Acknowledgments 12 страница

Nina had liked Tarine instantly. Tarine would tell Nina which photographers were handsy and which agents tried to screw their clients. She would also tell Nina not to smile too wide or she’d show her lower, crooked teeth. Tarine was kind, even when being kind meant not being very nice.

Nina was very happy to see Tarine standing in front of her. And she was surprised when the door opened again and behind Tarine came Greg Robinson.

She had never met Greg personally. But she knew who he was. He’d worked with her father. He was the producer behind the biggest hits of the past two decades. Sam Samantha. Mimi Red. The Grand Band. Greg was the one creating these people, creating their music. He’d even had a few hits of his own back in the late sixties.

Greg put his hand on Tarine’s shoulder comfortably—and that is when Nina realized her twenty-seven-year-old friend was dating a man who was at least fifty.

Nina made her way over and Tarine smiled at her. Nina leaned in and gave her friend a tight hug. “I’m so glad you made it, ” she said.

“Yes, well, I know it is the party of the century, ” Tarine said.

“Greg, hi, ” Nina said, shaking his hand. “Welcome. ”

“It’s a pleasure, ” Greg said. “I’m fond of your father. Some of my first big jobs were on his records. Great guy. ”

Nina flashed her perfected smile. Brandon spotted them all and came to join the conversation.

“Hi, Tarine, ” he said, raising his glass to her.

“Brandon, ” Tarine said, her face blank. “A surprise. ”

Brandon smiled and introduced himself to Greg. Greg shook Brandon’s hand and then looked around the living room, clocked the DJ.

“Any chance I can get behind that deck? ” Greg asked.

Nina turned in the direction Greg was looking, at first not sure what he meant.

“Greg cannot stand it when another soul is in charge of what he is listening to, ” Tarine said, holding Greg’s hand.

Brandon looked at their hands, intertwined together, for a moment too long, and something about the way he did it gave Nina the impression that he was less surprised about their age difference, and more surprised that Tarine was dating a black man.

“Are you kidding? ” Brandon said, recovering quickly. “We would love to have you in charge of the ones and twos. ”

Nina wasn’t sure what she cringed at more. Brandon trying to sound like Greg Robinson or Brandon saying “we” so casually.

“I’ll take you over, ” Brandon said.

“I don’t want to upset your guy. I’m sure he’s great, ” Greg said.

“No, ” Brandon said, waving Greg off. “He gets paid either way. He’ll understand the Greg Robinson is here. ”

Greg laughed and then the two of them walked in the direction of the DJ, with the intention of breaking his heart.

“I need your best red wine, my love, ” Tarine said, the moment they were out of earshot. “Not the low-shelf stuff you give to everyone. The stuff you reserve for people like me, please. It has been that kind of day. ”

Nina laughed. Tarine could be completely and utterly obnoxious. But Nina simply didn’t mind. She admired the way Tarine never pretended to be anything she wasn’t, the way she was so confident in exactly who she had chosen to be, as if there were never any other option.

“I do not mean to be rude, ” Tarine said. “Obviously. But there are men smoking cigarettes in saggy pants outside. I cannot drink the same wine as them. ”

Nina laughed. “They’re drinking Coors from a keg. ”

Tarine frowned and it was clear to Nina that she had never heard of Coors, did not have a context for it other than to know it was beneath her. “I suspect you are proving my point, ” Tarine said.

Nina took her friend by the hand and brought her around the foyer to a small hidden door under the stairs. She hit four digits on the keypad and showed Tarine the wine cellar.

“Choose whatever you want, ” Nina said and then she slipped her hand out of Tarine’s. “Just close it up after you take your bottle. ”

“Do not think you are leaving me here, ” Tarine said.

The music changed abruptly, from New Wave to Top 40. Nina watched as a rush of young women came running through the kitchen on their way to the living room. Tarine and Nina overheard one of them say, “No way is Greg Robinson here! No way! ” The whole party got louder, everything elevated: the melody, the beat, the screams of excitement.

“I was going to see how things were faring outside, ” Nina said as she pointed toward the lawn.

