Chapter Nine #2
He hears me this time and turns toward me.
God, how silly I must look, standing here by a car worth more than I earned last year, clutching my wallet to my chest like it’s a lifeline.
But no matter how embarrassing this might be, fucking up his family’s car by pumping the wrong gas incorrectly would be even worse.
As he jogs back toward me, he asks, “What’s up?”
“I don’t know how to do this.”
His brows narrow, nearly disappearing under his sunglasses, as he stands next to me. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what kind of gas a G-Wagon takes. I’ve only done this once before.”
“You’ve only done this once before.” His echo of my statement is full of wonder, like it never even occurred to him that a person would not know how to do this.
But that’s the reality of being born and raised in a city like New York, where public transportation is readily available and walking is a viable means of getting from point A to point B.
I don’t even have a driver’s license; I never needed one.
As I learned recently, Oliver grew up in California, where having a car is basically a necessity for survival.
Deeply annoyed, I don’t say anything to this.
I just stand there with my brows flattened in irritation, my wallet clutched to my chest, my tote bag slung over my shoulder, waiting for him to offer some kind of advice.
For a moment, he doesn’t do anything at all; he just stares at me from behind his black sunglasses until his lips curl up, up, up enough that they’ve formed an actual, honest-to-god smile.
And then—he laughs.
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard this sound come out of Oliver Barlowe.
In all my years of knowing him, he’s deprived me of this wonderful, throaty song, pitched in a rich baritone that resonates over the wind curling around us.
It stuns me enough that I take a half-step back.
This only makes him laugh harder. It’s infectious, the way he clutches his side with one hand while the other runs through his hair.
Soon I’m laughing, too—at myself, at him, at the absurdity of our situation at some random gas station on the side of the Connecticut highway.
When the giggles subside, Oliver patiently shows me how it’s done (the card swipes first; the SUV takes premium gas).
There’s not a hint of condescension as he explains which buttons to press or how to trigger the nozzle so it automatically pumps.
The whole thing is over in a matter of minutes, but the interaction lingers with me long after, when my purse is saddled with snacks and bottles of water and the car is whizzing down the road again.
Before I can resume reading, Oliver clears his throat, startling me. “Do you remember the other day when we were at the meeting with Chris, and you asked me what I meant when I said not to be nervous?”
“Yes,” I say as I turn to face him with unabashed surprise. Not only do I remember this clearly, but I thought about it the entire twenty-minute train ride home, then on and off again over the rest of the week. You were always so…
“What I was going to say,” he starts, then pauses, but I keep staring at him, observing as his cheeks flush. “I was going to say that you were always so good at it. Before, in college. At the music, yes, and with the people. I was never good at that—the people stuff. But you were.”
My heartbeat echoes at the way the words come out of him, in cautious starts and stops.
This is the last thing I expected him to say.
I figured he would comment on the way I was always so forward and direct—or maybe bold, if he was feeling nice—but to compliment both my musical and people skills?
And to make it a point to clarify the whole thing days later?
Maybe Rebecca was right. Maybe he has changed.
“Oh.” This is a lame response, but it’s like every other word has emptied out of my mind. I scramble for something more coherent as I shift in my seat to face forward. “I—well, thank you.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him nod curtly. End of discussion, then.
I flip open the script and continue reading aloud well into Massachusetts.
Somewhere in the middle of the state, an accident causes traffic to snarl.
It’s late in the afternoon at this point and we’re both hungry enough to succumb to the siren song of the Golden Arches.
When we pull off the highway, I slip the script back into my tote—the dog-eared page tells me we’re nearly halfway through the season—before tumbling out of the SUV onto wooden legs.
When we’re both seated at a small table, two trays of familiar fried foods displayed in front of us, I find myself unable to look away from him.
His sunglasses dangle from the crew neck of his T-shirt as he prepares his lunch-dinner: a burger and fries for him, an order of nuggets and fries for me.
There’s an indentation on the bridge of his nose where his sunglasses have sat all day.
It’s red, a little irritated, almost the color of the paper ketchup ramekins he orders neatly into a row at the top of his tray.
There’s music playing in this McDonald’s dining room, which would be empty if it weren’t for us and the employee wiping down tables.
Still, it’s quiet enough that I can hear the hustle and bustle coming from behind the counter; the young employees are laughing and joking loudly about something, but not quite audibly enough for me to hear the details.
It’s strange, being in a place with this much noise, so close to another person, but hearing so little.
Just as Oliver takes a bite from a monstrous-looking burger, I ask, “So, what’s the deal with the house?”
His gaze shoots to me as I pop half a nugget into my mouth—it’s almost a glare or an accusation, but not quite.
