MARCH 2003 #2
(I told myself it was because of Joel. That I’d set up those alerts to know if we were in danger.
But however much I mulled over the varied ways I wanted her attention, the truth remained that no matter the shift in us that Harper Moore was the center of my world.
I didn’t know how not to be obsessed with her, even as we grew into whatever it was we were.)
The door creaked. “Hey!” she called, pushing through and dropping bags I’d already seen in a dozen shots.
At some point, perhaps in the car, she’d tied her hair up, because all the pictures had it down, loose and fluttering.
The teal velour tracksuit might have come straight from Paris Hilton’s wardrobe.
It was so far from her usual grunge edge that I could only assume it was an effort to signal supposed distress, a need for comfort.
I slid the laptop closed, reached for the pot of tea—still hot, and poured a cup.
“Show me what you bought,” I said, as I crossed to her, offering the mug.
She took it with a self-conscious smile, dipping her eyes to the chamomile flowers on the surface of the tea. (They meant patience in adversity, and wasn’t that apt?) “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll give you your own private catwalk.”
None of the alerts could have shown me this. None of the articles.
Nobody got her like this but me.
———
“When did you have this done?” I asked, tracing the outline of a small crescent moon tattooed on the edge of Harper’s ribs.
There was a shot in Wilder Ones, Jane stripping off her gown to the white slip underneath, running through the rain.
Could I see this through its translucent mesh?
Or had they covered it? The cameras I so adored hiding a part of her from my gaze?
Harper bit her lip, and it took all my concentration not to part those lips with my thumb and remind her they were mine to worry at.
“1998,” she said, as though that were all I was truly asking.
“Oh?”
“Shortly after I started hanging out with Kayla Alexander.”
“Does she have a sun?” I teased. “Do I have to fight her for your hand?”
Harper looked at me—and in the hazy morning light filtering through the curtains she looked like she was on film.
Her hair splayed across the pillows. The sheets crumpled around her.
But whatever youthful radiance she ought to have embodied was lost in the tired creases of her eyes.
The eternal red that tinged them—my beautiful Harper, always a breath away from tears.
Her lids shuttered.
“I started spending time with models, and the press began drawing comparisons between us. My mother visited—she moved back to San Francisco after the divorce … I half expected her to agree but … it’s different, she says.
To her day. She was furious with the headlines.
I don’t know what it was about them specifically—I’d had hideous pieces before. ”
“Harper,” I said gently—because she hadn’t really said anything. But that was her when she was real—a little all over the place, her scrambled thoughts a thing to decode—but I knew. I always did.
“Who’d have thought anorexia would fix my relationship with my mother?”
“That’s not funny,” I scolded, drawing up as I connected some dots. “Have you been eating properly since … he left you?”
Like we could speak that story into existence.
She was quiet a moment. “No.”
Oh, so that was the confession beneath the confession. The same way I’d turned up at Ivan’s doorstep: Help me, because I’m scared I’m getting bad again.
Her finger brushed mine, running over the edge of the moon. “I got a tattoo because I wanted to feel in control of my body again. And I got this because when the moon changes shape, they call it a miracle.”
My eyes met hers. “I’m not your distraction from all this, Harper. Talk to me about the bad things too.”
“You’re not my distraction,” she agreed, hooking her finger around mine like we might swear it. “You’re the only thing I’m trying to stay present for.”
———
At dawn, she woke gasping. Half asleep, I drew her close, let her settle in my arms until her breathing slowed. I didn’t know how to help, could only be there for her and pretend I didn’t feel the same clawing in my chest too. I could tend the weeds of her guilt while my own flourished.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Not like that, I …”
“I know, Harper. You did what you could. But it’s over.”
But it wasn’t. We might have buried his body, but we hadn’t buried him. Not the man lingering in every headline, on the words of the police, on the gossip of the public. And I didn’t know how to protect her from that.
———
In May, we were escorted from the Cannes carpet within the hour. (We had elected to go solely so we could take a holiday together without notice, slipping off to Saint Tropez without any raised eyebrows about why we were both in France.)
Our catfight made the front page. Another article on Joel was page twenty-one.
———
Harper scrolled through her laptop as she lay in bed, silk nightdress slipping down her shoulder. I massaged night cream into my face, wandering out of the bathroom as I did so not to waste a minute that I might spend looking at her.
