Chapter 14
Pat
Back in L.A., I had one week to prepare for the indie and relax before heading to the shoot. It was going to be shot outside Vegas in some abandoned old village.
Sitting nestled in my couch by my fireplace, looking out over the canyon, I tried hard not to think. I had been back for three days now and so far I’d managed pretty well. I busied myself with things like restocking my fridge, cleaning my little chalet and throwing myself into the script. As I was the lead, there were a lot of lines to learn and not only that, I had to build my character from scratch using whatever clues the script gave me to create her past leading up to that point and the inner emotional life to go with it. I spent hours doing research and so to speak, creating her memories inside my mind; everything that had shaped her into becoming the woman who now acted the way she did in the film.
The character’s psychological make-up was pretty distressing — she was so-called trailer trash that had grown up abused. In the film, she finally decides to leave an abusive man, having lived with one after the other her whole adult life, and go set up a life for herself. She takes up residency in an abandoned house in a ghost town outside Vegas and starts working as a waitress. For her, it is the first time she feels she has a home and little things like owning a potted plant make her cry from happiness. Slowly she learns her own value, as well as learning to read and write and making friends and, finally, she meets a man.
In the movie, there are ups and downs as the character learns to navigate life on her own — she runs into abusive people who remind her of her past and re-enforce the idea that no one can be trusted. Eventually she learns that there are all sorts of people and also learns to distinguish between them as much as possible. And while no one ever acts exactly as you expect, or wish, the good ones come through in the end.
I sighed and squirmed. While the couch was extremely comfortable and the fire burning gay and encouraging, I couldn’t help but finally own up to the similarities between the character and me. I was not someone who had been abused and I certainly had a privileged enough upbringing — my family was a bit on the hippie side and there wasn’t much money, but we had love and art and fun. All the same, for years I put up with a life I didn’t want to live only so as to hold onto a man. And lately I reacted as badly as the character would, when nice men approached me.
I was so ashamed about my last night in Hawaii that I wanted to call Jeff and apologize, but I also didn’t want to see him. I knew I was damaged goods and needed time to heal. Maybe I’d send him a letter to say sorry and that I’d like to keep the role if he let me, once I was in Vegas where he wouldn’t come knocking on my door. I had already apologized to Peter, who, bless his heart, said it was alright. I wasn’t sure what the rest of the crew thought. I shot a message to some of the ones I was close to, but I didn’t have everyone’s number.
I sighed again. My eyes kept returning to my phone. For some idiotic reason, I kept hoping Jeff would text me even though I didn’t want to see him. I felt so stupid. I really wanted that part and now, if a network picked it up, chances were ripe that I wouldn’t get it, because I could not handle my personal life well. Great. Really well done. And now I couldn’t focus on my lines.
As I heard myself sighing once more, I decided it was time to give up for the night — it was getting dark. I could hear the coyotes howling and I needed food. Food and Netflix. A movie to forget my own life.
I stood up and walked over to the cute little kitchenette, complete with a fancy new cooker and oven, as well as a granite kitchen island and my own Le Creuset set in a variety of different colors. Seeing the kitchen made me smile — at least this place was one thing thatwasworking in my life.
Feeling a little bit cheerier, I took some vegetables out of the cupboard and started chopping — it was time for chicken soup for the soul!
Humming a melody, I didn’t hear a pair of footsteps approaching and had a start when there was a tap on my door. Probably the landlords popping by. Sometimes the wife would bring me goodies and I hadn’t really seen them since I was back.
“Is that you, Jane? Come in!”
But it wasn’t Jane. As the door opened I spotted Bill. If possible, he looked worse than the last time I saw him.
“Hello, wifey, how kind of you to let me inside,” he said with a mocking tone of voice.
I felt my stomach tense. During all the years I’d known Bill, I’d never seen him like this. Bill was fun loving and outgoing. The rowdiest he had ever been was at parties when he had had one too many, but he’d never been mean, or threatening to me. Never. Now the glint in his eyes scared me.
“Bill, what are you doing here? I thought we were through with this.”
“I told you in Maui that you’re mine. You’re still mine. I’m here to remind you.”
“Bill,” I said, trying a soothing tone of voice, “I won’t change my mind. We had some lovely years, but we grew apart. I should have seen that sooner. You wanted to focus on business and travel and I wanted a family and a career in acting.”
“You had a career, a great career,” he slurred. How had he not been arrested for DUI?
“Yes, but it wasn’t the one I wanted. Marriage means you need to walk together in the same direction.”
“We can walk together now.”
He sounded hopeful and for a moment the threatening look in his eyes was replaced by the look of the Bill I knew — the happy, caring guy who gave me breakfast in bed, even after sixteen odd years of marriage. But, the same Bill, I reminded myself, never before listened to my wishes about where we should head and never stopped sleeping with other women.
“No, Bill, we can’t. It’s over. And the sooner you realize that, the sooner you will build a new, happy life for yourself.”
“You slept with him, didn’t you? You slept with Jeff.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. You’re my wife. And you slept with a man to get a part in a movie. You’re just a whore.”
I felt anger flare up inside of me.
“Well, I should be to your liking then since you adore them.”
