Read Online The Year of Living Famously by Laura Caldwell - Free Book Online

but I knew better. The agency had been Emmie’s life.
    Emmie lifted the bottle out of the bucket, spraying water over the table.
    â€œLet me do it.” I took the bottle.
    I expected her to protest, to say that she could do it herself, but instead she let me take it from her.
    â€œYou know what?” I said. “Maybe I won’t go. I don’t need to move.” I was in agony at that moment. I wanted desperately to be with Declan every day, but how could I leave Emmie?
    When she heard my words, she pushed herself up and sat straighter. She threw her shoulders back, as if throwing off her earlier words and thoughts.
    She lifted her glass. “Kyra,” she said, “you’ve got to follow love if you can find it. I won’t have it any other way. Now, from what I recall, Los Angeles is a cesspool, but if you must live there, it might as well be with an Irishman who loves you. I want you to tell him something, though. If he doesn’t take care of you, if he wounds you in any way, I will find ways to grievously injure him. Agreed?”
    It was Emmie’s way. I lifted my glass and touched it to hers.

Part Two

chapter 8
    â€œW e should be landing in about twenty minutes,” the pilot said over the intercom. “That’s about five minutes early.” As if he should get a gold statuette.
    I looked out the tiny oval window. Dirt-brown mountains. Arid stretches of sand interrupted by white ribbons of road. Soon there were grids of tiny houses, little blue squares of swimming pools. My new home.
    Â 
    The first few weeks were sparkly and wonderful. The ocean, viewed from Declan’s strip of balcony, was glittery blue, inviting. We spent the first few days in a sweaty, happy haze, unpacking all that I’d shipped from New York. Most of his “furniture” was tossed, and my eclectic mix of old wood pieces settled into place.
    â€œGod, it’s loads better now that you’re here,” Declan would say as he stopped and surveyed the living room. I kissed him when he said things like that. It seemed I kissed him all the time.
    Once most of my stuff was in, and most of Dec’s in the garbage bin behind his house, the apartment wasn’t bad. It didn’t have the character of my place in New York, but the kitchen was now a sunny place that we’d painted yellow and white, and the living room was a cozy enclave with plump chairs and the low coffee table that had been my parents’. I’d splurged on new linens for the bed, four-hundred-thread-count sheets in a cool Zen green I felt was very L. A.
    We fell into a pattern in those days. The late mornings and early afternoons, we spent at Cow’s End Coffee. First, we would read the papers, stopping every few minutes to read an article out loud to one another.
    Later, we put away the papers and I worked on my designs, while Declan went over his lines for an audition or an acting class. Often, I raised my gaze from my sketch pad and watched him. His eyes narrowed and focused intently on the page; sometimes his lips moved as he read. I wondered, as I watched him, why he wanted to be an actor. He’d told me how he had fallen in love with acting, but I still puzzled over why anyone would want to spend their life pretending to be someone else. Did this represent a chink in his character? Something deficient? And yet I adored his devotion to his work. I loved how much he wanted to learn, to excel.
    Nearly every night those first few weeks, we watched the sunset from the Venice pier, standing next to the Mexican fishermen and the families with strollers, our arms wrapped around each other. In Manhattan, sunset meant that the city turned orange and then navy blue for a few minutes, but here, it lasted forever. The ocean spread out like a vast liquid carpet, and the sun was a mammoth pink globe. Later, we ate somewhere in the neighborhood, laughing with the waiters and the other patrons, anyone who would smile