Colder than Ice

by Jane Galaxy

  Come to think of it, he hadn’t heard from Prasad lately.

  That was probably by design, if his best friend had figured out that—

  Tristan stopped walking in the middle of the lane and pinched his eyes shut.

  Pushing away or tamping down on the guilt hadn’t been working, and he’d been trying to simply not think about any of it, but it was starting to press in on his unrelated thoughts. The sound of a car on the road made him open his eyes and begin hiking once more, but now that Tristan had thought about Sophie, he couldn’t stop himself.

  What was it that therapist had said? Grief is a process, allow yourself to have the thoughts, and when they’re no longer useful, set them aside.

  He could try that.

  Thought number one: he had lied to someone who’d cared about him, and who he’d cared about, and lied again when she’d confronted him about it.

  Tristan nearly stopped walking again at the end of that sentence. Things had gotten intense very quickly. Perhaps he needed to start small and work his way up.

  Thought number one: he’d made a mistake by defying his family and going to Hollywood for the sake of a childhood dream, and had thrown it all away, risking years of hard work—

  Nope, still not working.

  Thought number one: Gabriella was back to manipulating him for the sake of her own career and this time, she’d roped in his own father, and Tristan couldn’t stand for someone else having control of his life so completely.

  That felt a little better.

  He couldn’t decide how to order the lying and the knowledge that he’d in all probability torpedoed his future prospects in LA, but figured that since the lying affected someone else’s life as well as his own, it was probably worst on his list.

  At least he could acknowledge that he’d lied to Sophie, at least he wasn’t as bad as Gabriella—

  Come to think of it, though, wasn’t the lying exactly what Gabriella had done to him? Obfuscate, redirect the truth, and when the facts came out, tell a bald-faced lie and hope that the other person would just go along with it?

  Tristan really did stop this time.

  As often as he’d told himself that everything was fine with Gabriella, there had been so many moments when the truth had seemed clear but completely muddled after a simple conversation with her.

  Were you out with that actor last night? he’d ask her.

  Of course not, darling, what on earth are you talking about?

  There’s pictures of you two together, it’s all over Twitter.

  Oh, we weren’t out, it was just a little get-together between friends. You’re making such a fuss over nothing, Tristan, honestly, you always do. And it’s not my fault if people want to get together—I do need to focus on my career, you know. You do care about my career, don’t you?

  I care about us, and it would be nice to know where my girlfriend is going, and who she’s going with.

  If I set a dinner meeting because the director asks me to spend time with a colleague, I can’t very well back out, can I?

  You could turn down an invitation every now and then.

  Darling, you’re so stuffy that I think I do need dinner invitations out sometimes.

  He gazed up at the front of Battenmire, with its Georgian façade and ancient windows. The chimney on the north side was putting out plenty of smoke, a great roaring fire inside for him to sit by after a good hike through the countryside.

  But Tristan just kept standing there.

  He’d hurt Sophie by being attentive but duplicitous. It was exactly what had been done to him for three straight years.

  Whether or not he was as bad as Gabriella wasn’t for him to say—but what was for certain was that Gabriella hadn’t changed. The kindness she’d met him with at the front door had been quickly replaced with machinations behind closed doors. Her career, herself, always came first. And she would never change. She would never acknowledge that she’d lied to him, cheated on him, treated him with no respect, like a rung on a ladder as she climbed her way to the top. And she would keep doing it, on and on.

  Her version of romance, of basic interpersonal interaction, was such a shadow of what was really out there, he thought as he went up the drive. After Sophie, Gabriella’s lack of affection was in sharp relief. It was the difference between a sunny day in Los Angeles, and—well, maybe not the English countryside, but a steppe in Siberia or something. Everything with her had a price, and there wasn’t a problem about herself she couldn’t wave off or deflect. Tristan looked around himself in the front hall as he took off his jacket, and went to find Gabriella—why, he wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe to have it out once and for all, or just try to get some bit of honesty out of her.

