Page 104 of Malibu Rising

Nina looked at her and frowned. “I …” she began to say, but then changed the subject. “Do you smoke?” she said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from her nightstand drawer. She offered one to Casey.

“Oh, no but, uh … OK,” Casey said. She took the unlit cigarette from Nina’s hand and put it to her mouth.

Nina lit it and then lit her own.

Casey took a drag and coughed. “You were saying …” she said once she caught her breath. “About the birds. Why didn’t you get them?”

Nina looked at Casey and then out the window, considering the question. The crowd was starting to shift, and as it did, Nina saw something startling. Her brothers, her sister, and her father, all together, walking down the stairs to the beach.

“Because I’m a doormat,” Nina said. “I’m a human doormat.” She put her cigarette out. “Fuck it. You stay here. I’m gonna go talk to Mick Riva.”

3:00 A.M.

Ted Travis was hell-bent on self-destruction.

He was the biggest, highest-paid star on network TV but none of that had mattered to him since his wife died last year. He felt like he was falling apart inside—sobbing alone in his huge house, hiring hookers, shoplifting, upgrading from the occasional coke binge to a full-blown speed addiction—but all of the chaos of his soul wasn’t showing on the outside.

When he looked in the mirror, he could see he was just getting handsomer and handsomer. Turns out, he looked even better with gray hair than he had with brown. Sometimes, when he looked at his own reflection, he could hear the ghost of Willa’s voice in his head, laughing, telling him he had no right to age so well without her. Drinking quieted it.

At Nina’s party, Ted had already downed half a bottle of whiskey, lost four grand on a bet to that girl fromFlashdance,and then fallen asleep fully clothed in the shallow end of the pool. Someone had cannonballed into the water and woken him up. He climbed out.

But then: her.

A forty-three-year-old script supervisor named Victoria Brooks.

He came across her in the living room when his clothes had just stopped dripping. She was tall and lean and didn’t have a single curve on her body. She had bleached blond hair and dark eyebrows and a face that was positively breathtaking in profile.

“Ted,” he said, putting out his hand as he walked up to her.

Vickie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know who you are.”

“And you are?”

“Vickie.”

“Beautiful name. Let me get you a drink,” Ted said as he gave her his TV smile.

Vickie blew her cigarette away from both of them, her left hand pinning a highball of vodka and soda against her right arm. “I have one, thanks.”

“What do I have to do to get a smile out of you?” he asked her.

Vickie rolled her eyes again. “Sober up, maybe. You’ve embarrassed yourself about ten times already tonight.”

Ted laughed. “You’re right about that. I keep trying to find a way to enjoy myself. But it’s pointless. I’m too goddamn sad all the time.”

Vickie finally looked Ted in the eye.

She was sad, too. God, she was sad. Her husband had died in a boating accident seven years ago and she had resigned herself to loneliness since then. She was not willing to love again, if this was how it felt.

“One drink,” Vickie said, surprising herself.

Ted smiled. He got her a fresh vodka soda, straightened his damp clothes, and went back to her.

“I want to take you out,” he said. “So what should I do to convince you? Are you a grand gesture sort of lady?”

Vickie sighed. “I guess so? But I’m not going on a date with you.”

Ted smiled exactly the way he did onCool Nights. He was just going through the motions but he was good at pretending. That’s why they paid him so much money to do it.

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