Never forever calico cov.., p.5
Never Forever (Calico Cove), page 5
The tension between Mom and Gran was so tight it hurt. I looked between them, waiting for one of the women in my life to tell me what the hell was going on.
“She needs to know. They both do,” Mom finally acknowledged Annie, who shrank into her chair.
“Know what?” I asked. They still didn’t answer. “Know what?!” I screamed.
“Your father took most of our money.”
“Cecelia,” Gran moaned. “Don’t put that on her.”
“She needs to hear the truth,” Mom shot back.
“Took our money how? What does that mean?”
“Off-shore accounts, shell companies,” Mom shrugged. “He stole it.”
I had no idea what those words meant, but I understood the expression on her face. Desperation.
“The curse,” Annie breathed.
“There’s no curse,” I cried, looking at my sister. I knew if she believed she was doomed to have her heart broken, she would hide behind her books for the rest of her life.
“Well, your father was certainly disappointing,” Gran said. She ate the other cucumber.
“Every last penny has gone into your vocal coach, your acting coach, the photographer for your headshots,” Mom said.
“Wait…what?” I looked at Gran for confirmation and her beautiful wrinkly face was pulled taut. She nodded.
Oh my God. Mom had gambled. On me. I was sick.
“You’re taking this job,” Mom said. “And we are all going to hope and pray this pilot gets picked up. For all our sakes. Am. I. Understood?”
I looked at my sister, gripping the edges of her book. And Gran with her housecoat and joints who married a man who did worse than just disappoint her. Mom, angry at me, sure, but under that, completely stressed out.
This wasn’t just about me. This was about us. The Piedmont women.
I had to save us.
I lifted my chin and smiled the way Mom liked best. With confidence. Sparkle.
“Mom! This is great. I’m really excited. Of course, I’m going to take the part.”
Later That Night
Matt: Hey, you never texted back. Why was your mom freaking out?
Me: I got a part.
Matt: Fuck yeah! What is it?
Me: It’s a TV show.
Matt: Holy shit! That’s awesome. I knew it. You’re totally going to be a star.
Me: I leave really soon.
Matt: Oh right. Where are you going?
Me: Vancouver. They do a lot of filming there.
Matt:…
Matt:…
Matt: What about school and stuff?
Me: I’m not going. Mom is going to talk to the principal. Let him know about my schedule. I’ll be tutored on set.
Matt:…
Matt:…
Matt: Will I see you before you go?
Me: No. I have to go to Portland tomorrow. My mom wants me to work with my acting coach before I fly out in a few weeks. She says it’s important I do this right.
Matt: No doubt.
Me: We can still text, right?
Matt: Sure. Absolutely.
I stared down at the phone, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard.
I wanted to tell him I really didn’t want to go to Vancouver. I wanted to stay in Calico Cove and start my sophomore year with him. I wanted to go to his track meets. I wanted to go to the formal dance at the end of October. With him.
But it all felt too big. I was going one direction and he was going the other. I was going far away and he was staying here.
And I didn’t know for how long.
Me: I’ll see you when I get back?
Matt: Yeah. Of course. But do you know when you’ll be back?
Me: Not really. Have an awesome season though. You’ve been running so much I know you’re going to win everything.
Matt: Thanks.
I started to write I’ll miss you, but I deleted it.
6
When Matt Didn’t Give Up
Matt
To say sophomore year sucked was an understatement. The only highlight was I made the varsity team. I had a growth spurt and got a few inches taller, so Coach wanted me to train for the decathlon events.
Which was fine by me because it was all about the work.
Lifting, running, throwing, jumping, lifting even more.
But everything else felt empty because Carrie wasn’t there to see it.
We texted, but it was hard because of the time difference. Like we couldn’t really have a conversation. It was mostly just updates.
Me: How is everybody on set? Are they nice to you?
The next day at some point I would get back a text.
Carrie: Yes. Everyone is really nice. How is school?
Sometimes when she got busy or I got busy we wouldn’t text for days.
Then, I don’t know why, maybe just to be mean, or because I wondered if she would even care, I let her know about Stacey.
Me: Stacey Brown asked me to the Formal.
Carrie: Isn’t she a junior?
Me: Yeah.
Carrie: You going?
Me: Sure. Why not?
Carrie: No reason. I didn’t think you liked her, that’s all.
Me: I don’t really know her.
Carrie: Have fun! [heart face emoji]
I didn’t have fun. Stacey kept trying to kiss me all night and the truth was I just wasn’t into it or her.
I thought about it. Like, just kiss her and get it over with. I was going to be sixteen and I hadn’t kissed a single girl.
But I only wanted to kiss one girl.
