“Night, Beck,” I say softly as she lets herself out.
I really like Henry, and of course I want that prize money, but being here, as a plus-size woman, is turning out to be something bigger than I had imagined. It’s exciting, but mostly terrifying. I want people to talk about whatever Addison said about me. The morning after this episode airs, people are going to be talking, and it’s a conversation that’s been a long time coming, if you ask me. I just never hoped to be at the center of it.
“Hello?” I ask into the walkie-talkie as I curl up in bed at nearly two in the morning. “Henry?”
I’m convinced he’s already fallen asleep, when finally his crackling voice comes through. “Is that you, Cabbage Patch? Mon petit chou?”
“Mon petite what? I think the last time I could be described as petite, I was still in pull-ups.”
“My little cabbage,” he tells me. “It’s French.”
“Oh, fancy boy knows French, does he?”
“How hard would your eyes roll if I told you I went to a boarding school in France for three years?”
“Excuse me,” I say, “my eyes are stuck to the back of my head.”
He chuckles. “I guess I shouldn’t tell you about the two years in Germany and four years in Edinburgh….”
“I used to dream about going to boarding school when I was a kid, and there you were casually living my childhood fantasy.”
His laugh is disjointed thanks to the bad connection. “It wasn’t so glamorous,” he assures me. “School years on my own with a couple hundred strangers and summers spent being my mom’s sometimes on-trend, sometimes off-trend seasonal accessory.”
I might not have had as much time as I should have with my parents, but they were mine. All mine. Never once did I feel out of place in their lives. The thought of Henry being anyone’s accessory makes me wish I could reach over and squeeze his hand. “Are you close with your mother?”
He barks a laugh. “Yes. No. Too close. Not close enough.”
“You—you said…On that first night, you said you were here for her…. What did you mean by that?”
“I am,” he says plainly. “I’m here for her. I’m here as a last-ditch effort so her life’s work doesn’t do a swan dive into a pool of hot, flaming financial ruin.”
“I thought…LuMac seemed to be doing okay. It doesn’t seem so bad from the outside?”
I can hear him shifting, and it sounds like he’s sitting up. “She dreamed too big, I think…. Cindy, I’m trusting you not to share this with anyone…. My mother was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.”
My jaw drops, and for the first time, I’m so glad to not be in the same room. Arthritis is an awful thing for anyone to have to deal with…but for those of us who very specifically rely on our hands…it’s a death knell. “That’s really awful. I’m so sorry.”
“I guess you can understand why it would be bad for business if word got out. We’re publicly traded at the moment, so stocks would plummet. Accounts would bail. It would be…devastating, and things are already bad. She was diagnosed a few years ago. We thought she could power through and just sort of…lead without being so involved, but I guess once a workaholic, always a workaholic.”
“Wow, that’s so much to deal with,” I say with a yawn as the city lights blur in the distance, and I pull the blanket up over my shoulders. “So what does all that mean for the show? No offense, but if things are so bad, shouldn’t you be there and not…here?”
He coughs out a painful laugh. “You would think, but no, the idea is that the show will drum up support for the brand. Sort of relaunch it for a new generation. Trust me when I say it wasn’t my first choice. There’s also the potential for future partnerships with the network…. It’s just…I didn’t come here expecting to be invested in—Shit, the little red battery light is blinking at me. I think this thing is about to go.”
“Oh, uh—okay, well, I guess—”
“I wasted the whole night talking about me, and I didn’t even ask you about yourself or how you’re doing…”
I laugh nervously. “You didn’t miss much. There’s not a lot worth knowing.”
“So says you. I spend a lot of time thinking about all the things I wish I knew about you,” he tells me, his voice low and earnest.
My heart jumps into my throat. “Well, I’ve never been on a walkie-talkie date, but this is the best one I’ve ever been on.”
“We didn’t even get to order dessert,” he says.
“Blame it on the walkie-talkie curfew.”
“Next time I’ll take you somewhere that requires shoes.”
