Lola Carlyle's 12-Step Romance Read online

  So, along with most of Hollywood, she hates them and yet dresses for them and acts as if they are lurking about somewhere at all times, which makes public outings and communications during public outings part of a giant performance. It’s very meta.

  “You, on the other hand,” she continues, “have nothing to do but loaf around on the beach all summer. You don’t even have to save for college.”

  “So maybe I need bathing suits,” I say. “And loafing-around clothing. Maybe as my mother you might have noticed I’ve grown out of most of my sandals. Not to mention you stole my Ray-Bans.”

  “Those Ray-Bans make you look fat,” she says.

  “What?”

  “It’s true. They make your cheeks look puffy.”

  “And my ass, too, no doubt,” I say, almost spitting out the words. “Sunglasses have a way of doing that.”

  “If your mother can’t tell you the truth, who can?”

  “The truth according to you is that I should be anorexic. Maybe we should all start doing coke for breakfast. Would that make you happy?”

  “I just want you to realize that a healthy weight—”

  “I am a healthy weight. I’m shorter than you and I have hips and boobs, which, in real life as opposed to television, look just fine. And so what if I were fat?”

  “Then you’d have a very difficult future ahead of you,” she says, with such a convincing worried-mama face that I almost believe her concern is real.

  “Let’s not pretend you give a crap about my future, Mom. You just don’t want me to have a Kardashian ass.”

  “God, no,” she says. “Certainly not unless you were taller.”

  “You are such a freak show.”

  “Stop it,” she snaps. “Quit sniveling and go shop.”

  “Wow, this gets warmer and cozier by the minute,” I say, taking long strides and making her hustle on those stilettos. “Girl time. Yay.”

  “You have five minutes,” she says. “I’ll wait here on the bench.”

  “What—you don’t want to do fatness patrol on my choices?”

  “Four minutes and thirty seconds…”

  “Perfect,” I say. She thinks the short time frame will deter me, but damn if I’m not going to get something out of this mother-daughter fiasco. I hold out my hand for her credit card. She passes it to me and then crosses her arms over her chest.

  “That bench makes you look fat,” I say, and witness her momentary look of panic before I storm away.

  Ten minutes later, I return. In the bags I’m carrying are:

  -Three bathing suits, one particularly awesome with bottoms that look like lace shorts

  -An oversize tee with kittens on it (Mom is allergic)

  -A pair of sequined leggings

  -A pair of round-eyed Miu Miu sunglasses

  -Two new pairs of Ray-Ban Wayfarers, the same kind I had before. From now on I’m calling them my “Ray-Ban Fat-Asses.”

  And I’m going to wear them a lot.

  Mom stands up. “Happy now?” she says, and links her arm in mine like we weren’t just ready to kill each other a few minutes ago.

  “Ecstatic.”

  “Fabulous.”

  “I love these days we spend together,” she says, and sort of leans into me like we’re going to cuddle, and suddenly I am happy. For real. Because she’s my mom and I love her and, okay, we’re both a little bit crazy.

  It’s a wonder I’m not an addict, come to think of it.

  That night I try texting Sydney, then calling her on the number she dialed me from, but she doesn’t respond to the text and the phone goes through to the main voicemail for Sunrise. No chance I’m leaving her a message there.

  I Google Wade again, this time under News, but there’s still nothing.

  As I think about this, not seeing anything posted about him being in rehab is worse than if it were all over the internet. Because if, say, he isn’t an addict but just did something stupid and/or got into some trouble, his PR team might send him for a bit of rehab just to quell the concern and clean up his image. We love to forgive people who admit they’ve messed up and get help publicly. Rehab is a weird kind of substitute for church, or jail in these cases, from a public perspective—go in, suffer, repent, return forgiven.

  Silence and secrecy on the part of Wade’s people is worse. It could mean real trouble, not just mischief. It could mean he’s a serious mess—bad enough that they think he’s fragile and wouldn’t be able to handle it if the news got out, bad enough that they need to cover it up lest it damage his career.

  Either way, he’s not on a good path, if it’s true that he’s at Sunrise.

