Dinner passed without incident, though it was a little awkward. I guess its hard sitting with someone like Ray when you’ve just gone from admiring her to hating her to feeling sorry for her, all in the space of a morning. And I’m not great at starting conversation. Neither was she, it seemed. I guess that came from not having many- if any- friends. It was polite, but strained. There was still a barrier between us, but it was different now. We were treading carefully, trying not to agitate the other. It was tiring, and I wasn’t used to it.

 Ray called her chauffeur to come and pick us up. We’d both drunk too much to drive. I didn’t comment on her having a chauffeur. I didn’t want to offend her again. Besides. He was a better driver than Ray.

 We retried the interview back on the veranda. Ray wasn’t being rude to me anymore, but she kept up the sarcasm and slagged off any celebrity who was easy to nit-pick at. I wrote it all down. It made for good celebrity gossip. And I reminded myself it wasn’t my business what sort of a person Ray wanted to present herself as. I’m just the writer that interprets her.

 More champagne was drunk, and I could feel my head getting fuzzy, though it wasn’t even three o’clock. But it made conversation with Ray easier. Smoother. So I kept drinking, and so did she, up until it was time to tour the house. Ray was giggling now, and as we stepped through the sliding doors, she kicked off her silver shoes.

 “I don’t let many people in this house,” Ray said, whispering like it was a secret. Her smile had returned and she giggled again “But you’re fun, and I like you. Maybe we can pretend we’re friends for a while.”

 I wasn’t drunk enough to ignore the comment. It made me feel sad. I didn’t have an abundance of friends either. Just Emma and Ed, really, and Jamie (do boyfriends even count?) But Emma and Ed were good friends. Really good. And two friends are better than none. But I couldn’t say anything to Ray. I was saved from saying anything when I tripped over Ray’s shoes and Ray grabbed my arm to steady me, setting off another peal of hyper giggles in the pair of us.

 I always liked the part of looking around the celebrity’s houses. I’m the sort of person that watches house makeover shows when I’m bored, and I always lusted after Emma’s kitchen whenever I went to her house. But I’d never been much of a designer myself, and money was a bit tight, so Jamie and I kept the house pretty plain.

 Ray Summers had the house of my dreams.

 She had a beautiful living room on the ground floor, with sky blue and gold wallpaper, a proper fireplace and plush red loveseats. The kitchen was open and airy, with green walls and white furniture. There was a table big enough for two. In somebody else’s house, I might have thought it was for a romantic breakfast venue, overlooking the garden. But in Ray’s house, I suspected it was just because she didn’t get much company. She didn’t have a dining room.

 At the front of the house, there was a spacious room that was nearly empty, aside from a bird cage, a bean bag and…a parrot.

 “Freya, meet Barnaby,” Ray said, clucking the bird under its chin as he landed on her arm. It was the most affection she’d shown all day. The bird appeared to be smiling, and it cocked it’s scarlet head at me as though saying hello.

 “Hiya, Barnaby,” I said, reaching to stroke his head. He nipped my finger and Ray laughed.

 “Don’t take it personally,” she said “Like mother like son. Isn’t that right, Barnaby?”

 The bird let out a little squawk and then took to flying around the room, which on closer inspection, I realised had wooden pegs protruding from the walls for Barnaby to perch on. I smiled. I hadn’t quite expected that when I turned up at Ray’s house.

 Then it was time to head upstairs. The stairs were located at the front of the house by the front entrance. The walls were white and the stairs and flooring were a simple oak wood. On the wall going up the stairs, there were four black and white photographs. One of Vivien Leigh. Another of Marilyn Monroe. Audrey Hepburn. And finally, Grace Kelly.

 “Idols of yours?” I asked Ray.

 “Duh,” she replied.

 “Can you tell me why? Three reasons?” I asked. I wanted to write about it in the magazine. Ray stopped on the stairs and turned to face me. She counted the reasons off on her fingers.

 “Talented. Beautiful. Rich,” she said.

 I didn’t write it down. I wasn’t about to forget those words in a hurry.

 At the top of the stairs, there was a balcony straight ahead, and a door on each wall leading to the bedroom and the office respectively. Ray turned and smiled at me. It wasn’t quite the smile I remembered, but it still made me want to smile back.

 “Do you like reading?” she asked.

 “Duh,” I replied. She grabbed my wrist. Her grip was a little too hard, and her nails dug into my skin, but I had a feeling she was about to show me something amazing.

 “Follow me,” she said. As though I had a choice, with her hand around my wrist like that. She pulled me to the door on the left and opened the door.

