Chapter 27
Laine
I own Hollywood. I own the dark corners and littered curbs. The shattered bottles, the half-full fast food containers, the broken toilets and ripped mattresses at the curb for months, they’re as much a part of me as the spotlights crisscrossing the sky, the cobblestones of Rodeo, the Bentleys, and the private parties. Nothing shocks or scares me. I have never been star struck. Never at a loss for words. Never intimidated by the rich, the powerful, the glamorous any more than the destitute, the filthy, or the criminal.
How can you fear what you own?
How can you be intimidated by what’s inside yourself? By a city that nursed you to adulthood?
How?
Looking out the window, I watched a limo pull into a loading zone on the nose of four thirty. A driver got out and let Michael out of the back. Carlos met him at the car and walked him to the front door.
I felt as if I were going to the prom. Not that I knew what that was like. I’d skipped that whole stage of life in favor of hanging out with drug-dealing dirtbags.
For Phoebe, it had come down to pink or yellow, and I’d thrown my hands up and gone with a pink dress. If I was going to be pretty and feminine, I was going all the way. Tight skirt, with lace overlay, that fell just above the knee. Sleeveless bodice with a scooped neck that was still modest and a shawl in a slightly deeper shade. Then shoes, and new stockings, and a matching hairpin, all of which had almost landed Phoebe late for a meeting with the SVP of Overland Studio.
“You look terrible,” I said when Michael reached my door, because he looked perfect in a dark suit and tie. His black eye was still uncovered by a stitch of makeup, as if he was as proud of the wound as he would have been if he’d won the fight.
“Turn around,” he said, looking at my body as if I wore nothing but the shawl and a smile. “Let me see this rag you bought.”
“I knew you hated pink.” I turned for him until I could only feel his eyes on me, rather than see them. “That’s why I got it.”
He put his hand on my waist and his lips on the back of my neck. “I can’t even see the dress. Just the woman in it.”
“Michael, I…” I drifted into a groan when he moved his hand from my waist to my breast, the edge of his thumb finding where I was most sensitive. I was about to tell him how long it had been since I’d been with a man and unzip exactly as much baggage as I needed to, but I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what I had been trying to say.
“We have to go.” He stepped back, and I turned around.
“I lied before.”
“You thought I liked pink?”
“I know you like pink,” I said. “But you don’t look terrible. You are obscenely handsome. It’s not fair to all the other men in the world.”
He drew his finger across my collarbone. “Lock the door behind you.”
I did. Carlos waited by the elevator and stood silently by us as we put our backs to the elevator car wall, holding hands. Michael drew his thumb along the side of my hand, and I shuddered. Even that simple touch was electric.
“You were great on Jack Rambling’s show today,” I said.
“How did I look?”
“Like you were blasting a secret all over town without telling me first.”
“It was a spur of the moment thing. I’m not usually impulsive. I had a simple joke set up, and then, I don’t know.”
I turned to look at him. He watched me, and I knew he was being honest. I couldn’t be angry, even though I should have been about both Brad and the show.
When the elevator doors opened, I realized why I couldn’t be angry.
I thought I’d understood the significance of our night out until we stepped outside. I’d thought it was about us, about us being official on some level. About accepting that we would proceed, one and the other, to hell with all of it.
But it was more than that.
Two more bodyguards waited past the glass doors, and they had a big job in standing between us and a dog pack of paparazzi.
I stopped. No, I didn’t stop. I froze, thinking about the head to toe, the heels to hairpins; my posture, my face, the shape of my persona against the perfection of Michael Greydon.
“Hey,” he whispered, “I thought I’d have the car ride to prep you, but—”
“Of course. Why would they bother with the opening? They’d have to fight the press there. Here, it’s all them. These will be all over the internet with edited copy before we even get to the theater.”
“Will you be okay?”
“Will you stay by me?”
“Always,” he said softly, squeezing my hand.
“Damn you, Greydon. My heart just expanded three sizes.”
“Let’s have fun. Come on.” He pulled me to the door, smiling as if he were a two-year-old on the teacup ride, delighted, unencumbered, and fully in the moment.
I tried to imitate his glee as we walked out, but I couldn’t. They called my name, because they knew it, and every click of a shutter was a point of attention away from him. He held my hand, and my hand felt safe. Then he stepped in front of me and looked back, locking me in frame. He put himself as the calm eye in the storm of my fear, which then disappeared like water on the sidewalk at noon.
He pulled me to the limo. A man in a suit opened the door, and Michael let me in first. He got in across from me. The door closed, and everything disappeared.
“How do you do that all the time?” I said.
“It’s not that big a deal. Not when I expect it.”
I leaned back. It was just us, and the car hadn’t moved yet. The paps were mostly gone. Having gotten their shot, they were either uploading, racing to our destination, or both.
“God, I feel so crappy right now,” I said.
“Why?”
“My job. I feel… guilty.”
