we talk in your room for a moment?” Mom literally shoves her face into her patented pout and glances Jake’s way, like she’s going to flirt him into listening to her.
“Jake was just leaving,” I say. “Goodnight, Jake.”
He opens his mouth like he wants to argue, but then he snaps it shut and nods. “Yep, I sure was. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I wish he hadn’t added that. Mom will never let it go.
The second Jake shuts the door, Mom practically shouts, “You’re actually dating him? How? He’s about one million times too hot for you.”
“I get it,” I say. “Believe me. But he likes me, and I like him, so can we focus on where you’ll be moving, and who’s helping you get this crap all cleaned up?” That last bit’s a joke. We both know it’ll be me, but at least she could have the decency to act guilty or grateful or both.
“Are you in town for a while, then?”
“Just a day and a half,” I say. “But you need to go back to Roy and apologize, because?—”
“I won’t.” She folds her arms under her chest. “You don’t get it, because you’ve never really even dated anyone, except. . .” She waves her hand. “Whatever this thing with Jake is.”
“Mom.”
“But if I go back there, and if I apologize, he wins, and he cannot win. I’m way too pretty for him, so he should be doing everything he possibly can to keep me happy. That’s how it works.” She grabs my wrist. “Which is why you can’t possibly date Jake.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head slowly. When she opens them again, she says, “Tavie, believe me when I say, you need to find a very rich, very ugly man. He’ll be grateful, and he’ll treat you so much better.”
“Mom.” I’m pulling my hand away when my door whips open.
“Mrs. Phillips, with all due respect, you’re going to have to leave.” Jake’s eyes are flashing.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I know you’re Octavia’s mother, and I want to be polite, but I’ve been dying to figure out who treated her so badly. I couldn’t fathom who would damage such a beautiful soul, but it was clearly you.”
Mom blinks, dropping her hands at her side. “Have you been listening at the door?”
“Like a peeping Tom,” he says, “yes. I have, absolutely, and that’s how I know it was you.” He steps closer, his eyes narrowing. “In my twenty-six years of life, I have never once punched a woman, but that’s about to change if you aren’t out of here by the time I reach the count of ten.”
Mom turns toward me with the most disbelieving look on her face.
“One,” Jake says.
Mom snorts.
“Two.” Jake steps closer.
“You can’t punch me,” she says, spluttering. “I’m—I would charge you with assault, and that would be bad for your image.”
“Three,” Jake says. “I have plenty of money, and I bet my lawyers are better than my girlfriend’s homeless, unjustifiably proud mother’s.” His lips flatten.
“Unjustifiably?” My mom would fixate on that.
Jake’s mouth over-enunciates the word. “Four.”
Mom straightens as if she’s just now wondering whether he’s serious. “I don’t even have pants on.”
“You better hurry and grab them,” I say.
“Five.” Jake smiles. “This is going to be really fun.”
Mom practically leaps out of the room. Thankfully, I hear her rummaging around in my bedroom.
“Six,” Jake shouts.
Mom whimpers.
“Seven,” Jake says, not slowing down.
“Are you really going to hit her?” I ask.
“Do I look like someone who wouldn’t follow through?”
I shake my head slowly.
“Good,” he whispers. Then he raises his voice. “Eight, and tell your daughter to stop trying to distract me.”
Mom shoots out of the room, her eyes wide, but at least she’s wearing pants. Praise be. “I can’t find my purse.” She’s looking around frantically.
“Nine.”
Mom’s hands are shaking, and I should hate this, but for some reason, it makes me want to laugh. He’s really made Mom think he’ll hit her. “I’m—Tavie, do you see my purse?”
I hand it to her, and I point at the door.
“Ten.” Jake lunges at my mother, and she shoots out the door, stumbling over the threshold. She turns slowly, and rights herself. “Now that I’m outside of the house, let me tell you what I think about?—”
I slam the door in her face.
Jake’s smile grows until he’s beaming. “You slammed it.” He steps toward me. “So you’re not mad?”
I shrug. “She’ll be back. She’s like a cockroach.”
He laughs. “I can sense that.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “She isn’t perfect, but she’s really not that bad. Plenty of other mothers were worse.”
He presses a finger to my mouth. “Your mother is bad. She might be worse than the mothers who don’t feed their children. Anyone in the world can feed a child that’s hungry. Anyone in the world can wrap them in a blanket.” He crouches until he’s staring right at me. “But it takes a mother to convince such a gorgeous woman to believe the outrageous lie that she’s ugly, and your mother has done that. I don’t know why, but she’s never doing it again. No one is.” He runs one finger down the left side of my face so lightly, so slowly, that I can barely feel it. “You, Octavia Rothschild, are the most stunning woman I have ever seen. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again and again until you finally start believing it.”