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“Bananas foster French toast,” Maeve replies.

Charlie’s jaw falls open. “Oh my god, I haven’t had that since I was little. Bless you, Maeve Arko.”

This is sweet and all, but now I’m worried about what Trish wanted. I check my phone; one missed call from her but no message. I don’t know what to think.

Jordan laughs. “Where are you from?”

“My family lives in Ohio and is from New York,” Maeve says. “I only learned how to make Southernish food from a cohort member in grad school who was from Louisiana.”

I glow with that comment. After this morning, I’m so grateful for every good person who entered Maeve’s life after her abusive ex. I’m grateful that I get to (hopefully) be one of those people too. Maeve sticks several slices of egg-and-cinnamon-covered brioche onto my griddle. She’s humming to herself, and her body language tells me she’s completely at ease. Even though I’m currently trying to keep my fingers from drumming on the table worrying about Trish, joy still zings through me.

“You’re amazing,” I say to Maeve as she cooks.

“Wait until you taste this,” Maeve teases.

Sure enough, when I eat the French toast, I can’t tell what tastes better: Maeve’s cooking or her.

I could go on, and fully planned to wax poetic about Maeve’s culinary genius to Charlie and Jordan. But as I’m midway through trying to be cute by feeding Maeve, my phone rings.

There Trish is.

I look at Maeve. Charlie huffs. “Val, pick up the damn phone before she shows up here!”

“Go,” Maeve says, smiling. Like she knows what Trish is going to say.

I sigh, swipe my phone, and head to my backyard to take the call.

“Hey,” I say.

“The lady of the hour finally emerges,” Trish says.

I blush but steal a glance inside at Maeve. She’s laughing at something Charlie’s saying. “Hardly. I nearly died at the Oscars.”

“Well, I don’t want to bore you with the PR update. You’re doing amazing, people loved Maeve, your flub was the most entertaining part of the show, et cetera. Great.” She pauses. “And…Oakley in Flames has been accepted to compete at Cannes!”

I know I hear her words. But it’s like they dig their way into my brain and knock themselves around like a pinball game, like they’re more a physical manifestation of pain in the shape of words than sounds that have actual meaning. Cannes. The Cannes. I don’t even remember Trish taking European festivals seriously considering the genre of the movie. My movie. Oakley in Flames. Got in. They don’t make sense together.

“Val?” Trish says.

Until they do. Until they really do.

My stomach churns; I swallow on instinct. “Yeah?” I say.

“You there? You hear what I said?”

“Yeah.” I swallow again. The sweetness in the back of my throat has turned bitter, acidic. “Hey, uh, when is Cannes?”

“First week of May.”

Fuck. No. No, no, no, no. The last week of classes. Right when finals prep begins and Maeve has her evaluation for the grant. You can’t just fly across the world for the weekend. Between the schmoozing, press, and screenings, I’d have to be there for two weeks minimum. The time difference is an entire day and some.

My head’s spinning. Sound cuts in and out, and when I can hear there’s a ringing that won’t stop. The sun’s suddenly too hot on the back of my neck.

Because maybe I can’t. I knew about this possibility in December, and it’s March. I’ve lied about this for months, and she just made it clear how much she trusts me, and look what I’ve done. I could ruin her whole career. I can’t just get out of Cannes. I can’t just—

My stomach lurches.

“Great, thank you, we’ll talk later,” I say as the acrid taste of partially digested French toast hits my throat.