The car moved, and Renaldo popped his shutter a few times as if he could sell a picture of a limo.
“I hate this, this regret. I thought the attention made you all feel good, but it doesn’t feel good on this side. It feels ugly.”
“Between us,” he said, leaning forward, “I want to tell you something you should believe unconditionally.”
I didn’t answer because his hands covered my knees. They put a slight pressure on the insides of my legs, as if he was about to open them.
“Don’t even believe it,” he said. “Know it. You, personally, have never made me uncomfortable. You, personally, have never been anywhere I didn’t expect you. And I always thought you had a beautiful body behind that camera.”
My legs wanted to open. The insides of my thighs felt alive with desire, as if they were lit with klieg lights, and when he ran his thumbs along the insides of my knees, the buzz increased.
“I want you,” I said. “I don’t want to be unladylike in this dress, but I want you right now.”
“I want every inch of you. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to tell Gali to spin around the block a few hundred times so I can be alone with you. But I’m not a boy. First, we’re going onto the carpet. Let me lead. Then the lobby, which is just a movie theater lobby but full of people in the business, and they’ll talk too long about nothing. I want you to trust me. All I’ll be thinking about is spreading your legs and tasting you.”
“How am I going to get through this movie?”
He laughed softly. “No one watches the movie. My God, I’ve seen it seven times already.”
“Are you any good in it?”
“According to who?”
“You?”
He shook his head. “Not really. I think I overdid it in places and underdid it everywhere else. But everyone else is happy, so who am I to say? I just have to go into the theater with you and keep my hands off you for long enough to leave. Then it’s in my contract that I have to go to the after party. It’s three blocks away. We’ll drive so we don’t get mobbed. Then I’m taking you home, and I’m getting acquainted with every inch of you.”
His eyes drifted down my body, as if imagining his acquaintance with those inches of skin, and I tingled. I wouldn’t tell him anything about my past tonight. Not a word. I wanted a clean night. Just us.
There was a knock on the window soon after the car stopped.
“You ready?”
“We’re going public, aren’t we?”
“Right now.” He took my hand.
I was shocked at how dry my palm was, and I knew it was because I was with him. He knocked on the window. Outside, everything was as I expected, as if set for a movie. Red carpet. Reporters. Fans holding little booklets and pens. The white facets of the Cinerama Dome were drowned in the lights.
“We’re going in the front?” I asked. “No one goes in the front. What are we? Tourists?”
He kissed me through my smile. “We just run through this. It’ll be fun. Just stay out of the camera’s range.”
The car door opened, and everything changed. I knew I’d never see my life, my job, or my city the same again.
Michael got out first and put his hand out to me. Behind him, the pathway to the ArcLight’s courtyard was draped in red carpet and bordered by fans.
“Don’t let go,” I said before my feet hit the curb.
“Never.”
The floods were blinding and too blue if you asked me, catching me in a tunnel of light that had voices at the end. Some had words, and some didn’t. Some were simply long vowels. Some were his name. Some were spoken in a falsetto of excitement. They took my name and turned it onto a blade, opening me up.
A moment with Sunshine and Rover when I’d feel like this. On the beach. Late at night with all their friends in a drum circle. I jump in the middle and dance, and they clap in unison for me. All of them, eyes on me with approval.
“Hello, my name is Deanna.”
I only saw her in silhouette. She had a clipboard and sensible shoes.
“Mister Greydon, you have DMZ first, to the left.”
“Thank you,” he said, putting my hand around his forearm.
“Miss Cartwright,” Deanna said, “you can get off camera if you want by taking a step to the right.”
“Thank you,” I said, grateful for the instructions on getting out of the way. Nothing would make me happier than moving out of DMZ’s line of sight. I didn’t want them taking my picture or anything else.
“Michael Greydon!” Rob Bearston shouted both at Michael and into his microphone.
And Mister Yi, checking the linking on a sideseam with a magnifying glass that strapped around his head. Nodding. A warm glow that was mine.
I panicked. Instinctively, I thought they were stealing my memories. I knew it wasn’t true, but I tried to stop remembering, which made it worse.
“Rob, nice to see you.”
I think Michael said that. I was watching the photographers. They weren’t my people. They were hired guns from the studio’s publicity department, and I was in the frame. I took half a step to the right, and Rob pushed me back as if he was saving me from falling past the velvet rope.
“Miss Cartwright, not real often we see you on this side of the rope.”
I am ten. Tom sits on the couch with me, watching Nickelodeon. We talk in a secret language about how we’ll sneak out of the house and run the streets because we can, and the bio sister watches us as if she knows.
“You mean never? Right, Rob?” I said.
“Are you going to continue to shoot celebrities?” He put the mic just below my chin. “We’d hate to lose you. Everyone at DMZ wants you to keep up the good work.”
Jake grabs me when I get home from school, sticking his hand up my shirt and pinching my nipple as if he’s trying to unscrew it. I am only fourteen, but I get him off me, and he looks at me as if he knows it aroused me.
