by Maggie Marr
“What did you do to piss off Kiley Kepner?”
I took a long cleansing breath and my gaze flicked up toward the ceiling. “I think it started at Archer when I beat her out for student council president in tenth grade.”
A tiny smile curled around Terri’s lips and she shook her head. She walked back to the couch and sat down.
“Seriously,” Terri said. “She’s pissed. She’s contacted every person she knows in town and every person your father knows in town and told them that you, my lovely, are persona non grata.”
Fear coiled deep in my gut. I wanted to leave Hollywood. I claimed that I hated the community, a small town in a huge city where everyone knew everyone but now, now that I’d actually been banished, I felt very cold, and very alone.
“I can’t touch you. I can’t hire you. I may be able to give you some work on the side, reading scripts and for that I will pay you cash, but if Kiley finds out, I seriously might lose my deal.”
I pulled my bag tighter to my body. “She’s talked to everyone?”
“Everyone who is anyone,” Terri said.
Heat rushed up my neck and flamed in my cheeks. Heat caused by embarrassment and shame. Kiley was talking to people that I knew, that I had known my entire life, behind my back and saying … my breath stuck in my chest. What kinds of things must she be saying?
“What did she tell you?” I asked.
“She didn’t tell me anything,” Terri said. “A friend in common mentioned that Kiley thought that with your current struggles it was best that you didn’t work in entertainment right now. That she and your father wanted you to hit bottom so that they could get you the help that you need.”
“Help that I need?” My chest tightened.
“Pills and booze were mentioned. She said you were found in a very compromising position at the wedding. That you’d been struggling for a while and so they’d cut you off.”
The lump in my throat grew thick. I could barely suck air. The heat in my chest crawled upward and tingles spread through my body.
“She’s telling people I have a pill problem? And a booze problem? That I was—”
“People are worried, but Kiley said the Legend family was handling this privately.”
“What? Did she send a press release?”
“Better,” Terri said. She tossed her head and straightened her shoulders. “She’s been using Boom Boom Wong.”
“Boom Boom?” I forced my face to remain neutral. I took long deep breaths. Freaking out, yelling, screaming, all the things I wanted to do at that moment would only add credibility to Kiley’s story.
“So, no pills?” Terri asked.
“No.”
“No compromising position at the wedding?”
“Not me.”
“What did you do to her?” Terri squinted and tilted her head to the side. “I mean look, between you and me, I know she’s a bitch, but weren’t you two tight at Archer? I was at the wedding this summer and you stood up for her when she married your dad …” Terri’s words trailed off. Her eyes caught mine. “Oh, that’s why you two aren’t getting along.” She smiled as though she’d finally discovered the inside scoop. Her gaze flicked around her office and she tapped her finger to her lips. She resettled her gaze onto me. “I can’t officially hire you, but I can get you some work as a reader. Where are you staying?”
The lump in my throat loosened. “With Dillon MacAvoy and Lane.”
Terri stood and brushed the wrinkles from her skirt. “I’ve got your e-mail and their address. I’ll give you some scripts to get started. The pay isn’t great, but it’s something.”
Preparing coverage for Terri was easier than slinging fries twelve hours a day.
“Thank you for the work,” I said and pulled the strap of my purse over my shoulder. “And the info. Explains some of the looks I’ve been getting. Empathetic stares, concerned gazes, whispered words.”
“Yeah, tough town when you’re on the outs.”
Hollywood was a tough town when you were on the ins, but it was nearly impossible when you had been kicked to the curb.
I walked out of Terri’s bungalow with the scripts she’d handed me from the pile beside her desk. I turned toward Daddy’s bungalow and saw a flash of blond hair and blood-red lipstick. No. Way. My luck couldn’t possibly be that bad.
But it was.
Kiley stood just outside of Legend Films with her entourage flocking around her. She stared at me and pressed her hand to her forehead as if she couldn’t get a good grasp on who she was looking at.
