Chapter 39 KELSEY THE BIG SHOT
Chapter 39
K ELSEY THE B IG S HOT
The homestead is strange without Zachery in it. I watch his Jaguar from the balcony, dust blowing up from the tires as he leaves.
I’m on my own.
I head down to the kitchen to eat leftover sandwiches for breakfast. It’s six a.m. in LA, and the time zone will be a struggle to get work done. I’ll have to duck out of whatever I’m doing at the farm midmorning to call Jason Venetian and the director, then hopefully Gayle’s agent.
I’m making this happen.
I make a mental list of what needs to be done. Choose different scenes from the script, definitely. Send those to Jason and Gayle. Help with their tapes. Harder to do at a distance, but I don’t think Gayle lives in California anyway.
There’s work to do here at the homestead. The mugs and plates were all washed and dried and put away after the tea, but the enormous percolator and quite a few serving platters were left to drain on the sideboard.
I open all the cabinet doors, looking for the spots where they go.
I find more platters with space for the ones we used, so I slide those in the cabinet.
But there’s nothing that will hold the oversize electric pot. It must go into the storage room. A few of the women referred to it while we were preparing yesterday, but I didn’t go in there. It’s across the hall from the kitchen.
An extra wall was put in when the homestead was first listed as a rental, in order to lock the guests out of the portions that held family heirlooms that didn’t fit elsewhere.
It’s a good-size area. If I had to guess based on its size and placement, it’s a formal dining room and possibly an additional closet. I imagine those spaces are crammed with things wanted safe from guests.
I turn the lever to see if it’s locked as usual, thinking that maybe someone from the tea left it open so we could return the percolator.
And I’m right. The handle moves down, and the door pops open.
The first space is exactly as I expected, a formal dining room filled with chairs, a grandfather clock, and a cherrywood antique dining set, including an enormous hutch filled with china.
I walk up to it, admiring the classic pink rose designs on the plates, and the heavy crystal. We never had anything like this at the farm. Mom and Dad eloped away from scattered, dysfunctional families that we kids never met. I doubt many of them are even still alive.
But this set is well preserved, ready for a formal meal. I like that it exists, that normal families hold on to mementos and pass them down.
There’s an archway to another area beyond the dining room. Interesting. I wonder what it is.
I skirt chairs and small tables, some filled with old lamps and stacks of black-and-white framed photos. But when I get close enough to see inside, I stop short.
Someone lives in here. There’s a mattress on the floor with mussed sheets. Boxes everywhere burst with clothes, books, and mail. It’s a mess.
A plate sits on the floor by the bed, a couple of half-eaten leftover sandwiches sitting on it. I recognize them from the tea.
Then I spot a pair of boots. I know those.
They belong to Randy.
He lives in this long, narrow room?
I glance around. There’s an oak wood desk shoved in the corner and a brown leather chair covered in coats. This was an office.
I turn to the inside wall. Yes, there’s a door that should lead to the library where I met Grandmama. They must have moved a bookshelf in front of this door on the library side to close it off.
I wonder why Randy never told me he was living here. I don’t think they disclosed that someone would be in the house at the same time as us. Zachery would have mentioned it. It’s no big deal, no different from Livia at her bed-and-breakfast.
But weird to keep it a secret.
My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Randy.
Want me to swing by in the truck and pick you up on the way to the farm?
He’s specifically pretending he’s coming from somewhere else. Or maybe he already ran an errand. I try to think about the other times he’s come to fetch me. He gave the impression that he lived elsewhere, but he never lied about it. Just an omission.
I text him back. Sure. I’m ready.
My stomach knots. I picture the lien Zachery showed me. Maybe they really are in financial straits, enough that Randy has to stay here to save money.
That’s okay. It’s his house anyway. We’ll figure this out. Do a social media push, get this homestead full of guests. There’s three rooms upstairs plus the main suite downstairs. That’s a lot of rooms we can get money for.
But even so, the uneasy feeling won’t leave. I haven’t been to Randy’s parents’ house, or Grandmama’s cottage, or Gina’s apartment. What if none of those exist?
I imagine them all squeezed together in a room like Charlie Bucket’s family before he gets the golden ticket.
No, no. Surely not.
But the doubts have crept in.
This is a fine time to be without Zachery. Who can I talk to about this?
