Page 87 of Heavy Shot

Again, she started to apologize. She wanted to apologize, but she was frozen in the truth. She did want loud and messy, and passionate and complicated, but it was the first time she’d ever said it out loud. Even with Gary, after the first miscarriage, they’d had a dispassionate conversation about having children, then gotten down to the business of getting her pregnant, and when she was, it was a quiet celebration that came with a conversation about how they would navigate the questions that naturally arose. No passion. No expressions of joy.

In that moment, she realized what had been missing in her life–her own ability to be passionate and express joy. Outside of her work, she held her emotions in tight check. She had never felt free to show herself to anyone, lest they reject her. Now, her world unfurled in front of her like the coastal highway, and what she wanted was the top down, the wind in her hair, with the sun making her scalp and shoulders tingle as she wound around every new curve in the road. She had shown August her deepest wants, she had shown him who she was, and he was saying no. He only wanted her if she could play the part he wrote for her.

“When I was growing up,” she said, “I always had auditions. I always had to be ready for an audition or a casting call. They could come at any time, so I always had to be perfect. I couldn’t go play because I might get sweaty, or scraped up and miss an opportunity because I wasn’t perfect. I missed out on everything. I missed out on all that…joy. I don’t want to miss out on any more joy.”

He was moving. Walking out of the room.

“Maybe you should move to middle America–some flyover state,” he said icily. “I hear they have joy by the barrel.”

She was frozen to the spot as he disappeared into the recesses of his house, the fucking cat following him, casting a glance over his shoulder. Jill was sure he hissed. It was several minutes before she could move again. She had fully intended to follow him back to wherever it was he had gone. She had fully intended to apologize and ask him to forgive her, to tell him that she didn’t need to be married, or have children, that she could be happy with just his promise of forever and pristine white furniture, but her feet started moving in a different direction and picking up her bag, she headed out to her car.

She focused her thoughts on driving long enough to get home, then talked herself into her rental like she was shepherding a lost sheep. “Go inside,” she told herself softly. “Take two aspirin because you’re going to want them later. Drink some water. Go get in the shower–you don’t even have to undress first. Just go get under the shower and let the water run over your head.”

She followed her own directions, still numb with shock, until she was soaking wet. Then, her chin began to tremble, and she let herself cry. It felt like the sequel to the outburst she’d had in New York when she realized that Kline was willing to push work aside to get back home to Rhiannon, knowing he would never put that aside for her.

Now, she cried because August kept saying he would give her the world, but he couldn’t even give her a dog.

When she had cried herself out, she stripped out of her wet clothes, washed the remnants of makeup from her face, and got out of the shower. Soon, she was in her favorite robe with a towel around her hair, looking through her freezer for one of the treats the personal chef had left there.

So she wasn’t enough for Kline, and she was too much for Gary and for August. They weren’t only three men in the world. There were plenty more than that out there. But more than men, she just wanted friends. Maybe Gus would still be her friend?

They’d broken up before. Granted, they’d never slept together those times, but they’d broken up before and somehow stayed friends. They could get through this. She and Kline were still friends somehow. If she could forgive Kline, eventually Gus would forgive her. Maybe he would even thank her for saving him from the messy life she wanted.

Maybe, she told herself, it was time to stop worrying about whether she could maintain Gus as a friend. Maybe it was time to focus outward on a whole new social circle. She needed girlfriends. She needed to surround herself with women. She needed to make a playdate, she decided. Rather than getting over a man by getting under another one, she was going to get over a man by getting beside a girlfriend.

She scrolled through the contact list on her phone. She had Clara, but Clara worked for her. She wanted a friend who was not also an employee. So, Rhiannon. But she wanted a friend who hadn’t slept with her old boyfriend. That crossed Lola off the list as well. She didn’t know her new brunch club girls well enough to know if she could trust them with hot gossip.

Finally, she came to Kim’s name. She was Kline’s employee, but not hers. She was also a woman who hadn’t slept with Kline. More, she was a lot of fun, with a great sense of humor, an enviable style, and could definitely keep a secret from the press. The handful of times Kline and Jill had taken Jack out to be seen as a happy family, Kim had been close-by, ready to swoop in and rescue the boy if the photographers got too frisky. And she’d beaten both Jack and Jill at multiple games of Chutes and Ladders.

Kim it was, she decided and sent her a text. “This is so out of pocket, but you are the only cool, young person I know in LA. Can you help me shop to be a cool, less-young person? Would Kline loan you out for the day? My entire wardrobe either screams New Yorker, or “August’s Barbie.” I have to assimilate. I need a costume, and I need a character study. Help? Maybe tomorrow?”

“100%,” came back just a little while later. “Okay to bring Jack, or should we wait ‘til my day off?”

“How bored would Jack be? I can wait.”

They texted back and forth over the next few days and somehow, that was enough. It felt normal and real, and Jill found herself laughing along when Kim guffawed at Jill’s idea to start on Rodeo.

“If you want to be a cool, young person, you’re on the wrong street.”

“It’s so much easier in NY.”

“You’re going to be saying NY Who? When I’m done with you.”

When they finally met up, Kim took Jill to several vintage shops on the famed Melrose Avenue, home to funky shops and fresh Hollywood faces alike, where they spent hours putting together different outfits. “I want to be a stylist,” Kim admitted. “But it’s hard to break into.”

“You’re so good at this, though!” Jill was modeling a pair of high waisted navy shorts with buttons down the front, that Kim had suggested might go with an elderly Beatles t-shirt and a well-worn bike jacket they’d picked up at the shop before. She’d missed out on the Grunge movement and this outfit felt like a slick throwback somehow.

“I enjoy it,” Kim said. “I love vintage, and I love how you can put different things from different eras together and make something that looks like today or even tomorrow. You know?”

“I do. I get it. And I—you know what? I’m trying new things. I’ve always been dressed by the same people. Do you want to dress me? I’ve got the Tony’s coming up. I’m presenting, and I kind of…fired my stylist. I’ll pay you, of course. And, I’ll tell everyone who dressed me. If it goes well…”

Kim laughed outright. “I would love to dress you!”

“Excellent! You saw what I wore to the Oscars?”

“Yes.”

“Not that. I don’t want to wear that. I want to wear something where I feel at home in my skin, not where my skin is in everyone’s home.”

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