Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood(13)
Author: Abby McDonald

“Packing can wait!” Hallie danced back across the room. “I’m going to go celebrate. Mirabelle and the gang are dying of jealousy!” She paused, looking back and forth between Grace and Theo. “You should do something too.” She gave Grace a suggestive look. “Go out. Get crazy.” She winked, slamming the door behind her.

“Wow.” Theo blinked. “Where does she find the energy for all those mood swings? I’m exhausted just looking at her.”

“I think it’s like photosynthesis,” Grace replied, going back to packing. “She absorbs drama and conflict from the universe, and turns it into pure emotion.”

“Still, I think she’s right about one thing.” Grace looked up. “Going out,” Theo explained. He stuck his hands in his pockets, suddenly looking awkward. “I was thinking tomorrow night? As a good-bye. I’ll be leaving next week, and you need to give the city a send-off. . . .”

“But there’s so much to do!”

“It can wait,” he reassured her.

“I guess . . .” Grace suddenly realized: he’d said “tomorrow night.” Aside from that first movie, all their hanging out had been in daylight hours: museums, parks, usually with baby Dash around as chaperone. This would be different.

“Come on,” Theo insisted. “Hallie shouldn’t be the only one to have some fun.”

He looked at her across the room, brown eyes warm behind his glasses, and despite herself, Grace felt her resolve slip. She had so little time left, she shouldn’t spend it all with boxes and packing tape. This wasn’t about Theo, she decided, it was about the city — her home. She deserved a good-bye. “OK,” Grace finally agreed. Theo grinned.

“It’s a date.”

Grace knew that Theo hadn’t meant “date” like date. But still, she felt a flutter of nerves when she opened the door to find Theo wearing a dress shirt and tie, his hair smoothed back into something resembling a neat style.

“Fancy,” she teased, hiding her dismay. She’d picked a skirt and sweater almost exactly like the half dozen other skirt-and-sweater outfits Theo had already seen her in. After all, there wasn’t anything to get dressed up for; they were just hanging out, like normal.

Right?

Theo coughed, looking awkward. “You look great.”

Grace felt herself start to blush. “Thanks.”

There was a pause.

“You, umm, ready to go?”

“Sure!” Grace startled. “Let me just grab my coat.”

Grace hurried down the hall and ducked into the mudroom, scrambling for the lip gloss she knew Hallie always kept in her coat pocket. Was it too late to put her hair up? Grace wondered, smearing on the pink balm. She caught sight of her reflection, and immediately wiped it all off again. No, she was overreacting again. Theo was just a nice guy who had been raised to wear something other than a ratty T-shirt from time to time. Tonight was nothing special.

She grabbed her coat and hurried back, hoping to get Theo out of the house before Hallie could —

“Hey, Theodore.”

Too late. Grace returned to find Hallie sizing Theo up with a careful stare. “Where are you kids going?”

“Out,” Grace answered shortly. She pulled on her parka and turned to Theo. “Ready?”

But Theo was nothing if not well mannered. “How’s it going?” he asked Hallie.

“You mean, besides moving across the state because your sister is a thieving selfish bitch?”

Grace gasped. “Hallie!”

“What?” She shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “We all know the truth, there’s no point dancing around it.”

Theo looked amused. “I’ll tell her you said hi.”

Hallie turned to Grace. “Don’t stay out too late,” she said with a smirk. “I’d tell you to be good, but you don’t know how to be anything different.”

Grace glared, and hustled Theo out the door. “I am so sorry!” she told him, the minute they were outside.

Theo gave her a grin. “How is it we spend most of our time apologizing for our sisters?”

“Because they’re insane?” Grace suggested, then stopped. “I didn’t mean —”

“Oh, you did, and she is.” Theo laughed. “You know, she’s got Dash seeing a child psychologist?”

“What?” Grace stopped. “He can’t even talk!”

“She’s worried he’s traumatized by all the change,” Theo explained. “So now some guy comes for an hour every night to watch him play and make notes about his sociability.”

“OK,” Grace agreed. “You’re right. Our sisters are crazy.”

Theo had planned a whistle-stop farewell tour of the city: trying to cram a visit to every major tourist spot into just a few hours. They took a cable car up to Chinatown, browsed the used bookstores along Little Italy, and tossed pennies in the Japanese fountains in Golden Gate Park. By the time they climbed the cliff staircase at Ocean Beach, Grace felt as if her feet were about to give way, but as Theo led her out to the cliff-top lookout point, her exhaustion disappeared.

“God, I love this view.” Grace walked to the very edge of the observation deck and clutched the stone balustrades. The bay was chilled and windswept before them, sun just sinking in the distance. Grace knew they had beaches in Southern California — golden sands, gentle waves — but she would miss the coastline here the most. The waves shifted, dark and stormy even on the clearest days, and the cliffs cast shadows over the water below.

“Dad brought me up all the time as a kid,” she told Theo, smiling at the memories. “Hallie would have a theater class over in the Presidio, so we’d come here. There used to be a museum right here at the top,” she added, “full of old arcade games. I would make the fortune-teller keep spitting out new futures until I got the one I liked.”

“What did it predict for you?”

“Fame, fortune, eternal happiness. You know, the usual.” Grace remembered the way her father would always follow the same routine: first the arcade, then a bracing walk across the beach — heads down against the winds, wrapped in their warmest winter gear — then finally a hot dog from the stand up by the cliffs, before meeting Hallie with ketchup stains on their fingers and mustard on their shirts. But soon enough, Hallie quit the theater group over some fight, and their dad started spending weekends at the office, and their Saturday rituals became a thing of the past.