Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“ S o you two get married next, sí?” Grandma Vega took a bite of her tiramisu and leveled that eagle-eye gaze on Charlie and me.
“No. No, definitely not.” The woman had never liked me enough to speak to me, and now she wanted to chat? I needed to get out of this restaurant.
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Grandma Vega, Charlie and I are not a couple. We’re not . . .” Charlie of course was ignoring my glare and offering no assistance. He almost seemed to be enjoying this. “He and I. . .”
“Katie’s not speaking to me.” Charlie’s arm found its way to the back of my chair.
Grandma Vega shoved her dessert away and cackled. “You sound like a wife already.”
“I’m probably a long way from that,” I said. “I’m not very good at choosing the right guys.” Take that , Charlie.
Grandma Vega patted her lips with her napkin. “How do you feel about arranged marriage?”
I reached for Charlie’s cheesecake and speared my fork into a large bite. “Not interested.” The cream cheese melted on my tongue, and I was grateful for the loose fit of tomorrow’s dress. “But Charlie’s very open to the idea. I’ll give you his address.”
Fifteen minutes later, as everyone sat finishing their dessert and drinking coffee, the focus and conversation was completely on Frances and Joey.
It was the perfect time to make my getaway.
“Excuse me.” I tossed my napkin on the table, grabbed my purse, and escaped to the lobby. I reached for my phone and pulled up my favorite numbers. Maxine and Sam could pick me up.
No signal.
I wound my way through the hungry, waiting crowd in the lobby and walked outside. “Come on.” I held my phone to the left. “Come on!” I extended it to the right. “Too many freaking trees!”
“I can’t do anything about the freaking trees,” said Ian standing by his car. “But I’d be glad to assist in any other capacity.”
I clutched the phone to my chest and stared at my salvation. “I need a ride to my grandma’s.”
He jangled his keys. “Now that I can fix.”
Minutes down the road, I let myself relax, my bones melting into his leather seat.
“I’m sorry how things turned out.” Ian turned down the nagging voice of his GPS. “You put up a good fight.”
“Thank you.”
“It has to be hard, with you being on one side and your fiancé being on the other.”
“He’s not my fiancé.” There. I’d said it, and relief poured over me like a waterfall. I had nothing to gain by pretending anymore, and I just didn’t care. “It was a stupid ruse. I had told Frances all about you, so when you showed up in town, she wanted to stick it to you.”
“And thus the engagement?”
“Yes.”
“Yesterday I was sitting downtown on a bench, and the Garden Club spent forty-five minutes showing me the flowers they had selected for your wedding.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “This is my hometown. They love me.”
“So this Charlie is a…? ”
“Fool,” I supplied. “You’re a fool, he’s a fool, you’re all fools.”
“And what if this fool said he was sorry?” In the dark of the car, Ian watched me closely. “Truly sorry.”
“You all say that.”
“Fair point. But I truly am. I don’t expect you to understand this, but something happens for a man when you hit thirty. You panic. You realize it’s time to settle down, and your playing days are numbered.”
“Pretty sure you have the extended warranty on the playing days.”
“Then you came along. And you were different. I loved you.”
Empty words, especially after my row with Charlie, but for a girl who had been abandoned by her birth parents, it would never fail to send a momentary jolt of happiness. “Don’t fool yourself, Ian.”
“Would I have asked you to marry me if I hadn’t loved you?”
I closed my eyes and wished to be anywhere else. How had my life gotten so complicated in the last few months?
“Does your Charlie know that part of the story?” he quietly asked.
“No.” I hadn’t even told Frances or Maxine. I’d shared it with no one.
Ian turned in the seat and watched me in the dark of the car. “I might’ve been the player, but you were the one who strayed first.”
“I did not. I never so much as looked at another man the entire time we—”
“Your heart belonged to someone you’d met years before. And when I came to In Between it all made sense.”
“I told you the engagement was a total fabrication.”
“You never loved me. Not really.”
My lips opened to deny it. But I couldn’t.
He was right. Had I been crazy about Ian at one time? Yes. Wildly so. I’d delighted in the time spent with him, soaked up all I could learn about the theater from him, enjoyed the envious gazes of the girls wishing to be me. And I’d luxuriated in those moments when he showered me with attention.
“All this time I didn’t know who I was jealous of,” Ian said. “But I knew this guy was out there, someone who held your heart in a way I couldn’t. Then I came to your little town, and there he was.”
“My relationship with Charlie is as dead as the Valiant. ”
“You’re a hard person to love. Did you ever think about that? I don’t like your Charlie, but I can’t help but feel sorry for him.”
“He doesn’t love me.” I pushed a button and the window slid down. I needed air.
“I suppose it’s safer for you to tell yourself that,” Ian said. “You were always holding back, always ready to bolt, like I was someone to be afraid of. Or that love was.”
Did these men all read the same self-help books? “And what good would that have done? If I had totally fallen for you, you still would’ve cheated on me.”
“Would I?”
“Yes. Or you would’ve found some way to leave.”
He chuckled to himself. “So you went into our relationship expecting loneliness, and I was the one who got it.”
“And that’s why you messed around with Felicity. Because you were lonely.” He would have to have been deaf to miss the irony in my voice.
“I made a mistake. But maybe I just lived up to that low bar you always held over me.”
He was using me to excuse his gigolo behavior, and I wasn’t having it. No matter how low my self-esteem could drag lately, I knew I deserved better than some cheating rake.
“I miss you, Katie. I miss us.”
“You’re probably just saying that because Felicity broke up with you.”
“No,” he said. “She’s eagerly waiting for me back in New York. But she’s not you. I miss your smile, your laugh, your curiosity. How you adored London and made me see it with new eyes. Watching you try to find your way on stage.”
“You said I stunk.”
