There's a Word for That

by Sloane Tanen

“That’s very sweet, but no, thank you.”

  “No, thank you?” he asked. “What does that mean?”

  “It means go back to your job, go back to your life. That’s what I’m doing.”

  “You don’t have a job,” he said, wishing he hadn’t said the words the minute they left his mouth.

  “I’ll get one,” she said.

  “But what about the baby?” Henry asked. He’d come to think his mother might have been right about Janine’s condition. It would explain a lot. Janine looked taken aback.

  “I’m not pregnant.” She shook her head. “There’s no baby.”

  Henry didn’t say anything. Leave it to his mother to get everything all wrong.

  “Are you relieved?” she asked.

  “No. I don’t know what I am. Disappointed.” In truth, he was crushed. He hadn’t known until that moment how much he wanted her to be pregnant.

  Janine looked at Henry and smiled, her face lovely, flush with color. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” She put the grocery bags down and unexpectedly wrapped her skinny arms around him. He hugged her hard, willing himself not to cry. “Thank you, Henry.”

  “You’re thanking me? I don’t want you to thank me.”

  “But I’m not pregnant.” She disentangled herself from their embrace. “And what would we do with a baby?” Her eyes filled up with tears as she looked at him.

  “I don’t know. I guess I liked the idea of being at the beginning of something. It’s very depressing in the middle of it all with nothing to look forward to but the end.”

  She placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. He would have preferred a slap across the face. Any sign of passion would have been better than this apathy.

  “I should go in,” she said, picking up the grocery bags and adjusting her posture to accommodate them. “Before the ice cream melts.”

  “Right, then,” he said with a shrug. He’d come to rely on shrugging as a means of expressing that the onus to do something was now on the other person. Still, the gesture was also meant to imply that he was open to further discussion.

  He waved good-bye and thrust his hands into his pockets. This was one of those moments in life, he thought, that were so absurd one could hardly believe it. He felt entirely helpless watching her leave. And now he was standing there with nothing to do but attend Cody McDaniel’s dissertation defense of “The Renaissance of the Hudson River School in Post-9/11 America.”

  Janine

  Janine woke up early thinking maybe she’d cook breakfast for her dad. It was his second day back from Directions and she was hoping to spend some time alone with him before Gail showed up again with forty-dollar scones and artisanal fresh-drip coffee.

  He didn’t answer the intercom. She walked into his bedroom, expecting to find him asleep or reading. His bed was made. He’d showered. She spotted him through the glass doors. He was outside by the cottage, wearing socks and shorts, washing off his white sneakers with a garden hose.

  “Morning,” she said, walking toward him, trying not to step in the mounds of dog shit hidden in the overgrown grass.

  “Do I have a fucking dog I don’t know about?” he asked. He was cleaning his shoe with care, turning it over, scrubbing out the treads with a leaf. He was a meticulous man. The exactitude of his sock drawer had fascinated Janine when she was a little girl. Janine hadn’t ever seen Sandro’s dog, but she’d heard him. They all had. Another bit of unwelcome news she hadn’t thought necessary to share with her dad.

  “This,” he said sarcastically, “is exactly what I wanted to do on one of my first days back.”

  Why had she thought he’d be in a good mood? That was dumb. “I bought eggs and matzo. Do you want breakfast? Or I can make oatmeal.” She needed to eat. Eating had always been more an obligation than a pleasure for her, but since she’d gotten pregnant, her hunger was intense and immediate. The textures and flavors of food (what might satisfy her cravings, what might make her nauseated) had become a preoccupation.

  “I’m not hungry,” he snapped, looking at the withered roses. He put his shoe back on and turned the hose onto the dead bougainvillea. “What’s happening today?”

  “I don’t know. Jaycee’s spending the day with her boyfriend so I thought I might drive Hailey down to San Diego to see her dad.”

