（seven months ago）
Los Angeles
I t was sometime after we ate the mushrooms that I noticed the hole in the sky. A distinct black pinhole in the powder blue, like someone pricked it. How had I never seen it before? Maybe it was only a satellite. Or maybe it was the drugs. Was it moving? Watching us? I tried to sit up, but couldn’t coordinate the muscles required to do so. “There’s a hole,” I said, but it just sounded like galumph, galumph , like everything else.
Galumph, galumph, galumph, galumph. Why did everything sound the same? Maybe the sound of the universe wasn’t Om , but galumph .
I could feel the top of Hunter’s head touching mine, like we were conjoined twins who shared a brain. I endeavored to send him a message. “ Galumph, galumph ,” he said.
We both collapsed in giggles. When our laughter subsided, the sky had darkened, and the palm trees were lit from below by the streetlights.
“It looks like a movie set,” I said, glad my words were coming out like words.
“We’re the stars of the movie,” he agreed.
A scuffling drew our attention to the hatch that led down to my apartment, and a blond head emerged. Summer climbed out onto the roof, no easy feat while wearing her private-jet stewardess outfit—a tight, collared navy-blue dress with the gold logo of the company she worked for pinned above her heart, a silk Burberry scarf around her neck. “What are you guys doing up here?” she asked.
“Shroomies.” Hunter waved the bag of iridescent fungi in her direction. “Want some?”
“No thanks.”
She turned to go back inside, but I noticed that she was holding a bottle of water, and I desperately needed a sip. “Wait,” I called, pointing urgently at her water. “I need a sip.”
She traversed the distance and handed me the bottle. I stared at it, unsure what to do with it. She sighed and opened the top for me. “Do you need me to pour it down your throat, too?”
I grabbed the bottle and guzzled it until Hunter snatched it from me and finished it off. “I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow,” I managed, proud of my ability to string together a coherent sentence.
“Trip got shortened.” She sat in one of the folding chairs Hunter had dragged up, kicked off her shoes, and began massaging her feet. “But I got a job offer from the client.”
“Good!” I said. I was finding it incredibly difficult to focus on what she was saying, but I knew I should be pleased. I searched for the next logical question. “Who?”
“His name is John Lyons, and he owns this huge company that invests in everything from real estate to movies. He sold his jet and has been waiting for his new one to be finished, which is why he was flying with JetSafe. But he wants me to come on this trip with him to Japan, Singapore, and Bali, and then we’ll figure out the contract if it’s a fit.”
I wondered if this meant that she would finally move off my couch, or rather, out of my bed, but was unable to formulate the question in any intelligible way, so simply nodded and smiled in what I hoped was a supportive manner.
“The Benjamins!” Hunter exclaimed. Summer looked at him like he’d lost his damn mind. “The Benjamins?” He carefully changed his inflection, turning the statement to a question, and I understood he clearly wanted to know how much the job paid, but she wasn’t getting it.
“How much does it pay?” I interpreted.
She shrugged. “We haven’t worked out the details, but his assistant told me that he pays really well, and he’d give me a signing bonus after our first trip.”
I could feel her sobriety rubbing off on me, erasing the effects of the shrooms. A little annoying considering how difficult it had been to obtain them. Perhaps I could just take a break, flip to the serious channel, and match Summer’s vibration to converse with her. Surely it would take only five minutes of intense concentration before she’d go back downstairs and I could return to the movie Hunter and I were starring in, which was obviously a stoner comedy with no role for Serious Summer.
Focus. “Did you see Eric while you were in New York?” I asked like a totally sober adult.
Though she’d never admit it, I knew Eric had broken her heart when he moved to New York a few weeks ago, effectively ending whatever was left of their relationship. She’d quickly rebounded with an Italian clothing designer, but that had also fizzled quickly, leaving her truly single for the first time in years. Eric’s departure, combined with the horrible thing that happened with Three, had changed her. Sharpened her somehow.
She nodded. “He wants me to move there and live with him, of course, but it’s not happening.”
