Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Spencer
I stare down at the limp, sad, combination pizza. It looked pathetic frozen, but it’s worse now.
How is that possible?
I can’t believe I’m feeding Vivien Hart a take-and-bake that was on sale for $5.99 and has been sitting in my freezer for three months.
Maybe if I give her more wine, she won’t taste the freezer burn.
“Do you want more wine?” I call out.
“Sure. Do you need any help?”
I eyeball the plates, the napkins, and the wine. What else do I need? Will she want a fork? Do people eat pizza with a fork? Maybe I’m overthinking this.
“Yes, please.” I toss back a couple of quick gulps of wine.
When Vivien walks into the kitchen, her presence is like a strike over the head, again. At this point, I should have built up some kind of tolerance, but so far that hasn’t happened.
She hasn’t changed in the last ten minutes. She’s still wearing faded jeans with a soft pink sweater. Her long hair is pulled back into a braid, and fuzzy pink socks adorn her feet.
And yet there’s something about her like this—relaxed, casual, and unpolished—that is more appealing than anything she’s worn on the red carpet.
I cut the pizza and plate a few slices while she refills our glasses.
“Should we sit in the dining room?” She’s standing in the doorway to the darkened room off the kitchen.
“The living room is more comfortable. If you’re okay with that? I don’t use the dining room much.” It’s full of boxes I haven’t had time to sort through.
“That’s perfect. I just don’t want to spill on anything nice.”
Once we’re in the living room, she settles into the chair on the side and I sit on the couch.
We dig into our food, which isn’t too bad, despite how it looks. Or maybe I’m just starving.
After a minute of silent eating, I ask, “Did you hear from the car shop?”
She nods. “Moe left me a message earlier. It’s going to take a week or so for the part to come in. But it’s okay. Daphne is going to pick me up tomorrow morning, so you won’t have to drop me at the theater.”
We eat in silence for a few minutes, the crackle of the fire providing a soothing soundtrack.
“It’s so quiet here.” Vivien sets her empty plate on the side table and picks up her half-full glass of wine, swirling it in her hands. “You grew up in Surrender, right?”
I finish chewing and then answer. “Yes. But we lived in a house outside of town a few miles when I was growing up. This building was Dad’s offices for a long time.
He shared the space with another attorney, who lived here before moving to Florida to retire.
Then when I went off to college, they sold our house and moved in here since it’s smaller, and so Dad wouldn’t have to drive. ”
She points at the picture on the end table. “I was checking out your graduation photo earlier. Where did you go to college?”
“Harvard.”
Her brows fly up. “Oh, you lived in Boston?”
“Yes. For about seven years.”
“Ah. I was there for about five.”
“I know.” Heat creeps up my neck the second the words escape. “I mean, I heard you moved there.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Yeah. It’s hard for me to keep my whereabouts secret. Did you like Boston?”
I nod. “I did. It’s a beautiful city. The food is amazing. Not unlike this pizza.” I lift my limp slice in the air.
She laughs. “I mean, for a frozen pizza, this is gourmet. Almost as good as pasta in North End.”
“Almost. There is an excellent pizza place over in Haven, Cosmic Pizza, but that’s a bit of a drive. I do miss Modern Pastry. And Yvonne’s. You ever try to cross Storrow Drive during move-in day?”
She snorts. “Only if I felt like dying. I did appreciate how most Bostonians didn’t seem to care much about my celebrity status.
One time I almost walked into traffic, and the driver yelled out their window, ‘Yah think yah bettah than me? Yah not!’ ” She affects a terrible Boston accent, instantly laughs at herself, and then winces.
“Yeesh, they say I used to be an actress. Please don’t tell anyone. ”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
She sets her now empty plate aside. “So why did you move back to Surrender?”
“My mom’s health was declining, and my dad couldn’t take care of her alone. They were older when they had me, so it hit fast. When Mom passed, Dad went pretty quickly after. It was rough for a while.”
She leans toward me. “Oh, Spencer. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. The truth is, I love it here. And I’d already been here for two years before they passed, running the business and helping my parents, and there was nothing left for me there.” I had already left behind my job and my girlfriend.
Vivien’s head cocks, considering me. “Do you ever miss the city?”
Maybe it’s the wine, or maybe it’s her, but I’m compelled to elaborate even though I probably shouldn’t.
Wasn’t I just thinking earlier something about keeping this totally professional?
“I do, but . . . as a kid, I worked so hard at school, extracurriculars, summer jobs, whatever it took to get out of this place. And I did. I travelled, spent time in cities where I didn’t speak the language.
It was difficult and amazing, but it wasn’t home.
Not really. Even though I lived in Boston for seven years, it wasn’t really home. ”
“I get it.” She nods. “I loved the time I spent here.”
“I don’t remember seeing you around town.” Teenage me would have definitely remembered. I was obsessed with The Other Side of Ordinary along with most kids my age.
“I was shipped here between filming. When I was younger, my work schedule didn’t allow for much vacation time so it was only a week or two at a time.
But I stayed here once for a whole summer, after my mom got divorced.
For the second time. She needed space to find a new man.
