by Jeff Zentner
“No. That’s why we wanted to meet with you,” Josie says.
“Where did you say you were out of? New York? LA?”
“Jackson. Tennessee,” Josie says.
Divine gasps. “Jackson, Tennessee? Where on earth is that? Wherever it is, Jack’s-a-not going there! Get it?”
“Yeah, that’s fun,” Josie says, forcing a laugh. “Wordplay.”
Divine puts his hands on his hips and affects a broadly stereotypical Southern accent, the worst I’ve ever heard. “I do declayah, Miss Scahlett, these-uh young ladies have-a come all the way from the Land uh Dixie and Deliverance to become stahs! TV stahs! They want ol’ city slicker Jack Divine to make them-a famous!” He looks to Yuri for approval.
Yuri grunts and smiles (?). (It’s clear he’s not terrific at smiling.) “Kenny Rogers,” he says, like he’s challenging us to fight. We wait for him to finish the sentence or connect it to some larger idea, but no. Just “Kenny Rogers.”
Josie and I shoot each other an oh boy, this could be really bad, but maybe he’s just an eccentric Hollywood type…those Hollywood types can be really eccentric, right? look that Lawson joins.
I figure this is probably as good a time as any to make my exit. The adrenaline over meeting Jack Divine has been replaced with adrenaline over seeing my dad. Divine seems like something of a kook, but the sort Josie and Lawson can handle without me. “Anyway, Mr. Divine, I have to go to another engagement, but Josie and Lawson are going to talk with you about our show. It really was a pleasure to meet you.” I hand him a DVD from my tote bag. I’ve been handing them out all day. I saved two. One for Jack Divine.
“Do yuh have tuh go and slop the hogs now?” Divine says in his grotesque Southern accent.
Wow, is that ever not my favorite. But I humor him with a polite laugh and step away. Josie follows.
She hands me her keys and hugs me. “I hope it goes great,” she whispers.
I feel myself teetering. “Get us a TV deal, okay?” I whisper, although I probably didn’t even need to. Divine seems to be scanning the crowd for people who recognize him.
I can’t believe I’m really doing this.
“Hey, good luck,” Lawson says.
“Who needs luck, am I right?” I say. I try to sound jaunty and confident, but I miss the mark by a wide margin.
Maybe it’s the stifling heat and humidity that feels like trying to breathe through a wool sock soaked in hot tea, or maybe I’m so preoccupied I’m forgetting to breathe. Whichever it is, I’m thoroughly breathless and panting by the time I get to Josie’s car and start it. My hands quake, and I drop my phone twice while I’m pulling up the email with my dad’s address. I finally get a grip and punch his address into my phone. A little under three hours’ drive.
I take a deep breath and ask the universe—this once, just this one time—for a little bit of good fortune, and I drive off.
We stand there for a moment, staring at each other awkwardly after Delia leaves. I really wish she were here too. At least I have Lawson.
Divine claps twice to break the silence. “Let’s not talk business on an empty stomach. I’m famished.” Then, in his Southern accent (which is not getting at all tired and grating), “What say you we get some victuals, missy?”
“Sure, that sounds good.”
“Okay, why don’t you call us a car?”
“Uh…we actually had a car, but Delia took it, so…” I’m feeling like a naive kid, out of my depth. I guess I need to get up to speed with how TV types are.
“We’ll drive, then.” Divine starts striding away, snapping for Yuri to follow. We hurry to keep up.
We pass a girl with blue hair, a Linda Blair tattoo covering her whole upper arm, and several facial piercings, wearing knee-high black leather boots and a black vinyl dress and carrying a rolled-up poster under one arm and texting with the other hand. She makes the briefest eye contact with Divine and smiles politely before looking back at her phone.
He stops, sighs, and rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’m him.”
