by N. K. Smith
Looking around, I figure out that here is really a studio lot. “What are we—”
“You’ll see but you have to let go of the strap now.”
I look over to see him grinning at me, and then I look down to where my white knuckles show my terror. “Sorry.”
“You’re jumpy today.”
I carefully peel my fingers away from the belt, then unbuckle myself. Peter keeps his hand on mine. “Hate those guys.”
“I thought you were used to them by now.”
“Yeah, I am, I mean, I was. I guess being stalked by guys doing whatever they can to snap a photo will never really be natural to me, but I don’t know why I’m all of the sudden freaked out by them, but it’s like ever since my birthday I’ve just . . . I don’t know, been anxious, you know?” I shrug, pull my hand out from under his, and grab my bag from the floor. I rifle through until I find the pill bottle. I don’t even think about it when I open it up and pour two into my palm.
“What are—”
I pop them into my mouth and swallow them dry. “It’s just lorazepam to calm my nerves. The whole day will be ruined if I don’t take them.”
He looks at me for a moment and then says, “Well, what I have planned might have helped you relax naturally.” Peter’s eyes are intense, but then he tilts his head. “Come on. Let me show you why we’re here.”
I wish I could just be popping with energy like I used to be, but instead I sit in the car and watch him get out. I take a deep breath, open the door, and shove my feet to the ground. My body has become smaller than I’m accustomed to but somehow it feels heavier than ever before. It’s a chore to lift myself out of the car.
Peter is about three feet away when I’m upright. “You okay? We can skip this whole thing if you want. Maybe tomorrow would be better.”
Shaking my head, I toss him a smile and shut the door behind me. “Today is a good day.” Besides, tomorrow I just want to sleep until my plane leaves.
Peter’s face brightens, and he takes a step toward me, with his hand outstretched. “Come on then.”
It’s as if I’m transported back to an easier time when our palms meet. Peter has been holding my hand for almost as long as I can remember. I don’t think I should like it this much. I’m supposed to be a strong, independent woman who can handle anything, right? Everyone else has pretty much left me, so I should stop myself from enjoying the one person left. If I do, it won’t hurt as much when he goes.
But I can’t pull my hand away. My left hand is within his right, and I can feel the thrum of his heart, the vibration of the electricity coursing through his body. If I was one of those new age girls, I’d swear I could feel Peter’s beautiful energy flooding into me.
It’s better than coke.
“So what are we doing here? Hopefully you don’t think filming on our day off would be the key to my heart.” I don’t know why I say it like that. Peter’s not trying to get my heart. He’s got Shyla’s. He’s just being a friend, and I don’t think I could handle him as anything more. No, I could. What I couldn’t handle is losing him, and at this rate, I’d probably lose him.
“I’ve always known the key to your heart is something that has nothing to do with filming and Hollywood stuff.”
A little knot in my stomach forms, and I press my free hand against it as we walk around a small building. If I was truly a brave and independent woman, I would squeeze his hand and tell him that I love him. I would tell him that there is but one key to my heart, and he already has it. He always has. Only, it takes more than a key to get to my heart. It’s not just locked. There are purposefully placed walls and barbed wire surrounding it, and even a worthy person who can crack through anything would find it difficult to get in there to even use the key.
“I love you,” I whisper. Peter stops. His eyes are narrow and his lips are still. His silence makes the knot in my belly grow bigger. Shit. “I mean, you’re a great friend, Peter. I’m glad we could hang out today.” I paste on a practiced grin and roll my eyes. “Even if I don’t know what the hell we’re doing.”
The serious look on Peter’s face hasn’t faded. I look away. “Adra,” he says in the softest voice I’ve ever heard come from him.
