Eight hours later, his muscles won’t feel tangled and tight; he’ll be starving and truly warm for the first time in days.
In eight hours, he’ll still be wearing a dead boy’s shirt.
First, though, Adam sleeps, deep and dreamless, wakes to find Phoebe hovering over him. The smile on her lips—the real one, not the one she’s perfected for auditions and customers at Rosebud—is both right and wrong with her skin doughy from crying and eyes road-mapped with red lines.
“Hey,” he says, shifting onto his back to look up at her. “Sorry it took me so long to get here.”
Her grin widens. With her weird chubby fingers, she traces the three-day-old stubble on his scalp.
“I didn’t think you would,” she says, “but you look good bald.”
7 in another country
Phoebe has a historical novel that Gennifer recommended, but instead of reading, she studies the other passengers flying from LA to Vancouver, wonders if they were like the ones on her brother’s flight. Wonders if this collection of people would react the same way if a young man were to suddenly collapse on the way to the lavatory. If there would be a doctor or a nurse (like on Chase’s plane) to come forward and help. If those efforts, too, would be in vain.
There’s a middle-aged man with sable hair in the exit row. Maybe because he looks like her father, Phoebe thinks he might be a doctor. Maybe the outcome here would be different.
She has to pee when they land, but after disembarking and going through customs, she walks past the ladies’ room toward the line of pay phones mounted on the wall, dials her brother’s apartment in Manhattan, and feels a rush of relief that, for whatever reason, the phone company hasn’t disconnected the line, that Chase’s recorded voice clicks on after the third ring.
“Hello, you’ve reached Sharon Gallaher and Chase Fisher. We can’t come to the phone right now, so leave a message.”
Phoebe’s last actual conversation with her brother had been an argument over vodka and Adam five months ago. In LA for business, Chase had insisted on taking her to an overpriced, less-than-stellar sushi place one of his NYC colleagues had recommended, even though she’d lived in the city more than a decade and could have written a dissertation on better sushi establishments in the greater Los Angeles area. The service sucked, the food was worse, and Chase kept checking his BlackBerry and stepping outside to take phone calls that he explained away with the term “portfolio review.” Afterward they’d gone to the bar at his hotel, and he’d ordered a Grey Goose martini, extra dirty.
“With that much olive juice, you can’t taste the difference and could just order well vodka,” she’d said. It was true, but nothing like that could be spoken aloud at Rosebud, where the markup on top-shelf alcohol accounted for a giant percentage of revenue.
“Relax, I’m picking up the check.” Chase had bumped his shoulder with hers, raised his eyebrows twice—an echo of the lost nonverbal language of their youth. There’d been creases around his eyes and a few white hairs sprouting at his temples, as if portfolio review had made him the older sibling. “And why do you care if I’m overpaying for drinks?”
“I’m a bartender.” Phoebe shrugged. “I’m telling you there’s no difference except for the price.”
“I can taste the difference,” he said. “And if I don’t order by name, bartenders always make martinis with gin.” Chase stretched out “bartenders” into something accusatory.
The mood was already strained when he asked, “So what’s the deal with you and your roommate; are you, like, together now?”
“We’re friends.”
“Really?” Chase said with flat disbelief. “You brought him to Hong Kong.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she’d said. “It’s complicated.”
“Pheebs, I’m not trying to be a dick, I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
She’d told him she could take care of herself and asked when he and Sharon Gallaher were going to get married.
“I don’t know.” He’d looked down. “Lately she’s been…”
“Complicated?”
“I guess.”
He’d tried to give her cab fare, but she’d brushed his money away, insulted and injured. Still, as she’d hugged him good-bye, she promised to get out to New York to see him in the next few months.
Three weeks later Chase had been on a plane to Chicago when an undiagnosed brain aneurysm ruptured; he was dead before the plane hit the ground.
Now Phoebe listens to his voice on the answering machine instructing callers to provide information he’ll never receive. She hangs up without leaving a message.
