by Reiss, CD
“You do look nice,” I said. “That’s why people look at you.”
“It’s not my talent?” He didn’t seem offended, just playing.
“Try letting your beard go mountain man and running around in sweats. See who wants to look at you then.”
I didn’t mean it as an insult, and he didn’t seem to take it as one, but he did get serious all of a sudden. It was only a slight shift in attitude.
He leaned toward me a little. “Would you rather be known for what you do, or who you are?”
I leaned in a little as well and whispered, “I’d rather not be known.”
“Okay, well,” he leaned in closer, whispering, and my eyes fluttered closed from how close his lips were to me. “You’re about to be known as the pap who got escorted out of the Breakfront Gala. And I’m about to be known as the guy who didn’t let that happen.”
I looked behind me. The security guys weren’t wearing cheap uniforms with patches on the shoulders, but I knew them by their heavy gait and the authority on their backs. They were across the room, looking for someone. Me.
I put down my wine. “This was a bad idea. I’ll just go.”
He put his hand over my wrist with confident authority, as if he had a right to touch me. “No, you won’t.”
“I’m not going to embarrass you.”
He looked at me, nothing but warmth in his eyes, and a little of the anxiety that had followed me into the room melted away. He tightened his grip on my wrist. He could have led me anywhere, and I would have followed.
“You’re the most interesting person in this room right now,” he said. “And they want me to stay more than they want to get rid of you.”
“I doubt that.”
“Let’s find out.”
I didn’t know Michael Greydon much better than the millions who didn’t know him at all, but I knew a few basic truths. He drove sober, got in at a decent hour when he was shooting, always smiled, didn’t sleep around, and hammed for any lens pointed at him. But what I saw in his face then was something I’d seen on a few of the men in my life and more than my share of friends and fake family. It was the look I was told I got before I did something rash.
He looked as though he wanted to get into trouble. Any normal woman, recognizing that, would have tried to steer him to safety, but my neck burned hot with the thought. I didn’t know if it was from the idea of trouble or the sexual streak in his recklessness.
“Michael Greydon?” I said. “What is on your mind?”
“I have no idea.” The words rolled around his tongue as if he loved having no idea.
I should have been excited. Thrilled. I should have jumped into his arms and suggested something reckless that sat at the very edge of legality. But I didn’t, because unlike most of the people I’d climbed fences and broken things with, he had something to lose. A lot to lose. If I created a scene with him, I’d lose something as well. My anonymity, which was already compromised by my gender, would be non-existent.
So though temptation twisted me in knots, I pulled my hand away.
That was when Lucy Ferguson showed up. The story of their breakup a year after he entered Yale was well known, but from her bitter expression, knowledge of the torch she carried for him was less common.
“Laine?” she said. “Laine Cartwright?”
“Laine, this is Lucy—”
“Hello, Lucy. It’s nice to see you again,” I lied. The last time I saw her, she’d been slipping a Cosmo article entitled “How to Fellate Him Like a Porn Star” into my jacket pocket.
“Well, it’s nice to see you!” She tucked a perfectly blown-out blond lock behind her ear. Her suit was a conservative Chanel two-piece, and her pearls were triple-looped around her neck. “We all wondered what happened to you.”
“I left.”
“Well, we knew that! Of course, but no word on why? We worried terribly.”
“Things happened.”
“We all knew the Hatches got divorced, but we didn’t think—”
“I bet.”
Michael spit out a laugh then looked over my shoulder. Lucy followed his gaze to the security guys then touched his arm. I wanted to bite off her hand.
“I’ll take her,” she said softly to him.
I nodded and stepped toward her. I didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her one-handed, but I needed to save Michael and myself the grief of a fight.
“No, you won’t,” Michael said. “I have this.”
“No. I’m putting my foot down. I. Want. To. Go.” I stared him down, chipping at the resolve in his jade eyes. He might have been an actor, but I was a pretender and good at it. I was going to protect him from me, even if it meant giving up any hope of feeling his touch again.
“Come,” Lucy said.
I hesitated. My gut roiled, but I wasn’t sure whether it was because of Lucy, the guys coming to escort me out, or the idea of coming so close to Michael and losing him.
“The camera’s in my car,” Michael said. “Don’t go too far away.” He brushed by me to intercept the security guys, and I grabbed his arm.
“Forget the camera.” I was one hundred percent sure I never wanted to see him again, even if I knew I’d change my mind as soon as walls were between us.
I let Lucy pull me through the crowd. Did anyone notice me? I recognized a couple of faces, mostly people who dined or hung out with the characters I chased. I made eye contact when they did, and they looked away every time. I was the center of attention. I wished to god they’d all stare outright.
But they didn’t. I’d never been so uncomfortable in my life. When I followed Lucy to a small side foyer that didn’t have any guests looking-not-looking at me, I felt like a drowning woman yanked to the surface for her first gulp of air.
“You all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine.”