“You do pay awfully well,” I said, “but I’ll charge more if you don’t get that mic out of my face.”
Rob smirked. Michael laughed and put his hand over mine. I bit my lip, wishing I’d been able to take that half step to the right.
“Any questions about the movie, Rob?” Michael asked. “Because she’ll cut you. Cut you bad.”
“Oh, over at DMZ, we know that already. Good luck, Mister Greydon.” Rob winked into the camera. “Good luck.”
He couldn’t see me. He didn’t know me. None of them knew me. I kept repeating that to myself. They only knew what I showed them, and I had to show them nothing. It was the only way I could breathe.
Deanna appeared as if summoned. “Petra French from the Entertainment Channel is just this way.” She led us across the carpet.
“You’re cutting off my circulation,” Michael said through a smile.
“Sorry.” I loosened my grip on his forearm.
“You did great.”
“They’re going to play that quote on a loop for three days.”
“After a while, you just stop watching television.”
We stood in front of another camera, another host, but my half step to the right was allowed. I was in the safe zone. She asked Michael questions that seemed complex in the disorienting buzz, but I knew they would come off as simplistic on a screen.
Each stop was different, with a different expectation of me. I stood on my feet and said words thanks to his hand on my back. The pressure of his palm was a grounding wire to my physical balance and verbal skills.
Were you shooting him when you met?
Have you ever sold a picture of your date?
How did you two meet?
Do you have a camera?
Are you excited to be on the other side of the rope?
Can you tell us how Mister Greydon got that black eye?
I answered the yes and no questions, but Michael managed to steal the complex ones with a joke and a smile. He was home, but I felt as though I was at his parents’ house at Christmas, tested with every question and slice of turkey, as he gently protected me from myself.
Deanna walked in front of us, pressing her earpiece. “Mister Greydon is entering the lobby.”
Then we passed through the glass doors, and it was over.
His hand on my shoulder, my arm around his waist, he spoke close to my ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect that. They usually ignore the dates.”
“I understand the rush,” I said.
“That goes away, trust me. It’s nothing compared to kissing you.”
“Oh, shut up.” I think that, despite my words, I flushed. He was wearing me down, layer by layer, like a heat gun peeling off coats of paint and toxic lead whitewash to the bare wood.
The lobby of the theater was nicely done but purely functional. The snack counter was open, but no cash registers were ringing. Everyone was busy talking in their evening dresses and snappy suits, voices and laughter echoing off the high ceilings and marble floors. I spotted three photographers in black by following their flashes. More hired guns shooting for crap pay.
I didn’t have another second to take in the scene and see what was different about it, because Michael was approached with congratulations and handshakes. I knew most of them by name and face, but they didn’t recognize me, or they pretended not to. Studio execs, talent agents, managers, hangers-on. Sometimes Michael introduced me; sometimes the exchange was so short, he didn’t. I was courteous but said little, laughed when I was supposed to, and held on to Michael for dear life.
The word bandied about most was “Congratulations.” The consensus I gathered was that this was more than a movie for Michael but something groundbreaking.
During a spare second, when he pulled me away from one glowing couple, I leaned into him and whispered, “This must have been the performance of a lifetime.”
“They’re all just working hard to not mention my eye.” He looked at me as if memorizing the details of my face.
“What?” I asked, tingling red in the cheeks.
“Can’t wait until later, that’s all.”
Brad walked sideways through the crowd to get to us. He was wearing plaid shorts and a suit jacket and tie. His sunglasses were transparent enough to make his eyes visible. As soon as he saw me, he put up his middle fingers.
“Hey, how did those come out?” he said to me as he shook hands with Michael and slapped him on the back.
“I’ll send them to you.”
“You’re all right, Laine. I don’t care what my agent says.” He said it with a laugh, as if I was in on the joke.
Gene Testarossa, like a fly hovering over a plate of raw meat, came up behind Michael. “Can I talk to you?”
He didn’t acknowledge me or Brad. Even when Britt, with a glittery sling on her left arm, tapped Brad’s shoulder, and they hugged, Gene kept his focus on Michael.
“Hey.” Michael poked Brad in the chest and gestured toward me. “Watch her.”
“What do you think I’m going to do?” I said.
“You? Nothing. You’re perfect.” He pointed at Brad with two fingers and put the two fingers to his own eyes then back toward Brad. “Eyes.”
“You got it, bro.”
Gene pulled Michael away.
Britt made it a point to press her lips together until Michael was out of range, then she grabbed my shoulder. “I think I’m in love with you.”
Brad cackled.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“You are exactly what he needs.”
“Oh, I—”
She slapped Brad in the chest. “Yes or no? Was he not the most boring little shit in the world?”
“You never met my parents,” Brad said.
“Then when I found out he broke a window at the Fall Gala thing? I swear I applauded. Hug me. Hug me now.” She held out her good arm and enfolded me in half an embrace. A flash went off.
