The Hollywood Project: Shuttergirl Part 26

"Laine..."

"Don't you know you shouldn't look at someone else's phone?"

I wanted to curl up and die. I wanted to hope he hadn't seen it. I wanted it to be three seconds ago, when I could have put the bag down carefully, or half an hour ago when I could have shut off the phone, or three days ago when I could have called Jake and ended this, or ten years ago.

I couldn't breathe. The s.p.a.ce between us was suffocating. He was silent. That was bad. If he hadn't seen it, he would have just put his hands back up my skirt. I pulled it down and readjusted myself.

"What just happened? What was that?" he asked.

"Can we forget it? You can just drop me home." I couldn't look at him, so I couldn't detect what he was feeling. I wanted to look up and see him, but partly, I was afraid I'd see disgust and disappointment, and partly, I didn't feel worthy of being in anyone's sight.

He slid his hand over mine, brushing my fingers and lodging his in between them, just as he'd done on our last day at the bleachers, before he told me he was leaving.

I snapped my hand away. "I'll take a cab."

He grabbed my jaw and turned my face toward his. "Talk to me."

The limo crept forward, and the blue light from outside moved across his face in a hard line. He didn't scare me. His hardness actually soothed me. But I didn't want to be soothed. I didn't want to be comforted. It made me weak and needy. I bit back a hitched breath.

"I can't," I croaked.

He reached behind me and hit a b.u.t.ton with his fist. "Gali?"

"Yes, sir?" came the driver's voice.

"Drive around the block until I say stop or we run out of gas."

"Yes, sir."

The car broke out of the line, and the paparazzi got small in the distance. I stared out the window, clutching my phone in my lap. I imagined opening the door at a red light and running. Running forever, cutting turns across lawns, leaping over cars, my b.u.t.t sliding over the hoods, hopping fences, and climbing a ladder to the top, the top, the top of anything.

Michael reached for the phone, but I held it.

"Just tell me," he said.

I shook my head. Cleared my throat. Drew my fingers under my eyes to catch the tears before they fell. "Listen, this was fun. I like you. You're a better guy than I deserve, as anyone will tell you. Probably you should go back to the party. People are expecting you. I'll go home, and we can just remember this very fondly. Okay? Can we do that?"

"Was that you in the picture?"

I looked down, turning the now-dark phone in my hand. "No. That girl is about sixteen. She's a..." I swallowed. Breathed. "She feels alone all the time, and she's young and immature, so she's not okay with it. So a little b.u.mp in the road, and she gets with a guy. And this guy? He's a sleaze, but he makes her feel taken care of. He gives her a roof over her head and a kind of family. He protects her, and he doesn't let her take any of the drugs he sells. But he..."

Breathe.

Breathe.

"He lets his friends f.u.c.k her. He uses her to make deals, and just... if they're all bored and drinking, they'll just use her for fun. She lets this happen for over a year, because if nothing else, she feels safe. It doesn't matter who f.u.c.ks her as long as he knows, and he's watching over it, and he says it's okay. Because he took care of me."

I hitched a little when I said "me" instead of "her." Pretending she was someone else was a useless ruse. I was a wh.o.r.e and worthless and the owner of nothing but my shame.

"Why now?"

"Pictures of me around, in the paper, on the internet. He was reminded, and I'm sure he thinks I'm rich now."

"And this is the guy from the hallway?"

I couldn't look at him, but I imagined he was turned off and just getting the facts straight.

"No," I said.

"Jake? Jake the Pillow Snake?"

"It doesn't matter. But yes. He was the son of the family I was with before the Hatches. Before Breakfront. He was twenty, maybe twenty-one when I ran away from Orry and Mildred, ran back to him. Right after you left."

"That's statutory rape, Laine."

I turned to him as if I wanted to bite him. I recognized the viper Lucy spoke about in the first two words out of my mouth. "I knew exactly what I was doing. I consented to everything, and don't you take that away from me. Fine world you live in, where my life was illegal. Cute. Real cute."

It was a low blow, playing the foster child card. But Michael would not be shamed by his privilege.

"He's peddling child p.o.r.nography? Posting those? And you consented to that?"

"I have to go." I went for the door handle despite the fact the car was still moving.

"Stop!" He held the handle. "Just stop. You're giving me whiplash."

I pushed him away. "I don't need you to take care of me! I don't need anyone to take care of me. Do you hear me? I can take care of myself!"

"Okay, I got it. You're capable. You know what you're doing. You're a fine, upstanding whirlwind of ambition. Then why are you shutting down? Why are you hiding? Why are you trying to get out of a moving car?"

"I'm trying to not hurt you."

"Hurt me? You're f.u.c.king killing me," he shouted, face tight in the moving lamplight. "I see this picture of you, and you're in pain, I can see that, and you tell me this story, and it hurts to hear it. And now you're running away because you think I'm looking to get away from you. You're trying to do me a favor because... what do you think of me?"

"I think you're normal. Just cop to it-"

"Cop to what? Wanting to go to a party instead of being here for you? Laine, I want you. I care about you. You give me something I've never had before. You're a devil in high heels, but you... G.o.d, I want you. You. Your body, yes, but everything else too. I want to make everything in your world right. I can't help it. Let me in. Just let me in."

