Truly Madly Famously

by Rebecca Serle

  “You’re wrong,” I say.

  “Whatever,” Joanna says. “I have to go get married.”

  And with that, she yanks open the door and disappears into the hallway.

  I was so stupid. My sister was there, after the premiere, in the other room. She overheard everything I said to Cassandra. And she knew about Jake. I can’t believe I ever thought she had changed. I can’t believe I started to think that for one moment she might have considered that the universe does not spin solely around her.

  And then, all at once, I feel a rush of guilt so strong, it eclipses even the anger. How could I have doubted Cassandra? I’d let myself wonder if my best friend sold me out.

  I make my way downstairs. My sister is being sequestered in our parents’ room. Guests are starting to arrive.

  I look outside. I’m greeted by relatives and friends of my parents. They all want to congratulate and kiss me. I feel dazed. Worse than I do with flashbulbs on a red carpet. Where is Cassandra?

  Funny how just a few minutes ago I was scared of seeing her. What I would say. How I would deal with feeling so guarded around her, not sure if she ratted me out. But now I just want to talk to her, hug her, make it right.

  “Yo, Patrick!”

  I turn around to see the two of them—Jake and Cassandra. He’s wearing a suit, and she has on her yellow dress with white polka dots. They look so warm and familiar, I immediately feel my throat constrict.

  And then I throw my arms around both their necks. “Whoa,” Cassandra coughs out into my ear. “Careful with the grip. What kind of protein powder are they feeding you out there?”

  I pull back and take them in—smiling widely.

  “Dude,” Jake says. “I can’t believe your sister is getting married.”

  “Annabelle is almost three,” Cassandra says. “Believe.”

  I walk with them up the aisle to seats on the right-hand side in a middle row.

  Jake goes in first, but Cassandra keeps standing.

  “Hey…,” she says, cautiously.

  “Hi. Listen, I’m sorry about the last few weeks. Things have just been—”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.”

  “No, I do,” I say. “I want to.”

  “Okay, but me first.”

  I laugh. Cassandra’s patience hasn’t improved over the years. “Shoot.”

  “My parents are taking me to Cabo—finally!—and Jake was supposed to come, but he wants to do a Habitat trip that week. I know your schedule is crazy, and you might have to leave—”

  “I’m in.”

  Cassandra stops, mouth open. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I seriously cannot think of anything I’d rather do than lie on the beach with you for a week.”

  “Four days,” she says, but she’s already moving to hug me, and then she starts squealing in my ear. “We have so much to catch up on.”

  “You have no idea,” I say, holding tight.

  “Paige!” I turn around to see my mom calling me from inside, motioning with her hand.

  “Showtime,” I say.

  Cassandra plants a kiss on my cheek. “You look terrible, by the way,” she says.

  I look down at my dress. Blue taffeta that turns metallic when I move. “I think that’s how Joanna wants it.”

  Cassandra rolls her eyes and sits down next to Jake, and I head back toward my mom. I want to tell her. About Joanna and that story and the cash. But then I look at her. She looks happy. Really happy. Happier than I have seen my mom in a long time.

  My dad stands in front of Joanna. He whispers something into her ear, and then he takes her veil and places it over her face.

  My brothers jostle each other behind them, and Aliyah unsurprisingly tries to flirt with them both.

  I make a move to try to get upstairs and nab my phone—but I feel my mom’s hand firmly on my arm as I take the first stair.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I spin around. “Um, hairbrush?” I try.

  She looks at my head. “Down here,” she says. “We’re doing pictures now.”

  We all file out front. Bill is standing in the driveway with his back to us, and Joanna goes up and taps him on the shoulder. The photographer is right there, snapping the moment Bill turns around and sweeps Joanna up into a big hug.

  “First look,” my mother tells me, proudly.

  “What?”

  “That’s what it’s called when he doesn’t see her coming down the aisle for the first time. Better for pictures.”

  Bill releases Joanna and then we all stand on the lawn, bright smiles. My mom and Joanna direct as the photographer keeps snapping.