  “She’s a good kid,” Marty said, lightening up. “She reminds me of you a little bit.” He screwed his face up like he was trying to solve a problem. He sprayed the surrounding weeds absently. “I barely recognized her the other night. Did she do something to her face?”

  “It’s probably the short hair,” Janine said. How astonishing that her father knew nothing about what had happened. They were all united in an ongoing effort to protect Marty from any news that might upset him. His takeaway was that Hairspray had been a smashing success and that Amanda was currently casting for Xanadu. Hailey had suggested that musical. “Jaycee can’t roller-skate,” Hailey had told Janine with a fiendish smile. “But, you know, it’s a comedy so she’ll probably still get the lead. Not that I want the part.”

  What Hailey wanted was to help her mom produce the show. And Marty liked that Hailey wanted to be a producer. He took her budding career as a compliment, apparently no longer plagued by his past anxiety over family members entering the piranha pool.

  “At least she doesn’t want to be a fucking actress,” he said now. Then, catching himself: “Not that there’s anything wrong with being an actress.” He held up his free hand, a guilty-as-charged expression on his face. “Listen. I hope you take that role in Ransom’s movie. You were always good. Very good.”

  Janine was stunned. He’d never said anything like that before. “You think?”

  “Sure. You know I always thought that.”

  “I didn’t. I thought you were afraid I’d embarrass you or something.”

  “Embarrass me?” He turned around quickly to shut off the hose. Then, looking at her, he said, “Jesus Christ. You could never embarrass me.”

  “Okay.”

  “I didn’t want you involved with those assholes,” he said angrily, as if awakening to an emotion he thought had died. His face reddened. “I was trying to do the right thing. I just wanted you to have a normal life.”

  “And look how well that turned out,” she said with a strangled laugh. Then she added quietly, “I guess after Mom, normalcy was pretty much off the table.”

  His jaw jutted out and started to tremble. “She’d tried once before,” he said. “With pills. It didn’t work. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake. It’s what she wanted.”

  Janine caught her breath. “When did she try?”

  “A few months earlier. She promised up and down that she wouldn’t do it again. The doctors believed her. I believed her.” He shrugged. “I know I should have told you at some point but I was afraid you’d blame me for not doing more to stop her. But nobody could have. It’s what she wanted,” he said again.

  How strange that they’d never really talked about what happened. Janine thought they could have helped each other. They’d each spent a lifetime carrying the weight of Pamela’s suicide, but neither one of them was to blame.

  He shook his head, reached over, pulled Janine in for a hug, and rested his chin on top of her head, like he used to. For the first time in what felt like years, she felt able to take a deep breath, to catch the air she needed. “Take the goddamn part and stay here while you’re filming.” He stepped back and looked at her. “Henry seems like a nice kid. See where it goes. You stay as long as you want, hear me? I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. Gail won’t mind.”

  Janine couldn’t help but wonder how her father and Gail would feel once they knew she was pregnant with his ex-wife’s son’s baby. She’d finally ruled out an abortion, caving to the irrational conviction that it was some sort of a sign that she’d gotten pregnant at forty-one years old. Restlessness at how protective she already felt about the baby swallowed her up. Added to thi
s was apprehension about raising a child alone, concern over what sort of part Henry might play. And then there was the movie. She was consumed by anxiety about the part—convinced that Ransom had made a mistake about her and worried that she’d be too nauseated to shoot or that she’d start to show before the movie began filming in six weeks.

  The conversation with Bunny had gotten to her. Doing nothing wasn’t an option anymore. And yet that’s exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to get on a plane and fly home to New York City, to her apartment, to her quiet life. Maybe she’d have enough money for New York if she ate only once a day, walked everywhere, froze her membership at the Y. Janine doubted supporting Bunny’s illegitimate grandchild would be a priority on Gail’s agenda when she was the next Mrs. Kessler.

  “Are you really getting married again?” she asked her dad.

  “I don’t know,” he said, turning the hose back on. “She’s a nice lady. She looks after me. The security is important to her. I get that. And I like being married,” he said. “I’m just not very good at it.”

