Chapter 21 #2
I forgot about the new season entirely. Evan hadn’t mentioned it in conversation and without keeping up with it on social media it’s like it didn’t exist. I’d become a Thorndown agnostic.
“Hey,” he called up to the hands, “I’m on the phone with a soon-to-be famous author, want a signed copy of her book?”
“I don’t even have a copy of it,” I protested. “It isn’t even done—”
“I’ll order you one,” he said to the hands.
“Why did you take my call if you’re about to be on a red carpet?” I asked.
“Camille is almost done, and then I have plenty of downtime to kill, so why not talk to my favorite author?”
“You haven’t even read anything I’ve written,” I replied.
Evan shrugged. “It’s funny, I don’t recall you ever describing yourself as a writer, just a person who writes sometimes. Usually only authors have agents and get book deals.”
“All set,” a rich feminine voice said off screen. “Don’t eat anything messy, again. I’m not coming back here to fix any marinara stains around your mouth.” A hand patted Evan’s shoulder and I heard footsteps cross the room and disappear.
It was the two of us alone now.
“I still feel like a person who writes sometimes, like none of this is a real thing that could actually happen.”
“And yet, it did. Funny how things somehow work out,” he said wistfully.
“Wait, I need to show you something,” I said.
“It’s not official yet, but when they asked me about the dedication, I immediately knew what to put.
” I sent him a screenshot of the document, still unedited and unpolished.
He swiped away and I watched him tap on the message.
My heart stirred as he read it over a few times.
I had to fill the silence with something.
“I-I didn’t know if you’d ever see this, but you were a much larger influence on me writing and publishing this than you realize. ”
His eyes softened and a small smile spread across his lips. “Are you sure you want to waste your first book dedication on me?”
“No one else I could think of dedicating it to,” I replied. “It’s not too obvious, right? Like this isn’t breaching some imaginary NDA?”
“Not in the slightest,” I watched him reread it. “Though I expect to be gifted a signed copy.”
I read the dedication over again, remembering how I hastily added it to the beginning of the document right before I sent it over to my agent, a move I’d since learned was very atypical for un-agented, unpublished authors.
It was a decision made in the spur of the moment.
When I typed the words “the end” it felt natural to go back to the beginning, and back to the night this all started.
Somewhere, between the biting words and the deception, was the conception of something.
Character descriptions jumbled together in crumpled paper, fragmented bits of the camp’s history scribbled down in bullet points, shards of Sue and Randy’s love story.
There, splayed out on the wood floor, were the pieces of this story.
While I put myself back together, the story fell into place.
I wrote the dedication never thinking I’d speak to Evan again.
I envisioned a time in the near future where he was passing by an airport gift shop and he saw my name in bold font on a hardcover book.
Maybe he’d pick it up and flip through the pages, or google my name plus author to prove that it wasn’t the same Dani Grant that had put a damper on his solo summer trip.
A sick part of me had hoped that he’d feel a pang of sadness reading those twenty words. Months later, nothing made my heart fill like a balloon quite like watching his lips curl up into a soft grin reading them.
To E.M. — without them this book may have never become anything beyond tattered notebooks scattered on a creaky wood floor.
“Are you watching this season?” he asked.
“Would you be shocked if I said no?”
“How much bribing would it take to convince you?”
“I already told you that you ruined the show for me, I don’t watch it and see Sir Erwyn anymore, all I see is my friend Evan playing pretend.”
“Friend,” he huffed out. A heavy beat of silence.
Friend still didn’t feel right. Friend was the word I used when I was smiling at my phone like a dork and someone asked who I was talking to. “Just a friend,” I’d say, then shamefully close my messages with Maybe: Evan.
Evan’s eyes flitted to the top of the screen and he grimaced.
“Someone is coming by to dress me before I head out. You should watch the red carpet live stream, I’ll send you a signal.”
“Like Carol Burnett tugging on her ear?” I questioned.
“Probably less overt,” he chuckled. He was distracted now, eyes darting towards the door and a light flickering out of his demeanor. When he turned his camera I caught a glimpse of an emerald green suit hanging in the corner.
“I’ll take your word for it, have fun doing your famous person thing.”
“I won’t,” he pursed his lips together, then fixated on my face on the screen. “I’m really happy for you, and ridiculously proud of you. I think this is the start of something big, I’m not kidding. And I’m serious, watch the premiere livestream.”
He ended the call as someone was walking into his hotel room.
A few hours later, I settled onto my couch with my phone a few inches from my face. The livestream quality faded in and out, the cluster of actors disappeared into grainy pixels every few minutes.
Evan was easy to pick out in the crowd. Squealing screams killed the livestream audio when he first stepped out of his limo.
His deep green velvet suit contrasted the maroon carpet that was backdropped by step-and-repeat banners emblazoned with logos for the show, streaming network, and countless sponsors.
A pop up in the corner of the stream reminded me that this entire event was inexplicably sponsored by a brand of coconut water.
“For all of life’s quests,” the tagline said with a flourish, as if knights in a fantasy kingdom would drink mango flavored coconut water out of a carton.
On the red carpet, Evan’s jaw was tight, his stance was tense.
He looked unrecognizable compared to the person I’d been talking to a few hours earlier.
This was the Evan McLeod I’d been expecting to meet those months ago.
Quietly intense, a strong, silent presence.
When he posed for photographers his smile was stiff and didn’t reach his eyes.
Who are you?
The stream cut between the actors walking the carpet and short interviews with a popular social media personality who went viral a few years ago for a video clip of her freaking out over a prior season’s finale.
Her freakout was so intense she hopped up onto her coffee table and it broke beneath her.
She exploded into fame, getting brand deals, hosting opportunities, and guest spots on TV shows.
She had a pop culture podcast and had read a few snippets of my fanfics on it, another thing I could add to my imaginary resume in that universe.
“And if it isn’t Mr. Sir Erwyn himself!” she said in an exaggerated British accent when he stepped up to her microphone. “Looking fine as hell in the Rospice clan colors. We love a theme dressing moment.”
“Just when I thought my time in the clan colors was exclusive to filming episodes,” he tightly chuckled. He was friendly enough. I watched him rock back and forth on the balls of his feet, then suddenly stop himself as though a voice was in his ear telling him to knock it off.
I had never paid this much attention to someone’s body language. Especially someone on the opposite coast to me.
“And tell me, what are you wearing tonight?” She gestured up and down his broad body.
He slid a hand into his pants pocket and talked about the designer of the suit and the choices his stylist made to customize it. Rather than a traditional tie, he wore a vintage-style bolo tie of a red enamel rose suspended in clear resin with swirls of dark gray.
A clouded rose.
Or in my case, a Cl0ud3dR0se.
Almost like he watched me connect the dots in real time, he smiled brighter and winked at the camera. There was a pause, his brilliant blue eyes looking directly through the screen at me. Something I’d tell anyone else was fabricated in their heads, but I knew was actually meant for me.
“Wait!” The interviewer squealed, Evan flicked his attention back towards her while I sat in a daze.
“Is that a reference to the season one line? ‘For when I look at you, your beauty seems to have placed clouds over every rose, as none of them can compare to you’?” He recited the line in a terrible deep voice, a shoddy impression of Evan.
“Something like that,” he said, looking back at the camera again. “Things tend to come full circle.”
Oh. Oh.