Outside In

by Courtney Thorne-Smith

  “Well, Kate,” he said, sounding like a disappointed parent and perching primly on the edge of the chaise, “are you feeling better now?”

  “Yes,” she said, although in reality she was feeling monumentally worse. “Hamilton, I am so sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I just…” Kate lost her train of thought when the hand she had laid on Hamilton’s leg in the hopes of creating a loving connection was unceremoniously lifted up and dropped back beside her own leg.

  “You know, Katie,” he said without looking her in the eye, “I just don’t want to hear it right now. I have had a very trying, very busy day, and the last thing I expected when I came home to my sanctuary—my castle—was to be the butt of some private joke of my wife’s.” He turned his head toward the garden, crossed his arms, and said, “Honestly, I just don’t know who you are anymore.”

  Kate felt her world begin to spin. Had she screwed up that badly? Hurt him that deeply? She reached her hand out to touch his shoulder but he shrugged her off, turning farther away from her as if he couldn’t stand to look at her. “Oh, Hamilton, I really am sorry. You know I would never hurt you on purpose.” This was met with a loud “Tsk!” and a sad shake of his head, fueling Kate’s panic that she had caused irreparable damage. “You do know that, don’t you, Hamilton?”

  “I thought I did, Katie. I thought this was a safe place for me, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe we need to do more work with Penelope or maybe you need to go see her on your own…I don’t know. I just thought that we—that you—were further along than this. I really thought that we were at a place where I could begin to trust that my home is a respite from the jungle, a haven in this cold, hard world.”

  “Of course it’s a safe place. I want to be your safe place.” She scooted down closer to the edge of the chaise where Hamilton was perched so that she could wrap her arms around him, both to comfort him and to hold him in place. Hamilton allowed himself to be held for a moment, flooding her with a sense of relief—he won’t leave me today—but then suddenly he was standing up and she was left leaning forward awkwardly, her arms held out as if awaiting a hug.

  “I’m going out now,” he said, smoothing the front of his Armani black-label slacks and carefully retucking his custom-made shirt. “My intention is to come home tonight, but I really can’t be sure how I will feel. I may choose to stay at a hotel. Either way, I think it would be for the best if you called Penelope immediately and set up a series of appointments for yourself. You seem to have forgotten everything that she and I have worked so hard to teach you.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Kate, feeling as though she were folding into herself, getting smaller and smaller, like an origami sculpture. “I’ll call right away. And I am so sorry—”

  “I know you are,” he interrupted, clearly done with the conversation. “I just don’t know if that’s enough.” With that, he walked across the yard and into the house, leaving Kate alone with the feeling of having chased away the one person she needed most in the world.

  She heard the front door slam, then his car door, and finally the throaty growl of the Porsche’s turbo engine fading to nothing as he drove away. Why had she laughed at him? Stupid, stupid, stupid, she berated herself.

  Dragging herself off the chaise, she made her way into the kitchen on shaky legs and sat on an incredibly uncomfortable—albeit gorgeous—custom-made leather and steel bar stool while she flipped through their Rolodex in search of Penelope’s phone number. She was embarrassed to call, embarrassed to admit that she was still making the same thoughtless mistakes. She could already hear Penelope’s disappointed sigh, so much like Hamilton’s. And it was no wonder that Penelope would be frustrated. After all, she and Hamilton had been trying to teach Kate how to have a healthy relationship since their third date. Instead of dinner and a movie, they had done dinner and therapy. At the time, Kate had been wary but flattered, since Hamilton had presented his unconventional courting method as a sign of his deepening commitment.

  “You are a very cute girl, Kate,” he had said as they drove to Penelope’s office for the first time. “With the potential to be quite beautiful. But before I invest more time and energy into this relationship, I need to know that we are on the same page. I need to know that you will approach both our professional and personal relationships with a strong and disciplined work ethic.”

  “Of course,” answered Kate, staring at his handsome profile and his strong hand resting on the gearshift. She was only too happy to accompany him to see his therapist. At this point, she would have happily followed him to the moon. And meeting Penelope felt like an important step, like meeting his mother.

  “Did you read the book I had messengered over to you?”

  “Of course I did,” said Kate. In fact, she had been up reading until two a.m. in anticipation of that very question.

  “That’s my good girl.” Hamilton reached over to pat her knee and Kate felt a happy blush burn her cheeks. “What did you think?”

  “I thought it made a lot of sense,” Kate said earnestly.

  “Good,” Hamilton said, “because if you don’t understand Penelope’s work, then you will not be able to be the partner I need you to be and we may as well stop right now.”

  Kate could tell by his tone that he meant every word he said, and she vowed in that moment to do everything within her power to become the partner that he wanted. In fact, she was thrilled to finally have a guidebook about relationships and a strong man who would define his expectations. She had always felt as though she’d been let loose in the romantic world without a map, left to fend for herself in the wilds of male/female interaction. In the company of this handsome man with his clear, unambiguous ideas about her life and career, Kate had felt safe for the first time in her life.

  Now, staring at the phone and willing it to ring, she felt decidedly unsafe.

