Today & Tomorrow

by Susan Fanetti

  Donovan Winter was a big star. He had been since before Tristan and Analisa were born, since before he’d met their mom. They’d met on a movie, in fact. Donovan was the kind of actor who was both gorgeous and talented. He was strong and graceful, and he was smart and intuitive. The complete package. So he was one of those rare A-listers who had been headlining summer action blockbusters and awards-season think pieces for three decades.

  He’d made a whole lot of money. Stella, Analisa’s mother, had, too. Her movies were still making money in streaming and syndication.

  Their house in Malibu was pretty awesome. It had been designed by a big-deal architect, and had made the cover of a couple of different lifestyle magazines.

  It looked now like Nolan was feeling a little intimidated.

  She was, too, actually. She’d invited him in—her dad had texted and told her she’d better—but now she felt weird about it. She didn’t want Nolan to feel weird meeting her dad, and she didn’t know what they were going to do with him once she got him inside. She could feel awkwardness looming just inside the door.

  Also, since she wasn’t going to take riding lessons from him, after all, this was probably the first and last time she’d ever see him. She didn’t like that, she wanted to see more of him, get to know him, but she didn’t know what to do about it. They didn’t exactly have a lot in common. As evidenced by his gaping silence standing here in front of her house. Her dad’s house. Whatever.

  She reached out, meaning to take his hand, but chickened out at the last second. Today was not a day high on the brave scale for Analisa, no sir. “We should go in.”

  At her words, he turned and smiled—the kind of smile a condemned man sends his family on the way to the gallows. “Okay. Lead the way.”

  And then he took her hand.

  As they got to the front door, it opened, and her father was there, smiling his press-junket smile. “You’re back! How’d it go?” He held out his hand. “And you’re Nolan, right?”

  To his great credit, Nolan didn’t act like a starstruck goof. He shook her dad’s hand and said, “Yes, sir. Good to meet you.”

  That obviously impressed her dad, because his smile became a real one. “Well, get in here, both of you. Marica has dinner just about ready, I think.” He leaned over and kissed Analisa’s cheek, lingering an extra second.

  “Is Tris home?” His Nissan wasn’t in the drive, but he might have parked in the garage.

  “No. He went out with Paige this evening.”

  Tristan didn’t have a girlfriend, he had girlfriends in the plural, three or four girls, in some kind of rotation, whom he enjoyed for different reasons. He spent a lot more time in the tabloids than Analisa did. Her father had some kind of agreement or something with the paparazzi that kept her out of the spotlight for the most part. Especially since she’d gotten sick. The first time.

  As they followed her father into the main living space of the house—which was a kitchen, dining room and living room, all in one open area, mostly surrounded by glass walls that maximized the view of the beach and the Pacific Ocean—Nolan slowed until he was barely moving.

  “I—uh—you don’t need—Jesus, you’re right on the water.”

  Donovan smiled and looked out the window. “Yeah. I love that view.”

  “How could you not? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Donovan turned. “You’ve never been to the beach?”

  “No, I have. I’ve ridden a ways up the PCH a couple of times. But it’s different being in a house and looking at that. It seems bigger, I guess. It’s impressive.”

  “I agree. There’s a biker bar down the road. You know it?”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty famous. I’ve stopped in.”

  “Don’t ever take my daughter there.”

  Analisa face went instantly hot with embarrassment. “Daddy!”

  But Nolan just cocked his head and gave her father a quizzical look. “Okay. Hadn’t planned on it.”

  Her father smiled at them both. Not the junket smile, not his normal smile. Something more enigmatic. Like he was in on a joke they didn’t know. “Just setting the parameters. Can I get you a drink?”

  Nolan turned and looked back the way they’d come, toward the front door, like he was feeling nostalgic for it. Then he turned to Analisa and gave her a little smile. She smiled back, hoping she was being encouraging. She wanted him to stay.

  And now she wanted to figure out a way to get him to take her to that bar.

  She must have been encouraging enough, because when Nolan looked back at her father, he said. “Beer, if you got it.”

  “I do. Fat Tire okay?”

  “Yeah. That’s fine.”

  “Good—have a seat—or look around, if you like. Dinner won’t be long. Do you eat shark?”

  Nolan laughed. “I have no idea. But I’m game.”

  Donovan smiled. “Good man.” He went off to the far side of the space, where Marica was cooking, and opened the big Sub-Zero fridge.

  Raking his hair back from his face, Nolan leaned over to Analisa and muttered, “I think maybe I know how you felt jumping out of a plane.”

  It made her laugh, and she turned toward him—oh, he was close. She could see a little bit of dark stubble on his cheeks and upper lip. His lips were nice, really nice.

  Refocusing, she said, “He’s a good guy, I promise. He’s just a guy with a job. That’s it.”

