BACK IN L.A., ASHTON THOUGHT IT WAS THE GREATEST THING he’d ever heard, Julian being an extra in a horror movie. Though he wanted to know why Julian couldn’t audition for the part of the haunted warlord.
“Because I already have a day job.”
“Dayjob shmayjob,” said Ashton. “On the one hand Mr. Know-it-All, on the other—HAUNTED WARLORD. Like it’s even a choice, Jules, you lucky bastard.”
While Julian and Mia were in Hawaii, Ashton had ended things with Riley. Julian had a commiserating lunch with her at the Whole Foods café in Beverly Hills after Mia started rehearsals. They chatted about the wedding, the honeymoon, the Haunted Warlord. Toward the end, Riley finally brought up Ashton. “Did you know anything about it?” she asked. She was composed if shell-shocked. “Did you have anything to do with it?”
“Why would I?”
“Because this has you written all over it. First you and Gwen break up, not five minutes later you’re marrying some chick you barely know, and five minutes after that, Ashton is sayonara. It’s not his MO. He is not the type to make a decision like that, he is such a go with the flow guy. That’s one of the things I loved about him.”
“Riles, who are you kidding?” Julian said. “That’s what you hated about him.”
“I know,” she said. “But why does his wandering nature seem so appealing to me now?”
Julian took her hand. “You deserve better,” he said. “You will have better.”
“Is there anything better than him?” Riley’s elegant, fine-featured face had sadness etched on it as if she didn’t think so.
“Yes—me for one.” Julian smiled.
“You’re taken. And not for nothing, but why does Mirabelle get to have you? Who the hell is she? The rest of us have put our time into you. Years. She bats her eyes at you in a coffee shop and suddenly she’s Mrs. Know-it-All? How is that fair?”
“I’m saying,” Julian said, “plenty of other fish in the sea. For instance, did you notice how Mia’s mother’s companion, Devi Something, was smitten with you in Vegas? You stand a real chance with him.”
“I’ve had enough of your jokes,” Riley said, but she was smiling. “But, you know who does keep texting me from the wedding? Liam.”
“Liam Shaw? From Freddie’s?” Liam was a good guy, a tall welterweight.
“Yeah, he was pretty drunk at the Wynn. Kept asking me to dance. Got a little handsy. Now won’t stop texting me.”
“Riley, you can’t hook up with him,” Julian said. “Both your last names are Shaw!”
“I know! He told me he’s a thoroughly modern man and if I marry him, I can keep my name.”
“So he’s funny, too?”
“All you men think you’re damn comedians.” Riley glanced at her watch. It was time for her to get back to work. She walked Julian through the sliding exit doors and before he left, said, tearing up, “Are we still going to be friends, Jules? If you were a girl, you’d be one of my best friends. I think that’s another reason I’m mad.”
“Come here, Riles,” Julian said. “Come in for a therapeutic lean.” He embraced her. “You and I are not breaking up. We’ll always be friends. Who else is going to regale me with the benefits of a colonic cleanse?”
“Not to mention the benefits of coconut oil,” Riley said, giving him a kiss. “Or have you already discovered those?” She grinned into his grin and strolled back inside Whole Foods in her high heels and pencil skirt, her silky blonde hair swinging.
* * *
Julian’s dreams had lessened in their viciousness, but not in their murky vividness. There was less of her melting in fires or being shelled with empty bottles, less of his helplessness, but more of the heaviness. She kept appearing to him on a stage. She stood high in red lights or low on some door. Sometimes this door would open like a trap and she’d vanish. She wore headscarves and bonnets. Sometimes she was a boy. All her hair was cut off. Once she was in La Traviata, dying of a wasting disease. And sometimes she looked like a Russian babushka, in black clothes, with a kerchief tied under her chin, standing on a stage that froze under ice floes, reciting words he couldn’t hear.
In recent days, the dreams had become less about Mia and more about something else troubling and indefinable. He kept hearing a dull distant toll of ringing bells. He walked, trying to get closer to the sound. The tolling was constant, ringing every few seconds. He felt a man’s mangled hand on him. It was Devi, the Asian man Mia’s mother had brought to their wedding. In real life, shaking the man’s half-hand on the receiving line after the ceremony had flooded Julian with the oddest sensation, like stinging salt water filling up his body from his feet to his head. And the way Devi had stared at him . . . Julian didn’t know what that was about. In the dream, the man gave Julian something to drink. It was sweet. After Julian drank it, the tolling got louder.
He looked up. It was Big Ben. London again. It kept ringing and ringing.