Famous in Love

by Rebecca Serle

  I wake up at three thirty and go into the kitchen for a glass of water. I see a note slipped under my door.

  I care about you, but you need to decide what you want. I can’t do it for you. Good luck on the movie. I’ll see you in L.A.—R

  I put the note on the counter. The living room curtains are open, and I can see the moon reflected on the water. Rainer’s gone, and somewhere on this island Jordan is still here.

  I know I won’t be able to go back to sleep, so I decide on the next best thing—a swim. I put on my bathing suit, grab a towel, and pad my way down the now-familiar trail. I’m not scheduled to leave until tomorrow night, which means I’ll have an entire day here to lie on the beach and have lunch at Longhi’s and maybe even go shopping. To enjoy Hawaii, and forget, for twelve hours, what waits for me after this.

  I’m surprised that a different feeling greets me at the shore—the feeling of possibility, like the entire world has been unzipped down the center and something hidden, something new, can now be seen. It’s electrifying, and coupled with the cool, sharp sting of the water as I plunge forward, it’s enough to make me forget the note on my counter.

  I keep swimming—long, fluid strokes. It’s hard to believe tomorrow I’ll be on a plane back to Portland. It feels like I just got here, and at the same time, like I’ve been here forever. Like I never had a life before I met Rainer and Wyatt and Jordan. Like I’ve always been an actress.

  The first play I ever did was a neighborhood production of The Sound of Music. I played Gretl, and we used our neighbor’s back porch as the stage. I was probably no more than five or six, but I remember being really upset that we didn’t have a curtain. That the guests were just going to show up and see the set. There wouldn’t be a hushed silence as the curtain rose. There’d be no reveal. I always wanted that moment. That crest of a second where your stomach is in your heart and time stretches, slows down so much you think you can see it.

  I duck my head under the water and then pop up, turning toward the shoreline. After my brush with drowning, the deep sea doesn’t tempt me quite as much as it used to. Plus, it’s pitch-black out. Not exactly an ideal time for long-distance swimming.

  I wipe the water out of my eyes as I bob up and down, and then suck in my breath—there is a figure on the shore. It startles me, but not for long. After a beat, I know it’s Jordan. He’s sitting in the sand, legs crossed, bent over, almost like he’s praying.

  I blow some water with my lips and propel myself forward, swimming fast. It doesn’t take me more than a minute to reach the wave break, and I ride a small one back to the shore.

  I stand, shaking the water out of my ears. “Good morning.”

  He looks up, startled. “What are you doing down here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  He shrugs, looks back down. “I couldn’t sleep.” He’s wearing board shorts and a tight T-shirt. I can see the muscles move underneath the material.

  “Me neither.” I think about Jordan following me yesterday, about turning away from him. “Can I sit?” I ask.

  His eyes flit downward, and I suddenly realize how naked I am in my skimpy nylon bikini. He’s seen me like this before, but after last night I feel more exposed. I want the darkness to be heavier. Opaque.

  He gives me his towel. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” I unfold it and slide it over my shoulders, then around my waist, and sit down next to him.

  “It’s not morning,” he says, looking out at the dark horizon.

  “What?”

  “You said good morning. It’s not morning.”

  “Oh.”

  I loop my hair around my finger and pull. A trickle of water slides down my shoulder and into the sand.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” I start. “That really caught me off guard, that clip. I wasn’t expecting—”

  He turns to me. “Do you want to go somewhere?”

  My mouth is still open, ready to continue. “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s, like, four AM.”

  “I know,” he says. “It’s perfect timing.”

  “For what? Murder?”

  He squints at me. “I’m not looking to off your boyfriend, if that’s what you think.”

  “I…” I exhale. There is no point in getting into that. What Rainer is or isn’t. I’m tired of it, anyway. Instead I say, “Where do you want to go?”

  He stands and holds out his hand to me. I take it. When our fingers touch, I feel heat snaking up my arm. His palm is rough but familiar now.

  “I want to show you something,” he says.

