Exposing Alix

by Scott, Inara

  “Fascinated. That’s a good word,” Ryker said dryly.

  She tamped down the flare of defensive anger. “We’re never allowed to watch people having sex because it’s the most intimate act two people can share. Yet it’s that very intimacy that makes it beautiful. I’ve found no better way to get at such pure, raw emotion than photographing couples making love. When filmed right, sex can be one of the most beautiful things in the world.”

  “You’ll forgive me, but Candy Fever wasn’t just a love story.”

  “Of course it wasn’t. My movies and my photographs are different. Gunther suggested I try directing after I got my MFA. He knew my heart was in photography, but he also knew I had crushing student loans and no way of paying them back.”

  “So the sex films really were about the money.”

  “They were R-rated movies,” she said. “I’d hardly call them sex films.”

  “But you know that’s why people went to see them.” For once, the familiar criticism seemed motivated by a sense of curiosity. Slowly, her increasing defensiveness started to fade.

  “Men like to watch. Women want to believe in love. I tried to give them both what they wanted.”

  “And based on the numbers, you succeeded.”

  She inclined her head in agreement. “I made enough money to pay back some debts. That’s all I wanted.”

  “When did you become Alix Z?”

  “I started calling myself Alix when I went to college. ‘Alix Z’ happened when I moved to LA to make movies with Gunther.”

  “But you’re Daisy when you’re home in Oregon?”

  She sighed. “I’m Daisy when I don’t want to answer questions about Alix Z. Speaking of which, can we change the subject? And don’t we need to get a bottle of wine?”

  He slapped his forehead. “Thank goodness you’re here. I think you just saved me from certain death at the hands of my sister. There’s a liquor store a few blocks from her house. We’ll stop on the way.”

  Ryker slipped in a CD and Norah Jones’s smooth, silky voice filled the space around them. They talked about nothing for a while—movies they liked and directors they didn’t, and then drove in a silence that now felt companionable, not strained. Alix relaxed enough to loosen her hold on the door and stop flinching every time they changed lanes.

  As they exited the freeway, it was as if the quiet Malibu beach had never existed. The roads were packed with cars, windows down, music blaring. The signs and billboards were in Spanish, the trees few and far between. Without the ocean breeze, the air was hot and still.

  “So, does your whole family live in Boyle Heights?” asked Alix.

  “Just about. My stepfather Emilio didn’t want to stay in our old house after my mother passed away. He moved the family about a year after she died. Rosalia was fifteen, and she basically took over running the place. She married when she was twenty and has two little kids now, but she stayed close enough to my father and the other kids to keep an eye on them. Eduardo has an apartment with some buddies a couple miles away. Maria and Hector still live with Emilio.”

  He sounded clinical, as though he were describing someone else’s family. The sound of his voice sent a chill over Alix. “Do you miss it? You’re pretty far from the family.”

  “I was always pretty far from the family.” He rubbed his face and brushed back a few strands of hair. He did not look at her as he spoke. They stopped at a streetlight, and the car vibrated quietly underneath them.

  The space felt charged again. “How old were you when your mother married Emilio?”

  “I was ten. Rosalia was born when I was eleven.”

  “So you must have something in common.” Alix groped for something helpful to say. “You grew up in the same neighborhood, didn’t you? And went to the same schools?”

  “My mother sent me to private schools and refused to teach me Spanish. Contrary to what the tabloids may report, she was the one who called me Ryker.”

  “Wait a minute,” Alix said, confused. “I thought your real name was Ricardo.”

  “It is.” He gave a chilly smile. “My grandfather died right before I was born, and my mother felt obligated to name me after him. But the last thing she wanted was for me to sound like all the other Mexican kids in South Central. So she called me Ryker. If she could have turned my skin white, she would have.”

  “Why does everyone think you changed your name when you started making movies?”

  “When she met Emilio, everything changed. They were all about Latin pride and respecting your heritage, and suddenly, I was Ricardo again. Of course, by then, I wasn’t interested in re-assimilating.” He drummed his fingers on the gearshift impatiently until the light changed. “As soon as I moved out, I went back to calling myself Ryker. It just happened that at the same time, I started getting work in Hollywood.”

