Chapter Fourteen Portland, OR 2008
Chapter Fourteen
Portland, OR
If Scarlett could go the rest of her life without seeing, talking to, or even hearing the name Grimshaw Pemberly, she’d have signed up on the spot.
“Grimshaw thinks we should skip his prom,” Chrissie said as she sat at the piano in her living room, her fingers flying over the keys.
Although Scarlett liked to listen to Chrissie practice, and would have been the first to defend her friend’s massive talent to anyone who questioned it, this wasn’t how she’d normally choose to spend a gorgeous day just a few weeks before school let out.
Being cooped inside with a piano was one thing. But a piano and talk of Grimshaw? Hard pass.
“Of course he does,” Scarlett muttered. She was draped over the arm of a too-white couch, flipping through an architectural magazine that showcased dozens of houses identical to this one.
“I kind of wanted to go—dress-shopping and a fancy dinner and all that—but Grimshaw says it’s just another example of society forcing us to focus on frivolity so we don’t see the political dangers looming on the horizon.”
Ugh. Was there anything fun that Grimshaw didn’t consider a political ploy undertaken by the hands of a shadowy Man waiting in the wings?
Since it was impossible to keep the bitterness out of her tone, Scarlett waited for a particularly thunderous chord before asking, “And what do you think? You have just as much of a right to enjoy your life as he does.”
Chrissie’s playing didn’t stop as she considered her response. Scarlett would have liked to point out that any sixteen-year-old who could play Stravinsky with her eyes closed deserved to go to a thousand proms with a thousand better boyfriends, but there was no point.
Chrissie was impervious to all of Grimshaw’s affected, brooding flaws.
When he got up on his libertarian soapbox, she stood by to listen to all the ways deregulation would save the world.
When he wanted to skip Friday night football games to go to poetry readings or study the lyrics of indie folk records instead of doing, you know, literally anything else, she was right there in step with him.
It was enough to make a best friend scream.
“I think he’d have a lot more fun than he realizes, but it won’t break my heart to skip prom as a junior.” Chrissie glanced at Scarlett with a smile that made her stomach feel tight. “I’d much rather wait until next year when you and I can both go.”
And there it was. The tightness in Scarlett’s stomach turned to a lump.
When it came to boys, jealousy wasn’t a good look on a best friend. In her heart of hearts, Scarlett knew that—and if Chrissie had fallen for anyone else on the planet, she’d have curled up next to her green-eyed monster and enjoyed a Friday night on her own without complaint.
But oh, how she hated that guy. Not because he was a pretentious sack of wind, and not because everything he said and did was a performative farce, but because the two of them were exactly the same.
They both wanted Chrissie’s heart, and neither of them deserved to have it.
“There.” Chrissie finished the piece she was practicing and stood up, stretching her arms above her head as silence once again descended upon the house. “I’m done for the day. Did you still want to check out that sketchy carnival in Ventura Park?”
Scarlett was on her feet in a flash. “Do you even have to ask? Sketchy carnivals are my favorite kind. I hope the Ferris wheel goes rogue like last time. We were spinning around on that thing for hours.”
Chrissie laughed (a good sign) and then immediately pulled out her cell phone (a very, very bad sign). “Cool. I’ll have Grimshaw meet us there. One of his cousins is in town this weekend, so…”
Scarlett bit back a groan. As far as she could tell, Grimshaw was related to no fewer than forty-five different male cousins, most of whom had tenacious body odor and even worse taste in literature than he did.
He and Chrissie were constantly setting Scarlett up on blind dates with them, as if all that was needed to set the seal on their happiness was to ensure they always had a double date for the art-house movies Grimshaw favored.
“Don’t tell me,” Scarlett said, resigned to her fate. If she wanted to spend time with her best friend—and she did—she had to pay the price. “This one is different. A really great guy once you get to know him—and his acne will be sure to fade in a few years. All I have to do is be patient.”
