738 Days: A Novel Read online

  Her forehead pinched in annoyance, she looks up from her phone, where she’s texting with one hand and holding on to the door’s armrest with the other. The car service she hired to drive us from our hotel in Wescott, where we’re filming, to nearby Springfield has taken her promise of a massive bonus for on-time arrival very seriously. Tires-screeching-around-corners seriously.

  “That’s so cute,” Elise says, her expression smoothing out with a smile. “Your Texas comes through when you’re anxious. I never noticed before.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m not—”

  “We should capitalize on that the next time you have an on-camera. Our target market will eat that up. Cowboys and shit.” Before she’s even finished her sentence, her gaze is glued to her phone again. “Just make sure it doesn’t bleed through on set. Smitty is supposed to be from here. Wherever-the-fuck-this-is, Pennsylvania,” she says dismissively.

  Smitty is the reason we’re here. My first role in over two years. It’s a small part, the addict best friend of the lead, in a ridiculously small-budget independent film, Coal City Nights. Barely a week’s worth of work, and I’m damn lucky it’s mine. I only have it because Max Verlucci, the writer/director, was part of the writing staff on the first season of Starlight, and he wrote some awesome Brody-centric episodes that gave me a lot to work with. And it probably didn’t hurt that Max left the show before things really went to crap. Still, I had to swear to him that I’d take it seriously and I wouldn’t fuck around.

  When you’re on the verge of being homeless and another too-famous, too-soon statistic, it’s pretty easy to make that promise and mean it.

  Now that Coal City is getting industry buzz, thanks to the exploding popularity of the two leads, Jenna Davies and Adam DiLaurentis, I’m even luckier to still be cast. I’m not exactly Hollywood’s favorite son at the moment. Or anyone’s favorite son, to be honest. You can screw up, yeah, but you’ve got to have the fame and talent to back it up. I cashed in credit that I didn’t have yet, which only pissed people off. So now I’m trying to make a comeback. At twenty-four.

  Jesus. Why doesn’t anyone ever tell you that sometimes where you start is the best it’s ever going to be?

  But they don’t. And then you spend the rest of your life doing anything and everything you can to get back. Including some shit that maybe you shouldn’t.

  “Elise…” I begin.

  She lowers her phone with a sigh. “Chase,” she says, mimicking me with more than a hint of impatience. “It’s going to be great. There’s a fine line between innovative media use and exploitation, and sometimes you’ve got to cut it closer than everybody else to rise above the noise.”

  I am not so sure about that. And my doubt must have shown through.

  “Chase, either you control the media or the media controls you. It’s that simple, sweetie,” she says, as if she’s speaking to the slow kid who keeps trying to put the square shape in the round hole. She sets her phone down just long enough to squeeze my thigh in what I’m sure is meant to be a sexy distraction or possibly reassurance but comes off more like a very familiar kind of condescension. Keep quiet, pretty boy. Let the grown-ups do the thinking.

  Elise is only a couple of years older than me, but she’s smart, Ivy League smart. And she definitely thinks she’s smarter than me. She might be, but it’s my life, a fact she doesn’t always seem to recognize.

  Her hand traces circles higher on my leg, which is, much to my irritation, actually working. My dick has zero conscience, apparently. It occurs to me, not for the first time, that sleeping with my publicist, even if it’s only on a casual, we’re-like-colleagues-with-benefits basis, was probably not a great choice. Another one of those brilliant “night before” decisions.

  “Besides,” Elise continues with a coy smile, “she’s going to love it. I mean, who wouldn’t love to have Chase Henry stop by for a visit?”

  Actually, it seems that maybe there are a lot of people these days who wouldn’t be so thrilled. At least, judging by the number of callbacks I’m not receiving.

  Not that I can blame them, exactly. It’s not as if I didn’t help this train wreck along with my own stupidity. It’s just so weird how fast things turn. Three years ago, maybe four, I was on the number-one show on television, setting new records for the network.

  Now I’m here, in a car in the-middle-of-nowhere-Pennsylvania, heading to do possibly the best thing for my career but also maybe my worst thing as a human being, and I can’t tell which one it is.

