HDU (25 page)

Amanda frowned as she thought about Casey’s tortured addict
of a character in
What Was Left
.
 
“But you don’t look like Lucy.
 
I saw the trailer for the movie and they
made you look really different.”
 

“Well, I still feel like her,” Casey exhaled.
 
“But when don’t I?” she asked before
hastily adding, “Just kidding.”
 

There was a bit of silence before Ian spoke up from
the bed.
 
“You’re saying that
jokingly, but you mean it.”
 

Amanda paused with shock.
 
“
Ian
.”
 
She yanked her face from the stylist to
turn to him.
 
“That’s so rude and
not true,” she scolded, embarrassed.
 
To make matters worse, he had his camera trained on her mortified face.
 
“What are you – have you been
recording
?” she asked.
 
“Dude, that is supremely creepy of you!”
She turned to look at Casey, who only gave an empty laugh.

“It’s okay.
 
It’s like having a home movie,” she said wistfully.
 
“I don’t have any of those.
 
Though that was probably for the
better.”
 
She stared blankly at the
ceiling as her stylist brushed mascara onto her lower lashes.
 
“It just would’ve been 
What Was Left,
but real,” she laughed,
though Amanda suspected she didn’t find anything funny at all, especially as
her laugh wound down to a sigh.
 
“Wow,
went right into the subject I was trying to avoid,” she muttered to
herself.
 
“Next topic, please.”

Casey and Ian swiftly moved on to another conversation,
though Amanda was distracted.
 
She recalled
the first conversation she had ever shared with Casey, in the bathroom at the
June Magazine party.
 
It suddenly dawned
on her why she might think so often of Missouri.
 
She idealized it.
 
Had she stayed, she might’ve had something closer to family with her
mother and brother.
 
More than
likely, there would’ve existed a home video or two.
 

Despite the thought, Casey appeared to be fine.
 
Or at least fine enough – like
Ian, after his drunken call to Natalie.
 
By the time they reached The Strathorne for the premiere, it
was back to smiling and laughing and acting as if no beat of normalcy had ever been
missed.
 
Casey disappeared to do
interviews and take cast portraits while Amanda and Ian stood before the press,
most of them satisfied with just a few minutes of photos because of the
swarming A-listers.
 
While Ian took
offense, Amanda was relieved.
 
Considering
his bluntness with Casey, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what his new
persona would say to an interviewer.
 
His edgy, new act was finally becoming a bit off-putting to her.
 
Thankfully, she had something wonderful
to distract herself with – the prospect of once again running into Dylan Hardy.
 
With confidence at an all time
high thanks to her gorgeous new dress and professional hair and makeup, Amanda
felt she was actually ready to carry a normal, non-humiliating conversation
with him.
 

But she didn’t spot him until everyone reached the
theater.
 
Right behind Casey, his
chair was a few rows up from her own.
 
How does he manage to look
better and better every time
? She asked herself the question seriously while
watching Dylan help the women around him get seated.
 
He wore a light blue shirt under a slim, navy suit with a
charcoal tie just touching the top of his brown leather belt.
 
Amanda rearranged the big curls that the
stylist had given her as she tried to will Dylan’s eyes towards her.
 
But it was to no avail and the lights
soon dimmed for the movie to start.
 

Though Casey and the film were no doubt brilliant and
Oscar-worthy, Amanda could only think of Dylan.
 
She watched him watch the film, his silhouette illuminated
in the darkness.
 
He tilted his
head or touched his lips during sad parts and held his stomach to laugh at the
one comedic part.
 
It was a scene
in which a hefty patient stripped naked to streak rebelliously around the
facilities.
 
The entire theater had
laughed, but ten minutes later when the film had returned to tragedy, Amanda
spotted Dylan still amused, shaking his head at himself and trying to bite back
his giggles.
 
She wondered if like
herself, he had been thinking about his own splendid posterior and its far
superior nude scene.

 
By the
film’s end, the audience was buzzing and teary-eyed as they made their way to
the event room.
 
Despite shedding
no tears, Amanda decided to make a quick dash for the bathroom mirror.
 
She had never been one to require
freshening up, but since someone had taken so much care in preparing her look
for the night, she figured it was important to at least keep it fresh.
 
And of course, she wouldn’t mind
looking her best for Dylan.

Her smile was something of disbelief as she gazed at
her reflection in the mirror.
 
It
was surreal that she had looked in the same mirror two weeks ago, when the June
Magazine party had been held in the same space, and then been grateful just to
look remotely passable.
 
Now, she
thought that she looked actually quite nice by any standard.
 
The silk dress was flattering, belting
at the thinnest part of her waist and layering at the bottom to show just the
right amount of leg.
 
Her auburn
tresses had been straightened and then curled again for a Rita Hayworth
look.
 
To offset the dramatic
hairstyle was simple makeup – false lashes, mascara, and a single coat of
red lipstick.
 
Amanda had never
felt prettier in her life.

“Where were you? I want you to meet some people,” Ian
said when she finally reached the party room.
 
He introduced her to the new friends he had apparently made
while she was in the bathroom – a girl with a bleach-blonde pixie cut,
her gorgeous model friend, and a shifty-eyed guy who was the most reluctant
about shaking Amanda’s hand.
 
They
all bore the same blasé demeanor that Ian was working so hard to perfect, and
they didn’t seem at all keen on looking Amanda in the eye.
 
