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“No, Beryl, don’t worry about that. I’ll buy your ticket. Do you have an email address?” She rattles off the address, and I make a note in my phone.
“You must be doing okay if you can buy a pricey ticket without blinking an eye,” she says.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Working?”
“I actually just got offered a new job.”
“Doing what?”
“Co-host on a travel show.”
“Oh, my goodness, baby! Nowthat’swhat I like to hear. There’s nothing like acting, honey. Nothing like it. That high… whew! With the cameras on you, with the audience watching… What a thrill. Back when I was onJosie’s Glory,I used to just live for it.”
Yeah, I know.
I know all about my mother’s love for acting because she left me and Trent behind to pursue her career.
“I’m not sure I’ll take the gig,” I mutter.
“Don’t be ridiculous. What’s not to be sure about? Acting’s a real hoot. Boy, I wish I could go back…” I hear a dry whisper as she pulls on her cigarette.
“Yeah, well, it starts soon, and I’m not entirely sold on the idea,” I tell her.
“You better take that job, Olivia. Show biz moves fast. Take it from me, I know. If you get a role, you snap it up, say ‘thank you very much’ and then show up with your makeup flawless, lines memorized. You don’t, there’s a replacement waiting in the wings.”
“Got it,” I grumble, feeling resentful. It’s hard to take advice from a woman who walked out on you when you needed her.
When I hang up, I pull out my computer.
The coffee shop’s Wi-Fi works out here, so I check in on my credit card’s rewards. I have enough miles racked up to cover her flight, so I take ten minutes to book the ticket. I forward the travel itinerary to her email address, then make my way back to Cole’s truck.
It’s strangely comforting to settle into the driver’s seat. The interior smells like him, manly and woodsy. Even the faint hint of engine oil smells good to me today. It reminds me of him, and that’s nice right now.
His tin of gum is in the console. A spare camo hat is lying rumpled on the passenger doormat. In the rearview mirror, I can see the Adventure Bro’s stickers that decorate the back window.
Everything in here is soCole.
I pull out into the road, already excited about seeing him again.
Chapter 16
Cole
The worst part about getting in touch with your feelings, I think, is that it makes you chatty.
Right now, I’m hanging out with Trent behind the Milky Way yurt that Olivia and I have been staying in. He seems fine with sitting here in the chairs we dragged over, doing nothing but throwing rocks at a stand of cactus not far away.
Occasionally he brings up something about new ski bindings he ordered a couple of weeks back.
But I can’t keep my head on ski bindings, even though they sound pretty sick.
I want to talk about his sister.
How I feel so many things for her, and how it’s confusing, and how I need some good, solid advice. A game plan. A tactic.Something.
Our chairs are out of the line of sight to the pavilion, which makes me feel like I can relax without getting swooped in on by Skye. There’s some sort of optional yoga class going on over there, and I can hear the distant sound of a flute trilling.