Britt turned toward the girl with the cumbersome camera and kissed my cheek. Brad, as attuned to a lens as a shark to blood, got in the shot. Me in the middle of two badly behaving stars and Michael nowhere to be seen. I was seen inside the unit, caught at the edge of the vortex and sucked down the drain. I forced a smile.
Maryetta muscled through the crowd to take her lover’s arm. “Who is this?” she asked
“This is the paparazzi I was telling you about,” Britt said.
I shook Maryetta’s hand, and we exchanged greetings. It wasn’t until that moment that the surrealism of the situation hit me. Maryetta directed experimental theater, and she was the least famous of all those people, yet I’d photographed and sold even her image.
What the hell was I doing there? Where was Michael? I wasn’t supposed to be there. I belonged on the other side of the rope, in the dark corners. Where was my camera? How was I supposed to do my job without it?
“I’m going to the ladies’ room,” I said. “Excuse me.”
“Hey, no way,” Brad said. “I gotta watch you.”
“I have her.” Britt took my elbow and led me away.
Maryetta walked close on my other side, but I wanted Michael.
In the twenty steps to the bathroom, Britt was pulled away to laugh and talk about stuff I didn’t understand. Maryetta joined her, and I was alone.
I owned the city. Nothing intimidated me. Nothing, really, except being in a room full of people I’d self-righteously annoyed, or bothered, or hurt even. I never imagined I’d be in such a room, never understood that my high heels and camera bag had been a costume, my camera a weapon, and the night a shield. I had none of my gear, and I was in a room full of targets with eyes that stared, mouths that pursed in judgment, laughter that cut.
I was back at Breakfront. I was a reviled outsider clothed as a member but painted, tarred, and feathered in my wrongness.
The door out and the door to the bathroom were equidistant from me. If I went out, I’d be seen by the few photographers and reporters who were left, but I could get a cab home, where I’d cry. If I went into the bathroom, I could get myself together and reemerge to face the room.
The door out seemed most appealing. I wanted to be alone more than anything, but Michael would wonder what had happened to me. He’d chosen me to be with him tonight. It was important to him, not as an actor but as a man. If I split, I would make the event about me, and it was about him.
So I took a deep breath and went to the bathroom.
I’d been to the ArcLight before. Most of Los Angeles had, but that night, the bathroom looked different. It was lit with scented candles and soft lights that set off the glass vases of flowers. It looked less institutional and more luxurious.
Ute Herman and Gabrielle Sanchez chatted in the powder room. Garden Jones sat on a damask chair and chatted on her cell phone. The SVP of marketing from Overland Studios leaned kiss-close to the mirror and picked a false eyelash off her cheek. And Lucy Betancourt strode away from a sink, right toward me.
“Laine,” she said gently, “how are you?”
“Fine.” I swallowed.
“I saw you come in with Michael.”
“So?” I said, unable to stop my venom. “You going to put a fiver in my bra?” If I’d realized how close to the edge I was, I would have left immediately, but it snuck up on me.
“No, Laine—” She glanced around the room.
Everyone was working hard to look at anything else but us.
“I’m not going away,” I growled. “I won’t be chased off.”
She sat on a couch and twisted sideways, so she faced the space next to her. She smiled curtly and patted the seat, indicating I should sit by her.
When we were in school together, she was the queen bee, and as cruel as she’d been to me, I’d craved her attention.
Nothing had changed. Nothing ever changed. I’d shed my Breakfront persona years ago, yet in her presence, I shrugged back into the broken-glass-lined coat as if I needed to get cut.
I sat, but I didn’t face her. I faced front, my one act of childish rebellion. I felt pathetic doing it, but I couldn’t look at her.
“You look like a deer in headlights,” she said.
“Lucy, is there something you want? Because Michael will be looking for me.”
“He’s a good man. You don’t find too many of those.”
“I know. On both counts.”
A bell rang somewhere, and women started filing out.
“Why won’t you look at me?” Lucy said.
I turned toward her. She was as patrician as she’d been as a teenager, with her straight turned-up nose and angular cheeks. People paid good money for her features, but hers had come free as a genetic gift.
“Because you’re going to tell me I’m going to be a stripper when I grow up, and I’m all out of patience for it,” I said.
“You shouldn’t let other people tell you what you are. Especially insecure seventeen-year-old girls.”
“I’ll put that on a postcard.”
“Does it matter if I apologize? I’m aware it’s too little too late. I knew I couldn’t keep Michael. He was on his way across the country and then you. Of all the things that worried me, you were the easiest target.” She opened her purse and found a compact and lipstick. She opened the compact and looked into the little mirror, even though there were mirrors all over the room. “Being cruel to you made me feel good. I’m sure that reflects poorly on me, but I’m past worrying about appearances. I don’t know if you even understand what appearances mean.” She got her lipstick out and twisted it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It wasn’t an insult. It means I don’t know you, and you’re different. Different expectations. He brought you here, and everyone’s talking about him losing his mind.” She smeared color on her lips and pursed them. “I can defend him to everyone, but I can’t defend you. You were a rat punk in school, a real viper. Every time we tried to talk to you, you practically spit on us. So no, I’m not defending how I acted, but I want you to know that if you bring him any trouble, I’ll make you miserable.”
