again, impatient. “I mean Ramon wasn’t filming your or anything, right? Or your little friend?”
“You mean my best friend Sally Bristol, whom you’ve known for thirteen years?”
“Don’t be cute, Iris,” she warns. “Did either of them film it?”
Of course they weren’t filming it. They’re my best friends. My best friends also would not film me doing something equally humiliating like getting a colonoscopy or browsing through Tinder.
I’m tempted to leave her twisting in the wind for a little while. Gee, I don’t know, Moira. I’ll ask them. But who knows what she’d do with that.
“No, Moira, they weren’t filming anything.”
“Well, thank God for that at least.”
Her tone has me gritting my teeth. I breathe in. I breathe out. “Would it be so bad if they were? I mean, they’re my best friends. And even if they weren’t, they signed NDAs.”
“P-lease, don’t be so naive. Do you know what they could sell a video like that for?” she asks, snidely. “Enough to buy new friends.”
Even though I know Sally and Ramon would never do that, it stings that she’d even say it.
“Moira, they wouldn’t hurt me like that.” I wish I could say that without sounding like I’m nine years old.
She laughs. She actually laughs. “Honey, you’re old enough to know that everyone has a price.” She chuckles in a way that I can bet she’s shaking her head at me. “I’m sorry to have to break it to you, Iris, but there’s nothing special about you that would make people overcome human nature.”
This gut punch lands right where I expect it, but it’s the next one I don’t see coming.
“I mean, if there were, your father never would have left.”
My knees almost give.
In a daze, I reach out for the hard surface of the hospital wall and lean back against it. Memories of my dad pour in like a deluge through a collapsed roof. I’m staring at my sandals, but I’m seeing him. Grinning at me. Shrugging. Tucking his long, brown hair behind his ears. Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The faded denim always hung loose on his hips. He would stoop when he walked. Like he was ducking his head. His posture would make his glasses slip down his nose.
And that used to make Moira so mad.
Stand up straight! she’d scold. What are you? Eleven? You want Iris to skulk around like that? Set a good example for God’s sake.
I close my eyes. That grin. That shrug. That skinny frame. I can still see them.
“Did you eat something tonight?” Moira’s question shatters the images.
“Hmm?” I blink my eyes open, lost for a moment in this unfamiliar place.
Hospital. I’m at a hospital.
“Did. You. Eat?” Impatience firms each word.
“Oh.” I remember the protein bar and the junkie. I clear my throat. “I brought a protein bar.”
“Good,” she says. “Remember, nothing after seven-thirty.”
I check my smart watch: 7:26. Oh, well. I guess I’m not eating until tomorrow.
I’m hungry, but suddenly I’m also exhausted. So exhausted.
“I’ll remember,” I mutter. “I’ll just check on Mr. Hebert and head home. It’ll be an early night.”
“Good,” she says again, and this time she sounds pleased. Moira approves when I turn in early—unless there’s an A-list event for the evening. And then I’m up until all hours—drinking sparkling water with lemon, lime, or if I’m lucky, a strawberry. Because rules. No food after seven-thirty and, of course, no alcohol.
“‘Night, then, Moira. I’ll see you on-set tomorrow.”
“Text me when you get back to the house.”
“I will.”
The house. My rental. My oasis. My own. When I turned nineteen, I insisted that I needed my own place. I’d just nailed the role as Raven Blackwell, and I was making enough money to change my lifestyle. And I knew if I was going to stay sane while I balanced a hectic rehearsal and filming schedule, do cardio and strength training on the regular, and have anything resembling a life, I needed Moira and me to live under separate roofs.
At first, she didn’t like the idea. And then I found us two separate condos in the same complex in Silver Lake. She did like the condo. Hers was a one-bedroom on the east side of the complex, mine a two—all the way over on the west side. And I sweetened the deal by putting her lease in her contract.
And then I got Mica—my Shetland Sheepdog-Blue Heeler mix.
Moira is allergic to dogs and cats. And, okay, yes, maybe I knew that before I got a Sheltie-mix, a breed that