  Janine looked at him. “You don’t have to. You know that, right? We could all, like, I don’t know, help out more or something.”

  He laughed, more to himself than to Janine. “What possible difference does it make at this point?”

  A lot, Janine thought, but she didn’t want to ruin his brightening mood. But Gail wouldn’t be satisfied until she had the crown on her head. Better the legitimate queen to a crumbling empire than no title at all. Maybe Henry had been right. It was her father’s life. Who was she to tell him how to live it?

  “Well, you seem good, Dad. Are you happy to be home?”

  His jaw began to tremble again but he turned away from her, ostensibly to water some more dead plants, before she could see his expression. “I’m happy you’re home,” he said. “Tell me you’re sticking around, then I’ll tell you if I’m happy.”

  Janine swallowed hard. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.”

  “I get it,” he said. He looked across the yard and sighed. “How about I drive you and Hailey down to San Diego later? We can grab doughnuts at that great dump in that Cardiff strip mall.”

  Janine couldn’t believe how good that sounded. But wouldn’t Gail be upset that he’d chosen to spend the day with his daughter instead of his fiancée? Then, as if reading her mind, he said, “Gail will understand.”

  Fat Roger walked out, sniffing the dog shit. “It’s nice that you let Sandro stay here,” she said, worried she might get weepy if she didn’t change the subject. She was exhausted by emotions. Or hormones. Or both. “But maybe Gail’s right about him.”

  “And so?” he said. “I wish everyone would stop telling me what a sucker I am. It’s not like I can’t see what’s happening for myself.”

  “What are you going to do about the yard?”

  “Clean it up.”

  “You are?”

  Marty pointed to a rake and pooper scooper leaning on the wall. He handed the rake to Janine. “We are.”

  Janine glanced down at her pretty sandals and then gave her dad a look.

  “Women and their shoes.”

  “They were expensive.”

  “Yes, I’m aware.”

  Janine laughed. “I’m glad you’re home, Dad.”

  “So am I. Now go change your shoes.”

  “Right back,” she said, turning toward the kitchen, feeling lighter than she had in years. “I just need to grab something to eat.”

  Part Five

  Sehnsucht (noun): A wistful longing or

  nostalgia for something indefinable

  Marty

  Happy New Year, Marty thought as the new reader dropped a stack of scripts on his desk with the word Rejected scrawled on each one in bold red ink. It was his first day back in the office after a short Christmas vacation. Hello, 1971. The new reader turned around and left without a word. She didn’t even introduce herself. Her hair was in a topknot secured with a pencil and she was wearing a buttoned-up man’s shirt tucked into blue jeans. Marty watched her walk away. She was slight with long legs and a heart-shaped ass.

  The next week she came in again with the same odd outfit and an even larger rejection pile. He was on the phone. He tried to hang up before she left but Jed Buckwalter was complaining about an actor on one of Marty’s films. (Back then, Marty couldn’t just hang up on a director when he was done with a conversation. He was still hustling. He had a small office at Aces Up Productions on the third floor at Twentieth Century. He wouldn’t be there long, but only he knew that.)

  Marty watched for the girl in the following weeks but she never returned. When he asked the receptionist what had happened to the new reader, she gave him a keep-your-pecker-in-your-pants look. So he’d put her out of his mind and more or less forgotten about her.

  A few months later he saw her again at Howard Blum’s cocktail party in Benedict Canyon, apparently as Blum’s date. Howard was a very successful literary agent. Had she abandoned film for books or did she simply like old men with money?

  Marty watched her mingling for the next half an hour, easily tracking her among the sea of long crocheted dresses and hip-hugging bell-bottoms. He’d taught himself early to smother his self-doubt with confidence. Timidity made you useless in Hollywood. When he saw her head to the bar, he excused himself from his party.

  “So?” he said, standing behind her at the drinks counter. “You and Howard?”

