“Family emergency,” she says to Jocelyn, her agent. “I’ll tell them when I get there, but FYI. This comes first for me today. In case you get any gripes. Or, whatever, in case anyone calls me a bitch to TMZ.”
Only recently has the tabloid industry started to take interest in Tatum. Every once in a while I’ll be in the checkout line at CVS and catch a small snippet about a usually made-up bit inUs Weekly, or I’ll lose myself to the Internet by googling her name when I should be writing, only to find a handful of stories about on-set behavior (or romances) which surely aren’t true. Tatum pays them little mind. Sometimes they’ll print a quick bit about her rivalry with Lily Marple, and she’ll scan the copy and mutter something like: “God, she’s such a bitch.”
That one they get right.
“I’m only doing one shot today,” she says fifteen minutes after hanging up with Jocelyn, bounding down the steps, wrapping her just-showered hair into a bun. She’s gotten more beautiful as she’s gotten more famous. And it’s not that her beauty is tied to her fame; rather, she’s grown more confident, more comfortable in her skin, like she’s finally living her best life (I was watchingOprahrecently and heard that phrase, in case you’re wondering). “I’ll be home just after noon. We’ll head down then. I called my dad to come by in the meantime.”
I steel my jaw. She notices.
“Don’t even start with me,” she says, throwing her script and phone into her bag. “He’s been through it. He’ll help.”
Joey starts to wail from his room.
“Shit,” she says. “Jocelyn is asking them to push everything up for me today. Can you handle breakfast?”
I nod.
“It’s not like I want to miss his breakfast,” she snaps. “It’s my favorite part of my day.”
“I didn’t say that you wanted to.”
She sighs. “Constance will be here in thirty minutes. If you don’t want to do breakfast, she’ll handle it.”
The truth is that Joey doesn’t like me feeding him. He greedily laps up whatever Tatum and Constance, our nanny, put in front of him, but with me, no, it’s on the floor or against the wall or sometimes in his mouth, then dribbled right out. Tatum says it’s because he can sense that he’s pushing my buttons, so he keeps going. I suspect that she knows a thing or two about this because she does the same thing. It’s not that we want to fight or snip at each other. But we find ourselves doing so more often now: she’s working too much; I’m working on something I have no interest in (Alcatraz!)—and which is doing poorly anyway. Neither of us is sleeping in the way that you need to not to take a small injustice and spiral it into something that suddenly feels like you’d stake your life on it.
Also, of course, there’s her father. How forgiving she has been of him; how unforgiving I have been. That he is alive and has abused so many of his years here is too much for me to ignore, even if he has rehabilitated himself, even if he is now clear-headed and present. I recognize that this is petty and also small-minded. Addiction is not a character flaw you hold against someone forever. And yet, I do. Fair or not, rational or not. He is here and has been given so many second chances, and my father had been given none.
“I’ll do breakfast,” I say. “It’s not a problem. Maybe he’ll finally agree to eat on my watch.” I make a face that signals,No way in hell will that happen—and it’s meant to make her laugh, but she misses it as her phone buzzes in her bag, and then she runs to the town car the studio sends each morning.
“Yes, yes, thanks, Dad. I’ll be back in a few hours. He’s here. I’m sure that would be great.”
She is sending Walter, knowing how much it will annoy me, knowing that she didn’t even ask me if I’ll mind. She’s been doing that more often now: making executive decisions, both big and small, without asking. Usually I don’t mind. Today I do.
The door shuts behind her, and the house is quiet once more—Leo is sleeping out back in the guesthouse—so I plod up the stairs to retrieve my crying son, who will fight me over his oatmeal because he can sense that I’m weak. Survival of the fittest. Human instinct.
Walter rings the doorbell right as I open my laptop.
Of course I can’t work today, can’t focus, and besides, Eric is overseeing this week’s script, which may be our last, as we await our inevitable cancellation. But I’d promised myself that I’d revisitReagan, figure out what exactly I could tweak to lure Spencer back in to shopping it around, to reengage the studios, get me back into the good graces of the film world, not this shitty network TV world.
In the doorway, Walter shakes my hand because we’re not the type to hug.
“We’ll get him through this,” he says, as if I’ve asked or said anything contrary.
I check my watch; Tatum will still be gone for a few hours. “I just have to make a quick call,” I say before ducking into my office. There’s no phone call to make, but Walter probably knows this; it’s easier than standing around making small talk. “Thanks for coming. Leo’s sleeping for now. There’s coffee.”
“No problem, no problem. I’ll wait until he’s up, and then I’ll talk to him.” Then, “Joey?”
“Oh, out with the nanny, you just missed him.”
I slip into my office, shut the door, then lock it.
Walter has done everything a reasonable person could ask to rehabilitate himself. He’s been clean since we brought him to Commitments. Yet I lock my door anyway, a quietFuck you for being here when my father is not. Fuck you for being fine with mediocrity, for not wanting more.Yes, his sobriety is perhaps “more”; yes, he is trying. But I find that I am my father’s son, unwilling to make accommodations for a lifetime of mistakes, even when Walter’s mistakes weren’t my own, weren’t even Tatum’s.
There’s a knock from outside of my office, and I steel myself.
“Ben?”
I startle and race to unlock it. Leo.
