Sniffing a little more, I raised my head, a new resolve building in me. “I can do this,” I said, not at all sure that I could. I took another drink to steady myself, help ease me into this new idea of self-reliance and confidence that I had to embrace.
“Damn straight you can,” Layla agreed, lifting her own glass in salute. “What can you do?”
“This,” I said again, gesturing all around us. “Life. I can do this, right? Tell me I can do this?”
“You can totally do this, boo,” Layla responded, giving my shoulders a squeeze and then topping off both our drinks.
“Okay, right. I can... I can just... cut back on expenses until I figure out what’s next. All my stuff is still at Ken’s….” Aside from controlling everything else about my life, Ken had always had all the control over my finances. I didn’t even really know where most of my money was, or how much of it was even still there. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I thought about how foolish I had been to trust Ken as much as I had. Did I even have any money left?
Layla cut me off. “I will go to the bastard’s place and get all your things. Don’t you even worry about that.”
I nodded. Layla always worked that way. She always had my back, always anticipated my needs. It was what made her such a good assistant.
“Dammit, no,” I said as that thought flitted through my head. “Layla... I can’t pay you now. I mean, not until I figure out how to get my money… if I even have any left… You don’t have to….”
She raised a hand, cutting me off again. “Clearly you’re gonna have to fire me, but I’m gonna go on having your back, boo. Because that’s what friends do.”
“Layla,” I began to protest, but she countered by reaching out to lift my hand to my mouth until I gave in and drank again. I was starting to feel loose from the whiskey, and it was helping more than I’d care to admit.
“Don’t you even say that we’re not friends. You brought me along on your honeymoon and let me play tonsil hockey with the hot hippie. That’s not an assistant thing. That’s a friend thing.”
The last thing I was going to try to argue was that Layla wasn’t my friend. She’d been there for me since almost the beginning, and I knew she wasn’t just doing it for the paycheck. I didn’t even know how much Ken paid her, but I was certain it wasn’t nearly enough. “Sorry for interrupting that, by the way,” I said. “It looked like you were enjoying it.”
“I was, but this is way more important.” She took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “You just tell me what you need to do next, and I’ll make it happen. It’ll be my last official task as your assistant.”
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts. “Okay, well... first we need to get back to L.A.”
“Already on it, mon petit chou.” She held up her phone, showing me the confirmation screen from a purchase for two one-way tickets from Fresno to L.A. “Next?”
“Next, I... need a place to stay, which means I need to talk to my parents.” Something I was not looking forward to. I had said some not-awesome things to them when I moved out. Things about them trying to steal my career and live off my fame and money. Turned out it was actually Ken who wanted to do that.
“Ah,” Layla said. “Well, that sounds more like a friend thing than an assistant thing.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, peering over my glass at her as I contemplated whether or not to have another drink.
“I’m saying hurry up and fire me, so I can support you while you call your parents.”
I laughed, a sound that got half-choked in a sob, and said—in my best Donald Trump voice— “Layla? You’re fired.”
20
Bennett
I could hear Layla’s booted footsteps fading down the hall, and I looked up to where River was still leaning against the office door frame.
“Don’t look at me,” he said. “This is why I’m not married.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said. I got up to pour myself a whiskey from the decanter I kept in my office, but then Layla came stomping back in.
“On second thought,” she said. “I’ll need these.” The decanter and two glasses disappeared with her down the hall.
“Anything I can do for you, boss?” River asked, and I could see he was antsy, unsure where his loyalties should lie, unsure what to do in this situation.
“No, it’s... it’ll be fine. Go ahead and call it a night.”
“You got it,” he said. He turned to go, then stopped and stepped back into the office, pulling me into a hug. I was so surprised by it that I didn’t manage to return the embrace before he was stepping back again. “If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
It occurred to me, as I watched his bare back retreating down the stairs toward his cabin, that River was basically the closest thing I had to a real friend. Sure, I could always find people to fill out a party or give me company on a Friday night, but I didn’t have anybody I could really talk to. River was... it.
River and Ava, and I wasn’t going to be able to talk to Ava after this.
I started down the hall without thinking, but I stopped just outside the door to my bedroom. I could hear Ava and Layla in there, talking. I heard Ava make a noise that was suspiciously like a sob. That’s when I turned and walked away.
I wasn’t proud of it, but that’s what I did. I walked away.
I went around the house to the breaker room, intending to properly fix the wiring issue I’d only patched before. I needed to get my hands in the guts of something electronic. I needed to focus on a problem that was fixable. Al had taught me that. When things got to be too much, too overwhelming, focus on something fixable.
I tried. I tried to focus on the wiring, on replacing one that had frayed, on reconnecting a couple that had come loose. I tried to focus on binding them all in neat bundles, out of the way, organized.
