Just One Lie

by Kyra Davis

  Well, isn’t that interesting.

  “All about it,” Ash muses. “Isn’t that a cliché?”

  “I think something has to be several decades old to be a cliché. Until then it’s slang,” I say absently as I pull back, letting my arms drop. “Were there other people from the show on this flight with you?”

  “No,” Ash says with a little shake of his head. “Everybody has different filming schedules so we come back at different times. But you’ll meet a couple of them at the party tonight.”

  “Fantastic,” I say, giving his hand a squeeze. “It’s been an eventful few weeks.”

  “Tell me about it!” He laughs. “You have no idea how intense it is to be on a TV set. And this set! They re-created an entire world! It was crazy! I’ll show you the pics. Oh look, there’s my bag. I really appreciate you coming to pick me up. Normally the studio sends a car, but there was a little mix-up and . . .”

  I know Ash is talking, but I find that I’m not listening anymore. For the second time I’ve caught that woman looking over here, and again, when I manage to catch her eye she looks away.

  It doesn’t mean anything, of course. So they were flirting on the plane. Maybe she had hopes that it was going to lead to more and now she’s disappointed. And it’s not like Ash has been looking at her since he’s seen me. He hasn’t even glanced in her general direction. This whole thing is most likely totally innocent.

  So what is it about this situation that doesn’t feel innocent?

  Maybe it’s the way Ash isn’t looking at her. It reminds me a little of the way that nurse at the psych ward wouldn’t look at me. It’s the way you don’t look at someone when you’re trying really, really hard not to look.

  Ash’s bag gets to our part of the carousel and he grabs it and then gestures for me to lead him to my car. I give him a vague smile, suddenly feeling a lot less secure than I did when this day started out. But when we get to the car he stops me. “I did have a little free time when I was there. Not much,” he says quickly, “but enough to go shopping and get you this.” He opens up his duffel bag and pulls out a small jewelry box.

  “Are you kidding me?” I ask as I take it from him. I open it up and gasp. “Oh my God, these are so cool!” They’re earrings, skull-shaped studs dotted with onyx and attached to small white gold hoops from which little opals, sapphires, and rubies jut out in alternating round and emerald cuts.

  “They reminded me of you,” he says. “Edgy, different, maybe a little in your face, but feminine, too. Sweet.”

  I just continue to stare down at the earrings. “You know me so well,” I whisper, getting dangerously close to teary. “But, Ash, they’re too much.” I try handing them back. “These must have cost a fortune.”

  “Hey, money’s not going to be a problem,” he says with a laugh, moving into my space, putting his hands on the small of my back. “You better get used to getting spoiled, because this fame and fortune stuff? It’s on.”

  THINGS JUST GET more decadent from there. When we get back from the airport Ash insists that we have lunch at Spago. I feel totally out of place there, but he seems to enjoy it, and the food is amazing, so eventually I relax and enjoy it, too. The party that night is at some dude’s house in the Hollywood Hills and Ash was completely right: it’s Off. The. Hook. It has a gorgeous view of the Hollywood sign and an awesome pool with a waterfall that goes right into it. The house itself is crazy modern. Like ultrasleek, cosmopolitan, must-have-been-built-in-the-last-two-years modern. The suspended staircase is almost scary; it feels like you’re walking through air. And the place has an honest-to-God movie theater! With red velvet seats, full-on movie-theater-style popcorn machine and everything! Of course, no one is watching a movie tonight. Offspring’s “She’s Got Issues” is playing on what is easily the best sound system I’ve ever heard in a private residence. Waiters walk around with mixed drinks and delicious hors d’oeuvres. And the people! There are so many beautiful people here! Ash introduces me to one of the actresses who is on his show and I can’t decide if I should hate her or go lesbian. And more to the point, she’s actually nice! She gushes over my clothes and the earrings (yes, I’m wearing them), and then she whisks me away to introduce me to a friend of hers who just happens to be the founder and lead designer of my favorite brand of jeans I can’t afford. And then I’m talking to a model, and then another actor, and the drinks keep coming and everything is just fun . . .

