Being Hartley (19 page)

Everyone chuckles at this.
Everyone that is, except my mom, who seems kind of taken aback.

"What's the matter?" I lean over and whisper, all the time trying not to notice that Noah is attempting to catch my eye.

"I can't believe it. She really is all grown up. Look at her up there. She's a true professional."

I inspect my mom for a moment or two, realizing there's something she's going through on this trip with Rory.
I guess something about what she went through at Rory's age. Something I'll probably never understand, seeing as it's a world I've always been kept from at arm's length.

"Thank you, Rory," the auctioneer says, taking over again.
"Right then, if we could start the bidding at…"

"Ten thousand dollars," some guy calls out, cutting the auctioneer off.

"Ooohhh…" the crowd says, as one, and everyone tries to catch a glimpse of who's bidding.

I can't see who it is because Mom, Allie
, and I are in the back, and the guy, whoever he is, is up front. But, on stage, I see Rory's face register who it is, all right, and she realizes she knows him. She seems equal parts embarrassed and thrilled.

"Here you all are," Uncle Erik says, rushing up beside us.
"I've been on the phone all morning. I didn't think I'd make it."

"Shhh…" the three of us tell him.

"What? What's going on?" he whispers.

Even the auctioneer looks shocked.
"Any advance on ten thousand dollars? Anyone? No? Then, going, going, gone…to the gentleman at the front."

"You'd better order three courses and a cheese platter as well, Rory! Make that lunch last for him!" someone calls out, and everyone laughs.

The chuckles continue until the guy himself moves forward from the group of bidders, walks straight up to Rory, standing left of the stage, and kisses her.

"Rory!" Mom goes to move forward, then stops, when Uncle Erik grabs her arm.

"It's okay," he says as, around us, the crowd "ooohhhs" again, then starts clapping.

Only Allie, Mom
, and I stand stock-still.

"That's Asher Evans," I end up saying, dumbly.
Which is stupid, because everyone here knows that's Asher Evans. As in, Asher Evans, Hollywood movie star. Asher Evans who shouldn't even be breathing, because he's too incredibly, unbelievably gorgeous to live.

Not as cute as Noah, of course.
But still really cute.

"I worked with him once," Mom says, mesmerized.
"He's a very nice boy."

"He's kissing my sister," Allie says, seemingly also at a loss for words that don't involve the obvious.

Only Uncle Erik seems quite unfazed by all this. "I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but I believe he's been kissing your sister for at least six months now."

-
21
-

It takes my brain a moment or two to register what's going on
—that Asher Evans is kissing Rory, that Rory is kissing him back, that they've been going out for some time and…

That there really, truly is a secret boyfriend.

"What do you mean, six months?" Allie gives her dad a fierce stare. "Rory wouldn't go out with someone and not tell me." But then she swivels back around to face the stage where the crowd is now cheering for a very red-faced Rory Hartley who is currently holding hands with Asher Evans. She shakes her head, watching them. "She didn't tell you, did she?" Allie whips around to ask me, her eyes narrowed and her face pinched.

I shake my head slowly, frowning.
"No. Nothing." I don't move my eyes from Rory, and as I stare at her, I get my first glimpse of what my mom has been going on about. Suddenly, Rory seems different to me up there. Older. With some kind of life going on that I don't know about and can't understand. As I watch her, feeling useless and confused, I start to wonder what I'm even doing in Las Vegas. It's my mom Rory seems to need. Not me.

The four of us hang around as the crowd starts to thin out now that the auction's over.
Finally, Rory gets the opportunity to run over to us, leaving Asher Evans chatting with Sonja by the stage. Thankfully, Noah, I notice, is busy talking to the winner of his auction.

"Don't freak out!" is the first thing Rory says when she's within talking distance.
When she gets close enough, she grabs one of my hands and one of Allie's, too. "It's not what you're thinking."

"Too late," Allie says, not sounding at all pleased.

Rory sighs. "Come on, Allie, don't be like that."

"Don't be like what?" Allie pulls her hand away.
"How could you not tell me you were dating someone? We don't keep secrets like that. We never have." Allie looks truly hurt, her eyes welling up. I don't blame her, either. I mean, I feel hurt enough, and I'm just her cousin.

Rory takes a deep breath before she says anything.
"Look, I love you guys to death, you know that. But this…it's just different. It was from the start. It wasn't something I wanted to giggle about."

"Oh, so now we're just two silly little girls," Allie blurts out.

