Page 49 of The Making of Mila and Blake
Tori and I exchange a hopeless look. Even without knowledge of his diagnosis, she still senses my concern over Popeye’s stubborn ways. I could wrestle his hands out of that sink and he wouldstillfight back.
“We’re going outside, okay?” I tell him, carefully approaching from behind and touching the back of his shoulder. He still jolts despite the delicacy of my hand, then cranes his neck painfully slowly toward me until his gray eyes find mine. “Will you be okay around the house on your own? Do you need anything?”
“I need you,” he croaks, “to go outside without worrying about me.”
“You could always tan with us, Mr. Harding!” Tori pipes up from the other end of the kitchen, and Popeye manages a shaky chuckle.
“I don’t think you’d like to see me frying under the sun, sweetheart,” he says.
As the tension in the kitchen lightens, I press a dainty kiss to Popeye’s cheek. “Just yell from the window if you need me.”
With some resistance, I leave him to carry on with whatever household chores he wishes to prove he can still do, and Tori and I head out of the side door into the sizzling afternoon. But not without grabbing the remainder of my chicken wrap.
“The best spot is over here,” I say. I lead Tori through the grass toward the makeshift sunbathing patio I’ve put together, complete with whatever mismatched deck chairs I scavenged from around the ranch and a potted plant that I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten to water this week. It looks so sad.
I spread my hands wide with gusto. “Welcome to the Harding Estate tanning lounge! It’s not quite a rooftop pool in Malibu, but. . .”
Tori shakes her head in commiseration. “This is so tragic.”
“Hey! These are the only resources I had!”
“That chair has a crooked leg,” she says dryly, pointing to a rotting wooden chair. “And it’ll probably give me an infection if I take one step closer to it.”
I can’t suppress my laughter. I knowthis sucks, but this little tanning spot has been paradise to me. I threw it together the day after Popeye broke the news of his Huntington’s disease, and I escape to it whenever things get too solemn inside the house. The discussions around Popeye’s future and the risk that Dad and Sheri have of inheriting the condition are conversations I find too emotional to be part of, so I bask in the sun instead. I have decided to wait until Dad makes up his mind before I make any decisions of my own. If he goes ahead with the testing and finds he doesn’t carry the gene, then there’s my answer too. But if hehasinherited the gene or simply decides not to get tested, only thenwill I need to face this myself instead of burying my head in the sand.
“Just sit down and relax, Tori. Enjoy the sunshine!”
I whip off my clothes to reveal the bikini beneath and sprawl out on a rickety old lawn chair with holes in the mesh. Reclining, I close my eyes and feel the tantalizing heat of the sunshine against my skin.
Tori sighs and I sense her sit down on the chair next to me. “Thanks,” she says, and I open one eye to glance at her. “For not being weird around me.”
“Why would I be weird around you?”
“Some girls would be,” she says, twiddling her thumbs in her lap, but I quickly realize she isn’t just nervous. She’s fearful, worried of rejection. “You guys won’t shut me out of the room when we’re getting ready together, right?”
“Oh, Tori.” I sit up and reach for her hands, wishing I could shake the distress out of her. “Of course not. Things are still exactly the same.”
“That’s why I said thanks.” Her rigid shoulders relax and she squeezes my hand between hers, drawing her legs up onto the chair and crossing them. “This week has just been. . . super confusing.”
“Can I ask something?”
Tori nods and our similar expressions offer the most earnest of looks I think we have ever shared. Life can be fun, itshouldbe fun, but there is also a time to be vulnerable. Embracing our raw emotions is what makes us human.
“Is it only girls you like?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” she admits with a shrug, then stares down at our entwined hands in her lap as she deliberates the question, but I have no doubt it’s a question she has spent years searching for an answer to. “I find guys attractive. Blake, for example,wow.But I just know I’ve never cared about a guy the same way I’ve cared about Savannah, so. . . I don’t know enough yet to box myself in.”
“You don’t need to put yourself in a box, Tori. You can be whatever you want to be, and it also doesn’t have to be permanent.”
Tori’s eyes flit up to mine and glimmer with relief. “You are so hip, Mila.”
I pull my hands free from hers and relax back in my chair as we share a laugh, the pressure of the moment lifted. “You know what’s cool? A peaceful nap in the sun.”
“But Teddy is coming over.”
I spring upright again. Sure enough, Teddy is wading through the grass in those dirty rubber boots of his, the stables behind him in the distance. He and Savannah have been so hard at work all morning that I haven’t seen either of them yet, but it seems there’s a break in the workload and Teddy has chosen to spend it with us.
“Afternoon y’all,” he says, placing his hands on his hips. “How’s it going?”
