Chapter 15
Luke stays for dinner.
Mom gets takeout from Thai Palace on her way home. As we eat, I’m able to relax into myself. I don’t have to worry about anything
with the two of them. There is a certain freedom to it. If I wanted to, I could talk about my present, future, or past. I could say almost anything I wanted.
I smile more than usual. Even though the food isn’t all that good tonight—the pad see ew was lukewarm and congealed—I feel good. The only thing that would make the dinner better is if Nicky were here, too.
When I walk Luke out, I mention that I can’t spend tomorrow evening with him.
“Why not?”
“I have to babysit.”
“Can I come?”
I stare at him. “You want to help me babysit?”
“Yeah. I mean, if that’s okay. Why do you look so surprised?”
“I thought . . . I guess I thought you’d be busy on the weekends.”
He motions between us. “Right now, this is my first priority.”
My face is already growing hot when I realize he means that shadowing me is his first priority. For research purposes. Not just spending time with me.
Once again, I feel a tug-of-war within me. On one side, I want to say no, to keep Luke away from my real life so I don’t have
to introduce the Millers to this whole charade. But on the other, I feel guilty. He’s paying me a fortune, a true fortune,
to help him out with this.
So despite my misgivings, I say, “I’ll ask. I need to make sure they’re okay with another person being there with the girls.”
When I talk to Natalie the next morning, I explain how Lucas Cordova is shadowing me to help with his role. She laughs when
I ask her if he can come along. “Is it okay for you to bring a movie star over to babysit the girls? Claire. Yes. It’ll be
a great story to tell when they’re older. Hell, it’s a great story for me to tell now.”
At first the girls are shy with Luke, but within twenty minutes, they’re hanging off him like little monkeys.
“My mom said you’re on TV,” Carson says as she sways back and forth from his arm.
“It’s true. I am.”
“Do you live in Hollywood?” Ellie asks.
“Not in Hollywood, no. I live close, though.”
“How much money do you have?” Carson asks.
I choke on my seltzer and Luke grins. The girls can tell this line of questioning is getting them a reaction, so Ellie pipes
in, “Are you richer than my grandpa? He has a boat.”
“Wow, what kind of boat?” Luke asks.
“It has a motor,” Ellie says. “Sometimes I go on the tube. I can go by myself, but I have to wear goggles.”
“By yourself?” Luke pretends to be amazed. “That’s very impressive.”
Ellie beams.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Carson asks.
“Okay, you two,” I cut in, putting my LaCroix on the coffee table. “That’s enough Q and A for now. We have some VIP to attend
to.”
“VIP?” Luke asks.
“Very important pumpkins.” I go into the kitchen, where three picture-perfect pumpkins are waiting, along with a stack of
supplies and a day-old newspaper. “Here,” I say, throwing the newspaper to Luke. “Help me set up the kitchen table.”
We spread out the paper to protect the wood, securing it in place with painter’s tape. I start by cutting off the tops and
scooping out the slimy innards of each pumpkin. Then I get the girls set up with their art smocks, pens, and plastic saws,
for carving.
I push the third pumpkin toward Luke. “Do you want to do one?”
“Isn’t that for you?”
I wave my hands at the pile of pumpkin guts. Natalie asked me to save the seeds so she could roast them, and it’s going to
take forever to pick them out. “No. I have to deal with this.”
Plus, I’ll probably end up doing most of the actual carving for the girls, but I can’t say that in front of them.
“Then sure, why not,” he says. As he sits down next to Carson and uncaps his Sharpie, he says, “You know, I’ve never carved
a pumpkin before.”
“What?” Carson says.
“Yeah, what?” Ellie mimics, in the same tone.
“I went trick-or-treating when I was little. But not beyond the age of, like, eight or nine.”
That makes me sad. I guess that’s what happens when you start working when you’re nine years old and never stop. You don’t
get to do a lot of whimsical childhood things like pumpkin carving.
“Then let’s get started on fixing that.” I point at his pumpkin. “Get to work.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Luke says, saluting me with his marker, which makes the girls giggle.
After an hour, all three pumpkins are carved. Luke moved to the end of the table to finish his, saying he didn’t want anyone
to peek until it was done. Carson wouldn’t let me help her for even a second, so all she manages to cut out is a blob she
claims is a spider. Ellie drew a ghost, and unlike her sister, she lets me do most of the carving, so it’s obvious what it
is. When Luke is finally done with his, he turns it around to reveal what he’s carved. . . .