"No," Rory says, quite fiercely. "But it
was
different, and I didn't know what to say or how to tell you. At first, there wasn't anything to tell. I mean, Asher doesn't even live in the same state as me. We'd only met a few times and…well, I didn't even know what was going on, I could barely explain it to myself, let alone anyone else. Plus, when we first met, you were still pretty sick. I was worried that if I told you, your heart might burst its stitches. Don't be mad at me, please, Allie."

Allie's face softens slightly, but she still looks like she's in a lot of pain.

"You'll love him, Allie. You really will." Rory pulls her sister in for a hug.

"I doubt it," Allie finally says, grudgingly.

Rory glances around at all of us now. "He's really nice. He understands my screwy life because he's had one, too."

"Oh, of course," my mom says now, glancing over at Asher.
Asher had been a child star as well and had made the transition to acting in adult roles quite smoothly, except for the fact that he'd then made the unpopular decision to take some time off to go to college. "He'd be a very good friend for you right now, Rory."

Rory nods.
"He is. He kind of gives me hope that things could be…different," she lowers her voice at this point.

"Yes, well, it looks like you're more than friends," Allie says, still sulking.

"Allie, if I told you anything, you know you would have tweeted about it within thirty seconds," Rory sighs. "Now come and meet him. You know you want to."

"Then can I tweet about it?"
Allie doesn't smile.

"Maybe," Rory tells her.
"Come on." She drags us both in Asher's direction.

"I won't argue with you," I tell her, trying not to look upset, even though I am.
Things are changing. And I can't work out if that's good, or bad.

As she drags me along, Rory smiles at me.
"Favor?"

"What?"

"Asher wants to come to the show this evening, but Allie's going to be in the audience with her friend. Would you mind babysitting him backstage?"

I think about this and try and smile a grown-up "I'm totally cool with you telling me half-truths" smile back at her.
"Hmmm…I don't know. That's a hard one. Would I mind babysitting Asher Evans? It's a big ask, but, yes. Yes, I think I can do that for you."

* * *

So, I have successfully dodged Noah at the auction and am standing backstage with Asher Evans, which isn't too painful at all, because despite being a secret boyfriend that my cousin didn't tell me about, he is super-nice, and I am starting to get super-excited he is dating my cousin.

We've been chatting for a while about this and that, waiting for the show to start, when he turns to me and says, "Your mom is so great, you know."

Yeah, not so super-excited about that. Why do people always feel compelled to talk to me about my mom? Have I spoken to Asher about
his
mom? No. No, I have not. "Mmm," I say, in return. The truth is, I'm still trying not to think about my mom too much and the thing I haven't managed to tell her yet.

"She was actually one of the reasons I decided to go to college," Asher says.
"When we were working together—those few weeks we had shooting in Madrid—we did a lot of talking. She gave me some great advice."

My ears prick up at this.
"She told you to give up acting and go to college?" Now
that
sounds like my mom.

"Well, yes.
And no. I'd been thinking about it for some time and really needed some advice on it, that was all. It was great to be able to talk to someone who'd been there and done that."

"My mom never went to college," I quickly inform Asher.

"Maybe so, but she's been around this business for a long time. She's seen it all."

I don't reply to this, busy plugging a small spout of anger that's suddenly risen inside me.
What is it with my mom always trying to convince people they should be doing something other than what they're obviously really good at? And if this business is so awful, why is she so entrenched in it herself?

Maybe Asher sees I'm not exactly comfortable with where our conversation's headed, because he changes the subject now.
"Rory tells me that there was a dance, er, incident at the show this morning." His mouth twists as he says this, and he keeps one eye on me and one on the stage.

"Hmpf," I say.

"She says you're a pretty good dancer."

"I won't be after my mom severs both my legs."

Asher laughs loudly at this. "She wouldn't."

"Want to put some money on that?"

Asher eyes me quizzically. "She's not okay with you dancing?"

"Ballet, yes, hip hop, no. If there was some kind of dance form you could do in the dark, anonymously, with no audience, then there'd be no problem at all."

"Ah." Asher gets what I'm saying now. "She doesn't want you in the public eye. That must be difficult. The media must be pretty interested in you. I mean, look at you," he says, waving a hand from my head to my feet. "You're all Hartley. And if you're talented, too…"

"All the more reason to be hidden away forever in a purpose-built tower in Tasmania," I reply, my anger spilling over.
"Ugh, sorry." I shake my head. "My mom and I—we haven't been seeing eye to eye on a few things lately."

Asher nods.
"I hear you. What can I do to help? Maybe I could have a word with her?"

