Famous in Love

by Rebecca Serle

  “Hey, PG, wait up.” Rainer jogs to my door. He wiped his makeup off in the van and now has on a gray T-shirt and jeans.

  “So,” he says, “today was a little tough.” He cocks his head to the side, like he’s trying to get a read on me.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “It’s fine. It was my fault.”

  Rainer gives me a small smile. “Want to talk it out?” he asks. He moves around me to take the keys out of my hand and unlock my condo door. He’s so confident, so comfortable. I know he’s older, but it’s something else, too—experience.

  I shrug, caught off guard by our contact. “There isn’t really much to talk about. I just sort of suck.” I slip past him, and Rainer follows me inside.

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Oh really? Tell it to my core.” I tap my abdomen twice like Wyatt did.

  Rainer shakes his head. “He’s being an asshole. I just told him—”

  “Please,” I say, cutting him off. “Please tell me you did not just tell him to go easy on me.”

  Rainer sighs. “You shouldn’t have to be screamed at every day.”

  I drop my bag on the floor and slump against the counter. My condo has two bedrooms and a full kitchen. It’s almost as big as my house back in Portland, and at one time six people lived in that thing. “I really wish you hadn’t done that,” I say.

  “C’mon,” Rainer says. “I got your back. We’re in this together, kid.”

  I look at him as he leans casually against the cool marble, his arms crossed. He looks sophisticated, handsome, and self-assured. Like the world’s never really given him a reason to not assume he could win.

  “Thanks,” I say. “But don’t big-brother me to Wyatt.”

  “Big brother?” Rainer smirks at me, and I feel myself blush. “Hey, you want to grab dinner?” he asks, switching gears.

  “I’m not all that hungry.”

  “Come on, you need to eat. What have you had today?” He uncrosses his arms, and some of his blond hair swings down onto his forehead. It’s familiar, which is strange, until I remember it’s the exact same pose he’s striking in a poster Cassandra has on the back of her bedroom door.

  My life is so weird.

  “Okay, let me go change.”

  I hear him whistling in the next room, the tune of something I recognize but can’t remember the name of. I think it’s a Britney song. The one about summer love that played on repeat from April until August last year. Even I knew every word by heart. Maybe they are dating.

  I yank open the dresser, and the photo sitting on top of it falls. It’s a picture Jake gave me before I left—of him, Cassandra, and me from last summer. We’re standing in front of Delmano’s ice cream shop, chocolate and silly grins on our faces. I pick up the photo and place it in the drawer. I feel a sweeping sensation of guilt—for not calling more, for leaving. I think about the two of them in class, trolling around downtown on the weekends. All without me.

  I choose a white tank top and a floral-print skirt I’ve had since sixth grade. I never wear it but figured it might be good for Hawaii.

  I got my signing check last month, and it took me until last week to deposit it. I was scared, to be honest. The reality of those numbers is bigger than just money. It means something I don’t totally understand yet. It’s more money than anyone in my family has ever made before, combined and multiplied by ten. It makes me feel powerful, but not in a good way, necessarily. Kind of like Godzilla, who outgrew his family. Like I won’t fit in my own house anymore.

  Before I left I offered the money to my parents, but they refused. My dad actually left the room after I told them. My mother told me never to bring it up again, that I’m earning it and it’s mine to keep.

  But what do I do with it?

  So far I’ve paid some lawyers and things like that. I gave my mom a check for the women’s shelter she volunteers at. That she took. But I haven’t gone shopping. I haven’t bought myself a bag. Or shoes. Or a car. Maui doesn’t have very many shopping destinations, besides this little center behind our condo, and even if it did I’d probably like the same things I’ve always liked—jeans and tank tops.

  Maybe I’ll fly Jake and Cassandra to set. She’d like that, I think.

  “You look great,” Rainer says when I reappear. He flashes me a smile.

  I snort because despite the winning combination of my kiddie skirt and sand-infused hair, I’m pretty sure he’s joking.

  “Where should we go?” he says.

  “Longhi’s?”

