3
Harrison
Present Day
I stepped into my trailer,eager to shower the New Mexico dust off my body. The end of March in the Southwest desert meant being pummeled with hurricane winds while standing in the middle of a sand field with nary a single plant or tree to block the blasting gusts.
“At least I’m exfoliated,” I said to my reflection. It became increasingly disconcerting how often I spoke to myself these days. There weren’t many other options around. Wesley and Emma were finally united—called that—and Kate and Charlie raised chickens with Agata in Devon, England.
I was here. Alone.
Heavy-lidded eyes closing in disappointment …
The second Frankie found out who I was, the light I had seen initially faded from her eyes. She had been guarded and leery the next, and only two times I’d been able to visit. The first in January when George had taken a tumble (but was okay, thankfully) and the second more recently, between award shows and Wesley Cole’s dramatic love confession to Emma.
Frankie’s smile was polite enough, but she always had an excuse to move out of my company quickly. It felt like I had imagined the connection between us.
In my suitcase, I lifted out the tiny chick tchotchke I’d eventually purchased the day we met. I’d meant to give it to Charlie and Kate but found I couldn’t quite relinquish it.
I sighed as I twisted it around. Maybe I had projected more onto it.
Maybe seeing my two best friends recently find the loves of their lives had painted that entire interaction in a more hopeful light. After all, I didn’t know her. I’d spent so much time lately thinking about building a life outside my career that maybe I had put too much pressure on an awkward one-time encounter. I may have never felt like that before with someone, but I would never want to force unwelcome advances on a woman. They got enough of that.
I cleared my thoughts of Frankie to make a plan.
The last day of shooting meant no more beard and, even more pleasing, no more sand in my unmentionables. I could head home.
Cut to a shot of a typical LA mansion set in the Hollywood Hills: glass, steel, concrete. Show a man with dark curls and sad eyes sitting alone at a sterile countertop, staring into the emptiness around him.
I shook my head, sand flying loose.
The sleek amenities and chic, modern architecture had felt like such a crowning achievement when I first purchased it, a physical sign of my success as an actor, post-TF. But now it was just so much, so big, so quiet.
I imagined George and Collette arguing over Legos and felt myself longing for the lower back ache caused by hours spent on his well-worn furniture.
I’d been so busy with this shoot and award season that I hadn’t been able to visit much since Christmas.
I wasn’t avoiding Frankie and her shuttered gaze or the blatant disappointment when she found out who I was. My reputation preceded me. A vapid actor with the attention span so much that of a gnat that I hadn’t even noticed when I committed petty theft. She looked at me like so many others: a funny, charming, lucky-in-looks bloke not to be taken seriously. I was smart enough to recognize the blatant lack of respect but not smart enough to change opinions.
It was time to let this projected fantasy go.
The water ran brown for the first two minutes of my shower, but before long, I was so fresh and clean and ready to head back. Filming wrapped. Award season was over. I was not contractually obligated to anybody for the foreseeable future, and instead of the peace that should come with a break, a bleakness of unending, similar days unfurled in front of me, blurring from one day to the next with nothing to distinguish them.
I leaned against the shower wall, replaying the last time I spoke to Frankie—the only time after our initial meeting.
“I guess we do all know each other,” I said, finally managing to get a moment alone after Collette and George went to bed. I’d found her in the living room, tucked into the corner of the sofa, sipping tea. She’d been hunched over a notebook, focused. I stayed at the edge of the room, not wanting to impose too much on her quiet moment. When I spoke, she shut her book and slid it into her lap to slowly set her teacup down, making almost no sound. She looked up at me, confused. I slid on my affable smile like a shield. “I’m assuming George was the ex-pat you mentioned?” It was the only time we’d mentioned the meeting on Main Street.
She smiled, but it was a dark alley knockoff of the real thing. “Yeah.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked around. “Small world.”
I physically cringed at myself. I’d searched for something clever to say, a recall to that easy repartee we’d shared. The more I tried to find the right words, the more they all got muddled up trying to form. It was so much easier when these things were scripted. She smiled politely, but the exchange was stilted and heavy. I had to leave back for LA, and I had ruined the moment. I left frustrated with myself but at least more sure of where I stood with her.
Not that I was still thinking about it.
After I got dressed, I sat staring at my phone, debating the merits of returning Emma’s call.
She’d been checking in a lot more often lately. Ever since we’d all gone up to George’s before Christmas, she became more of a mother hen.
Tell me what’s going on, Harrison.
