Truly Madly Famously

by Rebecca Serle

  I almost laugh. “You must be kidding.”

  Britney doesn’t say anything. She just looks at me, unblinking.

  “You really expect me to fall for that?”

  “He pursued you until you said yes, right?” Britney says. “Curious timing, wasn’t it? That he wanted your answer to be with him right before the big premiere?”

  “How do you…”

  Britney runs a hand over her hair. “I think at this point, PG, you’re the only one who doesn’t know.”

  I think about our first weeks on Maui. How Rainer was immediately there for me. How he made it the point of his whole day to make sure I felt safe and happy and good. I think about how he pursued me after that. How I wasn’t sure if we were just friends until he made it clear—he wanted to be with me.

  But what if…

  What if Greg spoke to him before we started filming? What if he told him that the more press a couple gets, the better? What if he told him that it would strengthen the fantasy of Locked if we were together in real life?

  “Why are you telling me this?” I ask.

  Britney’s eyes flash. “I’d want to know,” she says. “If I were you.”

  “Britney,” Rainer says. “Go.”

  “Fine by me,” she says, picking up her purse. “I’ll leave you two to your history. It seems to be all you have left anymore.”

  When she’s gone, I turn to Rainer. He’s looking at the floor. “Did your dad…” I can barely get the words out. “Did your dad tell you to date me?”

  He just shakes his head.

  I feel my blood pressure rising. “Tell me,” I say again. “You asked me to be honest with you and I was. Rainer, did your dad tell you to date me?”

  He looks at me then, and I know, heartbreakingly, and with absolute certainty, the answer to my question.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “This whole time.”

  Rainer shakes his head again. He makes a move toward me, to grab my arm, but I shake him off. “Fuck,” he says. “No. Paige—”

  “Yes!”

  “No. Paige, listen to me.”

  I feel like someone else, like I’m playing a part. Some crazy movie star engaged in an affair in the Hollywood Hills. I feel like I should have a long cigarette in one hand and a martini in the other. “What could you possibly have to say?”

  I’m fighting through the fog. The images of us on the island. Late nights. Running lines. Our trip to Paia. Dinners at Longhi’s. Our promises to one another. It was all a lie.

  “Please,” he says. “Please, you just have to let me explain.” Rainer runs a hand through his hair. He takes another step toward me. I take one back.

  “I can’t believe this,” I say. “I can’t—”

  “Paige…” His voice is pleading.

  “I trusted you,” I say. “I built a life around you. I chose you.”

  At this Rainer throws his hands up. “Jesus, does everything have to be about Jordan?”

  “Jordan?” I look at him, incredulous. “Do you even care? Did you ever care? Or was that all part of the stunt? Act like the jilted boyfriend…” I trail off. My fists are clenched by my sides. “After everything we’ve been through. Did you ever even—”

  “Love you? Yes, of course I love you.”

  There it is again: love. It makes me stop. It makes him stop, too. We look at each other over a divide that all at once seems impossibly long and equally short. And I know we’re both thinking the same thing, both aware of it hanging between us—whether it’s going to hammer us in or split us apart.

  Rainer goes to sit down on the couch. He puts his head in his hands. “Sit down,” he says. I do.

  He pauses, and then he begins. “I liked you immediately,” he says softly. “You were warm and unaware and so naïve. You were so pure, and I wanted—I wanted to be your friend. But then—” He exhales. “Then my dad told me it would be great for the franchise if we were dating. He said to get to know you, that’s all, and see how I felt.”

  I don’t move. It feels like my whole body has turned to lead.

  “But then I did and—” He clears his throat. “I fell in love with you.”

  “Rainer…”

  “It’s true, Paige. When I asked you on Maui to be mine, I meant it. I wasn’t pretending. Think about everything that has happened. Do you really think it was all a lie?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” Nothing is real. Nothing is the way it seems. These last few months, it has felt like I’ve been struggling to not just be an amalgamation of the stories written about me. But it turns out, I didn’t even know the truth at the center of my own life.