  The bottom level of the shopping center nearby has this Italian restaurant. We order from there just about every day for lunch, but their pasta is good, and the restaurant is open-air, so you can hear the ocean. Not that you can’t hear the ocean from, you know, my living room, but it’s still nice.

  “Sounds good,” Rainer says.

  When we get to Longhi’s, Rainer flashes his signature golden smile at the hostess, and she shows us to a table right at the edge of the restaurant, hidden discreetly behind a palm tree. She’s the kind of girl you see in all those Roxy ads. Tan, tall, slim, and blond. I’m sure she surfs in the mornings, models during the day, and works here at night. If the acting thing fails, this sounds like a pretty good life. Minus the modeling.

  “So I’m thinking of staying put this weekend.” Rainer reclines in his chair and slips his arm casually over the back of mine. We’re sitting corner to corner at a four-top, but Rainer has sat so close to me we’re practically side by side. Next to us, two girls out with their parents audibly swoon.

  It’s never easy to forget he’s famous.

  “Yeah?” I say, pulling apart a roll.

  Rainer has been jetting back and forth to L.A. pretty much every weekend. Now I think it’s probably to see Britney, but I haven’t asked.

  He takes a sip of water, keeping his eyes down. “Yeah. I just figure I haven’t really even been here. What am I running off for?”

  “Britney?” I offer, and immediately regret saying it out loud.

  Rainer frowns. “What do you mean?”

  I imagine responding, “You want to make sure that your girlfriend isn’t hooking up with Hollywood bad boy Jordan Wilder, right?”

  Then I say, “Tabloids,” when what I really mean is “Lillianna.” I’ve heard about Jordan Wilder from Cassandra before, too. Bad news.

  Rainer looks amused. “You read those?”

  “Er, no, not exactly.” I can feel my face start to get hot.

  “It’s okay.” Rainer puts his hand on my bare shoulder. It feels soft and warm.

  “I don’t read tabloids.” I exhale. “I probably should, because maybe then I’d know who people are, but I don’t. My best friend used to fill me in.” Normally I would have brought up Lillianna’s comment with Cassandra, but I haven’t had time. “Lillianna mentioned someone named Britney. It’s not important.…” I’m rambling, I can tell, but it’s hard to stop. The way he’s looking at me—a combination of interest and confusion—is making me nervous.

  Rainer clears his throat and retracts his hand. “We’re not dating. We were but not anymore.”

  “Oh.”

  Rainer smiles. “How about you?”

  “Britney isn’t really my type,” I say.

  Rainer laughs. “Funny.”

  “I try.”

  He leans closer to me. “Anyone back home?”

  I think about Jake, probably picketing some animal shelter or a Barnes & Noble right about now. “No.”

  “Really? You?”

  “Surprisingly, yes, this doesn’t make them come running.” I hold up some stringy strands of hair, and sand immediately cascades down into my lap.

  “You’re a movie star, haven’t you heard?” he says. His blue eyes sparkle. There is one movie star at the table, and it definitely isn’t me.

  “I’m an actress,” I correct.

  “In our position, sweetheart, it’s the same thing.”

  I try not to let it affect me, I do, b
ut the way he says sweetheart makes the nerves in my stomach begin to vibrate.

  Rainer sits back and smiles. “So, what are you having?”

  I notice the calm charm with which he talks to the waiter, the way he stands up and untucks my chair when I come back from the restroom, the way he smiles and makes light conversation when a mother and daughter come over to our table asking for his autograph. He’s totally comfortable with it. More than that: He actually seems to like it.

  “You get used to it,” he says, cutting his salmon. “It’s a little invasive sometimes, but it’s also really flattering. It means they love what you do.”

  I don’t have the heart to tell him that after today, I’m not sure anyone is going to love what I do.

  “It’s going to get better,” he says as if reading my mind. “You can’t let Wyatt get to you.”

  “You’re right,” I say.

  He puts his elbows on the table, bending his head close to mine. “So, will you tour me around this weekend or are you going to make me beg?”

  I swallow. “Doesn’t your family have a house here?”

