by Tessa Vidal
She touched a hand to the side of my face. “Maybe they'll be happy, and maybe they won't. Either they'll work with the situation as it is, or they'll hire somebody else. You know what? The movie's the last thing on my mind right now. There will always be another movie. There'll never be another you.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Caro
Eleven-thirty. A warm day, but not too warm with a slight breeze blowing cold droplets from the waterfall in our direction. The last celebrity's assistant was scurrying away with the last celebrity graduate from doggy hiking school. For the moment, it was just me, Shell, and Dickens standing alone.
The hike from here to the public turn-off was less than a quarter-mile. The thought of strolling back in that direction, only for me to climb into my SUV and Shell to climb into hers, couldn't be less appealing. It was a long drive back to Los Angeles, even if I did have Dickens tagging along for company.
Maybe we could take some of the edge off right here.
“Ever take a shower under that waterfall?” I asked.
Shell smiled. “Not this one. It's too public. At least it is if you're not wearing a swimsuit under your jeans.”
“I wouldn't dream of wearing a swimsuit under jeans. In fact...” I lowered my voice to a whisper barely loud enough to be heard an inch away. “I might not be wearing anything underneath at all.”
Shell groaned. “I know of another waterfall that's a little more private. And there's a lookout spot where Dickens can keep an eye on the trail.”
“Lead the way.”
“It's uphill.”
“I know there was no such thing as uphill back home in the Delta, but I've learned how to hike on a mountain trail a time or two since then.”
“We'll take it slow.”
“No, we won't.”
And we didn't. Although Shell meant to start slow, she was soon quickly leading me along a winding path barely wider than a deer track. If it was a test, it was a test Dickens and I passed with ease, because we stayed hot on her heels the entire way. She paused once, looking for some sign I never detected, and then she hurried onward and upward again. My calves stretched, but it was my thighs that trembled.
Soon, I thought. Very soon.
After about half an hour she held up her hand. Dickens and I went still, and we all listened as hard as we could. Another waterfall sang to itself nearby. A chipmunk scolded another chipmunk, and a bird with a black cap taunted its twin. No sound of human voices.
“Most people go to the first waterfall, get a picture, turn back,” she said. “If they do go ahead, they take one of the trails that are better maintained.”
“Sure, sane people take one of the trails you can see is a trail. I'm sticking real close to you, Shell Tate. I have no idea how I'd find my way out of this forest if we got separated.”
“Dickens would lead you down.” She sounded confident.
“Well, I guess he would. Does that mean I have to make up another excuse to stick real close?”
At last, we emerged from a green thicket to find a tiny circular pool with a thirty-foot waterfall tumbling down from a small cave higher on the mountain. Shell unclipped the leash and showed Dickens where to watch the trail. “You tell us if you spot anyone coming,” she said.
I said the same thing with a hand signal.
Then it was the two of us, me and Shell hand-in-hand walking forward together. The water ran crystal clear, giving us a good look at the tumble of rocks that had fallen just right to dam the foot of the waterfall to create the pool. “It might be snowmelt,” she said. “Ice cold.”
“Hmm.”
“But I bet we could warm it up.”
We turned to face each other, our hands at hips and neckline. Shell's flannel shirt was easy to unbutton. I kissed the soft mounds poking out of the silver lace bra I discovered within.
“Lace,” I said. “A new look for you.”
She made a gurgling sound you couldn't hear over the falling water.
“Tell me.” I rubbed the curve of my hand against the pointed nipple I felt in the right cup. The lace couldn't be any barrier to sensation at all. “You can tell me.”
“Don't make me say it.” She teased a delay by grasping the hem of my French-cut tee-shirt. Impossible for me to resist when she so clearly needed me to raise my arms to let her tug it over my head.
As promised, my own bra was missing in action today. No eight-hundred-dollar scrap of handmade silk. Just me. The real me. Swaying forward, I playfully brushed my bare nipples against her lace-clad ones. “You have to say it.”
