by Deb Caletti
Jake paced. He strode through the White Room and back again. His voice was intense. On his second trip, he saw me looking at him. A few minutes later, he appeared.
I sat up. I felt a little exposed, you know, there in my bikini. I saw that it had shifted, showing my swimsuit lines, the caramel tan of my skin against white, a dark-light line of what had been revealed and not. I wanted to cover up with the towel, but I didn’t want him to think I was uncomfortable with him when I was uncomfortable with him.
“Hey, Syd.”
“You’re home,” I said.
“Yeah. I had some work to do. I didn’t want to bother you out here.”
The intensity was gone from his voice. He seemed like an entirely different person from the one on the phone, hunched and pacing.
“Oh. Well, thanks. Do you know where Lila is?”
“Probably shopping, huh? She shops a lot, doesn’t she? How you doing? It must be kinda lonely here on your own.”
At least someone had noticed. “A little, but I’m okay. I’m fine.”
“Good.”
There was an awkward silence. Why did I need to fill it? I wanted him to like me. I wanted to be a team player, you know? He was part of our lives now. “Actually, I saw the labyrinth today, at Lands End.” My voice was cheerful, even though what I felt was self-conscious.
“Can you believe I’ve lived here all these years and have never seen it? Did you feel all woo-woo spiritual?”
“Filled with inner pizza, I mean peace,” I joked.
He laughed. “I need me some of that. Man. Get me some of that right now, huh?”
“Exactly.”
“Are you watching the sun out here? You’re getting a little burned.” He gestured to my shoulders and then made a V with his fingers, indicating the space between my breasts. I looked down, and it was true—I’d gotten red.
“Well, hey, you two.” Lila dropped her bags on the patio. I hadn’t even seen her come in.
“Hey, babe,” Jake said.
Now I wrapped my towel around myself. I felt embarrassed, with both of them standing there dressed. Guilty. Her face was all stony and hard, like she’d caught me doing something wrong.
“I didn’t hear you drive up.” Jake’s hands were in the pockets of his shorts, all casual.
“Clearly,” she said.
* * *
That night, Lila was sweetness and light to me, while she bossed Jake around like he was a servant. To him, it was, Order some takeout, would you? Why are you calling that place? You know China Harbor has the egg rolls I like! How long are they going to take? Call them back and make it a rush order. To me, it was, Are you going to bed, Syd-Syd? Put some good lotion on after being in the sun today, okay, baby? Let me give you some of mine. It was all us girls. Her and me. Sweet dreams. Love you.
Lila could do this. Shove one person out; bring one person in. Separate, like her own cattle drive, where a certain cow stays and the other is turned toward the slaughterhouse. I saw her do it with boyfriends, and friends, and even with her agent, Lee, and her manager, Sean James. When I was little, she’d pull me onto her lap whenever Papa Chesterton was displeased with her. When my father was nice to me, she wasn’t. When he wasn’t nice, she was. Maybe I was just starting to notice things because I was getting older.
Sweet dreams.
Not exactly.
I tossed in my bed. I kept thinking about that car out front. Those tires screeching around the corner. I didn’t ask Jake about it. I didn’t ask Lila. Jake had said to trust my gut, and my gut said, Don’t.
* * *
Lila and Jake’s shouting woke me up. Lila’s room was directly below mine. I swear, the house shook.
How dare you tell me to get out! Jake yelled. Have you forgotten where you are? Who are you, some big important star? What a fucking joke.
I will destroy you! Lila’s voice was ablaze.
Oh my God. I hunched down in my bed. It was a warm night, but I pulled all the covers up over me. I plugged my ears. I started to hum a made-up song to drown out the sound.
I could still hear, though.
You bitch!
This wasn’t the Jake who’d joked with me that afternoon, or the one who was friendly with the waiters at the restaurant, or the one who bent over backward to pull out Lila’s chair or get her coat or bring her coffee. This wasn’t the father-Jake who sent little pink roses and who wanted to teach me to drive. Or the one who was around lately, putting food in the refrigerator and fixing Lila a drink.
