Choices

by Tessa Vidal

  Shell wanted to be heard. Wanted me to understand it hurt her when I didn't claim her in public.

  And I did hear her. I did understand.

  I screwed up. But everybody around me kept talking about money and strategy and timing...

  A temporary thing, she said. While we figured out where we stood. But it was a breakup just the same. It was my birthday, and she was there, and I was here.

  I could text her my personal thanks for the chocolates. A gift was always an excuse to call somebody, even if you had an assistant to send out the thank-you notes. One reason she was there and I was here was because we were both working. Or were we? She was working, she was getting paid to run the hiking school. Me? I was running out doing all this stupid publicity shit because I might get a movie and then I might get paid. This crazy business.

  No. You can't chase after her like a puppy. We're from different worlds.

  Only we weren't from different worlds. We were from the same world. How had I changed so much that I put bullshit movie publicity ahead of Shell? No wonder she slipped away from me. I'd let her go.

  Nobody on the Metro thought I was Caro Ballad. I was someone else, someone a little too country, someone a little too loud. Somebody sat next to me until I started talking about how I was from Tupelo and how my grandmother was related to Elvis, and then they got up and sat somewhere else. Acting isn't just a job. It can be a useful life skill.

  Right now, I was acting ebullient from too much champagne. I was acting happy. And people were believing it, I could see it in the way they sidled away from me.

  If only I could believe it.

  Eventually, I arrived at a club that had once been cool, years ago, but the cool had been crowded out by all the tourists. And now the only tourists who still came were from distant places where they hadn't gotten the word yet about just how uncool the place really was. Elvie's pink satin blouse and tangle of red hair fit in perfectly here. Bad country music, the overly sentimental kind alternating with the overly ironic kind, played on the cheap speakers set around the big barn of a room. Nobody much danced on the wide wooden dance floor.

  A hustler and her mark were arguing about a pool game. A second hustler, a one-armed girl, was still looking for a game. I'd seen her in operation before, but I hadn't figured out if she really was one-armed or if she had a way of binding her right arm out of the way to work the hustle. You see it all in Hollywood.

  I was lonely, and I was tired of being lonely, tired of being Caro Ballad. She wasn't me. She was a mask. Now I was wearing a different mask. The country girl let loose to play in the big bad city.

  A tall woman who wore a shirt with the sleeves ripped off to show her ink slammed two glass mugs down on my table. The foam sloshed a little but not too much. This was the slam of a woman who knew exactly how hard to slam.

  “Haven't seen you around these parts before.” Her accent was probably real, although you never knew in Los Angeles. My guess was she'd arrived from eastern Arkansas or western Mississippi roughly fifteen years before I had.

  “I'm just visiting,” I said. “I'm Elvie.”

  “Hmm.” She didn't offer her own name. “What are you looking for in a dump like this, Elvie?”

  I shrugged a one-shoulder shrug. The game had begun. We were fencing, although the outcome of our skirmish was predetermined since we were both looking for the same thing.

  Or were we?

  She said something, and I said something, and the music played louder, and then she went away to get another beer, but somehow I was going away too, in the opposite direction, although I knew she expected me to wait right there where I was.

  Birthday or no birthday, a quickie wasn't going to fix what was broken inside of me. For years, I'd played the no-strings, no-names game, but it never filled the empty place inside my soul. And now the thought of yet another hookup with a stranger only made me tired.

  Shell was the one I wanted. The one I'd always wanted. Had I already thrown away my last chance?

  There were other drunks on the Metro going in this direction. Someone sat next to me and talked about that time their dad― or was it their granddad?― met Michael Jackson. I didn't even pretend to listen.

  There was still a line outside the first club, although it must be different people waiting by now. A couple of girls elbowed each other to giggle at my pink satin blouse. They didn't think I was Caro Ballad or anybody they should admire. They thought I was somebody from East Jesus here in the big bad city for the very first time. Good, I guess. That was what I'd dressed for them to think.

