Trey laughed and stood to go, then bent down and gave her a quick hug. Renee shut her eyes as his arms enveloped her. She smelled cologne with a hint of lime, felt the rasp of his chin stubble against her softer skin.
It wasn’t until she looked down at the table that her smile disappeared. There was something right in front of where Trey had been sitting. He’d been shredding a napkin and rolling it into little balls the whole time they’d been talking.
What could he be nervous about? Did he think she might react angrily to his apology?
She shrugged and took three bites of yogurt, then drained the bottle of water. No matter how much she drank these days, she was always thirsty. She scooped up her tray and the pile of napkin balls and tossed everything into the trash can on the way to the elevator.
She went straight to her desk to get back to work, a smile lingering on her face as she thought about Trey’s hug. She checked the comments on her blog, noting with satisfaction that twenty new followers had joined it, then flipped over to Diane’s and began to read. Do you have problem areas on your body? it began. Got a muffin top or meaty arms? Here’s how to dress to camouflage your hot spots . . .
Renee felt herself trembling. Diane’s blog was lined up right next to Renee’s, with the unflattering photo of Renee positioned just inches away from those incendiary words. This couldn’t be happening. She’d never really liked Diane, but she hadn’t disliked her, either. But now, just as the ugly comments about Renee’s weight were finally completely buried in her blog’s older posts, Diane was reopening the discussion. Sure, she hadn’t mentioned Renee directly, but it was obvious what she was doing. Renee felt a white-hot heat rising within her. Women shouldn’t do this kind of thing to each other; it violated some kind of unspoken honor code. How dare Diane?
Diane sat three desks over, but her chair was empty. Renee reached for her keyboard to type out a furious e-mail, but her fingers stilled before she’d finished the first word. Diane would pretend to be innocent, and articles about how to dress to flatter your body type were certainly staples of glossy magazines. If she went after Diane, it was possible Diane would take the matter to Nigel, which would accomplish precisely what Renee feared: It would draw even more attention to her weight.
Now she couldn’t even change her photo today as she’d planned—it would look too obvious. No! She slammed her hand down on her thigh, barely feeling the sharp crack of pain. Screw it, she’d change the photo anyway. She wouldn’t let Diane win her little mind games. She stood up and began to pace as agitation crept through her body.
Things were happening too quickly, and Renee could feel her brain buzzing as she tried to track all the divergent thoughts. She had to write up the “mercury rating” blurbs for Nigel’s six choices from her lineup memo, plus she had two deskside visits lined up for the afternoon—times when a PR person would bring a client by to promote a new product or book. Today she’d be hearing spiels about bottled water that tasted like chocolate and a facial cleansing wipe with built-in retinol. Renee couldn’t cancel; the PR reps were friends, and she’d promised to try to get the products mentioned in the magazine. Still, the timing was awful: Nigel would decide on the beauty editor soon, and Diane had eight hundred friends by now, while Renee was lagging two hundred and fifty behind her. She needed to do something, fast, to turn things around.
Then there was Becca’s visit.
Her half sister had e-mailed Renee a photo yesterday, writing, I thought you might want to know what I look like. And I saw your photo on your blog, so no need to send me one!
Renee felt a bit odd about that. Was Becca Googling her? Had she read the messages on the blog, too? She’d studied the photo for a good ten minutes, noticing Becca’s strong jawline, long nose, and wide-spaced eyes. There wasn’t any trace of Renee in Becca, though she thought she could see a hint of her father’s dimple in Becca’s right cheek. Becca looked a bit taller than average—that was the one thing they had in common—but her legs were lean and her arms sleekly muscled. Her blond hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup. She was leaning against the front porch of a house—whose house? Renee wondered. A boyfriend’s? Or maybe Becca owned her own place. She looked nice, Renee decided, like someone who would hold open a door for you if your arms were full, or give you change for a parking meter if you needed it.
