“This must all seem very small town to you now,” he said, as though reading her mind. “I remember how desperately you wanted to get out of here. Are you glad you did?”
“I was until a month ago, now I’m not so sure. Things work out in either place, or don’t work out. I like living in San Francisco, but my marriage is a mess. We’re probably going to get divorced,” she said with a sigh.
“You’ll survive it, Caro. You’re a winner. You always were. If he’s not the right one, you’ll find a better guy than the one you have. If he’s making you unhappy, it’s not worth it. Ellen and I were never right for each other. She wanted a lot of kids, and she got them, two more after me. But as soon as we had them, she lost interest in me. She’s ambitious in a funny way, but she wants to do it here. She’s very grand now, married to the guy who owns the alarm company, a retired captain. I mean, let’s face it, in the real world how la-de-da is that? And look at your husband. It’s great that he’s in venture capital, but if you’re unhappy, who cares?” He had a down-to-earth way of looking at things that she had always liked, and he hadn’t changed. And he was good-looking and in great shape at forty. He still looked like a football player. But she couldn’t imagine herself with someone like him. It just never fit, even then, no matter how cute he was. She had wanted someone very different from the hometown boys, like Peter.
“He cheated on me,” she explained about her husband.
“He’s an idiot, married to someone like you. I used to think about you when I was married to Ellen. She bitched all the time about the money I wasn’t making. And I’m pretty sure she slept with my captain before she left me. Who needs that? There are plenty of good people out there. You just have to find one.” She nodded, agreeing with him, not sure if Peter still qualified or not.
“It’s not going to be easy, starting over, dating again. I thought I was set for life.”
“We all think that. It’s chutes and ladders. You’re up at the top, and then you slide down to the beginning again. But it can be fun. I’ve actually enjoyed dating for the last ten years and not being married. I got it ass backward. I should have played till I was thirty or thirty-five and then gotten married. Instead I got married at eighteen and divorced at thirty, and now I’m having fun.” She laughed at his description of it, and he was right. “You’ll be happy again, Caro, if you wind up getting divorced. Just give it time. It’s a mess at first, especially with kids. But then you start to meet nice people, and you feel good about yourself again.” He was actually being helpful, and she was grateful for his advice. He made the future sound bearable, and not like a tragedy that had befallen her. “You should try dating online. It’s a little like gambling. You never know what card you’re going to get. Luck of the draw.” She laughed, and couldn’t see herself computer dating, although a lot of people she knew did. She’d thought she had it all worked out with Peter. Tom was right, now she was back to the beginning again. And she wasn’t sure how she felt or what she wanted. She was confused. She loved Peter, and she missed him, but every time she thought of him now, she thought of the photos in her nightstand. She was still in shock, angry, and sad. He had broken the sacred trust between them, and her heart. She had no idea where to go from here or whether to get a divorce.
They talked for a long time over dinner, and then he drove her home.
“I’d like to see you again sometime, Caro, if that’s okay with you. I can be your summer fling while you’re here.” He put it on the line and she laughed.
“I don’t think that’s what I need right now, but thank you, Tom. I don’t want to complicate my life more than it is. I have to figure out my marriage, and what I want to do, before I start dating or having flings. I don’t want to screw your life up either, or cheat on Peter if we’re going to get back together. But I’m up for an evening like this, dinner and good friends.”
“Fair enough. You were always straight up, Caro. I admire that about you. I should have stuck with you.” She had never cheated on him, Peter, or any man she’d gone out with.
“No, you shouldn’t,” she told him. “You did the right thing. I’m sure you have great kids.” She knew more than ever that she couldn’t live there. It just wasn’t enough for her, and never had been. But he was a nice person, and a warm memory. She couldn’t imagine him ever being more than that for her.
“I’ll call you,” he promised, but she wasn’t sure he would. She suspected that he wanted to sleep with her. And a fling was more what he had in mind, if he was big into computer dating. He was looking to make up for twelve years of a boring marriage, and he wasn’t through playing yet. She had never been a player, even in college. Gemma had been, but she never was. She was the serious one, and so was Kate.
She kissed his cheek, thanked him for dinner again, got out of the car, and walked into her house. Billy and Morgan were watching TV and looked up when she walked in.
“Who was that?” They heard him drive away.
“An old friend from high school.” It didn’t sound interesting to them so they didn’t question her further. But it had been nice, re-examining the patchwork of her life. It made her glad all over again that she had left. Life in the Valley just wasn’t for her, no matter how handsome and sexy Tom McAvoy was. She had outgrown him in high school, and that hadn’t changed. Now she had a decision to make about Peter, about whether she had outgrown him too. She hadn’t thought of it that way before, but that’s what it came down to. Could she start over with Peter and trust him again, or was it over for her and time to move on? And did she still love him, or did he kill that? She wasn’t sure. She was hoping she would know when she saw him again. Until then, she felt like she was floating in space.
