I look at the ground
And give the sky the middle finger
Something inside said
"Here's a day you should remember
So mark it on a wall"

--Lucy Woodward, "Dumb Girls"

Chapter One

“Mariana!”

“Mariana, look over here!”

“Mariana, give us a smile!”

I looked around, a smile gracing my face that was aimed at no one in particular. Cameras flashed, leaving stars in my eyes as I went through my now-patented red carpet routine. I wasn’t exactly on a red carpet, but it didn’t make any difference anyway – the routine was the same anywhere there was cameras. That was my life now.

I’m not complaining, not by a longshot. I had worked hard to get where I was, and I’d been incredibly blessed. It was just a hard thing to get used to – having people who were so interested in my personal life, who I was dating, even where I shopped. To tell the truth, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be an actress. When I was young I used to force my little sister to put on our own production of Annie, using my well-loved CD from the musical at least every other weekend. When I was 12 I started acting in the local community theater, and after I graduated from high school, I moved to New York. 2 ½ years later I had my first, tiny role in a movie… and now here I was, 23 years old, having my picture taken while attending a new night club opening.

After a few more minutes of posing I finally got inside, where my friend Annika was waiting. I made a face at her as she rolled her eyes.

“Aren’t you used to it by now?” she asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m used to it,” I mumbled as we made our way towards the thumping music and massive crowds. “It’s not that.” Annika sighed, patting me on the back.

“Stop feeling guilty,” she ordered.

“I can’t,” I replied. “How can I not feel guilty? I shouldn’t be here. It’s so stupid and frivolous. I should be across town right now, supporting my boyfriend at the premiere of one of his biggest movies, but noooo… I have to be at another stupid club opening,” I ranted. Annika just looked at me.

“Done?” I sighed.

“Yeah I suppose.” She strung her arm through mine and pushed open the doors to dance floor.

“Good. Plaster on a smile, cuz it’s gonna be awhile.”

I spent the night schmoozing, shaking hands with people I was supposed to know, dancing with guys, some of which had a hard time keeping their hands to themselves… but yet again, I was used to it. It all came with the life. I had to take the good with the bad.

The moment that it was acceptable for me to leave I did, Annika in tow – she wasn’t that much of a party girl either. She and I had met on the set of one of my first movies – she was an Assistant Director, and she and I had instantly hit it off. She was really the only good friend I had in Los Angeles, the only person that I felt I could really trust… well, except for Tristan.

Tristan. As soon as I stepped outside of the club I pulled out my phone, hearing Annika laugh in the background.

“Shut up,” I muttered, glaring at her before speed-dialing Tristan. She giggled.

“It’s just cute, that’s all. You two are way too perfect for each other,” she said as I handed my ticket to the valet.

“Hello?” Tristan’s voice came over the line. I smiled.

“Hey you,” I said. “Can you talk?”

“Um… not really…” he replied. I sighed disappointedly.

“Okay. Call me back when you can, okay?”

“Okay.”

I paused. “I love you baby.”

“I know. You too.” I sighed again before hanging up my phone. Annika rubbed my shoulder comfortingly.

“I know it’s hard, hon,” she said. “But it’s better this way, it really is.” She lowered her voice though there weren’t all that many people around us. “It’s worth it to keep your relationship to yourselves, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it is. It’s just hard to remember that at times like this.” I saw my black SUV pull around the corner, and we hopped in.

“So when do you think you guys will go public?” Annika asked once we were in the safety of my car. “I mean, you’ve been dating for what, 8 months? Frankly I’m amazed that no one has found out about you guys yet.”

“Yeah I know, I am too. Part of me would like to keep it that way, but then again, it can’t be a secret forever, y’know?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know… I guess we’ll probably go public once it becomes serious.”

“Eight months and you’re not serious yet?”

“Well, I mean, like… SERIOUS serious.” Annika smiled over at me.

“You think it’ll get SERIOUS serious?” she asked slyly. I couldn’t help smiling.

“It’s entirely possible. Tristan is… he’s amazing. He’s sweet, caring, talented, driven, not to mention ridiculously good-looking… He’s more than I could ever ask for.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. You love him,” Annika said, laughing. I laughed too.

“I know I’m gushing. I don’t care.”

“Aww… how cute,” Annika teased. I laughed again. “He’s leaving soon though, isn’t he?”

“Yeah… he only has another week before he’s done promoing this movie, and then he leaves for Toronto to start the next.”

