Picture Perfect Read online

  Alex didn't answer. He stared down at her hand on the sleeve of his coat as if it were a tarantula.

  "Kids, kids," Herb bellowed from the seat facing them. "Let's kiss and make up," he said. "Remember, this is good publicity."

  Alex knew that Herb was right; rumors were flying about the former shutdown in production ofMacbeth , so many that Alex was beginning to remember the hell he'd gone through withAntony and Cleopatra . Maybe he was just doomed when it came to Shakespeare.

  "Yeah, Alex," Melanie breathed, inches away from his face. "Let's kiss and make up."

  Alex twirled his wedding ring around his finger, a habit he'd taken to lately, as if it were a necessary reminder.If you win , he warned himself,no matter what, do not jump up and embrace her .

  Herb patted Melanie's knee. "Leave him alone," he sighed. "He's brooding."

  "I know," Melanie said huskily. "That's what we all love about him."

  Alex ignored their senseless patter until their limousine was next in line. "Ready for the vultures, darling?" Melanie asked, snapping closed her compact.

  Alex stepped into the afternoon sunshine first, squinting and holding his hand up in a half-wave, half-sunshield. He reached into the bowels of the limousine to help Melanie out, watching her turn on a smile with the wattage of a nighttime beacon at a maximum-security prison. She lightly placed her hand on his arm, and at his low growl, removed it.

  There were too many shouts and catcalls to hear the reporters or to notice the flashbulbs and the rolling tape. He walked beside Melanie, nodding and grinning, trying for a facial expression that said he was not too sure of himself, but still confident about his chances.

  The man walking in front of him was a producer over at FOX, and although Alex could not remember his name, his stooped gait and liver-spotted hairline were familiar. He and his wife were tiny and hunched over, and Alex wondered if that was the burden of age or simply of a long Hollywood marriage. They meandered down the red carpeting so slowly that several times Alex was forced to stop with Melanie and simply stand, smiling like an idiot. The man turned and noticed for the first time that Alex was behind him. He stopped dead in his tracks, holding out a hand. Alex shook it. "Golf balls," the man said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Golf balls. When I saw your movie, I had golf balls in my throat. That's how much it moved me." He reached up and squeezed Alex's shoulder. "The best of the best tonight, eh?"

  Alex had heard that kind of comment before aboutLife . Everyone had an estranged father or sister or friend, and Alex's role had encouraged them to make their peace. Alex Rivers, king of mending fences. Sultan of reconciliation. With the ultimate skeleton in his closet: a wife he had driven away.

  As he waited on the red carpeting he heard the word "sweep," and he knew that people were talking about the potential forThe Story of His Life to walk away with an Oscar for each of its eleven nominations, including the golden trio of Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture.Sweep. Sweep. Sweep . The syllable fell onto his ears over and over, lulling Alex into a daydream of what this could have been like, how it would have felt to have Cassie standing close to him, what the reporters would have said when he pulled her into his arms and swept her down the aisle in a Cinderella waltz, as if nothing this night could matter more than her.

  THEY HAD BEEN STAYING IN THE SAME ONE-ROOM HOUSE FOR THREE days now, so it was ridiculous to call it a date, but Cassie still felt self-conscious about wearing an old shirt of Cyrus's and a pair of Dorothea's chartreuse elastic-waist polyester pants. Will knocked on the front door as if he weren't temporarily living there. When Cassie opened the door, his gaze took in her neatly braided hair, her oversize clothes. "Well," Will said. "Aren't you pretty as a picture."

  "Give me a break," Cassie said, bursting into laughter. "I have no waist and I've never put anything this color on my body before."

  It was the first time Will had come back to Pine Ridge since leaving her a month ago. He'd told his supervisors there had been a death in the family, which bought him a week of bereavement leave. He wanted to believe that nothing short of a funeral would induce him to return to Pine Ridge, but in truth, he only wanted to take Cassie to the Oscars. The nearest TV was twenty miles away in a bar, and he knew that she'd never have gone herself.

  "So," she said, pulling herself up into Will's rented truck. "What am I missing in Los Angeles?"

  Will shrugged. "You know. A lot of smog, some torrential rains, Hollywood hype." He glanced at her quickly, hoping she understood he did not mean to include her in the last of that list. In fact, he had been listening closely to those ridiculous entertainment reports, but nothing had been said about the disappearance of Cassie Rivers.

  The building was unnamed and unmarked, because everyone knew where and what it was. It was fairly full since it was the closest place off the dry reservation where you could get a drink, and Will hoped that wouldn't be a problem. He had not told Cassie, but it was known that knifings and rapes were frighteningly common in the parking lot, that the police stayed away instead of asking questions. Behind the scarred bar hung an old, faded sign,Lel Lakota Kin Iyokipisni , "No Sioux Allowed." It was sliced through the middle by a tomahawk that was wedged into the rafter behind it.

  Cassie was the only white person in the bar, and one of a handful of women. She fluttered nervously behind Will, trying to ignore the stares thrown her way like challenges. She followed him to a corner table where there was an unobstructed view of the television. Her chair was pressed beside the jukebox, and while Loretta Lynn warbled, Cassie held her hands to the lit-up selection box, seeing her fingertips glow pink with the light.

  "They're watchinghockey ," Cassie said. It had never occurred to her that anything other than the Academy Awards would be the selection of choice. True perhaps in L.A., but not in Pine Ridge, where the nearest movie theater was an hour away.

  Will stared blankly at the fuzzy screen, watching the puck zip across the grayish ice. "Leave it to me," he said. He stood up and lifted one leg over the back of his chair, like a dismounting cowboy. Walking up to the bar, he leaned his elbows on the sticky wooden counter. "Hau, kola," he said, trying to catch the bartender's attention.

  The man was very fat and wore his hair in two long black braids wrapped with shoelaces at the ends. He was drying a shot glass. "What can I do you?" he said dispassionately.

  "I need a Rolling Rock and a glass of water," Will said. "And the lady would like to switch the channel."

  "Fuck that," the bartender said, uncapping a cold bottle on the edge of the bar. "Three bucks."

  Will had been expecting this. He handed the bartender a fifty-dollar bill straight from his pay envelope, the likes of which he would have been willing to bet the man had never seen before in his life. "You put on ABC by nine o'clock," Will said, "you get to keep the goddamn change."

  When he handed Cassie her water, she was sitting on the edge of her seat. "Will they watch it?" she asked, her voice thin and breathless.

  "No problem," Will said. He tipped the neck of his beer to Cassie's glass in a toast, thinking that, miraculously, this hellhole corner of South Dakota agreed with her. "Rumor has it you've become some Big Indian," he said.

  Cassie flushed. "Thanks," she said.

  Will laughed. "To a lot of Lakota, that's an insult worthy of a fistfight," he said. "It wasn't meant as a compliment."

  Rolling the glass between her palms, Cassie glared up at Will. "At least I'm trying to fit in," she said pointedly.

  Like you never did. The gibe hung in the air in front of them, and although Will had believed that the thick skin he'd cultivated could protect him, he was shocked to see how much the things Cassie hadn't said could still hurt. His grandfather was half in love with her; his grandmother couldn't stop talking about her. It stung to know that someone with no Sioux blood running through her veins could carve a niche for herself when he'd never even gained a toehold.

  Narrowing his eyes, Will did what had come naturally during all t