by Torrest, T.
“So, Miss Red Carpet,” she said, changing the subject. “I feel like I haven’t talked to you for more than a few minutes since The Key. How’s Trip? When are you heading back out there?”
I didn’t know if it was the mention of Trip’s name, the emotional trauma from having just seen my mother, or the half bottle of wine I’d polished off, but Lisa’s question immediately sent me into a fit of tears.
“What? Oh no! Trouble in paradise? I thought things were going so great!”
“They were,” I bawled out, not even trying to pull myself together. “But Lis, so much bad stuff happened between us this past week. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
Lisa and I hadn’t spoken as much over the past few days as we usually did. She didn’t know about the fights between Trip and me, didn’t know about the downward spiral we’d been on all week. Trip’s lifestyle in Hollywood was so isolating and I guess I got sucked into the vortex. But there I was, back home, sitting on my favorite stool in my best friend’s kitchen, finally able to talk some stuff out, tell her everything face to face.
“He puts ketchup on his steak and I’m his goddamned sled!” I sobbed. I literally, actually sobbed.
“Uh, Layla, honey, I think you’ve had too much wine.”
I sniveled out, “He doesn’t love me. He loves the fact that I’m the only woman who doesn’t think of him as a movie star. He even told me as much! I’m his Rosebud. Citizen Kane, remember? The one thing that brought him happiness before the fame, before the money. Rosebud was his special thing before all that.”
“Yeah, um, that sounds like a pretty good thing to be thought of as.”
Lisa is pretty smart, but I guessed she wasn’t able to understand what the problem was. Truth be told, I didn’t really understand it myself. “I thought so too, at first. But don’t you get it? He was always so paranoid about women wanting him just because he was Trip Wiley: Big Bad Movie Star. But now I’m the one who’s freaking out because he only wants Layla Warren: The Teenager Who Loved Him Before All That.”
“I still don’t see the problem.”
“The problem is that I’m not her anymore! I’m me! Get it? I don’t know if he’s really fallen in love with me.” I took a shaky breath and another swig of wine. “The sick thing is, that’s not even our biggest issue.”
I didn’t even wait for Lisa to ask before I proceeded to spew everything out in a rush, just completely brain-vomiting all over my best friend.
Sorry. That sounded a lot grosser than I meant it to.
I told her about Robert the Lizard Perv and the possible movie with Jenna. I told her about my nudie pics and Devin and the memoir and the fights leading up to it and the huge one after. I told her about Trip’s father and my mother and trying to force him to forgive. I told her about the real Patrick Van Keegan and the Bimbo Twins and all those blonde sluts and the autograph hounds and the paparazzi and that weird card in Trip’s mailbox at the fortress.
I talked and I talked until I was exhausted, my throat actually sore and raw, my breath catching on choppy inhales.
When I finally came up for air, I saw my best friend practically laying over the counter limp, her arms bent over her head, her mouth gaped open in pure shock.
I swiped the tears from my cheeks and commanded, “Well? Say something!”
She sat up slowly, letting out with a huge breath. “I don’t even… Layla, I’m speechless here. I got nothing.”
Holy shit. Lisa was speechless? Things must’ve been worse than I thought.
She got up from the table and returned with a bottle of cherry vodka and a shot glass. “I’ve got booze, though. Here. You wanna do a shot? You’re drinking for two now, don’t forget.”
I almost laughed at her comment. Just purging the entire story from my brain was enough to make me feel a little better. “No. I’m already buzzed enough from the wine.”
“C’mon. Drink it. You need it.”
“No, I’m alright.”
“What are you, chicken?”
That one did make me chuckle. “Peer pressure! Peer pressure! I need a grown-up!”
We were able to laugh for a minute, until Lisa got serious and said, “Hey Layla? We are the grown-ups, now.”
“Well, that certainly sucks.”
She snorted at that, but added, “I’m really sorry things got so crazy out there. But this is big girl stuff right now. You two aren’t those same teenagers anymore. This is what it’s like to be in a real, adult relationship. You think there’re days I don’t want to kill Pick? Because I do. But we find a way to make it work. I know your problems are different, but it’s all just the same, stupid relationship garbage. We’ve all got our crap to sort out. If you guys are meant to be, you’ll just have to figure a way to sort yours.”
If.
I was getting pretty sick of if when it came to Trip.
* * *
Part Three of my disastrous day commenced once my father got home from work.
I had to tell him about my little run-in with his ex-wife.
He gave me a gargantuan hug the second he came through the door as if it had been years since we’d seen each other instead of only a month. I asked about Sylvia, he asked about my flight. Before he could inquire about my time out west, I diverted him with questions about his work.
That always distracted him.
We chatted about his day, talked about his new clients. He finally settled himself down at the kitchen table, where I joined him, eyeing him warily.
Dad eyed me back. He knew something was up. “Okay, Loo. Out with it.”
I took a deep breath and said, “I wanted to talk to you about Kate.”
He looked at me questioningly, but didn’t say anything. Finally, I just spilled the news. “I saw her today, you know. She’s a nurse at Beth Israel Hospital.”