“The security guys here don’t care,” she said. “They’ll escort you out in front of everybody. I thought I’d save you from that. But if you want to go back—”
“No, I’m fine. Really.”
“I have to go in. Do you remember the way?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“If you’re seen, they’ll escort you to your car. Just don’t make a big deal about it, and it’ll be fine.”
“I was thinking of going all limp and letting them carry me.”
She paused, warmed, and said something it looked as if she had to think about first. “We did worry about you.”
“Really? I’m surprised you didn’t hunt me down in every strip club in Vernon.”
“How do you know we didn’t?” She smiled curtly. “You’d better get going.” She walked back toward the ballroom.
“Lucy?” I said.
She turned slightly, waiting.
“Thank you.”
13
Michael
The air went out of the room as soon as she left. As if someone had taken the knot out of the bottom of a balloon, everything flattened.
She was nothing to me, and chasing after her was irresponsible. But I had a camera in my car with her name on it, and as I made small talk about the industry, the school, and the city, I wanted to give it to her whether she wanted it or not. Me. Hand to hand. Not my assistant or my agent or my publicist. I’d invited her to the gala to get something done, and it was getting done.
I texted her but heard nothing back. Ten minutes later, in the middle of talking up Bullets, I realized I hadn’t approved her number for incoming. Suddenly, the room felt stifling hot as the air pressed in on me. I didn’t want stupid small talk, and I didn’t want to be me for another minute. So I smiled and excused myself.
It was cold outside, but I felt better.
The smart thing to do would have been to go home and rest. Taking weeks off for Britt’s foibles might screw my life, but I didn’t have to help it along, did I? I didn’t have to ignore everything I was told by people who knew better.
“Michael?”
I
t was Lucy, striding out alone in her low heels.
“Hey. I was just thinking about going home,” I said.
“You should.” She took my elbow in a way that was too familiar. She’d never touch me like that if people were watching. “You look tired.”
“Thanks for helping out with Laine.”
“I never knew what happened to Little Miss Guttersnipe.”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Laine, then.”
“She’s very successful at what she does.”
“I’m not surprised. She was quite industrious.”
“You treated her like shit.”
She shrugged. “What do you want from me? I was sixteen, and she was after my man. She’s lucky she didn’t make it to prom. It would have been my mission to send her home crying.” She brushed a fleck of something off my jacket. “What’s been happening with you lately, Mister Greydon? You’re distracted. I can’t get a smile out of you. Is Gareth on your case?”
She had grey eyes that never looked warm or inviting, and it was only her voice that told me she was truly concerned. I didn’t want to lie to her, but the truth wasn’t an option.
“I like pretending nobody’s watching,” I said. “New hobby. You should try it.”
“Sorry, no. Do you want to slip out and get a bowl of soup?”
She smiled at me. Our first date had been outside a soup truck, during the short window between the dark tunnel of puberty and the oncoming train of my public life.
“I’ll take a rain check. I’m going to go home and go to bed.”
I walked her to the door and let her go back to the party by herself.
Even as I decided to make an early night of it, I walked west across the campus with my hands in my pockets. The valet was east, and I’d left my coat in the coat check, but I had no desire to brave the company to retrieve it. No. I wanted to do something else entirely. I walked on autopilot through Humanities Quad, and up the short jump of steps into the small tennis stadium. The lights were down, and the crickets’ mating calls were the only accompaniment to the traffic on San Vicente.
As if she’d heard my thoughts, Laine waited in her old seat, sitting cross-legged with her arms over the backs of the chairs on either side, face up to the sky. She was so inappropriate in her fancy dress and relaxed posture, sitting on the hard plastic seat as if it were a couch.
“Hello,” I said.
“I had a feeling you’d come.” She spoke without opening her eyes.
“You should have let me fight for you.”
She opened her eyes and turned to watch me come down the steps. “I don’t want you to fight for me.”
I sat next to her. “You robbed me of the opportunity to tell everyone to kiss my ass.”
She showed me her palms. “Wait, wait, wait. Hold on there, big guy. If you want to tell everyone to pucker up, you have exactly the platform to do it without me, okay?”
“You think it’s that easy?”
“I do. You call a press conference and everyone—”
“My agent has to and—”
“So Gene Douchearossa does it. What’s the diff—”
“He asks me first what it’s about—”
“And you just make something—”
“Everyone will know I lied and then—”
“So you want to tell people to kiss your ass, but you don’t want them to think you’re a liar?” she said with finality.
“I’m not a liar.”
“Even when you lie?”
I didn’t know what came over me. The way her eyes glinted in the moonlight. The mischief in her voice. The boldness of her argument. The dress. Those particular bleacher seats. The bleat of a car alarm from the parking lot.
But something definitely came over me.
14
Laine
I couldn’t go to my car. Yes, I wanted to protect him from me. Yes, I cared about everything I’d built, and he was a walking, talking career bulldozer. But I couldn’t walk out. I kept imagining his body under his clothes, the way it moved, his hands on me, his lips, those lips.
