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“Let’s talk more.”
Jill paid for her new finds, and then offered to buy dinner. At Kim’s suggestion, they ended up in a neighborhood full of food trucks where they gorged themselves on tacos and spicy salted fruits, chatting and laughing until the street lamps came on and Kim drove them back to Jill’s place.
“Thank you so much, Kim. I can’t thank you enough. You truly have no idea what this meant for me today.”
“Happy to do it. Listen, I’ll put some ideas together and I’ll get you in touch with the girl I think would be a good PA for you. I know you’ve got a team, but out here you have to have a PA. It’s going to be really important when the movie starts up. I don’t think Kline could survive without his.”
“Of course. Tell Kline I said hi, and I’m stealing you.”
She carried her plastic bags of clothes into the house, so different from the slick bags she was used to carrying out of Chanel and Hermes, and spent the next little while rearranging her closet to give the new clothes the spotlight. She was definitely going to cry later, she could feel it coming, but for the moment, she’d had her first really good day in Los Angeles, doing exactly what she wanted to do.
Later, she called Kline and thanked him for the loan, and explained what had happened. “I realized something,” she said. “You were the first time I ever did anything that I wanted to do. You were so much more alive than I was, and I wanted that. I wanted someone as alive and electric as you were to want me because that might mean that I could come alive, too. And, I think I did. I think you brought me to life back then. Wanting you made me able to get out from underher. Wanting you made me strike out on my own. Wanting you led me to some of the best decisions I could have made for myself. I never thanked you. Kline, thank you.”
He was silent, but she could hear him breathing. “You don’t have to say anything,” she told him. “I’m not trying to start anything. I just finished something, you know? It’s just that I realized why you’ve always been stuck in my craw. Why I still love you, and why I’ll always love you from the bottom of my heart. It’s not because I’m a masochist,” she laughed. “It’s because you were the first person who ever showed me who I could be.”
“Wow. I– thank you. Jilly– I felt the same way about you.”
“And that’s why our stomachs still flip.” She said with satisfaction. “Mystery solved.”
“So, what do we do about it?”
“Do? Nothing. There’s nothing to do. We acknowledge that we catalyzed good things in each other, that somehow even though we were stupid kids, we’re still friends, and we do this movie. And we do press. And we make the jury of the readers of People Magazine see that you are the best father in the world so that Nina backs off this custody thing. And you don’t mind when Kim quits being your nanny because she’s gone full-time stylist.”
“That last one might kill me.” He laughed. “You sound different.”
“I feel different. For the first time in forever, I feel like I’m going to be okay. Whatever happens, I feel like I’ll be okay.”
“We’re not stupid kids anymore, you know? I’m single. You’re single.”
“No, thank you. What’s the line? I choose me. I’m choosing me. No more dating people who knew me before the nose job.”
“I knew it! I knew you’d had work done!”
“My mother thought I looked like a farm girl the way it used to turn up.”
“Now you look like Grace Kelly.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen what Kim did to me. I look like… Who do I look like? I look like Jill Parker.”
“I can’t wait to see her.”
“I can’t wait to show her to the world!”
Rhiannon Charles
Thad tapped on the door and popped his head into Rhiannon's office, "Are you going to hide in here all day?"
"I'm not hiding. I'm working. Wooorrrking. Odd concept, I know, but you should try it."
“Yeah, that looks like work.” He dropped into a chair and nodded at the magazine she’d put down.
“How do these get to print so fast?” she asked, pushing it over. “Look at the ‘Stars Are Just Like Us’ section. They were just there! Jill was texting me all day.”
“Kline Scott has Jill Parker’s head spinning,” Thad read aloud from the caption of a photo of the two coming out of the tea cup ride, Kline carrying Jack facing away from the camera, Jill hugged up under his other arm. “The loved-up looking couple spent the day at Disneyland with Scott’s young son, Jack. Parker’s effortless rocker glam is a great new look–maybe to distract from a bump?”
He laughed, “Bumpwatch! I’m The Impregnator, not Kline. She hasn’t even met me yet.”
“Wow,” Rhiannon laughed.
