Chapter 19  

Grey

Wednesday afternoon, Bernadette sends me back to the costume trailer for a fresh shirt.

“That one’s history,” she says, shaking her head at Garrett. He’s sitting at a desk in an office set up in the studio, coffee stains splattered across the front of his button-down. Today, we’re shooting footage of his character, Mr. Knightley. He’s supposedly some kind of real estate tycoon who rarely works. My dad’s friends with a couple of real estate tycoons and those guys never stop working, but this is the Hollywood version, I guess. In the film, Knightley mostly just lounges around and gives Emma Beautiful Emma a hard time as he struggles to hide his ardor for her. Painful.

“It most certainly is. We can’t take me anywhere,” Garrett says, with a big smile.

You can, but it’s a hazard. Turns out he’s super accident-prone. The problem is he thinks he’s a multitasker, but he’s really not. Earlier this morning I stopped him from smashing into a car as he was walking, texting, and talking to me. Part of my job is turning out to be making sure he doesn’t kill himself. I’m babysitting a toddler.

“Just try talking before or after you drink next time,” I tell him.

“Not during, Greyson! I’ll remember that!”

He won’t.

As I’m heading outside, I hear my name. It’s Brooks, who’s standing with the director of photography. “We’re on a shooting schedule so make it quick, please,” he says.

I nod, but as I step into daylight, a surge of anger shoots through me. The dynamic over the past couple of days makes no sense. Garrett orders me around, but it doesn’t feel disrespectful. It’s light and joking. He loves it when I shut him down, or call him out on behaving like a princess. He thinks it’s hilarious, which somehow makes it easier for me to schlep around and do shit for him. With Brooks, it’s been the opposite. Whenever his assistant director is busy, he asks me for things. He’ll say please like just now. All proper and nice. But I still feel like he’s ordering me around.

I’ve been trying to tell myself it’s because we were friends before this. I’ve known him since he and Adam were at Princeton together, and we were roommates for a few months. But I think it’s more than that. It feels like he’s making a point of letting me know where I stand. Which is about a thousand pegs below him.

As I head to the costume trailer for Garrett’s replacement shirt, I think about last night, when I saw him in the parking lot with Skyler. It was late and almost everyone else had already gone home. I was in the Mercedes, and I had Garrett with me, as usual. He was talking on the phone and checking his schedule for the night on his iPad, so I’d know where to drop him off. I watched Skyler snap a helmet on and climb onto the back of Brooks’s bike. I watched her wrap her legs and arms around him. She didn’t see me, but Brooks did. Brooks looked over but he didn’t tip his head or smile or anything.

It was more like we just looked at each other, acknowledging the situation. He got the beautiful girl on the back of his motorcycle. I got the gay actor who couldn’t remember his iPad pass codes without my help.

I’ve only seen Skyler one other time this week. That was also yesterday, when I ran into her at craft services after lunch. She had a tray with an apple and some kind of smoothie on it. When she saw me, she set it down and the apple rolled off the tray, but I caught it.

“Congrats,” I said, setting the apple back on the tray. “On getting Emma Beautiful Emma. I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet . . . ​I’m happy for you, Skyler.” I’d stepped in to give her a nudge on the shoulder, just needing to touch her. But she must’ve thought I was moving in for a hug because that’s what we ended up doing. Hugging right by the fruit bar.

It was amazing and unexpected. But later, when I saw her straddle Brooks’s bike and leave with him, that hug lost the amazing part.

I’m so tied up in my head that I’m not prepared when I jog into the wardrobe trailer and see Skyler sitting on a long bench. With my mom.

“Shit . . . ​shirt. I was sent to get a shirt,” I stammer. “Garrett spilled shirt on his coffee. I mean coffee. It’s what he spilled.”

No idea what I just said. My body temp is skyrocketing. Mia’s here, too, standing by one of the clothing racks. I focus on her because she’s the safest.

