Move the Stars

by Jessica Hawkins

  What would Manning think? I hated that he came to mind first, but that’d always been my habit—what was Manning doing, how was he, and did he still think of me? Having Tiffany in the room didn’t change that. If anything, his absence was stronger.

  The longer the show went on, the worse it got. Corbin had already made an appearance. Across the living room, he and I kept exchanging uncomfortable looks.

  During the last commercial break, Val jumped on the couch. “A toast,” she said, “to sexy Bree, and to Lake, America’s next sweetheart.”

  I flinched. I didn’t want to be called that. Not only was it untrue, but was that what America wanted? I hadn’t done anything but sit there. “Please,” I said, “it’s not a big deal.”

  Val groaned. “Stop saying that.”

  “It’s a huge deal,” Tiffany said. I glanced at her, but she was looking at the bottom of her empty champagne glass. As Val bent over to refill it, my new BlackBerry rang. Only a few people had the number, so I wasn’t surprised to see the name June McPherson lit up on the screen.

  “I’m so sorry to interrupt the toast,” I said, “but I have to take this. It’s my agent.”

  “Everyone shut up,” Val called. “Answer it, Lake.”

  While my friends watched, I picked up. “Listen,” June said straight off. She’d been my agent for over a year now and never seemed to run out of energy. “Are you listening?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “With Bree and some friends at a viewing party.”

  “Put me on speakerphone.”

  It took me a moment to figure out how, but once I did, I held up the cell for everyone. “Do you guys fucking love the show or what?” June asked.

  They cheered. Corbin winked at me, even as I rolled my eyes.

  “So do we,” she said. “I’m almost positive we have a smash hit on our hands.”

  Val jumped up and down on the couch as everyone else hooted and hollered.

  I took June off speaker, and she laughed. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she yelled over the noise. “Have fun tonight.”

  Everyone clinked glasses as I hung up, while Tiffany downed her champagne in one go. She raised her glass to no one in particular, got up, and left the room. I was sixteen again, watching Tiffany’s light go out while mine shone on. My face was front and center of a hit TV show while my outgoing, full-of-life older sister spent her life—where? I didn’t even know if she had a desk, a cubicle, or an office, just that she’d recently accepted an associate buyer position at PacSun.

  She’d married young and to the wrong man, and had since lost a baby and gotten divorced. I’d betrayed her in the worst kind of way—just by existing. By being the one our dad had pinned his hopes on. By rising to stardom when she’d never secured a second modeling job. By being her husband’s true love. And yet she had to sit there and toast me. I had the urge to tell her the truth—I wasn’t all that great of an actress, I was definitely a bad sister, and most of all, I was unhappy. I was on my way to a life most only dreamed about. One Tiffany had dreamed about. And yet I would never have what she’d had. No matter how much money I made, no matter who I met or became, I didn’t have Manning then or now, and I wasn’t sure how to move past that.

  3

  Lake

  I left the TV room while the show was still on and found Tiffany out back. She sat at Val’s rusted mesh patio table with a fresh glass of wine, staring out at the pool. I couldn’t watch the show a minute longer. What I’d signed up for wasn’t acting. I’d known that going in, and this wasn’t the end goal by any means, but I wondered if this would be everything Mike Galloway had dangled in front of me. Was it a silver bullet to the career I wanted? The cameras had been around while I’d volunteered, but was it the right kind of attention for the animal shelter I went to?

  Tiffany fumbled with a pack of cigarettes. As she lit one, my first thought was Manning—the smoky, mint-on-nicotine taste of him. He’d finally let me around his cigarettes after years of wanting to be part of it and anything that involved him. But Tiffany, she’d been in it all along, and now that I stood there watching her inhale deeply with satisfaction, I couldn’t help but see things from Manning’s point of view. Finally. He’d exposed us both to it, but he’d protected me and not Tiffany. “Do you smoke a lot?” I asked, closing the sliding glass door behind me.

