Famous in Love (5 page)

Rainer clears his throat and retracts his hand. “We’re not dating. We were but not anymore.”

“Oh.”

Rainer smiles. “How about you?”

“Britney isn’t really my type,” I say.

Rainer laughs. “Funny.”

“I try.”

He leans closer to me. “Anyone back home?”

I think about Jake, probably picketing some animal shelter or a Barnes & Noble right about now. “No.”

“Really? You?”

“Surprisingly, yes, this doesn’t make them come running.” I hold up some stringy strands of hair, and sand immediately cascades down into my lap.

“You’re a movie star, haven’t you heard?” he says. His blue eyes sparkle. There is one movie star at the table, and it definitely isn’t me.

“I’m an
actress
,” I correct.

“In our position, sweetheart, it’s the same thing.”

I try not to let it affect me, I do, but the way he says
sweetheart
makes the nerves in my stomach begin to vibrate.

Rainer sits back and smiles. “So, what are you having?”

I notice the calm charm with which he talks to the waiter, the way he stands up and untucks my chair when I come back from the restroom, the way he smiles and makes light conversation when a mother and daughter come over to our table asking for his autograph. He’s
totally comfortable with it. More than that: He actually seems to like it.

“You get used to it,” he says, cutting his salmon. “It’s a little invasive sometimes, but it’s also really flattering. It means they love what you do.”

I don’t have the heart to tell him that after today, I’m not sure anyone is going to love what I do.

“It’s going to get better,” he says as if reading my mind. “You can’t let Wyatt get to you.”

“You’re right,” I say.

He puts his elbows on the table, bending his head close to mine. “So, will you tour me around this weekend or are you going to make me beg?”

I swallow. “Doesn’t your family have a house here?”

Rainer raises his eyebrows. “You
so
read the tabloids.”

I shake my head. “No way, you told me weeks ago.”

He sighs. “Yeah, but we usually just sit by the pool and we’ve never been here for more than a weekend at a time. I want to see
your
Hawaii. You’re the one who has been keeping it locked down here. I figure you have to have seen something.” He leans a little bit closer, so close I can smell him. He smells like expensive cologne, like a department store. Combined with the sweet plumeria surrounding us, it’s kind of heady.

My
Hawaii is the inside of my condo, studying lines.

“I haven’t been out much,” I admit.

Rainer looks at me. “So we’ll explore together.”

It’s definitely an offer I can’t refuse. “Okay,” I say.

“Great.” He pushes back his chair. “Shall we?”

“Don’t we have to pay?” I crane my head to look for the waiter, but Rainer stands.

“I have an account,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.” He touches the small of my back as I stand, and I can’t help but look at the girl a few tables over. She catches my eye, and the strangest feeling comes over me. It’s pride. I feel, for a brief moment, that he’s mine. Maybe not in the real world, but in the fictional one, it’s true.

I’m not one of those girls who gets swoony when she sees brides, and I’d rather watch a thriller than a romantic comedy, but there is something about him. The way he seems to know what I want before I say it, and how calm and confident he is. And when he walks me to my door he leans in, and I can’t believe it—is Rainer Devon really going to kiss me? But he just brushes his lips against my cheek.

“Thanks for dinner,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I say good-bye, and he turns to head down the hallway.

When I get inside, I immediately pick up my phone. I start to scroll to Cassandra’s name, but something stops me. I can’t call her—what would I say? I have a crush on Rainer Devon? Is that true? She’d probably only tell me the obvious—he’s a movie star, not interested in dating a
mere mortal like me. We’re coworkers. He’s being friendly.
Get a grip, Townsen.

I fall asleep in my flowered skirt with the phone on my pillow. When I wake up, it’s still there, Cassandra’s name dark on the screen.

I’ve started a ritual
in Hawaii: Every weekend morning, when I don’t have to be shooting and before the sun comes out, I go down to the beach and jump in the ocean. There isn’t a soul around except the early-morning surfers, and even if they throw you a smile, it never develops into a conversation. We have an understanding that everyone is alone, but not in a way that’s lonely. The opposite, actually. To me the ocean in the morning is like a good friend, the kind you can sit in silence with for hours.

