Chapter 40
Laine
It was funny what I learned on the other side of the ropes. Lucy wasn’t much of anyone in the grand scheme. She wasn’t Michael Greydon or Britt Ravenor. Despite running her own agency, to the industry, she was just a model five years past her prime who was waiting for a reality TV show or an acting gig to appear. But in my business world, where documenting the right disaster could mean millions, she was worth following. Her showing up at my house was pure gold to the paps outside the Whole Foods, because I was Lucy’s ex-boyfriend’s new girl, and a picture of me getting gangbanged at fifteen was on the internet. The web of relationships was just perfect.
We pulled up in front of the Hotentot Bistro. Lucy gave the valet her keys and a hundred dollars while I waved at the paps and called them by name. We went into the restaurant but did not sit. We walked through it, into the kitchen, and out the back door, where her car waited for us. The hospital was a short jump across town.
“Nice trick,” I said as we drove away.
“I try not to use it so much, but we don’t want them following us to the hospital, trust me. Those people are parasites. They have no regard.” She glanced at me. “Sorry.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. I never won any popularity contests even without the camera.”
“You have a nice look, you know,” Lucy said. “I could have done something with you if you were a couple of inches taller.”
I laughed, half nervous and half charmed. Soon after, we pulled into the hospital parking lot. Like normal people, we parked, got out, and walked through the glass doors.
“It’s dead,” I said. “When something like this happens and I don’t find out about it, I get pissed at myself. I think, what did I miss?”
“Nurses aren’t waiters. They don’t have paps on speed dial.”
As we got into the elevator, I didn’t mention that I was on a few phones in that very hospital. She didn’t need to know how many times I’d hidden in the bushes outside.
We got out and turned a few corners, went through a narrow door, and came into a well-appointed room that was no bigger than a regular doctor’s office’s waiting room. Brooke Chambers stood when we entered, and a list of adjectives went through my head. Tough and graceful and vulnerable. Kind, generous, compassionate. Everything. She’d been everything and anything she wanted to be. I almost stopped dead in my tracks at seeing her face to face.
“Lucy!” she exclaimed.
“Hi, Brooke. This is Laine.”
She held out her hand, and I shook it.
“I’m such a fan,” I said. “In Love in Between, you were so amazing. I always thought those rotten kids were lucky to have a mom like you.” Then without a second to breathe, I did something I didn’t understand, because I wasn’t any celebrity’s fan. I hugged her, and I couldn’t believe it when she hugged me back.
I was overwhelmed. Could I cry on her shoulder? Could I tell her everything? Could I tell her how all these years, I’d looked forward to meeting her? And could she, would she, make it all go away for me? The pictures. The eyes on me. The years of non-consensual consent. How could any of that rule me when she hugged me? She was so warm, and her shoulder fit my cheek, and when she rubbed my back a little, I felt loved. Purely and truly loved.
When Lucy cleared her throat, I woke out of my dream state.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s been a rough day.”
“That was very kind. I don’t get that much anymore.”
“You’re just amazing. I’m sorry. You were, I mean, are so talented. And I’m sorry to meet you with all this terrible stuff happening.” I willed my mouth shut.
“How is he?” Lucy asked. I felt rescued.
“Stable,” Brooke said. “He’s in there telling his son the meaning of life right now. Apparently it only comes to you when your internal organs fail.”
“I hear that happens. You only figure out what’s important at times like that? I’ve heard that’s the case.” I thought I’d willed my mouth shut, but like a lousy dieter seeing friends at a restaurant, all my self-control went out the window in front of Brooke Chambers.
“It’s a bad time, Laine,” Brooke said. “Just a bad time all around, with the movie falling off schedule and my son being arrested.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
Lucy put her hand on my arm.
“You didn’t mean any harm,” Brooke said. “Everyone has the best intentions. You know, my son never does things the easy way. He makes everything an uphill battle. But it’s his career.”
Best intentions. I didn’t like the sound of that. Best intentions meant everyone was misguided. It meant everything had gone wrong and people were hurt. It meant that no matter how much everyone involved wanted to be upright and strong, some situations were dead in the water.
I was probably being oversensitive. I was probably only hearing a reprimand because that was what I chose to hear. Brooke wouldn’t be at her best in a hospital waiting room. She didn’t know me, yet she knew what I’d been through. I was in a fishbowl where she could see me, but I didn’t really see her.
I eked out a smile. I wanted Brooke Chambers’s approval, and asking what she meant or defending myself at fifteen or twenty-five wouldn’t be helpful. We were there for a family, not petty insults. She was making a point about something bigger than three women in a tiny room.
I got it. I got it loud and clear, a message developed in boiling hot chemicals, clustering the silver grains into lumps. I saw the image of what she meant, though the details were lost in the contrast.
And I found that image was perfect in the frame. Uncomfortable and unpleasant but somehow more real and accurate than anything with the details burned in. She was right, even in what she didn’t say.
She didn’t say that the pain was inevitable despite our best intentions.
She didn’t say that he and I were an uphill battle.
But she did. She’d said I’d break him in the course of loving him. I was just another choice that made things harder than they had to be. I’d end his career.
My career was over. Was I going to make sure his was too?
Michael came into the room, and I felt a longing for something I didn’t have, even though he was right in front of me.