by Wendy Wax
“So, what happened with Jake?” I didn’t intend to bring this up, but he’s apparently in Vail with someone else right now and she’s barely mentioned him since she got here. And she’s the one who introduced the subject of relationships.
It takes her so long to answer that I think she isn’t going to. I’m about to apologize for bringing him up, when she says, “I don’t know. We had this huge fight after those photos of him and that . . . Andrea . . . surfaced and he stormed out. I’d see him on the set every day, but he just kept acting like I was the one who did something wrong.”
“Yeah.” I watch her tilt her head to check out every angle. “A lot of guys seem to believe the best defense is a strong offense. I think they teach them that when they start playing sports and they just apply it to everything.”
She snorts, but there’s a sob in there somewhere. “I didn’t know he was still going to Vail. And I sure as hell didn’t know he was taking someone else with him.” She finally turns away from the mirror. In my room we head for our beds and she says, “I think I’m going to take a nice, long break from men.”
It’s my turn to snort as I pull back my covers and climb between the sheets. “Really? Because I think Thomas and Andrew both have the hots for you. I’d kind of hate to see my brother get crushed.”
“I’ll be gentle,” she says as she pulls her covers up to her chin. “I’m not trying to start anything.” Her voice drops. “I guess I’m just kind of lonely.”
Your average person would be shocked to know that a beautiful and well-known actress deals with the same kind of stuff they do. But in the end it all comes down to who we let into our lives and the choices that we make. I sigh and think about Daniel’s Santa stunt. I don’t like being manipulated, and I especially hate how hard it is to keep my emotional distance from him. It barely took him two weeks to get me in bed and make me fall in love with him during the filming of Halfway Home. You’d think I would have built up immunity by now.
Six weeks on a film set with him and his wife and their children? I don’t see how I would ever survive it. And how would it make Dustin feel knowing that they all get to live together and be a part of Daniel’s life while he gets the occasional visit and over-the-top gift?
“What was all that with the puppy?” Sydney asks, as if she’s following my disjointed train of thought.
“Well, I know Daniel loves Dustin. And he does like to give him serious gifts. But the timing and the staging? He and Tonja have sunk a lot of their own money into this film and to Daniel’s directorial debut. I don’t think there’s much they wouldn’t do to help guarantee its success.”
“Including bribing Dustin with a puppy?” she asks with a yawn.
“Dustin already wants to ‘hact’ with his father so the puppy’s probably just an extra inducement. Some of that was for the media. There’s not much hard news over the holidays and that was a beautifully orchestrated pull-at-your-heartstrings kind of moment that’s bound to get a lot of attention.”
“And if you’re not seduced by the money or lulled by the warm pull-at-your-heartstrings moments?” Sydney asks.
“They’ll go back to playing hardball.” I’ve already experienced this on more than one occasion. “You were there the first time Tonja came after me, Syd. Honestly, I deserved to be chucked off that film. I was a complete and total fool for believing Daniel actually loved me. But you—you didn’t really have to get involved.”
Sydney repositions her covers and sighs. “I always side with the underdog—it’s one of my biggest failings. Besides, if I hadn’t been in Hollywood as long as I had at that point, it could have been me.”
I stop staring at the ceiling to look at her. In the shards of moonlight that filter through the window, I can see her wince. “What do you mean?”
There’s a long beat of silence and then she says, “Daniel hit on me when I was reading for the part. He was subtle but his intention was clear.”
I hold my breath and wait for her to go on. Even though I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear this.
“I’d been around long enough to know that’s not the best way to get a part or hold on to one. I turned him down as gracefully as I knew how—that’s an important skill in my line of work.” A wry smile twists her lips. “I don’t think he was really all that interested in me. But if he hadn’t set his sights on you so quickly, I might not have skated off so easily.”
I try to take in this rewriting of the most important part of my history to date. “And this is the first time you’re telling me this?”
She goes up on one elbow. “At the time you were in love and as I recall it, that love was almost completely blind.” She swallows. “And we didn’t know each other that well. It didn’t seem like the right time to bring it up.”
“Seriously?” I really can’t believe this. All this time I’ve told myself that Daniel met me and simply couldn’t help himself. “You didn’t think I should have known that I wasn’t his first choice?”
“Oh, Kyra. What makes you think I was his first choice? Tonja probably knew he hit on me the same way she knew the first time he kissed you—she makes it her business to know what’s happening on Daniel’s sets. Besides, what would have been the point? Tonja was already moving to have you thrown off the picture. Then you were pregnant with Dustin. How would knowing that he’d hit on me have been helpful?”
“Jeez!” I flop onto my back and stare up at the shadowed ceiling, still trying to absorb the shock and what feels like a betrayal. Would it have made me more cautious if I’d known he’d wanted Sydney? Would it have made me realize how easily he could transfer his interest from one potential lover to another?
“I’m sorry,” Sydney says. “I just couldn’t make myself tell you at the time. Then the longer you don’t say something, the harder it gets.”
I know this from personal experience, having kept the loan I took out on Bella Flora to myself way longer than I should have. On the other hand, information is key. How can you prepare against things you don’t know? And friendship should be based on honesty.