I’ve never seen Rainer down here, or Wyatt, but then Wyatt works all the time and Rainer usually goes away on the weekends. I know he’s sticking around today, but he seems much more like a brunch-at-the-hotel kind of guy than a wake-up-at-dawn-and-hop-in-the-freezing-ocean guy.

I toss my towel onto a rock and head toward the shore. I feel the water and then start walking forward, giving myself to the count of three before I dive in. It’s the only way to go—if you edge in, it’s pure torture.

The water hits—so sharp it feels like the wind has been knocked out of me—and I come up to the surface gasping for air. The ocean is new to me, but I’ve always loved the water.

Before my sister got pregnant and my brothers moved out, my parents used to take us camping every summer. My sister hated it. She’d stay in the tent and complain about how she hadn’t brought enough magazines, or how the air was too cold or the ground too hard or how the food stank, but I loved it. I used to look forward to those trips every year.

We’d set up camp around a lake my dad had chosen, and the five of us would pitch tents while my mom unloaded the kitchen supplies. As soon as we were done, I’d hit the water. It didn’t matter how cold it was—as soon as camp was set up I was in. My mom says I was born with a fish’s tail, and I think it’s probably true. When I was little, people used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’d always say a fish. I didn’t understand that a fish wasn’t something you could work toward. That no matter how hard I tried, I’d never sprout gills and a tail.

Once I’m totally underwater, it’s heaven. Cool and
crisp and deliciously refreshing, like biting into the summer’s first slice of watermelon. The cold zings through my body, waking up my arms and legs and toes. I flip over onto my back and let the waves rock me out. It’s just starting to get light, and I can see rays of pink and yellow and orange puncture the sky. It’s like watching a painting being made. Long, leisurely brushstrokes that soften the darkness until the spaces between aren’t pockets of sun, but the other way around.

I stretch my hands out in front of me and pump my legs forward, pitching my body underwater. It doesn’t bite now and instead feels smooth, and soft—like a silk robe or velvet pajamas.

I spend about fifteen minutes floating and swimming, sometimes stopping to watch the sherbet sky. When I’m in the water, it feels like the whole world is on the same level—the beach and the sky are parallel, not perpendicular. It’s so different from Portland. Portland is all rounded corners and hills. Hawaii feels level, like everything is happening at the same time here, all at once.

I finally let a wave carry me back. I sink my feet into the sand, hopping up and down a few times to get the water out of my ears and wringing my hair over my shoulder. It’s completely light out, and if I stand facing the condos, I can see all the way up Haleakala, Maui’s dormant volcano. When we first got here, Rainer’s dad paid for Hawaiian
culture lessons. The whole crew came, but most people left early. I was one of the few who ended up staying and hearing the entire thing. They told us that the Hawaiian Islands are actually a chain of volcanoes and that the “hot spot” moves from island to island, which is why only one volcano at a time is actually active—currently the one on Hawaii, the Big Island. The totally fascinating thing, though, is that the hot spot is moving now, creating another island. It will probably rise to the surface sometime in the next ten thousand to one hundred thousand years. It has already been named, too. It’s called Loihi.

I wrap my towel around my waist and tromp back up to the condos. I’m looking forward to getting out of Wailea, our beach town, today. Jake bought me all these guidebooks, most of them focused on which species are indigenous and how to tell if ocean water is polluted, but he did get me one plain, straight-up tourist-trap book. The kind that tells you where the best burgers are and how to find the hikes with the waterfalls. I’m bringing it with us today.

The woman at the reception desk greets me with a smile. “You have a message, Ms. Townsen.”

She hands me a note on hotel stationery with trim, precise cursive on it:

Get dressed and come meet me for breakfast.

—R

My pulse lights up, and my body suddenly feels warm. No more morning-water goose bumps.