Some base instinct told me he’d show up, and an even baser one wanted to see him so badly, I felt the blood flowing through my veins when I thought about it.
And he did. I thought I’d explode from the unexpected relief in my chest. But something came over him, as if a mask he was wearing came off. I didn’t know what it was about. At first I thought he was angry that I’d called him a liar, which technically, I hadn’t. I’d only meant to say that you either care what people think or you tell them to kiss off. There was no in between. I was ready to explain all that, but he put his finger up to shush me.
“Work with me,” he said, taking my wrist and pulling me up.
“Where are we going?”
He pulled me down the stairs, my skirt flying and my skill in heels more useful than ever.
“You watched me practice every day for six months,” he called over his shoulder.
“Partly true.”
He stopped when my feet hit the court and turned to me. “Your point?”
“For the last two, you kept me from studying with your yack yack yack.”
“I offered to teach you to play, and you didn’t want to.”
“I’m not an athlete.”
“I disagree.”
He took my hand and pulled me again, lacing his fingers through mine. He walked toward the clubhouse, and I followed, so distracted by his touch I almost tripped over my own legs. The small building had a tunnel through it, an underpass with trophy cases of memorabilia and a water fountain.
“All that time,” he said, his voice echoing in the small space, “I wanted to volley with you. Just talk without talking, and you wouldn’t.”
He got to the equipment closet door with a little keypad with ten buttons above the doorknob. He let go of my hand to push a combination while his other hand pressed the lever.
Nothing happened but a soft beep and a little red light.
“Michael, seriously? You think they didn’t change the combination in all these years?”
“You don’t know this school very well.” He tried it again with the same result.
“I should be going. It’s late,” I said, even though I didn’t want to go. Not at all. But I didn’t feel aggressive or demanding, and I felt as though Michael needed a little space.
He approached the trophy case and put his phone up to it. The blue light fell on racquets and balls used to win meaningless championships and pictures of kids who later became famous as players or magnates. Some were winners, and some only qualified for a mention because of what they did later in life.
“Here,” he said, motioning me over.
He put his hand on my back and directed his phone light to a black-and-white photo of his younger self with a championship trophy, next to another photo of his gorgeous body stretched in the air for a mother-of-a-whore serve. The line of hair between his navel and his waistband distracted me from the grimace on his face. I wanted to trace it to its logical end as much now as I had when I was fifteen. The black graphite racquet and yellow ball he’d been using when he won leaned on the side wall behind the tempered glass.
“Are we reliving past glories today?” I said, feeling as though that was too harsh only when it was halfway out of my mouth.
But if he was offended, he gave no indication. He just scanned the underpass by the light of his phone. When he found a garbage can, he removed the lid by grabbing the edge of the center hole. “Back up, Laine.”
“What are you…?
He swung the heavy lid at the case and shattered it. Glass tinkled to the concrete.
“Jesus! Michael!”
“It’s my racquet.” He took it out of the case, shaking shards off it.
“But—”
He plucked up the ball. “I’ll put it back.” He bounced the ball once, twice, then smacked it into a vibrating mass using the racquet. “The strings need tightenin
g, and the ball is only half dead. Come on.”
He pulled me again. No alarms went off, and no security guards came running. It was just us grinding broken glass under our feet.
He went out to the court, and I followed.
“So, not for anything?” I said, “But what’s gotten into you?”
He pointed the racquet at me, handle first. “You’re a lefty, right?”
I couldn’t believe he remembered. My hand went to the work leather handle as if guided by an invisible force.
He smacked the ball to the ground and snapped it into his fist on the way up. “I wanted to do this when you and I were talking up there in the bleachers. Talking was nice, don’t get me wrong, but this is too. Just try to get it over the net.”
He bounced the ball to me. I swung and missed.
“It’s gonna be a long night,” I said as he retrieved the ball.
“You’ll be a pro in fifteen minutes.” He smiled from ear to ear. “Just swing, don’t swat. Like, who do you hate the most in your life?”
“Right now?”
“Sure.”
“I want to kill my brother,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because he brought my rig into a VIP room after I’d told someone he wouldn’t. Then it got thrown off a balcony, which if you ask me, was totally fair considering it didn’t belong there, and then he sold the picture, which had me in it.”
“You were in it?”
“My back, but that’s not the point. The point is he’s leveraging the fact that I love him, and I do not like being leveraged.”
Michael threw the ball. It bounced right at me, and I pulled that racquet back and swung as if Tom’s stupid head was a little yellow sphere.
It went flying.
“Oh,” Michael said while it was midair. “Wow, it’s…”
It landed on the flat roof of the clubhouse.
“It’s the only ball we had,” I said.
“Short lesson.”
I didn’t see disappointment in his face as he looked up though—only some kind of exaltation, a basking in something wonderful. A release, maybe. And maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was projecting how I felt at that moment and he was just passing time until he got to do the next thing famous rich people do. Maybe it was dark except for the streetlamps a block away, and that smile was really a grimace, and his posture wasn’t relaxed but slouched.