“Jeez,” I say again but less emphatically. This is way too heavy a conversation for Christmas Eve. Sydney’s revelation has knocked even the possibility of visions of dancing sugarplums right out of my head.
“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner,” she murmurs. “I really am.”
I’m exhausted and not remotely able to process this revelation or think about what happened five years ago. I’m not even sure why I’m so shocked that I wasn’t his first choice when I already know I wasn’t his last.
“I hope you’ll forgive me, Ky.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Despite the shock, my thoughts are slowing. My eyelids get heavy. I begin to drift off. I have way bigger issues with Daniel than the fact that he came on to Sydney first all those years ago. I have to reach a decision about the movie. I have to move out of Bella Flora and turn it over to a stranger. I have to be up in just a few hours. I try to push these things out of my head, but as darkness descends this is exactly what I dream about. Daniel and Sydney. Only it’s now, not then. Daniel and Sydney, whom he falls so madly in love with that he actually leaves Tonja Kay and . . .
Something cold and wet touches my skin. There’s a snuffling sound attached. Visions of Daniel and Tonja Kay and Sydney evaporate.
“Mommy?” A hand grasps my shoulder.
“Mommy!” It’s Dustin. My eyes feel as if they’re glued shut, but Dustin needs me. I have to wake up. I have to . . . “I need help!”
I don’t know whether this is real or a dream, but I’m a mother. I struggle out from under my covers and sit up. I manage to swing my legs over the side of the bed while trying desperately to wake up completely so that I can take action. I can’t seem to make my eyes open. I don’t understand what’s happening. “What? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s my . . .”
“. . . my puppy needs to go to the . . .”
We both look down at the yellow liquid I’m standing in.
Dustin looks up at me then back down at the puppy, who is apparently not quite finished.
“Oh no! Oh no you don’t!” I scoop up the puppy and run for the back stairs, holding him out in front of me, careful not to slip in the droplets that jounce out of him as we descend. By the time we get outside, he’s finished and my feet aren’t the only things that have been splattered.
I put him down on the grass and he sniffs around for a moment or two. He looks up at me. Then I swear he shrugs.
“Merry Christmas, Kyra! Can you and Dustin give us a smile, luv?” Nigel Bracken is wearing a red and green Hawaiian-print shirt, no doubt in honor of the holiday. A red Santa hat sits at a jaunty angle on his head. He is not alone.
I look down at the ragged boxers and T-shirt I slept in. I’m not wearing a bra or underwear and I am spattered with puppy pee. I never want to see this picture or the caption they’ll give it. But it’s unlikely I’ll be able to avoid it.
Dustin puts his hand in mine as the camera drives whir. He and the puppy look up at me. I’m pretty sure they’re both smiling. “Is it time? Dustin asks me hopefully. “Can we go in now and open presents?”
Six
Inside I notice everything I missed in our mad dash to get the puppy out to the backyard. Coffee is brewing. Conversations are taking place in the kitchen. Even my brother, who is always the last person to wake up on pretty much every occasion, has made it to the main house wearing something other than pajamas. Both he and Thomas Hightower, who are in the kitchen munching on coffee cake and cinnamon buns, offer to go wake up Sydney.
I remind myself that it’s Christmas, but the dregs of my nightmare are still with me and there’s an internal clock I can’t seem to turn off that’s counting down the days until we have to turn our home over to some stranger.
“Go get dressed. Everybody will be here in an hour.” My mother hands me a cup of coffee and points us toward the back stairs. “I put your favorite pants and sweater on your bed, Dustin. Do you want me to help you get dressed?”
“I kin do it.” Dustin is already scooping the puppy up into his arms, and I am forced to accept that there’s no way on earth I’m ever going to convince Dustin to give him back. He’s barely let go of him since Santa delivered him. “We’re going to have to figure out what to call him,” I say as we tromp upstairs. “And we’re definitely going to have to potty train him.”
“Like me!” Dustin beams, still proud to have graduated to big-boy underwear.
“Right.” Dustin pretty much trained himself, but I don’t think dogs are motivated by the chance to wear Thomas the Tank Engine underwear. “We’re going to have to make sure he understands that if he needs to go to the bathroom, he has to do it outside.”
He nods solemnly though neither of us has any real idea how to make this happen.
“If I get dressed real fast, kin I jes open a little present?”
I give him the raised eyebrow Mom is so good at.
“Peeeassse. . . .”
I try the other eyebrow. “Everyone will be here soon to open presents.”
“But I wanna . . .”
It’s clear the eyebrow thing needs work, so I simply shake my head and turn my back. He’s still protesting as I duck into the master bathroom to shower and dress since both my mom and Will are downstairs and Sydney has already commandeered the second bathroom. I’m done and heading back downstairs before Sydney shows herself, but then I didn’t put on makeup or blow-dry my hair. Even back when I had no one to think about but myself, I wasn’t thinking about those things.
