Smile Number Seven

by Melissa Price

  Julia lingered there, in that magnetic pull, until her expression dulled. “Seriously, what do I have to offer you? You have fame and a mansion. I have lasagna, horses, and a banknote on a ranch.”

  “You love so hard, and deep. Sometimes I think you’re the grown-up while I’m—some older woman, making a fool of herself.”

  “But I could never offer you…”

  “You have everything I want.” She chuckled. “Including those horse sculptures. Hey, don’t look away.”

  Julia turned back toward her.

  “The way you cared for me, protected me at the party? Only made me want you more. I loved watching you step in each time someone crossed a line or made a snide inference about our age difference. What was it you said to Susie?”

  Julia’s eyes brightened. “The nine-hundredth time she made a disparaging age remark, I couldn’t help myself. I told her: ‘Unlike most of us, only love and wisdom are timeless.’”

  Rina laughed. “She didn’t say another word about it. It took everything I had to keep a straight face.”

  “I felt bad after I said it. It was rude.”

  “She was rude! I’m glad you put her in her place.”

  “You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

  “No. No one has ever stepped up for me the way that you do.” She playfully pushed Julia sideways. “Susie was nasty to you because she’s jealous.”

  Silent together in front of the crashing waves, Rina smiled shyly. “I feel so exposed right now.” She drew little circles in the sand between them. “Don’t ever wonder how you’ll fit into my world—” her gaze drifted up into Julia’s “—because you’ve become my world. I worry more about how I’ll fit into your world. Obviously I’m way out of my league on the ranch—in real life. But it’s the craziest thing…” Rina stared into the distance, “…being with you makes me—more me.”

  “‘You’ve become my world? Being with you makes me—more me?’ Damn you can deliver a line.”

  While she couldn’t remember the exact scene from which it had come, Rina conjured up Poker Face Number Four—blank emotion tinted with embarrassment. As soon as she’d done it, she knew she should have gone with Matter-of-Fact Number Two.

  “Yes. More me.”

  Julia held back a teasing grin. “You want to tell your face, Rina?”

  “Crap, I knew that expression was all wrong when I did it.”

  They both laughed and settled for the warmth in each other’s eyes.

  Julia’s blue eyes danced across the seascape before coming back to her. “I love your laugh. I love us. We’re so hot together.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Suppose!” Julia said, incredulous.

  “Don’t judge, but I’m outmatched. I always need a day to recover when you’re done with me.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. Then I have to suffer all the teasing from Gigi and Clay and anyone else who knows me. They keep telling me my head’s in the clouds or that I need to pay attention to whatever.” Her lips curved into a telling smile. “The fact is, at those times all I think about is when are you going to call. Or when I’m going to see you again. Or…why can’t I just jump into the car and show up at your door—forever.”

  Julia leaned over to kiss her and Rina pulled back. “Not here.”

  “Do you think there will ever come a time when you’ll live openly? When you’ll come out?”

  “I…I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Until you, I’d never even considered it.”

  “And now?”

  Rina lowered her eyes.

  “I live an honest life, Rina. It may be a humble life, but it’s an honest one. Even if I wanted to, I don’t know how to live differently. It’s why my mother left me to Grandmother Lucia and moved to New York for a job.”

  “Your mother left? That’s how you wound up with Lucia?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the point.” Realization colored her stare. “How long will it take before I feel like a Katarina Verralta ornament—a hanger-on hiding in the shadows. Watching my every move to keep your secret. I heard loud and clear what Gigi said about me this morning. I wonder how long it will take before I start to believe her.”

  Take the leap, Rina told herself. Kiss her right here, right now! Don’t let her leave this way! She sighed. “I understand. It’s getting late—shall we head back?”

  Julia stood and offered her hand to Rina to pull her to her feet and withdrew it just as quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  “It’s fine,” Rina said, standing and brushing the sand from her pants.

  Quiet suffused their footfalls as they climbed the long stairway from the beach to the house. Gigi was waiting in the garden.

  “Rina, you have to…”

  “Not now, Gigi.”

  “But…”

  “Not now. I’ll call you after Julia leaves.”

  Gigi smiled at Julia. “Well, it was nice to finally meet you, Julia.”

  “Was it, Gigi? Is that what you say to all of Rina’s ‘flings’ before they fade away?” She stood there long enough to see Gigi’s jaw drop open but not long enough to give her a chance to respond.

  Rina followed Julia upstairs to the suite, where Julia immediately tended to her belongings—tossing them haphazardly into her suitcase. Rina sat on the bed watching her, haunted by the ghosts that still kept her from living her truth. “The better an actress you become, the less chance anyone will know. You can’t ruin your image.” The harsh words, the judgments she had suffered for decades now, still rang in her head—spoken by a mishmash of voices. Her mother. Agents. Directors who’d had her career in their hands. Studio execs who had tried to grope her. Somewhere along her rise to fame, she’d decided they’d been right. She couldn’t be her generation’s Sophia Loren and be gay.

