Thirty-Four. Wrapping Things Up
Thirty-Four
WRAPPING THINGS UP
I’ll start at the bar. True, Grant won’t be there.
He’s in New York, still working at Struck.
I did a little online stalking to verify the restaurant really existed and Grant was on the staff.
Now I have a Google Alert set up for the restaurant, and just like when I spoke to him in Sweetville, the restaurant is one of the hottest tickets in a town that likes to pretend it’s too cool for everything.
But Louis might be at the bar. His health has improved, Mom assured me—she and Dad bumped into him at Amano’s, buying, naturally, a meatball sandwich.
And the bar should be doing pretty well.
Heartfelt is going to shoot there, too, and provide a big cash infusion should the place be needing one, like the Sweetville Inn was.
So I’ll go to the bar and ask Louis for Grant’s address in New York.
It’s a short flight from Chicago, and I can delay going back to LA for a few days.
I don’t have to be back in town for a few weeks, when I’m due for Zav’s surprise thirtieth birthday party.
He’s throwing it for himself—he’s invited a slew of people, including three fellow “survivors” of Healthful Hedonism.
Yes, his method was to put my name down as host while he puts everything together because as he puts it, “I want that moment when I get to scream and jump up and down because, OMG, I had no idea! But I also want complete creative control over the event.”
So, I’ll go to New York, get a table at Struck, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll go right to Grant’s doorstep. Preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.
It’s something I could do with a phone call, but I want all of Grant in front of me when I say what I need to say.
Andy is next to me, making a note on a clipboard.
I tap him lightly and mouth Good night .
He motions for me to wait and pulls his headset down to his neck.
In truth, I think Andy would be perfect for Zav—he’s calm and steady to Zav’s frenetic and chaotic—but I’m trying to figure out the best way for them to meet.
“Hey, Jill. Don’t worry about the early wrap today,” he says. “Snow machines are notoriously touchy, and it’s the first day. Everything will run smoother tomorrow.”
“No, no, it’s all been great,” I say. “Thanks so much for letting me be part of the location shoot.”
“Well, we need the person around who knows our setting best. And on that note, I saw a place down the street called Gary’s Plumbing Supplies and Massage Outlet. Is that a real business? Or is it some kind of front?”
Oh, Gary’s. The kind of unique charm you can only get in Powell Park. “It’s real. And it’s a front, too, I think,” I say.
Andy nods. “I might book a deep tissue. You know where to look if I never return.” Then he points at me. “But also, there’s someone here for you. I talked to him before we shot the scene. He didn’t want us to bug you during filming.”
Someone for me. It could be anyone. It could be someone totally random from Powell Park High, since my mom told the alumni association about my movie.
Andy’s phone pings, and he checks it. “I have to get to this.” He waggles the phone.
“But anyway, he said you’re old friends and that he really needed to talk to you.
If you’re weirded out, I can send security to deal with him.
” He leans in and whispers conspiratorially, “But he’s a really cute someone.
And I told him you’d meet him outside the library next to what I think is the last pay phone on earth. I hope you’re not mad.”
“Andy, I might kiss you. But later. I have to go.”
Because what if it’s who I think it might be? Who I most want it to be?
I run around the playground and skirt the ice rink that the production built for the Sweetville scenes.
I almost take out a grip who’s futzing with one of the fill lights.
One of the special effects technicians messes with the antiquated snow machine, which thrums kind of menacingly even though nothing is coming out.
I have to sidestep her fast, and we bump shoulders. “Hey!” she calls. “Careful!”
As I round the plywood hot cocoa stand and turn the corner so the library’s facade comes into view, I see him.
Grant. Standing next to the world’s last pay phone, staring to the east, up at the giant Christmas tree.
“Grant!”
I stop running long enough to catch my breath. And to watch as Grant hears me calling his name and turns to see me walking up.
He smiles but then seems to stop himself, like he’s trying to measure out the appropriate amount of enthusiasm for this encounter. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his soft brown jacket.
“They said… Andy told me. Are you here for me?” I blurt as I reach him.
Grant shakes his head. “No. I’m here to complain that Powell Park has left its lights up too long. It’s April, for chrissakes.” Then he grins, nothing held back this time. “Yeah, I’m here for you. Or, here for you if that’s not a completely stalkery thing to say.”
“As stalkers go, I’ve had worse. Like, none. I kind of feel left out.”
Now he raises an eyebrow. “Let me be your first,” he says. I’m sure he can see the tingle frizzle up my body through my thin jacket. “My dad told me that they were shooting a movie here. Your movie. So, I thought I’d see what all the fuss was about.”
I size up the set. “It’s a lot of fuss, for little old me.”
He shrugs. “As fusses go, probably not enough.”
