No More Pretending

by Bette Hawkins

  While she looked in the mirror, Lauren appeared in the bathroom doorway. Harper turned and smiled at her.

  “Are you okay?” Lauren asked.

  Harper leaned back against the sink and nodded.

  Lauren approached her and put a hand on her cheek. “We can go soon.”

  Harper drew her shoulders up defensively. She didn’t want to give the impression that she wasn’t able to handle this, not after she had put so much energy into being practical and sensible. “We just got here.”

  “I don’t care about any of this. I just want to spend time with you. Just the two of us.”

  Harper smiled. “Only a little longer, then.”

  Harper had lost count of how many nights she had spent at the cottage, but she went back there tonight with a nervous excitement. Something had unlocked inside of her in front of the mirror, an awareness of exactly what she was losing, and now she didn’t know how to act. It felt unnatural to behave as though nothing was wrong, but she didn’t want to initiate another conversation about the situation they were in either. She had been the one to tell Lauren once and for all that they needed to be pragmatic. It would be unfair to confuse things by saying anything different about it now.

  They started kissing the moment they were inside. Lauren pushed her up against the door as soon as it was closed. Harper smiled into her mouth at the familiarity of it.

  “You like doing that,” Harper said when they came up for breath.

  “What?” Lauren said, kissing her neck.

  “Jumping on me as soon as we’re alone. I’m not complaining by the way.”

  They worked their way down the hall. When they got closer to the bedroom, Lauren made her turn so that she could cover her eyes.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” she said, guiding Harper forward toward the bed.

  “Oh, you are so cheesy,” Harper said when Lauren uncovered her eyes. There were candles on the nightstands and rose petals scattered over the bed.

  “You love that about me,” Lauren replied. “I wanted to make it special.”

  Harper caught the vulnerability in her tone. “What’s that?” Harper asked as she came closer to the bed. There was a black jewelry box in the middle of the quilt.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not proposing. I just wanted to get you something.” Lauren walked over and sat down, patting the space beside her. “Come here?”

  Harper approached and joined her on the bed. Lauren took out the ring and slipped it on a finger on Harper’s right hand. It was a simple silver band, nothing too showy and exactly to her taste.

  “Thank you,” Harper said, kissing her. “I wish I’d gotten something for you too. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I just wanted you to have something to remember me by.”

  “Like I could forget you,” Harper said, shaking her head and putting her arms around Lauren. “It’s perfect.”

  As they moved onto the bed, they each knew that it must be the last time. Harper could feel it, the sense that they were each trying to make it all count, trying to make the best memories they could. They made love for hours, touching one another in a kind of worship.

  When it was over at last she felt a surge of emotion, the afterglow leaving her vulnerable to the tears she’d been suppressing for the last few hours. Harper tried to hide them at first, her face turned away from Lauren in the darkness.

  “Don’t cry, Harper,” Lauren said softly, her fingers trailing over Harper’s face to confirm what she was already sure of.

  “I miss you so much already. I don’t want you to go,” Harper said through her tears.

  Lauren grabbed Harper and held her tight. They lay like that, fused together.

  “I don’t want to say good-bye to you either,” Lauren said after a long time.

  “Me neither. Let’s not say good-bye. Let’s just do that thing where we pretend we’re not and say like, see you later. Dad and I used to do that when I was going back to the city after a visit. I know it’s silly, but it helps.”

  “I can do that. I think it will make it feel a little less hard.”

  They fell into an exhausted sleep for a couple of hours. When the morning came, Harper was the first to wake up. It was dawn and she could hear the sounds of birds chirping. She lay on her side and watched Lauren sleep for a few minutes, observing the rise and fall of her chest and the way her hands curled over her stomach protectively. Her face looked peaceful, free of the hurt she had seen on it a couple of times the night before. Harper had never felt this strongly about a person in her life. She would do anything to make sure that the pain never reappeared. If their situation were any less impossible, she knew that she would happily wake up to look at that face every day.

  They had talked out how this morning was going to play out. When Lauren woke up, they set about putting their plan in motion, not talking very much at first. They were both tired. Harper took a long shower to wake herself up. Anxiety about their parting was slowly building up. She kept breathing deeply, trying to shake it off. This was hard for Lauren too, and Harper wanted to be strong for her.

  Harper helped with finishing up packing the last of Lauren’s things and loading them into the car. It was strange to see the way Lauren’s whole life for the past few months could be squeezed into a few cases. Before Harper clipped Chester onto the seat belt, she cuddled him for a long time. She had become attached to his presence, and hadn’t known she could care so much about an animal. It was hard to imagine that they would have gotten together without him. Chester had given them an excuse to talk to one another before they had known how.

  When the two of them were about to walk out the door, Harper put her hand on Lauren’s arm. “Wait.”

  “What did I forget?” Lauren asked, looking around the room.

  “We’re not going to be able to kiss good-bye at the airport, so…” Harper raised her eyebrows.

