I was fifteen when I went on location without parental supervision for the first time. Reid, a year younger, was the only cast member near my age. As minor characters, we had few scenes and were too often left to our own devices. We quickly formed an alliance against being bored out of our minds.
One afternoon during the first week, I sat on my trailer steps and watched as he attempted to perform a routine trick on the longboard he’d brought along. Over and over, he glided across the concrete, hooking the edge of the board and jumping simultaneously, but never quite landing it. He was so pretty. So cocky. So determined. So doing it wrong.
The fifth time he screwed up, he fell on his ass and I chuckled. Scowling, he swiped blood from his elbow and dared, ‘Why don’t you try it, if you think it looks so easy?’
I didn’t tell him that my stepsister Kylie was a skilled skateboarder, and I’d known how to pop-shove it like a pro since I was ten. Pretending ignorance, I listened as he explained the how-to. When I got a running start before jumping on to the board and pumping it even faster, he looked startled. With a practised flick of my foot, I flipped the board, landed it smoothly and glided by him wearing a cocky grin of my own.
As he walked up, I stepped off the board and popped it up and into my hand to give it back. Placing his hand atop mine instead of taking the board, he pushed right into my personal space, eyes bright. ‘That was awesome,’ he said. ‘And so freakin’ hot. It makes me want to, like, kiss you or something.’
‘Okay,’ I said, heart pounding from the physical exertion, the anticipation of my first kiss, or both. If he was surprised by my instant acquiescence, he didn’t show it. Instead, he stepped closer, bracketed my waist with his hands and leaned to give me a kiss that was more like several small kisses in a row, each one better than the last.
I didn’t know then that he was experiencing his first kiss too. And his second. And his third.
DORI
The further I get from Reid, the more anxious I am. I don’t know any of these people, and I don’t know this roguish boy guiding me through the crowd with his hand at my lower back, either. I know he’s Reid’s best friend, but any time Reid tries to describe their relationship, he ends up shaking his head and shrugging. ‘You’ll see when you meet him. He’s just … John.’
So far, I’ve concluded that John is a habitual flirt and a shameless celebrity suck-up, and his language is as atrocious as Reid’s was (or more likely as atrocious as Reid’s is – I have no delusions that I’ve changed him, only that he attempts to abide by my limits when he’s around me). Judging by tonight’s spate of accolades concerning my education and social service record, John is also determined to get on my good side. Or elevate me to sainthood by the end of the night.
I clear my throat to correct the erroneous statement he’s just made to a couple of girls lounging on his sofa – girls who are now appraising me curiously, as if I have extra limbs or a blue skin tone.
‘I’m not actually a missionary.’
He frowns. ‘But Reid said you went to Puerto Rico or Brazil to hand out shoes or bibles or something.’
‘Uh … I went to Ecuador to work as a volunteer music teacher at a mission school –’
‘Mission school. Right. So you’re like, a missionary.’
Oh my word. I take a breath. ‘Well, no – missionaries usually accept long term or even lifelong assignments; they’re dedicated to doing evangelical work as well as practical objectives like establishing schools or hospitals –’
‘But you just said you were helping run a school in Panama.’
I sigh, recalling Ana Diaz, my programme director in Quito who fights a daily, year-round battle against poverty, crime and uneducated parents who can’t imagine anything better for their children – who send them out to shine shoes or pickpocket or anything that might put food on the family’s table that night.
‘She said Ecuador,’ one of the girls says, scrutinizing my face. Like all the other girls here, she’s dressed casually, but something about the way the fabrics drape over her says money. Her eyes are dark and alert. I’m certain she can tell that I’m completely out of my element.
John shrugs. ‘Po-tae-to, po-tah-to.’
She rolls her eyes and mutters, ‘Idiot.’ John feigns an insulted gasp, voicing his unconcern over her opinion wordlessly. Ignoring him, she asks, ‘So, you’re Reid’s girlfriend?’
My heart flips over at the word and I nod, absorbing the disbelief in her crooked brow and swiftly repeated head-to-toe inspection.
‘I’m sorry, it’s just – you seem really … not his type.’
I flush and John turns me, saying, ‘No need to be a bitch, Jo –’
‘No.’ She leans forward. ‘I mean, she’s totally unlike his last girlfriend.’
John stops, turning back to her. ‘I know you don’t know Emma Pierce.’
‘Not her. The first one.’ Her lip angles in a sneer of disgust. ‘Brooke Cameron.’
My mouth falls open. Brooke Cameron – the beautiful star of Life’s a Beach with whom Kayla and Aimee have a love-and-hate-from-afar relationship. The girl who played Caroline in Reid’s last movie. She was once his girlfriend?
‘Jesus, that flaming disaster was like a hundred years ago. And you remember it?’ John laughs. ‘Obsessed much?’
‘Fuck you, John,’ Jo says, surging up, eyes flashing, drink sloshing on to her hand. ‘I’m not the one content to be his man-whore sidekick. No offence,’ she tosses at me.
