by Hamel, B. B.
He was grinning ear to ear. “I held this place together and you know it.”
“Sure, whatever Noah,” I said, smiling and turning to walk away.
“You’re drowning here without me,” he called out.
“Keep telling yourself that,” I responded sweetly. He gave me one final grin, then turned and walked up the stairs.
It felt good, strange but shockingly good, to banter with him again, even if things were still broken between us. I was overjoyed that he had already started working his steps. I wasn’t exactly ready for optimism yet, but I was a little hopeful. He had agreed to my rules, and seemed ready to move forward.
I was sure there were surprises coming for me, but I wasn’t afraid of them.
Chapter Twenty-One
Noah picked me up in his car and drove us through the Saturday traffic down toward Miss Havisham’s apartment. He wore a stylish button down white linen shirt, a light black jacket, slim jeans, and black sunglasses. I had to admit, he looked a lot better than he did the last time he had showed up at my place. I climbed into his car, and he pulled out into traffic.
“Listen, let me do the talking,” he said after a few minutes of idle chatting.
I looked at him. I liked it when he got down to business. The wind whipping through his hair combined with the early morning sun made him look elegant and gruff at the same time. I couldn’t have explained to anyone in the world what exactly I saw when I looked at him, but it was something that was difficult to ignore.
“Why, don’t trust me?”
He glanced at me. “Maybe.”
I laughed. “I’m not going to ruin this, relax.”
“I know, dots. But just trust me and let me take point.”
I sighed. “Fine, but if she says no, we’re screwed.”
“Don’t talk to me about screwing, I’ll get distracted.”
I smacked his arm lightly, but I felt myself smiling. It was good to be the object of his attention again, even if that attention was both confusing and painful at the same time. I wanted more jokes, and couldn’t help but imagine his strong arms pinning mine above my head as he thrust inside of me. Blushing, I looked away, out the window at the brown buildings flashing by.
Finally, he caught a parking space between two huge trucks, and deftly slipped his small car into the spot. We climbed out and began walking down the block.
“She’s just ahead,” he said.
We stopped in front of a door set into the wall next to a Chinese restaurant, with a small stoop and a white buzzer. The door was painted red and white and a small Native American dream catcher hung from a nail in its upper corner. I gave Noah a look, and he just shrugged. She was totally the kind of woman to have that hanging outside of her apartment. He hit the button, and a second later Miss H invited us up. We climbed a short set of stairs, and walked into her apartment.
Miss Havisham lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in south Philadelphia set above a row of shops. Since her place was above a Chinese restaurant, the smell of cooking meats wafted up through her floor. At first, it was a little weird, but I got used to it pretty fast. In fact, I figured it would be pretty convenient. I’d have gained at least twenty pounds if I lived there. The area around her place was pretty decent, though I could only imagine how long of a commute she had to get to Temple every day. There weren’t any subway stops convenient to her place as far as I knew. It gave me a new found respect for Miss H, knowing how she lived.
She gave Noah and me a hug, and led us into the living room. Her place was decorated in what my mom would have called “shabby scholar chic.” There were paintings on every wall in all different styles with different frames, books and papers stacked on every table, an assortment of statues and houseplants, at least one or two cats hanging around, plenty of color everywhere, and a huge collection of movies on DVD stacked up around her old television. It was simultaneously exactly what I had pictured and completely unlike anything I had ever seen.
In some ways, it reminded me a lot of my dad’s study, at least in how cluttered it was, and we were forced to clear off spaces on the couch in order to sit down. Miss H left us there and went into the kitchen to make some tea. Noah gave me a look, leaned in, and whispered in my ear.
“I wonder if anyone has sat here in years,” he said.
I stifled a laugh. “Probably only cats and books,” I said back.
“I can practically feel the couch protesting.”
“It’s used to a much easier life.”
He laughed quietly. In the kitchen, Miss H banged around, doing who knew what, while Noah and I looked around her place. We had mentioned something vague about wanting to involve her in a film project, but we hadn’t gone into detail, at Noah’s suggestion. He didn’t want to spook her or something, as if she were a wild horse. I wasn’t sure how or why, but he had secured our little meeting at Miss H’s place out of nowhere. He seemed to have a plan, so I decided to go with it.
“Milk or sugar in your tea, dears?” Miss H called from the kitchen.
“None for me, thanks,” I replied.
“Same, I prefer it nice and strong,” Noah said. He gave me a look as if that were some kind of code for sex. I rolled my eyes as I heard the kettle begin to boil.
“Well, here we are,” Miss H said, walking back into the living room with a tray, a teapot, three cups, and some biscuits. She was wearing a colorful shawl draped over a long, flowing skirt. There must have been over a thousand beads stitched into the skirt and the shawl, and they made small clacking noises as she moved. Her greying hair was up in a tight bun, which made her look like a hippie librarian.
As soon as she put it down on top of old newspapers and film criticism books, Noah immediately dove into the biscuits.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” I grumbled at him.
He shrugged and Miss H laughed. “There’s plenty more where that came from,” she said.
