Chapter Thirty-Six No Famous Anything
Chapter Thirty-Six
No Famous Anything
Beverly
“You’ve got Bernie?”
“Got him.”
“And extra underwear?”
“Mom.”
“Beverly.”
I pat my suitcase, sitting next to the den door. “Yes.”
Momma takes my face between her palms and kisses my cheek before jerking me into a tight hug. You’d think I’m heading out to battle—not to LA to perform puppetry for Connection executives. But I am exhausted, and I could fall asleep in Momma’s arms if she hugged me for much longer.
It’s been two weeks of finalizing my pitch.
I don’t know where sleep ends and work begins anymore.
Every room I enter becomes a tornado of papers and verbal brainstorming, coaxed on by my cramped typing fingers.
Rob says I look like an organ-playing Phantom of the Opera, with how hard I slam down on my keyboard.
Maybe I am a phantom, haunting myself at night.
I have all my research, scripts, and song lyrics. Griffin and I never got around to recording the songs in full, but that’s okay. He’s done more than enough, and I won’t ask him for more.
Our texts keep passing like ships in the night. He’s recording his album now, and studio days are just as long as my prep days. Honestly, the thought of our complicated situation makes my stomach smart too easily, and sometimes I think I’ll puke or pass out. Maybe both.
“You’ll call?” Mom asks, holding me out by my shoulders.
“I’m not going away forever,” I say. “I’ll be back.”
“Not if you get the show.”
I laugh. “I’ll still be back. I have to get the rest of my stuff.”
“Be safe.”
“I’ll tell the pilot my mom says so.”
Nana stands in the corner of the den wearing her thick crocheted sweater, next to Uncle Greg, who fumbles through his cargo pants pockets looking for keys.
“How warm is California again?” Nana asks, pulling her sweater tighter.
“Warmer than here.”
“Then pack me up while you’re at it.”
“You’ll only fit if you take off the sweater,” I say.
“I’m keeping this. Maybe next time, then.”
I imagine Nana curled into my suitcase, grinning up at me when I unzip it back in LA. Part of me wishes that were possible.
It’s not that I’m dreading California, but something about this visit felt different.
I want my family. I want my brother’s video games playing in the background and to eat Greg’s strawberry cakes.
I’ll miss the creaks of the hardwood and the bite of morning cold.
I used to hate winter. But with Griffin and Ava…
it wasn’t so bad. There were pancakes and coffee and fireside chats under quilts.
There was the smell of snow in Griffin’s beard and the sound of Ava’s bubbling giggles.
But these months were an anomaly, and I need to remember that. Even if I stayed, it wouldn’t feel the same without Griffin and Ava. It won’t even be similar when the three of us are back in LA. If our delayed texts are any indication, he has a nonnegotiable work life, and I do too.
The question that snags in my brain too often lately rears its ugly head again: How could we possibly make this work?
Greg grabs a hoodie from the couch and shoves his head through the top. He emerges with wild hair, which he immediately covers with a beanie.
“All right,” he says, “if we don’t leave now, we’ll hit traffic near the airport.”
Mom and Dad stand off to the side with weak smiles. Normally they’d drive, but they’ve got to work. Why does this feel like yet another rushed goodbye? Even when I hugged Rob before he caught the school bus this morning (and held tight until he had to squirm away laughing), the time felt too short.
“Tell Griffin we said hi,” Mom says.
The name alone sends an arrow through my chest.
“I’ll tell him you’ve sent pancakes in spirit,” I say.
“And give this to Ava, will you?”
Mom extends a small toy car toward me—the one with the red convertible top that Ava played with each day. I smile to myself. Griffin always said his daughter had expensive taste. I roll it around on my palm, holding my choked sigh.
Ava still feels here and yet so far away.
She’s in the toys hidden in crevices of the kitchen or the booster seat Mom has yet to place back in the attic.
We still see her face often—just not in the way we’d like.
Ava is in every blurry candid picture on every social media website, looking more akin to an elusive Bigfoot than a child.
We scroll through them at dinner as a family, giving varying looks of disgust.
Ava deserves better than this.
Mom vowed to find out who the culprit is and ban them from the restaurant. Nana knows enough gossip to be lethal, and she’s threatened to spread their private issues like wildfire. Then Greg said something about a special set of skills, and we all laughed, but part of me thinks he isn’t joking.
The nosy cars outside our driveway left a week ago, when they realized Griffin was back in LA and we couldn’t give them any new information or photos. It’s been too quiet ever since, with a silence so loud I swear I’m hearing lingering child giggles in my sleep.
“Finch is picking you up at the airport when you get there?” Nana asks.