My thoughts circle back to Daniel and I catch myself wondering just how diverse his taste in women really is. I mean, Sydney and I are friends but it’s not because we resemble each other in any physical way. And neither of us looks remotely like Tonja Kay, which I guess is the point. Ugh. I do not want to spend Christmas morning thinking about Daniel, Tonja Kay, or any of the decisions I need to make. So I follow Dustin’s voice to the kitchen where he’s “helping” Geema and lobbying to open just one “teensy-weensy” present and practically inhale a cinnamon roll and a glass of milk, hoping the sugar rush will put me in a more festive mood. Alas, it appears there’s not enough sugar in the world, or at least in Bella Flora, to make my thoughts completely Christmas-worthy. I nonetheless work my way through two and a half cinnamon buns and a Christmas cookie trying, and am licking the sugar off my fingers when Sydney strolls into the kitchen in a clingy red dress looking as if she’s been in hair and makeup.
It’s a relief when the doorbell rings at nine o’clock sharp. Six or seven rings later the celebration kicks into high gear and Bella Flora is bulging at the seams. The Hardins and Giraldis are all here along with octogenarian Realtor and friend John Franklin, his wife Renée, and her sister Annelise, the original owners of the Sunshine Hotel. In all, twenty-three of us press into the salon, twenty-five if you count the twin babies that everyone takes a turn holding. I lift my video camera to my shoulder as the present opening begins with Dustin’s stocking and escalates into a gift giving and receiving free-for-all that is not for the faint of heart.
Everyone has brought a present for Dustin and by the time he’s done, a wall of gifts that’s almost as tall as he is has risen around him. I can’t help smiling at his pure unadulterated joy as I go in for a close-up.
“Is all for me, Mommy! Lookit what everybody gived me!” He buckles on the new tool belt from Avery and the Hardins, plucks the strings of the guitar that Will promises to teach him to play, and shrieks with excitement when Joe Giraldi wheels a shiny red bicycle complete with training wheels and a matching helmet out of the hall closet and helps Dustin on it.
“Thank you! Thank you!” He kisses cheeks and gives and receives high fives with a blissful smile that makes my heart swell. He’s thrilled with everything, but there’s no question which gift he prizes most. He doesn’t let the puppy out of his sight and neither does Sherlock, though in Sherlock’s case it’s more about self-preservation and fending off the puppy’s overly enthusiastic stealth attacks of affection.
Mouthwatering smells emanate from the ovens as the morning flies by to a soundtrack of Christmas songs and happy chatter. Just after noon, my father carves the turkey while Will slices the ham. I make sure to capture this on video because only my mother could have two men who love her working so close to each other with knives. Then we fill the water glasses while Avery and Chase, who are definitely flirting with each other, open bottles of wine. Bitsy tries to help, but it’s clear she doesn’t have a lot of experience in anything but being served. My mother, always the diplomat, assigns her to help Dustin fill baskets with rolls and biscuits and then carry them to the table.
Finally we sit down to a beautifully set table that positively groans with food. Mom sits closest to the kitchen so that she can jump up as needed and orchestrate the meal. I notice that she’s glowing and capture it on video. There’s nothing she likes better than feeding the people that she cares about. And pretty much all of those people are in this room right now. We join hands and bow our heads as she leads us in a simple nondenominational prayer of thanks. This is our village, the family we’ve chosen. I look from face to face then take in the room, the feel of this house that we know so intimately and love so much. Even if we have to vacate Bella Flora for a while to save it, this is our home. The place inside me that has been hollow with panic begins to fill. I reach for my wineglass and without further ceremony we chow down.
We’re still eating when Dustin says he’s had enough and asks if he can go play with the puppy, who finally gave up on trying to convince Sherlock to play a while ago and is now curled up beneath Dustin’
s chair.
“Don’t you think you should name him first?” I’m nursing a nice warm inner glow and I intend to do everything in my power to keep that glow going. “We have to call him something.”
“We do,” my mother says. “And it should be something special.”
“Well, don’t ask Nikki,” Avery quips. “It took her an inordinate amount of time to name her children.”
Nikki shoots her a look, but she doesn’t argue. One of the twins did come home from the hospital without a name.
“How about Snarls Barkley?” my brother the basketball fan asks. “Or even Bark Obama in honor of our former president.”
There’s laughter.
“Or maybe Bark Wahlberg.” This comes from the only one of us who resides in Hollywood and had a cameo on Entourage.
“Let’s not overlook the music industry,” Will says. “I kind of like Sinead O’Collar. Or Billie Howliday.”
“Those are female singers,” Thomas Hightower points out. “We need a guy name.” He grins. “How about Ozzy Pawsborne?”
“Or L.L. Drool J?” I throw out.
After that the suggestions come fast and furious.
“Jimmy Chew!” Bitsy throws in. “You know he’ll be eating footwear. It might as well be designer.”
“Bark Twain!” John Franklin goes for the literary.
“Sherlock Bones!” his wife Renée chimes in.
Sherlock lifts his head and snuffles while the rest of us laugh.
“We already hab a Cherlock!” Dustin says. I know most of this has to be going right over his head, but he’s enjoying the spirit of the conversation as well as the laughter.
“If we’re talking literature, I vote for J. K. Growling!” my mother, who loved the Harry Potter books as much as we did, says.
“Josh and Jason couldn’t get enough of those books,” Chase adds. “What do you think of Hairy Paw-ter?”