Chapter 5
5.
Driving out of the city was extremely stressful, and not just because Ray was a terrifying vehicular dinosaur. Because of: “ Violet! ” Birdie flung a finger at an old billboard for Sweet, then started screeching like an excited chimpanzee.
Extraordinarily difficult to evict someone living rent-free in your head while whizzing by two thirty-foot photographs of them. As the source material described, two sets of blue-green eyes, the color of the ocean. Two manes of “sun-streaked blond.” Two bodies boasting “peaches and cream skin” and “perfect size six figures,” the first female measurements Liz had ever internalized.
Sweet was a loose adaptation of Sweet Valley High, a sudsy teen book series from the 1980s. As in the original paperbacks, the show centered around identical twins with polar opposite personalities and rigorously dictated versions of 1980s American beauty. As depicted on the billboard now in Ray’s rearview mirror, Violet Grace portrayed both rebellious Jessica Wakefield (Dionysian smirk, lip piercing, eighties leather jacket with the collar popped) and bookish Elizabeth Wakefield (razor-sharp bangs, librarian glasses, Peter Pan collar with apple embroidery). The tagline: Twin Flames . The character of Jessica Wakefield was pansexual, funny, and totally outrageous. Her twin sister, Elizabeth, was bright, ambitious, and a square. As Liz had explained many times, Jessica was id, and Elizabeth was superego. Sweet ’s characters were teenagers but the actors playing them were all young adults.
“Oof,” Birdie groaned, glancing back at the billboard. “Violet is sexy. ”
Liz lobbed her an annoyed look. “Birdie!”
Her little sister appeared genuinely confused. “Am I not supposed to think she’s sexy?”
No. That’s exactly what she was meant to think. Violet was now the fantasy of thousands—a reality Liz helped create. Which was as weird as it was disorienting. Liz tried not to let her sister see how ruffled she was. “Eyes on the road, Squeak.”
—
The sisters arrived at their mother’s manor at sunset, rolling up the long driveway that kept the house hidden from the street. Babs had purchased an ugly pile of bricks and spiders for peanuts fifteen years ago. Now the fondly nicknamed Belvedere Inn was whitewashed and majestic, aglow in the final rays of the setting sun.
It actually was an old inn, a B it was at the far end of the corridor and thus the quietest. Birdie chose Humphrey Bogart, all masculine leather, with a replica of the Maltese Falcon statue and, fittingly, a full wet bar.
Liz unpacked, putting away clothes and toiletries and setting her bedside table with necessities—sleep mask, melatonin, and earplugs for Birdie’s after-parties. Then Liz made her way downstairs, ready to snack and chill after a long travel day.
Rounding the bottom of the staircase, she headed toward the kitchen, past framed family photos featuring unfortunate haircuts, and a fertility statue from a lesser-known comedy Babs shot in Bali.
Babs had ripped out multiple walls to create a light, bright kitchen, whose many windows overlooked an evergreen hedge and wintered backyard. Burnished brass cookware hung on hooks above a commercial range that easily fit the Christmas ham each year. The turquoise tiles above the backsplash and the gold faucets and cabinet pulls gave the space Babs’s signature luxe touch. Most meals were eaten around the long marble-top kitchen island, lit overhead by handblown vintage glass pendants.
The kitchen opened into an equally large family room. An enormous L-shaped sectional scattered with colorful throw pillows faced the original stone fireplace. Mohair knee rugs were folded in wicker baskets alongside potted houseplants (only the kinds that were easy to keep alive). The overflowing bookcases held everything from Jane Austen to new releases, plus Babs’s three biographies ( Babs Belvedere: A Life Lived in Color; She Did It Her Way; Babs: The Woman Upstairs ). An armchair had been shifted to make room for the Christmas tree, not yet there.
Liz poked around the walk-in pantry for a quick and easy dinner. “How about mac and cheese?”
“Or I can pick us up something in town. The wine cellar’s locked, and this”—the sole bottle of Cabernet Birdie had found—“won’t even get us through happy hour.”
“But it’s thirty minutes into town!” Liz exclaimed. “And you’ve been driving for three hours.” Birdie’s devotion to drinking bordered on religious. “Let’s just skip wine tonight.”
“Skip wine?” Birdie made it sound like Liz had suggested they skip Christmas. “Not really an option for me.”
Liz raised a deliberate brow, hoping that’d help her sister replay her slightly worrying words. “It’s not an option for you not to drink?”
“I need something else,” Birdie said, “to get me through this semi-charmed kind of life.” She tossed Liz a tin of needlessly expensive cat food. “Give this to Mr. Paws in half an hour. Don’t put it in the fridge, it has to be room temperature.”
Liz rolled her eyes. “You realize you treat that cat better than you treat yourself.”
“Mr. Paws is the only man I could ever love.” Birdie twirled her car keys, already on her way out. “Seriously, no fridge, or I’ll be hearing about it for months in therapy.”
“Please don’t tell me your cat is in therapy when you refuse to go!” Liz called after her.
The only answer was the slam of the front door. Moments later, Ray’s engine coughed to life, wheezing up the drive until the sound faded and the house fell quiet.
For a long moment, Liz looked around the large, empty kitchen. It was dark outside, even though it was only five. She should get a head start on sorting the mail. Her mother would appreciate it, or probably even expect it. That was how things went around here. Birdie and Rafi often devolved when returning to Belvedere Inn, regressing into their childhood selves. Not Liz, and she was never quite sure if that was because she was too comfortable being the responsible eldest, or because it was too uncomfortable not to be.
But Liz didn’t start on the mail. This was the first relaxed, private moment she’d had since she landed in New York, and so, Liz tapped open her text thread with Violet. Scrolled to the top, past hundreds of messages, time traveling back to February.
