Toast and peanut butter and testicles? Is that really a thing?
“Jules,” I grate out, my stomach giving an agonizing twist.
Julie turns to me frowning. “What?”
I lift one finger in the air to let her know that I need a second. Then I straighten my shoulders, squeeze my eyes shut, hold my breath and make a wish. But when I open my eyes, my ex-boyfriend is still standing in front of us.
He’s got his back to the door of our apartment, his feet kicked out, and his arms crossed over his chest. He’s showered and shaved since posting the latest video. Gone is the broken-hearted grunge look, and in its place are all of the celebrity basics—designer loafers, expensive watch, and a pair of sunglasses that cost more than most people’s monthly rent. He’s wearing an orange collared shirt and slim-fitted cream-colored pants. He looks, I think a bit harshly, like an ice cream cone.
“Hey,” is what he says.
Julie bristles. “You have a lot of nerve showing up here like this Captain Skinny-Dick.”
Despite myself, I slap a hand over my mouth and bark out a hoarse laugh. “Captain Skinny-Dick?”
“That’s what I said,” she shoots back, her eyes narrowed. “Captain Skinny-Dick.”
“Look,” Ren starts as he pushes his sunglasses to his sandy blond head, revealing a pair of gemstone green sparklers. “I know that I’m probably the last person you want to deal with right now but I needed to see you, Gemma.”
Swallowing back the bile creeping up my throat and willing my heart and lungs to chill the fuck out, I ask, “Why?”
He pushes away from the door. His smile is casual and cool, like the last time we saw each other his pants weren’t around his ankles and a half-naked girl wasn’t bent over between us. “I thought we could talk.”
Talk? Is he serious?
“You want to talk?” I need this clarified. I need it written down, signed, notarized, taken before a judge and made part of the official record.
“Status update: she has nothing to say to you! So why don’t you motor on back to L.A. and do a colon cleanse or take a selfie or some shit.” Julie, a longtime supporter of the girl power agenda, is in full-fledged bitch attack mode. Her hands are on her hips and her chin is angled aggressively. I can practically see the flames leaping from her tongue.
Grabbing her by the shoulders, I pull her to the side of the balcony for a team huddle. “Jules,” I whisper shakily, “you need to go inside. I’ll be in soon, okay?”
Her blue eyes open wider. “You want me to go inside? Please do not tell me you’re going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Do I need to remind you of his evilness by listing off his crimes against humanity one by one?”
“I’m not giving him the benefit of anything!” I reply frantically as I puff out my chest. “I just need…” Crap, I don’t know what I need right now. “I need a minute alone.”
Julie isn’t happy. She looks toward the sky, takes a calming breath as if readying herself for battle. “Okay,” she says sulkily.
“Don’t be this way,” I beg, already deflating.
She focuses her eyes on something in the distance. “It’s fine, Gemma. Be careful though.” Just as she reaches the door, she points two fingers at Ren and says in an angry stage whisper, “A pox on your house, Ren Parkhurst!”
I’m not sure whether I should laugh or cringe.
When we’re alone, Ren smiles and says, “Well, that was interesting.”
I ignore him. Fiddling with the bottom of my shirt and shuffling my feet on the cement, I ask, “So you want to talk?”
He makes eye contact with me. “Yes, talk. It’s where I say words and you listen and respond appropriately.” When I don’t chuckle at his little joke, he quickly adds, “There’s a coffee place down the street. I thought we could go and have a cup or whatever you want. It’s just a few minutes. That’s all I’m asking for.”
“I don’t really think you’re in a position to ask me for anything. Even a few minutes.”
“Gemma,” he says in a pleading tone, his face crumpling into a mask of contrition. He reaches for my hand but I take a step back, keeping my distance. “Don’t you think I know that I fucked up? I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’ve been losing my mind.”
“I heard about the arrest.” I clench my fingers into my sweaty palm. “And I saw your video.”
“Then by now you know how much I miss you. I understand that we can’t turn back the clock but I thought we could be civil enough to have a cup of coffee together.” He closes his eyes and takes a breath. “I love you.”
It’s what every jilted girl wants to hear, isn’t it? I miss you. I love you. I fucked up. A few weeks ago, I imagined this exact moment at least a dozen times. But I’m pretty sure in my little fantasy world, I never felt the way I do now—sick with confusion.
“What am I supposed to say to that?” My voice is raw.
He comes closer and before I know what’s happening, his warm hand is wrapping around my wrist. It’s so grounding and familiar that some of the soupy anxiety swishing around in my gut recedes. “You don’t have to say anything but yes to coffee.”
Landon
The first time I asked her to surf with me, Gemma said that some things are immutable. Newton’s law of inertia. Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. Relativity. Now I know I have something else to add to her list: Hospitals are always freezing.
Claudia is pacing. I’ve been watching her walk the florescent-lit hallway for the last two hours. Her arms are curled into her chest, her body tight and unmoving like she’s been wrapped up with cellophane. She keeps shivering because like I said, they keep this place as cold as a meat locker. But, every time I suggest she stop and sit down or at least put on my hoodie, she sticks me with a glare that would make Chuck Norris lose his cool.