Tarine shook her head, raising her voice above the din herself. “No, you are not. You are going to stand here with me while I choose my bottle and then we are going to go somewhere and you are going to tell me why Brandon is here. I thought we were done with that snake. ”

Nina felt a bit nauseated at the thought of having to explain. She wanted to make a joke. But Tarine was not someone you could brush off. Nina wondered, for a moment, how one became like that. What did it take? To say exactly what you meant? To feel comfortable in the middle of causing discomfort? To not feel—so intrinsically as to be as vital to yourself as your blood—that it was your responsibility to make things smooth and pleasant for everyone?

Tarine looked at Nina more pointedly, waiting for Nina to explain herself. Nina shrugged and said, “I love him. ”

Tarine turned and looked at her, furrowing her eyebrows, not buying it.

Nina rolled her eyes and tried a different answer, one closer to the truth. “It’s just easier this way, ” she said.

“Easier? ” Tarine asked.

“Yeah, just, like, not as complicated and … just easier. ”

Tarine frowned and then pulled a bottle of Opus One. “I am taking this, ” Tarine said. “All right? ”

Nina nodded. Tarine shut the door and pulled Nina through the crowd of people to the kitchen counter. She ruffled through Nina’s knife drawer and cooking utensils until Nina found a wine opener.

A cocktail waitress came by offering wine on one tray and lines of coke on the other and Tarine waved her off. “I have what I need, thank you. ”

Nina stared at the tray of coke as the cocktail waitress snaked her way farther through the kitchen. She wondered when, exactly, that had happened. People couldn’t just do coke off the coffee tables anymore?

Tarine turned the corkscrew and then pulled the cork out.

The people around them turned at the sound. Some of them watched for a moment too long, these two beautiful women standing next to each other. Both tall and tan and lean and sparkling. Then they all went on with the rest of their conversations.

Nina saw the girl in the purple dress again, standing alone near the chips. She’d noticed her earlier, coming in the door. Now, the girl met her eye, somewhat timidly. Nina got the distinct impression the girl wanted her attention, would have loved the opportunity to talk to her.

Increasingly, Nina was feeling like the party attracted people who wanted her to provide them a good story to tell. They wanted to be able to say they met “the girl from the poster” or “the girl from the T-shirt ad” or “Mick Riva’s daughter” or “Jay Riva’s sister” or “Brandon Randall’s wife” or whatever other way they wanted to define her.

“Do you ever wish you could be invisible for five minutes? ” Nina asked Tarine.

Tarine looked at her, considered her. “No, ” she said. “That sounds like a nightmare. ” Tarine poured herself a glass and suddenly, Kyle Manheim pulled up between the two of them.

“Hey, Nina, ” he yelled over the music. “Great party. ”

“Thanks, ” Nina said.

“Can I get in on that? ” Kyle called to Tarine as he held out his empty cup.

Tarine looked at Kyle, sizing him up, and then said, decisively, “Not going to happen. ”

Kyle walked away and Tarine took a sip of her wine. She closed her eyes as she tasted it, as if everything else could wait. When she opened her eyes back up, she said to Nina, “Today has not been easy. I found wrinkles between my breasts. ”

Nina laughed. “What are you even talking about? ”

Tarine put her wineglass on the counter and surreptitiously pulled the top of her dress down. Nina had to admit she could see the faintest set of lines along her friend’s cleavage.

“I am getting old. The offers are going to start to dry up, ” Tarine said.

“Oh, stop it, ” Nina said. “You still have plenty of time. ”

“Three more years, tops, ” Tarine said, and Nina knew this was probably right. In the world they lived in, they had to make hay while the sun shined because once the sun set, it got very cold and dark indeed.

But part of Nina ached for that time, the time when people stopped looking, stopped caring. Part of her wished she could take her beauty and hand it over to someone else, someone who wanted it.

“Three years is still a long time, ” Nina said.

“I am not sure I agree, ” Tarine said.

“So is that why you’re with Greg? ” Nina asked, quietly. “Some security? ”

Tarine shook her head. “I am with Greg because I find his gray hair sexy and I like talking to a man that has been alive long enough to have had interesting experiences. I do not need anyone’s money. I have a lot of it and I use what I have to make more of it. ”

Nina smiled. “I shouldn’t have expected anything less. ”

“No, you should not have, ” Tarine said.

It surprised Nina that Tarine had been accumulating money in such a purposeful way. It had never really occurred to Nina to try to secure outlandish wealth for her future. She had only ever wanted money because it solved problems. Anything more than that seemed superfluous, like extra air.

