Here Without You

Even if it would have taken her thirty seconds to return a text.

Now it’s Tuesday, she’s still not replied, and every passing hour makes it harder to pass off her radio silence as the demanding life of a college student or a dead phone battery. I wonder if she’s okay. I wonder if her parents would even try to call me if she wasn’t. And then I wonder if I should call them. I try to remember her friends’ names. (Kayla something. Aimee something. Shayma something.)

I’m not cool with the direction my thoughts are taking, because I don’t do clingy or needy or dependent or possessive.

I’ve spent most of the day with Brooke, first at her attorney’s office with Dad, and now at Kathryn’s house making a scrapbook about us for River. After printing out photos of ourselves and parts of LA – hiking trails, parks, his bedroom-to-be at each of our respective places – we glue-stick them on to the pages, like kindergarteners.

‘So, how do we plan to explain our relationship to him, since we’re planning to move him from the one home he knows … into two he doesn’t know at all? Two parents who are already separated – that might be confusing.’

Brooke chews one side of her lip, thinking. ‘Hmm. Well, we need to convince him that we’re friends. That we aren’t going to drag him into a tug-of-war. All our self-portraits are separate. Are there any photos in existence of the two of us together, happy? But not, you know, happy-happy. Maybe something taken during School Pride?’ Glancing at my dubious expression, she waves a hand. ‘Yeah, never mind. We pretty much loathed each other for the duration of that whole thing …’

After today’s revelations, I feel even worse about how I treated Brooke then. Seriously, having a conscience is ass. ‘The only friendly one I know of is from five years ago – the one that got printed along with the pics of us at LAX a couple of weeks ago, along with all the theories about why we were flying together.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Right? Because nothing coincidental ever happens to celebrities.’ She thumps herself in the forehead and grabs her phone. ‘Duh. Let’s just take one now. Lean in.’

We lean our heads together and smile, and she takes two or three shots. After we choose one and she sends it to her laptop, I say, ‘You know what the media is going to do with this story, right? River. Us.’

Sighing, she nods. ‘I’m not sure what slant they’ll take, but they’ll probably either try to make us into a pre-packaged little family, or we’ll be the new young Hollywood poster children for teen irresponsibility. Like having a child is comparable to being jailed and rehabbed non-stop for a coke addiction. I wouldn’t care what they say about me –’

‘That’s new.’

She shrugs. ‘I just don’t want River getting hurt because of it. Especially the whole illegitimate thing. So … I was thinking about giving Rowena an exclusive for the first photos of River –’

‘What? No. Why would you even consider letting one of those vultures take photos of him?’

‘Because, c’mon, Reid, be realistic – they’re gonna take photos of him. This is a huge story, and Hollywood babies are stalked hard. If we have Rowena do them, we diffuse some of the demand for him, and control how he’s presented to the general public.’

I grimace. ‘Alarmingly, that makes some sense …’

‘Of course it does. Look. He’s four. If we can manage the way his story is told now, it will become the accepted account of his life. Once he’s old enough to realize we’re his real parents, it won’t be a big deal.’

‘Except when he figures out that you and I were happy-happy at least once, which should absolutely be our secret code word for sex.’ I flutter my lashes and affect a feminine voice. ‘Reid, since you have River this weekend, I’m going to happy-happy my new personal trainer!’

‘Shut up.’ She punches me in the arm just hard enough to bruise. ‘I don’t do people who work for me. Gross. And trust me, you’ve been getting a lot more happy-happy than I have recently.’

‘Jealous?’ She tries to punch me again and I block her and laugh. ‘Didn’t you say you’d decided to do the season finale of Life’s a Beach, along with that brainless beefcake you were involved with – what’s his name – Xavier something-or-other? I’m sure he’d be game for a little happy-happy.’

Hiding her face, she laughs. ‘Ugh! We were involved all of once – he was all pretty and no skill.’

‘Unlike yours truly.’ Grinning wickedly, I waggle my brows and she rolls her eyes.

‘Christ, your ego always was ginormous. Unbelievably, it appears to have grown. How does your new girlfriend handle that thing? Or is that what you like about her being an ordinary girl – ass over elbows because hot superstar Reid Alexander is paying attention to her.’

I feel like she’s just poked my good mood with a pin. ‘Dori’s not like that.’

‘Oh?’

‘She’s never been awestruck by me or impressed by the whole celebrity thing, whether I wanted her to or not. She doesn’t think of me like that.’

She arches a brow. ‘So you say. But you can’t escape who you are, Reid, and neither can she.’

And with those words, Brooke verbalizes exactly what I’m worried about. The odd solidarity building between us today served as somewhat of a distraction from my uneasiness concerning Dori, but that’s all it was – a distraction.

‘I’m going to step outside and call her,’ I say.

