Message received. Elliot wasn’t daydreaming about someone to share a king-sized bed with, much less daydreaming about her.
Birdie exhaled and ran her hands over her face. “Seeing Ian...” She drifted and tried to reframe their focus. “He was always so kind to me. I think I really messed that up.”
Elliot nodded, like he got it. Like he’d messed up his own set of circumstances along the way, though clearly not with her. With Birdie, he’d been certain, and good god, it was all so mortifying.But he didn’t elaborate, so she reread the article again, letting the silence balloon between them and repressing the growing urge to say, despite everything:I think I really messed up a lot of things. Like with you. I should have begged you to stay.
Even if it wouldn’t have made one difference in the end.
19
ELLIOT
Elliot gripped thewheel of the RV and trained his eyes on the traffic ahead, trying to distract himself from the fact that Birdie was still reading, rereading, the article beside him in the passenger seat. He promised her that he’d look out for her, and that was the easiest promise to make. Of course, he well knew that she didn’t have to hand over her trust just because he wanted her to, and he also knew that she had ample reason to tell him to fuck right off. But she hadn’t. She didn’t. Elliot felt something flutter in him at this recognition: that he missed her inherent goodness so very much, that he’d lost track of the way she grounded him, that he’d lied to himself and pretended Birdie wasn’t valuable, wasn’t worth clutching onto. His heart lurched at how acutely he had missed her, like it was making up for the years away by pummeling him with nostalgia and regret and wistfulness all at once.
He blew out his breath, waiting for her assessment of the story that was currently trending on Twitter. The car in front of him had amy kid is an honors student at fresno junior highbumper sticker, and he recalled that time in tenth grade when he forbade his mom from advertising his own success on the back of her minivan. Elliot and Mona had gone head to head for top of the class. He thought Mona won that year, but it could have been the next. His mom always brought home a cake that had both of their names on it, as if their class ranking didn’t mean a thing, and really, it didn’t.
He was old enough to live a life without his parents now, but sometimes he still missed her, missed them, acutely, painfully. He suspected his mother would have none of this, this pussyfooting around his complications with Birdie, with Mona now, but then, she wasn’t here to ask. So he kept running on instinct. Which served him professionally. Personally, he was beginning to understand that he was a disaster. He knew his short-lived relationships with women were a crutch so that he never had to do any heavy lifting: his barren apartment, his round-the-clock job, the distance he kept between him and just about everyone else so he could do that job well. It was one thing to know this; however, it was another to change. He stole a sidelong glance at Birdie again and wondered if she were the cure he needed. Even though he was also wise enough to know that no one could cure anyone else; that would be too easy.
“I do appreciate this part,” Birdie said, reading aloud.
Privately, after the confrontation that is now racing around the internet, Ms. Robinson appeared genuinely remorseful that she had caused Chef Sands such pain, even though it was over a decade ago, and most of us don’t harbor grudges for the better part of our adulthood. She offered insightful reflections in the quiet moments afterward: what she could have done differently,how she was an inexperienced kid who was careless with his heart, how she hoped that one day they could be friends because he was the first man to cook for her. Lasagna.
“I didn’t say any of that,” Birdie said, cocking an eyebrow toward him.
Elliot laughed. “I told you I had your back. And what’s he going to do—issue a press release that he never made you lasagna? You mentioned that he used to cook for you; I felt like this was in the ballpark of accurate.”
“Journalistically squishy.”
“I’ve been way more squished.”
Birdie considered it, then: “I suppose a reporter reads between the lines. Not all that different from being an actress, really.”
“Incredibly different,” Elliot batted back. “Not even in the same ballpark. I deal with facts. You deal with fiction.”
“And yet, here you are, playing fast and loose with my own story.”
Elliot checked his mirrors, tried to distract himself. Something about sitting with Birdie while she read his words made him anxious, and he wondered if she’d feel the same. If he were to confess that he’d gone to every one of her films on opening weekend if he was in the country or sometimes in a foreign one. It was almost spiritual for him, seeing the girl he’d loved since he was sixteen projected on the screen in front of him. Seeing that girl end up with a happily-ever-after every time, a heated kiss in the snow with her family cheering from the living room window, a race to the airport to chase down the one who had gotten away.
They were flying down the highway on the way to LosAngeles now. Birdie had set down her phone when the cell service got spotty and seemed to relax once it was out of reach. Elliot watched the furrow in her brow soften, her posture slide into a soft C, her head start to bop along with the music. The radio came in and out, but outside Merced, Birdie landed on an eighties station that stuck. She was singing low, under her breath, to Annie Lennox, the Eurythmics, just like she used to in carpool.I’d travel the world and the seven seas...Once Mona would join in, Birdie would ramp up, get going. By the time they reached school, the two of them would be hanging out the windows.
Birdie amped the radio up louder and raised her voice to match, uninhibited, perfect. Elliot launched himself right back to his sixteen-year-old self and clamped down on his lip to keep from laughing. But it was no use.
“What?” she said, turning to glance at him. “I’m a good singer. You can’t make fun of my singing. Not when I’m already at rock bottom.”
He shook his head, tears threatening to spill. His giggles were morphing into full-blown howls, a cramp building in his side, and he had to blink quickly to keep focus on the road.
“What did you just sing? What exactly do you think the lyrics are?” he managed, his voice breaking halfway through the question.
“Sweet dreams are made of cheese,” she sang. It was pitch-perfect, that was true.
And Elliot just lost it. He accidently swerved toward the divider, and Birdie reached over with a shriek to grab the wheel.
“What?” she asked once they were steady. “What?”
“Why would sweet dreams be made ofcheese?” He couldn’t stop himself. He broke into cackles again. His face felt like it was going to be permanently stuck in some sort of hyena smile, but itwas out of his control now, like his brain was willing his face to calm down but it was no use.
“Because cheese is delicious!”
“Birdie, why would it becheese? It’sthese. ‘Sweet dreams are made ofthese,’ ” Elliot cried.
