Avery didn’t sleep. Instead she watched Merritt lying beside her, the sheets at her feet, her arms stretched over her head. Even in her sleep, Merritt looked confident.
Avery remembered her mother explaining the magic of King & Crown. Plain women want a fantasy. Avery Crown with Alistair King. No one gets that in real life. Eighteen and hopeful, Avery had asked about acting in movies. You don’t always have to be beautiful in movies, she’d said. Marlene Crown had assessed her from her too-tight curls to her soul. But you do have to be talented. Home and garden is good for you. You’re not intimidating.
Avery wished she was intimidatingly gorgeous. Merritt was intimidatingly gorgeous. It was very clear that a woman like Merritt did not belong anywhere near a woman like Avery, especially not naked. Avery was pretty sure there’d be a split second when Merritt woke and looked like someone who’d been kidnapped. Oh, shit. What did I do? Where’s my kidney?
Eventually, dawn light crept under the curtains. It was three a.m. and then it was four. Call was at five at the command center. Avery had two choices: sneak out like a jerk or see that look of disenchantment in Merritt’s eyes. She dressed, then touched Merritt’s shoulder.
“I have go to work.”
Merritt woke. She looked a little blurry-eyed, not like a kidnap victim but a little sad. That was almost worse.
“Now?” Merritt glanced at the bedside clock.
“It’s almost five.”
Merritt smoothed her short black hair out of her eyes and it fell immediately back in place. “Take care, then,” she said.
Avery’s heart sank, but she mustered her courage. Her delinquent childhood friend DX (second only to Alistair in her affections) often told her to whip life like a Peruvian cowboy lays down a jaguar, tag it with a radio transmitter, and broadcast “I was here, motherfuckers!” Avery took it to mean carpe diem.
“Will I see you again after this?” she asked. “I could come by your shop.”
Merritt shook her head slowly. “You know we’d only mess it up,” she said, a regretful smile lifting her lips. “If we go out to Mother’s for eggs Benedict, we’ll kill the magic. You’re leaving in six weeks. Pretend it was a dream. We don’t want to be two more reunioners with nothing in common except too many mimosas.”
It was a poetic way to say, Thanks but no thanks. Avery tried to shrug it off. “Good point. I’m going to be super busy.”
She wanted to run out of the hotel room.
“I bet you are,” Merritt said. “You’ve got a big life. You’re a star.”
The gentleness in her voice made it even worse. It was the same tone Avery used when she had to disengage from a fan who had convinced themselves they were best friends. Merritt rolled over and faced the wall. It was over. Avery’s hand was on the door when she heard Merritt whisper, “My shop’s on Burnside. We’re open ten a.m. to six p.m. Don’t forget.”
If Avery hadn’t been used to tuning her ear to Alistair’s secret voice she wouldn’t have heard her. “I’ll stop by,” she said.
Merritt said nothing else. But Avery carried her words with her as she called an Uber, waited by the window, then ducked out of the hotel, careful to scan the street for Dan Ponza. He was nowhere to be seen. She had the familiar feeling that always struck her when she first arrived in a new city, before the first person recognized her. She could be anyone, any girl going home in the morning, a girl who didn’t have to watch for Dan Ponza, a girl who could cut her signature hair. I am the girl Merritt slept with! she thought over and over again as she rode back to the hotel seeing the city again for the first time.
* * *
Dawn was brightening when she entered her hotel room. She redid her hair. There was really too much of it, as though shampoo producers had gotten ahold of her agent and said, It’d really cut into our profits if she didn’t have so much to wash. Then she headed back to the parking lot and caught the last van to the command center. The old diner converted into office space was already buzzing. Alistair was sitting by the window flipping through his phone. She slid in next to him.
“Whatcha got?” Avery asked, trying to act casual.
Alistair touched the screen and a video started again from the beginning. Closed captioning read, Work is finished on the clinic in Stone, Wyoming. The America Wyoming Foundation is funding the eight-thousand-square-foot clinic, which will provide reduced-cost health care to communities in the area.
Alistair was so good. He wasn’t dreaming of his lover and the next time he’d be able to push his throbbing genitals against another person’s body. He was thinking about sick children.
“They know it’s you,” Avery said. “Why don’t you just go and cut the red ribbon?”
“They don’t know it’s me, and I hate all of them.”
Avery snorted. “Really. One person gets out of Stone and suddenly an anonymous donor is putting up clinics and after-school programs. And you don’t think they know it’s you?”
“They don’t watch King and Crown.”
“You don’t hate them.”
“I was asexual, beautiful, and in love with the theater.” Alistair fluffed his shiny blond hair. “They crucified me.”
One of the production assistants came by with Avery’s coffee. She didn’t need it. She would never have to sleep again. Don’t forget.
Alistair picked up the energy bar he’d been eating. The producers at TKO had struck a product placement deal with Global Body Biscuit.
“It tastes like twigs in dried marinara,” he said.
“So good.”
Alistair handed it to Avery, and they chewed meditatively. That was probably why Global Body Biscuits were such a good diet aid. It took hours to eat one.
“So?” he asked with a teasing lilt in his voice. “I didn’t see you at the hotel.”
“I didn’t ruin her life,” Avery whispered.
“I told you so.” They were speaking in the subsonic voice only they could hear.
“But she was mad!” Avery linked her arm through Alistair’s, squeezing him in her excitement.
“You’re happy about that?” He scrunched his perfectly manly forehead.
Standing in the courtyard of the Elysium, she’d been so nervous she didn’t think she’d be able to speak. It was Merritt’s anger that had given her courage. If she was angry, it meant she cared.
“It was like we could go back in time.”
