LILY
We went into full Powers of Suggestion production mode. We drove around town, drinking sweet tea and getting what Gabe called transition shots, which, he explained, he would then send to his production editors to put in between the various segments. Determined to make Savannah shine like the gem that she was, I picked out her prettiest places—the tree-branch arches of Oak Avenue at Wormsloe, the orderly gardens at the Owens-Thomas House, the row houses of East Bryan Street with their pastel shutters. I took him to the offices of the Historical Society in Hodgson Hall, where we dug up photos of infamous haunted houses from their glory days, and then we got footage of each house in the here and now: the long-abandoned 12 West Oglethorpe with its Greek columns and its rumors of a man who leans on the building scaring the bejesus out of tourists; the Willink House on East Saint Julian, where neighbors say they hear the doors slamming at all hours; 432 Abercorn, which was dark somehow, even in the middle of the day. And it would have all been just perfect. Except for one thing, which bothered me like a price tag stuck to the bottom of my shoe.
Throughout our morning, his phone kept on buzzing constantly, either in his pocket or on the dash. It was a little reminder, each time, not only of how different our realities really were, but also that the outside world was trying to break into this little bit of heaven we were living inside. And I wondered how, in the midst of all those endless notifications, my little messages would ever be able to get through.
But I squashed worries as best I could and took him to get chicken salad from Back in the Day Bakery and ice cream from Leopold’s. Then we headed out to Battlefield Park, where he set up his drone—no bigger than a liquor box—and taught me how to fly it while we sat in the shade under the big magnolias. Using the joystick to make it zoom around town brought back that pure joy of driving the pink radio-controlled Mustang around our yard when my sister and I were kids. Sitting together on the grass, I gave him a bird’s-eye tour of the house where I grew up, the movie theater where I’d gotten my first kiss, and the parking lot where my sister had taught me to parallel park. Once we flew the drone back to us, we got snow cones and lay together in the grass. I looked up into the leaves with my head on his stomach. Heaven.
He said, “It was good to see all your important places. First kiss and all.”
I turned to face him with a spoonful of strawberry ice almost to my mouth. “For the record, I’d like to see where you got your first kiss.”
He chipped off a spoonful from his cone and glanced up into the trees. “I think the first kiss was in Texas. But it might’ve been Delaware.”
“Broken hearts in every zip code, I’m sure,” I teased. I rolled over onto my stomach in the grass so I could see him better and propped myself up on my elbows. “What about your parents? Where are they?”
His smile got so wide that his beautiful eyes were surrounded by lines of happiness. “They retired to a little town called Jasper, Arkansas, right on the border with Missouri. One of the prettiest places you’ve ever seen. I bought a cabin down there for when I visit. It’s not Savannah, but it’s my kind of paradise.”
I was no geography ninja, but I had a pretty good idea where that might be. “So that explains your vote for the Ozark Howler? Finding a way for me to meet the parents?” Even though I was a little sassy when I said it, it made my heart sort of melt.
“You’re onto me. But not just them, actually. My brother and his wife live there too. And so do these little treasures.” Gabe grabbed his phone from the grass, opened it up, and went to his photos. He used the map view at first, and the whole globe seemed to be littered with tiny thumbnails. He zoomed in on the southeastern US and brought up one of him with two little girls in an enormous pile of leaves. The girl on the left was maybe two or three—chubby, towheaded, and rosy cheeked. “That’s Lacy,” he said, beaming with pride. “And that”—he pointed to the other girl, who was lanky and dark headed, and she had his hair and that same wonderful smile—“is Gabriela,” he said, smiling even harder. I knew that feeling. I felt just the same with Ivan. Like my heart was about to burst. “They named her after me. Isn’t that awesome? She’s so smart. It’s magic to watch her grow up. The last time I was there, she and I put the constellations on the ceiling of her room with those little glow-in-the-dark stars. You know the ones?”
Know them? “My mom is still peeling them off the walls of my room. And I’m thirty-five.”
Gabe let out a wonderful laugh. “Gabby is a lot like you. Thoughtful, kind, and always thinking. Fantastic sense of humor.” His eyes darted up from his phone, and he stopped himself. I knew that hesitation—I often had to stop myself from going on and on and on and on about Ivan. But the pride in Gabe’s expression made me think not so much of him as an uncle, but of what he’d be like . . . as a dad. He’d be a natural. And the idea made me feel tingly in a way that made me very glad I’d kept a thought inside my head for once.
He put his phone aside and gently swept my hair from my cheek. The wind rustled the trees above us, making a cool breeze cut through the midday heat. Gabe seemed just as oblivious as I was to the other people in the park. I knew they were there, with their Frisbees and their dogs, but they seemed so far away. He tucked my hair behind my ear and finally said, “I like being with you, beautiful. A lot. When I’m with you . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s crazy. It’s like things make sense in a way they didn’t before. Like maybe you’re what I’ve been working toward and I didn’t even know it.”
I had looked for so long for someone who made me feel like he did, that wild and intense passion that overcame logic and common sense. I had never wanted some ordinary romance—what woman did? I had always wanted to be swept off my feet. And maybe that’s why now I really did feel as though I was falling, falling, falling.
I balanced my chin on my palm and, with the other hand, dug my fingers into the place where the grass met the soil, as if to ground myself a little. “What I said to you yesterday, in your truck, I still mean it. I don’t want to say goodbye to you either.” I tugged on a blade of grass and pulled it out at the root, smoothing the dark-green leaves between my fingers as I plucked up my courage. “But surely you can’t stay in North America . . . forever.”
Oh jeez. Forever. I’d just said forever. Strong work, Lily. Way to take it one step at a time.
But Gabe didn’t seem shocked at all. He blinked slowly and nodded again. “That is true. That will be a thing we’ll need to deal with. For now, for the rest of this filming season, I can stay in the States. I want to stay in the States.”
I felt my cheeks begin to redden. I wasn’t used to this sort of thing at all—this take-charge, anything-for-me attitude. It was almost overwhelming. Who was I kidding? It was totally overwhelming. “You really, really don’t need to do all for this for me.”
“But I want to, Lily. For the first time, I have someone other than me to worry about. And I need that. I like my life, but I like it better when I think of you in it.”
I tied my little blade of grass into a knot. “So do I.”
“This . . . ,” he said, caressing my cheek a bit more firmly, “. . . matters. We’re just starting. I want us to be solid for whatever comes in the future. Leaving so soon would be like . . .”
I knew exactly what it was like, because I felt that way too. But until that moment, I hadn’t quite pinned down the feeling. Now I finally had it. “Like poking dough before it’s risen.”
“Right.” His eyes twinkled in the dappled sunshine. “So what do you say?”
Deep down, a part of me did worry that this was just a North American monsters–themed Band-Aid on a much bigger issue. I felt as though there was a bridge up ahead, and I had no idea how to cross it. He lived in Hollywood. I lived in Savannah. But he was willing to upend his plans for me, and the very least I could do was meet him halfway, with open arms and an open heart. And so I scooched closer to him, took his beautiful face in my hands, and whispered, “I say, Ozarks, here we come.”