Famous (A Famous novel)

by Jenny Holiday

  The doorbell rang a second time.

  He sighed and set down his pen. As tempting as it was, he couldn’t not answer. Mrs. Johansen would only come around to the back door, and he didn’t want her struggling with his half-broken gate.

  He padded to the door. Probably he should put a shirt on, but it was hot as hell, and it was almost certainly just Mrs. Johansen, so screw it.

  He swung open the door.

  It was not Mrs. Johansen.

  Holy shit.

  He was like a cartoon character, utterly flattened when a grand piano fell from the sky. It was Emmy. With a guitar and a…huge suitcase?

  “Hi,” she said, like she was paying a routine social call.

  “Hi,” he echoed, frankly shocked that his voice worked.

  She had changed. Her face had thinned out, making those angular, sharp cheekbones even more prominent. Her hair was different—still blond, but instead of a solid color, it was streaked with lots of different shades ranging from light ash to golden honey. And it was shorter now, chin-length with bangs, choppy, messy-on-purpose. Instead of the regulation insipid coral lipstick she’d worn at the wedding, her lips were painted a bright scarlet, which made for a stark contrast to her pale skin.

  There was something else different, too. Something harder to articulate, but it was there just the same, lurking beneath the surface. It was what he would try to draw out if he were going to paint her.

  If he still painted anymore.

  It was a weariness. Not that she looked overtly tired—there were no rings under her eyes, and her skin glowed in the bright afternoon sun. No, it was a hesitancy, slight but definitely there. As if the nineteen-year-old who’d been so guileless, who had told him with shining eyes about her musical dreams in the hours after their ill-advised kiss, had been knocked around a little by the world in subsequent years, had some of her soft, rounded edges hardened off. It was subtle, but enough to change her whole demeanor.

  But her eyes were the same. He would know those eyes anywhere. Blue, but not the clichéd blue of milkmaids and Barbie dolls. A deep, dark, soulful blue, with the tiniest ring of yellow around the pupil on one side that you had to look closely to see.

  And he had looked closely, back then when she was nineteen and he had to take the high road, back when they were both about to embark on new lives. Looked close, as they talked through the night, then forced himself to look away.

  She cleared her throat, pulling him from his trance, reminding him that he was standing shirtless on his porch in front of Emmy NoLastName, seven years and fifteen hundred miles from the wedding at which they’d met.

  She shifted from one foot to the other. “So, it’s too bad about Vicky and Tyrone.”

  Who? Oh, right. The bride and groom. Her cousin and his friend Tyrone. Though they had occasionally exchanged emails in the year or so after Evan left Miami, he hadn’t seen Ty since the wedding. He now belonged squarely in the box in Evan’s head marked “Before.” Evan didn’t like to overlap with “Before.”

  “Too bad?” he echoed, his mouth having gone dry from the adrenaline spike her appearance had caused.

  “They got divorced?” She cocked her head, no doubt astonished that he hadn’t heard the news.

  All right. He’d been standing there like the proverbial deer in headlights long enough. “How did you find me?” he asked, his voice coming out sharper than he’d intended.

  “Google.”

  “But—”

  “I asked Vicky to confirm your last name, and then I typed it into a search engine.” She grinned. “It’s almost like I’m a spy or something.”

  Right. He sometimes forgot that Dane wasn’t an invisibility cloak, though it often felt that way, the miles and miles of corn that surrounded it in every direction buffering him like a verdant moat.

  A horn honked. “Woo-hoo, Professor Winslow, looking go-oo-od!” A car full of girls squealed down his otherwise-sleepy street, a couple of them half hanging out the windows. They must have startled Emmy, because she ducked her head and shielded her face with both hands—kind of like his father had done every day on his way in and out of court, hiding from photographers and angry crowds alike. Kind of like he had learned to do in the weeks that followed, before he’d gotten his shit together and left town.

  His face heated, and he smiled awkwardly. “One of the downsides of a small college town.”

  She let her hands fall back to her sides. She was looking at his chest.

  A shirt. A shirt would be a good idea.

