Life in High Def

by Kimberly Cooper Griffin

  “Me, too,” agreed Hank, refilling Cray’s wine glass from the bottle that had been sitting on the table next to him. Cray laughed as he tried to take a sip while lying down, and Hank playfully pulled Cray’s hair. “Sit up before you spill that on both of us, lazy ass!”

  “Lazy ass is correct. I might not even make it to the magic countdown. This kid is worn out!” sighed Cray, plopping his head back down in Hank’s lap.

  Reilly was relieved. She had been worried that Hank and Cray were only there out of some sense of duty to keep her company. Part of her—a phantom of her old self—was kind of disappointed that she wouldn’t be spending her first New Year’s Eve out of prison doing something wild and fun, but most of her was completely satisfied with spending the special night in a more peaceful fashion with the most important people in her life.

  Cray and Drew had prepared a late dinner that they all had gorged on—grilled salmon with a pecan crust and a spinach salad—after which, the foursome had settled in on the balcony with a bottle of excellent wine. An over-priced bottle of champagne chilled in the refrigerator, which they planned to open at midnight—if they made it to the countdown. They could all see a television inside the condo that was tuned into the revelry on Times Square so they could keep track of the impending celebration. The setting couldn’t have been more beautiful, with the balcony overlooking one of the main slopes of the resort, which was festooned with twinkling white lights and a view of the dark lake far below. A few party boats, outlined in more twinkling white lights, were out in the middle of the water shooting off intermittent fireworks. The setting was almost magical.

  “I’m glad that you two decided to come up here,” said Reilly. “Drew and I would probably be in bed by now, if it was just the two of us.”

  “Hey, if we’re cramping your style—“ began Cray, pretending to get up.

  “That’s not what I said—“

  “—we can always go down to that bar in the square and come back when you’re done. Just leave a tee shirt hanging on the front doorknob until you’re finished. That’s how they signal they’re getting laid in the fraternities, right?” asked Cray, looking up at Hank who shrugged his shoulders. “At least they did in that movie I was in a couple years ago.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it!”

  “Uh-huh,” nodded Hank with a mischievous grin and a wink at Cray. Then he yawned. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I was wiped out. Plus, I’d rather hang out with you guys. If that makes me an old lady, so be it.”

  “Yeah. What he said,” said Cray, parroting Hank’s yawn and closing his eyes. “Besides, I can’t kiss him when the bell rings if we go out. It would be on the front page of all the rags tomorrow.”

  “Probably,” agreed Reilly. She wondered if her friends would ever go public with their relationship. She knew Hank would be fine with it, but he wouldn’t press the issue, and Cray was too worried about his leading man appeal. She didn’t judge him for it, but she wished he felt like he could be open about who he was.

  Hank made a disgusted sound, bringing Reilly back from her musing.

  “Jeez. You would know about the media stalking you, Rye. They’ve been hounding you non-stop since those crazy bitches were arrested for fucking you over. I’m surprised none of them have scaled the walls to get up here. I’m telling you, if I ever get within ten feet of one of those two cows, they’ll have to put me behind bars, too. I can’t believe—“

  Reilly dropped her head back on the couch and groaned. Not that again.

  “Come on. Please don’t start,” she begged. “Not tonight. I’ve listened to you rail against Sylvie and Parker for the last month and a half, ever since we found that damn cell phone. I’m grateful for your unwavering loyalty and outrage. I really am. But, just for tonight, I really just want it all to go away.”

  Hank sat up, jostling Cray’s head.

  “Sorry, baby,” he said, stroking Cray’s chin, and Reilly thought that she might have won this round. But Hank looked up, and the adoring look he had given to Cray became incredulous once again. “You want it to just go away? Like it never happened? I don’t get—“

  “Okay. Okay. I just want you to stop plotting revenge. It’s over. Please let it be over? Please?” She’d had to beg Hank not to storm over to Sylvie’s and Parker’s houses to confront them the day they’d first seen the video. She’d literally had to hold him back when he’d threatened to take his scrawny little body over to go kick their asses. Since then, he’d been excessive in his vitriol. So much so that she was beginning to believe that he was the one who was a bit obsessed. A bit? Try a lot obsessed. Even she’d stopped watching the news for anything about the case. But Hank was still watching and seething. “The cops have taken care of them, Hank. Sylvie’s confessed. Parker tried to kill herself. What’s the use in getting angry?” Reilly rubbed her temple. She was so tired of thinking about it. So tired of trying to take the high road. Exhausted, really, from maintaining what she hoped was a dignified silence on the whole subject. She knew that as soon as she said anything to anyone, it would get plastered in the next day’s headlines. Best to keep it to herself. She wished everyone would just stop asking her about it.