  “I mean, God, you saved her life. She says it right there in black and white.” Elise gestures at the file she prepared. Or, more likely, her overworked assistant, Nadia. Elise has very clear ambitions, and I seriously doubt that doing her own photocopying fits within that scope. “She’s going to be thrilled to see her hero, and the exposure we get will be fantastic. It was the anniversary of her rescue a couple of weeks ago, and everyone’s been trying to get an update without any success. I mean, she turned down People.” Elise shakes her head with a tsk of disapproval. “It’s a win-win. Stop worrying.”

  Reluctantly, I return my attention to the folder and the pages inside. Most of them are printouts from various websites, the relevant portions highlighted in yellow, as if Elise (or Nadia, acting on Elise’s instructions) doesn’t trust me to find it on my own.

  Phrases leap out at me. “Abducted by her former bus driver…”

  “… two years in captivity…”

  “… Grace, dubbed the ‘Miracle Girl,’ released a statement saying she’s just happy to be home.”

  “… escaped when she signaled a furnace repairman…”

  “… credits a poster of actor Chase Henry (Starlight) with reminding her of home and keeping her focused on escaping the horrible conditions in Jakes’s basement.”

  The People magazine cover, dated two years ago, is less discreet. “Chase Henry saved my life” is the pull quote on the front cover. Ironically, it is the one other time Amanda Grace and I have ever shared space—there’s a small photo of me in the corner, a publicity shot of Brody scowling from the third season, with the line, “What Former Starlight Hunk Is Driving Dangerously Close to the Edge?”

  That was the header for my second DUI.

  I wonder if we sent something to Amanda. I cringe at the idea of a bouquet showing up at her door with some hideously inadequate note: Sorry to hear about your abduction. Best, Chase. But honestly, I have no idea what my team—well, my former team—might have done or not done.

  I was a little self-involved back then. Okay, a lot self-involved; I was busy watching my career go down in flames like a meteor over Russia and developing a brand-new problem with alcohol.

  But I remember hearing about Amanda and the poster, though only vaguely. Possibly as a talking point on The Tonight Show or something. God, I hope I didn’t say anything stupid or shitty.

  Amanda’s picture on the People cover, a still from her interview with Diane Sawyer, looks familiar. She’s young, probably eighteen at the time, only four or five years younger than me, and pretty with pale skin and reddish-brown hair pulled back in a bouncy ponytail. Her dark eyes are a surprising contrast. She looks a little too thin, but she’s smiling, a perfect girl-next-door, volunteer-at-the-animal-shelter expression.

  Elise’s phone chimes with a text. “Excellent. They’re on their way,” she says. Her thumbs fly across the screen in reply.

  “Who is?” I ask.

  She waves her hand dismissively. “Amanda, to her job at the store.”

  Elise said “they,” implying more than just Amanda, but I’m more focused on the implication of her words. “You had someone following her?”

  “Of course not.” Elise sounds offended. “I had someone watching her house.”

  I stare at her. “Jesus, Elise, you’re stalking a former kidnapping victim?”

  Elise leans over and catches my chin, forcing me to meet her gaze. “You are brilliant. I believe in you, Chase.” Her green eyes are fierce
and sparkling with emotion. “But you need this to go well. We need this to go well.” She blinks quickly but not before I see the sheen of tears.

  Elise took me on when George, my first publicist, dumped my ass into the general office client pool a few years ago. Which basically meant that I no longer had a publicist, even if that wasn’t the official stance. Elise, once George’s assistant, threw her chips in with mine to start her list when no one else would have me, and she’s paid for it with George directing other would-be clients away from her, as punishment. She has almost as much at stake as I do.

  And she’s right. I need the publicity boost visiting Amanda will give me, especially if she agrees to the set visit Elise has arranged. The media will be all over it—they freaking adore the Miracle Girl—and I need to do something to bring myself back as a trending topic. Preferably something positive, or seemingly positive. I have an audition in a couple of weeks for second lead in the new Besson action/adventure flick, and I need that role. I need to at least be considered.