  “Oh,” Lauren said. She stood before Harper, who pulled her closer by the hips. They must have kissed a thousand times by now, but the sight of Lauren coming near to her still gave her tingles. They lingered over the kiss, Lauren putting her hands on Harper’s waist and keeping her close. When they pulled away, they were both breathing rapidly.

  Harper looked down at her watch. She was trying to calculate whether they had time for more, and was disappointed to see that they really had to go now. Drawing out their good-byes would just make it worse anyway. “Well, let’s hit the road shall we?”

  It was a long drive to the airport, and they spent most of the trip in silence. Harper looked out of the window. She couldn’t bear the thought of making small talk at a time like this. Instead, she dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand and leaned her forehead against the glass. She wanted to say something important, something with meaning, but couldn’t think of the right thing. The sensation was so uncomfortable, the two of them going about the business of leaving one another without a word. It made her want to do something dramatic, to scream or shout, but she knew she never would.

  At last, with the rental car returned and the baggage checked, they were alone at the gate with a polite distance between them. Lauren held her hands stiffly at her sides.

  “Well, so. I’ll see you later?” Lauren said, trying to smile.

  “See you later,” Harper replied. Lauren leaned in and hugged her, then turned and walked away. The fact that she didn’t look over her shoulder might have hurt, if Harper hadn’t been able to see the unsteadiness in her gait.

  Harper covered her mouth. Her stomach churned. The bus trip home now seemed as though it required enormous effort, because it meant interacting with people. Harper had insisted on coming to the airport with Lauren rather than drive her own car, but now she wished she had the privacy a vehicle would have afforded her. Harper slipped into one of the backseats on the bus and blankly watched the same things she had seen on the way over reverse themselves.

  It was unthinkable that she had let it all happen the way it had. Wh
y couldn’t she have been braver? Why hadn’t she accepted the idea that they should try, like Lauren suggested? At the time, she told herself that she was being realistic because Lauren couldn’t or wouldn’t be. She hadn’t been able to see the sense in talking about something that could never become a reality. That now struck her as cowardice. Lauren was the brave one, wanting to risk some of herself, and Harper was foolish. At some point, she had fallen into a rut and lost any sense of imagination about a different type of life. Lauren deserved better than her.

  Harper had to remind herself that no real tragedy had occurred. Lauren was still out there; she was alive and well. Right now, she would be sitting on a plane. Maybe she was looking out the window down at the clouds, or reading the newspaper.

  Harper could tell herself that there had been no catastrophe, but she did not believe it. They had lost one another.

  Chapter Twenty

  As soon as she got on the plane, Lauren put on her armor. Learning how to detach from her emotions had helped her survive, a skill that she had developed as a child. There was a danger that if she began to let herself feel she would start crying and wouldn’t be able to stop. Falling apart was not something she could afford. There was work to do, and soon.

  Talking to the press meant trying to be articulate but not tooclever, warm but not desperate, bubbly yet genuine. It meant being asked the same questions over and over and trying to act like the answer was fresh each time. It was tiring, especially for someone who was full of as many secrets as she was. No matter how well she thought she performed, there was always the chance that something she said would cause a minor scandal.

  At least she would be in New York for a while. Franklin, her publicist, had hired a hotel room where the interviews would be conducted, which meant that she could go home at the end of each day. Being at home with all of her things around her might give her a sense of normalcy. The idea that she could be happy without Harper was unthinkable. Still, she had to believe that if she kept going through the motions she could return to the normal rhythms of life and eventually feel okay again.

  When she walked through the door of her apartment, it was quiet and stuffy in a way that made her sigh. It felt so much less like home than the cottage had. She unpacked and watered the plants that Melinda had kept alive for her, then followed Chester around while he sniffed things and reacquainted himself with the space.

  A lump came to her throat when she checked her phone and saw that Harper had sent her a text message. It was short, just two kisses and no words. After a long period of deliberation, she sent back the same thing. Lauren wanted to say that she missed her, or that she loved her, but couldn’t see how it would help the situation.

  A friend asked her to go out to dinner so he could welcome her home, but she told him that she was too tired from traveling. If she went, she would spend the whole night talking about Harper. Nobody knew that she had been seeing someone and she wasn’t ready to talk about it. Instead, Lauren ordered Chinese food and turned on the television, zoning out.

  She went to bed early, the long empty night stretching out ahead of her. When she felt sad or anxious, sleep was the first thing to suffer. It was so weird being back in her own bed, alone. When she started to drift off, she snapped awake only to look around and see a room that had become unfamiliar to her. The city was loud outside her window. She had ceased to notice the noise a long time ago but spending months away had sharpened her senses again.

  Lauren reached out and looked at her phone to see if Harper had called, even though she would have heard it if she had. Lauren wondered if she should make contact, just to say good night and see how she was doing. Her pride stopped her because she didn’t think she could take it if Harper was anything less than ecstatic to hear from her. They hadn’t even discussed how they were going to navigate this part. Lauren had wanted to know but hadn’t wanted to try and talk about it. She had put herself out there enough when she had talked to Harper about trying to continue the relationship, so she didn’t want to risk rejection again.

