Olivia scowls. “He’s not Lilly’s anything,” she corrects. “They hung out for like two seconds literally last year.” She pops the restof the grilled cheez into her mouth, wrinkling her nose at the plasticky aftertaste. He looks different from all the other guys in here in his plaid button-down and work boots, she notices, unfashionable in a purposeful way. She wonders how he got on the list. “She said they didn’t even bang.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” Kit says, in the voice of someone who thinks she’s a lot more than just fourteen months shy of being the youngest. “I mean, now that it’s January and all.” She finally deigns to look up from her phone, lifting one thick, drawn-on eyebrow. “I guess he’s fair game.”
“Whatever.” Olivia hates when Kit does this, acts like she’s so much more mature and sophisticated just because she’s had a marriage annulled and recently announced on Instagram that she’s pansexual. “I’m going to get a drink.”
She orders herself a mojito and waits for him to come over and say hello to her, but he doesn’t, so finally, after two cocktails and twenty minutes wasted listening to Jocelyn’s long, convoluted story about how she’s thinking of doing a threesome with the sound guy and a drummer he knows with a Prince Albert piercing, Olivia fluffs her hair and throws her shoulders back and marches over to where Nick is leaning against the bar. He’s drinking a whiskey with no ice cubes; there’s a cigarette tucked behind his ear. Olivia can kind of already hear what Lilly would say about that—that it’s a prop, stored there specifically for semiotics or whatever the fuck—but still there’s something about it that kind of does it for her, that feels romantic in an old-fashioned James Dean kind of way.
James Dean was manufactured by executives at a lunch meeting, same as the rest of us, Imaginary Lilly reminds her. Olivia drains the rest of her drink.
“I thought that was you,” she says, reaching out and putting one hand on his bicep. His skin is very warm through his shirt.
Nick turns to look at her, recognition taking a moment to settle over his features; his smile, when it comes, is equal parts lazy and pleased. “Olivia Benedetto,” he says, ducking his head to kiss her on both cheeks. Something about the gesture feels very adult to her—the faint scruff on his face, maybe, the way it rasps against her skin—and Olivia barely manages not to shiver. She’s been in the public eye at least in part since she was ten years old, and if she’s being honest there’s a part of her that still secretly feels like she’s still in elementary school most of the time: running as fast as she can after her sisters,Hey, guys, wait for me!Never mind the fact that by the time she was finally old enough to go anywhere the rest of them had decided the party was over, that none of them ever wanted to do anything fun ever again. It sucks, to come of age in a declining empire. It sucks to feel like you missed out on all the best parts.
“What are you doing here?” Olivia asks now—popping one hip just slightly, her tongue finding the straw in her mostly-empty glass. It’s not against the law to have a good time, she reminds herself, ignoring the skeptical burn of Kit’s gaze on her from the other side of the party. It’s not against the law to talk to a friend.
Nick’s lips twist. “A buddy of mine owns this place,” he explains, with the casual shrug of a guy who’s got a lot of buddies. “Asked if I wanted to tag along.” He glances over her shoulder, just for a second, and Olivia can’t quite read the expression on his face. “Are all you guys here?”
“Just me,” she says, hoping she sounds confident in the enough-ness of it. Hoping she sounds confident enough in herself. “Well, and Kit.”
“That tracks,” Nick says thoughtfully. “Somehow I can’t imagine your sister is big into ethical reggaeton.”
Olivia shakes her head, slow and teasing. “Lucky for you,” she tells him—liking the tiny cleft in his chin and the way his hair is a little grown over his collar, liking that he didn’t mention Lilly’s name. Lilly is their father’s favorite, maybe, but she doesn’t have a claim on the whole entire universe. And judging by the way he’s looking at Olivia right now, that warm flicker of interest—she doesn’t have a claim on Nick, either. “I’m nothing like my sister.”