I’m not an independent woman. Who the hell am I kidding? I’m a scared little kid, and I don’t think I can handle his rejection. I mean, he won’t make fun of the fact that I just said I loved him, but he’ll take it seriously, and then he’ll tell me about how he’s with someone else and how we can’t ruin our friendship by taking it in a romantic direction. Or he’ll tell me that while I’m his friend, I’m just not the right type of person to be his girlfriend. I can’t deal with that, so I tug on his hand. “Come on, let’s go.”
He resists at first, but then lets me pull him into a steady pace.
“Where are we going?” I laugh, and then let him take the lead. This all feels unnatural. I hate my fake laugh, and I’m sure Peter can tell.
“Right here.” He raises both of our hands to point to an administrative building. A golf cart is parked out front, but I already know he’s not pointing at that. He’s pointing to the bike with a basket on the back.
“Seriously?” I ask.
“Yep.”
I walk to the bike and can hear him follow. “There’s only one.”
He places a hand on the handle bars and one on the seat. “I’ll be careful with you. I promise.”
“What’s that?” I point to the box in the basket.
“Lunch.” Peter swings his leg over and settles down on the bike. “Come on.” He taps the handle bars.
“I’m sitting there? That seems much less safe than when we were kids.”
Leaning in close to me, he looks right into my eyes. “Don’t worry, Adra. This way, if we fall, we fall together.”
The knot disappears and in its place, something in my heart blooms. It could just be the pills working, or maybe it something only Peter can grow. “Okay.” That’s all I say as I turn around, put my arms behind me, grab the bars, and hoist myself onto the bicycle.
He moves one hand to my waist and asks, “Steady?”
“I’m good. Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. Just hang on and enjoy the ride.”
We’re wobbly at first, but when Peter really gets going, the freedom I feel is so amazing it’s almost ridiculous. I mean, we’re on a closed lot. Hollywood surrounds us, the surroundings we’re riding between go from actual buildings to a set, where they have no other function than to help actors and audiences pretend they’re somewhere else.
Still, this takes me back to that day long ago when we were kids, when life was simpler, and we could get away with riding a bike through a set as if it was a park.
Peter stops in the center of the fake town. “It’s not a bell tower,” he says as he looks up at the silver façade of what’s supposed to be a tall building, “but it’ll do.”
We get off the bike, and he walks it over to the building and leans it against the cut out structure. Peter grabs the box by the string with one hand and grabs my hand with his other. Together we go through the door. It’s always a shock to see unpainted two-by-fours supporting the frame on these things. The buildings look so real from the outside, but once you get in them, there’s barely anything holding them up.
I spy a built-in ladder to my left. “We going up?”
“Of course. We were pretty high up last time, so I thought we’d hide out again.”
I’m reluctant to let go of his hand, but in order to climb, I have to. The lorazepam has kicked in; I’m quite relaxed as I climb. Any fear of falling or anxiety about what’s to come has dropped away. I can only remember bits of last night, and the terror and loneliness I’d felt has faded.
Once up top, I sit cross-legged on the wooden platform that was built in case someone needed to fix the top of the façade. If I stand up, I could peer out over the top of the unfinished building. I imagine what it would look like on camera. They’d add the top o
f the tall structure in post-production, but still, I can imagine a character standing down in the road, looking up in wonder at such a building reaching for the sky.
“Are you hungry?”
“Starved,” I say even though I’m never hungry anymore.
“Good. You look like you could use a fatty meal.”
A flush rushes to my cheeks, and I can feel the heat spread throughout my body. I can’t look at Peter.
“What?” he asks.
Jesus. Now he sounds like Danny, poking at my imperfection. “I’m getting sick of people talking about my weight or making casual references that my body isn’t fucking ideal.”
I can see him hold his hands up out of my periphery vision. “That’s not what I—”
“I look like I could use a fatty meal. That’s what you said. There’s no other way to take that comment. You think my body isn’t right. You and the whole goddamned world has an opinion about it. First, I’m a little pudgy, then I’m too thin. After that, it’s all it looks like Adra Willows has packed on a few pounds and then oh, my. Adra is withering away!”