“Anything else?” I ask the woman, making an effort to hide the slow smile that is spreading across my face. I have to figure out how to get it together. He’s my coworker, not some school crush.

“No,” she replies. “Just the one note.”

I nod and take off toward my room, my flip-flops making smacking noises on the marble floor.

When I come down to breakfast, Rainer is waiting in another Hawaiian shirt and wraparound Ray-Ban sunglasses. This shirt is light blue, the color of the waves. He’s smiling his signature dimply smile and tapping his forefinger on his watch.

“You’re late,” he says.

I hold up his note. “You didn’t specify a time.”

“I just assumed you’d see it and come running.”

“Is that what the girls normally do?”

Rainer shrugs. “Pretty much, yeah.” He shakes his head and smiles. “I’m kidding,” he says. He looks at me to make sure I know it. “Sit. You know I would have waited all day, anyway.”

“So, what are we doing today?” I say, trying to change the subject, determined to keep myself together. Cool. Collected.

A waitress has set an orange juice and bread basket
down, and I tear off a muffin top. I realize I’m starving. It’s the morning swims. The ocean makes me ravenous.

Rainer watches me with amusement. “I thought that was on you, PG.” He leans closer to me. “I get the car; you bring the plan.”

I pull out my guidebook and open it to the page on Paia, this little town on the north shore I’ve been wanting to go to. There is supposed to be a restaurant there called the Fish Market that has the best burgers and sandwiches on the island, and the town is apparently cluttered with cute, artsy stores and shops. Not that anything could ever beat Trinkets n’ Things, but, you know, one can dream. The guidebook says that from Paia you can go to Ho’okipa Beach and watch the windsurfers. I think that sounds kind of perfect.

Bent over my eggs and coffee, I tell all this to Rainer.

“I’m impressed,” he says. “You learned all that from this?” He plucks the copy of
The Real Maui
out of my hands and fans through the pages.

I nod and parrot what Jake told me: “It’s supposed to be the best one.”

Rainer smiles slightly, like he thinks this is sort of funny. Cute, maybe. I internally cringe at how childlike I sound. So damn young. Then he pulls my coffee out of my hand, takes a sip, and sets it down. “Time is wasting, PG. Let’s go.”

Rainer has rented a neon-blue convertible, and when we pick it up at the valet, I can’t help but snort. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Oh, come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“You mean irony?”

He shakes his head. “You’re impossible.”

“I have a sense of adventure. It just involves things like hiking, not driving the tourist mobile.”

“Well, I’m going to be the one driving.” Rainer tilts his sunglasses up and looks at me. I can’t help but note, even now with this aqua vehicle right by us, how blue his eyes are.

He holds the door open for me, and I get inside.

“Plus,” he says, shutting the door, “I look good in blue.”

It will be easier to spot us in this thing for sure, but so far that hasn’t really been a problem. People are always complaining about the paparazzi, but I don’t see what the big deal is. And truthfully, it might not be a terrible thing to be recognized, just a little bit. I mean, someone wanting to take my picture is kind of a new concept for me. Up until now I’ve had to jostle my way into Christmas card photos.

Wyatt keeps hammering into us, practically preaching, that this is going to change, that every day moves us
closer to insanity, but I don’t know. There was a big fuss when I got the part—magazine articles, one shot of me coming out of a Coffee Bean—but then everything settled down when we got here. No one recognizes me. How could they? I haven’t done anything yet.

I take out the big map of Maui that was folded into the guidebook. We start driving west, the beach on our left and the hills climbing up into the mountains on our right. Every single second looks like a postcard. I keep wanting to freeze-frame the drive. The book says that the Hawaiian Islands are thought to be God’s country, that if he ever chose to live anywhere on earth, it would be here. I get what they mean. It’s paradise.

“What do you do in Portland?” Rainer asks. The top is down, and the wind is loud. My hair is blowing every which way, and I try to secure it back, my hands plastered to the side of my head like earmuffs.

“What?” I bellow.

“Portland!”

It’s funny—Rainer feels so familiar, but we haven’t actually spent a lot of time talking about our lives before this movie. I’m glad that we’re getting the chance now.

