The Girl Most Likely To

Chapter Five

“See? We arrived and you’re perfectly safe. You can let go now.”

Danny still gripped the handle above the passenger door window like he was riding the subway. It reminded me of how my mom would do the same whenever she sat in the passenger seat, but I didn’t think Danny would appreciate the comparison. It didn’t reflect well on my driving either.

“I’ll let go when we’re parked,”

Danny replied.

The joke was getting stale, but I kept that to myself. I drove past the cartoonishly tall and narrow wrought-iron gates at the Huntington Library’s entrance and stopped at the parking booth.

“Sorry, we’re closed!”

the parking attendant said. “If you drive up, you can make a U-turn and I’ll open the gate for you to exit the premises.”

That wasn’t an option. I couldn’t leave here without those passes.

“Oh, I’m with the Beyond the Dark crew,”

I blurted. The attendant eyed me, and it wasn’t hard to see why. I was too dressed up to be operating equipment.

“The crew arrived hours ago,”

the parking attendant said, like she didn’t get paid enough to deal with this shit.

“Right,”

I said. If only I had the FreeStream badge that HR made me surrender when I left my office. I tried to come up with something quick. “Do you have a list? I’m Rachel Dang. I’m a friend of Natalie Huang, lead actress of Beyond the Dark. If you call the crew, they can confirm that.”

“No, ma’am. I don’t have a list.”

I ignored the way “ma’am”

took my ego down a notch. “Unless you can provide proper identification that you’re part of the crew, I can’t let you in.”

I held up a finger to buy some time. I called Nat, but her phone went straight to voicemail. I spied the walkie-talkie strapped to the attendant’s waist, but I wasn’t sure if anyone would pick up if they were shooting.

“Hold on.”

I logged into Nat’s email on my phone. I’d been avoiding this because she gets so many messages and the notifications would drive me up the wall, but desperate times, desperate measures. I quickly found the email with Nat’s call sheet and found the production code, which was usually printed on yellow signs whenever something was filmed on location. “I’m with ‘UFO.’”

The code was a little bit on the nose. Productions typically used abstract words to throw people off. I showed the attendant my phone so she could see the call sheet on my screen for more proof.

She stared long and hard at my phone, then emitted a wary sound. Just when I thought she’d send me packing, she lifted the gate and waved me in. I was kind of shocked that it worked.

True to his word, Danny didn’t release his grip until we parked. He rolled his eyes at my victorious smile. “Fine. You’re a good driver. Are you happy now?”

“Yes.”

We followed the trail of “UFO”

signs inside the garden, past the sparkling reflection pool and down a winding path of desert plants.

“So,”

Danny said after some companionable silence, “you’re like a VIP. A flash of your phone and doors open for you.”

Was that his interpretation of the last few minutes? It was hard not to bask in his amazement. “I know how to get around,” I hedged.

Danny turned around and began walking backward. “It’s not like you to be modest.”

“How about humble?”

I suggested. I’d been humbled quite a bit as of late.

Danny gave me a questioning look, but there was a teasing glint to it. It didn’t last long. “You always liked movies. I’ll never forget watching Better Luck Tomorrow with you. You couldn’t stop talking about it after.”

I tugged on Danny’s sleeve and dragged him toward the middle of the walkway before he bumped into a spiky aloe plant. “Come on. It was the first movie I’d seen with a cast comprised entirely of Asian Americans in a contemporary setting. The lead was stressing over SATs. That was the relatable teen content I needed.”

Danny’s eyebrow arched. “What about the crime and murder parts?”

“Okay, that wasn’t relatable,”

I conceded. “But you have to admit, it was a cultural milestone!”

“My point is . . . I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Danny turned back around as the path narrowed, leading us into a different garden with more trees. I couldn’t tell what kind of foliage surrounded us now, but I appreciated the shade. “You were the one with a ten-year plan.”

I groaned as I dodged a low-hanging branch. In retrospect, the plan was delusional. Graduate college by twenty-two. Get a high-paying job. Find a boyfriend by twenty-five. Date for two years. Be engaged by twenty-seven. Have a baby and a house by twenty-eight. Naive eighteen-year-old me didn’t factor in the many, many variables outside of my control. “A flawed plan.”

