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I hold my hand up, stopping his word vomit. “Dad, she’s going to do what she wants. You can’t force her to sell you the house and acres.”
“Well, that’s where you came in. Butter her up, charm her. Hell, take her to dinner, just not at our place. Can’t have you seen with Cassandra Mauer in my dining room.” He laughs a bitter noise that reveals every feeling he has about her.
“She’s not her father, you know,” I say quietly, trying for the first time in my life to come to the defense she so deserves.
“Still doesn’t make her any better. She’s some famous actress, traipsing into town like she needs to make a buck. That family has never fit in here, and it would be ludicrous for her to keep that land.”
Dad isn’t a bad guy. Generally, he’s very loving and compassionate. But too many bad run-ins with Butch have soured him to the entire bloodline, and he’s finding any excuse to bash Cassandra.
“It’s hers, fair and square. I can’t do anything to change that, and I’ve asked once. I’m not going to push it. Her father just died, you’d be kind to remember that.”
Scolding my parents is not something I normally do. We’re Italian, and respecting your elders is of utmost importance. I can count on one hand the number of times my siblings and I have challenged our mom and dad, and it’s usually due to dire circumstances. Like when Alana wanted to go on birth control in high school, though I donotwant to remember that screaming match I listened to from my room.
What I’m saying is we avoid going against their word at all costs. But this thing with Cassandra? My father is wrong, and deep down, he knows it.
“Fine,” Dad grumbles, turning his back because he won’t admit he’s crossed the line.
Part of me knows this isn’t the end of the discussion. That he and Liam will probably get together to continue to bully me into asking her again or go do it themselves. I’m scared of the reaction they’ll garner if Cassandra comes at me like that.
Cassandra. The view out of my parent’s big bay window in the dining room shows an exact picture of the side of her childhood home. Is she inside? Is she livid with me? When will she pack it up and go back to her celebrity lifestyle? What is she really doing here? Because I could see behind her eyes that something else is going on besides Butch’s death.
While family dinner is nice, and I laugh along with everyone else as the same old stories are told and the kids are guilted just the same as we always are, there’s something itching at the back of my mind.
Cassandra was right when she said I’m used to getting everything I want. That not many people tell my family or me no.
The fact that she had is intriguing and dangerous enough to make me want to ask her again, just for the sake of it. Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her lips for one second since I stopped kissing her, and I can’t stop thinking about the sad, distant look she regarded me with when she spoke about the past.
I want to remedy both of those things. Even if it means going against what my family wants.
8
CASSANDRA
Hope Crest in autumn is like one of those perfectly curated Instagram feeds from an influencer, with its orange leaves, cable knit sweaters, and rushing rivers dotted with perfect brick-front shops.
There is an old-fashioned apothecary that sells homeopathic remedies, a pet shop with gourmet dog food, and a rare bookstore I can’t help but duck into to smell the classic pages. Retro thrift stores and a cigar shop line the next bank of storefronts, with restaurants popping up in between. I stop at a tiny I in an alleyway to sip on a chai latte and end up splurging on a scone full of chocolate and espresso beans. When you have no movie role to prep for, life and food seem a little less restrictive.
With caffeine filling my veins, I keep walking, needing some fresh air and a break from the house. In the last week, I got a contractor in who ordered new flooring for the entire one-story ranch, had a plumber come by to replace the rusty pipes in the only full bathroom, and painted both bedrooms a nice creamy white. I also picked out some new, inexpensive furniture on a warehouse website and am so proud of myself.
For the last ten years, I’ve paid people and allowed others to take over the tasks in my life I didn’t have time for. An interior designer, a chef, and a trainer, to name a few. At some point along the way, I started to feel like a child being taken care of and maintained for one purpose: acting in movies. I felt like a puppet, and part of the reason I wanted to do this by myself was to gain some of that control back.
Walking the cobblestone sidewalks in the middle of the day means there is little to no crowd. The summer tourists have all gone back to school and work, anyone who lives in town is probably doing the same, and it’s just the moms and me strolling around out here. I glimpse a mommy group in the park, their little ones flocking like seagulls as they play little games around the blankets and strollers. Smiling to myself, I keep going up toward the million-dollar condos that dot the canal path. The last of summer’s hydrangeas overflow onto the path, the water slowly moving toward where it will meet the river. An older woman sits on her balcony overlooking the path and waves as I cross the small wooden bridge past her backyard.
Houses split off into tiny neighborhoods past downtown, and I spot some kayakers on the river up ahead. That’s when I see the building I don’t realize but should have known I’d been directing my steps toward.
The Hope Crest Playhouse is a huge building on the river, overlooking the beautiful green metal bridge that runs over the water, marking the Pennsylvania and New Jersey state lines. The playhouse is fashioned like a big red barn, except it’s a four-hundred-and-fifty-seat theater that puts on remarkable productions, or so I remember from when I attended them years ago. Going to see shows at the theater was one of the only things my father would take me to do in town, and I was obsessed.
There’s something so magical about a live show, and the Hope Crest theater is so beautiful in its rustic charm. Dad would sometimes spring for us to eat dinner at the restaurant there, on the terrace overlooking the Delaware River, with twinkling fairy lights over our heads.
My dad … he wasn’t all bad. To other people, yes. But to me, he tried to be as gentle as his nature would allow.
Although I was never allowed to star in the shows, not even in high school. Mom thought drama club was … well, she said it would lower my status. And Dad never would have sprung for me to attend classes here, not that I’d asked.
I’m about to cross the bridge to soak in the wind on my face wafting from the water, but I end up in the playhouse parking lot, seeking out the ornate lobby instead. Maybe there is a midday matinee of some sort.
The place is dead as I walk in, but it doesn’t stop the little thrill of something I can’t name from shivering down my spine.
Red carpets, chandeliers, an old-fashioned check-in counter with ornate carvings, and a popcorn machine that looks like it belongs in the nineteen sixties. Then there is the full bar on the other side of the room and a banquet of doors looking out to the patio, restaurant, and river.