As an afterthought, she enters the code and checks the voice mail at her apartment in California. Her stepmother has left a message asking Phoebe to come to Chicago soon. “I think it might be good for your dad,” Gennifer says, reactivating the geyser of guilt Phoebe’s felt since she went back to LA ten days after the funeral. “Have fun this weekend, and give Adam our love.”
Hanging up, she finally goes to the ladies’ room, briefly contemplates putting on makeup but settles for a dab of ChapStick instead. Her hair needs a cut. It’s almost to her shoulders for the first time in years.
At baggage claim it takes Phoebe a few seconds to find Adam in the crowd. He’s paler than she’s ever seen, a stocking cap covering his bald head, torso bulked from a hefty jacket. And the dozen red roses he’s holding, presumably for her—that’s definitely not consistent with the guy she’s shared an apartment with for five years.
“Hey, pretty lady.” Adam hands her the flowers, folds her into his arms, and kisses the crown of her head. “Have a good flight?”
She nods against his chest. It’s not just the coat. He feels different, more filled out. A few weeks ago he’d mentioned that he’d started working out with Ron Brosh, who plays the show’s hero and whose prior claim to fame was being the sexy shirtless guy in an RC Cola commercial.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be hungry, so I made a reservation at this famous place in the West End, or we can order room service if you’re tired.” Adam takes her duffel bag from her shoulder and leads them toward a waiting black Town Car outside. “If you’re up for it, pretty much all of Hollywood North hangs out at the hotel lounge, like, the director of a Mandy Moore movie was there last night and Jennifer Love Hewitt.”
Obviously this is what Adam wants, so Phoebe says it might be fun, though it sounds patently awful and she is tired, even though it’s not yet 10:00 P.M.—something about airplanes.
“A lot of deals are made at the Gerard.” Adam is smiling now, looks more familiar. “Who knows, maybe your Lana Turner soda fountain moment will take place in BC?”
It’s been so long since her last audition, Phoebe takes a solid second to figure out Adam is talking about her “acting” career.
“Yeah, would be pretty funny if I put in all these years at Rosebud only to be discovered here,” she says, but even before Chase died, Phoebe had stopped going to open calls, and when her modeling agency folded last August, she’d made no attempt to find another.
Adam squeezes her hand and points out a few attractions through the car’s tinted windows. Everything gray in the drizzling rain, it could be Chicago. From her lap, the smell of the roses tickles her nose.
At Chase’s funeral the flowers had been white; orchids and lilies blending with the falling snow. The blizzard hadn’t hit yet—not what it became hours later when Adam was driving from Cincinnati—only fat flakes everyone kept shaking off their coats at the graveside. The part of her hair not covered by a black cap had been wet by the time Phoebe had thrown dirt on the lowered coffin. Sharon Gallaher hadn’t been there.
“Hey, Pheebs, we’re here.” Adam, in the car, in Canada, gently nudging her. “You okay. You kinda zoned out for sec.”
“Sorry, I’m plane fuzzy,” she says.
“We can go straight to bed.” Feather kiss on her lips, stroke of her hair.
“No, I want to meet your f
riends.” She tries to mean it. “Will the guy from the RC commercial be there? He’s smokin’.”
“No sleeping with my mortal enemy.” Adam smiles. Then oddly serious, adds, “I don’t want to share you.”
Half an hour later they’re in the famous lounge, designed like an old English club with tapestries and lit fireplaces. Adam insisted she looked great, so Phoebe hadn’t changed from the jeans and Converse sneakers she’d worn on the flight—the kind of outfit she wears a lot these days.
Cast members from Adam’s show are clumped around the leather-backed bar stools. Ron, the smokin’ RC guy; a willowy blonde who introduces herself as Avery Lane; and the redhead from the Jericho Jeans ads, who stands to give Adam a hug.
“You must be Fiona,” she says, extends her hand. “Z talks about you all the time. I’m Cecily.”