  Ten minutes later, we’re sitting in Jordan’s pickup truck, the wind howling through the windows. I’m still wearing my bathing suit, and it’s wet against the inside of the sweatshirt Jordan gave me. I pull it closer around me and inhale. It smells like him. Like wood and fire. Like the elements things are made of. Pure and essential.

  “Where are we going?” I ask him again.

  He shakes his head. “Don’t you want it to be a surprise?”

  “Not if you’re kidnapping me.”

  He looks at me and raises his eyebrows. My heart starts pounding away in my chest like a prisoner dying to escape. I cross my arms.

  “Kidnapping?”

  “Haven’t you already been to prison?”

  He makes a sound halfway between a sneeze and a sigh. “You really believe everything you read, don’t you?”

  “No.” I gather his towel that’s still wrapped around my waist and hike it up higher. “But that’s true, isn’t it?”

  He turns his head to me. Almost too long for someone behind the wheel. “No, it’s not.”

  “You were never in jail?”

  “I’ve been there.” He shrugs and looks forward.

  “See?”

  “To help with an inmate literacy program I started.” He takes one hand off the wheel and brings it up to his neck. He rolls his head from side to side and one tiny bead of water rolls down the length of his scar and nuzzles itself in the crook of his collarbone. “Things aren’t always the way they seem.”

  I tear my gaze away from him. “I know. I mean, when you told me that stuff about your family—”

  “You thought I must have spent time in prison?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” I roll up my window. It’s instantly quieter in the truck, and I’m aware of my words now more than ever. “I just mean you seem like someone who’d do anything to protect the people he loves.”

  I feel him glance at me, and I keep my eyes pinned on my lap. I’m grateful we’re in a moving car. That we’re not sitting opposite each other. He can’t see the way the blood is pounding in my veins, making it almost impossible to hear.

  He doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. The sun hasn’t caught up with us yet, and we keep driving in the darkness. It’s tough to make too much out, but Jordan seems to know the way. He doesn’t check a map or squint to read street signs. He just goes, like he’s got some internal magnet that’s pulling this truck, and us, toward our destination.

  We take a turn, swing right, and then we’re climbing—up and up, like the sun in the mornings at the beach, and all at once I know where we’re headed.

  “Are you taking me to Haleakala?”

  Jordan smiles. “Yes.”

  “Really?” My face cracks into a smile the size of a California fault line. “I’ve been wanting to do this since I got here.”

  “Then how come you haven’t?” He rolls down the window a little. The air is cooler up here, thicker. Almost like the ocean this morning.

  I shrug and flip up the hood of his sweatshirt. “Busy, I guess.”

  “Rainer not a morning person?” He smiles. He’s kidding. I exhale. Maybe we can joke about this. Maybe it doesn’t have to be the way it has been. But then I remember us at the beach, his arms rolling me on top of him, his hands on my face.

  “Can I ask you a favor?” I say.

  “Of co
urse.”

  “Can we not talk about Rainer today?”

  He nods. “If that’s what you want, sure.”

  We drive in silence for a while, the wind whistling in through the open window, the sound of turning tires on the pavement. We keep heading up—winding along the side of the volcano. I’ve heard the view on the drive is spectacular, but I can’t see much now. Just the eerie mountainside, the rolling hills tumbling down into a still-black sea.

  Finally, we reach the top. There are a surprising number of cars there, but watching the sunrise from Haleakala is a popular tourist activity, so it makes sense. Jordan parks, and we get out. It’s freezing, and the wind is fierce. It zips and hollers and screams, like someone wailing over a lost love. Maybe love has been lost here—swallowed up by time and space and stars.

  “Come here.” Jordan takes my hand and starts walking past the tourists huddled by the cars, thermoses of hot chocolate and coffee clutched in their fingers. I pull the towel tighter around my waist and the sweatshirt in closer.

