Since I didn’t hear back from you, I just brought him to my hotel with me. Hope that’s okay.
I groan. I have some idea of how Costanza might have handled a night in a strange hotel with a person who is not me, and it’s not good.
Blake squeezes my arm, but I’m glad he doesn’t try to tell me that it’s okay, I had a lot going on yesterday, yada yada yada (in the mostSeinfeldsense). Because yeah, that’s true, but none of that will make me feel better, at least until I know my dog is okay. I text Aaron and apologize, asking about Costanza, and get a text back immediately, despite the pre-dawn hour:
He’s good. I gave him his meds and will bring him to the set with me.
I let out a breath of relief.
“Is he okay?” Blake asks.
“Yeah. Aaron’s a great assistant. I just feel awful about it.”
Blake pulls me in and kisses the side of my head. “We’ll make it up to Costanza. And Aaron. Lots of treats for one, lots of fantastic networking contacts for the other. You can decide who gets what.”
I smile. Blake has always been good at making me feel better no matter how stressed out I get—at least when I’m not in the throes of a postpartum OCD meltdown.
“The real trick is going to be dealing with all the rest of this,” he says, waggling his phone at me, which is bursting with its own share of texts and urgent voice mails from seemingly everyone connected to us or this movie.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m divvying most of it up betweenTara and Josh. Which I will do in the car on the way to set.”
“Good call.”Then he leans in, running his hand up my bare thigh. “Though does this mean I don’t get to make out with my girlfriend in the backseat of the car?”
I grin, my body flushing with heat. “It means the quicker we get these calls taken care of, the better. But for now, we need to put clothes on.”
He groans, but in a good-natured way. Despite how much we both want to stay in bed, the professional part of me is already too embarrassed by costingTroy and the others a full day of shooting yesterday. I’ll be damned if I don’t show up on time and ready to do my job today, and I know Blake feels the same.
So we get up and shower—this we do individually, because we both know how distracted we’ll get taking a shower together.Then we meet back in the kids’ room, where Luke is already up and happily playing with Legos. Ivy is buried under a mound of blankets, her hair poofing up over the pillow. She’s either asleep or pretending to be, so she can avoid us all.
My heart twists, thinking of her reaction yesterday. She was six when we got divorced; no doubt she remembers the nonstop fighting and tension toward the end.
What happens the next time you get divorced?
I look over at Blake, crouched down to examine Luke’s latest creation.The thoughts start bubbling to the surface like water beginning to boil.
What if we can’t do this? What if we fail again?
What will be the cost to our kids?
I push the thoughts down and breathe deeply to suppress the rising panic. I’m able to, for now. I try not to worry about the inevitable times when I can’t, when the meds and the cognitive techniques won’t be enough. Will Blake really want to deal with that all over again?
We give Luke a hug goodbye, and I slip a note onto Ivy’s pillow, with a quick drawing of a monkey holding a heart. I’m not a great artist, but she used to love it when I’d put little drawings of animals in her backpack for her to find at school. Granted, that ended a year ago when she deemed herself too old for bad drawings of cute animals from her mother, but I hope she’ll still feel the love that’s meant by it, especially when it’s not at risk of being discovered by anyone her age.
Blake sees it and smiles a little sadly. I’m not sure if he’s remembering when I started doing that when Ivy first went to kindergarten, or if he’s worried, like I am, about how long it will take Ivy to come around on this huge change we’ve sprung on her.
Both my security guards and Blake’s are waiting out in the hallway for us.They’re professionals and have clearly been prepped.They don’t even blink at Blake and me holding hands, and they don’t ask questions.
Outside the hotel, though, the paparazzi are another thing entirely.There’s a much larger crowd than even on the first day of shooting, spilling out past the hotel valet area and requiring wrangling from police to not totally block the street. I swear every Miami-based paparazzo must be here, as well as however many took the red-eye straight from LA the minute our press release hit the internet. Cameras and microphones are everywhere, voices screaming questions the minute we emerge from the hotel.
“Blake, Kim, are you really back together?”
“Is this reconciliation just a publicity stunt?”
“Kim, Blake, over here, look over here!”
“What do you think Roger will say about this, Kim? Did he have any warning it’s over between you two?”
I grit my teeth at the implication that I’m cheating on the guy I broke up with over a year ago. And the publicity stunt thing—I should have expected that, but really?
