“Sure,” he said. He must have heard something in my voice, because he said, “Is everything okay?”
Nothing is okay, I thought. “I’ll tell you in person,” I said, ending the call. Maybe he’d have answers, or at least some funny anecdote about the time one of his stars had tried to pull a stunt like this . . . or maybe he’d just wipe off my tears and hold me, and I wouldn’t have to think about any of this anymore.
* * *
I’d been to Dave’s house maybe a half-dozen times to swim, each time using the key, never ringing the doorbell. It was almost enough to get me to smile when I pushed the button and heard a mellow chime play the opening notes of the theme from The Jeffersons. Well, we’re movin’ on up. A moment later, the door swung open, and there was Dave in his chair, dressed, as usual, in a short-sleeved shirt and jeans, with Pocket standing beside him, an inquisitive expression on her face, one ear up and one ear down.
“Hey, Ruthie.” I could guess how bad I looked by the concerned expression on his face. “Are you okay? Here, come on in.” His wheelchair whispered across the polished wood floors as he led me to a low sectional couch. There was a baseball game on TV before he flicked it off, and I hoped that Shazia wouldn’t come strutting out of the bedroom, all smiles and solicitousness. A minute later I was sitting, with a cold bottle of water in my hand, rocking back and forth like an old Jew at prayer and trying not to moan out loud.
“What happened?”
“Get me your laptop. I’ll show you.” Dave’s chair purred across the floor as he went to fetch his MacBook. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. The shots of Cady at the Alcove were already online. “Get the Skinny,” one of the gossip sites invited. “Starlet Cady Stratton unveils DRAMATIC NEW LOOK at Sunday brunch! The star of ABS’s upcoming sitcom The Next Best Thing showed off her STUNNING WEIGHT LOSS while posing with fans at The Alcove in Los Feliz on a sunny Sunday afternoon. How’d she do it? Cady was mum on the details. ‘Wait and see,’ she said.”
Wordlessly, I pointed at the screen. Dave maneuvered his chair to my side and took a look at the photographs—Cady sitting, Cady standing, Cady cheek to cheek with one girl after another, grinning her skeleton’s grin.
“Well,” he said after a minute. “At least they got the name of the show right.”
“What are we going to do?” I said. “She can’t play the part anymore. She isn’t Daphne.”
For a moment, Dave didn’t answer. Then he sighed. In that single exhalation, I heard the verdict. I heard the future. I heard the sound of dumpy Alice at her computer, tallying every mention of Cady as news of her DRAMATIC NEW LOOK spread across the World Wide Web. Network bean counters would log every tweet and retweet, every blog post and comment, and they would inevitably arrive at the conclusion that all publicity was good publicity, that any mention of Cady was good for The Next Best Thing. They’d liked Cady well enough twenty-five pounds ago, but they’d probably love her now that she was the obligatory Hollywood size zero and was getting all this attention for her STUNNING WEIGHT LOSS. I could bitch and moan, I could protest and complain, I could even go on social media and make my case to the public, and none of it would matter. Cady had won the war without a single shot being fired. She’d won the war and I’d lost my show.
I dropped my face into my hands. Dave inched his chair backward, then forward, his version of pacing. “Hey, Ruth,” he said. “Hey, now. I know that this probably feels like the end of the world. But think about it. Was Daphne’s weight really the most important thing about her?”
“It mattered!” I said tearfully, because of course I was crying by then.
“It mattered. Yes. But it wasn’t the only thing that mattered. The girl you wrote is a real, funny girl.”
“She looks like P-P-Paris Hilton!” I wept. “And I hate Paris Hilton! She has dead lizard eyes!”
With my face buried in my hands, I didn’t see it, but I could imagine that Dave was smiling. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll admit there’s a resemblance. But Daphne can still be real. She can still be funny. You can just think of other ways to tell the story you want to tell. Maybe you give her a best friend . . .”
