Truly Madly Famously

by Rebecca Serle

  She squints at me. “Japan? Comiket? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

  “Dammit.” The studio is sending me, Jordan, and Rainer to the biggest comic book convention in the world. Three days, the three of us. I totally spaced on it. “When?”

  Sandy pulls out her phone. “Monday.”

  “That’s three days from now!”

  She nods. “The convention was contracted a long time ago, but if you ask me, it might be a good time to show the world you all can still get along.” Sandy gives me a pointed look.

  “Can we?”

  “I know this is less than ideal,” she says. “But I think we should look at it as an opportunity.”

  “Things can’t really get a whole lot worse,” I say.

  Sandy eyes me as the elevator doors open, delivering us to the parking garage. “Honey,” she says. “You’re on house arrest at a Malibu mansion. Trust me, things could get a lot worse.”

  Sandy is not entirely wrong. Three days later, we’re leaving for Tokyo, and nothing is right between us. I still haven’t spoken to Jordan or Rainer. And Alexis isn’t coming to Japan.

  They are, however, sending Jessica as our wrangler. She shows up in a town car Monday morning, her long, blond hair pulled up into an effortless ponytail. She’s wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt with a pink heart on the front. “Hey, PG,” she says. “What can I help you with?”

  Alexis is sitting at the counter, hunched over some green tea. It’s six AM. She’s going to go work out, and I’m going to get on a plane with Jordan and Rainer and fly across the world. They’re sending us private—perhaps in a bid for us to work it out away from prying eyes before we land. Good luck.

  Despite the early hour, Jessica is as perky as ever. I remember her positive attitude at many five AM call times on Maui. “How did you get dragged into this?” I ask her.

  She pops up the handle of my suitcase. “Wyatt is busy working,” Jessica says. “They asked if I could fill in. I said of course.”

  “I think I should come,” Alexis says. “I feel weird about you being alone with them.”

  Jessica averts her eyes. I know she’s trying to give us privacy.

  “I’ll be fine,” I say. It’s the same thing I told her last night. And the night before. She’s been worried about me, about what will happen when I’m on the other side of the world with both of them. Since I moved in here she’s been watching me like a bomb about to detonate. “Darling,” she told me. “Your restraint doesn’t seem to be in full effect lately.”

  I know Alexis has spoken to Jordan, but she doesn’t talk about it with me, and out of respect, I haven’t asked. Maybe her anxiety comes from things he’s said. Maybe he wants her there.

  “We should go,” Jessica says. I see the same look on her face that she had every time she came into hair and makeup. I’d be in Lillianna’s chair, and we’d be behind schedule. It was Jessica’s job to get us to set. She had this great way of keeping us moving while maintaining a calm, cool atmosphere. You never saw Jessica sweat.

  I hold my arms open to Alexis. She gives me a big hug. “Call me if you need me,” she says.

  “I will.”

  “You’re wonderful,” she whispers. “Just as you are. Remember that.”

  “Thanks. You should go out while I’m gone. Have some fun. I’ve been keeping you here too much.”

  Alexis smiles. “This forced hibernation has been great for my mystery factor, but now that you mention it, I have been kind of cooped up.…”

  I kiss her cheek. “Just don’t get photographed making out in public.”

  Alexis laughs. “Amateur move,” she says.

  Jessica gives Alexis a little wave as we close the door. She hands my bag to the driver and gets in the front seat, next to him. I hope we can stop for coffee. I let the driver hold the door open for me, and then I’m sliding into the backseat and we’re off.

  CHAPTER 11

  We’ve been on planes before, the three of us. On our first promotional tour of Locked, when I was with Rainer. Even though it’s only been a month, everything is different. Rainer and I aren’t together, and Jordan and I aren’t, either, and no one is friends, or even pretending to be. No one is speaking.

  I sit alone. Jessica takes out a game of Scattergories, and she and Rainer play. Jordan sits somewhere near the back. I see him only briefly when we board, and then he disappears out of sight. I know I can’t follow him, so I settle somewhere in the middle, by the window, away from them both.