“Thanks Miss H, but we’re not here for the biscuits,” he said in between mouthfuls.
“What the idiot here is trying to say is, we’re thinking about shooting a short film that involves you.”
Miss H poured three cups of tea, picked hers up, and sat back, smiling.
“Okay, you have my attention. Pitch it.”
Noah suddenly sat up straight and cleared his throat. It surprised me how quickly he shifted from goofing off to businesslike, but that was typical Noah. One second he’s something you expect, and the next he’s off in another world entirely.
“Miss H, I think you’re one of the most interesting people in this city,” he said slowly. I raised an eyebrow, but we had already agreed to let him do the talking.
“Good start Noah,” she said, smiling.
He grinned. “I’m not just buttering you up, I promise. You’ve been around my family for a long time, you knew my mother before she passed, and you knew my father before he turned into the biggest asshole in Hollywood. You practically raised me for a few years. You know that I have nothing but love and respect for you and what you do. Which is why, when Linda here came to me with the idea to shoot a short documentary about your life, I jumped all over it.”
I stared at him. I hadn’t known anything about Miss H knowing his family, though I had my suspicions.
“Well, Noah—” Miss H started, but stopped when Noah cut her off.
“Before you say no, and I know you’re about to, hear me out.”
She struggled to suppress another smile and nodded.
“The business is bullshit. We both know it. You’ve been in more films than I can count, and you’ve been pretty stellar in most of them.”
“All of them,” Miss H mumbled.
Noah grinned, but kept talking. “But here you are, doing local gigs and managing a theater. I know it’s not pretty to hear, but you haven’t gotten the recognition you deserve. I want to change that, Lacey. You were one of the few friends my mother had at the end, and although I know I don’t need to say this, it’s well overd
ue. I’m grateful for what you did, and I want to repay you by telling people your story. And it’s a pretty damn good story.”
“Let’s pretend that I’m interested,” Miss H said slowly.
Noah leaned back into the couch with a huge grin on his face.
“We’re pretending, darling,” Miss H said, holding up her hands.
“Oh, I know we are. But I also know that means you’re going to do it.”
She gave him a look. “If I do this, I don’t want it half assed.”
Noah nodded. “I swear to you, we’ll do you justice. Linda here has some pretty damn good equipment, and she knows her shit. And you taught me everything about this business.”
She sighed dramatically. “You’re quite the salesman, Noah.”
“Learned from the best.”
“This isn’t going to take up my whole life, though. You can have some access, but I’m not going to divulge all of my secrets for the sake of your student film.”
He nodded. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“Good. Then maybe I can do this.”
Noah’s smile widened. “Thanks, Miss H.”
“Yes, well, don’t tell anyone about my weakness.”
I looked between the two of them, completely at a loss for words. Noah looked at me and shrugged.
“I guess I didn’t mention how we knew each other,” he said.
I laughed, shaking my head. “No, you didn’t.”
“I’m an old friend of his mother’s, God rest her soul,” Miss H said, the beads on her shawl jangling as she crossed herself.
“After my mom died, my dad more or less dropped out for a while, and Miss H came around to fill the gap.”
“I practically raised this idiot,” she said fondly.
“I had no idea,” I said, shaking my head.
“We don’t really like to advertise it. The other guys at the theater might think she’s playing favorites.”
“Which I am,” Miss H added.
I laughed. “I guess that’s how you ended up getting involved with the theater.”
“When I heard she was in Philly, I asked her to manage the place.”
She nodded. “And since I wasn’t doing anything better, I thought, why not.”
I looked at Noah. “So was your mom involved in Hollywood, too?”
“Yeah, she was a writer. She wrote the screenplay for my dad’s first movie, actually. That’s how they met.”
“A marvelous writer, a genuine talent,” Miss H said.
I gaped at him. I couldn’t believe the weird connections between the two of us. That first movie had intertwined our two families in more than one way. Not only had his dad nearly ruined my mom’s life because of her bad review, but he had also met his future wife and the mother of his kid. That actually began to make more sense of the situation.
“Noah, you know what happened between our parents and that first movie,” I said slowly.
“Yeah, it’s a really weird coincidence.”
“What if it isn’t?”
He looked at my strangely. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it. Your dad meets your mom, falls in love with her, all that stuff. Then, he invites a journalist to review the movie she wrote, and it ends up getting panned big time. What if the whole reason he tried so hard to destroy my mom was because of your mother?”
Noah looked thoughtful for a second and sipped his tea.
“That would make sense, dear,” Miss H said, looking at him.
“Fine, maybe that’s true. It doesn’t change anything.”
“Maybe, but maybe not. It would mean that your dad did something for someone he loved, even if it was a crazy overreaction.”
“Paints your father in a new light,” Miss H said.
Noah shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Even if he was trying to be a good guy back then, something changed him.”