  Rainer was the one grounding thing I had. The one person I could count on through all of this. He was the only thing that felt, really and truly, real. And now I know all we were doing was playing pretend, just like our characters. In love, in front of the world. “I have to go,” I say. I stand up.

  “Stop.” He reaches for me. “Stay. Let’s talk about this.”

  “I don’t want to talk,” I say, moving toward the door. “I just want to be alone.”

  I suddenly remember I don’t have a car here. I stand in the doorway, Rainer behind me. “I have to call a cab,” I say.

  I spin to look at Rainer. I expect him to launch into another pleading speech, but he must read something on my face, because instead he goes to the bowl on the counter and plucks the Range Rover keys. “Here,” he says. “Take the car. I’ll have Sandy pick it up tomorrow.”

  I take them from him wordlessly.

  “Paige, I’m so sorry,” he says. “Whatever I can do to make this right, I will. Please just tell me.”

  I look at him. His beautiful face is tear-streaked. “I don’t know,” I say. “That’s the problem.”

  I drive home in a daze. I park in the back, go in through the courtyard, and unlock the door. I plop down on the couch, my head in my hands. My thoughts are spinning too fast to keep up. I’m just about to head upstairs when I hear a knock at the window. I look through the glass and see Jordan waving from the other side.

  I pull open the door.

  “Alexis asked me to drop this off for her.” He holds up a bag. I take a step toward him and pluck it out of his hands. It’s the Do Something T-shirt and an iPhone. For Instagramming, right. “Also, your courtyard lock is kind of lame. You may want to look into that.” He gives me a small lopsided smile.

  “Well, thanks,” I say. “I could have picked it up.”

  Jordan shrugs. “You know Alexis; patience isn’t really her strong suit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyway, I’ll just… Are you okay?” He’s looking at my face, and I see his train of thought veer off into concern.

  “Fine,” I say. I retreat back, but Jordan follows me inside.

  “You don’t sound fine. What’s going on?” Jordan takes the bag out of my hands and places it on the sofa. “Talk to me.”

  I shake my head. “Rainer lied to me,” I say. “His dad told him to date me. They set the whole thing up.”

  “Jesus,” he says. “How did you—?”

  “Britney just told me everything, and Rainer confirmed it.” I blink at him. “It wasn’t even real.”

  Jordan looks at me. His gaze is measured. “Do you really believe that?”

  “He admitted it!”

  Jordan shakes his head. “About it not being real. Come on, Paige, he loves you. We both know that.”

  “You’re taking his side? Jordan, just go.” I put my hands over my eyes. They burn with tears.

  But Jordan doesn’t leave. Instead he places his arms around me and wraps me up in a hug. I bury my face in the cool cotton of his T-shirt. I breathe him in. He smells like he always does—like dirt and sea. Like Hawaii. And then, suddenly, it hits me. The realization makes my insides feel hot and sticky: Jordan isn’t surprised.

  The past begins to sort itself out, like a magic wand has been waved, returning a disorderly room to its rightful state. I can see e
verything clearly. That fight Jordan and Greg had before the premiere. It was about this. Jordan knew what Greg had done, and they were fighting about me.

  I pull back. “You knew.”

  Jordan stays perfectly still.

  “You knew and you never told me.”

  “I didn’t know,” he says. “I suspected, at first. I know Greg. But then—”

  “Do you have any idea how different everything would have been? That press conference never would have happened. I wouldn’t have chosen Rainer. We could have been together, Jordan.”

  Jordan looks at me like I’m crazy. “And then what? You would have been with me by default? Excuse me if that doesn’t sound all that appealing, Paige.”

  I just gape at him. “What would it have mattered, if we were together?”

  “Because,” he says, throwing his hands up. “I don’t want to be your second choice. I don’t want to be the guy you’re with because things didn’t work out with Rainer. I don’t want to be your backup.”