  Alix felt like a window into the darkness that surrounded Ryker had suddenly been opened. “But surely you—”

  “I don’t fit in,” he said flatly. “I haven’t for a long time. I’m not Mexican enough or Catholic enough. Emilio thinks I’m debauched, and Rosalia thinks I’ve deserted the family. You’re walking into a time bomb, Alix. I probably shouldn’t have brought you, but I did, and you deserve to know. Don’t expect any huggy-kissy family nonsense. They’re decent folks, I suppose, but they don’t understand my life, and I don’t understand theirs. We go, we suffer in silence, and then we leave. That’s how it is.”

  #

  Ryker pulled into the driveway of a small craftsman-style house framed by a wide front porch with just a hint of a sag in the middle and a tiny scrap of mostly dead grass. Alix took a deep breath, screwed up her courage, and dropped her heavy glasses into her purse. Then, trying to avoid Ryker’s stare, she slipped on a layer of lip gloss, pulled her hair from its heavy ponytail and brushed it out, long and thick around her shoulders.

  He stared at her, shaking his head. “I never know what you’ll do next, do you know that?”

  She ignored him. After a long pause, he walked around the car, opened her door, and extended his hand. Alix forced a pleasant, empty expression on her face. He put his hand at her elbow, gently guiding her toward the front door. The skirt hung just below her waist, and Alix straightened it as she walked and then adjusted the tank top that threatened to spill off one shoulder.

  The front yard was littered with baby gear: a stroller, brightly colored ride-on car, plastic balls, and a variety of action figures. As Ryker and Alix walked up the driveway, a tiny boy of four or five with a mop of jet-black hair and a determined look in his eyes sped past them.

  “Hola, Tío Ricardo!” he called, never quite making eye contact as he rounded the corner of the yard and spun on one foot, keeping his gaze pinned on the front door.

  “English please, Emilio!” called a young woman as she walked onto the porch, rubbing a bowl with a striped dishtowel. She had long, dark hair held back from her forehead by a white headband. A white apron covered a navy shirtwaist dress with white piping around the collar and cuffs. She looked for all the world like a Latina Donna Reed.

  “Mama!” the boy pleaded, “you’re in the way!”

  The woman turned to look behind her just as a young man wearing baggy jeans and a sleek black polo shirt appeared at her back. “Hector, I thought I told you to change your jeans before supper,” she said.

  “Shhh!” Hector said dramatically, hands on either side of the woman’s shoulders. He peeked around the edge at the little boy. “I’m hiding.”

  Emilio stuck out his tongue. “I can see you, estúpido.”

  “Emilio!” The woman stared in horror. “Get into the house. If I hear that word again, you’ll be straight to bed, no supper.” She walked forward, extending her hand toward Alix. “I’m so sorry about that. I’m Rosalia, and this is my brother Hector. Thank you so much for coming. My husband, Antonio, just ran out for another six pack. He’ll be back soon.”

  She examined Alix from shoes to hair, her gaze shrewd an
d unyielding. Alix felt a sudden desire to run back to the car and hide in the nonexistent backseat. She had never liked being on display, and Rosalia’s bottomless eyes told her that at this gathering, Alix would not be permitted to fade into the background.

  She forced her mouth to open and form words. “I’m Daisy. Daisy Zahn. Thanks for having me.” Alix shook Rosalia’s hand and tried not to let her shoulders bend under the intense regard.

  As she’d told Ryker, Alix had been using her middle name ever since she’d moved from Gunther’s house to her own apartment. At the time, she’d felt a need to separate herself from her past and declare to herself and to the world that she was no longer “Daisy.” Daisy was a girl who didn’t control her own destiny. Daisy was a girl things happened to, instead of the other way around. Maybe Ryker had felt the same way when he left home. What better way to assert control over your life than to change your name?

