This Sky (5 page)

    “So just go with it?”

    “Basically.” She comes to an abrupt halt in front of the door marked 6B and paws through the pocket of her skirt looking for her keys. “Across the way you’ve got Ria in 7B and Landon in 8B. At the end of this side is Mrs. Healy’s place. Beware though. She’ll corner you if you give her the chance.”

    “And that’s a bad thing?”

    My best friend
shoots me her craziest eyes and rolls her finger in a circle near her ear. “She’s a complete whack job.”

    I grimace. “What do you mean?
Like serial killer?”

    “No, nothing like that,
” she says, slipping the key into the lock. “At first, she seems very normal and grandmotherly but then you find out that she’s convinced aliens are experimenting on her and the government is tracking her movements. Take my word for it, Gem, her conspiracy theories are highly disturbing. If you don’t keep your distance, I guarantee you won’t be able to sleep for a week.”

    I peer around the corner
with growing apprehension. There’s a surfboard leaning up against one wall, and just past it, a door embellished with a quilted wreath and a small wooden bird painted green and black. That must be Mrs. Healy’s place. “Mmm-kay.”

    “So, about the door to the apartment…” As she turns the key, she wiggles the knob si
de-to-side and presses her shoulder into the upper door panel. “It’s sticky so you have to kind of shake the handle.”

    I adjust Weebit’s travel case and inch closer. “Uh-huh.”

    She grunts. “Like this.”

    The door to 6B flies open with an audible pop and I jump back, startled.

    If Julie notices my response, she doesn’t let on. “The kitchen is over here. Pay no attention to the buzzing sound coming from the fridge. It’s wonky,” she says, walking through the door and turning her body in a full circle. “And, let’s see—I’m over there and the bathroom is at the end of the hall.” She drops her keys into a shallow ceramic bowl shaped like a peacock and reaches for the light switch on the wall. “I’ll have to show you how to turn the shower on because it has a mind of its own. The hot sometimes comes out cold and the cold comes out hot.”

    “Sure,” I say, feeling anything but sure.

    Almost the entire apartment is visible from where I’m standing. There’s a galley kitchen to my immediate left. The walls are pasted with shiny avocado green tiles and hideous brown and yellow wallpaper. Directly in front of me is an oblong living area. The focal point is a sun-faded red couch covered in lumpy mismatched throw pillows. A wooden piano, an old armchair and Ikea shelves packed with books and funky knickknacks eat up the remainder of the room. There is a single metal-framed window—the kind that you have to wind to open—centered on the far wall.

     “You’re welcome to anything you want from the kitchen,” Julie says, pulling open a cabinet door. “Like I said, I got ice cream because I figured it was a
breakup necessity. But there are also chips and lots of…” She peers into what must be a pantry and laughs. “Chocolate.”

     I look to see what she’s talking about. There are enough bags of candy bars and indi
vidually wrapped chocolate pieces on the shelf to satisfy a class full of sugar-crazed kindergarteners for a decade.

     “The after-Halloween sale,” she explains with a sheepish smile.

     I snicker. “I can see that.”

    “So, you’re going to be in the nook.” she points to a tiny recess separated from the rest of the apartment by a floral-patterned curtain. It’s crowded with a sagging brown futon and a low-slung table so scratched up that I wonder if it was a dog chew to
y in another life. “I know the apartment isn’t much, but it’s comfortable and the location is great since we’re so close to the beach,” she goes on, pushing the curtain all the way to one side and parking my rolling suitcase next to the futon. Then she steps back, rests her hands on her hips and releases a long breath.

    “
And I know that the circumstances are hella horrible, but we’ll make this fun, okay?”

   
Fun?

    I’m exhausted and disjointed from rearrang
ing the pieces of my life. I’m depressed. I’m humiliated. I’m defeated and broke. 

    Fun is not happening.

    Fun was strapped to a rocket launcher and fired through a hole in the ozone.

    Fun is orbiting a solar system in another galaxy right now.

    What I really want to do is get back into a pair of pajamas, curl myself roly-poly style into a tight ball, close my eyes tight and fall asleep on that futon for the next decade. Give or take a few months.

      But Julie’s acting like everything is decided. Like she’s been tasked as navigator and hand
ed a compass and the map that leads the way out of my breakup hell.

    “Definitely fun,” I lie. “It’ll be just like drama camp.”

