“Yeah,” she says. “And hot.” She holds her hand to her heart.
Something in me hisses. Jealousy? Is that jealousy?
“Sadly, taken, though,” Dakota adds.
I press my lips together to keep my smile hidden.
But wait. She said Corissa was hot. And yeah, Corissa totally was hot. I’ve never actually heard someone describe a person who looks like me or Corissa as hot before, though, and so that has me wondering if maybe . . . to someone out there . . . I’m hot too.
Out in the field behind the warehouse is a circle of trailers. All that’s missing is a campfire at the center.
Dakota’s name is on her trailer in glittering gold letters with a star below, and inside the star, Reese is spelled out in cutouts.
“And this,” Dakota says, “is home sweet home.”
Inside is a makeup chair, a couch, a flat-screen TV, and a built-in kitchen table beside a counter with a sink and microwave.
We both plop down on the couch with fizzy waters from the mini-fridge.
Dakota holds her arms out. “Well, what’d you think? Everything you ever dreamed of?”
My heart flutters. “Everything and more. I’m just amazed by all the people and how they seem like one big happy—”
“Family,” Dakota finishes. “That’s the best part, I think. We yell. We fight. We cry. We’re our best and worst selves. But we’re family.”
Something about the way she says it causes a lump in my throat. “Family,” I whisper. I’ve got Grandma Lou and of course Ches and Matt, but there will always be a Mom-and-Dad-shaped hole in my heart.
“Wait till I bring you on set when we’re actually shooting. I don’t know if your fangirl heart will be able to handle it.”
“I have to confess something,” I say, the lump in my throat building into tears. I feel so stupid. Why am I even tearing up?
Dakota takes my drink and places it next to hers on the coffee table and then turns her whole body toward me. “Faith, what is it? Is everything okay?”
“There’s something I haven’t told you about me,” I tell her.
Her expression darkens a little. Oh no. This . . . this was a mistake.
I close my eyes, trying to center myself in the same way I did when I dove off the roof of the vet clinic the other day. “I’m Faith. That’s still me. But I’m also the person behind Faithfully Yours. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. It’s like a Grover fan blog, but not like gossipy. Mostly recaps and . . .” I can feel myself rambling. “And I just . . . please know I would never actually share anything that you’ve showed me today . . . or, oh my gosh, anything you’ve told me about your family. That goes in the vault, Dakota. You have to know that.”
She says nothing as she runs a finger over the tear in her jeans.
“Dakota, I’m so sorry. I should’ve said something. That was wildly unethical of me.” Mrs. Raburn would kill me if she knew I’d done something so awful like this. I should go. I begin to stand. “And I just . . . I understand if you never want to see me again. I can find my own way back to your house to get my—”
Dakota takes my hand, tethering me to the couch. “I know.” She laughs and hides her face with her other hand. “Oh man. This is embarrassing.”
“Huh? I mean, yes, I am mortified, but you have nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Dakota shakes her head. “I have a confession too, Faith.”
I lean back into the couch.
“Okay . . .”
“I guess you could say I’m a fan of your work.”
8
“It started out with me reading your recaps of old episodes when Margaret hired me. One of the PAs actually mentioned Faithfully Yours to me.”
“Oh!” My whole body warms with pride, and I feel a prickling in my chest like I could cry from relief or joy or something.
“And then . . . I don’t know. You were just so charming and funny. You seemed to get the show on a deeper level, so I did some sleuthing. . . . God, this is going to make me sound like such a stalker.”
Please stalk me, Dakota Ash, I nearly blurt. But then I slap my own internal hand. Bad, Faith. Stalking = bad. But there’s something about knowing she thought of me or—heck!—that she knew I existed in the first place. It evens the playing field a little.
She shakes her head. “And then I found a whole Reddit board dedicated to figuring out who you are, and before you know it, I’d put some dots together.”
I sit there silently, a slow smile overtaking me.
“I didn’t go to the fair knowing you’d be there. I saw Bumble independently. And then there you were. Barreling toward me.”
“There I was.” I giggle. “Being tugged along by a sixty-pound mutt.” Something about rehashing the first time we met makes me feel like we’re old friends with a long, storied history between us.
“So I guess this makes us even,” she says.
In a way, she’s right. Something about knowing this also makes me feel like I’m on even ground with her, helps me feel a little more at ease.
As we drive back to Dakota’s house, we sail through Glenwood with the windows down and the Tesla’s seat heaters on, protecting us from the chill without saving us from it entirely.
Even getting into Grandma Lou’s car doesn’t return me back to reality. New friendship always makes my heart thud. Sometimes I feel things so intensely, it scares me. It’s like showing up to a costume party and finding out you’re the only one who actually wore a costume. But Dakota seems like she’s all-or-nothing too, and something about it almost feels a little dangerous.
By the time I get home, it’s dark enough that Grandma Lou should already be cozied into her recliner with only a lamp on as she shouts the answers to Jeopardy! reruns she’s seen so many times, she’s got them memorized.
But when I pull into the driveway, nearly every light in the house is on, a warm glow spilling out into the street.
I walk in and the smell of cigarettes hits me like it did after I came back this summer, but then the scent was stale and old, like it’d been there all along and I’d just gotten used to it over time. This smell is fresher, more recent.
I drop my keys on the coffee table and leave my coat on the hook by the door.
“Grandma Lou?” I call.
“In here!”
In the kitchen, I find my grandmother standing at the sink with a cigarette hanging from between two fingers as she sprays down a pan with the other hand.
“Grandma Lou?” I ask again, and some dormant part of me is scared she’s going to turn around to reveal herself to be some kind of creature who’s been living inside my grandmother’s body for months, my grandma Lou long gone. “Grandma Lou!” I shout.
She whirls around then, surprised, as she drops the spray nozzle in the sink. “Oh, Faith,” she says. “You startled me.”
I see then that she’s wearing her old uniform, the one she wore five days a week for thirty-three years when she worked the assembly line at SuzyCakes, a packaged snack cake company almost as old as she is.
Confusion tugs at me. What is she doing? Maybe she was just stressed and needed a cigarette. Maybe she’s having a tough time making ends meet and she’s gone back to working a few hours a week. It could be that she just wanted to try on her old uniform to see if it fit, like people do with wedding dresses. Heck, I even do it with old Halloween costumes.