“I’m sure this one really is different,” Chrissie promised as she closed the lid on the piano and started gathering up her things. “And if he’s not, we can always abandon him inside the fun house.”
Scarlett had to make do with that, but not before making sure she got one last dig in.
“Good idea,” she said. “With any luck, he’s so much like Grimshaw that he’ll get lost admiring his own reflection in one of the crooked mirrors.”
* * *
“You should ask Mitchell to go on the spinning teacups again. Now that his stomach is empty, he might actually enjoy himself.”
Grimshaw was dangerously close to winking at Scarlett as he spoke, so of course she responded with a glare. Since she was holding two pink puffs of cotton candy and had a matching stuffed narwhal under one arm, she doubted her glare held much authority, but she kept it glued to her face anyway.
“These are—I mean were—my favorite sneakers,” she said as she tried not to think about the bright blue splatter of vomit that now decorated the tops.
Honestly, if you were prone to motion sickness, why on earth would you eat a blue raspberry slushie right before you got on a ride?
“You made him sit next to me on purpose.”
Grimshaw opened his eyes wide in an expression of innocence.
It made his broodingly dark lashes look even less natural than usual.
In all the time she’d known him, he continued to maintain that he’d never worn eyeliner a day in his life, but if that wasn’t the work of an Urban Decay smudge stick, she’d eat this narwhal.
“Whatever can you mean, Scarlett?” he asked. “Of course Mitchell wanted to sit next to you. He’s never been on a date with a beautiful older woman before.”
His wide-eyed innocence turned to even wider-eyed malice.
Scarlett wished there was a way for her to bottle up that look and share it with Chrissie, but of course Grimshaw would never let that happen.
Around Chrissie, he was a perfect gentleman, content to hold her hand and gaze adoringly into her eyes, generously sharing his cousins so her dear friend wouldn’t end up a lonely spinster.
Around Scarlett, however, his true nature came out. It had no choice. That was what happened when like found like.
“You could have told us he’s only fourteen before we got here,” she muttered.
“What, and ruin the surprise?” He slung a heavy arm around her shoulders. “This is the most fun I’ve had with you in months.”
Chrissie chose that moment to return to the group, her own arm around Mitchell as she led him away from the family bathrooms. The damp patch along the front of his shirt and the hangdog droop to his head indicated that her attempts to clean and cheer him up hadn’t been a success.
In a few years—possibly ten—Mitchell had the potential to rival his cousin in terms of height, hair, and hotness.
As it was, he stood only one bare inch taller than Scarlett, his hair cut in an unfortunate bowl shape, the gangly awkwardness of his fourteen years evident in every line of his bearing.
The fact that he’d taken one look at Scarlett and fallen into staring, speechless adoration didn’t help matters any.
“See, Mitchell?” Chrissie gave the embarrassed boy’s hand a comforting pat. “I told you she’d still be here when we got back. Scarlett doesn’t care about things like getting sick on a ride. She’s one of the nicest people in the world. Aren’t you, Scarlett?”
Scarlett wasn’t, and everyone here knew it, but there didn’t seem to be any way to contradict the claim. When Chrissie Thomas looked at you with those soft, kind eyes and demanded that you be just as soft and kind in return, you did.
It was the one thing that made spending time with Grimshaw palatable—the one reason Scarlett hadn’t secretly nanny-cammed her interactions with him and posted them online for all the world to see.
For some strange reason, Chrissie genuinely believed that Scarlett’s heart beat the same way hers did—that if left to her own devices, her decisions would be right, honorable, and just. She believed the same thing about Grimshaw.
Scarlett Sanderson was a lot of unpleasant things, but a hypocrite wasn’t one of them.
If Chrissie could see something inside Scarlett that she didn’t know existed, then it was possible that she could see it in other people, too.
Maybe Scarlett focused on the manipulative weasel inside Grimshaw because that was the only part of him she shared.