“Hmm,” Alistair said. “I think they’re working on that at CERN, but I don’t know if it’s for sale at the Mac store yet. Did you go forward?”
Avery just smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder.
“You had nostalgia sex,” Alistair said.
“I thought she was going to say no, or that she was going to say it was all a mistake. But she wants to see me at her shop…”
“Not a one-off? Are you going to run off and leave me and marry a hardware store owner? Be careful of Ponza. You know Greg thinks he may be paid by Down Home Fixers. He wants to catch us doing cocaine or something, so they can get a cut of our Deep South market share.”
Avery didn’t care about the South or the market. She tried to find words for the feeling she’d had as she’d ridden away from the Jupiter Motel in an anonymous black sedan. Free. That was how she’d felt. Free and light, like a cloud floating across a perfect blue sky. She didn’t have time to say more.
Greg took his usual position in the center of the room. “You all have your call sheets,” he began, “so you know—and you’re going to love this.” His face said they wouldn’t. “Warren Venner, our new executive producer from TKO, is going to visit the set. He likes to keep his boots on the ground.”
Someone groaned.
“He wants more drama. Our ratings aren’t slipping, but they aren’t going up. He produced the show Cop Brides. He wants more drama on King and Crown. And this next part is big,” Greg went on. “You’re all a bunch of gossips, so most of you know.”
“What?” Avery asked Alistair. She hadn’t been thinking about anything but the reunion.
“Pine Street burned down,” Alistair said. “Do you even work here anymore?”
“The Pine Street house caught fire,” Greg echoed. “A few days ago. I didn’t tell you because we weren’t sure how much damage there was, thought maybe we could salvage it. King and Crown saves the day. Yada, yada. TKO decided it was too much to restore. But—” He looked more cheerful than a man who had just lost prime real estate in Portland. “Pam has got us a new building.”
Pam: the savant of purchasing. Of course she had gotten them a new building.
“It is an amazing property. I don’t know how Pam does it, but SkyBank—they’re this local chain, but they’re getting bigger—they wanted advertising time on TKO, but they couldn’t afford it. They’re going to give us this building in a trade. Get ready to find some Portland swag and get your dry rot on. We are going to rock this season!”
There was a round of hell yeahs and let’s get out theres.
“She’s your type,” Alistair said under his breath.
Sweet, asexual Alistair. Avery was never entirely sure how many of her romantic inclinations he shared. Sometimes he related. Sometimes he cocked his head with a bemused look. Now he nodded.
“She’d be anyone’s type,” he added.
When he was done with his announcements, Greg hurried over to Avery and Alistair.
“Hello, loves. Are you ready? Avery, did Alistair tell you about the new property? He saw it this morning.”
“Yes. I’m sorry I was late. I was…I had a cold.”
A cold was a lame excuse. Like she’d had a cold this morning for twenty minutes and then recovered.
“Aw, kiddo,” Greg said in his pleasantly paternal manner. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
It felt a little sleazy lying to Greg. He knew she was gay. The crew did too. They protected her from rumors and reporters. But Greg had enough to worry about with a new house and the executive producer on set, and she wanted to keep Merritt to herself for a little longer.
* * *
When they neared the neighborhood, Alistair told Avery to close her eyes. He took the silk scarf from around her neck and tied it around her head.
“I know you’ll peek.”
“He doesn’t trust me,” she complained to Greg, who was riding in the front seat.
“This is pretty spectacular,” Greg said. “I think this beats Austin.”
Avery closed her eyes beneath the scarf. The houses were never her real passion. It was the cities. But Greg and Alistair’s excitement made her smile. She loved the way they all still cared. Every episode, every city, every season, every decorative flourish, and every fixed pipe made them happy, even after fifteen years. She felt the van slow to a stop. She heard the van door open. Alistair touched her arm.
“We’re going to walk up a little flagstone path,” he said. He kept one arm around her waist. “I got you.”
Avery remembered Merritt catching her on the stone stairs, her body lean but strong. She had lingered in that moment longer than she should have. Alistair would have said she was playing the girl card. Oh, my savior. Protect me. But she couldn’t lift her cheek from Merritt’s breast. She couldn’t pull away from the smell of Merritt’s cedar cologne. Then she’d seen herself from the outside, like a full shot. She was the plain girl from a high school dramedy; Merritt was the star quarterback. Although, now that she thought about it, those movies always turned out well for the plain girl.
“All right.” Alistair stopped, his arm still around her waist.
The air felt cooler. Avery smelled damp foliage and stone.
“The resale on this place is amazing,” Alistair went on. “When we sell it, it’ll balance the budget for the season. And you will have so much room to turn it into quintessential Portland. Right now it’s Portland circa 1918, but we’ll modernize it.”
“Okay. Okay. Can I look?” Avery asked.
Alistair undid the knot in her scarf and swept it off her face. “Ta-da!” he said.
Avery stumbled backward. Alistair caught her against his chest.
“I know,” Alistair said. “It’s amazing.”
The beautiful, weedy courtyard was already filled with equipment: disassembled scaffolding, C-stands, a portable generator. One of the sound guys was taking readings, walking around the space repeating, “Partridge. Dewar’s. Stout. Partridge. Dewar’s. Stout.” Someone was setting up a table with pizza for the crew’s walking lunch.
Above their heads, the sky was a lonely blue.
“We can’t buy this,” Avery whispered.
“We already did,” Greg said. “Pam finalized the deal in the middle of the night. I don’t even know how she does it.”
“Happy?” Alistair asked. “It’s beautiful.”
Avery couldn’t speak. It was horrible. It was the worst thing she had ever seen. It was Merritt’s Elysium.