She slid the paper across the table at me and I scribbled on the line without looking, stuffing the paper into the supplied return envelope. I owed her one.
“I can’t thank you enough, Connie,” I told her. “You’re really a lifesaver. I did not want to go back there. It’s horrible--”
All of a sudden, the canned music cut off with a loud squeal. Usually that preceded someone singing a song on the karaoke equipment. The only problem was that the people in Sebastian’s a second ago also seemed to have mostly disappeared. In the few minutes we’d been sitting at our table, the whole place seemed to have almost emptied out. I stared around myself, suddenly feeling unsure and uneasy.
“I wonder if Ariel is going to sing tonight,” I told Connie, trying not to feel nervous. I was so on edge lately. It wasn’t healthy. The world wasn’t out to get me. “You know the redhead that works here? She’s really good.”
Connie was staring at me, wide-eyed. She pushed her hair back from her face and swallowed hard. There was something about her demeanor that was making my heart pound.
“Connie?” I asked. My voice sounded hesitant.
And her expression looked almost… guilty.
I looked down at the envelope and then back up at her.
No. I didn’t believe it.
“Connie, what’s wrong?” I asked.
She swallowed again. Her skin was pale. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m really sorry, Cindy. I am. But I needed the money really badly. They cut my hours at the dry cleaners and…” she trailed off.
“Connie?” I questioned, fumbling with the envelope.
She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t. I got the paperwork open and read the word “consent” and felt my world melting.
“Connie, why would you do this?” I asked her, whispering. “I thought we were friends.”
She’d betrayed me? Why? For money? I wondered what I was worth to her. I hoped it had been a lot.
Marigold, Greenlee, and Quincy all appeared from the back then, complete with Meg Butler and the camera crew.
“Cindy,” Quincy snapped, striding forward and flipping her meticulously curled hair. “You owe me an explanation. You can’t just steal my boyfriend and our van.”
That thing that happened just now at the apartment? That wasn’t the ambush. That was meant to lure me over. To lull me into complacency. This was the ambush.
I looked around me. Sebastian’s was now entirely empty. The people who had been here must have been actors. Only now, with a dozen people in my face, including my own screaming family members, did I realize how strange Sebastian’s looked.
The lights had been turned way up, presumably to accommodate the filming. The music was turned completely off, obviously to avoid interfering with the dialogue. The pictures on the wall had been taken down, leaving only the brick walls. I assumed that looked better on film. And the gang was all here now.
Quincy was glaring at me, waiting for me to reply to her on camera. The crew gathered around me eagerly. I felt frozen.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” she asked me, coming closer so we were in the same frame together. “You stole my boyfriend.”
I got up and backed away from her. I wasn’t going to say a word. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. They might be able to use my face on camera, but they wouldn’t have my voice. I could deny them that.
“Cindy!” Quincy screamed. She was really laying it on thick. “Answer me. I was in love with him. And you took him from me!”
I tried not to even emote. I turned and walked away. I refused to play this game. Giving my family the satisfaction of drawing me into their messed-up web was not an option. I couldn’t avoid being on camera now, but I didn’t have to participate, either.
Maybe Paulina had been right. I was toxic. Because whatever evil that Marigold shed like a cat had infected and contaminated Connie. I’d really thought of her as a friend. In a lot of ways, she was my only friend, my only bulwark against my family. Except now she wasn’t. In exchange for money, she’d tricked me, robbed me of the one thing I had and could control—my own image and privacy. My own participation in the twisted, protracted public melodrama that my family insisted on dragging me into was the one thing I thought I had agency over. And now it was gone.
I ran back to my van and drove away, fighting back tears. I knew that Tommy would see this. It would air in two days’ time. I’d been trying so hard not to think about him. For the last couple of hours, it had even been working. But every time I didn’t have something else to focus on, it was his face I saw in my mind’s eye.
I missed him like crazy. I barely knew him, but I missed him more than I thought I could miss anyone. He was the first person in my life who’d made me think there was more for me in this world than the path my family had sketched out for me. I’d let myself hope that there was a future for us, even though I knew all along that it wasn’t possible. Now I was dealing with the consequences and the pain of hoping. I’d brought it all on myself, even this disaster. Especially this disaster.
Like a phantom limb that panged even when it was long gone, the ghost of my missing heart wouldn’t let me forget him.
He’d see this episode and then he would think I was in on it all along. He’d think that I was just like them.
40
Tommy
“So, what happened?” Derek asked me when we ran into each other at the dinner that night. “How was Napa?”
I’d forgotten he was going to be here. At least we weren’t both wearing blue suits. His was grey, with a maroon tie.
I shook my head at my twin. “Let’s not talk about it.” My voice was a warning.
Not only was I not able to talk about it, I wasn’t willing to. Anyway, we were both supposed to be campaigning for our respective Oscar races, not chatting with each other.
Derek’s expression turned pitying. “I’m sorry.”
Anger welled up from nowhere. I didn’t want his pity. But my angry reaction was short lived. Derek certainly wasn’t to blame for anything. He’d only ever tried to help me with Cindy.