I’ve seen this look on him before, many times in college, as he stared at me from across the classroom or top of a piano.
This particular type of heat in his light-brown eyes used to royally piss me off.
But now it does little more than irritate me—just a slight ruffling of my proverbial feathers, enough to get a teeny, tiny rise out of me.
He finishes chewing, swallowing hard, before wiping the grease from his fingers onto a napkin. “What do you mean?”
I choke back a frustrated sigh. “I mean, like, anything at all. I have no idea what I’m getting myself into here.”
“Well, it’s on the edge of town, within walking distance of the waterfront,” he says as he leans back into the hard metal frame of the chair. “Four bedrooms, four bathrooms, studio addition on the side of the house, small gym in the basement. It’s fairly large. You’ll have plenty of privacy.”
“Okay, great.” I pause to eat a fry. “And you said something about it being your family’s house or something? You mentioned your dad was born in Maine?”
What I don’t say is, You tried to tell me your dad was born in Maine, but I cut you off.
“Yes. It was his childhood home, until his family moved to Connecticut for work. They kept the cottage for summers, though. When his parents—my grandparents—passed, he got the house. I was thirteen, maybe fourteen, when my mom and dad remodeled it.” He pops another fry into his mouth as a thoughtful look comes over his face.
“Although, it would be more accurate to call it a complete gut job. It’s not really a summer cottage anymore.
They winterized it, added a bunch of rooms, updated everything, et cetera. ”
“And you spent your summers there? With your parents?”
“Every single one until I went to college.”
Which was roughly thirteen years ago. “When was the last time you stayed at the house?” I ask, before adding, “Aside from this week.”
“Around five years ago,” he replies after consuming another fry.
“With your parents, or…?” I ask.
He wipes his hands on his napkin. “No, I was alone.”
“Oh,” I reply, clearly frustrated by how little he offers when I ask about his life. The mention of his mom and dad provides an easy opening, so I ask, “How are they? Your parents, I mean.”
“Fine.”
The single response, given so quickly, lands with a heavy impact that I don’t understand. “Are you close with them?”
“No,” he scoffs, then downs most of his soda.
When it’s clear he’s not going to offer any more information than that, I turn my attention back to my food.
This is the most I’ve learned about Oliver’s past outside of his musical capabilities ever, but the conversation feels so one-sided that it’s more like an interrogation.
I’m already tired from doing all the heavy lifting.
As we eat in silence, my mind works to connect the dots.
Oliver’s mentioned having two parents, but I don’t remember seeing him with any of his family, not in the years we spent playing in the same ensembles or the day we both walked across the graduation stage.
Because of his famous father (well, famous for our world), I’d never given much thought to Oliver’s mom.
It’s possible that I met or saw her at some event but never registered who she was.
Someone must have been there when he performed, right? At least for his graduation?
“Celia? Everything okay?”
Oliver’s voice pulls me out of Juilliard’s concert halls and back into the rural Massachusetts McDonald’s.
When my gaze meets his, I’m surprised to see a little V forming between his brows, his full lips pursed together just enough that they almost look like a pout.
It’s a look of concern—one brought on by my own listless frown.
My stomach does a funny little swoop at this realization.
“What?” I ask, confused by so many things that I don’t know where to start.
“I was just asking if your family still lives in the city.”
“Oh. Yeah, they’re still in the Heights,” I reply absently, my mind hundreds of miles away from my own family’s home.
I push the mostly finished tray of food away from me.
I’m fully prepared to lie to myself that it was the nuggets that did that to my stomach, not the way Oliver is looking at me right now.
Like he cares. “Sorry. Just wrapping my head around the fact that I’m moving into a house I’ve never seen before. ”
That isn’t exactly true, but he gives me a tentative, small smile as he nods. As if he understands how that feels. I find myself smiling back at him without thinking about it.
I don’t like lying to him. I don’t like lying to anyone. But this is an act of self-preservation, one that is wholly essential to my own survival. Because under these harsh fluorescent lights, I have no choice but to wonder if Oliver Barlowe may not be who I thought he was.
LINEAGE—EPISODE ONE, “THAT ONE”
INT.—MOORE FAMILY SITTING ROOM 4
We open on EMILY and JAMES MOORE as they step into a private sitting room and close the door behind them. It’s the kind of room no one ever uses, untouched and clean, decorated with expensive furniture.
JAMES
I told you he would come back from that trip either engaged, broke, or arrested!
EMILY
Well, he can’t go broke, so you had a fifty-fifty shot of being right.
JAMES
(laughing)
Yeah, but engaged to a bartender? Could he be even more cliché?
EMILY
I give it six months, tops. There’s no way our brother makes it down the aisle.
JAMES
Oh, I think he’ll do it. I’ll put money on that.