I had choices. I could pretend I didn’t see Kiley, I could jump into Lane’s Jeep and screech away, or I could just stand here like a doe waiting to get plowed down by a two-ton semitruck traveling 110 miles an hour. I picked the latter because Kiley was headed in my direction with her gaggle of girls behind her.
“Amanda, darling, is that you?” She towered over me in her 200 mm Loubies.
My gaze slid to the right and to the left to assess just how many people on the Worldwide lot would witness our conversation.
“Darling, it is so good to see you out in the sunshine,” she said as loud as possible so that anyone walking past might hear. “You know your father and I are so, so worried about you.”
I placed the smile onto my face that I had been trained to use with difficult people. I settled my voice. I was graceful and I was calm—I was a product of Hollywood.
“Kiley you needn’t worry. You look well.” My eyes flickered past her to the two women—a redhead and a brunette who trailed her at all times. One was a supposed makeup artist and the other her assistant but, really, I’d never seen either of them do anything but follow along in Kiley’s wake.
“What are you doing here, darling?”
“Lunch with a friend.”
Kiley glanced down at the scripts I held in my hand. I hefted them to my chest.
“Lunch? At eleven a.m.?” Kiley narrowed her gaze.
I leaned forward, close to Kiley’s ear so that not even her hangers-on could hear.
“I have to say, I look pretty good for a booze- and pill-addled addict.”
The muscle beside Kiley’s left eye twitched. The tiny hint of glee that cascaded through my body was short-lived. She gazed past me for a second and her smile broadened. “Darling, you know you are not meant to be on the lot.”
“I’ve been on this lot since I was two years old. I’ve come by to see a friend, I—”
My heart pounded in my chest and a roar started in my ears. A loud ocean-like sound engulfed me as my eyes flicked from Kiley’s face to the guard climbing out of his golf cart.
Was this really happening?
A smile cruised across Kiley’s lips. She leaned forward, close enough so that no one could hear, no one but me. She was setting me up so that no one would ever again believe anything I had to say.
“Once I’m finished with you Amanda, you won’t ever be able to fuck with anyone again.”
A cold fear slithered down my back. A tingle tore through my limbs. She held every card in this game. She was discrediting me in the community, first with her gabfest campaign, and now by publicly humiliating me on the studio lot, in front of my father’s own production bungalow. I glanced over my shoulder toward Terri’s bungalow. She stood just inside her office window. Her arms were crossed and she had a sad look on her face. A look that seemed to say I was too much of a risk even for her.
“Miss Legend,” the security guard said, his hand clasped over his Taser, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave the lot. There have been a number of complaints filed about your disruptive presence at the studio.”
Shame wafted upward through my body. Humiliation. Fear. Injustice. A number of complaints? Disruptive presence?
“So sorry, my love,” Kiley said and pressed her hand to my shoulder, “if you’d only take care of yourself as your father and I have asked.”
A scream formed in my belly. I wanted to let it loose. I had so much anger,
so many words, so much to say, but this wasn’t the place. I wouldn’t lose it here. I wouldn’t embarrass myself, or the Legend name. I turned and walked to Lane’s car. I got in. I drove off the Worldwide lot and burst into tears.
Chapter 8
Ryan
The smooth water glided over my skin. There was no sound. I pulled my arm over my head and cut through the liquid blue. My fingertips brushed the rock edge of the pool and I pulled my head from the water. I looked out at the view of L.A. My mind was clear. My muscles were ragged and my shoulder ached and I sucked for air, but the fears, the could-haves, and the should-haves were gone. I pulled myself from the water and wrapped a cotton towel around my waist.
My NA meeting started after my meeting at CTA. Uber would be here in forty-five. I didn’t want to go to my AA/NA meeting and I didn’t want to go to my therapist, but I also didn’t want to go back to living the way I’d lived before the accident because that wasn’t a way to live, that was a way to die.