It didn’t seem to matter how much I tried to focus. I just kept seeing that bitch’s botoxed face in my head. As badly as I felt about what I’d done to Ava, it was a private affair. Aside from those of us at the ranch, no one knew about it, and it had only lasted a few days. It was a shame I might carry the rest of my days, and Ava might continue to hate me forever, but it didn’t really affect her life. Not like naked pictures on the Internet. Not like a tell-all book filled with god-only-knows what sort of hurtful lies… I couldn’t imagine a scenario where there would be anything truthful that Ava had ever done that could fill a tell-all book. The girl was only 19, for fuck sakes, and as innocent as they come. How much could she have done?
I had no doubt the book would be filled with bullshit designed simply to sell copies and line the pocket of the bitch telling the stories.
What kind of a woman would do that? What kind of a woman could play Ava’s mom one second and then turn around and stab her in the back the next? What kind of woman…?
My mind stuttered in the middle of a thought. What kind of woman? That was what I needed to find out. That was the fixable problem.
Because I wanted to fix things for Ava, even if I couldn’t fix things with Ava. I owed her that much.
I owed her a hell of a lot more, but this much I could do.
Leaving the breaker room, I circled the house again, keeping away from the side my room was on. Just as I made it to my office, I heard the sound of an engine starting and knew that River must be taking the girls to the airport. I couldn’t blame Ava for that. I didn’t even want to be around myself right now. I just hoped she didn’t do anything she’d regret later. I hoped if she was headed back to L.A., it was to her parents’ house, where she could get some rest and comfort, where she could feel safe and not worry that someone was going to betray her as soon as she let her guard down.
I was an ass.
Focus on something fixable.
When I sat at the computer, I paused, letting the idea roll around in my head a while. It had been a long time since I’d had a problem I wanted to fix this badly,
since I’d felt those wheels start creaking to life.
I’d done a little investigating into Ava’s life in the past week. Enough to know basic things. This was different, though. Now it was time for a deep search.
I started looking everywhere. Google to start, which mostly just brought up the latest gossip, but I soon spread further, dug in deeper. I found clips of commercials she’d done as a kid, movies where she’d played an extra with no lines, even a picture of her from her junior high yearbook, skinny and awkward with blond braids and braces.
There were a lot of pictures of her with her castmates, too. Not just screen caps or publicity shoots, but of them hanging around on the backlot, or having lunch, or huddled under umbrellas. They looked like a real family. Every picture of Ava with Fiona had her smiling up at that bitch like the sun shone out of her ass.
Suddenly, I felt the need to know everything I could about this woman. I knew exactly what I wanted to do for Ava, even if she never knew it was me. I wanted to take Fiona down and maybe that scumbag manager, too.
Fiona was easy enough to find information on. There were articles about her in every gossip rag and sleazy website I could find, going back years. She’d been a relatively famous actress in the late-90s/early-2000s, but her career had fallen off sharply. Since then, she’d had a spate of roles as mothers, or mothers-in-law, or spinster aunts. In every instance that I saw, Fiona played second fiddle until one day, suddenly, there was a scandal involving her (always younger, always rising) co-star, and their careers imploded. Fiona just seemed to brush the dirt off and keep going.
Ken was harder, but I found just what I was looking for. He’d worked with Fiona on a show in 2005, when he was young and new to the business. His client had been Fiona’s co-star, just 18 and cute as a button. A few years into her role on the show, she was caught snorting coke at a nightclub she wasn’t old enough to be in. Her manager could not be reached for comment.
That was enough. I could start with that. Now to get to work.
Even though my anger at both Ken and Fiona made me want to start with revenge, I knew there was a much more pressing issue at hand. I hadn’t tried any serious hacking in years now, but I figured I could dust off those skills pretty easily. Manipulating news sites so that any stories involving the leaked nudes would be given the lowest priority in any algorithm wasn’t so much difficult as it was tedious.
But what did I care? It wasn’t like I was doing anything else with my time. And even if I had obligations, nothing mattered anymore beyond making Ava’s life what it should be. What she deserved it to be.
21
Ava
“Sure you don’t want me to come in with you?”
I couldn’t blame Layla for asking. We’d been sitting in her car outside my parents’ house for the last fifteen minutes, and I couldn’t bring myself to open the door.
“I’m totally willing,” she continued. “I will take that bullet for you. I’m that good of a friend.”
I smiled a little. Ever since I’d fired her, she’d been taking every opportunity possible to mention that we were friends, no matter how often I reassured her that I believed it. “No,” I said, taking a deep breath. “No, I should do this on my own.”
My mom had been very sweet on the phone. No recriminations, no disappointment. It was almost too much. When I’d started getting bigger roles, Mom had been very careful to warn me about the sort of people I’d meet in Hollywood. The sort of manipulation and betrayal I’d face. There was an ”I told you so” waiting in there. I knew it. And who could blame her, after everything I’d done to her and my dad?
“Want me to keep the engine running for a quick getaway?” Layla asked as I reached for the door handle for the sixth time. She’d offered to let me stay with her, but her place was just a room in an apartment she shared with two other women. I was not going to fit there.
