Part 33 (1/2)

”That was very kind. I don't get that much anymore.”

”You're just amazing. I'm sorry. You were, I mean, are so talented. And I'm sorry to meet you with all this terrible stuff happening.” I willed my mouth shut.

”How is he?” Lucy asked. I felt rescued.

”Stable,” Brooke said. ”He's in there telling his son the meaning of life right now. Apparently it only comes to you when your internal organs fail.”

”I hear that happens. You only figure out what's important at times like that? I've heard that's the case.” I thought I'd willed my mouth shut, but like a lousy dieter seeing friends at a restaurant, all my self-control went out the window in front of Brooke Chambers.

”It's a bad time, Laine,” Brooke said. ”Just a bad time all around, with the movie falling off schedule and my son being arrested.”

”I'm sorry about that.”

Lucy put her hand on my arm.

”You didn't mean any harm,” Brooke said. ”Everyone has the best intentions. You know, my son never does things the easy way. He makes everything an uphill battle. But it's his career.”

Best intentions. I didn't like the sound of that. Best intentions meant everyone was misguided. It meant everything had gone wrong and people were hurt. It meant that no matter how much everyone involved wanted to be upright and strong, some situations were dead in the water.

I was probably being oversensitive. I was probably only hearing a reprimand because that was what I chose to hear. Brooke wouldn't be at her best in a hospital waiting room. She didn't know me, yet she knew what I'd been through. I was in a fishbowl where she could see me, but I didn't really see her.

I eked out a smile. I wanted Brooke Chambers's approval, and asking what she meant or defending myself at fifteen or twenty-five wouldn't be helpful. We were there for a family, not petty insults. She was making a point about something bigger than three women in a tiny room.

I got it. I got it loud and clear, a message developed in boiling hot chemicals, cl.u.s.tering the silver grains into lumps. I saw the image of what she meant, though the details were lost in the contrast.

And I found that image was perfect in the frame. Uncomfortable and unpleasant but somehow more real and accurate than anything with the details burned in. She was right, even in what she didn't say.

She didn't say that the pain was inevitable despite our best intentions.

She didn't say that he and I were an uphill battle.

But she did. She'd said I'd break him in the course of loving him. I was just another choice that made things harder than they had to be. I'd end his career.

My career was over. Was I going to make sure his was too?

Michael came into the room, and I felt a longing for something I didn't have, even though he was right in front of me.

Chapter 41.

Michael I didn't expect her. I'd expected my mother and Lucy and no one else, because my father wouldn't want anyone to know he was in the hospital until he was back on his feet and growling at doctors.

”Hi,” I said to Laine as I hugged Brooke.

Lucy piped in, ”I brought her, so if you didn't want her here, you can blame me.”

”Nice to see you too,” I replied, kissing her cheek.

”How is he?” she asked.

”Getting his curmudgeon back.”

I put my hand on Laine's shoulder and pulled her into me, expecting her body to feel the way it always did: pliable, soft, and luxurious against me. But though she made all the motions of affection, she was stiff and distant.

”Excuse us a second,” I said to my mother.

I pulled Laine out into the hall. The lights were brighter and the floors more scuffed. She looked tired and wrung out.

”How are you doing?” I asked, touching her face. ”We're trying to get the pictures taken down.”

She didn't look at me. ”I don't care about the pictures.”

”Really?” I didn't believe her, and my tone let her know it.

”No, I care.” She let her gaze drift up to me. ”But how are you doing? You look tired.”

”Long night. For both of us. Want to go to bed?”

I didn't know where my sudden playfulness had come from-maybe the fact that my dad would be all right and seeing Laine wasn't broken about the pictures. She was miles away, but she was in front of me. I was relieved that I could do something, and that she was there, and I needed her.

Yes, I needed her against me. I admitted that. So I said quick good-byes and hustled her into my car. I may have been too wrapped up in my own happiness and despair to realize she was pensive. Or I may have expected any normal person to be a little off after the events of the last twenty-four hours. I can't imagine we weren't both completely scrambled.

But I took her hand in the car and she put her head back on the seat, looking out the window.

”We're getting as many of the pictures taken down as we can,” I said as we crossed La Cienega.

”What does liver failure mean? Will he be all right?”

”Ken is on it. And the police are doing what they can.”

”Your mother, she was upset, she couldn't hide it. Is she always like that?”

”That Jake guy, I swear if they don't lock him up and throw away the key...”

”Lucy's all right,” she said. ”I really thought she was the worst person in the world, but she's thoughtful, and she loves you. I guess people change.”

”I think they do.” I turned into the hills. ”I mean, they don't really. But they do.”

”They improve.” She turned her head to face me, her cheek on the back of the seat. ”We improve.”