  “I guess you’re tired of it,” said Hank.

  “A little,” said Reilly, uttering the understatement of the year.

  “Am I making it worse for you? Reminding you?”

  “Yes,” admitted Reilly. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but it was true. His tirades were constant reminders. She just wanted to forget.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll shut up about it tonight.”

  “Good boy,” said Cray, stroking his face and closing his eyes again. Hank smiled and ran his hands through Cray’s tousled hair.

  “Dramatic subject change, then. New Year’s resolutions. Cray, you first.”

  “That’s easy,” said Cray, not even opening his eyes. “My resolution is to take acting classes from Walt Archer.”

  “The Walt Archer?” asked Drew. Even she knew who he was. “The one who coached what’s-his-face-Coulsen in Rage of Man? The movie that was up against Reilly’s for Best Picture this year?”

  “Yeah. That Walt Archer. I figure if he could get Coulsen an Academy Award nod, it’s worth a shot. Besides, Reilly helped me see that I’ve been typecast. I need to expand my repertoire.”

  “When did I say that you were typecast?” asked Reilly.

  “That day in the studio. The day I called Drew to see if I could get her to come on set to ‘teach you yoga,’” Cray said, using his fingers to make air quotes. “You’re welcome, by the way. That makes us even. I got you laid and you opened my eyes to expanding my career horizons.”

  Reilly vaguely remembered the conversation.

  “Jesus! That was months ago. I was in a bad mood that day.”

  “Thus my efforts to get you some somethin’-somethin’.”

  Reilly was about to tell Cray where he could stuff his somethin’-somethin’, but a quick memory of the first time that she and Drew made love filled her mind, so Hank got there first.

  “My man, America’s Hunkiest Man-slash-Pimp! I’m so proud,” said Hank, laughing. “Drew, you go next. I need to hear what the perfect woman wants to improve upon.”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” said Drew without any hesitation. “This very imperfect woman would like to be more charitable. I want to find a way to give back this year. What about you, Hank?”

  The resolution could have sounded trite and syrupy from almost anyone else, but Reilly knew that Drew’s statement was genuine. It made her love her all the more.

  “Christ. How can I follow that?” exclaimed Hank, throwing a hand in the air.

  “You started it. You must have had something on your mind when you asked everyone else what their resolutions were,” replied Reilly.

  “Well, I was going to say, double the profits of my company, but Mother Teresa over there ruined that. So I guess I have to give up all my worldly possessi
ons and become a monk?”

  “A monk who has sex, right? Because otherwise I’m not down with that, lover,” responded Cray, suddenly wide-awake.

  Reilly snorted. “Hank wouldn’t last a day as a celibate man.”

  “She’s right,” agreed Hank. “I’ll stick with my profit plan. But I’ll continue to source from responsible vendors… and encourage others to do the same. Maybe start a clothing line using hemp or bamboo,” Hank was teasing Drew now, mentioning things that Drew had suggested to him that he’d already laughed off. Hank was unapologetically and consciously oblivious to the environment, which frustrated both Drew and Reilly. “Yeah! That’s it. Phew! Maybe I can rock that halo after all!”

  “If I didn’t have the Zen Master image to sustain, I’d kick your ass, little man,” Drew said with a menacing growl that they all knew lacked any bite.

  Reilly laughed and felt a little turned on by Drew’s flare of butchness.

  “Does anyone have a tee shirt that I can borrow?” joked Reilly, snuggling a little closer to her lover. “Maybe you two should go down to the bar for a bit. It’ll be quick.”