Carrie didn’t return my texts after that for weeks.
It felt like being adrift in the ocean. Like we’d taken the lines off the boat and never started the engine to take us back home.
My head would tell me to let her go. Let, whatever it was we had, go.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just kept texting her until she answered.
Carrie: So are you and Stacey a couple now?
Me: No. We didn’t really get along.
Carrie: Oh. That sucks.
Me: Not really. She’s dating Dillon Le Coeur now.
Carrie: Do you see Annie at all?
Me: Yeah. I wait to go to class until she gets into the school most mornings. And I check on her at lunch. I told you I would. No bullies. Promise.
Carrie: Thanks. I miss her.
Me: She misses you too. But we’re all super pumped about the show getting picked up. HBO BABY! Everyone knows that’s where all the quality shows go.
Carrie: Sometimes I wonder if Mom’s ever going to let me come home.
Me: You’re not coming home for Christmas?
Carrie: My shooting schedule is too tight to come home.
Me: Oh. Okay. Well, Merry Christmas.
Carrie: Merry Christmas. Think of me!
I did. All the time. It got harder when the show aired in May, only months after they shot the pilot.
She took my breath away the first time I saw her on television. Dad let out a low whistle.
“She’s something else, that is for sure,” he’d said when the show was over.
Everyone involved in the project had been so confident it was going to be a hit, the entire crew had stayed in Vancouver shooting the next six episodes.
I saw it on Reddit first. Someone on set had filed a complaint against Roger Towson, star of the new hit TV drama Family Line.
It was Carrie’s show.
School was almost done and I was sitting at the kitchen table reading how Roger Towson had groped his make-up lady and threatened to have her fired if she told anyone. Apparently, the woman had recorded him with her phone and now it was all over social media.
Guys didn’t get away with doing shit like that anymore. Women fucking called them out on that every time. It didn’t matter who you were, or how famous.
Roger was going to get fired from the show.
Which meant…Family Line was going to be cancelled? That’s what the Reddit thread indicated.
“What you reading there, boyo?” Dad came in, buttoning up his uniform over his white undershirt.
“I think Carrie’s show is going to be cancelled. Apparently, the star is some kind of pervert douchebag. You don’t think he would have messed with Carrie, do you?”
“Hmm.” Dad filled a plate with eggs I’d made and sat down beside me. “Doubtful. Carrie’s a star on that show. Anyone can see it, just in the first few episodes. Men who take advantage don’t often go for the powerful. They like to prey on the weak.”
“That’s fucked up,” I said.
“It is.”
“You think…you think she might come home?”
Dad looked at me and sighed. “Remember when I told you not to get involved with the Piedmont girls?”
“I’m not involved. I’m asking a question.”
Dad shoveled some eggs in his mouth and looked at me with eyes that knew me down to my socks.
“I’m not!” I shouted, and took my half full plate to the sink and left for school.
Two weeks later
A heat wave rolled through town. The sky bleached white and the water turned a deep blue. The beaches were packed and the line for ice cream at Scoops was out the door, every day. The city was actually paying me this summer, I had a uniform and everything and I took my job seriously.
I was double-checking the dock lines when I heard my name.
“Matt!”
That voice. Her voice. I would always know that voice, deep down in my gut. Even if I lived to be a hundred years old.
I turned and she was running down the docks toward me. Her red hair was tied back in a ponytail. She looked different than she had last summer. More grown up. Taller. Thinner. Like she’d been peeling away her childhood.
I beamed when I saw her. I could feel my cheeks, I was smiling so hard.
She stopped right in front of me, her breath panting. Her cheeks flushed. Eyes…God, her eyes.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I said. It was the only thing I could say, really.
I missed you.
You’re so fucking beautiful.
I watched your show on repeat.
I haven’t kissed anyone all year. Have you?
“I’m back.” She rocked back on her feet, making the skirt of her stripped blue dress wave. Her shoes were red and so were her fingernails. She looked…not fancy. Expensive. I felt stupid in my too-big baby poo green uniform. I felt stupid in general.
“You are.”
“You got taller.”
You got even more beautiful.
“I did.”
The smile dropped from her face. Because this was uncomfortable. Weird. I was making it weird.
“How long are you home for?” I asked, forcing myself to act like a normal person.
“A while. The show-”
“Got cancelled. I saw online. So you’re staying? In Calico Cove. Cool.” The words poured out of me. I was not being any less weird than when I was silent.
“For a while, anyway,” she said. I wanted to ask what that meant. A while? Like a week? Where was she going? Another show? “I’m going to head out to the bandshell. Probably. Tomorrow. You know, just to see it again.”
