Chapter Seven #4
“We’re re-recording the series as a new, dramatized audio production!”
I turn to look at James and I swear to God he’s literally watching a plane fly overhead.
I beam at the camera.
“We’ll be sharing more over the next days and weeks, but for now we just wanted to introduce ourselves as the voices of Arabella and William and invite you to follow us across social media platforms for some behind-the-scenes looks at us recording and prepping for our roles, along with some exclusive Meadow content you won’t find anywhere else. Anything to add, James?”
The plane is gone, so he’s now looking down at our crossed legs.
“The music.” He sighs, like he’s pained.
“Oh yes!” I hate how fake my voice sounds, but it’s getting faker in my efforts to overcompensate for the pet rock beside me. “Tell us about that, will you?”
It’s the only time James looks at the camera for the entirety of the live.
“Anthony Carter, who composed the music for the first film, will be creating an all-new score exclusively for the audiobook series.”
I wait for the pizzazz, for him to dress it up as a way to hear a new take on the controversial film version of the song William creates for Arabella, to segue into how there will be sound effects, dramatized elements behind our voices to bring The Meadow to life in a new, exciting way, but of course. Of course he doesn’t.
“ Lots of exciting things ahead.” I smile.
“But that’s it for now! Like I said, follow us at all the places.
We’re the same handle everywhere and we’ve only just started recording this week, so you’ll be along for the entire journey and we’re so excited to have you join us!
James, let’s wave goodbye to the lovely Meadowers,” I finish. “See you soon!”
After a halfhearted wave from James that resembles a deflated car lot spaghetti arm machine, I end the live.
“Well, that was a disaster,” he says.
I fall back against the rock.
“Can’t imagine why that might be. I’m sure it has nothing to do with a guy that Vanity Fair called full of charisma acting as if he would rather sleep on slightly-too-damp sheets every night than interact with the public.”
“I’ve never been interviewed by Vanity Fair, ” James says, like that’s the point. “And that is an oddly specific metaphor.”
Why is it that he sounds normal-ish now with the stupid camera off?
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “What matters is that we have to really commit to this to make it worth it.”
“ I didn’t want to agree in the first place, you might recall,” James says, still cross-legged beside me. “This was all your idea.”
His tone is so haughty I could punch him, but in lieu of actual violence, I reach to my side and pick a blade of grass to throw at him.
It misses him entirely, catching on the wind and helicoptering to his far left.
He watches it fall and then turns to me with a raised brow.
“Did you just try to assault me with a piece of grass?”
“I’m sure you’ll recover,” I tell the sky.
“You’re grumpy,” James says. “Are you sure you don’t want some coffee?”
I sit up.
“You never offered me coffee.”
“Did, too.”
“You absolutely did not, ” I say.
James reaches behind him and grabs the two coffee cups.
“One’s caramel, one’s mocha,” he says. “I don’t remember which is which.”
“Dealer’s choice,” I say. “You pick.”
He hands me one and I take a sip.
“Mocha,” I say.
“Caramel,” James echoes.
“You didn’t offer me the coffee, or I would have taken it,” I tell him after a few sips. “And you have no room to call me grumpy after that performance.”
“I work better from a script,” James says. “Always have.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” I mutter.
The birds are chirping and flitting through the shade of the trees. The mountain bluebirds stick out in stark contrast with all the green, as if they’re pieces of sky that plummet to earth and swoop back up at the last moment.
I’m watching one grab onto a branch with its little twiggy feet when James leans over to nudge my arm, which startles me, which of course means…
My shirt is splattered by my hand jolting the coffee.
Again. At least this time the coffee is nearly cold instead of stickily lukewarm.
And at least it’s not a sentimental, irreplaceable shirt, but it is one of my favorites.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” James says under his breath, but there’s no malice in it.
“It’s not bad,” I assure him. “It’s not a wardrobe do-over or anything.”
But James isn’t listening.
I watch as he unzips the small leather backpack he placed behind the rock for filming.
It looks like a thrift store briefcase from the 1970s, worn and lived-in and hovering on the line of cool and homely.
He pulls out a ring with four keys, a notebook, and his phone before he finds what he’s looking for.
It’s another coffee shop shirt, identical to the one from Monday except this one is forest green while the last was brick red. He throws it in my direction, still digging.
