Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
I awaken abruptly to a voice I don’t recognize.
“What?” I say, confused.
“Looks like you fell asleep, miss.”
I sit up, remembering where I am.
I’m in the back of a cab.
In Ireland.
“Sorry,” I say.
“I never fall asleep in cars.”
He says nothing but gives a good-natured laugh and opens his door.
I blink, my contacts dry from all the travel and, apparently, a nap.
I look outside and see that it’s dark and foggy.
But through the thick, blue-gray haze, I see it.
Surrey House.
I can even see the little sign that says the name by the porch light.
I tumble out, shutting the door behind me, and then lean against the warm metal to take it all in.
There’s a welcoming halo around the front door from the house’s porch light, and the flowers that wind around the facade are all in full bloom.
It’s even more adorable in person.
There are other sleepy houses down the lane and I can see the glow of life coming through some of the old windows.
It smells different in Ireland.
Like dewy green grass and fresh, unfamiliar flowers, burning peat, and salty air that’s traveled a long and verdant way.
When I look up, I can see stars.
The last time I saw this many, this clearly, was on a glamping trip to Joshua Tree.
But that experience was somewhat sullied by the fact that it was underscored by a Polish DJ on a comedown from DMT trying to explain why we needed to get to something called Giant Rock in order to commune with aliens.
I actually did it.
I got here.
My gleeful inner child can’t believe it.
I feel so far away from my life, from my problems, and from the people who know me.
I could be recognized here, but I doubt it.
I’m not that kind of famous.
At very least, I assume not everyone will know me like they seem to in LA.
Last night, after impulsively booking Surrey House, I bought my flights to and from Ireland, making one trillion percent sure they were for the right dates and without stops—and still, somehow getting it wrong and needing to cancel and rebook.
I then spent an hour looking for my passport while the party raged on downstairs, then another hour packing, at which point Grayson came in and fell asleep on top of the duvet, wasted and reeking of rare Sotol.
He didn’t even ask what I was packing for.
I hugged Dido and kissed her a hundred times.
To be honest, I did look into bringing her with me.
But I would have needed a note from her vet saying she was up to date on shots, and I didn’t have time to make that happen.
I can go a week without seeing her.
I’ll survive.
Probably.
And she’ll be in good hands, I remind myself.
Grayson has so much staff running around that she’s always taken care of—probably given too many treats, if anything.
But I’m paranoid, so I shot a text to Lisa Michele and to Grayson’s assistant, asking them to make sure Dido is cared for.
I then left Grayson a handwritten note explaining that I needed to get out of town for a while, and when I’ll be back.
He’ll get it in the morning, likely after returning from a forty-mile run or something equally nauseating.
He never gets hangovers.
For some reason, I was compelled to wear an outfit entirely comprised of old staples I’ve had in my closet for a decade.
A pair of leggings from Nordstrom that have somehow survived since early college, a sweatshirt my mom wore in the eighties, and a jean jacket I borrowed from my dad and never gave back.
My closet is filled with outfits I’ve been sent from Instagrammy brands; one matching two-piece of expensive cotton fleece was even called the jetsetter.
Maybe it’s nostalgia, but something has me wanting to dress like the real me.
A few hours later, I was through security, then boarding.
It didn’t feel real, all going by in a tired haze.
Yet it took forever to fall asleep on the plane because the only seat I could get was a middle seat in coach between a Chatty Cathy and a guy who spent the first two hours of the flight trying to figure out the Wi-Fi in order to call a girlfriend who had dumped him and whom he was on the way to winning back.
He kept asking, “Does it work for you?” And I wanted to respond morosely that nothing seemed to work for me.
Instead, I just told him my Wi-Fi was also not working.
Eventually I put on my noise-canceling headphones, took half a Xanax, and managed to fall into a frequently interrupted sleep.
“Miss?”
I startle to attention now and say “Oh, thanks so much” when I see that the driver has taken out my suitcase and carry-on and put them onto the dusty road.
I scan the portable credit charger he holds out, but there’s no option for tip.