But of course, Dori doesn’t answer. I disconnect when it rolls to voicemail, and then send her another text, in which I try to sound like I’m not about to lose it because she hasn’t answered me since she got out of my car forty-eight hours ago.

22

DORI

Reid: You never told me how you did in the exam. Everything okay? Depressed to be the ripe old age of 19?

I stare at Reid’s last text again and know I have to answer him. He’s in Austin, with the mother of his child – who I didn’t know existed until two days ago. All Sunday evening, I thought about what he said. How he hadn’t known the baby was his. That he didn’t know how to tell me.

I inferred from these words that he didn’t want to tell me at all, and I should be angry or tolerant or hurt over the lie. I am all those things – but over his child’s existence, not over the fact that he didn’t tell me. Once I got over the shock of it, I can see why he didn’t want to tell me.

Because he feared I’d react like this. Maybe he even knew I would.

It’s been hours since that last text, but when I answer it, he replies immediately.

Me: I survived the exam. 19 is a weird age to be. I think I should feel older. Or younger. I can’t decide.

Reid: I’ll give you a heads-up on 20 in 3.5 weeks. I suspect it may be more of the same.

Me: At least it will be a different decade. Observable progress.

Reid: True.

Reid: We met with Brooke’s attorney and caseworker. They’re going to try to make this as simple as possible, so the process isn’t extended thanks to me joining it.

Reid: Can I call you now? Or tomorrow night when I’m home?

Me: I’ve got a study group in a few minutes and a guest lecturer symposium tomorrow.

Reid: Ok. I’m heading to Utah on Thursday morning to start shooting scenes there, but I’ll text you.

A few photos of our night out in San Francisco made it on to the gossip sites. It took a couple of days for anyone to identify me, and even still, there are sceptics – because in that blue dress and heels and Reid’s shoulder partially blocking my face, I look nothing at all like that girl from Habitat. Nothing like an ordinary girl from LA.

The most vocal disbelievers think I’m someone minor from his last film, or the new one that begins shooting in a couple of days. According to rumours, taking a bed-to-bed sampling of the female cast members is customary for Reid Alexander. I’ve tried to get Kayla and Aimee to stop sending me links to the photos and stories – but they’re far too excited to ‘know’ a celebrity like Reid.

My mind drifts back a few months, to when we’d begun hanging out at his place, to the night I taunted him about having a popular novel with predominantly female fans on his bedside table. Brushing aside my snarky tone, he informed me he was up for the lead role in the film, as though this was no big deal. Deliberately, he gave me that lazy smile and asked if I thought he could bring him to life on the big screen.

He knew exactly what those words would do, once unleashed in my imagination.

Before I could hide my astonishment, he teased me by guessing that I was one of those ‘brainy’ girls who only got in trouble for reading past lights-out. (I was.) Before I left that night, he’d kissed me – a lot – while a tiny sliver of my mind’s eye was unable to stop picturing him as that brooding character I knew too well.

Thus began the weeks of what we termed being reckless – and I worry that from my viewpoint, at least, that word defines our entire relationship. Reid lives his life in a reckless way, and ever since his life collided with mine last summer, I’ve been unbalanced. The trajectory of my safe, small orbit cannot contain him, and no amount of wishing will change that.

He told me on Sunday that once news of River breaks, it will be a circus. I’m not sure what he means, not entirely, but I have a better idea than most. The truth will only be what the truth looks to be, not what it is. The media will toss out possibilities, and fans will gobble them down, making up their own storylines. They’ll want to see Reid and his beautiful ex back together, saving their son from the horrors of drug addicts and foster care, and they won’t want a plain-Jane nobody interloper in the mix.

Claudia drives Raul, Afton and me to Zachary’s Pizza to brainstorm ideas for our group project. Afton and I don’t own a car, and Raul’s tiny, ill-maintained Fiat seats two and is forever running on fumes. He and Claudia argued about this all the way here and are still at it.

‘You never drive, even that one time it was just the two of us.’

Raul peruses the menu, his eyebrows arched defensively towards his black spiked hair. ‘So I’d rather bum rides or take public transport everywhere and have a social life than buy gas for my little deathtrap – sue me.’

‘Bum is right,’ Claudia murmurs.

‘You do know pizza can be delivered? We didn’t have to show up in person,’ he says.

‘Not from Zachary’s. And other places are so not the same –’

‘Vraiment!’ Afton interjects in French, though by the looks they give each other, neither of them speaks it. ‘This place is the best. Now stop fighting, you two. God.’ She punctuates this edict with a pout, which ruins the stern mother effect.

Gesturing at her with his menu, Raul objects. ‘We’re not fighting, we’re sparring. It’s what we do. If you don’t like it, turn away.’ He makes a move-along motion with his free hand.