Picture Perfect Read online

  "Maybe because he loves me?" I countered. "The last thing on earth I would have wanted was a huge wedding on a studio's back lot."

  Ophelia shook her head. "But that's not the way it's done, not in Hollywood. There's something wrong here." She glanced up at me from beneath lowered lashes, and suddenly I understood just what Ophelia felt was wrong: In the natural order of the movie industry, Alex Rivers should have been matched with a woman who was stunning and ostentatious and larger than life; a woman who would never have agreed to a quiet ceremony; a woman who understood intuitively that a kiss was also a photo opportunity. Alex Rivers should have married someone like Ophelia herself.

  I had never had anything Ophelia wanted before. When we went out, she had been the one to turn heads, the one to make people whisper behind their hands. If anything, I had been the foil to her beauty.

  But as we waited for Alex and John to bring out the baggage, I could see Ophelia's eyes darting around to the few other cars and limos, hoping to spot someone who recognized a celebrity's chauffeured car and who, by association, was watching her. It was probably the first time she hadn't been the center of attention when she was out with me, and the bottom line was that now, she neverwould be.

  I had misread Ophelia's reaction to Alex. She was measuring him up, yes, and the traces of bruises on my neck had thrown her off, but her original objection to him had been his choice of mates. Ophelia didn't intentionally mean to slight me--she hadn't thought that far into it. She just could not understand why someone who had his pick of brightly colored macaws would choose, instead, a simple wren.

  My hands clenched at my sides. It seemed my whole world had been reversed. Ophelia, whom I'd considered my best friend, was jealously carping about my marriage. Alex, whom I'd expected to be a shallow, conceited megalomaniac, had protected me, bared his secrets, and stitched himself so neatly into the weave of my heart that letting him go would mean unraveling myself.

  As if my thoughts had evoked him, he stepped into the rosy outside light with John, each of them carrying a suitcase. Immediately Alex scanned the limousine island. His eyes reached mine, and the muscles at his shoulders seemed to relax. He had been looking for me.

  I kept my eyes on Alex while I answered Ophelia. "This isn't wrong," I said quietly. "And he's not what you're expecting." I glanced back at her to gauge her reaction. "We have a lot in common," I added, but that's all I would say, because I wouldn't break Alex's trust.

  "I hope so," Ophelia said. She stretched out her hand to brush the vanishing spots on my neck that she knew I could not discuss. "Because you've just moved into a whole different world, and he's the only person you know there."

  ALEX'S HOUSE IN BEL-AIR SPRAWLED OVER TWELVE GATED ACRES AND looked exactly like the plantations I'd sketched in my mind when my mother used to tell me about her childhood in the South. It was nearly five in the morning when we arrived, and I stirred from Alex's shoulder as the car made its way down the long gravel driveway, wishing that my mother had seen where I ended up.

  It was not the type of house most actors kept in L.A. Modesty had replaced the grandeur of the Golden Age of Hollywood, simply because it bought the celebrities a measure of solitude. But Alex, who had grown up in a trailer park, would want something like this. My throat tightened as I realized that Alex, who so valued his privacy, was willing to trade it all for the opulence he'd missed as a child. I wondered briefly if it worked for him; if cultivating this image for the public erased the memories.

  Although it was early, there was a steady hum of activity around the house. A gardener was clipping at a hedge that ran the length of the left side of the house, and a thin stream of smoke arched from one of the small white buildings out back. "What do you think?" Alex said.

  I drew in my breath. "It's magnificent," I said. I had never seen a residence like this in my life; and I realized that I would do everything in my power to keep Alex from seeing the tiny apartment I'd lived in with Ophelia, simply so I wouldn't feel embarrassed.

  Alex helped me out of the car. "I'll give you the grand tour later," he said. "I imagine you'd like nothing better now than a soft mattress."

  I grinned at the very thought of it: Alex and I tangled under the sheets in a bed that was wider than just one of us. I followed him up the marble steps, smiling as John held the door open for us. "Here you go, Mrs. Rivers," he said, and I blushed.

  Alex brushed past John and propelled me up a glorious, winding staircase that could have been a set forGone With the Wind . "I'll introduce you to everyone else later," he said. "They're dying to meet you."

  What, I thought,have they been told ? But before I could say anything, Alex opened the door to an oval sitting room that smelled of fresh wind and lemons. He crossed the room and closed a large bay window, letting lace curtains flutter to rest. "This is the bedroom," he said.

  I looked around. "Don't you have a bed?"

  Alex laughed, pointing out a door that I hadn't noticed, blended between the blue and white stripes of the wallpaper. "Through there."

  It was the largest bed I had ever seen, stepped onto a miniature platform and pillowed by a big down comforter. I sat on the edge of it, testing, and then I opened up the bag I'd been carrying since we first left Kenya and took out the things I always carried with me on planes: my toothbrush, my toiletry kit, another T-shirt. Wrapped inside the T-shirt was the bottle of snow Alex had brought me in Tanzania, something I didn't want to risk being broken in the baggage compartment. I set it on the maple dresser beside Alex's brush and a tall pile of photocopied screenplays.

  Alex wrapped his arms around me from behind and pulled my shirt over my head. "Welcome home," he said.

  I turned in his embrace. "Thanks." I let him unzip my linen trousers and pull off my shoes, tuck me under the covers. I pressed my arms down into the forgiving comforter, waiting for Alex to come to bed.

  He turned and started out the door to the sitting room, and I bolted upright. "Where are you going?" I said, my voice jumping at the ends in panic.

  Alex smiled. "I don't think I can go back to sleep," he said. "I'm just going to get some work done downstairs. I'll be here when you get up."

  I thought of how I wanted him to stay with me, to make this unfamiliar room a comfortable place. I ran my hands below the sheets to the spot where he should have been. I imagined the late-morning sun in Kenya, and the way we could remain in bed for hours there without the real world creeping through the thin crack beneath the door. But what was I supposed to say to Alex?I'm afraid of being alone in this house. I don't know anyone here. I need to see you by my side, so that I understand where I fit in . Or the deeper truth:I don't recognize myself. I don't even recognize you.

  The door shut quietly behind Alex, leaving me lost. I told myself to stop acting like a fool, and I fixed my gaze on the jar of snow on the dresser, the only thing in this house so far that I could say was mine. The sun spilled through the French doors of the bedroom like a spreading fire, an accusation.So, I thought,this is how it begins.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "FINLAND."

  "Denmark."

  Alex skimmed his fingers over my ribs. "You already used Denmark."

  I caught his hands and pressed them against me. "Dominican Republic, then."

  Alex shook his head. "I already said that. You might as well admit it, you've lost. There are only two countries beginning with D."

  I raised my eyebrows. "Is that true?" I asked. We had been playing Geography on a lazy Thursday afternoon, and just for the challenge, we had limited ourselves to naming countries. "Prove it."

  Alex laughed. "Gladly. But you get the map."

  I pretended to move, but Alex kept his arm around me, indicating he wasn't about to let me go. He was lying on a hunter-green striped chaise, and I was between his legs, propped against his chest. I stared at the sun as it brightened the edges of a cloud it was hiding behind. "Do you memorize atlases in your spare time?" I teased, already knowing the answer: Alex had learned