“If he can get there in time,” I joke. “He drives slow. But I think he left yesterday morning, so he should just barely make it.”
Nana smiles. “Good man. You be nice to him.”
“Me? He’s the one you’ve got to worry about.”
“Oh, please.” She waves me off.
If Birds gets the green light, I’ll be moving in with Finch for a few months until I can get my savings built up again. Finch told me he’s mastered Jeopardy! (“I didn’t know that was an award they gave out, Finch”) and I’ll need to prepare to watch it every night.
I’ve missed him, and we’ll have fun as roommates. We’ll be like some sitcom where the couple stands back-to-back with their arms crossed, cheekily smiling at the camera as if to say How’d we get into this mess? A seventy-year-old and his thirty-two-year-old protégé.
But then my thoughts wander in that nefarious way when I remember Griffin will likely be nearby. This city is only so big. Will we see each other often? Will we have the time?
We won’t.
I know we won’t.
Nope. Locking that thought in the vault and swallowing the key.
I roll my suitcase out the door, playing elevator music in my mind.
Easy, calm thoughts.
It’s chilly. The sun is still cresting the horizon, silhouetting the tree line through the morning fog. Pads of melting snow litter the dead leaves in the yard. The outside feels completely still.
I walk to the car and pop the trunk. Greg follows behind me, crunching over gravel with his Crocs, blowing out a cool puff of air with each exhalation. He takes the suitcase from me and drops it inside.
Nana walks onto the porch with Mom and Dad. Mom rubs the outside of her arms.
“I need a coat,” Nana says. “Glenn, help me back up the stairs, please.”
Momma clicks her tongue. “Since when can’t you go up the stairs by yourself?”
“Cheryl, you too. Get a coat. You’ll freeze.”
“Ma…?”
With a sigh, Mom waves to me and Greg. “We’ll be back! Don’t leave without us.”
“Ma!” is the last thing I hear her cry before Nana and my parents disappear back into the house.
Through the silent hum of winter, Greg clears his throat. “So…hey, kiddo. How are you feeling?”
“I’m good.” Bad. Sick.
Greg pulls down the hatchback top and keeps his hand rested on the window once it’s shut. “You, uh, talked to the big guy much?”
My stomach drops.
Why, why, why?
I want to run from this conversation. I want to vomit. Is the bathroom in the garage apartment unlocked?
“We text,” I answer instead because it’s more pleasant than puking.
We do text, but it’s always a game of tag.
Sometimes I’d send a long response, only to wake up and realize I dreamed it.
Then I’d see that, in fact, the last time I’d sent a text had been hours earlier, and now it was four in the morning in LA, so I couldn’t exactly send another because I was sure I’d wake Ava.
So, yes, we text, but also…I wish it were more.
Is that selfish?
Ava needs normalcy. They’re already struggling with this media nightmare. And Griffin and I can barely keep up with texting as it is. Is that healthy for her to have a woman enter her life, only to be ripped apart when Griffin’s and my careers take over? Is that responsible?
I shrug. “We’re busy.”
“Hmm,” Greg muses.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Hmm,” he repeats.
“Look at me, Greg.” I poke a finger toward my eyes and the bags underneath. “I’m the walking grim reaper right now.”
He squints. Beneath the silly clothes and weird interests, Greg has this way of seeing what you don’t want anyone to see.
“So?” he says.
“So…” I say with a nonchalant wave of my hand. It’s not like I think about this every day. “Griffin and I will stay in touch. We’ll see each other. I mean, he’ll need to be a guest on the show eventually.”
Greg scoffs. “A guest? That’s it? Take this more seriously.”
“Take what seriously?” I ask with a laugh so forced I almost choke on it.
“Why are you blowing this off?” he asks. “You aren’t happy without him here.”
“I am happy,” I counter through strangled words. “I’ve just been working a lot, so it’s hard to tell.”
“That’s an excuse. You’re disappearing into work. You’re distracting yourself. You two were obviously more than just him being a guest on the show.”
“We were just friends.”
“Rob told me you and Griffin kissed.”
My cheeks heat. “God, he’s worse at gossip than Dad.”
“For the record, he wasn’t upset about it either. He likes Griffin.”
That doesn’t make me feel better. Not only do I have to worry about Ava feeling abandoned, but now my brother? I hate that for him.
“And we all see how he looks at you,” Greg says.
“Griffin and I, we’re…” I give another smile, but this time it’s a struggle to lift even the corner of my mouth.
We’re what, exactly?
All we did was kiss. And sleep together. And sure, I might have watched him lie there afterward, tracing my fingers through his hair and over his tattoos. But that’s beside the point.