“I cannot believe you took him back, ” Tarine said, grabbing her glass again and folding her arms. She looked right at Nina, square in the eye. “You know what? I am going to do you a favor and tell you what your problem is. ”

“Oh, I have a lot of problems, ” Nina said.

Tarine shook her head. “No, you do not actually. That is what is so remarkable. You have just one very big one. Most people, all of these people here, ” Tarine said, pointing in the general direction of everyone surrounding them, “all of us have thousands of little flaws. I have a lot of them. For instance, I am very judgmental but I am also very absentminded, and that is just the start of it. ”

Nina did think of Tarine as judgmental but she didn’t see it as a problem. And she would never have thought of Tarine as absentminded. “But you, ” Tarine said. “With you, it is just the one problem. And it affects everything you do and, Nina, I am sorry to say this but I hate it about you. ”

“All right, ” Nina said. “Go on and tell me. ”

Tarine sipped her wine and then said, “I suspect you have not lived a single day for yourself. ”

Ricky Esposito knew only two ways to woo a woman. One was reciting Shakespearean sonnets. And the other was doing a magic trick.

Ricky chose magic. And so he was rummaging through the kitchen drawers of Nina’s home, looking for a deck of cards, while Kit drank her club soda out on the patio alone, granting half smiles to the half strangers that littered her sister’s lawn.

Kit spotted Vanessa talking to Seth over by the grill.

Vanessa had seemed so sad earlier. But then Vanessa had told Kit she was “determined to meet someone new, ” and Kit had decided not to push her on what “new” meant. If she was getting over Hud, great. Now Vanessa was laughing as if Seth Whittles was the funniest guy in the world. She had her hands in her hair, playing with a section of it by her face. Kit watched as Vanessa put her hand on Seth’s shoulder and pushed him ever so slightly, teasing him. For a moment, Kit felt a flash of dread. Was she going to have to act like Ricky was funny? Ugh.

She thought of Nina gazing up at Brandon like she was proud to stand next to him. She thought of the way her mother used to talk about her father like he was the second coming of Christ.

She couldn’t be like that.

She turned away just as Seth kissed Vanessa and suddenly Ricky appeared in front of her, flushed, with a deck of cards in his hand, catching his breath.

“Pick a card, any card, ” he said, and as he said it, Kit regretted every single choice she’d made that had brought her to this moment. This is what she had always wanted to avoid: being forced to pretend men were interesting.

Kit looked at Ricky and then at the cards fanned out perfectly in front of him. She grabbed one from the middle.

“Do I look at it? ” she asked, with a sigh.

“I know it seems lame, but humor me. I’ve practiced this a lot and I might just blow your mind. ”

Kit smiled and, despite herself, began to root for him. She looked at the card. The eight of diamonds. “OK, ” she said. “I’ve got it. ”

Ricky offered the deck back to her, this time cut in two. “All right, put it back, ” he said, gesturing to the lower half. Kit did as she was told and Ricky shuffled. Her card was now lost, one among many.

Ricky palmed the cards in his hands and as he did it, Kit found herself distracted by the commotion around the pool. She couldn’t see what was happening but it seemed like things were getting loud.

Ricky held up a card from the top of the deck with flair. “Is this your card? ” he asked. A three of clubs.

Kit shook her head. She had wanted him to get it right, she realized. She had wanted him to dazzle her. “No, sorry. ”

Ricky smiled. “Oh, OK. ” He flicked the deck like his finger was a magic wand and picked up the card again. It was now an eight of diamonds.

The tiniest charge ran through Kit. “Wow, ” she said, genuinely impressed. She did not know how he had changed the three of clubs into the eight of diamonds. She knew it must be something simple but she couldn’t begin to suspect what it was.

“Do you want to know how I did it? ” Ricky asked, pleased to have pleased her.

“Aren’t you supposed to never reveal it? ” Kit asked.

Ricky shrugged and so Kit stepped in closer, shortening the distance between them.

“All right, ” she said. “Show me. ”

Ricky pulled the deck out again and did it in slow motion. When he revealed the true sleight of hand necessary for the illusion—picking up two cards and making it look as if they were only one—Kit was close enough to notice that he smelled like fresh laundry.