I leaned back on the seat as if my neck couldn't hold my head. "You're a good person. Don't make me something you have to fix. I'm fine. I earned my life the hard way."

"Let me in."

"Why?"

"Because I won't hurt you."

"But you will." When I blinked, the tears that had hung over my eyes fell onto my cheeks. "Jake is going to put these all over the internet, and you'll have to protect what you've built. They won't tolerate you with a wh.o.r.e. You'll stand by me out of obligation, and you'll blame me. How could you not?"

"None of that is true." He took a handkerchief from his inside pocket.

"It'll ruin you unless I give him what he wants." I brushed my hands over my cheeks, but he pulled them away and handed my face the handkerchief.

"What does he want?"

"Money. Which I'll give him." I sniffed. Wiped.

"Is that it?"

"Probably a nostalgia screw. He's come around few times since I left. And no, he never got what he came for."

Michael leaned back and looked out the window as we drove down the dark expanse of deLongpre for the fifth time, turning back toward the colored lights of Hollywood Boulevard. I a.s.sumed he was coming down from the drama-high of our conversation and was putting together what being with me meant. Finding a loophole. Strategizing a way to break it to me.

I'd had a couple of parent-sets look me in the eye and say it wasn't me, it was them. I knew how it went. They needed to do it that way, but for me, it didn't matter.

I was happier being single, to be honest. If I dated anyone, he should be a pap or a criminal or something. Michael was a liability. He was going to end a career I loved.

I was okay.

Chapter 28.

Michael She was going to end me. Even if the thing with that picture-and who knew how many more-blew over tomorrow, she was trouble. I'd known that from the start and had continued as if she wore a costume that could be peeled off, as if she was acting. But she wasn't, not a bit. Her hurt was real and disquieting.

I could get out of it. Having said too much, too soon and having made little promises I couldn't keep, I could still get out of it. Save her and me a lot of trouble. It was better that way, really. I'd existed before I knew her, and I could exist after. Over time, we'd go back to the way we were, with her hidden behind a camera and me hidden in front of them. I'd stop being a magnet for her past, and she'd move on safely.

Excusing myself from her life was the only sensible thing to do.

"Laine," I said so low I could barely hear myself.

"Yeah?"

"How many pictures are there?"

"A roll. Thirty-six."

I looked at her for the first time since she'd mentioned a nostalgia screw. Her chin was an eighth of an inch higher, and her mouth was set tight.

"A roll?" I asked.

"Negative film and paper. Tom was learning. He left his camera, and the guys thought it would be funny to leave him a present."

"It's not funny."

"Tom didn't think so either. He said he threw up when he developed them, then he made me look at them. It was awful. But it doesn't matter how many, does it? One or a hundred, how many will it take to ruin your life?"

She was so guarded. She was braced to take a blow and beautiful in that. I was sure I could let her down easy and never see her cry over it. I'd walk away without a drop of guilt, only an ocean of regret.

Once I saw her tears fall and heard her admissions, her shame, and her self-blame, the idea that I could leave her was a distraction. She could take care of herself, but I didn't want her to. I wanted to take care of her. I wanted to be that man who was more to her, the one who treated her like the jewel she was. I wanted to be the one to protect her.

I touched her cheek. She pulled back a hair, still girded, her hand on my arm as if she wanted to draw it down. I slipped my fingers to the back of her head and pulled her toward me.

"Michael, really, I-"

I put my weight into it and kissed her because I had to. Her face knotted then relaxed, and she kissed me back.

I was unqualified to save her. My black eye proved it. But I was also unable to abandon her, because I wanted her with every cell in my body. I admired her strength, her dignity, her very spirit. She'd broken free of her situation through sheer tenacity and effort. The only care I had about her past was how to release her from its effect on her present and future.

She was no wh.o.r.e. She was a queen.

The seat vibrated. She pulled away and went for her phone, but I got it first. She grabbed for it, but I pulled it back. It was a call, not a picture, and it was from an unknown number.

"Stop," she said.

I answered it. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Who is this?" Male voice.

"Laine's phone."

"Where's she at?"

Laine looked as if she was going to explode. I put my finger to my lips, and she flipped me the bird. I was crazy about her. I had no reason not to be.

"She's indisposed," I said.

"What the f.u.c.k kind of word is that? Hey, wait. I know that voice. Man, are you that actor? 'Cos I will beat your a.s.s."

"How much do you want, Jake?" I asked.

Laine pressed her knees together and put her forehead on them. I rubbed her back.

"Foo!" Jake said into the room, away from the phone. "It's the guy whose face you busted! He wants to know how much!"

I couldn't hear what Foo said. I just stroked Laine's hair.

Jake got back on the phone. "I'll text you a number, b.i.t.c.h. What the f.u.c.k happened in Dead Lawyers? That explosion was-"

"I need a place and time, Jake. Thirty-six prints and negatives."

"Test prints," Laine said between her knees. "Tom did six test prints. I have one. So five more."

"Five test prints," I said. "If you can add, that's forty-one prints. Thirty-six negatives."