I expected my big revelation to shock him. But instead, he simply responded, “Yeah, I’d heard that’s where she might be.”
It turned out I was the one who was shocked. “You knew?”
“Not at first, no.” He paused at that, trying to find the words. The ones he came up with weren’t the ones I was expecting. “I want to apologize, Loo. I always felt like I should have tried harder to find her, should have been able to figure out what she needed from me in order to keep her here. Bruce was too young to even remember much about her, but you were the one that put her on such a pedestal. Do you even remember any of the bad times?”
Bad times? Before she left?
“What do you mean?”
“The Episodes, as your aunt Eleanor and I used to refer to them. The singing out on the front lawn in the middle of the night when she was happy. The days she’d spend in bed, reading the encyclopedia when she was depressed. The baking jags. The shopping trips. The way she couldn’t go to sleep until she double-checked that everything in the pantry was alphabetized.” He gave a shake to his head and let out a sad chuckle at the memories.
“I remember the baking and the singing,” I said. “But I guess I must’ve been oblivious to the rest.”
“I never felt like I did a very good job of being both father and mother to you kids.”
I looked at him in astonishment. “Are you kidding? Dad, you’ve been amazing. Kate couldn’t have done any better.”
“It was hard on you, growing up without her.”
That was a bit of an understatement. But the fact was, it was hard on all of us. Yet somehow, we all survived. “It was. You’re right. But Dad, when I think about how close you and I always were, I wouldn’t trade that for anything. You loved us enough for a million mothers. Bruce and I know that.”
He cracked a small smile and gave me a light fist bump before rapping his knuckles on the table, ending the conversation. I guessed Dad heard everything he needed to hear and didn’t really want a rehash of my entire conversation with his ex-wife. I hadn’t even mentioned that she’d given me her phone numb
er. I didn’t think any of us would ever need it, but I’d stuck it in my pocket anyway. You never know.
It was cleansing, in a way, to see that the encounter didn’t mean too much to him. I was happy that he’d come to the same conclusion as I had after so many years: There was no reason for hate, or remorse, or nostalgia. It was what it was. She was simply a part of our past.
“So,” he started in, smiling, “I haven’t gotten the post-mortem on the rest of your California trip yet. How was it?”
I hadn’t spoken to Dad for more than a few check-ins since the Oscars. Lisa and Pick had invited him, Sylvia, and her parents over to watch the show. They made a ton of food and sat around the TV, trying to catch every glimpse of Trip and me. Lisa said I was giving dirty looks to Joan Rivers.
“Post-mortem. Interesting choice of words,” I answered back, practically scowling at the sudden shift in subject matter. “Everything feels like it’s dying between us.”
“Oh, come on. Surely, you don’t mean that.”
“I do. And don’t call me Shirley.”
He chuckled at that. “You compared every relationship you ever had to Trip. I’m sure that whatever happened between you two can be fixed.”
“Maybe.”
I was lost in that thought until Dad startled me out of it. “He came to see me, you know. I think he was really looking for you.”
“What? When?”
“Oh, a few years back. He was visiting his mother up there in that big house of hers on the hill, and stopped by to say hello. His arm was all bandaged up from when he broke it, remember? When he was filming that movie in the city and you interviewed him? We sat out back and shot the breeze for a while.”
Remember? Was he kidding?
I was knocked out. “You never told me that!”
“He said you wouldn’t give him the time of day, wouldn’t go out with him while he was in town. I guess you’d just gotten engaged to that Fields guy—stop looking at me like that. Of course I knew—and you were trying to do the right thing by staying away from him. We both had a chuckle over that one. That you didn’t trust yourself to be anywhere near him.”
“You knew that? Trip knew?”
“You were always nuts about that kid. Heck, I always liked him too. He was a good kid. And now he’s a good man. But you need to decide whether you’re going to keep trying to find someone else who measures up, or settle down with the real thing. No relationship is perfect, Loo. You have to decide to accept the imperfections and realize that what matters is that you’re perfect together. All the other stuff is just the small stuff. It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s actually kind of big stuff, Dad,” I said, picking at the linen placemat in front of me.
My father leaned back in his chair, folding his hands across his belly. “Did he beat you? Cheat on you? Start drinking again?”
“No, of course not. Nothing like that.”
“Then it’s not ‘big stuff.’ It’s just stuff you haven’t figured a way through, yet.” He got up from the table and gave me a kiss on the top of my head. “You two’ll figure it out. Have a little faith, sweetheart.”
Chapter 30
FINDING HOME
I needed air.
I decided to go for a walk to try and sort some stuff out.
The ground had thawed while I was gone, and the rainy season was about to begin. I watched as little rivulets formed along the curb and dribbled down the street. Spring was well on its way, and I hoped its return would make everything new again. Maybe the coming season would be a good time for rebirth. Renewal.
Repair.
What the hell was wrong with me? Here I had everything I’d ever wanted. No. Wait. Not just wanted, but prayed for, begged for, spent countless years hoping for. How dare I even question it? It took us forever to get there. It took us forever to just be in love, to give ourselves over to it. There it was. Right there in my hands.
