Takes one to know one. “Thanks for your advice.”
“Bastian—”
“Gotta go mom. I need breakfast before things get started here. Time is money.”
“All right. Be safe, darling. And try to work responsibly. You want people to know you’ve changed, don’t you?”
“Of course.” Not really.
“Bye, dear. I hope you know I lo—”
I disconnected the call.
“I should call her about money?” Molly guessed.
“Yes, but do it through Dad. He loves playing the heavy.”
“Your family is so fucked up.” Molly might not act like a UCLA graduate with a master’s degree with distinction in psychology but that’s what made her so good at her job.
“Is that your professional opinion?” I asked.
She simply smiled. “Want breakfast outside?”
“That’d be nice. Thanks.”
“Be out in a second.”
I stepped from the coach into the blue light of an achingly beautiful morning. The fog had begun to burn off, but the air was still palpably damp and cool against my skin. The trees dripped dew. With the rising sun, all of nature wanted to come to life. The flap of moths’ wings gave way to the hum of bees. Squirrels scrabbled in tree branches and birds sang. The air held coastal fragrances—seaweed, iodine, and where my RV had been parked, the subtle fragrance of redwood trees. They were St. Nacho’s scents. They reminded me of home.
I felt at peace, and safe, and deeply happy. I closed my eyes to listen to the waves breaking against the bluffs in the distance. Somewhere nearby, dogs barked. Or it might have been the wolfdog hybrids I’d seen that morning; their excited voices drifting on the wind.
As a kid, I was sure I’d be a veterinarian, but that was before my first fateful encounter with a camera, or rather, it was before my mother’s first fateful encounter with the money I could bring in as a model. After that, there was always another bill, another emergency, another reason for me to stand in front of another camera.
First it was modeling. Then came acting classes and the endless rounds of auditions, rejections, and callbacks that led to bit parts and speaking roles and finally, as they said, “overnight” success.
I spent season after season playing kids much younger than me until now—at twenty-five and having survived a childhood onscreen—I was set to play the smoldering freshman vampire in a supernatural high school series wildly popular with teens all over the world.
“Here you go.” Molly stepped out of the coach carrying a tray of eggs, oatmeal, fresh fruit, juice, and hot coffee. “I didn’t know if you wanted blueberries or raspberries, so I brought both.”
“Thank you.”
She eyed me. “Your mom got to you, didn’t she?”
“Nah.” I poured cream into my oatmeal and stirred in some berries.
“What goes on inside your head after you talk to her?”
“Just stuff. Nothing new.”
Molly sat across from me. “Want to talk about it?”
“No.” Molly once told me she worked as a PA because she wanted to solve people’s problems, not just listen to them. But she wanted to listen too. That was her nature.
“Because you know what I think?” she asked. “Having learned to use your perceived weaknesses to manipulate the people who want to play you, you deal with her just fine now. It’s a pretty neat trick.”
“You wouldn’t exactly say it’s healthy, would you?”
“Not really, but it’s a start.” She dug into her oatmeal. “I for one am going to enjoy it here.”
“I’m surprised we’re not shooting someplace with better tax laws and fewer environmental regulations. It’s expensive to work in California.”
“You think your father had anything to do with the deal?”
“Probably. Dad’s been active behind the scenes in St. Nacho’s for years.” It stood to reason he’d advocate for Blood Academy to film there since, through me, he was familiar with people on the production team. “It will be great to visit with him if we can find the time.”
“Make the time. He loves you, and he doesn’t hover.”
“No, he lurks,” I admitted. “But I think I like that better.”
“He wants to make himself available if you need him. He's great with your mother.”
“Despite the fact that he can’t stand her.”
That was nothing but the truth. Dad had stepped in when Mom started deliberately dropping the ball, and he’d saved me. Literally, he’d saved my life. Dad protected me. He got justice for me when I wasn’t even aware there’d been a crime. But why did I still need a goddamn buffer at twenty-five?
At my age, kids were starting careers, negotiating wedding plans, hitting their strides. Needing Dad to run interference with Mom and my agent and my lawyers made me feel hopelessly stupid. But I couldn’t step up to the plate to take it on all alone. Wouldn’t.
The work in front of the camera was hard enough for me without going toe to toe with the industry sharks. Plus, I had bitter personal experience with all the ways a person could be victimized. Anyone, no matter who they were, or how old, or how smart, could become a grim Hollywood statistic.
“Aww. Don’t give me the sad face.” Molly sighed. “We’ve talked about this. You’re an introvert in an extrovert’s game. You fight your nature every time you get in front of a camera, and you persevere. It’s okay to let someone you trust fight some of your battles for you. It’s a goddamn travesty your mom couldn’t be trusted to do that.”
“Mom’s got her own stuff.”
“Stuff,” she muttered darkly. “Her stuff is bullshit.”
Molly had a point. Mom had race car drivers, bullfighters, the occasional South American soccer star. When she got bored with men, or hurt by them, she shopped.
“On the other hand, she’s responsible for all this.” By which I meant my photogenic face.
Dad was a handsome man, but Mother’s turn at the genetic lottery wheel had yielded an extraordinary, ethereal mixture of fine bones; perfect, luminous skin; and unusual coloring that she’d passed straight on to me.
Pale hair, gray eyes, and skin that tanned if we were ever foolish enough to go out in the sun without sunblock. On a woman—on my mother—that kind of packaging was the stuff of Greek legends. On me…I’d been called a unicorn. I’d also been trophy hunted like one.
That was a subject I didn’t talk about to anyone except Dad and my lawyers. Ever.
Not even Molly knew how bad things had been.
We finished our breakfasts with the music of the birds and the sea as our soundtrack, and then it was time for the day to begin.
If I put on my shades, my AirPods, and my attitude like armor in preparation, no one really had to know why but me.
Chapter Three
Stone
Every time I found myself on a film shoot, I vowed I would never do it again. Hours passed in excruciating boredom while we waited for the few minutes my animals were needed. Then the director had them go through take after take. We invariably grew tense and frustrated.