Lunching in LA

[dead_hooker_2]

Sometimes a girl wants to see and be seen when she goes out in LA, and sometimes she really doesn't. If you're Trina Echolls, the former is usually the case and the latter is hard to pull off these days, after the thing with Nicole and Logan's . . . whatever that was on Larry King last night.

But she manages, at times like this, because Carl is the creme de la creme of maitre'ds. Which is why she's waiting for her little brother in a table tucked neatly in back of a restaurant (that can't be seen from the door or any of the windows), with iced tea, breaking a breadstick into pieces.

Comments

[dead_hooker_2]

"Well, I haven't shot anyone this week, but it's only Thursday, so I've still got time," she says, because sarcasm is a safer place to start than a lot of other options. "You?"

[obligatoryass]

"Yeah, I hear its best to shoot people on the weekends. The press picks up on it faster," he says. "Me? I just discussed a load of the Echolls family's dirty laundry on national TV. I'm turning into a Don Henley song. Isn't it great?"

[dead_hooker_2]

"Hey, keep it up long enough and we may yet get that endorsement deal from Clorox.

"You want anything to drink?"

[obligatoryass]

"Which, given the way my trust fund is emptying out, might be the best solution ever," Logan says. "Yeah, scotch on the rocks with a twist."

The waiter looks at him slightly askance, but apparently this restaurant is somewhat used to underage movie star progeny, because no ID is actually required.

[dead_hooker_2]

"You can bring my brother a coke," Trina says, to the still hovering waiter. Which may explain why the ID has not been requested. She's drinking iced tea herself.

"Sorry. You'll just have to talk to me sober today."

[obligatoryass]

Logan wrinkles his nose, but doesn't complain. "Anything new with you?" he asks.

Oh, this is going to be a great conversation.

[dead_hooker_2]

"Apparently I have another younger brother I never knew about. Anything new with you?"

[obligatoryass]

"I'm still reeling from that one," he says. "Especially because I found out today that he had nothing to do with that fucking reporter."

There's a little venom in the last part, and more than a little regret in the first.

[dead_hooker_2]

"Yeah. Next time we should probably talk before you go on national television, if you can fit me in."

[obligatoryass]

Logan hangs his head.

"I was pissed," he says."I - I didn't think. I didn't call Charlie, or you, or even Veronica, just called Larry's guys and...yeah. Not too bright, huh?"

[dead_hooker_2]

There's a shrug.

"Not really," she says. "But, hey, nothing new there."

It was an odd thing, learning that you have a sibling from CNN. But Trina long ago stopped expecting anything about her family to be anything other than odd.

[obligatoryass]

"No," he says, sighing. "Somehow, thinking about other people is not my strong point. I'm sorry.'

[dead_hooker_2]

"It's all right," she says.

"What happened with the reporter?"

[obligatoryass]

"He pretended to be Charlie," he says. "He got me to trust him, to talk to him about..stuff...and...yeah. We went surfing, for god's sake."

It's a little more complicated than that, but not much.

"Also, I punched him. On general principles, mostly."

[dead_hooker_2]

Trina just nods. "They're vultures, all of them."

Because there's no way she's going to say any of the other things she's thinking right now.

[obligatoryass]

"Yeah," he says. "And in order to not be the cover line on Vanity Fair next month, I went public and have pretty much screwed over the real Charlie Stone. Because I'm just a great guy like that."

[dead_hooker_2]

Trina spins her glass on the table top for a moment.

"What had you told him?"

[obligatoryass]

"About the pears," Logan says, a little reluctantly. "The best Christmas ever!"

[dead_hooker_2]

The glass-spinning stops.

She'd been 17 that Christmas. And she hadn't gone home for Christmas morning again until she was 23.

"We've never talked about that," she says, as neutrally as she can manage.

[obligatoryass]

"There's not - " Logan breaks off, fiddles with the straw in his coke glass, then continues. "There's not much to say."

His voice is flat, emotionless, and he might actually believe what he just said.

