Fair of Face

by Sienna Waters

And Nat was bending down to kiss her, taking her face in her hands, tilting her chin up for the softest brushing of lips. The kiss deepened and Kate’s body started to respond, the warmth starting to rise inside her again as Nat’s tongue flickered into her mouth. She reached up, pulling Nat closer, but Nat drew back.

  “I’m so glad you’re staying,” she whispered.

  “Me too,” Kate said. “Me too.”

  And curling back into Nat’s arms, feeling her fingers stroking down her stomach, smelling her spiced and citrus scent, hearing her breathing, Kate knew that she’d made the right decision. She was staying in LA. Staying with Nat.

  ✽✽✽

  It was a bright morning when Kate made her way back to her studio. The boxes that Nat had packed with pictures to store were still sitting in the middle of the floor. She kicked them to one side. Plenty of time to deal with them later. She needed to shower and then get to her shoot. She dragged clothes from the mezzanine into the bathroom, started the water running and brushed her teeth.

  She was just stripping off her t-shirt when her phone rang.

  “Kate S. Photography,” she answered, without bothering to look at the number.

  “Kate, it’s Mel. Are you alright?”

  “Perfectly fine. Why?”

  “Jesus. Get online. Now.”

  “What? Why?”

  But she was already flickering her computer to life.

  “Just get online. Check out Stars-Signed.”

  Kate’s fingers quickly typed the address. And then her heart stopped.

  Lee and Allingham to Marry.

  Her eyes jumped down through the paragraphs, looking for information, sure this couldn’t be true, not wanting to believe it. But the truth was there. Nat and Jake were engaged.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Her hands were sweating as she dialed in the number, but she was internally calm. As calm as she could be.

  “Yes, this is Kate Steinhauser calling for...” She scanned down the email for the name of the HR person she needed. “Calling for Jennifer Bryan.”

  “One moment please.”

  She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the studio, not wanting to see her life as it was.

  “Jen Bryan.”

  “Hi, this is Kate Steinhauser, the photographer.”

  “Ah, yes, Kate. Hi. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve decided that I’d love to accept your job offer.”

  “Fantastic.”

  Ten more long, eternal minutes of discussion. Papers to be signed. Accommodations to be arranged. But when it was done, when she hung up the phone, she felt empty. Empty and lonely and sad.

  “Kate!”

  There was hammering on the studio door, louder and louder and she could hear Mel yelling her name. For a moment she thought about not answering, not opening the door. But she couldn’t. She didn’t have the strength to listen to Mel outside, to ignore her.

  “It was unlocked,” she said, pulling the door open.

  “Kate. Jesus. Are you okay?”

  And she realized that she’d hung the phone up on Mel without a word after she saw the news. That she’d sat for a long hour or more just staring at the computer screen. That she had canceled her shoot. That there was nothing for her here now.

  “I’m fine,” she said, obviously lying.

  “No, you’re not,” Mel said, bustling inside. “Did you know about this? What the hell happened Kate?”

  “I’m going to New York.”

  Mel took a breath, then pulled out two chairs, sitting herself in one, and pulling on Kate’s hand until she sat in the other.

  “You’re going. You’re sure?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Kate, this all might not be what it seems. It could all just be publicity. Trust me, I know.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  It didn’t matter. Her bubble had been burst, her world had changed, and as certain as she’d been just hours before, the doubts had crept in again and this time she’d let them take over.

  “This whole time,” she said. “This whole time I was waiting for the kick. I was waiting for it to turn out to be another cruel joke, another tease, a way to laugh at me, to prove me inferior. And this could be it.”

  “And it could not be,” Mel said.

  “Maybe it’s not. I just don’t know.”

  “Then perhaps you should talk to Nat before you go making any rash decisions.”

  She’d thought about it. Truly thought about picking up the phone, about driving the battered blue van over to Nat’s apartment. But she couldn’t. Because the more that she thought about this, the more she couldn’t face being dragged into it. Joke or not, real or not, it didn’t matter.

