Instead, Amalie invited me up to the house for dinner and cards. I didn’t have it in me to decline; besides, if I stayed here, I’d brood. Like Lucian.
God, I wanted to hunt him down, see if he was all right, try to make him crack that small but delighted smile of his. All foolish thinking. He was a big boy; he’d lived his life just fine before I’d stumbled into it. He didn’t need me, and it was the height of arrogance to assume I could make his life better in any shape or form.
What I absolutely refused to think about was the fact that maybe I needed him.
“No.” I closed the door of my bungalow and marched toward the house. “You’re just clinging to him because your life is uncertain, and you need a project.”
I was not about to make Lucian a project.
Following the directions Amalie had given me, I found her and Tina in the kitchen. It was a gorgeous space, with lower cabinets of aged rich oak, Carrara marble counters, softly washed plaster walls, and dark-beamed ceilings. Tina sat on a stool at the massive center island while Amalie puttered around an eight-burner stove.
“Welcome,” Amalie said, smiling over her shoulder. “Dinner is almost ready.”
Whatever she’d cooked smelled fantastic. I took a seat next to Tina, who offered me wine.
“Where is Sal?” I asked. I had yet to see Amalie without Sal in tow.
“He’s gone to LA for the week on a buying trip.” Amalie winked. “Which really means he knew I was about to greet my other grandbabies and wanted us to settle in without him in the way.”
“Would he be in the way?”
“Non.” She waved a beringed hand. “But—”
“He doesn’t get along with Anton,” Tina cut in.
“I wonder why,” I murmured, unable to help myself, but Tina laughed.
“We Osmonds can be a difficult bunch. Anton and Sal have been silently hating on each other for years because Ant once made the mistake of calling Sal the help.”
It was a terrible thing to say, and I would have been livid.
“Oh, wow. Did Sal punch him out for that?” I was only half teasing.
“No.” Tina beamed. “Luc did.”
Mighty Lucian. Of course he did. I could picture it with ease and smiled. Damn it, I missed him. And it had only been a few hours. I took a sip of wine, annoyed with myself.
“We’re going to eat out there.” Tina nodded toward the open french doors, where there was a little terrace surrounded by lavender and rustling olive trees. “Want to help set up?”
“Sure.”
While we set the table, Amalie brought out a cast-iron pan and set it in the center. Inside were roasted tomatoes covered in herbed breadcrumbs; it sizzled away and smelled divine. “There.”
Tina brought out some french bread, and soon we were digging into our food.
“It’s delicious, Amalie,” I said. “Thank you.”
She shrugged. “I am not so much for cooking anymore. But I used to make this dish for my children and grandchildren.”
“It reminds me of my childhood,” Tina said with a happy sigh.
Amalie took a small bite. “This was your favorite, no?”
“Yes. The boys loved coq au vin. But I always wanted this.”
“I had coq au vin the other night,” I put in, smiling at Amalie. “It was wonderful.”
She gave me a vague shrug. “We love to eat well. Good for the heart.”
Without warning, I thought of Lucian out there somewhere, and I wondered if he was heartsick. And though I liked to think my face wasn’t easy to read, Amalie frowned, as though she knew I’d thought of him.
“I apologize for my grandson,” she said.
Quickly, I shook my head. “There’s nothing to apologize for. I would have left early too.”
Lucian hadn’t stomped away. No, he’d finished his meal in dogged silence and then simply stood and bid the women at the table a good day. Perfectly polite. Perfectly painful to watch.
Amalie’s crimson lips curled in soft humor. “Non, I meant Anton. He was—”
“An asshole,” Tina finished, earning a look of reproof from Amalie. “What? There’s no better word, Mamie.”
“Fine. An asshole, then.” With her slight accent, the word took on a nice depth that had me grinning despite myself. Amalie tutted. “He means well most of the time.”
“Anton knew exactly what he was doing.” Tina scowled and spooned another tomato onto her plate. “And to bring that bitch up. He wanted to piss Luc off.”
Curiosity bubbled up within me, but I fought it hard. If Lucian wanted me to hear about his ex, he would tell me.
“So what card game are we going to play?” I asked brightly.
Tina and Amalie thankfully got the message and moved the conversation away from Lucian. We cleared the table and settled down to play cards and drink more wine.
Amalie passed a deck of cards to Tina. “Shall you be staying here for summer, ma fille?”
Apparently, Tina had graduated from UCLA in the spring and was still finding her feet with what she wanted to do. I empathized. Tina shrugged in the way of all Osmonds, her glossy dark hair sliding over one slim shoulder. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but if you’re okay with it, then I will.”
Amalie’s repressive glare was tempered by a soft curl of her thin lips. “You never had to ask.” She touched her granddaughter’s cheek briefly.
Tina caught my eye, and her nose wrinkled wryly. “You’re so together it probably seems ridiculous that I don’t know what to do with my life. I know I want it to be exciting, filled with adventure. But I don’t feel brave. Instead, my future feels like this big unknown void of . . . scary.”
I was twenty-seven years old, and suddenly it felt ancient in the face of her assumption that my life was secure and well ordered. “I’m an actress—I excel at showing the world what I want them to see. But my life isn’t perfect.” I made a decision then to trust Tina with the truth and told her about getting the ax.
Her mouth dropped open in horror. I smiled tightly. “Please don’t tell anyone. I’ll get in a world of trouble if the finale gets out.”
She sat straighter. “Never. I am honored that you trusted me with this. And I think the producers were stupid as hell to drop you. Anya and Arasmus were my favorite part of the show!” She clasped my hand. “What will you do now?”
“I don’t know. Find a new role.” I glanced at both Tina and Amalie and cringed. “It’s part of the business, but I can’t help feeling a bit lost—or maybe just at a crossroads.”
“That is life, my dear.” Amalie poured more wine into my empty glass. “Life doesn’t remain the same. It shifts and turns, and we must shift with it. Which isn’t a bad thing. How boring would it be to never see any change?”
“I thought I liked change, but now? Not so much. Not when it comes in the face of failure.”
Amalie sat back and regarded me with fond eyes. “Failure is simply opportunity in disguise. I do not know of a single success story that did not have its share of failures along the way. We try, we grow, sometimes we fail. You either crumble and stop living life, or you pick yourself up and use the experience to set a new course.”