Here Without You (Between the Lines #4)

5

DORI

There’s been no change in my sister in the five months since her accident, and according to her prognosis, none is expected. Locked in a persistent vegetative state, she continues to exist, but nothing more. My parents finally stopped asking God for a miracle with every dinner-table prayer, so I no longer have to bite back words that keep my stomach twisted into knots. Now, they simply request God’s care of her – a prayer that still swells from the last traces of faith in my heart, even as I deem it incompatible with the fact that she’s in this condition at all.

I’m spending time with Deb this afternoon, killing time before meeting Kayla and Aimee for another of their Cinderella transformations. While trimming the stems of the tulips I picked up on the way over, I relay the latest developments in my life. I’m getting better, but these one-sided conversations still feel contrived. When Mom, Dad or Nick comes with me, I’m silent except for replies to something they say. I’ll stroke Deb’s arm, help feed her, sing her favourite songs, brush her hair – but I only speak to her when we’re alone, like we are now.

‘I’m going out to dinner with Reid tonight,’ I tell her, followed by the clip-clip of my scissors pruning an inch from each stem.

The day after Reid’s return to my life just days ago, I’d confided the truth of our newfound relationship into Deb’s silent room. I felt like such a coward – confessing secrets to my mute, unresponsive sister and no one else. Now, my parents are aware of it, but their biased judgement of Reid means my sharing stops there. Deb, once again, is my confidante.

What I would give for her fair-minded advice instead of this silence. I don’t know what she’d think of Reid, or our relationship, but she would tell me straight up, without any candy-coating. And in the end, she’d support whatever decision I made. Instead, I hear only the views of distraught parents and celebrity-awed friends. Neither feels credible.

‘We’re also going to a party. Crazy, right? Me, at a Hollywood party … His friend John isn’t a celebrity, but he sounds like sort of a social climber.’ A sobering thought hits me then, as if Deb had stated it. ‘I guess I shouldn’t judge, though – most people are going to think the same of me. Or worse.’ Gold digger.

I straighten the soft blanket on Deb’s bed and perch next to her. ‘I have no idea what to wear tonight, so I invited Kayla and Aimee to come over and do their worst.’ Laughing softly, I recall my friends’ doubly silent response when I phoned to tell them about Reid and our impending debut. I don’t think I’ve ever known either of them to be stunned into silence – certainly not both of them at the same time. Five seconds later, they erupted into a breakneck dialogue about designers, colour palettes, shoe trends and hairstyles, and all the reasons I’d been reluctant to tell them came rushing back.

The last time I’d allowed them free rein with my clothes and make-up, I’d woken up in Reid’s bed with the worst hangover imaginable.

There were worse alternatives than that, though, one of which almost happened. I almost left a nightclub with a possibly psychotic stranger due to my alcohol-compromised state. Instead, I woke up to the beginnings of a fairytale love. One I still can’t quite believe is real.

After arguing with each other for ten minutes as though I’m not standing there, Aimee and Kayla settle for a turquoise silk top with beading around the hem and neckline (Kayla’s), a pair of dark, pressed jeans in an unfamiliar brand (Aimee’s), and fuzzy chocolate boots (also Aimee’s, and flat-heeled, thank the Lord). Naturally, they refuse to consider any of my clothing for more than half a second.

‘No,’ Aimee says. ‘Noooooo. You should never wear your clothes when you go out with him. I’m not kidding. Never.’

I decide to panic about that later. Right now, I don’t have time.

Trying to talk Kayla out of using her mammoth case of cosmetics on me is futile, but we compromise with a semi-natural look when I remind her that Reid has only ever seen me with next-to-no make-up. ‘Except for the hangover night,’ I add, and they both avert their eyes, each reproached for letting me out of her sight at that club.

‘You guys, stop with the guilty faces!’ They peer back at me, sheepish, and I shake my head, insisting, ‘I made my own foolish decisions that night. I got luckier than I deserved when Reid spotted me. I don’t blame you and I never did. I’m just not used to a lot of make-up, and I want to feel comfortable tonight.’

Did I just say comfortable? What a totally unrealistic request.

‘Did you notice how she just went, “Reid,” like you’d say, “Clark” or “Josh”?’ Aimee asks Kayla, who nods. They both sigh, and I struggle to resist an eye roll.