  . . . but I’ve lost track of Ash. I have no idea where he is at all.

  “Have you met the host?” asks a wavy-haired blond guy with some kind of accent. Caleb? Cameron? Something like that. The person who introduced him said he owns a hip bar in Hollywood, but he doesn’t host live musical acts so I don’t have to worry about remembering him.

  “No,” I admit. “I feel a little like a crasher.”

  “Just count yourself lucky,” he assures me. “The host, Jeremy, he’s not bad. Nice guy, a producer. But his live-in gold digger is a nightmare. He got her a role on some TV show, but I hear she’s horrible.”

  “Oh, I—” But then I stop, reaching forward and grabbing Caleb-Cameron’s arm. “Who is that woman?” I whisper, my eyes glued to the brunette in the corner laughing as she chats up some guy. It’s the same woman who was at the airport.

  “You mean Mindy?” He raises his eyebrows. “She’s a hairstylist. She’s working on that same TV show. Talented, but a little too into the nose candy. Then again, we all have our indulgences, don’t we?”

  “Mmm,” I reply. It’s all I can manage. Every muscle in my body has frozen. I can’t even open my mouth to scream.

  “Oh dear lord, here comes the gold digger.”

  I look over and see another beautiful woman walking toward us, and Ash is by her side. She has her arm linked through his in a friendly, mildly flirtatious manner.

  “Connor, darling,” she exclaims as she gives my companion European-style kisses on each cheek. “So good to see you, and you must be the beautiful Mercy I keep hearing about!”

  “That’s right!” Ash says, placing his hands on my waist before moving in for a full embrace and literally lifting me up off the ground for a moment. “God, have I told you how much I missed you?” he says when he pulls back enough to see my face.

  I just stare at him. I’m still feeling frozen . . . but I’m also feeling observant, and what I’m observing now is Ash’s eyes. His pupils are dilated, and this time I can’t blame it on lack of light.

  “Mercy, this is Olivia.” He gestures to the woman I have previously only known as Gold Digger. “She was filming on the pilot with me and she is fucking fantastic. Just fantastic, Olivia.”

  “Your boyfriend is so sweet,” she says, smiling at me. Connor (maybe) has already quietly made his escape. “But I’m only in one scene. My part doesn’t really take off for weeks,” she explains. Even as she’s talking, she’s dancing. The music has just switched to Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly Away.” “Have you met everyone? Yes, no? Well, let me introduce you to more. Ash simply would not stop talking about you in New Mexico. This man is in love,” she says, swatting him playfully as she leads us forward.

  “How can anyone not be in love with this woman?” he asks, one arm still around my waist. He gives me a little shake. “Look at her!”

  She laughs and continues to lead, introducing us to everyone who has ever been in anything, never pausing to talk to any individual for more than two minutes. I quickly learn that her producer boyfriend, Jeremy Powell, is actually one of the executive producers for the show she and Ash are on, though she assures me that has nothing to do with how she got the role.

  And now, as we continue to flit from one group to another, I find that my distress has sobered me up and I begin to pick up on an undercurrent to this party that I hadn’t noted before. There’s a frenetic energy here, a level of giddiness and grandiosity that usually has to be bought by the gram, vial, or bottle.

  And this crowd . . . I now realize that it’s a very parti
cular kind of Hollywood crowd. There are a lot of people here who are famous more for their exploits than for their work. Each introduction Olivia makes immerses me a little more into the dynamics of the room, and it all just starts feeling disturbingly familiar.

  It’s like the Twilight Zone. Here we have people who look so polished and together. Everything about them screams wealth and glamour. But if you just lightly scrape the surface you can see that this is the same party they throw in dirty warehouses and cribs in the hood. It’s just that instead of wearing secondhand rave-wear or gangsta bandanas they’re wearing Prada and Dolce & Gabbana. But it’s the same thing. Being brought into this circle isn’t an elevation at all! It’s a lateral move.