  “I think I might barf,” sighed Hank.

  “It’s your turn, Rye. What’s your New Year’s resolution?” mumbled Cray, barely awake again.

  Reilly had hoped they’d forgotten her. Every time she thought about New Year’s resolutions she got all wound up inside, thinking that she needed to do exactly what she’d been begging Hank to do—let go of all of the negative feelings she felt for Sylvie and Parker. Despite her words, she’d still spent a lot of time stewing on it and wondering why she didn’t feel more relieved about not being the person behind the wheel. Instead, she couldn’t stop feeling the betrayal and, yes, embarrassment about having been played and framed by those two. It felt petty and foolish, horrible to hold on to that shit. But she just couldn’t let it go. She shrugged and sighed.

  “I don’t have one,” she said, putting her empty glass on the table beside her.

  “Come on,” scoffed Hank. “Everyone has one. At least until the first hangover of the year wears off.”

  “Not me.”

  “I guess you don’t want to push it, huh? What with getting the biggest break of your life already, huh?” Hank said. Reilly got up, grabbed the empty wine bottle, and made to leave to get another bottle of wine. Not because she wanted more wine—just the opposite, actually—but because she suddenly wanted to cry. She didn’t know where it came from, but it was just there, ready to flow.

  “Hey!” called Hank after her. “Where do you think you’re going? You have to tell us your resolution. We told ours.”

  “My resolution?” She stopped at the glass door leading in to the house and turned back to him. She had almost escaped.

  “Yeah, your resolution.”

  “Um, okay. To get in better shape?” she threw out there. That was as good as any resolution.

  “Try again. You’re in perfect shape thanks to G.I. Jane over here.” Hank hooked a thumb at Drew sitting on the edge of the couch, watching her. Reilly saw the look of concern on her face. Drew knew something was getting to her, and Reilly had to admit that she’d been more and more thin-skinned since the discovery of the cell phone. The look of concern from Drew was starting to get familiar, yet she hadn’t pushed Reilly to talk, and Reilly was grateful for that.

  “Okay! Okay! Forgiveness. I’m going to work on forgiveness,” she said, trying to get Hank off her back. It was close. He should buy it. She was tired of the resolution game.

  “Now who’s trying to be Mother Teresa?” asked Hank. His voice held no playfulness in it.

  “Come on, Hank.” Cray sat up and tried to distract him, but Hank was leaning toward Reilly with such an earnest look on his face that she didn’t know how to feel—angry or sympathetic. How could she be mad at someone who so consistently had her back? But she was getting mad, and she tried to tuck it down like she always did.

  “What does that even mean,” she asked wearily.

  “You told that guy on E! a few weeks ago—the one who ambushed you by the hospital? You told him how much you’ve already forgiven those two cows that set you up. I know you don’t want to talk about it—you never want to talk about it—but I have an idea. How about you start plotting your own revenge? Figure out how to fuck them over. If you won’t, I will. I hate them for doing what they did to you.”

  So, they were back to Sylvie and Parker. Reilly shrugged her shoulders, outwardly dismissing the subject, while inside she felt the coil of tension tightening to a critical level. She tried to summon some of Drew’s zen.

  “I’m not claiming to be some sort of saint, Hank. There’s just no use expending any more energy on them. That’s all.”

  “What the fuck, Reilly? How can you be like that?”

  “Because there is no use in perpetuating that kind—“

  “Hey, Rye. News flash. You aren’t the Dalai Lama.”

  “I never said—“

  “You don’t have to say it. I just don’t see why you can’t just admit it, that they fucked you over and they deserve whatever comes to them. How can you just stand by?”

  “Because I have to!” she screamed, dropping the empty bottle at her feet and stepping forward. The bottle didn’t break on the wood deck, but she kicked it hard enough that it rolled and shattered against the rock side of the fire pit. Drew got up and came to her, but Reilly barely felt the hands that brushed against her arms. She focused on Hank’s indignant face and blasted all of the rage she felt toward him. Not at him, because he wasn’t the source of all of her pent up anger, but he had triggered it, and it had to go somewhere.