We exchanged wan smiles at the same time. The coincidence of our mirrored faces had a pleasant familiarity, like finding your favorite station after turning the dial on a staticky radio. We had our own frequency that was irreplicable. I’d forgotten how easily Danny could draw me in with something as simple as a glance, and it was still frustrating.

If I had to pinpoint where our relationship went downhill, it was during a murky period when we were spending more time together, supposedly to study. My dad was getting worried about closing his business. Even though he downplayed his concern, I was feeling more pressure to get a Merit Scholarship. It was weeks before we graduated, and days away from our AP tests. I was the one who made Danny cram for our AP English practice essay questions, and I couldn’t fault him for actually remembering the things I said.

Of course, it looked suspicious that we both used similar phrasing. When our teacher asked us to stay after school to discuss it, I was so fearful that I was going to get disqualified or that it would go on my permanent record that I didn’t hear Danny offer to withdraw his exam. The only thing I seemed to catch was that he received a better grade than me. After that, I don’t know what came over me. I was livid. There was no talking sense into me. The things I said were uncalled for.

April 2003

“How could you get a better grade if we basically wrote the same paper?”

I folded my essay in half and stuffed it in my backpack.

“Why are you upset?”

Danny asked. “What happened to ‘I look good when you do good’?”

“I’m just saying, if you want to copy my work, cite me next time.”

Danny blinked like he’d taken a blow to the face. “Wow. So that’s how it is, huh? You think you’re better than me?”

As upset as I was, I knew it sounded bad, which was why I couldn’t bring myself to own up to it. “I wanted it more than you.”

That, he couldn’t refute. So he gave me the silent treatment for a few days before we were back on speaking terms. It wasn’t my finest moment.

At the time, my life was about ticking off checkboxes and hoarding as many awards, big or small, as I could. It was laughable how much I blew this test out of proportion—a test that had no real implications for our lives. The problem was that once I set my mind to something I usually achieved it. As a result, the misses were harder to swallow. “How about you? I mean, you’re doing well for yourself.”

“You could say that,”

he said as he readjusted his tie, intentionally flashing his expensive watch at me in the process. I’d never seen him with such a smug smile.

I let him gloat. He deserved it. “Okay. I see you.”

“What are you talking about?”

he asked innocently. Innocent, my foot.

“You’re loaded. I get it. You don’t need to be so obvious about it,” I teased.

“Oh, so I should cancel my helicopter, then?” he joked.

I’d missed this with Danny. Standing close to him, glimpsing the occasional silver strand in his hair, made me ache for the years of friendship we could’ve had together. “Do you even have space to land a helicopter at your mansion?”

“Actually, I bought a house not too long ago. It didn’t come with a helipad.”

“Wait. For real?”

The real estate market in California was horrific. Buying a house was a feat. “Where?”

“In Alhambra. It was originally going to be for my mom, but she decided to move to Houston to be closer to her family.”

“Congrats,”

I said, belatedly. I wished I sounded more sincere, but I was surprised that he was back in our hometown. “How long have you been back in town?”

“Last year,”

he answered, but didn’t elaborate. Instead, he stopped at a landing before the path turned. “You knew I moved?”

It was a loaded question. Danny watched me carefully, like he wanted to see the words come out of my mouth in case he needed to feed them back to me and make me eat them. “You know people talk. I happened to hear.”

There was a bitter tinge to his laugh. “Since when did you talk to people? I thought you didn’t want to talk to anyone from high school anymore. Or did that only apply to me?”

Wow. Danny sucker-punched me with that.

A breeze got caught in the corner where we stood underneath an umbrella of trees, rustling the branches. A confetti burst of leaves swirled as the wind carried them away. If only this weak tornado had been strong enough to whisk me away from this conversation. I could acknowledge that I wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t totally innocent either. He seemed to have amnesia about all the times he left me hanging, wondering what the hell we were doing. Had he ever stopped to consider his part in how things ended?