  At last, she drifted off. When she woke up she knew she had just left a dream about Harper. She couldn’t remember much about the content of it but it left her with a deep sense of longing. The vision of red hair and brown eyes lingered while she rose and got ready to start her day.

  Each outfit she tried on looked wrong. Whatever she wore would be described in every article that was written about today’s interviews, and there would be filmed content too. One couldn’t really go wrong with black. Given that it perfectly reflected her mood she decided to go with it. She pulled on a black sleeveless button-up top and her best pair of designer jeans, then hastily added some accessories so it wouldn’t look too plain.

  A car picked her up and took her uptown to the hotel. When she got there, the room was buzzing with the trinity of her manager, publicist and her assistant. She was glad to see Melinda at least, who gave her a warm hug and told her in a genuine way that she looked good. Celia, her manager, and Franklin were not happy as they looked her up and down when she came in. Celia muttered that she should have worn a skirt instead of jeans. A surge of anger went up Lauren’s spine. It wasn’t unusual for them to talk about her as though she couldn’t hear them perfectly well, but after time away from them, it bothered her more.

  Lauren asked for herbal tea and sat while hair and makeup people buzzed around her. Franklin gave her a list of talking points about the movie she was promoting. She looked them over resentfully, thinking about how ridiculous it was that she was told what opinions she was allowed to express. Before she had left for Texas, she had seen an early cut of Empty Nests.They had a battle on their hands trying to sell this one, so maybe it was a good thing that she was being fed her lines. It had been a promising script, but it was badly watered down and had changed beyond recognition. Lauren gritted her teeth and started memorizing what she was supposed to say.

  It was depressing to think that in the future she would have to promote Texas Twist. How would she ever be able to talk about it as though it was just another movie? It would always be the vehicle that took her to Harper. The thought of being told to drop silly hints about her supposed relationship with Josh made her feel sick.

  Thankfully, the first reporter to come in was Jack Griggs, a friendly guy from one of the more prestigious magazines. Lauren was aware that her publicist carefully coordinated the order of her interviews to get a better performance from her. Jack’s presence meant that she probably wouldn’t like the next person who walked through the door. Jack stuck to questions about her work, he knew what he was talking about, and he pretty much wrote what she expected that he would. They had a pleasant and warm interview. Lauren felt temporarily buoyed.

  As predicted, the next interview was with someone she couldn’t stand—Maria Standforth. From the moment they met when Lauren was a rising star, Maria had rubbed her the wrong way. She always put herself into the story as much as possible. Years ago Maria had written a nasty profile about Lauren that made her sound vacuous and insecure. Despite the fact that Franklin explicitly briefed her every single time about the no personal questions rule, Maria never failed to push the boundaries. Lauren wanted to refuse her further interviews but Franklin insisted that Maria was too powerful to cut out.

  The way Maria shook her hand and smiled that plastic grin set Lauren’s teeth on edge. On any other day, Lauren would have found her only mildly irritating, but she had never felt as sensitive as she did today. Her sadness was so close to the surface. It occurred to her that it was people like Maria who were responsible for some of her problems. They helped to rob her of courage, rendering her ashamed and afraid.

  At first, the questions were innocuous. Maria was smart enough to know to start out that way. But it didn’t take long for her to start slipping in the type of questions Lauren hated. Could Lauren relate to her working-class character, and had she come from a similar background? Then she stepped back by asking what it was like working with the little gir
l who played her daughter. Two steps forward with the question of whether Lauren was looking forward to marriage and kids of her own, and when was she going to start a family anyway? That one earned her a subtle head shake from Franklin. When Maria asked whether her character’s family shared traits with Lauren’s, Lauren cut her off and asked for a glass of water.

  Lauren didn’t say a word while she waited for Melinda to bring her a glass of water, and Maria didn’t either. She wasn’t bothering to put on a polite façade with this woman.

  The water did nothing to cool her temper, though. The more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t bear Maria’s entitled attitude. It reminded her of every photographer that had ever shoved a camera in her face while she walked through the airport. It brought to mind every time someone thought they had the right to take things from her that she had never intended to offer. It recalled every person that claimed she was asking to have her privacy violated by becoming an actor in the first place.

  Lauren looked at Maria with open hostility. The moment stretched out awkwardly. She mentally dared the journalist to ask her another stupid question to see what would happen. Maria stood her ground and looked back at her with a bemused expression that she guessed was supposed to make her feel ashamed of herself.

  “Why do you guard your private life so closely? What are you hiding?” Maria suddenly blurted out. Lauren glared over at Franklin. She was waiting for a rescue but he’d gone uncharacteristically quiet.

  “Excuse me?” Lauren said.

  “I’m just wondering why you’re so annoyed by simple questions about family. These questions aren’t invasive. Everyone has a family. Don’t they? You don’t talk to your family, do you, and that’s why the sensitivity?”

  “I’m terminating this interview.”

  Franklin put up a hand. “Let’s take a five-minute break, guys.”

  “I’m not taking a break, I told you I’m done. I’m finished speaking to her.”