Famous in Love (18 page)

“Business has been booming!”
Laurie says. She’s holding up an empty crystal basket as evidence. “We’re the store that used to employ a star. People love it.”

“How do people know?” I ask. “It’s not like you have a poster in the window. Oh God, do you?”

Laurie waves a dismissing hand at me and goes to the door. She hands me a wooden sign: F
ORMER
W
ORKPLACE OF
P
AIGE
“PG” T
OWNSEN
.

“Wow,” I say.

“Honey, it’s like gold.” She frowns. “You’re not upset, are you?”

“No?”

“Good. Because I tell everyone the Patchouli Petal Body Scrub is your favorite. We can’t make it fast enough!”

It’s nine
AM
, and the store doesn’t open till ten, but I already see a few tourists eyeing the entrance.

“Sometimes we have a line,” Laurie tells me. “Imagine if they saw you in here!”

“That’s okay,” I say quickly before she gets any ideas. “I just stopped by to say hi. I have some errands to run today.”

I hand her back the sign, and she takes it. “Oh, I almost forgot, I have something for you.”

She ducks into the back room, and I run my fingers across the counter. The same ancient computer buzzes in the corner. I think about how many days I’ve spent behind that thing, dreaming of being on the other side.

There is a basket of “
Locked
lockets” and a little box filled with “August amber.” I imagine Laurie coming up with these names. She must have gone to the library to Google the book. She doesn’t read, and no way that ancient computer behind the cash register could do an Internet search.

Laurie emerges in a cloud of basil and orange. “Here,” she says.

I take the package wrapped in purple tissue paper. Inside is a little incense box.

“Turn it over,” she says.

I flip the box and see two dates, four years apart.

“The dates you worked here,” she says, finishing my thought.

A lump catches in my throat. “So there’s no chance of a part-time job this summer?” I ask her.

She smiles, the wrinkles around her eyes softening. “You don’t belong behind that computer anymore, honey.”

“No one does,” I say. “That thing is basically dead.”

She laughs. “Just don’t be a stranger, okay? I can handle you being a star but not a stranger.”

“You got it.”

“And you tell that friend of yours Jake that he’s welcome to keep his flyers up, too,” she says.

I don’t have the heart to tell her about Jake, or Cassandra, who I still haven’t seen even though I’ve been here for close to a month since I got back from Seattle. I’ve been holing up at home, which is essentially what I did on that film set, too. Hole up. Hibernate. It was so different from
Locked
. It was a bigger cast, but I was the youngest by a lot, and everyone really bonded. It was cozy and warm and light—a welcome reprieve from the pressures of
Locked
. And the pressures are here now. I’m starting to get recognized on the street. All the promotional stuff is up for
Locked
, which opens in two weeks in L.A. I’m set to fly back at the end of next week.

Rainer, Jordan, and I have seen each other three
times since Hawaii. Rainer has been filming a movie in London, and Jordan has been lying low in L.A.—I only know that from some online stalking. Okay, a lot of online stalking. I haven’t spoken to him. Jordan, that is. Even though I’ve seen him, it feels like our relationship ended on that mountaintop. Holding hands, our fingers intertwined. Even Rainer has been suspended somehow. Our L.A. trips have been so busy, and we’ve had basically zero downtime. Just photo shoot after photo shoot after interview. I haven’t even been alone with him for thirty seconds, let alone the time it would take to have the conversation we need to have. We’ve e-mailed, but he mostly tells me about filming, a family trip he went on to Italy, and how good the coffee is in London. He doesn’t ask about us, and I know he won’t. I kept thinking that maybe he had moved on, maybe he had already fallen for someone else. The thought of it made me feel totally panicked, but I also knew it wasn’t unreasonable. He’s Rainer, and he’s been all over the world—without me. But then I got this e-mail: “I miss you. Nothing seems to be the same without you anymore.” I felt wildly, epically relieved. And that’s wrong. I shouldn’t feel relieved. Not yet. Not when there is still so much in front of us all.

I haven’t taken off his necklace, though. Not once,
except when I had to shoot. And even then I kept it in my pocket—a reminder of something I’m only beginning to understand.

I look at Laurie. “Thanks. I will.”

