No Strings Attached (46 page)

It was uninhabitable, so Jared, Lindsay, Nick, Eliot, and Sara had to relocate. In an only-in-Hollywood scenario, the scared, wounded, and terrified earthquake victims, who'd lost all the possessions left in the share house, vaulted from the depths of near tragedy to the heights of unimaginable luxury.
They moved into the Larson mansion on Stone Canyon Road in Bel Air, guests of Rusty Larson.

Naomi, having taken a concussive blow to the head and suffering other internal injuries, remained, in the week following the quake, a guest at Cedars-Sinai hospital.

“She's going to be fine,” the doctors assured Sara. “We'll release her as soon as her test results come back and we're comfortable that she's fully on the mend. Are there any family members we should contact?”

Sara had looked to Naomi, asleep in her hospital bed. There were many ways to define a family, Sara thought. “We're her next of kin.”

As the biological parent closest to the calamity, as well as the one with the deepest pockets, Jared's dad Rusty played father-knows-best for all of them.

He called each and every family, Lindsay's folks in Iowa, Sara's in Texas, Nick's and Eliot's folks in Michigan, offered to fly them west if they wanted, but pretty much convinced everyone that the kids were fine, and welcome to live in his house for as long as they liked.

Rusty Larson paid for all the hospital bills accrued by Naomi and by Lindsay, who'd escaped miraculously unscathed for someone who'd fallen down the rabbit hole, as she called it. Except for cuts and bruises, lacerations and abrasions, she was “good to go.”

He reached his brother Rob, filming a movie half a world away, and assured him the damage was containable, and that he'd pay for the house rehab. “There's no need to interrupt shooting the movie to come home, we've got you covered,” he told his younger brother, also mentioning that Jared would explain “everything” to Uncle Rob when he got home.

That was his m.o., thought Jared ruefully. Dad would go all TCB—take care of business—then the real earthquake of his father's freak-out would come. Jared wasn't sure when his dad would kill him, just that he would.

Thirty-six hours after the quake, Jared, Lindsay, Sara, Nick, and Eliot had been treated to cleansing showers, the sauna, the steam room, and the best night's sleep they'd had all summer. They'd been served a full, delicious breakfast of French toast, pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, and steaming-hot, buttery rolls.

For dessert, they repaired to the great room, where they dined on heaping helpings of guilt, shame, and finger-pointing.

Eliot, whose already fragile ego had taken the worst beating, laced into Nick, blaming him for taking advantage of Sara, for betraying him, rupturing their bond of trust, and ending their lifelong friendship.

Nick swallowed it all—and asked for seconds. Eliot was right, he agreed, had been right, about everything. El had
confided in Nick, and Nick had been a shit, turned around and screwed him. He didn't deserve Eliot's friendship, or Sara's.

“I don't know what happened in the bedroom,” Jared said, “but we should remember, Nick kept his cool throughout the whole ordeal. If not for him—”

Eliot turned all colors. “Why don't you just come out and say what everyone's thinking? I choked in the clutch. I nagged everyone to be prepared, but when it actually happened? I was helpless. I cried like a baby.”

“That's bull! If not for your planning, all that stuff you bought, we might not have survived. It doesn't matter what you did or didn't do after that,” Nick declared.

Lindsay added, “If we're looking for heroes, Naomi gets the gold—”

Sara burst out wailing, “It's all my fault! All of it!”

“How you figure?” Lindsay was truly puzzled.

Sara moaned, “God punished me. I broke my purity pledge, and He punished me.”

Eliot's jaw dropped. “You think the earthquake was because of you? Do you have any idea how epically self-centered you sound?”

“Yeah, you finally sound like me,” Lindsay quipped.

At which Sara started to weep piteously.

And Lindsay broke out in giggles.

Nick and Eliot told Lindsay to zip it. There was nothing funny about it.

Jared told them all to can it. “The earthquake wasn't anyone's fault; it's how we handled it. And in the competition for worst person on the scene, it's all me: I own that category.”

Nick countered, “It's not a freakin' competition. No one knows how they're gonna react in a crisis. It's just live and learn, man. And thank God, or whoever you believe in, we all came through it okay.”