“Yes. Now you know. I was thinking of you when I bought that bra.”
Was she blushing? I touched my hand to her face to feel the heat. “It looks good on you. But it'll look better off of you.” For a moment, I flashed back in time. Hadn't I used almost the same words eleven years ago when I was sliding Rayna Taylor out of a black tee-shirt?
Her tiny smile told me she remembered too.
I unsnapped and unhooked while Shell turned beneath my touch like a toy doll. How beautiful she was. That firm body, those high breasts. Naked from the waist up, we took a moment to squeeze and to lick. A shudder of desire zinged down my spine and into my core. The damn jeans, so practical for walking outdoors, were too confining now. A hand on a snap, another hand on a zipper. We were working fast now, even though jeans should be harder to peel out of than mere tops.
I wasn't wearing any bikini under my jeans. I wasn't wearing anything at all. “Did I surprise you?”
“You did.” But Shell had a surprise in her too. She stepped out of her jeans to reveal a wisp-of-lace silver thong that matched her discarded bra. “It feels so fragile. Like you could rip it off.”
Hint, hint. And so I took the hint. It's such a sweet extravagance to wear a lace flimsy just once for your lover to rip away. And, for us, the thrill went beyond the sexual. Such extravagance was proof we made it, that we were beyond our beginnings, that we could be wild and free and a little reckless.
“It was beautiful, but you're more beautiful without it,” I said.
That fast, we were naked under the sky. It was a movie or a dream. Going still for a moment, I listened to the forest. Dickens was silent, and the birds in the trees above were gossiping about woodland matters that had nothing to do with us.
“No one's coming,” Shell said. “We'd know, we'd hear them, Dickens would hear them. And, anyway, no one ever comes here anymore. The maps say this waterfall's dried up.”
I shivered. “I've never made love under a waterfall before.”
“Wait.” She swatted playfully at my bare butt. “I didn't mean we'd actually get in the water. Seriously, it's probably freezing.”
“I bet we can warm it up.” I stuck a toe in and faked a squeal.
“Told you...”
But I was already splashing deeper. Call it a bucket list thing. Who doesn't have that movie-style fantasy of making stand-up love together under a waterfall? I squealed again, a little louder this time, but I kept moving. My blood was already heating up.
“Come on,” I said. “Come on and get me.”
Naked, barefoot, splashing, Shell hurried after me. We couldn't run. The rocky bottom demanded our attention. We had to place each step carefully. But she had a fast, impatient stride. We both wanted this. Needed this. And now.
It was cold, but not snow-melt cold. My guess was the water was dammed somewhere higher in a mountain meadow where the sun could warm it up. When Shell caught up to me, we grasped each other at shoulder and hip to step under the waterfall together. A shock, but not such a shock we couldn't take a moment to kiss each other, our bodies grinding together as we did. Then, laughing, we splashed back out.
There was a tree near the pool with a bed of moss at its feet, the perfect place to stand. Shell braced me there, sliding easily to her knees in front of me. Her tongue flicked several long lines of sensuous heat from my belly button to my smooth mound. “How I love the fresh taste of you,
” she said.
“Oh, God.” I flung my shoulders back hard against the tree's supportive trunk. It was rough, but it was there, and it kept me from falling down to the moss. “How I love you. So much.”
Shell's tongue went still where it was wedged between my folds. She said nothing. She didn't even breathe. The forest sounded as hushed as a holy place. Hell, the forest was a holy place, at least in that moment. A beam of sunlight danced across the waterfall, turning spray into sparkles.
It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't empty words surprised out of me because her tongue felt good.
It was real.
I touched my hand to her short hair, feeling the pleasant tickle of it against the pads of my fingers. “I love you, Shell. I mean it. I must have been insane to risk losing you over a movie deal.”