He was shouting so loud, his voice was getting hoarse. I kept my ears plugged, and I rocked a little in my bed. I felt sick and scared, but I was also pissed. I mean, I felt betrayed. By both of them, but especially him. I’d tried to be nice. I’d believed in we, and now look. I’d believed in the pink rose guy. I’d given him my hope and now he’d wrecked it, same as my father had again and again.
There was a bam, a crash. Something hit something else and shattered. A glass against a wall, maybe. I started to get seriously frightened, and maybe Lila was too, because her voice turned pleading. I could tell she was crying.
Oh, it was awful. I couldn’t stand it.
And then I remembered: Big Jake. The former bodyguard. Mr. Las Vegas with the scary associates. We’d laughed that night at the restaurant, but it suddenly felt like the wrong kind of nickname. She’d tried to tell me too, hadn’t she? What kind of man he was, and who he did business with, and how she “loved” him anyway?
I reached for my phone, tucked it beneath my covers. I wondered if I should call someone. Edwina, or the police. Lila’s friend Louise. Someone. I needed to protect her, only I didn’t know how.
* * *
The fighting died down.
I heard creaking in the hallway. My door opened. I lay very, very still. I didn’t dare peek. I hoped it was just Max, fleeing the fight. If it was, I’d soon feel his big body leaping up onto the bed.
But it wasn’t him.
“Baby?” Lila whispered. “Syd-Syd? Are you awake?”
I lay without moving, barely breathing. It was the second time I’d ignored her like this. I waited for what seemed like forever. Finally she left.
In that city where fire burned things to the ground and earthquakes cracked streets right down the middle and assholes ruined art meant to bring peace, I hid like a crouched animal. I wanted to go home. I started to cry quietly into my pillow, because I wanted that so bad. My chest felt caved in, and I sobbed without making a sound. This was the night the ghost had tried to warn me about, I thought. I didn’t know that it was nothing compared to what was coming.
After a while, I heard murmurs above me. Softer voices. Making up, probably. I worried about Max all alone down there. I hoped he wasn’t scared. Dogs are so sensitive.
I tried to sleep, replacing the bad images in my mind with good ones. I played a different story. I walked the circle of the labyrinth with Nicco. I sat on the rock and watched those two young guys. Middle kiss, I said, and Nicco wrote it down.
I set all of that into my own notebook, in my head.
It’s still there, even if he isn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Exhibit 34: Photo of Lila Shore and Sydney Reilly, w/ Edwina Short, Acapulco, Mexico, undated
Exhibit 35: Sworn statement of Edwina Short, 1 of 2
Lila was up early the next morning. As I told you already, she never got up early. She was dressed in a navy skirt and a white silk blouse, her sunglasses on her head.
“Are you almost ready, baby? The car will be here soon.”
“Ready for what?”
“Oh, come on, Syd-Syd. Don’t tell me. Are you even packed? We can’t miss the plane!”
“Plane? What are you talking about?” I was in my pajama shirt, pouring a bowl of cereal.
“LA for the car commercial? You’re kidding me! How could you forget?”
“You never told me!”
“Of course I told you. I didn’t tell you?”
&n
bsp; “No! You didn’t tell me.”
“Four days in LA! I’m working for two, and we’re staying the weekend. Edwina’s meeting us. I can’t believe I didn’t tell you. This is what happens when your mind is completely overloaded.”
I swear, I was her handbag, or her shoes, or her toaster. You didn’t need to tell your toaster when you were about to need toast. You didn’t require its permission. You just pushed the lever and expected it to work.
“God, Lila.”
“What’s with the tone? I’m sorry, all right? Now hurry up!”
She didn’t mention the night before, so I didn’t either. But I could see that her eyes looked puffy and tired.
“Do I have to?” I groaned. “I could stay here. It’s just four days.”