We pause. Grant points to the giant old phone book still lodged beneath the pay phone. “I really can’t believe no one has ripped that out. In New York, there’d be just a dangling cord.”
“Powell Park is behind the times.” Then, because I feel like I have too much nervous energy, I add, “Can we walk? Want to see some of the set?”
Grant nods. We head toward the tree, our steps in sync.
We’re quiet at first, like we both know this is no casual stroll.
There are futures hinging on how this goes: mine and his, together, or mine and his, separate.
Finally, as we pass the snow machine and find ourselves beneath the big tree, I stop walking.
As I let out a long, slow sigh, I summon the courage to say what I want to say.
Grant stands, hands in his pockets, waiting for me to get it out.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t give us a real chance,” I say.
“Or really, I didn’t give me a chance. I hooked up with the superhot bartender who was also the next big thing in the culinary world and my favorite person on the planet.
But I thought there was no way I could ever be enough to hold his interest for very long.
So, I blew it all up and broke my own heart so he wouldn’t do it for me. ”
“Yeah, you know what? You’re right,” Grant says, looking me up and down. “You don’t hold my interest.”
My heart plunges down so quickly I’m sure I’m going to throw up SweetHart’s cookie bits everywhere.
Grant goes on. “What am I thinking, thinking about you all the time?”
As quickly as it dropped, my heart ascends back to its rightful spot. I still feel like I might hurl but in a good way. “You’re a little evil,” I say.
“I prefer ‘wicked,’” Grant teases. “Especially if you knew what about sixty percent of that thinking about you all the time entails.”
“Oh, really?” I tilt my head back and look up into his eyes, thrilling all over as his gaze sinks into me with such intensity my lips, and other parts, tingle.
The rainbow bulbs decorating the tree’s boughs are still visible even as we stand under the branches.
The colorful lights play over us. In the distance, I swear I see Santa—my Sweetville Santa—looking on, but when I squint to get a better look, he ducks out of sight.
I have the slightest feeling of déjà vu as I wait for Grant to say something.
“Shit!” someone yells, reminding us we’re not alone. “The snow machine is absolutely fucked!”
“Turn it off! Turn it off!”
“The switch is broken! And it’s backed up! It’s gonna blow! Someone pull the plug!”
But before anyone can do that, and with a noise that sounds like a large robot clearing its phlegmy throat, a massive plume of fake snow geysers into the air.
Grant and I are directly in its arc as it falls, not in a pretty Christmas-movie dusting, but in a blizzard of—
“Is this foam?” I hear Grant say through the torrent of flakes. He reaches for my hand through the storm and pulls me out of the deluge.
Grant’s hair is coated with the bright-white flakes, and I’m shaking pieces out of my eyes.
We exchange a look as the last of the foam floats down around us, and we both burst out laughing.
Then I hear it. Sleigh bells. A sigh. “Open your heart.” Grant must hear it, too, because he tilts his head back and looks up into the tree. “What’s the deal with that?”
“Just like in the movies,” I say, not questioning why the Heartfelt sounds are playing for us now. I know it’s a good sign. Grant takes a step closer, still holding my hand.
He swipes a single flake from my cheek, leaving his thumb pressed into my skin. I want to bite it. Not taking his eyes off me, he trails his thumb down my jaw and over my neck. Stray pieces of the faux snow continue to fall, but the crew’s commotion behind us is muffled and far away.
“Or like a snow globe,” Grant says. This moment feels like one; Grant came here for me.
“You know, I was on my way to get your address from your dad,” I tell him. I want him to know that it wasn’t only him seeking me, that I wanted to find him, too.
Grant trails his touch down the side of my arm, taking my other hand and pulling me ever so slightly closer. “Oh, really? And what did you want it for? Postcards from LA?”
“I was going to come to New York and… ask you something.”
“What’s that?”
“If we could give this—us—another chance?”
He’s nodding and moving closer but in maddening centimeters. The warmth of him surrounds me as he runs his hands up my arms and over my shoulders, finally settling them at the small of my back. He pulls me tight against him.
“I won’t do long distance,” he says. My heart stutter-steps in my chest. Are we about to fight again? When we’re mere moments from kissing?
But Grant continues. “Actually, Fiona introduced me to a chef I really admire. This guy who just opened a restaurant in Silver Lake and thought I might be a good sous. Silver Lake… I think that’s pretty close to you?”
“It’s very close to me.”
He grins, then reaches down and picks me up, carrying me farther under the massive, sparkly tree.
He turns so his back leans against the trunk while he keeps me lofted with his arms beneath my thighs and his hands on my butt.
“How close?” he asks, bringing his face closer to mine so our noses touch.
Without waiting for my answer, he finally puts his mouth over mine, kissing me like this is our movie, like the fake snow was made for us, the real thing.