She pulls me into a hug. I remember recoiling in the past at her embrace. Not because I haven’t always liked Laurie, I have, but because her smell is so intense you could get hives from just breathing close to her. But this time, I let her. I don’t even hold my breath. Something about the intensity of rose water and incense and something else—ginger?—is strangely comforting. Like nothing has changed even though everything has. It’s funny—I spent my whole life wanting everything to be different, and now that it is I miss the way it was.

I wave over my shoulder and open the door, the familiar twinkle of bells and chimes going off as I do.

It’s a Thursday, which means everyone is in school. I decide to forgo wandering by my old high school—too depressing—and instead head somewhere I know I can curl up in a corner and disappear.

I push past the double doors of Powell’s and walk up the stairs to the second floor. On the left side, in the back, is where the scripts are kept. They’re alphabetized by title, and I run my hand over the stacks and stop at
S
. They have the original shooting script of
Singin’ in the Rain
.
I’ve read it probably a dozen times, but not since I’ve been gone, and the last time I listened to it was at the audition. I pull it off the shelf and settle with my back against the stacks, my knees pulled up to my chest.

I read for a while. It’s comforting being back here. How many afternoons have I spent doing the exact same thing? The only difference is that this time Cassandra and Jake don’t show up, and my head isn’t plagued by math homework—instead it’s the same question, scrolled across my mind like a proposal in the sky.
Are you ready?
it asks.
Is this what you want?

And I think, I know, what my answer is. I’ve known all along. I’ve just been afraid of what I’ll lose by making this choice. We’re going to be together soon, and I need to tell Rainer I can’t do this. Maybe if we were just average people, if this weren’t going to be something we had to do in front of the world, it would be different. But I don’t think I can make that choice for myself yet. I don’t think I’m ready to take the other one away.

When I get home, Annabelle and my sister are gone, but my mom’s car is parked in the driveway. Strange. She never takes a day off from school, or even leaves early. I think she’s been absent exactly twice in her entire career. Once was when all four of us got the chicken pox, back
when I was still a baby; the day is legendary in our family. The second is the day Annabelle was born.

“Mom?” I set my bag down on the counter and take the stairs two at a time.

I find her in her room, sitting on the edge of the bed, a sweater in her hands.

“Mom?”

“Hi, honey.” She looks up like she’s not at all surprised to see me, like maybe she’s even been waiting.

“Um, hi. No school?”

She shrugs. “I took the afternoon off. I thought maybe we could spend some time together.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. I look down at my sweater. “I didn’t know.”

She nods. “Come here,” she says.

I walk slowly over to the edge of the bed and sit down beside her.

“We haven’t really talked too much lately, you and me.” She sighs, shakes her head. “I’m not sure we ever have, really.”

“What do you mean?”

She looks over at me. Her eyes look sad. Tired. “By the time you came along, we had a busy household. I always thought this acting thing was maybe my fault, that we didn’t give you enough attention as a kid.”

I feel my pulse quicken. Anger spikes. “Acting isn’t a
thing
,” I say. “It’s my life now.”

“I know, honey,” she says. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This dream—”

“It’s not going to just be a moment,” I say. “I’m not going to give it up the way you did.”

My mom looks at me, her eyes hurt. “Is that what you think?”

“I’ve seen your stack of theater tickets and playbills,” I tell her. “I know what you wanted.”

She squints at me and then stands. She goes to her jewelry box and removes the top layer. She takes out the envelope, the one I’ve run my fingers over dozens of times before. The same one that’s yellowed on the top and frayed on the side.

She comes back to sit next to me on the bed and opens it. She takes out a ticket for
Hair
and hands it to me. “The first play I saw,” she says. “My girlfriends and I snuck in the back and stood the entire performance. I found this ticket on the floor and kept it.”

She takes out another.
West Side Story
. She smiles. “The first play your father took me to. It was our third date. Our first kiss, too.”

A third. “This is the play I saw the night I had Tom. When my water broke, your father wanted to walk out before the second act, but I insisted that the baby would wait.”

She hands me ticket after ticket. Birthdays and anniversaries, and once, just a free summer afternoon. “I hired a babysitter and went,” she says, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

When she’s handed me the last ticket, she looks at me. “Do you understand now?”

I don’t say anything. I’m not sure the lump in my throat would let me.

