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“I made Georgie eat, didn’t I? And you shouldn’t have said that to her about how I was afraid of flunking.”
“You’re smart, Chaz. Everybody knows it but you.”
She picked up a broken shell and ran the sharp point over her thumb. “I could have been smart, but I missed too much school.”
“So what? That’s what a GED is for. I told you I’d help you study.”
“I don’t need help.” If he helped her, he’d figure out exactly how much she didn’t know, and he’d stop respecting her.
But he seemed to understand what she was thinking. “If you hadn’t helped me, I’d still be fat. People are good at different things. I was always good in school, and it’s my turn to do you a favor. Trust me. I won’t be nearly as mean about it as you were with me.”
She had been mean to him. Georgie, too. She stretched out her legs. Her skin was pale as a vampire’s, and she saw this one little place she’d missed when she’d shaved. “Sorry.”
She must not have sounded like she meant it because he wouldn’t let it go. “You’ve got to stop being so rude to people. You think it makes you look tough, but it only makes you seem sort of pitiful.”
She launched herself off the towel. “Don’t say that!”
He looked up at her. She glared back, her arms rigid at her sides and her hands fisted.
“Stop the bullshit, Chaz.” He sounded tired, as if he’d gotten bored with her. “It’s time for you to grow up and start acting like a decent human being.” He rose slowly to his feet. “You and I are best friends, but half the time I’m ashamed of you. Like that bullshit with Georgie. Anybody with eyes can see how bad she’s feeling. You didn’t have to make it worse.”
“Bram’s feeling just as bad,” she retorted.
“That doesn’t justify the way you talked to her.”
He looked like he was ready to give up on her. She wanted to cry, but she’d kill herself first, so she tore open the cover-up and threw it down in the sand. She felt naked, but Aaron only looked at her face. When she’d been on the streets, the men had hardly ever looked at her face. “Are you satisfied?” she cried.
“Are you?” he asked.
She wasn’t satisfied with much of anything about herself, and she was sick of being afraid. Leaving the house made her nervous. She was scared to take her GED. Scared of so much. “If I’m nice to people, they’ll start to take advantage of me,” she cried.
“If they start taking advantage of you,” he said quietly, “stop being nice to them.”
Her skin prickled. Did it really have to be all or nothing? She thought of what he’d said earlier, that she had friends who’d watch out for her. She hated depending on other people, but maybe that was because she’d never been able to. Aaron was right. She did have friends now, but she still acted like she was alone in her fight against the world. She didn’t like knowing he thought of her as a mean person. Being mean wouldn’t save her from anything. She studied her feet. “Don’t give up on me, okay?”
“I can’t,” he said. “I’m too curious to see how you’re going to turn out when you grow up.”
She looked back up at him and saw this funny expression on his face. He wasn’t looking at her body or even taking his eyes off her, but she was aware of him in a way that made her feel…itchy or thirsty. Something. “Are you ready to swim yet?” she said. “Or do you want to stand here all day psychoanalyzing me?”
“Swim.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She raced for the water, feeling almost free. Maybe it wouldn’t last, but for now it felt good.
Georgie edited film during the day and wandered around the more squalid streets of Hollywood and West Hollywood at night, with only her camera and her famous face for protection. Most of the girls she approached recognized her and were more than willing to talk into her camera lens.
She discovered a mobile health clinic that served street kids. Again, her fame paid off, and the health care workers let her ride with them each night as they offered HIV and STD testing, crisis counseling, condoms, and disease prevention education. What she saw and heard during those nights left her heartsick. She kept imagining Chaz among these girls and thinking about where she’d be without Bram’s intervention.
Two weeks slipped by, and he made no attempts to see her. She was exhausted to the point of numbness, but she couldn’t sleep more than a few hours before she jerked awake, her pajamas damp with sweat, the sheets twisted around her. She desperately missed the man she’d believed Bram to be, the man who’d harbored a caring heart beneath his cynical exterior. Only her work and the knowledge that she’d done the right thing by not giving up her soul for the sake of revenge kept her from despair.
Since the paps weren’t prone to lurk in the neighborhoods she visited, no photos of her popped up. Even though she’d ordered Aaron to stop feeding the tabloids his stories of marital bliss, he kept on doing it. She no longer cared. Let Bram deal with it.
On a Friday three weeks after her breakup with Bram, Aaron called and told her to log on to Variety. When she did, she saw the announcement:
Casting has been completed on Tree House, Bram Shepard’s film adaptation of Sarah Carter’s best-selling novel. In a surprise move, Anna Chalmers, a virtually unknown indie actress, has been signed for Helene, the demanding female lead.
Georgie gazed at the screen. It was over. Now Bram no longer had a need to convince her of his undying love, which explained why he hadn’t tried to talk to her again. She forced on her sneakers and took a beach walk. Her defenses were down, and she was exhausted, or she wouldn’t have let herself drift into a sitcom world where Bram would show up at her door, throw himself on his knees, and beg for her love and forgiveness.
