The doorbell rang. Sofia looked martyred. “I’ll get it.”
She did not want to get it. Getting it meant she might have to speak to whoever was behind the door, and if she spoke to them, they might judge her clothing or hair or face or skills and find any of these things wanting.
“Oh, stop,” I said. “Seriously. I’ll get it.”
Only it was a celebrity at the door. Before my brother died, he used to say that things came in threes. Three celebrities in one day. Not bad, even for the greater Los Angeles area. This one was a petite woman with a heavy brunette fringe half covering her sleepy green eyes. She was beautiful in a casual, vintage way that looked so effortless that it must have taken a long time to achieve. She was not a woman. She was a picture of a woman. It took me a moment to place her, because she was one of those third-tier celebrities who got featured in interior tabloid pages and on slow-news days on gossip blogs. Her name was something strange, I remembered. It was — “Hi, I’m Baby North,” she said. “Are you Isabel?”
She clearly thought I would be shocked into something by hearing my name, but I made it a point of pride to not be shocked by anything. Especially after my sense of surprise had pretty much been broken by the appearance of Cole St. Clair earlier in the day. I could feel Sofia behind me, though, and I could just tell that her mouth was ever so slightly open.
“Sofia,” I said, stepping out onto the too-bright front stair, “would you go check the oven? I think I left it on.”
There was a pause, and then Sofia vanished. She was not stupid.
“What’s this about?” I asked. I didn’t realize it wasn’t polite until it came out of my mouth.
“An opportunity. If you’d give me a moment, I can introduce myself, tell you who I am, what I do —”
“I know who you are,” I said. She was a very pretty vulture who reanimated corpses for web TV, but I didn’t add that part, since I figured she already knew. I had an uncomfortable feeling inside me, a sense of why she was here, and some part of me knew I wasn’t going to like it.
“Good!” she said, and she smiled hugely. I didn’t trust that smile, because it was so great. It was wide and dimpled and symmetrical, a pinup girl from the past. “Can I come in?”
I surveyed her. She surveyed me. Her car sat on the curb behind my SUV. It was very chrome-y.
“No,” I said.
Her mouth changed and became something much more real. “Well, okay.”
Now manners were starting to catch up, so I added, with as much icy congeniality as I could manage, “It’s not my house. I wouldn’t want to compromise their privacy. And like I said, I know who you are.”
“Clever,” Baby said, like she really thought so. “Well, I’ll make this quick, then: Are you dating Cole St. Clair?”
I tried to keep my face blank, but surprise robbed me of my secrecy. I knew my expression had given me away for half a second.
“I don’t think dating is a word I would use,” I said.
“Right,” she replied. “I’d like to ask you if you’d like to be on a show with him. Cool, right? It wouldn’t take a lot of your time, and it can open up a lot of opportunities. ’Specially for a beautiful girl like you.”
The uncomfortable feeling inside me grew and solidified. I held the doorknob. “What sort of show?”
“We’re just doing a quick little show following him and his band around while they record their next album.”
Quick
little
show
I knew he wasn’t here for me. I had known from the beginning.
But my foolish heart hadn’t. It had wanted so badly to believe him. Now it was crushed up against my ribs by the growing terrible feeling inside me.
“I’m not interested,” I said. “Like I said, we’re not really dating.”
“But even as a friend —”
“We’re not even really friends,” I said. I needed to shut this door right now, so that I could go scream or cry or smash something.
“I just knew him for a while.”
She studied my face, looking for the true answer, but I had gotten ahold of myself now, and I just gazed dead-eyed out at her from behind my eyeliner.
“If you change your mind,” she said, and flicked out a card from the pocket of her linen smock.
I didn’t change my expression, but I took it. I needed something to burn.
“It would be cool,” Baby said. “The sort of thing you’d always remember. Just think about it.”
She retreated down the sidewalk. I retreated back into the House of Dismay and Ruin. As I shut the door behind me, the house took another piece of my soul and transformed it into a piece of semi-custom cabinetry. My brain was exploding.
Sofia stood at the door to the living room. “Was that really —”
“Yes.” I snatched my phone out. Punched in a number.
“What did she —”
I clawed my hand through the air and pointed at the phone.
I heard a little tap as someone picked up on the other end.
“I thought you said you were here for me,” I snarled.
“Hello,” Cole replied. “I was just putting pants on. Unless you’d prefer me to leave them off.”
“Act like you heard what I said.”
“But I didn’t.”
“You said you were here for me. You lied.”
There was a pause. The thing about a phone call is that you can’t tell what is happening in the pause. I couldn’t tell if it was a find-a-way-to-make-this-better pause or an I-am-genuinelyconfused pause.
“What?” he asked finally.
“You’re recording an album? You’re going to be on television.
Those things are not me.”
Another pause.
“Say something.”
“Something.”
“Oh, ha. Well, listen. The problem is that you made me feel as if you came here just for me, and actually you came here to be on TV. You didn’t come for me. You came here to be Cole St.
Clair.”
Exasperated, he replied, “That is backward.”
“Funny how you didn’t mention it before,” I snapped.
“Forget about dinner. Forget about it all.”
“It’s no —”
“Don’t talk. In fact,” I said, “drop dead.”
I hung up.
Chapter Six
· cole ·
When I was a wolf, I didn’t remember anything about being me. I was reduced to my very basic self, solved for x. I was nothing more or less extraordinary than an animal.
It was what every other drug I had ever used was trying to be.
All I could think about after Isabel called was how if I was a wolf, this feeling would go away, at least for a little bit.
Instead I stood on the wire-strung balcony of the Venice house and looked out at the nighttime glitter of the city. The moon was a huge, round Hollywood set piece at the end of Abbot Kinney. Palm trees were exotic silhouettes against its face — movie-perfect, L.A.-perfect. This place: Were movies Hollywood-perfect because this place was, or had they built this place to perfection because of the movies?
Standing on the balcony, a silhouette myself against the purple sky, my depression was just another glamorous thing.