  The tension on the plane is tight, palpable. I close my eyes to see if it’s safer there. I’m surprised at how quickly I fall asleep.

  I wake up intermittently, and when I do, everyone else is asleep. Jessica and Rainer are curled up together. I think they fell asleep playing Connect Four. I find some water and down it. I read for a little while, but I’m distracted, anxious, and still groggy. After a few hours I give up and pass back out. When I wake up this time, it’s to a rocky landing. Security is at the gate for us. Five guys in all black lead us to a waiting town car. But word must have gotten out that we’re here, because even at the private airport, people are waiting.

  I’ve heard the fandom in Asia in intense, but nothing prepares me for the hysteria we’re met with as we make our way to the cars. People claw and cry. They yell and scream and snap photos. It’s crazy, insane. Instinctively I look for Rainer, but he’s already moving ahead of me, lost in between two bodyguards. I have to brave this one on my own.

  The three of us pose for pictures outside and sign autographs. Rainer doesn’t hold tightly to my hand. He doesn’t whisper in my ear that it’s only going to be three minutes. He doesn’t even look at me.

  We go straight to the hotel. No one speaks in the car except for Jessica and Rainer. We check in, and I’m not surprised to find that my room is right next to Rainer’s. I think they’re used to doing it from the last tour, and maybe no one alerted the people who make these reservations to the fact that we’re no longer together.

  We disappear quickly into our separate rooms. I think about how different this is from last time. Last time we’d open them up. One would become a dressing room and the other a bedroom. We’d have this enormous, sprawling double suite, all to ourselves.

  But now it’s just me. The room is beautiful. All colors—turquoise and fuchsia and sea foam green. It looks like the inside of a kaleidoscope, and I feel the pull to call Cassandra like gravity. Cassandra loves colors so much, she’s constantly making up her own. I see some pumpkin pie pillows and pick up the phone. One nice thing about being a celebrity? You don’t have to worry about international rates.

  “Hey, stranger,” she says. “Where in the world are you?”

  “Tokyo,” I say.

  “No way! How are you? Are the boys there with you? What is going on—tell me everything!”

  I know Cassandra wasn’t the leak, she would never do that, but I still feel myself begin to lie. To my best friend. “They’re fine,” I say. “We’re good.”

  “That’s such a relief,” she says. “Because the stories are…”

  “Just stories,” I say. “Everything is okay.”

  “Okay,” Cassandra says. Her voice has gotten quieter. I can almost hear her picking her nails. “How is everything else?”

  “Good,” I say. I know she registers the false cheerfulness in my tone.

  “Tokyo, huh?” she says.

  “Yeah, crazy.”

  “Well, have fun, I guess.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  We hang up, and I feel worse than I did before I called. Stupid. I push it out of my head. We have two hours until we have to go to the convention center, and I need to shower. Someone for hair and makeup will be here any minute. But I feel like I’m still sleep-adjacent. I haven’t yet recovered from the flight and the weirdness of being across the world with the two of them. I face-plant into the bed. Just five minutes, and then I’ll get up.

  A knock at the door jolts me upright. I w
ipe the drool off my face and glance at the clock—I’ve been out for thirty minutes. I get up and shuffle to the door, expecting to see hair and makeup with their bags of goodies, but instead it’s just Jessica. Freshly showered, cell phone in hand.

  I wipe my eyes. “Am I late?” I say.

  Jessica laughs. “I know I’m not always the most welcome sight, but jeez, Paige. I was just coming to see if you needed anything.”

  I shake my head. “I’m all good.”

  “Cool. Hair and makeup are on their way up.” She eyes me. “You may want to hop in the shower.”

  “See?” I say. “Late.”

  Jessica holds up her hands. “It was just a suggestion!”

  She turns to leave when I stop her. “Hey,” I say. “Could you do me a favor?”

  “Of course,” Jessica says.

  “Could you keep Rainer company?”

  She looks at her phone. I see her bite her bottom lip. I always forget she’s twenty-three. She seems so young sometimes, so sweet and naïve.