“Phoebe, actually.” Phoebe smiles politely, knows Cecily said her name wrong intentionally, but doesn’t take the bait and say Adam must not talk about her that much.
Light apology, and Cecily is saying she’s been to Rosebud a few times for meetings, suggests they might even have seen each other. Phoebe nods, doesn’t say she would have remembered, that the Jericho Jeans billboard off Sawtelle had been a favorite of Jerry the manager.
“I love your Chuck Taylors.” Cecily, who’s wearing stilettos with her jeans and Miss Piggy T-shirt, points to Phoebe’s shoes. “You’re so lucky you’re tall.”
Phoebe smiles again. Adam drapes a protective arm around her back—so different from the way they used to be.
Everyone starts talking about filming, Adam and Ron doing their best to fill in the blanks for Phoebe. It reminds her of Evie and Nicole trying to catch her up on the first three years of ETHS when she transferred senior year.
“I swear, Mick—one of the directors—really has it in for this guy.” Ron gestures toward Adam. “Seriously, how many takes did he make you do that fall?”
“Had to be fifteen.” Adam caresses Phoebe’s neck. “Wait until you see this bruise.”
“Yeah, makeup’s gonna have a bitch of a time covering that up for our next naked scene,” Cecily says, more toward Adam than anyone else. With Adam’s arm still on her shoulder, Phoebe finds she’s only mildly annoyed, not threatened, and excuses herself to go to the ladies’ room.
Remembering a phone booth by the bathrooms, she ducks inside and calls her brother’s apartment. Faithfully, the recorded message comes on after the third ring.
* * *
When Chase died, her father and stepmother had been busy filling out official reports and tracking down relatives, so Phoebe had been the one to call Sharon Gallaher. Sharon picked up on the first ring, assumed the caller was Chase, and began apologizing with such raw hope that the bottom fell out of rock bottom.
“Thank you,” the girl had said after Phoebe told her. She hung up before Phoebe could relay information about the funeral and burial. Seven times, Phoebe called back and left the details on the machine. Then she called and just listened to the outgoing message. Sharon never answered again.
* * *
On her way back to Adam and his friends, Phoebe passes a group of men and women in business casual clothes and good watches. They look vaguely American, but they’re talking about Afghanistan and Iraq in a way that even liberals in California wouldn’t, calling them “America’s wars.” And Phoebe remembers that even though it was only a three-hour flight, she’s still in another country.
Adam is at the bar closing his tab, everyone standing around him with their backs toward Phoebe, unaware she’s returned. She wonders what they know, what Adam has told these new people in his life about why he fled in the middle of filming the pilot.
“You’re really going up so early?” Cecily whines. “Tomorrow’s our first day off in forever.”
“She’s tired.” Adam tucks his credit card into his wallet.
“Well, put her to bed and come back down.” Cecily gives a light tug on Adam’s elbow, as if thousands (millions?) of men hadn’t whacked off to the Jericho Jeans ad where she was topless, long red hair all that covered her breasts.
“I’m pretty sure he wants to go to bed with her, Cese,” Ron quips, and Phoebe takes that as a cue to step in close, take Adam’s hand, nod when he asks if she’s ready to leave. The type of thing she’d never venture before, the type of thing that still feels strange.
Their kisses are reflected in the mirrored elevator doors; pretty people but different from when they met. Different kisses, too, the kind where he strokes her hair, brushes it from her face; years ago he used to pull it. He leads her down the hall to his room, natural gravitation to the bed. More kissing, more hair stroking.
Pulling off his shirt, she fights a gasp. He’s always been fit, always put in hours at the gym, but whatever he’s doing lately has caused a fundamental shift—the landscape of his body is all hills of lean, defined muscle, waxed smooth and hairless for his role as Captain Rowen. And of course the softball-size bruise on his left shoulder that everyone was talking about at the bar.
Tracing her fingers on the edges that are already changing from purple to yellow, she tells him it’s okay if he wants to go back down to his friends.
