Cleaving a chubby, thrashing four-year-old girl to her chest, thirty-eight-year-old Connie Logan gazed at Matthew King in unabashed idolatry. She was telling him, between giggles, that most movie stars were shorter in real life—she was used to movie stars; there were some every summer and they were always short. But au contraire, Matthew King! Au contraire!
Tara’s mother often embarrassed her but she never said au contraire; or she hadn’t in Tara’s lifetime until now. Matthew smiled and acted pleased, even delighted by Connie’s fawning. But he was wet and muddy and–Tara knew this beyond proof—guilty of something really stupid. Really guilty, selfish, and really stupid.
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Unless Matthew turned around this minute so that he and Brooke never saw each other again—he would hurt not just Brooke, which he’d apparently already done, but he’d hurt everyone else, too: himself, Dexter, Ivy.
And Tara, too. She’d be sure to add that.
Tara suspected he didn’t even know about the gossip last summer. That even when he was here with a wife, and Brooke was only half-grown into her female body, the townspeople enjoyed speculating: Wonder how Brooke Logan’s doing up there babysitting for the movie star?
During the afternoon, Tara had solved that problem. After listening to her mother’s really weird hero-worship mixed with the usual prayer and meditation-based mysticism, she had inadvertently moved her mother to joyful tears. Connie was thrilled to stay two, maybe three nights in a row, babysitting for Matthew King. Or, Tara said, Connie could come home late tonight if she wanted—no one would care if Connie spent the night or not. The main thing was, Tara wanted an evening off, same as Brooke. (So she could check on Brooke.)
And by the way, Tara had told Connie, she could guarantee that Matthew King would play the lead role in the summer theater’s main production. Matthew King as the Mayor in Wind, Rain, Lighning, Thunder—that’s when the tears poured forth. He’d replace Gabriel Lytton, who after the summer theater had waited four years for him suddenly contracted pneumonia.
“What about his preparation for the James Bond movie?”
“If he gets that, which I guess is fairly certain,” Tara said, “he’s gonna need an English accent at least as good as the play’s Mayor of London.”
Seven-year-old Dexter returned from his bike ride saying he had asked Brooke to marry him as soon as he was old enough and she had said, “Maybe.” Tara kissed her fingers and pressed the top of his head. “See you guys tomorrow.”
She wouldn’t see Matthew, though; he was leaving early. “Let me walk you out, Tara.”
Outside she told him about replacing Gabriel Lytton in the summer theater. It was his only hope to control town gossip. “It was bad enough last year, Matthew. And then there wasn’t even anything to gossip about. But this will work. They’ll love you for it.”
Already anxious, already treading lightly, Matthew held his forehead in real distress. Tara approved. “Very theatrical.”
“I have never acted on stage, Tara. I followed a girlfriend to LA. We took classes on how to audition. And I got ‘discovered’ for a TV show.”
“Whoa, then. This should be fun. But you’ll have a great director, Mark Fletcher from England. When I was in the middle-school play, the science teacher directed. And the thing she kept saying was, ‘Be honest.’”
Too stymied to laugh at this, Matthew batted his newest trouble aside. He fingered his upper lip and paused. “So have you talked to Brooke?”
“You’ve hurt her enough.”
“Did she say that?”
“You are insane. Whatever happened, Matthew, you are criminally insane.”
“Nothing happened, Tara.” He pulled a small envelope from his shirt pocket. “Will you give her this?”
“I’ll just tell her for you: it’s over.” Tara looked at his face and then at his hand holding the note.
“Please give it to her. If I call or text, I might as well put my feelings on the internet.”
“You might as well.” Tara hopped on her bike and rode away, aware that Matthew King the movie star was still there, still holding his secret feelings, all spelled out.
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