by Sara Celi
Lana moved into the living room and unzipped her cream leather jacket. The rest of her calculated outfit showed off her body, which hadn’t been affected much by the pregnancy. Black leggings, purple boots, a long dark gray T-shirt, and a long gold necklace. That morning, before she left for a late lunch in Brentwood, she had dressed for the paparazzi.
“Sit down,” I said, my voice as firm as my words. “Now.”
She followed my orders and took a place on the red couch. “What’s wrong?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” I said, being extra careful to keep my voice steady. She might be used to control, but she didn’t get to control this—whatever this was—that remained between the two of us. Not anymore. “I think you have a lot of things to say to me that you haven’t.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me. Not now, and not ever again. Tell me the truth, Lana.”
“What?” She looked from me to Roberta and back again. “I don’t understand.”
“Why don’t we start with your recent visit to the Beverly Hilton?” I tapped my finger on the thick manila folder so she’d notice it on the couch between us. “From what I read inside this report, you had a pretty nice time there.”
Her jaw went slack for half of a second, but then she recovered. “I wasn’t there. I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is insane.”
I laughed. “Insane? You were there twice in the last week. Both times with the same guy. In fact, you met him for lunch in Malibu the week before, and in downtown LA a week before, when you told me you had a prenatal Pilates class.”
“You had me followed?” She recoiled. “What the hell?”
“You’re a liar. You’ve been cheating on me, haven’t you? For months.”
Roberta stood up from the chair, wringing her hands. “Maybe I should tend to a few things in the kitchen.”
“Sit down, Roberta,” I said. “I asked you to be my witness, and I expect you to stay.” I glared at her, and she complied with my orders. “Now, Lana. Is there anything you want to tell me? You get one chance, and it’s right now.”
“I’m not cheating on you. It’s not what you think. It’s business.”
“Bull-fucking-shit, bitch.”
“Don’t call me that.” Lana’s jaw hardened. “Have you been drinking again? Because this is crazy.”
“Oh no. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to turn this around on me.” I folded my arms. “You know, the private investigator I hired is good at his job. Almost too good. He found out about everything I needed to know about what you’ve been doing behind my back. Robert Markum, producer. It’s all in this file. Even worse: Robert Markum, married producer. Did you think he’d help your career got to the next level?” I scoffed. “I hate to be the one to break this ugly news to you, but that plan isn’t going to work. You’re a train wreck, and it’s going to catch up with you.”
“You’re wrong. You don’t know anything, Tanner.”
“So you don’t deny the cheating.”
“Robert’s not anything to me. It’s not what you think it is.”
I picked up the envelope. “Do you want to seewhat’s inside? I promise you, it’s revealing. I know everything, Lana.”
She bit her bottom lip as she struggled to reply.
“How long?” I said. “How long have you been cheating on me? Since we got back together? Since you convinced me to give this another chance for the sake our child?”
She opened her mouth as if she wanted to answer me, but a moment later, she closed it without saying a word.
“I thought this would hurt me.” I tossed the envelope onto the coffee table. “At one point, I thought life without you would break me. After we were first together, I got used to the way things were, and the way you did things. Maybe I didn’t always like it, but you said you loved me, and I loved you back.” I stood up from the couch. “When you left me for Harper, I thought I wouldn’t make it. And I almost didn’t.”
“Tanner, please”
I held up a hand to silence her. “You don’t know how bad it was. The things I did. I wasn’t myself.”
“I love you, Tanner.”
“No.” I shut my eyes and shook my head. When I opened my eyes again, I glared at her. “You don’t know what love is.”
“I love you. I don’t love Robert. I never have.” She choked on the words, but I knew she was lying again, trying to find something to say to stop me from taking this where we both knew it would lead. “It was a mistake. I …listen, you don’t know what it was like. I’ve had a hard year, too. You know I don’t ever feel good enough.”
“Stop it,” I said. “Now. Don’t say shit you don’t mean.”
What had I ever seen in this woman? Why had I ever thought she was beautiful? She was ugly. An ogre. A mess of fake plastic. I didn’t need this in my life. In fact, I never had.
“When you left me the first time, I would’ve done anything to get you back. Anything. And then, when you told me about baby, I couldn’t believe it, but I wanted to. I wanted to make this work. Goddamn it, I was such a fool.”
“Tanner, please—”
And then I saw it. Something flickered across her face, and my gut twisted.
“Is the baby mine?” I said.
“What? Why would you ask that?”
“Did we sleep together that night at the Hotel Le Rose?”
Lana didn’t answer. Her gaze flicked away from mine, and her left hand began shaking. Roberta sucked in a huge breath, and her eyes widened as she moved to the edge of her seat.
“Tell me the truth,” I said through gritted teeth. “I need to hear it.”
Lana gulped and still wouldn’t look at me.
“Now, Lana. I need an answer.”
Another beat passed.
“I think I know the answer,” I said. “We didn’t sleep together that night, did we?”
When Lana’s gaze met mine again, all of the color had faded from her face. “No. We didn’t.”
“Oh my God,” Roberta said.
I kept my attention on Lana. I wanted her to hear, and to feel every word I said next.
