In Development

by Rachel Spangler

  “He wanted me to talk to you. He made some good points, but he also sort of scared me.”

  “How?”

  Lila’s shoulders tensed, as if the memory of the conversation still stressed her out. “Because he sort of suggested that if I’m ever going to let myself trust again, I’m going to have to deal with Selena.”

  “Your sister? Deal with her how?”

  “I don’t know,” Lila said. “That’s the scary part. I thought I already had. I haven’t seen her in years. The only time I think about her is when I send her a monthly check so she’ll stay out of the press.”

  “Wow.” Lila paid off her sister to stay out of her life? “What did she do that was so bad?”

  “Nothing,” Lila said quickly, then added, “I’m not putting you off again. I mean it. She did nothing. When I needed her most, she walked away. She never answered calls or letters, just nothing.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She’s three years older than me, and we were poor. We shared a room. We shared homemade clothes and all our secrets. Our dad wasn’t around, and our mom had a penchant for men and booze. We moved a lot. New rental houses, new schools, new stepdads or live-in boyfriends, but Selena was always there. And she promised she always would be. She taught me to cook and sew and dodge my mom’s boyfriends. She said I could always count on her, no matter what. She said if we stuck together, things would get better eventually.”

  “But?”

  “But things didn’t get better. They kept getting worse. As years went on, my mom drank more, and the guys she dated got more violent. We started running out of food. There was so much yelling. Then came a boy with a fast motorcycle. He offered to take Selena away from it all, but you can’t ride three on a bike.”

  “Oh, Lila.” Cobie gave her a squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”

  “She just went with him one night. I cried and begged her not to leave me there alone in that awful trailer that reeked of cigarettes and desperation.” Lila shook, and Cobie pulled up the blankets even though she knew they couldn’t banish the chill in her now.

  “Selena said she had to take care of herself, and she couldn’t take care of me too. She peeled my hands off her and told me I had to learn to take care of myself. Then she walked out and left me in hell.”

  “And she never came back?”

  “Not then, not when the boy left her, not when I moved out. Not even when our mother died. She never even tried to contact me until after I got famous. Even then, she only called because she needed some money. Shocking, right?”

  “And you gave it to her?”

  “I did. I was just getting started, and I’d worked hard to build my image as someone hot and exciting and, most importantly, uplifting. A trailer-trash sister talking to the press would’ve blown a major hole in my upbeat brand.”

  “Also, she’s your sister.”

  Lila shrugged. “I waver back and forth on that. Most days it doesn’t feel like I have a sister, but sometimes, I don’t know, I just wish . . .”

  “I get it,” Cobie said softly, “and seeing me with Emma probably tripped some triggers for you.”

  “I think so. It hurt to see the contrast, but it was also good, you know?”

  Cobie nodded, her chin rubbing the top of Lila’s head. So many things made sense now. Lila’s independence, the back and forth, the way her flippant attitude about relationships seemed to war with her passion about so many other things. But did understanding those connections actually change their situation in any way? Or did knowing what they were up against actually make their path harder than the less-than-blissful existence they’d shared before? She stared at the pale orange glow spreading slowly across the ceiling for a long time before she finally asked, “What are we going to do now?”

  Lila sighed softly and shifted in her arm. “Try to get some sleep.”

  Cobie smiled. It wasn’t the answer she’d hoped for, but it wasn’t a bad idea either.

  • • •

  Lila placed a note on the table next to Cobie’s bed. Part of her had wanted to talk before she left, but she didn’t know how to say why, so it might be for the best that Cobie seemed dead to the world at eleven a.m. She hadn’t woken when Lila got up or slipped away to her own room for a fresh change of clothes. She hadn’t moved an inch in all the time it had taken Lila to shower and dress and sneak back in. Lila was a little jealous of her ability to succumb to physical oblivion so fully, but then again, if it weren’t for the topics weighing so heavily on her mind, she might have slept the day away as well. Maybe if she just crawled back under the covers and snuggled into Cobie’s protective embrace, she could lose all her troubles for a little while longer.

  No. She’d put off her problems long enough, and after last night, she realized she’d paid a heavy price for doing so. She slipped quietly from the room.

  Padding down the stairs, she pulled on ratty old tennis shoes and a ball cap, then, circumventing the press, headed out the side door where Malik waited with a rented car.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “As much as I’ll ever be.”

  They drove through the city in silence as images from the night before played through her mind. Cobie in her costume, dark eyes brooding with mystery. The moment when Cobie had pushed her, refusing to let her run, so strong, so fierce. The passion radiating off her as she lifted Lila to the bed, all raw strength and need. She shuddered as a little shot of arousal coursed through her again.

  “You cold?” Malik asked.

  Of course he would notice even the tiniest movement. “No, I’m fine.”

  She glanced around and realized she didn’t recognize the neighborhood. It wasn’t bad, or great, just nondescript. Lots of five- or six-story brick buildings lined with asphalt parking lots and covered bus stops. “Are we almost there?”

  “It’s the next block. I’ll get out and sweep the stairway.”

