“That life changes, and there are no guarantees. Sometimes all you can do is just what makes you happy right now, right in this moment.”
“But what if what makes me happy now might end up making me miserable in the long run? How do I know?”
“You don’t,” Jake says. “There is no way to know what is coming. I go to a rally every weekend. I hope it’s leading to a stop in global pollution and a ban on GMOs, but I don’t go for that day. I go for today. I go for the difference I can make along the way. Andthatmakes me happy.”
Cassandra has stopped laughing. She is looking at Jake with a mixture of curiosity and admiration that makes the back of my throat constrict.
“Stop worrying about what’sgoingto happen, and start thinking about what you’re doing rightnow. Because whatever it is doesn’t seem to be making you very happy.”
“When did you get so smart?” I ask.
Jake smiles at Cassandra. “Sometime around her,” he says. He looks back at me. “All you can do is the best you can today. The rest, as they say, is out of our hands. You don’t owe the world anything, Paige. I know you think you do, but you don’t.”
“There is so much I was wrong about,” I say. “I screwed up.”
“Join the club,” Cassandra says. “We’ve all screwed up. Jake and I should have told you we were together. Your sister, Christ, should not have opened her big mouth.” She waves her arms in the air. The big finish. “And Rainer and Jordan should have stopped letting anything and everything get in the way of their friendship.” I open my mouth to retort, but Cassandra holds up her hand. “But we can’t change that. All we can do is try to deal with, like Jake is saying, today.”
“Today.”
“Yeah,” Cassandra says. “Today. So given what is, what do you want to do?”
I exhale. “Honestly,” I say, “I want to dance with my best friends.”
Cassandra laughs and scrunches up her nose. “That,” she says, “can be arranged. Come on.”
She drags Jake and me to our feet, and we make our way downstairs. We eat some food and then the band starts playing old tunes—the Supremes and Michael Jackson—and we get on the dance floor. Jake twirls us both around and around, and we spend the rest of the night like that—happy and full and dizzy. Together.
CHAPTER 15
“Paige? Are you there?”
Sandy’s voice comes through the phone before I’ve managed to fully open my eyes. My head is still spinning from the champagne and sugar last night. I also don’t think we got to bed until fourAM. Cassandra is curled up next to me like a kitten, and I move gently off the pillow, the phone still attached to my ear.
“Is everything okay?”
“I know you’re supposed to be home through the week,” she says. “But you need to come back to L.A. Alfonso wants to meet with you, and scheduling is supertight.”
Alfonso is our new director. It’s true: Wyatt is turning the franchise over. I’ve heard Alfonso is very by-the-book. Hard-and-fast with rules, nothing in a scene that’s not in the script. I’m nervous.
“Now?”
“Today.”
I survey the room—discarded Chutes and Ladders pieces, clothes strewn everywhere, Jake asleep in my armchair.
“What time?” I ask.
“We’re booking you on a three o’clock,” Sandy says.
“What about Jordan and Rainer?”
Sandy pauses. “I’m not entirely sure where the three of you stand right now, but my advice would be to fix it fast. Alfonso isn’t going to take kindly to all of this. Wyatt wouldn’t have, either. You guys used to be friends, right?”
I run a hand through my snarled hair. Friends. “Yeah,” I say.
“Well, that might be a good place to start,” Sandy says. “Just pack yourself up and get to the airport.”
Something occurs to me.Closer to Heaven. “Have we heard about theCloseraudition?” I ask her.