I ambled across the yard and opened the slider into the rec room. My eyes focused slowly, adjusting to the darkness from the bright sunlight. Was someone crying?
Sniffles and tears spoke of pain. Curled in a ball on the brown leather couch was Amanda. There had been an ocean of tears in my childhood, most of them cried by my mother over my deadbeat dad.
My first response was to run. Every muscle in my body tightened. Run from the tears. Run from the emotion. Get as far away as possible from a crying woman.
A crying woman never ended well.
My next response was to crave. To crave hard for the booze and the coke—anything that might take away these feelings of sympathy, empathy, confusion, conflict, even rage, bubbling through my chest. Fuck. I didn’t want to feel this shit. I didn’t want to feel this shit for myself, much less for someone other than me.
My eyes remained focused on the entry on the other side of the room and away from Amanda. I was just learning how to take care of myself and I definitely couldn’t offer Amanda any solace. Best to pretend that I didn’t hear her, I didn’t see her, even though a deep pull urged me to walk toward her. I was like a magnet to metal. I wanted to go to her and wrap my arms around her and tell her that I would make everything okay for her, that I would take care of her and keep her safe.
What the hell?
I shook the thoughts from my head. Seriously? Did I miss my action-movie good-cop superhero days so badly that I wanted to take care of Amanda’s problems? Just as I got to the edge of the couch where Amanda sat, my knee bumped something solid. I looked down. Bernie, the giant Burmese Mountain dog, stood in front of me. He lolled his head to the side as though to ask "where you going, buddy, there’s a woman crying here?" I took a breath and rested my hand on his head. I could step over the giant, but I couldn’t get around him, not without climbing over Amanda.
“Bernie,” Amanda called in a soft whisper. “Let him go.”
Again Bernie eyed me and then he craned his neck to look at Amanda.
She sniffled. I didn’t turn.
“Seriously, I have no idea what’s up with this dog,” she said. “First he nearly pushes me off the bed and now he stops you in your tracks.” She patted a spot on the couch beside her. “Bernie, come here.”
Bernie gave me one last doleful look and ambled to Amanda. My heart collapsed in my chest. I didn’t owe Amanda anything. We had to coexist in this house until the judge said I could be left unsupervised or until Amanda worked out whatever problems she had with her family. I could walk out of this room. She hadn’t asked me to stay.
Instead, I surrendered to the desire deep in my gut. A desire that wasn’t all about those big sapphire eyes, or that waterfall of black hair, or those long legs tucked up under her. The desire was to help someone who I knew was hurting. I’d witnessed a shitload of tears in group therapy in rehab. I could at least let her know she wasn’t alone. I walked back to the couch where she had her feet tucked under her. Bernie sat on the floor beside her and leaned into her legs. He seemed to smile as I approached. His tail thumped on the floor.
“You okay?”
Even curled up on the couch in tears, maybe especially because she was curled up on the couch, she was too cute for words. Red blotches decorated her skin and her eyes were red-rimmed. She held a nearly shredded tissue in one hand and she had tucked her legs up under her body. She was dressed in a skirt and her blue silk shirt fell open, just enough for me to get a peek of her black lace bra.
She tucked her bottom lip under her top teeth and nodded, but then her face cracked and the corners of her mouth tugged down and her lips trembled.
“No,” she whispered and shook her head from side to side. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Let me get Lane.” I took two steps away from the couch.
I didn’t know what to do with this. I was no good with the female waterworks. As a kid, whenever I saw my mom cry, I’d want to find my father wherever he was sleeping off his hangover and pummel the crap out of him. I didn’t know how to soothe, I could barely soothe myself.
“No, please don’t.” She sniffled and then cleared her throat and straightened herself up in an attempt to gain control over her emotions.
Five words formed in my brain. My fingers tightened around the back of the chair beside me and I clamped my mouth closed. I wouldn’t say them, no, no, no, nope, I wasn’t going to say these words, I wasn’t going to—
“Want to talk about it?” Shot out of my mouth like a bullet from a gun.