Renee had sent Becca a check to cover half the cost of the hotel, even though she cringed when she thought about her bank account. She had to get the beauty editor job. She’d been so triumphant about saving money on food, but she’d had to reorder diet pills and Xanax three times already, and they were incredibly expensive. She couldn’t bear to think about her upcoming credit card bill. And now she was thinking she really needed to lose twenty pounds, not fifteen. She wanted a cushion in case she put on a few after going off the diet pills. They were worth the debt; once she got the new job and raise, she’d be able to make a dent in her bills. The brass ring was right in front of her.
For the first time, though, the thought didn’t make her feel exhilarated.
Renee sat back down and reached for her keyboard, but the images on the computer screen twisted and blurred, and for a moment she saw two likenesses of her hated photograph. Her eyes felt dry and gritty; she’d been on the computer for hours this morning before coming in to work, writing a blog post that deconstructed hairstyles a few movie stars wore for the Oscars, with step-by-step guides showing how to replicate them. She reached into her desk drawer for the little spritz bottle of Evian that Bonnie had passed along to her and sprayed the light mist on her face, but it didn’t help. She massaged the bridge of her nose while she tried to remember what she’d been about to do. Her brain felt as fuzzy as the words on the computer screen, and she was seized with the compulsion to lay her head down on her desk.
If she could just find the balance, the elusive sweet spot, between the frantic energy boost provided by her diet pills and the dazed, loopy effects of her Xanax. The problem was, she seemed to be developing a tolerance to the diet pills, and now she needed to take twice as many to keep her energy up and her hunger pangs at bay. But it was just for another couple of weeks; she was down nine pounds by now.
She was going to post a new blog. That’s what she needed to do. Renee found the document she’d written this morning and inserted a few hyperlinks so people could click on them to buy the products she recommended, made sure the photos of Reese Witherspoon and Mila Kunis were aligned, and sent it out live. Those simple actions drained the final reserves of her energy. Maybe she could sneak out to Starbucks and lean back in one of those big leather chairs and take a nap. If only she could move. Exhaustion crashed over her in thick, heavy waves. She closed her eyes, just for a minute, and her chin dropped to her chest.
Her head snapped up at the sound of her name.
“Renee?” It was Diane, that bitch. “Are you okay?”
“Just peachy,” Renee said. She tried to glare at Diane, but her eyes refused to focus.
“You look really tired,” Diane said.
“Late night.” Renee leaned toward her computer and pretended to type something. She could feel Diane still standing there, but she ignored her. She checked to make sure her blog post had uploaded properly. Something was nagging at a corner of her mind. Had she forgotten to include a photo? Renee scanned the screen, but they were all there. She clicked on her hyperlinks, testing them one by one. Everything worked.
Bitchy, competitive Diane had thrown her off her game. The blog was perfect.
Renee closed her eyes for another minute and thought about taking a walk outside. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The last time she’d been at the dentist, he’d put a lead apron over her body while he took an X-ray, and now she felt that same peculiar sensation again. She was pinned to her seat. Her eyelids were so heavy . . .
Suddenly Renee’s eyes flew open. She’d forgotten to spell-check her blog post! She was the world’s worst speller—one of her old, secret h
umiliations was that she’d been eliminated in the very first round, without fail, from the spelling bee her fourth-grade teacher held every Friday. Spell-check had saved her from professional disaster more times than she could count.
She knew how to upload a blog post, but not how to take one down. Technology, like spelling, wasn’t her friend. Why couldn’t she be good at these things? She stood up and ran over to Cate’s office, but Cate wasn’t there.
The longer that post stayed up there, the more people would see it. Renee paced around the office, searching for someone to help her. But it was still lunchtime, and most of the desks were empty. What if people noticed her misspellings and made fun of her in the comments section again?
She had to get that blog post down!
She felt like she was choking; her throat was tight and raw. She hurried into the kitchen and made a cup of peppermint tea. Her hand shook so badly as she carried it back to her desk that some sloshed over and burned her thumb. She gave a little cry and put her hand to her mouth.
