Chapter 7 #2
“You didn’t used to be.”
He propped up a knee and rested his arm on it. “People change.”
I smiled. “So you’re saying you’re more sensitive now. ”
“I’m ready to watch Lifetime movies and discuss our feelings any time.”
I laughed for the first time in days. “And why this change? What’s your life been like the last few years?”
He dipped a fry in ketchup. “Now it’s mostly work. It’s pretty much all I do.”
“Just like your dad.” His father had been the bank president for years, not even stopping when, like Millie, he’d had a bout with cancer.
“ Nothing like my father.” The warmth left Charlie’s tone, and he looked out into the swarm of people. “And I recall being your crying shoulder a time or two.”
“Your dad’s a good man. He’s helped this community a lot.”
His dark head slowly nodded. “He was never home when I was growing up. At the end of the day, work was more important. Getting ahead. Money. Those were the things that really mattered.”
“I think the older we get, the more we’ll see traces of our parents in us.” And wasn’t that just a frightening thought.
“James and Millie are amazing people,” Charlie said. Had I noticed how close he was sitting? His leg touched mine on the blanket; his skin heated against mine. “It can’t be a bad thing to hear yourself sound like them.”
“I mean my bio-mom. Lately when I look in the mirror. . . I see her.”
“She’s a part of you, a big part of your history.”
“I don’t want to be like her.”
“You’re not.”
“Oh, yeah? My mom had horrible judgment in friends, boyfriends, bosses, drug dealers. When I saw Ian for who he really was, I realized I was no better at picking a good man than she was.”
“Maybe he was just really good at being someone else.”
“But how do you know?” I pushed my food aside. “How do you really know if someone is honest, genuine, the person they project to the world?”
Charlie’s serious eyes held mine. “It’s a chance you take.”
“It’s not worth it.”
“Isn’t it? ”
“How could I not know he was a loser? That he was lying to me?”
“He was cheating on you?”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “There was definitely another woman. And then when I broke it off, he put me on two weeks paid leave. He gave my understudy the role.” I swiped at a rogue tear.
“They were right. The things they had said about me, had whispered behind my back. They were right all along.”
Charlie reached out and brushed another tear from my cheek. “Who?”
“Some of the cast. All along there had been murmurings that I only had the role because I was dating Ian. That I wasn’t talented enough or experienced nearly enough to get the lead.” My voice quivered. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“Katie, you’re crazy talented. I’m sure you had the role because—”
“Because I was snogging the director?”
Charlie stilled. “Are pants worn in this snogging?”
“All those people were right. I don’t have the talent for London or Broadway.”
His hand ran up my arm, gently rubbing, as if trying to ease the dark right out of me. “That’s what all of this is about, isn’t it? You’re back because you think your acting career was a lie?”
“It was.”
“Your jerk boyfriend was a lie, but your gift on the stage is something you can’t just throw away. Katie, I don’t even like plays. I like baseball, football, soccer. Guy stuff where people win or lose, get hurt, yell at the ref. But when you’re in a play, I can’t look away. You’re. . .amazing.”
His words spun around me, pulling me in like a trance. I wanted to believe him. But what did I know? My truth-meter was so broken these days.
“You can’t give up on your dream. Or the Valiant.”
“Both seem pretty hopeless.”
“It’s not like you to just pack it up and walk away. The Katie Parker I know is a fiery force to be reckoned with. She’d never just quit.”
“The things they said about me.” I shut my eyes against the memory, their whispered voices so fresh in my mind. “And then Ian took me out of the play. He just confirmed what they said.”
“So some of the cast said you weren’t talented enough to land the part and you believed them.”
“I’m just a girl from a small town in Texas. Home of the fighting Chihuahuas.”
Charlie smiled, his lips turning up on a face that had an adorable light stubble. “You’re still the girl with incredible talent, who once had the confidence and drive to take on the world.”
“Sometimes the confidence runs out and reality sets in.”
“Fight for this, Katie. Believe in you.” His eyes searched mine, and I wondered what he saw. “I believe in you.”
“And what if they tear the Valiant down? Maybe it’s this big symbolic gesture from God to give up acting.”
“If you want the Valiant to survive, then fight for that, too. But if Thrifty Co. takes it, it doesn’t change who you are.”
“How can that company just bulldoze part of our town?”
“I guess they call it progress. It happens all the time.”
“At what cost? At the cost of Loretta losing her diner? It’s as much a part of In Between as Friday night football games.
Loretta still feeds the team cheeseburgers and shakes after every win.
And the Valiant? Did you know in World War II, they had plays and dances as fundraisers, giving the money to war widows and families?
An unknown singer named Janis Joplin sang there. Presidents have spoken there. And—”
“Our first kiss was there.”
My next words died mid-sentence. “You remember that?”
He planted his arm beside me and leaned in. “I think about it. A lot.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Remind me how it went.”
I laughed and put my hands on his chest to push him away, but those hands seemed to have a mind of their own and stayed right there on the curves of his muscles. Someone clearly visited the gym in Chicago. “I don’t want to like you again, Charlie.”
“What we had has never been resolved. There will always be something between us.” He reached for one of my hands and pressed his lips to the tops of my fingers. “You know I’m right.”
“And what if you’re just another bad decision on my part? What if you’re not who I think you are.”
He studied our joined hands. “We all make mistakes. I’ve made bad choices, too.”
“I don’t want to be one of them.”
He shook his head, then kissed my temple. “Right now you’re all that’s right in my life.”