  “No,” she said. “No. I don’t want to talk to Nat.”

  “But Kate, if this is all just publicity, if it’s only gossip, scandal, then shouldn’t she have the chance to speak for herself?”

  “She should,” Kate allowed. “But I can’t hear it. I don’t want to hear it. Because whether all this is true or not, and honestly, I don’t doubt that it is, I can’t do this, Mel. I can’t live like this. I don’t want to live like this.”

  “Like what?” asked Mel gently.

  “As part of this lifestyle, part of this big LA game. I can’t do it, it’s not me. I’m not an idiot, I don’t believe that Nat loves Jake. I know she doesn’t. But in the end, what does it matter? If marrying Jake is what it will take to keep her job, to keep the public happy, then she’ll do it. She’ll explain it to me, reasonably, and I’ll try to understand, and maybe I’ll live with it for a while. And then I’ll be in too deep, I’ll be too invested, too much in love, to escape. I can’t live a life that’s designed by publicists and agents, a life that’s constantly watched, regarded like a soap opera.”

  “Did you know?”

  Kate shook her head, then laughed bitterly.

  “Not only did I not know, but I’d talked to both of them about it. I thought Jake was thinking about coming out. I know that Nat was thinking about it too, just waiting for this TV job to get off the ground. Or at least that’s what I thought. I thought I could trust them both to do the right thing. But that’s not how it works in this city, is it?”

  And Kate could see that Mel wanted to lie, but she couldn’t.

  “No,” she said in the end. “It’s generally not.”

  “They’ll both do whatever furthers their career the most. Whatever’s right for the press, for the role, for the fame. And I can’t be that person. I thought I could. Or I thought I could change her, that I was good for, that she was changing to become more... normal. Less LA. But I was wrong. I can’t be in second place, Mel. I can’t come second to a career, to the great public, to a TV show, or to anything else. I don’t deserve that.”

  It had come to her immediately, like a lightning bolt striking between her eyes. The news, true or not, real or not, had shown her exactly what she would be agreeing to, exactly what she’d be giving up. And she couldn’t do it.

  “You don’t deserve that,” Mel said.

  “I’d just told her that I was staying,” said Kate. “That I wasn’t going to New York. That I was staying here, for us, for this to work. Just last night.”

  Mel sighed and took both of Kate’s hands in her own.

  “I’m not going to change your mind,” she said. “If this is what you need to do, then you’re going to have to do it, I guess. I understand your reasoning. I understand why you don’t want to be part of this life. But I still think you should talk to Nat.”

  Kate shook her head. If she talked to Nat then she’d change her mind. If she saw her, heard her words, felt her touch, then her commitment to leaving, to herself, would be gone. And she couldn’t risk it.

  “Okay. That’s your decision,” said Mel. “But I don’t want you to be alone. Why don’t you come and stay with me for a few days?”

  Kate looked around the studio, looked at her life, and then she nodded. Yes, getting out
of here was exactly what she needed. Maybe Mel could help fill some of the emptiness inside her.

  ✽✽✽

  A week and she hadn’t changed her mind. Nor had she spoken to Nat. And now she was in the studio packing up her life and it was taking far longer than she’d thought.

  She was right. It hurt, but she was right. As long as Nat stayed in LA, as long as she was working, she would live the same kind of life. A toxic life. Maybe that would be drink and drugs, maybe the wrong kind of people, maybe her agent running her life. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that as much as Kate loved Nat, and she truly thought she did, she could not play a part in that kind of life. And that meant leaving. Maybe Nat had changed, maybe she wasn’t the same bully that she used to be, maybe she was strong enough to survive LA. But Kate wasn’t.

  She taped another box closed and started pulling pictures off the wall. So she’d go to New York. She’d start over. Not from new, Mel had warned her. If nothing else she had to take the lessons she’d learned here and build on them. But she still had the sneaking suspicion that she was better off alone, that trusting and hoping had done her no good at all.