“That’s all there is to it, ” Ricky said, showing her the way he held the cards. “It’s called a double lift. ”

“That’s rad, ” Kit said. He smelled really good. How did he do that?

“I can show you how to do it, ” Ricky said. “If you want. ”

“Nah, ” she said. “But do it again. I want to see if I can spot when you do it. ”

She did not actually care. She just wanted to smell the sleeve of his T-shirt. She just wanted to feel the thrill of his interest.

It was then that Ricky took a step closer, and with haste and trepidation, kissed her. His lips were soft and gentle.

But as his body moved against hers, Kit knew in her gut this was all wrong. This wasn’t it. Whatever “it” was supposed to be.

Because she liked Ricky—she did. He was sweet and sort of embarrassing in a lovely way. But the second his lips hit hers, she knew that she had never truly wanted to kiss him.

She was pretty sure she did not want to kiss any guy at all.

Suddenly, Kit felt desperate to quiet the voice that she now realized had been calling to her for years. And so, she kissed Ricky Esposito harder. She put her arms around him and pushed her chest against his, as if, if she really tried, she could deny everything she knew was true.

Tarine had gone in search of a good joint so Nina hung out in the kitchen, talking to a couple of movie producers. She was almost positive that both of them were named Craig.

“Your 1980 calendar is hands down the greatest calendar of all time, ” First Craig said. He was stockier, meatier, but strong. He looked like he probably worked out two hours a day.

Nina smiled, acting flattered, pretending she cared.

“I mean … July? ” Second Craig said. He was blond with a square jaw, even his posture was arrogant. “The one in the white bikini …” He whistled.

“I still think about it, ” First Craig said.

“That’s nice, ” Nina said dryly. And then she quickly added a “What? ” in the opposite direction, as if she heard someone calling to her from the stairs. “I’ll be right there! ” And then she smiled and left them in the kitchen.

When she got to the stairs, she saw Brandon out by the front door talking to some Olympic runner Nina knew she was supposed to remember. But instead of going to join the conversation, she turned and went up the steps, looking for a moment of peace. That was all right, wasn’t it?

She walked past a couple making out against the wall of her hallway. She smiled at the two former child stars sitting on the floor rolling a joint.

When she got to her bedroom, she shut the door behind her. She went into the master bathroom and stood at her mirror. She reapplied her lipstick and smacked her lips.

Was Tarine right?

How do you live a day for yourself? Nina didn’t know. She imagined what a day of her life would look like if she were living only for herself. Maybe going somewhere on her own. Like the coast of Portugal. Just her and the sunshine, a good book, and her Ben Aipa swallowtail surfboard. Small pleasures. She’d spend her time surfing and then eating good bread. And cheese.

But really, Nina just wanted peace and quiet so long-lasting and secure that it might even settle into her bones.

“Excuse me? ”

Nina turned toward her bedroom door, the one that had been closed just a moment before. Now it was open and there was a young woman standing in the hallway, one hand on the doorknob.

The girl in the purple jersey dress.

“Nina? ” the girl said.

“Yes? ”

The girl was short—and young, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Her hair was dark blond, her skin was alabaster and perfectly clear, as if she had never spent a day in the sun.

“I was wondering if I could …” The girl’s fingers were shaking. And with each word the girl said, her voice became more uneven. “I was wondering if I could talk to you. Just for a moment. ”

“Um, ” Nina said. “Sure, come on in. What can I do for you? ”

As Nina was looking at the girl standing in front of her, the answer was already beginning to come to her. But she couldn’t quite grasp it yet.

“I wanted to … well, ” the girl said, wringing her hands and then catching herself doing it. “My name is Casey Greens, ” she said.

“Hi, Casey. ” Nina could hear the slight edge in her own voice. She tried to hide her wariness better. “You seem like you want to say something. ”

And that’s when Nina saw it. Or, maybe more accurately, realized what she had already seen. Casey’s lips.

A big lower lip, full like an overstuffed cushion.

Casey Greens did not look anything like Nina or Jay or Hud or Kit or Mick. Except for that lip.

And Nina’s heart sank.

