Picture This (20 page)

“Then who
is
going to be doing concessions?” Nora asked, frowning suspiciously. She was very critical of the other food establishments in town.

“Beers is doing some bar food, and I'm going to see if George can make a few dozen pies. Oh—and Paulie's going to have his usual table.”

Ray waved down the sudden wash of groans as Celia informed Niall, “Local vintner. Don't drink his stuff if you want to live.”

“If it's so bad, why is Ray letting him sell it?”

“Local is everything,” she answered with a shrug. “That's why Ray wouldn't go outside of town to find singers. His motto is ‘keep everything local'—always.”

“So he solicits me to host. Makes perfect sense.”

“You're the exception,” Celia said with a smile, then added, “to everything, apparently.”

“I keep telling you that, but you never believe me.”

“T
ell me you love me.”

“Dude . . .”

“Say it, or I'm not telling you the good news. Say, ‘Trent, I love you. You are the most amazing personal assistant anyone could ever have. I'm doubling your salary.' ”

“Trent, you are the most annoying person on the planet, and if you don't tell me right now, you're fired.”

“Empty threat. I have the advantage.”

“Come on—!”

Trent sighed through the phone. “Okay, okay. The good news is you're almost in the clear.”

Niall stumbled and nearly went ass-over-tip on the back steps of the inn. Pushing the door open, he whispered into his phone, “Are you serious? Don't toy with me, man. You'd better be for real.”

“For real. You think I'm lying to you just to drive you crazy?”

“Wouldn't be the first time. So . . . really? That's it? Tiffany and I are done?”

“Mm, almost.”

“See? Lying to me.”

“There are just one or two minor things to tie up.”

Niall leaned against the wall in the back hallway with a sigh. “Like?”

“Well, I've got the letter of dissolution, and I can e-mail it to you now. Sign it and send it back. The question is, how long does it take the Pony Express to travel from there to here? And will it cost you an extra feedbag of oats for express delivery?”

“You know more about horses than I'd have given you credit for.”

“I have a thing for
Bonanza
reruns.”

Niall sighed. “This town does have enough technology that I can print it, sign it, scan it, and send it back.”

“Shut
up
!”

“Internet connection works fine when it rains and the water wheel is rolling.”

“Well, do it, then.”

“And then I'm free?”

“Mm . . .”

“Again with the noise.”

“Well, Tiffany wants one last thing.”

“I
knew
it,” Niall hissed. “Okay, what?”

“She wants to break up with you.”

“I thought that's what we were doing.”

“She wants an official,
public
breakup.”

“A fake breakup to mark the end of the fake relationship. Of course she does.”

“And she wants to script it. Guess who ends up being the bad guy?”

“Oh, for Chrissakes.
Fine.
Like I care. What does she want to do? Drop insulting little bomblets on Twitter about being betrayed? Post photos of herself out partying with a dozen guys on Instagram to show the world she's a free agent again? Publish tell-all interviews in
Star Magazine
and
People
? I don't care. She can even hint that the size of my package isn't the stuff of legend. Because anyone who matters will know it's a lie anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I just want this over with
now
.”

“To go after Ms. Hottie Not-A-Model?”

“If this phone conversation ever ends, my man. Wish me luck.”

A female voice behind him asked, “Luck for what?”

Niall spun around to find George . . . and Celia.

“Hey!” he exclaimed as he hung up on his assistant and slipped his phone into his pocket. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

He made a face at George. “Not you, smartass.”

“Watch it, or there'll suddenly be a shortage of fresh towels for the rest of your stay.”

To Celia, he said, “Where have you been? Ray was looking for you at rehearsal. I . . . we've missed you.” Niall came closer to the two women as George glanced cautiously at Celia. “You okay? You look funny.”

“I'm fine,” she murmured with a weak smile, but she looked a little pale.

“Hm. AWOL for two days? Why didn't you answer my texts?”

“I was . . . busy.”

Now Niall was alarmed at how subdued she was. “Are you sick?”

Celia said, “No,” just as George snapped, “Yes.”