“And you’re staying here?”

“Of course. I wish I could go visit him at least, but you know that would start rumors.”

“Yeah, you’re right, it would.” As if on cue, my cell phone rang, and I knew before even looking at it that it would be Tristan.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi sweetie, sorry about that earlier.”

“It’s alright, I understand… so how did it go?”

“It went really well… everyone I talked to really enjoyed it, and I think only half of them were kissing my ass.” I laughed.

“Well that’s good.” I pulled up to the curb in front of Annika’s apartment. “Hang on a sec baby, I’m dropping Annika off.”

“Okay.” I turned and smiled at Annika.

“Thanks for coming with me tonight,” I said. She smiled.

“Anytime.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek before hopping out of the car.

“Okay, I’m back,” I said into the phone.

“Are you driving?”

“Yeah…” I said. I knew Tristan didn’t like it when I drove and talked on my phone at the same time. “I don’t care though. I already had to miss your premiere, and now I wanna talk to you.” Tristan laughed… a deep laugh that never failed to make a warm feeling spread through my body.

“You know I’m not mad at you, right?” he said. “I understand why you couldn’t come to my premiere. It’s the same reason why I couldn’t come to yours a few months ago. It doesn’t mean that I love you any less or support you any less, and the same goes for you.”

“I know… I still feel like a bad girlfriend though.” I heard Tristan sigh over the phone.

“Alright, that’s it. Get your ass over here.”

“Over where?”

“I’m at home. You’re in the car… turn around and come over here.” I smiled.

“I’ll be there in 10 minutes,” I said before hanging up. I took a bit of a long route, making sure there was no one following me. I didn’t expect there to be anyone, but whenever it came to Tristan, it was always better safe than sorry. Tristan lived in a gated community just on the outskirts of LA, and I knew as soon as I was inside the walls I was safe. I pulled up to Tristan’s house and hopped out of my car, seeing Tristan just inside the door waiting to greet me. He swung open the door as I approached.

“Ooh, lookin’ good, hot stuff,” he teased, taking in my outfit of a short black skirt and a tight red top. I rolled my eyes.

“I could say the same to you,” I said sarcastically – Tristan had already changed into his pajama pants. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he kicked the front door closed behind me.

“I love you,” I said, kissing him and then burying my face in his neck. He chuckled, and I could feel it in his chest. He rubbed his hand over my back.

“I love you too, sweetheart, but I really wish you would stop feeling guilty. You really don’t need to.” I pulled back and he took my hand, leading me out of the entryway.

“So the premiere really went well?” I asked as he led me upstairs to his bedroom.

“It really did,” he replied. “The interviews were alright… people keep asking about me and Kirsten Dunst. I don’t know how the hell those rumors got started, but it’s getting ridiculous. I’ve only met the girl twice, if that.” I sighed and kissed his shoulderblade. He turned around, wrapping his arms around my waist before the two of us tumbled onto the bed behind him. “How did the club thing go?” I shrugged one shoulder.

“Eh,” I replied. “The usual… schmoozing, kissing ass, being groped…” Tristan’s forehead creased with a frown.

“Groping? There was groping?” I giggled.

“Okay groping is an overstatement… but look at you! All jealous. So cute!” I kissed him and he shifted his position so that he was laying on top of me.

“Well… you need to tell all those groping men to back off,” he said, pressing his lips against my neck. “Because you… are all mine.” I smiled as he slipped his hands up to start taking off my shirt.

“I certainly am.”

The next morning, dressed in sweats, hats and sunglasses and disguising ourselves as best we could, Tristan and I went for a walk to the lake right next door to Tristan’s neighborhood. We took his dog – an adorable Wheaton Terrier named Marty – down towards the water, where Tristan let go of his leash and let him splash around for awhile.

“So… you leave on Thursday, huh?” I asked, entwining my fingers with his as we watched Marty play.

“Yep… Thursday.” He looked over at me, and I could barely see his eyes beneath his dark sunglasses. “How come you always dwell on how long it’s going to be until we’re apart? Why can’t you just live in the moment, and how happy we are together?”

“I don’t know…” I replied, leaning against his shoulder. “I want to, I really do… but it’s just always a thought nagging in the back of my mind, this… ongoing countdown that just won’t shut up.” He kissed my forehead.

“From now on, every time you speak of the future in a negative tone, you owe me a quarter.” I laughed.

