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I also can’t help thinking that if I hadn’t been so mad, if I hadn’t said I hated them, if I hadn’t wanted another life to begin, they’d all be alive today.
“Tia, thirty seconds,” Kevin, the floor director, calls out.
I blink, look up, returning to the set and the teleprompter and the next segment I’m introducing.
My heart aches, the old grief swamping me, pulling me back down. Grief is my biggest enemy. I’ve spent too many years missing. Missing my family. Missing my husband. Missing me. Hating me. Won’t go there again.
My head lifts, and I smash the sadness, smash the emptiness, smash all the bad feelings. Good feelings, I tell myself, good thoughts.
Marta’s Eva, who makes me laugh. Hiking with Christie in the canyon. Shey’s gorgeous Texas drawl.
Good feelings. Only good feelings.
But God, it’s hard. It’s hard when I’m so afraid it’s all about to be taken away again and I can’t let it happen, I can’t. I’m done losing in life. I’m done hurting. I’m done feeling numb and dead and empty. America Tonight is all I have. It’s all I am. Don’t they see that? Don’t they get that?
Kevin holds up a card. Ten seconds.
Ten seconds and I’m falling apart. Can’t fall apart. I’m Tiana Tomlinson.
I force a smile despite the gritty sensation in the back of my eyes and the raw panic burning in my throat. Smiling that fierce white smile, I drag the good in and up, from the tip of my toes through my knees to my belly and my chest, turning on for the camera and my audience of millions. Because this is my family now. These are the people who matter and this is the place I now call home.
Chapter Three
I’m meeting Celia Ramirez tonight at Grill on the Alley in Beverly Hills at a quarter to six. I’m tempted to cancel, as I’m exhausted and tomorrow’s going to be a nightmare with three events in one day. But I can’t cancel on Celia. We’re friends, but she’s a bit like Shelby. When with her, I’m always aware that I’ve got to watch my back. Too many of my relationships in this town are like that.
I arrive at Grill five minutes late because of traffic, and Celia’s already at our table against the brick wall, texting furiously. A senior editor for People, Celia works nonstop, but that was what brought us together. We were both fiercely ambitious, and as it turned out, we both were running from our past.
Raised in Selma, California, daughter to immigrant farm-workers, Celia has worked hard to make sure Hollywood sees her beauty, not her Latina past. She’s self-made, too, excelling in school, becoming the first Hispanic girl to hold all three positions— Student Body president, head cheerleader, and homecoming queen— her senior year of high school. She was offered a full scholarship to UCLA, where she promptly made the dean’s list each quarter, while cheering at UCLA’s football games every weekend.
I work hard, but I’ve never worked as hard as Celia, and I don’t think Celia would ever stab me in the back. But she might prick me with a fork. The entertainment industry is cutthroat, and a girl has to do what a girl has to do.
“Hello,” I say, arriving at our table and bending down to kiss Celia’s cheek. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“No problem. I’ve had plenty to do.” Celia finishes her text, presses send, closes her BlackBerry, and looks up at me with a smile.
Celia is beautiful. Jennifer Lopez meets Catherine Zeta-Jones beautiful. Tall, slim, olive skinned, with long thick, glossy black hair, Celia has learned to work not just the red carpet, but life itself, and I admire her for that. She’s one of those women with a take-no-prisoners attitude, and in that respect, she reminds me of Marta. Marta has never apologized for being beautiful or brilliant, and maybe other women don’t always immediately warm to her, but she has confidence and peace. She knows who she is, she knows what she is, and she’s good with that.
I’d like to have that kind of self-acceptance, but between the pressure of my industry, where everyone’s always judging and criticizing, and my own inner demons that don’t let me forget what a bratty, self-centered kid I once was, it’s hard to feel good about myself.
I know that growing up, all kids go through a bratty phase. But that doesn’t change the fact that I was at the height of my hatefulness when my parents and sisters died. It doesn’t change the fact that for years, I secretly believed it was my hatefulness that killed them.
I’m old enough now to know that’s just survivor’s guilt, but they did die without knowing the real me. They knew the selfish, preoccupied me, the one who wouldn’t talk, the one who didn’t want to spend time with them, the one who expressed contempt every time they opened their mouths and told me what they thought.
And this is the part that haunts me.
My parents were good people. Wonderful people. And they will never know how sorry I am for being selfish and treating them as if they weren’t important.
They will never know that I’ve worked hard to become who I am to make up for who I was then.
I know I was just fourteen, but still, I was wrong to be rude and to always act so irritated with them. I was wrong to walk away when my mom was talking to me and my dad was trying to explain things. I was wrong to tell them that I didn’t love them and I couldn’t wait to leave home.
But I can’t even tell them that. Can’t even say sorry.
“Tiana, you okay?” Celia’s looking at me over her menu and her expression is concerned.
“What?” I say blankly, my chest tight and heavy. I’d still do anything if I could just make amends. I’d do anything to bring them back. And I’d do anything to have them know I love them and miss them with all my heart.
Celia gestures at my face. “You’re uh, crying.”
Frowning, I reach up, feel damp lashes. So I am. I had no idea. I force a smile, the smile that makes the world think I’m just so damn lucky and happy. “It’s the smog,” I say, nonchalantly wiping them dry. “I’ve had that problem all day.”
The waiter appears at our table to take the order, and once he’s gone, Celia’s thoughts are in a different direction. “I confess I have an ulterior motive for meeting you tonight.” She looks at me, one black eyebrow arching. “I wouldn’t bring it up if I weren’t concerned.”
“What is it?” I ask, wondering if this is about Trevor and the Paris stories.
“It’s your girl Shelby. Rumor’s on the street that she’s taking over your anchor chair the first of the New Year.” Celia pauses to wave off the basket of bread the waiter has brought us. No point in having temptation sit on the table and stare you in the face. “Didn’t know if there was any truth behind the talk or not.”
We both know there’s nearly always a kernel of truth behind gossip. Even if it’s a very small kernel, and in this case, it’s not so very small. “She wants it, that’s for sure.”
“But it’s not hers??
?
“Not as long as I have any say.”
“Do you have any say?”
I flinch. I’ve known Celia too long to object to the question, but it’s a hard one, and it further undermines my increasingly shaky confidence. “I don’t see why I wouldn’t. I’m still the host. My contract’s not up until March.”
Celia looks at me for a long moment and then shakes her head. “Shelby’s hungry.”
“I know.”
“Be proactive. Don’t wait for the other shoe to drop. It’ll only get worse if you do.”
Dinner over, I drive home, park in the garage, and enter the house through the side door. I stand in the hallway off my kitchen, clutching my briefcase. It’s so quiet.
It’s always so quiet.
For a moment I droop, fatigue rushing over me in waves. I can feel the weight of my computer in my briefcase, the hard adobe tiles beneath my heels, the pinch of my thin, snug bra straps. Standing there, I can feel the quiet night like arms wrapping me, holding me, and it’s suffocating. Suffocating and lonely.
Keith.
For the first time in a long time, I miss him. Badly.
If only he was here. He’d know the right thing to say. He’d give me a hug, and a kiss, and tell me that everything’s going to be fine. He’d remind me that I have to be a fighter, and strong. And then he’d give me another hug, and kiss me and offer to get me a glass of wine.
I try to smile but can’t.
I wish he was here. I could use some Keith Heaton advice. Keith was great at giving advice. Sometimes he gave a little too much advice, and sometimes his advice was a little too black and white, but in the end, it’s what attracted me and kept my respect. Keith knew what was right. And even though he was ambitious, he had this incredible inner moral compass. He was a man who couldn’t be bought, couldn’t be had, and that’s a rare find in our society.