I reach into my pocket for the cash I put there—euros I’d taken from the stash of international currency Grayson keeps in his closet, and which I’d never understood until I was leaving for another country on a whim—but can’t find it.
“One sec,” I say, patting myself down all over.
“Sorry, I—I had some cash for you—”
He says, “Don’t give it another thought. Have a good night, miss.”
“No, really, I—one sec, one sec.”
I look in the back seat to see if I dropped it, but no luck.
I rustle through my carry-on on the street, but as I do, I hear the car start up and drive off.
“Hey!” I call after him.
“Do you have Venmo?”
But of course, he doesn’t hear me and doesn’t stop.
I exhale in frustration.
I always prioritize being a good tipper.
It only takes a few instances of clawing someone’s used tissue out of the bottom of a Collins glass, or being tipped zero percent by a table of twelve even though you gave them your most charming personality, to appreciate everyone who works in service.
I hate the idea that he probably thought I was stiffing him.
But then I wonder if tipping is even a thing here.
I’ll have to look it up.
I stare at the house as the sound of the cab engine grows quieter and quieter, still standing there when it vanishes completely, reveling in the absolute silence.
I go through the wooden gate, up the path, and to the front door.
The Airbnb information said the key was in a lockbox in the firewood box.
I look around to find it.
I do, and then put in the passcode sent to me in the app: 0619.
I don’t even have to double-check my texts, as that happens to be a number I remember.
The trap opens and I take out a tarnished brass key, then open the front door with it.
The house smells like vetiver and sandalwood, which is exactly my favorite combination.
I’ve bought dozens of perfumes because I loved the scent and then found that the scent notes include those two things.
Aka, I’ve bought the same perfumes over and over again.
I roll my suitcase inside and soak up the feel of these new surroundings.
It’s like being transported into a Nancy Meyers movie.
How can a place be this cute and not be curated by set designers?
And be available?
The stone fireplace is smaller in person, the way things in real life almost always are, and there’s a pile of wood in an iron cradle beside one of those hanging racks for fireplace tools like a poker, tongs, and a little broom.
There’s got to be a name for every one of those things that I don’t know, but despite the few weekends I’ve spent in Big Bear, I hardly know cabincore jargon.
I mean, the fireplace at Grayson’s turns on with a remote and may as well be the Yule Log channel.
I run my hand along the couch and feel its soft, well-worn fabric and plush upholstery.
There are two blankets thrown over the back, and the cushions are wide and deep and seem as though they could swallow you whole.
The living room couch at Grayson’s is an ivory-white leather sectional that’s really more of an art piece with cushions; it’s as hard as a horse saddle.
I want to take in every detail, but when my stomach grumbles, I realize all I’ve eaten today is an Auntie Anne’s pretzel with plasticky—delicious—yellow cheese product dip.
The one time on the flight that I managed to truly sleep was also the time food was being served.
I need to eat something substantial.
More than that, I want to.
I’ve been living off of poached salmon and undressed broccolini for longer than I can remember, only sometimes allowing myself to have something like salted cucumber as a little treat.
I want something fried, I want to dip it in something fatty, and I want to drink something bloaty.
I’ll work it off when I get home.
I know Devon said to lose more weight, but…
no.
If the show might get canceled, it probably will .
Hollywood is getting more and more fickle as time goes on.
And if they really need me to lose the weight that badly, I’m sure they can get their hands on a few syringes of Ozempic.
Though the thought makes me feel weird.
My phone, as it turns out, is dead.
I’d been watching the old Hayley Mills Freaky Friday on it in the cab and must have drained the battery.
I look through my carry-on and find my loose debit card, but not my charger.
Well, I looked at Google Maps before coming, and I know I’m only a few minutes’ walk from the center of town.
When I looked it up at the airport, I actually found that I remember some cursory knowledge of the village layout from when Aimee and I pored over the map, memorizing the whole area.
Not that it’s that hard.
It’s pretty much one strip of businesses that have been there for ages and then a circle of houses around it.
It hasn’t changed much in the last decade.