“I don’t keep these things as mementos of what I don’t have. I keep them as mementos of what I do.”

I swallow. I can feel the tears starting to well up. Tears of shame and sadness and guilt. Love, too.

“I wasn’t like you,” she continues. “I didn’t have the talent for it. And I realized once I had children that I had a lot of love to give. I wanted to be where I was most needed. That wasn’t on the stage, sweetheart. For me, it was in the classroom. Sometimes you give things up because it’s the right thing to do. And doing the right thing feels good. It feels better than the dream. Because the dream isn’t real.”

“Do you think my dream is real?”

She sighs. “Sometimes I worry about you. It’s a tough business, and I try not to focus on it too much or talk about it, because more than anything, honey, I want you to know that it’s not everything. There are things much, much more important than success.”

“Like what?”

She looks at me and smiles, almost laughs. “You’re smarter than that.”

I sniff. “Sometimes it’s like you don’t even care. I have a big blockbuster movie coming out, and you act like it’s a school play.”

She takes her hand and runs it down my back, then up to smooth my hair. “I may not understand the film world, and selfishly, I want you home, but I never want you to doubt for a minute how proud of you I am. You were always different,” she says, her voice catching. “I guess I ignored it because I hoped maybe if I did, it would mean you’d stay here and be my daughter.”

“I’m still your daughter,” I say.

“My daughter the movie star.” She smiles, straightens up. “What do you say you take your mother to dinner, huh? Just us.”

“I’d like that.” I move to hand her back the tickets, but she shakes her head.

“Keep them,” she tells me.

“But, Mom—”

She puts her hand over mine. “I’d like you to have them. Maybe they’ll remind you of what’s really important.”

She touches her forefinger to my nose. “Now let your mother get dressed. We’re going someplace nice.”

I stand up, the tickets pressed into my palm.

“I’ll take good care of them,” I say.

My mother may not have jewelry, but these pieces of paper are her heirlooms. Because there’s something in my hand you can’t buy. Something sacred.

We’re all gathered
at our dining room table for brunch on Sunday. Everyone except for Annabelle, who snoozes in her playpen a few feet away, and my brother Tom, who is with his wife visiting her family today. Even Bill is there, sitting next to my sister. “He’s been on his best behavior lately,” my mother whispers next to me.

“What is everyone doing today?” my father asks.

Bill and Joanna giggle, and my mom raises her eyebrows. “Anything you’d like to share with the group?”

My sister clears her throat. “Actually, we have an announcement.”

My heart stops. I’m pretty sure my mom’s does, too. I hear her fork rattle to the floor.
Please don’t be pregnant
,
I pray. I mean, Annabelle is great and all, but I think that should be a one-time thing. At least for the next decade.

“Bill?” Joanna looks at her boyfriend.

“Tell them.”

“Well.” She pauses, looking around at each of us.

“Spit it out,” my brother Jeff hollers.

“We’re engaged,” she says.

“We’re getting married,” Bill says.

She slips something onto her finger—a gold ring with an amethyst stone. It’s pretty—good quality, too. My time at Trinkets n’ Things has made me kind of an expert on gems.

I glance at my mom. She’s turned a very funny shade of yellow, and I worry she’s not going to take this well, but then her face breaks into a big smile, and she leaps up, clasping my sister and Bill into a big hug. “This is fantastic news,” she says. “Absolutely wonderful. We need to celebrate!”

“Awesome,” my brother says, going back to his eggs.

“Today,” my father says. “Paige leaves tomorrow.”

My mother isn’t listening. She’s already in the kitchen, uncoiling the phone. I hear her chatter into it, to one friend after the other, as my father pours Bill more orange juice and my brother asks if Joanna’s knocked up again.

No baby. Just love.

“We’re having a party!” my mother calls.

“When?” Joanna asks. I can hear the glee in her voice, see the joy on her face. In the way she beams at Bill. She’s even being nice to me.

“Tonight,” my mother says. “Your father’s right. Paige should be here.” She’s talking with her hands now, moving closer to the door. “I’m going grocery shopping. You”—she snaps her fingers at my brother—“clean this up.” She gestures toward the table and then grabs her bag, swinging it over her shoulder. The door slams a moment later.