Chapter 12
The end of August was a turning point for all of them. There had been big changes in the past four months, starting with their father’s death. Thad and Kate had a future to plan, new paths to discover together, and new ideas they wanted to implement on the ranch. He had signed the papers and paid Gemma for her share. It was a big change for both of them. He and Kate grew closer every day, and were excited about their future.
Gemma’s tenant in L.A. had to leave her house on Labor Day weekend, and hadn’t made an offer yet. He said he was in love with it, but it was a big financial commitment. She had paid off most of her debts with Thad’s money, there were still a few lingering ones that trickled in. She knew she had to confront her lifestyle now, and make major changes. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t, and didn’t want to, live from paycheck to paycheck. She didn’t have one, and she wanted a cushion, so the bottom couldn’t fall out of her life so easily again. She didn’t want to live that way. Selling her house in the Hollywood Hills and downsizing would give her something to fall back on.
Almost three months after the show had folded, she was still out of work. Jerry, her agent, was still promising that the new British series was a strong possibility for her, but it hadn’t come through yet, and she didn’t know if it would. She couldn’t count on it as a sure thing, or even a strong possibility. It might turn out to be a train that would pass her by. It happened a lot in TV series and feature films, someone told you that you were perfect for it after an audition, or that they were going to call you, and they never did. Hopes got dashed in Hollywood every day, and hers had in June.
She went back to L.A. the day after Labor Day, and she was surprised by how sad she was to leave the ranch. More than she had been when she left at eighteen after she’d graduated from high school. It had provided her a safe haven all summer, an opportunity to reconnect with her sisters, and find herself in the peace and silence of the Valley. She realized now that she’d been running away for years, living on distraction and overriding her inner voices with background noise, running away from age, her responsibilities, the need to put something aside for the future. She hadn’t wanted to hear any of it. Her father had tried to warn her,
but he liked the idea of her being a star, and the reflected glory it gave him. In some ways, she had been an accessory to him, to make him more important and look good. His daughter was a star. And stars didn’t have to be responsible or even grown-ups most of the time. They had to show up at work, look great on camera, and know their lines. She had done all of that, to perfection, but she had been coasting for ten years, while the producers spoiled her, the public adored her, her father bragged about her, and she signed autographs. She had bought into all of it. It would have been hard not to. She would have had to face herself more often than she had. She doubted that she had faced reality at all. She had formed no deep relationships or friendships in the past ten years. Everything in her life was superficial, a façade.
She walked around her house when she got it back, and loved being there again. It was big and beautiful, elegant and showy, the furniture was perfectly placed, the art was attractive and expensive, and it gave her a feeling of well-being just being there, wandering around, and looking at the view. But she didn’t need it, no one cared that she lived there. She had no one to share it with. It was ten thousand square feet of drain on her finances with no income now to support it. And even if she got another big show, did she really want to carry all that and work to pay the mortgage? She was sorry now she hadn’t bought something smaller and easier to carry. With no show, the house was a rock around her neck, and a heavy burden.
She missed her sisters when she got back to L.A., seeing Kate and Caroline every day, and going on walks and daily bike rides with them. Seeing her niece and nephew and learning about them. She had made her sisters go to the nail salon with her to add “glamour” to their lives, as she put it. Kate had had the first professional manicure of her life.
Gemma missed their serious discussions too, about what the future looked like for each of them. They were all suddenly at a turning point, a fork in the road. Caroline hadn’t figured out what to do about her marriage, and was worried about her kids. They asked her several times if she and Peter were getting divorced, and she told them she didn’t know. They were handling it better than she’d expected, but the whole family couldn’t hang in limbo forever.
Kate had big plans for the ranch, and with Thad, and it was different without their father, a huge change for each of them.
Their father was the ghost of Christmas past for Caro, the bugaboo she had feared and run from. He was Gemma’s hero, and in the past she always knew she had him to fall back on if things got tough, but not this time. She had to bail herself out, she wasn’t Daddy’s Girl anymore. And Kate was thriving. He had repressed her and tacitly put her down for years, substituting her fresh new modern ideas with his, implying that everything he did was better and she couldn’t make it on her own. She had to now, with Thad next to her, as a partner, not overpowering her as their father had. Her father’s message to her had been strong, that she didn’t have what it took because she wasn’t a man, and without him she would fail. She wondered how one man could be so many different things to each of them. He had taken over their lives, tried to make their decisions for them, hidden their mother from them, and lied to them.
He had all but ruined Scarlett’s life, with her full cooperation and innocence at twenty-three, and run their lives or tried to ever since. She and Caroline had had to run away from him in order to breathe, and Kate hadn’t taken a deep breath in years without his standing over her, intimidating her, second-guessing her decisions. Now they were all breathing, in some ways for the first time, without him. He was the specter in the background, the savior when he chose to be, the judge of everything they did, the voice in their heads no matter where they went or how far they ran. There had been no escaping him, and now suddenly he was gone, and there was only the sound of their own voices, not his. It was finally beginning to sink in, for all of them. Their daddy wasn’t there anymore. They had grown up and were adults now, and it was scary as hell. And it almost seemed meant to try them, that Gemma had run aground, lost the show, and was out of money, Caroline’s marriage was on the rocks, and Kate finally had a man in her life, a real one, one who loved her, for the first time in a dozen years. It was about goddamn time for all of them. In the months since his death, they had all grown up.
