She stops at the top step.

We’re both laughing.

I grab her against me, kissing her the way I’ve wanted to all day. When she pulls back we’re both breathless.

“What are we doing, Chrissie?”

She kisses my bicep, laughs, and then takes my hand and starts going down the narrow stairs.

At the bottom, she pauses and turns in the sand to face me. “There’s security at each end of the beach. It’s empty. I want to walk on the beach with you. Kiss you in the exact spot where you kissed me the night we first met. Then slip down to where a car’s waiting. Jack’s got the kids for a week. Your plane is at the airport on standby for us. I don’t care where you take me. Run away with me, Alan.”

*  *  *

My mind fills with vivid images of my honeymoon with Chrissie. Oh yes, I need a Kevin Spacey shower this morning. Fuck, I wish my wife was still here.

My phone dings again. Christ, another email from Brian. Why is he sending me this? It’s just the usual tabloid shit. Nothing new.

I toss aside my cell without checking out all the links. Who gives a fuck what anyone writes? What they’re spewing online. I wonder if this shit is part of why Kaley’s being so difficult lately. Maybe she’s getting crap at school over it. Her friends are old enough to surf the web and understand this.

It’s ridiculous what people are willing to believe and babble about. Every story. Nonsense. Is it worth trying to talk to Kaley again? She’s lived through this her entire life. Christ, she’s Neil Stanton’s daughter. Every anniversary of his death she ends up in print. She must know by now that what the tabloids write is ninety percent garbage.

Maybe Chrissie’s wrong about never commenting back on things in the press. Maybe it would all stop if we went on the record, did a late-night talk show or two or something. Maybe we feed it by freezing the press out. Maybe no comment is the same as telling them to comment how they want.

No. I used to answer everything. It never worked well.

Chrissie’s right.

Fuck it. Not commenting, Brian.

I know the truth.

Chrissie knows the truth.

We’re married.

We’re happy.

Fuck them.

 

 

Chapter 16

After my shower, I pull on some jeans and a t-shirt, and then check my phone. Ah, voice mail from Chrissie.

I hit play: “Hi, baby. I didn’t understand anything the counselor talked about. They never say anything in a way normal people can understand. The best I can figure out is they’ve been reading her social media, Facebook, website and blog. Can you believe that? I don’t even invade her privacy and read her pages. I didn’t even know she had a private website and blog, and they think it requires follow-up with a counseling professional. Wouldn’t say why. Just said do. Insulting, patronizing and infuriating. I’m on my way to the studio. Hopefully I can get some time to spy online and see what they’re freaking out about. I’ll talk to Kaley when I get home. Don’t say anything to her. Thank you for caring. Thank you for loving me and understanding I couldn’t stay and play with you this morning. Can we play later—”

Beep.

I laugh and click off the phone. Chrissie can’t say anything in the allotted recording time. She doesn’t sound concerned, more frustrated, so I was probably right that it’s nothing to worry about. And Chrissie got in enough words in sixty seconds to make me look forward to tonight.

I head into the kitchen for more coffee. The house is quiet. Didn’t expect that one. Is everyone gone? I pull things out of the refrigerator. I start cooking my own breakfast.

Lourdes comes into the kitchen.

“Señor Alan, if you wait, I will make breakfast for you,” she says flustered, shaking her head.

I smile. “It’s all right. I like cooking. Where is everyone?”

“Aarsi took Krystal and the boys to the Harrises’ for the day. Kaley, she is not home. Khloe is napping.”

A full report. Empty house.

I finish cooking my breakfast and eat it alone on the patio. I considering cutting out to join Kenny in the studio today. I yawn. I’m tired. Nope, not hanging with Kenny. I turn off the phone and stretch out on the lounger.

Sleep.

Uninterrupted sleep.

Not a bad way to pass the time waiting for Chrissie to come home.

A bang startles me from deep sleep. Oh fuck, how long have I been sleeping? And what the hell? Linda is rushing toward me, frantic and keyed up about something.

“What the fuck is the matter with you people?” she exclaims in a voice that could puncture the sound barrier. She’s breathless, alarmed and discomposed in a way I’ve never seen her before. “Don’t you ever answer your phones? I’ve been trying to call you and Chrissie for hours. Why don’t you ever pick up the fucking phone?”

She drops on the chaise beside me.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask.

“Len, get the fuck out here!” she screams. Her eyes shift back to me. “Where’s Chrissie?”

I frown. “She’s out for the day.”

She exhales again. “Oh God. Wait. That’s probably better.”

Better?

Every muscle in my body jerks and then tenses. Nothing rocks Linda. Linda is nonreactive, but she’s near hysterical and she’s happy Chrissie’s not here.

I am fully alarmed now even though I don’t know why.

Len drops down on a chair in front of a patio table. He flips open his laptop and starts to rapidly hit away at keys. His eyes are fixed on the screen. He doesn’t even look at me. I spring from the lounger and go to the table, staring over his shoulder, trying figure out what has him in full panic, too.

“What is this?” He’s clicking through pages too fast for me to figure out any of them.

“It’s your worst nightmare,” he warns. “Imagine The Osbornes, the Kardashians, Jersey Shore and Intervention all rolled into a multi-episode documentary. That wouldn’t be as bad as this. I don’t know how the fuck we’ll make it go away. It’s on the Internet. It wasn’t bad when Kaley just had the demented burned Barbies on strings dancing around narrating and pretending to be different characters in different scenes. Anything real world Kaley shot at an angle with effects so you couldn’t see the images clearly. It was really clever and artsy, that. But she’s gone live, face-to-face and there’s no hiding what the hell we’ve got here.”

“Len, what the fuck are you talking about? Would one of you just explain in plain English, please?” I shout, frustrated since neither of them seems able to tell me in a direct way what the fuck is going on here.

“Kaley’s World on the Internet,” Len counters in an annoyingly overexcited way. “It’s your Kaley. Christ, look!”

Kaley’s World—Oh God, a website. The reason the administrators called Chrissie in for a meeting today—this is not going to be nothing, not with the way the Rowans look.

I wait, dread turning my digestive tract to ice.

“Manny, the girl’s gone viral,” Linda says pointedly. “She’s on fire. Eleven million hits on today’s episode and it’s only been up a few hours. It’s on the network news. She’s crashed the servers at UCLA and a dozen other campuses with kids logging on to watch her live feed today. She’s been an Internet star for nearly a month. How could you and Chrissie not know? Every episode, more than a million hits. This has been going on for weeks.”

I stare at the screen anxiously waiting for the video to load. What the fuck is taking so long? It’s the Internet. Then Kaley is on the screen. Shit, it’s fucking Barbies turned into puppets. Alarm shoots through me. That is the interior of Chrissie’s house. The sounds. What the hell is that I’m hearing? Is that Chrissie and me fucking? The background sound effects are us fucking while Kaley tapes a mock shock talk show with burned Barbies as the hosts. Oh no…what the hell is she doing?