  Stomping over to the corner, turning my back on the scene, I texted the driver to come pick me up. The whole time I stood there waiting, I felt unbelievably self-conscious, the way you do when you're filming a scene that isn't coming across right. The back of my neck tingled under the heavy wig as if somebody was watching me.

  Of course, nobody was. Nobody cared. In this disguise, I was beneath notice.

  Fuck Shell Tate. Fuck her little fancy-pants basket of New York Fucking City vegan chocolate. Fuck Sender Unknown and his five-thousand-dollar rhinestone clutches.

  I tapped my cowgirl-booted foot. A couple stumbled from the bar singing a pop song about being perfect that hurt my ears even when it wasn't being sung in stereo by two drunks. I had to step off the corner into the street to avoid them stumbling into me, but somehow one of them brushed into me anyway, shoving me so hard my knees jellied and I almost went down.

  Suddenly sober, they were moving fast around a corner. And then they were gone. It was all so fast I didn't have time to think.

  My limo pulled up.

  The driver got out, opened the door, closed it behind me. It was dark in the wide back seat, but I wasted no time in hitting the flashlight app on my phone. The printing on the crumpled-up piece of paper looked as if it had been done by holding a pencil in a fist to disguise somebody's handwriting. No adult's block printing was really that bad.

  WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

  Hell, maybe they did.

  But did I?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Shell

  Saturday morning. The last morning of this week's hiking school. It's easy to move too fast going downhill. Especially when your feet feel like lead weights pulling you down.

  A wooden sign, the writing long ago worn off, pointed me in the direction of the drive-up waterfall where I always arranged for the dogs to be picked up at the end of their vacation. Many owners sent their assistants to pick up their pets, but a few celebrities did it themselves, and the photographs of joyful reunions in front of a waterfall always made for a stunning conclusion to the trip.

  We were getting close to places where a lot of tourists hiked. Time to clip on the leashes. This pack didn't need them, but I did to send the message I was in control and that I always followed the rules. Sometimes, it was just as important to reassure people as it was to reassure dogs. Hell, sometimes it was more important.

  Waterfalls are noisy. The pounding water blurred the sound of voices, but the dogs' ears twitched and so did mine. Somebody was already there. Maybe just a random tourist. I'd picked the spot because there was a pull-off nearby where people could park. But if it was a celebrity who'd somehow arrived early...

  Ugh.

  Celebrities don't arrive anywhere early. Relax.

  There was a high excited pitch in the voices I couldn't really hear over the waterfall. “Hold,” I said, and the four well-trained dogs froze in their tracks. We listened, but I still couldn't really hear anything. “Somebody's owner might be getting their picture taken.”

  The dogs panted. Otherwise, they were calm.

  Hmm.

  I signaled, and we moved forward again, around the curve and then around another curve. At last, I could see a slender shape between a boy and a girl who were maybe high school age. The girl held out her phone at arm's length. You could see all three of them were laughing, not just the kids but the star in the middle.

  Th
e orange dog fluffing around their legs lifted his head to get in the bottom of the picture.

  I stopped again to wait. The boy and the girl, still laughing, chose a different trail. A more popular one that led to a wide, high bald with picnic tables. Now that we wouldn't spoil their moment, the dogs and I walked on toward the waterfall.

  Caro shook out her hair.

  “What are you doing here?” I immediately cursed myself for blurting out such a tactless question. “How did you know where I would be?”

  She shrugged. “Heather said there's a lot of Instagrams from this spot tagged with #ShellTateDoggyHikes. So I took a chance that's where you'd be this morning.”

  Dickens on his leash considered my four dogs on their leashes. “Friends,” I said.

  “Maybe... more than friends.” Caro took off the cateye shades. “Look, I came out here to say something, so I better go ahead and say it before all your celebrity clients arrive to pick up their dogs. Whatever you think of me, I just want you to know you were right. I lost my way. I let the publicity machine take things way too far.”

  “Maybe you were right. It's never smart to go public too soon with a high profile relationship.” I kept my voice neutral.