  Years later, when she left LA and bought her house in Oregon, she struggled over what to call herself. Though she no longer felt like Daisy, she had come to despise the assumptions and knowing smiles that accompanied the name Alix Z. She’d reverted to Daisy but always wondered if she’d done the right thing. Was it more important to have anonymity or to claim her work?

  Even today, she could recall the words Ryker had spoken the first time they met: “Frankly, I would have been more impressed if you could have just owned up to the whole sex thing.” Easy for him to say. He didn’t have to deal with the smarmy looks, the conclusions everyone was so quick to reach.

  Besides, a part of her still was Daisy. Her mother hadn’t given her much, but at least she’d given her a name. Daisy Alexandra Zahn. A full name. A name that she wasn’t going to give away, even if she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

  At any rate, the moment she shook Rosa’s hand she had decided that the last person she wanted to be that night was Alix Z. Her heart had nearly broken when Ryker told her how excluded and isolated he felt from his family. Though his face had remained stony and unemotional, she could see something dark and painful sparking in his eyes. He had enough problems with these people. He didn’t need to add to them by bringing an erotic filmmaker to supper.

  Ryker started with shock when he heard her name but quickly covered his surprise with a cough. The pressure on her arm increased, and she had the feeling he would be asking questions later.

  Although she didn’t appear much older than her early twenties, Rosalia had the suspicious stare of a powerful family matriarch. “Daisy? That’s unusual.” Her gaze swept Alix from head to toe. “Funny, my sister Maria has the same outfit.”

  At that moment, another child toddled out the front door of the house, followed by another young woman. This child looked around a year old. She had pigtails standing straight out from the top of her head and a toothy grin. Her white dress was covered with multicolored stains, orange and green around the collar and brown at the hem.

  “Ry! Ry!” she called as she toddled toward the stairs.

  The first genuine smile Alix had seen in a long time broke across Ryker’s face. “Fifi!” He scooped up the tiny creature and threw her at least three feet in the air. She squealed with delight. Rosalia frowned and held up a hand as if to stop him, but the other woman cut her off before she could speak.

  “Rosa, they’re fine.” The voice was weary, quiet. Despite her youth, deep lines had been etched around her mouth and eyes.

  Rosalia frowned and started to respond but then visibly restrained herself. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Isn’t that the same skirt that you’ve got, Maria?”

  Maria subjected Alix to a tired scrutiny before she spoke again. “No. My skirt is more purple than that.”

  Alix gave a grateful smile to the woman who must have been responsible for the closet full of clothes and playpen at Ryker’s house. “I guess we’ve got similar taste, then,” she said. “I’m Daisy.”

  “Maria.” She gestured toward Ryker, who was still engaging in acrobatics with the tiny girl. “That messy creature is my daughter Felicity. We’re the black sheep of the family.”

  Rosalia shot Maria an annoyed look. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “She’s right, Maria,” Ryker called without looking at them. “I’m the black sheep.”

  More people emerged from the house. Another child, a young man, and an older one. Rosalia took over the introductions. Alix met Ryker’s stepfather, Emilio, and his brother Eduardo. Ryker kept Felicity tightly in his arms as he watched the scene and waved to his stepbrothers but made little move to join Alix or acknowledge his stepfather.

  Alix tried to squash a growing panic at the sea of faces that appeared ready to devour her. Deliberately, she imagined she was at one of Gunther’s press parties. She planted a fake smile on her face and tried her best to be polite but not particularly interesting. Hector and Eduardo greeted her with boisterous smiles and then shot Ryker disbelieving looks, as if they couldn’t imagine why he would waste his time with someone so ordinary. Emilio treated her with a grave respect. He was a short, slight man with wavy white hair cut short and mobile features that exposed every emotion. When he looked at Ryker, he didn’t try to hide his impatience.

  “Ricardo, are you so busy you cannot even say hello?”

  Ryker acknowledged him with a short nod and then turned back to the children. Two little boys swarmed around his legs as Felicity crawled on his shoulders.

  Emilio snorted. “Pleasant as always.”

  Rosalia waved her hand. “Ignore him, Papa. It is just his way.”