“I don’t know what we are,” I stammer out.
“And even if I did—” But I’m interrupted by a ruckus behind me.
Mom and Dad are back on the porch, now borderline arguing with Nana about the flight details.
With the way her eyes shift back over to us, something tells me this conversation was premeditated.
I exhale heavily and cross my arms. “Greg, did Nana put you up to this? I’m fine.”
“If you did…?” he says.
“What?”
“You said that, even if I did…”
“It doesn’t matter!” I toss my hands in the air. “We’re busy. He’s going on tour. He’s leaving the country.” God, he’ll be so far away. “It would be too complicated. Too risky. I’ve taken enough risks with famous musicians before.”
Greg pauses and blinks. “But Griffin isn’t Beau. You know that.”
I do, but our complicated relationship is much easier to navigate when I can fit it into that safe box.
No musicians.
No famous anything.
Easy.
I’m very good at playing pretend. I can stay beneath the camera lens with Bernie Bird and not think about anything but the performance.
Greg bites his inner cheek, then exhales.
In that moment, he looks very much his age.
Uncle Greg always has bits of gray at his temples and in his beard, but it’s the lines beside his eyes that deepen now.
They’re stressful creases that I’ve only seen closer to his divorce.
This look of exhaustion feels like a distant memory.
It’s a period of time we don’t talk about.
I sigh. “It’s complicated. Like when you want to eat the last banana, but it’s overripe, and you think, Should I make banana bread?
But you don’t know how, so then it’s like, Well, am I wasting a good banana?
” I say, desperate to bring his smile back.
“Why take an unnecessary risk for something I know won’t work out? ”
His eyes swivel to me. “Seriously?”
“I mean, tell me you haven’t thought that before.”
Greg shakes his head, rolling a rock below his shoe.
“You know what? I’d risk it all again. To potentially experience banana bread again, I would.
” He levels a look at me. “My marriage with your Aunt Andi was tough. Taking her back after she messed up was a risk. And it didn’t work out.
The banana bread honestly sucked.” I laugh and he shrugs.
“But just because it didn’t work out, doesn’t mean I regret making it.
I’d take that risk again and again because if it had worked out, I would have loved her every second she let me.
Sometimes the risk doesn’t pay off, but don’t be the one to count yourself out.
” Then he sighs again and says, “I’m gonna ask out Daisy, you know. ”
I blink up at him. “That’s great.”
“Maybe she’ll say no. But who knows? And that’s a risk. And I’ll keep taking them because life isn’t worth anything without a little risk. I want to keep making banana bread. Don’t you?”
“I am taking a risk, though,” I say. “I’m doing this show.”
“That’s only half the risk. What about love?”
“Greg, you sap.”
“I’m serious, Bev.”
I shake my head. “I don’t…ugh. There. That’s the best response I’ve got. Ugh.”
Because ugh is the only way to describe how much I miss Griffin.
I miss that man with his rugged beard and wild hair.
I miss his barking laugh. I miss how he holds his daughter, as if without her, the world might fall apart.
I love that precious kiss he gives her on the forehead, just beneath her bangs.
I love how he can give me that look—the one with the single eyebrow raise, like he knows what I’m thinking before even I do.
Griffin Harvey and I…
We’re…
Ugh.
Clacking of boots on gravel has me darting my head up toward the walkway.
Nana looks between us. “All right, how are we doing over here?”
Greg levels a look at her. Nana’s lips turn down.
“Oh,” she says.
“You two”—I point a finger between them—“need to mind your own business. I’m gonna go achieve my dream, all right? That’s the plan. Now, give me a hug before I strangle you first.”
I open my arms, but Nana tilts her head to the side.
“You’re allowed more than one dream,” she says. “Give yourself more than one happy ending, Bevvy.”
My arms fall by my side. “I might have a show. Heck, he’s going on tour. I mean, you’ve been through this. You and Grandpa spent so much time apart while he worked. Don’t you regret that?”
“No,” Nana says. She doesn’t skip a single beat. “Not one bit. Your grandfather was worth loving every day, even on the missed ones.”
That hurts.
Every syllable.
I don’t know what to say.
I give another weak smile because I’m not sure I’m capable of a brighter one right now. And without a response, I pull Nana into a hug.
Momma and Dad walk over and we all say goodbyes without another word of Griffin, Ava, or his tour. And eventually I walk around to the passenger seat, open the door, and shut myself inside. In the empty car’s silence, I inhale a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Dang it.
I drove Griffin to the airport two weeks ago, and the car still smells like him.
I hate this.