I glanced across at her and she was looking at me, her eyes wide enough to dive into.
I wanted to keep her attention, to share stuff with her in the hope she’d see a person I didn’t show many people. I wanted her to see the man beneath the star. I wanted her to know the real me. “I was ambitious as a teenager, but also impatient. I couldn’t wait to get out of Gary, and away from that world that belonged to my parents.” I looked over at her again and she just nodded, encouraging me to tell her more. “They worked so fucking hard and still had nothing left at the end of every month. I knew I wanted more than that, but I also understood it wasn’t going to fall from the Indiana sky.”
“So, you didn’t go to college?”
I shook my head. “Like I said, I was impatient. I wanted to get on with life, so I arrived in New York with like ninety cents in my pocket and got a job in the post room at an investment bank and used to listen in to telephone calls and the traders. I figured I’d learn as I went along.” I’d wanted to be just like those guys on the trading floor. They smelled of money.
“So when did the acting thing happen?” She sounded genuinely interested, as if she hadn’t heard this story before even though it was all over the internet. It surprised me. I had expected her to Google me—most women wouldn’t have been able to help themselves—but now I wondered if Lana had stopped after she’d satisfied her curiosity about my relationship with Audrey.
“Modelling came first. I was approached in a nightclub and it was extra cash so I wasn’t about to pass that up. After that, things happened really quickly. The money was good and people seemed to like booking me. I never looked back.”
“So what didn’t fall from the Indiana sky rained down in New York instead?”
I got that response a lot, especially in the beginning, and I understood that it sounded as though I’d had an easy ride but little came easily in life.
“What’s that phrase? Something like ‘the harder I work, the luckier I get.’” I drummed my thumbs on the steering wheel. “When I got signed, I spent hours with my agent, pumping her for information about the industry—what made a successful model. Why some just faded away, where was the money being made. You make it as a model when you land a big campaign—an aftershave ad or become the face of Calvin Klein. It’s the equivalent of getting a franchise in acting. It’s the pinnacle of success. So I figure, that’s what I aim for—I wanted to be the best at what I did. I still do.” That was why I was so focused on getting this fucking franchise, why I couldn’t believe I’d almost fucked it up. I’d been so close to losing everything. “After I got my first paycheck, I bought every magazine I could get my hands on and I studied. I figured out which models were getting campaigns. Which were stuck doing low paid editorial crap but never landed anything big. I worked out why some models were labelled ‘commercial’ and others weren’t.” Those were the guys who made a living but weren’t ever going to break out. I didn’t want to be an also-ran. I could have stayed in Indiana for that. “I made sure I knew everything about every fashion photographer working at that time. I worked out three hours every day. I showed up on time, every time, and I took direction. I learned from the photographers what was good about my body and what I needed to keep hidden. And I booked many jobs so the right people saw my face. So yeah, it was some luck and a lot of hard work.”
She nodded. “I guess I made an assumption. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s always better to be underestimated.”
“I wanted to escape Worthington so badly as a teenager.” She shook her head and smiled. “My best friend and I used to spend hours researching and planning.”
“But you didn’t like New York when you got there?” I asked. I wished I’d hired a driver so I could just keep looking at her instead of having to focus on the road.
She lifted her chin in the direction of the windshield. “There’s just nothing that can quite top a view like that.”
“Wow,” I said as we turned to the right and the sea opened out in front of us.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Never fails to take my breath away.”
Her face lit with happiness and her skin glowed. “I know that feeling,” I said. I’d worked with some of the most gorgeous women on the planet but none of them came close to being as breathtaking as the one sitting next to me.
* * *
“Pull in right there,” she said, pointing at the side of the road. We’d been driving a couple of hours and she’d relaxed after I’d talked about the upside of fame, as though she’d understood the fame wasn’t something I chased. We’d talked and laughed about Worthington, LA and Gary. But she’d not mentioned why she’d left New York.
She was funny and clever and the more time I spent with her, the more I wanted time to slow down so the drive lasted forever.
I slowed and turned left up a sandy track. Thank God I’d rented an SUV—my little sports car wouldn’t have handled this terrain well. “Keep going?” I asked her.
“Just beyond the tree. I don’t think you can go any farther.” She leaned toward the windshield, trying to get a better view. After a few yards, we passed the chestnut tree and the track ended. We were surrounded by bushes planted in sand. I put the car in park and turned off the engine. How did she even know this spot was here?
“Let’s go see the ocean,” she said, grabbing the handle of the door. I followed her as she kicked off her sandals and ran between two trees, then disappeared.
“Lana?” I called. I reached the trees and looked down to find her waving up at me from the bottom of a small slope.
“I loved getting lost in these dunes when I was a kid,” she said when I caught up with her.
“You have all the boys chasing you then?” Not much had changed.
“Of course,” she said as I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “You agreed—no PDA.” But she didn’t pull away.
“We’re not in public.” I waved to a seagull flying overhead. “It’s just us and the birds.”
“What about drones?”
I chuckled. “I’m really not that interesting.”
“I was kidding,” she said, squeezing my hand.
We headed up the next dune. As we climbed higher, the sky expanded and the ocean came into view. “Wow.” The breeze lifted Lana’s hair and the strands splayed out behind her as if she were underwater. She looked like some kind of Grecian goddess standing at the top of the dune, looking out into the distance. Fuck, I could imagine starting a war for a girl like her.
She turned and smiled when she caught me staring. Then she was off, running downhill and shouting, “Race you to the bottom!”
Struck still by her joy, I took far too long to catch up. She had time to turn and raise her hands in victory as I reached her, but I didn’t stop, scooping her up and knocking us both back into the sand.