  “I quit during the pregnancy if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I didn’t mean that.” I could tell that being here was hard for her, I just wasn’t sure why she’d made the effort. “Did you see how awful the show was?” I asked, hoping to break the ice. There was no better way to bring Tiffany out of her shell than to give her the chance to make fun of me. “Everyone keeps saying it’s a hit, but it’s so bad. I’m so bad.”

  “You’re, like, adorably awkward. Naïve but not in an annoying way. People like that stuff.”

  “I guess.” I pulled out the seat across her, steel scraping over concrete, and sat. “How’s Mom?”

  “She’s excited, even though she can barely get through a conversation about you without crying.” She shrugged. “And Dad . . . well, you know how he is.”

  “He probably thinks this whole reality thing is silly.”

  “Pretty much.”

  I touched the thin gold bracelet Dad had given me as a teen. I’d started wearing it again for filming. Even though I was angry at my father, when the cameras were in my face, the bracelet made me feel close to my parents—and Manning, since it was the reason we’d met. No matter how old I got, how successful I might become, my dad’s rejection would never not sting.

  Tiffany blew smoke from the side of her mouth. “But I guarantee he’s watching tonight.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “How are you?”

  “Good.” She sat back, crossing an ankle over her knee. “I got a used bike on the Internet for only twenty bucks. I mean, I’m not starring in a TV show or anything, but it’s something.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Look, I know this is weird, but you don’t have to make it worse.”

  “I thought I could do this,” she said, stubbing out her half-smoked cigarette on the cement. “I thought enough time had passed that I could come here and be happy for you, but I just . . . it all seems so unfair.”

  I digested her words a few moments. For as long as I could remember, Tiffany had taken offense to my success and happiness. “What part, exactly, is unfair?”

  “You have everything handed to you,” she said, “and you just shrug, take it or leave it, like it’s nothing. You throw away your relationship with Dad. Your acceptance to USC. You ignore us for years to run around New York City calling yourself an actress. And then someone shows up at your door and hands you fame and fortune and now you’re not even sure you want it.”

  “That’s not how it happened,” I said. “I spent years struggling with nothing, trying to make a life for myself without any of your support. I lived in a tiny apartment with a broken heater—” A broken lock and a broken heart, I thought, my chest squeezing. “The point is, you’re wrong. The only injustice is that you can’t ever be happy for me unless you have a leg up.”

  “I came all the way here to support you, even though you never congratulated me on my promotion. When I call you, you’re too busy to talk.” She crossed her legs and fixed the twisted strap of her shoe. “How can you blame us for not being there for you when you made it impossible to be?”

  I got quiet as I thought of the myriad excuses I’d invented over the years to get off the line with her or my mom. “Okay,” I said, “but it’s not as if any of you, not even Mom, were beating down my door, trying to get me to come home.”

  “Well, that’s not entirely true, is it?” she asked. “Someone did beat down your door.” She pulled another cigarette from her pack. “He was never the same after New York, you know.”

  After years of pretending not to notice Manning and me, the veiled accusation
had me leaning in, wondering if I’d misheard. “What?”

  “Actually, I take that back.” Tiffany flicked her lighter a few times before it finally caught. “He was never the same after he found out he was going to New York. I can remember the exact moment he came home from work after having been approved for an East Coast trip to see his ‘clients.’ He could hardly hide the spring in his step.”

  I stared at my sister, noting the new wrinkles around her eyes, the veins in her hands, the slight yellowish hue of her once flawless white teeth. I’d buried the memory of my last few moments with Manning as deeply as I could—it wasn’t how I liked to remember us, pain rolling off him while he’d relayed what should’ve been the best news of his life. “I’ve bit my tongue a lot of times around you,” I said to her, “but what you did to him was so messed up. You got pregnant because you were scared you’d lose him.”

  “You’re right, I was scared—that my sister would steal my husband. Is there anything more messed up than that?”

  “If I could’ve helped how I felt about him, I would’ve. Trust me.” I shifted in the metal chair to ease my stiffness. When I talked about Manning, everything ached, even my elbows and knees. “It’s been nothing but heartbreak for me.”