“I’m sorry too,” I mumbled. “Let’s talk about literally anything else.”
I could tell that Derek had questions, but he didn’t say anything. He was represented by Elaine, too. I didn’t doubt that he’d already heard her side of the story.
The dinner was beginning to wind down. It was another charity banquet, although there was no charity date auction tonight. Thank God. I wasn’t at all in the mood for something like that. Although the crystal chandeliers, champagne, people in black tie, and boring rich people nonsense was enough to remind me of that night with Cindy all by itself.
“How’s your race going?” I asked him, hoping to distract. “I heard you’re the favorite.”
Derek smiled at me, letting me draw him off the subject of Cindy even though it was obvious that he was still curious. “I’m going to beat you,” he told me. “They announce best supporting actor before best actor. That means I’ll win our bet.”
I blinked at him. “So, you do remember.”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? Of course, I remember.” He shook his head at me. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually won one of our bets. This is my big chance.”
“If we both win on the same night, I’m pretty sure that would make it a tie. The fact they announce the less prestigious award first is a technicality and you know it.”
Even though I was beginning to hate the fact that my competitiveness had driven me to where I was now, I still didn’t want to lose. That’s the problem with being super competitive. Even when you hate it, you hate to lose even more.
Derek rolled his eyes. “Fine. I guess you’re right. It’ll be a tie if we both win. But if I win and you don’t, you should probably just know that I’ll never, ever let you live it down.”
“How mature of you.”
He laughed again. “I’m not mature. I only even took this role because it mi
ght net me a best supporting actor nod and help me win our bet.”
“I wondered why you accepted a role that didn’t have any singing, dancing, or Shakespeare in it,” I teased.
Derek’s movie, an adaptation of the Manhattan Project’s final days, in which he played a nuclear physicist, was not at all his normal M.O. In fact, it was a role I’d been offered and passed on. The fact that my brother could take the roles I passed on, but I could never tap dance to save my life had actually bothered me a bit. More of my misplaced sibling rivalry.
“Well, I had to win our bet,” he told me, proving that at least our unhealthy dynamic was shared. “I knew you’d passed on this role to take the one that’s about to win you Best Actor. That was unacceptable. I had to at least try to win.”
“You took an entire film role to win a bet?” I taunted, although it felt hollow. I pursued an entire career to win a bet.
Derek rolled his eyes at me. “I think we both know that sibling rivalry has always been a strong force in our family.”
He wasn’t wrong. We weren’t even the worst the family had to offer on that front. “We’re talking about Holden now, right?”
“Of course, we’re talking about Holden,” Derek said, smirking. “I don’t have confirmation of this fact, obviously, but I’d be willing to wager that he became a director because directors boss actors around and we’re both actors.”
I nodded. That had long been my theory as well. As the second-youngest brother, he’d been bossed around by us plenty of the years. Plus, he had the middle sibling inferiority complex. He was overcompensating. Considering that he had just barely missed out on a Best Director nomination this year, it was working, too. He’d probably end up the most famous of all of us, even surpassing our uncle Connor.
“Where is Holden anyway?” I asked, looking around curiously. “This seems like his kind of place.”
Directors, even more than actors, are deeply dependent on Hollywood politics for funding. Although they tend to be just as temperamental and eccentric as actors, and Holden was certainly no exception to that, their success is directly linked to their political connections. That meant that Holden was constantly glad-handing and schmoozing for something, despite his generally dour and grumpy personality. His talent made it work. Shouldn’t he be here shaking hands and kissing babies? There were loads of rich people here.
“He’s off scouting locations in New Zealand,” Derek told me. “You would know this if you’d come to boxing this weekend.”
I shrugged. I’d skipped it this week. Seeing my family hadn’t sounded appealing, and the weekends were prime time for brooding about Cindy. The nights were good too. And the days. All the time, really.
“So, who are you taking as your date?” Derek asked, filling in the silence because I’d lapsed into morose quiet as soon as Cindy reentered my mind.
“What?” I asked distantly. My mind was wandering.
“To the Oscars,” Derek clarified, cocking his head to the side. “Who are you taking if not Cindy?”
“Nobody,” I told him. “I’m going alone.”
Elaine had been adamant that I take a date, preferably another A-lister. I refused. She claimed it was important that I be seen out with someone appropriate. Appropriate. Ha.
There was nothing worse than dating a famous actress, and the appropriateness of any such arrangement would be purely business on both sides. I’d tried dating actresses for real a couple of times. It had never worked out. Somehow my brother Peter had managed it, but he must have found the one actress that wasn’t a total narcissist. Besides, I’d found the woman I wanted. If I couldn’t have Cindy, I didn’t want anyone.
“I’m going alone too,” Derek told me. “Elaine wanted me to pick a model or something, but what does it matter? By the time we show up at the awards ceremony, the votes are already cast.”
I nodded. He was right. That was also how I’d convinced her to lay off.
“You couldn’t get a date, could you?” I teased.