  I watch as Olivia continues to flutter about, tossing her hair here, batting an eyelash there, and suddenly she looks different to me. Instead of seeing her beauty, I see her details. I see the way her foundation is caked over her pimple and the shadows under her eyes that she wasn’t quite able to cover with concealer. I hear how she always interrupts people when they’re midsentence, feel her obvious indifference masked by a bleached white smile. I see beyond her superhip fake lashes to the red lines that squiggle through the whiteness of her eyes. The practiced quality of her air kisses. And she stops being beautiful; now she’s almost grotesque.

  As for Ash? Ash is having the time of his life. Sweat is beginning to bead at his brow and he’s talking a mile a minute. I’ve felt that way before. But not in a while.

  Ash leans over, whispers in my ear. “Ready to turn the volume up a notch?”

  “Mmm,” I say again.

  “What did I hear?” Olivia whirls around with a big smile. “Are we heading to the VIP room? I think Faith and Seth are there now.”

  “Well then, that’s where the party is,” Ash says with a Cheshire cat grin.

  I hate this. I hate this party, hate these people, hate everything and everyone. And yet I let Ash and Olivia lead me out of the main room, downstairs through the throngs of people, through a hallway and into a . . . a library.

  On TV and in movies the super rich sometimes have actual libraries in their homes. Rooms lined with book after book after book. The books usually have dark brown leather bindings, and the room itself is always elegant and gorgeous. I didn’t think anyone in real life had a library.

  But here I am in this library, and it’s breathtaking. The only difference is that all the books aren’t bound in leather . . . Well, the ones on the south wall are, but there are also photography books, and paperbacks, and literary titles, and sci-fi. It’s sort of incredible.

  And on the floor, sitting around a glass coffee table, are two people doing lines. Ash leans over to me. “Olivia has the purest snow you have ever sampled. And she’s only sharing with Faith, Seth, and us.”

  “Just my nearest and dearests.” Olivia giggles and gives Ash’s free hand a little squeeze. “Your man is such a doll. I just love him! He and I are practically besties now!” And then she twirls away before kneeling down next to Faith and Seth, who greet us with smiles and sniffs.

  “Come on,” Ash says, his breath tickling my ear. “We haven’t been flying together since that night in Seattle. You remember that night?”

  “Go on ahead,” I say coolly, stepping away from him. “I want to take a look at some of these books.”

  Ash pulls back and gives me a funny look. “Are you upset about something?”

  “No, just . . .” I sigh and wave toward the coffee table. “Please, indulge. I just want to look around for a second, okay?”

  “Okay, beautiful, you’re the boss.” He tries to kiss me on the mouth but I look away and he only gets my cheek. He hesitates, knowing there’s a problem. But then he steps away and kneels next to Olivia, waiting patiently for her to finish telling Faith and Seth some story before cutting him a few lines.

  I move closer to the overflowing shelves. I used to love to read. I read all the time when I was a kid. My father would send me to my room as a punishment and I’d just get under the covers and read. When I got older I would read things like The Vampire Lestat, The Clan of the Cave Bear, The Witches of Eastwick, Good Omens, even The Accidental Tourist. I liked fantasy novels the best. The farther away a book could take me from my reality, the more I liked it. I would sneak slim paperbacks inside the textbooks I was supposed to be reading so I could read my novels in class unnoticed. It worked . . . most of the time. And when it didn’t . . . well that hadn’t stopped me from trying again.

  When had I stopped reading?

  “Baby, you have to try this.”

  I lift my hand and caress the spine of Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. “I don’t do coke,” I say idly.

  Without turning to look I can feel all the eyes in the room on me. I can sense their suspicion and paranoia as they suddenly find themselves wondering why I’m here and if I have an agenda.

  “You don’t do coke?” Ash repeats. “I thought you told me you did.”

  I don’t answer. The things Melody told him have nothing to do with me.

  “We met in a club in Seattle,” I hear him tell the others. “That was . . . was it a year ago, baby?”

  “Closer to a year and a half,” I say as my fingers move over to The Giver by Lois Lowry.