The girl responds with a stunned expression and glances behind her, as if to say, Me? “Sorry, I don’t—”
“You needn’t apologize, dear heart, but I am in a bit of a haste, as I’m sure you’ve figured. Have to talk some business. So let’s get to it, shall we? What am I signing here? No body parts. I jest, of course. Body parts on a case-by-case basis. All right, then. This?” He snatches her poster from under her arm with one hand and reaches out to Yuri with the other hand. Yuri slaps a Sharpie into it like a surgeon’s assistant with a scalpel. Divine unrolls the poster and smooths it on Yuri’s back.
“Mister, I’m not sure—” the girl says.
“I would’ve preferred to sign a poster of one of my own works, obviously, but I understand that you may not have expected to encounter me,” Divine murmurs as he signs.
The girl is still too flabbergasted to react. She looks to Lawson and me. I give her an apologetic shrug. She mouths, Who is he?
I mouth back, Jack Divine.
She shakes her head, perplexed. I don’t know who that is.
I shake my head. Neither did I until a few weeks ago.
Divine finishes signing, rolls up the poster briskly, and hands it back.
The girl takes it. “Um…thanks.”
Divine sighs again. “All right, I’ll take a picture with you. I sense your reluctance to ask, so I’ll cut to the chase for both of our benefits.” Divine seizes her phone and hands it to Yuri, then stands beside the shell-shocked-looking girl.
Yuri fumbles with the phone in his bear-paw hands. “Cheese,” he commands grimly, as though ordering a firing squad to shoot.
Divine smiles radiantly, the girl uncertainly. Yuri snaps the photo and hands the girl her phone.
“All right, you got what you wanted,” Divine says. “I’m in room fourteen-eleven of the Hyatt Regency if you think of anything else later. The party generally goes between midnight and three a.m. Or until the hotel shuts us down. Do not bring any cats. You may bring glazed donuts but not cake donuts. You may bring cake but not pie. Southern Comfort but not Jack Daniels. You may come dressed as a DC character but not a Marvel character. You may bring a well-mannered ape but not a monkey. If you’re unsure of the difference, Google.”
“Yeah, definitely don’t worry about any of that,” the girl says.
“Right then, I really can’t tarry any longer,” Divine says.
“That’s fine.”
Divine starts to walk away. He turns back. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I thought—”
“Nope. Didn’t say a word.”
He points at her, eyebrows raised. “Room fourteen-eleven!”
“To be clear: I will not come.”
“A firm maybe, then!” Divine claps at us. “Posthaste!”
I mouth I’m sorry at the girl, who shakes her head again. Lawson and I look at each other. “What just happened?” I whisper so quietly, I’m almost mouthing the words.
“No clue,” Lawson whisper-mouths back.
This Jack Divine guy is a real trip.
Yuri stands there for a second and turns to us. “Kenny Chesney,” he growls. He walks away, not waiting for any sort of response. Not that there is one.
* * *
•••
We follow Divine and Yuri out to the parking lot.
“You just witnessed the downside of fame,” Divine says to me, heels clicking on the hot asphalt. “Everyone wanting a piece of you. Me, me, me! Let me touch the hem of your garment. It’s tiresome, but it comes with the landscape. I’m grateful. Truly, I am. Blessed, if you’re into that sort of thing. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. But it would be nice to be able to leave the house, you know?” He mops his brow with a silk handkerchief.
I say nothing and just nod.
“You don’t know what that’s like. Maybe someday you will,” Divine says magnanimously.
“Sure don’t,” I say. Except for Larry Donut.
We arrive at a black Cadillac Escalade. Yuri gets in the driver’s seat with a groan and a wheeze after opening the back door for Divine.
“I hope you two don’t mind squishing in the far back,” Divine says.
“That’s fine. Or we could sit in the middle row and you sit up front,” I say. “Whichever works.”
“Far back.”
“Far back it is.”
Lawson helps me gather my dress (which I’m beginning to feel pretty ridiculous wearing) and cram into the far back seat—not an easy task in my dress and heels. He folds himself in next to me. The inside of the Cadillac reeks of expensive cologne that smells like cheap cologne.
“AC, Yuri!” Divine moans. “I’m sweating like a pig in line at a whorehouse.”
Yuri grunts, and air starts blasting from the vents.
“You a country music fan, Yuri?” I ask.