“Not an option. I can’t believe you’re acting like this! Girl time!” She snapped her fingers on both hands, to indicate fun, fun, fun.
“What about Max?” I looked down at him, sitting at my feet.
“Jake will be here. Jesus! Get a move on already.”
* * *
“Baby, don’t slouch in the chair like that,” Lila said as we waited in the private lounge of the airport. “People are staring.” People: two men in expensive suits tapping urgently on their phones. A woman in tight black pants with her arms dripping gold bangles, a man with his gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. “What has gotten into you? You’re so teenagery lately. Did you sleep okay last night?”
There was a beat between us, but I could tell she was trying to see if I’d heard anything. If I knew about that fight.
“Yeah, fine,” I said.
“Maybe go grab us some coffee.” She waved her hand toward the machine, which sat alongside a table of snacks.
I brought her back a cardboard cup with cream and sugar, just how she liked it.
“Smile, Syd. Don’t look so sullen.”
Smile. This was what she always said to me. Smile, smile, smile. I sometimes felt like that doll she put on the bed, with her staring eyes and upturned mouth.
When I sat beside her again, I noticed it. An orange ring around the cuff of her blouse. Makeup. I reached over and flicked up her sleeve. Makeup, all along her arm.
She yanked her arm back. “Stop!”
“Lila, what the heck?” There was only one reason I could think of that she’d be wearing cover-up there.
“Quit it,” she said.
“Is that a bruise?”
“I banged into the dresser. In the dark. It’s fine.”
“I heard you guys last night.” I stared at her hard.
“Couples fight, baby. Every couple fights. Jesus, at least he’s not as bad as your father.”
Oh, yeah? “What’s that, then?” I flicked her sleeve.
“It was the dresser, Syd. Stop it. I told you. Get that look off your face. People can see.”
I tried to believe her. I wanted to. Maybe it had been the dresser. But I’ll tell you one thing: When someone gives you a bruise—it always means a clock is ticking.
* * *
The car service drove us straight to the Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown, where Lila would be filming that afternoon. I stared out the window. Scenery passed, fast and confused, like the events of the last few days. The buzzing of my phone startled me.
Clear enough to see Seal Rocks. You in?
Nicco! Oh, happiness. But also, oh, crushing disappointment.
I hoped he wouldn’t think I was avoiding him. Would he even believe that I just got on a plane without knowing I was leaving? Who did that? He’d think I was playing games, maybe. Ugh! High math calculations again.
So sorry. My mother went on a business trip and I had to go. Ugh! Back on Mon. Look. I snapped a fast photo of a palm tree and sent it.
Bummer, he texted back.
Giant bummer, I answered.
Beside me, Lila glanced up from her phone. She lifted her chin and leaned my way. I swear, she was trying to look at my screen. I started texting madly to hide Nicco’s message, sending the palm tree photo to Meredith and Hoodean and Cora. Look where I am now! LA life, haha!
Be famous for us, Meredith texted right back.
“Who was that?” Lila asked.
“Just Meredith.”
“No, before that. The first one.”
I swear, she was psychic. Every time I had a secret thought, she’d know it, though Cora said the same thing about her mother.
“Meredith.”
“A boy?” She elbowed me teasingly.
“Lila, stop.” God! Maybe I was acting teenagery because every move she made was driving me insane.
After all those years of being so desperate for her to spend time with me, now I just wished she’d give me some space.
“Okay. I’m sorry.” Her face turned sad. She looked out the window. Her hands were folded in her lap, the orange ring of that makeup on her cuff. Those hands had glimmered with shiny, expensive jewelry, and they’d been in movies and photographs. But they’d been through a lot, too. I felt bad.
“Yes, all right. A boy,” I admitted, and regretted it instantly.
