Heather shivered at Seth’s hand at the small of her back as she looked after Lexie driving away. “I don’t know if I should fire her or give her a raise.”
Seth rubbed a small circle on her back before he withdrew his hand. “You definitely shouldn’t fire her. She’s on my side.”
“Then that’s exactly why I should fire her.” She relaxed in the easiness of their conversation. “Except you’re wrong. Lexie’s on my side. She helped you because she’s on my side.” Because Lexie knew what Heather really needed—Seth.
“I had a feeling that might be the case.”
They locked eyes for a few seconds, and Heather could feel the sparkle in his baby blue’s all the way down to her core. She blushed and had to look away.
Seth gestured toward a group of people Heather hadn’t noticed standing by the half-broken bike rack in front of the school. “I really couldn’t have done any of this without Urban Arts. They loved my idea of doing a school visit and they jumped on my suggestion to arrange for some of the stars to come.”
Heather held her hands over her eyes to block out the sun and spotted a few board members she recognized from Urban Arts in the group, as well as Matt Shone.
“I only cared about getting one star in particular here,” Seth said behind her, “but I didn’t want it to turn into media fodder. That’s why Matt and some of the UA board are here too.”
Her heart buoyed, disappointed that she’d have to share her day with Seth, but grateful for his thoughtfulness at the same time. “Smart thinking.”
They walked together, not outright touching but close enough that their hands brushed as they climbed the few steps toward the others waiting at the school entrance.
“Interesting choice for a first date,” she said as they walked. “Tool boy.”
“Oh, this is only the beginning of the date. There’s some things I think you’ll learn here that might make the rest of the date easier.”
She halted. “Because the kids are poor? I get poor, Seth. You haven’t figured that out yet?” Her words weren’t harsh, but they weren’t gentle either. She trusted him more than she trusted most people, but if he had some grand plan to make her accept her past, he needed to understand it wasn’t happening.
“No, I’ve figured that out. What you haven’t figured out is that I get poor.”
She wanted to remark on his statement, but Janice, one of the Urban Arts Directors chose that moment to step toward them.
“Heather! Seth!” Janice shook their hands. “I’m delighted you could both be here. They’re expecting us inside so if you don’t mind, let’s get going.”
The next hour passed quickly and with little chance for Heather to interact with Seth. She tried to stay as close to him as possible as the principal gave them a tour of the school’s art, music and theater rooms, pointing out how their programs had been benefitted by donations and support of Urban Arts and the 24-Hour Plays. The school certainly had more equipment and resources than the one Heather had attended. The evidence that the principal presented—statistics that showed that the arts program had increased the likelihood of students matriculating and moving on to high school—those were stats Heather was thrilled to hear. Her chest warmed at the knowledge that she’d been a small part of giving these needy children access to the arts.
The highlight of the tour came when the principal led the group to the small auditorium where the art students had gathered to hear from the celebrities. Before Heather, Seth and the others took their turns talking, a few select students performed pieces they’d prepared. Seth took a seat next to Heather who tried to display as much indifference as she could muster, secretly delighted to be able to casually knock her leg against his.
First, a trio sang for them, followed by a painter who showed off some of his best work. Finally, a spunky Latino girl named Clara delivered a monologue that she had written herself. It was funny and spirited and completely amazing.
“What did you think?” Seth whispered as the crowd applauded Clara’s finish.
“She’s adorable.”
“I doubt she’d like being called adorable. She’s eleven.”
“Awesome then,” Heather corrected herself. “Brilliant, amazing. Bound to go places.”
“Definitely.” Seth’s eyes clouded as if he had a difficult point to make. “She’s also from a very bad neighborhood. A bad school too. Does that mean she can never rise above?”
For half a second, Heather considered getting irritated at Seth’s obvious comparison of Clara’s life to her own. Then she recognized he was only trying to connect with her. It was sweet, actually.
“I get what you’re doing,” she said. “But, it’s…it’s not that simple, Seth.” The honest answer was that she didn’t know if Clara could rise above. Clara might never get all the places she wanted to simply because of where she came from. And if she did, she might never be able to put her past behind her. It was a sad truth. That was why Heather invested so much in the Urban Arts. So that maybe, maybe it would be different for girls like Clara than it had been for her.
Seth tilted his head. “I’m not saying that it’s easy. I’m not even trying to prove a point or change your mind. I just wanted to know what you thought.”
“I don’t know what I think.” She considered for a moment how tied she still was to the person she’d been half a lifetime ago. “Actually, I think it’s crap. A whole bunch of crap.”
One of the things Heather admired most about Urban Art’s celebrity days, such as this one, was the format. Instead of forcing the actors to stand on the stage, lights shining in their eyes as they talked with the audience, Janice invited the kids to join the actors on stage in a large circle. It allowed them to talk face-to-face and heart-to-heart.
Heather, being the old pro, began the discussion. She gave her basic spiel, encouraging kids to go after their dreams, telling them that dedication and hard work were what got her where she was today. As she always did, she felt a pang of regret that she wouldn’t allow herself to share all of it—that she wouldn’t tell them about the poverty she came from. She knew it could inspire them. And there wasn’t any media in the room with them. She could share her story without fear of it spreading.
