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“You—what?”
“I mean, he has an actual problem, don’t get me wrong. He’s always trying to make a break for it. But he’s also a soft touch, and I knew you’d do the right thing and bring him back.”
I finished my chip as I processed this. For a second I tried to figure out if I was angry about it, then decided I wasn’t. Chloe had used the dog subterfuge for good, and now that I was here, and seeing where I was going to be staying tonight, I was grateful for it. “Well… thanks?”
“I know a mom fight when I see one,” she said, setting down the chips and rooting around in the basket, finally coming up with an apple. “It’s our most complex and primal relationship.” I raised my eyebrows at that and she laughed. “Sorry, my psych major is showing.”
“Psych major?”
Chloe nodded, looking proud and a little nervous. “Yeah, I just started at UNLV. Just part-time, though.”
“You do have a very small child,” I pointed out.
“Two of them, even. You’ll meet Astrid in the morning.” Chloe looked at the apple critically, set it down, and pulled out a chocolate bar. “Much better.”
She held the bar out to me, and I broke myself off a square. She grinned at me, and I was struck again by just how young she looked. “Um…,” I started, cramming a piece of chocolate in my mouth to get my courage up.
“What?”
“Can I ask—how old you are? Sorry if that’s rude.”
Chloe laughed. “I’m twenty-four. I don’t think it’ll be rude for fifteen years or so.”
I nodded, and broke myself off another piece of chocolate. Gillian had been twenty-four when she had me. And even though my dad had always talked about how young they had both been, I’d always shrugged this off. Twenty-four seemed adult. But looking at Chloe now, it was hitting me for the first time what that had meant for my dad. For Gillian.
Needing to think about something else for just a moment, I nodded back toward the main house. “Do you think Russell will be okay? Is he in big trouble?”
Chloe grimaced. “Russell normally never gets in trouble. He’s the kid Wylie worries about the least. Not like Montana. She and Wylie could probably have a fight in shorthand by this point. But Russell and Wylie… it’s new to them. I bet they’re not having a fun conversation right now.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Something happened at the festival. Right before Wylie’s set—I saw the two of them arguing. And then after…” She sighed. “I don’t know what happened. But they were both upset. And then we couldn’t find Russell—he’d disappeared. He texted Connor that he wasn’t coming back with us, and he was going to LA on his own. But we didn’t know how, or where he was… Wylie was not happy. But he also refused to tell us what they were fighting about.”
I nodded, thinking back to the times that Russell had alluded to the friend he’d come to Silverspun with, the one who he’d been fighting with—who was, it turned out, his dad.
“And then a few hours ago,” Chloe went on, “Connor got another text from him. He said that he was okay and not to worry. That things were good with him, with like eight smiley faces. That did not go over well on our end, let me tell you. But then soon after that, Russell was calling Wylie and saying he was about to be arrested and needed help.” She pushed herself off the counter and shrugged. “So all in all, I’d say they have some things to work out.”
I turned this all over in my mind, realizing Russell must have texted Connor while I was in the bathroom at the Silver Standard. Russell had texted his brother, told him things were good, texted a row of smiley faces… because he was happy. Because of me. Because things had been going so well.…
It wasn’t real, Didi reminded me.
It was real, Katy insisted. Maybe the details were a little fudged. But everything that mattered was true. And you know it.
I suddenly wished that Russell would have told me the truth. So I could have known everything real about him, and he wouldn’t have felt the need to keep any of it from me. I could have actually known about his parents, his stepparents, his half-siblings, this crazy circus life. What it had been like to grow up like this, and if he played any instruments, and if his dad liked his Fun Facts as much as I had. The real him.
Chloe finished her chocolate and clapped her hands together. “So! Let’s get you settled in.” She walked out of the kitchen, and I grabbed my sparkling water and hurried after her, pulling my canvas bag over my shoulder.
“Everything should be stocked,” she said as she walked down the hallway, which was dotted with framed photographs on both sides. Central Park at night, the Brooklyn Bridge, Russell—
I stopped short and took a step closer to the photograph on the wall. Russell was standing on a New York sidewalk. He was wearing a suit—a dark jacket and pants, white shirt, no tie, his hair sharply parted. He looked so handsome it took my breath away. He was in profile, looking up at something. It seemed like maybe he was underneath a Broadway marquee? He looked so happy—just suffused with joy.
And I realized that I recognized it—it was how he’d looked for a lot of tonight. When we’d been happy. Together.
“Darcy?”
“Yeah,” I called back. I pulled myself away from the picture, and continued down the hallway, past a framed poster of the famous Simon & Garfunkel concert in Central Park.
“Bathroom,” Chloe said, opening a door and flipping on a light switch. “There should be everything you need in there. Towels, products, hair dryer…” She walked to the door just off the bathroom and opened it. “You can take whichever bedroom you want; they both should have sheets—”
She turned on the light and groaned. The room was bigger than my bedroom back home—upholstered headboard, fluffy-looking gray duvet cover, an explosion of pillows. And right in the middle of the bed, taking up most of it, was Tidbit.
He looked at us with his huge eyes, unimpressed, like he was wondering just why we were disturbing him.