Liz: Hi, it’s Liz. Looking forward to this afternoon—what can I bring?
Violet: Something to go with Sancerre?
Their first one-on-one hang, at Violet’s Airbnb, the garden apartment up the road from Liz’s bungalow in the hipster neighborhood of Los Feliz. They’d just shot the pilot. Violet had proven to be a versatile, fearless actor who attacked the complex performance required to play identical twins who appeared in multiple scenes together. In Violet’s hands, Liz’s screenplay, already polished to perfection, became luminescent.
Liz had rung Violet’s doorbell at three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, armed with Castelvetrano olives and the good bread from the good bakery. Violet’s backyard was pocket-sized, wind chimes tinkling from the branches of an orange tree. They’d sat underneath it until the moon rose, talking about books and film and music. Their childhoods, their nicknames. Violet was thoughtful, intuitive, and clever. It was pre-crush, pre-feelings. On that mild winter evening, Liz simply felt that she’d finally met a kindred spirit.
Liz scrolled past more messages, landing months later.
Violet: Yo
Liz: Yo
Violet: Yooooo
Liz: Yooooo
Liz: What’s up?
Violet: Nothing, just wanted to say yo.
Sent at a table read when they were waiting on a cast member stuck in traffic. Liz had snort-laughed into her iced coffee and Violet had smirked, pleased.
Liz continued scrolling until she got to August.
Violet: This weather I’m melting like a popsicle. Any tips on surviving L.A. summer?
Liz: Gazpacho baths.
Violet: Cold…baths?
Liz: Bingo.
Violet: In other news, the loungers arrived. The stripes look tres chic
Liz: That’s how we’re surviving the summer, babe!
Violet’s cute new house in the Hollywood Hills had a gleaming blue pool; Liz had helped pick out the loungers after considerable debate over stripes versus solids.
Another swipe of her thumb brought Liz to their last exchange, sent on the final afternoon of the press junket.
Liz: LOL. Your fans are…a lot.
Violet: Strangers are fun!
Liz: Strangers are fun.
Coming to the dinner tonight?
Violet: Come by my room and we’ll go together?
Liz had indeed gone to pick up Violet from her room on that warm afternoon, setting into motion the plot twist she hadn’t seen coming, and yet maybe had been hoping for all along.
Liz pocketed her phone. Blowing out a breath, she refocused on the task at hand. She wasn’t the one who recklessly made out with people she worked with. She was the one who sorted the mail.
To treat herself, Liz cut a big piece of the traditional British Christmas cake her mom’s favorite hair stylist sent every year. Sinking her teeth into the brandy-soaked fruitcake slathered with marzipan icing, she was reminded of the pleasures of the season. Liz started sorting everything into piles.
Bills. Local flyers. The first dispatch of holiday cards, sent from a former co-star, Babs’s pickleball instructor, and—
Liz froze as if someone had just hit pause on a remote. His name was there, right there, before the return address on Long Island. The Hegartys. What the hell?
Liz had just taken a bite of Christmas cake that she now couldn’t swallow, letting it fall gracelessly from her mouth to the plate. She shouldn’t open the card, yet it was already happening, one shaking finger tearing the heavy envelope’s lip.
Liz inhaled a sharp breath. There he was. A smile edging into a smirk, one arm around Melissa, his wellness influencer wife whose personality was her Peloton. It was a punch to the heart to see she was pregnant. Again. Lined up in front of them were their three (three!) towheaded children, nightmare nesting dolls in matching pajamas.
Liz’s clutch on the card tightened. Melissa was pregnant again ? What was she, made of eggs?
Well, he was always going to father a brood, wasn’t he?
Noah Hegarty. Her college sweetheart. Her ex-husband. Of course he was still sending Babs a holiday card. He’d always been a bit too enamored with his famous mother-in-law.
Liz hadn’t seen a recent picture in years. The fact that Noah had aged reminded Liz she had too. Would this have been her life? Days divided by school drop-offs and pickups, heavy pours with neighbors and proximity friends, dissecting it all afterward in a bed with a tufted headboard? Liz imagined her face superimposed on Melissa’s, the weight of Noah’s arm on her shoulders, the children’s hair not blond but dark brown like her own. Wrongness twisted inside her, slithering snakelike. A horror-show supercut burst into her mind—the exhausting, escalating fights with the man she no longer recognized. Having to tell her family, her friends, a thousand institutions: It’s over. The unbearable silence of the Clinton Hill apartment after he left, the home that transformed from a place of hope into an interactive scrapbook of painful memories. Seeing a sentimental ad for home insurance and crying. Hearing any song with the word miss in the title and crying. Thinking about their honeymoon in Paris/their inside joke about dog parks/an overly zealous purchase of a newborn onesie and crying. The way her life became a cruel trick mirror. The way she lost everything.
After months of stasis post-breakup, Liz had fled New York for L.A., throwing herself into work and never telling anyone the impetus behind her life pivot. Not even Violet knew the full story.
Liz tossed the card on the kitchen island, distraught at the memories it’d churned up. Mending her pulverized heart had felt like trying to fix a can of crushed tomatoes. In her darkest moments, she wondered if she’d done such a bad job that it wouldn’t work the same ever again.
This was why she couldn’t think about Vi as anything other than a co-worker. A co-worker Liz had one minor slipup with because they were in Rome and the entire city was a sexy booby trap. It happened, but it wouldn’t happen again. Tomorrow she’d send a text—no, an email, with Cat cc’d — congratulating Violet on her Elle cover, rebuilding a rock-solid professional boundary between herself and her lead actor. A boundary that’d keep her heart safe and her sanity intact.
For now, she’d do what her mother had obviously been doing for years and bury Noah’s card in the recycling, never to be discussed or thought of again.
Forget the cake. Birdie was right; it was definitely time for a big glass of wine.