‘I’m sorry!’ Olivia rushed forwards across the thick, dark carpet. ‘I really didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it. Please don’t think of it as a betrayal! I just . . .’ She bit her lip, faltering just as she reached her stepmom’s side. ‘I got it in my head that you were getting ready to run away from Franklin Grove or something.’
Lillian stared at her. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
Olivia twisted her hands together. ‘I saw you,’ she whispered, ‘in the supermarket, picking up a travel guide. And you’ve not been yourself lately – it’s like you’re trying too hard to prove that you like Franklin Grove and you fit in here.’
‘Olivia . . .’ Lillian began.
Olivia couldn’t stop herself. ‘You’re trying too hard,’ she said, looking from her stepmother’s elaborately upswept hair to her evening gown and rich garnet necklace. ‘You’ve been trying so hard to convince someone that everything’s OK, that it’s becoming so obvious everything’s not OK.’
Lillian looked at her for a long moment without speaking. Then, slowly, she smiled. ‘Gosh, I didn’t think it would take you such a short time to be able to read my moods so well,’ she said. ‘If I’m not careful, you and Ivy are going to be able to twist me round your little fingers!’
Olivia laughed and walked across the room to her stepmom, wrapping her in a hug. ‘I’m right here if you need to talk,’ she promised.
Lillian raised her eyebrows thoughtfully. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’d like that. But . . .’ She flipped open the coffin and climbed inside, carefully arranging the skirts of her silk evening gown against the rich crimson velvet of the coffin’s lining. ‘I’m going to need to be really relaxed for this conversation.’
Olivia blinked. ‘OK.’ I can deal with this, she told herself. After all, she’d finally gotten Lillian to start talking. She could totally handle talking to someone while they lay down inside a coffin!
As Lillian got comfortable, the lines of tension in her face eased away. For the first time all week, she actually looked genuinely peaceful. When she started to speak, her voice was quiet.
‘I wasn’t planning to leave,’ she said. ‘I was looking at travel guides because I was trying to find out how easy it would be to fly back and forth from the Wanderer location shoot to Franklin Grove.’
‘Wanderer? I’ve heard about that movie!’ Olivia grabbed the coffin edge in her excitement – then let go. Too weird! Backing away from the coffin, she continued: ‘Mr Harker asked Jackson if he wanted to act in it.’
‘Really?’ Lillian seemed to ponder that for a moment. ‘Well, Jackson would be excellent as the main character’s son. Is he going to do it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Olivia said, ‘but that’s not important. What matters right now is, why are you not doing it?’
Lillian sighed, shifting her head against her crimson cushion. ‘It turns out that it wouldn’t be easy at all to fly back and forth from the shoot to Franklin Grove. It’s a post-apocalyptic movie, set largely in the desert. That means location work, mostly in Africa.’
‘Oh.’ Frowning, Olivia nibbled on her lower lip. ‘OK, so you wouldn’t be coming back every weekend. But it’s one shoot – four or five months at the most, right? So . . . if the director wants to help you make your own movie afterwards, it might be worth it.’
Lillian sighed again and closed her eyes. This time, Olivia had to look away. Lying inside the coffin with her eyes shut, Olivia’s stepmom looked achingly beautiful and ethereal, but also quite . . . dead. Olivia swallowed hard. This is the hardest part of vampire culture to deal with!
When Lillian spoke again, though, her words startled Olivia out of her discomfort. ‘It is just one movie shoot,’ Lillian said, ‘but Harker wants to film all three movies back-to-back . . . over a period of eighteen months.’
Olivia gasped. Eighteen months? Taking that job really would mean Lillian effectively moving away!
‘Of course I can’t do it,’ Lillian said. ‘I couldn’t bear to spend that long away from my new family – and I would never want Charles to have to relocate Ivy and separate you two girls again.’
‘Nooo . . .’ Olivia trailed the word out unhappily.
‘Olivia?’ Ivy’s voice called up from downstairs. ‘I’ve destroyed my sweet potato, like, five times while waiting. Do you need help looking for my phone?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ Olivia called back. ‘I’ll be right down.’
She bit her lip, turning back to her stepmom. The thought of losing Ivy for a year and a half was unbearable, but it was so unfair that Lillian’s ambitions couldn’t match up with her new life in Franklin Grove!
Lillian suddenly sat up in the coffin, reaching out for Olivia. Olivia had to look away sharply. This is way too much of a horror movie moment!
Her stepmom’s touch was gentle, though, as she took Olivia’s hand. ‘I promise,’ Lillian said, ‘that it’s not Franklin Grove making me unhappy.
I can’t tell you how happy I am being married to Charles – and how thrilled I am that I get to be stepmother to the two coolest teenagers I’ve ever known.’ Olivia squeezed her stepmom’s hand, feeling the gentle sting of tears in her eyes. ‘We’re really thrilled about that, too,’ she said.
Lillian’s expression turned wistful. ‘I just wish I could be creative here, that’s all. That’s the only reason I even considered taking the Wanderer job – because there’s not much creative outlet in Franklin Grove.’
Olivia gave a hiccupy laugh. ‘I’ve heard that before,’ she said, ‘from Camilla.’
Her friend had always said that Franklin Grove wasn’t cinematic. In fact, Camilla would probably tell Lillian that herself, if she ever worked up the nerve to speak to her. Maybe at the exhibit on Saturday . . .