“I don’t.” He turns his head, touches his lips to her fingers.
“Cecily seemed disappointed.”
“There’s nothing to worry about with her.” His gray eyes are solemn. “When I first met Cese, maybe there was something, but we’re just friends now. I love you, Phoebe.”
“I know.” For the first time since he came into her life, she’s really not concerned about the other women vying for his attention. “It’s fine.”
“Fine?” Adam aims for mock flabbergasted but can’t quite conceal his hurt as he flops back on the bed. “Not exactly the response I was hoping for.”
And she realizes this is the first time he’s told her he loves her, realizes how much she’d wanted him to say this in some distant, before time in LA—in her country.
“I meant I know you’re not sleeping with her.” Following him down, she rests her head on his chest, rubs the hairless skin of his stomach, and feels his abdominals tremble. “I know you love me. I love you, too.”
“Really?” he asks like a boy, not at all right with his new body, not at all like five years ago. “So are you, like, my official person?”
“Yes, Adam, I’m your girlfriend.”
“Good.” He rolls slightly so they’re facing each other, smiles wide. “I actually already listed you as the emergency contact on all my paperwork.”
Had Sharon been her brother’s emergency contact? Sharon, who couldn’t show up for the funeral, couldn’t send a note or make a donation in Chase’s name.
And when was the last time Phoebe had to write down those numbers? The last time she’d started anything new? They hadn’t made her update her information at Rosebud when she demanded the promotion to bartender four years ago.
Here, in Canada, Adam’s lips on her forehead, her nose. She closes her eyes and he kisses the lids. Finally her mouth.
* * *
The morning after Chase’s funeral, Phoebe woke up and found Adam in bed beside her wearing her brother’s college sweatshirt. Grimy and bone-weary from having traveled hours and hours to get to her, he’d still been half asleep when she began an all-out assault on his mouth. Brutal kisses with teeth, her tongue eager to learn any remaining things she didn’t already know about Adam Zoellner. She’d dug fingers under the offensive University of Wisconsin hoodie and the sweater underneath, raked her nails over his sides. Sticky with a film of dried sweat, he smelled as though he hadn’t showered or applied deodorant in days (he hadn’t). It didn’t matter; she bit the flesh of his neck hard enough to taste blood, made him cry out in a combination of pain and surprise. He was still rubbing the bite when she changed course and reached for his pants, yanked open the belt. Flipping her so he was on top, Adam had held her arms and tried to soothe her. He probably would have stayed like that all day, c
aressing her, dotting her skin with kisses so tender they made her want to cry. But she’d been crying for three days and wanted to feel different. She’d arched her back so her pelvis rubbed against his cock swelling in his jeans.
In the end he’d won, though, making love to her gently, slowly, even when she tried to ratchet up their rhythm. Afterward he’d held her until he had to go back to BC that afternoon. The network went ahead and ordered a full twenty-two episodes of E&E: Rising, but Adam came home the weekend she got back to LA and made love to her that same way.
The way he does now, as if she’s made of Fabergé eggs and blown glass and might shatter. Not at all like the girl he used to throw around when they were just fucking a million years ago.
When they’re done, she curls into his side, and he dots her spine with drowsy fingertips, tells her about all the things he can show her tomorrow—Granville Island and Gastown, Stanley Park, maybe sneak her onto the set—places of his universe without her.
“Or we can stay in bed all day,” he murmurs as he drifts. “Whatever my girlfriend wants.”
He starts to snore, something she’d forgotten about in the weeks they’ve been apart, the weeks of secretly calling Chase’s machine and wearing Converse. Running her fingers across his chest, she makes his breathing shift. She’d forgotten about that, too, and about how warm it is to sleep next to him.
Kiss on his collarbone, she whispers, “I really do love you.”
* * *
At the airport three days later, he sets down her bag, puts his hands on her hips, and asks her to stay the week.
In Some Other World, Maybe: A Novel Page 15
