“What? Is this because of the book?”
Melissa took a thick sheaf of paper from her bag and set the manuscript on the table between them. The title page blew open in the breeze. Reilly grimaced at the title, Growing Up Reilly. It was a book that Melissa had written while Reilly was in prison. It was about Reilly’s rise to fame. Reilly had read the first couple of chapters and had to put it down. She had been embarrassed by the way her mother had written it from the perspective of an adoring and supportive mother who had orchestrated her daughter’s every move—some of which was true. But the overall tone embarrassed Reilly in its blatant and smarmy attempt to make Melissa sound like a wonderful and caring mother. When Reilly couldn’t get through the second chapter, she told her mother that there was no way that she would allow it to be published. They had argued about it, but Reilly had been adamant.
“The book?” asked Reilly. “No. Like I said, there will be no book. It’s beyond that.”
Melissa smoothed the top page down on the manuscript and looked up at Reilly.
“What are you saying then?”
“I’m saying that if we can’t begin to work together in a more collaborative way, I don’t think that we can continue to work together at all. I want to take a more active role in my career. And not just by showing up at parties and falling all over directors and producers with my tits hanging out. I don’t want to just show up anymore. I don’t want to play those games. I can’t. Not anymore.”
Her mother sat back in her chair, seeming to take in what Reilly was saying. The insecurity that washed over Melissa’s face tugged at Reilly’s heart. She didn’t like to see her mother feel uncertain or hurt. Softer words formed in Reilly’s mouth, but before she could say them, an expression of petulance swept over Melissa’s face, and the feelings that Reilly always felt when she knew that her mother was manipulating her took over.
“I never—I wouldn’t—“ started Melissa, leaning forward in her chair and then sitting back again. “I should have seen this coming when you asked me to stop coming to visit you. When you were—away,” said her mother, mustering the crocodile tears that always tore Reilly in two. Reilly knew the tears were fake, but to see her mother cry made her stomach churn even when she knew she was being played. Shame made her shrink back into her chair. She wanted to take back the tits comment. Her mother had never asked her to use her body to get a job, though the expectation that she hide her sexuality made her feel the same way that she would have if she had. A swirl of confusing emotions swam through her.
“I only asked you to cut back on the visits, Mom. Just for a few weeks. You were driving me crazy with all the talk about what was going on outside, when I was having a hard time adjusting to being inside,” said Reilly, trying to soften things, to ease them back into a less emotional discussion.
Even as she spoke, Reilly’s thoughts slid back to that day over a year earlier in the visitor’s room at the prison.
A low, gray cloud of angst and despair hung over the visitors and visited in the sterile prison meeting area where Reilly sat facing her mother across a plastic expanse of white. The ubiquitous institutional gray of the surroundings seemed to steal the life from everything in it, including the people. Even the army of fluorescent lights that hung from the ceiling did little to chase away the shadows that clung to the edges of the room. Reilly slouched in the plastic chair, her unattended hair tucked behind her ears and her hands tucked under her thighs. The low, monotone drone of voices from the conversations going on around her made Reilly’s head hurt. Between that and volatile emotion choking the air, it was hard to concentrate on what her mother was saying, so she watched her mother’s lips move but didn’t follow what she said. She didn’t even try. It was always the same. Work and gossip. Reilly felt so removed from all of that, and it was just a reminder of the life that she had lost. It was easier to just tune it out.
“…and that Sylvie creature. I don’t know how they get invited to the functions where they show up together. You have to admit, Parker Stevens has got to be the hardest working B-Lister in town.”
Reilly’s eyes shifted from watching the crease next to her mother’ mouth lengthen and shorten as she spoke up to her mother’s green eyes. The familiar names caught her attention. Some of the fog cleared in Reilly’s head, allowing her to focus on some of her mother’s words.
“Sylvie? Parker?”
Melissa leaned forward, a sudden, renewed energy in her story, now that she had Reilly’s interest.
“I know that you two mended fences, but I think it’s disrespectful how they carry on.”
“Carry on?”
“Flaunting their relationship. Shoving it down everyone’s throats. Even you displayed some class by not making such a big deal about your… lifestyle,” explained Melissa. She made a dismissive gesture and wore an expression as if something smelled bad. “I’m sure it’s just for the publicity. Celebrity lesbian couples seem to be the new ‘in’ thing.”
“Relationship?” It surprised her that she cared less about Sylvie and Parker being a couple, and more about her mother’s reaction to the news. She wondered if her mother was upset because lesbians were getting more mainstream acceptance, or if it was residual bitterness over the fact that Sylvie used to fuck her daughter. Either way, Reilly fumed at her mother’s homophobia. Her recent meeting with the warden, where he had referred to the showers as a hotbed of dyke-lechery, was still churning in her mind. And her old triggers over her mother’s bigotry seemed to be just as sensitive as ever. Reilly felt hot anger flash within her. After being numb for so long, in a way, the anger that she was starting to experience was a comfort, welcome even, and Reilly allowed it to build to a level that probably wouldn’t have flamed in another situation.
“Yes, they’re together. That’s what I said. Honestly, Reilly. You could at least try to listen. It’s like talking to the wall sometimes.”
