Her lips tug up, and I sit next to her on the couch and pull her into my arms. “I love you,” I tell her. “Whether or not you’re ever ready to tell the kids about your mental health, I love you.”
Kim squeezes me back, and I wish I could go back six years and react like this to some of the problems we had. But our therapist is right. I can’t change the past.The only thing I can do is behave differently now.
“You were right aboutTanner,” she says.
I groan. “Oh, god, I’m sorry about that, too. You were just trying to help, and I didn’t mean to suggest that you’re not good at helping people—”
“I know. But you were right about him. He’s not looking for someone to guide him through the perils of the industry. He just wants to get laid and get high.”
“Yeah, well.That probably means he needs the guidance more, because this industry is going to eat him alive.”
Kim sighs. “I think I just feel so helpless about Ivy, you know? She’s so unhappy, and I can’t fix it. I can’t make her see that she can’t run off kissing older boys at twelve years old, that we’re trying to protect her, not control her.”
“She’s not thrilled about the computer situation, either. She acted like she was literally dying.”
“I keep going back to that whole thing about not taking responsibility for her happiness. But it’s hard, because Ifeelresponsible for it. I guess withTanner, I just wanted to feel like I could helpsomeone.”
“I feel pretty helpless, too,” I admit. “We’re supposed to be her parents. We should be able to make this better, and we can’t.” Kim nods miserably, and we sit there in silence for a moment. “Is that how you felt about me?” I ask.
She looks at me blankly. “What?”
“When we first met. When I was new to the industry.”
She’s still not following me. “Did I think you just wanted to get laid and get high?”
“No,” I say. “Obviously not. Did you think you needed to save me?”
“God, no,” she says. “I had so much respect for you. You were new, yeah, but you were talented and professional, and you showed up and did your job and did it well. You already had it all together.”
I’m not sure that’s true, but I want to believe she means it.
“Did you think that’s what I was doing?” Kim asks. “There was a reason I made an exception for you to my dating co-stars rule.Two weeks into shooting, you were my best friend in the world, and I wanted to be so much more, because of what an amazing person you were.”
That’s how I remember it, too, only about her. I don’t know why it’s so hard to hear that she felt that way too. “You really think it’s because of my dad?” I ask. “That I’m uncomfortable with you saying those kinds of things?”
Kim nods. “You’re incredible. You always were. But you never saw yourself the way I see you.”
“From the sound of it, if I did, I’d be insufferable.”
“I don’t know,” she says with a smile. “You’re Blake Pless. I think you could stand to have a little bit of an ego.”
I roll my eyes. “No way.The second I start feeling like I’m ‘the shit,’ asTanner would put it, I feel like everything’s going to fall apart. Like, as long as I know it’s luck, maybe my luck will hold.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “You don’t have OCD, but that line of thinking is really similar to what the disorder is like. You feel like if you just act a certain way, you’ll be able to control things. But you can’t, and if you keep pretending you can, eventually your efforts to control the universe start controlling you.”
I don’t know what to say to that. It takes me a minute to respond. “But you don’t think I have it.”
“No. But I think you can hurt yourself by telling yourself a story that keeps you in a bad place.”
I hold my breath. “I’m not sure what other story to tell.”
“Maybe,” Kim says, “you’re a guy who’s had some lucky breaks, but who has worked hard to make the most of them. Maybe you’ve been lucky in your friends and associations—”
“And my wife,” I add.
“—but it’syour ownintelligence and business sense and kindness that have gotten you where you are today. At least as much as luck. Because to really make it in this industry, you need a lot of both.”
I can see what she’s saying. “I suppose you’re probably right, even if it doesn’t feel that way.”