‘Uh …’ I glance over my shoulder, looking for Reid and fighting claustrophobia.
‘God, okay you two – that’s enough.’ The other girl pipes up, her voice as tiny as she is. She stands, hands on hips, glowering up at John. ‘I thought you were going to be nice.’
He pulls her in close with his opposite arm. ‘Maybe you should keep your roommate on a leash, Bianca. Or muzzled.’
‘John!’ She shoves him in the chest half-heartedly, the attraction between them obvious.
‘C’mon, Bianca.’ Jo stomps towards the bar setup in the corner.
Bianca heaves a groan, shakes her head and follows her friend.
Watching them go, lips flattened, John mumbles, ‘Well, that was nasty.’
‘Is Bianca your –?’ I stop, unsure how to classify her.
He takes the fluted glass from my hand, quaffs half the bubbly contents – champagne, I assume – and hands it back. ‘We’re on-again, off-again. Can’t stand her charming roommate, though, in case you didn’t catch that.’
‘Hmm. I hadn’t noticed.’
He smiles wolfishly at my sarcastic tone, and I begin to see the place where he and Reid connect. ‘I like you, Dori.’
‘Hey.’ Reid’s eyes are dark, one brow quirked as he draws me from John’s side. ‘Hands off, man. I don’t want to maim you at your own party.’ His threat is all for show, as is John’s theatrical palms-up. Reid’s voice goes softer and he angles his head in the direction taken by the girls. ‘And, uh, what was that about? Why is Jo even here?’
‘Bro, seriously – be realistic,’ John scoffs. ‘I can’t just invite a bunch of guys.’
The implication is unmistakable: there’s no avoiding some things, like the ghosts of Reid’s sexual past. There are too many girls in his social circle, in this city, in this country, for us to avoid them all. His Hollywood Lothario reputation precedes him. My friends and even my parents are all too familiar with it. I’ve made it clear that I don’t want or need to hear the grisly details, and I think he was grateful he didn’t have to confess them.
I expect the general public to wonder what in the world he’s doing with me – I got a taste of that when I tripped and fell on top of him at the Habitat project last summer, sending the tabloids into merciless speculation. I expect to run into starlets and fans who want him, who’ve been with him, even, who might hate me on sight.
Pretty sure Jo is one of those.
But finding out that he was involved with Brooke Cameron for long enough that it was a known relationship? He may have loved her. That unforeseen possibility wells up, a reflux of the only fear I’ve refused to face. Despite the rumours that he’s bedded half of young Hollywood – and the fact that he’s never refuted those allegations, I hoped his heart was mine alone.
I want to reject the jealousy and insecurity that begin to boil in the pit of my stomach. I need the truth, whatever it is, but I can’t ask him. Because deep inside, I don’t want to know.
7
BROOKE
Norman Rogers, Kathryn’s attorney – more of a family friend at this point since he’s been her attorney since her divorce from my dad – sputters, incredulous, when I tell him I want River.
‘But. Are you sure?’ he asks, as if I would set up this appointment and travel from Los Angeles to Texas on a whim.
I grind my teeth. I survived the shocked reactions of Reid, my private investigator and my stepmother. What’s one more? ‘Yes. I want my son back.’ On second thoughts, I should probably get used to this response. Maybe I should call Angelina and ask her how she fielded these sorts of sceptical reactions.
Eyeing me over his glasses, Norman says, ‘All righty, then.’ Tapping his gold-plated pen on the pad, he gets down to business. ‘The first thing we need to do is get in front of a judge and get a home study ordered. I assume you plan to move him to California? If so, we’ll need to get an ICPC to coordinate the case between Los Angeles County and the State of Texas.’ He scrawls his lawyer chicken-scratch across a legal pad, plotting our plan of attack, I assume. ‘It’ll be up to the judge whether the adoption takes place here in Texas or is transferred to a California court …’
‘Adoption?’ I throw some incredulity of my own at him. ‘But I’m his mother. Can’t I just … have him back?’
Norman stares down at the pad and underlines a couple of things, rubbing one thick finger back and forth on his forehead as if he’s trying to buff away the premature creases this conversation will leave there. The silence stretches until, at last, he clears his throat. ‘Brooke, River is in foster care. The State of Texas holds guardianship over him. There are specific procedures in place to make sure what’s done now is in the best interest of the child.’
‘But I’m his mother,’ I whisper, repeating myself, the guilt swallowing me up like quicksand. I can barely breathe.
‘Technically, Brooke, you aren’t.’
This statement slaps me in the face, stealing the remainder of my breath. I feel my mouth fall open and watch Norman’s brows draw together in contrition, his lips tightening. He’s given me the blunt truth, and as much as I appreciate him doing so, I didn’t anticipate this answer.
‘How long? How long until I can have him?’ A tremor runs through my entire body, starting at my neck and shooting painfully to the tips of my fingers and toes. ‘Or are you telling me I can’t – I can’t get him back?’