“Oh, God, yes, I love you, too. I must have been insane not to call you the first time I saw your picture in People. As soon as I knew where you were, as soon as I knew you were all right, I should have called that very same day.” She had a hand on each of my hips, the better to tilt my pelvis right where she wanted it. “We lost time because they split us up, but we lost more time because of my stupid pride.”
“My pride was just as stupid. I could have called you.”
“I'll never let you get away from me like that again, Caro. I love you so, so much. I should have said that years ago. I should have already been with you long enough to have said it ten thousand times.”
“A hundred thousand times,” I said.
“We've got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Then I guess we'd better get started. I love you, love you so much.”
“And me, I love you, love you so much too.”
Her tongue thrust deeper. Her hand slipped down my thigh. My pelvis rocked back and forth. “A thousand times I love you. A million.”
“A million times I love you,” she said. “A skillion.”
“Is a skillion a real number?”
“It is now.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Shell
Dickens was a patient dog. Even when he had nothing to guard against, he was happy to remain on guard. Eventually, Caro and I surfaced from the intoxicating exchange of intimate kisses beside the waterfall. Our jaws ached pleasantly from the thrust and parry of our busy tongues, and the inner muscles of our thighs trembled from the effort not to slide down the tree trunk at the peak of each and every climax.
“I hate getting dressed again.” Caro's voice was thick from the aftermath of too many orgasms too quickly. That is, if there can really be such a thing. Her beautiful body was blotched with pink, especially along her collarbone, cheeks, and the upper curves of her perfect boobs.
“I hate seeing you get dressed, but we probably can't get away with hiking down this mountain butt naked.”
She giggled, a shockingly young sound.
Her French-cut tee had a couple of green scrapes on it. How? I hadn't got her on the bed of moss until it was off, had I?
“I guess we have to get back and find out what our public is thinking,” I said. “The reception isn't much good here, but once we get closer to town, you'll probably find a string of texts from Heather Heath.”
Caro shrugged. “I think I'm going to let Heather earn her fees for a change. Something tells me she can craft a statement about our relationship just fine without the two of us breathing down her neck.”
The socks and shoes went back on last. Now we looked like a pair of perfectly respectable outdoorswomen. Caro called to Dickens, who came bounding back so fast there was no doubt he'd been alert and awake the entire time. “What a good boy.” She patted his head. “What a good watchdog.”
Dickens wasn't about to disagree.
“I can't drive back to LA,” I said. “I have another hiking school starting tomorrow.”
Caro studied my eyes. “I wouldn't ask you to drive back to LA. I may be the so-called star, but I'm between movies right now and I guess I kind of have a question.”
I smiled, daring to hope. “You can ask your question.”
“Would you like an intern to help you out with your hiking school? An intern with her own dog who knows how to perform all the little tricks and demonstrations?”
“I'd like nothing better,” I said.
Dickens, curly tail held high, led us most of the way back down to the turn-off where we'd parked our cars.
FIVE DOGS STIRRED IN their sleep. “It's all right,” I said, and it was. Even in their sleep, dogs can pick up a scent, and they knew it was just the two of us, me and Caro, hand in hand. I strapped an unlit headlamp-style flashlight to my forehead, then laughed softly and unstrapped it again.
I'd walked this trail so many times I knew it by heart. Why did I think I needed a flashlight? And, if I did, I could use the app on my phone.
“Country dark.” Caro's voice was husky with lust. “I'd forgotten all about it.”
“Remember the stars over Lake Arkabutla?”
“Remember that country boy who held up the string of fish he caught?”
I did remember now. It wasn't for the camera. You wouldn't assume somebody had a camera in their cell phone in those days. You wouldn't yet even assume they had a cell phone that far away from Memphis and the casinos. It was just a pure brag because he was so happy and proud. “I wonder why we remember things like that. People we see once and never see again.”
“Animals too. Remember that bobcat who ran across our trail?”