“I’m not . . . I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry I said it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with your body. I think . . . I’ve always thought you were perfect.”
I flick tears away from under my eyes with just the tips of my fingers. “Whatever. I can’t be perfect when the idea of Hollywood perfection keeps shifting.”
Peter takes my hand and scoots closer to me. “Not everyone cares about Hollywood perfection. That’s not what I said. I—”
“It’s fine.” I take a quick look at him and shoot him a reassuring smile, then glance down at the food. “So what’d you get?”
I know my moods are like lightening; here and gone in a second, but I’m not sure what I should do with them. Obviously Peter’s not used to the shifting quicksand of my emotions either, because it takes him a little bit to recover. “Um, well, I got us both sandwiches and chips. Nothing amazing, just—”
“Thanks,” I say as I pull the box close to me and open the lid.
Peter beats me to grabbing out the food. He hands me my wrapped sandwich. “Avocado and Tofurky for you. And turkey, bacon, and tons of mayonnaise for me.”
“Yuck.” I stick my tongue out and screw up my face.
Peter laughs. “Sorry. I guess you could say that I’m still not a full-blown vegan yet.”
“Not even a vegetarian yet.”
“Well, if you were around more, maybe you could convert me.”
I unwrap my sandwich and as much as I want to respond that I’d love to be around him more, I stay silent. In all honesty, it seems there is a heavy layer of something hanging over our interactions today. The something could be nothing more than my guilt for not being quite as interested in sobriety as I’ve led him to believe, or it could be quiet sadness I’ve possessed since I was young exploding into something else, something more. Or maybe it’s just the ups and downs of my body and mind without cocaine today.
After long minutes of silence—the only noise of our chewing and breathing breaking it—Peter asks, “How was your night with Lili?”
I shrug. I don’t want to tell him about the tripping on Special K or how I spent very little time with Liliana.
“She’s changed a lot, hasn’t she?” he asks.
“I guess.”
“She’s so . . . polished now.” Peter shrugs, and I wait for him to continue. “I mean, it’s like she’s less of a person and more of a persona now.”
“That what this business does to you, I guess.”
“If you let it. Don’t get me wrong, I still care about her, and she’ll always be my friend, but she’s just sort of become another person.”
I crunch a few chips, then say, “I don’t know. She’s always had that drive to be more. It’s just happening now.”
“Maybe.” Peter sips his bottle of water, then lies back, eyes turned toward the cloudless blue sky above. “We were at a charity thing last week, and it was just so hard to talk to her. It’s like she doesn’t remember who she used to be; who we all were.”
“Not everyone holds on to the thread of childhood like you do.”
Although he laughs, he asks, “What does that mean? You think I’m Peter Pan or something?”
I toss the uneaten half of my sandwich into the box and lie back next to him. “No, not Peter Pan. I didn’t mean anything bad. It’s just that you enjoy a direct link to your childhood. It’s cool, really. I mean, you had a good enough experience to want to remember it.”
“It’s not like Lili didn’t.”
I shrug. “No, but her adult life is shaping up to be much better, don’t you think?”
“I guess. If you’re interested in fake relationships, living your entire existence in front of a camera, and never being real.”
I squint as I study him. He looks like the same Peter I know, but he’s never been this critical of Liliana. That’s usually my role. I’m not sure what to think about him saying all of this. I feel torn. On one hand, I agree with everything he’s saying, but on the other, Liliana is my friend, regardless of how little we show it to each other. I feel like I need to defend her or something. It’s stupid, but I feel like when I comment about her it’s okay, but when someone else does it, it’s wrong. Maybe I’m just defending her because the lorazepam is doing its job and chilling me out. “Did something happen between you and Lili? When did you become so judgmental?”
