The View Was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements

Chapter Seven

Hey!” Shift said when she answered Win’s call the next morning. “This is a surprise. I thought you were wrapped up in L’Opera Leonardo.”

Win was in the bathroom of a new hotel room, sitting in the wide green-tiled window seat above an enormous freestanding tub with high sloping porcelain sides. There were flowers everywhere, the air heavy with heat and the cloying scent of peonies.

“It’s the intermission,” she said. “I thought I’d check in on the wedding planning.”

“God,” Shift said. “Don’t.”

“What,” Win said, as a flicker of hope sprang unbidden into her chest. “Is it a disaster? You could always postpone.”

“No, it’s actually going quite well,” Shift said. “Charlie’s already booked a venue, this fuckin’ beautiful greenhouse, and my mum’s visiting. We went out dress shopping. Win, I’m enjoying myself.”

Win laughed. It was hard to imagine Shift in a wedding dress, though she’d worn one once, when they were seventeen and she’d dressed up as Miss Havisham for a Halloween party; filthy white from a charity store, combined with bright pink hair and combat boots. Win had gone as the messenger from Romeo and Juliet who died halfway to Mantua. They’d left the party early, taken a bottle of Sprite mixed with vodka onto the night bus, and rolled around and around the city, planning their magnificent futures.

She pushed open her shuttered windows to let in more fresh air. Their new hotel was near deserted, an old palace made into a secret luxury resort. They had closed the deal with Paramount. A photo shoot today, the Chavanne yacht party tonight, and soon the summer would be over and she could get back to her real work. Win ran her hand over the back of her neck, catching sight of herself in the mirror. There were bags under her eyes for the makeup artists to cover, and her hair lay limp. The woman reflected looked troubled, unconvinced.

“If I start calling you to worry about flower arrangements, I need you to come out here and kidnap me,” Shift said. “Take me to a show. Take me to a rave.”

“I promise,” Win said. “But you’re not worrying, are you?”

“No,” Shift said, and sighed. “It’s really nice. I’m happy. I’m just embarrassed. You’re going to be there, right?”

“I think so,” Win lied. There was no point having a fight about it until she knew for sure. “You’ll know when I know.”

“I hope I already know,” Shift said, but she didn’t linger on it. “How’s the fame monster?”

“The monster and I are both doing well,” Win said, gaze drawn out the window. The sea was so blue, with patches of darker depths out beyond the break of the waves. She let out a quick breath.

“What is it?” Shift said, with a sudden thread of concern. “Has something happened? I saw that Nathan was an asshole again, but you guys looked like you had it in hand—”

“Oh, we do,” Win said.

“At least he’s mostly just destroying his own life now.”

“I’m sure he’s okay,” Win said. She hesitated. “I think something’s going on with Leo.” It felt good, articulating that nameless unease that had been growing in her, confirming that there was something new making her spine prickle. But it felt wrong, too. Like saying it aloud made it real.

“What kind of something?”

“I don’t know,” Win said. “A friend of his mentioned he’d been in LA earlier this year, and when I asked why, he wouldn’t say. And he’s been…clingy and then distant.”

She thought of him, reaching toward her in the shadows of their accidentally shared bed. I need to talk to you. She hadn’t been awake enough to pay attention when he said it; now she wondered what he’d wanted to tell her, just risen from a dream.

“Something’s different. He wanted to talk to me privately yesterday. I think there’s something he’s not telling me.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No,” Win said. “I was working.”

“What about this morning?”

Win grimaced. “Well, we had to drive up here…”

Shift sounded a little amused. “And right now, when you have the time to talk to me?”

“Well, I’m…hiding in the bathroom,” Win admitted.

“Okay,” Shift said. “Why are you so worried? Do you think it’s about you?”

“Yes,” Win said. “He’d tell me anything else.”

Shift was quiet. She said, “Win,” drew in a breath, and then let it trail off.

“Come on,” Win said.

“You’re thinking it, too.”

“A little.” She thought of the way he’d looked at her in the swimming pool the other night, eyes dark, mouth soft, curving around her in slow circles that began to narrow. “I’m probably just being arrogant.”

“You guys have spent the last seven years pretending to be in love with each other,” Shift said. “Would it really be so wild if he actually was?”

Win ran a hand through her hair. “Yes. Yes, it would. Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because we have an arrangement,” she burst out. “Because this is what works.”

“Other things can work, too,” Shift said.

“Shift, come on,” Win said. “Me and Leo are very different people. We argue all the time—”

“Like me and Charlie are so similar. Like couples never fight.”

“But it’s more than that,” Win continued, talking over Shift. “Leo is the most important thing that ever happened to my career. If we got together and then messed it up, that would be it. I would lose it—”

“You’d lose him, not it, Win. He’s a person, not a tool.”

“I’m not being a bitch,” Win said, frustrated. “If you asked Leo, he’d tell you the same thing. We’re useful to each other. We’re really good friends and obviously I care about him, but we’re much better for each other like this than as a real couple.”

“You’ve never even tried, though.”

“It wouldn’t be worth the risk,” Win said. “Look, Leo’s—funny and smart and hot, obviously you can romanticize the idea of us being together, but that’s not what I need. I need—stability. You don’t even like Leo that much, why are you advocating for him?”