  I put a Google alert on his name, leave my phone beside the pillow, and lie down.

  But I can’t sleep, and soon I’m sitting back up, phone in hand, fingers hovering over the keypad, ready to call my dad. He’d know if there was anything going on. He’s worked with Wade a couple of times since the zombie movie, and he’s connected, and he would care. I know he would care.

  He probably cares about Wade more than he does about me.

  Which is why…he does not want to hear from me, especially at two thirty in the morning, and why I must not call or text him at two thirty in the morning—it would only confirm all his worst ideas about me.

  Come to think of it, my dad would be the person most likely to believe I need to be in rehab, if I did it. He is one of the few people who’ve seen me drunk.

  It wasn’t a good night. And taking a limo up into the hills to stand stinking drunk at the base of Dad’s driveway, then raging and crying into his security monitor, which I know records everything, wasn’t very smart. It definitely wasn’t the way to make up after the epic fight we’d had a few weeks before, as his terse email demonstrated the next day. That night is one of the reasons I don’t drink much—mine are not inhibitions that should be let loose.

  So Dad would probably be delighted and relieved if I checked into rehab. And then he’d be able to blame all our problems on my being an addict, like he blamed their marriage falling apart on my mom. He might even decide to speak to me.

  Right.

  God, I hope he deleted that video.

  But it’s no good thinking about any of that. Usually I don’t, but this thing with Wade has me all messed up, and that makes me vulnerable to thinking about all the shit I can’t do anything about and that I usually keep successfully at bay.

  I put the phone back down and roll to look at the ceiling, where there are still glow-in-the-dark stars from when I was a kid. It’s not that I’m one of those girls still living in my little-girl princess bedroom—we redecorated—it’s just that I wanted to keep the stars. I’d have liked to keep a lot of things—my dreams, my intact family, even some of my illusions.

  I roll into the kitchen just as “the moms”—my mom and her now-infamous, ass-kicking stuntwoman/ex–porn star partner, Elise—are sitting down with their disgusting-looking breakfast smoothies.

  “You guys hear anything about Wade Miller lately?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

  Elise shakes her head, her long black ponytail swishing from side to side.

  Mom says, “Who?” even though it’s nearly impossible for anyone not to know who he is in this town, which means she’s either willfully blocked all knowledge of him out of her mind because of his association with my dad or is pretending not to know of him for the same reason, or because his show is far more successful than hers and she’s jealous, or all of the above. Or she is getting old. Perish the thought.

  “Hot young actor, does film and TV?”

  She shrugs.

  “Worked with Dad? And me? We had him at the house, for God’s sake. He was my friend. Come on, don’t do this.”

  “Your friend? Where is he now, then?”

  Another sensitive spot—the division of friends, the taking of sides, post divorce. Mom, being the more obviously guilty party, didn’t come out well, and it didn’t help that Dad was/is higher up the food chain
than she was. So it hurt her social life and her career. Which means she’s still pissed, years later.

  “He’s a little busy, starring in Drift.”

  “Oh,” she says now with a sniff, “that little turd.”

  “Nice,” I say.

  “Well, is he still your friend?”

  “That isn’t anybody’s fault,” I say pointedly.

  Actually, it could be said it was her fault, since her affair with Elise broke three days before the premiere of the zombie movie. It had been eight months since production wrapped, and I hadn’t seen him since. But to my relief and delight, puberty had finally gone to work on me, changing me from an awkward, short, flat-chested, no-hipped, brace-faced kid into a full-fledged teen. A girl. I had boobs, curves, I’d grown taller, and I’d even convinced my orthodontist to accelerate my treatment (painful!) so I could have my braces off in time for the event. In preparation for seeing Wade again and hoping to show him once and for all that I wasn’t a child anymore, I’d paid Sydney’s big sister for flirting lessons, learned how to apply makeup, and bought a gorgeous crystal-beaded dress, in which I looked very grown-up. I hoped it was enough to make Wade look at me in a new light.