  My sister sold me out. My sister. And she acted so casually about it. I needed the money.… What’s the problem?

  The problem is that you should be able to trust your family. The problem is that when you splay your life out in front of the world, you don’t think your sister is going to be the first one to lunge for the carcass.

  I’ve offered her money. I used to do it constantly, but not anymore, because she wouldn’t take it. She scoffed at me: “What am I, a charity case?” Those were her words.

  The music starts and my father takes my sister’s hand. “Come on, sweetheart,” he says. “It’s time.”

  We get in our processional line. Bill’s brother is walking me down the aisle. A pimply kid who looks about twelve. He starts coughing uncontrollably when I slip my arm through his.

  We stand up there, all of us. My mom and dad and brothers as Joanna and Bill exchange vows. Joanna promises to make Bill peanut butter and jelly every day an hour before dinner, in case she screws their meal up. Bill promises to never complain about her collection of mini soaps and to always wake up early to start the car on mornings it’s cold out. They promise to love and honor each other forever. That’s what they say: forever.

  My sister is only a few years older than I am, but she already has this permanent life. A child and a home and now a husband. I don’t know why, or how, but Bill agrees to spend the rest of his life with her. Until death do them part. Everyone cheers.

  They walk back down the aisle to “Here Comes the Sun,” and then we all go inside the house for cocktails while they turn the backyard into the wedding reception area.

  I grab a glass of champagne as I search for Cassandra and Jake. Joanna and Bill are in the center of the room, my mother close by them, air-kissing in every different direction. They are elated—even Annabelle is smiling from where she sits perched on my mother’s hip.

  Then I see my father in the kitchen. I push past people and go over to him. He’s fixing himself a drink—scotch, two ice cubes—same as always.

  “Hey, father of the bride,” I say to him.

  He turns and smiles at me. He has tears in his eyes. I’ve never seen my dad cry, not ever. He’s reserved. When he wants to express love, it’s always “we.” “We love you.” Never I.

  “Dad?”

  “Allergies,” he tells me.

  “Liar.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder, and then I let him wrap his arms around me. I feel him kiss the top of my head. “I’m so proud of you,” he says.

  I pull back and look at him. “You should be telling Joanna that.”

  He laughs. “She’s got enough of an ego,” he says.

  “She sold me out,” I say. The words slip out. “To the tabloids. I thought it was Cassandra, but it was Joanna.”

  My father nods. “Don’t tell your mother,” he says.

  “Dad, did you—”

  “Yes,” he says. He guides me farther into the kitchen. “But you’re not going to upset her.”

  “Upset her?”

  “Your sister is who she is. Sometimes I don’t know where she came from, but I love her. I love her just as much as I love you. Things haven’t been easy for her, and lord knows she’s made some bad decisions, but she knows what she did was wrong. It won’t happen again.”

  “H
ow do you know?”

  “Because I told her if it did, I’d give her something to squeal about.” I look at my dad. He has a twinkle in his eye. “I pay more attention than you think,” he says.

  “It’s not fair,” I tell him.

  He pinches my cheek, the way I remember him doing when I was little. “Fair is overrated,” he tells me. And then he picks up his scotch. “Do your old man a favor, will you?” he asks. “I’m going to duck back there.” He gestures with his elbow in the direction of the bedroom. “Cover for me?”

  “Dad…”

  “I believe you owe me,” he says. “I just have to check a few scores.”

  I laugh. “Fine.”

  We both look out into the crowd at Joanna. “She’s happy,” he says. When he says it, he seems happy, too.

  I find Cassandra and Jake sitting on the stairs. Her legs are over his lap, and she’s talking animatedly about something. Some champagne spills out of her glass and down onto the carpeting when she gestures.

  “Hey,” I say. I come and sit down next to them, tucking my dress up behind me.

  Cassandra hands me her champagne, and I take a sip.

  “Cool party,” Jake says.