  Voices in the study drew him in that direction, and Tristan stepped through the doorway to see his father seated in a leather wingback chair, a snifter of brandy in one hand and Gabby’s thigh in the other.

  She was seated on the armrest, one arm thrown about his father’s shoulder, beaming down at the old man where his face was nearly pressed straight into her breasts. She threw back her head and laughed before running the palm of her hand over his hair and murmuring at him in a low voice.

  It took a moment for the two of them to realize he was standing there, the laughter dying down slightly before Gabriella looked up in an almost innocent curiosity, Rufus following her and blinking at his son.

  Well, Tristan thought. The world had gone from a kind of fogginess to perfect clarity so fast that he was almost angrier with the mental breakthrough than with the two people in front of him.

  Neither of them had the humanity to look surprised, or embarrassed. Tristan crossed the room and opened the bar cabinet to pull out his father’s prized Macallan and pour himself a solid snootful. He’d never had it before, it had spent his formative years locked away, but now the cabinet was open, the family secret was out, his father and his ex-girlfriend were sleeping together and he was going to take this £3,000 bottle of liquor with him. That was a fact.

  “Tristan, did you just get back?” Rufus’s face had retreated into neutrality, as though he could work his way out of this one through sheer audacity. That was the tactic, then—behave as if it was normal and it would be so.

  He threw back the glass and poured himself another with a bit of flair. Already his father was moving as though to stand up, as though it was too much for his son to share in something forbidden, but Tristan kept going.

  “No, I was on my way out,” he said. Drinking the Scotch was an act of glory—it really was as good as the money that had been spent on it.

  “Out?” Gabriella repeated.

  “Mmm-hmm,” said Tristan into the glass.

  “Where out? You were just out, where are you going now?”

  Tristan shrugged and tilted the glass back and forth.

  “Dunno. Probably back to Los Angeles. Or… maybe New York. I think I have a wedding to go to, actually.”

  “Well…” His father fidgeted in the chair again, then finally pushed Gabriella so that she had to stand. “When are you coming back? Coriolanus will be doing auditions next week.”

  “Coriolanus?” Tristan wrinkled his nose in mock-confusion. “I can’t imagine what on Earth you’re talking about.”

  “The play, Tristan—“ his father began.

  “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.” He squinted at the remaining Scotch inside the glass decanter.

  “You can’t say you’ve ever heard of Coriolanus,” said Gabriella in a firm voice.

  “No, I’m afraid not. Then again, there does seem to be an epidemic of memory loss in this family, like Father forgetting that he’s married. Or does Mama know about this after all, and your lives are so aimless and dull that this is how you’ve decided to bring a little drama back into things?”

  Rufus sat up, something scathing on the tip of his tongue, and Gabriella crossed her arms.

  “And you,” Tristan pointed at her, “Conveniently showing back up to take ov
er at the opportune moment.” He went on. “How charitable of you after—what was it you said last year? You needed to let your star be free and rise, not held back by the sad mediocrity of a has-been family name that’s rapidly going nowhere?” Rufus looked up at Gabriella, startled, but she just gave a tight and bitter smile in response.

  “How kind of you to have been watching out for me behind the scenes, whispering to the tabloids your opinions about how I dress, which restaurants I took Sophie to, where we were seen together. You really did give us a good reason to get to know each other better.” Tristan took another sip as a new thought occurred to him. “Does Colin Younger know you’re sleeping with your ex-boyfriend’s father?” He tapped his chin. “Perhaps I ought to let him know when I get back in town.”

  “Tristan, I’m sure we can—”

  He cut her off.

  “We are going to do nothing, because I will not be moved around like a chess piece.” He looked at his father and gestured between the two of them. “You do whatever you like, keep lying to yourselves about this, whatever it is. But coming here was a mistake I don’t intend to stretch out any further.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Oh yes,” Tristan said calmly, “I’m finished here. With you, after everything you’ve done.”