Unlike most of the world.
Unlike me.
I leave my suitcases behind, make sure I lock the door and have the key, and bring my phone with me even though it’s dead.
There’s almost always someone at a restaurant with a charger.
I keep up a quick pace on the walk, but feel a little dreamy as I go, and I keep stopping to stare up at the sky.
There really are millions of twinkling stars up there, and it’s so clear that I feel like I can see them all.
The sky is a velvety indigo with a dense dappling, and a moon that seems too big and bright to be believed.
I am tempted to take a picture but know that it’ll look how the moon looks in every layman’s photo—like a tiny, uninteresting, usually blurry sphere.
I also resist because I feel that this trip should be far more about disconnecting.
I roll my eyes at myself.
Another Los Angeles resident, traveling, not using her phone, and making internal proclamations about wire cutting, feeling proud of how analog she is.
How original.
Oh, and my phone is dead anyway.
The little village road takes me around a bend, where old streetlamps light the way.
It’s late enough that most of the businesses are shut.
A knife sharpener, a little grocery store, what looks like a very cute wine shop called Dinner Party.
I’m noticing a bookstore when I see an old woman coming out of its door.
When she sees me, she says, “Have a good night, love.”
“Oh—goodnight,” I say back.
She locks the door behind her and bustles off down the road in the direction I’ve come from.
It strikes me as odd, but then I remember that things are different in different places.
People in LA don’t talk to each other.
LA is basically a bunch of private residential pods strung together by freeways, and no conversation between strangers isn’t tinged with the unspoken puzzle of each person trying to figure out who has more power and if they’d be willing to share some of it.
I hear the place before I see it.
I wind around the corner and see Cairdeas, a pub that is open and cheerfully busy.
I’m glad to have found it, as I’m getting a little too chilly.
It’s June, but it’s nearly midnight and the air is cool and crisp.
My jean jacket and crewneck are barely enough to be comfortable.
When I pull open the door a gust of sound washes over me, resting on my cold cheeks like hands that have been warmed by a fire.
It’s a lively atmosphere—people are chatting and talking, possibly arguing, and everyone has pints of beer or cups of coffee.
In a corner, sitting around a table, there are musicians with different instruments, playing what I can only, ignorantly describe as extremely Irish music.
I squeeze through the crowd to get to the bar.
There’s only one bartender, a tall, lean guy with dark blondish reddish hair.
He’s in a black T-shirt and blue jeans.
He nods to take someone’s order, then reaches up to a high shelf at the back bar; my eyes travel of their own volition to the sliver of bare abdomen that’s exposed when his shirt lifts.
He’s got that lean, V-shaped muscle that disappears into the unbelted band of his jeans.
I happen to know that’s called an Adonis belt.
As in, Oh, no, I can’t have truffle butter, not if I want an Adonis belt .
That is a direct quote from Grayson Gamble to the server at Nobu Malibu whom I would go on to tip an extra hundred dollars after he also requested a new, chilled glass halfway through his martini.
The bartender at this pub looks serious, but there’s something gentle and endearing about him, even from afar.
He moves with an unfrenzied efficiency and— my God those ropey muscles in his forearms.
There’s a small gaggle of girls hanging out at the bar in front of him, all trying to look tall and thin, messing with their hair and leaning toward him.
Of course a guy like this would have a fan club.
I’m not surprised at all.
A girl with long chestnut-brown hair says something that makes him smile a little, and I see that he’s got those Heath Ledger dimples.
I feel equal parts a heady, crushing admiration for how appealing this guy is and a bizarre, delusional jealousy that I’m not the one charming him.
It’s kind of a crazy feeling, as I’m really not the wow, that guy’s so hot kind of girl.
Maybe it’s the fact that, in LA, every hot bartender is constantly scanning the crowd for people worthy of attention—i.
e.
, is there a well-known producer waiting to order a mezcal who might like a slice of orange with that and possibly to discover the next Harry Styles?
I wait my turn at the bar and examine the taps, deciding to have the red ale.
But when the horde thins, he still doesn’t come over to me.