  “No. You wait in the car.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go in until—”

  “Malik, I have to do this,” she said with a certainty she didn’t feel. “You can guard the front door, but trust me, no one inside has the potential to hurt me more than they already have.”

  He pulled the car to a stop in front of a building that mirrored all the others and got out to open her door. “I want to go with you.”

  She hugged him as tightly as she could despite the fact that her arms didn’t reach all the way around his massive torso. “I know. Me too.”

  He walked her to the door and stood with his arms folded across his chest. “I’ll be right here.”

  She nodded. Knowing that did help a little as she climbed the stairs toward an address she’d written enough times to have memorized. Apartment 3A sounded so much less personal than this felt.

  She raised a trembling hand, took a deep breath, and knocked three times.

  She didn’t get to wait and wonder, because the door swung open before she was ready to face the blue eyes so much like her own.

  Selena took a step back as if shocked, but she managed to speak first. “It’s you.”

  She nodded, still unable to form words as she processed all the similarities and differences: same eyes, same chin, but different hair, short and darker brown, like their mother’s. Worry lines cut across her forehead, and parentheses etched deep around her lips, a smoker. Still, she hadn’t lost her figure. She was nearly as slim and lithe as she’d been the day she’d ridden off into the north Florida sunset.

  “It’s never you,” Selena mused. “I kept expecting you, but then so much time passed that I stopped.”

  “Can I come in?”

  Selena nodded and opened the door wider to let her pass.

  The place was nice enough. Clean, if not tidy. Lila hadn’t known what she’d expected. She paid the bills, but she didn’t know who Selena had become. Looking around now, she suspected their mother had colored her fears. At least Selena wasn’t her. No one was her since she’d di
ed nine years ago. Maybe she should ask Selena where she’d been then, but she couldn’t bring herself to go back there.

  “You want something to drink?” Selena asked, her voice firm, but the way she rubbed her palm gave away her nervousness. “I just have orange juice or water. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have gotten something else.”

  “I didn’t know I was coming until about an hour ago,” Lila said honestly.

  “Why did you?”

  “I don’t know,” Lila admitted. “I don’t really have anything to say. Maybe I just wanted to see. I spent so many years wondering and worrying, afraid to go back, afraid to lose. I don’t know. Maybe I just needed to face it. To face you.”

  “Well,” Selena said slowly, “here I am.”

  Lila stared at her, waiting. Though for what, she couldn’t say. She just felt like there should be more. An apology? An explanation? Some sort of emotional cue? Is this what Cobie felt each time Lila had stood there, stone faced amid her hurt and confusion?

  “I’d ask if you were doing okay,” Selena finally said, “but I see the news.”

  “The news rarely tells the full story.”

  Selena snorted. “No one ever does.”

  Lila shook her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just what you said, no story is ever a full story.”

  “I suppose you want me to ask for your story now?”

  Selena shook her head. “There’s not really much to tell, at least not much that would matter to you. I did some night school, waitressing, temping, there was man or two, none worth remembering. With your help I do fine, but all the interesting parts happened before we went our separate ways.”

  “Went our separate ways,” Lila repeated. What a benign phrase for the worst tragedy of her life.

  “If you’re waiting for me to apologize, you should probably pull up a chair and make yourself at home because you’ll be waiting awhile.”

  Lila sat but not to wait, to brace herself against the pain of the comment. “You don’t regret any of it, do you?”

  “Not a lick,” Selena said, a hint of the old drawl tracing the edge of her voice. “Not because things turned out all that great for me, but every time I see you on TV or on stage somewhere, I know I did the right thing.”

  Lila blinked several times and even went so far as to open her mouth, but she couldn’t form a response. Shouldn’t it have been the other way around?

  “You’re a superstar, Lila. You’re the poster girl for the strong, self-sufficient woman. Your whole career is like some how-to guide for independence.”

  “And?”

  “And . . .” Selena drew out the word, then waited for Lila to fill in the blank before rolling her eyes. “Do you really think you’d be who you’ve become without the early lesson in independence?”

  “Lesson in independence?” Lila exploded off the couch. “Is that how you justify it to yourself? Like some sort of tough love? Because your dumping me for the first guy with hot hands and fast wheels was some sort of selfless act that set me on the path to stardom? You don’t get to take credit for who I am, not in any way. You didn’t push me out of the nest to make me spread my wings. You walked out on me for a guy who turned around and walked out on you.”

  “Well, the last part is certainly true. He and I hadn’t even been shacked up for six months before I woke up to find him and that pretty bike of his gone. I shouldn’t have trusted him, but because I did, you didn’t make the same mistake.”

  She couldn’t believe Selena’s logic.

  “You never depended on anyone else. Hell, how many songs have you written on the subject. Never look to some man to save you, that’s what you preach because you learned early to save yourself.”

  “You shattered me,” Lila shouted.

  “Obviously not.” Selena shot back. “Your face is on a billboard that’s twenty-five stories tall. You’re a gazillionaire. You’re one of the most powerful people under the age of thirty or something else some magazine ranked you as.”

  “I’ve never trusted anyone again.” Lila practically choked on all the anguish gripping her throat.

