There's a Word for That

by Sloane Tanen

  “No problem,” Ransom said, smiling encouragingly. “You ready?”

  “Should I do it with you?” she asked Ransom.

  “With Davis,” he said, pointing to the old-man casting director. The sofa had been moved to the middle of the room, and the camera was set up behind it. Hailey noticed that Davis’s body was kind of pear-shaped, like her old nanny’s. He stretched his leg out, like Brick reclining on the bed with his drink. Hailey appreciated his following the stage directions, but his expression was impatient, as if he were doing this just to indulge Ransom.

  She caught Davis’s eye, and he yawned. He yawned! Well, fuck you, she thought. I’m going to blow your fucking mind. She pulled the neckline of her sweater dress so it was off her shoulders a little bit and cleared her throat. Davis was bored? Fine. She’d use it, as her mother would say, and turn it into hatred. She’d use it for the scene.

  “Ready?” she asked the camera guy.

  “We’re rolling.” He gave her a thumbs-up.

  “‘What makes you think Big Daddy has a lech for you, Maggie?’” Davis read, not even looking up.

  “‘Way he always drops his eyes down my body when I’m talkin’ to him, drops his eyes to my boobs an’ licks his old chops!’” Hailey put her hands on her hips. “‘Ha ha!’”

  “‘That kind of talk is disgusting,’” Davis said, flatline.

  “‘Did anyone ever tell you that you’re an ass-aching Puritan, Brick?’” She smiled playfully, letting on that she, Maggie, was only joking.

  Hailey saw Ransom nod enthusiastically and whisper something to the writer. She straightened her dress around her hips the way Elizabeth Taylor had done it in the movie. The whole rest of the scene was hers. She looked at the script and knelt down so that she could be eye-level with Davis and his lady hips. When she leaned in like she was about to tell him a secret or kiss him, she felt his breath quicken. The closer she got to his halitosis, the heavier he breathed. Hailey continued her monologue, tracing her fingers in a small circle on Davis’s forearm until the hairs stood at attention.

  “Cut,” Ransom said. “That was great, Hailey. You okay there, Davis?” he asked with a laugh. The producers and writers were whispering among themselves.

  “I will be,” he said, lifting himself off the couch and giving Hailey a look. Maybe she’d surprised him by being good. Or maybe he had a boner.

  “You ready for the scene you prepped?” Ransom asked.

  “Yes.” Hailey looked over at Janine, who winked and smiled, proud. Hailey knew she’d killed it!

  Once again, Hailey would do the scene with Davis. He was reading the part of Undine’s mother, who was waiting up for her daughter after she’d had a late night with her rich boyfriend, Ralph. The evening hadn’t gone well.

  Davis was sitting stiffly with the sides. Hailey wasn’t nervous this time. She knew this scene.

  “‘Mom? Why are you still up?’” Hailey asked, walking toward Davis and showing just the right amount of annoyance.

  “‘What happened?’” Davis said apathetically. “‘I want to hear everything.’”

  He wasn’t even looking at her! How was she supposed to stay in character when he wasn’t giving her anything? He was delivering the lines like he was ordering at the Jack in the Box drive-through.

  “I’m sorry,” Hailey said, looking at Ransom. “I’m just…I guess I rehearsed the scene with my aunt and I got used to playing off her.”

  “But you’ll be working with other actors,” Ransom explained.

  “I know but…” She looked at Janine, who had her eyes tightly shut. Shit. Now Hailey was screwing up the scene they’d prepared! It was Davis’s fault. He was acting like it was so beneath him to waste his time with an amateur. He was throwing her off her game.

  “Jesus, Ran.” Davis stood up and tossed the pages to Janine, who startled.

  “You want me to read with her?” Janine asked. Her aunt looked totally freaked out. Well, Hailey thought, at least now you know how it feels!

  “Please,” Ransom said and nodded at Janine. Then, to the camera guy: “Let’s retake.”

  Janine sat in the chair, straight-backed, alert. She had the script in hand but Hailey knew she didn’t need it. Janine had rehearsed the scene with Hailey for hours while Jaycee was at school. They’d even blocked it out in her grandpa’s huge living room like they were on a stage. Hailey loved those afternoons. Hanging out with Janine and running lines in that cool house was about the best thing ever. Hailey badly wanted to impress her aunt today, the way she knew she’d done the past few days. She took a deep breath. She could do this.