  “Everything I’ve done—” Rufus spluttered, “I have sacrificed for you, everything we’ve done has been to further you, your education, your career, this family—!”

  “I am so sick of you two,” said Tristan in a terrible voice that made them both recoil. “Pretending to martyr yourselves when your only aim is to put down other people and make sure you get ahead. Being awful to me is one thing, but to Sophie, who has done nothing,” he spat, “Nothing wrong. That is inexcusable. You have no right to do something like that to a person. I genuinely cared about her, and that is nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Tristan turned toward the door.

  “Wait, what are you—” Gabriella had pulled down the hem of her dress to cover her ass a bit more and was moving toward him like she intended to grab onto him. Tristan stood up his full height, held up the bottle and looked at it.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of this.”

  “What about the book!” His father had finally gotten up out of the chair and was looking at him with barely-controlled fury.

  Tristan looked around him innocently.

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Do you not care at all about what we’ve drilled into you since the beginning, that family and responsibility—”

  “Oh, your personal vanity project. I don’t,” said Tristan, waving his glass in a large gesture, “Fucking care what you do. Give it all to Beatrice, the house, everything, she’d love that.” He ambled out the study door.

  “I’ll cut you out of it altogether, you ungrateful shit,” Rufus hollered back at him.

  Tristan’s voice carried down the hallway as he strode toward the front door.

  “And nothing of value was lost,” he called.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sophie was staring into a blank screen watching the cursor blink on and off when the knock came at the door. She thought she heard it, but it took a second—and more thunderous—knock to make her sit up, blinking and realizing that her eyes felt dry and sticky.

  “Come in,” she called. Even her voice was raspy and weird.

  Ashley came in holding a bowl of something hot and steaming in one hand and a mug of tea in the other.

  “You need to eat,” the blonde announced without any lead-up. She tugged down the polyester fur blanket that Sophie had been wearing like a hoodie for the past few days, pressed the bowl into her hands, and went over to open the blinds.

  Sophie groaned at the sudden source of light. The bowl was hot in her hands, but it didn’t feel as bad as the shame of her best friend finding her in a post-break-up state this bad. Bed unmade, still in pajamas and slippers, and completely, totally, utterly unable to write a goddamn thing.

  Ash sat on the bed next to Sophie and looked at her. Then looked down at the bowl.

  “I went all the way to the store to find your favorite,” she said, “so you better eat it.”

  When she lifted the spoon to try some, it was a familiar flavor. Spicy six-cheese macaroni, the kind that you could just microwave as a side dish. She’d lived on this stuff for a while in college. Not a healthy diet, but really solid comfort food. Pretty soon she was spooning bigger and bigger bites into her mouth.

  “Are you mad at me for sitting around your house like this?”

  Ash shrugged.

  “Every breakup is different, and every person reacts differently,” she said, and relaxed down into where she was sitting, clearly settling in. “I thought you were the type who wanted to be left alone, but it looks like you need to be forced into some human contact.”

  That had been true—the morning after Sophie had seen the Internet pile-on, she’d given Ashley her phone and told her to put it someplace she wouldn’t be able to find it. So far, she had gone six days without knowing what was going on in the world. Apart from a phone call to Demetrius, anyway, which had been an awkward enough conversation as it was.

  “Don’t tell me about what’s going on online, because I’m on a total blackout,” she said before he could even get through the word hello.

  “Okay,” Demetrius replied in a carefully neutral voice. Sophie wanted so badly to know that she was already trying to figure out from his tone of voice whether things were getting better or worse. The fact that her agent hadn’t started frantically calling her yet was probably a good thing. Right? Maybe.

  “Do I at least get to hear about what you’re doing now?”

  “I’m going to start a new series,” she’d told him. Had an outline ready to go and everything. Sophie was ready to start writing and get back into the swing of things.

