Everything Leads to You(28)

And then, in the middle of everything, when it seems that soon we’ll resume our movie and continue the night, Ava says, “The clock.”

She points at Toby’s sunburst.

“Is that time right?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Then I have to go.”

I look at Charlotte, hoping she’ll have a plan for what we’ll do next, why we’ll need to see one another again, but Ava is already halfway across the living room.

Her eyes are still pink, her face soft from crying, but when she pauses in the doorway to say good-bye, she looks like Clyde Jones—the cocky, crooked smile, the charming glimmer in her eye.

“Thanks,” she says, “for finding me. Not everyone would have done all that.” And then she disappears into the night.





Chapter Seven



The next morning, I knock on the ajar door of Ginger’s office.

She looks up from her desk, not terribly thrilled to see me.

“I’ve come to apologize,” I tell her, and she nods and waves me in.

I have a speech prepared—Charlotte and I rehearsed over coffee this morning—and I recite it. It involves a little bit of groveling, a little bit of flattery, some self-deprecation, and a fair amount of regret. It ends with a concession: “Though it isn’t what I had envisioned for the room, it is a beautiful piece of furniture for such an important scene, and I’m sure that it will have mass appeal without sacrificing style.”

“I’m glad you feel that way.”

“I do,” I say. “I also have a couple of changes I would like to make to the rest of the set in order to make this new direction cohesive.”

“I’m listening,” she says.

“First of all, I don’t think the poster works anymore. Now that it’s a more polished room, I think we should go for more professional-looking wall art. I was thinking of this framed Miles Davis poster.” I show her an image on my phone.

“Yes, I approve. What else?”

“The music stand,” I say, trying not to sound bitter. “I know we both love it, but—”

“The music stand stays. Emi, I know you feel like I changed your entire concept for the room but I didn’t. We can strike a balance between stylized and naturalistic here. You can pull that off. Take the afternoon to make the changes you want, and I’ll go down to look at the end of the day.”

So I take the afternoon.

As I’m going back through the room, thinning out the stacks of sheet music, rearranging the decorative objects, I keep thinking of Ava’s exit. She disappeared as quickly as my sofa did, and with barely more warning. I thought that we would at least have her phone number, but Charlotte told me it was blocked, which means that it’s up to her to get in touch with us if she ever wants to see us again. And why would she? We’re just two random girls who happened to discover something that belonged to her. Now she has the letter and if she chooses to learn more she can. She doesn’t need us. I try to talk myself into feeling glad that we got to play a small part in something so interesting. Something that was part of real life.

But, self-delusion aside, I can’t handle the thought of this being over.

So when my phone buzzes in my pocket, even though she never had my number and it would be almost impossible, I am overwhelmed by an irrational, electric hope that it’s her.

“Hello?” I say.

“Emi?” a woman says. I don’t know who she is, but her voice doesn’t have the raspiness of Ava’s, and I feel stupid for even hoping. “This is Rebecca. We met the other day. I’m Morgan’s friend.”

“Yeah, of course,” I say. “Hi.”

“I’m calling to offer you a job.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’d love to tell you about it if you have time.”

“Sure,” I say. “That sounds great. When did you have in mind?”

“Five o’clock today, if possible.”

I take a step back and look over the room. It looks pretty good, and I think it’s what Ginger wants it to be.

“Yeah,” I say. “I actually just finished work for the day, so I’m free.”

~

I meet Rebecca and her boyfriend, Theo, at a café in Silver Lake. They’re sitting outside against these brilliant blue tiles I love, drinking matching cappuccinos.