I could see the lie hanging in the air between us like a black cloud, so thick I could almost reach out and touch it. Why did she feel the need to lie to me? It was so stupid. Then, of course, she wasn’t aware I could see her lie; also, she knew nothing of my afternoon with Eric or our budding friendship. His fault, not mine. I never planned to talk to him again after our kiss, but it wasn’t like I was gonna unfollow him on social. What was the harm? His accounts were mostly art stuff, and he had thousands of followers, so it was easy to lurk without engaging. I noticed he started following me back after that day in his loft. Likes here and there followed—totally public, nothing illicit, and anyway, Summer wasn’t on social media. Then he started direct messaging me, and it would have been rude not to reply, right? I may be many things, but rude is not one of them. And it was mainly just about stupid stuff like a movie he saw or a book I read or a meme that reminded one of us of the other. It was foolish, I knew. Extremely foolish. Sure, we were “just friends,” but if Summer ever found out, she’d straight-up kill me. She’d said it herself. The thought brought me crashing back down to the roof, where Summer was now lying to Hunter.
“His lifestyle isn’t really what I see for myself long-term,” she was saying.
“He’s broke,” Hunter recalled. “I remember. I think we had this conversation last time I was in town.”
“He’s not, though,” I objected. “His…” I was about to say something about his loft being gorgeous, but mercifully stopped myself in time, finishing, “…art sells for a lot.”
“It’s like he wants to be broke, though,” Summer insisted. “It’s so weird. You know he has a stake in his family’s company he won’t even acknowledge?”
“A steak?” I asked.
“I love steak,” Hunter said.
We snickered, and she ignored us. “A board seat, tons of stock, his name on trusts, buildings…and he wears T-shirts with holes in them and gives all his money to his skeezy Burning Man friends. He’s got some Turkish hacktivist staying with him right now.”
Travis. And he was Syrian. So she did see Eric after all, and he didn’t mention it to me. The snake of disappointment uncoiled inside me. No. This snake wasn’t disappointment; it was jealousy—and that pang I felt was its fangs, sunk into my heart. Oh dear. If Summer didn’t go downstairs soon, this trip was going to take a dark turn.
“Did he tell you all this?” Hunter asked.
“God no,” she said. “He won’t talk about it, won’t so much as mention his family’s name, and the Internet gives me nothing but puff pieces on his art and pictures of models hanging all over him. I found mail on his desk months ago, asking for his signature to increase shares in a holding company, a trust deed to a building in Manhattan with his name on it—all just buried under sketches and junk mail. I asked him about it, and he lost it. He has such a big chip on his shoulder, it’s ridiculous.”
“I’m sure he has his reasons,” I said, thinking of what he’d told me about his father that afternoon in his loft.
“Yeah.” Summer scoffed. “Anyway, Hunter, I heard your song at a party this weekend. People were really loving it.”
Hunter and I went to give each other a high five and totally missed, then crumpled into a heap of giggles. With a sigh, Summer got up to leave. “Wait!” I called out. “I need you to order pizza from my phone. We can’t see the buttons.”
She held her hand out, and I gave her my phone.
“The code is, uh…It’s—”
“I know your code,” Summer said as she typed it into the phone. “It’s the same for everything.”
Two weeks later, I pulled into the driveway of my fourplex to find a white Mercedes with dealer tags in my parking spot. It was past midnight, and I was worn out from a fourteen-hour day being chased barefoot through a scalding parking lot on an ultra-low-budget movie that paid pennies. But the money from the commercial I’d had running over the holidays was drying up, leaving me desperate for acting work so that I wouldn’t have to go back to slinging drinks. I was already seriously doubting my life choices; the Mercedes was the last straw.
Street parking in my neighborhood was a nightmare, so I drove in circles for a full twenty minutes, cursing the asshole driver of the Mercedes, before I finally found a spot. It was only when I got out of the car that I saw the sign that read NO PARKING SATURDAY 8A.M. TO 10A.M. Street cleaning on a Saturday? Seriously? It was all I could do not to scream.
I pushed open the front door to find all the lights on and Summer’s suitcase open in the middle of the living room. So I guessed she’d made it home from her big trip to Asia. “Summer?” I called out.
No answer. I opened the bedroom door to find her sprawled across my bed, snoring. I shoved her over and crawled into bed. I clearly needed to talk to her again about finding her own apartment.
But when my alarm went off at the ungodly hour of seven so that I could move my car, Summer was gone. Thankfully, so was the white Mercedes. I parked my car where it belonged, making a mental note to put up a RESERVED sign. But as I turned toward the apartment, I spied the Mercedes coming up the driveway.