  “Boo-fucking-hoo.” She pointed her orange-tipped cigarette at me. “That didn’t give you the right to screw around with him.”

  I jerked back, shocked equally by the venom and the conviction in her voice. Had Manning confessed everything? “You make it sound cheap, but you knew what he meant to me.” I took a breath so my voice wouldn’t break. This was a conversation I’d never wanted to have. Despite what Tiffany might’ve thought, I didn’t want to hurt her, but I couldn’t forgive what she’d done to us. “You knew what you were doing from day one.”

  “I thought it was a stupid crush,” she muttered to the table. “Do you know how many crushes I had at that age? I could barely keep track. I thought you’d get over it.”

  “It wasn’t a crush. It was more.” I leaned forward, waiting until she lifted her head to meet my eyes. “I loved him, Tiffany. I didn’t care about anything else. Do you have any idea how it felt to watch him walk down the aisle with you?”

  She stood, flicking the butt of her cigarette so ashes landed inches from my feet. “Do you have any idea how it felt to walk down the aisle knowing he was thinking about you?”

  “No, I don’t, because he didn’t choose me,” I said. “He chose you.”

  “If you think that, you’re even more naïve than I thought.” She stared at me, her jaw clenched as she shook her head. “How can you still not see the truth? He chose you. In the end, he chose you, and that’s what matters.”

  “Do you see him here with me?” I asked.

  “He chose you so many goddamn times. He kept me at arm’s length our entire marriage because I wasn’t you. After the m-miscarriage,” she stuttered, “things got worse, but you know Manning. I figured he’d just keep punishing himself.” She scuffed the ground with the bottom of her platform shoe, looking torn about whether to leave or stay. “He didn’t. Somehow, he finally found the guts to walk away from me.” She sat back down, her posture wilting. “But everything he is now, everything he’s done—it’s for you. He chose you, and you know it, and why wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he want the perfect girl who gets everything she doesn’t even ask for?”

  Where was he now? What had he done? I didn’t know, because he wasn’t mine. Considering what he’d lost, it’d never felt right to call him, and once he’d left Tiffany’s, I didn’t know where to reach him. Not that I would’ve tried. What could I say that hadn’t already been said? He knew I loved him. He knew I’d give up anything to be with him. He hadn’t come for me, and so I’d had no choice but to accept the truth—it wasn’t our time, and might not ever be.

  “I haven’t spoken to him since New York,” I informed her.

  “Well, then maybe you got what you deserved. Maybe we all did. You’re alone. He’s probably alone. My baby is gone.”

  “How can you say that?” I asked. “Nobody deserves that kind of loss.”

  “What do you know about loss? You never lose anything. You get everything.”

  “And you never try to see anything from my point of view. What makes you think I’ve got it all figured out?” I asked.

  “Because I’ve had to stand by and watch it my whole life. That’s the result of living in your shadow.”

  “In my shadow?” I asked. That was the last straw. How could she possibly think that was true when it’d been the other way around? I nearly vibrated with anger. “Growing up, you were constantly talking over me, getting everyone’s attention any way you could manage, even when I wasn’t fighting you for it. I let you have the spotlight and you pushed me out of it anyway.”

  “Exactly. You didn’t even have to try.” She gripped the arm of her chair. “Unless I was talking loudest, Dad ignored me. And the older you got, the worse it was.”

  “That’s only because of college,” I said. “Once I wasn’t going to USC, he was done with me. Why do you still care what he thinks anyway? He’s always been a jerk to both of us, especially you.”

  She held her cigarette deep in the “V” between her pointer and middle finger. After a drag, she squinted at me as if thinking. “You know,” she said, “you’re more like him than you realize.”

  I pulled my shoulders back. Maybe once that’d been a compliment, when I’d bent over backward to impress my father. Now, there was perhaps no greater insult. “I’m nothing like him.”

