Page 58 of This Time Around
“So tellme about your life growing up.You know all about mine.”She shot me a sheepish smile and dipped back into her enchiladas.
I didn’t know nearly enough about her life I wanted to, but the dinner conversation so far had been spent mostly talking about the animals.Next weekend, she was planning on a large hay baling party.Her friends and Jordan would show early in the morning and work until the hay was all baled.She said last year it took them until ten o’clock at night to finish.I was looking forward not only to the day of work but seeing her friends come to help her.This week we had to mow and prepare all the hay and while she’d explained the process, I was excited as hell to see her working the large green tractor out back, and maybe even use it.
I finished the bite of enchiladas I was working on.They were delicious, some of the best I’d ever had.
“Mom stayed home all her life, Dad worked.He traveled a lot, doing sales for a window manufacturer company, so it was mostly Mom raising my younger sister and me.They’ve been married for almost forty years and they still act like they got married yesterday.”
She grinned and took a sip of her wine.“That sounds like my parents, too.How old’s your sister?”
“Katelyn’s a year younger than me.She drove me crazy growing up, always trying to date my friends.It sucked more when her friends started getting hot and I wanted to date them.”
Her laughter filled the room.“Those Buffalo girls that taught you to kiss?”
I winked and shoved a bite of food into my mouth.“Yup.”Wiping the edges of my mouth with my napkin, I continued, “Anyway, Katelyn went to cosmetology school right after high school.She runs her own salon now and got married a couple years ago.”
“You like him?”
“Brent?”I shrugged.“He’s all right.Treats her well, I suppose.”
She leaned in and arched a brow.“But no one’s good enough for your baby sister?”
It reminded me of Jordan’s reaction the other day.Had my sister lived alone, gone through what Rebecca had, I’d probably have been a bigger dick.
“Maybe,” I admitted.Although I still didn’t like Brent much.He treated Katelyn well, but he didn’t seem to treat her like she was the most important person in his life, either.“Anyway, I suspect life in Buffalo isn’t that much different than here.It’s not really city life, necessarily, either.And the people are nice enough.”
“But you moved to California as soon as you could.”
“As soon as I graduated college and had gotten some small experience doing theater in New York City, yeah.I was doing a small off-off-Broadway play the summer after I graduated and the director put me in contact with someone in L.A.and it went from there.”
She leaned back in her chair, sipping a glass of water with the hint of a smile on her face.It’d been so long since I’d had this discussion—who I was, what I was about, where I came from—everything I wanted to tell her wasn’t flowing as smooth as I wanted it to.
Cooper Hawke rusty at picking up women.No one in California would believe it possible.
“Why’d you leave New York?”
“Honestly?”I rarely talked about this, mostly because it was still a sting to my pride.
“Yeah, that’s sort of good for me.”
“Right.After we got done with that first run of the play, the director I’d been working with came right up to me and said, ‘Get to Hollywood.You got talent, amazing talent, you don’t have what it takes for the theater.’”
“What’s that mean?”
“He didn’t think I had the passion to do the same run of the same show night after night for months at a time.After the first few weeks, he saw me lose my edge and the passion.I was only a small character, not a lead by any means, and I’d been lucky enough to land that role as it was.But he said I didn’t have enough experience to maintain the character for any longer.”
She was silent for a moment, brushing her finger over her bottom lip.“So you moved to California and now you’re exactly where you belong.”
The trepidation was clear in her quiet, almost sad tone.Her point was clear.
I belonged on the big screen, not the small cattle ranch.
“Rebecca.”
She blinked her eyes, almost snapping out of a trance and set down her silverware.“It’s okay.Actually, this is good.Better.”Flashing me a smile that no longer reached her eyes, she said, “It’s good we remember that I think.Don’t you?”
I had barely thought about my life and my role waiting for me back there.If it wasn’t for Camilla being a pain in the ass, and I knew she was since I hadn’t heard from Paul, I hadn’t given anything there a passing thought.
Good or bad, I certainly wasn’t missing anything.However, this conversation was headed straight for one of those buried bombs I was trying to avoid.