Smith is here with us. He keeps his distance, either circling the waiting area, pausing to look at the generic acrylic paintings on the wall like he’s at an art museum and is dissecting the form and function of the colors, or making trips to the nearest vending machine to bring back more snacks and sodas that none of us will eat.
Two other groups are here in the waiting area. Across from me, a man in a striped shirt sits with a young girl, her tear-stained face buried in his arm. He keeps bouncing his feet and checking his phone like somehow information about his wife is going to materialize on his Facebook feed. Down near the magazines, there’s an older couple. Their daughter fell and knocked her head against a cement curb. It didn’t sound good.
At the end of the hall, there’s a set of sliding glass doors. Every time they open, all of us look up and hold our breaths. Sometimes someone stops, but most of the time, they just walk by, purposefully fast, probably on their way home or to the cafeteria. Sometimes, they are grim-lipped and solemn-eyed. But usually, they have a small smile on their face like they just heard the end of a joke. It sort of pisses me off, but then I think, what else can you do when this is your life? Truth is, when they walk by, everyone sort of exhales in relief. We all want news, but more than that, we want the right kind of news. And no news isn’t bad news.
I keep remembering the last time I was in a hospital. It was the same night I ruined my career. Then, I was trashed. My head was a frenetic blur of white noise. My fist was bloody and swollen from taking a swing at the cop. And I needed ten stitches on my scalp, just near my hairline, from where my head had been bashed into the pavement.
A nurse in dark green scrubs gave me something. So that you can’t feel the needle, she said. I wanted to laugh at her joke. Feel? I was so fucked-up, all I could feel was a whole lot of nothing.
That night, I had charges pending against me and a police officer stayed with me the entire time. I couldn’t take a piss without a uniformed cop watching me unzip my fly.
Ironic really. Because now, when I actually want to talk to the police, there’s no one around to field my questions.
“Landon.” I look up at Smith and I can tell
that he’s said my name a couple of times.
“It’s going to be okay.”
I arc my eyebrows. “Is it?”
“Sure.” He slumps into the seat next to me and crosses his leg over his knee. With a long sigh, he looks up and down the hallway, his eyes following my sister. “Do you want anything from the vending machine?”
I shake my head and blink, feeing the cold air on my eyelids.
“And you’re sure you don’t want me to try to get in touch with Gemma?”
I press my lips together and grit out, “Not until we know something one way or the other.”
He blows out a breath and looks over to the reception desk. “At this rate, that could take years.”
He’s right. Abby has been in surgery for hours and still, no one is saying much. All we know for certain is that at 2:22 a.m., Abby’s neighbor’s found her on the floor of her bathroom and called for an ambulance.
The emergency staff stabilized her when she was brought in, but there were complications. Something to do with her heart. They told us she came around at one point to say that she’d plugged a benzo and injected Dilaudids.
Other than that, we don’t really know anything. We’ve asked questions, but the only answers we’ve gotten are non-answers. The doctors are doing everything they can. We’ll know something soon.
So we wait.
And eventually someone does come to talk to us. It’s the police.
A detective in a short-sleeved yellow shirt takes my statement. It’s all very fast and efficient. I tell him that I saw her yesterday. And yes, I knew that she was using again. At the end, he hands me his business card and pats me on the back like we’re friends maybe.
When I lift my head, I see that Claudia is staring at me. Her eyes are wide. She takes a cautious step forward. “You saw her?”
The question zings in the air. The answer has lodged itself in the back of my throat. I swallow against the burn. I start to speak, my voice vinegary, but the whisper of the sliding glass door and the clunk of footsteps stops me short.
All the heads in the hallway twist in the same direction. I feel the rush of blood to my head and I think of winds knocking down power lines and giant waves devouring the shore.
This time, there is no playful smile or purposeful walk. This time, the solemn eyes land on me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Gemma
“One hazelnut macchiato coming up.”
While Ren walks up to the counter to order our drinks, I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth and stare out past the window, scummy with condensation, to the chaos unfolding on the sidewalk. A young mother pushing a stroller dodges a skateboarder and a man in slick business attire is gesturing wildly with his hands as he talks into his phone. In the background, a car honks impatiently and an elderly man dressed in head-to-toe linen shouts back in furious Spanish.
I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know what to feel. I’m not sad. I’m not happy. If my mother’s aura lady was here, I’m sure she would conclude that I’m complicated and blocked.
“Here we are.” Ren shakes me out of my thoughts. He sets two cups on our small round table and smiles at me.
I twist my face away. “Thanks.”
He hesitates, his smile faltering. “I also got us some croissants. The girl said they’re the best in town and she suggested we try them with honey.”
“Okay.” In some alternate universe I might actually care about croissants with honey.
With a tight nod, Ren lopes off to the counter. He returns a minute later with a white ceramic plate piled with flaky croissants and one of those bear-shaped plastic containers of honey.
“So, how are things, babe?” he asks as he picks up his coffee.
I go still. Babe?
Is he trolling me?
We haven’t talked in weeks and he still thinks he can call me babe. Letting out a breath of air, I look around and it occurs to me that this was a bad, bad idea.