“I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to keep up with the important things, Mother. I’ve been a bit… preoccupied,” spat Reilly, aware that she was picking a fight, but unable to stop herself. As far as her mother knew, she was still in love with Sylvie. But her mother didn’t seem a bit concerned about how Reilly would take the news that her former lover and ex-rival were now together. The lack of sensitivity made Reilly’s head pound and it was a good enough excuse to goad her mother.
“I know it’s tough, darling. But if I’m going to drive for two and a half hours each way every week to see you, it would be nice if you tried to engage in the discussion.”
“Tough?”
“Well, yes. I imagine hearing that your… friend is moving on is hard.”
Reilly thought about that. Her mother was right. It was hard to hear about the lives that were going on without her. But it always came back to the fact that she had absolutely no right to mourn the loss of her own life when she had been the cause of loss to people who were far more innocent than she. She had no right to feel sorry for herself. And with that, her anger evaporated, only to be replaced with an exhausting sense of disconnected loss and self-loathing. Even her mother’s homophobia was no longer an outrage that she could claim. As her mother continued to talk, Reilly sank further into her shell. She wished that she could crawl into a corner and let the world fade away.
“Mom. Maybe you should hold off on coming out here again for a little while,” Reilly suggested, even as Melissa continued to talk. She heard the hollow sound of her own voice, flat and toneless, coming from a distance that was made from emotional barriers rather than physical space.
“—can’t be that difficult, though. I mean, even a nod every once in a while would be better than—” Melissa continued, focused on her nails, an expression of being wronged etched across her face. Then she dropped her hands to the table as she absorbed what Reilly had just said. “Not come out here? That’s ridiculous, darling.”
“Just for a few weeks. I need a break. I can’t deal with much of anything right now.”
Reilly stood up and turned away before she lost the will to do even that, but not before seeing a kaleidoscope of emotions flash over her mother’s face as she sat stock still in the plastic chair. Reilly felt a pang of guilt over having caused her mother to look so unsure of herself, sitting in the middle of the stark surroundings, among the eclectic array of humanity that gathered in prison visiting rooms. She was certain her mother had never expected to be here. Reilly was ashamed that her actions had inflicted it on her mother, and she hesitated in her retreat. She turned back, ready to recant her last comment. But the petulant expression that greeted her stopped her cold.
She turned and walked across the room to the guard who unlocked the door that led back into the cellblock. This time, Reilly didn’t look back.
That discussion was never brought up again, and Melissa had never come back to the prison to visit again. In a way, that had been a relief for Reilly. It had been hard enough for her to summon the energy to visit with the people who still came out to see her even after she had asked them to stay away—mainly Hank and Alison. But her friends didn’t drain her like her mother did, or push her buttons the same way. Reilly had written her mother letters, though. And even though she couldn’t bring herself to talk about the real horrors of prison life, she spoke of her jobs and superficial things. And, eventually, Melissa had written back. Reilly had even started to look forward to the twice-weekly letters that were covered in her mother’s elegant cursive once they became regular. She found that it had been easier to take in the inane accounts of existence of life on the outside when she read about them.
Now, sitting across from her mother, basking in the sunshine that splashed across her own backyard, all of that seemed like another lifetime. It was part of her, but different. Was it wrong of her to own that existence when it suited her, but store it away when it didn’t? How was it any different when her mother asked her to do the same?
“I was just trying to keep you informed. I thought that it would help you keep close to things, you know, stay in touch.”
“It just reminded me of how cut off from things I really was, Mom. You coming there, visit after visit, telling me about a life that wasn’t mine anymore. You have no idea what I was going through and you never even asked.”
That’s what it was really about. But Reilly didn’t mean to say that. She didn’t really want to get into it, but, there, it was out. She had said it. Her mother had never once asked about her life behind the walls. It shouldn’t have surprised her, since her mother had never even asked her anything about the night of the accident, how she felt about the knowledge that she had killed someone, how she was holding it all together. Not once. Reilly thought that any other mother would have worried about how her child was coping. But Melissa hadn’t. She never even acknowledged it.
“I can’t imagine that it was very interesting, darling,” Melissa said. Her mother’s response was like a punch in the stomach. Reilly didn’t try to hide the fury that swept through her. She saw it reflected in the surprised look on her mother’s face, and then her mother immediately tried to back pedal. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean that it wasn’t important. I—I just didn’t want to remind you of your—your confinement. I mean, what with you having nothing to do but hang out in your cell.”
Reilly didn’t respond immediately, but when she did, her voice was shaking with emotion.
“You wouldn’t have been reminding me, Mother. I was in it every day. It wasn’t a confinement. It was a prison sentence. I was a prisoner. And, by the way, on the inside they don’t call it a cell. They call it a house. And I didn’t just sit in my house all day long. I had a job. I had a routine. I had things to—to deal with,” spat out Reilly. She wanted—no, she needed—her mother to understand what she had been through, even though she knew that no one had the capacity to understand the fear and isolation that she had felt, without actually having survived it. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother the details about the horrors she’d faced. “I lived it. I breathed it. I survived it. And it will always be part of me. I won’t let you pretend that what happened doesn’t exist. By avoiding it, you avoid part of who I am.”