  “‘Mom? Why are you still up?’” Hailey repeated.

  “‘What happened?’” Janine said. “‘I want to hear everything.’”

  There was a strain of panic under Janine’s voice that sounded just perfect but that hadn’t been there yesterday.

  “‘It’s two a.m.!’” Hailey said. She turned a chair around and took a seat in front of a make-believe vanity, her back to Janine. “‘You’ll look terrible tomorrow.’”

  “‘You look terrible now, Undie! What’s wrong? What happened tonight?’”

  Hailey turned to face Janine, furious. “‘Can’t you leave me alone?’” She got up, walked briskly to Janine, and stood looming over her. “‘You make me sick, staring at me like an animal in a zoo! I can’t take it anymore.’”

  Janine shrank back. “‘I think it was just the lighting. You look better now. Beautiful.’”

  “‘Mm,’” Hailey said, softening. “‘The track lighting is unflattering. Turn it off.’”

  “‘I’ll get you some chamomile tea,’” Janine said after a perfectly timed pause. “‘I bought some today.’”

  Hailey turned away from Janine. “‘I don’t want tea. Go to sleep.’”

  Janine sat quietly for a moment. She almost said something but then visibly swallowed her words lest they irritate Undie. Hailey could hear laughter from the far side of the room.

  “‘Okay. Good night, then.’” Janine stood and then wavered. She took a deep breath before speaking. “‘Were they rude to you? Did something bad happen?’”

  “‘Don’t be dumb! It was fine.’” Hailey pretended to undress, like they’d practiced, tossing her imaginary clothes onto the floor and walking away. Janine followed, bending down to collect the discarded clothing, carefully stroking the garments, avoiding meeting Hailey’s gaze. “‘Turn off the light, I said,’” Hailey ordered. “‘I’m exhausted.’” She plopped onto the sofa and mashed her face into the cushions.

  Janine, bracing herself, meandered back to Hailey and got on her knees. She leaned in so close that Hailey almost laughed. “‘Undie—did something happen? You can tell me.’”

  At the question, Hailey turned her head and glared at Janine. Then Hailey replied, “‘There’s nothing to tell. Go to bed!’”

  Ransom shouted, “Cut!” and the room erupted in applause. Even Davis was clapping.

  Hailey knew she was the prettier twin now. She was destined for greatness. She didn’t need to hear anybody say so. She didn’t need to ask. Some things a sensitive person just knew.

  Henry

  Only later would Henry understand that he’d violated what was assuredly a cardinal rule of all new relationships: Don’t be a needy pillock right off the bat. Still, it had all seemed reasonable at the time. It began with his ear operation. What the surgeon had described as a straightforward procedure had turned into a complex four-hour affair. “We never really know until we’re inside the ear,” the doctor had explained to them post-surgery. “Mr. Holter will have to stay in the hospital if he’s got nobody looking after him at home.” Then he’d looked at Janine expectantly—as though she’d signed up for anything other than being Henry’s designated driver. Janine didn’t want to play nursemaid to Henry any more than he wanted to stay alone in that hospital. Henry sensed her reluctance, but she’d agreed to take him to her father’s house, and Henry had allowed it.


  Things had started out well enough. When Henry opened his eyes the next morning, he found himself in a strangely beautiful bedroom, an entire wall covered in Pima Indian baskets and another with a rare oil painting by Alexander Calder. A Nakashima headboard was flanked by two built-in bookshelves opposite a Mayan-inspired concrete fireplace, cleverly copied from Wright’s Ennis House. Henry was dazed by the eccentricity of the space. The far wall was all glass, partially shuttered with wooden blinds.

  Janine was perfectly charming, carrying in a variety of exotic soups on colorful wicker trays. Her hair was covered by some sort of bandanna. She looked very farm-to-table, Henry thought, like someone who’d know just what to do with dirty escarole.