He grunts.
“Lawson here is,” I say. Lawson gives me a thanks for throwing me under the bus nod.
Another indecipherable grunt from Yuri. So much for small talk. He puts the Escalade in gear and peels out of the parking lot, pressing us back in our seats.
“Well, I once had a rather lively evening with George Jones, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings in Tijuana,” Divine says. “Let’s just say it involved some exceedingly pure amphetamines, more racehorse tranquilizer than anyone really needs, several bottles of Jim Beam, a sextet of American strippers with a quintet of teeth among them, a cactus, a live hand grenade, about a dozen Mexican police officers, a chimp dressed like a priest, a priest in a chimp costume, a helicopter, a jug band, and a lemon poppy-seed Bundt cake.”
Lawson shows me his phone, on which he’s typed, Or as I call it, another Saturday night.
I squeeze Lawson’s leg. I’m so proud of him. I’ve turned him into a level-three smartass.
Yuri leads us on a sphincter clencher of a ride through the streets of Orlando. At one point, Lawson puts his arm around me and hugs me into his side to keep me from being tossed around. I could not be doing this on my own. And if, instead of Lawson, Delia were here but wigging out about her dad, I would effectively be alone. So I guess things worked out.
I wonder if I should be taking advantage of the time to talk about the show. I decide to let Divine take the lead tonight and try to play it cool. I’d meant to Google “how to get a TV deal” before our meeting, but it slipped my mind.
We arrive at a place called Linda’s Jim Steakhouse. There’s a valet stand at the entrance. Pimpy-looking old men in white suits and orange fake tans with their considerably younger wives/girlfriends/mistresses gather around the entrance while valets whisk away their midlife/endlife-crisis mobiles. Dread seeps through me. My budget does not allow for a place like this. But what did I expect? Some big Hollywood type to hold a dinner meeting at Arby’s? Using my phone camera as a mirror, I hurriedly wipe off some of my makeup, so I merely look eccentric and not professionally bizarre.
“Glad you’re here,” I whisper to Lawson, gripping his arm.
“Especially after you only recently went to your first restaurant,” he whispers back, squeezing my hand on his arm. It takes me a second to remember my own joke. I love that he remembers my jokes even better than I do.
We walk inside the restaurant. It’s all dark wood and leather and bottles of expensive-looking alcohol and signed headshots of old-timey famous people and Frank Sinatra playing while pissy-looking middle-aged waiters in white shirts and bow ties hustle around like snobby ants.
“Table for four, and do be as quick as you can,” Divine says in an imperious, dismissive tone.
The host eyes the four of us with a wary mix of consternation and contempt. “Let me see what we have available.” He gives Lawson the up-and-down. “Sir, I’m afraid our dress code does require a blazer for gentlemen. If you don’t have one, I can offer you one to wear while dining.”
This is going to be a fun, fun dinner. Did I mention fun?
“Sure,” Lawson says tersely. “Hope I don’t spill.”
With a sour smile, the host walks to a nearby rack, selects a blazer, and hands it to Lawson. “I have you at a thirty-eight chest.”
Lawson takes the navy-blue blazer with a little gold crest on the front pocket and puts it on. It fits perfectly.
“Now then,” the host says, studying his reservation book. “It will be a few moments before we can seat you.”
Divine sniffs. “A few moments? I give myself another hour before I turn to cannibalism.”
The host leans in and, in a hushed tone, motioning at the four of us with his index finger, says, “Sir, if this is some sort of situation where—”
“She is not a prostitute, sir, if that’s what you’re implying,” Divine says noisily and indignantly, drawing stares. “Well…at least I don’t know her to be one. In any event, that’s not the capacity in which she’s here with me.”
The host’s face goes vermilion. “Sir, you misunderstand me. I wasn’t—”
“I’m actually standing right here,” I murmur, blushing to match the host’s shade. No acknowledgment.
Divine draws himself up to his full five-foot-three like a cartoon rooster. “Do you know who I am, sir?”
“I’m afraid memory fails me, sir. Forgive me.”