“Oh, this sounds good,” she said and commenced to read.
“‘I hadn’t told Joel we were going to ask him to leave the squad for the Euros yet. But he was thirty-two, he had to have suspected. I think perhaps that combined with all the drama in his love life meant he just took off. I hope he’s on a beach somewhere, drinking a beer and laughing at us all losing our minds over him.
But I think it’s more likely he got too drunk somewhere he shouldn’t and got into an accident.
Fell into a river or off a cliff, and he’s just waiting for us to find him. ’”
“Yes,” I said, “Sounds good.”
But I wondered how long he would be a part of our lives, where even his ghost lingered in a moment like this. And every time I thought we were maybe forgetting him and what we did, a phone rang or a headline landed or someone made a comment that pulled me up short.
I crawled into bed, and Harper kissed my collar. “I don’t want to take your moisturizer off,” she said, and sighed happily. “It smells good though.”
And I thought I could bear it for a moment more.
———
“The cops phoned me earlier,” Harper said.
This was not uncommon. Their calls might have slowed with each passing week, but three months after Joel’s death they were still in touch every few days with updates on their investigation.
“Yes?”
“They want access to the house. They want me to go back and give my DNA and fingerprints so they can rule me out of anything they find.”
“That won’t get you into trouble,” I said. “Even if they find him, I can’t think of anything it wouldn’t be reasonable for your prints or DNA to be on.”
“I know,” she said, sliding her arms around my neck and pressing her lips to my forehead like I was the one worrying. “It just means I have to go back. And you can’t go with me this time.”
I leaned my forehead against hers. “I’m a phone call away,” I promised. “Whenever you need.”
Caleb rang me a few mornings after she left. “Hey Nadine, do you want to get dinner with me on Friday?”
I swallowed. “As a date?”
He paused a moment. “If I say yes?”
“Then … I let you down gently, I think.”
“You think? Damn Heywood, don’t I at least deserve a rejection for the ages? You’re supposed to be a diva.”
“I could burn NO into your front lawn?”
“Now we’re talking,” he laughed. “Look, if you don’t want it to be a date that’s fine with me. Do you want to hang out anyway? You’re sort of the only person in pretentious, award-winning land I can tolerate, and I could really do with seeing a friendly face.”
So there I was at Caleb’s house, reclining across three garden chairs while he prodded at fish charring on the barbecue.
I watched him for a while, wondering what I was doing here.
Harper was flying straight from London to Toronto to spend a few weeks filming the sort of New York–set woman-in-the-arts rom-com that had become her standard fare between arthouse projects.
I suppose somewhere between scraping through improv classes and winning Emmys Harper had found a way to make her wryness work for her.
(I tried not to think about the slow trickle of my own offers—and none of them grabbing me the way I craved.
I was a considerate professional, an angel on set and a veritable delight to work with, but I was a roll of the dice with the press and not one many were willing to risk.
But I trusted Victor to find me something. He always did.)
I knew it wasn’t just the empty evenings left in Harper’s wake that had brought me to this garden. I liked Caleb—a lot, actually. Especially after London.
But that was the issue, wasn’t it?
He was my alibi, so I should keep him close.
But he was also my friend.
And the ex-fiancée of the girl I was … whatever we were.
We picked at food. We gossiped. I suggested he go for the lead in Ivan’s new film—his first screenplay since Dreadbase. And then, after all that, Caleb sobered and looked across the sprawling hills below. “So, are we going to discuss the fact the thought of us fucking tore apart a marriage?”
I took a sip of lemonade—fresh pressed, which was exactly the sort of thing Caleb would think to make in anticipation of a guest. His hair flopped across his face as he said it, not a cynical comment but edged with concern, even though he was trying to play it off as funny.
“I don’t think that’s on us,” I said gently.
“Clearly they were having problems already.”
“Do you think she’s okay? I know you two have been close in the past and despite what went down between us, I don’t like the idea of her hurting.”
“I’m sure she’s having a rough time, but she’ll get through it. She was Harper Moore before Joel, and she’ll be the same conniving bitch we all love to hate long after.”
He snorted. “Right, so you’re not close right now.”