  “Did you, ah, want to come in?” he asked against his better judgment. He had never had anyone from his old life in this house. When he saw his mom and brother, it was always at his mom’s place in Atlanta, where she’d started her life over with Husband #2.

  But Emmy was apparently the exception.

  Also, some ill-advised part of his brain whispered, she’s not nineteen anymore.

  He gestured into the house behind him, and she whipped her eyes to his face. A slow smile blossomed, like she knew she’d been caught ogling but didn’t care. It reminded him of the way they kept catching each other looking at the wedding, except this time, the look was…more heated.

  “I was hoping you’d say that, and I would love to come in.” Then she sighed, and her shoulders slumped a little—in relief? Defeat? He couldn’t tell. “I’m in a bit of a bind, actually.”

  As Evan disappeared down the hallway, calling, “I’ll be right back—make yourself at home,” Emerson let out a breath and peeled off her T-shirt, leaving only the tank top she had layered underneath. The Minnesota summers of her childhood had been hot and sticky, but that was nothing compared to the blast furnace that was this town—and Evan’s apparently un-air-conditioned house. Other than the odd stint on her terrace perched in the hills, Emerson couldn’t think when she’d spent any time recently in an environment that hadn’t been artificially heated or chilled.

  It was hotter than sin in Dane, Iowa.

  But also: Woo-hoo, Professor Winslow. Looking go-oo-od.

  He’d been handsome at Vicky’s wedding all those years ago, but handsome in the way that really dressed-up men are. In their suits and tuxedos, with their close shaves and careful smiles, men like that flipped the “Prince Charming” switch that girls like her, raised on Disney princesses and graduated to Netflix rom-coms, had socially conditioned into them. Hell, hadn’t she spent the last half decade going from one potential Prince Charming to another, telling herself each time that she had finally found “the one”?

  But seven years later, shirtless, barefoot, with a pair of jeans sitting low on his hips, Evan was a completely different kind of handsome.

  Handsome wasn’t even the right word. Because who knew about the bodybuilder’s chest that had been hiding under that suit and tie? The dark brown hair that, freed from gelled-back wedding guest perfection, flopped across his face, almost at man-bob length?

  There was one thing that hadn’t changed, though, and that was the way he looked at her with those eyes so brown they were almost black. Like he was studying her. Memorizing her. Surrendering his grasp on the material world for a moment in favor of…her. Even those nerd glasses he still wore couldn’t mute the effect. In the years since she had last seen him, a lot of people had looked at her. She’d played arenas of tens of thousands of people and live awards show broadcasts viewed by millions.

  None of that was like this. Like the way Evan looked at her.

  She was immune, though, she reminded herself. That wasn’t why she was here on this ridiculous Hail Mary mission. He could look all he liked, but she was not in search of a prince, charming or otherwise. She was in search of a haven, and if the only one she had access to had a hot guy as its gatekeeper, well, she was just going to have to build a deflector shield around her heart.

  She looked around for something to distract herself from thoughts of his gaze, to tip her back into the real world. The world where she had a problem that needed solving. From the
entryway, she could see into a sun-drenched living room, its walls covered practically floor to ceiling with art. Photographs and paintings hung on the walls, which, she could see from the cracks between the frames, were covered in a faded floral wallpaper. More pieces sat on the floor, resting against the walls two deep in some spots. It was like a museum—a messy, willy-nilly museum with no theme.

  She was drawn to it, despite the fact that she didn’t really know anything about art. It was exuberant and hopeful—exactly the way Evan had made her feel at the wedding. Exuberant as they’d sneaked up to the roof, laughing, her heart as fizzy as the champagne they’d stolen. Later, hopeful when he’d asked her question after question about her musical ambitions, making her laugh when he denied having heard of any of the bands or singers she’d invoked to compare herself to stylistically.

  “Hey.”

  “Oh!” She jumped. That was another side effect of life in the spotlight: every moment of her life was scripted. She was never surprised—unless Claudia was shoving a birthday cake in her face unexpectedly so one of the PR people could capture the “surprise” for Emerson’s social media feeds.