“Well, sir, get on your smartphone or whatever it is you use to inform yourself about the world and look up the name Jack Divine. You’ll see I certainly don’t pay for sex. Don’t need to. And what sort of prostitute dresses like this?” He flicks his hand at me.
I want to dissolve and turn to vapor. Even though I am dressed as Rayne, I’m not too self-conscious, since the black Hot Topic Victorian-style dress I am wearing looks only a little costumey when you take away the makeup and accessories. Plus, it’s Florida, so come on. But now? “Right here,” I say. “I am standing right here.” Nothing.
“Sir,” the host says, as though speaking with a toddler, “what I was going to say is if this is some sort of double-date situation, we might be able to seat the two couples at separate tables sooner, if time is of great concern.”
Divine guffaws. “Yuri? Oh, heavens, I would aim higher than Yuri if I swung that way. He was bred for brawn, not beauty.”
“Am standing right here,” Yuri growls.
“Yes, yes, fine, forgive me, Yuri,” Divine says. “Obviously yours is more of an inner beauty.”
This is going to be a long night. Please, God, make it worthwhile. Let me deliver this for Delia. Let me save our show.
Lawson reaches down and squeezes my hand.
And let me save this.
For a while, I listen to music, loud enough to try to jar the thoughts from my head like pounding on the bottom of a ketchup bottle, but for some reason, I can’t stand it. So I try one of my favorite true-crime podcasts. Nope. It sits with me like petting a dog the wrong way.
So I listen to the hum of the tires. I think about Josie and Lawson with Jack Divine. I hope they’re doing well. I think about how this is the longest I’ve ever driven on my own. And I try to plan out what I’m going to say to my dad.
Hi. Maybe you recognize me. I’m the daughter you abandoned.
Hi. I’m Delia Wilkes. Remember me?
Hi, “Derek Armstrong.” Bet you never expected to see me again.
And every one of these greetings—each of which rings more tinged with bravado than the last in my mind—ends the same way:
I came to find you because I need you to tell me to my face why you left. I need to know why I wasn’t good enough to stay your daughter. Why you couldn’t stay my dad.
I need to know why.
&nb
sp; The landscape changes as I head southeast toward the coast and take I-95 South. There are more palm trees. I’ve never seen palm trees before this trip. From the look of my phone GPS, I’m only a short distance from the ocean. I’ve never seen the ocean either. I’ve always wanted to. I imagine loving it the way I love storms—things that are so large and powerful, they make me feel like it’s okay to be small. I roll down the windows and let the sultry wind buffet my face. Maybe it’s my imagination, but there’s a salty softness to the air.
If he wanted to pick a place that wouldn’t remind him of Jackson, he did well.
I start seeing signs for Boca Raton, and my stomach kneads and froths like it’s doing a load of laundry.
This is nuts. You could get off the highway, drive until you hit the beach, kick off your shoes, sit and watch the ocean, and drive back. You’ll meet up with Josie and Lawson, and they’ll tell you about the amazing deal they worked out with Jack Divine, who, in spite of his obvious quirks, is still a well-connected TV professional.
You’ll all change into your swimming suits and romp in the hotel pool until management kicks you out. You’ll celebrate your bright future, having finally buried your dad. You’ll have shown yourself you have nothing left to prove. Then you’ll all drive home in triumph, singing along with Beyoncé at the top of your lungs. It’ll be great.
But I’m in the pull of some gravity, and so I keep driving.
* * *
•••
I sit in front of the address for Derek Armstrong, aka Dylan Wilkes, aka Dad, listening to the engine of Josie’s car tick as it cools and listening to my heartbeat throbbing in my ears. There’s a Jeep Compass in the driveway, parked behind a Nissan sedan. He drove a Jeep Liberty when I was little. Other than that, I see no outward indication that this is where he lives. His house is small and unspecial, in a part of Boca Raton that seems to be full of small and unspecial houses. But the palm trees lining the street make it seem like an exotic destination. A window AC unit hums and drips. I think I see a flicker of a TV from deep within the house.