  “Yeah…no. He’s not. But I can play it that way.”

  “Sorry if you’ve been taken hostage.” She knew he hadn’t planned on spending much time here.

  “It’s okay. I’m glad to stay. I mean, hell. Once-in-a-lifetime stuff, right?”

  Not for her. This was her everyday life. But she understood. Before she could say so, her dad was back with beers for him and Nolan and a lemon water for her.

  She guessed it was time to sit around and make polite conversation.

  ~oOo~

  “It really is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Analisa walked up behind Nolan and looked out over the vista that had spurred him to make such a sweeping statement. It was just the ocean; she had been looking at it her whole life.

  But now she tried to see what he was seeing—the most beautiful thing ever.

  It was dark—they’d lingered over dinner, having a good conversation. Nolan was nothing like she’d expected him to be. He was smart and well-spoken, and he kept up with current events—and not just gossip and industry news, but world events. Politics. He had opinions and he was able to share them and discuss without being an asshole about it. He and her dad had had a spirited debate about the Second Amendment and had stayed friendly the whole time.

  She didn’t know why she’d been expecting a Cro-Magnon man; she’d known Bart for years, and he was all the things Nolan was, too. But she’d thought Bart was an anomaly. She was getting a new perspective on bikers.

  So she tried to get a new perspective on the view that had been out her window her whole life.

  There was a little bit of a breeze, just enough to bring the waves in one after the other. The water was dark blue, almost the same blue of the night sky, and the tops of the waves were pearly grey. The coast glowed—it always did, lots of people meant lot of lights, so what the sky lacked in starshine it made up for in that coastal glow. Like fairy lights.

  She’d never before thought something so fanciful about the place she lived, and it made her giggle. Nolan looked over his shoulder, a reserved smile on his face. “You laughing at me?”

  “No—at myself. I was just thinking that everything looks lit up with fairy light. Pretty dumb.”

  He turned to face her. “I like it. It is magical here.” He looked past her, toward the house. And his way home. “I should get going, though.”

  She knew he had to go. But she’d had the best day she’d had in a long time. Years, maybe. She’d barely thought of being sick or dying. Even though the day had been about doing something on
her list.

  Her dad never let her forget that she was sick. He didn’t mean it; he just couldn’t help it. Tris could set it aside, but part of that was living his own life, so he didn’t spend much time babysitting her.

  And she didn’t have any friends, no real ones, at least. Being sick like she’d been since she was thirteen had a way of making a wall between the sick person and the people she might have things in common with. Because when you were that sick, the only thing people thought you had was sickness, and they didn’t want to be in common with that.

  By the time she’d gone into remission, she’d gotten used to being on her own, and she hadn’t been much in the mood to audition new friends—good thing, as it turned out, since she’d gone and gotten sick again.

  So Analisa was mostly alone. Just her, her brother, their father, and It. Until today. She hadn’t felt alone all day. She wasn’t in a huge rush for the day to end.

  “Yeah, I know. Thanks for helping me with my list.”

  “You’re welcome. I liked helping.” He took a step toward her. “What else you got on that thing?”

  Happy to prolong his time on her beach, she pulled out her phone and opened her notes.

  When she handed it to him, he took it, asking, “You wrote it down?”

  “Well, yeah. It’s not a list if you don’t write it down.”

  “You did the things that are lined out?”

  She nodded.

  “Damn, really?” He read aloud: “‘Have lunch with the President. New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Skydive. Graduate college. Visit all seven continents.’” He looked up. “‘Play the Hollywood Bowl’? No shit?”

  Hearing her list read aloud was embarrassing—it was all such a cliché. That was how she wanted to mark her life? No, it wasn’t. But she answered his question. “Yeah. I’ve been playing piano since I was three. I’m not that good, but my dad pulled some strings. He pulled a lot of strings. It’s not that impressive a list. I was thirteen when I started it, right after I got sick. I think my dad sees it like a shopping list.”

  “How’d you graduate college already? You’re nineteen, right?”

  “I’ve been homeschooled since I first got sick. With a tutor. It was stupid easy. I finished the high school stuff when I was fifteen, and then I did an online degree. No big.”

  “It’s big to me. I barely graduated high school.”

  “Really? But you’re smart.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I am. Too smart for those douchebags.” With his head cocked to the side, he smirked. “I had some trouble doing what I was told.”

  That she could believe, and she laughed. “Understood.”

  Looking back at her phone, he read on. “You need to cross out ‘Ride a Harley.’ And then there’s only three things left: ‘invent something cool,’ ‘buy a house,’ and ‘make a movie.’ Inventing something cool seems like the toughest one. You’re already making the movie. And I don’t guess it would be hard for you to buy a house.” He handed her back her phone, and she took some footage before she put it in her pocket. “Why buy a house?”

