Read Page 23

I shrug. "It means maybe."

"Don't do that," she says quickly, whirling toward me. "Do not do that."Advertisement

"Do what?"

"Threaten me," she says, before her face relaxes into a smile.

At Dan Tana's we're seated in the front room next to a booth of young actors and Rain tries to engage me, her foot rubbing against my ankle, and after a few drinks I mellow into acceptance even though a guy at the bar keeps glancing at Rain and for some reason I keep thinking he's the guy I saw her with in the parking lot at Bristol Farms, his arm in a sling, and then I realize I passed him on the bridge at the Hotel Bel-Air when I went to see Blair, and Rain's talking about the best way to approach the producer and director of The Listeners in terms of hiring her and how we need to do this carefully and that it's "superimportant" she gets the part because so much is riding on this for her and I'm zoning out on other things but I keep glancing back at the guy leaning against the bar and he's with a friend and they both look like they stepped out of a soap opera and then I suddenly have to interrupt her.

"There's no one else you're seeing, right?"

Rain stops talking, considers the vibe and asks, "Is that what this is about?"

"I mean, it's just me right now, right?" I ask. "I mean, whatever it is we're doing, you're not hanging out with another guy, right?"

"What are you talking about?" she asks. "Crazy, what are you doing?"

"When's the last time you had sex?"

"With you." She sighs. "Here we go." She sighs again. "What about you?"

-- Advertisement --

pqdm.comads300x250--

"Do you care?"

"Look, I had a stressful week - "

"Stop it," I say. "You got a tan."

"Do you want to say something to me?" she asks.

I look around the room and she relents.

"I'm here with you now," she says. "Stop being such a girl."

I sigh and say nothing.

"What happened? Why are you so angry?" she asks after I order another drink. "I was only gone five days."

"I'm not angry," I say. "I just didn't hear from you ... "

"Look." She scrolls through the iPhone I bought her and shows me pictures of herself with an older woman, the Pacific in the background.

"Who took these pictures?" I automatically ask.

"A friend of mine," she says. "A girlfriend," she stresses.

"Why does that guy at the bar keep looking at you?"

Rain doesn't even glance at the bar when she says, "I don't know," and then shows me more pictures of herself in San Diego with the older woman I don't believe is her mother.

Heading up Doheny I'm looking through the windshield of the BMW and I notice the lights in the condo are on. Rain sits in the passenger seat, arms crossed, considering something.

"Did I leave the lights on?" I ask.

"No," she says, distracted. "I don't remember."

I make a right on Elevado to see if the blue Jeep is there and I cruise by the spot where it's usually parked and it isn't there, and after circling the block a couple of times I pull into the driveway of the Doheny Plaza and the valet takes the car and then Rain and I go back to 1508 and she lets me go down on her and when I'm hard enough she sucks me off, and when I wake up the next morning, she's gone.

Rain is the only topic discussed in Dr. Woolf's office on Sawtelle and I had referred to her anonymously in the last session while she was in San Diego as "this girl" but now with the information I have about Julian I tell him everything: how I had met Rain Turner at a Christmas party, and I realize while I'm describing that moment to Dr. Woolf that I had drinks with Julian at the Beverly Hills Hotel almost immediately afterward, and how I ran into her again at the casting sessions and then at the lounge on La Cienega, and I detail the days we spent together that last week of December and how I began to think it was real, like what I had with Meghan Reynolds, and then found out from Blair that Rain is supposedly Julian's girlfriend - at this point Dr. Woolf puts down his notepad and seems more patient with me than he probably is, and I'm trying to figure out the game plan and then realize Julian must have known that Rain and I had spent those days together but how was that possible? Finally, near the end of the session, Dr. Woolf says, "I would urge you not to see this girl anymore," and then "I would urge you to cut off all contact." After another long silence he asks, "Why are you crying?" pqdm.com