Ellie, Carson, and I all stare at it.
“Is that me?” I ask.
“It’s supposed to be,” Luke says.
After a beat, Carson asks, “What happened to her teeth?”
I’m impressed by the way he managed to whittle down the pumpkin’s flesh in some places without breaking all the way through,
so it gives the illusion of detail and shading. It’s clear he spent a lot of time on my eyes. But my mouth looks like a gaping
black hole.
“I messed up the teeth,” Luke admits. “And the whole general mouth area.”
The more I look at it, the worse it gets. I start to laugh, really laugh. “I look horrible. But I’m touched that you tried.”
Luke sits back to survey his work. “Here I thought I was going to be the da Vinci of pumpkin carving. But it is kind of scary,
isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I manage to get out. “And now the Millers are in the position of having to display a pumpkin with a nightmare toothless
portrait of their babysitter on it.”
“Good point,” Luke says. “Maybe I should take it with me, then.”
“No!” Ellie shrieks. “Pumpkin Claire is ours.”
“Hi, Pumpkin Claire,” Carson says, addressing the pumpkin portrait of me in a baby voice. “Even if you don’t have any teeth,
we’re going to love you forever and ever.”
“At least until I start to rot.” I tickle Carson, and she laughs.
After we clean up, I make Carson and Ellie mac ’n’ cheese for dinner and let them get out some of their energy by putting on a dance playlist of Halloween songs and turning off the lights in the living room.
Luke dances enthusiastically with them, shaking their arms up and down like noodles, which makes them both squeal with delight.
The girls are barely down—they’re so excited by Luke’s presence that it takes me twice as long as usual to get them to go
to sleep—when Natalie and Bill’s Uber pulls into the driveway. They’re home about forty-five minutes before I expected them,
and I can’t help but feel disappointed. Both of them are tipsy and fawn over Luke and his pumpkin, laugh too loudly, and are overly friendly in a way that endears them to me even more. I’ll miss the girls next
year, but I’ll also miss them. They tip me obscenely for the night, and Natalie gives me a hug before Luke and I head out.
“So,” he asks, once we’re outside. “It’s only nine thirty. The night is young. What now?”
“I’m going to a party, if you can believe it.”
“You are?” he asks. “Or we are?”
“Sorry, but no. Way too public.”
He nudges me with his shoulder. “Are you sure it’s not because you don’t want to show up to this dude’s party with another
guy?” he teases. “Ben? That’s his name, right?”
I can’t believe he remembers Ben’s name. “I wouldn’t be showing up with another guy. I would be showing up with Lucas Cordova. No one would act natural around you. It wouldn’t be helpful. I’ll pay careful attention and report back.”
“Oh yeah?” He slings his arm around my shoulders as we walk to his car. “You sure going with me wouldn’t help your cause?
With Ben?”
His reaction feels platonic, like the way Nicky might tease me about something like this. That isn’t surprising. Because why
would he act any other way?
What’s surprising is how disappointed I am by it.
“Are your costars here yet?” I ask, changing the subject.
He drops his arm. “A few of them are in New York and have come out to see the location once or twice. Everyone else will probably
be coming into town over the next few weeks.”
Once we’re in the car, he asks, “Do you want a ride to your party, or back to your house?”
“Home, please. I need to change first.” I motion at my current outfit. “I’m pretty sure Carson wiped her mac ’n’ cheesy face
all over my sweater.”
“They’re cute,” he says as he drives. “They love you.”
“That’s good, because I love them, too.”
“Carson invited me to their sixth birthday party.”
I laugh. “Lucky you.”
“That’s when you started acting, right?” he asks. “When you were six?”
That jolts me. “God. Yeah.”
I know Luke started when he was nine, because his first-ever acting gig was Bricks.
He’s one of those one-in-a-million cases: he was discovered.
The casting director saw him grocery shopping with his mom and thought he’d be perfect for the role, and boom, that was that.
He just had that classic kid-next-door charm that has since bloomed into can’t-take-your-eyes-off-him appeal.
“They’re so little,” Luke says.
I nod. Carson still begs her mom to buy her a horse that can live inside their house. It’s wild to think my parents let me
follow through on my own insane dream at their exact age. There probably would be less fallout from a horse living inside
the house than the nuclear situation of my own six-year-old pipe dream.
“They are,” I agree.