Her Secret Life

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “And you’re bored.”

  “No!” With her feet up on the chair next to her, she listened to the fountain, watched the lights twinkling on the water as it fell gracefully over the rock. “I’m actually quite...content. I was just thinking about you.”

  About how easy he was to talk to. She didn’t have to weigh every word with him as she felt she had to do with Bo and so many of her friends.

  She didn’t have an image with Michael. Nothing to keep up.

  He wasn’t responding.

  “You okay?” she asked. She was pushing him into deeper emotional intimacy. She knew it but couldn’t make herself stop. She wanted more than a mentor. She wanted to be a mentor, too. Needed to be as good a friend as others were to her.

  She couldn’t be just a taker anymore.

  “I’m pacing out by my pool, with a second bourbon in hand.”

  He never drank more than one a night. She sat up. “I’m on my way over.”

  “No.”

  “Michael...”

  “Can we do this, please? Just what we’re doing? Can we just talk?”

  She’d never been to his house. He’d never invited her.

  She’d driven by, though. And had told him so.

  “Of course.” She sat back, hurt but also relieved. Pushing her own feelings aside, she focused on him.

  “Why two bourbons?” She sipped her wine. Enjoying every small taste. Knowing when the glass was empty it would stay that way.

  The night air was cool. Really cool. But the sweater she’d borrowed from her sister’s closet was warm and cozy, as was her sister’s home behind her, complete with sleeping parents and nephew.

  “Willie was expelled from high school today.”

  Setting her wine down on the round glass umbrella table, she sat forward. “What happened?”

  “He was caught giving a joint to a buddy of his. He did it right under a security camera, Kace. He had to have known he’d be seen. It’s like he did it on purpose. The kid is on a one-way mission to prove that he’s no good.”

  “Was he arrested?”

  “No, he had way less than an ounce on him, even after they searched his truck, which he allowed without a warrant and before I was called. But he’ll probably get a ticket.”

  California marijuana laws called an ounce or less an infraction. Something Kacey knew well. She’d never smoked the stuff, but she knew a lot of people who did.

  “It’s a hundred-dollar fine,” she said. But the money and the ticket weren’t what was bothering him. “He can get his GED, Michael. He could take the test right now and pass, based on how smart you’ve said he is. And still get into college.” But that wasn’t the whole problem, either.

  She imagined him pacing, shot glass in hand. He’d be in jeans with a long-sleeved shirt, probably sleeves rolled down in deference to the cold.

  “Have you talked to him?” she asked. “Since you went and got him from school?”

  “He’s here now. Inside. Playing video games.”

  The little boy who’d begged to be allowed to play. To just have a turn with his big brother. Her heart wrenched.

  “What does he say?”

  “That kids give each other joints all the time.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yep.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I have a meeting with the superintendent tomorrow. I intend to point out that, as Willie says, kids pass joints all the time. I’ll mention his GPA, remind him that Willie has issues that we are working on. And pretty much beg him to make some kind of arrangement that will allow my brother to graduate.”

  He was going to do what he always did.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  “Shouldn’t what?”

  “Save his ass. What would happen if you didn’t smooth the way for him every time?”

  “You been talking to my sisters?”

  “I’ve never met your sisters, as you well know. But I’m assuming, then, that you’ve considered the alternative?”

  “I have. I know that it appears I’m enabling him, Kace. But Willie isn’t acting out for attention. Or out of an innate irresponsibility or even a lack of caring. He’s fulfilling a self-prophecy. He believes he’s a loser. That everyone who loves him knows he’s a loser. In his twisted way, he’s trying to be what he believes he has no choice but to be.”

  Michael’s words brought tears to her eyes.

  “And by standing by him, you show him a different version of himself. A person who’s worth fighting for. You show him you believe. And every time you succeed in smoothing the way, you open the door to that possibility in his mind. That maybe others think he’s worth saving, too.”

  “Or that others will do what I ask because they feel sorry for me.” His words came softly.

  “Compassion and pity are two different things,” Kacey told him. “And from what you’ve said, this has been going on for years. I suspect that if only pity motivated Willie’s school officials, they’d have stopped giving in to you a long time ago. It sounds like they respect you, Michael. And that they also see potential in Willie. Or if they don’t, they know that if you see the potential, it’s there.”

  “I want to believe that.”

  “You don’t believe in the potential you see in Willie anymore? You don’t have faith that you’re right?” The idea shocked her. “You believe in me...” she said. And then realized she was doing it again. Bringing it back to herself. She hastened to explain. “You have the empathic ability to see what a person is struggling to be, what they have the potential to be, and you treat them like that’s what they are.”

  She felt like an idiot. And took another sip of wine.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I MEANT I WANT to believe that Willie’s teachers and principals see his potential,” Michael said, interrupting Kacey’s self-flagellation. “That they respect me and aren’t just acting out of pity. I do believe in my little brother,” he clarified. “And in you.”