I raised my head. My nose was running, my eyes were red-rimmed, and the tears had undoubtedly washed away the makeup I’d applied so carefully that morning. “I am not,” I said, enunciating icily, “going to do a show with a fat best friend.” My lips were quivering as I pushed the words out. “I wanted Daphne to be her own best friend, you know? I wanted her to save her own life.” I meant to tell Dave about the viewers I’d imagined, the girl I’d been, the hospital beds, counting the hours until my next pain pill, how alone I’d felt, how television had saved me, but I was so choked up I could barely speak at all. I’d lost Gary. I’d lost the grandmother’s character, and my real-life grandmother was barely speaking to me. Now I’d lost the heart of the show, the only thing left. I’d lost myself. Now I had nothing . . . nothing at all.
“Ruth.” His hand was warm on top of my shoulder. “Hey. Listen. This is all part of the game out here. You know that. It’s all about compromise. Nothing ever comes out just the way you imagined it.”
“My heart is broken,” I said. It sounded silly, cheap, and melodramatic, but it was also the truest thing I could say, and when I heard it out loud, it made me cry even harder.
Dave sighed. He wasn’t an I-told-you-so kind of guy, so I knew he would never remind me of what he’d said at our kickoff dinner—how I should savor that golden time after a project had been green-lit and before it started shooting; how, from that moment forward, my show would no longer be mine.
“I thought I was ready for this. You know?” I’d worked long enough in Hollywood to know that nothing got done without compromise, that you had to give to get. I could handle disappointment. I could do what was necessary. I could smile at the actors who came to audition and thank them for coming, then draw a line through their names before the door had closed behind them. I could be tough when toughness was required; I could bend when bending would help. I could handle it when the executives rejected all of my potential stars and wanted, instead, a girl that they’d hand-picked; I could swallow hard and take it when they insisted on a scene that made Nana look more broad and crass than I’d intended. I could do it all as long as I felt like my toughness was in the service of something important, that I was protecting the essential heart of my story. But now . . . “If Cady’s just some pretty girl, then I don’t even know what the show’s about,” I said. “I should quit. I will quit. Let someone else make The Next Best Thing. It isn’t mine anymore.”
I got to my feet, intending to go to my car, drive right to the studio, and sit there, stewing in the parking lot, until Lisa or Tariq or someone showed up so I could turn in my resignation.
Dave’s grip was stronger than I expected as he pulled me back down to the couch. “Hey,” he said. “Let’s not do anything hasty.”
“Like what? Like lose half my body weight?” My laughter rang off the walls and all of his important art. “Do you have anything to drink?”
“More water?” Dave offered. “Or a nice cup of tea?”
I snorted and then crossed the room. I’d spotted a drink cart, a twin of the one in his office, on my first trip to his house. One of the cut-glass decanters had the word VODKA on a silver plaque hanging from a chain around its neck. I picked up a glass, poured a shot, and then went to the kitchen for tomato juice and ice. Dave’s wheels purred behind me. “Hey, Ruth, take it easy.”
“It’s a Bloody Mary. A brunch drink. Perfectly acceptable. Want one?” There was, of course, horseradish in the refrigerator, some artisanal, locally produced brand I’d never heard of, probably made by hipsters in Silverlake with ironic mustaches. I found Worcestershire sauce, olives, and toothpicks. The ice cubes, I noticed, were in the shape of Han Solo, frozen in carbonite at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Of course they were. Everything to the Daves was a toy, a game, a joke—even their show, which wasn’t abo
ut them, the way mine was. I’d been stupid enough to take it all seriously, to invest myself, to imagine, idiotically, that a show could be a vehicle for change, or that it could help girls like me feel less lonely.
“Big Dave gave me those,” Dave said. I ignored him. Facing the refrigerator, I stirred my drink with my finger and swallowed half of it in three gulps. My face flushed as the vodka traced a fiery path down into my belly. I felt the muscles of my thighs and shoulders unclenching, and for one brief euphoric moment, I thought, Maybe this isn’t so bad. At least I got a show on TV.
Then a wave of despair rolled over me again. “You know what it is?” I asked. Because I was still looking at the stainless-steel refrigerator and not at Dave, I could say it out loud. “I hate that she can fix herself. Just like that. She loses thirty pounds and now she’s beautiful, and I . . .” My throat was closing. I lifted the glass to my lips and took another swallow before I felt Dave’s hand on my hip.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey, Ruth.”