I glance at him, realizing for the first time that he's not viewed as a kid, like me.
He's an adult. Rory's in the land of the grown-up people now. I consider his offer and think about how many times my dad has tried to stand up for me and get Mom to see my point of view. "Thanks," I end up saying, "but don't waste your time. When it comes to my mom and me, she decided how things were going to be a long time ago. Before I was even born."

* * *

Despite the mom business and the secret boyfriend stuff, Asher and I manage to have a pretty good time together backstage and even a few laughs, which is a good distraction from thinking about Noah. Mostly, we're laughing at Asher trying to dance. "I'm really bad," he tells me as the show starts, and I tell him of course he's not, but the truth is…

He is.

Asher Evans is a really, really bad dancer. "Stop thinking about it so hard," I tell Asher as I show him the most basic of steps for about the five-hundredth time.

"Er, no." Asher doesn't seem to think this is a very good idea.
"Believe me, you don't want me to stop thinking about it. That would be even worse." He stops with a depressed sigh. "Check out Allie. She is so good."

I follow Asher's gaze out to the audience where Allie is dancing with her friend Ingrid. Ingrid, as it turns out, is absolutely stunning, but not a much better dancer than Asher.

"And Rory's told me all about Allie, too. That she's had lots of obstacles to overcome. I think she's amazing…" He tries the arm movements by themselves now, and for all the world looks like he is trapped in a small room with a demented parrot and is trying to bat it away before it takes his eyes out. Let's just say it's not pretty. "It's probably best if you stand here." He stops again, points at specific spot on the floor, then grabs my hand and pulls me over there when I don't move fast enough.

"What's so great about this spot?" I ask him, not understanding what's going on.

"Because this way Rory can't see how badly I'm doing back here," he groans. "She'd break up with me in an instant if she saw me dance. So far I've been able to avoid dancing in front of her. Why do you think I bid on the lunch instead of the dance lessons?"

I pause. "Well, the dance lessons were with Lucia…"

"True, but I'm also a way better eater than dancer. I guess I'm lucky it wasn't Rory doing dance lessons."

"I don't know…" I say, watching as Asher tries to perfect a very simple, very straightforward "kick step kick step kick step ball change" sequence and fails miserably.
And that's
without
the arms.

I glance out
toward the audience and immediately see a kid of about four who has it down, with the arms, and is even getting a little funky with it. That's gotta hurt. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm a terrible skier," I say.

"Are you dating an Olympic skier right now?" Asher eyeballs me.

"No. I'm not dating anyone." I get a pang when I say this and can't help but let my eyes slide over the stage to fix onto Noah—something I've been avoiding doing. I mean, what I would give to be dating Noah…but how would that ever happen, with me in Tasmania one week and Vienna, or Madrid, or Paris, or something the next? And then, of course, there's the Emme business. Even if it really isn't on again with them, as Rory seems to think, it just proves to me what I already know—Noah is one of Them. Like my mom is one of Them and Emme is one of Them. Asher, beside me, is one of Them as well. And I'm not. My mom has made sure of that. I shouldn't have let myself dream that anything could ever happen with Noah. It was just a stupid daydream-like fantasy.

"No Olympic skier? Yeah, well, not feeling much better then.
Thanks for trying, though."

Asher and I take a break after this, sitting cross-legged on the floor until the audience participation part of the show.
"Now this," I say, getting up and offering Asher a hand up as well, "is fun. You'll love this."

"Do I have to dance?" he says, getting up reluctantly.
"Because I'd just about mastered sitting on the floor."

"No, you don't," I tell him.
"Other people have to dance."

"Excellent!" Asher brightens.
"That's the best kind of dancing."

Everything starts out as normal.
As per usual, Valentina chooses first, and a dad is brought up onto the stage, Cooper opts for a boy of about eight, then Tobias asks a guy of around fifteen who looks like he's a fantastic dancer. I'm telling Asher about the amazing six-year-old Rory had chosen for the first show, when Asher puts his hand on my arm, making me pause.

"Hey, what's going on out there?" he says.

It's Mara's turn to choose a partner now, and when I focus my attention back on the stage, I don't like what I see. I don't like what I see at all.

Mara's pointing at Allie.
Right at Allie. It's completely obvious that she's pointing at Allie.

And it's also completely obvious that she's been pointing for some time now and that something's going on behind the scenes.
That someone, somewhere, is stalling.

My eyes move up now, across the stage, to where Sonja is also standing backstage, alternately going ballistic into her headset and shooting daggers at Mara at the same time.