For some reason, even though the burn wasn’t that painful, tears pricked her eyes.
“Renee? Are you okay?” It was the receptionist. What was her name again?
“I need help,” Renee said. She wanted to say more, but the words kept slipping out of her grasp, a mirage she could never quite reach.
“Of course,” the receptionist—Susan? Sheila?—said. “What do you need?”
“My blog.” She forced the corners of her mouth up and tried to widen her eyes, even though doing so made her feel as though she was turning her face into a caricature. Inside her head a hammer pounded, splintering apart her thoughts. “Do you know . . . can you take it down?”
“I can probably figure it out; I’m pretty good with computers. Want to come over to my desk?”
Renee nodded and followed her, trying to focus on walking steadily, since she felt as though she was moving underwater.
Abby was in the basement, pulling Annabelle’s laundry out of the dryer—warm, sweet-smelling T-shirts and soft dresses and comically tiny socks—when she heard heavy footsteps make the wood floors creak one floor above.
It was the middle of the day, and Annabelle was napping. Abby’s heart exploded in her chest.
She dropped the laundry on the floor and was fumbling for the phone to dial 911 when she heard Bob call her name.
She exhaled and put a hand to her throat, but she couldn’t speak for a moment. Her vocal cords felt frozen. “Down here,” she finally called.
He thundered down the stairs and asked one question: “Is Annabelle asleep?”
Abby nodded as her heart began to pound again. He moved toward her, slowly now, pressed her up against the wall, and kissed her. “It drove me crazy to see you with that guy,” he whispered. “Crazy.”
“That’s how I feel,” she said, closing her eyes as she felt the warmth of his breath in her ear. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Every single day. I hate it.”
“Abby,” he said, turning her name into a caress as he pulled off her shirt, stretching it up over her head when she lifted her arms. She thought briefly of Annabelle, napping with her favorite pink blanket in her crib. She might not have turned on the monitor since she just expected to be down here for a few minutes. Had she? But the question slipped out of her mind as Bob’s lips found hers again, and a minute later she wasn’t thinking of anything at all. She pulled him down on her bed, wrenched his shirt free from his pants, and ran her hands up and down his warm skin.
Bob was unbuttoning her jeans and easing them down, and then he fumbled with his own pants. Abby still had on her bra, and Bob’s shirt was unbuttoned but not completely off when he entered her. She choked back a sob and grabbed his hips, urged him even closer. She felt like they were disappearing into each other. She’d imagined this moment so many times before, but it was even better in reality.
She cried out as she felt his body shudder, and then he collapsed, putting his full weight on her. She could barely breathe, but she wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight underneath his white dress shirt, feeling the sweat in the small of his back. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes.
“I love you,” she whispered, but the words were so soft she didn’t think Bob heard her.
The rush of guilt that swept through her a moment later caught her completely off guard.
She’d slept with another woman’s husband. It didn’t matter that Joanna was cold and distant, that she didn’t appreciate her husband and daughter. Abby had done something despicable. She felt as though her appearance had surely changed—that her eyes were sunken, her skin chalky and pale. As if her outsides matched her insides. What kind of person had she turned into?
“You’re shaking,” Bob said. He tried to lift himself with his arms, but she wouldn’t let him because she didn’t want him to see her face. She pulled him close again and buried her face in his shoulder.
This was it, the moment when everything would change. When they left this bed, Bob would have to make a decision: Abby or Joanna. She wouldn’t sleep with him again until he chose.
I can make you so happy, she thought. Annabelle, too. Choose me.
Twenty-two
CATE COULDN’T BELIEVE WHAT she’d done.
She closed her eyes and saw the night unfolding again, like a movie playing on a screen: First she and Trey took a cab to the bar in Georgetown, then they sat together in a booth, facing each other. It looked exactly like a thousand other bars in a hundred other cities—a mirrored wall behind the service area, red leather booths lining the walls, a pool table in one corner. The lights were low, and a candle in a glass holder flickered between them. Cate ordered an Amstel Light, her fourth or fifth drink of the night—but no, she couldn’t use that as an excuse.