I stood there in my glasses and pajamas with my hands on my hips, an intimidating presence I was sure, staring at the car as it slowly pulled toward me. I prepared to give the driver a piece of my mind as the window rolled down.
A manicured hand emerged holding a Starbucks latte, and then I recognized the blond hair. “Hey,” Summer said brightly. “I was up early so I picked up coffee.”
I stared at her. “Whose car is that?”
“It’s mine!” She beamed. “John got it for me as a signing bonus. He knew I didn’t have a car. Wasn’t that sweet? I have so much to tell you. But can you move your car so I can park in the spot? I don’t wanna leave it on the street. It’s brand-new.”
I grabbed the coffee and walked toward the door. “I’m sure it’s insured.” The door slammed behind me.
I’d finished my coffee and gotten ahold of myself by the time she entered ten minutes later, carrying a bag of croissants. “God, parking in this neighborhood is a nightmare.”
“Tell me about it,” I agreed. “It took me half an hour to find parking at midnight.”
“Oh, sorry about that. I figured you were gone for the night.” She put the croissants in the oven to heat and sat across from me at the breakfast table. “So. I have to tell you about my trip.”
“You slept with him.”
She smiled confirmation. “How did you know?”
“Um, he bought you a Mercedes? Your pussy must be made of solid gold, because I’ve never had a man buy me a Mercedes after one week. Or ever, actually.”
“It was two weeks, and they were the most insane weeks of my life,” she raved, her cheeks flushed. “I mean, I’ve seen wealth, but nothing like this. He owns, like, half the world. He knows all these powerful people. It’s like they’re in a club—princes and prime ministers and CEOs and movie stars. Insane. A Mercedes is nothing to him. I could have asked for a Bentley and he would have bought it, but I didn’t because I don’t want him to think I’m in it for the money, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said dryly. “Wouldn’t want him to think that. Wait. Didn’t you say he was married?”
“Yeah, his third wife. But they live separate lives—I’m not the first affair he’s had, obviously, but he says he’s never felt the way he feels with me—and anyway, she’s, like, fifteen years older than me. They’re getting divorced in the next couple of months. It’s just too expensive right now.”
“Does he have kids?”
“Yeah but they’re grown and he totally wants to have more with me.”
“I thought you didn’t want kids.”
“I mean, I never have before.” She shrugged. “But with him it would be different. I would have, like, a nanny for each kid. They would have the best of everything, and I could just be there for the good parts.”
She didn’t seem to be kidding. “Sounds healthy. How old is he?”
“He’s sixty. Well, sixty-three. But, like, a young sixty-three. He plays polo, he swims, he does mountain climbing—he’s super well rounded.”
“Isn’t that weird? I mean, you’re twenty-six. Do you even know any of the same cultural references?”
“It doesn’t matter. We talk about art, and business, and wine.…”
I laughed.
“What?” she said. “I really like him. I do. And you should see the clothes he bought me. We went shopping in Singapore—the shopping there is insane; it’s the best in the world—and they shut down an entire floor of a luxury department store so that I could shop. He’s so sweet!”
Amazingly, she sounded serious. Or maybe she’d convinced herself of how much she liked him in order to take advantage of all a relationship with him stood to offer. Regardless, her complete devotion either to the man or to the lie she was telling herself was pretty impressive.
“Oh, he got me these, too.” She stroked the giant diamond studs in her ears. “And when I got back, that car was waiting for me.”
“And how was the sex?”
“It was good!” she said. “I mean, not like Eric good, but nothing is going to be Eric good.” She shivered. “And Eric didn’t buy me a car. He never bought me a damn thing. And anyway, I’m not thinking about him anymore. He’s not worth my time.”
She’d always raved about how great Eric was in bed, obviously dying to dish the dirty details, but I never bit, Summer and Eric’s sex life being about the last thing in the entire world I wanted to discuss. I much preferred to hear about her not-so-sexy tryst with some old dude. “So saggy-old-man balls are a myth?” I teased.
She sighed, not amused. “I just…I’ve been through a lot in the past few months.” She looked at me pointedly, and I knew she was referring to the incident with Three that we’d agreed not to mention. “I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got, and this could be really good for me…” She took a deep breath, and I saw she was holding back tears.
I reached out and grabbed her hand, realizing I was being insensitive. “I’m sorry, Summer. I wasn’t thinking.”
