Page 102 of Making the Save

Dad left first, lifting his hand out the window and honking as he drove down the dirt road away from the cabin.

“You ready?” I asked, turning to where Sydney had been standing next to me a minute ago. But she was already in the passenger seat of the Rover. Glasses on, looking at her phone. She might as well have been a million miles away.

Five minutes down the road, the silence was killing me. The old Sydney was a chatter. A hummer. She fidgeted and commented. She told me about weird dreams she’d had and how she thought she would have been an Olympic archer if she’d just been given the chance.

This Syd? Silent.

Glued to her phone.

“You want to put on some music?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“No music? Have you been body snatched?”

She looked up at me with a wan smile. “Sorry, I’m just catching up on some messages from Beatrice.”

“I imagine there are a lot.”

“Six hundred and seven.”

“You’re joking,” I laughed.

“I wish,” she said with a smile, but bent back over her phone. “I’ve told her to cancel your stylist for the award show.”

“Why?”

She turned to me again. “Come on, Wyatt. You don’t really want to go, and since I’m not pregnant, there’s really no reason to keep up this charade. We can put off announcing our divorce, but there is no reason to subject you to the red carpet.”

“But I want to go,” I said, surprising myself that it was the truth. One more night with Sydney, with her on my arm. Watching her being amazing and talented. Respected and adored. How could I not want that?

“You do?” she asked, like she didn’t quite believe me.

“I do. Come on, Tink. If this is the end, then let’s go out with some style.”

I shot her a grin, and to my utter relief she smiled back.

“Okay,” she said. “If you want to.”

I was losing her, but she wasn’t lost yet.

20

Days Later in LA

Wyatt

“No.”

“Wyatt,” Syd said gently. “We talked about this. You need to be open.”

“No.”

Francine, the stylist, was not a fan of me. She was not a fan of my thighs. Or the size of my neck. She didn’t like that I hated stripes. Or that I insisted on wearing a shirt under my jacket.

She wore dreadlocks in her hair and some type of asymmetrical dress with combat boots. She had silver hardware in several different facial features, and, quite frankly, she scared the hell out of me.

“This isn’t like the Oscars, honey,” Francine explained. I stood in her West Hollywood studio, being dressed and undressed and draped in fabrics. As bad as I expected it to be, it was somehow worse.