  But I never got to the premiere, because I was stuck inside my paparazzi-surrounded house with my crying, raging, lunatic family. Wade and I texted for a while, but I could tell he still thought of me as a kid and was just being nice, and I didn’t like anybody feeling sorry for me.

  “Well,” Mom says, “I haven’t heard anything about him lately, no.”

  “Why?” Elise says. “I mean, why do you ask?”

  “Oh,” I say, shrugging. “I was just wondering.”

  Even saying something here at home about how he might be partying too much could be the inadvertent cause of a rumor, if Elise or Mom repeats my line of questioning to the wrong person. And I won’t be the cause of that.

  Sydney doesn’t call. I spend two days worrying and obsessing—frankly, I have nothing else to do, as I am stranded, carless, and with no summer plans of any kind. Despite my telling them none of my friends would be around (every other seventeen-year-old I know is off working as a counselor at camp, or in Europe, or in rehab, apparently), Mom and Elise thought it would be healthy for me to be “unscheduled” for all of July and August.

  “You have your whole life to be zooming around—take one last summer to be a kid.”

  “I haven’t been a kid in a long time,” I pointed out. “I’m, like, only a year away from being an official adult.”

  “Exactly,” Elise said. “I can’t tell you what I’d give for a whole summer of nowhere to be and nothing to do. And when I was seventeen? I had to spend my summers working in my dad’s store. Whereas you have the chance to be free.”

  Free. Sure. Awesome.

  I read a bit, but I’m too distracted to stick with it. Then I try on all my new bathing suits with various combinations of sunglasses, and imagine what I would wear in rehab with Wade. Then I go online and order a bunch of clothes—casual—from Free People and Forever 21 and Topshop. Then I check my phone a million times. Then I Google Wade again. In the process of Googling him, I’ve seen a lot of pictures, which means, damn, how can I stop thinking about him? He has only gotten hotter over the past four years. It’s ridiculous how hot he is.

  And it’s horrifying thinking of him in the grips of addiction because that gets ugly, fast. People get dead fast.

  No, no, no, no, no.

  It could be “not serious” and his team still might be keeping quiet. It’s not impossible. It could be he’s just tired, overwhelmed, needs a break, but doesn’t want to talk about it to the world. Sunrise sounds like it could be that kind of place.

  Sydney still doesn’t call.

  I still don’t call my dad, though I am constantly on the brink of doing so.

  I finally put my phone down and go for a walk, and as I’m walking, I imagine the things I might say to Wade if I saw him. About the pitfalls of fame, about staying human, about remembering the craft and remembering where you come from and staying true to that, about never being desperate but never being a dick either, about not drinking your own Kool-Aid—or drinking just enough of it to remain confident but not enough to become an asshole, about staying in the driver’s seat of your career, keeping people you trust around you, people who will tell you the truth even if you don’t like it, people who aren’t with you for all the shitty reasons.

  I would tell him the truth.

  And if he happened to then fall madly in love with me? What would be wrong with that? I’m not trying to be an actress and I don’t have any illusions about fame. I don’t need his money. I’m not addicted to anything you can’t buy at Starbucks, so I can’t lead him into any of that kind of trouble. I know him—I know the real him.

  Those people at Sunrise don’t know him at all.

  And if I don’t go…he could fall in love with someone else while he’s there—Sydney, for example—or someone who’s totally dangerous and inappropriate and would be bad for him.

  Although Sydney promised…

  And I am not going, not thinking of going in a serious way…

  Okay, I am seriously imagining going, but that’s not the same thing as planning on it.

  When I get home, the message icon is blinking on my phone.

  “Shit!”

  Of course it is, and of course the message is from Sydney.

  “Damn it, Lola, pick up!” she hisses. “I’ve only got a minute and I’m not supposed to be on the phone right now anyway. Okay. You have to come. I’m going to harass you about it because I don’t want to do this by myself—I mean it’s awesome, but I miss you. I need a true friend here, and you’re the only one I have. Oh, and I saw your boy in the flesh, so if you come, that’ll be an added benefit. Mind you, he looks like shit—pale and kinda sweaty, and skinny— so I’m not sure if you’re still gonna dig him. But imagine the walks on the beach, lying together by the pool, catching up on old times with him…it could be good.