  In that moment, Rina was struck by the still-unanswered question that Therapy Brittany had posed to her at Namaste. “Do you use chocolate to cover up your feelings about all of your relationships with women or only the bad ones?” For all the time she had contemplated the question, watching Julia prepare to leave provided a valuable insight. There isn’t enough chocolate in all of Belgium that could satisfy my craving for her.

  Rina’s insides tightened at the thought that in only minutes her lover’s presence would be but another mind-bending memory. She pulled to her face the pillow on which Julia had slept—inhaled deeply, then fell back on top of the tangled sheets that would have to comfort her in her lover’s absence. Already, her breathing was shallow, and with each item that Julia placed in her suitcase, the void inside her expanded. She sat up and looked at Julia. “Don’t pack your love,” she said, only half kidding.

  Julia stopped and turned to her. “The problem is, I can’t pack it. You always take it all.”

  “Please understand.”

  “I do understand. Really, I do. I just don’t know what becomes of us when we’re forced to live by everyone else’s rules. How does love even survive when it gets kicked to the curb—repeatedly—for a photo op, for an hour—for a lifetime?”

  “I would never kick your love to the curb.” A shudder coursed through her and chilled her.

  “When the cameras are on or when you’re surrounded by your famous world, where am I then?”

  “Don’t.” Rina’s lips tightened.

  “Don’t what, baby?” Julia’s knowing expression left Rina motionless.

  “Do we really have to think about logistics right now? Can’t we just revel in your first visit and all the amazing things we’ve felt and discovered together?”

  “I can, but can you?”

  “Of course I can. I’m reveling right now.”

  “Then we define revel differently.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ll continue to do it when I walk out that door and back into the world. It will be with me everywhere. Can you say the same?”

  Rina stood and
went to her. She enveloped Julia in her embrace from behind and kissed her neck, held her tightly. “Can we let it all rest for right now? We’ll talk more this week when I come out to the ranch for my riding lesson.”

  Julia turned around and embraced her lover. “Sure. Take all the time you need. You know where I’ll be.”

  “That I do.” Rina wanted to scream, to throw her body in front of the door and not let Julia leave. The thought of Julia slipping away—not from her love but from her closeted life, something that had never presented a problem until now—chilled her to the bone. She would never have guessed that her greatest challenge in this relationship would be herself.

  Julia’s right.

  Rina escorted her lover to the garage, kissed her for the seven-thousandth time, and waited for her to start the dilapidated Fiat.

  Chug.

  Click.

  Julia tried again.

  Chug.

  Click.

  “Dammit!”

  Rina opened her car door. “That’s it, Julia, I’m putting my foot down. You’re leaving that death trap here and driving home in the car I bought you. End of discussion.”

  Julia’s eyes narrowed when she looked up at Rina. “Fine! But I’m coming back for the Spider.”

  Rina smiled Passive Coup Number Six—the one with the dreamy eyes and the coup d’etat raised eyebrow, subtly followed by a gently curled smile. “Whatever, darling.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  In the outer desert beyond Palm Springs, Julia tapped the accelerator of the sports car and zigged around a truck. She checked her rearview mirror for cops, then without any traffic ahead, she floored it. I could get used to this! Ugh, exactly what I was afraid of.

  At this rate she’d be home in no time. But she wasn’t ready to admit her lust for this car to anyone—especially not to Rina. Where she came from, a car like this stood out. She couldn’t imagine her life without the Fiat Spider. Grandmother Lucia had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday, and a day hadn’t passed since then that she didn’t think of Lucia when she drove it. It was once a nice car. But how would she fend off comments from all the nosy friends and neighbors who might ask her about this sexy beast? Whatever she came up with, it would have to be something that Cass would back her up on.

  She zagged back into the other lane. I’ve got it! I’ll just say that Vitty bought it. She smiled at her ingenuity. Note to self: remember to tell Vitty she bought a car!

  In the waning of the day, Julia inhaled the wide-open space, the stillness that lay upon jagged mountain faces along which the last light dripped down through fissures, illuminating dark breaches. The desert’s hush was such a stark contrast to her experience of Malibu’s chronic perpetual waves.

  Interspersed in her thoughts were flashbacks of the weekend. Waking up to the indigo Pacific. Waking up to Katarina in her luxurious bed. The sensation of her lover’s arms wrapped tightly around her—her hands everywhere on Julia’s body—as they stared out to sea together, their silent ballet a feast of taste, of touch…

  The recollection unlocked her sensation of longing and made the tiny fine hairs on the back of her neck rise.

  The talk they’d had on the beach had stuck with her. Being with Rina was easier than anything she’d ever experienced, but she couldn’t shake the notion that existing in Katarina Verralta’s world wouldn’t be easy. Not that she expected easy. She wasn’t yet sure, however, that she had what it would take to meet the challenge.

  The morning of their dinner party, when they had left Malibu to shop on Rodeo Drive, Clay and Gigi had accompanied them. “Come over here,” Clay had said, taking her hand when some of the tourists started turning their cell phones in their direction.

  God forbid anyone would assume Rina and I were together.

  She asked herself what it would take to walk away from this before they became even more involved—before she fell in love any harder. Too late on both counts! She squashed the demon-thought of ending things like a bug hitting the windshield of the sports car, which was now cruising at ninety. Splat!