“You almost took everything from me. I lost the love of a good woman because of you.” Anger built with each word I said. “I never want to see you again, Lana. Get the fuck out of my house.”
“So, I have good news,” I said to my dad one random Wednesday morning about two months after my breakup with Tanner. When Dad shuffled into the kitchen to grab his morning coffee, I handed him his favorite blue cup with the large chip on the handle. “I’m over him. I’m finally over Tanner Vance.”
Dad rubbed sleep from his eyes and sat down at our wooden kitchen table. “That’s good, sweet pea.”
I took a seat across from him. “It is. I finally realized I don’t need him anymore.”
“Like I’ve always said, he made a huge mistake.” Dad gulped down some of the coffee. “He let a good woman like you get away from him. The man must have been crazy.”
It was funny in a way. Thousands of miles from the crush of LA, the allure of Hollywood and the things I pursued there seemed stupid, plastic, and disingenuous. The longer I stayed away, the less I needed it, like an addict whose cravings faded the more time passed. Fame might have tasted good, but it didn’t have any substance.
Maybe it wasn’t too late to find some.
“I want to go back to school,” I said. “Maybe UC Clermont next semester.”
“You’re certainly smart enough.” Dad nodded in approval. “But what do you want to study?”
“I don’t know, yet. Maybe nursing. I like taking care of people.”
Dad drank the rest of his coffee and stood up from the table. “I think you’d be good at that. Nice solid career. Lots of need around here for good teachers, and you’ll never be without work if you’re good at it. Nothing wrong with a steady job.” He kissed me on the forehead. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you this evening?
After work? We can talk about it then.”
“Sounds great.”
And it did. Anything was better than dreaming about what could have been. People said you should never settle, but at least settling wouldn’t break my heart.
Malone’s didn’t have any customers that day, and Howard didn’t come in, either. He left a mumbling message on voice mail about a cold and a fever; when I called to check on him, he had a scratchy voice and stuffy nose.
“I’ll work on inventory,” I told him. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
After our phone call, I split open a box of fall sweaters in the stockroom and started to work. It was tedious but easy, and an hour passed before I knew it. A normal, simple, bland morning in a forgotten southwestern Ohio town.
And then the front door jangled.
“Can I help you?” I said as I rushed toward the front of the store from the stockroom. When I got there, blood drained from my face, and I thought I might faint.
“What are you doing here?” I managed. “What the hell are you doing here?”
It came out a little bit more forceful than I expected. Still, I didn’t take any of it back.
“Happy to see you, too,” Tanner said. He stood by the front door, and he didn’t make any further moves into the store. He held a small bag in his right hand. “And I get it. Loud and clear. I totally get it, Brynn.”
I stepped behind the register, putting the cash wrap between us.
He fiddled with his black Ray-Ban sunglasses. “You’re not happy to see me, are you? Maybe I shouldn’t have come. No, not maybe. I shouldn’t have done this, should I?”
“What? Not happy to see you? Why would I be happy?” I threw up my hands. “And how in the world did you find me?”
“I hired someone.”
“You hired someone to stalk me?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
“I deleted my Facebook. Shut down Instagram and Twitter. Changed my phone number.” My heart beat faster inside my chest. “I told you when I left that I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
The blood returned to my face, and I grabbed one of the pens from the cup next to the register. I wanted something to hold onto, something to take the energy pulsing through me. He’d hired someone? Who did this guy think he was?
“I meant what I said about how I never wanted to see you again,” I said. “I don’t lie about things like that.”
He took two steps farther into the store. “Let me explain. There’s a lot you need to know.”
“Get out,” I said. “Get out of here, or I’m going to call the police.” My knuckles strained against the pen. A little bit more pressure and I’d manage to break it. Then I’d probably break something else, and then I wouldn’t be able to stop. Seeing Tanner again made me want to break everything in the store.
“You don’t mean that.” He sighed and raked his hand through his thick hair. “I know you don’t.”
“Try me,” I said through gritted teeth. “You don’t know me anymore. You have no idea what I’m going to do.”
“Brynn, please give me a chance here.”
“The woman you knew doesn’t exist anymore.” I hoped I sounded tough. Collected. Sure of myself. In control.
I didn’t think I did.
As I stood behind the cash wrap, telling him to leave, I tried not to focus on his gorgeous face. It was hard. Almost impossible. After all this time away from him, I still couldn’t get over it. This guy embodied everything the Greeks liked about the human body and more. Worse, he’d grown more handsome since I’d left him.
We looked at each other in silence for a few beats.
“Fatherhood agrees with you,” I finally whispered.
Another sigh. “That’s why I’m here.”
“It’s not like I keep up with it.” I shrugged. “But it’s everywhere. Lana is damn good at getting desperate media-types to pay attention to whatever she’s selling.”
“She was good at getting me to do that, too.”
Tanner took a few more steps toward me, and I considered demanding once again that he leave, but then I didn’t do it.
“Tell me what you came all the way here to say,” I said. “That way, as soon as you’re finished, you can get back to Los Angeles.”