     She smiles, clearly relieved. “Are you hungry? We can get some food or I can help you put away your clothes if that’s better? I already cleaned out the hall closet for you and set aside some space in the bathroom for your things.”

     I lift
Weebit’s carrier up to eye level. “I think I better get this guy’s cage from my car and work on setting that up first.”

     An unfamiliar hand lands on my shoulder and a deep, melodious voice speaks into my ear. “I can help with that if you’d like.”

    “Agh!” I release a bleat of surprise and dodge away from the hand.

    “You almost gave her a heart attack!” Julie’s tone is chiding but a smile is creasing the skin around her eyes.

    Clutching Weebit’s carrier to my chest, I spin and come face-to-face with a stranger.

    “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says,
sticking his arms up over his head like I’ve just placed him under arrest. He’s tall with a mane of thick black hair that he’s pulled away from his face and secured in a low ponytail. 

    Julie nods to him. “This is Smith.”

    “Marcus Smith,” he says. “But most people just stick with Smith.”

    “Right. The Smith of pesto hummus fa
me,” I reply with a smile.

    He laughs. “That’s right. And you’re Gemma?”

    “Of sex tape fame?” A girl appears in the doorway.

    Julie winces as she grabs the newcomer’s elbow and presents her to me. “Gem, pay no attention to anything this one says.”

    “She has no filter,” Smith adds.

    The girl puts her hands on her hips. “For your information, I do have a filter. My mouth filter is optional
, and I simply opt not to use it.”

    “Good to know,” I say, one hand extended politely.

    “Claudia Young.” Clearly not a student of body language or a believer in personal space, Claudia skips the handshake and goes straight in for the hug.

    She’s about my height with the slim, wiry build of a long distance runner. A shock of platinum blond hair swoops low over one side of her oval-shaped face in a style that I can only describe as skate punk meets post-modern. She has deep-set dark brown eyes and a wide, pretty mouth.

     “You’ll love it here,” she comments as she turns sideways and squeezes past me. “What we lack in amenities, we make up for in character.” When she sees the animal carrier in my hands, she bends forward to peek through the cage bars. Her red-shellacked mouth twists up and her eyes turn round as dinner plates. “And what do you have there? A fat squirrel?”

   
A fat squirrel
? Checking on the dove grey ball of fur cowering toward the back of the carrier, I expel a breath and try not to be offended for my pet’s sake. “Weebit isn’t a squirrel. He’s actually a chinchilla.”

    She pauses to check out Weebit again before popping over to the refrigerator to help herself to a can of soda. Smith is right behind her.
“A chinchilla? Well that’s different.”

    I’ve gotten used to this reaction. Chinchillas aren’t particularly rare
, but they’re not exactly mainstream. Ren, for one, thought I’d lost my mind when I showed up with Weebit and his giant cage last month. I tried to explain that I was bored and lonely with him working so many hours on the show. Ren’s response:
If you’re bored, you could work out more. It would be good for your body.

   
To Claudia, I say, “I’m allergic to cats and chins are clean, quiet and cute. Don’t worry—he won’t bite you.”

    “Then I won’t bite him,” Claudia says, plonking herself down on the couch with the gusto of familiarity. Adjusting the cushions behind her back, she says in a conversational tone, “So we heard you just got steamrolled by Ren Parkhurst.”

     Julie throws her hands up and lets loose an annoyed shriek. “Claudia!”

    “What’s the problem?” Claudia, who I have to remind myself hails from the planet No-Filter,
pushes a white-blond tendril from her forehead and scrunches up her nose. “I think I’m only stating the obvious. At least I didn’t lead with a pregnancy question.”

    “
Agghhh!” Julie cries out. “That’s not the point, Claudia! It’s so obnoxious to just put that out there when—”

    “It’s okay, Jules!” My voice barges in
and steals the spotlight. I wave my left hand aggressively because I don’t know what else to do with myself. “Just so we’re all clear, I’m not pregnant with Ren’s baby.”

    
Julie slouches with relief and laughs. “Thank you, God. I was almost afraid to ask.”

   
Unaffected, Claudia opens her soda can and takes a long swig. “Glad to hear about the status of your womb. I swear I didn’t mean to start off on the wrong foot. I figured you might as well be prepared for the commentary because people are going to bring it up. The image of you passing out on the bathroom floor while your boyfriend gets it on with someone else is seared into people’s brains
.
” 

   
I nod.
Thanks for the reminder
. 