I would’ve accepted any one of several possible answers, like apparently being unable to give me more when he made things complicated by kissing me. Like an explanation for why he didn’t show up on Awards Night, which at that point was one of the most important days of my life. What had he expected? I couldn’t fix a relationship with someone who wasn’t going to put in the same effort as me. I’d reached my limit.

So much for letting the past stay in the past. I hadn’t come to the reunion to reignite old grudges. I wanted to show Danny a different version of me than the hotheaded version he last saw, but he was making it so difficult.

I brushed off a leaf that had fallen on my shoulder. “Listen. I don’t mean to get off topic. All I meant to say was that I’m happy for you. We’re both living our best lives.”

Well, one of us was. “There’s no need to rehash something that happened ages ago.”

“Then why does it sound patronizing when you say it?”

It wasn’t my intention. The truth was, I was pretending my life was peachy when it wasn’t, and I wasn’t cut out for acting. Unsure how to salvage the situation, I resumed walking, leading us down a steep concrete path out of the forest. “Let’s go find Nat and get out of here.”

“Fine. You’re the boss.”

“What does that even—”

No. I wasn’t going to dignify that comment with a response. I hated being the bigger person!

Fortunately, it wasn’t long until we found trucks and trailers parked by the set, which ran parallel to an expansive lawn.

“This way,”

I said to Danny. It helped that Nat’s trailer had her name on it. All we had to do was go inside, find the passes, and skedaddle.

We walked around an open truck filled with camera rigs and lights. I nodded a greeting to the crew, channeling top-brass energy as I climbed up the stairs to Nat’s trailer. I knocked, but when no one responded, I tried the door. It was unlocked, so in we went.

Nat’s trailer wasn’t very big, and I’d never seen her carry anything bigger than her gym bag to work. If the passes were here, they wouldn’t take long to find. “I’m going to check her purse,”

I said to Danny, who looked completely lost. “Why don’t you check her vanity?”

Danny palmed his cheek, looking befuddled by the bright lights and the makeup lying around. “I don’t know, Rach. This feels wrong. I remember Nat being cool, but I don’t know her well enough to search her things.”

“Fine, I’ll handle it. Could you just—”

I waved a hand back and forth at his wooden posture. “Could you chill? Take a seat while I look around.”

“Nat’s going to be okay with that?”

Danny asked, skeptical.

“Yeah, we’re really close.”

Like, I’ve seen Nat scratch her stomach when she yawns first thing in the morning, kind of close. “She won’t mind. We’re doing her a favor,”

I reminded him.

I opened the closet located at the corner of the trailer and found the tote bag Nat had been using lately. Inside, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Phone. Wallet. Keys. Sunglasses. Her favorite lipstick in three shades. No backstage passes, though.

I turned around to search the vanity, in time to see Danny dip a curious finger in the eyeshadow palette and swatch a green color on the back of his hand. “I don’t think that’s your color.”

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

Danny rubbed the evidence off his hand, though a glittery sheen remained.

“Sure,”

I said, unable to hide my grin. I pulled out the first drawer at the vanity, which held only hairbrushes. Danny moved to get out of the chair, but I tapped his shoulder to stay. “Don’t,”

I said, as I knelt down to search the lower drawers. “I got it.”

“I’m not in your way?”

His voice dipped lower, giving me the sense that he wasn’t just being courteous to me. I glanced up, to where Danny’s gaze held mine in the mirror. I recognized that loaded glance. I’d seen it from a distance, like when I used to pass Danny in the hallways, and I’d seen it up close. That gaze filled my chest so fast it hurt. If one look could unearth feelings I’d buried long ago, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with this charade.

Danny looked away first, giving me temporary relief. I thought I was off the hook until I followed the direction of his gaze. He was looking now at his arm, which I’d been holding on to for balance.

“Oh! I’m sorry.”

The words spilled out of my mouth, but my hands didn’t get the memo. I was still touching him. I quickly detached myself. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Danny rubbed his arm where my hand had been, like it was a stain. “It’s fine.”

It didn’t sound fine. Nothing was fine.

“I can’t find the passes,”

I finally said, hoping the change in topic could give us some emotional space. “Let’s try to find Nat on set.”

I opened the door of the trailer and walked right into a burly man. An angry burly man.

