Original Work: You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home, Chapter 8, Part 3
Chapter 8, Part 3
I’d found in the past that when I like Jordan or another of my friends handle my makeup I’d never really liked the results. But of course Angela was a professional and it was hard not to trust her because her personality was so warm and welcoming. I started toward the chair but Linda’s voice made me pause momentarily. “Emilia,” at least I was starting to get used to people calling me that, “I’m going to go talk to Sophia but I won’t be long. I’m just going to get the run-down.”
Paul disappeared with Linda as well, though not before asking me if I wanted any wide range of foods or drinks, though it wasn’t until Schapelle gave him detailed instructions about what she would like that I realized I had skipped breakfast and asked for a muffin and orange juice. It might be a little closer to lunch than breakfast, but it was the most important meal of the day after all.
Angela chattered as she worked, darting from one side of my face to the other, commenting about her life at home and how her husband was starting to get annoyed with her two cats. As she experimented with different makeup styles, she also worked on my hair, multi-tasking in a way I don’t think I could have managed. “We’ve only been married five months.” Angela informed me as she studied my hair carefully, undoubtedly running through different styles in her hair. Now that it was so much shorter than it had been, her options were very limited. “The first four months are the best ones, after that, that’s when things start to get tricky.” Angela picked up the straightener and turned to look at me. “Do you have a boyfriend, Emilia?”
I shrugged and shook my head. “No, never.” The words left my mouth before I’d really thought about them. Back in Little Paris, I’d never had a serious boyfriend, just a few guys who’d caught my interest but we were never really interested in pursuing the relationship the way only high school students can. But she hadn’t asked whether I’d had a boyfriend, she’d asked about Emilia and I couldn’t remember if my sister had been romantically linked with anyone in the past or if she’d been rumored to have a boyfriend at any point in her life. Of course, my mind was drawing a complete blank.
Angela arched an eyebrow. “Really? I’d have thought a pretty girl like you would have the boys beating down the door.” She started running the flat-iron through my hair.
I glanced over at Schapelle, who was watching the exchange with thinly veiled interest, waiting to see what I would say. “Well, beating down the door and actually going out are two different things.” I remarked, hoping it sounded like something that Emilia would actually say. Schapelle went back to studying her Blackberry and eating her intricately made sandwich so I figured I had passed her test at least.
Angela scoffed, nodding. “Keep it that way, honey, it’s better to have them doing the chasing.”
Before I could fumble through any more conversations about Emilia’s love life, Linda appeared in the doorway and I noticed her entrance in the mirror, because every time I even tried to remotely move my head Angela jerked it back into position. So much for the breakfast Paul had brought. Linda was holding a bouquet of pastel colored flowers and had a large smile on her face. “Look what I have for you.” She beamed.
I smiled at my reflection and hers. “Thanks, Li- Mom, that’s-”
“They’re not from me.” Linda interrupted. I felt flattered that this mysterious Ms. Sophia would actually get me a bouquet of flowers just for showing up to be in her commercial. “They’re from Joshua Beckett.”
“What?!” I spun around in my chair, regardless of Angela’s commands for me to stay still. I gaped at my mother, who was still standing their smiling like a kid on Christmas morning. I opened my mouth, expected questions to come tumbling out, but I only croaked, “What?!” again.
Linda brought the flowers over to me and placed them in my hands; the sweet smell of the flowers hit my nose instantly and I couldn’t help but think about Joshua in the florist shop picking them out. Or having someone else do it. Regardless, I was sitting there, holding flowers from Joshua Beckett to me. This day had just gotten tremendously better. I couldn’t help but peek around the petals for a card and tried not to be disappointed when there wasn’t one.
But Linda quickly jumped in. “Here, I hope you don’t mind, I just had to know who they were from.” She handed me a tiny card with a picture of a cat wearing a sunflower around it’s head on the front. “Then I had to read what he said…”
I flipped open the card and was probably more excited than I should have been to see that it was hand written. Emilia, okay so maybe it wasn’t to me specifically but I was going to take what I could get, good luck on your commercial, I heard through the grapevine that Sophia finally managed to snag you. I was serious about dinner, how does tonight work for you? I hope to hear from you soon, Joshua. Inside, I felt like I was about to spontaneously combust and wanted to jump out of the chair and start doing a little dance around the warehouse. No one had ever sent me flowers before, especially not someone who was on the cover of teen magazines on a regular basis. But I tried to keep myself relatively composed. “How did he know where I was?” I asked Linda.
Schapelle came up and took the card from my hand, reading it over with a smile on her face. “There are ways he could have figured it out.” She answered my question. “I’m just impressed he took the time to do it.”
I thought about meeting Joshua face to face yesterday and how the conversation had been awkward at parts (because of the history between him and Emilia that I hadn’t known then but knew now) but had seemed genuine and easy the rest of the time. I thought about his request to take me out to dinner and wondered if he was actually doing it out of his own free will or because his band had decided he was going to sacrifice for the greater good and take out the savage beast. But if he wasn’t sincere, would he really suffer through dinner just for the sake of the band? I didn’t know how dedicated Joshua was to his music and I wondered if it was fair to force him through dinner or if I should just take his invitation at face value and accept with enthusiasm. Well, I was a teenage girl, after all. “Can I go to dinner?” I realized I probably sounded exactly like a teenager asking her parent for permission to do something.
Linda and Schapelle exchanged a pleased look. “Absolutely.” Linda replied. “We’ll have to get you something nice to wear for tonight.”
I hadn’t even thought about wardrobe choices yet, I was still hung up on the fact that I would actually be going out to dinner with Joshua Beckett. But what would I wear? What would we talk about? Would I be able to pull off being Emilia throughout an entire dinner? Joshua probably didn’t know Emilia well enough to see through my façade but my ignorance of her history and Hollywood, plus my unavoidable small-town-girl tendency to stare at the crowds, new surroundings and any other celebrities I might happen to run into might be enough to give me away. Suddenly, I wasn’t entirely sure that dinner was a good idea.
I turned around to tell Linda that I’d changed my mind, that maybe we should take a rain-check but I noticed the bouquet all over again and felt my heart jump around in my chest and my body started to feel like it wanted to jump and dance. I couldn’t stop the smile as it spread across my face. Joshua Beckett had sent me flowers, Joshua Beckett wanted to take me out to dinner, he wanted to spend the evening with me. I was sure that he could have gotten out of it if his manager had suggested it and he really hadn’t wanted to spend any time with me. Maybe he actually wanted to give me the benefit of the doubt.
When I realized that everyone in the room was watching me stare at flowers with a huge smile on my face, I cleared my throat and quickly turned around again so that Angela could finish with my hair and makeup. The artist gave me a knowing smile and a wink in the mirror as she compared bases with my skin tone and her reaction only made me blush even more. It was just dinner, nothing to get too excited about, it wasn’t like he’d asked me to get married or be his girlfriend or anything like that, I reminded myself, swallowing down my smile. But when I saw the flowers in the mirror, that stupid, betraying smile returned again. Sure it was just dinner, but dinner wasn’t a bad place to start.
Good book you are writing
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