  “My sister leaked a story about me to the tabloids,” I say. “She said they gave her ten grand.” I set the glass down.

  “Jesus,” Jake says.

  Cassandra looks thoughtful. “I saw that piece about you and Jordan and this one—” She gestures to Jake. “I figured.”

  I look at her. I bite my lip. “She overheard us talking.”

  Cassandra nods. “Yeah.”

  There is something about the look in her eyes, steady, strong, that lets me know she knows. She knows I thought maybe it was her. But we don’t need to talk about it. Just like I don’t need to tell anyone else about my sister. What’s done is done.

  “She’s always been pretty selfish,” Jake says. “But this takes the cake.”

  “Ugh, cake,” Cassandra says. “Do you think we could be selfish and get some early slices?”

  “And not spend the next two hours sitting in my backyard toasting the happy couple?”

  Cassandra’s eyes sparkle. “Right,” she says.

  “I think that could be arranged.”

  We sneak into the family room, where I know the cake is being stored. It’s a huge white monstrosity with flowers everywhere, and I cut off a big square at the bottom, sticking the roses back around to try to make up for the hole. It doesn’t totally work—they’ll probably notice—but I can’t quite feel too sorry.

  Then I grab three plastic forks and lead the procession back up to my room. We settle on the floor, attacking the cake. Jake confesses it tastes like cotton candy.

  “Synthetic goodness,” Cassandra says.

  I flick some frosting at her. She wipes it off her nose and licks her finger.

  “Disgusting,” Jake says.

  “I can’t believe you’re even consuming this much processed sugar,” I say through a bite.

  “That’s it, guilt-trip him,” Cassandra says, bobbing her head. “More for us.”

  Jake takes Cassandra’s face in his hands and plants a giant sugared kiss on her. It makes me laugh. It’s weird how not weird it is. If they broke up, that would be weird.

  Cassandra slaps Jake away. “What should we do?” she asks.

  I set my fork down. “Chutes and Ladders?”

  When the three of us were younger we used to spend hours playing board games. Monopoly, Candy Land. Chutes and Ladders was Cassandra’s favorite, though.

  Her eyes light up. “Yes!” she says. She goes into my closet, the one she knows so well, stands on her tiptoes, and reaches for the box that sits on the top shelf. She pulls it down. The lid is dust covered, but inside, untouched, are all our old supplies. The Three Musketeers Rule-Book , aka Bob, written in Cassandra’s loopy cursive. Letters to one another. An old baseball hat with our initials marked in the inside. Photographs, valentines, and our board games.

  Cassandra takes out Chutes and Ladders and lays it on the floor next to the cake. “While I beat you guys, we want to hear about what is going on,” she says.

  I set the pieces up in a row next to the start spot and groan. “Let’s just say the fact that I’m currently missing my sister’s wedding does not seem that screwed up in comparison to how tragic my L.A. life has become.”

  Cassandra glances at Jake and then back at me. “What happened?”

  I take a deep breath, and for the next hour I fill them in on everything. The night of the Awards, the breakup, Jordan and me in Tokyo. How terrible I feel about both Jordan and Rainer, and their relationship with each other. It feels so good to finally let everything out, all the details.

  “It’s really too bad your sister is downstairs celebrating her wedding,” Cassandra says when I pause to eat more cake. “Because this story has got to be worth more than ten grand.”

  Jake elbows her. “What she means to say is: Are you okay?”

  I look at him. People have asked me that so much. But somehow, hearing it from Jake is the first time I feel like someone has actually wanted an honest answer. So I give him one.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m just trying to figure out what the new normal is. I keep thinking the answers will become clear, but every time I think I’m there, that I understand, I learn something about my new reality that brings me back to square one.”

  “And Rainer and Jordan?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s not even about them; it’s me. Sometimes it’s hard to know who I am anymore. I’m not sure who to believe.”

  “Us,” Cassandra says, no sarcasm.

