Page 52 of Summer Swoon

The back door opened and I glanced over my shoulder to find a tear-stained Eve looking at Winnie, eyes wide. It took it as a good sign when she stood in the doorway instead of going back inside.

“I’ll leave you two alone to talk,” Winnie said as she stood and breezed past me.

Eve stepped onto the porch, letting her aunt go inside.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

She hesitated for a second but finally walked over and sat in the chair Winnie just vacated. She didn’t say anything, so I continued.

“Pop kept urging me to tell you about my past.” I shrugged. “I did plan on telling you, but I didn’t think it was that big a deal. But now I understand that anything other than complete and total honesty is a problem.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” she asked. “I blabbed on and on about marriage and family.”

“You know, a lot of people go through awkward teenage years, and when they're through them, they burn their yearbooks and swear their family to secrecy,” I said. “But my awkward teen years are in reruns.”

I let her process that for a minute before telling her about my mom, and how I ended up starring in one of the most popular teen shows of its time.

“With no experience or education, she somehow talked her way into a job at a talent agent’s office. She made herself indispensable and eventually started getting me booked for commercials.”

“How old were you?”

“Two, almost three.”

“Eventually I got small parts in sitcoms and when the concept forChase and Corbincame along, she pushed hard for me to read.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“At first I didn’t mind, but once I got older, I hated it. Instead of going to school, I had a

tutor and I felt so isolated. It got to the point that I only spent time with the cast and my mother when she was home.”

“Did you tell her?”

“You met her today. Do you think she’d listen to a child?”

“I guess not.”

“She signed a four-year contract for me right before my eighteenth birthday. I’m sure I

could have gotten a lawyer and contested it, but I figured I’d play nice. I told them I was out when my contract was up. The show was still successful so they thought I’d keep doing it. But once I turned twenty-one, I was done.”

“And you came here?”

“I came here.”

I explained how Pop stayed in my life through the years and offered me a place to stay and work.

“How have you stayed anonymous here for so long?”

“At first, I didn’t have anything in my name. So even though people could search the internet for my real name, unless that name was tied to here, it’d be useless.”

She chuckled, which I took as a good sign.

“You know how I kept saying you look familiar?” He nodded. “That’s because my daughter was obsessed with you. Kind of still is.”

“With me?”

“When all her friends went on and on about Chase, she only had eyes for you. Posters of you are still on the walls of her room and she watched the show so much, I probably know all your lines.”