“You were just speaking my mind.”
“Let’s go down to Cups and Cones,” I said. “I’m buying.”
CHAPTER 4
CARA
Things work out the way they do for a reason. Sometimes the reason is that the universe wants to screw you. For fun, maybe. Or because you getting screwed is in service of someone else’s “things happen for a reason.”
But the reason isn’t always rainbows and unicorns. When my parents got reassigned to Paris the reason was so I could learn French, and when it was Pakistan it was so I could stay in the house all the time, and when it was Korea it was so I could fall in love with a boy named Shin who clumsily took my virginity two weeks before we had to move again. When The American School in Stuttgart was full, Dennis and I went to Lycée Fran?ais and stayed. The universe must have wanted our lessons to be rigorous and consistent no matter where we were. Certainly, Dad didn’t mind that we were taught to always just be polite, deferential to authority, and keep our noses clean. But by fourteen, nothing about me was clean.
It’s true, sometimes things happen for a reason. And sometimes the reasons suck.
Moving around that much meant I didn’t have a chance to fall in love. And if I couldn’t fall in love, I was just going to let my body have a party. Free birth control in Belgium and not being anywhere long enough to get a “reputation” meant I could do what I wanted. I just had to make sure I kept away from other girls’ boyfriends and stuck to guys who didn’t talk so much.
When I was seventeen I cost my father his security clearance. I was caught in a car on a desolate Scottish road with a rugby player. People talked. My parents, who kept their noses so clean they glowed, asked for a transfer so we could start from scratch yet again. We went back to the states in deadly tense silence. After that, I felt as if I couldn’t do anything right. My parents made me nervous. My father in particular always seemed to look at me sideways, as if he was looking for me to get into some kind of trouble.
Once we settled in Texas I had a habit of not disclosing any information about anything. I got into and out of minor scrapes by being straightforward and respectful at the same time. I adapted easily to new situations and watched how other people behaved before I acted. I was a natural diplomat.
My peers and their parents may have been right. I might have been cold. I might have been unemotional. People and their judgments scared me. I was only really myself around children.
I went to college for child development and took on a teaching position for about five minutes before I was offered a ton of money to watch Jude and Karen McVino’s twin toddlers while they shot a movie in Austin.
When they went back to Hollywood I went with them. I said good-bye to my parents. They got stationed in Argentina while I was gone and after a few phone calls it got too easy to stop talking to them. Then it got hard to pick up the phone.
I was fine. I felt like I had a new family because those kids set a light off in my soul.
Not every child I’ve watched did that. I’ve loved them all, even the most rotten and entitled kids in town. But a few were exceptional.
“Brad Sinclair wants to meet with you,” Laura said on a call the day after the Griffith Park hike. Blakely and I were on the balcony of her cheap Los Feliz rental. She had a beer and a magazine. I had a book and a bottle of water.
“He’s too famous.”
“I told him you’d say that.”
“Do you have anything coming up? Isn’t Ken Braque’s wife pregnant?”
“Three months. You might want to meet with Brad for a consultation. The poor guy’s confused as hell and his parents are going back to Arkansas soon.”
“Tell him how to parent? That never goes well.”
“Just go meet him,” Laura said. “As a favor to me. It’ll look good for the agency.”
“For you,” I said. We said our good-byes and hung up.
Blakely put her foot on the railing. Her big toe poked out of her sock and the brand of beer she was drinking was a dollar a can. When I opened the screen door she held the magazine up.
“What do you think of her nose?”
I looked at the picture of Frida Julian. “Looks like a nose.”
“It used to be huge. I was in acting school with her. Total honker. And she was stunning, even with that thing on her face.”
“You have a nice nose.” I sat on the chair next to her.
“Yeah. But if it were bigger that would be all people would see. I’d be unrecognizable.”
I didn’t feed further into her fantasy. I had to figure out if I wanted to step into Brad Sinclair’s life.
“Maybe she was stunning because of it.” Blakely considered this more to herself than me. I wasn’t even in the room anymore. She needed something to do besides worry and wonder. If she could just get a job, she’d be all right.
I decided to see Sinclair. At the very least, maybe I could help out Blakely.
CHAPTER 5
CARA
The house was ginormous. The kind of house you got just because you could. Everything about this stank to high heaven. Everything about Brad Sinclair was wrong. From his travel schedule, to the way he partied, to the number of women he reportedly bedded weekly.
A guy in a white shirt and black jacket opened the car door. Probably a driver on staff. That was a good sign. But as signs went, the yellow Maserati with the scratched bumper parked by the garage wasn’t as good.
“Thank you,” I said, handing him my keys. I’d been briefed on how well-staffed Brad Sinclair was. So the house valet didn’t surprise me. The guard at the gate didn’t surprise me. The catering truck behind the house was likely some celebrity chef who kept the fridge and pantries stocked when the celebrity in question was home.
Which wasn’t as often as people thought. I’d traveled with the McVinos, and the life they led was unfriendly to keeping a house, a family, or a routine. Unless they took their entire staff with them, a working actor or director spent weeks at a time eating in hotels in the middle of the night after a fifteen-hour day. They picked what they could off craft services tables, and if the film didn’t have a huge budget, the only options on the table were fat, sugar, and salt.
Uncomfortable costumes, exposure to weather, long hours, tons of waiting.
I’d need a staff when I was home too.
The front door opened. I expected a housekeeper or butler, but it was the actor himself.
I hadn’t forgotten how beautiful he was; I’d just chosen not to think about it.
“Ma’am,” he said. Southern boy. Parents together. Christian elementary. Public secondary. Two years at USC Drama. Dates his costars for a month after the wrap party, then moves on. Poring through the trades and making calls, I’d discovered he’d spend at least eight of the next twelve months overseas doing action movies, but most had postproduction in town.
“Mr. Sinclair,” I said, holding my hand out. “Nice to see you outside a bathroom.”