  “They had a live band,” he continues. “Some indie group, not much of a following, but I could tell she was swept up in their sound. She was right at the front of the stage dancing like, like she was Isadora Duncan. Just totally free.”

  Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Golden Compass, Fight Club, so many I haven’t read yet. It’s like I’ve missed an entire decade of literature.

  “I waited until the break to approach her and then I asked what it was about the band that moved her. And she turned to me, her eyes glassy and her smile welcoming . . . she just reached out and took my hand and said, ‘You’re beautiful.’ ”

  The group starts laughing and Faith calls out, “What were you on?”

  Again I don’t answer as my fingers dance over to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, my eyes scanning the few titles I have read: Stephen King’s It and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

  But I read those when I was twelve.

  “She was on E,” Ash supplies. “She still had more left; she put a tablet on my tongue. That’s how giving she was. And it was such an amazing high. When it kicked in . . . how do I describe it . . . it was like I was inside that music, and I wanted to be inside her.”

  The group laughs. Oh, the things people say when they’re on cocaine.

  “I’m serious,” Ash says, although there’s a laugh in his voice that undermines his words. “Just like how that high helped me see the music more clearly, it helped me see her, too. We stepped out into the alley and it was . . . intense. I remember thinking this was a woman I was never going to be able to get enough of. I can’t get enough of you,” he says softly, and I know the comment is mine. “You know that, don’t you, baby?”

  “Has anyone read this?” I pull out George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, my eyes trained on the steel sword on the cover. “I hear it’s good.”

  There’s a moment of silence, then Seth blurts out, “Sweetie, are you rolling now?”

  More giggles from the group. But I just keep looking at the book. I don’t have to ask Olivia if she’s read it. I’d bet money that she hasn’t. Perhaps it’s her boyfriend who’s the reader. But he’s not here. She is. She’s in this room full of amazing books and she’s hunched over a totally common-looking glass table doing lines. She doesn’t understand what’s around her. She can’t even see it! None of these people can! And A Game of Thrones, I mean the sequel is already out! I think I’ve read about six books in the last seven years and four of them were graphic novels . . . excellent graphic novels, but still, I haven’t been reading as frequently or with the same passion I did as a kid. It’s as if at some point I forgot I liked to do it.

  I feel Ash’s hands on my shoulders before I even fully re
gister that he’s gotten back up. “You okay?”

  I put the book down and turn to face him, gently place my hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, I’m okay.” I go over to the Hollywood druggies on the floor and sit next to them, my legs crossed in front of me as I lean back on my hands. “Ash and I have definitely had a rather dramatic romance,” I say, smiling at my new companions.

  “Do tell!” Olivia exclaims, her eyes still on the powder.

  “Well, like Ash said, there have been some pretty intense nights. Passionate moments in alleys, that time in the VIP room of Graffiti”—I look up at Ash—“when I was dancing on the bar, sorta for the room but really for you.”

  “Yeah.” Ash smiles, sitting back down by my side, putting his hand on my leg. “We were the ones who got that party started. And you, you were magnificent.”

  I tilt my head to the side as I redirect my gaze to the ceiling. “Of course, when you have that kind of passion you’re bound to have some times when things get a little heated. The way that night ended, do you remember that?”

  Ash laughs, but there’s a hint of discomfort to the sound. “That was a mess. But like you said, when you have passion, you’re gonna have fights.”

  “Ooh, let’s hear about the fight,” coos Olivia. “What are you like when you get mad, Mercy? Jeremy says I go full harpy. I scream, throw things, stomp my feet, just really give in to it. Guess it’s the actress in me.”

  I give her a vague smile. “I suppose my anger changes based on the situation.” Then turning back to Ash, I ask, “Do you even remember what our fight was about?”

  “We were pretty wasted,” he says, pulling his hand away from me. “Who the hell knows, right?”

  You do! I want to scream. I can tell he remembers everything. The way he just went off on me out of the blue. The way he insulted me and everything I was doing with my music. “It was crazy,” I say to my little audience. “He called me by a nickname I don’t use anymore and I stormed into a crowd of people and told them all that my boyfriend had called me by the wrong name.”