But I sort of do. I mean, I don’t want to move back to Hollywood, but in short bursts it’s sort of fun. After all, I’m twenty-two—I like the free champagne and the dressing up. And most important, I like the way the kids who crowd their way up to the front row of events look at me with hope and dreams. The hope that they too can make a living off their art. That their work can be seen, their talent realized.
It’s why I want this house, to foster those dreams.
Bu
t what happens when I show up at that movie screening and have the wrong effect? What happens when I’m the type of girl that moms tell their little girls not to be like, the type of woman that other women scorn?
I refuse to feel even the least bit bad about my sexuality.
The double standard of a guy being a charming playboy while a woman gets labeled a slutty tramp is absolute bullshit.
I don’t care about the label.
I care that the label is unfounded. Untrue.
I pour a glass of water and move my neck from one side to the other, trying to loosen the knots. One thing’s for sure: I’m not going to figure out an answer tonight. I need a good night’s sleep, and…Noah.
I can’t explain it, but I need Noah.
I start to head upstairs to grab a bag, intent on taking a bottle of wine, some popcorn, and my raciest lingerie over to the caretaker cottage, when I remember that Dolly’s waiting for me outside the door.
I walk to the screen, my steps slowing when I don’t see her familiar little pointy face.
“Dolly?” I push the screen door open. “Dolly!”
My eyes scan for a sign of the tiny puffball, waiting for her to come bounding through the weeds, but there’s nothing.
“Dolly!”
Blindly I shove my feet into the flip-flops by the door as I burst out into the late dusk, still calling for my dog.
I try to contain my panic at first. She’ll come. Any minute now I’ll hear that high-pitched little bark, see her short legs coming toward me as she does the little run that looks sort of like a bunny hopping through the grass.
But no matter how many times I call her name, my voice getting a little louder and more frantic each time, there’s nothing. The crickets seem to grow louder, the fireflies brighter, but there’s no dog. Nothing rustling low in the weeds.
Not even an alligator.
My hand goes to my mouth as I realize the magnitude of what it means for a five-pound Pomeranian to be lost on a bayou. I haven’t seen a gator yet, but I rarely stray from the house. And I absolutely believe Noah when he says they’re out there.
“Dolly,” I whimper.
And then I’m running, ignoring the way the occasional twig jabs at my bare foot around the flimsy flip-flops, not bothering to stop for the damn crocodile stick, because Dolly doesn’t have one, and she’s the one the alligators could eat with a single snap.
I run and I run, maybe wishing I’d worked out just a little more since I’ve been in Louisiana, and then I’m at the caretaker cottage.
I don’t bother to register whether lights are on, I just slam my hand once on the door before barging in. “Noah!”
I hear Ranger’s bark, and then I see him.
Noah.
I put a hand on the door, gasping, as he turns to me in confusion, a frozen dinner in his hand that looks an awful lot like the one I just ate.
“Dolly,” I say, my voice breaking. “I can’t find her. I let her out to go to the bathroom, and I can’t…Noah, I can’t find her.”
Without a word, he tosses the plastic tray aside and moves past me toward the door, giving a quick whistle for Ranger.
“What are you—”