  “You’re alive.”

  Kate didn’t have to turn around, she didn’t need to see the face. The door was open to let in the breeze and she hesitated, not wanting to see what she knew she was going to see.

  “I’m alive,” she said finally, turning around.

  “But you haven’t answered my texts, my calls, my emails. You haven’t been here,” Nat said, leaning a hip against the doorway.

  “No,” Kate agreed, pulling another box towards her.

  “And now you’re packing. New York?”

  “Yes.”

  It physically hurt to look at her. It hurt to see her outline in the doorway, the jeans hugging her hips, the t-shirt skirting her waist revealing a glimpse of olive skin, the hair pulled up on top of her head.

  “May I come in?”

  She didn’t sound angry. Sad. And Kate had little choice, she was already here, so she nodded.

  “Kate, you know that this isn’t real, don’t you? This engagement. Me and Jake.”

  “I know now since you just told me.”

  “It’s not real. And I’d hope that you’d have more trust in me than that.”

  Kate said nothing.

  “I didn’t know about it. Not until it was announced,” Nat said. She leaned on the back of a chair, her knuckles turning white with the grip. “The TV station demanded a last minute guarantee before the contracts were signed. Some good press. So Brooks set this up. He tried to call, tried to tell me. But I was with you all day. I had my phone switched off.”

  “I see,” was all Kate said.

  “That’s all you have to say? I tried to call you a million times, I wanted to explain things to you. None of this was my fault, Kate. I honestly didn’t know about it.”

  “And would it have made a difference if you had?” Kate asked now, looking up and almost sinking into those dark eyes. “If it had all been discussed and talked through, would you have put your foot down and said no, I won’t do it?”

  She saw the hesitation, felt it in her soul.

  “It wouldn’t, would it?” she said. “Because this is how your life works, Nat. And this has nothing to do with trust or love or belief, or anything else. It has to do with the lifestyle you lead. With this toxic, terrible, manipulative game that you buy into. And I’m not willing to play.”

  Nat turned the chair, sat on it, her face pale and serious.

  “Kate, this is my life. You know that. You know what I have to do. And I’m not ruling anything out. I’m not saying that I’m not going to come out, that I won’t be seen in public with you. Nothing like that. Not even that I’m marrying Jake. I’m just saying that I need to wait for the right time. That I don’t decide things alone. Can’t you understand that?”

  “I understand. I understand all too well. There’s no honesty in your life, Nat. No truth. And I can’t play a part in that. I can’t live like that. Not for a year, not for a month, not even for a day. I won’t have my life be arranged by someone else’s whim, someone else’s needs.”

  “Not even mine?”

  And now the anger was coming, Kate could see it in the flash of an eye, in the flush of a cheek.

  “I lead an honest life,” she said, deflecting the question. “And I don’t want to be part of a lie.”

  Nat laughed, a crazy, high pitched sound. “You’re insane.”

  “Why? Because I’m true to myself? Because I think you should be too? Because I don’t want to play a game, to lie, to manipulate people’s perceptions of me?”

  “Because you’re unrealistic!” Nat stood up, the chair scraping against the ground and wobbling before deciding not to tip over.

  “I’m unrealistic? You’re the one that lives a lie.”

  “So what? Don’t we all?” Nat said, her voice tight. “We all lie, we all try to affect people’s perceptions of us. We all manipulate. Even you, Kate. No one can be honest all the time. Life doesn’t work that way. It just doesn’t.”

  “But it does,” Kate said, standing now so that she was just feet away from Nat, able to reach out and touch her though she didn’t. “Or it should.”

  “No,” Nat said. “No. There’s no complete honesty in the world. Not from anyone.”

  “There is from me,” Kate said, and she was breaking now, her temper was getting the better of her. It sounded like Nat thought she was a liar and that she wouldn’t take. More than anything she was honest.

  “No, Kate, not even from you.”