“Ooh, a quarter,” I teased. He laughed.

“Okay fine. How about… a kiss?”

“I don’t know, that might actually encourage me to be even more negative…” Tristan rolled his eyes playfully.

“Alright smartass, you come up with something.”

“Why would I want to come up with a way for you to punish me?” His eyebrows rose, and we both simultaneously burst out laughing at the innuendo of what I’d just said.

“Well, when you put it that way…” he said, wrapping his arms around me. I playfully pushed him away. He grabbed for me again but I dodged his grasp. He raised one eyebrow at me, and just as he dove for me, I shot off running. Marty followed closely at our heels, barking, as we tore through the sand, giggling. Of course he finally caught up with me, sending us both tumbling to the ground. He pinned me, holding my arms to the ground over my head as we both tried to catch our breath, with Marty frantically licking our faces.

“Hey, get outta here, mutt,” Tristan said, letting go of me with one hand just long enough to shove Marty’s nose away. I gaped at him.

“Tristan! You are so mean to that poor, innocent, adorable little dog!” I teased.

“Hey, he was makin’ the moves on my girlfriend. I just can’t stand for that,” he said, leaning down to kiss me. Suddenly his head shot up, and he looked over towards the wooded area beyond the beach. I frowned.

“Tristan? Is something wrong?” I asked, looking in the same direction he was. I didn’t see anything.

“No… no. I just thought… nevermind.” He smiled back down at me. “It was just my imagination, forget it.”

A couple of hours later I was back at home, finally. I picked up my phone to call Annika.

“Hello?” she answered her phone, sounding groggy. I laughed.

“Annika, seriously. It’s 11:30. I dropped you off at 2 last night, you couldn’t possibly have been sleeping for 9 and a half hours.”

“Of course I could possibly be sleeping for 9 and a half hours. It’s my first weekend off in a month, and for the last 3 months, I haven’t gotten more than 4 hours a sleep per night. I think I have the right to sleep for 9 and a half hours, don’t you?” I laughed again.

“Alright, alright, I get it. I apologize for waking you up, princess.”

“As you should.”

“Anyways… I did it because I was wondering if you’d want to go shopping with me today.”

“Shopping?”

“Yeah… Tristan has interviews all afternoon and a party tonight, and I have nothing today, so… whaddya say? Wanna help me blow some serious cash?” Annika laughed.

“Girl, you spend more money on clothes than anyone…” She trailed off. “Y’know, I’m not going to finish that, because we’re in the movie business, and if I finished that sentence, I’d be lying.”

An hour and a half later, after a shower and a quick stop at Starbucks, Annika and I were strolling down the street together, gazing into store windows. I had on sunglasses, but as we all know, sunglasses aren’t quite the disguise that we celebrities like to think they are, so we got a few looks.

“Hey,” Annika said, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go in here.” She steered me into a hippy-looking record store. I smiled to myself. Not the kind of place I would go into by myself, but with Annika with me, at least I wouldn’t look like a complete idiot. Annika started wandering down the aisles, her attention caught by the buckets of vinyl records, and I followed her, running my fingertips over the table. A Bangles record caught my attention, and as I was looking at it, I faintly noticed Annika wandering away from me. Not 20 seconds later, someone came up behind me again.

“Look at this – the Bangles. How cool is this?” I murmured, figuring it was Annika.

It wasn’t.

Not only was it not Annika, it was someone who I was not expecting. I didn’t know it then, but this would be one of those “moments.” A moment when I was completely blindsided with something that I had no idea was coming, something that would end up completely changing everything.

“The coolest,” the stranger said. My gaze snapped up.

“Oh excuse me, I’m sorry, I thought you were my friend,” I apologized, my cheeks flaming slightly. The man was wearing a baseball cap with the brim pulled down so low that I couldn’t see into his eyes.

But I didn’t need to.

It was the smile that gave him away.

That sly, I-know-something-you-don’t-know smile.

My jaw dropped.

“No, actually, I’m not your friend, am I?” he asked. I wondered how I hadn’t recognized that voice. He tipped up his chin, his eyes catching mine. “I’m quite the opposite, in fact.” I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling anger welling up in the pit of my stomach.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked slowly.

“Aww… skipping the niceties? Going straight for the seething hatred?” he asked.

“What… the hell… are you doing here?” I repeated.