And we were threatening to ruin everything.
Every person I had ever loved was still a part of my life. Except one. Trip had lost a parent of his own. Why were we punishing each other for abandonments we had nothing to do with? We spent more time condemning each other for stuff we didn’t do, accusing each other of being people we never were.
If I weren’t so focused on my fear, I could have seen that he’d done everything to show me that he loved me. Hell, he repeatedly said it flat-out, which, for him, let’s face it, is a fricking miracle. What had I done to convince him that I did? I should have spent my time out there reveling in every joyous moment of having him back in my life. Instead, I pushed him about other women, I pushed him about his ex-fiancée, I pushed him about his father.
I pushed him away.
When he had never threatened to leave.
I swiped a tear from my eye and breathed in the mild, late-winter air. It was time to let go. Let go of my insecurity, my anger, my fears. It was time to let my life happen.
Everything that had gone wrong between us was due to outside forces and the stupid ways we went about dealing with them. It shouldn’t have to be like that. It should only be about us. Our us had nothing to do with our them.
By the time I’d made the trek back to my block, I started formulating a plan to come back to him in some big way. I hadn’t really settled on anything, because all my ideas seemed half-baked and insignificant. I needed something huge.
Out of pure habit, I jumped up to grab a leaf off my tree and sat down at the curb, turning it over in my hands.
And when I did… I noticed that something was written on it:
I love you
I ran back to the tree and noticed even more marked leaves, so I climbed up as quickly as possible (skillfully as ever, I might add), and sat my butt in my old favorite spot. Every single leaf along the lower branches—every single one—had writing on them, and they all said the same thing:
I love you
My stomach just about burst into smithereens. I sat there, trying to catch my breath as I looked at the pieces of Trip’s heart scattered around me. There I was, thinking of hiring a skywriter, and Trip had hired someone to do this.
I pulled my Nokia out of my back pocket and called him. I was actually hoping he wouldn’t answer. If he didn’t pick up the phone, it would mean he wasn’t there. And if he wasn’t there, then maybe he was…
“Hello?”
No such luck.
I had barely said hello back when he launched in breathlessly, “Where are you?”
I pictured him sitting out by his pool, enjoying the warm weather, the California sun shining on his beautiful face. “Oh, you know. Just sitting in a tree.”
He didn’t say anything at that, and I knew it was major confession time. I had my reservations, but I owed him this. “I’m sorry, Trip. I should have just said I was sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you about your dad; I should have tried to be more understanding about your life out there.”
I heard his release of breath, the breath he’d probably been holding for the past twenty-four hours. “I’m sorry I let you leave. I let you walk out that door thinking that I wanted you to go.”
“I was a jealous lunatic about those other women.”
“I wasn’t exactly rational about seeing the way other men looked at you, either.”
“I was a total bitch about your ex.”
“So was I.”
That made me laugh. I gripped the phone in my hand, wishing I could turn into vapor and slide right through the receiver to be with him.
“Look,” I said. “We’re not doing this anymore. If this is going to work, I don’t think either of us should leave the room anymore if there are unanswered questions. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we didn’t used to be the best communicators. I thought we were making some pretty good strides in that department, when we could calm down and just talk about stuff. Even the fighting was better than just clamming up and wondering. I’m not going back to that. I’m not wasting any more time. If there’
s something that needs saying… we’re going to say it. We’ve wasted too much time by not telling each other what we really mean. Got it?”
“Brain-vomit at every turn. Got it.”
“And I swear I’ll try to be more understanding about the fame thing. I’ll lay off the tabloids. I’ll be polite to your fans and your ex-sluts. They don’t matter to me. They have nothing to do with us. And I won’t push you anymore about stuff you’re not ready to face. I’ll help you along, but I’ll let you work on it at your own pace.” I snickered and added, “Maybe we need a safe word or something.”
“My ex-sluts—and my sanity—thank you.” I heard him chuckle as he added, “And yeah. You’re right. There were times when we did pretty great with all that relationship stuff. I don’t want to go backwards either. I’ll try to stop exploding and start talking from now on.”
Oh, God, was I in love with that man. Every part of him. I realized right then in that second that that love even included his past indiscretions, his present stubbornness about his father, his future fame. It was okay to just let that stuff be what it was. We were so much more than the sum of our parts.
“But even more important, it’s time to let go, Trip. We need to let go of our bad habits from the past. Let go of the hurt. The hurt we caused one another, the hurt other people caused us. Can we do that? Do you think that we can try?”
Suddenly, a black truck screeched to a stop in front of the house, and Trip’s voice was coming from two different directions. “Damn. The birds have gotten huge since I left town.”
I watched his beautiful form walking toward me as my jaw dropped. I flipped my phone shut in a daze, my heart practically bursting out of my chest. “You’re here! What are you doing here?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re here to check out my vandalized tree. Wait. You got a cell phone?! And you learned how to have your calls forwarded?!”