“Okay, what? Do you need to lie down? What do you need?” He ignored George's cocked eyebrow that communicated she was impressed with his attentiveness but still skeptical of him overall. He ducked down a little to catch Celia's eye. “Talk to me.”

“It's nothing—” Celia said, still looking away, but George interrupted.

“Let's just say Celia's being stretched a little thin,” she growled protectively. To Celia, she said, “It's
not
nothing. Nothing
new,
maybe—”

“Could somebody please speak English around here, and not Mars . . . dinian, or whatever?”

That got a small smile out of Celia, but it disappeared just as quickly. George sighed and touched Celia's arm.

“Go on inside, honey. Just . . . take a breather. I'll get you something to drink. And you're staying for dinner tonight. No arguments,” she added preemptively, as the other woman had indeed opened her mouth to protest. “Your family can just screw off for one night. Not that it'd be any different than usual.”

As George headed for the kitchen, Niall dared to put his arm around Celia. She didn't flinch, which was good. She even leaned into him a bit, and that was better.

“Can we go out on the front porch? I need some fresh air.”

“Whatever you want.”

On the broad porch with a view of the valley, Celia looked like she was going to settle herself into one of the rocking chairs, but Niall was having none of it. He wanted her next to him so he could touch her when needed. If not when she needed, then when he did. He guided her to an old-fashioned metal-framed glider; the weathered vinyl cushions crackled under their weight as they sat down. He plumped up a couple of embroidered throw pillows and propped them against the metal arm rest.

“Stretch out, relax like George said. Talk to Dr. Crenshaw. Oh, and I do my best work when I'm massaging my patient's feet, so put 'em here.”

Another small smile from Celia. “You don't want my manky, smelly feet in your lap.”

“You have no idea how much. And yes, I did mean that in an absolutely filthy way. Besides, did you know I can turn off my sense of smell? It's one of my superpowers. I'm a crappy superhero, if you hadn't noticed. My other superpowers are opening stuck jar lids and killing spiders. Unless they're bigger than two inches. Then I'm out.”

He was rambling. But he didn't know what else to do besides try to make her laugh. It sort of worked, but not enough. Obviously she didn't need a comedian right now. He slipped off her flats while he started the glider moving with his heel.

“Talk, woman.”

Celia sighed, closed her eyes and, resting her elbow on the back cushion, rubbed her forehead with her finger and thumb. “It's really nothing.”

“That's not what George said.” Celia didn't answer. “Come on. Let it out.”

She was silent another moment or two; Niall concentrated on rubbing first one instep, then the other, with his thumbs. Her feet didn't smell. Of course they didn't.

Finally she murmured, “Let's just say my parents aren't topping my list of favorite people at the moment.”

“Okay, that's a start,” Niall answered carefully. That was all? Annoying parents? He pushed aside his first thought, that he'd pay good money to have that kind of a problem, and focused on what it meant to Celia, not him. Obviously it wasn't a trivial issue—not from the way she was acting. But she didn't say anything else. She did, however, make small happy noises in response to his foot massage, so he redoubled his efforts while he waited for her to say more.

The screen door banged open and George backed onto the porch with a metal tray of glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. “Well?” she demanded as she set the tray down on a small table.

“I'm getting a foot massage.”

“I can see that. Is it helping?”

“It certainly isn't hurting.”

George poured a glass of lemonade and put it on the table in front of the glider, within Celia's reach, then poured another for Niall. “Everything clear now?”

“Not a bit,” he answered.

“Figures,” George said. She plopped onto a chair facing them, her back to the view, and filled him in. “Celia's parents are good people at heart, but they're fucking selfish.”

“George,” Celia protested, but weakly.

“Shut up. I'm talking. And they are.” She took a sip of lemonade, then said to Niall, “This whole thing with Holly? They should have been able to take care of it themselves. But they always leave it to Celia—even to the point of dragging her back here from New York to handle something they should have been able to deal with. Then they don't even help. They have to go
golfing.
Or they have to go away for the weekend. Or they have to mow their own lawn, no time to do Holly's. I could go on, but the more I talk about them, the more pissed off I get. So it falls to Celia to get Holly to agree to go to the senior living place, and now Alan and Wendy expect Celia to pack up a hundred years' worth of crap in the house, find a real estate agent, list the house, show the house, and probably wipe
their
asses in the meantime.”