  “I…”

  I shake my head. “I know he’s going through a lot right now, and Sandy isn’t here. And…” I let my voice trail off. “He likes you,” I say. “I saw you hanging out on the plane. You can get through to him in a way I just… I can’t right now. It would mean a lot to me.”

  Jessica nods. “Of course,” she says. “Maybe he wants to come with me to make sure the Evian bottles are packed in the van. Nonstop drama and intrigue.”

  “I think a little non-drama would be good for him,” I say.

  “A little non-drama would be good for you all,” Jessica says.

  As Sandy told me, Comiket is the world’s largest comic book market, which is held twice a year here in Tokyo. Over half a million people come from all over to buy rare editions of their favorite comics. It’s Asia’s answer to Comic Con… just much, much bigger.

  Sandy also told me that up until recently Hollywood hasn’t played much of a role in Comiket, but this year they’re sending us. We’re giving away signed copies of the Locked trilogy—personalized by the author, Parker Witter (a rare thing, given the fact that she’s somewhat of a recluse)—and signing head shots, magazines, and a line of graphic novels the studio has made based on the books.

  There are many strange things about being in a movie this large. People you don’t know recognizing you, fan fiction about your real life appearing on the Internet, never really trusting that no one is watching—but one of the strangest has to be the merchandise. There are tiny dolls of Rainer, Jordan, and me. Rainer’s has his dimple, mine has my red hair, Jordan’s even has his scar.

  Comiket is held at Tokyo Big Sight—a convention center, the largest here. There are droves and droves of people lining the streets as we pull through. Alexis has told me Comic Con is crazy, but I’m not sure anything could compare to this. We’re in a black limo, windows fully tinted. I have no doubt that if we were seen right now we’d be mauled to death in a matter of seconds.

  Rainer is sitting next to me, his fingertips trailing on the seat, and for a moment I want to brush mine with his, hold them in my hand. It’s tense in the car, but with this many people, and this much energy and noise—there isn’t room for outward animosity. Not between any of us.

  “Amazing,” Rainer says to no one in particular.

  Jessica starts laughing. “That’s not the word I would use.”

  “What would you use?” Rainer asks.

  “Scary.”

  I look at Jessica. She’s in her same jeans/T-shirt combo. They sent me over here with all kinds of crazy outfits. I’m right now wearing leather pants and a red silk blouse.

  I miss the days of being Jessica. When not everything I said, wore, did was scrutinized with more precision than a rocket launch.

  “Fear won’t help us much,” Rainer says, not taking his eyes off the crowds. Jordan stays silent.

  They get us inside by some miracle—I don’t know how they do it. Tokyo Big Sight is like a toy city—a maze of lights and characters and colors.

  We get into the basement and are immediately joined by the guys who met us at the airport—except this time they’ve brought their friends. There must be ten security guards, but I can’t be sure, because they seem to multiply every time I try to count. Which I guess is good. We should be surrounded here.

  We’re set up on a stage, and as we’re led up the elevator and down the corridor, I hear the people. They’re not chanting our names, but the mere buzz of it—the energy of their anticipation—has a volume all its own.

  Rainer is making his usual, good-natured banter. It’s directed at Jessica now. But Jordan is still silent. I can feel the tension in his body. It seems to come off him in waves.

  The bodyguards are blocking us even from one another, but I find his eyes. I want more than anything to reach out and hold his hand.

  But instead I touch my fingers to the cowrie shell charm on my chest. I’ve taken off the ring Rainer gave me, but I haven’t removed the necklace, not even to shower. It’s my mark of protection. It’s Rainer’s stand-in.

  Jessica and a publicist look back at us. “You guys ready?”

  Jordan makes an indeterminate sound, but they don’t wait for an answer. They open the doors, and the screams are massive—a tidal wave of bodies and sound.

  It’s hot in there, too. Stifling. Everyone crammed on each other every which way—I start to sweat immediately. Beads cling to my forehead. Who decided on these leather pants? I feel like they’re melted onto my skin.

  We’re seated onstage. The three of us in a row. Me in the middle. Magazine covers and our own action figures are splayed out all around us. Jessica is saying something to me, but I can’t hear her above the noise. She comes around to my chair, gets close in my ear. “Can you do pictures?”

