Passions Page 14

  “My aunt used to take me here when we came to visit,” she mentioned as she pulled up to the main gate where a little shack was selling the tickets.

  Ahead was the enormous white screen and row upon row of speaker box poles and cars of every make and model waiting for the film to start.

  In the meantime, short cartoons were being projected from a tall tower behind the shack. Off to the far left of the crowd of cars was the long building that housed the concession stand, and she could already smell the aroma of hot dogs and buttered popcorn drifting out into the chilly night air. Light shined through the concession window, and she could faintly see the silhouettes of a couple of people inside waiting for orders.

  “I remember. You always came home, so excited after going to the movies. I could barely understand you through the childish babbling, but I knew you’d enjoyed it.”

  Chloe took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was much easier to hear about her mother, aunt, or grandparents from Gavin. But after hearing him talk about her as a child, she didn’t know how to respond. He’d known her almost all of her life, or at least known of her. It was like meeting an old friend of the family who knew her when she was too little to remember and talked about things she had no recollection of. But this was slightly different in the sense that she knew exactly what he was talking about, only she’d never known that he was there to witness it.

  Not wanting the rest of the evening to turn awkward, she didn’t press for more conversation just yet.

  As she approached the shack, she rolled her window down and paid for two tickets in cash. The young high school boy smiled cordially, but when his eyes fell on Gavin, his lips turned down apprehensively.

  Glancing over as she rolled past the shack to find an empty slot for her car, she saw that Gavin’s eyes were fixed straight ahead, and they were anything but calm. She peered closely at his face as the light from the movie screen danced across his pale skin. She half expected his eyes to be red and black like she’d seen before, but Chloe was glad to see they were the normal green color she loved so much. He wasn’t losing control. That was a good sign.

  But his eyes were a pool of emotion that shined through no matter how hard he tried to hide it. She wondered how she could read him so well. His lips drawn in a tight line told her that he was uncomfortable. The way his brows were drawn low spoke volumes of his reluctance to be here at all. Yet, somehow, she sensed that he really was happy to be here. His muscles weren’t nearly as tight as they had been before.

  Such conflicting emotions, and Chloe hadn’t a clue how she could sense it all so potently. Perhaps from years of having to read Brent, who was so volatile and impenetrable, she’d become more sensitive to others, especially enigmatic men.

  She found a spot, most inconveniently located in the center of the crowd, and put her car in park. The bubbly music from the cartoon crackled through the speaker next to her, but other than that, the car was silent.

  Chloe glanced at Gavin every now and then while the sketch-like cartoons played out slapstick comedies on the screen. He didn’t move. Not even his eyes flitted around to follow the sporadic movements of the characters. She might as well have been sitting next to a mannequin.

  “The movie’s called Laura. It’s about a homicide detective who falls for the girl whose murder he’s investigating.”

  Finally, a flicker of confusion crossed his face. “If the woman is dead, how can he fall in love with her?”

  Chloe didn’t want to give away the plot, so she simply shrugged. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

  Gavin went quiet again. Chloe snuggled herself deeper into the driver’s seat and wrapped the flaps of her canvas jacket tightly around her.

  “Are you cold?” he asked with hardly any emotion to suggest he was concerned, though Chloe knew differently.

  “No, not right now.”

  Silence reigned once more for a few beats before a very humiliating sound rumbled through the cab of the jeep. Chloe’s stomach chose that moment, of all times, to remind her that she hadn’t eaten yet.

  “You’re hungry?” he asked, now revealing a twinge of worry.

  She tried to laugh it off. “Just a little. But I’ll be fine for a while. Normally my cup of coffee holds me over if I forget to eat.”

  “How can anyone forget to eat?” he asked with a sliver of amazement.

  She shrugged. “It just happens. Especially if I get busy with doing something I’m passionate about.” “Like writing?”

  She nodded. “Yes, like writing.”

  Gavin turned to look at her. “But I’ve seen you eat at night when we’re writing.”

  Chloe couldn’t help but smile at the way he referred to their nightly activities as a partnership. What he said was true. But she cooked herself meals, not because she was hungry, but because she needed to take a break from him constantly hovering over her like a vulture waiting for her to spell a word incorrectly or make a terrible grammatical error in the sentence she was constructing.

  She’d had enough invasive hovering with Brent to last her a lifetime. She didn’t need it from Gavin. But it never bothered her in the same way. She wasn’t annoyed with Gavin’s watchfulness the way she was with Brent. Gavin only set her teeth on edge because of how near he was all the time. The anticipation of him doing something fresh out of one of her fantasies was nerve racking.

  But she wasn’t about to tell him that now.

  “It doesn’t happen all the time,” she replied.

  “I can go get –“ he began. But she saw the way his eyes rose to the concession stand somewhere beyond the jeep, and she could tell that his mind was calculating all the cars he’d have to pass—cars filled with potential snacks if he so chose.

  “It’s ok,” Chloe said. “I can wait a while, and if I get too hungry, I’ll go get popcorn myself. You don’t have to leave the car. I promised you wouldn’t have to.”