We lapsed into silence, and I could sense Noah beginning to brood. I regretted bringing it up, but the serendipity was too much to handle. Because of that one event so long ago, all of our lives were irrevocably changed. Noah’s parents met, my mother’s career shifted, and Miss H eventually was pressed into the life of her friend’s child. It all led to the three of us sitting in Miss H’s living room, talking about making a documentary about her life. One writer typed a sentence years ago, and the lives of everyone she touched were changed.
“Noah, your father may have always been a bastard, but he loved your mother,” Miss H said, breaking the silence.
“What does that matter?”
“It means you don’t have to end up like him.”
There was a second while I watched Noah process that. I couldn’t imagine what was going on inside of him, but one part suddenly made sense. He was so afraid of ending up like his father that he began to push people away from him. He was convinced that he was a bad person. But I knew better, I knew all the people Noah had helped in his own way, and a piece of shit like his father would never do those things. Finally, he grinned at Miss H.
“When did this turn into a therapy session?” he asked.
She laughed. “Blame Linda here, darling.”
“Hey, I was just pointing out a coincidence,” I said.
We laughed and the tension broke. I picked up my tea and sipped it. It was luke-warm, but minty and delicious.
As Noah finished off the biscuits, and we drank our tea, I was convinced, more and more, that my project was the right idea. No matter what happened, regardless of whether we won the contest or not, I knew that I was doing the right thing. I was helping a friend get his life together, but more than that, I was helping him discover the life of someone he cared about. Regardless of my misgivings over working with Noah, I felt happier and more content sitting in Miss H’s living room, chatting about movies, than I had in years.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Noah dropped the heavy brown box onto my living room floor and let out a breath.
“Last one,” he said.
“I can’t believe how much stuff she gave us.”
We stood staring down at a stack of eight boxes, each full of pictures, cassettes, VHS tapes, DVDs, books, scraps of paper, and more. Noah had asked Miss H to give us some stuff to look through in order to get some establishing shots for the film, but he didn’t expect her to unload a lifetime’s worth of memories in one sitting. Noah had just spent the last ten minutes lugging them up the stairs while I began to catalogue their contents.
He collapsed on the couch. I could tell he was sweating slightly through his slim fitting white button down shirt and his tight black jeans.
“So what’s in there?” he asked.
I knelt down in front of the box I had just opened. “Pictures, mostly.”
“Excited to sort through it all?”
“Yes and no, honestly.”
I sifted through the pictures and pulled a stack out. I began to look through them, one at a time, and realized I didn’t recognize a single person in any of them. I knew a little bit about Miss H, though mostly just the broad strokes. She had tried to give us a little more information, but she was frustratingly difficult. She had a tendency to wander down pointless tangents.
Noah slipped off the couch and joined me, taking out a stack and sorting through it.
“I don’t know anyone in these,” I said quietly.
“I know a few.”
“Noah, how are we going to do this? I mean, how can we piece together a person’s whole life?”
He laughed and shook his head. “We can’t.”
“What do you mean? That’s the whole point.”
“Look, dots, we can’t possibly do her justice that way. We’ll have to get the important stuff down.”
I sighed. “Seems wrong, I guess. To leave all these people out.”
He grinned at me. “Aren’t there people in your life that you’d rather not make it into your documentary?”
I looked back at him thoughtfully. “I thin
k I could name one right here.”
“Please. I’d have a starring role.”
“Maybe as the villain.”
He shifted closer to me, smirking. “Is that because I’m so bad?”
I rolled my eyes. “Cut it out.”
“I can’t help it around you, dots.”
There was a short pause while he looked at me, and for a brief moment I thought he was being completely honest. But the moment passed, and he went back to sorting through the pictures one at a time.
It took us a while to get through the box, but at the end we had it broken down into two big piles: one with pictures we might want to use, and another with pictures we definitely didn’t want. I slipped the discard pictures back into the box, and opened another.
“What’s the prize?”
“More pictures.”
He groaned. “Maybe this was a horrible mistake.”
“Backing out already?”
He sighed. “No, not getting rid of me that easily.”
We dove back in, silently sorting the pictures into two main piles. As we worked, I kept stealing glances at him. It had been a week since we met with Miss H at her apartment, and he had stopped by the theater a few times since then. In fact, I had seen him almost every day. We were busy scheduling time to interview Miss H, trying to get a visual narrative of her life, and generally setting up the documentary. It was a lot of work, but I was shocked at how willing Noah was to get down to it. Things might not have been what they once were, but they were at least comfortable.
When it came to the technical stuff, he was better with the equipment than I was. But in terms of blocking out the scenes and creating the overarching thematic movement of the piece, I was shockingly good. He told me that he was impressed by how quickly I was able to boil down Miss H’s life into the high points. I had originally thought that would be the most difficult part, but I tackled it head on. Noah managed to get people from Miss H’s past to agree to do interviews with us. He was as charming as ever, and people tended to fall over themselves to agree with him.
More than that, though, he looked healthy again. He had been actively going to meetings with Ellie, and it showed. The gaunt look in his eyes was completely gone, although the memory of his strung-out appearance still haunted me sometimes. But he looked like his old self again, and I had to admit that I liked it.