  “Yeah, well, it's not all that smart to try to time your relationship to sell a movie.”

  “Is the deal made?”

  She shook her head. “There's still some hold up. You were right about that too. These deals always take much longer than we think they will. And you know what?”

  We looked into each other's eyes. I could barely breathe. “What?”

  “I'm done waiting. I do want this movie, but I don't want it enough to keep hurting you.” She took my hand, a gentle but inexorable touch to pull me closer. Our lips brushed, and I could feel the spark beneath the velvet.

  There was another sound beyond the roar of the waterfall― the purr of an expensive vehicle pulling into the turn-off. As much as I hated to break the liplock, I had to. “Somebody's coming,” I said. Chevy, the Australian Shepherd, had learned long ago not to jump up and tear off running every time he got excited, but the slight tension in his ears told me everything. “In fact, I'm pretty sure it's this one's owner coming. Reena Brawn.”

  “Oh, hell,” Caro said. “I got nothing against her, but her husband is the biggest blabbermouth in Hollywood.”

  That surprised a laugh out of me. “You're more right than you know. When I took that meeting with Brendon, he had the nerve to ask me questions about you and Dickens.”

  “He likes to share around good gossip to prove how plugged in he is.” She put her cateye shades back on. It was reasonable to assume Ms. Brawn would come around the bend in the trail with phone in hand to top off her Instagram Stories.

  I took a deep breath. “Look, I don't want to pressure you to do anything you're not ready for. I can keep my distance if you need me to.” I must have stepped back, because somehow Dickens had scooted between all the leashes and dogs I held to press on my feet. Caro was laughing.

  “Screw professional,” she said. “You're not going anywhere. And we all know it. Even the damn dogs.” The cateyes came off again, sliding easily into her purse.

  Held there by Dickens, happy to be held there, I let Caro fall forward into my embrace. My hug wasn't any great shakes, thanks to the tangle of leashes in my hand, but our lips melted together like hot butter. Her tongue darted, its flexible tip finding all the sensitive places.

  And then Reena Brawn was at the waterfall, her loud voice shrieking in delight. “Oh my God, are you two an item? I had no idea.” Chevy's muscles bunched. He longed to jump up all over his owner, but he'd learned to restrain himself. He waited, as fascinated by the drama unfolding in front of him as anybody else.

  Caro's pupils were still blown as she squirmed out of my arms to look at the intruder. For a moment, she didn't seem to recognize the famous producer's wife.

  “Oh, hi, Reena. I, uh...” Her pink tongue flicked over her velvet lips She looked blindly from me to Reena.

  Was Caro going to back out? How could she deny that kiss?

  I needed to maintain the illusion of being a professional. My client still needed her doggy vacation pictures, after all. “You'll want to pose in front of the waterfall. Here...” I started to hand Chevy's leash to Reena, but Caro put her hand on my arm.

  “Don't we want pictures too?” She looked at Reena again, a question in her eyes.

  It doesn't matter how pretty you are. You don't get to be a Hollywood producer's wife without some people skills. Reena, reading that question at a glance, grinned from ear to ear. “Aw, that would be too cute. Of course, Caro, I'd be absolutely delighted to take a picture of the two of you and all the dogs in front of the waterfall.”

  What was happening? Was I dreaming?

  Caro was grinning from ear to ear too. And, let's face it, cool, aloof Caro was not somebody known for grinning. As I struggled to swallow my surprise, she managed to do more to arrange the dogs in a circle around our feet than I could do myself.

  “Don't be bashful on me now, Shell,” she said. “This is going to be a great photo for your next doggy vacation brochure.”

  Fuck my next doggy vacation brochure. This photo was going on the fucking mantelpiece. That light in her eyes, the answering sparkles in the dogs' eyes, the sparkles on the waterfall behind us...

  She touched my hip with one smooth hand, turning me, and then we were face-to-face again.

  “Can we get a kissing photo, Reena? Just between us girls?”

  “Of course.” Producer's wife or not, Reena was flattered to be taken into the confidence of the likes of Caro Ballad. “I'll text it right to you and then delete my copy.”