  She admired the way he wanted to help her. It was cute and chivalrous of him to want to get her food, even though it’d be difficult for him and might cause others to be in mortal danger.

  Gavin only nodded and looked back to the screen as it went completely black.

  Chloe smiled and remembered times back in her childhood when her aunt had taken her to visit the drive-in. How her heart would pound when the screen went black, just as it did now. She’d known that the movie was starting.

  The beginning credits began to roll. The white letters faded in and out over a backdrop, a portrait of the movie’s namesake. Chloe marveled at her image, thinking how the definition of beauty had changed over the decades, but the old movie actresses of Hollywood would still be considered beautiful, even today.

  “Is that Laura?” Gavin asked as his eyes drank in the beautiful painting above the fireplace on the screen.

  Chloe then wondered if the whole movie would go this way. She was the type to be silent during a movie and not ask questions because she knew the answer would be revealed later. Gavin may be like Brent, always talking, making comments and asking questions that only interrupted important dialogue. She hadn’t appreciated his commentary.

  But right now, there was only the beautiful music playing, and nothing important was being discussed.

  “Yep, that’s Laura,” she answered. “Isn’t she gorgeous in that dress?”

  Gavin tilted his head curiously. “I suppose.”

  Was he saying that so as not to insult Chloe or because he truly didn’t find her looks remarkable? There were certainly enough characters in the movie who did find her stunning.

  The credits faded away to a panning shot of a parlor room, ornately decorated with priceless trinkets behind glass cases and paintings tastefully hung on the walls. The grandfather clock was especially breathtaking.

  The writer, Mr. Waldo Lydecker, narrated the opening lines of the film.

  And immediately, she began to wonder if bringing Gavin to see this movie was the right choice.

  The opening monolog sp
oke of how Laura died and the tragic emotional turmoil that the narrator was experiencing as a result. He talked about how losing Laura made him feel utterly alone in New York as if he were the only human being left.

  And the shock of pain that crept up into Gavin’s eyes was enough to make her want to turn the jeep around and speed back to the cabin.

  What caused that pain? What was he remembering? Was he remembering his own death or the death of someone he cared for ages ago? Or perhaps it reminded him of losing Mary Anne. It had never occurred to Chloe that he would have lost a close friend when her aunt had moved away. Did they part on good terms, or had there been an argument? Chloe knew what it was like to lose a friend. She’d lost many just in the past few years, and it was never easy.

  When she thought about it, Chloe knew exactly how Mr. Lydecker felt—alone, cut off from the world because of a tragedy that was out of her control. Although, their stories had completely different endings. Mr. Lydecker brought all of these misfortunes upon himself. Yet, Chloe wondered if she really was any different.

  But as soon as the pain had flared in Gavin’s eyes, it passed, and the movie rolled on. But for Chloe, it took a little longer to shake off the internal analysis.

  Funny, she’d seen this movie several times, but this time was different than the others. She’d watched it with her mother, with Brent, with friends, and by herself. But she’d never watched it with Gavin. Maybe that was why it was suddenly special again, like introducing a piece of her childhood to someone with whom she wanted to share everything.

  And this was not only the first time that Gavin had seen this particular movie. It was the first time he had seen any movie. Chloe felt that maybe she was doing him a service by reintegrating him into society, whether he liked it or not.

  But, from her understanding of vampires, it might have been best to leave them in the shadows. They belonged there, not amongst the living, breathing people of the light. Chloe hated the idea that she couldn’t share other things with Gavin like a picnic in a sunny meadow or a walk through a crowded mall while holding hands.

  The thought of holding hands made her palms sweat and she became overly concerned with how her hands were positioned at the time. She wrapped them around her stomach, crossed them over her chest, and even gripped the steering wheel in an attempt to look relaxed.

  Thankfully, Gavin didn’t notice. He was too engrossed in the plot of the film. Or if he did notice, he didn’t say anything.

  “Lieutenant McPherson certainly is good at what he does,” Gavin commented once while the movie character was interrogating one of the murder suspects.

  Chloe didn’t have a response. She just dumbly nodded.

  Next were her legs. Should she try to cross them, or keep her knees clamped shut together beneath the steering wheel? Having her legs casually apart might send him the wrong impression. And if he had been raised in a society where propriety was king, it would certainly bother him.

  In the end, she crossed her ankles above the pedals as best she could and stretched them out to avoid cramps.

  Chloe chided herself for being so self-conscious. It wasn’t a date. Gavin wasn’t her boyfriend and never would be. This was just a chance to get out of the cabin and expose him to a bit of the new modern culture. Whether or not he would want to go again was another matter.

  She was hardly paying attention to the film when Gavin said, “I would use an ink pen over a quill any day.”

  The odd statement drew Chloe’s attention back to the movie screen where Laura and Mr. Lydecker were meeting for the first time in a flashback. Laura wanted him to endorse a pen for her advertising company, but the snooty writer was giving her a hard time, saying that he preferred to write with a quill dipped in venom, although Chloe recalled seeing him in the opening scenes, typing on an old fashioned typewriter while soaking in a marble tub.