“Anyway,” Jared repeated, “we owe Eliot big-time. We were asses, man, to treat you the way we did. If you hadn't gotten all that stuff, the flashlights, the helmets, we'd have been royally screwed.”

“I'm sorry I made fun of you,” Lindsay put in, somewhat convincingly. “You were right all along, about everything. And if Sara hadn't brought that homeless girl here—I mean, Naomi—I'd be a goner. And the world would forever be denied my awesome talent.” She looked around, but no one was smiling. “Oh, come on! A little levity. We are all okay.”

Sara, still sniffling, said, “You're amazing, Eliot. I'm so sorry if we—no, if I—hurt you. You're the last person who deserves to be hurt.”

“Oh, yeah, I'm such a great guy,” Eliot snarled. “I'm smart, proactive, I'm”—he shot daggers at Nick—“a shoulder to lean on. I'm loyal.”

“I am so sorry, man. There's no excuse—not the beers, not the party, not nothing.” Nick put his head in his hands.

“Unless,” Eliot said in a low growl, “you were trying to prove something to yourself.”

“Prove what?” Lindsay asked.

Nick's jaw dropped, and he started up off the couch, ready to whale on Eliot. But he stopped in his tracks. Sat back down. “If that were true, it'd be Sara I owe the apology to.”

“What are you talking—?” Lindsay started to ask, when Jared shushed her.

But Lindsay was still working out the tension between Nick and Eliot. Then a lightbulb went off. “Eliot thinks you made it with Sara just to prove you're not gay? Oh, come on, that's ridiculous!”

Nick flushed bright red.

“Nick, honey, if you were gay, you'd know it. You'd have known it long before you got to L.A.”

Lindsay started to say more, but Jared jumped in. “It's not our business. Eliot saved our butts—between him, Nick, Sara, and Naomi, they're the reason we made it.”

Eliot challenged the girls. “If I'm such a great guy, how come I'm not good enough for either of you?”

The color drained from both girls' faces. Awkward silence ensued.

Then Lindsay cleared her throat. “I'm just so focused on
my career, I haven't been looking for …” She trailed off, then closed her eyes, as if in pain. “I've been in love with one guy for a real long time. Even if I haven't always shown it.”

Jared drew her closer to him, and she tucked into his chest.

Wistfully, Sara said, “I wish I knew what to say, but I don't, Eliot. I came to Hollywood this summer so sure of myself, my goal, everything. Right now, there's not one single thing I'm sure about. Least of all the shameful way I acted, toward you, toward Nick, toward myself. I'm so confused.”

Lindsay piped up, “I hate to interrupt this confessional moment, but I say we get up off our guilty butts and go to the hospital to check on your stray.”

It's the
way
she says things, Jared thought; that's why he couldn't help loving her. Lindsay owed her life to that stray—no one was more grateful than she. Lindsay would waste little time in proving it to Naomi.

The Larson family ride, a stretch Navigator, joined the long line of limos pulling up to the valet at Cedars Sinai, the hospital to the stars. To Sara, the scene was surreal. As were many occurrences of the past forty-eight hours. Focusing on Naomi was one way of not having to ask herself the hard questions. Questions that weren't going away. They'd be waiting for her, wherever she went. There was no hurry.

Naomi looked even scrawnier in the private suite Rusty Larson had procured for her. The waif with the huge violet eyes, dark eyelashes, and choppy black hair was watching the flat-screen TV poised above her bed.

“Nice digs,” Jared quipped. “This is the floor of the hospital all the stars stay on when they're having babies, recovering from illness, plastic surgery—or just hiding from the paparazzi.”

“There are smaller rooms on either side of this suite for your entourage. Not to mention your security patrol,” Lindsay added.

No one laughed, but Naomi offered a weak smile.

Sara perched on the side of the bed, took Naomi's small hand. “How are you feeling, darlin'?”

“I'm okay, really. I don't know why they're keeping me here.”

“But they're treating you well?” Jared asked.

“Like a star,” Naomi conceded.

“What are they saying is wrong with you, exactly?” Lindsay asked. “I know you had a concussion, but there's no, like, brain damage or anything?”

“I'll never be able to figure skate again,” Naomi said sadly.