“Sure, I do.” Ten seconds out of time. Blink, and you'd miss it. But we'd both been there, we'd both seen it. We hadn't missed a thing.
We needed to have more moments like that. A lifetime of moments like that.
It was now the last week of August. The last week of many things. Soon the world would rush in. We were supposed to check in every night, and we would, but not right this minute. Reception was spotty out here. We could play on that.
“I loved you then but I didn't want to admit it,” I said.
“Same,” Caro said. “You were so smart. I was afraid you'd laugh.”
“You were so out of my league. I was afraid you'd laugh.”
Now we were both laughing.
In the eyes of the world, Caro and I were both pretty, both smart, two of the few who climbed out of the Delta and into the glaring light of Hollywood fame. In the eyes of the world, we were alike. Two pretty girls from Mississippi who made good. I couldn't get my head around it. Me, a pretty girl? Me, with a face made for television? Who would have believed it?
Of course, I thought of Ryder, the life he'd sacrificed, the choices he'd made. I remembered my twin much more often than I remembered a bobcat, or a string of fish, or the stars reflected in an artificial lake with a drowned town underneath.
Reading my mind, Caro squeezed my hand. “One day. One day, he'll find his way free. It would be too unfair if he didn't.”
I nodded my head.
And then we were out in the open on a bald that showed us how wide the sky was. There was room for everything in a universe this wide― room for all the second chances we needed, if only we were strong enough to reach for them.
“Look,” I said. “The Milky Way.”
Caro tilted back her head. “It's still there. It was always there. Even when I couldn't see it.”
“And look. A shooting star. A green shooting star. That's rare.”
She hugged me fiercely without looking down from the sky. “You're rare.”
The way we touched each other then. The way the sky glowed like somebody had dropped a fortune in diamonds. It was a long time before we were ready to admit we should head down to our sleeping bags.
As we turned back toward the trail, a screech owl whinnied. We had them back in the Delta too. Remembering, Caro smiled and touched my hand.
“I love you. I never really forgot I loved you. I only forgot I could say it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Same. I never forgot I loved you either.”
; In theory, I was a responsible business owner. In theory, I was at the top of a mountain where I had reception. In theory, I could have taken the phone off airplane and checked in for a quick few minutes.
Fuck theory. Tonight was ours.
Epilogue
A Year Later
August 16, 2020. Shell, Dickens, and Caro inspected the wide table of birthday gifts currently under the command of Tyler Dundee Gift Management Services. Twenty-year-old Tyler had hired nineteen-year-old Raul to assist him this year. Everybody in Hollywood and half the everybodies in Hollywood South had sent a gift to celebrate Caro's thirtieth birthday.
The gifts didn't really interest Caro. The personalities did. Tyler was in his element, pontificating at length to Raul about how to organize the embarrassment of riches spread out in front of them. When Tyler thought nobody was looking, he let his hand brush Raul's hand. Young love. She swallowed her smile before they could notice her noticing them.
“Ms. Ballad,” Tyler said. “Ms. Tate. There's something I need to show you.”
“You can call me Caro.”
“And it's Shell.”
He beamed. He'd used their last names on purpose so he could show off to Raul that big celebrities asked Tyler Dundee to call them by their first names. “It's pretty obvious what to do about most of the gifts, but there's something that came in. It might be from a kid or something. A fan, although I don't know how they got this address.” The fan letters and gifts were directed to Caro's agent's office downtown.
He poked along the table until he located the box wrapped in newspaper and tied in string. No name on the box, no shipping label.
Somebody, somehow, had slipped past all the security and even gotten the nod from Dickens so they could add this box to Caro's long table.
There were very few people in this world who could do such a thing. Actual CIA agents might have trouble getting away with it. Caro looked at Shell. Shell shrugged. If Dickens hadn't challenged the intruder, either there was something wrong with his training or the intruder was somebody he recognized as a friend. And there wasn't a damn thing wrong with his training.