“Okay fine, have it your way. We’ll cut straight to business.” He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out an envelope. “You might want to take a look at these.” I frowned, but possibly out of pure curiosity, I took the envelope from his hands and opened it up.

Inside was a stack of pictures, and the one lying right on top answered all of my questions. It was a picture of Tristan and I that morning on the beach, right after he had tackled me in the sand. During our playful banter I had knocked off his sunglasses, and he had knocked off my hat, revealing what was now my trademark curly red hair.

There was no mistaking – it was definitely Mariana Frank and Tristan DeWitt, laughing as he lay on top of her in the sand. The pictures got worse as I flipped through them – us kissing, me with my arms wrapped around his neck, the both of us playing with Marty. I scowled back up at the jackass standing in front of me, crumpling the pictures in my hand.

“Oh, go right ahead. They’re digital.”

“So… what? You’re ridiculously obsessed with me? You flew all the way out to Los Angeles to photograph me with my boyfriend so that you can break us up? What, you think you’re gonna win me back like this?” I laughed callously, barely recognizing my own voice. This jackass brought out a side of me that I had never known existed.

“Not quite, sweetheart. Unlike you seem to think, not everybody believes this sweet, innocent, beautiful little girl act you’ve got going on.”

“What do you want?” He paused, looking around.

“Can’t we go somewhere else to talk about this? I’ll only take a minute of your time, and I promise, I won’t abduct you and try to rape you in an abandoned warehouse.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“That’s hilarious,” I said dryly. “And no, we can’t go somewhere else. We’re going to talk about this right here, right now, so I can get you back out of my life as soon as possible.” Before our angry conversation could continue, we were interrupted by Annika walking back up to me.

“Yeah, I just realized how expensive stuff is in here. Let’s go,” Annika said to me before she noticed how I was glaring at the man standing opposite me. She raised an eyebrow over at him. “And you are…” He plastered that irritating smile back onto his face.

“Someone you don’t need to know,” I interjected before he could say anything.

“Oh, I beg to differ. I think she needs to know me,” he said before turning his attention back to her friend. “I’m Danny Burke… Ashley’s ex-boyfriend? I’m sure she must’ve told you all about me.” Annika furrowed her brow.

“Ashley…?” she asked. I sighed. Danny turned back towards me.

“Ah, abandoned even your name, then?”

“That’s none of your business,” I hissed. Annika’s gaze bounced between us as we bickered. Finally she held up her hands to interrupt our steadily rising voices.

“Whoa, whoa, okay, time out, let’s take this elsewhere, shall we? We don’t want to cause a scene,” she said. Before I could object she grabbed both of our elbows and escorted us out of the store. She led us around the corner to where we were hidden from the people walking by on the street.

“Okay. Now… what the hell is going on?” she asked. I narrowed my eyes at Danny.

“This is Danny, my jackass ex-boyfriend from New York,” I muttered. She nodded.

“Okay, so… Danny, jackass, ex, got it. What else?”

“He has pictures of Tristan and I together,” I finished.

“Pictures?” I extended my hand, letting her see the photographs crumpled in my fist. Her eyes widened.

“Oh my,” she mumbled. I glared at Danny again.

“So answer my question. What do you want?” He looked over at Annika before rolling his eyes.

“Does she have to hear this?” he asked, motioning towards Annika.

“Yes. And you have 10 seconds.”

“Fine, fine… look, the thing is… I never told my parents that you and I broke up.”

My jaw dropped.

“Not too long after we broke up, before I’d had the chance to tell them, I had a huge falling out with my family and we haven’t talked since.” I frowned. I’d remembered Danny being fairly close with his family, especially his brother Tony. I wondered what could cause such a falling out that he didn’t speak to them for three years. I quickly brushed that thought aside and focused back on hating him. “So now, my brother is getting married next week, and they invited me… and you.”

“So you flew out here to take pictures of me and my boyfriend and bribe me to go to your brother’s wedding?” I asked.

“Well actually, I was going to be nice and try to convince you, maybe even pay you… but then I saw the two of you together and I just couldn’t resist.” His face took on his evil grin once again. “So just come with me to the wedding, pretend to be my girlfriend for a couple of days, and then we’ll fake some dramatic breakup that will make them hate you and love me once again.”

“It was a nice try, really… but I think I’ll pass,” I said before turning on my heel to walk away.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Danny said, grabbing my elbow and forcing me to turn back around. “You don’t care if I sell these to People and out your ‘secret’ relationship? Because you know I’ll actually do it.”