  When we round the corner, I squeeze his hand so sharply he flinches. The view is like nothing I have ever seen, not even in movies. It’s a giant landscape of crater—red and orange and deep browns, stretching so far it’s impossible to think this is all on one island.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He cocks his head in the direction of two rocks, and we take a seat. It’s still dark out, but the first rays of sun are starting to poke through the blackness. It’s completely unlike the sunrise at the beach. This is epic, massive. Closer. I feel like we might be at the center of the world up here.

  “It’s spectacular.”

  We’re protected from the wind in this little nook, and its absence makes the mist hang. We’re actually in the clouds.

  “Thank you for bringing me here.” I slip my hands into the sleeves of the sweatshirt and tuck them in between my legs.

  “You’re welcome.” He clears his throat, and then there is quiet again. But this time it’s not calm, it’s charged. Lit with all the things we’re not saying.

  He picks up a rock. I look at his hands—rough, calloused. Even though it’s freezing up here, they were warm just a moment ago. “I’m sorry about the video,” he says.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  He nods, turns the rock over. “Even so, I am. I’m sure Rainer wasn’t thrilled.”

  “I thought we weren’t talking about him,” I say, jabbing him playfully in the side.

  He looks from the rock to me and then back down. I can tell he’s not kidding, and I sit very still. Even the blood in my veins seems to halt. “I don’t want to complicate things for you.”

  “You’re not,” I say quietly. “I mean, do you think you are?”

  He studies the rock carefully, like maybe the answer is written on the underside. “Yes,” he says. “I do.”

  “Tell me why you and Rainer hate each other,” I say. “I need to know.”

  Jordan sighs. I watch his chest rise and fall. “I don’t hate him. I never have. Things just got complicated.”

  “Complicated how?”

  He looks at me, his eyes dark like charcoal. “Do you really want to know?”

  I swallow. Nod. “Yes,” I say. “I really want to know.”

  He drops the rock and wipes his hands on his shorts. For a moment, I’m scared of what I’ll hear. How permanent this rift is. How irreparable.

  “You remember how I told you my dad isn’t a great guy?” His eyes are fierce but kind. I can tell he wants to protect me from this, whatever it is. “Well, Rainer’s isn’t, either.”

  “Greg?”

  Jordan nods. “Right. He used to produce a show we were all on—me, Rainer, and Britney.”

  I nod, catching up. “Backsplash?”

  Jordan frowns at me. “You know it?”

  “No. I mean, yes. I watched it a few times. What about it?” I flip my hood down and tuck the stray hair behind my ears. The shiver of cold makes me edge closer to him.

  “It was the first thing any of us did. It’s how we all met. We were friends.” He rubs his palms together like he’s trying to generate heat. I see the muscles in his arms work.

  “The three of you?”

  He exhales, and I see a small smile play on his lips, like he’s remembering something. “Yeah, the three of us.”

  I think about Jake and Cassandra. About our tree house and rule book and secret pacts. All the things that made us friends. That bound us together.

  “We all went our separate ways after the show ended. We were still really close, though. We had monthly dinners, that sort of thing.”

  “What does this have to do with Rainer’s dad?” I ask.

  Jordan picks his gaze up, and I can see his eyes are sad, restrained. Like he doesn’t want to tell me what happened next.

  “Rainer and Britney started dating. This was a few years after we were finished with the show.” I see the pulse in his neck. I wait for him to continue. “I was fine with it. I always figured something would start up between them, and I didn’t have feelings for her. Not like that, anyway.” He glances at me sideways, and I drop my gaze to the ground. I can feel a little knot form in my stomach, like my insides are fingers curling into a fist.

  “She started spending a lot of time at his house. And one night—” He breaks off. “Rainer wasn’t home, and she came early to wait for him. Greg was there.”

  I start to feel sick. All of a sudden, I think I know what’s coming.

  “Oh my God.”

  He takes a deep breath. “She managed to get away before he could, you know. She came over to my house. She was in really bad shape, and nothing really tears Britney up.” He smiles, and I see the warm flush of familiarity on his face. Affection. “She’s tough, but she wasn’t then.” His face clouds back over, and his eyes find mine. They’re black. Opaque. Like marbles cut from solid stone. “She kept saying he told her that if she said anything, he’d make sure her career was over.”