“There’s going to be trouble.”
“I mean if you hurt him. If you disrespect what he’s done tonight by being seen with you.” She shook her head as if loosening the worst of the options. “If this is a business deal to you, I swear on my face, I’ll make sure you don’t sell another picture.” She slid the cover on her makeup and snapped the compact closed.
“Nothing like spending a first date being threatened by the ex,” I said, standing. “But I promise you, I’m not here on business. Up until now, it was strictly pleasure.”
She snapped her bag shut and looked at me. “Tell me, how do you feel about him?”
“I haven’t even told him that, but I’ll tell you how I feel about you.”
“This should be fun.”
“You’re a good friend. A little scary, but still,” I said. “He did all right with his friends.”
Michael swooped in as if dropped from the back of a white stallion, half breathless and impeccable, his motions proportionally attuned to a constantly shifting universe. “Here you are!”
“This is the ladies’ room,” Lucy said, standing.
“So I see.” He took my hand. “Come on, there are people waiting everywhere.” He turned to Lucy as he opened the door. “Are you going to the after party?”
“Good Lord, I’m not going to Mort’s. I don’t have to abide by a contract. It’s not my movie.”
“I want you to go and watch Laine.”
“Oh, no way!” I said a little too definitively.
“No one else is qualified. Britt and Brad are already half drunk. And I’m going to get pulled away. The press knows you. I didn’t realize it. But you won’t have a good time if they’re all over you.”
“I didn’t bring any fives,” Lucy said in her most snooty tone. Without a break in her expression, she seemed completely serious until her eyes flicked toward me, then back to Michael.
I crossed my arms. “Nothing less than a ten goes in my G-string these days.”
He looked between us. “What?”
Lucy mock-shuddered. “Fine.” She stepped beside Michael and turned. “I’ll run you a tab.” She opened the door, brushed past Deanna and a huge guy in a red tie, and strode down the hall as if offended.
“What was that?” he asked, holding out his arm for me.
“What? We were reminiscing.”
We exited the bathroom. I had to admit, I liked Lucy. She was consistent, and she cared for Michael. She acted like a prudish, middle-aged woman, which must have once made Michael feel secure. If anything bad happened between us, she didn’t need to like me as much as make him safe.
“Right this way, Mister Greydon,” Deanna said with a sweep of her hand.
“Don’t talk to Gene,” Michael whispered as we walked down the hall.
No one bothered him, took pictures, or asked for his autograph. It was as if, amongst these people, he was home.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I just fired him.”
I read his lips more than I could hear him. I stopped. “Why? Not because of me?”
He walked backward so he could face me, glancing around to see who was within earshot. “I hired him to be a dick because I couldn’t be. He did his job for ten years. I’m done with it. I’m a big boy. I can be my own dick.”
I bit my lips to keep from laughing, but I had never been good at that. The laugh burst out as if someone had let the air out of a balloon. He stopped walking and let me stride right into him, where he held me for a second as we laughed together. The big guy in the red tie and Deanna held the swinging doors open. Michael and I stepped into the dim, flat light.
“We’re leaving after the second reel,” he whispered to me.
“Why?”
“You know what it’s like to look at yourself ten times bigger than you are? There’s nothing more uncomfortable.”
I looked at my normal-sized date and saw exactly how uncomfortable it would be. “All right.”
A man in a tuxedo leaned into Deanna, who whispered something. Then he led us to seats at center front with a sign on them, printed on copy paper and tied around the backs with a red ribbon.
GREYDON +1
Michael shook hands and made a joke or two with the couple behind us, then he took my hand and led me into the aisle. He knew everyone and had a smile and a joke for all of them. When we finally got to our seats, he let me sit first. He adjusted his cuffs.
“You seem nervous,” I whispered.
He put his arm around the chair and pulled me close enough to feel his lips move against me. “We’re going to the party because it’s in my contract, then I’m going to take you home and own you. You’re going to be up all night.”
My face got hot again. I wanted him to stop talking like that, and I didn’t want it to ever end.
Andrea Rodenstein, the director, jumped up to the front of the auditorium. She introduced herself to applause, thanked her crew and agent, then named the cast with thanks. When his name was called, Michael stood, waved, and sat back down before they’d finished the ovation. It was loud and long, and someone in the back of the room chanted, “Oscar! Oscar! Oscar!”
Michael turned in his seat and pointed toward the back of the room then put his finger to his lips, asking for silence. Brad stood and chanted even louder. Britt stood and, like a bunch of fans with their faces painted the team colors, got half the room chanting before it died down in a thunder of applause.