  “Anyway, I was thinking, stick with something simple—just alcohol. ’Cause all the other stuff has side effects you’d have to know about and symptoms and signs and withdrawals you can’t fake. Alcohol has withdrawals too, but only if you’ve been hitting it really hard for a really long time. Otherwise you’re only looking at, say, three days of feeling hung over. The thing you need to say when you come in is you feel out of control. That’s partly true, right? I mean, you are a crazy-ass bitch when you drink. So. ‘Out of control’—that’s the buzz phrase you need. And…as for your parents, same thing, really. Do some research, but the thing is, they’ll be way too freaked not to send you if you just tell them, or show them, that you’re having a problem. Uh…at the same time, if it’s your mom, you might try a bit of reverse psychology—I know she’s tricky. Trust me, this will make for a seriously memorable summer, Lo. It’s a six-week program, so you’d better hurry. Don’t call me back on this line, by the way. Shit…gotta go.”

  I play the message over three times, hearing “he looks like shit—pale and kind of sweaty, and skinny” the loudest.

  Then I go to my laptop and into my photos and scroll back a few years to the pictures of us on set. I took a ton of pictures of him—hanging out in his trailer, goofing around with the background performers (does he still do that?), hanging out by the craft table, under the lights and cameras. I also took a few of him and my dad, and there are some selfies of the two of us with half our faces cut off. And then there’s the one with Wade, my dad, and me at the wrap party. Dad is in the middle, with an arm around each of us. I look hideous of course—short and scrawny with braces and atrocious hair—but we’re all beaming, happy, envisioning only good things in our futures.

  Over the happy images, I keep getting flashes, visions of the kinds of headlines, the photos you see when one of these talented young actors is found dead—in a hotel room, on a bathroom floor—and the pain of it is sharp and real. It could happen to Wade. That could
be his future.

  Gazing at his bright, hopeful, open face on my computer screen, I suddenly know what’s in my future.

  Maybe I’m crazy, but sometimes you get a gut feeling, a sense of a path opening up in front of you and the certainty that you need to take that path.

  I have that sense now, and I see the path.

  The path leads to rehab.

  Chapter Three

  I dab tequila behind my ears, then dribble some down the front of my T-shirt.

  It’s a bit gross and not super honest, I realize, but I’ll get over the guilt.

  The stars have lined up to give me this chance, and I am meant to go. There’s just that irritating lack-of-addiction problem to conquer, and the fact is, I don’t have time to get addicted for real.

  Hence I am dousing myself with tequila and staging my own intervention.

  It might seem a little extreme, but I’m running out of time, and my more subtle attempts have not been successful. For example: To start, I was extra moody and bitchy and combative, but apparently that wasn’t, um, enough of a change from normal. Then I poured myself a huge glass of wine at dinner and guzzled it right in front of them. Then I carried a bottle of vodka in my purse and let it clank around and peek out of the top at strategic moments.

  When none of this raised so much as a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, I siphoned off most of the hard alcohol in the house and replaced it with water, figuring Mom, at least, would notice the difference in her predinner martini.

  But no.

  So I emptied the vodka, rum, and tequila completely and left the bottles in strategic places—the jasmine plants outside the front door, beside the path to the beach, under my bed, et cetera, thinking they’d see or that at least I’d get ratted out by Ida, the cleaning lady.

  No dice.

  Finally I texted some people from school whom I don’t particularly like or even hang out with (because they are anarchist stoners whose major effort at style involves overapplication of kohl eyeliner) and dressed up like them (eww) and went to two of their supposedly wild parties, both of which turned out to be excruciatingly boring, especially considering they’re supposed to be rebels. The first time, I came home reeking of booze and pot, but no one was up to see me arrive—a flaw in the plan I should have foreseen—so I threw myself on the couch and slept there until morning. Mom found me, frowned, told me the couch wasn’t for sleeping on, and gave me shit about getting my kohl eyeliner on the beige fabric, and said she hoped I wouldn’t go out in public again until I was over this particular style evolution.