“I thought you were joking about buying multiples,” I say.
He finds what he’s looking for and tosses that toward me, too. A Tide pen. James doesn’t make eye contact as he moves to stand between me and the direction of the park with his back to me.
“I don’t joke often,” he says.
“Your eggplant usage would suggest otherwise,” I say, switching the shirts.
Am I imagining that his back shakes a little?
He doesn’t turn to face me, even when I grumble my throat a little to indicate I’m dressed and get to work on the shirt with the stain pen.
“Done,” I finally say. “You’re free to move about the cabin.”
But James still doesn’t turn around.
“You live here, right?” he asks.
“Sort of.”
“How?”
Which…fair. I assume he means how do I afford to live here, because even though Tatum wasn’t much to speak of when I was a teenager, it is something now.
In just the few months I’ve been home, Dad has gotten letter after letter from realtors and investors offering to buy his house—in cash—for astronomical amounts of money.
It was my second day back home when I checked the mail and opened a bright-yellow envelope with a handwritten address out of curiosity, sure it was junk.
But no, the entire letter was handwritten, including the estimate for his property value and the agent’s personal cell number and email address.
When I asked Dad about it, he scoffed.
“They send those to everyone on the street,” he says. “Got enough to paper the bathroom if you’re looking for a cursed project.”
“This one looks legit, though, Dad,” I say. “That’s a lot of money. Like, retire-and-never-worry-again money.”
“Who wants to retire?” Dad asked. “Not me. Besides, Mrs. Blathers down the road sold her house just two years ago and barely got half that number. I wouldn’t believe everything you read, kid.”
It was no use telling him that a lot could change in two years, that Tatum had changed a lot in two years. But yes, property values were—like the ski slopes being put up all along the mountains—slow but steady in their rising. Dad could make a killing.
It made sense that James was bewildered by my ability to call Tatum home.
“It’s kind of a long story,” I hedge, for once trying to rein in my words around him.
“Dad and Mom moved here when I was a baby and divorced when I was four. Mom wanted to move back to Texas where she grew up, so Dad kept the house and I’ve spent every summer here since.
” And here comes the not-reining-it-in portion.
“It’s one of the reasons I latched onto The Meadow, ” I say.
“Arabella and I have the same parents, essentially. Though I never hated Tatum like she did her dad’s place.
Not once. And my mom was absolutely capable of taking care of herself.
Harebrained, for sure, but in a high-functioning way. ”
James still isn’t looking at me, but when I come to stand beside him, his lips are curling up on one side like I’ve amused him.
“I should have been clearer,” he says. “I meant to ask how you get anything done with this. ” He nods his chin to the mountains surrounding us. “How do you bear to stay inside when this exists outside your every door.”
He doesn’t say it like an admonishment, but it feels like one.
“People grow accustomed to beauty,” I say, trying to sound philosophical instead of prickly. “Even the most gorgeous mountain becomes the same as a welcome mat or potted plant if you look at it enough.”
James finally turns to look at me, his eyes scanning my face in that looking way of his that makes my bones feel like kindling. He must find what he’s looking for because he snorts and looks back toward the mountains.
“You don’t believe that,” he says, certain.
“You don’t know what I believe,” I say.
He looks back to the mountains, like he’s determined to soak them up and prove me wrong by will alone.
“What I do know is that you built a career on asking people to explain their favorite books over and over again,” James says. “And not for one moment did you sound jaded or put upon. Not even when that pompous accountant said reading fiction was best left to children.”
I blink, trace the lines of the peaks before us with my gaze so I don’t have to look at him.
“You listened to my podcast?”
He doesn’t answer. I don’t ask again. I don’t need to. So instead I ask something else, something I usually wouldn’t except that in the shadow of the mountains, to feel small is to feel bold.
“There’s a scene in The Meadow where they lie in wildflowers,” I say.
“A meadow of them, in fact,” James says, his mouth quirked up.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” I say, cutting my eyes to him. “Lie next to a boy with flowers all around us like a Renaissance painting.”
I watch his eyebrows drop the smallest amount.
“You want to take a picture for social media?”
“No,” I say honestly. “Not for work. Just for us. For fun.”
James’s eyebrows return to their usual place.
“There might be ticks,” he says after a while.
“Good thing you’re a vampire and have no blood.”