From the moment Aimee and Kayla arrived and even when Reid arrives to pick me up, Mom is conspicuously absent. She vanished behind my parents’ closed bedroom door before I came home from Deb’s and hasn’t come out. Dad does his fatherly duty, opening the door and uttering his unfailingly polite, if clipped, ‘Good evening, Reid.’

I hear Reid’s response as I reach the top of the stairs, Kayla and Aimee at my heels. ‘Good evening, Mr Cantrell.’

‘Reverend Cantrell,’ my father corrects, not meanly, but not in the playful manner in which he’d have spoken to Nick – whom he directed, Call me Doug.

‘Reverend Cantrell,’ Reid parrots, unfazed, releasing my father’s hand as I come into view. I soak up the sight of him, despite having seen him yesterday. His blue button-down and jeans seem understated, but I’d bet twenty dollars he knows exactly what wearing that particular shade of blue does to his eyes.

I’ll be lucky if Kayla doesn’t press so close to my back that I end up in a heap at the bottom of the staircase. ‘Aimee,’ she squeaks. ‘That’s. Really. Him.’

Reid’s eyes sweep over me from head to toe and back, unhurriedly, with no care of his rapt audience – my father or either of my star-struck friends. ‘Beautiful,’ he says, taking my hand, and I’m immediately thankful for my friends and their fairy-godmother skills.

REID

‘Ready?’ I ask her, and it won’t be the last time tonight I do so. We’re in a short line of cars waiting for the valet.

Unhooking her seat belt, she takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders, as if she’s preparing for a challenging Olympic performance instead of a night out. Her huge brown eyes turn to me as she nods. ‘Ready.’

I suppress a laugh and lean to kiss her temple. ‘This will all be over soon, and we’ll be old news. I promise.’ These words have a fifty-fifty chance of becoming truth. Same chance of turning out to be entirely false … but I prefer to be optimistic about my promises.

‘Okay,’ she says, so very serious. And trusting. Which is why tonight, I chose one of the places celebrities go when we want to feel a bit like ordinary people – ordinary, wealthy people who don’t have to endure being photographed everywhere they go: Chateau Marmont. Paparazzi aren’t allowed into the long bricked drive, let alone up the steps or inside. Cameras are completely prohibited in the restaurant, in fact – and unlike some Hollywood spots, that decree is strictly enforced. Not that obsessive fans don’t ever break the rules and get away with it – but dinner on the patio is a dark, candlelit affair. Good luck getting off a perfect shot with a cell phone and no flash.

The valet exchanges keys and a ticket with the driver in front of us and I slide my fingers down Dori’s arm, taking her hand. ‘Have you been here before?’

She laughs as though that’s the most ridiculous question ever posed. ‘Uh, no. I’ve heard about it, though. Does that count?’

‘Hmm. I’ll allow half a point for knowledge of it. Sounds like we might need to schedule a weekend in the penthouse, though. Or maybe you’d prefer one of the cottages.’

She smiles up at me. ‘A cottage?’ Of course she’d be more intrigued by a creaky, cloistered 1930s bungalow than a sumptuous, high-ceilinged suite with patio views of Sunset and the West Hollywood hillside. ‘That sounds like a storybook suggestion. Should I bring my red hoodie and a picnic basket?’

‘Only if you’re going to say, Oh, Reid, what a big –’

‘Stop!’ she laughs, pressing her hand to my mouth. ‘Don’t you dare finish that thought!’

I run a finger over the curve of her ear, knowing it would be bright pink if I could discern the colour in the dim confines of the car. ‘I’m afraid it’s too late for that …’

Adorably prim, she purses her lips and changes the subject. ‘Staying at a hotel in the city where you live seems like an impractical thing to do, though I guess that’s normal for celebrities.’

‘You’ve never done that?’ My last in-LA hotel stay was at Brooke’s insistence, when her whole convoluted plan to lure Graham away from Emma blew up in her face.

Dori shrugs lightly, glancing forward as I pull up to the valet stand and remember that her high-school jerk of a boyfriend took her to a motel when she turned fifteen, and then dumped her a month later – when he turned eighteen and she became jailbait.

I’d like to beat the shit out of that guy, even if it has been nearly four years.

‘Looks like I have a new goal: teach Dori to be impractical.’

She shakes her head, bemused. ‘I don’t know, Reid – that sounds like an unattainable goal.’ The valet opens her door and she starts before taking another deep breath and accepting his hand. She’s a bundle of nerves. I doubt she’s going to relax all evening, and God knows I probably won’t be able to talk her into loosening up the Reid Alexander way – with a shot of something old and expensive.