She couldn’t handle my little sister and me simultaneously.
” She sighs. “She and Audrey went to Europe on a shopping spree, and I came here.”
“How old was your sister?”
“Eight. We’re about six years apart.”
Oh, right. I think she mentioned that already. I do the quick math in my head. That would make her sister around twenty-three now.
“Beverly really made my time here magical. At the time, it was the only place I felt safe.”
I set my empty plate aside, her words igniting a spark of concern in my chest. “Does that mean the rest of your existence was spent feeling unsafe?”
She chuckles. “The wine is making me melodramatic. Surrender was amazing because everyone treated me like I was normal.” Her head tilts to one side. “They still do, actually. It’s kinda weird.”
“You are normal.”
She shakes her head. “No. I’m not. Not since I was seven, that’s when I got cast, and the weirdness began. When I was eight years old, the first season was released, and I haven’t known normalcy since.”
“I’ve never really thought about what that might be like.”
She waves a hand. “It’s fine. Please, don’t pity me. I don’t want to be one of those celebrities who bitches about fame, like, oh no my lobster is too buttery, while wiping my tears away with hundred-dollar bills. There are people with real problems out there.”
“I would never pity you. But you’re allowed to have problems and feelings, even if you are a gazillionaire.”
She chuckles. “Hardly that. But I have enough to survive, and then some, and not everyone can say that.”
I tip my head in assent. “I’m glad you had Surrender and The Palace as a place of refuge, even if it was for a brief time. Beverly was a force to be reckoned with. She would never let anyone bother you.”
She rubs her lips together. “Seems like you won’t let anyone bother me either.”
“What?”
She winces. “Sorry. I overheard you earlier on the phone, talking to . . . Kevin?”
“Yeah.” I rub my chin, immediately running through the conversation in my mind. Did I say anything embarrassing? “I can’t promise to keep out the world, but I will do everything in my power to make sure Surrender continues to be a safe landing place for you.”
She considers me, the corners of her mouth tipping up. “Thank you. It means a lot. You’d be surprised how people behave around me. I haven’t had someone bother to protect me like that since Beverly was alive.”
Wait, what? That can’t be true. “What about your parents?”
She sighs and shakes her head. “My mom didn’t bother to guard me from rabid fans. It didn’t matter if they were weird, or pushy, or creepy.”
I frown. “But you were just a kid.”
She lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “She didn’t care.
Can’t have anyone telling stories about me being a diva or a brat.
If someone wanted a photo, I took a photo.
If someone wanted a hug, I gave a hug. If someone wanted to talk, I’d better smile and act like they were the most important person in the room so they could spread tales of how great I am.
” She sets her empty wine glass down. “It didn’t matter if I was sick, or exhausted, or if taking selfies with a fan meant the press would be surrounding us with shouts and flashing bulbs ten minutes later, she loved all of that. ”
“But they weren’t harassing her, they were harassing you.”
“Even better, I guess. All the glory, none of the discomfort. It’s okay. Really. I have had a lot of therapy to work through it.”
“What about your dad?”
She looks down at the floor. “I haven’t seen him in years. Not since my parents divorced. He didn’t have enough of a spine to stand up to her. I think he’s living in Malta now, with a new wife.”
Before I can probe more, she stands, grabbing her empty plate from the side table with a too-bright smile. “I can clean up since you cooked.”
“Let me help.” I reach for our wineglasses and the nearly finished bottle—how did that happen?—and straighten right as she takes a step.
We collide.
Not hard. I’m standing still, and she barely moved, so it’s less of a collision and more a brushing of bodies, and yet neither of us shifts to create more space.
Her breath brushes the base of my throat.
Her lips—God help me—they’re inches away. Soft and pink and wet from the wine.
For one suspended second, everything in the house goes quiet. The firelight flickers across her cheekbones.
I inhale lilac and spring, the scent going into my lungs and then sliding under my skin.
“Sorry.” I swallow, the sound too loud in the tiny space between us. I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for. The collision? The fact that I’m imagining tilting my head the slightest bit and pressing my lips to hers to see if she tastes as sweet as she smells?
I can’t do this. It takes all the willpower I can muster in my body, but I force myself to step back.
Her eyes flicker. I can’t tell if she’s surprised or relieved or disappointed or some combination of all three. “All good.”
Did I imagine the unsteadiness in her tone? Do I want her to be disappointed?
It doesn’t matter what I want. We can’t do this. I can’t do this.
In the kitchen, we move around each other with extra care. She washes and rinses the two plates and glasses, and I dry and put them away.
But something has changed, the air between us charged in a way that it wasn’t before.
It’s there as we finish doing the dishes and wiping the counter. It’s there when she says she should be getting to bed. It’s there when she thanks me for dinner.
It’s still there as I show her to the door, and we say good night in a way that’s somehow both awkward and loaded with meaning.
I stand in the entry after she leaves, trying to steady the part of me that didn’t want to step away from her, and didn’t want her to leave at all.
Lines are blurring—ethical ones I’m supposed to guard, not cross. And for the first time in my life, I’m not sure I trust myself to stay on the right side of them.