Well, at least Priya had waited to say this until they were out of Beau’s hearing.
Though…her voice carried pretty far.
“No, I have not, and I will not,” she said. “Beau and I are barely even friends!”
Priya threw her hands up. “If that man said, ‘It’s been my pleasure,’ about me the way he said it about you, and then smiled at me like THAT? We would be a LOT more than friends by later that night.”
“PRIYA.”
“Well! I’m just saying! Did you see his shoulders?”
Izzy sighed. She should have known this would happen. This, she realized, was why she hadn’t wanted Priya to meet Beau, because she had known this would happen.
“You can just say all you want, but nothing like that is happening. First of all, I’m here for work. Second of all, he dates models and actresses and people like that. Not people like me.”
“Okay, well, FIRST of all, you’re not working FOR him, you’re working with him. People who work together date all the time. And SECOND, you’re as incredible as ANY model,” Priya said. “If Beau doesn’t know that, he’s not worth you!”
Izzy squeezed Priya’s hand. See, this was why she’d missed her.
“You’re the best,” she said.
“BUT,” Priya said. “I’m pretty sure he does know it.”
Izzy got home from dinner late that night and poked her head into the TV room to see if Beau was there, but it was empty. She usually ran into him in the kitchen during the day, either in the morning or at lunchtime, but on Friday she didn’t see him at all until she met him in the library.
“Hi.” She handed him his notebook when she sat down.
“Hi,” he said, without quite looking at her. There was no real preamble that day; he just took the notebook, flipped it open, and started writing. A while later, he switched to his laptop—she’d stopped setting the timer; he didn’t need it anymore—and she scribbled in her notebook. She was just…jotting down some more of that idea, that’s all.
When he finished, he pushed the laptop across the table to Izzy.
When I was sixteen, my dad finally won an Oscar. I say “finally” because that had been his goal for years. He’d been an acclaimed screenwriter since I was a kid. He’d written a ton of movies, and some of his movies had gone on to win Best Picture. Sometimes he was also nominated for the screenplay, but he would get so resentful when he wasn’t.
“Apparently, the movie just wrote itself,” he would grumble, every time.
My mom always looked at him when he said that, I remember that now. But she never responded.
The night he won, my parents left together for the ceremony, my dad a little frumpy, as usual, my mom glamorous, also as usual. She often tried to hide—or at least minimize—how much taller she was than my dad, but that night, she wore these super high heels. I overheard her on the phone with one of her friends that day, when she was getting dressed. “You’re right,” she said. “Flats just don’t work with this dress. Fine, I’m going to do it.”
When they got home that night, I expected them to be gleeful, celebratory, triumphant. But instead, they were quiet, angry, as they walked in the door.
“Stop putting words in my mouth,” I heard my mom say in a low tone. I’ve always had much better hearing than my parents thought. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say anything,” my dad said. “Do you know how bad that made me look?”
They both stopped when they saw me, sitting there waiting for them. My mom smiled at me, but I could tell the smile was fake. I could feel the tension between them.
“Congratulations, Dad!” I said. I was thrilled for my dad; I knew how much he’d wanted to win.
He gave me a hug and grinned up at me.
“Thanks, Beau,” he said. “You were watching?”
I nodded. “Of course I was watching! I made everyone shush at the party when your category came up. We all cheered for you.”
He turned to look at my mom, who had kicked off her shoes and was taking the pins out of her hair. “Glad someone in this family is happy for me,” he said.
My mom looked up at that, a weary expression on her face. “Don’t” was all she said. She walked over to me, ran her hand over my hair, and kissed me on the forehead. I was just barely taller than her then. “Glad you were watching, Beau,” she said. She smiled at me and then turned, not quite looking at my dad. “I’m going upstairs to get this dress off and take a hot bath.” She kissed me again. “Good night.”