“I don’t know why you want to bring attention to it. It—it’s—” Melissa searched for the word she needed.
“It’s what, Mother? Embarrassing? Uncomfortable? Distasteful?” suggested Reilly.
“Reilly—” But Reilly wasn’t about to let her mother try to diminish what she had gone through. She was done letting her mother’s experience be more important than her own.
“Yes, it’s embarrassing and uncomfortable and distasteful. It’s also something I will live with for the rest of my life. I’ve let you avoid other things about me, but not this, not anything else, not anymore.”
The air hung like a brittle piece of cellophane between them.
Melissa sighed. It wasn’t a sigh of exasperation, but a sound of letting go. And she surprised Reilly by not defending herself or propagating the argument.
“So, where does this leave us?” asked Melissa.
Reilly took a deep breath and tried to ignore the pounding in her ears. She summoned the calming mantras that she had learned in the prison yoga class. Finally getting to release the core of her anger on her mother should have made her feel better—or at least relieved. But, instead, it made her feel hollow. Suddenly, she knew that the relationship she had with her mother was only a part of the unnamed cancer that had riddled her life. She’d taken responsibility for the horror that she had committed. She’d made some wise changes by eliminating the out-of-control parts of her life. Now, she had faced down her mother and shifted the power. But there was still something out of tune in her life, something that drifted just out of reach. Something that she still needed to fix. But she didn’t know what it was. She rubbed her temples and looked at her mother.
“I want to be more involved with my own career,” repeated Reilly. Her voice sounded dull in her own ears. She was exhausted, and she dropped her head into her hands.
“Okay. That shouldn’t be hard. You could put your degree to use.”
Reilly was surprised that her mother remembered the online business degree that she had pursued while in prison, even though Reilly had mentioned it several times in the letters. Reilly had only pursued it to keep busy, to keep from obsessing over her ruined life. And though the pursuit of the associate’s degree had been nothing more than a diversion for Reilly, she was proud of it. It had been something that she’d done on her own. And it had been one of the only safe topics that she could report home about, so she made more of it in her letters than she felt.
“I’m sure that what I learned online doesn’t come close to your vast experience, but I’d love it if you showed me a few tricks,” said Reilly, offering a branch. She wondered if she and her mother could start over.
“Does that mean that you’ll keep me around? You’re not kicking me to the curb?”
“Of course I’m not kicking you to the curb, Mom,” said Reilly, feeling tenderness toward her mother in the face of her mother’s uncertainty.
“Good. Because I didn’t want to remind you that we have a contract.”
Reilly felt a stone grow in her heart and she stood up. She hid the disappointment over the comment. Her mother had simply reminded her that she was incapable of being her mother.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that. But contract or not, I’ll still take care of you and Dad. I’m tired. You know the way out.”
Reilly walked into the house.
Hank’s Warehouse
“WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT those pictures taken of you coming back from prison in my clothes would have resulted in this, Rye?” asked Hank, as they strode through the warehouse that now worked as his design studio and retail hub. It was a far cry from the much smaller strip mall storefront and one-man show that had been Hank’s business just two months before. Even then, Reilly had been impressed with the small fashion house that Hank had grown. Toda
y, she was blown away.
The dusty smell of industry wafted around them as they walked across the gritty cement floor. The enormous metal doors on the front of the building reminded Reilly of the sliders that opened into the studios on the large movie lots. They were wide open, and the mid-day sun tried to infiltrate the cavernous space with light, though it didn’t quite make it to the very back, where high metal shelves were piled with cardboard boxes and massive bolts of fabric. The section in front of the shelves was filled with industrial sewing machines, several of which were in use by incongruous appearing young people who seemed like they would fit in better at the local skate park. In the center of the large open space were huge tables littered with works in progress and stacks of silkscreen templates. The corrugated steel walls of the space were covered in colorful graffiti. Mannequins peopled the workspace, many in interesting poses. One mannequin seemed to fly through the air like Tarzan from a long chain attached to a metal I-beam that spanned the building.
Artifacts left behind by the previous owner took up the entire front section of the giant warehouse, and Reilly knew that they were the largest determining factor in Hank’s decision to set up shop in the space. A small skateboard park complete with an empty fiberglass pool, several rails, and a professional-sized half-pipe filled the space. Punk music blared from an overhead speaker system. The place reeked of creativity. Reilly loved it.
“This place is amazing, Hank! I bet you can’t wait to get to work each morning,” she said, speaking loud enough to be heard over the music.
Hank just smiled and nodded.
Reilly watched a dozen kids dart about on their skateboards in the half pipe, and Reilly knew that she had grown up a little when she wondered if Hank had enough insurance to cover a nasty fall. As if she made it happen with her mind, she saw one of the skateboarders shoot into the air, miss his landing, and slide the rest of the way down the slope. He was up like a spring, though, seeming to be no worse off for the fall. When she heard the kid laugh, she realized it was a girl, and she smiled to herself.
Life in High Def Page 17