  “His way of being rude, perhaps.”

  Alix shifted from one foot to the other, wishing she were anywhere else.

  Rosalia gave her father a warning look. She had a commanding presence that no one seemed able to ignore. “Daisy, tell us, what sort of work do you do?”

  “I’m a photographer,” she said. “I actually live in Oregon. I’m just visiting LA.”

  “Oregon? How did you and Ricardo meet, then?” Emilio asked

  Ryker appeared at her elbow, holding a giggling Felicity upside down on his chest. “Daisy is friends with Gunther Hartcourt.”

  Emilio’s thick white eyebrows drew together. “So you’re in the movie business as well?”

  “And she looked so decent, didn’t she?” Ryker mocked.

  “Papa, leave her be. We don’t want to scare the poor thing.” Maria extended her hand toward Alix. “Why don’t you come in the house with me and Rosalia. You can help us finish the tamales. Ryker, you’ll watch Felicity, won’t you?”

  Ryker flashed a tight smile. “She’s safe with me.”

  Maria nodded and patted his arm. “I never doubted that for a minute.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ryker watched Alix walk up to the house with Maria and Rosalia, still stunned by the change she had somehow wrought in herself. It was as if she was some kind of social chameleon. At the beach, when they first met, she’d been snappy and belligerent. When she entered the Bolvana studio, she turned into a stubborn, driven artist. At Tiger Lily’s, she became a seductress, a woman used to wrapping men around her little finger. And now? Now he didn’t know what he was looking at. Some kind of old-fashioned, demure, conservative foil; a person who didn’t make waves but helped smooth them out.

  It was uncanny. She changed her name, brushed her hair, and took off her glasses, and it was like he was looking at a different person.

  “She seems lovely.” Emilio grunted as Alix disappeared into the house. “How long have you two been dating?”

  Ryker turned to Emilio. “Is it too much to ask for a little privacy?” he said evenly.

  “You brought her. It didn’t seem an unusual question to ask.”

  “Actually, she just came to town,” Ryker replied. “We’ve only known each other for a couple of weeks.”

  Emilio pursed his lips disapprovingly. “You shouldn’t lead her on that way.”

  “Why would you assume I’m leading her on?” Ryker tried
to keep a tight rein on his temper, but he could already feel himself losing control.

  “You brought her to meet your family. That’s not something people usually do with someone they’ve just met.”

  “Perhaps I’ve fallen for her,” Ryker said. “Perhaps it was love at first sight.”

  “Right. Do you think I’m blind?” Emilio waved toward the house. “She seems like a very nice girl, but she’s hardly your type.”

  “Just what is my type? Bimbos? Prostitutes?”

  Emilio threw up his hands. “Of course not. I never said that. Why must you take everything I say and turn it around?”

  “Why must you always believe the worst about me?” Ryker countered. “Al…er, Daisy, is a gorgeous woman. She’s also smart, tough, and makes me laugh. Just because she isn’t six feet tall and doesn’t think LA is the center of the universe doesn’t make her any less of an incredible woman. Why shouldn’t I fall for someone like her?”

  “Why indeed?” Emilio stared at Ryker, black eyes snapping. Ryker had cursed those eyes every time Emilio guessed when he’d stolen a cigarette, nipped a drink off the top of a bottle of scotch, or stayed out past his curfew. Sometimes he thought those damn black eyes had the ability to see into his very soul. “Why indeed?”

  “Oh Lord. It’s a little early in the night to start with the amateur psychology, isn’t it?”

  “I just think it’s interesting, the way you chase after those women, one after another, a different one every night. It’s as if you’re determined to date women you know can’t possibly make you happy so you can reject them as soon as they disappoint.”

  “And you know what would make me happy?” Ryker struggled to keep his temper in check.

  “I know what doesn’t make you happy—brainless women who think the sun rises and sets on their shoulders. If your mother could see you—”

  “Can we drop it, please?” Ryker forced the words between his teeth. “I’d like to prove to Rosalia that I can make it through one of these meals without taking a swing at you.”