Casey spoke up. “I think Mick Riva might be my father. ”

• • •

Casey Greens didn’t belong here. In Malibu, of all places. With the rich people and their perfect bodies. She knew that. She could feel it with every step she took on the thick, expensive carpet. She’d never stood on anything that plush, that soft before. She had grown up in a world of worn-out shag carpeting.

Shag carpeting and wood paneling and screen doors that still let in bugs. She came from a home of warmth even when it was cold, a home of beauty even though it was categorically hideous. Her town was called Rancho Cucamonga. Her parents were Bill and Helen. Her home was a California ranch. It had a birdhouse built on the top of it.

She was an only child, good at getting straight A’s—the kind of kid who liked spending Saturday night with her parents. Her mom made the very best tuna casserole in the world. And Casey would ask for it every year on her birthday. She understood that she had lived a pretty sheltered life—right up until she lost both of her parents in one fell swoop.

Casey still heard the term in her head, woke up with it in her mind and fell asleep with it in her ears, even weeks after her parents’ car accident: died on impact.

Her parents—her deceased parents—hadn’t prepared her for a life without them. They hadn’t prepared her for loneliness, for true adulthood, for the shocking revelations that would now have to come to light.

Casey had always known she was adopted, that her biological mother had died during childbirth. But she didn’t know much more. And that was OK with her. She had parents. Until she didn’t.

Days after the funeral, she was packing up her parents’ things, trying to determine what to do with the life they all had shared. What was she supposed to do with her father’s clothes? Where was she supposed to put her mother’s antiperspirant? She was packing and unpacking, repacking. She was caught in a whirl of thoughts. The statements “Leave everything exactly where it is” and “Get all of it out of my sight” fought for dominance in her heart and head.

She sat down on the floor and closed her eyes. And she got the wild idea to do something that had never occurred to her: to look for her birth certificate.

It took an hour and a half to find. It was in a locked box underneath a few other papers.

Casey grabbed it and looked at it. Casey Miranda Ridgemore was her given name. Her birth mother had been named Monica Ridgemore. The space for the father’s name was blank.

The next thing Casey found was a photo of a young woman. Blond, gorgeous. Big eyes, high cheekbones, an all-American kind of smile.

When Casey turned the photo over to see what was on the back, in handwriting she didn’t recognize, it said, “Monica Ridgemore. Died August 1st, 1965. ” Below the date was another note. “Claims the baby is result of a one-night stand with Mick Riva. ”

Mick Riva? Casey thought she must be reading it wrong. She must be misunderstanding. Mick Riva?

She pulled out the R volume of her mother’s encyclopedia set just to make sure she wasn’t insane.

Riva, Mick—singer, songwriter, born 1933. Considered one of the greatest American recording artists of all time, Mick Riva (né Michael Dominic Riva) came to fame in the late 1950s and swept the charts with his romantic ballads and smooth vocals. His chart-topping success, classic good looks, and impeccable style has made him one of the most notable icons of the twentieth century.

Casey closed the book.

It took her a couple of weeks to come to terms with the idea. In moments when she felt she could get out of bed, she stared at her face in the mirror, compared it to the album cover she found in her father’s pile of records. Sometimes she thought she saw something, other times she thought she was crazy.

Even if there was legitimacy to the idea, what was she supposed to do? Track down one of the most famous singers in the world and confront him?

But then, three weeks ago, she saw someone named Nina Riva on the cover of Now This. It said she was the daughter of Mick Riva and lived in Malibu, California. And Casey thought, Malibu isn’t very far at all.

Before her parents died, Casey had been accepted at UC Irvine to start in the fall. After her parents died, she knew going away to college was the only thing she had left in the world. College would have to be where she began again.

But after she packed up her truck and headed for freshman orientation, Casey drove past the entrance for the 15 South that would take her to Irvine. She found herself getting on the 10 West, headed for Malibu.

What am I doing? she thought. Do I think I’m just going to somehow find this Nina Riva person?

Still. She kept driving.

When she hit the coastline, she drove up and down PCH trying to find the grocery store in the photo. The one Nina had been walking out of.

In the article it had said that Nina and her three siblings had lost their mother almost ten years before. And when she looked at the photo of Nina again, she detected sadness in her eyes, perhaps a world-weariness. Casey figured she was probably imagining it. But still, she reasoned, Nina must know how it felt to lose a parent.