  Over the next two days he found himself increasingly delighted to see Janine and thrilled that he was no longer dizzy or in pain. Really, he was euphoric that the whole thing was over. He could have done without the Velcro headband that held the packing in place affixed diagonally over his right eyebrow and ear. And it was a little odd that he was in his mother’s ex-husband’s bed, but he was hardly going to carp about that. Gratitude overwhelmed him. He and Janine spent hours together, watching the telly, playing board games from her youth, recounting their histories.

  He told her about the night he’d sneaked a girl into his room at Eton, so naive and ill prepared to lose his virginity that he’d tried to make a condom out of some cling wrap he found in the communal kitchen. God knows he’d never shared that story with anyone. And the time he’d lost his contact lenses before a swim meet and then chipped his tooth on the wall flubbing a flip turn. Janine admitted to crashing her father’s car the first day she had her driver’s license because she got spooked by a shadow on the windshield that she mistook for a giant spider crawling across the dashboard.

  Henry divulged the origins of his ear troubles, the many frightened evenings he’d stood outside his mother’s door. Janine seemed to intuitively understand Henry’s dynamic with Bunny. She’d also had a tenuous relationship with her mother, always feeling like an outsider. The casual way she’d narrated the day her mother had killed herself, as if it had happened to somebody else, made Henry want to cry. When he reached for her hand, she’d pulled it away and laughed a little, as if he were making too much of the thing.

  The twins Henry had heard so much about were loud and immature, but he found them entertaining (which he chalked up to the mellowing effects of painkillers). He enjoyed watching Hailey lord her new face and her new relationship with Janine over her sister. Hailey was like a puppy around her aunt, and, despite what Janine said, Henry could tell Janine liked the attention. When Janine wasn’t with him, he could hear her in the living room with Hailey going over lines for a movie audition that Janine had told him he was not to mention in front of Jaycee or anyone. Who on earth would he tell? He was comforted by the sound of their voices from a distance, soothed by the tone of Janine’s hushed laughter as it carried down the hall.

  Less delightful was the obese cat, Roger, to whom Henry was severely allergic and the incessant barking of a nearby dog that nobody seemed to know anything about. And then there was Sandro, the gardener, glaring at Henry from the chaos of the yard, a travesty that reminded him of Barnes, a derelict cemetery in London. The garden had grown wild, weeds everywhere, ivy crawling up the trees, strangling the roots. A pair of life-size, art deco bronze geese sat on a yellowed lawn, one of them decapitated. Dried-up roses, overgrown shrubs, large cacti tipped over, soil spilling out of their terra-cotta pots. Even the outdoor furniture had been upended; one long green cushion floated ominously in a pool filled with eucalyptus leaves, pollen, and acorns.

  The yard was unsettling but nothing was ever perfect. Henry knew that. All in all, his recuperation was going swimmingly well.

  A few days after the surgery, he and Janine were on the bed playing a delightful game called Boggle. He was winning. Jaycee came into the bedroom without knocking and handed Janine an envelope full of cash.

  “What’s this?” Janine asked.

  “I called Lynn like you asked about getting money for food and stuff. She told me Ed doesn’t represent Grandpa anymore.”

  “Is your father buying my meals?” Henry asked, horrified. “Please, take my wallet—”

  “Shh!” Janine silenced him with a curt wave of her hand. Then, to Jaycee: “What do you mean, Ed doesn’t represent him anymore?”

  Jaycee shrugged. “I don’t know. Lynn gave me the name of his new money-management firm but I didn’t know who to call there. So I called Gail.”

  “And?”

  “Gail said she’d take care of it for me.” Jaycee laughed. “The next Mrs. Marty Kessler dropped the envelope off at school this morning.”

  The ensuing silence filled the air like sarin gas, Henry thought as he held his breath. Jaycee looked at Henry apologetically. Slowly, she slipped out of the room. Henry’s euphoria was deflating by the minute.

  “Everything okay there?” he finally asked Janine.

  Janine bit her lip. “No.”

  “I’m confused. What’s happened?”

  She squinted, deep in thought, as if piecing together the clues to an unsolved crime. “A while ago I had a very weird money conversation with my dad.”

  Henry nodded.

