Chapter 22 1964
The day of Calliope’s party, I wait until half past ten. Then I take out my skeleton key and go to the sixth floor, to the suite Bob now occupies. Never a Sunday passes when the man with no soul doesn’t go to church.
Why?
I survey Bob’s suite, can feel the tremble in my guts. Bob isn’t here. His room can’t hurt you. But it’s the cloying cinnamon of his aftershave that threatens to dump me back into the library where I hid under an armchair, listening to Calliope tarnish her dream.
What was I thinking—that Bob would have a box in which he’d keep the evidence of his crimes? I am, once more, being incredibly stupid.
I hurry out of the room, lock the door, jump when I hear someone say my name.
“Aria? What are you doing?”
Thankfully it’s Flitter, the one person in this hotel who won’t tell Bob she caught me sneaking out of his room.
“I was looking for something that doesn’t exist,” I say, making myself smile, be breezy, change the subject to Calliope’s party. “What cliche are you going as tonight?”
“Hollywood.” Flitter grins as we walk to the elevator. “Is there a bigger cliche? Are you babysitting? Somebody needs to tell Win to give you the night off work.”
Win. She still calls him Win. Not Theo. It’s such a small thing, yet I lavish meaning upon it, let myself be persuaded that being granted the use of a person’s true name is more significant than a late-night motorbike ride.
Let myself believe that anything Flitter might feel for Theo is trivial, fleeting—ready to be discarded when the next wealthy guest moves into the Marmont.
And then I smile because Theo hasn’t just given me the night off work—I’m going with him to the party. Me and Theo Winchester, the man who stood in front of me last night in his pajama pants, chest bare, hair damp.
I wonder what his bottom lip tastes like.
My cheeks are hot. I need a fan. Or a swoon. I definitely need to put a shirt on the Theo in my mind and pretend he doesn’t have lips at all because I’m standing in a hallway with Flitter, who’s asking me, “Are you okay?”
I tell her the truth. “I’m more than okay. I’m happy.”
To make sure Adele is safe and occupied during the party, Theo has the screen from the first floor moved into her room, as well as the projector and a preview copy of a movie called The Sound of Music that the studio thinks will most likely bomb and is therefore happy to loan out to anyone influential.
It’s about a nun who falls in love with a widowed father and they all live happily ever after—the kind of fantasy Hollywood is built on.
Adele will watch the movie, and we’ll check on her during the night.
But what the hell will I wear? I stand in front of my sparse wardrobe in the land of cliches and I can’t think of a single one.
The walls crack like bones, a word drops into the air and suddenly I know.
I’ll go to the party as me.
Behold the orphan girl, whose parents have been dispatched in order that she can learn lessons about life—and have a grand adventure too. Heidi, the little princess Sara Crewe, orphan Annie; even the Bronte orphan Jane that everyone’s lining up to play.
I decide on black—a sheath dress in honor of orphan Holly Golightly. Mine is cocktail-length and I eschew pearls, because what genuine orphan can afford those?
False lashes—an orphan’s eyes should always be soulful—a hint of pale lipstick.
I stand in front of the mirror and, for once, I don’t think about myself in relation to all the beautiful people at the Marmont.
I just see me because, tonight, my pixie cut paired with the false lashes makes my eyes look enormous.
My dress skims over my body, my skin is still tan from summer, my smile is huge and nobody would guess that I really am a poor orphan girl.
Theo said he’d call past my room at eight. It’s three minutes to eight. Two minutes to eight.
One minute.
Stupidly, when someone knocks, I jump. It’s probably Flitter needing me to zip her up. It won’t be Theo.
Thus with my expectations trampled to beneath even the nadir, I open the door.
It’s Theo.
Of course he doesn’t smile. He lifts an eyebrow. “Little black dress?”
I laugh. “No. I’m just me. The poor orphan girl.”
“I’m just me too,” he says, smiling now. “The recovering rock star. Is there a worse cliche?”
This time we both laugh.
There’s a crowd waiting for the elevator and another crowd already aboard. When we step in, we’re split up, me on one side, him on the other. I can see his face because he’s so tall, and can see that he’s watching me.
Staring at Theo Winchester in an elevator is the sexiest thing I’ve ever done.
Which just goes to show how deeply unsexy my life is.
There’s a cheer when the doors open. Theo and I wait until everyone has exited, then he comes to stand at my side.
“You two getting out?” Isaiah grins and I nod because I don’t think I can speak.
