He nodded, but didn’t start the engine; instead, he sat in silence, staring straight out into the valley. She could tell he wanted to say something, so Hallie waited, seconds ticking past before he finally cleared his throat.
“I thought about it,” he said in a low voice, still not looking at her. “When I first got back. When I was out, surfing sometimes.” Brandon paused. “A wave would break over me,” he told her, “and I’d think about not swimming. Just, going under.”
Hallie caught her breath. His tone was so matter-of-fact, but that was Brandon all over: he didn’t exaggerate, or make a scene, even when his words were the most dramatic thing she could imagine. Hallie instinctively reached to cover his hand with hers. “What stopped you?” she asked quietly.
Brandon shrugged. “A bunch of stuff. My family, the guys we lost out there. They would have kicked my ass for even thinking about it.” He gave her a wry smile. “In the end, I guess it was just . . . hope. That I wouldn’t always feel that way. That the world would start making sense again.”
Hallie nodded slowly. “And does it?”
Brandon glanced down at their hands, then back to her. “Sometimes.”
Hallie looked at him, really looked: the square of his jaw beneath the five-day stubble, the harsh red line of his scar. For the first time, she recognized his quiet self-possession: not creepy, or unnerving, but something stronger. A hard-won calm after the storm.
“Good,” she said, giving his hand a brief squeeze before releasing it. “I mean, who else would come get me from my . . . knitting parties?”
Brandon laughed. “Sure. Priorities.”
“Exactly.” Hallie smiled, just to cover her shame. Priorities. She hadn’t had any; she’d been so deep in self-pity, she hadn’t seen anything at all. She changed the subject quickly. “And don’t forget Amber’s big plans for the holidays. She’s talking about some Hanukkah-slash-Kwanzaa party, with a ten-piece carol choir and a hog roast stuffed inside an ox. You want to be around for that.”
“It’s the simple things, that make life worth living,” Brandon quipped back. Hallie gave him a look to let him know she didn’t mean all this joking; that she understood the weight of what he shared. Brandon nodded slightly, then started the ignition. “You won’t say anything, will you, about —?”
“No!” Hallie exclaimed. “I promise, that’s just between us. And if you ever need to talk,” she added, “I’m here. Anytime.”
“Right next door.” Brandon smiled slightly.
“Exactly,” Hallie agreed, surprised to find that thought reassuring. “Right next door.”
After all the drama of New York and her return to L.A., Hallie was relieved to find Christmas and New Year’s pass uneventfully — save, of course, for Amber and Auggie’s blowout holiday party. Two hundred of their closest friends crammed the house and backyard, partying until dawn under the vast swathes of Christmas lights and inflatable reindeer perched on every square foot of roof.
Hallie didn’t mind. It was good to be surrounded by noise and laughter — rather than stuck alone wondering what exclusive party Ana Lucia hadn’t invited her to. Besides, half those friends of Auggie’s turned out to be producers and casting agents, who offered Hallie their cards the minute Amber started gushing about what a talent she was, and about how she had just this very minute decided to try her hand at acting.
“You don’t have to say that.” Hallie pulled Amber aside, embarrassed. Ana Lucia’s comments were still burned in her memory; the last thing she wanted was to make a nuisance of herself. “Please, let’s not even talk about me acting at all. These are your friends.”
“Exactly!” Amber cried, flushed and tipsy as the party whirled on around them. She wore a silver-sequined minidress, reflecting the holiday lights like a walking mirror ball. “And I bet every one of them got where they are today because someone helped them starting out.”
Hallie wavered. “Are you sure? I don’t want to make things weird, or uncomfortable —”
“Honey, no!” Amber cried. “You’re doing them the favor. They’re all looking to find the next big thing. Trust me!”
So Hallie let Amber sweep her off on another round of the party, throwing her in the path of every available agent and manager she could find, until Hallie was weighed down with a confetti of business cards.
It felt good, Hallie realized, to have some purpose again, and as the weeks passed, and she chased down her new leads — turning e-mails into meetings, into afternoons spent waiting in the bland back hallways of every audition in town — she was reminded again just how much she had let fade away in the face of her grief over Dakota.
What had she been doing?
It had been her mistake too, she could see that now: not the end, but everything that came after. The further Hallie got from it, the clearer it became, like those paintings that are just a blur up close but take on new shape and meaning from across the room. Sure, it still hurt; she still missed him, but when his absence hit her at night with a hollow ache in her chest, Hallie climbed on out of bed and went to watch TV with Brandon, or pulled out her latest audition script to memorize. She didn’t sit around, thinking about the time they spent together, anymore. No, the key was not to think of him at all.
“How’d it go?” Grace met her at the door after Hallie’s latest audition.
“Good!” Hallie dumped her bag and kicked off the heels Amber had insisted she wear. “Socialites-slash-cat-burglars don’t wear sneakers!” she’d cried, and she’d been right: the waiting room had been filled with girls in their best stilettos. Hallie massaged her poor arches. “Actually, I think I nailed it, but you never know.”
“This was for that cable crime show, right? Dead Sorority Girl Number Three?” Grace followed Hallie into the kitchen, where she made straight for the fridge full of — yes! — cold pot roast and Rosa’s famous cheesecake.
“No, that was this morning,” Hallie replied, her mouth already full. “This was the big one, it’s one of the main parts on a new heist show. I wasn’t even supposed to be there, but Amber does her strip-hop dance class with one of the executives’ wives and managed to get me in for a first read.” She collapsed at the table and began to eat, straight from the Tupperware containers. God, that was good! The months she’d spent limply wasting away, barely eating a thing, were a distant dream. If there was one thing she could say for sure about mental health, it made her hungry.