The Lion's Den(30)

He offered me the joint and I took it. “You’re not afraid of heights?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I know how to fall. I rock climb.”

“What else do you do?”

“Cook.” He gestured to the planters around us. “Garden.”

“My mom always says, ‘The closer to the earth you eat, the better it tastes.’”

“Better for you, too,” he agreed. “It’s insane the things they put in our food these days. What about you?”

“I garden, too. On the balcony of my apartment. A couple of herbs and a lone tomato plant. Mostly I like to feel my hands in the dirt.”

He held my gaze. “And where is this balcony?”

“Beachwood Canyon.”

“I used to live in Beachwood. I shot the series with the women and the flowers there.”

The realization hit me like a bag of rocks, and I felt immediately stupid. I combed back through all the supposedly witty comments I’d made downstairs about his work, my cheeks burning. No wonder he was laughing.

“I’m such an ass,” I apologized. “I didn’t realize—”

He smiled, unfazed. “It’s okay. The people downstairs are just kissing my ass in case I end up famous, and I’m kissing theirs so they’ll buy my shit.”

“I do like your work,” I asserted. He smiled at me, amused, so I continued. “I do. There’s something really interesting in the way you play with opposites.”

His eyes brightened. “Thanks. Most people don’t get it. They just think it’s fantasy. But to me it goes deeper than that—a marriage of opposites.”

“Like life.”

He laughed. “Exactly.”

Unable to hold his gaze for fear he might read my indecent thoughts, I bent to smell a yellow rose.

“O heavy lightness, serious vanity,

Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke…”



To my surprise, he completed my sentence, feigning an outsize British accent:

“…cold fire, sick health,

Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!”



We both dissolved into laughter. “How do you know that?” I asked.

“I played Romeo in college.”

“I did, too,” I exclaimed. “In a production where we reversed the sexes of all the roles.”

“Sounds avant-garde.”

“Oh, it was. So very avant-garde. So very…college.”

My phone buzzed. Summer:

I’m here. Where are you?



“Dang,” I said. “My friend’s here. I’ve gotta go down.”

“I should probably get back, too.” He sighed.

The elevator doors opened, and we stepped inside. He placed his hands over my eyes, and I allowed myself to lean into him this time. I could feel his heart beating in his chest, fast like mine. Maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe he was dateable. He knew Shakespeare. Can’t judge a book by its cover and all that.

I summoned all my nerve as I sensed the elevator about to hit the ground level, and turned to him, our faces close. “Thanks for the tour.”

His eyes traveled down to my lips. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Belle.”

“Nice to meet you, Belle.”

Ding! The elevator doors opened, and the spell was broken. Two men in suits and a fashionable dark-haired woman with black-framed glasses stood in the hallway, as though anticipating our arrival. The woman beckoned to him.

I gave the group a smile and slipped down the hall without looking back.





Day 3

Monday morning—Varazze, Italy



I wake to a soft rapping on the door. Camille, the young crew girl with the long braid, gently pushes it open, holding two steaming cups of coffee emblazoned in gold with THE LION’S DEN.

“Good morning,” she says. “Is eight.” She sets the tray on the table between our beds. Amythest doesn’t budge. “Breakfast on the upper deck in thirty minutes. Wear the gym outfit; you go to town for private…” She spins her hands like they are the pedals of a bike. “You know?”

“Spin class?” I offer.

“Yes, that one.”

Amythest snores through this entire exchange. Camille looks down at her, clearly reluctant to wake her.

I shake Amythest’s shoulder. She pushes her eye mask up and looks at us, sleepy and confused. “It’s eight,” I say.

She nods and lets her head fall to the pillow, moaning, “Why am I so tired?”

In the hall, someone calls out to Camille, who closes the door gently as she exits.

“We gotta get up,” I say. “We have breakfast, then Spin class.”

She sits up, a look of distaste on her face. “Spin class?”

I nod, my sentiments mirroring hers. “Yep.”

She flops back down. “You have to be kidding.”

“Unfortunately, no. Summer has always been very serious about her Spin class, and apparently she wants to share it with us.”

“Ugh. What if we don’t want to share?” Amythest pulls the covers over her head. “I’m not done sleeping.”