Chapter 7
Graham
I woke as usual at six a.m. the morning after the book party and, as had become habit in the past month, peeked over the side of the bed to make sure Bronte hadn’t tried going downstairs without me.
Her gait on the descent had become precarious – her old legs wobbling under her weight – and I’d taken to going down backwards in front of her, in case she slipped and I could catch her.
But she was in her bed, as usual – one of the many I’d placed strategically around the house for whenever she was tired.
“Hey girl,” I said, smiling sleepily.
She replied with two tail thwacks.
Together we walked blearily down to the kitchen and I turned on the espresso machine before heading to the back door and the garden where Bronte could relieve herself.
“Come on, B,” I encouraged as we both stood in the doorway looking outside. The cool morning air caused me to shiver and she looked up at me, her big brown eyes asking, “Do I have to, Dad?”
“I know,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to go out there to do my business either, but since you wouldn’t take me up on my offer to learn how to use the toilet when you were a puppy… here we are.”
She exhaled, a small huff of disappointed acceptance, and made her way outside. When she returned a few minutes later, I received substantial side-eye before she laid heavily in her kitchen bed, the equivalent of a teenager throwing themself onto furniture in a petulant display of irritation.
I grinned. She was an old lady on the outside, but she still had the spirit of the puppy she’d been on the inside.
Espresso brewing, I went to the fridge for Bronte’s fancy new dog food, my latest attempt to get calories in her.
Fifteen minutes later I was sitting on the world’s most uncomfortable couch, my laptop in front of me, along with a trusty dog – who had ignored her food and instead ate a handful of peanut butter flavored treats – at my feet in yet another bed.
I stared at the screen for a moment. The document for my new book was open and waiting for me to continue writing it. But rather than creating a new sentence, my finger accidentally slid to open a new tab.
The next thing I knew, I was typing Lior Flynn’s name into the search bar.
Of course, I’d known who she was as soon as Jessa had introduced us.
Her image was everywhere. Every newsstand, billboard, and side of bus.
I’d seen her on the screens in Times Square, and she’d even had a tiny but memorable part in a movie I’d loved a couple years ago.
I’d read articles in magazines she’d given, and had seen her interviewed on TV, where she came off as witty, intelligent, and a bit of a dork - which I’d found endearing.
But the woman I’d met at the book launch, with her ponytail, glasses, and unassuming jeans and sweater, looked so different from the glamorous images I’d seen of her over the years.
And compare those two versions to the woman yelling at me in the park, her messy hair piled on top of her head, wearing a stained Chanel sweatshirt, an old pair of sneakers and staring at me with those eyes…
Damn those eyes. There was definitely something in them – something that had captured me despite the rage in the park, despite the flash of anger at the book launch as I’d taken another appetizer just to rile her.
There was an allure to them. A warmth. It was as if she was gravity and I was matter, unable to resist her pull.
I wanted to get lost in them, and wondered what it would feel like to have her turn them on me with something else. With want.
I shook my head.
“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” I said aloud. “She’s just like the rest of them. Probably worse."
To prove my point, I hit the return button on the keyboard and my screen filled with her digital persona.
Articles from magazines and newspapers. Video clips from interviews on late-night talk shows.
Images from paparazzi as she left a club, a restaurant, or sat in the stands at Wimbledon sandwiched between a rockstar and a famous female political news anchor.
The search results went on forever.
I clicked what looked like an aerial image of something and found myself staring at Lior’s ass in a tiny red thong as she sunbathed topless on a yacht in the South of France.
“Fucking hell.”
I quickly exited the screen.
I was wrong. She wasn’t at all like the others. She was definitely worse. And yet that didn’t stop me from opening another link, leading me straight to her personal social media page – which I scrolled with wary curiosity.
The photographs here were different. A mix of real life versus work life, many times within the same frame.
Her in sweats and no makeup. Her in a backless, painted-on black dress, advertising perfume for a huge brand name.
Her in a no-name track suit, hair piled messily on top of her head like it had been in the park.