  And then promptly didn’t. Going offline didn’t prevent writer’s block, as it turned out.

  Maybe things had calmed down a bit and it was time to rejoin the living.

  Maybe things weren’t as bad as they seemed. Maybe she could take a shower, go out in public. The paparazzi didn’t camp out in front of Targets in Omaha, did they? That was probably more work than they were willing to put in for a simple photo of someone that the Hollywood industrial complex had probably already moved on from anyway.

  Oh God, what if they really had all moved on, this was it, her career was dead in the water? Would they take her name off the credits? Did she even want to be in the credits?

  No, no, of course she wanted to be in the credits, even though it had a weird and slightly sour-tasting association.

  Sophie must have stopped eating, because Ash nudged her shoulder.

  “Hey, I’m still here, and I’ve been talking to you for five minutes and you haven’t heard a word of any of it,” her friend said. “This is a top ten pep talk, at least, and you’re not even paying attention.”

  Sophie made a surprised noise through a mouthful of pasta, and Ash shook her head.

  “I was thinking about what Demetrius told me the other day on the phone.”

  “Oh?”

  Sophie swallowed.

  “He said that if I just stayed the course, eventually people would move on to the next big scandal. That it isn’t personal—it’s more like people are attacking a symbol or an icon, not the me that I am.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  Sophie scraped the last bit of thick cheese from the bottom of the bowl.

  “All I could think was that maybe that was true, but I’m still scared of it all somehow getting through to me, pushing through the public face. And how none of it was supposed to be like this—all I did was talk about something that happened ten years ago, and everyone just wants to jump on me.” She set the empty bowl on the floor. “I feel like I’ve failed Morganna by allowing myself to be taken down by one bad thing.”

  Ash was quiet.

  �
��When you were reading Imperium, did you ever…” Sophie hesitated, trying to think of the right way to say it. “Did you realize that I based Morganna off of you?”

  “Are you saying that you’re worried that you’ve disappointed me?”

  Sophie leaned far back so that she was lying on the bed, and Ash joined her. They faced each other on their sides, curled up like they used to do in school on nights when there was too much homework, too much drama in the dorms, or just nothing to do.

  “I dunno. Maybe. I guess.”

  “Would you ever feel disappointed if I felt sad about something bad that happened to me?”

  “Of course not, but you wouldn’t hole up in my guest room for a week without sunlight or Internet. You’d get out there, go for a hike in the woods, do a bunch of burpees or something.”

  “You’re not me,” Ash offered. “And I know you think of me as this warrior queen type, but I’ve got to admit: I’m not perfect. Maybe I look like I’ve got my shit together, but three weeks ago I was sitting in the bathtub drinking a bottle of wine without a glass, sobbing my eyes out because Heath wouldn’t eat anything and fucking threw his broccoli and cheese on the floor. After I made it for him special, over the strong objections of the two other little unreasonable people I have to live with. I mean, motherhood is hard, but shit—life is hard. I’m not…” She paused for a second.

  “You’re not Serena Williams?”

  “I’m not Queen Boudica,” Ash concluded, and Sophie smiled. A sports metaphor from Sophie and an over-the-top historical reference from Ashley. That was the core of it, that was why they were so close. She snuggled in to Ash’s shoulder, and her friend took her hand to give it a squeeze.

  “I have doubts about what I’m doing, and Greg and I don’t always get along, and the kids are… well, they’re dumb kids sometimes, even though I love them more than I thought humanly possible—”

  “They’re three, and there are three of them,” Sophie admitted.

  “—Yes, which means the dumbness of toddlers is somehow magnified by like, ten,” Ash went on, “I am not one of those moms who’s out gathering wild mushrooms in the woods and teaching her kids about organic dew farming, or whatever. It’s kids.” She shifted on the bed a little. “And…I worry about being stuck in the same job forever. You know, the high school is great, but I don’t know if I want to be a coach for the rest of my life. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”