    “
I gotta hand it to you for becoming a part of the pop culture machine. Many have tried, but few have succeeded.” She lifts her soda like she’s toasting me.

    “Yep.” More nodding. I’m nodding so much that the room is starting to go cockeyed.

    “Anyway, I should probably warn you up front that I love Hunter Digby.
Love
,” she emphasizes, earning a snort from Smith and another horrified look from Julie.

     “Do you not understand why Gemma is here?
” My best friend bends her head and covers her eyes. “She just broke up with the guy. She does not want to hear you talk about how much you love him.”

    “I didn’t say I loved
Ren,
” Claudia defends, straightening her posture and kicking her feet out from the couch. “I said that I love Hunter Digby. It’s not the same thing and Gemma seems sophisticated enough to know that.”

     Hunter Digby is the character Ren plays on
Howl,
a craptastic teen werewolf show that started to takeoff in the ratings about six months ago. Now, it’s a staple show for American girls aged thirteen to eighteen. Viewership is boosted by the fact that Hunter Digby (a.k.a. my waitress-banging ex-boyfriend) is a supernatural hero who spends seventy-five percent of his airtime shirtless, greased up with some kind of oil, and smoldering under good lighting.

    “It’s close enough,” Julie argues, shaking her head and looking exasperated. “And
really,
Claudia? I would not have taken you for a
Howl
fan.”

    “I’m aware that it’s cheesy, but it’s deliciously cheesy
, so I fully embrace it. Episode ten when Hunter’s father died, I bawled. The goodbye with Felicity, the woodland pixie, at the end of this past season gave me the chills. And that body of his—all that sculpted lean muscle and those arms—booyah!”

    “Like we said—she lacks a fil
ter,” Smith tells me. He shakes his head and takes a playful swipe at Claudia’s arm.

     Sure, hearing Ren praised is the mental equivalent of having my skin buffed by a cheese grater, but it’s not like I’m stunned to hear these things.

     My ex has obscenely sharp cheekbones. His smoky green eyes were made to stare deeply into a camera lens. His gratuitous abdominal muscles and shiny golden blond locks are the stuff that legends are born of.  

    I completely get the interest.

    Been there.

    Done that.

Gemma

A few hours and three thousand calories later, the four of us are sprawled around the living room. Weebit’s cage is set up in the corner next to the futon and he’s watching us through the bars as he snacks on some uncooked oats.

     Benedict Cumberbatch is on the TV, pacing in a black duster. A red scarf is looped around his neck, only adding to his air of sophisticated elegance.

    Empty food containers, crumpled cellophane
wrappers and a Scattergories game board clutter the coffee table. A little while ago, Claudia disappeared for ten minutes. When she came back, her phone was playing mariachi music and she had a kid-sized sombrero on her head and a pitcher of blended margaritas in her hand.

    I have to admit that despite her crush on Ren, the girl is rapidly growing on me.

     “Badminton isn’t a team sport,” Julie is saying. She’s looking over my shoulder, checking the answers on my Scattergories game card against her own. “Why wouldn’t you put down baseball or basketball, Gem?”

    “Because I was going for obscure,” I answer even though it’s not entirely true. It just sounds better than explaining that I can’t think properly with that little timer ticking off the seconds like a doomsday clock.

    “I put down bowling,” Smith says, frowning down at his own list.

     Julie’s head pops up.
Her mouth pulls sourly to one side. “Bowling is not a team sport either.”

    Claudia lifts a finger. “One might argue that it can be a team sport. Look at all those leagues.”

    The next five minutes are devoted to a debate about the merits of bowling as a team sport. There’s some shouting, a few pretzels are launched across the room and a round of penalty shots—the alcoholic kind—are proposed.

     After watching from the bench for a few minutes
, I finally find the courage to throw myself into the fray. “Last December, our work Christmas party was held at a bowling alley. We competed princes against princesses and combined the scores. Doesn’t that make it a team thing?”

    “Exactly!” Smith gives me an appreciative grin
and lifts his hand for a congratulatory high-five.

    Julie glares at me. “Et tu, Brute?”

    Claudia ignores her and rolls the die for the next letter in the game. “So, Julie you never said how you two became friends.”

    “Drama c
amp,” Julie and I say simultaneously.

    “We bonded over our
mutual love of show tunes,” she explains.