* * *
If you’ve never been there, the Walt Disney Concert Hall is this bold, modern building, silver and geometric. The crew wanted to film at the golden hour, that time just before sunset when the light is all yellow and magical. Even though it was still afternoon, Lila went right into the trailer for hair and makeup, which took forever. Then they moved out to the front of the building, where the street was blocked off. There was scaffolding and lights, and the camera dolly, and the long tracks it would roll on. Lots of people milled around, and the four luxury cars were lined up.
The cars were supposed to drive past Lila, who’d be waiting at the curb in her plunging white dress. Her job was to ignore the first three entirely, but then the tuxedoed guy in the Buick would slowly slide past, catching her eye. She’d look at him and the car approvingly, and then he’d stop and open the door for her, and she’d slip in. The idea was, if you had a car like that, you’d get a woman like her. Her boobs were all spilling out, so I guess you’d get those, especially.
There was a lot of fawning over Lila, making sure she stayed perfect, which was something I remembered from when I was little, how you weren’t supposed to touch her if you were on a set, or even if she was going out and had just gotten dressed and had her makeup done. We waited around a long time, and she and I just sat there and talked phony to each other until Lila somehow managed to cut her ankle with the clasp of her shoe, and it sent everyone scurrying. The medic came over, even though there was, like, one drop of blood. I think they were worrying more about the dress and a lawsuit, honestly, but it livened things up for a few minutes.
I watched the first take of Lila looking bored until the Buick passed. The golden light and that silver building made it seem like an important, enchanted evening. Afterward they had to set up everything all over again. Lila started flirting with the actor in the tux, straightening his tie, standing all close to him. I was done watching. I got up and started wandering around. I was irritated. I felt angry and weirdly anxious again. I know, I know. Poor girl, on a set in LA on a beautiful night.
A thirty-second commercial can take hours, days. People stood outside the barriers, watching. It started to come back to me, how boring this all could get, how, like football, more time was spent lining up and getting ready than actually playing.
I remembered a lot of stuff from before I went away to school—film sets, and learning to swim in that pool of the Santa Monica house by the beach; the birthday party when Edwina took me and most of my second-grade class to the movies; how grown up I felt that time my father took me to dinner and ordered me a Shirley Temple. But the farthest-back thing I could recall was a night at the height of Lila’s fame, when I was about two. We were coming out of a hotel. There were so many people outside that the manager suggested we take the back exit. Edwina lifted me into her arms. We walked down a corridor and through a kitchen. The minute t
he door was pushed open, there were shouts and flashes and people shoving. A crowd surrounded us. I felt hands on me. I saw Lila disappear into a limo.
I started to cry. My grandmother and I were shoved into a second car. I lost a shoe. I didn’t know where my mother had gone. “Wave to the people,” my grandmother said. But I didn’t want to. I started to sob. My mother had disappeared.
That was my first memory. The way I’d lost her.
* * *
That evening, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, there were only a handful of interested people watching from behind the barriers. Probably tourists, because the people who lived in the city saw that kind of thing all the time. Still, I was inside, and they were out. I felt important but lonely.
My phone buzzed, and I got all excited, and my heart dropped, but it was only Hoodean, responding to my LA life text.
Loser, he’d written.
It had been only six or so hours since Nicco’s last text, but it didn’t matter. I thought for sure I’d wrecked things and he was gone for good.
But I hadn’t, and he wasn’t. Lila and I were in the car again, heading to the Beverly Hilton, when my phone buzzed.
Look! Nicco texted. It was a cypress, in response to my photo of the palm. Tree for tree. It was the best cypress I’d ever seen in my life.
When we stopped at a light, I took a blurry photo of the first thing I saw out the now-dark window—a lit-up ARCO station. Look!
Look! A photo of a microwave oven, in his apartment, maybe. Look! My turn. A nail salon. Look! A box of Totino’s pizza rolls on his counter. Look! His kitchen faucet. Me: a revolving cheeseburger outside a restaurant, glowing in the night. His eyebrows, my sandals. It was… I don’t know. Strange, because the photos made me feel very close to him. Wonderful strange. God, I couldn’t wait to see him again.