“Oh I have no doubt that you’ll actually do it. But I don’t care. I’ll go tell Tristan and we’ll go public with our relationship before you get the chance to do it for us. We’ve just been waiting for the right time… looks like it’s now.”

“Look,” he said, leaning towards me. “We both know that you’re going to do this, because we both know that you’re not a bitch. You have a heart in there, as much as you’d like not to, and you aren’t going to leave me hanging. So we can either sit here and argue some more, and you’ll eventually agree, or we can cut to the chase and you can just say yes.” I fumed… because I knew he was right. I wouldn’t leave him hanging, and I wouldn’t force Tristan to take our relationship public when he wasn’t ready for it.

“Mari?” Annika asked.

“Fine!” I finally spat out. “When do we leave?”

“I can’t believe you’re actually doing this,” Annika said to me a few minutes later after we walked away from Danny. I had exchanged phone numbers with him and walked away in a huff, Annika close behind me.

“Yeah, well… unfortunately what he said about me not being a bitch… he’s right. I don’t want to leave him hanging, and more importantly, I don’t want to force Tristan to go public with our relationship when he isn’t ready and I could’ve easily stopped it from happening.”

“Okay, so let’s talk about something even more important… why didn’t you tell me about him?” I sighed.

“I don’t know… we had a really rough breakup, and once I moved out here, I just wanted to forget about him.” I paused for a moment. “And I have to admit, part of why I said I’d do it… I’m really curious.”

“Curious?”

“About what happened with him and his family. When I was dating him, he was really close with his family, especially his brother Tony, the one who’s getting married… they were such sweet people, and not to sound egotistical, but they all loved me… I really wanna know what happened between them to make them not talk for three years.”

“So what happened between the two of you?”

“Long story short… I started acting, he became really overprotective and jealous, we broke up, and I left for LA.”

“How long did you guys date for?”

“A year and a half or so.”

“Wow… isn’t that the longest relationship you’ve ever had?”

“Unfortunately. But not for long, because Tristan is a billion times better than him.”

“Speaking of Tristan… what are you going to tell him?” I bit my lip.

“Um… I don’t think I’m going to.” Annika stopped walking and looked at me.

“What?”

“Well I think I’ll just tell him that I’m flying out to New York for an old friend’s wedding, and just kinda… leave out the Danny part of it.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No… but Tristan is going to be starting a new movie and he always gets really stressed out when he starts a new project… and I just don’t want to give him something else to be stressed out about. There’s no reason to tell him… so please don’t, okay?” Annika sighed.

“If you really think that’s the right thing to do… then okay.”

“Thank you. And it is the right thing to do, don’t worry.”

“Hey baby, what’s up?” Tristan answered his phone when I called him later that night.

“Not much… how about you? How did the interviews go?”

“They were okay… no one brought up the Kirsten Dunst thing, which was a surprising but pleasant turn of events.”

“Well good. I’d hate to have to take that bitch out,” I joked. He laughed.

“I don’t know, I might enjoy seeing that.” I laughed. “What about you? How was your day?”

“It was good. I convinced Annika to go shopping with me.”

“Ahh, your favorite activity.” I smiled.

“You know it.” I paused. “Oh, and I got a call from my mom today.”

Here go the lies.

“Oh yeah? What’d she say?”

“Well it turns out that one of my cousins is getting married next week, and she forgot to tell me. I mean, luckily I’m still gonna be free next week since I don’t start working again til next month, but… yeah. So anyways, I’m going to be flying to New York.”

“Sounds like fun. I’m sorry I can’t go with you.” I sighed. If only you knew.

“Don’t be, it’s not even close to being your fault.”

“Well, when is the wedding? Maybe I can manage to get that day off to fly down and spend with you and meet your family.” My heart started pounding.

“No!” I said without thinking. “I mean… no, I don’t want you to get on your director’s bad side. Besides, I don’t want you to meet my parents for the first time at this wedding – it’ll put all sorts of ideas into their heads about me and you.”

“Ahh… yeah, we wouldn’t want that to happen.” I bit my lip, feeling the guilt eating at the pit of my stomach. I knew that this was the best thing to do… but I couldn’t help it. I hated lying. “Well I’m sure you’ll have fun. You love weddings, right?”

“Oh yeah… love them.”