Chapter 18
Oliver and I went on our first official date later that week. Of course, he failed to mention we were going on a date until two hours beforehand.
“Special delivery from the Love Doctor,” JJ said, and plopped down right on top of the desk where I was working. Okay, so I wasn’t actually working. I was reading through the mass of comments I received on my latest blog post, but his intrusion was annoying nonetheless.
“Hey,” I complained, craning my neck to see the computer screen. “You’re in my way.”
“But I have a present for you,” JJ said, waving a folded up piece of paper in front of my face.
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think I want any presents from the Love Doctor.”
JJ scoffed. “It’s not from me. It’s from your lover.”
“He’s not my lover, you perv,” I said as my face heated up. “And who says lover anymore? That’s creepy.”
I had yet to officially tell the rest of the band about my relationship with Oliver, not because it was a secret—I doubted that Oliver would care if I told his closest friends—but because it was safe to assume they’d already gathered as much.
“Ah,” JJ said, wagging a finger at me, “but you knew exactly who I was talking about, didn’t you?”
“Just give it to me.” I snatched the paper from him and unfolded it.
Stella,
6 p.m. at 137 North Higgins Street. Dress nice.
—Oliver
“What’s this?” I asked after reading the message.
“Instructions from Oliver,” he said. “Duh.”
“I got that. What are they for?”
Although it registered in the back of my mind that Oliver was probably taking me on a date, I was too caught up in all the little details to freak out. It was already four o’clock, which barely left me any time to get ready, and on top of that, I didn’t know what to wear.
He shrugged. “Just the delivery boy, Stella, but if I had to guess, I’d say it has something to do with what I caught you two doing on my roof last weekend.”
I ignored his jab and scanned the note again. “But what do you think he means by ‘dress nice’? Are we going somewhere fancy?”
JJ raised an eyebrow as he looked me over. “It probably means that you should shower and change out of those sweats.”
“Thanks,” I said, pushing my bangs out of my face. As if I needed him to tell me I looked greasy. “What I meant was how nice? Semiformal? Formal? He didn’t give me any specifics here. What if I show up too fancy?” Worse, what if I was underdressed?
“You’re the girl, not me. How am I supposed to know? A sundress, maybe? You’re making this a bigger deal than it should be.”
JJ clearly didn’t understand the crisis I was experiencing, so I decided to use what little time Oliver had given me to tear through my suitcase.
I didn’t own any dresses, but I’d packed a silver sequin top I stole from Cara.
After tucking the shirt into my black skater skirt and pairing it with black heels—also Cara’s—I decided the outfit was as date-appropriate as I could get under such short notice.
As it turned out, Oliver wasn’t entirely senseless. He arranged for a car to pick me up outside our hotel at a quarter to, and fifteen minutes later the driver pulled up to the curb in a chic part of town where the streets were lined with fancy restaurants and posh boutiques.
“Hello?” I said, pulling open the door at 137 North Higgins.
Oliver was waiting just inside. He was wearing a slim black suit, no tie, over a white dress shirt with the top buttons undone, and his usual messy brown waves had been styled back.
“You came.” There was an amazed smile on his face, almost as if he’d expected me to be a no-show and I’d surprised him.
“How could I not?” I asked.
His mouth parted like he was going to respond, but then he took another look at me, a head-to-toe look, and said, “Stella, you look perfect.”
“You think?” I asked, and had to look away from his stare. “I was worried that—”
“Perfect,” he assured me. I felt myself blush, and Oliver took my hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
He pulled open the inside door, and we stepped into a very long, very empty room with wooden floors and industrial-gray ceiling rafters.
The walls were painted stark white, but every few feet a piece of art hung on display, a spotlight shining on each one.
When I arrived, I’d been so nervous about what I was wearing that I didn’t notice we were meeting at an art gallery.
I stepped away from Oliver and walked to the middle of the room, and then I turned in a slow circle, taking everything in.
“Do you like?” Oliver asked. He was standing where I had left him with a satisfied smirk on his face.
I did. I’d never given much thought to what would make a perfect date, but now I was struggling to think of anything better than being here.
This wasn’t just your regular movie and dinner—it was special, because Oliver had considered what was important to me.