“Charlie—” As his mouth moved to my cheek, trailing a tingling path, I struggled to recall all that I had wanted to ask him. “We should. . .we should talk about what’s going on with you.”
But his arms pulled me in close, and his hands cradled my face. “You.” His lips hovered. “Just you.”
“Katie! Charlie!”
A bucket of cold water could not have startled me more, so deep was I in Charlie’s trance. Red-faced, I jumped up from the blanket and turned toward the sound of Frances’s call.
“Do you think she saw that?” I asked Charlie between stiff lips.
“The whole town just saw that.” He stood way too close behind me.
“Hey, guys!” Frances all but skipped to us, a giant ice cream cone in hand, a knowing grin on her face. “What’s going on here?”
“Katie won’t keep her hands off me.” Charlie had the nerve to throw a chummy arm around my shoulders. “Her attempts at seduction would weaken a lesser man, but so far I’m staying strong.”
Frances hid her laugh behind her uneaten double scoop.
“Very gallant of you.” Her phone chirped, and Frances extracted it from her purse.
“Joey’s here! Katie, I’m so excited you can hang out with him!
” With dreamy-eyes, she fired a text in response that probably included lots of X’s and O’s, some “No, I love you mores,” and little kissy emojis.
“I haven’t seen him in weeks. This long-distance thing is really hard, you know?” Without waiting for a response, Frances turned on her heel and began scanning the town square. “We should all do dinner tomorrow night. What do you say?”
“I think I have this— “
“We’d love to.” Charlie sent me a slow wink.
“Aw, that will be great, won’t it?”
I shot an elbow into Charlie’s ribs. “Just terrific.”
“There he is!” She waved her free hand like she was bringing in a 747. “Joey!”
My friend handed me her ice cream, then with a girly squeal, tore off in Joey’s direction.
Charlie and I stood there and watched the reunion like two people viewing a car wreck—slightly dismayed, but unable to look away.
As if in a synchronized ballet, Frances ran into Joey’s waiting arms, laughing as he spun her around, her short floral skirt twirling.
“Ah, young love,” Charlie said dryly as his brother kissed my best friend silly. “Want to show them how it’s really done?”
I took a lick of Frances’s dripping ice cream and mumbled something barely civil.
“I’ve never seen my brother like this.” Charlie’s fingers snaked around my wrist, and he brought the cone to his lips. I watched him take a slow, generous bite.
Little electric currents whipped from Charlie’s hand through my system, and I struggled to focus. “Joey hasn’t won me over.”
“Why so cynical, Parker? You don’t think they can make it?”
“Your brother’s a player. Do you know how many times I saw his name scribbled on the bathroom wall in high school?”
His lips curved upward in a rake’s grin. “Was my name ever on there?”
“Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”
Whatever Charlie was about to say would have to wait, as Frances returned with her fiancé, her face lit up brighter than the performance stage.
“Katie, you remember Joey.” Frances leaned into his shoulder.
Joey stood a few inches shorter than Charlie, but still towered over his petite fiancée.
His hair was darker than Charlie’s, and he had his father’s brown eyes.
Like his brother, Joey made jeans and a t-shirt look good, and with the two Bensons side by side, it was enough to cause more than one passing female take a nice, appreciative inspection.
“So you just got back from London?” Joey asked. “Great place. ”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “Lots of culture and history.” Too much of my own history was there.
“Joey painted a car that was on a TV show last month,” Charlie said.
“It was so cool.” Frances patted Joey’s chest and smiled. “His name was even on the credits.”
“If you’d have blinked you’d have missed the car,” Joey said. “No big deal.”
We stood there and talked for another hour, and I watched Joey closely.
He barely spoke, and when he did it was a paltry few sentences.
Frances was her usual animated self—hands in motion, face showing her every feeling, and quick with a story.
They seemed like such opposites. She was soon leaving to pursue her PhD, while he had skipped college to paint and repair cars.
How compatible were these two? I wanted the best for my beloved friend, and this rushed wedding had me on alert.
“We should go,” Joey said. “We have that huge to-do list you wanted to tackle.”
I hugged Frances and made myself say something positive. “Let me know what I can do to help.”
“You’re the best maid of honor,” Frances said. “Dress shopping next week?”
I pushed some enthusiasm into my voice. “Sounds fun.”
I watched the couple walk away, arm in arm, uncertainty clanging in my head.
“Let’s hear it,” Charlie said.
“What?”
“Your take on my brother. You were watching him like a scientific specimen.”
“He’s very nice.”
“And?”
I had to tread carefully. This was Charlie’s flesh and blood. “He’s not who I see her with.”
Charlie’s amiable smile slipped as he settled his hands on my shoulders. “You know what I think?”
“That it’s time to get me that funnel cake? ”
“My brother isn’t that Ian guy.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Just because Ian hurt you doesn’t mean my brother will do the same to Frances. If he says he loves her, then he loves her. Stop projecting your own fears onto your friend.”
“He proposed after ten weeks. It doesn’t take a broken heart to think that’s moving way too fast for a life-long commitment.”
“Is that what you have?” Charlie asked. “A broken heart?”
“What Ian did to me has nothing to do with how I feel about Frances getting married.”
“And what about us?” Charlie’s eyes held me captive. “Does what Ian did have anything to do with what you feel for me?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re running scared from a lot of things right now.” Charlie moved until he was but a breath away. “It would be nice if one of them wasn’t me.”