“I want you to be happy,” Shift said. “Do you think you’d be happy with him?”

“No,” Win said. “I’m happy around him, but that’s because I’m not with him. I don’t have to worry about him getting bored. I don’t have to sacrifice anything for him.”

Leo got bored quickly. He made Win furious without even trying. Leo was one of her closest friends, but as her boyfriend he would have a power over her that she didn’t trust him with. It wouldn’t be staged dates and photo shoots and schedules: it would be real life, and real life with Leo was unpredictable. He thought he understood everything, or that everything was easy to understand and just as easy to explain. He would be furious at every backhanded comment, every “exotic” and “nontraditional,” every Nathan Spencer look-alike mining her family for laughs on TV, and that fury would become Win’s problem. Win’s to soothe, Win’s to explain why she could or couldn’t respond, and Win was already so tired. She relied, very heavily, on being able to dismiss the people who dismissed her, and Leo would never let her look away.

Win lived in a house of cards. She couldn’t risk what they had on the occasional impulse that flickered in her hindbrain when he bent his mouth to hers.

“Okay, well, look,” Shift said. “No matter what, you have to talk to him.”

“We’ve got the Zacharias Chavanne party tonight,” Win said. “Everyone will be watching us.”

“After that, then.”

“Pretty soon after that the filming for The Sun Also Rises starts. And then my next press tour.”

“He’s not going to go with you?”

Win shook her head. “We don’t want him to be too closely associated with my career,” she said, summarizing long conversations with Marie while her thoughts raced on ahead. “If he comes on press tours for a film he’s had nothing to do with, it looks like I’m not interesting without him.”

“Okay,” Shift said. “Then you have to make time to talk to him. You owe him that much.”

They were both quiet. Win wished that Shift were there with her. It was sometimes strange that they had such separate lives now, when their teenhoods had been so intertwined. She couldn’t think of an important memory that Shift didn’t feature in: whooping and forcing the rest of the audience to their feet after Win’s first starring role in a community theater production, or her shoulder pressed hard against Win’s at Win’s father’s funeral. Win had taken Shift as her date to her first movie premiere in London, both of them shiny-eyed and raw with their own youth and pleasure. It hadn’t been long after that, though, that Shift moved to Montreal to record her first album, and Win’s dates started to be organized for her.

Win stepped up to the window, leaning out, and the coastal wind slapped her in the face. There was a strange lump in her throat, like she was giving something up.

“We might be wrong,” Shift tried, as though offering Win something. “Maybe he just wants your advice on his next ridiculous haircut.”

Win managed a laugh. “Sure.”

Shift paused. “Leo’s a big boy, Win.”

“I don’t want to hurt him.”

“So talk to him,” Shift said, “or leave.”

“Well.” Win let her feet swing back onto the bathroom floor. “I’ll probably do both.”

*  *  *

Leo clicked his tongue as they walked into the hotel ballroom. Even the technical setup—the cameras and screens, the lights being maneuvered into place and the great wardrobe rails tucked off to the side, coils of wires and empty packaging—couldn’t hide the brilliance of the room. It was a cathedral of gold columns and a high soaring ceiling fitted with frescoes, angels and weeping women clutching round-faced cherubs. The floor was marble, and Win’s heels were loud. She took a slow, wondering circle, with Leo on her arm, his expression remote and inscrutable. She discarded several opening lines, and in the end didn’t say anything at all before the team pulled them apart for makeup and wardrobe.

They lined Win’s eyes in gold and her mouth in a deep red, and teased her hair into something more artfully disheveled: “Bedhead,” the hairstylist said, “but for a dark angel.” They stripped her out of her clothes and put her in pale, expensive underwear, spiky threads of cotton feathering over her hips, her thighs, no bra but a backless pink silk slip dress.

Anya arrived with Tomas in tow, who settled in a plush chair in the corner and began mulling over his laptop, apparently undistracted by the chaos around him. Anya came over to look at Win. “Beautiful,” she said, “but her eyeliner needs to be higher. Whitman, when the mascara goes on, blink while it’s still wet—”

Win did. It left freckled dots of mascara under her eyes, and Anya nodded, satisfied.

“We’ll do the bed shots later, put a coat on the poor girl, for god’s sake,” she said, though it wasn’t cold. Win got to sit and have a smoothie while they tested the lighting. Leo showed up in a Lanvin suit with the jacket sleeves shoved up.

“They took ages on you,” Win said, lowering her phone.

Leo made a face. “The trousers were too long, they had to sew them up.”

Win laughed. “Don’t they know your measurements?”

Leo threw himself into the chair beside her. “Apparently I look taller than I am,” he said, and bounced up out of the chair with a guilty look when Anya snapped at him about rumpling the fit of the suit. He put his hands in his pockets, sulking like a kid. “She gets to sit down.”

“She is wearing heels,” Win said. Leo gave her a flash of a smile.

Win wished he’d keep grumbling instead, making himself ridiculous. They’d trimmed back his hair from where it was getting just slightly bristly, and the dark lines of the suit brought out his bone structure, made him look feral and handsome. Win turned back to her inbox. She was very careful not to think about the conversation with Shift.