I hear the truck rumbling up the drive and practically sprint out of the room, racing past the packed dining table and into the kitchen.
I close the door carefully, trying to make sure I leave it exactly as I found it, firmly closed but unlocked.
Then I barrel out of the kitchen, as if that matters, and slow my breathing to appear calm and pleasant as I head for the porch.
Because I am. Chill. Happy. I’ve learned nothing that matters.
But I’ll pay more attention.
Randy seems the same, other than there’s more ease when he leans in for a quick kiss before opening my door. But when I sit in the tall green truck that the whole family seems to share, I look longingly at the spot where Zachery’s Jaguar used to sit.
I’m in this on my own.
Everyone’s at the tree farm when we arrive. Carrie and Jed. Jack and his wife, Mary, who is done with her teaching duties for the summer. Gina. Even Grandmama sits in a lawn chair, watching them take down the tents.
“Time to undo everything we did,” Randy says.
But today, there’s no added “And we sure appreciate your help.” Not even a hint that maybe a paying customer at the homestead who has a regular job is going out of her way to be here.
It feels expected.
I’m being taken for granted.
Like family, I guess, but it isn’t sitting well with all the other discoveries.
Grandmama holds out her hand to me as I pass. “It’s Kelsey,” she says with a smile, and that warm feeling comes over me again. Of course they’re going to treat me like family. I got the matriarch stamp of approval.
“Good to see you, Grandmama,” I say.
“Why don’t you and Randy come to the cottage later for lunch,” she says. “I haven’t seen the two of you together, and I would like a chat.”
Okay, so the cottage exists.
Carrie rolls a long length of rope across her arm. “We were going to have them over to our house, but I suppose that can be tomorrow.” She stacks the coil onto a stack of the others that were holding down the tent flaps. “We have all the time in the world now, right?” She laughs as she shakes her head. “This was a lot!”
So their house exists, too. And she’s explained why everything seems topsy-turvy.
I overreacted.
“Of course,” I say to Carrie. “I’ll have to make a few calls at some point today, but I’m mostly free.” It might be time to set some boundaries.
Carrie dusts her hands off. “Grandmama tells us you’re a big-shot Hollywood moviemaker.”
This makes everyone pause, even Randy. I realize he and I have never talked about my job. Grandmama was the first person I told.
I guess I had secrets, too. Kettle, meet pot.
Jed slings a rolled-up floor tarp over his shoulder. “I thought you were from Alabama.”
“I am,” I say quickly, feeling the pierce of all the family’s gazes on me. “I grew up on a dairy farm outside Birmingham. Then I went to college in theater arts and became an assistant to a casting director.”
Gina seems excited by this. “What movies have you worked on? The Barbie movie? Did you cast Margot Robbie? Because I loved her in that.”
“No, I didn’t cast Barbie .” Heat starts to rise to my face. It’s always complicated explaining how our process works.
“What about Guardians of the Galaxy ?” Gina asks. Then her eyes go wide. “Did you discover Chris Hemsworth? Was he grateful? Who have you met? Who is the biggest star?”
“Let the girl be,” Grandmama says. “I get all the gossip first, at my cottage, for lunch today. Now back to work!”
Everyone disperses.
I don’t know what to say. I guess I should have expected this would happen at some point.
Randy sniffs. “I didn’t realize you were such a big deal.” He heads toward the main building.
I have to hurry to keep up with his long, rapid strides. “I’m not. I’m really not. Zachery is a much bigger deal.”
“You mean that man who slept in the room next to you? Who ate breakfast with you when you were barely dressed?”
“Wait. What?”
We go inside the building, and I let the door close behind me. The lights are out, and it’s dim inside, bins of unsold merchandise scattered across the floor.
Randy whirls around. “That first morning. You came in there with barely a stitch on, ready to have breakfast with that man. You thought I forgot?”
“He’s a coworker. You’ve known that since we met.”
He frowns. “I know it. But you just said he’s a big deal.”
“In the industry. Not to me.”
Randy taps his foot a moment. “All right. I get it.”
“I was the one who wanted to travel. He came along to make sure I was okay, like a friend would, like a brother.”
“But he’s not a brother.”
Oh, if he only knew.
But I press on. “He did a lot of my work for me so I could be with you. I could never have done so much with the tree farm if he hadn’t helped.”
“His car was gone this morning.”
“Yeah, he left. He’s gone back to LA.”
