Chapter 7 #2
Only when he rejects my sexual advances.
“No.”
“Mike is physically incapable of replacing the toilet roll when he uses the last square. It’s like a sickness. And he will use every mug in the house. You deserve a better host. If only our friend Cilla’s place was up and running, you could have stayed there.”
“I met Cilla! She’s great. The place isn’t a vibe yet, but it definitely will be. It’s got all the right narrative ingredients—the aesthetic, the storied owner, the location.”
“Cilla was my dance teacher when I was little. I think I got the showgirl bug from her. She used to be a Rockette.” Caroline stopped suddenly. “Hold on. How did you get out to Cilla’s? How did you even get to Woodville? It’s an hour’s drive from the airport, and there’s no public transport.”
“I drove myself.”
There was silence. Then: “You can drive ?”
“I grew up in Connecticut, Caroline. Of course I can drive.”
Didn’t anyone in my life watch my videos? I always used my stepdad’s car when I went home, and it was in a lot of them.
“Lyssa, you don’t understand. New Zealand is completely different from Connecticut. The roads are really twisty, you have to stay left, and you have to know the give-way rules and be confident following them.”
The rising panic in Caroline’s voice confirmed my earlier suspicion about why driving was a sensitive topic for the Hollidays.
Caroline never spoke about her mother—she hated when people felt sorry for her. All I knew was she’d been seven when her mom died, which meant Mike would have been four or five.
My heart broke for them.
I tried to make my voice calm and reassuring, like Caroline used to when I was crashing out about hat trim, or Root Beer clawing up my yarn basket.
“It’s okay, Caroline. I understand. I’m not going to drive that much while I’m here. Mike has insisted on driving me most places, and Woodville is small. When I do drive, I want you to know I’m very careful. I have a copy of the New Zealand road code now, and I know all the rules. Quiz me.”
“No, it’s okay?—”
“Quiz me.”
“I don’t drive,” Caroline admitted. “I know how to, but it freaks me out. If you say you know the rules, then I believe you. You never do anything by halves. And you have a freaky good memory.”
The compliment went some way toward soothing the hurt from the you-left-your-cat-without-food conclusion she’d leaped to earlier.
“I promise I’m careful. And Woodville really isn’t that big.”
Caroline muttered something I didn’t catch.
“I walk places for the most part,” I continued. “And I found a pink bike in the garage.”
“That’s Mike’s.”
“The one with all the fake flowers on the basket? Slay.”
Caroline nodded, making her earrings dance over her shoulders.
“When we were in high school, our neighbor Carrie got teased about her bike. Some guys said it was babyish. Carrie was devastated. So, Mike bought the exact same bike and rode around town with her, daring anyone to say anything. The basket is dented because Mike rammed one of the bullies to make his point.” Caroline sighed.
“My brother, the intellectual. Carrie is a super fancy veterinary surgeon now though, so Mini M has a better medical plan than you or me.”
“Good for you,” I whispered to Mini M, patting the side of his neck.
Caroline promised to visit Root Beer and to send the details of her flights when she’d booked them, which made me feel a little giddy.
These days it was hard enough to get Caroline to leave Chelsea, so having her worried enough to chase me around the world made me feel important, albeit a bit guilty.
After Caroline hung up, I stayed outside for a while and mulled.
Mini M stopped paying me any attention and instead angled his nose under the fence to nibble at the grass on the lawn. He didn’t seem interested in eating any of the longer grass in his field. Paddock , Mike called it.
I was a person who felt rejection deeply, always had, but I’d tried for years to overcome that.
It just wasn’t practical to be hypersensitive when you shared your entire life on the internet and worked in a creative industry like fashion.
Getting torn apart was part of the job, so I’d forged a hard outer shell.
I thought it’d worked and I’d successfully made myself less sensitive, but being sexually rejected three times in one month was a humiliating way to be proven wrong. First Paul, then Mike. Twice.
Last night, after Mike had finally capitulated and kissed me, he’d fled.
A normal person would take that hint and give up.
I knew that. Just as surely as I knew I wasn’t going to.
Because if anyone could help me access my inner sensuality, it was a man whose every single emotion lurked just under the surface.
Even though Mike wasn’t obsessed with me in the way I wanted him to be, he was impulsive (enough to buy bikes and run down bullies), and he had some kind of soft spot for me.
His kiss had melted me, and I wanted him badly.
I slid down from the fence, resolved.
Mike Holliday had turned me down twice, but there wouldn’t be a third time.
* * *
At dinner, the perfect solution popped into my head. It was an outfit, of course. The answer was always an outfit.
While demolishing the nachos Mike had made us, I racked my brain for things heterosexual men thought were sexy.
Margot Robbie. Showing women how to do stuff. Visible nipples.
I was struggling to add more to this list. What was attractive to me, and to the men I usually spent time with, were a well-tailored shirt, French seams, and sharp lapels. But that wasn’t going to do it for Mike.
Nurses who look after them. Girlfriends wearing their team jerseys.
That was it. Universally, the hottest girl job was professional cheerleader.
I was, like, 80 percent sure I was straight, and even I’d risk it all if a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader winked at me.
Not to mention, all the hottest girls at my high school were cheerleaders.
I’d made uniform alterations for a few girls at school (mostly taking their skirts up for away games), so I already had a basic pattern in my head.
I hadn’t been able to bring all of my craft and sewing supplies to New Zealand, obviously, and you couldn’t overnight ship things in Woodville, because that wasn’t a service that existed here.
The closest city would probably have what I needed, but all of the stores would be closed now, and I didn’t know where to look anyway.
I would have to make do with what I had, just like in my freshman year when I’d made my first custom dress by stitching together a bunch of my stepdad’s ties.
My fingers caressed the silver and blue chiffon I’d packed with the intent to pin to the wall to make a backdrop for filming.
Tearing the chiffon into ribbons, I made pom-poms, then shortened one of my pleated skirts, stitching the hem by hand.
It had been ages since I’d sewn by hand like this, and it was surprisingly therapeutic.
I had to requisition one of Mike’s shirts for fabric to make a top, but it was already torn, so I didn’t feel bad.
When I was done with this outfit, I could stitch the top of this shirt to the bottom of another ripped one he probably had in his closet, therefore elevating two of his old ripped shirts into one chic custom.
I lost myself in creation. The night sky was a deep black by the time I’d finished. Stars glittered at me as I stared through my window at them with bleary eyes. I imagined their sparkles said, Good girl, Lyssa .
They weren’t the only ones I wanted to hear say that.
When my head hit the pillow on Friday night, I fell into an exhausted sleep on top of leftover scraps of fabric. It was the first time since leaving Bossi that I slept without tossing and turning.