by Ella Berman
I slip into the booth opposite him.
“What’s that smell?” I ask, because he smells different.
“I don’t know. The woman in the store told me it would make me irresistible to all men.” He grins at me, his eyes warm and easy.
“I prefer your normal smell,” I say. Dylan is still smiling but I’m annoyed at myself for being prickly already. I feel hot and guilty after my fight with Esme, but I try to soften the angles of my face, removing the sharp edges from my voice.
“So what’s been happening? What have you done today?” he asks, and then he stops himself. “Actually I already know. Paparazzi are all over you at the moment, huh?”
I shrug. “It’s not so bad.”
Dylan studies me for a second before looking down at the menu. “Did they follow you here?”
“I don’t think so . . .” I lie, not telling him that I already texted Mario the address and that he is waiting to capture a photo of Dylan and me leaving the restaurant together as soon as I send the go-ahead. I realize now that it was a mistake.
“So what is this place? It’s cute,” I say, staring up at the fresco painted on the ceiling. It’s a Day of the Dead scene showing skeletons wearing mariachi costumes and vivid red and purple dresses, painted in thick acrylic.
Dylan looks at me strangely and then he shrugs.
“Just a restaurant I like,” he says.
The server places a plastic bowl of tortilla chips and salsa on the table. I ask for some guacamole as I pull out my phone, scanning the new messages and emails. One from John telling me he is looking forward to our next meeting, and one from Nathan. I put the phone facedown on the red-and-white tablecloth next to my water glass. After a couple of moments, I flip it back again so that I can check the screen subtly from now on, instead of making a big deal out of it.
“Are you okay?” Dylan asks. I turn my phone facedown again.
“Yeah, why?”
“I don’t know, you seem a little different.” Dylan chooses his words carefully.
“I feel good,” I say, stretching my legs out under the table and flashing him a big smile, the kind I use to shut people up, forgetting that he knows all my sleights of hand. I take a deep breath and start over because even I can’t tell when I’m lying anymore.
“I’m about to be offered a part in this movie, but I can’t work out if it’s going to be awful or not . . .” I say, searching for something honest that isn’t too revealing.
“Want to talk it through?” Dylan says. “I don’t know about the movie, but I know you pretty well.”
“Mmm, yeah, maybe,” I say, checking my phone quickly again. A message from Laurel asking if I was doing okay. “Did you know Laurel is a lesbian?”
Dylan laughs. “Of course—I’ve met Lana. We both have.”
“Was I a worse friend or wife?” I ask, just before I realize I’m talking about myself again.
“How are you anyway? How’s the single life treating you?” I ask, shooting for funny but landing somewhere between awkward and belligerent. Dylan grimaces.
“Sorry. How are the surfers?”
“They’re all right,” he says, having a sip of water and still watching me carefully. “The story isn’t doing what I want it to do, but I know I just have to roll with it.”
“That’s how it works, right?” I ask. Dylan’s hair is still wet from a shower. Some of it is falling in his eyes, and I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on anything other than how good he looks. I imagine pushing him into the bedroom and fucking like we used to, always like it was going to be the last time. Despite everything, I always enjoyed sex with Dylan more than I ever deserved to. “I thought that was the point of working with real people.”
“No, it is. The story is never what you think it is. I’m just hoping I’ll be able to see it soon,” he says, shrugging. “It’s been a long shoot.”
“The story is never what you think it is,” I repeat. “I like that.”
I have another sip of water, sort of wishing I could have a tequila soda to relax a little instead. Maybe it was being around Dylan that made me drink more. He listens too closely, expects too much. It’s unnerving when you’re not used to it.
“I’ve been working on this . . . project with Esme, but I think she feels like I’ve let her down. Maybe I just need to tell her that we were chasing the wrong ending all along.”
“I’m sure she can’t be mad at you for long,” Dylan says. “That’s cool, by the way.”
“What is?”
“That you’re helping her out like that.”
“Oh. I think it might be the other way around,” I say, digging a tortilla chip into the guacamole. “It’s hard to tell sometimes.”
I wipe my salty fingers on the tablecloth, and when I look up, Dylan is watching me like he used to, as if I’m some rare, beautiful thing, which instantly makes me want to do something to ruin it.
“You seem different too,” I say after a moment.
“Different how?” Dylan asks warily after a pause.
“I don’t know. Like less innocent or something. I mean you came to my house minutes after your girlfriend broke up with you.”
Dylan swallows a tortilla chip and doesn’t say anything for a moment. A mariachi version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” is playing softly through the speakers.
“We came here the night we got engaged,” he says eventually. “We literally sat right here.”
I look around again, but nothing about this restaurant is even remotely familiar to me. The server hangs back by the entrance to the kitchen, looking about as pained as I feel. I try to remember the day we got engaged. Dylan woke me up with blueberry pancakes and his grandmother’s wedding ring, and while I was still crying, he showed me his ring finger with my name already tattooed around it in black, scratchy ink. The tattoo was raw, and I cried because that was exactly how I felt when I saw it, so in awe that this person wanted to share his life with me. It was one of those rare spring days when I thought everything would be okay, but I still supplemented the glasses of champagne with secret bumps of coke whenever Dylan left the room. After that, I remember the beach at sunset, and maybe a flat tire. Was there a dinner too?
