Alan ignores that question and concentrates instead on transferring the contents of the pan onto the plates. “There isn’t much here to cook,” he says, smiling in an apologetic way. “The kitchen hasn’t been stocked yet, but I promise it’s edible. I make a very good Un Croque-Monsieur.”

I stare at the plate as he opens the wine. “I hate to ruin your fancy dinner party, but it’s a grilled cheese.”

He arches a brow and starts to fill the glasses. “In Paris it is Un Croque-Monsieur.”

“In California it is a grilled cheese. Only you did it wrong. The cheese is supposed to be on the inside.”

I don’t know why I’m being so combative and petty about this. It’s just a freaking sandwich, but I don’t want to relax my guard and I’m not exactly certain why I am here eating with him.

He takes a bite and studies me with curiosity. “Haven’t you ever been to Paris?”

I pick at the layers of my sandwich, trying to figure out what’s different. “I’ve hardly been out of California.”

“You don’t travel with Jack?”

“Jack hardly talks to me. Why would he have me travel with him?”

I regret that comment the second it’s out because it makes me sound pouty and little girlish. His eyes fix on me like a laser. I take a bite of my sandwich, and then a sip of the wine.

“It’s the Gruyère cheese,” he explains, smiling over his wine glass before taking a sip. “That’s what’s different.”

I watch as he downs two thirds of his wine. “So much for recovery. Why are you drinking?”

He sets his wineglass before him. “I stayed sober in Rehab to get out of Rehab. I stayed sober at Jack’s to stay out of jail, but I don’t buy into that total sobriety bullshit and I never will. You should know that up front.”

His mouth sets in a grim line. He looks angry and it feels like he’s assessing my reaction. I frown and return to my food. “How did you end up at our house in Santa Barbara? Maria said you were there four months. And what did you do to fuck up so completely?”

His lips quirk up in a half-smile. “Ah, you’ve opted not to playact. There are consonants with your expletives. It’s a boring story. Not worth repeating.”

We eat for a while in silence

“Addiction isn’t like it is in the movies, Chrissie,” he starts, his voice raspy and tired and strangely sounding far away. “It’s more insidious, more fun, and less obvious. Unfortunately, it always ends the same way. I just got absorbed in the pain of living. I tried to escape it. But you can’t no matter what you do. So I pushed the limits a little more. And then a little more. And then I’m dragging down my best friend with me, and Len is trying to hold me together, and all I can think of is that I want to stop fucking thinking for a moment.”

I don’t want to be enthralled by this and find that I am. Stop fucking thinking for a moment…yes, I understand that. It is the first thing about Alan I understand.

“One day we were in Chicago. I don’t know exactly where and I don’t know exactly how. I was pretty fucked up by then. I’d been clean for eight years and I was quickly all back in it, doing more and more, and more not being ever enough. I don’t recall who gave it to me. But I sort of thought, fuck it. Why not today? It was a speedball. Do you know what that is?”

I nod. Of course. Stupid question. My brother was Sammy.

“It was good shit. Really pure. Enough for a nice size party. And I lined it up and I snorted it all and I said, fuck it, maybe I’ll just stop thinking today.”

The naked honesty in his voice is mesmerizing. He is a private and guarded guy. Why is he telling me this?

“The days after that are a blur. I don’t remember anything except waking in a hospital room somewhere, and Jack is there. He took me to detox. I bolted. Then there are some days in Chicago that I really don’t remember clearly. Then I’m in Rehab in California. And then I’m released and Jack is waiting on the steps to take me home with him. And then I wake up in the pool house and Jack is barbequing like everything is fucking normal. Except nothing is fucking normal. I don’t care who you are. You don’t expect to wake up to find Jackson Parker tossing a burger on the grill for you. And then slowly Jack’s everything normal takes over the fucking world and he’s got me straight and sober and recording again. And I’m still fucking thinking, but I’m off the smack, so something good came from it, I guess.”

He shakes his head, but the phrase ‘Jack’s everything normal’ tears me up inside. Jack’s everything normal helped Alan. It has never done a fucking thing for me. I feel the tears behind my lids.

“So, that’s it, Chrissie. End of story about me. But that’s not really why you asked that question, is it? You don’t give a shit what happened to me. You are trying to understand yourself.”

Startled, I look up. Oh god…how effortlessly he can turn my world into a shaky, shadowy mess. I can’t feel my arms, I can’t feel my legs and the words I want to scream are trapped inside my head.

“Do you want to know what I thought the first time I met you?”

Instinctive fear rises through my center and the small child in me screams: No, I don’t want to know! Go away, Alan. I don’t want you or anyone stumbling around in my lockboxes!

“I thought, what a beautiful girl. How is it possible she’s so sweet and charming and innocent in this fucked up world? So emotionally fragile that she playacts to hide how afraid she is. Sweet and charming and totally forgettable.”

I feel as though I am shrinking, diminishing.

Alan arches a brow. “Then I met Rene and I thought, how interesting. What’s wrong with Chrissie that she would have a friend like that? Maybe there is something beneath the surface of the girl she doesn’t let people see.”

The child in me screams: There is nothing. There is nothing. Go away!

“And now three days in New York,” he continues with a voice like velvet and words that burn, “I’m wondering how Jack fucked this up so completely. You’re a pretty fucked up girl. You hide it well by being charming. For what it’s worth, I think you should work at being less charming and more real.”

Scrambling in an emotional avalanche, I snap, “I am not fucked up and Jack didn’t fuck up a goddamn thing.”

His calm in the face of my welling panic is wholly defeating. It is the truth. No one ever sees it. No one ever speaks it. No one ever sees my truth. I don’t know what to do with this or what to do with him.

Alan rises, grabs the dishes off the counter and deposits them in the sink. “I don’t do bullshit, Chrissie. That’s why you are here. There are seven bedrooms. Pick the room you want.” And without looking back, Alan walks from the kitchen.

I sit in the quiet, in the kitchen that somehow got clean as though no one was ever here, and I want to run, but I don’t know why I’m not running or why I am still here.

I’ve been angry for so long, with all the things trapped in my lockboxes, and then finally there is truth in the room. I thought this moment would feel better. It doesn’t. It feels only different; a different kind of weirdness. The weirdness of letting truth in the room.

I suddenly know why I am so obsessed with Alan, and what is pushing me toward him. Alan Manzone can see right through me. It should make me run, it should terrify me; instead, it draws me toward him.

Alan sees me and has done so from the first night we met. I push off the counter and I am trembling and afraid.

Chapter Eight

The room is so quiet it is deafening.

I find Alan on his bed, casually reclined against a stack of pillows, dressed only in flannel pajama bottoms, and reading—of all things—the Wall Street Journal. There is a fire lit, the silver candlesticks flicker with flame, the bedcovers invitingly turned down as if in preparation for some sort of romantic scene. But he is focused on the Journal.