Chapter 3 #3
Rae teased her fingers through her hair, gathering it off her neck for a second.
A few strands stuck to her skin, curly swirls that revealed her natural texture.
We stopped in front of a vending machine.
Its blue light painted our skin, tempting me with the promise of well-packaged, non-fly-plagued snacks.
“I wanted to own a ranch because I wanted a safe place for—”
“Horses,” she finished. “I know. But come on. You could ride horses anywhere. Work on someone else’s ranch. Why take on the responsibility of maintaining the grounds? Hiring employees? Tending to your animals’ health needs? What’s in it for you?”
I studied her. Rae looked like she spent thousands on personal upkeep, from her perfect, laminated brows, red-stained lips, and bright white teeth.
A whole day had gone by, and she still smelled like someone who’d stepped right out of the shower, fresh linen and vanilla body oil.
Despite the humidity, there wasn’t a drop of sweat on her brow or a mark of deodorant staining her tank.
“I get to be useful,” I said simply. “I get to be in one place.”
One big empty place that didn’t make me feel like the walls could close in.
I rested my gaze on the faded buttons on the vending machine, punching in the numbers for a bag of pretzels with my knuckle.
Rae was quiet for a moment, the whining of the vending machine pushing out my purchase at a snail’s speed.
“Why sell the kits?” I turned the tables on her. “Why work outside of the jobs you take? Give talks, go to signings?”
“Everyone deserves a chance to break their own curses.” Her voice was soft and low. A gentleness in response to the rough texture of the word ‘curses.’ “And it was killing me seeing how many people I couldn’t help.”
Her confession didn’t change the dislike I had for all the bobbleheads and photoshoot prints.
But the words still hooked themselves into my chest. A small tug connecting my desire to break free of the haunts my parents passed down to Rae’s desire to give people the tools to do something.
Because even if it wasn’t real, did that make the sentiment any less important? Kind?
We stared at my unretrieved bag of pretzels.
“Could I ask you something and you be honest and not…too focused on selling yourself?” I asked.
“I’m too focused on selling myself?”
I pinched my index and thumb together. “A tad.”
Rae frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’m not trying to offend.” I waved my hands back and forth.
No bull’s-eye. No bull’s-eye.
She smiled, and her brow softened with amusement. “I’m not offended. I’m just not selling anything right now.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “You literally just repeated your book’s tagline.”
“It’s a truthful tagline that relates to the subject at hand,” she defended. “And I do believe everyone deserves a chance to break their own curses.”
I laughed under my breath. “Yeah, but when you say it like that, it sounds very rehearsed.”
“How should I say it? I’m just talking how I talk.”
“You naturally talk like that?” I raised a brow, taking in her perfect posture, all poised and readied for another crowd of fans to hang on her every word.
Rae dropped her arms, slipping her hands into her back pockets. Her nipples poked through the thick cotton of her tee. She was braless. I swallowed and resolved to look no lower than her neckline.
“What’s wrong with how I talk?” she asked.
“Nothing…if I were a fan, I’d say nothing’s wrong with it.”
Rae chewed on her bottom lip for a second, considering my assessment.
“It’s a gift, though,” I said in a softer tone. “One most people would kill for. I’d kill for. Watching you on that stage was probably how people felt when they witnessed the first musical.”
Rae laughed. “Excuse me?”
“It was probably all goosebumps and shivers down the spine, you know?” I mused. “Seeing people stitch together epic storytelling and music on a stage. I don’t know, I’ve just always thought musicals are one of humanity’s greatest achievements.”
Her laughter faded into a delicate smile. “That might be the biggest compliment I’ve received from a hater.”
“Just because I’m not a fan doesn’t mean I’m a hater,” I said.
Rae nodded and gave in. “Alright, no more selling myself. Or, at least, I’ll try.”
“Good. Just…be Rae? The real Rae,” I encouraged.
Rae shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Just be the real Rae. I think I can do that. It’s what I was put on this earth to do, right?”
“That’s the spirit.”
“What’s your honest question, the real Octavia?”
“What are the odds we’re having some collective psychosis? Maybe from mold? Because that was my first thought. And since you do this for a living, you know what false positives look like, right?”
Rae frowned, concerned. “You guys have mold?”
“No…but we could.”
“You think mold would capture a hallucination on film?”
“I don’t know the inner workings of mold.”
When she laughed, her head tilted back. The vibration made my chest loosen. My body believed, for a second, I was the safest I’d ever been here in the middle of a weird motel parking lot with a woman who hunted nightmares for a living.
“But seriously?” I asked. “What are the odds of this being something as simple as forgetting to close my window?”
“Low, beautiful. Very low.”
My stomach dipped at the endearment, but this woman didn’t even blink an eye.
“But lucky for you, my success rate is not,” she promised.