Here Without You

‘But if you can’t see him, what’s the point of staying there?’

She sighs. ‘I’m praying for a miracle.’

The thought of Brooke praying for anything is inconsistent with anything I’ve ever known about her.

Fifteen minutes later, she sends the photo to my phone. I’ve just arrived at George’s office when I pull it up and nearly walk into the glass door. ‘Watch out, dude!’ a FedEx guy yells, waking me from my stupor in time to swerve.

Inside, I stop and stand motionless in the centre of the glass and chrome atrium of my manager’s building. As I stare at the photo on my display, I realize one thing. This wasn’t real. He wasn’t real. None of it was real – not until this moment.

9

BROOKE

I’ve been acting for six years and recognizable since the first season of Life’s a Beach hit the small screen. So I’ve had rude questions hollered at me by gossip reporters as I try to get from my car to my front door. Probing entertainment columnists have interviewed me in conjunction with co-stars from films and cast mates from the show.

In other words, I’m accustomed to people asking seriously violence-inciting shit. But their most invasive enquiries don’t hold a candle to the eighteen-page interrogation I just got from my case worker.

Reading over my shoulder, Kathryn sighs. ‘Norman said they would ask intrusive questions, but gracious …’

The topic of the current enquiry is my sexual history – first time, how many partners since, type of sex, frequency, protection, birth control, sexually transmitted diseases … and everything I feel, think or believe about any of those things.

‘How many partners? Are they serious? Do I make an educated guess? Round up? Round down?’

‘Brooke,’ Kathryn begins, ‘you don’t have to do –’

‘I’m doing it.’ Head in my hands, I want to scream. Or break down and cry. Every self-destructive decision I’ve ever made – and plenty that only look bad because I’m female – rears up and hisses in my ear that I’m going to look as unfit as that meth-addled idiot who had the chance to be his mother and blew it. That no sane person would ever give me a child to raise, even if he is mine.

‘I’m doing it,’ I repeat less abrasively.

Squeezing my shoulder, Kathryn moves away from the kitchen table and leaves me to it, offering to make a fresh pot of coffee. I nod, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes so tightly that no light sneaks in.

This house has been a refuge for me for so long. Half an hour west of Austin, it’s surrounded by acres of scrubby hill-country; the homes here are large, set a distance apart from each other and constructed from native stone and wood. They don’t tower above the native landscape so much as merge perfectly with it, as though they simply grew here along with the sage and desert willow.

Even with my eyes shut, I envision Kathryn’s familiar movements from the sounds she makes: scooping coffee from the copper-lidded canister, filling the reservoir, pushing the start button. She pulls mugs from one of the glass-door cabinets and sets them on the artsy concrete countertop decorated with inset bits of china and bottle glass. Along with the coffee, she’ll bring me a home-made oatmeal or macadamia nut cookie, which I’ll work off with a walk to the thin creek that serves as a winding border on one side of their property.

Kathryn and Glenn have agreed to let me claim their house as a secondary residence, so part of the home study will be conducted here. That means they’ll have to submit to the same sort of scrutiny I’m undergoing: drug testing, criminal background checks, character references. Their home will be inspected top to bottom for safety concerns. Their pet immunizations and behavioural histories will be checked. And possibly their sex lives, allergies and what type of toilet paper they prefer will be investigated.

My agent calls when I’m taking the cookie-blasting stroll to the creek, and I almost hit ignore. I’m so not ready to talk to her about what I’m doing, but I suppose that isn’t the only thing I’ll have to do this week that I might not be ready to do.

‘Brooke! Are you sitting? I hope you’re sitting but not driving. You aren’t driving, are you? Be honest.’

Ever since one of her clients wrecked his Jeep – breaking a kneecap and busting his forehead wide open – when she called to tell him about a big audition, she’s been reluctant to pass on any news to a client who’s behind the wheel.

‘Not driving, Janelle. What’s up?’

‘Okay, cool. First, I got a call from Stan this morning.’

Stan is the executive producer of Life’s a Beach. He’s been perfectly professional in public, but he was less than enthused when I left the show to pursue a film career, and he seemed to take it personally – something he hadn’t done when my co-star Xavier quit for the same purpose.

Unlike my film School Pride, Xavier’s first film – a drama of all things – flopped like a trout in the final stages of death. My ex co-star is pretty and beefy – with absolutely zilch going on upstairs. Perfect to star as a guy who runs a beachfront bar … not so perfect to portray a character who has thoughts. Rumour has it he’s begging for a chance to get his old role back.

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘This is totally hush-hush, of course,’ she adds and I mmph in agreement. ‘He broached the unsurprising notion of bringing you back for the season finale. I gave him a half-hearted response because hello – my girl’s got one successful film out and another one releasing next month, right? So then he said – again, totally hush-hush-off-the-record-don’t-spread-it – that they’re planning to bring Xavier back to the show in the same episode, and the angle would be something to do with the two of you in a way that wasn’t kosher before now.’