“Here. I got you this.” Scarlett shoved the cotton candy at the boy. “To clean the taste out of your mouth. Also because it was buy one, get one free.”
“Really? For me?” Mitchell accepted the peace offering, looking at her with such pleased surprise that she was almost ready to rise to Chrissie’s astronomical expectations. “Chrissie was right. You really are the best.”
Scarlett flushed. She flushed even more when she caught Grimshaw’s gaze, mocking her from beneath a pair of perfectly arched brows.
“Whatever. It’s just cotton candy.” She shoved the toy narwhal at Chrissie. “And this is for you. I beat Grimshaw at the water balloon race—and a good thing, too, because he was going to pick the vaguely racist burrito wearing a sombrero.”
“It was a vaguely racist avocado wearing a sombrero,” he corrected her with a grin. For some reason, he still had his arm around Scarlett’s shoulders, the weight of it like a giant dead snake. He winked at Chrissie. “And I’ll still win it for you if you want. But I should warn you—”
Scarlett’s phone rang before he could warn them of anything. “Hang on,” she said as she dug the phone out of her pocket. “It’s probably just my grandma checking in.”
But when she said hello, the voice on the other end was soft, professional, and not at all what she was expecting.
“Yes, hi. Is this Scarlett Sanderson, Laurel’s granddaughter?”
At the sound of her grandmother’s given name, Scarlett frowned. The only people who used that were scammers and bill collectors—usually the latter. “Yes, it is. But she’s not here right now and I don’t have anything to take a message. You’ll have to call back.”
“No, don’t hang up! I’m calling from the hospital. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Scarlett felt her knees grow weak, the cheerful chimes and shouts of the carnival receding into a low, distant hum. “What do you mean? What kind of bad news?”
She didn’t hear the answer. The sounds of the carnival weren’t the only things that were disappearing. Her whole body seemed to be moving down a long, dark tunnel that she remembered well.
Hospitals were bad. Hospitals were always bad.
Scarlett had no idea how or when Chrissie replaced Grimshaw, but she felt her friend’s surprisingly strong arms wrap around her and hold her up. The phone was lifted from her hand before she could do more than sag gratefully against Chrissie’s shoulder.
“Yes, go ahead. This is Chrissie Thomas. Uh-huh. Yep. At OHSU? We’ll be there as soon as we can, thanks.” Chrissie paused. “What was your name again? Oh, right. Thank you, Genie. We really appreciate you calling to let us know.”
Scarlett wasn’t sure why Chrissie’s unfailing ability to act like a middle-aged woman who made good eye contact and always thanked her servers made her laugh, but it did.
She was shaking all over and her heart was in a vise that didn’t seem to have any intention of letting up, but she laughed all the same.
Chrissie understood the reaction without the need for explanation.
“Come on, Scarlett. Let’s get you to the hospital. They weren’t able to give me any details over the phone, but Nan is stable and awake, and that’s enough for now.”
It wasn’t enough, not by a long shot, but Scarlett nodded and let Chrissie lead her away from the carnival rides. She stopped when she realized that both Grimshaw and Mitchell were right behind them.
“What are you doing? You can’t come with us. My grandmother is… That is, she’s not—” She looked to Chrissie in mute appeal, but her friend adopted that same middle-aged, capable air as before.
“It’s okay, Scarlett. Let’s just get you in the car and worry about the rest later.”
Scarlett was tempted to pull rank and get rid of the two Pemberly boys with as little fanfare as possible, but she was being dragged in too many directions at once. Her heart was somewhere in her feet, her head was spinning like the teacups, and her muscles—they were shaking. Why were they shaking?
“Yeah, okay. Thanks.” She passed her hand—also shaking—over her eyes and allowed herself to be led away.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had the feeling she’d regret this relaxing of her guard, of allowing Grimshaw and his pukey cousin to slip through her defenses, but for now, all she wanted was to see her grandma.
No matter what the eventual cost.