* * *
—
Gemma called Jerry the morning she got back, to see if he had any work for her, but he didn’t.
“Still nothing? How is that possible? The show wrapped nearly three months ago and all you’ve had are auditions for a vampire movie, the voiceover for a witch in a cartoon, and six commercials that didn’t want me.” And they both knew why. She couldn’t play ingénues anymore, or even thirty-year-olds credibly. She had entered a new phase in her career, while she wasn’t looking, the middle-aged actress. How the hell did that happen? She had aged with the show, and now the show was gone, and she was standing on the shore watching the ships pass her by. “There has to be something,” she said in a plaintive tone. She had been harassing him all summer, even when he went to the South of France, and stayed at the Hotel du Cap, where she used to go, and could no longer afford. All the fancy trimmings and perks seemed fraudulent now, and irrelevant. She needed work, something she could sink her teeth into, and pay the bills with. Where was stardom now? Her star was in the tank, or that’s what it felt like to her.
“There will be something,” he said with certainty. “It just hasn’t happened yet. You’re a big name, they’re going to want you for a decent part, but whatever that project is, it hasn’t come together yet. It will have your name on it when it does.”
“I wish I was as optimistic as you are.”
“Do something,” he told her. “Go to the gym, get a hobby, buy a dog, sleep with someone. Keep busy.”
“I’m thinking of selling my house,” she said, sounding morbid about it.
“Good. Buy a new one. Decorate. Buy things. Go shopping.”
“That’s what got me into this mess in the first place. If I change clothes six times a day for the next twenty years, I can’t wear it all. My cleaning lady had more money in the bank than I did when the show closed.” The story was familiar to him. Most actors lived that way. They started to believe the roles they played and the hype. They went around living like royalty or the dictators of small countries, with nothing to back it up. Gemma was not unusual in that. Fancy cars, houses, art, and jewelry changed hands frequently to bail them out. And then they did it all over again when they got another big part, and forgot that it would end again one day. Few of them had a grasp on reality, and knew how to cope with real life.
Their relationships evaporated as fast as their films. Very few of them had their feet on the ground. Gemma was no different, no better or worse than most of his clients, though she was one of the rare few who had talent. Most of them just had great looks, which they frittered away too, with too much plastic surgery when they had time and money on their hands. He had a famous client who had died that summer from an infection after her fourth liposuction in six months. The doctor was under investigation. And another one who wanted a million dollars a year in her spousal support to pay for plastic surgery. They were all a little crazy, but he loved them. He tried to be gentle with Gemma. He knew she was panicking, but she had to be patient.
“Just don’t get work done on your face while you’re waiting. Every time I sign someone for a big part after a slump, they show up with a new face and the producers don’t recognize who they hired, and neither does the public.” They both knew it was true and saw it often, actors and actresses who surfaced looking like strangers. “You’re perfect just the way you are right now. Keep it that way.” Most of the time he felt like a babysitter or a shrink or a combination thereof. “Have an affair,” he advised her, “it’s great publicity. Go break up a marriage.” He was kidding, but his clients did that regularly too. “What about a younger guy? Women love reading about that. It gives them hope.”
<
br /> “I just want work, Jerry, not a face lift or a boyfriend.”
“Then you’re in the wrong business. Don’t go getting all deep on me, or find religion.” One of his biggest stars had become a nun, he had lost a shitload of money when she bagged on her contract in a big series. The producers had sued her, and him, for not honoring the contract, and won.
She was still hoping for an audition for the British TV series he had mentioned, but they weren’t holding auditions yet, and he didn’t know when they would.
Gemma went to a spinning class after they hung up. At least she could keep her body in shape while she waited. She’d been bicycling all over the Valley with her niece all summer, and was happy to say she could keep up with a fifteen-year-old, and occasionally even beat her. She could go back to the Valley too, but she thought she should spend September in L.A., and get her face out there, so people didn’t forget her when they started casting series for the following year. But she actually missed the Valley now. It was a first for her.
* * *
—
Caroline and the kids had gone back to Marin County a few days before Labor Day weekend. She had to get them ready for school, which was starting on Tuesday. Billy had outgrown everything he owned except his shorts and flip-flops and his oversized T-shirts. Morgan said she had nothing to wear to school, and they needed all the usual supplies, pens and notebooks, a new backpack for Billy with the latest superhero on it. It was bittersweet going home and knowing Peter wouldn’t be there. Neither of them had been in the house since the end of June, or so he claimed. It hit all of them when they walked through the door. Caroline knew she couldn’t avoid reality any longer.
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