  Two long hours later, when the phone finally rang, Kate grabbed for it like a teenager awaiting an invitation to the prom.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Kate,” said her mother. “What’s wrong?” How did she always know?

  “What? Nothing,” lied Kate, hoping she sounded more convincing to her mother than she did to herself.

  “Oh good,” sighed her mother, not only convinced but clearly relieved. “I’ve been so worried about you.”

  “What? Why?” Kate felt as though she had been punched in the stomach. Had Hamilton called her mother? Warned her that her daughter might need help because of her impending breakup? Oh God. “What are you talking about, Mom?”

  “Your scene, honey—I’ve been worried sick about it all day.”

  “My what?” Kate struggled to connect what she was feeling with the words coming out of her mother’s mouth. Between her own panic and her mother’s apparent insanity, she was having trouble following.

  “Your scene. Today. At your job,” said her mother, now clearly annoyed at her daughter’s denseness. “What is wrong with you? Have you been drinking?” The absurdity of this question—indeed, of this entire conversation—hit Kate and she burst out laughing. “Katherine, are you laughing? My God, you have been drinking. I just hope Hamilton isn’t there to see you like this.”

  “Mom—”

  “The last thing he needs after a hard day at work is to come home to find you—”

  “Mother, listen to me—”

  “—three sheets to the wind and acting like a stupid—”

  “MOM!” shouted Kate, desperate to stop her mother before she was forced to listen to the specifics of her stupidity. “I am not drunk. When have you ever even seen me drunk?”

  “I don’t see any reason for you to use that tone with me, young lady,” said her mother, clearly offended by Kate’s response to her own apparently inoffensive accusation of drunkenness. “I am not a stupid woman, and I am not someone who would just make something up. Frankly, I resent your implication.”

  “Oh, Mom,” said Kate, abandoning her own anger as they entered the familia
r territory of her mother’s insecurity about her intelligence and Kate’s lifetime appointment to the ego-boosting cabinet. “Of course you aren’t stupid. You are very, very smart.”

  “Well, then, I just don’t understand why you have to talk to me that way.”

  Physically cringing, Kate said, “I’m sorry, Mom. I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “Yes, well, you did,” said her mother calmly, having successfully orchestrated her transition from villain to noble victim. “Now, why don’t you tell me about your scene? Were they able to work around your weight gain? I was wondering if maybe they would shoot you behind a laundry basket or something, like they do for pregnant girls.”

  “Mom!” Kate was aghast. “First of all, I didn’t have to do the scene today—it got rescheduled. But more to the point, I hardly look pregnant. I’m only five pounds up.”

  “Yes, but five pounds up from what, dear? Besides, five pounds is quite a lot on small frames like ours. You know, I only gained fifteen pounds total during my pregnancy.”

  “Yes, Mother, I believe you have mentioned that once or twice”—or thirty-seven thousand times—“but I am not pregnant.”

  “No, dear, of course you aren’t pregnant. This would not be a good time for a baby, what with your career finally back on track.”

  “Wait a minute—shouldn’t you be pushing for a grandchild, pining for a little baby to spoil rotten?”

  “Oh, Kate, I hardly have time to deal with a baby right now. Your father and I have several trips planned and I have my book club. Besides, when the time is right for you and Hamilton to have a child, I really think it would be best for you to adopt, maybe from a foreign country. It’s such good press, and it will allow you to keep your figure…such as it is.” Kate briefly considered defending herself but decided she was just too tired. And fat. “Anyhoo,” her mother went on, “I have got to run. I e-mailed you the number for Clean Colon, Happy Colon. I really think you should book a series of colonic irrigation treatments and get started on them as soon as possible. I think we can still hold out a faint hope that your belly bulge is nothing more than excess waste. Well, I’ve got to run now. Love you!”

  “Yes,” Kate said to the dial tone, “that couldn’t be more apparent.”

  6

  “Sapphire Rose on line three,” said the little box on Michael’s desk.

  “Got it!” Michael yelled through his open office door. It made his assistant, Marjorie, crazy that he wouldn’t talk into the box, but there were so few opportunities for fun during the day and watching her react when he didn’t follow her obsessive idea of how things should be brought him far more joy than was probably warranted. He was determined to make her loosen up and relax her strict standards of behavior, but she was just as determined to convert him to the religion of “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Their ongoing battle was just like the Crusades, except that they were battling over the importance of having a proper filing system instead of fighting for their eternal souls. Other than that, though, it was exactly the same.

  “Hello, Sapphire,” said Michael into the phone, feigning confusion when Marjorie gestured sternly at the intercom. “How did it go today after I left?”

  “Well,” said Sapphire, her tone making it clear that she was displeased but trying to rise above it. “Believe it or not, I am just now on my way home. I just can’t get over how disorganized they are here. We never even got to that restaurant scene; we ended up just shooting me alone in my apartment—in my robe. Can you believe it? We didn’t even need a skirt. I swear, it’s a wonder they get anything done at all.”

  “Yes,” said Michael, wondering less about production’s disorganization and more about Sapphire’s ability to completely rewrite history. Had she actually forgotten that he had been summoned to the Generations set this afternoon? That he had wasted his afternoon sitting in her trailer with the producer and executive producer trying to calm her down while she had held up production for no less than six hours with her endless tantrums? “It is certainly a wonder.”