  “Don’t you understand? I have no choice! Because if I don’t hold it in, if I say what I really feel, it gets printed in some newspaper and it will be taken in the worst possible way, and I end up in the same prison I was in before. Only this one is one of my own making. People watch and they wait. Waiting for me to do or say anything that they can print. I can’t say anything I feel. Parker is lying in a hospital after trying to blow her brains out, and if I say anything bad, I’m the insensitive monster. Part of me is glad that they didn’t let me actually talk to her at the hospital when I went to visit her. When I went to tell her that I forgave her, like Lydia did to me in prison. But I wasn’t allowed to speak to her. And I’m glad. Glad, because I don’t forgive her. And who knows what I would have said?

  “Don’t you think that I’m angry? I’m fucking raging inside! I want to get even! I want to punish them in the worst possible way. I trusted them. At least I trusted Sylvie. I trusted her and she fucked me over. My head,” she said grabbing the hair at her temples, “wants to explode thinking about it. I spend countless hours stewing on how they treated me, how they took away my dignity, how they made me believe that I was insane. I went to prison. Prison! Where I was beaten and raped.” She noted the shock that flashed across Hank’s and Cray’s faces, and Drew’s arm tightened around her at the statement, but she couldn’t stop now. Her words were a flood that she couldn’t hold back any longer. “Where I feared for my life every goddamned fucking day. Where I lost the will to live. I was taken down to nothing there, and I have struggled every day since then to try to regain some sort of semblance of… of… of who I think I should be. But I can’t find it. I don’t even know who that is anymore. Everyone else seems to know who I am, but I don’t. Don’t you see? Everyone sees what they want to see. I can’t give them more. I just can’t.”

  Hank had risen. Cray was sitting on the couch and they were both watching her. Tears were pouring down her face and snot streamed from her running nose. She wiped it with the base of her palm, but she didn’t look away. She stood her ground, shaking and tense. There was so much to say. Now that she’d let some of it go, the words, trapped in the pit of her stomach for so long, were rushing like a flood through her mind, ready to begin another torrent. Only the grounding touch of Drew kept her from flying away.

  “Oh Rye,“ began Hank, his voic
e breaking on her name. Some of the red that tinted her vision cleared. She let go of a rasping breath.

  “Tell me, Hank. What’s the use in it? Huh? What’s the use in getting mad?”

  “To get it out, honey,” said Hank quietly, still standing by the couch but reaching out for her, even though she was too far away to touch. “Oh, I had no idea.”

  His face reflected the anguish inside of her, and she felt awful for having allowed the poison she had held onto for so long spill out and infect her friends. She’d tucked it away so securely that she’d almost forgotten how bad it was. But now it was out. She felt like a balloon that had collapsed, tired and weak, but lighter, too.

  Drew pulled Reilly into her arms and Reilly sagged in to her, unable to stand on her own.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled into Drew’s chest. “I’m sorry.”

  Drew’s hands ran soothing circles over her back and along her cheeks, and Reilly felt soft kisses on her forehead. The contact helped to ease the ache.

  “You’re fine, baby. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  And Reilly started to believe it was possible. Maybe she would be okay. One day.

  Special On-Location Segment of The Morning Show

  REILLY’S MIND WANDERED. HER CLEAR eyes scanned the thick vegetation adorning the deep canyon called Jacaranda Arroyo that ran behind her house. It was the end of February, but all of the green before her, the gift of her beloved California, was almost blinding in the perfect mid-morning sunlight that cast long shadows and painted the world a golden hue. A cool breeze flowed over her, and she pushed an errant strand of blond hair behind her ear. A sense of clarity that she hadn’t felt in a long time—maybe ever—had begun to build in her over the last few weeks, filling her, and she took it all in with a deep breath. She shifted her gaze and watched Tristan and Melinda Powers, who were sitting across from her. Their heads were together as they scanned their interview notes one more time before the live portion of the special on-location airing of The Morning Show began. She noted with amusement that Tristan’s hair didn’t move in the slight wind. Melinda glanced up at her, and seeing Reilly’s gaze on them, gave her a perky thumbs up. Reilly returned the gesture with a warm smile.