“Just... tell me again I can do this?”
“You can do this, boo.”
“Thanks, Layla,” I said, turning to pull her into a hug. “For everything. Really. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
“Dude,” she said, squeezing me tight. “You sound like you think I’m never going to see you again. We’re buds now. We’re gonna hang out all the time. Especially since we’re both out of work.”
I laughed as I pulled back. “Well, there’s an upside to this all then, at least.” I looked out the window again, toward my parents’ house, the house I’d grown up in, the house I’d left in a fit almost two years ago. With a firm nod, I opened the door and stepped out.
“You got this, Ava,” Layla said, and I managed a sort of half-smile as I strode toward the house.
The door opened when I was about halfway up the walk, and my mom came running out to pull me into a hug. “Oh, baby,” she said, and I could hear the tears she was holding back. “Oh, Ava-bean, I’m so glad you’re home.”
It was hearing my childhood nickname that made me break down into tears of my own. I hugged her back tightly and buried my face in her shoulder.
My mom always smelled like rose water and soil. It smelled like home, and all at once I felt myself falling back into childhood. I supposed I’d never really grown up, never really lived on my own like a regular person.
My dad came out next, a big grin on his face. I knew that a lot of people thought my dad was a little dim, the way he always looked at life like nothing was ever wrong, but I knew better. It was his way of supporting people—showing them that life went on.
“There’s my sweet Ava-bean!” he said, giving me a quick hug. “Welcome home, bug.”
I laughed, and it was only slightly choked off by tears. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Come on in,” Mom said. “You must be exhausted. We have lunch ready whenever you want it.” She reached for my hand to tug me inside, and her fingers touched the ring I was still wearing. I’d wanted to toss it away, but for some reason I couldn’t make myself do it, so instead I just switched it to another finger. Besides, I might turn out to need the money it was worth after all. “That’s pretty,” she said, and I could see some unspoken questions behind her eyes, but she was doing her best to hold back. There was plenty we needed to talk about, lots about my life in the last couple of years I had to fill her in on, but not this. Not yet, anyway.
I pulled my hand back, glancing down at it briefly. “It’s... yeah, it is pretty, but I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it. Anyway… you mentioned something about lunch?”
“All laid out in the kitchen,” she said, and I was grateful she didn’t push. I slipped the ring off my finger, playing with it in my palm a bit. I should send it back to Bennett, really, but it wasn’t like he needed it. Either way, I could decide what to do with it another time, after I had a chance to just crash away from all the drama of my life and my career.
As I passed the ring from finger to finger, toying with it in my hand, I let it slip back onto my hand.
I’ll deal with it tomorrow.
My mom let me take my lunch to my room, and I plugged my phone in almost immediately. It had been dead since the day I got to the ranch, but I couldn’t afford to block out the world any longer. As I munched on my sandwich, I flicked through dozens of texts from friends, co-stars, directors, agents, even my hairdresser.
There were two conspicuous absences: Ken and Fiona.
And Bennett.
So three.
Not that I’d expected any of them to call or text. My fingers unconsciously moved to turn the ring on my left hand, slipping it off and sliding it back onto my wedding finger. When I realized what I had done, I switched it back and then sat on the hand to keep from doing it again.
In a way, I was glad that none of them had tried to contact me. I didn’t know what I’d say if they had. I didn’t have anything to say to any of them.
For a while, I just stared at my list of unanswered messages with a feeling like there was a lump of lead in my stomach.
I was back in the real w
orld now. Nothing to do but start living it.
By the time I’d finished answering the ones I really needed to get back to (I left the one from the studio exec saying he was “so sorry things had turned out this way” and “wished me the best on my future endeavors” for later), my mom was calling up that dinner was ready.
It was such a wonderfully normal thing, such a callback to before things had gotten ugly and complicated, that I had to laugh. Maybe things would be okay. Maybe I could just stay here until I figured everything out.
My dad was waiting at the bottom of the stairs with a glass of orange juice. “Don’t tell your mom,” he whispered. “I gave it a little kick.”
I took it from him and sipped curiously, surprised to find it tasted of what I now knew was vodka. I smiled and hooked my arm through his. “Thanks, Dad.”
My ring clinked against the glass, but for tonight, I was not going to think about it. Tonight I was nobody’s sweetheart. Tonight, I was just Ava-bean.
22
Bennett
Despite my best efforts, when I did a search for Ava the next morning, her pictures and her feud with Fiona came in at the top of every page. Every gossip site had it either as the front page story or at the top of the sidebar. This was bigger than me, clearly, and out of my skill set.
Luckily, in my time on the convention circuit, I’d met a lot of people working in the IT world. One of them, Luke Braden, worked at Google, specializing in Search Engine Optimization. I figured if he didn’t know how to help me out, he’d at least know someone who would. I refused to believe this was out of our hands.
Well, my hands, anyway. Ava’s hands were somewhere else entirely.
I caught Luke just before his lunch break, and it was clear that he was impatient to get going.
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