But to speak the words aloud, to claim Dean and that life…she just couldn’t do it.
Matt followed her with a similar speech. Seth was the last to talk. He surprised everyone right away by getting off his chair and sitting on the hard stage with the kids.
Heather sat forward, not knowing what to expect from her date.
“When I was growing up,” Seth began. “I went to a school very much like this one. Except we had trailers outside for a lot of our classes. They had no heat in the winter and no cooler in the warm months. It’s funny how the cold seems so much worse when you go to school hungry. And I went to school hungry a lot. Because my family didn’t always have money for food. I bet some of you know what that’s like.”
A chorus of “yeah’s” and “uh huh’s” followed, the kids completely engaged with this big man who was comfortable enough to get down to their level.
“Being poor sucked shit.” The kid’s shocked ooo’s alerted Seth to his mistake. “Whoops, sorry,” he said looking at the principal apologetically. “I meant to say it wasn’t fun. When I got to middle school and high school, things got even worse. That’s when my dad went to jail and my mother had to take a second job. Without them around, I got myself into some trouble too.”
A lump lodged in Heather’s throat. She had suspected Seth had had it rough, had associated him with her own less-than-joyful past. But she had no idea—no idea at all that he’d experienced that kind of pain. He’d said he got it. He did.
“What did you get in trouble for?” a kid asked.
“Lots of things.” Heather could sense he was trying to be evasive as well as honest. Not an easy task. “Joy riding. Messing with people’s stuff.”
She imagined messing with stuff was a way to say vanda
lism. She’d known kids like that growing up. Kids who were so enraged about their own lack of material possessions that they found solace in destroying what belonged to others. She took a deep breath, allowing her new understanding of Seth to settle through the very fiber of her being.
“What did your dad go to jail for?” This from another kid.
“Um.” Seth paused, seeming to search for a way to explain to young kids. “He took things that didn’t belong to him.”
“He stole things,” the kid said. “That musta made you sad.”
“Yeah, it did. It made me very sad. But there were two things that made my days brighter: design and carpentry. We didn’t have a cool Arts Program at my school like you do though. We did have a great shop. I spent all my free time there, making up new designs of things to build. Wait—there was one more thing that made me happy. Going to the movies. I couldn’t afford to pay for a ticket, but there was a local theater that was easy to sneak in to.”
The principal cleared her throat.
Seth caught her disapproving eye. “Which is a totally bad thing to do. Don’t do that.” He exchanged a guilty smile with Heather. “Anyway, I spent as much time as I could in that theater. I saw everything that came out. Sometimes I saw the same movie over and over. I started to fantasize that I could have something to do in the movies. But I had no experience acting. And I didn’t know sh—I mean, I didn’t know anything about directing or writing. What I did know was building. Working with my hands.”
Seth met Heather’s eyes briefly. She wanted to keep his gaze, but he moved his focus back to the crowd. “So the day after I graduated from high school—and let me stress the importance of graduating—stick it out, even if it’s the most miserable thing you ever do. It gets better, I promise, but only if you put in the work.”
Heather caught the principal’s satisfied gleam.
“So the day after I graduated,” Seth continued, “I hitched a ride.” The principal’s gleam was replaced with a cringe. “Which is another thing you should never do. Very dangerous. Anyway, I came to L.A. and I knocked on doors until I found a set design company that was willing to hire me.”
“And the rest is history,” Heather said softly.
“And the rest is history,” he repeated. “Any questions? You in the blue.”
“How long have you been working on movies?” the kid in blue asked.
“I’ve been here for twenty-one years now.”
“You must be old.” This comment came from a young girl causing all the adults to laugh, including Seth.
“Yes, I am old,” he said. “And guess how many movies I’ve worked on?” He paused, letting the kids shout out numbers that ranged from twenty to a hundred. “Not quite that many,” he said to a particularly high guess. “But over fifty. I spend almost every day on a movie set. I get to work with famous directors and actors—like Matt and Heather. My life now is nothing, nothing like the life I grew up with. Even though I’m not proud of where I came from, I’m proud that it didn’t keep me from getting where I wanted to be.”
His eyes caught Heather’s, and in them she saw his desire. Not just physical desire, but desire to connect. Desire for her to understand that he really did get it. The realization stole her breath away.
“So now you build sets for movies?”
Heather didn’t see where the question came from.
“Yep.”
“Do you design them too?” Now she saw it was an older boy sitting in the back, the boy who had shared his artwork earlier.
“Well, um, not exactly. I started out at the bottom of the set crew. Those are the guys who do all the crap jobs like carrying the heavy stuff and putting up drywall. I kept working and I worked my way to lead carpenter—that’s the boss of all the set builders. Some people can go from there to designing sets. Even, uh, even to higher jobs sometimes. Like designing the whole look of the movie from the set to the makeup to the costumes. Those people are called Art Directors or Production Designers.”