‘Challenge accepted, Dorcas Cantrell,’ I murmur, jumping out of my side of the car and coming around to encircle her shoulders and lead her inside. Challenge accepted.

I order the chilled crab and avocado for an appetizer, and a bottle of Torrontés. Dori asks for a glass of water. At my nod, the waiter fetches a trendy bottled water, decanting and pouring it into her glass while maintaining a perfectly blank expression. Dori arches a brow and mouths impractical at me with a smirk. I smirk back. She has no idea what impractical things I can come up with where she’s concerned.

By the end of the meal, she’s more relaxed. Despite the crush of people, the lush vegetation and flickering candles render the patio cosy and intimate instead of congested. There’ve been no camera flashes, of course, and no one’s paid us any particular attention, other than the waiting staff – all of them serving us with the same pleasant but impassive expressions. It won’t be this way in other LA haunts. At some point soon, Dori will be fully initiated into the public scrutiny that comes with being or dating a celebrity. She had a minor taste of it last summer, after the patio incident – but that was nothing.

Not that I’m telling her that.

John’s high-rise apartment is bursting at the seams by the time we arrive, which wasn’t exactly what we agreed on when he begged me to let him host Dori’s coming-out party. (Another thing I’m not telling her – that John and I devised the party specifically to introduce her to our crowd in a less public venue.)

‘Wow,’ Dori murmurs, leaning close. ‘Your friend has lots of friends.’

John doesn’t have friends as much as he has a network of useful acquaintances, and those acquaintances are all not-so-slyly eyeballing us the moment we hand our jackets to the girl at the door and begin to make our way through the crowd. I follow the sound of John’s laughter over the music, feeling Dori’s hand clamped to mine like our palms are permanently bonded.

‘Reid – hey, dude. Where’s –? Oh, there she is,’ he smiles, spotting her behind me. ‘Even smaller than I remembered.’

Dori has only the vaguest of memories of John, since their only meeting occurred during the most inebriated night of her life – if not the only inebriated night of her life. She smiles back at him, but her grip on my hand doesn’t loosen. I bend that arm behind her back so I can pull her closer. She may be curvy and strong, but John’s right, she feels small tucked to my side.

‘Hey, John. Lots of people here,’ I say pointedly. We’d agreed on twenty or so, and there’s easily two or three times that many wandering around his place and spilling on to the balcony.

He shrugs and grins. ‘What can I say? I’m a popular guy.’ Snatching two champagne flutes from the bar’s countertop, he hands them to us. ‘Welcome, Dori. I hear you’ve made an honest man of my bro, here.’

I take one glass while Dori shakes her head infinitesimally. ‘Oh – I don’t –’

Deftly separating her from me, John smiles and leans close, pressing the glass into her hand. ‘Just hold it. You can sip it. Or not.’ His hand at her lower back, he says over his shoulder, ‘I’ll return her in a bit, dude. Maybe.’ His brows waggle and I glare at him.

‘John …’ My voice has an edge, but he’s set on ignoring me, damn him.

Stopping at the first huddle of people, he asks, ‘Claude and Nichole – have you met Reid’s girlfriend? This is Dori. LA native, Cal undergrad, way too smart for him. I’m just waiting for her to wise up so I can swoop in.’

Eyebrows rise, eyes widen, and a couple of mouths fall open. I hear my name whispered, along with the repetition of the word girlfriend and speculations of Who is she? John is strategically blocking Dori’s view of a couple of girls whose eyes run over her, one whispering to the other, their joint scorn palpable. I’m pretty sure I’ve slept with at least one of them. Shit.

The couple he addressed, though, smile and recover quickly. They’re both semi-working actors, each patiently awaiting a turn in the spotlight, and it’s standard John to keep his eye on up-and-comers like that. Just as he did with me.

‘Oh! Dori? So nice to meet you,’ Nichole says.

‘Thank you.’ Dori smiles, holding that glass of champagne like an ornamental shield. John’s still got her opposite arm tucked into the crook of his elbow.

‘I didn’t know Reid had a girlfriend,’ Claude says, addressing her with curiosity. ‘This is recent?’

‘Not only recent, but virtually unprecedented,’ John answers, proud to be the one to divulge this newsflash. As he escorts her to the next group, she throws an amused glance over her shoulder, and I’m convinced she can handle just about anything.

Tammara Webber's books