  Rainer raises his eyebrows. “You so read the tabloids.”

  I shake my head. “No way, you told me weeks ago.”

  He sighs. “Yeah, but we usually just sit by the pool and we’ve never been here for more than a weekend at a time. I want to see your Hawaii. You’re the one who has been keeping it locked down here. I figure you have to have seen something.” He leans a little bit closer, so close I can smell him. He smells like expensive cologne, like a department store. Combined with the sweet plumeria surrounding us, it’s kind of heady.

  My Hawaii is the inside of my condo, studying lines.

  “I haven’t been out much,” I admit.

  Rainer looks at me. “So we’ll explore together.”

  It’s definitely an offer I can’t refuse. “Okay,” I say.

  “Great.” He pushes back his chair. “Shall we?”

  “Don’t we have to pay?” I crane my head to look for the waiter, but Rainer stands.

  “I have an account,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.” He touches the small of my back as I stand, and I can’t help but look at the girl a few tables over. She catches my eye, and the strangest feeling comes over me. It’s pride. I feel, for a brief moment, that he’s mine. Maybe not in the real world, but in the fictional one, it’s true.

  I’m not one of those girls who gets swoony when she sees brides, and I’d rather watch a thriller than a romantic comedy, but there is something about him. The way he seems to know what I want before I say it, and how calm and confident he is. And when he walks me to my door he leans in, and I can’t believe it—is Rainer Devon really going to kiss me? But he just brushes his lips against my cheek.

  “Thanks for dinner,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I say good-bye, and he turns to head down the hallway.

  When I get inside, I immediately pick up my phone. I start to scroll to Cassandra’s name, but something stops me. I can’t call her—what would I say? I have a crush on Rainer Devon? Is that true? She’d probably only tell me the obvious—he’s a movie star, not interested in dating a mere mortal like me. We’re coworkers. He’s being friendly. Get a grip, Townsen.

  I fall asleep in my flowered skirt with the phone on my pillow. When I wake up, it’s still there, Cassandra’s name dark on the screen.

  CHAPTER 6

  I’ve started a ritual in Hawaii: Every weekend morning, when I don’t have to be shooting and before the sun comes out, I go down to the beach and jump in the ocean. There isn’t a soul around except the early-morning surfers, and even if they throw you a smile, it never develops into a conversation. We have an understanding that everyone is alone, but not in a way that’s lonely. The opposite, actually. To me the ocean in the morning is like a good friend, the kind you can sit in silence with for hours.

  I’ve never seen Rainer down here, or Wyatt, but then Wyatt works all the time and Rainer usually goes away on the weekends. I know he’s sticking around today, but he seems much more like a brunch-at-the-hotel kind of guy than a wake-up-at-dawn-and-hop-in-the-freezing-ocean guy.

  I toss my towel onto a rock and head toward the shore. I feel the water and then start walking forward, giving myself to the count of three before I dive in. It’s the only way to go—if you edge in, it’s pure torture.

  The water hits—so sharp it feels like the wind has been knocked out of me—and I come up to the surface gasping for air. The ocean is new to me, but I’ve always loved the water.

  Before my sister got pregnant and my brothers moved out, my parents used to take us camping every summer. My sister hated it. She’d stay in the tent and complain about how she hadn’t brought enough magazines, or how the air was too cold or the ground too hard or how the food stank, but I loved it. I used to look forward to those trips every year.

  We’d set up camp around a lake my dad had chosen, and the five of us would pitch tents while my mom unloaded the kitchen supplies. As soon as we were done, I’d hit the water. It didn’t matter how cold it was—as soon as camp was set up I was in. My mom says I was born with a fish’s tail, and I think it’s probably true. When I was little, people used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’d always say a fish. I didn’t understand that a fish wasn’t something you could work toward. That no matter how hard I tried, I’d never sprout gills and a tail.