There aren’t many grocery stores in Malibu. It wasn’t long before Casey found the right one. She walked in and stood in line with nothing in her hands. When she got to the cashier she said, “Sorry to bother you. Do you know Nina Riva? ”

The cashier shook her head. “I mean, I’ve seen her but I don’t know her. ”

Casey tried this with every cashier she saw, as well as the butcher, the entire bakery department, and the shift manager. Until finally someone said, “Why don’t you just go to Riva’s Seafood? ”

Casey drove out to the restaurant she’d just learned about, parked her car, and walked in. She stared at every single customer, every single server. She went up to the counter. “Is Nina here? ”

A blond woman with a name tag that said WENDY looked up at her and shook her head. “No, sorry, hun. ”

Dejected, Casey walked out to her truck. She was crazy! Driving to Malibu? Trying to track down a famous model with a famous father? That’s what stalkers do!

Casey backed out of the parking lot and turned south. She stopped at a gas station to fill her tank, trying to decide if she was filling it up to go home or to go to her first day of school in Irvine or to drive off a cliff.

She got out of the car and asked the cashier to put twenty dollars on pump number two. She went back to her car and put the nozzle in her gas tank and pressed the trigger on the hose. Which is when Casey overheard two men at the pump next to her.

“Are you going to the Riva party tomorrow night? ” the tall one asked.

“No doubt, man. ”

“Let me get that address from you. ”

The second man laughed as he pulled the nozzle out of his gas tank. “Craig, you know if you don’t know the address you aren’t invited. ”

“So give me the address, what’s it to you? ”

“Everyone in Malibu is going to be there and you’re gonna be sitting on your ass alone ’cause you don’t know where Nina lives. ”

“Dude, give me the address. You owe me after I hooked that shit up for you with the girl from Gladstones. ”

After that, the second man spouted the address like money coming out of an ATM: “28150 Cliffside Drive. ”

There it was. Casey had come all that way and fate had provided. She had slept in her truck that night, parked on the side of the road on the coastline. And then this morning, she had gone through all of her packed clothes and pulled out the only decently cool dress she owned.

And here she was.

• • •

“Who did you say your mother was? ” Nina asked.

As Nina had listened to Casey’s story, her mouth had gone dry. She started doing calculations in her head based on how old this girl was. She’d have been born after Mick left the final time. And Nina had no idea what messes her father had gotten into since then. So she was about as much of an expert about this as Casey herself.

“I actually don’t know that much about her, ” Casey said. “All I know is that her name was Monica Ridgemore. She died giving birth to me, I think. ” Casey pulled her purse open and took out the photo, handing it to Nina.

“She was really young when she had me, ” Casey said. “I mean, she was as old as I am now. ”

Nina wasn’t sure what good the photo would do her, why she’d even asked about Casey’s mother. But still, she took it in hand and studied it.

Monica, at least in the photo, was young and blond and pretty in a very conventional way. When Nina looked at the photo, she saw where Casey’s big eyes came from.

But there was also so much about Casey that Nina couldn’t place. She didn’t have either Monica’s or Mick’s cheekbones or either of their coloring, neither of their noses. In fact, Casey didn’t look like Mick Riva at all except for her lower lip.

She turned the photo and read the back. “Claims the baby is result of one-night stand with Mick Riva. ” There had to be a lot of women who fantasized about an affair with Mick Riva, right?

Nina hoped, for Casey’s sake, that the claim was wrong. She hoped there was a better man out there, waiting for Casey to find him and tell him she was his daughter. She handed the photo back and sighed with her whole body, resigning herself to the futility of this exercise. There was no way to know.

Nina gestured for Casey to have a seat in one of the leather chairs by the window, and Casey sat down with such deference and appreciation that Nina realized she should have offered her a seat quite a while ago.

Nina took a seat next to her and wasn’t sure what to say next. What did Casey want?

“Quite a night, ” Nina said.

“Yeah, I guess so, ” Casey responded.

The two were quiet for some time—both of them wondering what on earth they could possibly say next. In the silence, they simply watched the party unfolding on the lawn below them.

Chaos was simmering. The music was deafening and people were in various states of undress. There must have been a hundred people in the pool. Someone had rigged the jets in the Jacuzzi to ricochet off of serving plates and spray people on the lawn.

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