She nodded, and a tear slid down her cheek. “I just…” Her voice shook. “I need you to be supportive of me, okay?”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” I pulled her in for a hug. “I totally support you in whoever you want to date.”
“Thanks.” She grabbed a Starbucks napkin and wiped away her tears.
“So, are you still gonna work for him, or…?”
“He’s gonna keep paying me a salary and benefits, so I’ll technically be working for him, but I’m not actually gonna be working. And you don’t need to worry because I’m never gonna be here. He travels all the time and wants me to come with him.”
“That’s great!” As much as my heart went out to her for what had happened with Three, feigned enthusiasm was about as much as I could muster for her salaried-girlfriend position. I hoped this meant he’d get her an apartment of her own as well, but I kept my mouth shut on that front, not wanting to come off as even more callous.
A rapping at the front door stopped our conversation short. “Who is it?” I called out.
“Eric,” came the voice on the other side.
I choked on my coffee.
Summer buried her face in her hands. “I totally forgot he was coming today. He has a show in Beverly Hills. I asked him to pick me up here.”
“One second,” I called. My heart fluttered like a bird caught in the rafters. Despite our slew of emails, I hadn’t actually seen him since our kiss in his elevator. “I thought you weren’t seeing him anymore,” I whispered.
“I’m not!” she insisted. “I made these plans before I met John.”
“Do you want me to get rid of him?”
She bit her lip. “No. It’ll be fine.”
I stood and pointed my feet in the direction of the living room, reminding myself with every step to act nonchalant in front of Summer. I swung open the door to find Eric dressed in his usual black, the morning sun lighting his green eyes. He smiled, and any annoyance I’d had at him for turning up on my doorstep to collect Summer dissipated. “Hi.” He leaned in to give me a lingering kiss on the cheek. My pulse quickened. “Good to see you. Hey, I finally saw your web series where you’re a junkie in med school. Awesome work. You were so raw. It was—I was blown away. Really.”
I raised my brows, taken aback. “Wow, you actually watched it. Thank you.” Then, remembering why he was here, “Summer’s—”
I turned to see her lingering in the doorway to the kitchen, eyeing us. “Did you see her web series?” he asked Summer. “This girl’s a real leading lady.”
“Not yet. But I’m sure it’s great.”
“You guys ready?” he asked. “The gallery gave me a driver.” He gestured in the general direction of the street. “He’s waiting.”
“Belle’s not coming,” Summer said.
“Oh.” He turned to me. “Why not?”
I raised my hands. “I don’t know what’s going on. I hadn’t heard you were in town.”
He looked between us, confused. “We were all going to my hotel to hang out by the pool and then go to the show tonight.”
“Sorry.” Summer smiled. “I just got back from Asia last night. Things have been kinda crazy. I totally forgot. Lemme just grab a couple things.”
She strode down the hallway to the bedroom, and Eric moved deeper into the living room, out of her line of sight. “Did you not get my DM?” he whispered.
I shook my head. “Sorry.”
“Fuck.” He actually seemed upset. “You can’t come?”
Was he crazy? Or did he have some fucked-up idea we were going to have a threesome or something? I laughed. “No way am I hanging out with the two of you and whatever’s going on there.”
We were silenced by the sound of Summer’s stride in the hallway. She appeared looking like a million bucks in heels and a sundress, a new Louis Vuitton overnight bag slung over her shoulder. I’d never in my life wanted to sock her as badly as I did in that moment. “Okay.” She beamed. “Ready.”
“Have fun, guys!” I buried my resentment under a bright smile, fully aware I had no right to be resentful in the first place. He was, after all, her ex…or whatever.
Eric turned to me. “Belle, you really should come, too. It’ll be fun—”
I was saved from coming up with an excuse by Summer, who clearly didn’t want me along, either. “Belle has other things to do.”
“I gotta go work on something.” I excused myself, beelining for the hallway.
But before I could reach my room, Eric called out, “You should at least come to the show tomorrow night. It’s all about botany. I think you’d like it.”
“I’d love to,” I said, “but I’m shooting tomorrow night.”
“Oh, what are you working on?” Eric asked.
“Low-budget thriller. But at least I don’t die in this one. Have a good show.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Stay alive.”
“Same to ya.”
I closed the door to my bedroom, turned on the music, and balled my fists so tightly my nails left crescents in my palms.