Lindsay blanched.

Naomi pointed at her. “Snap! That's an old joke, Lindsay. Like I ever skated! C'mon, I'm the homeless stray, remember?”

Lindsay flushed. “A near-death experience renders me gullible.”

Jared slipped his arm around Lindsay's waist and drew closer to Naomi's bedside. “There's something we all have to say—no joke. You saved my uncle's house, you saved our lives: specifically, Lindsay's. For that, well, we have a lot to apologize for and a lot to thank you for. Whatever you need, whatever you want—we're in your debt, Naomi. Forever.”

“Forget it. I did what anyone would have.” Naomi's eyes watered, but she didn't cry.

“No way,” Nick contradicted. “You did—”

Eliot startled everyone by interrupting. “You did what someone who's been through an earthquake before would have done. Someone who had lived through it, and learned what to do.” He paused. “That's what I always suspected.”

“Eliot! It's like you're accusing her,” Sara said, aghast.

“I meant, someone with real-life experience, who had the strength not to panic or choke,” Eliot finished.

Lindsay's eyes widened. “Is that true, Naomi? Were you in that bad earthquake back then … but wait, how old were you then?”

Sara grew more alarmed. “Stop it, you're harassing her.”

“No, we're not, we're thanking her,” Jared said. “But it would make sense if what Eliot's saying is true.”

“It doesn't matter!” Sara scolded them as she squeezed
Naomi's hand, “You're still pushing her, and that's not exactly a way to show gratitude.”

“Time out!” Naomi coughed, raising her hand to stop them. “You're all acting like I'm not in the room. Like I'm invisible.”

Chided, Sara said, “I'm sorry, we're—”

“Forget it.” Naomi pointed to a button on the side of the bed. “Can you hit that, Jared? It raises the bed. I want to sit up straighter.”

Would Naomi reveal herself finally, Sara wondered? There was so much she'd been wanting to ask the girl; she just didn't know how. She'd been the staunchest defender of Naomi's right to privacy, and would continue. But, of course, she wanted to know why Naomi had ended up on the streets. During the course of their nearly two months living under the same roof, the girl had said barely a word about herself.

The earthquake changed things.

The homeless girl turned out to be a hero. She'd rescued not only Lindsay and the dog but also the house itself. The questions piled up, high as the mountain of debris into which she'd selflessly tunneled to free Lindsay.

Eliot poured Naomi a glass of designer bottled water, which she gulped gratefully.

“I know you've all been wondering about me,” she said calmly. “And I guess I owe you some answers.”

“You owe us nothing.” Sara couldn't help herself. “We owe you our lives.”

Naomi waved her away. “It's okay, Sara, really. Thanks to you, I'm … I'm okay. You took me in—fought for me, never asked for one thing in return. You're a good person, and your parents are proud, I know it. Your God, too.”

Sara began to sob quietly, but Naomi took her hand. “I did end up with a concussion, and some internal bleeding. But they've got that all under control; I'll be fine. Anyway, this is nothing compared to what happened the last time. …”

She drew a deep breath, then locked her eyes on Eliot. “You're right. I was nine years old in nineteen ninety-four, and we were staying at an apartment in Northridge.”

Jared gasped. “No shit? Really?”

Naomi continued. “The apartment complex that got hit with the worst of it. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Your family?” Lindsay asked.

“My parents were among the fifty-five people who died,” she said softly. “My sister and I survived.”

“You have a sister? We'll call her!” Sara exclaimed.

Naomi shook her head. “Annie. I don't know where she is.”

“You haven't been homeless since you were a kid, though?” Lindsay ventured.

“After the earthquake, Annie and I were taken in by a
neighbor. We didn't stay very long. We went into foster care, a bunch of different homes, but that didn't work out either. One thing led to another, and I ended up, you know, making do. Surviving.”

“In shelters? Or just … the street?” Sara asked cautiously.

“Both. I usually felt safer on the street. There's a kind of community out there. But the day you asked if I needed help, that was a bad day. Things had gotten dicey and I was really scared. The last two months have been the best I've had it since the quake, the safest I've felt since that time.” She laughed, and clutched her stomach. “Guess I'm living quake to quake.”