“Next will never come after you. Or me. Or Aubrey. I have guaranteed that.” He speaks with Next’s laser-lock intensity. “Nobody as high up as me has ever defected. I’ve counseled every major celebrity in their stable. They know that the papers and talk shows will be lining up to interview me if I ever go public. I could seriously mess with them and half a dozen of the biggest careers in Hollywood. They will never risk that. Never.”
“Okay, let’s just say that that’s true. I now have a college fund to replace in case you haven’t noticed.”
He leans forward, excited, hooked on his own idea. “Right, right, sure. But try this: You give the house back and, since the trust is now gone, you have nothing on the books and the financial aid rolls in. You rent in Sycamore Heights or buy the cheapest place you can get into.”
“It’s a teensy, tiny bit more complicated than that.”
“Cam, I know your thoughts on my work, but this is a big part of what I was doing for all those years. Helping people visualize what they want, and then actualizing that. I’ve strategized entire Oscar-winning careers.”
“ ‘Oscar-winning careers.’ ” I snort. “Yeah, that’s what I need help with.”
Martin ignores my sneering. “What you want is insanely easy. And, P.S., the housing bubble has burst, so we could not be having this discussion at a better time. Especially since you’re buying, not selling.
“Look.” He directs my attention to the For Sale sign in front of a house down the street. “They’ve still got the asbestos siding on it. You think those owners aren’t scared? Wouldn’t take a lowball offer? Seriously, Camille, if it would make you happy, you could have that house. Just go with me for a moment and visualize yourself back here. Beats worrying about a situation we can do absolutely nothing about at the moment, doesn’t it? I mean, all we can do now is wait for Aubrey to call.”
Though I intend to resist, a vision of me in the neighborhood I never should have left, where I should have raised Aubrey, where Martin and I were happy, fills my head. All these years, it was the dream I had left behind. The dream I hadn’t even really analyzed because it was so impossible. But now, sitting here with the hot cash in my shaved ice–chilled hands, I consider the idea. The “good school” concerns that had imprisoned me in Parkhaven are over. I could actually get many more clients in the city than in Parkhaven. And it’s not as if I’d have many emotional connections to uproot.
A realization hits me: I could do it. I could actually move.
DECEMBER 12, 2009
For a motel cabin by the side of the highway, the room isn’t horrible. The windows rattle when an eighteen-wheeler passes, the carpet is done in a pattern like pepperoni pizza, and the paintings—a mill on a stream, a pelican in front of a beach sunset—are bolted to the wall. But it is clean and there are no gross smells.
Tyler goes in. I hesitate at the door and wonder what I have done. He takes my hand, rubs it between his. “You sure about this?”
No.
“You can change your mind.”
I step in and shut the door behind us. Tyler closes the curtains, blocking the view of the giant red arrow sign outside that is shooting right at us, and the room gets dark. He adjusts the thermostat on the wall heater until it switches on and the coils heat up and glow orange like a fireplace.
We stand in front of it without touching. Tyler puts his arms out. I look at his fingers, knowing now that, like his teeth, his hands were ruined when he was very young.
He opens his jacket and rolls me into it so that I am between him and the heater. He says, “Heat sandwich.”
The coils ping in the silence. I wish I had a week, a month, to figure out what to say. But I don’t, so I say the first stupid thing that pops into my head: “I think you’re brave.”
“Brave? What’s brave about being a complete and total fraud? About never, not for one day, not to one person, telling the truth about who you really are?”
I tilt away so that I can look up into his face. “That is so wrong. Think about all the guys who hang out at Paige’s. Cody. Colt. All of them. They got it