 And there, before my eyes, was the most incredible home library I’d ever seen. I stood, gazing around the room in awe, unable to speak. The room was wood panelled, and the entire perimeter was covered in bookshelves. There was a couch with colourful cushions for reading, and Ray’s writing desk stood opposite just off the centre of the room. Ray let my wrist go and my feet began to move before I could stop them, my eyes scanning the shelves. Each one was a tiny bit taller than me, and had a copper plaque at the top of it which sorted the books into categories. There were five shelves dedicated to romance, which surprised me a little. I bet Rachel Sumner is a sucker for romance, though I mused. There were a few shelves of classics. Science Fiction. A shelf devoted to dystopian novels. I found myself running my fingers along the spines of the books. Some of which I’d read, others I’d never heard of. I came to a shelf that said Psychology. I found that Ray had been following me around the room and she was stood at my shoulder, her hands behind her back.

 “I like to study. When I have time,” Ray said “The human mind is interesting.”

 “It certainly is,” I murmured, looking Ray up and down and wondering if anybody in the world truly knew the real her. I wondered if Ray even knew herself.

 The next shelf was history books. The shelf next to that, the final one I hadn’t looked at held an array of notebooks, all of them fat and seemingly stuffed full of notes. I knelt down at the shelf to get a better look.

 “I like to collage,” Ray blurted “And I keep a diary. And lyric books…”

 “That’d explain all these,” I said, pointing at all of the notebooks, stacked high on the shelves. I reached to touch them, but Ray flinched and I moved my hand away, forgetting they must be private.

 “Pick a favourite,” I said to her “Which one do you like the best?”

 Ray hesitated before kneeling beside me “It’s hard to pick just one,” she said quietly. I wasn’t used to her quiet voice. I was used to a voice that filled a room. It made my ears feel odd.

 “Pick something beautiful. Something nostalgic. Something that makes you think of your life, and good things.”

 “Good things?” Ray said it like it was foreign to her ears. Her eyes scanned the shelf, looking a little lost. She pulled a leather bound book from out of the pile, looked at it a moment, and then shoved it back on the shelf with a shake of her head.

 “No,” she said, her lip curling into a smile “I need something that won’t embarrass me.”

 I smiled and watched her continue searching the shelf. Then, decisively, she chose a large square book with a light blue cover. On it were hand drawn flowers in black ink, vines crawling all over the cover and up the spine of the book. She picked it up and ushered me to the couch. I followed her as she tucked her feet up beneath her. When I sat, she placed the book carefully on my lap. She had one arm around the back of the couch, leaning over my shoulder to look. I wiped my hands on my trousers for fear of making it dirty, and opened the book cautiously. On the first page, a beautiful family tree had been drawn, clearly by the same hand that decorated the cover. There was an actual tree drawn around the carefully sketched family members, with elegant branches leading from each member to another.

 “My Dad draws,” Ray said “We made this together when I was sixteen.”

 The tree stretched back a few generations. Ray was alone at the bottom, with no siblings, children or a spouse. Rather than a photo of her, above her full name, Rachel Cassandra Sumner, a small picture of her had been drawn. She was smiling in the drawing, and her freckles were on show. The drawing was in black and white, but her hair was long and shaded darkly. Ray shifted on her seat.

 “I sometimes forget I looked like that,” she said. I thought I detected sadness in her voice, but it was probably my imagination.

 Above Ray, her parents were drawn. Then her grandparents on either side of the family, and all their mothers and fathers. Her mother looked most like her. She had her dark hair and freckles. Her father had her smile, though.

 I flipped the page and found myself looking at old photographs. The earliest ones were of Ray’s parents in the late seventies. There was one of them smiling under a striped umbrella with glasses of wine. Third date it was captioned.

 “That’s quite an expensive looking third date,” I said.

 “Yeah? Well, the Sumners like to do it in style. Technically, that meal I took you out for was similar to theirs,” Ray said. I grinned, raising an eyebrow. There in that library, Ray was another person again. Someone fun to talk to.

 “Oh yeah? And that was a date, was it?” I joked.

 “If you wanted it to be,” Ray replied playfully. The champagne, I supposed, had brought out this new found personality. Then again, Ray seemed to have so many that perhaps she could just pick and choose. Like trying on clothes in the morning.

 We flipped through a few more pages together. More dates and her parents dressed to the nines. Wedding photos spread over lots of pages. Family parties. And then the baby photos began. Rachel Sumner was a gorgeous baby; the sort with chubby red cheeks and toothless smiles. Her parents were always smiling in the photos too. They looked like a happy family.

 I watched Ray grow up in the pictures. There was a photo of her dad holding her hands, teaching her to walk. One of Ray peeping out from under the Christmas tree amongst piles of presents. Ray’s first day of school. A blurry picture of Ray at a kids karaoke at some sort of holiday camp.

 My favourite, however, was the picture right at the end. It was of Ray and her dad. I think she must have been about fifteen. They were both looking at the camera, laughing. Proper laughing, not just a polite giggle after someone tells an awful joke. Face screwed up, mouth open, face crumpled in a way that can only be caused by pure happiness. They were both clutching paintbrushes, and they were in the garden, canvases propped up to face the flower beds. Ray’s painting was a mess of splodges, but her Dad’s painting was beautiful, just like the other drawings of his I’d seen. But neither of them were admiring the beauty of it in the photograph. They were too busy revelling in the beauty of each other. Ray’s cheeks were covered in red flecks of paint amongst her freckles. There was a caption beneath it. Real art is made of feelings, not of fancy brushstrokes.