  “But he never told me he’d fired Ed. Ed was his lawyer. But he was his friend too, like his, I don’t know, his superego or something. At least Ed cared. Without Ed, it’s carte blanche for Gail!” Janine said. “I mean, she’s running interference on my per diem now? Is this a fucking joke?”

  Henry was struggling to remember who Gail was. “She?” he asked, the word floating in the air like a grenade in slow motion.

  “Gail, Henry! My father’s girlfriend!”

  He had to work hard not to lose the thread. Gail, Amanda, Marty, Hailey, Jaycee…the benefit of managing only one disappointed relative wasn’t lost on him.

  Then she turned to him. “I don’t think your mom is helping. Gail is very threatened by Bunny’s being at Directions.”

  Henry lay down and brought both his hands up to the wrapping on his head. He was shaken by the anger in Janine’s voice and was hoping if he drew her attention to the bandages, she might remember that he’d recently been on an operating table. He swallowed before speaking. “Some men do better with controlling women.”

  “Yeah? Well, not him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Have you met my fifteen stepmothers?”

  “But it’s not really your business, is it?”

  Judging by the look on Janine’s face, this was, quite clearly, the wrong thing to say. “I mean,” Henry said, not knowing at all what he meant anymore, “he’s a grown man. If he’s happy with her, it’s his decision to make, isn’t it?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t get it. You didn’t know him before. He was this force. He was just so confident and kind. Do you know how rare that is?” she asked, not waiting for an answer. “There was nobody like him. He was like this mythic personality. Now he’s a skeleton of who he used to be, being chauffeured around by Gail, playing the invalid, acting like he can’t even take a piss without her permission. It’s like she enables his feebleness, like she wants him to feel totally dependent on her. Is that healthy? Is that a healthy relationship?”

  Henry didn’t say anything.

  “And if she makes him so happy, why is he taking drugs? Are drug addicts happy?”

  Speaking of drugs, Henry thought, it was high time for another Percocet. He gestured to the bottle on the nightstand. Without pausing, Janine shook a pill out and gave it to him with the glass of water.

  “I get that he’s older now, but he can do better. There are loads of nice women who would love to be with him.” Then, a hitch in her voice: “Why is he settling for her? It’s like he’s giving up.”

  Henry wrinkled his forehead. “But why get so involved? You’ll drive yourself mad, getting caught up in his affairs.”

  She gave him a look. “Forget it.
It’s too complicated to explain.”

  “Is it the money?” Henry asked.

  “No, Henry,” she said, obviously offended. “I don’t want to think about his money. He can do what he wants with it.”

  Henry pressed a folded tissue into his palm and waited. He sensed there was more she wanted to say.

  “Though God knows,” she said, trying to reassemble her anger, anything to fill the cavity of her sadness, “I’d have made very different choices had I known it would come to this. What am I doing with my life?”

  Henry looked at her compassionately. “I’m not sure you can blame your father or Gail for your poor decision-making. Maybe your anger with her is really about your own insecurities.”

  Janine frowned. “Maybe. But rather than a psychotherapy session, I could really use a little sympathy right now,” she said. “Can’t we just agree that she’s a grade-A gold-digging bitch?”

  Henry had never heard this tone from her before. He forced himself to sit up and cleared his throat. “I’m not feeling my best. I so appreciate what you’ve done for me, but maybe I should return to my flat? You seem a bit overwhelmed. Not that I don’t understand. I do.”

  Janine looked down at her hands and began fixedly picking a cuticle on her right thumb. She kept her eyes down when she finally spoke. “No. You’re right. Being back here is just triggering my own stuff. I shouldn’t be laying this on you.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Will you stay? I really like having someone here to kick my butt at Boggle. I promise to be a less narcissistic nurse.”

  “It does pass the time, watching you lose,” he said. She rolled her eyes. “And I do want to know what’s going on in your life,” he added, which was true. “I’m just sorry I can’t really help.” He paused. “Come, then.” He tapped the bed, inviting Janine to curl up next to him. As she nestled into the crook of his arm, he closed his eyes and pulled her in tighter. “Tell me a story. Tell me a good memory you have of your father.”

  “Okay. But only if you tell me one about you and your mom.”