Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ✔︎

28 | Maybe

|photo by Harry Gillen from Unsplash|

The stairs are at the back of Conner's house. His bedroom is in the front. It's all bed and blank walls.

"I just moved in," he says. "My brother went away to college this year and his room is bigger so it's mine now. Bathroom?" He points down the hall. "It's clean."

A fast-talking Conner is a nervous Conner. For some reason this realization makes me less so. "Your habitat needs improvement," I tell him.

"Yeah. It does." He takes a frame out of a cardboard box. "Chase and I are twelve in this picture," he says, passing it to me.

They are adorable: skinny and gangly and totally cheesing it for the camera. "Chase has braces."

"I got mine a month later. That was my first trip to Water Mill."

I grimace. "I'm sorry I messed up your holiday weekend."

Conner furrows his brow, reminiscent of the whole accusation-in-the-library-stairwell disaster.

"I meant by taking your spot at the estate," I say.

"Oh. That's not..." He shakes his head. "I just wanted you to know that I've known the Tinsleys for a long time. Chase's mom is nothing like your aunt."

I tighten my grip on the wooden frame. I know where this is going.

"Your costume idea may or may not annoy the Wicked Witch, but it's going to seriously offend Mrs. Tinsley. In her own home. In front of all her guests."

And my parents raised me better than that.

"You could've made this point before I spent thirty dollars on slutty boots," I tell him.

He huffs a breath of amusement. But then he scratches the back of his neck, suddenly interested in the contents of the box. "I did," he says. "Before we even went into the store."

"You weren't nearly this convincing. Why didn't you talk me out of them?"

Conner's eyes move to my sneakers and then they come back to mine. And I have to look away. Because I know that glint, I know that smile.

But is he trying to flirt with me or is he trying not to?

"So, enchiladas," he says, reaching for the photograph.

I allow myself one last peek before I surrender it. "Um, yeah. They smell great."

* * *

His parents make an appearance before we finish eating. I get a warm hug from Mrs. Barlow and a firm handshake from Mr. Barlow, who looks nothing like his son but has the exact same voice—which makes him totally approachable and not at all the hard-ass I imagined him to be.

And then the camera comes out. And yes, Mrs. Barlow is an absolute maniac. She makes us pose for three or four shots and then tells us to go into the family room and "act natural" while she takes half a dozen "candids" before Conner threatens to leave.

"Fine," she says, un-looping the camera strap from her neck. "But you'll thank me one day—when you're old, looking back at all these great moments in your life."

Conner rolls his eyes and she smiles and I get the feeling they've had this exchange a few hundred times. She stands and says, "Thea, come look at this great moment," as she beckons me to follow her to a long narrow hallway covered in framed photos.