Eventually it becomes obvious that he’s ignoring me.
“Excuse me,” I say.
He sighs deeply and then comes over.
“What do you want?”
It’s softened slightly by his Irish accent, but the words still startle me.
Cool, he’s hot and he already hates me.
Maybe people do know Brilliance over here.
The show is streaming in other countries, but I don’t know which ones.
I’m suddenly shy.
I always get shy when people seem annoyed with me.
“Um… can I please order a beer? And maybe some food if your kitchen is still open?”
“Kitchen’s closed.” He turns from me, taking a glass over to the tap.
My stomach gives a familiar, hungry yawn.
I open my mouth to tell him which beer, but he fills the glass with the red ale, which is what I wanted anyway.
“That was a good guess; that’s exactly what I was going to order,” I say with a self-conscious laugh.
“You want it, or don’t you?”
I flush with embarrassment at his brusque tone.
“Well, yeah, I do.” I accept it with a tight-lipped, awkward smile.
“Thanks—hey, do you have a phone charger back there? By any chance?”
I give an apologetic grimace.
He looks, I’m sure now, irritated with me before holding up the tail end of a white cable.
“Thank you,” I say, then plug my phone in and set it on the counter behind the bar where I can reach it.
“Did you forget to eat today, then?” he asks.
“What?”
“Did you forget to eat today?”
His question is so weirdly personal, and actually sort of accurate to who I am—and have always been—that I laugh.
“Oh—oh, no, I didn’t forget to eat. I didn’t have a chance.”
“What’ve you eaten?”
“I—well, I had a pretzel.” Then, because it’s only fair, “Why, what did you eat?”
“Fuck’s sake. Go sit down, I’ll rustle something up. Here, take this water; you probably forgot to drink that too.”
I am completely bewildered by this.
Listen, I was a bartender too.
I often felt this annoyed with everyone, no matter how reasonable their requests, but I didn’t show it.
At least not like this.
Is this what it’s like at bars in Ireland?
“You don’t have to,” I say.
“Really, I’ll—”
“Go,” he says, pointing at an empty table.
“Jesus Christ,” I say to myself as he disappears into the kitchen.
I go sit down where he told me to.
Unfortunately, his bossy, gruff manner has made him all the more attractive.
On a surface level.
Of course, I’d never want to be with a bossy, domineering man, if that’s what he is.
But I meet so many himbos in LA that it’s nice to meet a guy .
And kind of nice not to be sucked up to.
I take my first sip of the beer and actually groan out loud with how delicious it is.
I’ve always heard the beers are better over here, but I didn’t think they could be this different.
This makes the beer back home taste like carbonated, penny-filled gutter water.
That might be a bit extreme, but at least in this moment of relief, that’s how I feel.
A man comes by, laughing at something his friend said, and pats me on the back.
“’Night, doll.” Then he keeps walking, without waiting for a response from me.
I’m still relatively new to the whole getting recognized thing.
In LA it’s usually something like: I’ll glance up from my hand roll at Sugarfish to see that there’s an entire table of people taking turns pretending not to see me.
Or I stop by a Pressed Juicery for a lemon cayenne ginger shot, choke on it, and only then realize that I’m surrounded by a sea of rectangles filming me, and that a bunch of shitty kids are going to spend an afternoon making fun of me on the internet.
Then of course, there’s the nice kind of recognition: the pretty moms in Alo Yoga sets who come up to me at Erewhon and apologize for interrupting, but they have to tell me how much they love the show.
And sometimes I get a free drink or a discount on something from someone I’ll never see again who wants me to like them.
More often than not, the people who recognize me don’t say anything, they just send anonymous updates on my whereabouts to Deuxmoi.
“Bye, Cillian!” says one of the girls who was flirting earlier.
“Love you!”
They all crack up, doing that oh my God you’re being SO crazy!
thing drunk girls do together.
The bartender—Cillian, I’m guessing—gives a good-natured shake of the head and then a wave.
They go through the doors, and as they do, another girl soars in past them.