  “Sorry.” He scraped a hand through his hair, and she was more disappointed than she should have been that he’d put on a T-shirt. A faded forest green, it was worn and soft-looking. She was seized with an inexplicable desire to rub her cheek against it, to curl up with it like a security blanket. “So what can I do for you?”

  Take off your shirt and give it to me for a blankie?

  When she didn’t answer—she was trying to think of something a little less creeptastic to say—he tried again. “I can’t imagine what brings you to Dane.”

  You told me seven years ago to let you know if you could ever be of any help, and now I’m here? That didn’t sound any better than the more specific version, which was that as she’d been on the elevator last night up to her suite at the Beverly Wilshire, floors ticking by like a bomb timer, she’d been overcome with the wild idea that she could maybe find somewhere to hide out and write a renegade album that did not contain Song 58.

  Which was obviously insane.

  Some people had a devil on their shoulder, or an angel, or some combination of the two. Emerson had a fatalistic imaginary friend who could envision, in extraordinary detail, all the different ways disaster could strike in any given scenario. Maude—yes, she’d named her fatalistic imaginary friend—was good for songwriting. Being slightly obsessive about details, following ideas along to every possible conclusion: this was what made good songs. In fact, the only reason she was here today was that she had told Maude to shut up. She’d gagged her and stuffed her into a closet while she made her dramatic escape from L.A. But she probably should have spent less time on the flight here arguing with Tony and more time figuring out what the hell she was going to say to Evan.

  She hadn’t gotten much further with her plan than a vague hope that the art history nerd who didn’t watch TV would remember her—the real her. That maybe, if she was lucky, he’d had his head in the sand deep enough that he hadn’t heard of Emerson Quinn the brand.

  But Maude wasn’t having it. She’d busted out of the closet.

  Of course he’s heard of you. He’s probably heard all about the scene with Jesse and that model in Central Park. He saw you fall down at the Oscars. Or those horrible paparazzi shots when you were sneaking out of Kirby’s house—there wasn’t a corner of this earth that picture didn’t penetrate.

  She cleared her throat. “I, ah, needed a little break from my life. I just wrapped a tour. I’m supposed to start working on my next album, but I…couldn’t face it.” There. That was true.

  “So you did become a musician, then?”

  “I did.” Saying so made her flush with pride. Even though she wasn’t necessarily thrilled with the way things were going right now, she had made it, and she was proud of herself.

  “That’s great. What kind of music do you do?”

  Oh my God, he hadn’t heard of her. On the one hand, she was a little disappointed. On the other: Take that, Maude! Maybe this insane stunt, this idea of trying to find somewhere to hide where someone actually knew her, wasn’t so crazy after all.

  “I needed a break, see,” she said, ignoring his question. “Things have been…extremely busy, and I wanted to, well, hide for a while, really, and see if I could put together some new songs.”

  “So you came to Dane.”

  You said to let you know if you could ever be of help? She still couldn’t make herself say it quite like that. “It, ah, seemed like a really out-of-the-way place where I might be able to lie low for a while, get some writing done.”

  Then he was coming toward her, his brow furrowed. He reached a hand out, and her pulse quickened. Oh my God, was he going to kiss her? Because as gorgeous as he was, that was not what she was here for, so she was just going to have to—

  “Mrs. Johansen! Be careful on the steps.”

  Oh. Okay, then.

  Brushing past her and letting the screen door bang behind him, she heard him scolding the visitor. “I told you one of my steps is loose. You’ve got to use the railing!”

  Emerson’s body automatically went into stealth mode. She didn’t even have to think about it—hat on head, hair jammed up into hat. She was fumbling in her purse for her sunglasses when they came in.

  “Midori Johansen, this is my…” Evan’s brow furrowed.

  “Emmy,” Emerson said, sticking out her hand even as she avoided eye contact with the visitor, supplying the nickname primarily because giving her full first name would risk exposure…but also, now that she was here with Evan, she felt like Emmy again.

