Piper and Hannah had attempted to creep in through the catering entrance of their Bel-Air mansion. They’d moved in when Piper was four and Hannah two, after their mother married Daniel, and neither of them could remember living anywhere else. Every once in a while, when Piper caught a whiff of the ocean, her memory sent up a signal through the fog, reminding her of the Pacific Northwest town where she’d been born, but there was nothing substantial to cling to and it always drifted away before she could grasp on.
Now, her stepfather’s wrath? She could fully grasp that.
It was etched into the tanned lines of his famous face, in the disappointed headshakes he gave the sisters as they sat, side by side, on a couch in his home office. Behind him, awards gleamed on shelves, framed movie posters hung on walls, and the phone on his L-shaped desk lit up every two seconds, although he’d silenced it for the upcoming lecture. Their mother was at Pilates, and out of everything? That made Piper the most nervous. Maureen tended to have a calming effect on her husband—and he was anything but calm right now.
“Um, Daniel?” Piper chanced brightly, tucking a piece of wilted hair behind her ear. “None of this is Hannah’s fault. Is it okay if she heads to bed?”
“She stays.” He pinned Hannah with a stern look. “You were forbidden to bail her out and did it anyway.”
Piper turned her astonishment on her sister. “You did what?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Hannah whipped off her hat and wrung it between her knees. “Leave you there, Pipes?”
“Yeah,” Piper said slowly, facing her stepfather with mounting horror. “What did you want her to do? Leave me there?”
Agitated, Daniel shoved his fingers through his hair. “I thought you learned your lesson a long time ago, Piper. Or lessons, plural, rather. You were still flitting around to every goddamn party between here and the Valley, but you weren’t costing me money or making me look like a fucking idiot in the process.”
“Ouch.” Piper sunk back into the couch cushions. “You don’t have to be mean.”
“I don’t have to be—” Daniel made an exasperated sound and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are twenty-eight years old, Piper, and you have done nothing with your life. Nothing. You’ve been afforded every opportunity, given anything your little heart could ask for, and all you have to show for it is a . . . a digital existence. It means nothing.”
If that’s true, then I mean nothing, too.
Piper snagged a pillow and held it over her roiling stomach, giving Hannah a grateful look when she reached over to rub her knee. “Daniel, I’m sorry. I had a bad breakup last night and I acted out. I won’t do anything like that ever again.”
Daniel seemed to deflate a little, retreating to his desk to lean on the edge. “No one handed me anything in this business. I started as a page on the Paramount lot. Filling sandwich orders, fetching coffee. I was an errand boy while I worked my way through film school.” Piper nodded, doing her best to appear deeply interested, even though Daniel told this story at every dinner party and charity event. “I stayed ready, armed with knowledge and drive, just waiting for my opportunity, so I could seize it”—he snapped his fist closed—“and never look back.”
“That’s when you were asked to run lines with Corbin Kidder,” Piper recited from memory.
“Yes.” Her stepfather inclined his head, momentarily pleased to find out she’d been paying attention. “As the director looked on, I not only delivered the lines with passion and zeal, but I improved the tired text. Added my own flair.”
“And you were brought on as a writer’s assistant.” Hannah sighed, winding her finger for him to wrap up the oft-repeated story. “For Kubrick himself.”
He exhaled through his nose. “That’s right. And it brings me back to my original point.” A finger was wagged. “Piper, you’re too comfortable. At least Hannah earned a degree and is gainfully employed. Even if I called in favors to get her the location scout gig, at least she’s productive.” Hannah hunched her shoulders but said nothing. “Would you even care if opportunity came knocking on your door, Piper? You have no drive to go anywhere. Or do anything. Why would you when this life I’ve provided you is always here, rewarding your lack of ambition with comfort and an excuse to remain blissfully stagnant?”
Piper stared up at the man she thought of as a father, stunned to find out he’d been seeing her in such a negative light. She’d grown up in Bel-Air. Vacationing and throwing pool parties and rubbing elbows with famous actors. This was the only life she knew. None of her friends worked. Only a handful of them had bothered with college. What was the point of a degree? To make money? They already had tons of it.