She pushes through the crowd and sits right down at my table.
“Christ on a bloody knitting needle, you’ll never believe the night I’ve had,” she says.
She has shockingly blue eyes, long dark hair, and porcelain skin sprinkled with freckles.
She reminds me immediately of Aisling Bea, and I feel certain she gets that all the time.
Even without the accent, she’s a dead ringer.
“I went on that date, yeah,” she goes on, “with the guy me mam set me up with, the one from her work? Well, she failed to tell me that he’s in his fifties and is, and I quote, in the pre-separation stage of leaving his wife. I need a bloody drink. As if I’m not locked already.”
She gets up and goes to the bar, now emptier and absent of the hot bartender.
She reaches behind the counter, fills her own beer from the tap, and comes back.
I don’t know who this girl is, but just as I felt an immediate attraction to that Cillian guy, I instantly find her endearing.
Is everyone just drunk?
I mean, I’ve gone into bar bathrooms by myself on nights out and come out with girlfriends I swear I’ll keep for life.
Sometimes it’s like that when it’s late and you’re tipsy.
Especially if you’ve been on some awful date.
Maybe she saw a female person around the same age as herself and thought, why not?
“I mean, when I was in school,” she goes on, “if I brought over a boyfriend who was even a year above me, Mam treated me like Lolita. Now she thinks Arthur from the accounting department might be the treat? Kay Donahue, the world’s most insane mam. I swear it.”
“Yikes,” I say, at a loss for anything but cartoon words.
She gives a derisive spike of laughter.
“Tell me about it.”
A plate is set loudly down in front of me, and a bowl set down beside that.
The girl and I both jolt back at the abruptness.
“What’s your problem, then?” she asks him.
“I know it’s a touchy time, but no need to be so rude.”
“Nothing at all,” he says.
“Can I get food too?” she asks.
“No.”
“Why’s she get it then?” she complains.
“She forgot to eat.”
“I didn’t forget to eat, I—” I interject, but they ignore me.
“Oy, come on, Cillian, just a bit! Enough for a wee mouse.”
He looks away, shaking his head, and then goes off.
“Yes,” says the girl.
“I knew he’d cave.”
He’s made me a grilled cheese and tomato soup.
One of my all-time favorite comfort meals.
One I haven’t had in as long as I can remember.
I’m starting to think I fell asleep in the cab and never woke up.
Like I’m in a dreamworld.
Or dead.
“To be fair,” says the girl, “it is a bit mean of you, showing up here, no?”
“Mean?”
“I can never keep up.” She reaches over and takes one half of my sandwich, has a big bite, and puts it back on my plate.
“Are you pretending you’re friends today, sleeping together today, or pretending you hate each other today? Last I heard it was…” She dragged her thumb across her throat.
He returns then, plopping down a plate.
It’s a wedge of white cheese and a butter knife stuck in it.
“For a wee mouse.”
“She gets a whole meal, and you give me this?” she asks.
“I can take it away, Kiera,” he says.
“No, no, I’ll take it.” She protects the plate.
“It’s that class cheese, hey.”
I down some water.
Feeling confused is a common symptom of dehydration.
One time, in Palm Springs, I was so dehydrated I could hardly understand the words everyone was speaking around me.
They all sounded like they were far away, trapped in a well somewhere.
That must be what’s happening now, because everything feels unknowably off.
I take a few more huge gulps of water.
I’m hesitant to eat the sandwich.
I’m conditioned by years of withholding food like this from myself.
I gather the nerve, take a big bite, and oh my God .
It’s unbelievable.
One of the best things I’ve ever eaten.
“Wow. Wow, this is good,” I say with my mouth full.
“I know, he makes the best,” says Kiera.
“But of course, I must still act like it’s shite to his face. All right, I’ve got to run. I texted Nial. I know , I know what you’re thinking, I know I shouldn’t have, but honestly, if I don’t have sex soon, I think my legs will glue together like Ariel and I’ll be stuck like that.” She stands, folding the cheese into a napkin and putting it in her purse.