  I nod, and for a moment I look at Jordan next to me. His eyes are wide—a look I recognize well. He’s scared. It hits me like a sucker punch straight to the chest. I see myself in his dilated pupils. The fear, the paranoia, the terror.

  His black eyes look into mine, and I’m met with such intensity, it makes me want to weep. But instead of being pulled under with him, something else happens. I feel an urge to protect him. The tenderness I feel overrides everything else. I want to make this better. Something rises up in me, some core of solid. I have been so used to being the one looking to Rainer in these circumstances, giving in to my fear—every incarnation of it—that I haven’t stopped to think about them. Rainer and Jordan. Alexis always stayed with Jordan at premieres, and I know it was because of this. She acted for him the way Rainer did for me.

  I think about that signing on Maui. How it was just Jordan and me—our first experience with Locked fans. He left me in the car, and at the time I was so angry. I couldn’t understand his distance, that he hadn’t stood by me in those first few moments with fans, but now I realize he couldn’t have done it any differently. He couldn’t look out for me. He was too busy trying to keep himself afloat.

  I search under the table for his hand. I find his fingertips. They’re cold as ice. I hold them between my palms. I lean over to him. I whisper into his ear, even though I know I shouldn’t, even though I know there are cameras everywhere. “Three minutes,” I tell him. “It’s only scary for three minutes.”

  Jordan’s face softens, just slightly. I bet he’s heard it before. I bet Rainer told him years ago, back when they were friends. And that feels right, somehow. I think about Rainer and me making those promises to each other on the cliffs of Maui—the moment I’ve called up so many times. Whatever’s coming, I’ll be here. But now I understand it should have been bigger than that, than the two of us. It’s not about just Rainer and me; it’s about all three of us. We’re all in this together.

  I keep Jordan’s hand in mine under the table until the first person comes up for an autograph.

  It feels good to hold my own. The least I can do for all of us—and the fans—is try. And the truth is that once it’s one-on-one
—thanks to the well-managed line—greeting fans, it’s not so scary. Some people cry. Some people get hysterical. One incredibly overwhelmed girl actually faints. But a lot of people are just happy. Happy to see us, happy to talk about their favorite book or movie. And the fact that we’ve contributed to that happiness, even a little bit, seems to momentarily smooth over the personal drama we’re going through. It hovers above Paige, Rainer, and Jordan. It’s bigger than us. It’s the sum of us and so much more. To be a part of something that will outlast us—that will outlast whatever happens between us. Together we’ve made something that will prevail, and for an hour I let that be our legacy.

  After the signing we go back to the hotel. When we get to the lobby, we start to split off for our rooms, but Jessica stops us.

  “I made reservations at three different restaurants,” she says. Her tone is hopeful, bright. Her eyes look from me to Rainer to Jordan. “One even has a view of Mount Fuji. Supposed to be the best sashimi in the city.…”

  “Sounds great,” Rainer says. “I definitely want to see what this city has to offer.”

  “Thanks, Jess,” Jordan says. “But I’m gonna pass. I’m pretty beat.”

  “Are you sure?” Jessica asks.

  Rainer clears his throat. “I’m gonna go power nap,” he says, ignoring Jordan’s opt out. “Then we’re getting involved in this foreign land. I’ve been spending way too much time inside lately.” He slings an arm over Jessica. It feels intentional, like he’s punishing me. For a moment I’m struck by this gnawing jealousy, remembering that it used to be me there with him. “Meet you down here in an hour?” he says to her.

  Jessica shimmies out from under him. “Sounds good.”

  Rainer strides toward the elevators, and Jessica angles toward me. “You’re coming, right?”

  I will myself not to look at Jordan. I keep my eyes trained on Jessica. “That trip killed me,” I say. “Tomorrow night?”

  “Absolutely!” Jessica says brightly. “I have your copy of tomorrow’s schedule in the room,” she says. “Want to come up with me?”

  I look back at Jordan, but he’s already crossing the lobby to the other set of elevators. “Sure.”