they know why I was here? How many times had he brought women on board for this very purpose? Were they secretly laughing at my naïveté? Keeping score? But they kept to their tasks, friendly, with blank military precision. One snicker and they’d be fired.
Rob led me to a closed-off room that was outfitted like an elegant, minimalist hotel room. (Yes, there was a bed. That had been one of my unspoken requirements.) I lay back on the pillows, kind of figuring we’d get right to it.
“Slow down there, Lizzie,” Rob said. “FAA regulations say we gotta sit in our seats for takeoff.”
Oh. Right. There were two big white leather lounge chairs that looked funny with their regulation airplane seat belts, like those women who wear business suits and stockings, then cap off the look with sneakers for the walk to work. The pilot’s voice came on, but instead of making any formal announcements, he just said, “You guys ready?” I looked at Rob. He raised his eyebrows at me.
“Ready?”
I nodded, and Rob pushed a button on the arm of his chair, sending our affirmation to the pilot. We were off.
I don’t kiss and tell, but I will say that I, Lizzie Pepper, am an official member of the Mile-High Club (though as Rob pointed out we were a lot higher than that). It didn’t escape my notice that I was joining a much more elite club at the same time: lover of Rob Mars. Maybe the grand production of the private plane took some of the pressure off him. If Rob Mars wasn’t a stud, world markets would crash. But it was only afterward when I finally appreciated where we were. In bed, still entwined, we gazed out the four oversize oval windows at a blue, blue sky. Then I saw what Rob had wanted. We were alone, suspended above reality, cradled by a miraculous machine, floating in a strange balloon of luxury and danger. We had escaped the weight of the world. This was the isolation that Rob craved. He was right; it was worth it.
I didn’t tell Aurora the specifics of that night. I didn’t tell her about Rob saying to me, “I’ve looked down at the world from this plane hundreds of times, and every time it clears my head. But you’ve gone andmade it foggy again.” And I didn’t tell her that every night since, Rob and I had fallen asleep with him wrapped around me like a blanket, and that all night long he kept his hand draped over my waist or his feet tangled in mine. In the morning when I woke up, the first thing I saw was his dark eyes, wide open, inches from my face, as if he’d been watching me sleep all night long. I most certainly didn’t tell her that he had confided in me about the gay rumors, telling me the details of his sexual past. Those stories are his, and I will always respect his privacy on that count. What was most important to me was that he was honest with me, and that he trusted me with his secrets. I kept them from Aurora, and that was a first.
Rob had a house in Brentwood and a house in Malibu. Brentwood was a comfortable estate that Rob seemed to use as a crash pad when he had to be in L.A. for more than one day in a row and didn’t feel like commuting back to Malibu. But in those first few weeks we were mostly in Malibu, where his house was on a private beach. The entrance was at street level, and the house went six stories down from there to the shoreline—built into the rock on the street side and open to the Pacific on the other. Every morning Rob brought lattes out to the balcony and the two of us sat reading scripts, pausing to share a line or to gaze out at the ocean. Of course, the difference was that Rob rejected every script he read, while I called my agent to discuss each one: It had little to do with how much I loved a particular part. There was only one Rob Mars, but at any given moment there were at least ten Lizzie Peppers, just off their own
American Dream
, and I felt the dark fear of actors everywhere: Each day in which I didn’t land a part further convinced me I would never
Rob led me to a closed-off room that was outfitted like an elegant, minimalist hotel room. (Yes, there was a bed. That had been one of my unspoken requirements.) I lay back on the pillows, kind of figuring we’d get right to it.
“Slow down there, Lizzie,” Rob said. “FAA regulations say we gotta sit in our seats for takeoff.”
Oh. Right. There were two big white leather lounge chairs that looked funny with their regulation airplane seat belts, like those women who wear business suits and stockings, then cap off the look with sneakers for the walk to work. The pilot’s voice came on, but instead of making any formal announcements, he just said, “You guys ready?” I looked at Rob. He raised his eyebrows at me.
“Ready?”
I nodded, and Rob pushed a button on the arm of his chair, sending our affirmation to the pilot. We were off.
I don’t kiss and tell, but I will say that I, Lizzie Pepper, am an official member of the Mile-High Club (though as Rob pointed out we were a lot higher than that). It didn’t escape my notice that I was joining a much more elite club at the same time: lover of Rob Mars. Maybe the grand production of the private plane took some of the pressure off him. If Rob Mars wasn’t a stud, world markets would crash. But it was only afterward when I finally appreciated where we were. In bed, still entwined, we gazed out the four oversize oval windows at a blue, blue sky. Then I saw what Rob had wanted. We were alone, suspended above reality, cradled by a miraculous machine, floating in a strange balloon of luxury and danger. We had escaped the weight of the world. This was the isolation that Rob craved. He was right; it was worth it.
I didn’t tell Aurora the specifics of that night. I didn’t tell her about Rob saying to me, “I’ve looked down at the world from this plane hundreds of times, and every time it clears my head. But you’ve gone andmade it foggy again.” And I didn’t tell her that every night since, Rob and I had fallen asleep with him wrapped around me like a blanket, and that all night long he kept his hand draped over my waist or his feet tangled in mine. In the morning when I woke up, the first thing I saw was his dark eyes, wide open, inches from my face, as if he’d been watching me sleep all night long. I most certainly didn’t tell her that he had confided in me about the gay rumors, telling me the details of his sexual past. Those stories are his, and I will always respect his privacy on that count. What was most important to me was that he was honest with me, and that he trusted me with his secrets. I kept them from Aurora, and that was a first.
Rob had a house in Brentwood and a house in Malibu. Brentwood was a comfortable estate that Rob seemed to use as a crash pad when he had to be in L.A. for more than one day in a row and didn’t feel like commuting back to Malibu. But in those first few weeks we were mostly in Malibu, where his house was on a private beach. The entrance was at street level, and the house went six stories down from there to the shoreline—built into the rock on the street side and open to the Pacific on the other. Every morning Rob brought lattes out to the balcony and the two of us sat reading scripts, pausing to share a line or to gaze out at the ocean. Of course, the difference was that Rob rejected every script he read, while I called my agent to discuss each one: It had little to do with how much I loved a particular part. There was only one Rob Mars, but at any given moment there were at least ten Lizzie Peppers, just off their own
American Dream
, and I felt the dark fear of actors everywhere: Each day in which I didn’t land a part further convinced me I would never
Similar Books
The Heir of Mistmantle
M. I. McAllister
Sins of the Father
Melissa Barker-Simpson
Dragonfly
Julia Golding
Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings
Jodi Taylor
Ella Awakened
S. E. Duncan
Took
Mary Downing Hahn
Skin Deep
Sarah Makela
Gone West
Kathleen Karr
The Dressmaker
Kate Alcott