According to Ian’s introductions, they
were “industry people” – the blonde a photographer, the model a model-slash-stylist,
and the guy an independent filmmaker of sorts.

“Well… I’ll let you guys talk,” Amanda said, knowing
well that Ian’s new friends had no interest in making her acquaintance.
 
She was simply not
edgy
enough for them, and they were intimidating enough for her to
actually excuse herself and wander the room alone, in search of a familiar
face.
 
Dylan was preferable, but
she would certainly make do with Jaime or Ben.
 
Instead, for the next hour, Amanda ended up chatting with
various strangers, mostly June Magazine staffers after being recognized and
called over by Wendy, the editor she had met in the same spot two weeks ago.
 
They asked dozens of questions about
how Amanda was adapting to the big city, where her new favorite spots were, what
her favorite new things were, and if she saw herself becoming a lifelong New
Yorker.

“This must feel like an interview,” one of the editors
laughed ruefully.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I told my niece I’d ask questions for
her – she’s been following your whole story like a TV show!”

But as Wendy began talking about actual TV shows and
the one her husband was developing, Amanda started tuning out.
 
It wasn’t because the topic wasn’t
interesting – it was, but something in her peripheral vision was piquing
her attention.
 
She didn’t even
have to turn her head to know that her frighteningly impressive radar had
spotted Dylan from across the room.

“Excuse me,” she said graciously as she dipped out of
the conversation and began heading in his direction.
 
She felt ready for him, even composed with an opening line
of conversation that she rehearsed in her head as she approached.
 
Her focus remained even as Dylan
spotted her and gave that happy, adorable smile that made everyone around him look
at what he was looking at.
 
And
just as she nearly reached him, a voice called out.

“Amanda!”

She frowned and spun in the direction she had heard
her name.
 
Her eyes fluttered
wide.
 

“Liam!” It had been only four days since she’d last
seen him but something about his face looked completely different.
 
She could
see
it.
 
“You shaved!”
she marveled, realizing she had gravitated over to him when her hands gave a
stroke of his smooth cheeks.
 
He
laughed with surprise at her touch.
 
Only then did Amanda blink and realize what she was doing, and that a
second ago, she had been sharing a smile with Dylan.
 
She dropped her hands and turned back to his direction.
 
He was still looking at her, though when
she saw him, his eyes quickly dipped into his glass of whiskey and he turned
around to chat with a friend.
 
Amanda’s
heart sank, but she tried not to appear visibly upset so as it avoid having to
explain why she was.

“You look nice,” Liam said, almost confused.

“Don’t look so surprised.
 
It happens sometimes.”

“Take a compliment,” he said.
 
When she resisted, he laughed and ran his
hand along the silk of her dress.
 
“You look actually really beautiful, Amanda.
 
Does that work for you?”

Her face warmed at the touch of his fingers on her
hip.
 
“Did you need the word
‘actually’?” she asked, trying to divert attention from her blushing.

“No,” Liam conceded.
 
“I didn’t.”
 
He smiled
when she did.
 
“And, in case you’re
interested, the audition went well.
 
Look happy for me because everyone’s watching.”

Amanda’s hand flew to her mouth with real surprise.
 
“I completely forgot about the audition!
Congratulations!” She bounced on her feet.
 
“So you think you got it?”

“They said they’d let me know by the first week of
February, so we’ll have to wait and see,” Liam said.
 
He smiled.
 
“But
I pretty much got it.”

Amanda did a giddy little golf clap.
 
“I’m actually happy for you.”

“Actually?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take that.”
 
Liam wrapped his arm around her, and with the room still
watching, he planted a kiss on her lips.
 
“Then let’s go celebrate with Ben and Jaime and act like a couple.”

~

By midnight, the party was beginning to shift to
another location.
 
Amanda had spent
the majority of it alongside Liam, Ben and Jaime.
 
Casey had been swarmed all night and Ian was off with The
Edgy Kids, as Liam had dubbed them.
 

Amanda kept her eye on Ian all night, the hairs on
her back telling her that he was doing or saying
some
thing dumb, or at least about to.
 
She felt like a mother who disapproved of her son’s new
friends, fearing that they might spur him to act out all the more.
 
It was why she felt a pang of dread
when she at one point lost him in the crowd.
 
At that same moment, Jaime spoke up.

“Where’d Casey go?” she asked, craning her neck.
 
The corner where she had previously sat
with press members was suddenly empty, the reporters and cameramen scattering
as they tried to find new subjects.

Once Amanda located The Edgy Kids sans Ian, it didn’t
take long for her senses to tell her something new.
 
Casey and Ian were off somewhere together, and she didn’t
want to know what they were doing.
 
She also didn’t want to think about where that kind of tryst would leave
Ian’s fluctuating mind – either lovesick like a teenager or with an ego
beyond control.
 
It could even be
both.
 
Amanda kept quiet when she
spotted the two descending from a staircase together, confirming her suspicions.
 
She caught Ian’s eye as he made it to
the bottom step, he and Casey wordlessly going separate ways.

“Sadly not what it looked like,” his boozy breath
breathed in Amanda’s ear when he reached her.
 
He squeezed her wrist as if his grip might convince her.
 
“I’ll explain later,” he offered, returning
the frosty look that Liam gave him.
 
It seemed he no longer yielded to anyone, which Amanda figured was
technically a positive thing, though she couldn’t help but feel wary.
 
Liam must have felt similarly because
he pulled her closer until Ian let go of her and stalked away.