  “It really is,” said Sapphire.

  “So…to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?” asked Michael, hoping against hope that she was not just looking for someone to talk to—or, rather, at—during the long ride out to her seven-million-dollar “cottage” in Malibu. He had to find her some friends. Too bad his mother wasn’t alive.

  “Michael, you silly—you know why I’m calling. You said you would tell me all about your little conversation with Bob Steinman, remember? You said you and he had had a conversation about me, and I just want to know if I need to start packing for my big location shoot in Paris.”

  Michael forced out a laugh, not because he found her comment about an imminent location shoot funny, but because he needed to buy himself some time. He had completely forgotten to make up a plausible story about his imaginary conversation, and now he had about thirty seconds to fabricate something that would fool Sapphire. Oh well, he was in the fantasy business, after all, and he was blessed with a completely delusional audience. “Right…That’s right…I did say I would tell you about that conversation. But I believe I said that I would tell you after you completed the restaurant scene, which you still haven’t finished. Isn’t that right?”

  “Don’t you dare tease me like this, you bad boy. You tell me right now or I just might come over there and spank you,” Sapphire cooed in what she thought was a sexy voice. Michael disagreed.

  “Well, I guess I’ll have to tell you, then, in order to avoid that spanking.” Sapphire giggled girlishly. Michael choked back bile. “But first, I need to tell you that this is all top secret. I need to be able to trust you not to breathe a word of what I am about to tell you to anyone, not even Bob himself, or the whole deal could fall apart. Do you understand? If word gets out, there will be no deal.” He emphasized “no deal” with roughly the same energy he would have put behind “the second coming of Christ,” knowing that they shared similar levels of importance in Sapphire’s consciousness.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, all whispery earnestness in deference to the sacred nature of a discussion about possible film work. “You know you can trust me, Michael.”

  Yes, just about as far as I can throw you, Michael thought, but here goes nothing. “There is a really big, really hush-hush project in the works about Vivien Leigh—”

  “Oh! I have always related to her so much!” Sapphire squealed, thinking of the actress’s beauty and talent.

  “Yes, I can see why,” said Michael, thinking of her well-known struggles with mental illness. “Anyway, it is in the works for, um…” Doing a quick calculation of how long he could keep her happy and docile with the promise of a possible film role and taking into consideration the emotional meltdown that would follow the unavoidable falling-through of the imaginary part in the imaginary film, while trying his best to contain the aforementioned meltdown within the confines of her hiatus from her real role on her real television show, he came up with a vague date several months in the future. “…Next fall…ish.”

  “Really? Wow, that is soon! Do you mean next fall as in the fall six months from now or eighteen months from now?”

  Eighteen months from now? Could he really risk trying for eighteen months of good behavior? “You know, that is a very good question. I can’t believe I didn’t clarify that for myself. Let me call Bob and get back to you in a few days, okay?” He needed time to do some more in-depth calculations. Agents should teach classes in emotional algebra.

  “Yes, of course, take your time,” said Sapphire brightly. “To be honest, I need all of the time I can get to do my research. I’ll have my assistant start on that right away.”

  “Now, now,” admonished Michael. “Didn’t we promise to keep this a secret?”

  “Oh, yes, of course—mum’s the word. I won’t tell her what it’s for. I’ll just tell her it is for a book I am writing. Did I tell you that I have decided to write a book?”

/>   “No, you didn’t,” he said, surprised. “I didn’t even know you wrote.”

  “Oh, sure, I write all the time. Well, I don’t actually write—who has time for that? What I do is talk into a little bitty tape recorder and send it off to this lady, and she makes it into a book. You know, writing a book is so much easier than people make it out to be. I mean, I just talk about my day and all the deep thoughts I have and this lady—I think her name is Jane—or is it Joan?—whatever, it doesn’t really matter. Anyway, she just takes what I tell her about my life—which is obviously so much more interesting than a normal person’s life—and mixes it up and puts it back together into a story. It’s what everyone is doing these days. I don’t think anyone is actually sitting down in front of an actual computer anymore.”

  “Well, Jane Joan is,” pointed out Michael.

  “Well, duh, of course I know she is. She is a writer. That’s her job,” said Sapphire, as though Michael’s statement was the stupidest thing she had ever heard. “What I meant is that none of the authors are writing. We don’t have to, not with modern technology and all. I’ve done most of my book while getting my nails done. I mean, those girls don’t speak English anyway, you know?”

  “Yes, Sapphire, I know.”

  “So, it’s not quite ready for you to sell it yet, mostly because June is so slow at typing it up. But as soon as she gets An Enviable Life back to me, I’ll send it right to you so you can get it published. Should we talk about the book tour now? I want to wear mostly Versace.”

  “Right. Versace. You certainly have your finger on the pulse of the literary establishment,” said Michael, suddenly exhausted and inexplicably sad. “Listen, I’m going to go put that call into Bob Steinman now. It could take a while for him to get back to me, what with pilot season and all, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a few days, okay?”