    “And an instructor with stale cigar breath
, who liked to flirt with the older girls more than he liked to teach Shakespeare. It was pretty much friendship at first sight.”

     Julie grins. “I believe there were fireworks and a rousing musical score.”

    “Drama camp, huh?” Smith asks. “So, we’ve got another actress to add to our little herd?”

    “Yes,” Julie answers before I can even open my mouth.

    “I
used
to want to be an actress,” I correct her. “Not anymore.”

    “Stop it, Gem.” Julie rolls her eyes. “You’re not serious.”

    “Actually, I am. As I’ve told you before, I think about two hundred rejections have cured me for life of the acting bug.”

   
Her confidence doesn’t waver. “You’ll change your mind.”

     I shake my head. “
I’ve decided to come up with a new career path. So far I’m thinking insurance adjuster or beekeeper.”

    “Bee
keeper?” she asks, her eyebrow cocked and a droll look on her face.

    “I don’t know if you’ve heard this, Julie Ann Ackerman, but we are currently facing a major bee crisis. It’s a complet
e disaster for the ecosystem. If there aren’t enough bees, just think of all those plants that won’t be pollenated and all of that honey that won’t get made.” I touch my hand to my chest, right above my heart. “With some equipment and a little bit of initiative, I could do something about it.”

   
My best friend shakes her head. “That’s ridiculous.”

    I arch an eyebrow. “Are you saying that you want to live in a world with
out plants? Are you hinting to me that you’re anti-bee?”

    “I’m not
anti-bee!” she cries, flustered. “I meant it’s ridiculous for you to give up acting to become a beekeeper.”

     “
Maybe I’ve got an obligation to the world,” I insist.

   
“This isn’t about bees or your obligation,” she says, grabbing at my arm. “The truth is that you’re afraid of rejection.”

   
“And so what if I am?” I shrug out of her grasp. “After the week I’ve had, I think I’m entitled to feel however I want to feel.”

   
Smith nods to me. “Truth!”

   
“Rejection sucks,” Claudia says over an Oreo topped with whipped cream, crumbled peanuts and rainbow sprinkles. In the past few hours, I’ve come to the conclusion that despite her slim build, Claudia is some sort of junk food prodigy. “I think all three of us should forget auditioning. We should just write our own screenplays and star in them ourselves like Sylvester Stallone did with
Rocky
.”

     “Or Ben Affleck and Matt Damon with
Goodwill Hunting,
” Smith throws in.

    
Claudia considers me as she chews. “Your script can be about Ren and walking in on him and that woman.”

    “She was our waitress,” I clarify.

    “Waitress. Got it,” she says with a sidelong smile. “I know this guy who directs these ten-minute online webisodes. I should hook you two up.”

    “I don’t know
. It seems sort of morose to dwell on my ex, doesn’t it?”

    Claudia cocks her head
in thought. “Not when it’s done as a comedy. Then it’s more like revenge.” 

    Julie says, “You have to admit, it’s great material, Gem.”

    “You’re right. I can almost hear the snap of the clapboard and the director through his megaphone,” I respond sarcastically. “The Oblivious Girlfriend Scene—take one!”

    “Sex sells,” Smith says with a sage nod.

    “I get that, but it isn’t even hot sex,” I tell them. “There isn’t a shimmer of orangey-red candlelight over smooth sweat-slick skin. There are no rose petals scattered on the ground. Al Green isn’t crooning soulfully from a record player in the corner. The video was shot in a bathroom and looks more like prison surveillance footage than arty porn. The lighting is of the fluorescent fast food variety. There’s hard tile, rolls of toilet paper and a tampon dispenser. I’m sure if you were to open up the closet in the background, you’d find things like a plunger and a mop. Decidedly unsexy, unless you’re into some seriously kinky shit.”

    Claudia laughs as she shoves another Oreo into her mouth. “You mean you don’t use cleaning supplies for foreplay? I gotta tell ya—you’re missing out big time.”

    “I love me some bleach in the bedroom,” Smith teases.

   
Julie slaps her hand against her thigh and laughs loudly. “I’m more of a toilet cleaner kind of girl myself.”

    “The cleaning supplies aren’t even the worst
part,” I say, my voice ticking up. “The worst part is that my boyfriend is the star of said sex tape and I’m not even his costar.”

    I’m the sidekick. In this case I’d say that I fall into the second tier of supporting actresses. My role is simple and can be broken down into three parts.

    Step one: Enter bathroom.

