Just a Girl - Becky Monson Page 0,8
it, as one does in these situations. From the year he graduated, I was able to do quick math in my head, putting his age around thirty-two.
And that’s when we got to the fateful question. I fumble with the edge of the cocktail napkin my wineglass is sitting on, not sure if I want to go with Thomas’s plan. My stomach is rumbling, a bundle of nerves. Maybe I should just tell him the truth. The whole truth and not half of it as Thomas had said I should do. I could even pull up the video and show it to him and we could get it all out in the open.
“I restore antique furniture,” I say, finally. I guess my mouth has gone with Thomas’s idea. I hear one of my camp counselors in my head telling me to “speak my truth,” and I push it away.
“That’s brilliant,” Henry says, the dimple in the right corner of his mouth extra pronounced as he smiles. His eyes do a magical crinkling thing that makes my heart bounce and sputter like a breaking-down car engine. I think it wants to take off at full speed, but it’s been so long since it’s felt something like this. Boring Brady never elicited these kinds of feelings.
“How long have you been doing that?”
I look to the side at the wall behind Henry, where a framed picture of a sunsetting beach hangs. At least that’s what I think it is, in this dim lighting. Laughter breaks out over the low thrum of the background music from someone sitting at the bar.
I force my eyes back to Henry, who’s looking at me intently. The blue of his shirt makes his eyes pop. A light five-o’clock shadow dusts his jaw.
“I’ve been doing it for a long time, actually,” I say. “But I didn’t start making money until about three years ago. My site is called Quinn Creates; you can look it up.”
My fluttering heart quits its sputtering and plummets, landing in the bottom of my stomach when I think of the half-truth I’ve just told him. It’s true, I do restore antique furniture, and I’m pretty good at it. Actually, Quinn Creates has become a fairly lucrative side job for me, since doing the midday news is a total crap-paying job. No one tells you that when you’re in college and have stars in your eyes and think you’re going to take the news world by storm. Kind of hard to do when you mostly live paycheck to paycheck. Yep, it’s that bad. You’d think a market with half the country’s news—nearly every crazy crime story originates in this lovely state—would pay better. Morning and evening news fare better, and someday I hope to be doing one of those. Either one, I’m not picky. And if I could get away from that viral video long enough, it might actually happen.
“I’ll definitely look that up,” Henry says, looking impressed. “What got you into the furniture thing?”
“It started as a hobby. I’ve been doing it since high school.”
“I’d love to see it.” He reaches for his drink, a pilsner, which is so different than the froufrou concoction Thomas was just drinking.
The thought of Thomas makes my stomach fill with unease. So help me if this idea of his backfires—I’ll never forgive him.
Just leave out the whole news thing, he’d said. Tell him about that tacky furniture thing you do. A few dates in, you can tell him about the whole news debacle thing you’ve gotten yourself into.
I grabbed on to the idea like a rope on the back of a speedboat pulling me through a large wake. But now that I’m sitting across from Henry, my thoughts are all over the place. I don’t want to start something that could end up white picket fences and blue front doors with a lie. I’ll tell him soon. Next date. If there is one. Gosh, I hope there is.
“What do you do?” I say, sitting back in my chair, feeling relieved to move the conversation away from me.
This time it’s Henry’s turn to fidget in his chair. “I’m in . . . er . . . entertainment.”
Entertainment? Oh my, is Henry famous and I’m so dense I didn’t even pick up on it? He’s certainly handsome enough to be, with that strong jawline and those brilliant blue eyes.
Pictures of a red carpet and flashing camera lights run through my head. Henry in a tux waving at adoring fans, me on his