  So, yeah, it’s ghoulish, but at this point, I’m out of better options. My agent is currently pretending I don’t exist, and my manager quit months ago. The money is gone, so are the cars and my condo. The credit card people are calling all the time. And they’re about the only ones.

  If I don’t do something to save myself, I’ll be back to shoveling manure on the family ranch in a couple of months. If I’m lucky.

  But it’s more than that, too. Acting is the only time I ever feel whole, connected to the world and in sync, doing what I’m supposed to be doing. The rest of the time, it’s like I’m killing time and trying to blend in … badly. I’m most myself when I’m being someone else, weirdly enough. It’s not just a job; it’s part of who I am.

  I need it. I don’t know how to be me without it.

  So, I have to do anything and everything I can to stop the downhill slide.

  I nod in reluctant agreement, and Elise beams at me, any hint of tears vanishing. Then she kisses me quickly before tapping another message out on her phone.

  Besides, Elise is right: Amanda will love it, the internet will devour it, and I’ll get a chance to show myself off as the new-and-improved Chase Henry.

  If my conscience is twinging a little, well, so what? Everybody’s happy, and all’s well that ends well.

  * * *

  Springfield doesn’t look all that different from Wescott, where we’re filming. Another small town with stone churches, old houses in bright colors with fancy woodwork, and trees shedding leaves in crazy shades of red and yellow.

  But Max grew up in Wescott, and they were eager to welcome him home to film. I wonder, though, if that will still be the case once they actually see the movie. The script is good, excellent, even, but it definitely shows the darker, claustrophobic underbelly of growing up in a small community. Which is exactly why I wanted in. Smitty’s “Westville” isn’t anywhere near where I grew up in Texas, but I know these characters, these people. And Smitty reminds me of Eric, my former cast-mate and friend.

  The grocery store where Amanda works is not at all what I pictured. It’s small, something locally owned. But judging by the sheer number of pickups and battered SUVs in the parking lot, I’m guessing it’s just the closest place to buy food, rather than a political message (Buy local!) or a status symbol (Organic only!) to shop there. I might have been living in L.A. for too long.

  We pull in and slow to a stop near the entrance, and Elise snarls at the sight of the paparazzi clustered at the corner of the building, smoking and talking to each other. “I told them to stay out of sight until we got here. They’re going to fuck this up.”

  She turns to me. “Are you ready?”

  No. “Yeah.” I unbuckle my seat belt and tug my T-shirt down, more for the calming effect of doing something than the need for it.

  “Just remember, keep smiling,” Elise instructs, unbuckling her own belt and fishing inside her oversized bag for her wallet to pay the driver.

  I nod grimly. I remember this part. When Starlight first took off, I had no idea. None of us did. Calista, who played Skye, and I were working nonstop on a studio set. When the network sent the two of us to the MTV Movie Awards as presenters, we opened the limo doors to find the crowd screaming our names. My first thought was that it must have been a publicity stunt, “fans” planted near the red carpet with signs that someone in the production department had made.

  But no. I figured that out when Calista and I, with a collective WTF shrug, veered off toward the side to sign a few autographs. The crowd surged, and a few velvet ropes weren’t keeping anyone back.

  People don’t realize how disconcerting it is to find yourself alone with an overexcited fan … or even worse, a group of them. It sounds awesome—girls screaming your name, shaking and fainting when you come close. But in reality, it’s scary as hell. They don’t see you as a person. You’re not the guy who accidentally locked himself out of his hotel room because you’re an idiot. (I left my key card in my pants from the night before.) Or the guy who drank so much that waking up in vomit was not an uncommon experience.

  You are more—you are an icon, a symbol, and talking to them, trying to connect, is impossible because it violates their version of reality. They don’t want Chase, the idiot, recovering alcoholic at twenty-four, the guy with a perpetual patch of dry skin at the corner of his mouth. They want Chase Henry, the perfect guy who always says and does the right thing.

  But they’ll take a piece of you—sometimes literally—as a substitute.

