Chapter 26
BEN AND I HAD GONE BACK TO VANCOUVER TO CELEbrATE OUR birthdays.
Hannah, Kara, and Jacob wanted to take us out to dinner, and Jacob suggested the Hideaway.
He didn’t realize I had no idea that the Hideaway was the restaurant Blair and Cameron had opened that year.
We walked into the dark brewhouse and barbecue joint, which sat along False Creek in downtown Vancouver, and I tripped over my own feet, shocked to see the eldest Campbell boy greeting us with open arms.
“Blair?” I hugged him and looked at Hannah. Her eyes hit the floor so fast she could have won a world record.
“Hey, Cainey. Jacob told me you were coming to town. I got you a good table.”
Jacob and Blair still lived together, and even though I saw Jacob every time I came back to Vancouver, I hadn’t seen any of the Campbells in three years, since my twenty-first birthday.
Blair stretched out his hand to shake Ben’s. “Hey, good to see you again, man. Although I feel like I see you every time I turn on the TV now.”
Ben was starting to get real work in New York. He no longer needed a side job. He was a working actor and was even recognized on the street now and then. It was expected, but also bizarre.
“Yeah, good to see you, too. It’s been a minute.” Ben smiled warmly as he took off his coat.
Blair walked us to our waterfront table.
“This is your restaurant? It’s amazing.” I was flabbergasted. I had never thought about Blair as a fully functioning adult, and here he was, running his own restaurant. It was beautiful, and cool, and packed to the rafters.
“Cameron’s and mine.”
“Oh.” My eyes flicked over to Kara. “Is Cameron here?”
“No, not tonight,” Blair answered quietly. “Although word spread that you were all coming in, so . . .” Blair nodded to the bar, where Juniper’s own Orson Whitlock was having a beer.
“Holy shit. I haven’t seen Orson since my going-away party. This is weird.”
“Good weird?” Blair asked.
“Yeah. Yes. Of course.” I looked down at the large table, and there were too many seats. I knew what was happening next.
“Okay, good. Orson and I were hoping to eat with you tonight. It’s just us. No other surprises.” Blair crinkled his forehead, and I knew what he was implying: Rory wasn’t coming. “That okay?”
“Yeah. That’s awesome.” I nodded, though I wasn’t sure if anyone believed me.
Our table was packed with deliciousness. We had smoked rib tips with andouille sausage, pork belly burnt ends, smoked brisket, baked beans, cornbread salad, creamed corn—you name it, we had it—and after we ordered our third bottle of wine for the table, the questions started coming.
“So, how long have you two been together?” Orson asked Ben, sipping his freshly poured glass of wine.
“Three years now,” Ben said confidently.
Orson nodded, then turned to me. “Think you’ll ever come back?”
“To Vancouver? Um, honestly? No?” My eyes jumped from person to person around the table. “Not if I can help it.”
“You could always do a green card marriage, if it comes down to it,” Jacob suggested casually, as he dipped the last of the burnt ends into barbecue sauce and shoved them into his mouth. I saw Orson’s eyes flick to Blair to assess his reaction, which was muted.
“Are you thinking about that? About getting married?” Orson probed.
“The thought has crossed my mind.” Ben laughed softly.
“So, you live together, and you want to get married.”
I wasn’t sure Orson knew he was speaking his thoughts.
“Orson,” Blair warned with a steady voice. He subtly shook his head, silently communicating to Orson.
Ben laughed again, this time uncomfortably. He was reading the room correctly and recognized that we were being scrutinized.
“Guys, I see what you’re doing.” I stepped in on Ben’s behalf. “Don’t grill us.”
“Cains, I promise, that’s not what I’m doing,” Blair said genuinely, and I believed him.
“Fine, that’s not what you’re doing. But what are you doing, Orson?” I demanded. A blush crept up Orson’s neck to his cheeks.
“I’m sorry to interrupt . . .” A soft, chirping voice came from behind me. We all turned to see two teenage girls with heart eyes looking at Ben. “Are you Ben Winters?”
“Um, yeah. Hi.” Ben’s face reddened.
“Can we get a picture with you?” The girl giggled sweetly.
Ben looked at me. I rarely saw him embarrassed, but in this moment, I could tell he was dying. Our entire table was silent as we watched Ben stand in between these two sweet young girls and have his picture taken by their mother.
“Alright, nice to meet you.” Ben let out a long exhale as he sat back down, and didn’t lift his head to see everyone’s prying eyes.
Kara was the first person to speak. “That . . . was wild.”
We all started laughing quietly.
“Does that happen a lot?” Blair asked, confounded.
“No,” Ben answered quickly.
“No, but it’s starting to happen every once in a while. So it’s not totally unusual. It’s strange, though.” I laughed.
“Damn, Ben.” Jacob shook his head, in awe of Ben’s trajectory. “You guys moving to LA soon?”
“Um, not sure. I’m on hold for this thing, and I’ll need to stick around New York if I get it.” Ben pressed his hand into my thigh.
“Isn’t LA your dream, though?” Orson directed his question straight at me.
Ben’s face fell.
Hannah saw the ticking time bomb and stepped into the conversation, defending him. “Ben’s on hold for a show with Julia Louis-Dreyfus,” she bragged on his behalf.
Ben gently caressed my leg with his thumb. I smiled back, but knew it didn’t extend across my face.
“Rory had his first celebrity encounter type of thing the other day, too. Did you know he’s gone pro?” Orson continued the conversation.