He shook his head. “Nope.” He looked at me sidelong. “What can I say, I didn’t want to be someone’s fifteen minutes of fame. I would think you could relate after the debacle with Quincy Wilson.”
I nodded grumpily. I knew exactly what he meant.
“I watched some of your ex’s reality show,” Derek ventured.
I froze. “It’s not her reality show. It belongs to her family.”
He shrugged. “You know what I mean.”
I ground my teeth. I’d avoided watching it. There were three episodes out now, and somehow it was still the talk of the town. Critics despised it. Regular people absolutely loved it.
The show had somehow precisely targeted that Hollywood love-to-hate four quadrant appeal. It was, fundamentally, the story of how ‘normal’ people live in a world of super-rich, super-privileged movie stars.
The Wilsons were fashioned as the normal, down-to-earth people fighting against the elite assholes of Hollywood that thought they weren’t good enough to be stars. It was all bullshit, of course, but I had to hand it to Meg Butler. She was a walking nightmare, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d been clever to capitalize on the potential of that family. Unfortunately, I was the ‘elite asshole’ in their fiction, a man who’d cheated on and then abruptly left Quincy. Cindy was ‘cast’ as a conniving, scheming jealous hag. It was bad all around.
My phone vibrating in my pocket almost made me jump. I looked down to see a familiar number calling. I swallowed hard.
“Excuse me,” I told Derek, grabbing my phone out of my pocket. “I need to take this.”
He took another drink of his water. “Tell Elaine we’re heading to the afterparty in just a minute,” he grumbled. “That woman is a slave driver.”
I nodded, but it wasn’t Elaine calling.
It was Cindy.
41
Cindy
I don’t know what possessed me to call him. Desperation, I guess. I just wanted to hear his voice again. When he answered, he sounded positively shocked. I was shocked he’d answered. I had expected that I’d be leaving a voicemail.
“Hi,” I stuttered into the phone. “I hope I’m not interrupting something really important. I just needed to tell you something.”
“Cindy?” His voice broke in the middle of my name.
The way he said my name made my heart hurt. Did he miss me? There was no way that he missed me like I missed him. But it sounded like he missed me some. My heart pounded in my ears. I’d been calm enough before dialing, but now it felt like I’d been running a marathon.
“I won’t keep you,” I promised. “I just wanted to let you know that something happened with Marigold and my stepsisters. You’ll see it on the show, and I didn’t want it to be a surprise.”
I’d cried so much over the last week my eyes were sore. I’d been eating my Cheerios and not sleeping. I’d been working to try and forget about him but none of it was working. The crying was getting a bit less constant, but the pain remained.
Now that I was talking to Tommy again, it was like no time at all had passed. I was right back at the beginning. I should never have called. I could have just sent him a text.
“What happened?”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want it to be surprise. “Marigold had a friend of mine trick me into signing a consent form to appear on the show. They’re going to put me on the show. I didn’t mean for it to happen. But I wanted you to know it was coming.”
He didn’t answer at first. “I thought you’d cut all contact with them.”
I felt like such a fool. “I did, but then Greenlee called me. She sounded like she was in trouble and I… I just couldn’t abandon her. So, I went over to the apartment and one thing led to another.” I sobbed. “I’m sorry. I know this might make things worse for you.”
“You agreed to be on the show?” He sounded shocked. Horrified.
“By accident!”
I’d taken to watching the show. I’d seen every episode mult
iple times at this point. It probably wasn’t a healthy pastime, but I couldn’t resist. After work, in the evenings, I fired up my laptop and hate-watched my family’s trashy reality show. It was becoming an obsession of mine. I nearly had the episodes memorized now.
“Cindy,” he said, and his voice was slow and worried. “Can I come meet you? I don’t think we should talk on the phone.”
I blinked. “You think I’m recording you?” It would have hurt less if he slapped me. “I wouldn’t do that.”
He didn’t answer my question, which was as good as saying ‘yes.’
“Can I come meet you?” he asked. “Where are you?”
It was my worst nightmare. He thought I was recording him. Or he suspected someone was and I was letting it happen. He thought I was just like them. This is what I’d been trying to avoid, and it was happening anyway. No matter what I tried to do, Marigold won.
“I need to hang up,” I sniffled. “I just wanted to let you know.”
“Are you at the theater?” he asked. “I’m coming over there.”
“Don’t,” I sobbed. “Just stay away from me. I only wanted to tell you so you wouldn’t think… so you wouldn’t think I was like them.”
“Cindy, I don’t think that.”
I could tell he wanted to talk to me, but I couldn’t bear it. I hated the idea that he thought someone was listening in, recording. And then there was the chance, however small, that he might be right.
“I’ve got to go, Tommy. I’m sorry.”
“Cindy, please—"
I hung up the phone, staring out my window at the parking lot I was staying in tonight. I’d started moving my van at night. Meg Butler had showed up with her camera crew twice, trying to get me to talk to her. I knew the theater wasn’t a good place to stay anymore. So now, after I finished work and took a shower, I drove off, looking for someplace to set up shop for the night. Tonight, it was a Walmart parking lot.
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