“Babe?” Ren asks. He must have noticed the change in my expression.
I paste on a plastic smile that pulls on my cheeks and sticks to my teeth. My voice is all nails. “Is calling me babe supposed to be funny?”
Ren lowers the coffee cup and meets my gaze. He’s not talking.
“And do you really want know how I’m doing?” I continue in the same strident tone. “Is that what this is? Are we going to sit here and shoot the shit and reminisce fondly about old times?”
“Gemma, if you’d let me ex—”
“I hope you weren’t going to try to explain,” I jump in, squeezing my eyes shut and shaking my head to the side. I feel my bangs in my eyelashes. “You cheated on me. There’s no explanation that can make me forget that. And I don’t want to hear you tell me that it’s not what I think it was or that you were actually giving her the Heimlich. I’m better than that.”
I notice that the woman in the lounge chair closest to us is starting to take an interest in our conversation. Her eyes keep darting our way and she’s got her phone out. If I were to make a guess, I’d say that she’s currently sifting through photos of Ren, trying to figure out if we are who she thinks we are. Just perfect.
“I don’t expect you to forget about what happened. I just want to talk to you…”
The sentence fades out and there’s this weird silence like each of us is waiting for the other to speak. Finally, Ren pushes at his hair and says, “It’s no excuse but I want you to know I was under a lot of pressure from the studio.”
“What does that mean?” I don’t add: And what does it have to do with me?
“It means that the show has been killing me and I guess the temptation of being young and a Hollywood up-and-comer slowly started to become too much for me to handle.” He folds his hands on the table. “But you know deep down that’s not who I am. That’s not who I want to be.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to explain.”
“Because I want you to know—”
I cut him off, stopping just shy of sticking my fingers in my ears and poking out my tongue. “You’re doing it again. I don’t want to know anything about what you were going through. You hurt me and humiliated me, end of story.”
“Gemma, if you’d listen for a minute, I think you’d understand—”
“Stop!” I sputter. “There’s nothing to understand. Honestly. What did you hope to accomplish by coming here?”
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath like I’m a kid throwing a tantrum and he’s just humoring me. “I realize what happened with that waitress was a terrible lapse in my judgment. And it’s never going to happen again.”
“Not with me,” I retort.
Ignoring my anger, he nods. “That’s right. I made a mistake. An awful mistake.”
“I don’t care!” I throw my hands up. “What difference does it make to me now? Aren’t you, like, you know… dating your costar?”
He frowns. “That picture of Sierra and me was taken while we were filming a scene. The magazines got it wrong like usual.”
I take a breath and close my eyes. “Look, I know I brought it up, but the truth is that it doesn’t even matter. You can fuck all the waitresses you want. You can sleep with Sierra Simms or Katy Perry or Kate Winslet or a country rube for all I care.”
Puffing out his cheeks in frustration, Ren tips back in his chair. He stares at me for a minute, his green eyes moving carefully over my face, looking for answers. “How can you say that?”
I shake my head. “Because I told you—I don’t want to hear anything else from you. It’s done.”
“Fine. I won’t try to explain to the love of my life why I screwed up, but it’s not done, Gemma. Don’t think I’m going to throw in the towel and give up on us, because I’m not. I want to go forward but we can’t do that until you’re willing to let go of what’s behind us.”
I briefly wonder if one of the Howl scriptwriters came up with that. Was the line supposed to make me feel petty and sm
all?
Wise words are all well and good when they are spoken by wise people, but when egomaniacal assholes are tossing them around, they are just words.
“I don’t think you understand how this works,” I say, pointing between our bodies. “You can’t play a little ditty on your guitar and profess your undying love and expect me to roll over like some out-of-touch airhead. It doesn’t make a difference to me if you’re not through. I’m through with your shit and that’s all that really matters.”
There is a silence. Ren is eyeing me with something like indignation. Good. He snorts, then he picks up the container of honey, turns it upside down and drizzles some over both of the croissants.
“Look,” he says, much of the earlier softness gone from his voice. “Gemma, I know that I hurt you. I understand that you were embarrassed by all of the attention but I wanted to come here today to talk to you about something that could benefit both of us. You’ve never been unreasonable before now and I’d like to think despite our history, you’ll keep an open mind.”
“Unreasonable?” I gasp. Was he always like this? Right now I can’t even remember. “You think I’m being unreasonable? After what you’ve put me through, I could light all your clothes on fire and I don’t think that would even touch on unreasonable.”
“Stop being such a drama queen, Gemma.”
A drama queen? “Are you kidding?”
He rolls his eyes and puts the honey container down. I watch as a golden dribble moves slowly down the side of the bear’s face and over his arm. “Look, you’re missing the entire point of this conversation. What we have here is an opportunity.”
My pulse is speeding up and I feel a flush of wet, hot anger surge over my face. “How do we have an opportunity?”
“This whole situation has been eye-opening for me.” There he goes, tipping back in his chair again. Only now he’s moving his arms and looking around the coffee shop like he’s in search of inspiration. “You know how hard I worked to land my role on Howl. And I’m not going to sit here and say I’m not happy with the direction of the show, but I’m not sure it’s going to get me where I want to go.”
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