“I’m sorry. I really don’t remember it.” The expression on his face is making my chest hurt, so I don’t want to look at him anymore. “I think this was a bad idea.”
“Luckily, I already ordered everything we ordered that night, and it’s only going to get more and more fucking awkward as the night goes on. What did you call it? A clusterfuck of misery?” Dylan asks, running his hand through his hair. “I mean, you did warn me.”
“What did we order?”
“It’s okay, we don’t have to do this for my benefit.”
“Remind me of what we ordered.”
“All right,” he says slowly. “We drank jalapeño margaritas, but I got mine with vodka instead of tequila because you put me off tequila for life the night we met. You couldn’t choose between burritos and enchiladas so you got them both, and they made a heart out of sour cream on top, and for some reason you loved that. For dessert we had the Mexican wedding cookies with coconut and chocolate ice cream because we were celebrating. So what, were you high or just drunk that night?”
“Don’t be mean, it doesn’t suit you,” I say as the server places a pitcher of margaritas in front of us, with jalapeños swimming in it. I might have remembered the margaritas if Dylan had mentioned them earlier.
I take a sip, and when I realize it doesn’t have any alcohol in it, I feel instantly, uncomfortably disappointed.
“You know I can drink, I’m not going to kill myself in one night,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.
“Go ahead,” Dylan says wearily, signaling for the server. “Can we have a bottle of tequila on the table for my friend?”
&n
bsp; The server brings a bottle of Don Julio, and we both just stare at it. I try to remember how it felt when we liked each other.
“Grace, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be a dick. I’m exhausted. I want to work this out, but I can’t figure out if you want to be found anymore.”
“I don’t want to be found?” I ask, my voice tight. “You think I don’t want to be found.”
Dylan tenses, sensing something different about my tone. I lean toward him and speak quietly.
“Do you want to know why I left you? I left because you never wanted to see who I really was. You had this image of me as this little lost girl who you could rescue with your love, and you panicked when it turned out not to be as simple as that. Your love suffocated me because it was a love for somebody else. You never took the time to get to know who I really was, and the one night I tried to tell you, you didn’t want to know. That’s why I fucking left.”
Dylan listens to me, a weird expression I don’t recognize on his face.
“You do know that everyone feels like that? That it’s actually really hard to feel worthy of anyone’s love because we all know how shitty and selfish and fucked up we are on the inside, but we still work at it. You did the exact same thing to me. You always think I’m this honest, hardworking, genuine good guy, just the total opposite of everyone else in LA. You know that person doesn’t exist, right? But it never mattered to me, it just made me want to work harder to be the person you thought I was. People can change if they want to, Grace. I thought that’s how it worked.”
The server brings over a sizzling plate of enchiladas dripping in green sauce and melted cheese, with a sour cream heart dripping over it all. We both stare at the food in front of us but neither of us moves. I can feel the Percocet throbbing in my bag next to me, and I have to fight the urge to take one out and shove it down my throat at the table. I just need to wait for Dylan to go to the bathroom or look away for a couple of seconds, then I can at least try to blur the edges of this awful fucking day.
“What night was it?” he quietly asks instead.
“What?”
“You said you tried to talk to me. What night was it?”
“The night before I left. On the balcony.”
For a second I think that Dylan is actually going to laugh, but then he closes his eyes briefly, and when he opens them, he looks sadder than I’ve ever seen him.
“Do you want to know what was running through my mind that night?” he asks.
“That I’d fucked up, yet again? And you didn’t want to hear it?”
Dylan shakes his head.
“That I cheated on you, Grace. The night before. And I could say that I did it because I knew I’d already lost you, and it might even be the truth, but mainly I was lonely and I just wanted to be with someone and it not be so fucking complicated and sad all the time.”
After he’s finished talking, he slumps a little. I sit perfectly still and we’re something out of an Edward Hopper painting, the two of us sitting in front of a table of untouched food, trying our hardest to prove we were never good enough for each other.
“Was it with Wren?” I ask when I trust that I can speak without a shake in my voice.
“With a waitress at the Good Life. I thought you found out,” he says, realizing exactly as I do that we are always having a different conversation from the one we think we are having. “But you really did just leave.”
“Oh, please. Are you going to tell me how you cheating on me shows how much you love me?” I say. “So you win?”
“It’s never been a game. Neither of us is winning.”
Dylan is staring down at the table. I look at him for so long that the lights start to flare around him. I realize now that I have no idea who the person in front of me actually is.
“I know I shouldn’t have done it, but don’t pretend that you were perfect,” Dylan says quietly, and I know he’s referring to the nights I came home late and couldn’t remember where I’d been.
“You were never supposed to hurt me, Dylan. That’s the whole point of you.”