  “You’re not—” I start, but I can’t continue. It’s too much, all of it. “I can’t do this anymore,” I say.

  Jordan nods. “Right there with you.”

  We stand, fuming at each other.

  “I’m sorry for what happened in Tokyo,” Jordan continues. “I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

  “You’re sorry?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I am.” He looks at me, and I see it all written there beneath the anger—a million regrets, none of which we know how to fix. “See you on set,” he says. Then he pulls open the door and is gone.

  CHAPTER 17

  The next two weeks consist of nonstop meetings, photo shoots, and personal training sessions that remind me of Joanna’s labor. I barely have time to crash before Sandy is calling me again. All for Locked. Closer to Heaven seems further than it ever has. Sandy tells me it’s time to let it go, that I need to focus on all we have coming up, but like many things in my life, it’s proving to be easier said than done.

  I’m at Alexis’s the night before I am due to fly out, watching her throw tissue paper and bathing suit bottoms around the living room floor. I don’t think she’s quite gotten it that we’re going to Hawaii, but not on vacation. She’s just gone shopping for me and is now demanding I pack at her house, where she can supervise. “Plus,” she said, “you’ll clearly need to borrow everything.”

  “See? I told you that you could mix separates,” she says. She holds up a red string thing and black… bottom? Top? It’s hard to tell.

  “Don’t you do enough shopping for yourself?” I ask her. “Why do you have to start in with me?”

  “Because you don’t,” she says.

  “I wish you were coming tomorrow,” I say.

  Alexis nods. “It’s only a week, though. And we’re gonna see each other on Skype!”

  “True.”

  She throws a white dress into the suitcase and tosses her arms overhead when she makes it. “And then I will be there to help your angst-ridden behind.”

  “I am not angst ridden,” I say, scooping up a wedge.

  “Yes, darling, you are.” She looks at me funny for a moment and then starts folding some bedazzled denim shorts. “Do you want to come out tonight?” she asks. “Georgina is throwing a soiree at the beach.”

  A party at Georgina’s actually sounds kind of fun. Plus, I could use seeing some other faces before the three of us take off for Triangle, Part Two.

  “Sure.”

  “Fabulous. We’re going to do a barbecue. Just us, plus Tailor.” She makes a face at me.

  “She’s not so bad,” I say.

  “That is not an opinion I share.” Alexis stands and goes to her closet. She pulls out a blue dress. “Yes?”

  I’m just about to tell her no when I hear the front door open. Immediately, I see Alexis freeze. “Shit,” she says.

  I look behind me, to where her gaze is fixed. There is Britney, standing in the entryway.

  I’m filled with rage. All the emotions from her attack at Rainer’s come to the surface. I’m ready to spew.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Britney says. She has a Whole Foods bag tucked under her arm, and she drops it on the counter.

  “I thought you were seeing Sebastian this afternoon,” Alexis says. “And you were coming home later?”

  Britney doesn’t take her eyes off me. “He moved our session to earlier.”

  I take in her Lululemon-clad frame. Her hair is up in a messy ponytail.

  “Home?” I say. “Is she living here now?”

  “What do you care?” Britney asks.

  I throw my hands up. “I’m out of here,” I say. I rock myself back onto my heels and stand. I go into the bedroom to grab the rest of the shopping bags. Alexis follows me.

  “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t think she was going to be back this early. She’s just been crashing with me for a little while.”

  I grab the Kitson bag and drop a sweater that’s trailing on the floor inside another one from Reiss. “It’s fine,” I say. “She’s your friend.”

  “She doesn’t have anyone right now,” Alexis continues. “She’s…”

  I look at Alexis. I can see something written there, but I don’t know how to read it.

  “She did this to herself,” I say, pushing on. “You should have seen how she told me about Rainer. She was delighted. She couldn’t have been happier to make me miserable.”