  Evan cleared his throat. “Emmy, this is my neighbor, Mrs. Midori Johansen.”

  “Where are you visiting from?” Mrs. Johansen asked.

  “L.A.,” she answered, but then mentally kicked herself for not making something up.

  “I used to live in L.A.!” Mrs. Johansen said.

  “How did you, ah, come to settle in Iowa?” Emmy asked, coaching herself to produce normal conversation.

  “My husband was a professor at Dane College,” Mrs. Johansen said. “He was at UCLA for his graduate studies, which is where we met. We moved here in 1964.”

  Emmy allowed herself to relax a little. If Mrs. Johansen had moved here as a young wife in 1964, she had to be in her seventies at least. And anyway, if she’d been going to say, “Are you Emerson Quinn?” she would have done so by now. That was usually the first thing out of people’s mouths when they spotted her in an unlikely place. And sometimes, if the place was unlikely enough, she could get away with the “No, but I get that all the time” deflection.

  “Dr. Anders Johansen, whom I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing,” Evan said, “was a world-renowned linguist. He was a Swede, and he came here to study the Scandinavian linguistic traditions of the Midwest.”

  Mrs. Johansen, based on her first name and appearance, seemed to be Japanese. Emmy wondered how she had met her Swedish husband in L.A. in the middle of the last century. What had their courtship been like? There was probably an interesting story there, and suddenly she wanted to hear it. She felt its pull physically, like her body was starved for the normalcy of a “how we met” story that didn’t involve publicists and paparazzi.

  “Oh!” Mrs. Johansen exclaimed, pulling Emmy from her thoughts. “I have to go back home. I forgot my money.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Evan said. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll drop it by later.”

  “I couldn’t do that.” She started to shuffle away. “I’ll be right back.” Then she chuckled. “Who am I kidding? At the pace I go, I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

  “Mrs. Johansen, you keep me in casseroles. The least I can do is buy your veggies.”

  She looked indecisive, so Emmy, though she didn’t quite know what was going on, said, “Mrs. Johansen, if a handsome guy like Evan was offering to buy my veggies, you can bet I’d take him up on the offer.�
� Buy my veggies. Wait. Did that sound dirty?

  Mrs. Johansen grinned. “You do have a point. No one has bought my veggies in a very long time.”

  Emmy laughed. Mrs. Johansen reminded her of her grandma, who’d been a kindred spirit to Emmy in their family of accountants.

  “Just this once, then.” Mrs. Johansen thrust a piece of paper at Evan. “I’ll make you an extra casserole this week.”

  Evan smiled. “I can’t wait.” When his neighbor turned to go, he followed, gave her his arm, and escorted her down the steps.

  Emmy waited on the porch while the pair shuffled across their adjoining lawns and up Mrs. Johansen’s porch. After he’d seen Mrs. Johansen safely inside, Evan paused on his neighbor’s porch, looking at Emmy like he was trying to figure out what to do with her.

  Finally he called across the yards, “Fancy a trip to the farmers’ market, Emmy NoLastName?”

  Did she? Probably the farmers’ market in Dane, Iowa, was a world away from the West Hollywood Whole Foods. But wasn’t that the point?

  He started back across the lawns. “Then I can drive you to wherever you’re staying.”

  Ouch. Okay, message received.

  Time for Plan B. Except she had no Plan B.

  “I hope it’s not the Cornflower Inn,” he went on. “Rumor has it they have bedbugs. But even so, there are a few other inns in town, so I’m sure you can find somewhere else if need be. The only time the town is booked up is the first week of classes and homecoming.”

  Humiliation bloomed on her cheeks as he brushed past her, scooped up some keys from a table in the entryway and…a bike helmet?

  “I have an extra bike you can ride, and you can use my helmet. It’s adjustable.”

  “Whoa.” The farmers’ market was one thing. Riding a bike to the farmers’ market? “No way.”

  “It’s a ten-minute ride. Too close to bother with the car, and parking there is a pain.”

  “I haven’t ridden a bike in…” God. How long had it been? “Fifteen years, probably.”