We walked from piece to piece, stopping to talk about each one, and he decided an oil painting by some artist called DeBuile was his favorite.
A silver fork and knife were glued to a canvas filled with random splotches of bright color.
Oliver said he liked it because it reminded him of a food fight.
“Where is everyone?” I asked. We’d made it halfway through the gallery before I even noticed we were completely alone.
“The owner is in the back,” he said. “I rented out the place for the night so we could have some privacy.”
“Oh, right,” I said. He didn’t mean that kind of privacy. He meant so we could keep our relationship a secret.
“Look over here,” Oliver said before I could give his previous words much thought. He pointed to the end of the row of art, and I instantly recognized a vibrant photograph on the wall. “This is why we came.”
I stared up at one of Bianca’s pictures.
It was the original print, but I was more stunned by the fact that I was looking at my favorite of all her pieces, something that Oliver never could’ve known.
It wasn’t the first photo of hers I’d seen when introduced to her work, but it was the one I found most inspiring.
The subject was so simple: a little girl, maybe five or six, who was playing in the street during the middle of a summer shower.
Her feet were bare and the look on her face said that nothing in the world was better than being covered up to her waist in mud.
In her smile, I’d recognized the sort of carefree spirit that Cara, Drew, and I all had as kids.
I hadn’t felt that way since Cara’s first diagnosis, and I realized I wanted it back, if only for the shortest of moments, so I could capture the feeling with my own camera before it was forever gone.
“I…” I started to say. I wanted to tell Oliver what this meant to me, but I was breathless and I kept thinking there was no possible way to finish my sentence, to use words to explain. They weren’t enough.
“You like it?” Oliver asked. “I was trying to decide where to go tonight, and then I read somewhere that this gallery had a Bianca piece. I called just to make sure.”
“Yes,” I said, finally able to speak. Oliver was oblivious to the fact that this particular picture was one of the special few that had inspired my passion for photography.
“Good,” he said like that was the only explanation he needed. “I’m glad.”
***
Dinner was at a local place called Amber India three doors down from the art gallery.
They let us sneak in through the back, and there was a private dining room normally reserved for large parties where we could eat in peace.
Before the waitress arrived with our food, I excused myself to wash my hands.
When I was leaving the bathroom, I noticed a commotion at the front of the restaurant.
“Ladies, please!” The hostess was attempting to push back a group of twenty or so girls. “If you’re not here to eat, then you need to leave!”
I rushed back to our table. “Oliver,” I said, waving him over to the door. “You’d better come see this.”
“Crap,” he said after peeking out into the hall.
“How did they find you?” I asked in disbelief. It was like the girls had materialized out of thin air.
“Anyone in the restaurant who saw us could have tweeted about it,” he explained. He pulled out his wallet and dropped a few bills on the table. “It happens more often than you’d think.”
“Okay, so what do we do?”
“Hopefully we can still sneak out the back.”
We weren’t that lucky. Oliver tried to hurry down the hall, but he was easily spotted by his fans. When the hysterical screaming began, he grabbed my hand and we started to run.
“Hold on,” he said, pulling up short of the rear door. He poked his head around the corner before quickly pulling back. “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked. As adrenaline started to pump through my heart, I wondered if our relationship would always be like this: secrets and chases and drama.
“There’s a whole bunch of paparazzi. We need to go a different way.”
“What other way?”
“Through the kitchen?” he suggested.
We hurried through the swinging metal doors, and some of the cooking staff looked up at us in surprise. The kitchen had one exit. It led out into a tiny, fenced-in area where the Dumpsters were kept hidden from view, but there was a padlock where the fence was supposed to open, trapping us inside.
“Now what?” I was starting to worry that our first secret date wouldn’t be secret for that much longer.
Oliver thought for a moment before pulling me back into the small kitchen. He threw open the janitor’s closet and pushed me inside before stepping in after me. When he closed the door behind himself, we were shut in darkness.
“Ouch,” I hissed as Oliver trampled over my foot.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. I couldn’t see much of anything, but I was pretty sure that Oliver had shoved the cleaning cart under the doorknob so no one could get in.
“Hey!” someone in the kitchen shouted. “You girls can’t be in here!”