The way he shakes his head makes his hair look like it’s blowing in the wind. “I’m not judgmental and nothing happened, really. It’s just sometimes when I try to talk to her, it’s just difficult. I wish things could be like they used to with us.” When he says it, I wonder if he’s talking about between the two of them or the two of us because he’s looking at me like he’s talking about us. As if he can read the question in my eyes, he adds, “Things have changed so much between the three of us, but maybe that’s just because things have changed so much between you and me and you and her.”
I squint as if that is going to clarify his meaning. “What?”
“I just mean, you and she aren’t friends anymore, even if you say you are. And things have changed between you and me too. We don’t . . . talk the way we used to. There’s all this distance between us. So maybe those changes have affected how I see her.”
“You’re making no sense.” I sort of understand what he’s trying to say, but I’m not going to deal with it. Ignoring things I can’t deal with is better than feeling overwhelmed. I don’t know what’s changed between Peter and me. It can’t just be that we both have other people in our lives, and it can’t just be that we’ve grown apart. I roll onto my side. “Everyone grows up, Peter. Even you. You’re not the same guy you were as a kid.”
“But not like—”
“Liliana’s just good at manipulating her world to be whatever she wants it to be. She’s happy like that.” I wish I knew how to make my world exactly the way I want it to be, but I don’t say that to Peter.
Peter rolls over to face me and brings his hand up to push a lock of hair away from my face. The action is sweet and feels like it’s meant to be. Hiding out inside a movie set with Peter makes me feel young, soft, and innocent.
“So I got offered a role for a Civil War movie. Do you think I should do it?”
I’m grateful he has switched to an easier topic. Liliana continues to be a strange and uncomfortable subject but more than that, we were about to dip into the change in our relationship. Maybe we should just talk about it and get it over with, but I guess neither of us really wants to do that. “Is it a lead?”
“Yeah. It’s based on a bestseller from five years ago. Sue says I should take it.”
“I think you should, too. It’ll show depth, and it might win you an award.” Although I want nothing but the best for my friends, it’s depressing to think about another friend winning an award before I do.
“I don’t want to do it just to . . .” Peter
narrows his eyes as he lets his sentence just die. Bringing his hands up to my shoulder, he pushes back my shirt. There’s not much fabric to push back on the sleeveless thing, but he sort of lifts it away from my skin and rises up on an elbow to look at the area. Like he can’t stand touching me, he pulls his hands back from my flesh.
His jaw tightens as he tightens his hands into fists. “What the hell, Adra!”
“What?”
“What do you mean what? These marks! What are you—”
Now I understand. He’s talking about the reddish marks and the yellow bruises on my shoulders and upper back. “They’re nothing.”
“They’re something!”
I roll onto my back again. “It’s just—”
“Is it that Jude guy? I’m going to fucking kill that son of a bitch!” Peter looks like he could kill someone right now.
It was Jude who made those marks, but not what Peter thinks. “He didn’t hurt me,” I say. “I mean, it’s a bit rough sometimes, but—”
“Jesus, Adra!”
I can’t look at him. I can barely mutter my next words. “You don’t want to hear about my sex life, Peter, do you?”
His expression shifts from anger to something else. It’s hard to describe, but the only word I can think of is disgust. “Your sex life gives you bruises like that?”
I close my eyes when staring into the bright sky becomes too much. Something dark, yet burning ignites within me. Sex and bruises and guilty pleasures. Is that really me? Is that how I want Peter to think of me? It takes me a long time, but when I’m ready, I look him straight in the eyes. “Sometimes?”
The anger is back in his expression and in his voice. “Is that a fucking question, or are you telling me that sometimes you like getting fucked so hard you’re left wounded?”
The outrage in his voice cuts me deeper than any knife could and leaves me more sensitive than any bruise on my body. “I don’t know.”
“Jesus,” he says again as he lowers himself back down.
I peek at him when he’s not looking. It takes me a long time, but when I think of something to say, my voice shakes. “I told you, all of us—you, me, Lili—we’ve all changed.”