  I could feel Ray tensely staring at the photo from over my shoulder.

 “I miss being that young,” she said.

 “You’re not old and grey yet,” I said, trying to lighten her mood. She smiled.

 “No,” she said “Not yet.” She cleared her throat “Do you want to see the bedroom?”

 I nodded, and we put the scrapbook back on the shelf. Ray shut the library’s door behind us, and I found myself hoping we’d go back in there at some point. I was also wondering what mood Ray’s bedroom would bring out of her.

 As it turned out, the bedroom oozed thoughtfulness and sleepiness. Two feelings I always paired together. I’m the sort of person who lies in bed and contemplates every little thing in the universe until I fall asleep. And I knew straight away that Ray was just like me in that respect.

 The room wasn’t that big, really. In fact, the bathroom that led off it was probably bigger. It was also the messiest room in the house, and one of my favourites. It had a cream carpet, and all the floor space was taken by piles of books and an open scrapbook on the floor, with cuttings, glue and scissors in a pink box beside it. The walls were a deep plum colour, similar to Ray’s lipstick. The wall on the right was taken up by a huge sliding mirror, that moved to reveal Ray’s wardrobe. It took me a minute to realise where the bed was. On the wall opposite to the mirror, there was an elevated platform. It was about a half meter taller than me, and required a ladder to reach the top of it. Ray climbed up nimbly, and then ushered me to follow. I couldn’t see what was up there. It was concealed by white drapes. They brushed my head when I reached the top of the ladder and saw Ray’s bed.

 It was one of those beds that is practically at floor level, and was covered in patterned blankets. There was room to stand, but only just. It must have been half where the attic would be, as the ceiling was taller than in the other rooms. Above the bed hung a string of coloured fairy lights and a handful of dream catchers. Ray lay back on her bed for a moment staring up at the ceiling, and then sat up again abruptly.

 “Do you…do you mind if I change?” Ray asked “Into something more comfortable?”

 “Go ahead,” I said, admiring the cosy little room.

 “Make yourself comfortable,” Ray said, sweeping past her and heading back down the ladder. I perched on the end of the bed. There was a copy of Magnify on her bed. It looked pretty well read. I smiled somewhat proudly at the cover image. I got to photograph the celebrities too. Editing and such was done by a proper design team, but I had enough experience as a photographer to take the photos myself, and Gordon thought that since I ended up knowing the celebrities better than anyone else on the team, it made sense for me to take the photographs. I understood their styles, and how to capture them was much easier because of it. But Ray was harder. There was the hard side that I’d seen of her in the morning on the veranda. Then there was the kooky, bizarre side I’d seen in her when she was with Barnaby, acting like the bird was her child. Then there was library Ray. Thoughtful Ray, quiet Ray. How can you portray all that chaos of a person in a photograph?

 And then another new Ray returned; sleepy Ray. She’d actually changed into a pair of pyjamas. Pinstriped pants and a baggy t-shirt with Elmo on the front. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, and I could see the freckles on her nose, but she still wore her red headscarf. I smiled.

 “I feel like I’m at a cool kid’s sleepover,” I said. Ray pretended to look around.

 “I don’t see any cool kids,” she said “Just two girls who have had a pretty unusual day.”

 I smiled as Ray sat down beside me. “Sleepovers were the shit, right?” she said, with a sort of longing sigh “Watching movies, putting on face masks, telling secrets…it’s a shame all of my friends wanted to talk about the boys they liked. They were kind of grossed out by the fact I’m a lesbian. Like, they thought it was contagious, or something.”

 “I’ve heard it’s the new common cold. Watch out, you might catch the gay!” I said, rolling my eyes. Ray chuckled. That’s the only way I can describe it. It wasn’t a giggle, or a laugh. A throaty chuckle.

 “You have a partner?” she asked me. I liked the way she said partner. Not boyfriend, or even girlfriend. I liked the openness of the question. I liked that she hadn’t made an assumption about my sexuality.

 “A boyfriend,” I said “Jamie.”

 “Why don’t you stay over, and we can gossip about him all night long,” Ray said, smiling. I laughed, until I realised she was being serious.

 “You want me to stay over?” I said, smiling in confusion. Ray smiled shyly.

 “Yeah, I…look, you’ve been really good to me today. You gave me a second chance. Not many people do that. And I like you. You seem like someone I wouldn’t mind spending this week with. And if we’re going to do it, we might as well do it well,” Ray said. I wasn’t sure what to say. It seemed a little odd, sleeping over with someone I barely knew. Someone I was working with. But then I saw the lost look on her face. Her face wasn’t the way it once was. It wasn’t like it was on the photograph with her dad. She looked lonely. Who was I to deny her company?

 “Well,” I said “What are you waiting for? Let’s go find some facemasks!”