This Is What Happy Looks Like(31)

“Okay,” Mom said, grabbing her keys from on top of a pile of coupons. “Will you be sure to feed Bagel too?”

Ellie nodded and waved a soapy hand, letting out a breath when she heard the door slam shut again. She leaned against the sink with a sigh, daunted by the state of the house. When she turned her head, Bagel was sitting by her foot, tail wagging furiously.

“This is going to be a disaster,” she told the dog, who only smiled a big doggie smile and continued to wave his white-tipped tail.

By the time she finished the dishes, cleared some of the debris from the counters, tossed the ball for Bagel, and fed him a meal only marginally less appetizing than the dinner options in the fridge, there were just a few more minutes to shower and change and inspect the place before Graham was meant to arrive.

Upstairs, Ellie was about to throw on her usual jeans, but instead chose a green sundress her mom had recently bought for her, ripping off the tags with her teeth. She usually hated to wear green; with her red hair, she worried it made her look like a Christmas ornament, but as she stood in front of the mirror, she realized it looked better than she would have thought. Not exactly up to Hollywood standards, but it would have to do.

With two minutes to spare, she headed back downstairs, running through her checklist again. She wasn’t really expecting him to be on time; boys were always late, and her limited knowledge of movie stars suggested they would probably be even worse. There would still be time to tidy up, hide any embarrassing childhood photos, take down a few of the lobster knickknacks that littered the house.

But as she walked back into the kitchen, her heart fell.

There were no more newspapers on the counters, no more silly magnets on the fridge; she’d hidden Bagel’s squeaky toys in a cabinet and the dishes were all put away. The house looked nice, maybe as nice as it ever would. But standing there, seeing it as if through Graham’s eyes, Ellie understood that it would never look nice enough.

It was small and cluttered and shabby. The twelve years they’d lived there showed in the scuffed walls and the scarred wooden floor, the thin film of dust that coated every framed photo. The knob on the kitchen sink had been broken for so long they almost forgot there was something wrong with it, and it was hard to know when the white refrigerator had turned beige.

Her eyes darted around the room, and she pushed down a wave of alarm. How could she have thought this would be a good idea? He wasn’t just some guy; he was a movie star. His bathroom was probably bigger than their kitchen, his bedroom bigger than their whole house. Ellie had never been to California, but she imagined everything there as sleek and new, about a million miles away from this ramshackle place, the paint worn by the salt from the ocean, the porch sagging from years of wear.

She reached for her phone, thinking she’d e-mail him and change their plans. The idea of going into town and facing all those photographers was intimidating, but could it be worse than this? Having Graham Larkin stand on the cracked linoleum floor of their kitchen, eating leftovers out of their chipped bowls?

She knew there would be consequences if her picture ended up in the papers. Her mom would be furious, but it was more than that too: it was the possibility that someone might put two and two together. Their whole existence here was built upon a secret, and it would take only one mistake to ruin everything.

But behind her, the dog was drinking out of the bathroom toilet, and on the windowsill, the air conditioner groaned loudly before chugging to a stop.

Ellie bit her lip and stared at the phone in her hand.

But it was too late.

With a sharp bark, Bagel went crashing down the hallway, and a split second later, the sound of the doorbell rang out through the tiny house.

From: [email protected]

Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 7:24 PM

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: if you get lost…

I’m on my way. (And trust me, I’m not lost.)

Chapter 10

For the past hour, Graham had been wandering the streets of Henley. When he told Ellie he needed to run back to his hotel and check on a few things, he’d been lying. He just wanted to give her some time to get ready. The moment the dinner invitation had slipped out of her mouth, he could see that a part of her had wanted to take it back.

He should have told her not to worry, right then and there, as they stood at the top of Sunset Drive, the late-afternoon light coming through the leaves in a way that made the freckles on her nose stand out. He wished he’d told her that he’d grown up in a house not much bigger than hers, where the bathroom tiles were crumbling, and the basement smelled funny, and the stairs conducted a chorus of creaks and groans each time someone had the nerve to climb them.

He should have told her that his parents still lived there, only now, when he came to visit, his mother prepared the house as if for a stranger, some visiting dignitary or long-lost relative who might be impressed by flowers on the windowsill or neatly folded towels, all meant to disguise the true nature of the place, to make it unrecognizable when all Graham really wanted—all he was ever there for in the first place—was the exact opposite: to find his way home again.

But the words had failed him. He’d become so accustomed to keeping those sorts of thoughts to himself that he no longer seemed capable of sharing them at all.

In town, he walked with his head down, moving past small groups of tourists examining the menus outside of local restaurants. At the end of the street, the movie set was silent, the hulking trailers dark and empty. They’d long since wrapped for the day, but even so, Graham knew Mick would still be buzzing around somewhere, going over the script or checking on the equipment before tomorrow’s scene, which would be their first filming out on the water.