  Her veins pulsed with blood, her mouth tasted like metal.

  “You want some honesty? Huh? Well how about this,” she spat. “Your life is toxic and it’s killing you. I know you think you’re strong, but what makes you so different from all the others? Huh? You’re living a lie, Nat, and you know you are. And all these lies, all this toxicity, it’s going to catch up with you one day.”

  “No–” Nat’s face was crimson, her mouth was crooked, she looked ready to cry, but Kate wasn’t finished. If she was going to be honest then she was going to tell the whole truth.

  “It will. That’s what the drugs and the drinking are all about. You’re trying to make yourself feel better, soothe yourself, trying to forget that you’re living a lie. And all this will crumble, Nat. One day. Maybe not today, but soon. And then what? You’ll be a statistic, just like all the others. You’ll be an alcoholic, you’ll be dead from an overdose in a seedy motel room. You’ll be washed up and gone, just like that. Because that’s what happens in this city.”

  Nat’s lips were trembling.

  “And I will not watch that. I will not aid it. I will not be a part of it.”

  “Kate.”

  “No, I don’t want to hear it. You cannot survive here, Nat. If you’re not willing to leave LA, then it is going to eat you alive. Because you need to live your truth, and you can’t do that here. There are no compromises. Just the truth.”

  She was turning away, trying to hide her tears and Kate wanted to reach for her but didn’t. She couldn’t, not now. She needed to stay strong. For herself.

  “I’m going to New York,” she said, less angry, more softly. “I’m leaving. And I don’t want to see you again.”

  Seconds ticked by before Nat moved. And when she did, she walked towards the door never turning back.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The studio was hot with bright lights beaming onto the white set up that Kate had arranged. Simple, elegant, perfect. Except it wasn’t perfect, not in the slightest.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  The model’s eyes turned to the production assistant.

  “Don’t look at her, look at me,” Kate snapped.

  She was still pressing the button, still taking shots, hoping to capture what she wanted even if only by accident. But the model’s shoulders slumped and she gave up, flinging the camera down so that the strap around
her neck flicked taut.

  “No, no, no. It’s simple enough that a child could understand it, so why the hell can’t you?”

  She strode over, grasping the model’s arms, positioning her under the lights, turning her, angling her head just so before going back to her position. Three pictures later, seconds later, the production assistant crept up to her side. She didn’t speak, but Kate could feel her eyes watching, could feel the presence next to her.

  “What?”

  “We need to take a break,” the assistant said. “Chloe needs to stand down for a few minutes.” She didn’t wait for Kate to agree or disagree, but shouted to the room in general: “Take five!”

  “No!” Kate dropped the camera yet again. “No, I say when it’s take five. And since I’ve just got Chloe in the position I want, we’re continuing. In fact, we’ll go on until I get a decent picture. We’ll stop when I say.”

  “Kate, there are rules, we uh...”

  “We ‘uh’ nothing,” Kate growled, going back to her camera. “If Chloe had learned to pose properly we’d be done by now. Since she didn’t, this is all going to take a little longer. Sit on it for half an hour, we’ll break then.”

  She looked through the viewfinder and saw that the model had moved.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Stalking over she positioned the girl once more, but in tilting her face she saw tears in the model’s eyes. She swallowed then sighed.

  “Fine,” she said defeated. “Fine. Take a break. Ten minutes tops.”

  And she walked away.

  She was plugging the camera into her laptop to see if she could salvage at least a few shots when the production assistant came once more to skulk by her side. Lynette, that was her name, Kate suddenly remembered. Short, plump, pathetically cheery.

  “What now?”

  “Nothing,” Lynette said. “It’s just, well, maybe you could lighten up a bit. Chloe’s young, she hasn’t been doing this long, and, well...”

  “Then she shouldn’t be here,” was Kate’s response. “If she’s not a pro she doesn’t belong here. Send her back to the minor leagues and she can come back when she can do the job.”