  “Good.” Selena shot back. “That’s my girl. No one can be trusted. Not our mother, not our friends, not any man I’ve ever met. They all get what they need and then they leave. That’s what I tried to tell you the night I left.”

  “Oh, you did more than tell me. You showed me.”

  “And you took the lesson to heart. You were younger, but you were always smarter. It took me years to really get it, but you took off. You put your faith in you instead of depending on anyone else. If you came here today wanting to hear me say I was wrong, you wasted your time.”

  “Yeah,” Lila said with a sigh. She wasn’t sure what she’d come for, but it wasn’t this. “I guess I did.”

  She pulled a check from her pocket and tossed it onto the coffee table. “How’s your philosophy of not depending on people working out for you.”

  Selena laughed. “Good dig, Lila. You always were a sassy kid. Always running around with that little gay boy and writing your weird poems on the cereal boxes. I know you don’t believe me, but I’m glad you got out. I wanted it more for you than I did for me.”

  Lila shook her head again.

  “I mean it,” Selena said, catching her hand and giving it a tight squeeze. “Take care of yourself, always. You take care of you. You’re the only one you can count on. Everyone else is only going to let you down eventually.”

  Lila pulled away. “Thanks for that again.”

  Then she walked out the door. She picked up her pace with each flight of stairs until she felt more like falling than running. She flew past Malik, who sprinted to keep up with her as people on the street stopped to stare.

  “Ms. Wilder,” he whispered. “Ms. Wilder, I have the car here. Ms. Wilder . . .”

  She could hear him and see him, but she couldn’t make sense of anything.

  “Ms. Wilder.” He finally stepped in front of her. “Lila, stop.”

  She did. Maybe it was his tone, or perhaps she was just lost enough to listen to a direct command.

  “The car,” he said firmly.

  She blinked back tears and turned around in a slow circle. The sun shone overhead. Cars passed. People whispered. On the corner, a woman sat waiting for a bus, looking slowly from Lila to the gossip rag in her hand. On the cover, two photos shared side-by-side billing. The first one featured a perfectly framed and lit shot of Cobie kissing Lila at the party last night. The other was grainy and dark, but she knew the moment well enough to recognize the image of Cobie passing her phone back to Cordelia. Across the top of both photographs ran the headline “Date and Switch?”

  The intersection spun, or maybe that was only her brain, but the lights whirred and the corners of her vision blurred until all the images blended together. Cobie, Selena, Cordelia.

  “Lila,” Malik said again softly, “let me take care of you.”

  “No,” she said shakily. “I can take care of myself.”

  He regarded her seriously, his dark eyes full of concern.

  She couldn’t take his pity. The shame and embarrassment bore down heavily, but she would not buckle. She straightened her shoulders and blew out an exasperated breath. “I’m fine. Just get me a copy of all today’s celebrity papers and meet me back at the car.”

  Then she turned and headed back to the car with her head held high.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Good morning, Cobie. I had an important meeting I had to take this morning, and you were too beautiful to disturb, so you’ll have to wait until I get home to hear all about it. — Lila.” She smiled for the seventh time as she read the little note once more, then chuckled at the post script. “P.S. For future reference, this is how you leave a note for someone you’ve had amazing sex with.”

  She flopped back onto the bed. The sex had been amazing. She’d known at the time and every moment since then, but it still helped to know
Lila recognized it too. It wasn’t just sex though. She’d always suspected they’d be electric in bed, and they’d had plenty of previous experiences to bolster the belief, but last night offered something more. Last night hadn’t been a lapse in judgment or some kind of emotional or physical breakdown. Maybe it started that way, but by the time morning had rolled around, they’d both been fully present and open in a way Cobie couldn’t have imagined before. The emotional vulnerability surely equaled a game changer for them.

  Neither she nor Lila could claim to be the people they’d pretended to be. They couldn’t deny their connection went beyond work and play. Not anymore. The only question now was who would they become? And for the first time, Cobie was excited to find out.

  She heard the front door open and fought the urge to bound down the stairs like a puppy. Then she heard it slam heavily, and her exuberance dimmed. Lila’s footsteps fell heavy on the stairs but didn’t stop on the second floor. The stomping continued up to the third story and only stopped when another slamming door echoed through the upper floor. Cobie’s chest tightened, but she dared to hope Hurricane Lila had merely been sparked by a frustrating business meeting. Pulling on a pair of sweatpants and a Bramble College hoodie, she told herself to be brave. Dating a woman like Lila meant taking all of her, the talents and moods, the passion and the thunder. Besides, Lila had been angry the night before and that ended pretty well. She wouldn’t mind a repeat performance.

  With a cocky grin, she climbed the stairs, already picturing a fiery reunion. She paused outside the door long enough to note Lila wasn’t playing any music before she knocked.

  “I’m working,” came a sharp retort.

  “I’ve got some very important work to do too,” Cobie called.

  “Then go do it downstairs.”

  Cobie’s smile faltered. She’d expected a little softer response when Lila heard her voice. “Actually, it’s important work for both of us.”

  Lila sighed loud enough to be heard through the door before opening it. “Cobie, I’ve got a lot going—”