  Wow. She felt...kind of like that time in high school when a boy she’d had a crush on had told her he loved her. He’d only wanted sex, which he had not gotten, but still... It had been the first time a guy had said he loved her.

  “I don’t think it’s just a person’s potential that I see,” he continued, uncharacteristically longwinded. “I see who they are.”

  Maybe. She’d like to believe that. Would love to really believe she was the woman he said he saw in her, rather than being a woman who hoped she was on the way to being that woman—on the way to reaching her potential. “Except when it comes to you, right?”

  “Isn’t that the way it is with all of us?”

  Leaning her head back against the chair, she looked up at the sky. “Which is why we need a close friend who can see us as we really are and remind us when our own mirrors get fogged up.”

  “Yes.”

  “So what are you going to do if they don’t let Willie back in school?”

  “Get him signed up to take his GED.”

  “Will he stay with you?”

  “Possibly.”

  “And what if they do take him back?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is the second incident in as many weeks, Michael. It could be that, the closer it gets to graduation, the more escalated his behavior will become. If you just send him back to class, chances are he’ll do something else. Probably next week. At least, if you’re right about why this is happening in the first place.”

  She picked out the Little Dipper, remembering when her father had lain on the beach with her and Lacey and helped them see the constellations in the mass of stars above. They’d been about five at the time.

  She’d picked out the Big
Dipper before Lacey had and was so excited, dancing around and celebrating fiercely, kicking up sand. Even then, as a little kid, she might not have noticed Lacey still lying in the sand, searching for it, but she’d felt her sister’s pain. She’d lain down next to her, pointing until Lacey saw the constellation, too.

  “So...what would you have me do?”

  Answers sprang to mind. She always knew how to push forward.

  But this was Michael. She had to get this right.

  “I’d think there should be some accountability,” she said. “Not in terms of punishment, but in terms of...I don’t know...babysitting, for want of a better word. He needs help, Michael. He can’t go to school like he always has and be expected to just have learned his lesson and perform up to the ability you see in him. He doesn’t see his own ability, right? So how can you expect the self-explosive behavior to change?”

  She felt like she was channeling Lacey. Was it possible she’d listened a lot more than she’d realized over the years? Lacey would say so, but then Lacey saw Kacey with rose-colored glasses.

  “You’re suggesting some kind of private tutoring that would see him through to taking his finals and allow him to graduate? Or someone he has to account to after every period and sit with during lunch? Something along those lines?”

  Her idea hadn’t been that concrete until he spoke.

  “Exactly, and here’s another thought,” she added, thinking of the struggling teenage boy. “Maybe instead of pacing by the pool, you should go in and play video games with him. It’s what started this whole thing, right? The fact that he wanted to show you that he was good enough to play with you?”

  His pause made her long for FaceTime again.

  “When am I going to see you this weekend?” His question came out of the blue.

  “Tomorrow at the Stand.” She’d wait around if he wasn’t back from his meeting with the superintendent by the time she was through.

  “And after that?”

  “Mom and Dad are taking Levi to T-ball practice Saturday morning. It’s Dad’s gig. I’m just a tagalong and won’t be missed. My time with him is Saturday afternoon. I promised to take him to the beach to play in the sand.” It was far too cold to swim, but Levi didn’t seem to mind jeans and a sweatshirt as long as he could get sand in his hair.

  “Feel like breakfast?”

  She felt like making it for him. “You want to come here?”

  “No. Will you have time to make it to Little’s?”

  Kind of a waste for the two of them to drive two separate cars from Santa Raquel halfway back to LA, but she had the time. And needed to give him what he needed.

  “Of course.”

  “At nine?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  Kacey held on to her phone long after the call was disconnected. Thinking about Michael. And smiling.

  He was setting her in stone.

  * * *

  IT TOOK MICHAEL most of Friday to get his brother’s life back on track. Or a semblance thereof. His meeting with the superintendent produced a meeting with the high school head principal and Sara Havens, the counselor at the Lemonade Stand who’d been seeing Willie privately over the years in addition to the family counseling they’d all been going to in town.

  Sara ran sessions for abusers, and while Willie wasn’t an abuser, he suffered some of the same self-hatred as those who’d intentionally hurt loved ones. Her success rate in abuser rehabilitation wasn’t anywhere near what the Stand’s was for helping their victims establish healthier, happier lives, but there were a few notable cases where abusers had been successfully integrated back into their families with no further occurrences.

  As with similar challenges, the solution was ongoing and probably would be for life.

  He forced Willie to come with him to the meetings or at least sit right outside the door. The kid had a definite edge bordering on surly, but he nodded when asked if he’d cooperate with any plan they managed to come up with. He said yes out loud when asked if he wanted to graduate.

