God, just, thank God, Viola.
For rice?
No—
He bent himself over the kitchen island and sighed, and she ventured a hand to the top of his head. His hair was damp, and he exhaled for a long moment, allowing her to massage his scalp.
I was just thinking how nice it is that you’re not going to go around telling everyone you know that I eat heaps of plain rice.
I might.
You won’t.
I won’t. You can be yourself.
When he lifted his face it was very close to hers, and she looked at the peaks of his mouth, his thin nose, the lines tracing down to his stubble.Thank you, he said.I will.
A small plastic tree with fake snow on the branches sat on the table, a tag still wrapped around its base. While they ate, his foot found hers, pawed at the toe of her boot.
Can I offer you a tour?he asked when they had finished, handing her a very large whiskey and leading her through his living room strewn with scripts and half-read books and a couple of expensive-looking paintings.This is where I spend most of my time.He allowed her to thumb through his detritus and point at photographs and askIs that your sister, and sayShe is very beautiful. Above them was a shelf lined with statuettes of gold and glass engraved with his name.
Then, on the sideboard in a small silver frame, she saw it: aphotograph of her own mother. Grayish around the edges with the quality of a disposable camera. Susan was sitting at a simple wooden table, laughing hard, head thrown back, one hand almost obscuring her face. Wearing a low-cut blouse. Was it the same blouse from the tabloid? Viola could not remember. It had disturbed her, just a few years ago, the photo. She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing it.And now?
Orson noticed her noticing, waited for her like he expected her to say something. But all Viola could think was how the woman in the picture appeared to be everything she did not feel. Uninhibited. A natural.Was that an illusion?She felt stuck, unable to read the joy on her mother’s familiar, unknowable face. Will it disappoint him, her inability to remember? She bit back a thousand stupid, unaskable questions: Are we alike? Would she have wanted—? Did you love her?
What was she laughing at?she finally mustered, and he thought about it for a long moment before saying sadly:I can’t remember.And then:Probably some funny shit you pulled. She was always going on about you two.When she could not respond to this, he added:Or more likely me. Because I’m fucking hilarious.Viola laughed a little and he said:Let’s cut to the end of the tour.
O
I’ve been working better
since I met you
it’s odd to explain
Viola
how so?
O
I don’t know
I felt like I’d lost touch with people
like I didn’t know how it felt to care
very much about anything
like characters do
Viola
well, let me reassure you
having watched every single film you have made
you understand people perfectly
