“I have this movie—”
“Bangkok Brotherhood.” She put her hand on the gate as if she was about to push it open. Behind me someone dove into the pool.
“How did you know?”
“It’s my job to know.” The music was lower past the pool. I wouldn’t have heard her otherwise. She still hadn’t looked at me. Fast-fleeting impressions. Her black lashes as she looked down. The rippling turquoise light from the pool on one side of her face and darkness on the other. A woman laughing in the house. The crickets on the pool house side of the gate. The creak of the earth grinding up against my life.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I’m confused every day. But I can’t go without her. And I can’t go without you.”
“My thirty days is over during that shoot.”
Was she being hostile? What was with the pointed look, or the way her head tilted so her hair fell along her cheek? I needed her. Her presence made Nicole’s life easy and my responsibilities bearable. But there was more to it. She drew me in. Her competence wasn’t comforting. It fueled a desire that all the wild girls in the world hadn’t.
“I’ll double your rate,” I said.
“You don’t think you’re bringing her, do you?”
“Pardon me?” I said, reacting before thinking. I was trying to be polite, but she countered by holding her hands up as if fending me off.
“Never mind. Sorry. You’re fine. Your call, totally.”
She stepped back, spun, opened the gate to the pool house. She was going to go to bed. I didn’t want to be alone in my overcrowded house. Didn’t want to end the night on that note.
“Wait.” I leapt to her side, closing the gate behind me. She erupted in light. Motion sensors. I’d had them installed all along the path to the house.
She spun on me.
“Mr. Sinclair. I have no say in where you take her or what you do.”
“Let me hear your say anyway.”
She crossed her arms. Paused. Thinking before she spoke. I liked that. A woman who engaged the engine before putting the car in drive was a rare thing in my world. Or maybe not. Maybe I just enjoyed her engine a little more.
“You sure?” She looked up at me suspiciously. Her eyes changed color constantly, and at the back door they were navy blue with brown flecks. I had a strange and inappropriate thought about what beautiful children she’d make.
“I’m sure. Spit it out.”
She didn’t. She took another second to look toward the pool where the party was in full swing, then back at me.
“Anything I say is said because I care.”
“Got it. Moving on.”
“And because I want you to succeed.”
“Train’s pulling out of the station, miss. Better get on it.”
“Okay. First off. You really haven’t dealt with this at all. Not that I blame you. Having a child dropped in your lap out of nowhere is an adjustment even for people who are prepared. But you haven’t stopped the partying or the working one iota since she arrived.”
I bristled, but acted like I didn’t. Good thing I was an actor.
“I’ve cut the partying by a lot, I’ll have you know.”
“Well, I’ll trust you on that. But all these people make it hard for you to get to know each other. And the work. Whenever Paula’s over, you chase Nicole out, and Paula’s over ten hours a day.”
“I have to work. I’m not the only one in town working.”
“You’re the only one in town with a kid you never met.”
Man, she was so close to the line where I’d tell her to pack up. She was right on the fucking thing. But the other side of that line was a cliff. She had no idea what was at stake—everything I ever worked for and wanted—because Nicole had shown up.
“Your parents did a great job while they were here, but they’re from a different world and all their kids are adults. They didn’t set you up with routines. Habits. Events she can count on. And now you’re going to take her to Thailand with you?”
“What am I supposed to do? Leave her here?”
“Stay home.”
Stay home. Sure. And let a $120 million movie fall through. Tell them to just cast another bankable guy who happened to be available right now. Because anyone who’s bankable isn’t scheduled a year in advance. Yeah. That was going to work out great when I couldn’t get another picture because I was a flight risk.
I think I laughed, or some snide version of it.
Her face went soft, dropping from hard truth to a malleable reality I didn’t understand.
“I can’t watch this. It’s too much.” She paced across the dark path, tripping the lights as she walked.
Jesus. She kept moving that god damned line.
“You’re not supposed to get emotionally involved, you know!” I called out.
She stopped and stayed still long enough for the lights to flick out. I held my breath. The moonlight fell blue on her hair, and she looked like she could just fold into the darkness.
I kept my breath. Didn’t need air. Wouldn’t know what to do with it.
She turned so slowly the lights didn’t register it.
“You’re right,” she said. “That’s why this is temporary. That’s why I didn’t want to work for a celebrity household. Because I can’t stand seeing kids getting dragged all over the world or orphaned by their parents’ jobs. I’ve seen it done well and I’ve seen it done right, but it’s not often.”
She walked down the path and the lights followed.
This was bullshit. I ran out and got in front of her.
“Lady. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve done the best I can. I was going along pretty-as-you-please before this bombshell dropped—”
“She’s not a bombshell. She’s not a problem to solve. She’s a human being you made. You don’t see her. You don’t see how hard she’s working to deal with what happened.”
“What about you?”
“What—?”
“What are you dealing with?”
“As your consultant, I advise . . .” She stopped talking, letting her advice hang midair. I wanted it. I wanted to pluck it out of dead space and take it, whatever it was.
“What?”
“I advise . . .” She took a deep breath. “You seem all right.”
“What kind of advice is that?”
“What do you want for her? For you? What were you hoping for?”
The idea that I was hoping for anything was ridiculous. I laughed. It had a sardonic edge, what my grandmother would have called “laughing outta two sides of your face.”
“I ain’t had a chance to hope for much, ma’am. I was just going about my business. I was a happy guy, you know? All I had to do was work and be nice to people. So you’ll excuse me if I have to adjust.”
“You never thought about it? When you saw your friend Michael Greydon adopt six kids, what did you think? Anything?”