“Everything okay?” Grey asks.
“Yeah, sorry. Brooks wants me to come out and work on some stuff with the screenwriter.”
“Can’t it wait for tomorrow?”
I shake my head, texting Brooks that I’ll be there in twenty minutes. “I guess not.”
“All right,” says Grey. “Guess I’ll have to christen this mattress all by myself.”
His tone is neutral, but then he slips off the other side of the bed and heads around it toward the door.
“Sorry to miss out.” I follow him out to the living room, where Titus and Beth now sit on the sofa together, still talking and laughing, possibly unaware that we ever left the room or that we’ve returned.
Grey plops down in the armchair next to them. “What’s going on out here?”
Titus turns to give him a shy smile. “Nothing, man. Just talking.”
“Well, count me in,” he says. “Skyler’s going to head out, though.”
“Yeah?” Beth asks, looking up at me. “What’s up?”
“Brooks wants to talk about the screenplay. He’s got the writer over at his place, and I’m going to head over there.”
She nods. “You think you’ll be long?”
I shrug. “No idea. Why?”
“You just look a little tired. And we’ve got an early call tomorrow.”
I head over to give her a hug. “I don’t think I’ll be long. Thanks for caring.”
“That’s how I do.”
“I know.” I kiss the top of her head. “Night, guys.”
Titus offers a wave, and Grey gives me a clipped, “Night.” He doesn’t look at me.
I hesitate at the door for a second, listening to Beth, Titus, and Grey debate whether to watch a movie or take a walk down to the pier. I’d so love to stay and join in—or just get a good night’s sleep. Beth’s right. I am tired.
But I’ll be fine, I decide, and head out into a cool, dry night that carries the scent of hibiscus. I climb into the truck—Grey’s truck—and I find he’s got a stack of demo CDs in the glove compartment.
I slip one into the dashboard console and smile as Grey’s voice washes over me, keeping me company all the way across town.
Chapter 23
Grey
Something happened between you and Skyler, Greyson. Don’t deny it,” Garrett says on Saturday night. The shoot’s wrapped for the day. Usually we head out pretty fast, but tonight we’re lingering around the table in his trailer. We have a whole day off tomorrow so the soundstages can be reset with new interiors. Garrett doesn’t have dinner plans until nine. I’m going to drop him off, then meet the band at the garage.
“We’re roommates,” I say, pushing around a vitamin bottle.
“I know this already. And?”
“What is this?” I hold up the bottle.
“Something Kaitlin gave me for weight control. And don’t change the subject.”
The dude’s persuasive as shit. He doesn’t miss a damn thing when it comes to people. Must be what makes him so good on-screen. He probably sees emotional fluctuations in color auras. Everything else, like money, traffic laws, politics, math, telling time, he’s pretty useless.
“Fine, I’ll tell you. The girl . . . she’s amazing, right? A million kinds of hot. Smart. Nice. Funny. I mean . . . I was really thinking she might be something special. But I’ve been paying attention around the apartment and she only flosses every other day. Can you believe that shit? Total deal-breaker.”
Garrett crosses his arms, and nods. “Ah, yes. Poor dental hygiene. I’ve had relationships end for the same reason. And here I was thinking this had something to do with Brooks Wright. My second theory is that your brooding silence these past days has something to do with the Blackwood Family Drama.”
So he’s noticed that, too. I’ve managed to go almost three days without talking to Adam, Skyler, or Mom. I’ve seen all three of them. But I have this new trick now. I got a headset from Mia, so I can just pretend I’ve been summoned on some urgent errand when I see them, which actually happens a lot anyway.
I shrug. “You’re way off-base.”
“Obviously.”
There’s a knock on the door. I stand to open it, but Adam lets himself in, hopping up the two steps. “You’re still here,” he says to Garrett. He glances at me. What I notice is his button-down shirt, which is a light blue/purple color. I don’t recognize it. Why am I hung up on a goddamn shirt? But then I get a mental image of him, Ali, and Mom walking into his apartment with shopping bags and realize . . . I feel out of the loop. His life is going on. He’s doing things without me. All of them are. I mean, it was my choice to leave . . . but it still sucks.