“I'm getting a picture. Didn't need the last visual, but all right.”

“Not to mention Celia's got to deal with Holly's . . . current state . . . all by herself.”

He turned to Celia. “Is she worse?”

“She's not better. Of course, it's not like she's going to get better, is she?”

“What's going on?”

“She's . . . had her moments, let's say. More than just calling me by the wrong name. This morning I caught her taking a second round of her pills because she'd forgotten she'd already taken them. I'm afraid she's going to hurt herself.”

“Get her to the doctor.”

“I've tried. She won't go.”

Niall felt his throat closing up. This was too familiar. Too close to home. He heard himself saying, “Let me help. With your grandmother, with the house.”

Celia shook her head. “I can't ask you to do that. You've got the competition—”

“Who cares!” he burst out. He wanted to shout that the competition didn't matter, but he'd learned his lesson about disparaging this thing in front of Marsden residents. So instead he said, “Ray can handle it. This is more important.”

“She's got plenty of people who can help her, movie star,” George said. “A whole town's worth. That's not the problem.
She
is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Celia doesn't know how to accept help. She doesn't know how to say no. She doesn't know how to protect herself. People ask her to do things, and she always says yes, even if she gets spread so thin she disappears.”

“I can hear you, George,” Celia said wearily.

“Then . . .” He studied the slight woman lying next to him; she definitely looked a bit ghostlike. “Don't do the contest. We'll get somebody else to take photos.”

Celia rolled her eyes and growled a little, startling Niall.

“What'd I say?”

“She
wants
to take those photos,” George said for her friend. “But it's the first thing she'd give up, even if it makes her miserable.”

“Is that true?” Niall asked Celia.

In a plodding voice, she said, as if it were something she'd been forced to memorize, “Photography is a hobby for my free time, and I don't have any at the moment.”

“And that,” George grumbled, “is Celia quoting from the Book of Alan Marshall. Who has always been a dick about Celia's interests.”

“You want to do this. Professionally,” Niall deduced, studying Celia closely. “Of course being Vic's assistant isn't enough. You've got more in you than that.”

“Apparently it doesn't matter what I want. But don't worry—like George said, this is nothing new. I can handle it.”

She was hurting, but she was angry too—he could feel both emotions radiating from her, so strongly that they were practically seeping into his own skin from mere contact with her.

“All of it?” George snorted. “You're going to spontaneously combust.”

“I
said
I can handle it,” Celia snapped, but she kept her eyes closed against her two friends watching her so closely, trying to assess how frayed her edges really were.

 

“Okay, so
then
,” Niall said loudly, over the hoots from everyone at the dining room table, “then Mr. D's wife—what's her name, again?”

“Therese,” Casey, George, and Jaz supplied at the same time. Sera, George's sister and Jaz's wife, would likely have chimed in as well, but she was busy moving the wine bottle farther away from Amelia's reach. Maybe it was the brilliantly colorful Bully Hill label, but something about it had fascinated the child, and she'd been trying to get hold of it all night.

“Right. So Therese comes
barreling
in from I don't know where, shouting, ‘Rachel Dwyer, if you so much as lay one hand on my husband, I will gut you like a flounder!' Rachel starts shouting back that she isn't interested in her husband, and the wife says, ‘Well, why
aren't
you?'
Then,
” he said, even louder, because by now the entire dinner party was roaring at the thought of Mr. D'Annunzio's wife threatening his singing partner, “she pokes Ray in the chest and starts flaying him alive for partnering them up in the first place, accusing him of trying to break up their marriage.”

“I think Ray might be regretting this whole competition thing right about now,” Casey said, standing to uncork a fresh bottle of wine and refill everyone's glasses.

“Oh, that's not the half of it,” Niall went on, with a quick glance at Celia. He'd been working hard for the better part of an hour, trying to lift her spirits with stories from the rehearsal she'd missed that day. “After Mr. D and Rachel were done, it was Brianna and Alice's turn, but . . . no Alice.”