She lifts a white men’s button-down. “Bernadette radioed me. I’m on it.” She disappears outside before I can say a word.

“Hey.” Skyler smiles at me, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I just met your mom. We were just—”

“Stepmom,” I say, and almost cringe. I don’t want Skyler to see this. She doesn’t need to know about my family issues.

Madeleine rises and steps toward me like she’s approaching a wild animal. “Hello, Grey.”

I haven’t looked at her in months, and she looks different. Older. Prettier. Thinner. Happier.

Growing up, people would always tell me how pretty my mom was, mistaking Madeleine for her. My real mom doesn’t look anything like Madeleine. My real mom looks like she’s lived a hard life. She has. And I wish I didn’t know that. I don’t know why the hell I had to go see what I thought I’d been missing. I ruined everything.

Mom gives a shaky smile. “Adam and Skyler were just telling me about your singing. I’d love to hear you sometime.”

For a second, I think she’s heard about Revel, but she couldn’t have. I made Garrett swear he wouldn’t tell anyone, and my band is a pretty isolated part of my life. Adam hasn’t even met them. Then I wonder: Is this how Mom thinks this is going to work? That we can just skip eight months and pick it back up this easily?

You can’t hear me sing, I want to say. But I glance at Skyler, who’s definitely aware of the tension now. “Someday . . . ​maybe.”

Madeleine’s smile goes bigger. It’s too hard to look at. She hasn’t earned that kind of happiness. How can she be that happy just because I told her she can hear me sing? It doesn’t seem right. It seems like too much. I don’t know why she’s not yelling.

“So . . . ​uh, the bedroom door in my trailer keeps jamming,” Skyler says. “Do you mind if I borrow him for a minute, Madeleine?”

Mom is in some euphoric alternate dimension. Hope is marching all over her face like a parade. I want to shut it down. I want to squelch it, but Skyler’s hand closes around my wrist, pulling me toward the door. She lets go outside, and we say nothing until we reach her trailer.

“Family problems?” she says, stopping in front of it.

What’s the right answer here? Deny it? That’d be lying. Tell her yes, she’s right? She already thinks I’m a stupid kid. I take a pass, going with silence.

Skyler nods. “I’ve got those, too.”

“You said you have a jammed door?”

“No. That was improvisation. You looked like you needed to get out of there.”

“You rescued me?”

“I think so.”

My chest relaxes, and my breathing flows back in and out. You did, I want to say. Thanks, I want to add. But I don’t.

“Come on.” She opens the door to her trailer, and I follow her inside. Skyler grabs two beers out of the mini-fridge, pops them open, and holds one out to me. “Don’t report me to the authorities, okay?”

“Skyler . . .” I can’t handle the young jokes right now. I need to get out of here. Hanging out with her when I’m this shaken up is a bad idea.

I turn to go, but she takes my hand and places the beer there. She doesn’t say anything but there’s warmth in her eyes. She taps her beer against mine, then climbs up onto the kitchen table, which is affixed to the trailer floor on a pedestal.

I stand in front of her and we drink our beers. Skyler swings her legs a little, back and forth. Other than that, we’re quiet. The incident with Mom recedes with every sip of cold Mexican beer. It hits me: I’m alone with Skyler.

“So, Greyson.” Her mouth transforms from a faint smile to a wide grin. “How’s it going with Garrett?”

“We’re best buds. How’s it going, being a movie star?”

“Great. Except I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“You look the part.”

“Hah,” she says, because she’s in Emma wardrobe, a white shirt with pink flowers that scoops down. I don’t even tell myself not to look. She’s gorgeous. Full breasts, pale smooth skin. She looks like a woman, curvy, where a lot of girls in this town are so thin. Origami sharp.

I step closer and set my beer down. Then I reach out and run my fingers over her collarbone, a brush against her skin. She’s so warm and soft.