“Talk tomorrow, Meggie, love ya.”
She kisses me on top of the head and goes.
I almost choke.
“Meggie?” I ask after her.
How—
I set down my food reluctantly.
Something is definitely off.
The music ends and the musicians start putting their things away.
Apparently this is an indication to some of the clientele that it’s time to go, because people have started collecting their coats and taking their last sips.
She called me Meggie.
Most people don’t even know that’s my name.
When I moved to LA and started auditioning, there was no question that I had to come up with a stage name.
My real name is Meg Bryan.
Not Meghan, not Megan, not Margaret.
Meg, and then, affectionately, Meggie.
And while it might be easier for casting to remember a name like Meg Bryan, since it sounds like Meg Ryan, it’s not worth the earworm similarity.
Not when you have to do the, no, I said Bryan, yes, I know, it sounds like that, ha ha, yes, I know, yeah conversation over and over again.
So, I came up with Lana Lord.
In retrospect, it’s a little more showbiz than I wish it were, but whatever, it has worked.
I never think about my real name unless I’m talking to one of my parents.
Even Grayson calls me Lana.
Does my Wikipedia even say my real name?
It must, but I don’t know for sure.
I reach for my phone, but then remember it’s plugged in.
I get up and go over to the bar.
Cillian doesn’t look up when I approach.
“Can I grab my phone?”
He dries his hands on the rag from his back pocket, and then hands it to me.
But it’s not my phone.
“Um… sorry, no, no it’s—it’s an iPhone, but it’s got no case on it, and… I mean I had it…”
“Meg, this is your phone. You’ve made me hold it a million times, I think I’d know.”
I freeze.
Look up at him.
He doesn’t seem like someone who’s trying to mess with a celebrity by saying her childhood name or withholding her things.
He’s acting like someone who knows me well enough to be comfortably exasperated with me.
I think about everything that girl Kiera said.
How she seemed completely at ease sitting down at my table.
And then her questions about Cillian?
Wait, what the hell is going on?
Cillian loses patience holding the phone out for me and sets it down on the counter.
He then walks away.
With a booming voice, he tells the room at large, “ Hold your whisht , get the fuck out, you’re not stayin’ all night like last night.”
I stare at the phone on the counter.
It’s one generation behind mine and despite the sage-green silicone case, there’s a hairline crack down the middle of the screen.
There is a grumble from the remaining customers at Cillian’s closing time call.
The crowd has thinned considerably, and they all seem pleasantly buzzed, making a lot of happy, late-night noise about the fact that they’ve got to go.
Some people seem to think or know that the call doesn’t apply to them.
I pick up the phone Cillian gave me and go, helpless, back to the table where my beer and food are sitting.
Some older women walk up to the bar and start telling Cillian how much they love him, how he’s got to give their daughters a chance.
He’s very popular.
The phone screen background is an auburn golden retriever in a little red bandana.
The dog has also been put in a pair of tortoiseshell Ray-Bans.
I used to have the same pair but lost them at a karaoke bar in a Korean mall in downtown LA.
According to this phone, since it’s after midnight, it is June 25, like it’s supposed to be.
Two days after my birthday, technically, given the time difference and the flight.
I slide open the phone and it asks me for a passcode.
I give a shake of the head, feeling like I might actually be going crazy.
It scans my face, and opens.
I set it down with a clatter.
I have another gulp of water, a swig of beer, and a big bite of soup-dipped sandwich.
In my experience, anytime I think I’m sick, dying, or losing my mind, I need rest, food, and water.
I’m always behind on at least one of those things.
I pick up the phone again and open the browser.
I type in my name.
Not my real name.
The one the world knows me by.
Lana Lord.
Unfortunately, it’s not my first time googling myself and so I know that usually, a knowledge panel pops up.
It says “American actress.” It lists the things I’ve been in.
It has my age and where I’m from.
It says that people also search for Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, Sydney Sweeney.
There is usually a slew of images of me, good and bad, and whatever recent articles have been written about me or about Brilliance.
But not this time.
This time, I don’t come up at all.