“We’re ready for you, sweethearts,” Anya said.

Leo held out his hand. They’d spent time on more than his trousers, she realized; the dark circles under his eyes were gone, hidden by concealer. It made him look younger, made Win wonder how worn down he actually was.

Anya called out instructions that were half editorial direction and half film narrative, some vague story line about two mysterious strangers meeting and falling in love. Win slouched against a pillar and Leo leaned over her, his arm braced above her head, his face tilted down to her.

“Won’t do interviews, won’t act, but you’re a professional at this,” Win said as they posed leaning up against a pillar.

“This is more fun,” Leo said. He took her hand, whirling her out as though they were about to start dancing. Win tossed her hair around a bit, kept her face turned to his and half smiled. There were people filming for a making-of video that would go up on Ci Sarà’s website. Marie was in the corner looking critical. Emil was petting a Tom Ford coat with a sneaky expression.

Anya said, “Win, could you give us some— Yes, perfect,” as Win gripped Leo’s neck with one hand and dropped backward.

Leo held her by the hips and leaned forward so she was in a dip, her hair a long dark cascade toward the ground. A couple of assistants ran over and tugged down her coat so that it fell low and bared her shoulders.

Leo’s smile was calculating. “You’re not wearing a bra,” he murmured, keeping his mouth still so Anya didn’t snap at him.

“Don’t drop me,” Win told him.

“I’m just commenting.”

“Well, concentrate,” Win said.

“You don’t need to pinch, Whitman,” Leo said. He didn’t sound unhappy, only interested, his voice low in her ear, a little rough, the way he spoke just for her. Win put her leg up, knee against his hip, and Leo smoothed his hand over the thin silk. “I’ve got you.”

They took more photos up on the roof terrace in new outfits. Win sprawled across cushions with Leo’s head in her lap, another set taken of them gazing out over the view. Marie and Anya broke off occasionally to look at the shots, but neither Win nor Leo bothered to join them. Win had seen hundreds of photos of herself with Leo, posed for shoots or on the red carpet or apparently candid paparazzi shots. Her own face looked back at her from magazines and billboards like a casual acquaintance, someone Win felt fondly toward without any real interest in getting to know. It had been a long time since a photo of her and Leo properly captured her attention—none, really, since that week in New York when Win first realized their chemistry.

Except, perhaps, one other, stuck with a magnet to Shift’s fridge in Montreal. Shift had taken it the night they introduced her to Charlie. They were posing for the camera, but the photo wasn’t a story for viewers to obsess over, just a private smile for Shift. Leo’s arm was slung over Win’s shoulders, and they both looked smug: their plan had gone well; Charlie and Shift were hitting it off. At the time it felt natural, but now whenever she saw the photo, at Shift’s house or in the back of video calls, Win was always faintly uncomfortable, her stomach dipping. There was a line of empty bottles in front of them, and Win looked tired and happy. They could have been college friends, out after an exam. It was like peeking into another life.

Downstairs, Leo put on a new shirt and jacket and straddled a motorbike in the driveway while Win pretended to run down the stairs toward him in a long, dreamy Nina Ricci gown, bracelets jangling. While Win posed leaning against the motorbike with Leo braced forward like he was about to take off, Anya and Marie engaged in a low-pitched and furious debate. “My vision!” Anya cried, and “A waste of an excellent opportunity,” Marie countered, before they went back to hissing at each other.

With her arm wrapped around his neck, Leo was at the perfect height to murmur in Win’s ear. “If your publicist gets me in trouble with my mums, you’re gonna have to work really hard to make it up to me.”

“What’s the problem?” Win asked.

Marie was adamant. “There should be a kiss.” Her eyes were gleaming, already, Win was sure, envisioning the page torn out lovingly and pasted to thousands of teenage bedroom walls or circulating endlessly online. Anya thought it would sully the “delicious sexual tension.” Leo, one arm around Win’s waist to keep her from falling, looked sleepy and uninterested.

“Okay, Marie,” Win said. “It’s fine. I don’t think we need a kiss.”

“Thank you, Whitman,” Anya said. She looked very pinched about the mouth.

Leo nodded toward the guys filming. “Are they still shooting for behind-the-scenes?”

Marie gave him an astounded, approving look. Win pushed her sunglasses up to the top of her head and met his eyes.

He nudged her backward, so she was half lying over the motorbike handlebars, and leaned down to catch her mouth, his hand cradling her hip, thumbing at the gauzy material. Win wrapped one arm around his shoulders and let the other one touch his cheek, giving herself up to him. The grip of his hand in her hair felt like an anchor, but his mouth was soft, almost unsure, lingering like he was waiting for her to tear herself away.

When they broke apart, Anya was faintly annoyed, Marie had calmed down, and the photographer looked a little heartbroken that they would not be including any photographs she may or may not have just taken in the final editorial.

“One more scene,” Anya said. Win was taken upstairs and dressed in strappy cutout lingerie. She draped herself across satin green covers, while Leo leaned on one corner of the four-poster bed, taking her in as if she were a prize he had long since earned.