“I can never . . .” I said. I didn’t have to tell him the rest. I could starve myself until I was Hollywood’s ideal, submit to another dozen surgeries, and none of it would matter in the end. My face would always announce me as the funny best friend, the punch line, the freak. What I’d written in my notebook that night in the hospital was, always and forever, the truth: I will never be beautiful.
Dave’s hand, I noticed, was still cupped around the curve of my hip. His feet were bare, pale, dusted with brown hair on top. He had hairy toes. Hobbit-y toes, I thought, and took another swig of my drink.
“Take it easy,” he said, in his calm voice. “Let’s take a step back and think this through. Why don’t you go for a dip?”
It was May, with the temperature already climbing toward the nineties. “I don’t have my suit,” I muttered. Go for a dip. What a WASP he was. Nobody in his world ever died; probably they just passed or passed on.
“I’ve got extras in the pool house.” I feigned surprise at the news, even though, of course, I’d found Dave’s swimsuit stash already. Maybe this was what it was here for—writers and actresses who’d show up at his front door, unannounced and weeping. He’d shoo them into the water and wait it out while they got themselves together.
“There’s towels and sunscreen. I’ll be out in a minute.” Gently but firmly, he pried my glass out of my hand and then wheeled away down the hall. I went through the sliding glass doors, out back to the pool house. There was a light-blue suit with thin straps and a kind of corset detail, with underwire anchoring the bustline, that fit me fine. The neckline dipped low enough to show some cleavage, and its modest leg openings meant I didn’t have to worry about not having had time to shave, or wax, or notice what was going on down there, in weeks . . . not since Gary. The water was perfect, the way it had been every Sunday I’d come over and done laps. I held my breath, pushed off the tiled wall, and swam all the way to the shaded end of the pool. I flipped, came to the surface, took a deep breath, and swam back. When I surfaced again, Dave was sitting at the edge of the pool. He was in a different wheelchair from the one he used at the office, and he had a swimsuit on, baggy red board shorts. I’d never seen his legs before, pale and thin but otherwise unremarkable. They looked like the regular legs of a guy who hadn’t been in the sun for a while. You’d never guess they didn’t work. There was a towel around his neck, draping his bare chest, and I could smell coconut-scented sunscreen.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked.
“Hey, it’s your pool,” I said. I was, I realized, a little bit buzzed. I tried not to stare as he wheeled his chair to the edge of the pool, put the brakes on, and used his arms to lift himself up and off the seat and onto the ground. He scooted to the edge of the pool and eased his legs into the water. I swam another lap, thinking I’d give him some privacy. By the time I came back he was perched on the steps, wearing his typically bemused expression, his gray-blue eyes bright in the sunshine as he watched me.
“You’re a good swimmer.”
I planted my feet and tipped my head back, feeling water pour through my hair, aware of my bare arms and shoulders, the skimpy bathing suit that was the only thing keeping me from being naked. “I used to be a lifeguard.”
“I know,” he said. “I remember.”
I felt his eyes on me, imagined him considering the possibilities, weighing the consequences. Maybe it was the vodka that made me so reckless. Maybe it was my disappointment. Maybe it was the feeling that, after what had happened with Cady, after what I’d told him in the kitchen—I will never be beautiful—I had nothing left to lose.
I swam toward him with clean, sure strokes, until I was standing right in front of him, close enough to see the beads of water on his eyelashes and in his beard. Underwater, I was just the glimmering shape of a body—hair, swimsuit, skin. No scars. For a long moment, Dave looked at me from his perch on the steps leading down into the water. “Ruthie,” he said in a voice so quiet I could barely hear it. Then he stretched out one hand, cupped the back of my head, tilted my chin up, pulled me toward him through the water, and kissed me.
I felt him groan against my lips. It was the sound of a starving man who’d just walked into the world’s grandest buffet, and gathered me against him, deepening the kiss as I wrapped my arms around him, feeling his flesh, sun-warmed and glistening with droplets.
