Free The You I Never Knew by Susan Wiggs Page B

it?”
    Only about a zillion times.
    “I think maybe I caught part of it on TV once,” he lied.
    “It’s about a misfit, a real loser. Nobody cared whether he lived or died. After a while, he quit caring, too. And in the end, that’s why he was able to save his battalion. He quit looking for guarantees, and he made the sacrifice.”
    Cody pictured the scene in his head. It was one of those film sequences the experts always showed when they were going over classic movies—the moment Gavin’s character stood alone on a tank-destroyer turret, the only volunteer of his battalion, shooting through a deadly hail of sniper fire at a 77mm tank gun. Like the image of Gary Cooper in
High Noon,
Gavin Slade’s
Face of Battle
moment had put him on the pages of the film history books. The memorable image showed a close-up of a face filled with nobility, anguish, and the wisdom of a man who knows he is about to die. It had become one of the most famous movie stills ever published.
    “How come you stopped making movies?” Cody asked.
    “It was always a job to me, to tell you the truth. A job I liked most of the time, and either loved or hated the rest.” He had this intent way of speaking, leaning forward and lowering his voice so you had no choice but to listen. “The business is brutal, Cody. You live and die by the box office. Your looks and your image are everything. Sometimes you don’t get a minute of privacy, and other times you can’t buy attention for yourself. I got sick of the roller coaster. As soon as I could afford to retire, I got out of acting. I still coproduce things here and there, but it’s pretty low-key. Haven’t seen a film on the big screen in ages.”
    “Mom said the movie theater in town is closed down.”
    “That’s a fact. They were going to tear the Lynwood down, so I bought it.”
    A spark of interest flashed in Cody. “Yeah?”
    “I’d like to reopen, for old time’s sake. One screen, maybe show some independent films.”
    “That’d be cool.” Cody studied the other objects in the case—a baseball autographed by Joe DiMaggio, the stub of a ticket to a Beatles concert, a display of prize rodeo belt buckles, and photos of Gavin posing proudly by his vintage airplane. Pretty radical stuff, he decided.
    His perusal drifted to a framed picture of his mom on a horse. “When was that taken?” he asked, to fill the silence.
    “First summer after high school,” Gavin said. “I invited her to spend a year up here before starting college. She studied painting with a local artist.”
    “She never finished college,” Cody said, hearing contempt in his own voice. He didn’t care. All his friends’ parents had degrees and stuff. His mom had, well, her job. And him. And lame-ass suspicious Brad who lived in fear that Cody and his friends were going to help themselves to uppers or painkillers from his sample cases.
    He looked at the picture, taken in a pasture with the mountains in the background. Slender and suntanned, long legs and bare feet, her head thrown back with laughter, she looked pretty amazing. For the past couple of years, his friends had been giving Cody a hard time about his mom. She was a lot younger than most moms. She looked like a shampoo ad or something. It was kind of cool sometimes, having a mom who was a babe, but mostly it was embarrassing as hell.
    “I still have that horse,” Gavin said.
    “The one in the picture?”
    “Yeah, that’s Dooley. Your mom learned barrel racing on him.”
    “He must be pretty old.”
    “Twenty-something. Do you ride, Cody?”
    “Not horses.”
    Gavin chuckled, showing perfect teeth. And his eyes—they had that crinkly, twinkly look Cody recognized from old movie posters. He didn’t trust this guy. How did you know he was being sincere when he was an actor?
    “I guess that’ll change now that you’re here,” Gavin said. “Or maybe I’ll take you flying once I pass my physical and get my license renewed. You