  Julia coasted through the unlocked gate to the Y2, parked next to Cass’s car, and stopped in the barn. “This is a nice surprise. I didn’t expect you to still be here.”

  “Welcome home, Jules. I didn’t hear your car.”

  “There’s a reason for that.”

  “So? How was it?”

  “I could start with magical and go downhill from there…or maybe it’s uphill. Depends on how you see it.”

  “Downhill, uphill. Uh-huh.”

  Julia fanned out her arms in excitement. “It was fine. I mean good. It was really good. I think.”

  “Okay, so far I’m hearing magical, downhill, uphill and fine-borderline-good—no, really good.”

  Julia chuckled. “I’m running on fumes. I stopped for two cups of coffee on the way home to stay awake.”

  “Somebody didn’t get much sleep.”

  Julia laughed.

  “Look at that grin on you, you bad girl. You’re blushing.” Cass went to the door. “Where’s your car, and whose car is that?”

  “The Fiat died when I left LA so Rina made me drive this one home.”

  “‘Made you’? Did your sugar mama give you that?”

  Julia cringed. “That’s so not funny. It was a safe ride home. But if anyone asks, tell them Vitty bought it.”

  “Does Vitty know she bought a car?”

  “She will.”

  Lightning neighed at her. “Hi, guys, did Auntie Cass take good care of you?” She entered their stalls, patted both horses, and gave them each the carrots she had left over from the ride home. The ride that took half an hour less than it would have in the old Fiat.

  A sudden urge to beat out the wind overtook her, but it was too late—too dark for her to hop onto Lightning bareback and let him run full-out while she held on to his mane. Then she reminded herself she couldn’t outrun her feelings—she hadn’t been able to out-drive them either! No matter how fast she had gone.

  “I’ll see you guys in the morning. You coming inside, Cass?”

  “Depends on whether or not you’re going to give me all the sordid details—which by the look on your face tells me no.”

  Julia’s half-assed smile matched the slow shake of her head. “Mind if we talk tomorrow?”

  “No, I figured you’d be worn out by the time you made it home. I brought you some stuff to eat from the diner. It’s in the freezer.”

  “You’re an angel.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I need some sleep.”

  “You should see you right now.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve known you for how long?” Cass said rhetorically. “You’re in love, Julia. You know how I know?”

  “How?”

  “Not only have I never seen you this way in our whole lives, but you actually look different.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes.” She hugged her friend and picked up her purse. “Get some rest and I’ll see you bright and early.”

  “Thanks for everything, Cass. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Just don’t go all Hollywood on me. I’d miss my best friend.”

  Julia dropped her suitcase in the bedroom, changed into her sculpting clothes, and entered the casita. The bust of Katarina Verralta stared at her with eyes not yet filled with the passion that made Rina who she was—not yet engraved with every detail that Julia had come to love in the early morning light while Rina slept.

  When her text message alerted her with Rina’s special ringtone, she pulled the phone from her pocket and smiled.

  Are you home yet? Rina asked.

  I got home a while ago. You didn’t tell me that car had a jet engine and wings!

  Thank you for a wonderful visit. I can’t stop thinking about you. About us.

  “How do I get through tonight without you?” Julia asked the likeness of Rina before her. I miss you was all she could text. />
  How was the drive?

  I didn’t stop feeling your touch or thinking about you for an instant.

  Good! Rina replied. I don’t want you to worry about us. I know in my heart it will all work out. Okay?

  I hope you’re right. I’ve never felt so vulnerable. But then, I’ve never known this kind of love.

  Seconds after she pressed Send, the phone rang, turning it from a flat and lifeless object into a lifeline.

  Rina whispered in her sexy alto voice with the Italian accent: “I don’t know if I can wait until Tuesday night. I crave you more than chocolate.” Julia heard the slight catch in her throat.

  “Katarina?”

  Julia could tell she was smiling when the woman replied. “Yes?”

  “It’s only two days away.”

  Rina sighed. “Or a lifetime, depending on how you feel.”

  “How I feel? I miss you so much it hurts inside. I didn’t want to leave you.”

  “Do you mean it? After our conversation on the beach, I wasn’t sure.”

  “Have I ever lied to you?”

  Rina chuckled softly. “Never. Not even when I wanted you to.”

  “When have you wanted me to lie to you?”

  “Twice. Once when you told me I looked tired, and the other was when you told me I could end things between us and you would understand—that you’d let me go.”

  “I was trying to give you a chance to make a graceful exit.” Julia traced the long strands of clay hair.

  “Don’t stand in the middle of a theater and yell ‘Fire!’ unless there is one.”

  “There is one.”

  “We’ll work it out, sweetheart.”

  Sweetheart. The timbre echoed in Julia’s mind, reverberated through her body, right down to the place where Rina had touched her when she came.

  “I can’t believe you were here only a few hours ago. It seems like a lifetime.”

  “I know, but I’ll bet you suffered some aftermath from Gigi.”

  Rina paused. “No.”

  “Katarina?” Julia waited.

  “It wasn’t that bad. Really.”

  “Want to try that again with a little conviction?”

  “It’s nothing. Gigi is just concerned about me.”