“You can’t be back here,”

he said. He was bearded and dressed all in black, like the rest of the crew, except this guy was built like a brick wall.

“I’m a friend of Natalie’s,” I said.

Beard Man crossed his arms and widened his stance like he was ready to tackle me if necessary. “Yeah, sure you are.”

“I can prove it.”

I pointed toward the set in the distance. “Ask anyone here. I’ve been to the soundstage plenty of times.”

“You and every other Beyond the Dark fanatic.”

I gasped. I liked Beyond the Dark, but I didn’t think I passed for a member of the show’s small cult following, which was confined to the nerdy eighteen- to thirty-five-year-old male demographic. Sure, my hair was short, but it wasn’t that short.

“Excuse me,”

I said, bringing a pointed finger to Beard Man’s face. “I’m not some random fan. I’m a FreeStream employee.”

The guy wouldn’t budge. “Huh, you sure about that? Didn’t they lay everyone off?”

My stomach dropped like I’d swallowed an anvil. Danny had been watching our exchange the entire time, but I saw the way his attention seared into me now that I was caught in my lie. Beard Man, oblivious to the tension brewing between Danny and me, wrapped his big hand around my wrist. “Ma’am, I don’t know how you got in here, but you need to leave right now.”

“Hey, man.”

Danny intervened and grabbed Beard Man’s arm. “Let’s not do this.”

“Yeah! Let go of me!”

I would’ve complied without force. We were done searching the trailer anyway. I tried to yank my hand free, but the guy was ridiculously strong. He pushed Danny off and removed me from the trailer without much effort.

Beard Man finally let go of me when we made it down the stairs. “Stay here until security escorts you out.”

Danny appeared next to me. He lifted my arm, checking it for injury. “Rach. Are you okay?”

I nodded, trying not to make too much of the brief contact. Anything would feel good after getting thrown out.

“That’s good,”

he said, releasing me. “So, is it true? You were laid off?”

I couldn’t tell if Danny was confused or surprised. When my mouth couldn’t produce a single word, his lips twisted to the side like he was sucking spinach out of his teeth. Danny palmed his forehead as his head tipped back in laughter. “I can’t believe this. I knew something was up, but I didn’t think you’d lie to me.”

“Well, I-I . . .”

I stuttered to my defeat. I’d graduated from Berkeley and yet I couldn’t come up with a decent excuse. I stretched my eyes to point at the beefy man standing between us and the backstage passes. “Now’s not really the right time to discuss this, Dan.”

Danny’s lips pressed into a thin line. He never liked being called Dan, even though he abbreviated my name all the time.

“I don’t know what’s going on,”

Beard Man said, interrupting us. “But you need to take that elsewhere.”

A crackly noise came from the walkie-talkie attached to his hip. He lifted it up to his mouth. “Come again?”

The voice on the other end spoke louder. “Keep it down. Cameras are rolling.”

“Sorry, chief,”

he responded, glaring at Danny and me. “I’m trying to get rid of some trespassers.”

“We’re not trespassing! We’re Natalie’s guests!”

I shouted. I didn’t give a fuck if I cost FreeStream money. What were they going to do? Fire me?

“Is that Rachel? Hi, Rachel!”

I stood taller at the sound of Nat’s voice projecting from the walkie-talkie.

“See?”

I smirked. “I told you.”

Beard Man was steadfast in his indifference. “Can you let her know we’re here for the passes? She’ll know what I mean.”

It took a few seconds, but Beard Man reluctantly brought the walkie-talkie to his face and asked Nat to confirm that she invited me.

Nat’s crackly voice responded. “Tell Rachel that I looked all over my trailer and I couldn’t find the passes. They must be at home. Sorry I didn’t text,”

her voice squeaked as she spoke in double-time, “and for making you drive back. I love you, ’k, bye!”

“Well, there you have it.”

It was Beard Man’s turn to be smug, and I couldn’t muster the energy to fight it. Not when I had Danny to answer to.

“We’ll let ourselves out,”

I said as I turned back to retrace our steps. Damn. I had to climb uphill in those damn heels. It wasn’t worth it when we were leaving empty-handed. Danny gestured to let me go first. He fell into step beside me, and when he didn’t say anything right away, I wondered if he’d let my little lie slide. “I can drop you back off at the reunion. I’ll go to my house to get the passes.”

