He groaned and stood to stretch, his lower back cracking ashe did, and glanced around his old bedroom. He assumed his parents had plans for it one day—his mom always joked that she’d turn it into a home gym—but then they died, and that was that. His old trophies still cluttered the bookshelves; his old 49ers posters still adorned the walls. He scooted to his closet and pulled an old Barton High Swim Team hoodie off a hanger, slipping it on like he used to all those early mornings when he’d head out the door in the darkness for practice, like this was arming him now with the bravado he had back at sixteen. Then he gingerly eased the door open and tiptoed down the hall. Birdie had left the guest room door ajar, and he didn’t want to be a creep, but he just wanted to be sure that she was okay.
He padded next to her bed. Her arm was flung over her face, and her hair fanned like a wild mane across the pillow. He remembered how he woke up in the middle of the night when they were finally together, that night, just to stare at her, at the way she had a flurry of freckles across her nose, at the way her lashes flitted while she was dreaming, at the way she looked so peaceful. Tonight, she had asked him if he voted in thePeoplepoll, and he’d lied because of course he had. Would he rather be banished to a desert island with Birdie Robinson or a coconut? If Birdie were banished to a desert island, he’d have wanted to be banished too. He would have marooned himself on the island, spearing fish and cracking said coconuts if that’s what she asked for. He would have endured sunburns and shark bites and jellyfish stings. He would have searched for driftwood and built them shelters and hunted for dry wood and started fires. He would have swum to the end of the ocean for her, which his high school self nearly could have done. He pictured it: papayas and fish meat and them naked and salty and sunburnt. It honestly sounded wonderful.
Tonight, she was snoring, not particularly quietly either, andhe watched her for a second, then a few seconds more, amazed that she was so exactly the same as she had been at twelve or sixteen or twenty-seven but also so transformed. Not just by age or maturity. Maybe by fame. Maybe by cynicism or the exhaustion that came along with that fame—sharper cheekbones, skin that had been lasered to within an inch of an open pore, like even the slightest imperfection could be held against her. (He really couldn’t blame Francesca for demanding details about her skin care.)
He should have reached out when the on-set video went viral, when the unkind leaks and unflattering hot takes starting zooming around the internet at supersonic speed. He should have texted and said,Hey, sometimes I also get raked across the coals, called a traitor, called a shitbag, called a motherfucking idiotic enemy of the people on Twitter. He could have helped her craft a more honest apology; he could have, he thought, simply helped her. But they really hadn’t spoken in so long that it felt stilted, maybe even selfish, to make such a gesture.
In the guest room, Birdie let out a snort, and Elliot jumped, then he quietly retreated and eased the door shut, the latch clicking into place. He darted back to his room and opened his laptop, ready to plug some names into Google, ready to do whatever he needed to convince Francesca that he was invaluable. He knew Birdie had dated that chef, Ian, before she was famous. And he knew that she’d spent about a year with his friend Simon, the hotelier, when she was twenty-nine or so. Add in the tennis pro, Carter, for that thirtieth birthday in Santa Barbara that led to a whole thing, and Elliot at least had a place to start. He had stopped asking Mona questions about Birdie after their own fling, but he was lucky to have a sister who liked to talk. And he was lucky that he had a brain that always, always paid attentionwhen Birdie’s name came up. There were also very questionable rumors about Kai Carol over the years—every once in a while, Elliot did a deep, deep, deep internet dive into Birdie when he was lonely in a run-down hotel somewhere—but given the fallout with Sebastian, he couldn’t quite make the logic work: that a world-famous movie star wouldn’t publicly defend the woman he loved if their romance had been legitimate in any way. Besides, he couldn’t envision a scenario in which he tracked down Kai Carol and got him on record about Birdie in the next few days. Elliot was good, but even he knew his limits.
He typed inChef Ian Sands, and Google led him immediately to Chez Nous, a restaurant in San Francisco that was actually one of Elliot’s favorites. He hadn’t realized that Chef Ian washerChef Ian, or maybe he wouldn’t have raved about the mussels when Ian came out to greet him. (Ian knew Elliot by reputation so made a point to say hello.)
From downstairs, Elliot heard the front door slam, and then Mona’s footsteps thumped up the stairs, and she burst through his door like they were still kids.
“Is she okay?” she asked.
“I don’t think she needs you looking out for her, Mon.”
“I never said that sheneedsme to. It’s just something that normal people do for each other, Elliot. Normal people who don’t have an allergy to attachment.”
“I’m attached to you,” he said.
“We shared a womb. That’s a bare minimum, that’s basically a requirement.”
“She’s asleep down the hall,” Elliot conceded.
“Did you guys consider my idea? You and the story. Her and her letter?”
“Yes.” Elliot nodded. “It’s on my radar.”
He needed to proceed carefully here. Mona didn’t know anything about his professional complications, the gig he was holding on to by an extremely tenuous thread—he’d always played the part of the much more together sibling and wasn’t ready to abandon that now. And even though the story had been her suggestion in the first place, Elliot suspected she wouldn’t take kindly to him barreling ahead with Francesca in a bid to save his job.Birdie shouldn’t be bartered like that, she’d chastise. And she wasn’t wrong. But Elliot liked to think that he and Birdie both stood to gain with this plan—he was only using her as much as she was using him.
Also, he didn’t like to think that he wasusingher at all. Birdie’s fame didn’t impress him. Birdie did that all on her own. She had since the very first time they met.
Since he was twelve.
Since he was twenty-seven.
Since he was thirty-five.
Then. Still. Now.
8
BIRDIE
Birdie was certainthat she was dreaming. She heard a loud pounding on a door somewhere in the distance, then the doorbell clanging again and again, and when it blessedly stopped and she was drifting back into her hangover-induced slumber, she couldn’t shake the sense that someone was standing at the foot of her bed, hissing her name. But her eyes didn’t fly open until she felt hands clamped around her ankles, and her entire body being tugged off the footboard.
Then she was up with a start. She’d had a stalker before and, in her bleary-eyed confusion, assumed that he’d found her again. She kicked her feet as forcefully as she could, straight up in the air, and it was only when she heard her sister yelp, “Ow, you motherfucker!” that she fully came to consciousness. As it was, her head was throbbing and her stomach was making medically worrying noises, still sloshing with the gin and the tequila and, oh, she remembered now, the microwaved fried cheese sticks that Mona had warmed up at the bar because Birdie needed something toabsorb some of the booze and that was the best option on the menu.
When she opened her eyes, her sister was tilting her head back with a trickle of blood creeping down her left nostril.
“You gave me a bloody nose,” she cried.
“Well, how was I supposed to know that it was you? I took self-defense classes a few years ago; you can’t blame my reflexes.” Indeed, the studio had enrolled her in jujitsu for the part of a single mom who agreed to try twelve new hobbies in an attempt to find her soulmate. (It wasn’t Birdie’s favorite script but they were paying her too much to say no.)
Andie stomped out of the room, then returned with toilet paper stuck up her nose and scowled.
“I don’t know why I’m being blamed for this,” Birdie said. “Also, why are you here? Also, I need some Tylenol. Also—”
