Chapter 31
Lizanne
She found Kayla at the far end of the pool, sitting on the stone steps with her feet in the water and her sunglasses pushed up on her head. It was too cold for it in Lizanne’s mind, but Kayla didn’t seem to mind.
Lizanne crossed the grounds slowly. She had been inside since dawn, moving through rooms without purpose, straightening things that did not need straightening. Behind her, the pool house curtains were still drawn. Rose was behind there somewhere.
“How is she?” Lizanne asked as she sat next to Kayla.
Kayla looked up. She took a moment before answering, which meant the answer was not going to be good. “Upset. She’s been crying, though she’d rather die than admit that to anyone.” A pause. “She’s putting on a face for Daisy.”
Lizanne nodded, her legs pulled to her chest. For Daisy’s sake, they had not moved Daisy back to the pool house.
She remained in the room she’d just so recently moved into.
Rose put her to bed and then returned to the pool house, leaving Lizanne to look after her if she needed anything at night.
That was a sign of trust, at least. Something to hold on to.
“Nothing happened between Trina and me,” she said. “I want you to know that.”
“I saw the photo of you kissing her,” Kayla said but to Lizanne’s surprise, there was no judgment at all. Two days had passed since the argument. Since the ring had been left as if it meant nothing. And this was the first time Lizanne had gathered the courage to speak to anyone in Rose’s circle.
“She was calling and texting me for weeks. I ignored all of it. Then she showed up — the day I met with the network. She got into the car and told me she wanted to get back together. She had a whole story prepared. We could set Rose aside. Start over. She even had ideas on how to spin it for the network. I told her no.” Lizanne looked at the water.
“She kissed me. I pushed her away. Someone had a camera ready. I think she planned the whole thing. Now, anyway.”
“What about the Jeremy payment?” Kayla asked. “How did Trina know about that?” Lizanne noticed that Kayla didn’t ask why she paid it in the first place.
Lizanne was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t tell her, so I don’t know for sure how she knew,” she said.
“But…” She stopped. Something had been nagging at her since the argument.
She turned it over now. “She was trying to make me doubt Rose when we spoke in the car. Asking me how I could be sure that Daisy’s father didn’t want to be in the picture.
And I remember — I mentioned seeing Jeremy’s birthday card, torn up in the bin.
I mentioned it to her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I don’t even know why I said it.”
“Because you had a moment of doubt. That happens,” Kayla replied.
“She has resources,” Lizanne said. “Pat put together a full dossier on Rose before any of this started. Trina could do the same. She probably made inquiries. Found Jeremy. I wouldn’t put it past her to have helped move the custody filing along.”
Kayla turned to look at her directly. “You think she contacted him?”
“The filing came out of nowhere and then disappeared just as fast. It all fits. Trina lost Marcus. The show aired and suddenly the whole world is watching a love story that used to be hers. She saw an opportunity and she took it. And it’s probably how she knew I paid Jeremy off — if she was the one bankrolling him, then the second I bought him out he’d have run straight back to whoever was funding the lawyer.
” Lizanne paused. “It doesn’t matter. Even if every word of that is true, it doesn’t change what I did.
I paid Jeremy off without telling Rose. Trina didn’t make me do that.
I did that on my own. And honestly, I feel like Rose is more upset about that then the kiss. ”
Kayla looked out across the pool for a long moment.
“I think you’re right. I think a part of her believes you about Trina. But I also know that Rose gave you back the ring,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“She loves you,” Kayla said. “That’s not the issue.
The issue is that you went behind her back on something she specifically asked you not to touch, and she doesn’t know how to trust that you won’t do it again.
” She paused. “She doesn’t like being managed.
She’s had enough of that to last her a lifetime.
What you did felt like more of the same. ”
“I know.”
“Then the best thing you can do right now is take responsibility and give her time. Don’t reach for the fix. Don’t manage the situation. Just… let her feel it.”
Lizanne looked at the pool house across the grounds. “That’s the hardest thing you could possibly ask me to do.”
“I know,” Kayla said, not unkindly. “That’s probably why it’s the right answer.”
***
The filming day had been scheduled before everything fell apart, and neither of them had moved to cancel it. Which meant it was happening.
Lizanne came down at noon. Rose was already in the entrance hall. The crew was setting up around her with quiet efficiency.
Loraine wanted the living room. A confessional segment; the two of them on the sofa, talking about the upcoming event Rose was planning for some celebrity or other. The kind of thing that was supposed to look easy because it usually was easy.
Loraine waved Lizanne over from across the room and she sat beside Rose on the sofa. Instinctively, she placed her hand on top of Rose’s because that’s how they always did these confessionals. Hand in hand.
Rose’s fingers did not curl around hers. They lay underneath her hand, still and flat, like a dead fish.
“We’re planning a Valentine’s Day soiree which is coming together,” Rose said, to the camera, to the director, to anyone who was not Lizanne. “For ten couples getting married. It’s going to be a wonderful evening.”
“It will be,” Lizanne said. “It always is. If anyone knows weddings, it’s Rose.
She planned our wedding, after all.” She said it lightly, easily, with the smile she used when she needed something to read as warmth at a distance.
She felt Rose go very slightly still beside her.
They continued talking for a few minutes, about Rose’s new found fame as well as Lizanne’s new show, then Loraine called cut.
The crew dispersed. Loraine moved away to check something on the monitor. In the small quiet that followed, Lizanne turned to Rose.
“Can we talk?” she said, low enough that the room wouldn’t catch it.
Rose withdrew her hand. She did it without looking at her, a smooth movement, as if she’d already decided exactly how much of herself she was prepared to have in contact with Lizanne today and had reached that limit.
“I have nothing to say to you right now,” Rose said.
“Rose, I just want you to forgive me—” This wasn’t what Kayla had advised her to do and she knew it.
“Which part would you like me to forgive first?” Not sharp. Worse than sharp — tired. “Not telling me about Trina? Or paying off Jeremy while I sat across from you in that meeting and told you exactly what I wanted to do?”
Lizanne said nothing. There was nothing to say that wasn’t another form of management.
“I can apologize,” she said finally. “I can apologize a hundred times. I don’t know what else I can offer you right now.”
“Neither do I,” Rose said. “That’s the problem.”
She stood up before Loraine came back, smoothed her jacket, and walked to the window. She stood there looking out at the garden with her arms crossed and her profile very still, and Lizanne sat on the sofa and did not follow her.