“Yeah, you should.” I opened my mouth to say more, but then her mother walked up behind her pulling a suitcase on two wheels. It clanked over the boards of the dock.
“Matthew,” her mother said. Cold as ice.
“Mrs. Sullivan,” I nodded. “Let me help you with that.”
I took Carrie’s bag and brought it on board the ferry. I rolled it to their usual spot at the bow, nodded at them, like the servant Mr. Piedmont thought my dad was.
Idiot.
But Carrie’s beautiful lips were curved into a smile that her mother couldn’t see.
I went up to the helm where my dad was shaking his head at me.
“You going to say something about them being cursed?” I challenged him.
“No, son,” he said with a sigh. “Those days, I think, are over.”
I could see Carrie and her mom at the bow. Spray filling the air around them with sparkles. Carrie looked out over the ocean like she couldn’t get enough of it.
When she wasn’t looking at the ocean, she looked back up at the helm where I was working.
Three times.
I knew because I counted each time.
Of course, it rained the next day. Pouring rain. So hard there was absolutely no reason for Carrie to head out to the bandshell.
But there was no way I wasn’t going to go and at least see.
Dad wasn’t working so I took the truck instead of running.
She won’t be there, I told myself the whole drive over. There’s no way.
Except…there she was. Standing under the overhang of the bandshell.
The rain was coming down so hard, I could barely see her, but she was there. It was like time had stopped.
The nights were still cool in early June and the rain made it cooler, so she wore a big hoodie that hung so far down over her hips, it looked like she had nothing on underneath.
Get a grip, I told my dick.
When I pulled into the area beside the bandshell, she lifted her hand to shield her eyes from my headlights. I quickly turned them off.
I parked and ran through the rain to meet her under the overhang.
“It’s cats and dogs,” I laughed, shaking out my hair. “How long-”
She kissed me. Up on her tiptoes, she pressed her cool, closed lips to mine. She leaned back before I could even register the kiss.
My first fucking kiss.
“What…” was the brilliance that came out of my mouth.
“I wanted to do that all last summer,” she said in a rush. “I was standing here waiting for you and telling myself if you actually showed up, I’d do it.”
“You thought I wouldn’t show up?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, and I got the sense she wasn’t nearly as confident as she seemed. “Sometimes people don’t show up.”
“I’ll show up,” I said. “I’ll always show up.”
It was a vow. A serious one.
I won’t leave. That would be the most solemn vow I could make her.
I’ll never do what your dad did to you. What my mom did to me. I will show up. I will not leave. I will stay.
“Okay,” she said with a shaky smile, and all I wanted in the world was to see her smile full of her regular joy. Her giant emotions. Her sparkle.
“I missed you,” I said, and it felt like a confession. “This past year-”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “It’s over and I’m staying. I already told Mom and she…it doesn’t matter. We don’t have to talk about any of it. We can just be here now.”
“Okay,” I said. “Then let’s just be here. Now.”
“What will we do?” she asked with a look in her eye that made me crazed.
I put my hand at her waist and pulled her close to me. Her eyes went wide.
“I’m going to kiss you,” I told her. I didn’t know who this version of me was. Bold and confident. It was the guy I wanted to be. The kind of guy who would be with a girl like Carrie Piedmont.
“Yeah?” she asked, the sparkle coming in full force.
“A lot. I’m going to kiss you a lot. Is that okay?”
“Yes, Matt. That’s okay.”
She threw her arms around my neck and I thought, as I pressed my lips to hers, that I could spend the rest of my life making sure she sparkled.
Carrie
“Where have you been out in this weather?”
I shut the front door behind me. My hair was drenched. My hoodie weighed ten thousand pounds. I was shivering from the cold, but I was also so completely turned on from all that kissing that I was pulsing, hot and achy between my legs.
My mother looked up from the sofa, her phone in her hand.
“Just seeing some old friends, like I told you,” I said, hoping I sounded casual.
I didn’t feel casual. I felt desperate. Urgent. Like I wouldn’t be able to breathe or eat until I saw Matt again.
I knew I’d liked him last summer. I knew I’d missed him this past year. I knew he’d gone to the Formal with another girl, but now I knew he hadn’t kissed anyone all year.
I was his first kiss. He told me that. He was my first kiss.
And my like…hundredth. We’d really made up for lost time at the bandshell. I didn’t know people could kiss like that. Holding each other so tight I could feel the beat of his heart. His chest when he breathed.
His… dick, hard against my stomach. I mean…it was amazing.
I wanted to shout and scream and giggle. I wanted to tell Mom I made out with Matthew Sullivan and for the first time in my life I wanted to have sex. Like I understood the need for sex. It was physical and demanding and all I wanted was Matt.
