I wind my way down the spiral staircase into the kitchen, pour myself another glass from the opened bottle of merlot, flip theEllecover so that I stare at the perfume ad on the back.
My mom didn’t leave my dad until it was bad. Truly awful. Blackout drunkenness and fired from his job and nights when he never made it home and we weren’t sure if he ever would. That was what it took to break her.
I wonder if she’d be surprised to see him now. Eleven years clean. A doting grandfather, a committed husband, a sober coach, an excellent golfer. I wonder if she’d think I gave up too easily with Ben. Then I wonder if perhaps I’m the one who actually believes that. If my dad is proof of anything, it is that anyone can remake himself if he tries hard enough. I remake myself several times a year for whichever part I’m playing. It’s easier than you’d think, really. Maybe Ben and I could have remade ourselves too.
Tonight, I could have said:You’re back with Amanda. Let’s sign the papers, be done with it.I could have said:I wish it were anyone but her.I could have said:I feel so alone in my little bubble, and I want you to permeate it.I could have said:I just met an amazing man who took me to Koreatown and surprised me in a million ways. Tell me for the last time that it shouldn’t be you instead.
But I didn’t. Because every time I think I can read him—showing up at the beach that day, sharing how much I miss my mom tonight—it turns out that maybe I read him wrong.Show me the map of who you are again,I want to say. But I haven’t. I don’t.
I open the recycling bin, drop the copy ofElleon top, flip the lights off in the kitchen, and wander to the living room.
I find Ben’s presents for Joey under the tree. I sift around for a minute, wondering if he’d left me something unexpected as well. I’d purchased a rare, signed script ofLove Is in the Air, Reagan’s first film, from an antique collector online—it had been nearly impossible to track down, and I had it sitting in a drawer in my office, ready to be wrapped and gifted if I were bold enough or if I thought it could help.Help what?I shake my head.What a stupid notion.Ben was with Amanda now, and he hadn’t gotten me anything, and I was probably turning this into something it wasn’t, a fantasy that we could be what we once were. I’d always been good at that, God knows. If I was an expert in anything, it was concocting a world of make-believe. That’s why they’ve anointed me out here, that’s why they call my name and give me awards and pay me a ludicrous amount of money for playing a part.
There is a thumping in the hallway, and Monster rounds the corner to find me. His gait is so slow now, but his tail beats in rhythm as he makes his way to rub against my leg.
“Hey buddy, hey, guy.” I nuzzle his graying nose.
He folds himself into a ball at my feet, so I flatten myself beside him on the hand-spun Egyptian rug that cost too much; my designer picked it out, and I must have approved it when she did so, but I have no memory of that now. The lights from the tree dance off the ceiling, like a starlit sky, like that wide expanse a lifetime ago in Arizona.
I narrow my eyes to slits, then peer through my fingers to shift my perspective. Maybe if I stare long enough, I can make believe that we’re still back there, that we haven’t detonated between then and now. Maybe, I can make believe about that too.
41
BEN
DECEMBER
“Come back east with me,” Amanda says, forking her eggs. We’d slept late and walked to a late breakfast at a bistro with a garden a few blocks from my apartment. “I have that whole week off between Christmas and New Year’s.”
I push around my own omelet, pick out the onions. Amanda had ordered for me while I took a call from Eric—our lead actress, Cassidy Rivers, was threatening not to return to the set after the holidays if we didn’t fire the lead actor, Paxton Fisher, with whom she’d been sleeping until last week—and Amanda had forgotten (or didn’t know) how much I loathed onions.
“I don’t know if I can get away.” I use my knife to point to my phone. “Cassidy is threatening mutiny.”
“Screw her. Call her bluff. Isn’t she contracted for the next decade? I think I read that inPeople.”
“It doesn’t really work that way,” I say. “Besides, I’m not really sure that calling people’s bluffs is the best way to cultivate a relationship that indeed needs to last the better part of the decade. Honesty might be better.” I say this but what I am really thinking is:Tatum. Why weren’t we more honest with each other when we had the chance?I recalculate.Why wasn’t I more honest with her when I had the chance? How I was threatened by her success, how I resented her blind trust in her dad, how I found a new spark with Amanda because it was easier than struggling to relight whatever had faded between us?It all seems so stupid now, trivial even, that I let these dishonesties pile up until they were too high to surmount, and now, I don’t know what she wants, what she sees, what she feels.
Amanda misses all of this. She takes another bite. “Oh, you know whom you should hire?”
I find a square on my omelet that is onion free. “Who?”
“Lily Marple. I am obsessed with her right now.”
“She doesn’t do TV. Much less a show that’s been around for years.”
“But if she did ...” She sips her coffee too enthusiastically, and it spills on her chin. “I’m just saying. Do you know her? Can I meet her?”
“Years ago,” I say. “I worked with her years ago.”One Day in Dallas, when she shoved her hands down my pants and made it clear she was up for anything. A lifetime ago when I wouldn’t have dreamed of being unfaithful.
“I’m completely obsessed with everything she’s doing. Like, I literally googled her boots the other day.”
“This coming from a highly lauded doctor,” I say.
“I know,” she laughs. “I’m only telling you. Don’t breathe a word to any of my patients.”
“I think Tatum is friendly with her now. I can ask her if you really want.”
Amanda freezes for a flick of a beat, then catches herself and pretends that she hasn’t. I know this is a sore spot with her, that I am newly close with Tatum again, that I sometimes stop by for dinner unannounced or that I still wear the watch she gave me for my fortieth or that the lock screen on my phone is a photo of the three of us. I tell Amanda it’s because of Joey: Tatum and I are committed to providing a united front for him, and even if it’s an excuse, it’s also true. I am trying not to skirt the lines of untruths now knowing, with hindsight, how badly they can unmoor me.