“We’ve got a little surprise for you,” Adam continues, to Garrett. “Can you come down to my office?”
“Of course!” Garrett beams.
Of course he makes me go with him. When we get there, a small crowd is gathered around Adam’s laptop. They’re excited about what’s on the screen, but my eyes go right to Brooks’s hand. It’s resting on Skyler’s lower back. She’s still in Emma Beautiful Emma wardrobe, and for some reason that pisses me off. Like . . . let the girl punch the hell out. I don’t know what my problem is with clothes today.
Then I see my mom, who’s toward the back, laughing at something Mia said. Everyone on the set loves her. She was an actress for a while, before she had Adam. Every day someone new comes up to me in the production and says how lucky Adam and I are to have her as a mom. Yesterday it was the director of photography.
When Mom sees me, the laugh dies in her throat, and her smile fades away.
Great. Hell of a reaction.
I do a one-eighty, but Garrett’s hand clamps on to my wrist. He wedges his way into the mix, taking me with him. I end up bumping into Skyler a little hard, because I’m twice the size of the path Garrett is forging. Skyler edges aside and doesn’t say anything. Maybe because I didn’t say anything. We’re both ignoring each other. Obviously. Brooks’s arm settles on her shoulder, and it’s a possessive gesture. I make myself look at the computer screen before I punch him.
Everyone’s excited about some early media coverage on the film—but Brooks’s hand on Skyler is all I see. Garrett reads the photo caption in a comical voice, making everyone laugh. Skyler laughs, too, and I don’t understand how it’s so easy for her to be near me. Every second is torture for me. So much worse now that I see her around the apartment. I can’t close my eyes without seeing her face, or hearing her voice. I thought it would get easier if I ignored her for a few days around the studio, but it isn’t, and I can’t take it anymore. I shove my way out of the huddle and head out to the hallway.
“Grey,” Mom says behind me.
I wheel toward her. “What?”
She startles at my tone of voice, her eyes flying wide open. I remember that shocked look. I saw it at our home in Newport last August, before I left. I probably saw it a thousand times before that. How many times did I get in trouble, or say something rude, and get that look from her?
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she declares. “Why are you pushing me away?”
“Because I’m hard to love. Remember?”
Now the shock turns to hurt. “That’s not what I said. I said you make it hard to love you.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not. You are easy to love. It’s impossible not to love you, Grey. What I meant when I said that is that sometimes you act like you don’t need to be loved. I shouldn’t have even said that, but you were so angry, and I was upset, and . . . I’m human, Grey. I made a mistake. With you . . . I feel so often like I’m doing the wrong thing for you. I feel like I never get through—”
“You can stop talking. That’s the right thing.” The door swings open, and Adam steps out but I keep going. I keep going because our fight is starting to come back to me, and it’s making me want to bash my head against the wall. “And stop t
rying to get through. You did your job. You fed me. You raised me. I’m nineteen now. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”
“Come on, Grey,” Adam says. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Please, Grey. Just tell me.” Madeleine takes a step closer. “What happened that day?”
The hallway feels like it’s elongating behind her. I can’t believe this is happening right now. Here, in the hallway outside Adam’s office. “Nothing happened. I went to see Lois. I went to her apartment and saw her. That’s it.”
Adam’s eyes lock on to me. “You went to see Lois?”
He says my birth mother’s name like it’s the name of an airborne pathogen. Anthrax. SARS. Lois. “Yes, Adam. I went to see my real mom because I was tired of my fake mom’s shit. Is that a fucking crime?”
Adam’s too stunned to respond, but Madeleine isn’t. “I just wanted you to apply yourself a little more, Grey. You’re so smart. You could make something of yourself, but you don’t care. You act like . . . like . . .”
“Like a white trash piece of shit? Say it, Madeleine. You know you want to say it.”
“I was not going to say that.”
“I’m never going to be your perfect son. I’m not him. Stop trying to make me him.”