  
Step two: See boyfriend having sex with waitress.

    Step three: Pass out.

    “From Hollywood girlfriend to Hollywood ex-girlfriend in five seconds flat. I’m such a cliché,” I conclude, thoroughly disgusted with myself. “I know it sounds stupid now, but I thought Ren and I had the real deal.”

    “Did you really?” Julie asks, set
ting down her margarita glass.

    “Well
, yeah. I was with him for two years. Didn’t you think so too?”

    
She cocks her head to the side. “I don’t know, Gem. I didn’t want to say before because you were sensitive about it, but I don’t think you’ve been happy with Ren for a while now.”

    I run my tongue over the jagged edge of my top teeth. Something about what Julie is saying makes my
stomach clench. “I was happy,” I assert.

    “Were y
ou really? Because to me, you seemed
content
and that’s not the same thing as
happy.
”

   
“Look, I know what you’re doing, Jules.”

   
Her eyes widen. “Tell me—what am I doing?”

    I flick my hand at her.
“You’re trying to twist things. Trying to make me think I haven’t lost anything at all because I’m better off without Ren.”

    “I
s it working?”

    “I don’t know. Maybe?”
My brain is chugging backward, sifting through the memories. I’m thinking about the nights I woke up in bed next to Ren, panicking and wondering what I was doing, and the silent dinners where we both played around on our phones so we wouldn’t to have to talk to each other.

    Have I been fooling myself all this time? Have
the last two years of my life been one extended joke? Was finding Ren in the bathroom simply the punch line?

   
“Despite his beautiful face, you were never giddy over him,” Julie says, bringing me back to the conversation. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

   
I swallow and tilt my face away to take a sip of my drink. “It tells me that I’m not a giddy kind of girl.”

    “You get giddy over books and plays. I’ve seen you lose your mind a time or two over Mr. Darcy and Heathcliff. And do I really need to bring up your two-year obsession with the movie
Amélie
?”

    “Tha
t’s completely different,” I insist. “Those things are fantasy.”

    “Are they?” she contends. “Don’t you want to at least try for that in real life too? Don’t you want what Amélie and Elizabeth and Catherine had?”

    Keeping my voice muted, I remind her, “Catherine died.”

   
Julie sighs. “Ugh! I hate how disillusioned you are now! You used to want static and excitement and passion!”

   
“I guess I’ve changed.” I tell them my idea about the caterpillar that becomes a moth instead of a butterfly.

    “Inspirational s
tuff,” Claudia comments drily, chomping on another cookie.

    “Oh my God, y
ou’re not a moth!” Julie laughs, disbelieving. Then she studies my face for a moment. “Gem, you know what you need?”

   
“A job?” I joke.

    “Well, yeah, but that’s not what I was getting at,
” she replies. “It’s obvious that Ren and L.A. have sucked you dry. What you really need right now is a major confidence boost.”

     “Confidence? What’s that?” I ask mildly.

     She quirks a strawberry-blond eyebrow at me. “Do I need to remind you of The Great Melissa Maxey Takedown?”

     Claudia’s eyes skip between us. “Spill it. Who is Melissa Maxey and what did the poor girl do to you to require a takedown?”

     I groan, but Julie launches straight into the story. “Melissa Maxey was not a
poor girl.
She was an evil, cantankerous imp who was in a drama club with us. She and Gemma were both up for the role of Viola in
Twelfth Night
. Needless to say, Gemma here put Melissa in her place.”

     “Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere,” I quote the play, adding to the dramatics.

     “You put her in her place with your knowledge of Shakespeare and your winning smile?” Smith asks.

     “And lots of blue hair dye, a dozen glazed donuts and a blow-up doll,” I say evasively.

    “A blow-up doll?” He looks stumped.

     “The
point
,” Julie stresses, “is that you were awesome. Nothing got in your way and no one—not the Melissa Maxeys or the Ren Parkhursts of the world could bring you down. And do you know why?”

     “Why?” we all say in unison like a Greek chorus.

     She lifts her hands in the air like a preacher on the pulpit. If she weren’t being so serious about this, I would have to laugh. “Because back then, you had confidence, Gemma!”

    Cl
audia bows her head and claps reverently. “Hallelujah!”

  
“And,” Julie continues, “I have a plan to get it back.”

    “And what’s that?” I ask.

    “What you need is the relationship equivalent of a bridge loan
.”