  My hands are shaking. I knot them together and press them up against my pounding heart. “Wouldn’t his have been over, too?” I ask.

  Jordan exhales. “I wish it worked that way. She was basically an unknown. Some girl from some kids’ TV show. Her music career hadn’t taken off yet. People would have just thought she was looking for attention. And she’s not—” Jordan looks at his hands. “She’s kind of a loose cannon. She always has been.”

  “But she told Rainer,” I say, piecing it together.

  “It’s complicated,” he says. His voice has gotten quiet. Above the wind, it’s almost hard to hear. “But yes, Rain thought she had made it up.”

  I’ve never heard him use a nickname for Rainer before, and it catches me off guard. The intimacy of it. This whole history I’m not a part of.

  “Why would she have made that up?” I ask. “Why wouldn’t Rainer believe her?” It doesn’t sound like the guy I know. The one who has been so supportive of me in everything here.

  “He thought she made it up because she was desperate.” He exhales, runs a hand over his face. “Because he found her with me.”

  We both get quiet. His head is in his hands. I reach out and touch his shoulder gently. I feel him flinch and then relax under my fingertips.

  “After what happened with Greg.” I see the muscles of his jaw work as he says Rainer’s father’s name. “Rainer came to my house. She was in my arms. She kissed me,” he says. I feel the skin of his back heat up, like the memory itself is generating fire. “She was upset. It just happened. But Rainer saw and he thought—Britney started relaying this crazy story about his dad.…” He trails off, and I take my hand back. It’s warm now. Heated up by his contact.

  “He hasn’t forgiven me,” Jordan finishes. “How can I blame him?” He smiles a small, sad smile, and I realize something else: He misses him. Like I miss Cassandra. They were friends, and now they’re not anymore. Who was it who said you can’t have hate without love?

  “So you see why
this”—he points slowly from him to me, from his heart to mine—“isn’t really a good idea. He already thinks I tried to take someone he cared about from him.”

  The sun has started to crawl up the mountain like a hiker climbing to safety—with intention, purpose. Every millisecond makes him more sure of his own survival.

  “But what about what I want?” Once the words are out, I wince; but it’s too late, I can’t take them back.

  “What do you want?” Jordan’s breath is short, and for a moment I think maybe he is as nervous as I am.

  “I want to know you,” I say. It should feel like a betrayal of Rainer, but it doesn’t, because it’s the truth. I slide closer to Jordan. Without even thinking, I’ve picked up one of his dirt-dusted hands with my own.

  He smiles down. “I want that, too.”

  We sit in silence that way for a good ten minutes, our fingers wrapped together like vines as we watch the sunrise—shades of colors I never even knew existed thrust across the sky like shooting stars. It feels like the whole world is waking up here. Like the first light that ever existed was created on this volcano.

  When we get up to leave, Jordan stands and holds his hand out to me, his face lit up with the morning.

  “One more minute,” I say. I look out over the sun-drenched canyon. It feels like if I called something out, I wouldn’t get an echo, but an answer. I want to ask what to do, what’s the right choice, but I’m afraid of my own voice. Of what I’ll hear myself say. I just wish I knew when I would get this chance again.

  “We’ll be back,” he says, as if reading my mind. He stretches his arms out wide, like he’s trying to touch both ends of Haleakala at once.

  “Maybe,” I say. “We don’t even know if they’re going to make the next movie. We could just go back to our normal lives. We could forget.”

  Jordan shakes his head, like I don’t get it. Then he takes his hands and puts one of his palms, gently extended, on my cheek.

  It feels right there, like recognizing a familiar road sign after hours of being lost. Relief. Joy. The feeling of going home. “Haven’t you ever heard of faith?”

  The wind slows down, stops, so his words just sit there, like upright children on the first day of school. Full of potential and infinite possibility. Hope, even.