  She shrugged. “It’s something people do in their lives. I’m trying to get my life lived. And yeah, my dad could just buy me a house, but I want a reason more than my list to have one.” It didn’t even make sense to her, so she knew she wasn’t explaining it right. There was stuff on her secret list that was even more crazy than that.

  But Nolan didn’t push the point. He just nodded at the pocket where she’d put her phone. “It’s a pretty short list. Ten things?”

  “It’s gonna sound totally obnoxious, but it was hard to make a list. The way I grew up, I’ve been a lot of places, done a lot of things. Even before I got sick.” What she meant was that it was hard to make a list that she could share with her father. The things she most wanted were too much for him.

  “Yeah, I guess it’s a real bitch to always have everything you want.”

  He hadn’t said it with a nasty tone, but she flinched. She hardly knew him, but she was still surprised that he’d said something like that. “That was mean. I was trying to be honest.”

  He had the decency to be abashed. “Sorry. You’re right. That was a shitty thing to say.” With a shake of his head and a sheepish chuckle, he added, “On that note, I guess I really should go.”

  “Yeah.” She still didn’t want him to go, but she didn’t really want him to stay, now, either. What he’d said had hurt.

  They walked back to the house and around to the front drive. As he picked his helmet up off the bike, Analisa had a moment that felt like panic. If he left, and she never saw him again—she felt like It would creep up a little closer.

  “My list is longer than what I showed you. There’s a second half. It’s secret.”

  With the helmet halfway to his head, he stopped. “Secret? Why?”

  “It’s stuff my dad would lose his head to know about. I haven’t checked any of it off because it’s stuff I’m not sure how to do on my own.”

  He cocked his head but didn’t say anything. She didn’t know whether he was intentionally going to make her ask it, or whether he honestly didn’t know what she wanted to ask. So she asked. “Would you help me?”

  Setting the helmet back on the bike, he sat sideways on the seat, then reached out and pulled her close, between his legs. Officially the most intimate position she’d ever been in with a guy. “What’s on the list?”

  “I don’t want to tell you the whole thing all at once. But ‘get a tattoo’ is one of them.” She looked down; his legs framed hers, and he was still holding her hand. “Um, ‘pierce…something private’ is another.”

  “Damn,” he murmured. “Damn.” He gave her hand a little squeeze. “But you need help with those?”

  “I guess not—I just…I don’t want to do it alone. Feels too lonely.”

  He eyed her curiously. “Are you asking me to go with you when you get something private pierced? Seriously?”

  She blushed. This was the most awkward conversation she’d had in a long time, and she was still thinking about the way his legs held hers between them. “I’m not asking you to watch—gross! Just come along. Would you?”

  He lifted her hand and brought it to his mouth, and she thought he was going to kiss it. But he stopped before he did and let their hands fall back to his lap. “Yeah, I will.”

  ~oOo~

  Her father was standing near the door when she went in. Since the front of the house was almost as much glass as the rear, Analisa was sure he’d been watching her whole goodbye scene with Nolan. He’d probably been watching them on the beach, too.

  Not that there had been much to see—an almost-kiss of her hand, and a hug before he got on the bike.

  “Did you have a good day?” He stepped up and gave her a hug.

  She hugged him back. He was smothering her a little lately, and he got on her nerves with it, but she loved him with everything she had. “Yeah. It was a great day.”

  “Good.” He kissed her head and let her go. “So…since you’re not going to do more lessons, is that the last we’ve seen of Nolan?”

  Rolling her eyes, she pushed away and walked into the house. “Subtle, Daddy.”

  He followed her. “Sorry. But…well?”

  She didn’t answer until she’d gotten to the kitchen and started taking her meds out of their cabinet. She had rejected the chemo and radiation bullshit this time, but she was taking a whole cocktail of drugs to make her parts keep working while her body was trying to break them.

  Her father leaned on the island and watched her, his sad eyes lingering on each bottle. The house was dim; only the pendant lights over the island and the spots over the fireplace on the other side of the big space were on, making a deep, brassy glow.

  “Analie, talk to me.”

  She got a bottle of water out of the fridge. “No, this wasn’t the last we’ve seen of Nolan. I don’t know how much we’ll see him, but I like him, and I think he likes me. So I hope we’ll s
ee lots of him.”

  “Sweetheart—I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Don’t be a bigot, Daddy. He’s a good guy.”

  “I agree. I like him, too. This isn’t about him being a biker. You know what it’s about.”

  She took a handful of pills and swallowed them down with her water. “Liking Nolan has nothing to do with being sick.”

  “But it should, Analie.” He came around the island and cupped her cheek with his hand. “I love you so much. I want you to have everything you want. More than anything else in this world, I wish you could have a future. I would give you mine if I could. But I don’t want you to find yourself in a place where you’re losing even more than you already are.”