“So, you don’t need a brother anymore.” He seems to be calming down.
I hold on to the back of the chair I sat in the first day, when I made the ribbon wreaths. It already feels like ages ago. “Exactly. Once he saw I was well situated here, he went back.”
“You’re thinking about staying here in Glass?” He steps close enough to take my hand.
I let out a sigh of relief. We got past this moment. Maybe soon I’ll ask him about his living arrangements.
His thumb slides over the back of my hand. “I’d like it if you did.”
This is it, I guess. The moment where the script is complete. The intention to follow my happily ever after will be stated. The swoony music will rise. We’ll have our biggest, best kiss, and roll the end credits.
INT. HANOVER TREE FARM RETAIL BUILDING—DAY
Randy, 28, leans in—
“I have a meeting in LA,” I blurt. “Next week.” I don’t, but I probably will. If the director wants me, I’ll go. Might as well put it out there.
He freezes. “You have to go back already?”
“It’s a big movie. The biggest thing I’ve ever done. It might win an Oscar.” It’s not even cast yet, but here I am, saying it.
“Oscar, huh?” He drops my hand. “So, you are a big shot. I reckon you won’t have time for a pissant little town like Glass.”
His words cut me. “But I’ve been here. Helping. I made wreaths. Set up your tents.”
“Sure, right till you have to run back to the city. I can’t have a wife who takes off for LA every time she has a damn meeting.”
I take a step back. I’ve forgotten my most critical lessons. The men need to feel important. I can’t be bigger than they are. They don’t function well when they feel small. “I can do most of it from here, but sometimes I have to be there. Or New York.”
He grunts. “New York. A girl like you. From Alabama. In New York.”
“It’s just a city.”
“What if we have kids? You gonna leave them to jet off to some Hollywood party?”
“We don’t know that it will happen that way.” I can argue about how he shouldn’t diminish me, but in this, he’s right. I haven’t thought ahead to how trying to stay relevant in the business would affect having a family.
Maybe I do want more than a small-town bed-and-breakfast.
He scuffs his boot on the rough floor. “I reckon you can’t see the problem because you aren’t a family type. You don’t think about your community. You think about your job.”
Why is he pushing me like this? He barely knows me! Is he this thrown off to learn that I have a life outside Glass? That maybe I’m good at something other than ribbon wreaths?
My anger gets ahead of me, a very dangerous place for it to go. And I say it. I don’t want to. But my mouth is way out in front. “At least I have a job. A real one. One that pays for me to have a place to sleep that isn’t a mattress in a hidden room of an old house!”
He sniffs. “You’ve been snooping around.”
“I was putting away the items from the tea I worked for your family .”
His expression is dark.
And that’s it.
I already know.
There will be no happily ever after in Glass, Wyoming.
The small-town life isn’t going to be for me.
Maybe my faith really is going to wither.
Or maybe some random actress pretending to be a fortune teller sent me on a dumb, pointless mission based on fear.
“Tell Grandmama that I will sadly have to turn down her kind offer for lunch,” I say. “It’s clearly time for me to go.”
For a moment, I think he’ll relent. He bites his lip and adjusts his ball cap nervously, like he knows he’s done the wrong thing.
Maybe this was just the dark moment, the part of every movie where dejection sets in, the sad music plays, and it seems impossible for the couple to be together. The tension before the big finish.
But the script is all garbled, a complicated mess that will have to be edited.
Randy gestures for the door. “Well, go on, then. Back to Hollywood.”
I’m tired of this. Tired of people telling me what I can and can’t do. Who I am. What I am. Desdemona. G-spot. Simon. Randy. My father.
I want my mother.
I run out of the building, not stopping to say goodbye to anyone.
Down the rows of trees. Through the forest. Bursting out the other side when I get to the homestead lot.
I have to pack. Have to get out of here.
This plan was a mistake.
The real ending is me, back where I belong, casting the most perfect two people in a movie I believe in with all my heart.
Screw love. Screw small towns. I’ll be Desdemona, powerful and single, and people will quake when they see me.
It’s fine. I’ll be fine.
I was not meant for this kind of romance. I tried it in Alabama, in college, in Los Angeles, and on this ill-fated trip.
I’ve struck out.
It’s time to go home. To glitz. To glamour. To the whole business.
I’m so grateful I figured it out in time.