Tile sees the IM from over my shoulder. It’s Daria asking me how the interview went. She types that things are happening faster than we thought with my show because another artist dropped out.
“Do you think she has an ulterior motive?” Tile asks, being his clairvoyant self.
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, your pictures are pretty tight,” he says.
I know he’s saying this from an artistic point of view and not because he’s my sibling, and that makes me feel proud. But then he adds an expression he must have picked up from one of my dad’s scripts. “They pack a wallop.”
The phone rings, and it’s finally my father. He sounds out of breath. I realize he’s calling me from a gym, probably one of those posh L.A. ones. I picture Jodie Foster on the next StairMaster.
“Is Tiley good?”
I can’t deal with pretending everything’s fine anymore.
“Yes. Listen, Dad …” I realize Tile is still in the room. “Why did you lie to me?”
I hear the cardio machine he is on slowly stop, then just his breathing on the line.
“Moon, I didn’t lie, I simply omitted information. We went through this. It’s very complicated.”
I motion for Tile to leave but he refuses to. Instead, he’s furiously writing down something on a pad to show me: Get to the bottom of it.
“Well, we’re going to have to get to the bottom of it.”
“Okay, okay. Listen, Elise told me about some photography show, and that you have an agent. Is this really happening?”
“Yes, if you were home you might—”
“That’s great, Moon! I’m going to have Christy get on the horn.”
The first time I met Christy, my dad’s publicist, she secretly gave me a twenty-dollar bill. I remember not wanting to spend it, feeling I didn’t deserve it somehow. I never had the chance to prove anything to her, smiling condescendingly with her blinding white teeth and her Prada bag. It was just because I was the daughter of Jules Clover. And now it’s coming full circle.
“I have an agent, Dad. And nothing is finalized. We don’t need Christy. But maybe you can invite Orlando if it happens.”
Orlando Bloom is the only celebrity I know as a person. Well, the only one I’m glad I know as a person. He worked on a film with my father a long time ago, and he actually lived in our house for a while. It was right around the time the Rachels started being really nice to me—go figure. He was so sweet and kind, and we talked a lot about silly things, not trying to be intellectual, just making each other laugh. It was the best time of my life. He has been my only crush other than Oliver. I knew he was too old for me but as Janine says, sometimes we want what is taboo, or what we can’t have. It makes it more thrilling.
“Done. But you must forward me Daria’s info. I have a few meetings tomorrow and Wednesday and then I fly home Thursday. I arrive too late but we’ll talk the next day. I’m so sorry, I know the timing is off on this, but with the film having unexpectedly done so well at Cannes …”
“Right.”
Tile is chomping at the bit.
“I’m so proud of you, Moon.”
“Luna—that’s going to be my photographer name.”
There is silence, then he says softly, “I know.”