Seth struggled with his speech now and Heather wondered if he was embarrassed that he hadn’t achieved that level of success. Would he be less embarrassed if she wasn’t there? She’d been such a snob about his career, never giving him credit that he had built it entirely out of nothing. Just like she had.
She couldn’t fight the tug to validate him now. “Lead carpenters are very important on set, though. They have to be there every day, sometimes making adjustments on the fly. Like, if the director says, ‘I wish there was a door here,’ then the lead carpenter takes care of it. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers to demonstrate.
She met his eyes again. “They’re very important,” she repeated, this time directed at Seth. “If you get a sliver as far in your career, you should be proud. No matter where you started from.”
She recognized the words she spoke could easily be turned back on herself, and for the first time ever, she could see herself from the outside. Like she’d stepped into Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and had been taken away by the Ghost of Christmas Present, she saw what other’s saw, what Seth saw—that she’d come far, that she should be proud, that she wasn’t that sixteen year-old girl from the trailer parks anymore.
It wasn’t a complete transformation, but she recognized the moment for what it was—the beginning of release.
Chapter Fifteen
As the session ended and the celebrities said their goodbyes to the children, Heather felt a growing anxiousness to be alone with Seth. The principal walked the group to just inside the doors before excusing herself and Janice to discuss scholarship details. The other board members took off immediately, but Matt stood around with Heather and Seth for what seemed like a lifetime before declaring it was time for him to get going.
Finally, it was just the two of them. Seth opened his mouth to say something, but she cut in, needing to speak first. “I’m sorry I’ve been distant.”
“You needed space.” He shrugged his hands stuffed in his pockets, but the twitch in his jaw said he didn’t feel that nonchalant about it.
“Maybe.” She placed her hand on his arm, aware they were still in a public space, but no longer able to keep from touching him. “Maybe what I really needed was you. I missed you.” Her throat tightened. “A lot.”
Seth’s voice was equally strained as he said, “You have no idea how much I want to crush you to me right here and show you how much I’ve missed you back.”
She snuck a peek at the stiffening bulge in his pants. “I can guess how much.”
“Yes, it’s pretty evident.” He grinned.
God, his grin was so sexy. Her inner thighs stiffened at the sight of it. “There’s more to this date though, right?” Did she sound as eager as she felt?
“You’ll get your chance to maul me later, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Yep. She sounded eager. “The way I remember it, it will be you who mauls me.”
“Oh yeah. That is how it goes.” His eyes moved down to where her hand still rested on his arm, and she sensed he was soaking in the warmth of their subtle contact, just as she was.
With great strength, she removed her hand and stepped toward the glass doors, peering into the parking lot. “So what’s your plan for getting us out of here unseen?” Cameras had been allowed in for their tour, but had been kicked out for the discussion. She expected they’d be outside now, waiting for the stars to emerge. Now that Matt had left, she was the lone star they’d be waiting for.
“Oh yeah. It’s simple.” He joined her looking out. “There’s a hidden area over behind the school, a little over a half mile away. You can drive to it by following that road over there.” Seth pointed to the road that went around the back of the grounds. “I’ll jog down there and you can drive my truck over and pick me up. No one will see. Especially since there’s hardly any press out there.”
Heather’s spine went rigid. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t drive your
truck.”
“Sure you can.” He pulled the keys out of his pocket and dangled them in front of her. “It’s an automatic. Easy to drive.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…” God, this was embarrassing. She licked her lips, hoping to add moisture to her suddenly dry mouth. “Seth, I can’t drive.”
“Like, at all?”
Seriously embarrassing. “Nope.”
Seth laughed, incredulity lighting his features. “How do you not know how to drive?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not as strange as you’re making it out. I was kicked out of my home before I got my license. Not that we had a car I could have driven anyway. Then I never had the opportunity or the money. When I could afford it, I just hired an assistant to drive me.”
“Wow.” He’d stopped laughing now. “Well, this sucks.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I should have asked Lexie.”
But really, why would he have asked? Didn’t everyone know how to drive? It wasn’t his fault. She was the one ruining their date. “I’m a real loser, aren’t I?”
Seth’s eyes turned dark. “Don’t ever say that, Heather. You’re perfect just the way you are.”
Her gut reaction was to roll her eyes and disagree profusely, but his seriousness and her recent awareness of herself caused her to pause first. “Thank you,” she said after a few seconds. His brow shot up in surprise. “I’m trying to see myself the way you do. It’s a new thing. We’ll see how it goes.”
“I like that. I bet it goes well.” He stuck his keys back in his pocket. “I feel bad, though, because I don’t have another plan.”
Heather squinted down the road. “Look, I can walk down there and you can drive over to meet me.”
“No way. You can’t walk out there by yourself. If anyone’s watching, it will be easy to follow you.”
“There’s barely anyone here.” Though she could make out a TV crew in the parking lot. She couldn’t see any independent photographers, at least. They could be hidden in one of the parked vans, but charity events usually only had the big media players.