  “Well, more than that, yourself,” Jake says, eyeing Cassandra. “You can be a lot of different things at once.” Jake’s gaze shifts to me. “You can be the girl from Portland and the movie star. Life isn’t stagnant—it’s constantly evolving. I mean, look at the three of us. You and I once made out.”

  “Jake!” I say. I steal a quick glance at Cassandra; her hand is over her mouth and her eyes are squeezed shut. She’s laughing.

  “It happened,” he says. “And we’re fine. But we couldn’t have known that then.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “That life changes, and there are no guarantees. Sometimes all you can do is just what makes you happy right now, right in this moment.”

  “But what if what makes me happy now might end up making me miserable in the long run? How do I know?”

  “You don’t,” Jake says. “There is no way to know what is coming. I go to a rally every weekend. I hope it’s leading to a stop in global pollution and a ban on GMOs, but I don’t go for that day. I go for today. I go for the difference I can make along the way. And that makes me happy.”

  Cassandra has stopped laughing. She is looking at Jake with a mixture of curiosity and admiration that makes the back of my throat constrict.

  “Stop worrying about what’s going to happen, and start thinking about what you’re doing right now. Because whatever it is doesn’t seem to be making you very happy.”

  “When did you get so smart?” I ask.

  Jake smiles at Cassandra. “Sometime around her,” he says. He looks back at me. “All you can do is the best you can today. The rest, as they say, is out of our hands. You don’t owe the world anything, Paige. I know you think you do, but you don’t.”

  “There is so much I was wrong about,” I say. “I screwed up.”

  “Join the club,” Cassandra says. “We’ve all screwed up. Jake and I should have told you we were together. Your sister, Christ, should not have opened her big mouth.” She waves her arms in the air. The big finish. “And Rainer and Jordan should have stopped letting anything and everything get in the way of their friendship.” I open my mouth to retort, but Cassandra holds up her hand. “But we can’t change that. All we can do is try to deal with, like Jake is saying, today.”

  “Today.”

  “Yeah,” Cassandra say
s. “Today. So given what is, what do you want to do?”

  I exhale. “Honestly,” I say, “I want to dance with my best friends.”

  Cassandra laughs and scrunches up her nose. “That,” she says, “can be arranged. Come on.”

  She drags Jake and me to our feet, and we make our way downstairs. We eat some food and then the band starts playing old tunes—the Supremes and Michael Jackson—and we get on the dance floor. Jake twirls us both around and around, and we spend the rest of the night like that—happy and full and dizzy. Together.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Paige? Are you there?”

  Sandy’s voice comes through the phone before I’ve managed to fully open my eyes. My head is still spinning from the champagne and sugar last night. I also don’t think we got to bed until four AM. Cassandra is curled up next to me like a kitten, and I move gently off the pillow, the phone still attached to my ear.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “I know you’re supposed to be home through the week,” she says. “But you need to come back to L.A. Alfonso wants to meet with you, and scheduling is supertight.”

  Alfonso is our new director. It’s true: Wyatt is turning the franchise over. I’ve heard Alfonso is very by-the-book. Hard-and-fast with rules, nothing in a scene that’s not in the script. I’m nervous.

  “Now?”

  “Today.”

  I survey the room—discarded Chutes and Ladders pieces, clothes strewn everywhere, Jake asleep in my armchair.

  “What time?” I ask.

  “We’re booking you on a three o’clock,” Sandy says.

  “What about Jordan and Rainer?”

  Sandy pauses. “I’m not entirely sure where the three of you stand right now, but my advice would be to fix it fast. Alfonso isn’t going to take kindly to all of this. Wyatt wouldn’t have, either. You guys used to be friends, right?”

  I run a hand through my snarled hair. Friends. “Yeah,” I say.

  “Well, that might be a good place to start,” Sandy says. “Just pack yourself up and get to the airport.”

  Something occurs to me. Closer to Heaven. “Have we heard about the Closer audition?” I ask her.

  Sandy sighs. “I think Billy left the project,” she says. “I don’t know where it’s at right now. We’re going to have to wait and see.”