Annabelle wakes up, screaming.

“I’ll go,” I say.

I walk over to her playpen, and she’s standing, her little arms reaching up to the ceiling.

“Paige!” she calls, her sweet voice thick with sleep and sniffles.

“Hey, Annabelle Lee.” I pick her up, propping her on my hip. She lays her little head down on my shoulder, and one of her tears falls on my chest. “Guess what?” I tell her, my voice light. “Your mommy and daddy are going to get married.”

“Mary,” she echoes, hiccuping.

I sit down on the floor cross-legged and place her into my lap. In the other room, I can hear my sister talking about the wedding, how they want to get married next
spring, maybe even at our house. My brother makes comments, my sister raises her voice, and my dad intervenes. It gets loud and then quiet and then loud again as Annabelle and I play on the carpet.

I used to only think about how different my sister’s life would have been if she hadn’t had Annabelle. How she would have gone to a proper college, maybe even done something she wanted to do like be a designer or an architect. When we were younger she was always sketching things. I rarely think about that anymore, though. It’s hard, with Annabelle here, to ever imagine she wasn’t.

That’s life. It just happens, and with it a lot of stuff you can’t take back. But the wonderful part is that often, the things that challenge you, that require you to use your whole self, are exactly those that are really worth it.

“Paige,” Annabelle coos again. “Book.” She points to a copy of
Ducks Drive
, her favorite picture book. I think it’s crazy, a bunch of baby ducks who also have cars, but she loves it. She laughs and squeals at the pictures like she’s never seen anything so spectacular in her life.

We read together until my sister comes in.

“Hey,” she says. “What are you doing?” She squats down on the floor next to us, and Annabelle puts her arms out to her. My sister scoops her up. “Hey, baby,” she says. “You having fun with Aunt Paige?”

“Congratulations,” I tell her.

My sister looks startled, like she hasn’t heard me right.

“I’m really happy for you,” I continue.

She smiles. “It’s not a movie. But it’s something.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It is.”

I don’t think we’ve ever had so many people in my house, and that’s counting the time my brother won the high school basketball championship and we had three teams and their friends over. I guess I never realized how many friends my sister had. There are people from high school, middle school, and kids who I remember teasing me in my backyard when I was just a kid. People she’s known forever.

Her friends shriek when they see her. My mother’s friends hover over the ring.

And then I see her. The mess of curls greets me first, the purple polka-dot sweater second. There’s only one person I know who could pull that off with red-and-blue-striped jeans. Cassandra.

She tucks her hands into her pockets as she reaches me. “Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” I say. My heart is beating frantically.

“How are you?” she asks.

“Fine,” I say. It’s like we’re walking on ice, afraid to let anything crack. But I want it to crack. I want it to be real—not like this—not so light it’s like we’re not even really here.

I think about the last time I saw her, all those months ago, at the airport. About how I sped off without looking back.

“I’m glad you came tonight,” I say.

I see her face break into a smile and feel relief flood my veins. “Yeah?” she says. “I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me. I didn’t even know you were home.” She looks at her shoes. “Your mom called.”

My stomach stirs, a giant waking up from sleep. I feel my face get hot with embarrassment. I suddenly feel really stupid. The kind of stupid you feel when a belief you’ve held on to turns out to be completely ludicrous. There isn’t anything to argue. No defense, just
I was wrong
. I didn’t call. I didn’t let her know. It’s been my fault we haven’t kept in touch, not hers.

“I figured maybe you didn’t want to talk to me,” she continues, her voice small.

I shake my head. I feel my eyes fill up with tears. “I’m sorry,” I say. “You were right. I didn’t make enough of an effort after I left. I should have called more. I should have told you both how much you mean to me.” I feel a lump in my throat. It rises, hovers, like a body in a magician’s trick.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Jake and me sooner,” she says.

“No, you guys are good together. It should have been you two all along.”

Cassandra looks at me, her blue eyes brimming with tears. “I’ve missed you,” she says.

“Me too.”

She pulls me into a hug, and I hold on tight. I can smell her LUSH perfume, same as always, and I close my eyes, wanting to capture this moment forever.

When she pulls back, we’re both teary-eyed. “How’s Jake?” I ask, swiping the back of my hand across my cheeks.