  “Oh?” Chloe knew that Gavin had grown up in a world where quills and ink wells were the only way that one could write. She would have thought that method would be the most comfortable for him since it was so familiar.

  “Yes. I always found the dipping process tedious and sometimes frustrating.”

  “You write with pens a lot?” she asked.

  “Indeed. I have a collection, which I must admit that I have amassed by stealing from residents of the cabin and in town.”

  Chloe blinked. “You’ve been into town before?”

  Gavin looked at her and nodded. “Yes, but only briefly and infrequently. It behooves me to say that I have stolen and borrowed many things from people in Carter Lake.”

  “Like what?” she said with a slight smile. She already knew that he’d stolen things from her family when they had lived in the cabin, but never had she imagined he would venture out into town for anything.

  “I have stolen necessary things like clothes, paper, and pens. But I only borrowed books.”

  “Why books?” she asked, angling herself in the seat to face him.

  Gavin smirked. “I enjoy reading. It’s one of the few pleasures in life that I have been able to retain through this existence.”

  “What’s your favorite genre?” she asked, feeling her eyes widen with genuine interest. Finally, she was catching a peek at who Gavin really was.

  A few beats passed as Gavin thought. “I don’t know if you could count these as a genre, but I much enjoy Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s series about Sherlock Holmes, as well as Charles Dickens.”

  Chloe grinned, happy to find another person of like interests. She loved the classics, such as he described, but also any books from that century. Every line was like poetry back then, much different from the trash that was written nowadays. Chloe often wondered how novels with no plot or character development made it past the query stage of submission to publishers.

  “If you don’t mind,” he muttered, “I’d like to continue watching.”

  By now, Chloe had almost forgotten where they were and the film that was still rolling. If they had been watching at the cabin from the comfort of the living room, she would have paused the movie so they could talk. But she didn’t have that luxury here.

  She cleared her throat, slightly embarrassed that she had almost become the kind of movie watcher she despised most; those who wouldn’t shut up.

  Chloe resolved to keep her mouth shut for the rest of the film, but that resolution was broken when Gavin made another remark.

  “I don’t like that Shelby character. He is much too presumptuous with Laura.”

  She could hear the disdain in his tone as if he believed Shelby Carpenter was a real person instead of a fictitious character in a movie.

  “I don’t like him either. And he treats Laura so terribly by running around on her.”

  Chloe knew what it was like to be in a poisonous relationship. When she had watched this same movie with Brent, he’d gone on and on about how he would never treat her with such little respect. Sure, he had never cheated on her. But he still broke her heart in the end.

  “Simply deplorable,” he said with a shake of his head.

  She bit her lower lip as she thought things that were better left alone. But the more she watched how Shelby’s character began to unfurl his true colors, the more she thought of Brent and the last year of their relationship; the fights, the screaming, and the way he had turned on her so suddenly. And she thought of how it had changed her, how she had defended him to everyone even though he didn’t deserve it.

  Chloe was just like Laura in a way—both of them saw the error of their choices too late.

  It took a conscious effort not to open up the Pandora’s Box in her mind and release the tainted memories of Brent and Atlanta. She could remember him and her old friends in passing, but never too deeply. She would be lost in despair otherwise, and she wasn’t about to let that ruin her evening out with Gavin.

  The movie was reaching its halfway mark now, and a big reveal was coming.

  The detective had fallen asleep in Laura’s apartment while ste
wing over the facts of the case. But he was awoken by Laura walking through the door.

  Chloe watched the look of shock and bewilderment on Gavin’s face and grinned.

  “Is she a ghost?” he deliberated aloud. “Or is he simply dreaming? Surely, she can’t be really alive. That woman identified her body.”

  Chloe shook her head. “Not tellin’,” she said mischievously. Each of his suspicions was viable, but it would be revealed soon enough. She’d thought the same thing when she had first seen the movie as a young teenager.

  What she didn’t expect was for Gavin to turn to her with an expression like something was pressing on his mind. “You said once that you thought I was a ghost.”

  She heard the question in his statement and nodded. “Yeah, I thought you were.”

  “But why?”

  Chloe sighed and drew her shoulders inward as if she were cold “I guess it was because I never saw you, and you left those notes all the time. And, from what I heard, my aunt thought the house was haunted. And then I found that land deed in the attic. I automatically assumed you couldn’t be alive, so a ghost was the next logical thing to assume. I just connected the dots the wrong way, I guess.”

  Gavin nodded. “I can see how my behavior would have made you think that way. I apologize for the misunderstanding.”

  “It wasn’t until I talked with my mom that she told me my aunt claimed you were a vampire. The idea would have never occurred to me otherwise.”

  It slipped out at the last minute, and Chloe wished she had worded it all a little differently. But Gavin didn’t flinch at the word. He took it in stride and nodded.

  “I heard your phone conversation that day. I’m sorry you had to find out that way.”

  It didn’t surprise her that he had heard the conversation. She simply shrugged. “It’s better than finding you out on the porch sucking on a robin or something.”