As we cross over the driveway and through the gate to the gardens, Theo says, “Thanks for coming with me.”
“Has anyone in the history of the world ever said no to going to a party with you?”
“Is there a moment in the history of Aria where she doesn’t turn a serious statement into a joke?” he counters.
“It’s a habit I learned from Flitter,” I confess. “You’ll have to fill me in on all the other bad habits my eclectic collection of Marmont parental figures have left me with.”
A man calls out in that drunk, male bird-call way, “Win!” He starts asking questions about when the next album is coming out, so I slip away to find Calliope and wish her a happy birthday, passing Phillip, Calliope’s devoted poet, holding a birthday placard.
The gossip flying around the pool sours my mood. “I’ll be at the front of the line to see those sweet cherries” is the first comment I hear.
Another man sniggers. “And Calliope refused to reshoot. She wants us to cop an eyeful.”
I double my speed through the crowd, thankful that Calliope’s always easy to find. Tonight she’s standing by the edge of the pool wearing a headpiece of stars.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
She waves a hand in the air. “Bronte Bros. leaked a story about my peekaboo areola to Whisper. Well, they said they didn’t leak it, but I’m blonde, not stupid.
They want to remind me that they have more power than I do, in case auditioning for Jane Eyre gives me any ideas about negotiating for greater independence.
They said they want to reshoot the scene so it doesn’t violate the Code, but that I’m refusing. ”
Ah, the Code. That biblical set of commandments that states: Seduction and rape are difficult subjects and bad material from the viewpoint of the general audience. Rules the studio bosses hold up with one hand while they fondle a girl with the other.
Calliope keeps her smile on because she’s in view of her guests. But I can hear her teeth grinding. This gossip means she needs a serious part in a serious movie more than ever or she and her areolas will never get intimate with an Oscar statuette.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“Me too,” she says, and it’s the only time her smile falters. Then she pops a pill and her smile is back and I take the hint to talk about something else.
“You’ve come as yourself too?” I point to her crown. “A star?”
“No. I’m Fortune, as in,” she simpers, “my face is my fortune.”
Flitter shimmies over, no mean feat given she’s wearing a foam cutout of the Hollywood sign because yes, the whole of Hollywood is a cliche. She says to me, “I want to know what you were so happy about this afternoon.”
Which makes me blush again, and I hope to god it’s too dark to see my cheeks. But Calliope says, “Are you blushing? What does the cool-headed Aria have to blush about?”
I search desperately for a distraction, but my eyes stop on the one and only thing they want to look at: Theo Winchester.
He’s looking at me too.
Now Flitter and Calliope are looking at me, looking at him.
“Do you have a crush on someone?” Calliope asks.
“On Win?” Flitter shrieks. “I have competition? From you!”
“Stop shrieking,” I hiss.
Calliope lowers her voice and fixes her eyes on me. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your house at the sea by now?”
“I need more money,” I tell her. I might not even have enough to put Miss Devine through rehab, let alone have anything left for an escape fund, I don’t say.
“But what if Win starts making eyes at you?” Calliope demands.
I remind her, “This is real life, not a movie.” And in real life it seems more likely that Theo only invited me to thank me for drowning him last night rather than letting him burn.
The thought lands like a punch.
I hate hurting. I’ve spent seven years trying to avoid being hurt. I don’t have ambitions, don’t dream of anything more than escape. So why is it that part of me would happily trade every house by the sea in Hawaii for this night at a party with Theo?
Sixteen-year-old Melissa chooses that moment to arrive—on Bob’s arm. Bob approaches Theo with a piece of paper and a fatherly look on his face. “I’ve been appointed Melissa’s guardian. I know you wanted someone to look after her.”
He passes the paperwork to Theo, further evidence of how kind and caring Bob is, taking this young, innocent girl under his wing.
Further evidence that Bob always wins.
Melissa sashays through the crowd wearing a white T-shirt about four sizes too small and her bikini bottoms. On the back she’s written the word dumb in lipstick. On the front, she’s written blonde.
It’s a cliche to say that everyone stares.
“Talk about putting it out there,” Flitter says.
The way she’s looking at Melissa reminds me of the way Lacey Magee looks at Calliope now. The way Flitter and Calliope used to look at Lacey.
“It’s my birthday,” Calliope says, turning away. “Let’s party like the world’s gonna end tomorrow. We’ll say hello to Matty.” She and Flitter move away, arm in arm.