“You won’t believe what Reece Moss told me,” Trey said, leaning toward her. His elbows were on the table, and his hands were wrapped around a big beer stein—she couldn’t help staring at them. “She thinks about quitting almost every single day.”
Cate looked up in surprise. “But she’s—”
“Got it all,” Trey finished her sentence. “And she isn’t happy. She’s a really smart kid, Cate. She loved science in high school—she thought about becoming an archaeologist. The story is that she moved to L.A. after high school to become a star, but really, she was working to save money for college. She loves to travel and she wanted to see a new city. She wasn’t one of those girls who always dreamed about becoming an actress. But now she’s caught up in this machine. She’s got people managing her every move, and she somehow slipped into this life. Funny, because so many people would kill to get there, and it just kind of happened to her.”
“How did it happen?” Cate asked. “If she didn’t plan it, I mean.”
“She was working as a hostess at a restaurant,” Trey said. “It was late. The restaurant was mostly empty. And she started singing to herself—I’m not even sure if she realized she was doing it—while she was rolling up silverware in napkins for the next day. And a group of women who were there celebrating a birthday heard her. They convinced her to come over and sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ So she did. One of the women is a talent scout. Bam.”
“I’ve never heard that story,” Cate said. “So tell me about her wanting to quit.”
Trey sipped from his drink and licked the foam from his top lip. The tie was loose around his neck, and Cate had kicked off her heels under the table.
“She’s shy,” Trey said. “She loves to sing, and to act—she’s got such natural, God-given talent at both—but she’s wary of a lot of people in Hollywood. She understands that she can be tossed aside, that she will be tossed aside, when she gets a little older, or if she has a few movies that flop. She’s just a small-town kid, but she’s savvy enough to see how the system works. She doesn’t trust it.”
“So what is she going to do?” Cate asked.
“My opinion?” Trey asked, and she nodded. “She’s not going to walk away.
She’s wavering a bit now, but it’s addictive. She’s got designers begging to outfit her, directors sending over scripts. Her family didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and she just bought her parents a new Mercedes. She talked about that a lot; it made her really happy. Had it delivered to them with a big red bow on top. The lifestyle is sucking her in. But she’s already suing a tabloid for printing some crap about her, and she told me—this part is off the record—that she had to hire a security team because of the crazy fan letters she’s getting. I don’t think she’s strong enough to resist the undertow, even though she understands what it might do to her. How the very thing that’s making her soar might also tear her down and destroy her. She says she feels like two people sometimes: Reece Moss, the girl from Colorado, and this other person who’s almost disconnected from her: Reece Moss, the superstar. The problem is, they’re going to start merging. And when they do, the girl from Colorado won’t stand a chance.”
Cate shook her head. “Sounds like a hell of an interview. How did you get all that?”
“I guess she was ready to talk,” Trey said, shrugging a shoulder.
“It was more than that,” Cate said. “You just have this way of drawing people out.” She took another sip of her drink. The booth felt cozy, intimate even. A few people at the bar were chatting, and one of them laughed, a high, happy noise that cut through the air. The bartender was wiping down the bar with a white cloth, stretching out his arm as he mimicked the steady, even strokes of a windshield wiper.
“The night I told you about my dad getting remarried . . .” she said. “I haven’t told anyone else about that. I didn’t plan on telling you.”
She took a deep breath. “You know what I keep thinking about? Christmas. It’s my mom’s favorite holiday. She decorates the whole house, and always has carols playing over the radio, and she cooks enough for ten people. My brother and his wife were home last year, so we took turns spending time with my dad, but someone was always around for my mom, too. But this year it’s just me. I’m trying to figure out how I can be in two places at once. I need to spend time with my dad and Darlene—not just need to, I want to; I’m close with my dad. And my mom understands that. But I hate to think of her all alone.”
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