Page 13 of Unspoken Tides
Hilary’s ears pounded. She raised her thumbs and began to type, then delete, then type again. She felt like a fool. She fought a strange impulse to call one of the Salt Sisters and ask their advice—then wrote back that she’d love to.
She spent the second half of the day in a state of panic. This was her first evening with Rodrick in many, many years. Whatever she wore, it had to be perfect. It had to prove just how much he’d lost.
Chapter Five
June 2004 - Los Angeles, California
The plane from Boston touched down at LAX at six in the evening. Hilary peered out at the sterling-blue sky above the runway, listening as two of the airline stewardesses squabbled about another passenger onboard who required wheelchair assistance. One of them wanted to get off the plane early to meet her boyfriend; she was begging for the other to take over her responsibilities. “Forget about it, Shonda. I’m tired of picking up your slack,” the other said.
Gone were the days when Hilary flew on private planes with her mother, but she always flew first class. She was hard-pressed to give up her fancy champagne and extra legroom; she was just too used to the finer things in life, she supposed. It allowed for some wonderful people watching; it allowed her to fade into the background and see how other people lived. Shonda was sobbing now, telling the other airline stewardess, “I thought we were friends. Like, I thought we looked out for each other.”
Had Isabella been there, she would have scoffed and called her weak. Isabella had very little patience for men. She had even less for women.
Isabella had refused to go to Nantucket with Hilary that spring, adding yet another nail in the coffin of their mother-daughter relationship. The past four times Hilary had tried to call her mother, the maid at her Los Angeles home had answered and said Isabella was “out.” But Hilary knew that Isabella very rarely went anywhere. She was too embarrassed to show her face, which was scarred from a recent botched treatment, and she had enough money to send drivers and other workers around Los Angeles and beyond to get whatever she wanted. Understandably, she hated that paparazzi cameras chased her everywhere she went, wanting to mock the woman she’d become. The public eye refused to let her fade gently into obscurity. She was Isabella Helin, for goodness’ sake. Not so very long ago, she’d been everything to the world.
Hilary disembarked the aircraft and headed for baggage claim, where she picked up her two rolling suitcases and headed into the fragrant Los Angeles air. It was a balmy eighty degrees, and Hilary stood in a sunbeam for a full thirty seconds with her eyes closed as gratefulness flowed through her veins. Like it or not, Nantucket wasn’t fully her home, not really. Los Angeles was.
Hilary hailed a cab to take her back to the home she shared with Rodrick, located on Mulholland Drive. Rodrick had spent the majority of the spring in Nantucket with her before returning to Los Angeles early to prep for a film. Hilary planned to do costumes. It would be a busy summer and autumn, but after a restful few months on the opposite coast, her heart felt light and ready for the swiftness of set life.
The cab pulled into the long driveway on Mulholland and took her all the way up to the garage door. It was open, revealing their home gym and one of Rodrick’s sports cars. Rodrick was on the bench with his shirt off, glistening with sweat. As she stepped out of the cab, he sprinted through the sunshine and picked her up, spinning her around in a circle. She squealed.
“Thank you for bringing her home safely,” Rodrick said to the driver, whom he overtipped by one hundred percent. “Have a great day.”
The driver beamed as he drove back down the driveway. When he was out of sight, Hilary rose on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on her handsome husband’s lips.
“I smell like an airplane,” she said when she reared back, wrinkling her nose.
“You don’t. You smell like a dream,” Rodrick said, picking her up again to carry her inside.
In the safety of those strong arms, Hilary felt as though all the pieces of her life clicked back into place. Nantucket had been a wonderful reprieve, a time of creativity and relaxation and long walks on a far different beach. But here in Los Angeles, she and Rodrick would get back to work. They would meet their potential.
Upstairs in their shower, Rodrick and Hilary stood together beneath the stream and kissed as the water drizzled down their torsos and long, tanned legs. Giggling, they retreated to the shadows of their bedroom and made love as they always did when they hadn’t seen one another for a while. Passionately. Playfully. Hilary felt twenty again.
This was their marriage bed. Oh, how she’d missed it. The glistening white sheets. The California light spilled through the windows like a benediction.
In the hazy hours afterward, Rodrick and Hilary wrapped up in sheets and chatted happily about the weeks they’d spent apart. Rodrick talked about their next film, which was a retelling of Shakespeare’s All’s Well, set in the hippie era of San Francisco. It was outlandish, but that was what intrigued Hilary about it. Hilary spoke poetically about her vision for the costumes, the bell bottoms and crop tops and long, long hair. “We’ll have to spend plenty on wigs,” she warned him teasingly. “I hope you’ve included that in the budget.”
Rodrick begged Hilary to tell him more about her time in Nantucket.
“I hate to disappoint you, but there’s not much to say,” she said dreamily. “I went for walks. I read and wrote in my journal. I tried and failed to reach out to Mom.”
Rodrick bristled. “Why on earth did you do that?”
Hilary raised her shoulders. “I was staying in her house, Rod. She’s everywhere. It still smells like her, for crying out loud.”
“That’s just because she wears too much perfume.”
Hilary swatted him playfully, trying to keep the mood light.
“When was the last time she was there?” Rodrick asked.
“A few years ago, I guess. You know she doesn’t like to leave LA.”
Rodrick bit his lower lip. “I just hate to see you disappointed. And she always disappoints you.”
Hilary kissed his cheek. “She’s my mother. I have to keep trying. You know that.”
Three years ago, Rodrick had convinced Hilary to go to therapy. She’d been very resistant at first, terrified that her therapist would tell everyone what she learned about Isabella Helin. She could probably sell information like that to tabloids for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But Rodrick was right; Hilary was awash with mommy issues. “If therapy is good enough for Tony Soprano, it should be good enough for you,” he’d said.