  “Howard and I what?” she asked sharply.

  She was British. He’d had no idea. Her round vowels struck him as aristocratic, a welcome respite from the Valley drawl. She had straight, almost waist-length blond hair and a curtain of bangs that came just below her eyebrows. Her dark eyelashes looked like expensive paintbrushes. It wasn’t easy to see what was going on underneath that kimono or caftan or whatever she was wearing, but Marty’s imagination was as good as his memory.

  “Are you two dating?” he asked. “How old are you?” He reached across the bar for a lime to squeeze into his vodka tonic. Marty wasn’t a drinker. Everyone got loaded regularly, but he’d order one drink and nurse it with soda water and lime all night. He was never drunk but he did a good enough impression. It was a useful trick in a room full of inebriated, coked-up, or stoned colleagues. He was always discreet but he made a note of the seams that unstitched after hours.

  “What if we are?” she asked. “Dating?” She was waiting for the bartender to pour out wine to a group of identical-looking actresses dressed in pastel minidresses. (Nobody in California cared about grapes back then. There was white wine, there was red wine, and there was liquor.) The actresses looked at Marty and smiled invitingly before they walked away, clutching their glasses and giggling.

  “You’ve got quite the little fan club,” she said and ordered a Negra Modelo. That was surprising. Not many women drank beer. Dark beer, no less.

  “You smoke?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t. Something about her accent made him wish he carried a cigarette case.

  “Yes,” she said. “And twenty-three.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m twenty-three. You asked how old I was. Anything else? My weight? My food preferences? Vaccine history, address?”

  “Yes, please,” he said. “All of it.”

  She laughed. It was a warm laugh, from the gut, almost man-like. But there was nothing masculine about her other than a sort of boyish bravado. She blew her bangs out of her eyes.

  “You don’t remember me?” he finally asked, incredulous.

  She stared at him blankly.

  “You worked for me,” he said after an uncomfortable silence. “You were a reader at Aces Up.”

  “Was I?” She looked honestly puzzled. “When was that?”

  “A few months ago! You don’t remember?” he asked with a chuckle meant to cover his embarrassment. True, they’d never had a conversation, but he thought he was more memorable than that. Women liked him. He was good-looking. A man on
the rise.

  “I’m Marty Kessler,” he said and extended his hand.

  “Bunny Small,” she said, shaking it vigorously. “Now that you mention it, I do remember you. You were the one staring at my ass when I dropped off the shitty scripts in your office.”

  Marty blushed. Did she have fucking eyeballs in the back of her head? “Well, I don’t know about that, but I do remember you. You never liked anything from the slush.”

  “It was all rubbish,” she said, drinking her beer straight from the bottle. “Pure, utter rubbish. There ought to be some sort of an exam before one can call oneself a screenwriter. From what I gather, the only requirements are a knowledge of the proper screenplay format and a propensity to overuse capital letters.”

  “So you’re working for Howard because he reps real authors, not screenwriters, that right?”

  “It’s a living I can tolerate.” She took a sip from her beer. “Until I write my own.”

  “Your own book?” Marty asked, riveted by a tiny birthmark in the bow of her upper lip. She wasn’t wearing lipstick. Marty liked that too.

  “Screenplay,” she said. “Which will be based on my book.”

  “Ah.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s just, well, look around. Everybody in this room wants to be a screenwriter. Or an actress.”

  “That may be,” she said. “But most of them will fail.”

  “And you’re the exception?”

  “Everyone will know soon enough.”

  Marty was charmed. Maybe it was her accent, maybe it was her arrogance, or maybe it was the goddamn birthmark. “Fair enough, Bunny Small. Why don’t you send me what you’re working on?” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’m forming my own production company. You never know, right?” He held his glass up for a toast.

  She walked away without clinking her bottle against his glass.

  “Hey!” he said, chasing after her through the crowd. “What’s the rush?”

  “I don’t like your condescending tone. You’re wasting your time. And mine.”