“Just to be clear, I’m here for a few days.” He jerked his head in the general direction of Cincinnati. “I came to scout a few locations for a movie they want to shoot here soon. I’m going to be a producer on it, as well as the star.”
“Well done.”
I didn’t hide my annoyance as my stomach lurched. Fantastic news. Great. I’d wanted to get away from this man, but he’d followed me home.
“The production company likes the tax breaks for shooting in Ohio.” He looked down at the sunglasses again. “And they hope this one will be an awards contender.”
I didn’t say anything. How would I have replied, anyway? Tanner must have seen it as an opening because he pressed onward.
“It’s been a long couple of months for me. A bizarre time.” His voice seemed heavy and tired. “Whatever you’ve been reading—whatever you might have seen—it isn’t the whole story.” He pulled a white envelope from his back pocket. “Lana is a liar. She’s devious.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“You’re right.” He pursed his lips as if thinking about that fact for a breath. “You always saw it. Always knew. I wanted to believe something different—that there was a woman there who loved me the way I once loved her. But she wasn’t there at all.” He shook his head. “Anyway, she admitted everything. Lana’s been cheating on me. More than that, the baby isn’t mine. We never had sex at the Hotel Le Rose.”
“Are you serious?” The pen broke in my hand and fell to the counter in five pieces.
“Yes.”
“Oh my God.”
Tanner crossed the room to the cash register. With him came a whiff of intoxicating maleness I used to smell on him in the mornings, this time mixed with a deep woodland cologne and salty grass.
“I know I hurt you, Brynn. I know that, and I can’t take it away.” His eyes searched mine, looking for something I couldn’t be sure he’d find. “I can’t change it, but I want to start over again. Without all of—without any games, any contracts, or any hidden agendas. I want you.”
“You do?” I breathed.
“Please.”
His hand found mine on the counter, and his touch electrified me. I should have pulled away, and I should have stopped it, but I didn’t. I didn’t know how I felt at that moment, or what I want to believe. It was all so confusing and happening so fast.
“Give me another chance. Please. Give us another chance. This is me begging you. Right here, right now.” A pause. “I’m laying it all out. Right now. I need you, Brynn. I’ve never needed anyone the way that I need you.”
“Tanner—”
“Don’t give up on us. Don’t give up on me.”
Tanner seemed to mean it. Everything he did told me that, from his body language to the way he talked. He’d had some kind of revelation about us and he needed me. I knew that.
But did I need him? I didn’t know; I’d never been this conflicted in my life. We had a natural click, a rhythm that couldn’t be denied, but it didn’t mean we’d survive a regular life, much less one that came with all the drama and pressure of Hollywood. Going back to him meant accepting certain conditions, and I didn’t know if I wanted those anymore. Staying away from him, though, meant accepting certain things, too. Did I want a life in Griffin, or did I want a life with Tanner?
“It’s been a long time since I last saw you,” I finally said. “I thought I’d never get over the pain of that day, and the way it felt to hear Lana tell me she was pregnant with your child. It didn’t just hurt, it was more than I thought I could handle, and so bad I had to put three thousand miles between myself and the problem. And now, when I’m feeling like myself again, you come roaring back int
o my life.”
“But better late than never, right?” Tanner broke into a reassuring grin, as if he wanted to snap the mounting tension between the two of us, tension that seemed to fill every nook and crack in the store. “Please. Will you let me try one more time?”
I took a deep breath and considered everything. All I knew about him. All the ways I felt about him. All the moments that had passed between us. Everything that hurt about him. All the things I had liked. My new life. My old life. What I wanted for myself.
And then, I had my answer.
“No,” I said after a deep exhale. “I can’t risk all of this again, no matter how much I wanted to love you the first time. It hurt too much. I can’t do it. I can’t go back to Hollywood with you.”
Tanner left me the bag. Placed it, unopened, on the counter once he realized I’d made a final decision. Mumbled something about staying for a few days in room 231 at the 21C Hotel in downtown Cincinnati. Walked out of the store and looked back once, as if he wanted me to come after him. But I didn’t.
Only it felt like a thousand tiny little pinpricks when he walked away. I could handle it. I’d felt worse pain in my lifetime.
Right?
Once I was truly alone again, I stared at the bag for a long time, wondering what was inside. Its contents must have meant something to Tanner, or he wouldn’t have traveled all that way to give it to me. I wavered back and forth about opening it.
I don’t have time for this kind of pain.
I slipped it in my tote bag and tried to forget about it. I had inventory to finish, along with some filing and dusting. All of it could take up plenty of my time. Besides, I’d made myself clear. I didn’t have a life in California anymore. That dream had died.
A few hours later, I closed up the shop and drove home. Dad sat in his familiar place on the sofa, drinking a Miller Lite. When he saw me walk through the door, he grinned and his shoulders lost some of their usual tension.
“Did you have a busy day, sugar beet?” he said.
“No.”
I threw my brown purse on the kitchen table and opened the fridge. We needed something to eat for dinner; another chore would occupy some of my time and help me forget about Tanner. I took chicken breast, spinach, a red pepper, some tomatoes, and a bottle of marinade out of the fridge.