  Caro's pink mouth was so close. We were lip to lip. And then we were kissing. From where Reena stood, it might look like any of million other movie kisses, but I could taste the flexible tongue sliding into my mouth... and there was nothing fake, nothing staged, nothing Hollywood about the heat between us.

  On a bright day like this, with my eyes half-shut to focus on the taste of Caro, I didn't really notice the flash going off. Three times, seven times, more? One of those photos would be the perfect snapshot, but it felt like all of them were perfect.

  We had an audience. Reena, the dogs. But they were an understanding audience, with no desire to hurry us along.

  “These are so adorable.” Reena squealed the way women in Robinsonville only squeal when a machine spits out a jackpot. “You two are the cutest couple ever.”

  And then another, louder voice was calling. “What the hell? I thought this was an exclusive school. Strictly four dogs to a class. Why are there five dogs here? Somebody needs to explain themselves.”

  Brendon Brawn had arrived. The impromptu photography session was over. Or so I thought.

  “Oh, you finally decided to get out of the limo?” Reena handed him her phone. “Make yourself useful for a change, and come take some pictures for me. I want to be in the frame with Caro and Shell. It'll be a great memento of Chevy's vacation.”

  “Five dogs is an extra dog,” he repeated.

  “Oh, grow up.” Reena was half his size but she too knew about showing Hollywood males who was the alpha. “At tonight's cocktail party, you'll be telling Stephen and George all kind of lies about how your dog went to hiking school with Caro Ballad's dog. And when they call you on your lies, then you'll be whipping out these pictures.”

  Brendon had little more to say. Reena joined us in front of the waterfall, her hipshot posture causing Caro to wiggle closer to me to fit us all in the frame. He snapped the photo, frowned at the screen, snapped a second photo. He frowned harder. “Maybe you should be in the middle, honey.”

  Reena snorted and then disentangled herself. “That's what I love about you, Bren. Your amazing sensitivity and your ability to read the people around you.”

  “It was just a suggestion, hon.”

  We all trooped over to study the image on the screen. Once, long ago, Ryder, Ca
roline, and I had posed for a photo with a casino glittering in the background. Now, Ryder was gone, replaced by one of my clients, and the glitter in the background was caused by the sun dancing through falling water.

  But Caro was still there at the center.

  My center.

  “I'm the third wheel in this photo, and don't I know it? You two look so good together.” Reena sounded as pleased as if she'd personally introduced us herself. “I'll talk to you again, Shell. And I hope to see you again soon too, Caro. It was an unexpected delight.”

  “Chevy was a delight,” I said. “I'd be thrilled to welcome him back anytime.”

  “That dog gets better summer camp than I did when I was a child,” Brendon said.

  “Yes, dear, but that was the Jurassic,” Reena said. “Society has progressed since then.”

  Chevy bounced from Reena to Brendon and back to Reena again, pleased to be talked about. And then they were gone. Caro took the opportunity to steal another kiss. “That's one puppy on his way home. Where are the rest of your celebrities?”

  I planted a butterfly kiss on the corner of her mouth. “I ask them to arrive at staggered times, so they won't all be fighting for space in front of the waterfall at the same time. Jana Swansen will be arriving at ten thirty.”

  “Ooh. Then we have ten more minutes.” She kissed me more firmly, parting her lips in slow motion to ease her teasing tongue forward.

  I curled my own tongue and sucked harder to urge her onward. It would be so easy to lose track of time standing here in a forest exchanging hot, wet kisses. “Are you sure you know what's coming, Caro? There's no turning back now. Everybody will know we're together. In another day or two, they'll know we were brought up in the same small town. It's just too good of a story to walk away from.”

  “Childhood sweethearts,” Caro said. “I'm under no illusion any gossip reporter worth their salt will walk away. You know, it is a good story. A great story.”

  “I just hope your production company agrees. There's a world of difference between a trailer in Robinsonville and a plantation house in Natchez.”