Page 58 of Hello Darling
"I've seen this painting before. Online."
"It's one of my mother's."
"Your mother painted it?"
"Yes, she was a really wonderful painter. This one was sold to the former mayor, but after...after I graduated, she gave it back to us. That's why you would have seen it online, a picture of it's still on the former mayor's blog."
"It was one of the reasons I wanted to come here. That view. Where is it?"
I see the rims of her eyes turning deep pink and watery, her lower lip quivers. "It was right around where I first saw you running on the beach. But you didn’t see me. You were just staring at the pavement." She looks so vulnerable all of a sudden.
I desperately want to take her in my arms and kiss her. “I saw you,” I say quietly, instead.
“You did? That first day?”
“I saw you before I ran past you. Feeding the birds. Closing your eyes, listening to something. What were you listening to?”
She smiles and pulls her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, opens up an app and plays a dreamy ballad on low volume. "Lord Huron."
"I like it. Hey, there’s something else I want to tell you."
"Gah!" Says Billy from across the room. "Turn that feelsy music off we’re trying to watch football over here!"
"How can you hear it from all the way over there?" she says. "You have dog ears."
As if on cue, Chet barks and runs over to us, tail wagging. He really is a star. Which is why I managed to get him a day of work on the movie in a couple of weeks, playing my neighbor’s dog. When I told Billy, he grabbed my head with both hands and kissed me on both cheeks. “You learned your lines yet, Chet?”
He barks. What a pro.
“Yep, you got it. Good boy.”
Stella turns off the music and looks up at me, smiling but her lower lip is quivering again.
“My darling,” I whisper, pushing long dark strands of hair out of her beautiful face. She looks back towards her family and steps away from me.
“I should go check on the timers. Oh—you were going to tell me something.”
“It can wait.” I’ve waited this long, what’s a few more hours?
Before we sit down to eat, we all gather for group photos in front of the fireplace, before we start eating, as Joe says, so we still fit into our jeans in these pictures. Stella is the only one helping Joe set up the tripod and camera, as the guys still watch the game, but once we’re all assembled, I stand behind Stella, and she reaches her hand back to hold mine. Our fingers intertwine as the camera beeps and the flash goes off, three times.
“Don’t worry—my family has been informed that if they post pictures of you on the internet there will be swift punishment of the knee to the balls variety,” my very lady-like hostess whispers when we’re done posing. “I told Martin to tell his…girlfriend, but I can’t vouch for her.” She frowns at the lovely Lauren, who seems eager to gain Stella’s friendship as far as I can tell. Stella’s used to being the only girl in the family, I get it. I understand the scene immediately. Stella has a lot of respect for her oldest brother, and Lauren is a worthy girlfriend for him, and Stella fears she’ll be displaced. It’s sweet, I suppose, and how much of a self-centered actor am I that my tiny emotional reaction is to feel a twinge of jealousy because I’m not the only one she’s concerned with here.
When Joe shows me the shots to get my approval afterwards, I don’t think I’ve ever seen myself looking quite so happy and at peace, or Stella looking so hopeful. “Can you send me those?”
“Of course.” He seems pleased by the request. “What are your folks up to this week—oh wait—they wouldn’t be celebrating Thanksgiving.” Joe Starkey may already be approximately one out of three sheets to the wind.
“Correct,” I pat him on the back. “They’re both back home in London for a short while, actually. I Skyped with them earlier.”And told them about your daughter.“My mum made me promise I’d eat until I’m full today.”
“Aww,” says Joe. “Sounds like my wife.” Before I can think of what to say to that, he says. “Speaking of eating—let’s eat!”
Billy has muted the television and set up a Spotify holiday pop music playlist. The dining table is big and covered with huge platters of food, a big simple vase of flowers in the center (that I had sent to Stella yesterday), and lovely but casual dinnerware that invites you to relax and eat and feel at home. It all feels rather European, for such an American occasion. No one stands on ceremony, we appear to be sitting wherever we wish to, and I wish to sit next to Stella. Stella appears to wish to be next to the wine. She pours herself a full glass of white wine and gulps much of it down before holding up the bottle to me.
“White or red?”
“Is there any white left?”
“Give me a minute and there won’t be.”
