Page 27 of How to Kiss a Movie Star
Audrey
IsmileasFlint’smother, Hannah, lowers herself into the chair on the other side of the long patio table next to the house. “How was the burger?” she asks as I polish off the last bite.
I pick up my napkin and wipe my fingers. “Honestly, it might be the best I’ve ever had. What was so different about it?”
“Oh, tons of things, probably,” Hannah answers. “Lennox is always trying something new. But I’m pretty sure the truffle butter is what made it so good this time.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realize that what’s happening right now is a very big deal.
I’m having dinner at Flint Hawthorne’s house.
With Flint Hawthorne’s family.
Even if I’m not particularly wowed by celebrity, I’m not so clueless as to ignore how much these circumstances would blow away the average thirty-year-old woman.
Ugh. Thirty.
I’m still not used to the sound of it.I mean, my sisters tell me I’ve been sixty-five since my seventh birthday—that I have an old-person vibe. But having an old-person vibe is very different than having an old-person body. And my thirtieth birthday has sent me into a spiral of worry about that very thing.
I’m a scientist. I know how these things work. I know the ovaries in my body are already holding all the eggs they’re ever going to hold, and every year that passes makes those eggs less and less viable.
Don’t get me started on how unfair it is that men can father children until they’re ninety-five as long their equipment is still working. But women? Nope. We get to have it all, sure. The careers. The education. The leadership positions. But if we want to have a family? Well, better fall in love before you hit thirty-five.No pressure. It’s not like it takes a long time to get a PhD. It’s not like your life when you’re in grad school is basically nonexistent. There’s time! Women can have it all!
Sometimes I feel like screaming.
Womencan’thave it all. Not without making some major sacrifices. Which is a problem because Idowant it all. I love being a scientist, but I think I’d also love being a wife. Maybe even a mom if my eggs can hang on long enough.
I look around Flint’s backyard, where his siblings are sitting, eating, bouncing babies. Olivia, his sister, runs Stonebrook Farm with Perry, so she’s managing to do both. And Tatum—I think she’s the chef? Maybe it’s just about timing instead of being an either/or situation.
And maybe my sisters are right when they argue that if I spent more time with people instead of animals, my prospects wouldn’t look so bleak.
Hannah looks over my shoulder and smiles as she points. “Look. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
I turn and see a couple of white squirrels running across the grass beside the pool before darting up the trunk of a nearby tree.
“They’re pretty fun, right?” I shake my head. “Or, not fun, I guess. Not for everyone else. They’re just squirrels. I know they’re just squirrels. It would be so silly for people to care—”
She reaches over and touches my hand. “Honey, there’s nothing wrong with being passionate about your work. I make goat's milk soap, and I treat my goats like they’re my children. My kids tease me all the time for it, but it makes me happy. And it’s good soap, too.”
Flint drops into a chair across from his mother and directly beside me. “Itisgood soap,” he says. “I ordered it in bulk when I was living in LA.”
Hannah rolls her eyes. “You know I’d have just sent you a box. You always had to be so official, with Joni placing orders.”
“If I’d had you send me a box, you wouldn’t have let me pay for them.”
“It’s just soap, baby.”
“It’s just money,Mom,” Flint says, his eyes full of warmth. “And you know I like to support the farm.”
Hannah looks at Flint for a long moment, and I get the sense they’re having a wordless conversation. About money? About soap? About the farm? I don’t know these people well enough to judge.
Hannah finally chuckles. “As if the soap really matters after everything else you’ve done.”
My eyes move from mother to son, then back again. Thereissomething going on here, and I find myself desperately curious to know what it is.
Flint rubs a hand across his face as he looks away, but I don’t miss the tips of his ears turning slightly pink.
“Tell me, Audrey,” Hannah says, steering the conversation back to me. “What is it that makes you so passionate about your work?”