Her in a short, red dress with cutouts, her hair slicked back, and eyeliner that looked otherworldly while she held a small tube of the product in her hand.
In each picture she morphed into another version of herself, each more beautiful than the last.
I scrolled further. There were shots of Seattle, her and a pretty woman with light brown hair making faces at the camera in front of the Space Needle, a wall that looked like it was covered in gum, and a large troll.
Two pairs of feet with painted toenails, two pairs of feet in snowshoes, two pairs of feet in cowboy boots.
And then there were the men. Chiseled, ripped, god-like specimens standing beside her, holding her, looking like they were about to kiss her or…
“Jesus,” I said, staring at one of the pictures. “He looks like he’s going to eat your face. Run, Lior, run!”
And then another one, the man looking completely uninterested in the beauty lying beside him.
“Yeah right, buddy,” I said.
I looked down at Bronte who was staring up at me judgingly.
“Shut up. I am not jealous. I’m proving a point.”
I scrolled further and found a photo of Lior and an older woman with similar facial features but different coloring.
“Happy Mother’s Day, Mom,” the caption read.
“Oh shit,” I said aloud, recognizing the woman.
Liliana. One name. That’s all one needed to say and a person knew exactly who you were talking about.
She’d been the model a couple decades back.
Beautiful in an inaccessible way with her pale blonde hair and ice-like blue eyes.
I’d never have imagined she was Lior’s mother.
I could see the resemblance now, but while Liliana was undoubtedly stunning, there was something about Lior that was just…
more. She was warmer, the light in her eyes was kinder.
And her figure… She had curves her mother didn’t.
I scrolled more and saw other images of the two women, stopping at a candid one of them in someone’s living room, Lior sprawled on a tasteful pale blue sofa, sticking out her tongue, her mother, legs crossed at the ankles like a royal looking not amused at her daughter’s antics.
I grinned, then berated myself for being amused.
There was another of them that Lior had created in a side-by-side post, “Me and mom, both at 21 years old.” The resemblance of the two women, despite their almost night-and-day coloring, was uncanny.
But even at their young ages, there was still something softer about Lior’s face.
More peaceful. As if she was having a good time, whereas her mother’s face looked tight, with no trace of humor.
In fact, most of the pictures of her mom looked that way.
“She seems like a good time,” I murmured. “And probably even more drama. It’s like it’s the family business.”
I scrolled some more until I stopped, my breath catching as I clicked on an image to make it bigger.
It was a selfie, Lior’s face free of makeup, her dark hair wild around her shoulders, and she looked like she wasn’t wearing anything, her collarbones exposed, the rise of her breasts… and a smattering of the sexiest freckles I’d ever seen.
I shut the laptop and tossed it gently to the couch.
Giving Bronte a few pets, I got to my feet, and bounded up the stairs to the second-floor workout room to try and sweat thoughts of Lior Flynn’s red thong out of my system.
But at the sight of the white-on-white-on-taupe, too-bright gym Nadia had created, I found all I wanted to do was be anywhere else.
I threw on a sweatshirt and went to rouse Bronte from her slumber. Fifteen minutes later we ambled slowly down the front steps and, by habit, I started to head left down the sidewalk. But the thought of running into Lior stopped me.
“Sorry, girl,” I said to Bronte as I pulled on her leash to get her to change directions. “We’re taking a different route today.”
While I was a creature of habit, it was nice to change up the morning routine and scenery for once.
Different faces, different front stoops with different decor displayed, a new cluster of kids in their school uniforms, a coffee shop with a “Grand Opening” sign waving from the eaves (though I’d never cheat on Joe), and a sweet elderly couple holding hands as they crossed a street – the gentleman vigilant in his watching for cars.
And then it happened.
I saw her about a half a second before she saw me, her head turning my way until our eyes met and she too stopped in her tracks. For a moment the two of us just stood looking at one another.
Then Bronte’s tail thwacked twice against my leg.
I glanced down at her, surprised. When I looked back up, Lior had turned and was walking briskly in the other direction.