“Yeah, I heard. Of course I heard.” I nodded. It was my dad who’d told me about Rory’s success, and when I first saw him flash through a random highlight reel online, my heart stopped.
“Some kid asked him to sign one of his balls. It was really cool,” Orson said.
“What about you, Ellie? Any auditions lately?” Hannah flipped the conversation over to me, and I wanted to kill her.
“Oh, you didn’t hear the news? I’m a regular on one of those courtroom dramas.
” I feigned excitement. Kara laughed. She knew where I was going with my joke.
“It’s called Court of the People. Ever heard of it?
I sit in the audience.” Since graduating, my acting could be summed up with four words: Background. Talent. Featured. Extra.
“You’re too hard on yourself, Hollywood.” Orson shook his head, and I saw Ben smile at Orson’s old nickname for me—a nickname he recognized from reading my diaries.
“Funny, I was just gonna say the same thing,” Ben agreed. “Did you hear that Ellie’s an official casting associate now? She’s doing film and TV and everything. They’re sponsoring her visa, too, so no green card marriage just yet.” Ben lifted his glass to Jacob.
“Yes, it’s true.” I nodded agreeably. “I’m officially aiding and abetting other people’s dreams coming true, instead of my own.”
Based on all the awkward glances, it appeared I was exceptionally effective at making everyone uncomfortable.
Ben covered my hand with his own, protectively. He whispered, “Don’t do that. You’ve worked your ass off, and I’m really proud of you.”
I did work my ass off, and I was working my way up, slowly but surely.
But I wasn’t proud. Every time Sal brought me into a casting session, he would comment on the actor’s looks in some snide way.
He needed to be the funniest person in the room, and that was the only way he knew how to get everyone laughing.
One of the most surreal moments of my life was when I was sitting behind a table at a commercial audition, watching a young woman dance, and then had to listen to everyone talk about her body after she left.
On long, hard days, we reviewed actors’ taped auditions alphabetically.
If your last name was at the start of the alphabet, you had a much better chance of getting the part.
Sal would scroll down the list, click on a few other names and tapes, and add them to the short list we would send to producers.
But it was random. “It’s fine. If they weren’t good, they wouldn’t have made it far enough to get their tapes in front of me,” he would assure me.
“There are only so many ways someone can say two lines in a throwaway scene,” he promised.
Sal also set timers for his emails to be sent to executives, giving the illusion that he was working all hours of the night, when I knew he wasn’t, because I was.
The “dream” was slowly dismantling, and I could feel New York me flaking into the air and slowly disappearing right along with it.
Ben squeezed my hand under the table.
“I know you’re proud of me.” I shook my head, disappointed with myself. “I’m sorry.”
Blair and Orson looked at each other. They were having a separate telepathic conversation.
“Sorry if I brought the mood down, everyone,” I said shyly.
“All good, sissy,” Hannah insisted. She turned to address the table. “Ellie’s also been writing. She’s got a play that’s being produced and everything,” she boasted.
“No, I don’t,” I corrected my well-meaning sister. “I have a play that’s going to have a staged reading with actors, Ben being one of them, but it’s not being turned into anything.”
“I didn’t know you wrote plays,” Blair mused.
“It’s a showcase with a small audience. It’s nothing.” I downplayed my writing, as always.
“Doesn’t sound like nothing.” Jacob smiled.
“Because it’s not nothing,” Ben defended me against myself.
Blair’s phone, which was face up on the table, lit with a notification. It was a text from Rory, but I couldn’t read what it said. He lifted his phone and typed back. Orson leaned over to read the conversation, then nodded before returning to his seat.
“Sounds cool, Cains. Very New York.” Blair smiled as he put his phone back on the table, face down. “I can see why you don’t want to give it up.” He nodded to Ben, unintentionally picking at our scab.
“What are you guys up to for the rest of your trip?” Kara asked.
“Not much. Just hanging out. Walks. Dinners. That sort of thing,” I said, looking at Ben.
“You going to Juniper at any point?” Orson asked.
“No.” I shook my head.
“You should come back, Hollywood. It would be fun to see you up there again.” He smiled softly.
“Sometimes you can’t go back. It’ll never be what it was. And experiencing that with the same people, but without the magic . . . it would break my heart.”
“Well, you’re missed up there,” Blair said quietly, and I had a sneaking suspicion he was saying one thing but talking about something else entirely.
I nodded, then turned to Ben. “Shall we?”
Ben brought my face toward his and kissed me.
He softly slipped his tongue against mine.
I knew what he was doing. He wanted everyone to see him kiss me.
He wanted to subtly and gracefully acknowledge the underlying conversation that had gone unsaid all evening.
I knew it. Ben knew it. Hannah, Kara, and Jacob knew it.
They had all seen Ben and me love each other deeply for three years.
But Ben kissed me right there at the table because he wanted to leave a lasting impression.
He wanted Blair and Orson to understand that I’d chosen him. Not Rory.
Hannah, Kara, Jacob, Blair, and Orson got up from the table, leaving Ben and me alone. He opened his eyes and stared into mine. “Let’s do it. Let’s go to LA.”
“Really?” I whispered, hopeful, pushing away reality. “Are you sure?”
Ben nodded. “I want to. I do. I really want to.”
He kissed me again, and that’s when I felt it. For one brief second, for just a flash, for one skipped beat of his heart, something happened for the very first time. Maybe it was only to himself, but Ben was lying.