can be clandestinely reported on? Anderson turns back to the reporter while I’m in mid-thought, stepping two inches too close to the microphone. “Listen, Paige, back off. Back off. She’s not required to verify anything with you. So leave her alone.”
He double-steps back to me, and I tilt my head and assess the oddities of the situation: the paparazzi, the party, and that Anderson, B-list newly turned A-list actor, is jumping to my defense in the midst of both.
“Nice to see you again, Anderson!” she shouts back.
“You know her?” I ask once he’s beside me.
“We have a history,” he says, offering nothing more, so I leave it be.
“Should I be concerned that I have ‘sources’ now?” I say.
“They save those for the most important people.” He smiles.
“Ha ha.” I smile in return.
“No, I’ve just been through this before—I mean, even before before. I figure if I can help the girl who saved my life…” He holds the door open and I squeeze my way inside. We both fall silent, surveying the landscape, a moment of peace before we’re swallowed up.
“Stay close,” I say finally. “Who knows who half these ghosts are and what they’ll conjure up.”
He grasps my elbow. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
At first, this party seems like an ingenious idea. The new me agrees. The techno music is on just the right level—loud enough to give the energy a needed pulse, quiet enough so that I can still hear everyone’s cheers of encouragement, reintroductions, and the occasionalawkward pause because they really don’t make a greeting card for your friend who defied death and lost—nearly literally—her mind.
Still though, it feels good, welcoming, almost heartwarming, to be here. Rory hands me a club soda after a gaggle of college friends wander off. I’d recognized their faces from my pictures: pressed together, holding spilling plastic cups of beer, in some fraternity basement— Golf Night! —our cheeks glistening with sweat, our bra straps askew under our tank tops. Tonight, they hug me and rub my back, and everyone takes out their phones to schedule a girls’ night, which is something we evidently used to do whenever we were all in the same place at the same time, which, Samantha tells me, wasn’t too often.
“Life got so busy,” she says, like this is something to feel guilty about. “You were always here, at the gallery; I’m usually in London or Hong Kong for work; the moms could never find a sitter.” I think she’s about to start crying. Jesus, please don’t start crying! What I would really like is if people could stop crying around me! But she glues herself together. “Let’s not do that again? Okay?” She reaches for my hand. “Let’s be better about it this time.”
So we pull out our phones and promise to be better about it this time. I already suspect that we won’t be. Old patterns, old dogs, new tricks. All of that. Until I catch myself slipping back into the former me. No, no, no. Things will be different, things must be different.
“I know I can’t remember everyone,” I say to Rory when she brings me the club soda. “But it’s nice to know I was this loved, that these people can all be my parachute.”
“Oh my god, have you been watching Oprah ? Because you’d never have said that before,” she says. If one can manage to simultaneously roll her eyes and make them bulge with surprise, Rory does so.
“Well, before, I could remember everyone.”
“No, but the part about being loved. The parachute.” She shakes her head, taking the high road, setting aside her default response of sarcastic derision. “Anyway, it’s nice to know, nice to hear.” She hugs me, and the scent in her hair reminds me of that memory: the one in my dream that was really a dream about nothing. Honeysuckle. She smells like honeysuckle. But it’s a splinter, a fleeting spark of imagination I conjured up from somewhere deep inside. No
He double-steps back to me, and I tilt my head and assess the oddities of the situation: the paparazzi, the party, and that Anderson, B-list newly turned A-list actor, is jumping to my defense in the midst of both.
“Nice to see you again, Anderson!” she shouts back.
“You know her?” I ask once he’s beside me.
“We have a history,” he says, offering nothing more, so I leave it be.
“Should I be concerned that I have ‘sources’ now?” I say.
“They save those for the most important people.” He smiles.
“Ha ha.” I smile in return.
“No, I’ve just been through this before—I mean, even before before. I figure if I can help the girl who saved my life…” He holds the door open and I squeeze my way inside. We both fall silent, surveying the landscape, a moment of peace before we’re swallowed up.
“Stay close,” I say finally. “Who knows who half these ghosts are and what they’ll conjure up.”
He grasps my elbow. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
At first, this party seems like an ingenious idea. The new me agrees. The techno music is on just the right level—loud enough to give the energy a needed pulse, quiet enough so that I can still hear everyone’s cheers of encouragement, reintroductions, and the occasionalawkward pause because they really don’t make a greeting card for your friend who defied death and lost—nearly literally—her mind.
Still though, it feels good, welcoming, almost heartwarming, to be here. Rory hands me a club soda after a gaggle of college friends wander off. I’d recognized their faces from my pictures: pressed together, holding spilling plastic cups of beer, in some fraternity basement— Golf Night! —our cheeks glistening with sweat, our bra straps askew under our tank tops. Tonight, they hug me and rub my back, and everyone takes out their phones to schedule a girls’ night, which is something we evidently used to do whenever we were all in the same place at the same time, which, Samantha tells me, wasn’t too often.
“Life got so busy,” she says, like this is something to feel guilty about. “You were always here, at the gallery; I’m usually in London or Hong Kong for work; the moms could never find a sitter.” I think she’s about to start crying. Jesus, please don’t start crying! What I would really like is if people could stop crying around me! But she glues herself together. “Let’s not do that again? Okay?” She reaches for my hand. “Let’s be better about it this time.”
So we pull out our phones and promise to be better about it this time. I already suspect that we won’t be. Old patterns, old dogs, new tricks. All of that. Until I catch myself slipping back into the former me. No, no, no. Things will be different, things must be different.
“I know I can’t remember everyone,” I say to Rory when she brings me the club soda. “But it’s nice to know I was this loved, that these people can all be my parachute.”
“Oh my god, have you been watching Oprah ? Because you’d never have said that before,” she says. If one can manage to simultaneously roll her eyes and make them bulge with surprise, Rory does so.
“Well, before, I could remember everyone.”
“No, but the part about being loved. The parachute.” She shakes her head, taking the high road, setting aside her default response of sarcastic derision. “Anyway, it’s nice to know, nice to hear.” She hugs me, and the scent in her hair reminds me of that memory: the one in my dream that was really a dream about nothing. Honeysuckle. She smells like honeysuckle. But it’s a splinter, a fleeting spark of imagination I conjured up from somewhere deep inside. No
Similar Books