The truth, though, is that I know a lot about
him
. The external stuff, anyway. All courtesy of Cassandra. Like his favorite color is orange and he has a dog named Scoot and when he was twelve his dad gave him a dinner date
with Steven Spielberg for his birthday. He grew up in Beverly Hills, his parents are still married, and he’s an only child, despite occasional rumors to the contrary.

His parents have a bowling alley in their basement and a tennis court in their backyard. He’s one of
People
’s most beautiful and his birthday is in June… although it could be January.

I realize, suddenly, the only thing Cassandra left out was Britney.

Rainer looks over at me and smiles. My eyes are watering bullets, and my hair looks like it’s caught in an eighties music video. Sexy.

He says something I can’t understand, but I don’t pretend to, and we drive in silence until we reach Paia.

Paia is exactly like the guidebook described: a little hippie town that has more restaurants and character than the entire south side of the island combined. I can tell as soon as we pull in that this is the real island, the part no one sees on a beach vacation. Being on our part of the island is a little like being stuck on a cruise ship—it’s beautiful and there is lots of good food, but you never get to see anything real.

Paia is composed of two strips. One that the highway runs into and another road that intersects it perpendicularly. There are no parking spots available, and every restaurant—mostly outdoor cafés—seems to be packed. I
half expect Rainer to try to valet, but then he swings into a little parking lot at the base of town and proves me wrong.

“Seems like you picked the hot spot,” he says. He parks, locks up the top, and then comes around to open my door. I’ve already done it, so we have this funny little moment where I’m getting out and he’s trying to be helpful, but he gets stuck between the car next to us and my door. It’s sweet, and kind of disarming.

Here’s a fun fact: Even Rainer Devon looks silly caught between two parked cars.

We extricate ourselves from the parking lot and walk over to the Fish Market. Even though there is an insane line that wraps clear around the outside of the restaurant, I insist we stay and eat there. It’s not like we have anywhere else to be.

“Don’t doubt the book,” I say, and Rainer consents.

“We could just go up, you know,” he says, gesturing to the register about twenty people out.

“Cut, you mean?”

“For all they know, we need to be back on set.”

“But we
don’t
need to be back on set,” I point out.

He crosses his arms and squints at me. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?” Who does he think he is, Brad Pitt? Would Brad Pitt cut in line? Probably. But only because he had to go save orphans or something. The only thing Rainer has to do is see a beach.

“Your naïveté is cute, PG, but you’re a big star now. It’s time to start acting like one.”

“That’s not acting like a star,” I say. “That’s acting like an asshole.”

He rolls his eyes and takes my hand. It makes me jump, but I don’t fight him. He drags me up to the front of the line, excuses himself to the man who is at the register, and smiles at the cashier—a girl about our age. She looks at the cash register and then does this little gasp when she sees Rainer staring at her.

“You don’t think we could put in an order, do you?” Rainer asks, beaming at her. He’s still holding my hand and pulls me closer, showing me to her like I’m evidence he’s providing.

The girl looks at me and then her eyes get wide. It’s the same look Cassandra gives me when she has something really important to tell me and can’t quite get the words out.

“Y-y-you’re August,” she sputters.

I glance at Rainer and then back at the girl. My first inclination is to correct her. I’m not August. I’m Paige.

But instead what happens is that I smile and nod, slowly, and then the whole restaurant falls silent. Where a minute before I felt like I was back in Rainer’s convertible having to shout to be heard, now the only thing I
want is for someone to sneeze to cover up the sound of my breathing.

And it’s fast. My heart is going a mile a minute.

“I loved the books,” the girl pushes on. “I’m so excited for the movie. Could I have your autograph?”

Rainer raises his eyebrows at me and smiles a
told you so
grin. I fumble in my purse, trying to find a pen. Are you supposed to keep pens on you when you’re famous? Is that the deal? Or do people provide them?

I find one dangling from an eyeglass case at the bottom of my bag and take it out, cap first.