“I have a question.”

My body recoiled in anticipation. I had to tell him the truth. I wasn’t fooling anybody. The designer suit I’d borrowed from Nat was now drenched in sweat. I was jobless with no real idea what to do next. I was thirty-eight years old, living in an overpriced apartment with a roommate who, up until recently, had struggled to put up her half of the rent. Our roles had since reversed. Nat was helping me stay afloat by hiring me to keep her life organized and fetching her things. I wasn’t sure how I got to this place.

“You and Nat live together?”

“Yeah. For the last seven years.”

I counted in my head to make sure that number was right. “Same apartment out in Silver Lake. It’s near the FreeStream office and close enough for Nat to drive to all her auditions.”

Danny glanced at his watch. “I’ll come with you.”

“You will?”

“It’ll take like, what? Twenty minutes to get there and twenty minutes back?”

Danny stared ahead as he made another mental calculation. “Mariana planned to kick off the program at six fifteen to give stragglers some time. If we leave now, we’ll probably miss the introductions and, at worst, a 50 Cent song or two.”

“Are you sure?”

Danny nodded. “That way, you have forty minutes to explain why you’ve been lying to me this whole time.”

“Fuck.”

My legs wobbled as I tried to climb the cracked, uneven path back to my car. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t intend to lie to you. I was laid off. It’d be nice if you could spare some sympathy.”

“I’m sorry. I really am, but would it kill you to admit that you made a mistake?”

“Yes,”

I huffed, blowing a tendril of hair away from my face. “I would literally wither away.”

I sneaked a look at Danny. His mouth was still twisted, but this time he was fighting a smile. It was nice to know that he wasn’t impervious to my sarcasm. “I don’t know why I lied.”

Danny chuckled off his disbelief. “I have a hard time believing that.”

“Why? Not everything I do is calculated to the most minute detail. Believe it or not, I’ve changed!”

Danny rolled his eyes. “I have!”

“You need to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!”

I hated it when people told me to calm down. All it did was pour gas on the fire. “Maybe you’re the person who hasn’t changed. You’re the one who can’t fathom that maybe I’m different. I don’t have a five-year plan. I don’t even know what I’m doing tomorrow. Unemployment is boring, and if Nat didn’t think it was utterly depressing, I’d park my ass on our couch and have myself a Princess Diaries marathon. I am, for the first time in my life, completely lost, and I don’t know what to do. So forgive me for saving face with my little white lie.”

I huffed as I recovered my composure. It wasn’t my intention to shout, but my feelings had gotten away from me.

Danny’s face softened, little by little, with empathy. He reached for my hand, clutching the side of it like he was holding a stapler. He gave it an encouraging squeeze, and I could hardly believe that the warmth from this odd clutch stole a breath from me. My skin yearned for more contact.

“I’m sorry,”

he said, but the squawk of a walkie-talkie interrupted the rest of his apology.

“Get them out of here,”

a pissed, staticky voice commanded. “We can’t film with all this fucking noise!”

Another voice responded, one that was deeper and closer. “On it.”

Before I could blink, Danny yanked me up the trail and we became wanted fugitives. If I weren’t in stupid heels, we would’ve made it much farther. But the dirt-covered slope was too slippery. I face-planted on the ground, and because of our joined hands, Danny fell too, right into a bed of cacti.

Danny yelped frantically as he jumped back onto his feet. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed that he had the athletic ability to bounce back up so quickly. Then again, humans have the miraculous ability to summon strength when faced with adversity. Like getting poked with spindly needles right in the butt.

I winced as I tried to pull myself up. My palm had a scrape, but the cream suit took a worse beating. It was ashen from the dirt. Nat was going to be pissed. “Are you okay?”

I asked Danny.

“What do you think?”

he screeched. When Danny tried to dust the short needles off his pants, they only got stuck to his hand. “Oh fucking hell.”

I’d barely gotten myself into a push-up position before I was pulled up by two security guards. Our time on the run was up.