She links her arm through mine and leads me over to the buffet table. “Same. Crazy. He made me picket a pig farm last weekend. I had to take, like, twelve showers when we left. And then he complained about how much water I was wasting.” She sighs, looks at me. “He’s good.”

We spend the rest of the night holed up in my room, a plate of snacks between us on the bed. She tells me about Denise Albert’s nose job. About how Evelyn Membane got kicked out for smoking pot in the guys’ bathroom after school.

“I mean, it was after school,” Cassandra says, exasperated. “Why wouldn’t you just go
home
?”

I want to tell her all about Rainer and Jordan, but it would take too long to fill her in on the details. I don’t want it to be all about them. I want it to be all about
us
. And, actually, not talking about them feels good. Really
good. It’s just Cassandra and me in Portland now. Normal. When it gets to be eleven o’clock and the noise downstairs has quieted, Cassandra stretches and says she has to go home. “School night,” she reminds me. “Some of us still have to climb the ranks before we are deemed stars.” She smiles. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She opens her bag and pulls out the book. The final volume in the Locked trilogy. The one I sent. “Here.” She holds it out and bounces it in the air, like,
take it.

“I was starting to think you never got it,” I say.

“Oh, I got it. I read it in one sitting.”

“Well?”

“Well.” She smiles, the corners of her mouth turning up into a mischievous grin.

“Are you going to tell me how it ends?” I cross my arms, raise my eyebrows. “That was my only copy, you know.”

She frowns at me. “You mean to tell me you still have not read this book? Is there something wrong with you?”

I roll my eyes. It feels good to make fun of each other. It means we’re back to being sure of each other. “I wanted you to tell me what happens,” I say. “Just like last time.”

“Paige,” she says. “You know I love you. And I’d do anything for you.”

“Yes, so.”

“But.” She places the book in my hands. “There are
some things you have to find out for yourself.” She pulls me into a hug then, the hardcover between us. “You’re my best friend,” she says, and there is something thick in her voice, something heavy.

“The best of the best,” I say.

She pulls back, her hair sticking out every which way.

“Oh, hey,” I say. “I have something for you, too.”

I go to my nightstand, and take out an envelope with tickets in it. This one isn’t my mom’s, though. No reminders here. Just things to come. I take two out. “I’d love it if you guys came,” I say. “I can get you airline tickets, too, if you’d like.”

She looks down at the tickets in my hands. “We’ll be there,” she says. “I would not miss it for one single thing in the world.”

She turns to go when I remember something. Something I’ve been meaning to ask her since I first landed on Maui.

“Cass,” I say, stopping her. “When you first filled me in on Rainer, why did you never mention Britney?”

She smiles, her eyes crinkling around the corners in little lines of mischief. “My argument stands,” she says. “There are some things you have to find out for yourself.” With that, she leans over and plants a kiss on my cheek. “Later, Hollywood,” she says, and disappears out the door.

“We’ll see you in a few days,” my mom says when they drop me off at the airport. She hugs me quickly, and when she lets go, my dad hands me my suitcase.

“Cassandra and Jake are coming, too,” I say.

My mom smiles. “Fantastic. It will be a family affair.”

I give my dad a hug and then head toward the gate. A few people turn around and point. I leave my sunglasses on. It’s a strange feeling. I keep wanting to make sure my shirt is on the right way, that there’s no toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

It’s better when we’re on the plane. I settle into my window seat and take out the final book. I open it and start reading. And I don’t stop until we’re in L.A.

A greeter meets me at the airport and leads me to a town car, and we head straight to the hotel. It’s late. The air smells fresh, clean, expansive somehow. I know it’s not possible—LAX is too far from the ocean—but it feels almost like sea air. But I barely register any of it. I’m still reading.

I check into the hotel with my nose still deep in the book. We’re staying at the Beverly Wilshire, in the heart of Beverly Hills. I remember my agent telling me it was conveniently located and where all the press for the movie is going to take place. “That way you don’t have to leave,” she told me.

It’s three
AM
by the time I close the book, and when I do, I’m shaking. I didn’t see this coming. I’ve purposely been avoiding the Internet so that the ending wouldn’t be spoiled. I probably wouldn’t have believed this, anyway, though.

One thing is certain: August has made her choice.