  Once I’m totally underwater, it’s heaven. Cool and crisp and deliciously refreshing, like biting into the summer’s first slice of watermelon. The cold zings through my body, waking up my arms and legs and toes. I flip over onto my back and let the waves rock me out. It’s just starting to get light, and I can see rays of pink and yellow and orange puncture the sky. It’s like watching a painting being made. Long, leisurely brushstrokes that soften the darkness until the spaces between aren’t pockets of sun, but the other way around.

  I stretch my hands out in front of me and pump my legs forward, pitching my body underwater. It doesn’t bite now and instead feels smooth, and soft—like a silk robe or velvet pajamas.

  I spend about fifteen minutes floating and swimming, sometimes stopping to watch the sherbet sky. When I’m in the water, it feels like the whole world is on the same level—the beach and the sky are parallel, not perpendicular. It’s so different from Portland. Portland is all rounded corners and hills. Hawaii feels level, like everything is happening at the same time here, all at once.

  I finally let a wave carry me back. I sink my feet into the sand, hopping up and down a few times to get the water out of my ears and wringing my hair over my shoulder. It’s completely light out, and if I stand facing the condos, I can see all the way up Haleakala, Maui’s dormant volcano. When we first got here, Rainer’s dad paid for Hawaiian culture lessons. The whole crew came, but most people left early. I was one of the few who ended up staying and hearing the entire thing. They told us that the Hawaiian Islands are actually a chain of volcanoes and that the “hot spot” moves from island to island, which is why only one volcano at a time is actually active—currently the one on Hawaii, the Big Island. The totally fascinating thing, though, is that the hot spot is moving now, creating another island. It will probably rise to the surface sometime in the next ten thousand to one hundred thousand years. It has already been named, too. It’s called Loihi.

  I wrap my towel around my waist and tromp back up to the condos. I’m looking forward to getting out of Wailea, our beach town, today. Jake bought me all these guidebooks, most of them focused on which species are indigenous and how to tell if ocean water is polluted, but he did get me one plain, straight-up tourist-trap book. The kind that tells you where the best burgers are and how to find the hikes with the waterfalls. I’m bringing it with us today.

  The woman at the reception desk greets me with a smile. “You have a message, Ms. Townsen.”

  She hands me a note on hotel stationery with trim, precise cursive on it:

&nbs
p; Get dressed and come meet me for breakfast.

  —R

  My pulse lights up, and my body suddenly feels warm. No more morning-water goose bumps.

  “Anything else?” I ask the woman, making an effort to hide the slow smile that is spreading across my face. I have to figure out how to get it together. He’s my coworker, not some school crush.

  “No,” she replies. “Just the one note.”

  I nod and take off toward my room, my flip-flops making smacking noises on the marble floor.

  When I come down to breakfast, Rainer is waiting in another Hawaiian shirt and wraparound Ray-Ban sunglasses. This shirt is light blue, the color of the waves. He’s smiling his signature dimply smile and tapping his forefinger on his watch.

  “You’re late,” he says.

  I hold up his note. “You didn’t specify a time.”

  “I just assumed you’d see it and come running.”

  “Is that what the girls normally do?”

  Rainer shrugs. “Pretty much, yeah.” He shakes his head and smiles. “I’m kidding,” he says. He looks at me to make sure I know it. “Sit. You know I would have waited all day, anyway.”

  “So, what are we doing today?” I say, trying to change the subject, determined to keep myself together. Cool. Collected.

  A waitress has set an orange juice and bread basket down, and I tear off a muffin top. I realize I’m starving. It’s the morning swims. The ocean makes me ravenous.

  Rainer watches me with amusement. “I thought that was on you, PG.” He leans closer to me. “I get the car; you bring the plan.”

  I pull out my guidebook and open it to the page on Paia, this little town on the north shore I’ve been wanting to go to. There is supposed to be a restaurant there called the Fish Market that has the best burgers and sandwiches on the island, and the town is apparently cluttered with cute, artsy stores and shops. Not that anything could ever beat Trinkets n’ Things, but, you know, one can dream. The guidebook says that from Paia you can go to Ho’okipa Beach and watch the windsurfers. I think that sounds kind of perfect.

  Bent over my eggs and coffee, I tell all this to Rainer.