Chapter 43
With the power back on, the scheduled island premiere of Indefatigable would go on as planned Friday night, which left Stephanie with the same dilemma she’d confronted in LA. On Thursday afternoon, she stopped by Charlie’s house, hoping to get a minute alone with him.
She found him in the garage, setting up tools on the pegboard over the new workbench she and Grant had bought him for his birthday. He kept his silver hair in a buzz cut and was wearing a Gansett Island tank-style shirt that put his arm muscles and tattoos on full display.
“Hey,” she said. “Hope I’m not disturbing you.”
When he turned to her, his face lit up with a big smile that made his blue eyes sparkle. He smiled a lot these days and had mostly shed the hard edges he’d brought home with him from prison. “Hey, kid. Come in. And PS, it’s not possible for you to disturb me.”
From the time he first started dating her mom when Stephanie was eleven, she’d thought that everyone should be so lucky as to have a Charlie in their lives. He held out his arms to her, and she walked into his embrace. Being able to hug him any time she wanted never got old.
“It’s looking good,” she said of the workbench and arrangement of tools.
“Getting there.”
“Where’s Sarah?”
“Over at the hotel helping Laura with something.” He tipped his head and gave her a probing look. He’d always been able to see right through her. “What’s on your mind, Stephie Lou?”
She loved when he called her that. “The premiere.”
“Ah, I wondered if that was it. I heard from three different reporters this morning before breakfast. I’ll be glad when the hubbub dies down.”
“Did you tell Grant that you’ve been getting those calls? He can ask the studio publicity people to deal with that.”
“They’re the ones that gave them my number.”
“Oh crap. You want me to tell them to stop calling you?”
“Nah, it’s fine. I give them a quote, and they go away.”
“I wonder why they don’t call me.”
“Probably ’cause your husband told them to leave you alone. He’s seen how tender you are about this. We all have.”
“I’m not tender,” she said disdainfully. “I’m just…”
“Pregnant? Hormonal? Emotional? Tender? All of the above?”
“Very funny, Charlie Bear.”
“So all of the above, then, huh? Plus, a trip down Unpleasant Memory Lane on top of all that other stuff, and you’ve got yourself a predicament.”
“Something like that. I want to be supportive of Grant and Dan and you and everyone involved in the telling of our story, but I just don’t know if I can bear to relive it. I feel like we’ve traveled a million miles since then.”
“We have. For sure. Sometimes I even forget about it, you know? Like it’s noon before I remember I used to be locked up.”
“That’s good. I don’t want you thinking about that.”
“I’ll probably always think of it. It’s part of my story, just like you and your mom are part of my story. But I don’t think about the bad stuff so much anymore.”
“I don’t either. There’s so much better stuff to think about now, for both of us. That’s why I’ve been kind of reluctant to reopen that door.”
“Which is totally understandable. When I think about it now, I’m not sure which one of us had it worse—me on the inside or you on the outside fighting our battles by yourself.”
“You had it much worse. At least I was free.”
“Were you, though?”
Leave it to him to cut through the bullshit. Stephanie looked up at him. “Are you going to the premiere?”
“Don’t know yet. Figured I’d decide the day of.” He took her by the chin and gently compelled her to look at him. “Maybe we ought to go together and get it over with, hmm?”
“Don’t do that for me.”
“Who else would I do it for? I think you actually want to see this project that Grant has poured his heart and soul into over the last two years.”
“I do. He’s worked so hard. If it was about anything else…”
“I know that, and so does he. How about we make a date of it, you and me? I’ll pick you up and even buy your popcorn.”
Stephanie could always count on her Charlie Bear to make her laugh and to give her exactly what she needed. “Remember our very first ‘date’?”
He thought about that for a second. “I’m not sure which one was first.”
“You took me to see The Little Mermaid, and you said I could have any snack I wanted.”
Nodding as he smiled, he said, “And you stood at the counter for so long trying to pick something that we almost missed the start of the movie.”
“That was the first time anyone had ever told me I could have anything I wanted. I picked Milk Duds, and every time I’ve had them since then, I’ve thought of that, the first time my dad took me out, just me and him, and how special you made it for me.
How special you made everything for me.” She forced herself to look at him.
“If you wonder why I spent fourteen years obsessed with getting you out of jail, it was because of the Milk Duds, because of The Little Mermaid and the dance classes you paid for and took me to and the things you taught me about bugs and nature and animals. It was all of it. You were everything to me, and you still are.”
He took a few steps to close the distance between them, put his arms around her and gave her one of the Charlie Bear hugs she’d missed so much during the years they’d been apart. “You’re everything to me, too, kid,” he said gruffly. “Always have been, always will be.”
“How about you pick me up at the Bistro around six thirty tomorrow?”
“It’s a date.”