Nick doesn’t answer for a moment, reaches for his glass on the bar. “You know,” he replies, and there’s a split-second flash of his tongue behind his teeth as he grins at her, “I am starting to get that impression.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Will
He spends Christmas Eve alone in Pemberly Grove, eating takeout and watching aLord of the Ringsmarathon on cable. Georgia made some noise about coming to visit—“I want to decorate a palm tree, damnit! I want to see a Santa Claus in shorts”—but he told her not to bother. “I’ll be back in New York in a couple of months,” he reminded her. “There’s no reason for you to schlep all the way out here.”
Still, slouched on the couch surrounded by plastic take-out containers, stomach gurgling warily away, it occurs to Will that possibly he overestimated his own tolerance for melancholy holiday solitude. He could get a red-eye, he thinks, reaching for his phone to book a ticket. Be back home by Christmas morning. But then—what? Georgia’s with some friends in Connecticut, the kind of place where they sing carols around a piano and everyone has a personalized stocking. She doesn’t need her mopey older brother shuffling along like the Ghost of Christmas Past. He tosses his phone back onto the coffee table and reaches for the scallion pancakes, feeling embarrassed even though he’s the only one here.
It’s a relief to get back to work. Will’s only on the call sheet for a couple of hours the Monday after New Year’s, but there’s a problem with one of the cameras, and in the time it takes to fix itSextus Pompey’s wig catches fire, two of the chickens escape, and Johnny loses his temper and storms off set, spending the better part of the afternoon slouched in his trailer snorting various substances and listening to Benny Goodman. He refuses to return until his assistant plies him with promises of an enthusiastic round of applause from the crew and half a dozen Doritos Locos Tacos.
By the time Will is done for the day it’s right smack in the middle of rush hour. He grits his teeth as he pulls onto Malibu Canyon Road and traffic slows more or less immediately, brake lights flaring like hot coals as far up ahead as he can see. He’s a nervous driver to begin with, though he doesn’t like to admit it—it feels fundamentally unmanly somehow, like confessing to fainting spells or waxing his legs—and sitting at a standstill makes the inside of his skin itch, the anxiety of wasted minutes trickling away. If he was stuck on the subway back at home at least he could read or work the crossword; here there’s nothing to do but stare at the Darwin fish bumper sticker on the car in front of him and flick through Charlie’s satellite radio presets with rising desperation. It makes him feel claustrophobic, even though the evening sky is enormous. It makes him feel trapped.
He’s been inching along for the better part of an hour before he finally reaches the source of the jam—an ancient sedan broken down on the excruciatingly narrow shoulder, other drivers rubbernecking by at a crawl. Will blinks, then frowns, squinting out the windshield: sitting perched on the hood of the stalled-out Honda, sharp face tilted up like she’s angling for a suntan in the rapidly fading light, is Lilly Benedetto.
Will swears. Before he knows what he’s doing he’s flicking his blinker on and pulling over in front of her, killing the engine and sliding awkwardly out of the driver’s seat while trying his best notto get creamed by passing cars. “What are you doing here?” he asks, ignoring the irritated honk of a pickup truck, its driver’s middle finger raised in salute.
If Lilly is at all surprised by the sight of him, she doesn’t show it. “Hoping to get discovered,” she deadpans immediately. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Did you call a tow truck?”
“No,” she says, tilting her dark head to the side, “why do you ask?” Then, even as he’s holding his hands up in sheepish self-defense: “Of course I called a fucking tow truck!”
“Okay. Well, good for you.” Will keeps his palms out, like he’s trying to stave off an angry coyote. Still, “Aren’t you, like, glamorous?” he can’t help but ask her. “Isn’t that your thing?”
Lilly’s eyes narrow. “I’m sorry?”
“I just...” He looks at the Honda, then back at her. She’s dressed like a grad student in jeans and a beat-up leather jacket, a pair of cheetah-print sneakers on her feet. He hasn’t seen her since the night of Charlie’s premiere and she’s gotten her hair lopped off in the interim, messy waves just brushing her shoulders. He wants to put both hands in it and tug. “This is not the car I pictured you driving.”
“When you sat around picturing me driving my car?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I truly don’t.”