[dead_hooker_2]

"Guess not," she says.

"The marinara sauce here is really good."

[obligatoryass]

"Yeah?" Logan says, looking up. "I'm not sure I'm feeling pasta, though. Maybe the chicken marsala."

Pause.

"Did you ever...miss us after you left?"

He barely saw her, after that. And he missed her. For all sorts of reasons.

[dead_hooker_2]

"It's not like I went very far," she says. It's a defense, rather than an answer, and she knows it.

"I never missed Lynn. I still don't. I worried about you. And then I felt guilty, so I just thought about all of you as little as possible."

[obligatoryass]

Logan nodded. "I used to think sometimes..."

He stops, shakes his head. "God, it sounds stupid now. Now that they're both dead. But that maybe they'd die, on an airplane, coming back from a shoot or something, and that you'd -"

Logan just stops there. It's too much to finish that sentence, it's too hard and it's too stupid, because it's a stupid dream that never would have worked out.

[dead_hooker_2]

"That I'd be something other than complete shit at the older sister thing?"

[obligatoryass]

"That you'd come back," he says. "I mean, I know it's stupid. You were only my age, and there's no way I'd do that kind of shit, if I had a younger sibling."

[dead_hooker_2]

"You'd have been in foster care so fast it would have made your head spin, assuming Dad and Lynn hadn't made alternate arragements.

"I know I'm not a good sister, Logan. You've made your point."

[obligatoryass]

Logan finally looks up from his straw. "That wasn't what I was saying," he says. "I mean, no, you weren't, but I just...fuck."

There aren't words for this, really. She was a pretty bad older sibling, yeah, but she did the best she could.

"I just was talking to this fake Charlie, and he didn't want to be us, our family, a part of that. But he didn't know about the other stuff, and so he didn't even know how much he didn't want to be a part of our family. And I told him, and he was fake, and the other Charlie, the real one...he'll never want anything to do with me. Us. Anyone named Echolls."

He's out of words, now, the rush dried up. He passes a hand across his face, resting his forefinger on the bridge of his nose.

[dead_hooker_2]

"If you'd had a choice, would you have picked us?"

[obligatoryass]

"No," Logan says, and it's achingly hard thing to say that short, hard word.

"Not the parents, especially, not Lynn and Aaron. Not the Kanes, either. About the only person who I ever envied for her parents was Veronica. How fucked up is that?"

[dead_hooker_2]

"Less fucked up than a lot of other things about you," she says. Then amends, "About us."

[obligatoryass]

Logan smiles a little, a small, knowing sort of smile that's amused but also a little rueful. "Yeah," he says. "That's a good point."

[dead_hooker_2]

"Or a bad one," she says.

"I guess, when you get right down to it, it's kind of a miracle we're here talking to each other."

[obligatoryass]

"Very true," Logan says. "This relationship should have self-destructed years ago."

There's a very long pause, and he finally says, very quietly, "I'm glad it didn't."

[dead_hooker_2]

"Yeah," she says. "You're kind of the only decent relative I have. That I've known for more than a year.

"Well, you're the only relative I have at all that I've known for more than a year. But I'm glad you're the one I have left."

[obligatoryass]

LOgan's smile is now larger, growing slowly. It's also sincere and very, very sweet.

"Thanks," he says. "Technically, we've got one other relative left out there, but I'm not sure he's going to do us much good."

[dead_hooker_2]

"Screw him," says Trina. "He'd be lucky to have us, and it's totally his loss."

This more or less flatly contradicts some other things she's said. But flat contradictions have never really bothered Trina.

[obligatoryass]

Logan just laughs. She's wrong, he's pretty sure of it. He's pretty sure that last night he made Charlie Stone's nice, ordinary life into something like a living hell, but at this time and this place, it doesn't seem to matter. "Cheers to that," he says, raising his soda.

[dead_hooker_2]

Aaron Echolls did not father (or adopt) children who get to have nice, ordinary lives. And if Charlie Stone wanted one, taking the money was stupid.

"Always," she says.