I look into Skyler’s eyes, and see her surprise. That makes two of us. I have no idea what’s gotten into me. But there’s something in her expression, an eagerness and invitation. She’s drawing me in. I run my fingers up her neck, to her soft pink hair. She leans into my hand and my body goes electric. How can such a small thing feel so big? She blinks at me, and I freeze the moment, her leaning into my hand. She’s the most feminine, perfect thing I’ve ever seen.

“You’re beautiful.” I don’t care if she knows I think that. She has to know she’s beautiful. And I have nothing to lose. She’s not mine. She won’t ever be.

I sense the shift between us before Skyler straightens, moving away from my touch. “Grey,” she says.

I snap back to reality, withdraw my hand, step back.

What the hell did I just do?

“Thanks for the beer,” I mutter.

Then I’m gone.

It’s past seven o’clock by the time Titus and I haul ourselves out of the Pacific. The shoot ended early today, and we got a long session in. The surf was awesome. I prefer the breaks in Oxnard and north Malibu, but Venice delivered tonight.

Titus peels off his wetsuit and racks his board. He’s supposed to meet his parents for dinner at seven, so it’s a lightning-quick change. He jumps into his Jeep dripping wet.

“Maybe tomorrow?” he says.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

It’s become our refrain in the band. We’re in a holding pattern. Vogelson told Rez he wants to hear us play live to get a feel for our performance quality. So Rez ran some of our booked gigs by him, but apparently Vogelson had something else in mind. He didn’t say what, exactly, only that he was working on something and would send more details soon. So “maybe tomorrow” has become our constant hope. Rez, our worrier, is paranoid Vogelson will back out even though the guy said he loved our demo. None of us will relax until an audition gig is officially locked in with him.

With Titus gone, I head for the outdoor showers. They’re for surfers and beachgoers, but who says they can’t also be for guys living out of garages?

I rinse the sand and salt water off my board and wetsuit and set those aside. Hardly anyone’s on the beach anymore, but the foot traffic around the restaurants is picking up. The sun’s setting over the ocean, pink and blue and purple, and I wonder if Adam, Alison, and Mom are seeing the same thing twenty miles north of here, on the back patio at Adam’s house. I remember the text I got earlier today from him.

Adam: Dinner, just you and me?

And my reply.

Grey: Can’t.

I don’t know if I’m pissed at him for letting Mom stay at his place, or because I work for him now and it feels . . . ​demeaning. But I’m not up for seeing him. Not seeing him doesn’t feel great either, though. I can’t win.

With my gear clean, I grab a bottle of shampoo from my backpack. It’s more out of habit than necessity, since I have almost zero hair. But strange things that seemed insignificant before matter more now that I’m homeless-ish.

Sleeping on the Titanic in the garage has been uniformly depressing. I’ve done it three nights, and there’s nothing about it I like. It’s worse on the nights the band doesn’t practice and I’m there alone. Sunday was one of those.

Tonight’s one of those nights, too, but this time I have a plan. Surf, which always boosts the mood. Shower, also a mood-booster even if it’s a cold, outdoor shower. Burrito and beer at the corner taqueria, after I drop off my board at the garage. Then friends. Rez teaches music lessons to little kids on Wednesdays, so he’s out but I’m going to try to hook up with Titus again later. Or maybe I’ll go see what Shane, Nora, and Thor are up to.

I went a little overboard on the shampoo and some runs into my eyes. I tip my head up and let the water flush the sting out. An image of Skyler earlier appears in my mind. How she looked when I’d touched her neck in her trailer. She’d liked my hand on her. I know she did. I imagine what would’ve happened if we’d kept going. If we’d both stayed in that suspended place, where it was just me and her and nothing else. I picture myself kissing her, my hands on her hips. My fantasy ends there, because I hear something that sounds like my name. A lot like my name.

I step out of the shower and grab my towel, wiping my eyes.

“It is you!” Mia says. “See, Sky? I told you it was him.”