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“I didn’t want to move again.”
“But your family …?”
“It was just me and Dad by then. Mom got tired of moving a long time before. I called her first, to see if I could live with her. She stayed in Nevada …” I trailed off. I hadn’t really intended to get into all this today, but it felt so natural to share it with Tess. I wanted her to know me, even the parts of me that weren’t glamorous and clean.
“But …?” Tess looked at me.
I forced my voice to sound light. “She figured she was all done parenting by then, I guess.” I swallowed hard, keeping the smile on my face. I stared out the window for a minute, remembering the hard finality in my mother’s words when she’d told me that she didn’t want me. It still hurt, tearing something inside me every time I thought of it. I sucked in a breath, and was thankful when I felt the air shift as Tess readied another question.
“So why are you doing it?” The question came out harsh, and Tess turned her head, glaring at me for a brief moment before turning back to look out at the road.
“Doing …?”
“Pretending to date my sister.”
I knew I’d have to explain myself at some point. Might as well get it out of the way. “It was her agent’s idea. I had a small role in the last film she did and there was chemistry. On screen, at least. The media liked it and some false rumors got started. Her agent thought we could capitalize on those and try to keep the sharks fed so they won’t go sniffing around where they shouldn’t.”
“You mean the divorce.”
“Right.”
“What’s in it for you, though?” She sounded less accusatory now, and I felt my nerves unspool a little bit.
“A part in her next film as the romantic lead, mostly. A career boost. A chance to be as successful as I’ve always thought I wanted to be.” It was the story I’d told myself over and over. But no matter how famous I’d gotten so far, it didn’t seem to change much. People knowing who you were wasn’t the same as someone really knowing you. I was nowhere near as famous as Juliet, but the little taste I’d gotten so far tasted a lot like loneliness.
And the real answer wasn’t that I wanted success. It was that I needed money. Enough money that my dad could live someplace where he’d be safe and taken care of. Someplace nice.
Tess seemed to be satisfied with my half-answer, and she drove in silence now. I watched the dense woods fly by either side of the car, wishing I could bring her smile back.
“Any Sasquatch sightings down here?” I asked. “I can totally imagine catching a glimpse of him running through these dense woods.”
Tess’s laughter was sweet and honest, a sound that made my cells feel lighter, effervescent. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Though there is a car I see sometimes that’s all painted with camouflage and says something like ‘Sasquatch Response Team.’ I stood behind the guy who drives it at the grocery store once, and he told the clerk all about his important ‘work’ and gave her a card. When he’d left, she showed it to me. He’s a Sasquatch Specialist.”
“Oh my God, that’s amazing,” I said, wishing I could meet the guy. “And they say we get all the kooks in California.”
Tess pulled into a long paved driveway between the tall trees, and we passed a little tollbooth, where she paid a few dollars, though there was no one inside.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Point Lookout State Park,” she said. “It’s a state park right on the tip of the peninsula. A lot of people come down here to camp or hike or picnic. This was a civil war prison camp.” She said this the way most people announced that we’d be getting ice cream.
“Exciting,” I said, my tone mocking her slightly. Though the idea of a prison camp did not sound at all romantic or like a good place to get to know someone, the scenery was actually beautiful. There were few other cars in the parking lot, and no one in sight. The birds were calling to one another from the treetops, and I could smell the salt of the ocean.
She sniffed as she parked the car. “It is pretty exciting,” she told me. “And if you can’t appreciate Maryland’s history, this is gonna be a long day for you. I’ve got plans to show you the state’s first capital and about sixteen different churches all built before California was even a state.”
I loved the edge of teasing in her voice, her clear fascination with her home state.
Tess led me on a tour of the park, pointing out where a civil war hospital once stood, and ushering me around the site of a prisoner-of-war camp where the Union held Confederate soldiers through the last years of the war.
“It had to be horrible for them,” Tess said, looking out over the water that surrounded the tip of the peninsula where the park was situated. “That’s Virginia right across the Potomac. If they could just get there, they’d be home, safe in Confederate territory.”
“Quite a swim,” I said, gazing across the wide river but finding my eyes drawn back to the woman beside me. “I bet some tried it though.” I wandered around a bit, sweating in the dense close air of the woods, glad for the occasional breeze off the water. “Wait a minute. Wasn’t Maryland part of the Confederacy? You’re south of the Mason Dixon.”
“Switched sides,” Tess said, gesturing for me to follow her back to the trail. We walked in silence for a moment then, picking our way along beneath arching branches and over the slightly muddy path. I walked behind her, unable to keep my eyes from following the sway of her hips in her jeans, the way her ponytail seemed to bob in time with her steps.
I was just about to step a bit closer, try to find words to tell her how happy I was to have a day with her, a chance to get to know her, to explore this feeling I had around her, when a family appeared on the trail in front of us.
A man and a woman were leading two bored-looking teenagers around the park, and I shot them a smile as they were about to pass us. The teenaged girl was just stepping past me when she glanced up, and her face went from bored to excited in a split second, her mouth opening and her eyes going wide.