“Does that always happen?” I asked once Rodenstein got the crowd under control enough to continue.
He shrugged. “Brad. What can I say?”
“He’s a good friend.”
“Yeah.”
The lights dimmed, and the movie started. Within the first few frames, I knew why Brad and everyone had chanted. The above-the-line cast and crew, as well as the executives from marketing and finance, had seen the movie already, and they knew what was now all over the screen.
Michael’s work in Big Girls was the performance of a lifetime. The sweet man sitting one seat over, his palm over the back of my hand, scared the living hell out of me. He became a volatile abuser, capable of spurts of violence and passion, with no in between, and Claire Contreras, the actress playing his wife, became the focal point of his every emotion, even when she wasn’t in the scene. I was terrified for her and engaged completely. Michael tapped my hand after about fifteen minutes.
“Come on.”
“But I…” I pointed at the screen.
He sat back, and I felt him tense up. He wasn’t even looking at the screen. I tapped his knee, and he looked at me from behind his hand.
I cocked my thumb and mouthed, “Ready?”
We slipped out the Exit door in the back. Michael knew everyone in the lobby and accepted congratulations and compliments. My purse vibrated, which I was capable of ignoring unless I got it in my head that it could be Tom in trouble.
Which got into my head because of Jake and Foo. They knew Tom, so seeing as Michael was walking and talking, shaking hands and air kissing while he made his way down the hall, I checked my phone.
I was hit face first with a black-and-white of young Laine on her knees, doe-eyed, looking at the naked man above her with her mouth open.
—Wanna hear from you girlie girl—
My surroundings closed in on me. The laughter, the noise from the indoor parking lot, the dog pack waiting for our exit, shouting names and clicking, was far away. I became a soft, slimy animal in a tight shell of shame and fear.
—What do you want Jake?—
“Laine?” It was Tom with his camera, still monochrome, still schlubbing along even when he was getting the shot. But his camera wasn’t in front of his face; it was at his side. “Shut it off.”
Had he heard from Jake? I was sure he had. He wasn’t just telling me to stop looking at my phone in front of paparazzi. He’d never give me a lesson in poise. He put his camera up when Britt and Brad appeared.
Another buzz from my phone, and another picture came in with a message.
—We miss you, sweet angel. I’m trying to not upload these pictures all over but my hand’s getting itchy—
I put it away.
“You all right?” Michael asked, hand on my lower back again, lips close enough to my ear to touch it.
“Yeah.” I turned my head to face him, and he was just perfect with his scent of cinnamon. Even in the gross parking lot, he made everything beautiful. Even with the bruise under his eye that he’d gotten for me. Would he throw himself in danger again? Would he have to? “Just sick of this thing buzzing all the time.”
“We’ll get you a blocking service.”
A blocking service? That must be what he had, where he had a short list and no one else got through. How was I supposed to get tips like that?
But of course, that was the point. There would be no more tips. They’d already dried up, along with my hope of forgetting my past. Maybe I should just block everyone but Michael, Tom, and Phoebe. Jake especially. Double block him. But then, God knew what he’d do with those pictures.
The driver opened the limo door, and Michael took my hand. It must have been shaking from seeing the pictures because he looked at me tenderly, as if he wanted to protect me from the paps and the flashing lights. But that wasn’t it. As much as the exposure made me uncomfortable, it was nothing compared to those pictures.
I got into the back of the limo, and the door shut behind Michael. He sat across from me, a point of calm against the chaos outside. The sounds were shut out, the clicking, the shouting, the car engines. Paps leaned into the window to get a shot of us.
Except Tom, who leaned into the window, camera down, fingers to his ear, and lips moving. Call me tomorrow.
I gave him a thumbs-up as the limo drove away.
“I’m sorry, Laine,” Michael said. “It’s always like this, but I’m used to it. I wasn’t thinking. I should have given you more time.”
“It’s all right.”
“I wanted to show you off.”
Me. He wanted to show me off to his movie star friends. He gathered my hands and pulled me into his lap. I straddled him, my hands on his cheeks. His eyes were honest and open. I didn’t deserve that. I didn’t deserve the guy I’d wanted in high school who’d gone off to make something of himself while I stayed home and let myself be used.
“I want to be honest,” I said as he kissed me. It was hard to concentrate with his hands running up and down my back and his lips on my throat. “I have things.” Things? “I don’t want you to think I’m something I’m not.”
“You’re a woman, right? All woman parts? I’m not going to get your dress off and find stuff I can’t use?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Is there anyone else? Boyfriend? Husband? Late-night booty call? Because that’s a deal-breaker.”
“No one. It’s been a long time.”
“How long?” he asked into the curve of my throat.
“Almost a year.”
He pulled away from me, and my longing pulled taut in the space that divided us.
“Why?” he asked.