  It’s enough to make you run. Which, I know, comes off sounding like vintage ungrateful asshole, but that’s not it. I have (or had) a career because of those fans. I owe them everything. But that doesn’t make them any less terrifying in a group. The power of their want is heady, until you realize it’s not for you, not the real you.

  I wish I’d known all of that earlier. I might have done a better job of just thanking Robert De Niro for his work, instead of spitting enthusiasm all over him, literally and figuratively, that time I bumped into him in the Starbucks line.

  I push open the car door and climb out. Immediately, the paparazzi stir themselves, pointing cameras in my direction and calling my name, with loud voices that manage to sound both bored and annoyed.

  Habit has me hunching my shoulders and ducking my head until I hear Elise hiss behind me: “Chase. Smile.”

  I straighten up and attempt to affix a pleasant expression on my face, without looking directly at the cameras. This is supposed to seem natural, unplanned.

  Through a gap in the white butcher’s-paper advertisements covering the windows, I catch a glimpse of Amanda. Rather, the back and side of her, as she stands at a cash register, trying to scan an apparently stubborn head of lettuce. Having stared at pictures of her for the better part of an hour on the ride over here, she is immediately recognizable to me.

  Her dark red hair is in a limp ponytail that brushes her shoulders. She seems shorter than I imagined, or maybe that’s just because she’s so thin. Too thin. The plaid flannel shirt she’s wearing—in seventy-degree weather?—hangs from her narrow shoulders.

  When she turns to speak to the customer, I get her full profile, and she doesn’t look anything like the bright-eyed girl from the pictures, relieved to be home but uncomfortable with the cameras and attention.

  She’s paler than before, which I didn’t think was possible, and it only highlights the deep purple shadows under her eyes. And when she speaks to the customer, her smile shakes at the edges.

  This girl … she looks haunted.

  Oh, fuck. Whatever has happened in the last two years since she got back, she is not better.

  And I’m here to capitalize on it.

  I stop walking.

  “Chase,” Elise says under her breath in warning.

  For a second, I consider turning around. Just move past Elise, get in the car, and have the driver speed (and he most definitely would) back to Wescott and the hotel. I�
�ll do my best as Smitty and maybe that’ll be enough.

  But it won’t be. And I can’t.

  The clicking of the cameras is absurdly loud, reminding me that every second of this hesitation is being recorded for all of posterity. If I back out now, I’ll still make headlines—the wrong kind. “Chase Henry Leaves Superfan ‘Miracle Girl’ in the Lurch” or some other crap. Even though Amanda’s not expecting me, it won’t matter. Someone, somewhere, will get a shot of her crying or looking overwhelmed (like she does right now, when facing that head of lettuce that is just not scanning) and it’ll be everywhere.

  Shit.

  I swallow hard, bolster my fake smile, then move confidently toward the automatic doors.

  I can do this. Nothing has changed, not really. She’ll still be excited, probably. The media will still be happy to jump on it, maybe even happier with her noble but obviously suffering visage front and center.

  And I’ve done worse.

  Inside, the fluorescent lights flicker overhead, eliminating every shadow and any place to hide. Amanda’s register is three down from the door. The twenty feet between us seems an impossible distance to cross and also not nearly enough.

  Nobody pays me any attention. I’m just a guy if you don’t recognize me, and the older couples and families in the checkout lanes at Logan’s Grocery are not, as Elise would put it, my primary demographic. But a cluster of five or six guys, aiming cameras through the door and the windows, and shouting my name, causes a stir.

  The customers stare and point at the photogs, but confusion is the primary emotion for the moment, rather than anger or defensiveness. Thankfully.

  I put my head down and move toward Amanda’s register.

  I’m only one lane away from Amanda when one of the assholes outside decides to change things up.

  “Amanda! Hey, Amanda! Over here,” he calls through the open door.

  She turns and her gaze catches the paparazzi first. The spark of irritation that flashes across her face adds new life to her expression, which gives me hope that this isn’t going to be a total disaster. But she looks about inches away from flipping them off or calling the cops, neither of which would be good. I’m not entirely sure of the legality of them being quite this close to the store, although still not in it.