“Grey—” Adam says. “Grey, wait—”
But images from that day in August are coming up, and I need space. Fresh air. Freedom. So I’m gone.
My cell phone buzzes when I reach the Mercedes outside. Adam. I stand there, staring at my phone, trying to make sense of what I just said, what just happened outside his office.
Am I jealous of him? I never thought I was. I don’t want to be. I love my brother, even though I hate him right now.
I don’t envy what he’s accomplished. I’m proud of him. And I don’t want the business and the studio and the car. What I want is his ease with people. I want his fearless goddamn heart. His first wife, Chloe, died, but he’s found someone again. He has Ali now. He’s put the past behind him. How the fuck did he do that?
I know I push people away before they can ditch me first. I know that’s what I do. But knowing doesn’t change anything. I’m still the five-year-old kid who was given up by his mom.
Anthrax . . . SARS . . .
Lois.
Titus calls when I’m almost home. “Game time, Grey. Rez got a call. We’re filling in at the Amber tonight. Their headliner backed out an hour ago. Drummer broke his hand last night punching a wall. Can you be here in twenty?”
Adrenaline roars through me. I gun the Mercedes and get there in ten.
The Amber is a small club, the kind of club that’s the place to be for about six months before it’s busted for something and shut down. Tonight, it’s packed to the rafters.
The opening act is already on and they’re loud, so no one answers the stage door, even after I pound on it for a solid minute. I have to go around front and tell the bouncer who I am. As I weave through the crowd toward backstage, a few girls check me out—one even trails me for a little while. I must be in a really shitty mood because I keep going and don’t give it a second thought.
I find the band backstage. Everyone’s pumped, and not just because we’re about to gig. Rez has an update from Vogelson. He’s gotten us into a band showcase called the Ring of Fire, which is a big deal, a huge event in a few weeks that’s by invitation only. We’ve been invited. Vogelson’s hooked us up. He’ll be there to watch us play. With our kind of music, whether we can fire up a crowd and perform is the difference-maker. We need to be able to blow up stadiums with our sound—and we can. We will. So it’s official. We’ve got our big audition lined up.
Emilio and Shane are so amped, they can’t stop tackling each other. Titus and Rez look more dazed, both of them wearing shit-eating grins. But the news gives me mood whiplash. And I can’t quite pull myself out of rage-mode, so I go from being two hundred pounds of anger to two hundred pounds of focused, ass-kicking, let’s-kill-this-gig front man.
I sing the hell out of our set. Completely slay it. My voice already bends toward anger and pain, and tonight they’re all over our songs. I have an endless supply of both, and I let them out, all the grit, and grasp, and grunt, and growl. I am myself as I sing. Wounded and angry. And I feel the entire club tune in to that, and to us. Our music casts a spell.
But between songs, when I’m talking and introducing what’s next, or the rest of the guys in the band, the audience laughs and shouts back at us, easy and comfortable. After hearing me sing, I think they’re surprised I’m just a dumb kid, jamming with his buddies when I start talking. Or maybe they just laugh and yell because I’m funny.
We play “Runner” and Sky’s song even though they’re both new, but I feel them more than our other songs. It’s during that one—“Surprised by the Sky”—that I become aware of what I’m doing instead of just doing it, and I realize I’m holding back. I’m doing the same thing to the audience that I do to everyone. I’m singing, I’m rockin’ it, but I can’t quite give them all of me. I can’t take that last step and bare my soul. I feel it, just beyond my reach. As the song progresses, I stretch toward it, that eclipsing, all-consuming place where I hide nothing. I push for it, and push—but it only moves farther off. The way to that next level isn’t by effort. I don’t know how to reach it, and the set’s over.
When I come fully out of the performing trance and step off-stage, my shirt’s off. I’m dripping. I feel human again, whole again, my demons exorcised, and the roar of the crowd is ear-shattering. We don’t have an encore song. We’ve played all our original music.
“We have to do another song,” Rez says. “They’re losing their minds!”
Nora and Beth, who’s been hanging out a lot with Titus, come up. They’ve sold out completely of our CDs, and every one of our promo cards is gone.