I’d become attached to the idea of him, and I didn’t want to let it go. Not yet. I was sure the whole thing would go down in flames, but God, I didn’t want it to be that night.
At the same time, I knew I could wiggle out of answering by repeating that the right guy hadn’t come along, stuff hadn’t worked out, nothing was wrong anywhere in my world.
But I couldn’t lie to him again.
“I don’t trust men or anyone,” I said so low I could barely hear it. “I have a past.”
“I know. It was at your door yesterday. We all have a past. So I’ll ask you again. Is everything in the past? That’s all I want to know.”
“Yes.” Was that the truth? With Jake sending me evidence of my wrongdoings as we spoke, was it really all in the past?
“I know you had a hard time,” he said. “If it’s that, I don’t care. I mean, I care, but it won’t stop me from having you tonight. Or probably any other night. If that guy bugs you again, we’ll deal with it. Okay?”
I nodded. He didn’t know what he was agreeing to, and I owed him explanations on top of explanations, but I couldn’t. I’d ruin everything for him as well as me.
“Okay,” I said, half kissing him.
He shifted against me, and I felt his body under his clothes, the hard curves of muscle and the sweet intention in the press of his hips.
“I want you to trust me,” he said into my cheek.
“I do, and it scares the hell out of me.”
The car stopped. Flashes blinked through the window. Those lenses hadn’t been bought and sold. Those were my people. I’d been on the other side of the rope, watching the line of limos and half done catching the first car door open before I was tracking who was in the next. I knew they were talking about where Michael and I were, and a couple of the guys had noted the license plate. They didn’t share the information though. They’d just make sure they were in the front of the pack when our door opened, acting calm and collected until they got a good spot, then they would be all elbows and inertia.
I sat back and straightened my skirt.
Michael put his hand up the outside of my thigh, touching up to the lace tops of my stockings. “I like these.”
“Good, because I wore them for you.”
His reaction was pure instinct, as if I’d pared down his intentions into their most basic. “Okay,” he said, brushing his fingertips inside my knees. “We go outside, you stand and look gorgeous, we go in, stay as long as we have to, and I’ll take you out back. Got it?”
“Got it.”
The car crept toward the front of the line.
“Ever hike Griffith Park at night?” I said. “There are mountain lions, for real.”
He ran his hands up my legs, past where the stockings ended. “We should go.”
“What about your contract?” My back straightened as his fingertips brushed my crotch. My panties would have to get wrung out over the sink.
“Tomorrow night.”
We kissed in the promise of a tomorrow and a next day, twisted until he was on top of me. He pushed my bag out of the way, and it spilled on the floor in a spray of lipstick, cards, money, and phone.
Which was lit with an incoming message.
Which was a photo.
Of me.
In black and white.
On my hands and knees.
Naked but for socks.
I reached for it too quickly, breaking our rhythm.
Why wasn’t I slick and sneaky? I could barrel through anything. I owned the space around me, except when I didn’t. Except when the one thing I didn’t want Michael to ever see was on the floor of our limo and he was on top of me, reaching for my phone to help me.
I pushed him off me and snapped the phone from his hand.
“Laine…”
“Don’t you know you shouldn’t look at someone else’s phone?”
I wanted to curl up and die. I wanted to hope he hadn’t seen it. I wanted it to be three seconds ago, when I could have put the bag down carefully, or half an hour ago when I could have shut off the phone, or three days ago when I could have called Jake and ended this, or ten years ago.
I couldn’t breathe. The space between us was suffocating. He was silent. That was bad. If he hadn’t seen it, he would have just put his hands back up my skirt. I pulled it down and readjusted myself.
“What just happened? What was that?” he asked.
“Can we forget it? You can just drop me home.” I couldn’t look at him, so I couldn’t detect what he was feeling. I wanted to look up and see him, but partly, I was afraid I’d see disgust and disappointment, and partly, I didn’t feel worthy of being in anyone’s sight.
He slid his hand over mine, brushing my fingers and lodging his in between them, just as he’d done on our last day at the bleachers, before he told me he was leaving.
I snapped my hand away. “I’ll take a cab.”
He grabbed my jaw and turned my face toward his. “Talk to me.”
The limo crept forward, and the blue light from outside moved across his face in a hard line. He didn’t scare me. His hardness actually soothed me. But I didn’t want to be soothed. I didn’t want to be comforted. It made me weak and needy. I bit back a hitched breath.
“I can’t,” I croaked.
He reached behind me and hit a button with his fist. “Gali?”
“Yes, sir?” came the driver’s voice.
“Drive around the block until I say stop or we run out of gas.”
“Yes, sir.”
The car broke out of the line, and the paparazzi got small in the distance. I stared out the window, clutching my phone in my lap. I imagined opening the door at a red light and running. Running forever, cutting turns across lawns, leaping over cars, my butt sliding over the hoods, hopping fences, and climbing a ladder to the top, the top, the top of anything.
