Everything Leads to You

On the short drive back I tell her what happened.

“All I want is to go home and sleep but I have so much to do,” I say.

I park in Toby’s spot but I’m too wrecked to do anything else.

Charlotte reaches for the keys, turns the engine off. She gets out and walks around to my side, opens my door.

“Come on,” she says. “I have to reply to some e-mails and then I’ll help you work on something. You wanted to fill those jars for the kitchen, right? We can do that together.”

I force myself out of the car and back into the apartment, where Charlotte tells me how great the table looks and the hanging contraption, too.

“Morgan’s actually coming through for you,” she says, which is the nicest thing she’s said about her in over a year.

I nod.

Then she adds, “I wonder what she wants.”

As Charlotte plugs in her laptop and heads to the bathroom, I pull flour and beans and dried cherries out of Toby’s cupboards and find a flat of mason jars we bought. I’m taking the hinges and doors off the kitchen cabinets and lining the shelves with jars to provide color and light.

I know I should be rinsing out the jars but I just can’t bring myself to do anything. I keep thinking of Ava saying Don’t you want to kiss me? I’ve been wanting a moment like that, wishing for it, but I never imagined there would be anger behind it. Never thought she’d wield my life at me like some kind of weapon.

And I didn’t think I’d say anything that would hurt her as much as I hurt her tonight.

Charlotte comes out of the bathroom, sees me standing here not doing the simple things I’m supposed to do. She leans against the counter next to me.

“I barely know her,” I say. “But still.”

“Come here,” she says, and gives me a hug. I hang out for a second, rest my chin on her shoulder.

When I’ve had enough I say, “Okay, I’ll wash the jars out,” and she lets me go.





Chapter Twenty-one



Almost a week passes and I don’t hear anything from Ava. As she spends her days in rehearsals, I immerse myself in the messy lives of the make-believe. Juniper and her plants and her longing. George and his coral-colored melancholy. I buy things and borrow things and mend them. I work with Charlotte and Morgan and then lose Morgan to The Agency and Charlotte to Rebecca, who needs her more and more for all the urgent, last-minute tasks.

Then, on Saturday night at our last official tech meeting before filming begins, Charlotte calls Ava to schedule a rehearsal. I cross the room away from her so that I don’t have to listen to them talking, busy myself with sorting the day’s receipts and checking tasks off my novel-length to-do list. Aside from a couple finishing touches, Juniper’s apartment is complete, which is a good thing because we start filming the day after tomorrow. I’ve been working on our changes to George’s set now, which is much more difficult than Juniper’s because I could work at Toby’s apartment whenever I wanted to, but I need to do most of the preparation for Frank and Edie’s house without inhabiting it.

I’m checking off “frame photographs” when Charlotte taps me on the shoulder, hands me the phone, and walks away.

“Hello?” I ask.

“I want to apologize,” Ava says.

Is it possible to get over a voice like this? Someday, I’d like to be able to hear her speak a sentence on the phone without it making me want to hang up, get in my car, and drive as many miles as it takes to kiss her.

“You don’t have to,” I manage.

“Please accept my apology,” she says, impossibly raspy and sweet. “You were right to think I was acting crazy. And you did nothing to deserve any of the things I said that night.”

“All right,” I say. “It’s accepted.”

“I also want to tell you that I haven’t been at my best.”

I nod, but she can’t see me.

“You met me during a difficult time,” she says.

“I think I’m partially responsible for that.”

“Maybe,” she says. “But you’re also responsible for making it better.”

I don’t ask her what she means by that, because I’m afraid she’ll talk about the money, or that she knows a little more about her mother, or that she’s only an announcement away from instant celebrity if she ever chooses to reveal that she’s a descendant of an actor well known for having no descendants. In other words, I’m afraid that it would have everything to do with what I wanted for her, and nothing at all to do with me.

“I’ll see you soon,” she says. “I can’t believe we shoot on Monday.”

“Yeah” I say. “Everyone’s really excited about you.”

“I hope it’s still okay with you. That I’m in it.”