  In the end, Willie even thanked Michael when it was decided that he would attend the first three classes of the day at the high school, where he would have access to labs and other school facilities, but, outside the classroom he would be in the company of the school’s guidance counselor. No free roaming the halls in between classes, or hanging out with friends. For the next two months Michael would be picking him up for lunch and then taking him to the Stand, where he’d receive tutoring alongside children who were victims of abuse.

  Maybe Willie would become a mentor to them. Or maybe he’d be surly and standoffish and keep to himself. Either way, he agreed to be cooperative. Every afternoon he would have a session with Sara Havens.

  Michael was grateful to Kacey for opening his eyes to the fact that he and his family had grown desensitized to all the counseling and to Willie’s continually acting up. Their father had all but given up on Willie. Maybe his sisters had, too.

  In the past, counseling hadn’t stopped the behavior, and it might not this time, either. But Michael made it very clear to his brother that he was going to be an adult in a few short months, and as such, the choices would be his. He could be a decent, contributing human being, or the loser he was trying to make himself.

  “I have no idea if I got through to him,” he told Kacey late Friday night. He’d texted to see if she was still awake and ask if it was okay that he called. He’d texted earlier, too, to let her know that he wouldn’t be able to see her at the Stand that day.

  “Willie’s cooperating.” She was repeating his words back to him, but coming from her they carried more weight.

  “I told him that I won’t be able to bail him out again. That this is his chance to prove to himself that he’s worth all the effort I’ve spent on him. I told him that the fact that I’ve put forth the effort should show him that I know his value. Sara pointed out that since I’m his victim, he owes it to me to do this much.”

  “Wow, that sounds kind of harsh.” Kacey knew Sara, too.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “But she’s the one who deals with people who inflict harm on loved ones,” Kacey continued. “She’d be the one to better understand what motivates or sabotages them.”

  He sat on the half wall separating his yard from the golf course beyond, staring out into the night, and felt the tension that had been building inside him all day slowly dissipate.

  “She said he had to earn his redemption,” Mike told her.

  “Kind of like a twelve-step program.” Kacey’s words continued to flow over him, easing his guilt. “It’s not about what he owes you as much as him being willing to repay the debt.”

  “I’m not going to be able to make it to breakfast in the morning.” The real reason for his call. A text just seemed...unfriendly. “Willie’s going to be moving in with me for the next couple of months,” he told her. “I’m going with him to my folks’ house tomorrow to move all of his stuff. It’s important that Dad helps us, to show his support of all this, and he’s only free in the morning.”

  “Oh, Michael, that’s fine! What you’re doing, it’s far more important than social eating.”

  Was that what it was called? It felt far more important to him.

  Probably it was just as well that he had to cancel.

  “I’m guessing you’ll be pretty much tied up for the rest of the weekend?” she asked. And while the compassion in her tone was doing good things to him, he wished she sounded at least a little disappointed.

  “He’s seventeen and has his own truck, though I’m the keeper of the keys for now. It’s not like he needs a babysitter. But I think, at least while he’s getting settled in, it’s best if I hang around.”

  “I agree completely,” she said. He n
eeded more.

  “You can call, though.”

  “I know that, can’t you tell?” She chuckled.

  He ached.

  A warning signal went off in a part of him he had no time for. “And we can meet at Little’s one day next week, depending on your call schedule.” He sounded pathetic. A respected and highly successful businessman known for his calm demeanor was begging like a puppy.

  “I’ve got a packed week, but I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

  “I’ve got an afternoon meeting in LA on Wednesday—after I get Willie to the Lemonade Stand,” he offered.

  “Text me, at least,” she said. “I’ll call if I can get away.”

  He’d thought, maybe, they’d meet. At the café she frequented not far from her condo. He could sell it to himself as working—finding out where she sat. How close she was to the public computers. See if, sitting there again, she remembered anything.

  But he knew he was stretching thin. Too thin. He wasn’t a cop. And so far, they only had uncomplimentary photos of a celebrity on their hands. Nothing anyone would even notice if it wasn’t Kacey who was trying to change her image, and him, who was...

  He stopped. A friend. He was a friend.

  “In the meantime, I’ve got your back completely on the photo thing, Kace,” he ended up saying. “I’ll be watching every day.” Multiple times a day. He’d set up email notifications for additions to the thread on the site where the photos had been posted, but he was cruising the broader internet, as well.

  “I know that. And I’m here, anytime. Even when I’m at home. If you need me, you call. If I’m on set, I’ll return your call as soon as I’m alone.”

  Two things she’d said hit him at once. Home. And alone. Santa Raquel was not home to her. Beverly Hills was. And when she was there, she was rarely alone.

  His friendship with her might appear to be close, to be growing closer, more intimate, but in reality, he wasn’t a part of her life.

  He was only her vacation.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ON MONDAY, A third photo showed up. Kacey had gotten a text from Michael, but she heard about it from her agent first, because the woman happened to be on set. She didn’t get Michael’s text until she was back in her dressing room. And then looked at her email for Google alerts, just in case there was more than what she’d been sent.