“People don’t have points. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Are you even sorry?” I ask, my voice searing.
“I don’t know right now, Grace,” he says after a moment, and it infuriates me even more because now that I know he’s not actually incapable of lying, why can’t he do it now, when I need him to?
I push myself out of the booth and stand up.
“That night, I was trying to tell you that Able sexually assaulted me,” I say. “Repeatedly.”
I leave before I have to watch the horror spread across his face.
* * *
• • •
I never texted Mario, so when I walk out the back of the restaurant, I don’t expect to find him there, hidden in the darkness, waiting for me. He raises his camera and takes over a thousand photos of me standing alone, tears streaming down my face. I scream at him to stop but it turns out I never really controlled any of it.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
I take three pills as soon as I’m home, then I sit on the sofa in the living room, waiting for the morning to come. When it finally does, the sun casting streaks of white gold across the blue sky, I have to close the blinds because everything seems too hopeful with them open. It’s Christmas Eve and this is a city for people who wake up every morning believing that today could be the day their life is transformed, not for people like me. I should have known that everything I touch eventually gets destroyed, like a curse Able handed down to me.
I decline Dylan’s calls, and I keep the blinds down so that when he inevitably comes over to try to talk to me, which he does at around ten a.m., I can pretend not to be home. He knocks on the door and says my name softly, as if he can feel that I’m just feet away from him, my back pressed against the wall. When I don’t answer, he stands outside on the porch for a while, before his car engine starts and he drives back up the hill.
I try to muster some relief, or anger, or self-pity once Dylan has gone, but I can’t even pretend to myself that any of this is about what he told me last night. This is about what I told him, and how I can’t bear to see the truth reflected in his open, familiar face because, without ever meaning to, he’ll show me what I really am, which is a powerless, scared little girl. A victim. Everyone always tells you that the truth will set you free, but now that I’ve said the words out loud, I feel more alone than ever. I should have listened to Laurel when she tried to talk to me yesterday. It turns out some people aren’t supposed to have anything for themselves. I take another pill and wait for the clouds to slip over me. I will tread more lightly from now on.
* * *
• • •
The day slides past without me noticing. Darkness falls and I come to slightly, realizing that it’s time for me to go to Emilia’s. I consider messaging her to tell her I can’t make it, but I can’t admit to myself that it was all for nothing in the end.
I get dressed in a daze, putting on a vintage Smiths T-shirt and a faded pair of Levi’s. My body feels heavy and sluggish, and I stare at myself for so long in the mirror that I can almost see what I’d look like if someone were meeting me for the first time. Anemic skin, purple slugs under my eyes from lack of sleep, and that much-discussed extra weight padding out my belly and thighs.
I walk up to the peach house via the beach steps, something I haven’t done since that first day. I count eighty-six steps, and I’m out of breath by the time I reach the top. My boots are covered in a fine dusting of sand as I walk alongside the peach house until I’m standing in front of the entrance, holding the Le Labo bag and the small jar of Marmite I brought with me to remind Emilia that Able let her down.
Now that I’m here, I understand that the plan has changed. Expensive cars line the cul-de-sac, people just leaving them in the middle of the street as I stand there. Th
e peach house is lit up from every room, a warm, inviting light that promises only beautiful people and golden-hued memories. I walk up to the front door as a feeling of snaking inevitability wraps itself around my insides.
I ring the doorbell, trying to disguise my trembling hand. Emilia answers the door and pauses for a moment when she sees that it’s me, one slender hand on the door frame.
“Grace. Thank you for coming,” she says rigidly. Already everything feels worlds apart from when we spoke on my porch yesterday, and I wonder whether I imagined the entire exchange.
“Of course I came . . .” I say, holding up the Marmite.
Emilia leads me into the thick of the crowd, and of course she has curated the ideal ratio of beauty to power, and I already recognize many of the guests from movies I’ve worked on or publicity tours I’ve done. I keep my head down as I follow her, and a pressing sense of dread falls over me.
I stop walking and Emilia does too. Her fingernails dig into my flesh, and there is something different about her, too, an undercurrent of something I can’t identify. The ghost of Frank Sinatra croons from the speakers, barely audible over the heavy thrum of conversation. I turn around but there is a smiling stranger there, poised to greet me, blocking me from the exit. I turn back to Emilia and search her face. She looks dazed, untethered.
“Are you okay?” I ask quietly.
“Able wanted to celebrate, so he invited a few friends over. You’d think that these people would already have plans on Christmas Eve, but you know Able. He snaps his fingers and people come,” Emilia says shrilly, snapping her own fingers. I turn away from her so that she can’t see the stunned look on my face. Despite her efforts to appear normal, Emilia seems as unsettled as I am by Able’s unexpected return, even vulnerable, and instinctively I want to protect her as she has tried to protect me.
Emilia hands me a glass of champagne before catching herself and apologizing. She swaps it for a glass of water and then introduces me to a few of her friends, all publicists. When I reach for her arm, she slips away from me, and I’m left trying to catch my breath alone.