Michael reached for the phone, but I held it.
“Just tell me,” he said.
I shook my head. Cleared my throat. Drew my fingers under my eyes to catch the tears before they fell. “Listen, this was fun. I like you. You’re a better guy than I deserve, as anyone will tell you. Probably you should go back to the party. People are expecting you. I’ll go home, and we can just remember this very fondly. Okay? Can we do that?”
“Was that you in the picture?”
I looked down, turning the now-dark phone in my hand. “No. That girl is about sixteen. She’s a…” I swallowed. Breathed. “She feels alone all the time, and she’s young and immature, so she’s not okay with it. So a little bump in the road, and she gets with a guy. And this guy? He’s a sleaze, but he makes her feel taken care of. He gives her a roof over her head and a kind of family. He protects her, and he doesn’t let her take any of the drugs he sells. But he…”
Breathe.
Breathe.
“He lets his friends fuck her. He uses her to make deals, and just… if they’re all bored and drinking, they’ll just use her for fun. She lets this happen for over a year, because if nothing else, she feels safe. It doesn’t matter who fucks her as long as he knows, and he’s watching over it, and he says it’s okay. Because he took care of me.”
I hitched a little when I said “me” instead of “her.” Pretending she was someone else was a useless ruse. I was a whore and worthless and the owner of nothing but my shame.
“Why now?”
“Pictures of me around, in the paper, on the internet. He was reminded, and I’m sure he thinks I’m rich now.”
“And this is the guy from the hallway?”
I couldn’t look at him, but I imagined he was turned off and just getting the facts straight.
“No,” I said.
“Jake? Jake the Pillow Snake?”
“It doesn’t matter. But yes. He was the son of the family I was with before the Hatches. Before Breakfront. He was twenty, maybe twenty-one when I ran away from Orry and Mildred, ran back to him. Right after you left.”
“That’s statutory rape, Laine.”
I turned to him as if I wanted to bite him. I recognized the viper Lucy spoke about in the first two words out of my mouth. “I knew exactly what I was doing. I consented to everything, and don't you take that away from me. Fine world you live in, where my life was illegal. Cute. Real cute.”
It was a low blow, playing the foster child card. But Michael would not be shamed by his privilege.
“He’s peddling child pornography? Posting those? And you consented to that?”
“I have to go.” I went for the door handle despite the fact the car was still moving.
“Stop!” He held the handle. “Just stop. You’re giving me whiplash.”
I pushed him away. “I don’t need you to take care of me! I don’t need anyone to take care of me. Do you hear me? I can take care of myself!”
“Okay, I got it. You’re capable. You know what you’re doing. You’re a fine, upstanding whirlwind of ambition. Then why are you shutting down? Why are you hiding? Why are you trying to get out of a moving car?”
“I’m trying to not hurt you.”
“Hurt me? You’re fucking killing me,” he shouted, face tight in the moving lamplight. “I see this picture of you, and you’re in pain, I can see that, and you tell me this story, and it hurts to hear it. And now you’re running away because you think I’m looking to get away from you. You’re trying to do me a favor because… what do you think of me?”
“I think you’re normal. Just cop to it—”
“Cop to what? Wanting to go to a party instead of being here for you? Laine, I want you. I care about you. You give me something I’ve never had before. You’re a devil in high heels, but you… God, I want you. You. Your body, yes, but everything else too. I want to make everything in your world right. I can’t help it. Let me in. Just let me in.”
I leaned back on the seat as if my neck couldn’t hold my head. “You’re a good person. Don’t make me something you have to fix. I’m fine. I earned my life the hard way.”
“Let me in.”
“Why?”
“Because I won’t hurt you.”
“But you will.” When I blinked, the tears that had hung over my eyes fell onto my cheeks. “Jake is going to put these all over the internet, and you’ll have to protect what you’ve built. They won’t tolerate you with a whore. You’ll stand by me out of obligation, and you’ll blame me. How could you not?”
“None of that is true.” He took a handkerchief from his inside pocket.
“It’ll ruin you unless I give him what he wants.” I brushed my hands over my cheeks, but he pulled them away and handed my face the handkerchief.
“What does he want?”
“Money. Which I’ll give him.” I sniffed. Wiped.
“Is that it?”
“Probably a nostalgia screw. He’s come around few times since I left. And no, he never got what he came for.”
Michael leaned back and looked out the window as we drove down the dark expanse of deLongpre for the fifth time, turning back toward the colored lights of Hollywood Boulevard. I assumed he was coming down from the drama-high of our conversation and was putting together what being with me meant. Finding a loophole. Strategizing a way to break it to me.
I’d had a couple of parent-sets look me in the eye and say it wasn’t me, it was them. I knew how it went. They needed to do it that way, but for me, it didn’t matter.
I was happier being single, to be honest. If I dated anyone, he should be a pap or a criminal or something. Michael was a liability. He was going to end a career I loved.
I was okay.