  Alexis eyes me. “I know, I know. You’ve told me ten times, but she’s been through a lot. She’s not a bad person. She’s—”

  I grab the last bag and toss the tissue paper on the floor a little too aggressively. “Not a very good one, either? I’m sorry, Alexis, but that girl has been straight-up trouble in everyone’s lives. I don’t know why you can’t see that.”

  “Don’t hold back.”

  I look up to see Britney in the doorway. “You destroyed my relationship,” I say. “I hope you’re happy.”

  “I didn’t destroy anything,” Britney says. “It was broken way before I came along. All I did was tell you the truth.”

  I drop the bags to the floor. I hear them rustle against each other. “Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to you? It’s not my fault that Jordan wanted—”

  “You?” Britney laughs. “Please. You think I care?”

  “Jordan told me about how you went to him that night,” I say. “He told me you kissed him.”

  Britney’s eyes flash. “God, you’re young,” she says. “I didn’t want Jordan. I kissed him—so what? You’ve never gotten lost in a moment?” She looks at me and it’s like she’s seeing my moments with Jordan. That day on the beach, our night in Tokyo. “It didn’t mean anything,” she finishes. “It was always Rainer.”

  “So that’s why you told me?” I say. “To get him back all for yourself? Even if it meant hurting him?”

  “Hurting him?” Britney stares at me. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be assaulted by the father of the man who you love?”

  “Okay.” Alexis steps between us and holds her hand up. “Let’s take this down a notch.” She looks helplessly at me, but my eyes are fixed on Britney. All of a sudden, my blood has run cold. I hear every sound, like my senses are on hyperalert. The next-door neighbor’s lawn mower, traffic moving outside.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t.”

  Britney just stands there. She looks broken.

  “I’m sorry Greg did that to you,” I say.

  Some hair falls into her face, but she doesn’t tuck it back. “I saw the way you looked at me at the MTV Awards,” she says, her voice just a register softer now. “And I know what you think of me. I don’t need your pity; I know you hate me.”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I don’t hate you.” It feels true. “I think you’ve been in a lot of pain,” I continue. “I didn’t really know how it could feel—the press, the lies, all of it—until it h
appened to me, too.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “It’s not.”

  Whatever happened to me, it’s a million times worse, what happened to her. I chose to call Jordan. I chose to let my feelings take over. But Britney? Britney didn’t choose any of it. Not what happened, not how the story came out, certainly not its lasting impact. She was a victim. We both wanted the same thing: the chance to write our own story. But I’ve been doing exactly what the press has to both of us—I’ve been filling it in for her, and that hasn’t been fair.

  Britney sucks in her bottom lip. The gesture feels oddly vulnerable from her. “Greg told Rainer to date you,” she says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “You mentioned that.”

  “But that’s not why he’s with you.” She blinks and looks away. Alexis shifts next to us. “He loves you,” she says.

  I feel my heart catch in my throat. I can’t think what to say but the truth. “I love him, too,” I whisper.

  No one speaks for a moment, and then Alexis steps in. “Brit,” she says gently. “Maybe we should head down to Georgina’s.”

  Britney nods and turns to leave the bedroom, but I stop her.

  “I want to start over,” I say. “I think we both made a lot of assumptions. I’d like to change that.” She looks back at me, and for a moment our eyes lock. I see something familiar in hers. Something that reminds me a lot of myself.

  “There’s no such thing as starting over,” she says. Then she leaves the room. I hear the front door open and close behind her.

  CHAPTER 18

  Britney is right. There is no such thing as starting over. But going back to Hawaii, landing, and breathing that clean air and the faint smell of plumeria on the soft island breeze makes me think that maybe the way you move forward is to go home.

  Because as soon as I make my way groggily off the plane and down the corridor and through the sliding glass doors to outside and the air hits me, I feel it. I feel like I’m home.

  The night smells like flowers and sea salt—a mix that is somehow invigorating and peaceful, all at once.