“We have to play something else,” Shane echoes.
The manager’s standing behind us. When we checked in two hours ago, he looked like every other jaded club manager. Now he’s all smiles and compliments. “You hear that? That doesn’t happen every night,” he says.
I look out to the bright lights onstage. Dust motes swirl around the mic stand. I think about what I felt while I was singing. I should go out there. I should do one more song and open up, give it everything. But I shake my head. “That’s it for me tonight.”
Chapter 24
Skyler
Sometimes, it feels like this movie is more real than my real life.
Or maybe it’s that the movie feels like the life I wish I had—one where I feel witty, charming, and just perfectly delightful all day, every day. Of course, it helps to have someone else write your lines, tell you how to stand, where to be.
I watch the dailies every now and then, and I’m amazed. The lighting, the makeup, the clothing—all of it makes me look so different from how I see myself. Makeup makes my lips look full and glossy, inviting. My features contoured to perfection. My posture, mannerisms—all of it feels like some other girl. One with perfectly fitted clothes. With the right words for every moment.
And I have to admit, the yes-girl in me, the go-to girl, likes the attention, likes knowing I’m good at this, that I’m making people happy. I know music does that for me, too, but this is different. I feel like I’m carrying more here, like it’s not just for me but for my mother and brother, for all the people gathered on set, and—eventually—for an audience much larger than any I’ve ever played to before.
Beth and I sit at a table in a fake coffee shop together, goofing around between takes while Kaitlin and Bernadette fuss over the jacket I’m wearing. It’s pulling across my upper arms, which are not dainty LA arms, elegantly sculpted through a billion hours of yogalates, but super muscled from dragging my cellos around for years. And to make it all more frown-worthy, apparently my bow arm’s a good inch larger, which makes me feel like some kind of freak. Half girl, half fiddler crab.
“On the plus side, we had to
take in your skirt a little,” Bernadette says, peeling the toffee-colored jacket, which I really loved, off me and handing it to Kaitlin.
“Is that going to be weird?” I ask. “I mean for continuity. If I keep losing weight?”
She laughs. “That would be an awesome problem to have, right? It’ll be okay. I doubt you can make a drastic enough change in the next six weeks to really screw up the visuals. But it’ll help everything lay better. And definitely help when we’re on to the beach stuff.”
Right. We’re heading to Virgin Gorda in a few weeks to film the big finale. Which means bathing suits. Lots of skin.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” Bernadette adds.
“Girl’s hardly eating,” Beth mutters.
Bernadette heads off with Kaitlin to find me something different to wear.
“I’m eating.” Just not as much. Or as often. “I just want to look good, Bets.”
She doesn’t have to worry about it, I think. She’s model-tall and a perfect size four, top and bottom. And she’s not the lead.
I take a couple more of Kaitlin’s supplements, swallowing them down with black coffee, which is cold now and tastes like charred feet. My head feels a little buzzy, and my stomach growls to remind me I haven’t actually had anything to eat yet today.
“Did you ever find out what’s in those?”
I shrug. “Just, you know, herbs. Plant extracts. That kind of thing.”
She arches a brow. “Hemlock’s a plant.”
“Ha ha.”
“I am serious as the heart attack you’re gonna have if you keep living on coffee and mystery pills.”
“You see me eat all the time. Didn’t we just destroy the buffet at Mayura?”
“Girl, you ate, like, a thimble-full of fish curry and two bites of tandoori chicken.”
I laugh. “I had more than that, and you know it.”
Didn’t I? I mean, I passed up the fried bananas and the naan, which made me want to cry, but I ate plenty. I just don’t feel as hungry lately.
Finally, they get everything reset, and we play out the scene. A short one where I clumsily attempt to set my best friend up on a date, and she rebuffs me because she’s interested in another guy, though my character’s also trying to set that guy up with a different girl, creating a hilarious chain reaction, which eventually leads to a set of scenes I can’t wait to play. It’s like an old-time farce or a Shakespearean comedy, with all the mismatched couples stuck together in a run-down resort in the Virgin Islands.
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