The volunteer, who had been chaperoning our little conversation a few respectful paces away, shuffled forward a little bit and said, “Pitbulls get such a bad rap. They can be bred to be vicious but with good people they are loyal as can be.”

“How old is he?”

“This is a she. Her name is Penny and she’s still young, only about a year old.”

I pet her a little more, as much as I could through the bars, then withdrew. “Miss Jake?”

“Mm?” We were walking again. Penny gave a burble of disappointment as we moved past her cage.

“I need help with real estate. I’m thinking of buying a place in the Hills.”

“Big?”

“Not too big. I mean, Rose is about to own a house with six times the number of bedrooms she’d need. This is bigger than I really need, though.”

“You can get some dogs.”

“Yes, but, uh. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that kind of commitment.”

“If you already know it’s too big for you, why bother?” She stopped at another cage and petted an inky-black mix of indistinguishable origin.

“I might grow into it . . . Have a family . . .”

“My dear.” She straightened up. “We’re not the normal. I could give you sound financial advice such as Buy only what you can afford. Buy only the space you need. But I’m not going to. You like this house. You want this house?”

“Well, it’s beautiful on the inside, great light, a nice yard—not too ornate of a yard—actually, Yumi passed on it because she didn’t like the yard—”

“I’ve seen you on cola cans.” She kept petting the mix while looking at me. A pink tongue slithered out and lapped at Emma’s wrist, which she did not seem to notice. “Your commercials. Your name on everything. On the Billboard Number One for over two months.”

I waited, wondering what she was getting at.

“I’ve seen your world tour schedule. I know how much merchandise you’ll be selling. How many albums you’ve roughly sold since last July? Honey. Buy whatever you want.” She used her other hand to pat me on the shoulder. “I could tell, during Sing It, that you were a girl with a pretty good head on her shoulders. Self-critical, yes. Maybe too harsh on herself. But reasonable. Listen, Cassidy.” She grew serious. “No matter what you hear, fame and power usually don’t change a person. It amplifies who they are already. Some people grow more sinister with money. Some people grow greedier. And some people do good things. So, if you want this house, which sounds like a completely sensible purchase, buy it.” Speech over, she turned her head to the volunteer, who acted as though she hadn’t heard this sage advice. “Could I take a walk with this one, please?”

So Emma Jake left the shelter with the black dog, and as my driver took me to Alex’s dorm, I firmed up my resolve to put an offer on the Hollywood Hills house.

Joseph, his roommate, was out, which made the cozy cuddle on Alex’s narrow twin bed even more intimate. I lay flat on my back, sans pants, hair tousled over his pillow. Alex was in pajama pants and his head was nestled into the fleshy area between my breast and armpit. “So you’re buying a house,” he said while tiptoeing his fingers down the slope of my stomach. I reached down and pulled the covers up to my navel.

“I think so. Wild, right?”

“You’re going to live all alone?” He sounded worried.

“In a big house. With tall walls and a locking gate and the best surveillance video that money can buy.”

“Maybe you should get your own bodyguard,” he said softly, still speaking into my shirt. Silently we both remembered the man reaching out to grab me after our performance on The Sunrise Show. And Jerry, leaving that letter for me in the apartment . . .

“Oh!” I said with a start. “I have something for you.” I reached for my purse and pulled out his small mint-tin-size camera. “I’m returning this, finally. Merry left it when she moved out.” He made a motion to take it, but I stretched it out of reach. “Under one condition.”

“What’s that?” he said teasingly.

“Don’t give the photos willy-nilly to my parents—or even your parents. There might be sensitive information on here.” I plucked a second roll of film out of the bag as well. “Merry was kind enough to reload for you, but who knows how much of this is her and Grant doing X-rated things.”

His eyes shone in the dark room. “You’re kidding.”

“What, that excites you?” I giggled. “Promise me you’ll double-check with me before you share them.”

“Duh.”

“I’m serious.” I felt the laughter ebb away. The familiar chill of anxiety was now stirring in my stomach. “My life feels like such a commodity already. I don’t want everything of mine being sold off. Or Merry’s life, for that matter.”

“Your secrets are always safe with me,” he said, voice low. I looked at him for a long moment, the bulb on the tip of his nose, the mole on his right cheek, and memorized this feeling of trust.

“And Merry’s,” I said.

“And Merry’s,” he repeated, just as earnest.

“Okay.” I gave him the camera and film, which he clenched in one of his big hands. He put his head back down on my chest and we breathed together.

20.

January 2002

L.A.

Cassidy

The third bedroom was bare, stripped and scattered with forgotten hair elastics and an extra pallet of Cherry Cola. A slice of sunlight, freed from the vertical blinds along the back patio door, glowed yellow on beige carpet. The living-room ceiling fan swung around lazily, shifting the handles of a plastic grocery bag lying on the floor. Rose and I existed together in the apartment like ghosts, rarely there at the same time, but little by little, our belongings disappeared from their places and moved to our new homes.

In a rare moment between recording and training, we were in the apartment at the same time, packing up the last of our belongings. I heard her ripping a roll of packing tape down to the cardboard base and cursing. A moment later, she was framed in my bedroom’s doorway, wearing the worn-down tube as a bracelet. “Do you have any more tape?”

She’d been friendlier ever since our visit to see Viv; sometimes, like now, her voice softened and sounded conversational.

I held mine out and our fingers brushed as she took it from me. Her eyes flicked down to my mouth, before she quickly said, “It’s weird. Us leaving.”

A beat. “We’ll be neighbors,” I said helpfully. My four-bedroom house with Spanish clay tile was only a few miles from Rose’s all-glass-and-concrete dwelling above the Strip.

“I know,” she said. “It won’t be the same.” She seemed to want to say more, but shook her head and padded back to her side of the apartment. I watched her go. I’d miss her barking orders at me early in the morning, I’d miss her indignant sighs when we rode in the SUV together. I would just . . . miss living with her, as strange as that seemed. The realization streaked across my mind, unbidden, surprising me.

Eager to be out of the apartment and away from my confusing thoughts, I crammed the last of my clothes into a laundry hamper and left the last few wire hangers in the closet. I called Lucy. “What if I told you I could make you laugh and cry at the same time?”