I love you, I thought but somehow kept myself from saying, pressing against him until not even a seam of liquid could make its way between our bodies. Dave cradled me in his arms, kissing my forehead, my lips, my scarred cheek, my jaw, the spot underneath my ear, as if it was all the same to him, as if it was all beautiful. I heard the water lapping against the side of the pool, and when I tried to pull away, he held on tightly.
“This is maybe not a good idea,” I managed.
“Maybe not,” he answered . . . but his voice was rough, and he showed no signs of letting me go. Thoughts were spinning in my booze-fogged brain: my conversation with Maya about dating coworkers, and how she’d said, Where else are we supposed to meet people? The stack of swimsuits in the pool house, and what they might mean. Shazia Khan, driving up in her Mercedes-Benz coupe and finding me and Dave entangled in the water. Things could end badly. God knows they had with Rob.
Dave’s mouth, hot and open, was on the hinge of my jaw, then my collarbone. I could hear his breath, harsh in my ears, as he hooked his thumbs into the swimsuit’s straps and pulled it down to my waist. “Oh, God,” said Dave before bending his lips to my breasts. “Ruthie. I thought you’d be beautiful, but not like this.”
The pleasure of what he’d said jolted through me. He’d thought about me! He set one hand at the small of my back, then used the other to pull the swimsuit over my hips and then toss it toward the deep end. I laughed as I heard it splash in the water, then groaned as he settled me on his lap and bent his head toward me again. “Oh, my,” he said. Then, “Ruthie.”
He turned me so I was sitting on the top step, with the small of my back rested against the top step, and he was sitting on the step below me. I shut my eyes as his hands pushed my legs apart. I felt the water lapping at my skin, his hot tongue tracing a path from my breasts down my belly, then between my legs, licking urgently with his fingers tight on my thighs. At one point, the sensations almost became too much, and I tried to squirm away, but he held me tight, and lifted his head, and said, “No. Stay with me. I want you right here.” I shut my eyes and let my legs fall open again, hearing the water splash and tremble against the tiled walls, hearing my voice in a spiraling cry as my orgasm burst through me.
Afterward, he sat on the steps and held me, floating, in his arms. I could barely open my eyes. I felt as lazy and sated as a cat asleep in the sunshine, or little Pocket, curled up and dozing in one of the cushioned lounge chairs. My bathing suit was drifting in the center of the pool, and everything that had happened with Cady and the show seemed very far away. I wrapped one arm around his waist and thought about dipping my finger
s beneath the waistband . . . but what would I find? And what if, like Rob, he told me no?
I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t risk it. I’d barely survived that kind of rejection once. I couldn’t go through it again. So I turned, hopping quickly out of the water, grabbing a towel and wrapping myself up, leaving my swimsuit floating in the water. Never mind. He probably had people to pick up after him.
“Ruth?” Dave was looking at me, his expression puzzled. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine! Great! Everything’s fine!” Even as I was speaking, and trying to ignore the look of hurt and surprise on his face, I was coming up with a plan. I would pretend that this was a casual encounter, a fling, a one-time-only event. I would pretend that I was a girl who had casual encounters and flings. I wouldn’t tell him how I really felt, or how wonderful it had been, there in the water, the slow liquid lapping of his tongue, his hands strong against my skin. Heaven. It had been heaven. And, I realized, with my heart wrenching, it would be a heaven I’d never experience again. “You’re really good at that, you know.”
I made myself look away, remembering a term I’d heard in the Bunk Eight writers’ room—pity fuck. Probably, that’s what this had been—pity head. He couldn’t be heartbroken. Probably he was just relieved that I was leaving with so little fuss, leaving him to the quiet of his afternoon; to Shazia. “Years of practice,” he said, looking at me steadily. He was looking at me, puzzled, patient, and it was all I could do not to drop the towel, get back into the water, swim to him, and let him hold me, the way he had so many times in my dreams. But no. I knew what I wanted, and I strongly suspected it was much, much more than he was prepared to give me. Besides, there was the not inconsiderable issue of his beautiful girlfriend. What would she do if she found out? I adore you, he’d written. What if I ruined that for him?
The Next Best Thing Page 25