Amanda looked up at me. Hers was a beautiful face. The shadow of a smile lifted the left side of her mouth. She seemed pleased by my question, or at least relieved that someone cared. One of my therapists in rehab had said that most people just wanted to be heard.
I knew from Lane that things weren’t going well for Amanda. She’d put her internship in New York on hold until fall. I also knew that she needed to stay with Lane and Dillon. I didn’t know the details and, besides which, I was using most of my mental space each day trying like hell not to grab a shot glass and a bottle of tequila.
I sat on the couch close enough to catch the scent of mint. Even with the tears and the sadness, with Amanda so near, a warmth started in my legs and spread upward within me.
Unfortunately for me, I was attracted to Amanda. I pulled my towel tighter around my waist. I could deal. I’d been attracted to hundreds of women. What made the desire now working its way upward through my gut and spreading outward in my body any different than any other desire?
Aside from the fact that I was sober, and this was Amanda Legend?
“Everything seems to have turned to shit,” Amanda said. She swiped the tissue under her nose. “Because I chose to do the right thing.” Her head lolled back against the couch cushions and she turned her face and looked at me.
“Sometimes it is the fucking hardest when you do the right thing,” I said.
Amanda picked her head up off the couch and her sapphire gaze sharpened. I shifted under the weight of her stare. She was clever. Smart. Beautiful. An off-putting combination for any man.
“Explain,” she said.
Her voice was soft and her request wasn’t an order, more like an inquiry. My words interested her.
“Example,” I said. “When I got to rehab at first I didn’t want to be there. Then I came around to committing to the process. I decided I wanted to live. To quit the coke and the pills and the booze.”
My gaze locked with hers. With her bright blue eyes so intense and focused my heartbeat kicked upward. All this: my life, my addiction, my rehabilitation wasn’t easy to discuss. For twenty-eight days I’d talked about my bullshit. But it wasn’t easy.
“And even though I’ve committed to do the right thing. Doing the right thing, every damn day, it’s still …” Across the room behind the bar were bottles of liquor. On the top shelf was a bottle of Patron Silver, one of my favorites. Dillon and I had gotten shit-faced multiple times at that bar.
“Go on,” Amanda
said softly.
I pulled my gaze from the booze. “Even though I’m doing the right thing, it isn’t easy.” I scrubbed my hand through my wet hair. “I don’t know if it will ever be easy. The right thing, can be pretty fucking ballbusting tough.”
Amanda’s eyes widened with surprise as though she never expected me to tell her something that she didn’t already know.
“What’s the problem? What’s the thing that’s got you in a puddle of tears?”
She shifted her body. The vee of her shirt widened and I wished I could reach my hand into her shirt and cup that breast surrounded by black lace.
“It would seem that I have no money and no job,” Amanda said. “And thus no way to take my internship in New York.”
“How is that possible? Don’t you and Sterling have a trust fund or something?”
Amanda stiffened. Even though L.A. was casual, people with money never liked to discuss the green stuff.
“We do. Each of us. But the trusts have an executor until we’re thirty. The executor determines when, and if, we get any of the money from the trust,” Amanda said. “And the executor has closed off my ability to withdraw from my fund.”
“Why?”
Amanda shut her eyes. She fought with her words and tried to decide what she should say next. “Because my father’s new wife is a bitch,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I said. “We all know that.”
Amanda’s right eyebrow twitched upward. She paused, mouth open, as though she’d caught a comment before it slipped off the tip of her tongue. She closed those full lips and pressed them into a line that seemed to seal away whatever words she’d considered saying to me.
“Get a job,” I said. “You know everyone in town. Save the money. Get a roommate in New York. Doesn’t at least one of your friends from USC have a place there?”
For the first time Amanda narrowed her gaze. The heat of a low simmering anger about to explode inhabited her eyes.
“You already thought about all that,” I said.