I’ll hurt him for a moment. But soon he’ll be glad; grateful he doesn’t have to care about that part of us anymore.
Yes. This way... he won’t have to know how much he’s hurting me?—
“By the way,” he murmurs. “It’s Palmy with a ‘y’, not an ‘ie’.”
Huh. The turn, too strange, too sudden. It convulses me into a laugh. Also, he’s wrong? “No way, there aren’t any palm trees here.”
He chuckles, and—it’s so much warmer than how he started the call, I feel warmer too. “Makes more sense than Palm-i-e.”
“You sure?” I say. “I thought Palm-i-e, like... the North Island is a bit like a stretched-out hand. And Palmerston North sits in the palm of it?”
“Either way, still with a ‘y’.”
“Any other edits for me?”
“They were all addressed to Grandpa.”
“There was nothing to say to you.”
The line crackles, something squeals. Mattress springs. He’s staring up at my bunk. “Why do I feel like your mind was full of Purples when you sent them?”
I sit up in my bed, sheets pooling to my crayfish undies. I wince. My heart thuds.
Trent softens his voice, but keeps going, “Something like... they say nothing to him, yet so much. They’ll remind him, I’m here. Hello, don’t forget me. Such bright pictures; they’ll catch his eye multiple times a day. I’ll keep crossing his mind. He’s the only one who brings in the mail, he’ll hold these non-messages in his hands, pinch them tight, and?—”
“Stop it,” I beg.
My face. It’s as red as the damn crayfish.
His breath funnels down the line.
I want to hang up, and can’t.
“Sorry,” he says, and a crackling silence follows. “These ten days I’ve... Those Purples are mine too.”
Too.
Final day on set.
Retro flared jeans, off-white shirt, and Grandpa’s hat that the costume designer asked me to wear during the shoot. It’s a smallone-liner scene today, where I race through a loving couple, on the run, interrupting their almost kiss with a tossed-out sorry.
I wave to Moana’s cousin and shut the door behind me. I’m halfway to the kerb where Logan will pull up when my eye snags on a truck across the road. And Trent, leaning on the driver’s door, flipping keys around his finger.
His sunglasses are perched on his head, and the rest of him is in sneakers and shorts and a crisp white t-shirt under an open jacket. My eyes skip up and down while my steps skip awkwardly. Slow, fast, slow.
He’s here.
The gorgeous muppet. He has to make this hard.
I flush briefly, thinking of our call, and quickly pull it together. I raise a cool brow.
He calls across the street. “Moana gave me the address.”
Moana. Meddler.
I’m trying hard to keep my face straight. But I fear the jump in my eyes on seeing him, my twitching lips, are giving me away.
He shifts his weight, passing his keys to his other hand. “I took the day off. Thought I’d take a drive.” He opens the door, reaches in, and pulls out a takeaway coffee cup.