  “Neither of you will make the first move because you’re too proud. You’re both book smart but you lack compassion. That’s what my therapist says.” She coughed into a fist. “But you know what makes you the most like Dad? You’re a cheater. Manning wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened between you two while he was in New York, but I know enough.”

  A cheater? I’d never heard myself described so callously. That was more the kind of adjective to describe someone like Tiffany or, yes, my dad. Except he wasn’t a cheater. Why would she say he was? “I don’t understand.”

  “Never mind.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Forget it.”

  “No,” I said, sensing she was trying to cover something up. “What do you know?”

  Sighing through her nose, she ran her nail along the butt of the cigarette. “I guess you’re old enough now. Remember Dad’s secretary with the orange hair? It wasn’t quite blonde or even red . . .”

  The sister I’d barely spoken to in years was suddenly talking, but I didn’t know how to register what she was saying. My dad had a funny way of showing love, even to my mom, but he’d always taken care of us. He’d always been loyal. But then again, everyone liked to say how naïve I was, and maybe in this case, it was true. The patio’s overhead light got eerily yellow as I put two and two together. “Dad had an affair?” I asked. “When?”

  The lines in Tiffany’s face eased a little and she turned her face away, as if she were the guilty one. “When we were kids, I walked in on it at his office.”

  My dad’s secretaries had come and gone over the years. I vaguely recalled who Tiffany was talking about because of her hair color and the amount of makeup she’d worn. At the time, she’d seemed older to me, maybe even sophisticated. Trying to picture her again, I only saw a girl younger than I was now. “She was, like, early twenties, wasn’t she?”

  “Young, old, pretty, ugly. Whatever, who cares?” She rubbed her eyebrow. “Maybe there were others, too.”

  “Does Mom know?”

  “Yep.” She bobbed her head. “I was really confused about what I saw, so I told her. She brushed it under the rug and got some nice outfits out of it.”

  The cigarette smoke was getting to me. First, it’d been just another frustrating reminder of Manning, but now it seemed to have filled my lungs, thickening into a mass in my chest. “How come you never told me?”

  She picked at the table’s rubber edge. “I just .
. . didn’t think you needed to know. It was kind of weird growing up with that information. And you looked up to Dad.”

  “But it would’ve changed how I saw him, and didn’t you want that?”

  “I don’t know. Not enough to traumatize you, I guess.”

  It was weird to think Tiffany had protected me in her own way when it’d rarely felt that way as a kid. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You could’ve told me.”

  She looked out at the pool. “I wonder if it would’ve changed anything.”

  With Manning was the part she left off. Would I have stayed away from him in New York if I’d grown up knowing my dad as an adulterer? I didn’t think so, and I doubted Tiffany did, either. “You think I’m like that?” I asked. “Like what he did?”

  “Are you going to tell me you aren’t? That you didn’t?” She trained her eyes on me. “That innocent Lake kept her hands to herself the whole week Manning was there?”

  It was my turn to look away, wiping my upper lip with the heel of my palm. I couldn’t lie to Tiffany and say I’d behaved, so I just sat there sweating under the yellow light like I was being interrogated until the sliding glass door opened.

  “There you are,” Sean said, fisting a beer and a joint as he came over to kiss my cheek. I realized belatedly that I’d heard his motorcycle out front a few minutes before.

  I gestured across the table. “Sean, this is my sister.”

  “Oh, hey.” He sat and gave her his signature sexy—and somewhat hollow—smile. “What’s up?”

  Tiffany eyed the tattoos peeking out from under his sleeves. “Hey.”

  “Are you an actress too?” he asked, relaxing back in the chair.

  She crossed her legs in his direction. “No,” she said. “I used to do some modeling, though.”

  “I could see that,” he said, nodding. “Your family’s got good genes, Lakey. Either of you have a light?”

  I gagged on the inside. Lakey not only sounded gross, but it was like combining Birdy and Lake, and I didn’t want my memories of Manning anywhere near Sean. “I’ve asked you so many times not to call me that,” I said, but they were ignoring me.