Everything Leads to You(25)

“So what is it that you have?” she asks. “For Caroline?”

I glance at Charlotte, hoping she’ll know how to take it from here. I’m not good at this at all. I’m so much better with imaginary people and their imaginary lives.

Charlotte says, “I really don’t know the best way to tell you this, so I’ll just show you what we found.”

She walks into the living room and takes the letter off the coffee table. I can’t even look at Ava, I’m so nervous. Charlotte gives her the envelope and Ava takes out the letter. I go sit on the sofa to wait. I would leave the apartment and walk around the block a few times if I could.

Ava is quiet for a long time, standing in the kitchen. I hear the pages rustling. She must read it several times. Charlotte comes to sit next to me but we don’t say anything.

Finally, I hear Ava walking over to us. She sits on Toby’s orange chair.

“Am I reading this right?”

Charlotte and I nod.

“Is this Clyde . . . ?”

“Jones,” I say. “Yes.”

“Clyde Jones was my grandfather?”

We nod again.

“I know that’s what it looks like but I just keep reading it over and over. There could be another explanation.”

“Yes,” Charlotte says. “There could be.”

“But everything leads to you,” I say. “All the names and the dates of everything.”

“Who’s Lenny?”

“We don’t know.”

Ava studies the letter again. “So Caroline’s mom died a long time ago, but her dad was alive all this time. I guess I always assumed that both of them had died, or else my mom would have told me about them.”

“Maybe Tracey never knew about Clyde,” I say.

“It’s possible,” she says. “How did you find this letter?”

We tell her all about ourselves and our jobs in the movies.

“Wait,” she says. “You design sets for real movies? How old are you?”

“We’re eighteen,” I say.

“I don’t design sets,” Charlotte says. “I make phone calls and run errands. Emi is the genius.”

I roll my eyes even though I really love compliments.

“But even if you’re a genius,” Ava says, “isn’t that a really big job? People go to school for that, right?”

“I don’t technically design them,” I say. “My name probably won’t even be in the credits. My brother got me this unpaid internship a couple years ago and I’ve just sort of worked my way up from there. I’m still an intern and I barely make minimum wage, but my boss let me submit a proposal for this sixteen-year-old’s room and she really loved it, and now they’re just sort of into me for some reason, so I have a next job lined up, too.”

I decide to leave out the unfortunate events of this afternoon. Even I know this night should be about Ava and not about me, and I’m hesitant to mention that her grandfather (admittedly without his knowledge) took part in the destruction of my room and, indirectly, may lead to the early demise of my career, too, if Ginger decides to blacklist me for talking to her the way that I did.

“That is such a cool job,” she says. “I used to take drama in high school, freshman and sophomore year. I loved to stay after rehearsals and watch people paint the sets. I mean, I know it’s not the same thing. These were just high school plays. The sets weren’t even that good, but it was just fun to watch everything come together. Sometimes the backdrops would be double sided. One side would look like a living room or something, and then they would turn it around and it would be a sidewalk scene?” She blushes. “I’m sure it doesn’t compare at all to what you guys do, but it just made me think of it . . .”

She trails off and I realize that she’s embarrassed, and Charlotte must notice it, too, because she rushes in and asks, “Did you act?”

Ava nods. “I started to get really into it, but Tracey made me quit.”

“Why?” I ask.

“She claimed that rehearsals kept me out too late and that my grades were slipping.” She shrugs. “I never tried that hard in school. Drama was the only thing I ever liked.”

“I guess it runs in your family,” I say.

Ava looks down at the letter, as though she’s forgotten about all of it for a moment.