“You have a lot to learn,” Ian said. “But you don’t stink.”
“Did you give me the part because we were dating?”
“Yes.”
I expected the pain to barrel through me and sever me in two.
But it didn’t. More like a mallet to the kidney. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t known, yet hearing Ian confess it was hard.
“You’re not ready for the big time yet. Come back with me. Work with me. We’ll get you there.” His hand rested on top of mine. “Together.”
“You really did a number on my head, Ian.” And he was still working it.
He pulled the car into Maxine’s driveway. “You did a number on my heart.”
“Seriously, where do you get this stuff?” My grip on lucidity was slipping by the second, and I couldn’t hold back the laughter.
“Do you expect me to buy this crap now? I bought it for a year, and you know what? I’m not that girl anymore.
” Indignation swelled within my chest. I was grateful for all the work Ian had done, but that didn’t erase the fact that he’d cheated on me.
Made a mockery of me. And was waiting for me to fail.
“I was that puppy Felicity is, following you around wherever you went, reacting to your every command. You know what? I don’t need you to make my career. ”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yes. It is. There are hundreds of parts available on Broadway, and one of them could have my name on it.”
“You’ll never make it without me.”
“Maybe dating you did get me those roles, but I was good, Ian.”
“Good doesn’t cut it in professional theater.
Because for every audition you go on in which you’re good , a hundred girls will be there who are amazing .
” Gone was the husky, come-away-with-me voice.
“You want to go to Broadway? You’ll be starting at the bottom.
As some walk on part with no lines, just like you began in London. ”
“But I did get to London.”
“It’s a rough life. You’ve seen that. It will chew you up and spit you out, and only the strong can endure.” Ian propped his hand on my headrest. “And I don’t think that’s you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Want to hear some truth? When I replaced you with Tiffany Meltzer, the London Times gave us a starred review. Our ticket sales went up twenty percent in five days. My other lead actors shined like never before. That’s what a real actress can do.
She makes the show a hit. She makes those around her better.
She romances her audience. What did you do?
You ran across the stage shrieking at your ex-boyfriend. With a sold-out crowd.”
I wanted to hurt him back, to deflate some of that egotistical air. But any sarcastic retort I might’ve had sputtered and failed at liftoff. His words were a guided missile, zeroing in on my every insecurity, following my confidence until it achieved total destruction.
“Why did you really come to In Between?”
“Because if I didn’t do some PR and humanitarian deed, I was fired. As in never working in the theater again.” His smile was a little crooked, a little sad. “And because I wanted to see you again. Might as well see you and get a tax write off in the same trip.”
“Do catch me if I swoon.”
“And because no matter how heartless you think I am, I felt badly for hurting you. Cheating on you with Felicity was a horrible thing to do. When I found out I was New York bound, I wanted to see you. I wanted to help, even if in some small way. It was my apology.”
I’d had worse.
“I didn’t expect to fall for your town. Your theater. Even your crazy grandmother.”
“She infects everyone.” Much like influenza.
Ian inclined his body toward mine. “I did see something in you, Katie. I saw a diamond in the rough, and I thought with the right opportunity, you could have star quality. Perhaps with the right tutelage and with time, you could still get to the top. Come to New York. I’ll work with you.
We’ll get you a great coach, enroll you in acting lessons, and I can put in a good word for you with directors. ”
“Your faith in me is so bolstering.”
“You’re a state university drama major. Your resume includes six months as an understudy and a few in a lead.
If I had to guess, I’m betting you won’t even list your last few London roles.
No, I don’t think you’ll make it without some connections.
We all know how the theater works. It can be just as much about who you know as it is talent.
Your talent might not be Broadway quality, but you’ve got me.
I know people. Let me be the one who helps you. ”
I opened the car door, the dome light a glaring mimic of a spotlight. “Goodbye, Ian. ”
“Katie, wait—”
“Maybe you’re right.” I set my feet on the pavement, wondering that I had the strength to stand.
“Maybe I’m a made-for-cable movie actress in a sea of Oscars.
But I don’t need you. If I can’t earn a role on my talent, then I don’t want it.
I don’t want to be an actress so badly that I let someone use me— again.
I won’t be your protégé, and I won’t have people whispering about me when I walk by. ”
“You’re making a mistake. My offer won’t last forever.”
“Give it to some other poor, desperate girl. I was stupid to ever listen to you. Go home, Ian.”
“You’ll never make it without me.”
“Then I’m all the better for it.” I slammed the door, my heels hitting the driveway with an angry staccato. His headlights arced across the front porch as I heard his car back up, then finally drive away.
I stopped at the front door and kicked off my shoes, then bent to scoop them into my hands.
And that’s when I saw a scrap of yellow in the shrubs.
“Maxine?”
Nothing. Just the chirps and croaks of night and the distant hum of cars.
I sighed loud enough to raise my bangs and tried again. “I have ice cream and hot fudge inside.”
The bushes rattled, leaves shifted. And my grandmother stepped out like a Chanel- wearing Chupacabra.
She dusted off her black slacks and picked a spiny piece of flora from her shoulder. “Just out on my neighborhood watch.” She spit out a bit of mulch. “Don’t worry. The place looks secure.”
“I assume you heard all that.”
“Just the parts where you were yelling.”
I stared up at the moon with watery eyes. “Ian said I was a mediocre actress.”
“Frank Sinatra once said I’d never master the high kick, but who’s laughing now.” She proceeded to demonstrate just how wrong Blue Eyes had been. “Yep, still got it. ”
Standing on my grandmother’s front porch, I laughed for the first time in days.
“Hon, you just gotta decide.”
“On?”
Maxine slipped her arm around me and hugged. “If your fear’s gonna be bigger than your faith. You can either dream it. . .or fear it. But either way, Sweet Pea—it’s never going to let you go.”