“Told you what?”
“About the affair.”
“The affair?”
“You and her.” He stared at the man’s eyes, watching for anything, any hint of hesitation, any sideways dart.
What he didn’t expect was for Robert Cameron to break out laughing. “How much have you had to drink today?”
“Don’t you lie to me, mother—”
“Is this a joke?” Robert shook his head. “I knew you were an asshole, but I never thought you were that kind of asshole.”
“What kind is that, Bob?”
“The redneck kind who thinks sexuality is multiple choice. I mean, really. I know you’re from cow country, but this is beneath you.”
“What are you—what?”
Robert sighed, reached for a frame on the desk, handed it to him. “Remember Alan?” The photo showed the actor and a blond guy with surfer hair, his arm slipped around Robert’s lower back, the tips of his fingers resting on the curve of a hip.
Daniel felt a flush come into his face. “You’re saying—”
“Oh for god’s sake. It’s not something to try on a Saturday night. I don’t just browse a little man-on-man porn to spice up my private time. I’m not gay when the wife isn’t looking.” Robert took the picture back, glanced at it before setting it down. “Yes, I loved your wife. Laney was funny and smart and way out of your league. But of course I wasn’t sleeping with her, you homophobe.”
It should have been a relief. And on one level, it was. Sure, it assuaged his ego, but more than that, he didn’t want to believe that she had been unhappy. That he had bored her, or hurt her, or driven her away. That the life he’d seen in their house was a lie. He had little enough to believe in. If he couldn’t believe in them, he was done.
So he was glad that she hadn’t been sleeping with Robert. But now the problem was that once again he had no idea what to do. Ever since he’d decided Robert Cameron might have been responsible for Laney’s death, he’d had a purpose, and a reason to believe in his own innocence. Now that was gone.
“I’m sorry. It’s not that at all, I promise. I just . . .” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“You know I’m gay. You used to tease Laney about being a fag hag. You planning to just forget that inconvenient fact so you can write an ending in your head that makes things easier on you? She’s dead, so she must have been cheating on you, because that would make her loss easier to bear?” Robert shook his head. “I’m sorry, Daniel, I really am, but you’re not the only one who’s sad. I loved her too. And I won’t let you mess up her memory just to make yourself feel better.”
“Look, it’s not that. I really didn’t remember. I’ve got—I know this is hard to understand, but I’m . . . I’m . . .” Daniel found he couldn’t say the words. He didn’t want to tell Robert about his amnesia. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, but that secret was all that he had, and he was reluctant to give it up. Plus there was a trace of shame in it too. Shame at not knowing who he was, and at the way he’d come off, as a small-minded homophobe revising history. “Never mind.”
Robert snorted. “Of course.”
“What?”
“You were about to tell me something, right? And then you decided to hide. That’s you all over.”
Embarrassment and confusion were burning in his belly, but the actor’s words stoked them into something else. A cinder that was the beginning of anger. It felt better than shame. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“What do you know about me?” Thinking, Asshole, you don’t have the first clue what I’m going through.
Robert laughed mirthlessly. “Plenty.”
“Yeah? Try me.”
“I don’t think so, Daniel. I don’t really see the point.” He straightened, brushed his hands. “Now, I have work to do. Why don’t you show yourself out.”
“No. I want to hear what you have to say.”
Robert sighed. “You really want to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. She’s gone, so we don’t have to make nice anymore, do we? You want the truth, here it is. I never understood what she saw in you.”
Daniel made himself smile, a thin thing that felt false. “Go on.”
“You’re a nice enough guy. But who are you, really? A mediocre writer in a town thick with them. Not particularly talented, not particularly smart, not particularly brave. The top of the middle of the bell curve.”
Daniel stared him down. “Well, I certainly wasn’t the star of Candy Girls.”
“And all the ways you hurt her,” Robert continued. “Exorcizing your relationship demons on national television. Laney playing Emily playing Laney, with you as the puppet master, and who cared if maybe these things were private, she didn’t want them out; this was art! Your drinking. Your distance. All of it.”
The smoldering in his belly caught fire. “Bullshit.”
“Oh, I know you were in love once. A long time ago, Laney told me that your wedding was the day her life began. But you know what I think? I think she outgrew you.”
Daniel’s fingers were curled into fists, the nails biting his palms. He didn’t reply, didn’t trust himself to speak. It’s not true. None of it is true. You loved her and she loved you. When she died, you tried to kill yourself, for Christ’s sake.
“I think that she was getting tired of all the things I always saw in you,” Robert continued. “I think that scared you, because you knew those things too. I think that’s what all those fights were really about.”
“What fights?”
“Sure, revise again. Just forget about all the yelling, erase that whole week before someone drove her off the PCH.”
He never liked you, he admitted it. So you can’t trust what he says.You and Laney loved each other.
“My god. You killed her, didn’t you?” Robert asked in a low voice. “I didn’t. I hadn’t believed it before, but. You did it, didn’t you?”
“No.” I’m not that man. She loved me. If I can’t believe that, I may as well not have made it off that beach. She loved me.
“You killed her. She didn’t love you anymore, so you—”
Daniel rocked forward and punched the actor’s perfect nose. His hand and wrist exploded, but it felt distant somehow, something to deal with later, and he swung again, sunk a fist in the man’s gut. Robert’s eyes went wide in shock and pain, and he staggered into the trailer wall. Daniel followed, arm cocked back, looking the actor right in his fucking movie star eyes—
—and saw the terror in them.