She’s referring to the fact that when I left the show, my character was underage, and Xavier’s character owned a bar. Every scene we filmed together sizzled with sexual chemistry, but they couldn’t expand on it for fear of losing their family-friendly endorsements. Now, my character would be eighteen – legally able to bang the twenty-something stud.

Tastefully, of course.

‘But I’m so not done! Are you sitting?’

‘Uh, no.’ I whack long strands of dry grass out of my way with the stick I picked up a few dozen feet back, which makes me think of River, digging in the dirt in that photo. ‘But I’m good. Please, go on.’ The creek gurgles just ahead, where the edge of the property slopes. If it were summer, I’d be kicking my flip-flops off. Instead, I’m hunching into my hooded sweater.

‘So then I got a call from Hillary.’ Hillary was Janelle’s college roommate, and is now a PA for some studio exec – and Janelle’s number one source of studio gossip. ‘We’re going to get a call in the next day or so. You’re back up for the role of Monica.’

I stop dead at the crest of the incline to the creek, unable to reply. I wanted that role so badly last fall when I auditioned. I got two callbacks, but ultimately lost it to my top rival, who’d been born with two golden tickets in her bratty little hands – a movie-star mom and a rock-star dad.

At the time, three months ago, I told myself it was just one film, and there would be others, but that call from Janelle felt like a slamming door. Or punishment from a higher power for one of many transgressions.

The slow-moving water below is far too frigid for wading, but temperatures in central Texas are seldom cold enough to freeze even the edges of moving water. Soon, it will be warm enough to stake out a corner of the large, flat rock that juts into the creek. I spent most of my fourteenth summer with both feet dangling from that rock, skimming the cool, shallow water with my toes while I read or daydreamed, lying back and staring straight up into a big azure sky dissected by branches from the live oaks growing along the banks.

And then Mom remarried and relocated the two of us to Los Angeles.

‘Brooke? Are you there? You’d better not be driving –’

And here’s my agent, offering me the role I’ve been preparing for, pining for, ever since I first set my mind on film stardom.

‘Not driving. Just confused – I thought I lost that role when it went to Caren –’

‘Yeah, well, maybe Caren shouldn’t have decided to go drinking and skiing. She broke both legs and her pelvis!’ Janelle is comically gleeful at this announcement; my competition isn’t her client, after all. ‘She’ll be in a half-body cast until at least summer, and then weeks of physical therapy!’

The thought of Caren in a body cast is so sad. Not. ‘Wow, so I’m definitely in?’

‘According to Hillary, Caren just barely edged you out in the first place. You’re in. I have to wait until we get the call, of course, and do my own little “acting job” – pretending to be all shocked and surprised – but they’ll want to set up a few meetings before filming, which is going to start in Australia.’

‘Australia?’ I can’t believe I forgot this factor. But then, I thought I was out of the running.

‘That’s not a problem, right? It’s not like you’re tied down to LA – or even the US.’

Well, damn.

DORI

After a week of orientations, meet-and-greets and becoming adjusted to sharing a room, I’m ready for classes to begin. Entering campus mid-year has made the process more low-key, I think. I’ve been waiting for someone to recognize me from the few public photos, or grill me about my connection with Reid – but so far, nothing. The first time he shows up on campus and is recognized, my mundane status will be over. But until then, I’m finally here, at Cal. And for the first time in a long time, I’m contemplating my future.

My roommate, Shayma, is quiet. Whether she’s listening to music, studying, or watching clips or videos on her computer, she wears doughnut-sized, sound-cancelling earphones. I learned the level of sound-proofing the hard way, yesterday afternoon.

After an informal walking tour of Telegraph Avenue, I came back to the room and found her staring at her laptop, headphones in place. I gathered my things to take a shower in the bathroom we share with four other girls, and came back a few minutes later, settling on my narrow bed to read over my course syllabuses for the hundredth time.

In an attempt not to exclude her, I asked if she’d like to come out for pizza later with some other people I’d met. When she didn’t reply, I realized she couldn’t hear me. So I got up and tapped her shoulder – and she screamed like I was looming over her with a butcher knife and murderous intentions.

‘Barnacles!’ I stumbled back, eyes wide, as she yanked the already-askew headset from her head.

‘OHMYGOD,’ she gasped, hand to chest. ‘I didn’t know you were here.’

We both jumped again when someone thumped a fist against the door four times in quick succession. ‘Everything okay in there?’ a male voice called.

Red-faced, I opened the door to find two of our suitemates and two boys from the room next door, one of whom was holding a baseball bat. ‘Yeah. We’re fine,’ I said, my heart still racing.