by Paul Preston
“So, Edward? What do you have to say for yourself?” my sister asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“That’s all you have to say, Edward? I’m sorry?” my sister said.
“OK. Stand up, Edward,” my brother said.
I did as I was told.
“That’s good. Now, pick up your back pack and whatever you brought here and please… leave this house and never come back here,” my brother said.
My little sister came back into the living room and asked if we were done with the meeting. My brother said we were. I picked up my backpack and walked out into the front yard, followed by my three siblings. I heard a neighborhood dog bark in the distance.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said, quietly.
“Have a good life, Edward. May God be with you,” my older sister said, extending her hand.
I shook my sister’s hand.
After she said her goodbye, my sister went back into the house and shut the door. Then my brother approached me.
“You know, Dad worked his whole life to put food on the table and a roof over our head. He paid an enormous amount of money for you to go to college and get your degree. Personally I thought it was a waste of his hard earned money, but Dad knew you wanted to be an actor and he wanted us all to be happy with what we chose to do with our lives. So, after he spent all that money on you, is this the best you could do with your education, Edward? Perform in some cheap porno movie?”
“I’m sorry. I never meant for anyone in the family to see it.”
“Well, Dad saw it all right. He didn’t say a word when he watched the video. He just sat there like a man, shook his head and went up to bed. He died in his sleep that night, Edward. I’m sorry, but as a family we’ve decided you’re not welcome back here again. We want nothing further to do with you,” my brother said.
“What about holidays? I love buying my nieces and nephews presents for Christmas.”
My brother shook his head.
“We feel with your lifestyle, you’d be a bad influence on our kids, Edward.”
“Does Mom know about the video?” I asked.
“We didn’t have the heart to tell her,” my brother said.
“Thank you… Could I at least visit Mom once a—”
“Stay away from Vista, Edward. Good luck with your career,” my brother said, before turning away and going into the house.
I looked at my youngest sister and she stared at me.
“Are you going away, Edward? They said you have to go away on a long trip.”
I kneeled down to look her directly in the eyes.
“Yes, I am. I have to go away for a while. But I love you, Sis.” I said, giving my little sister a long hug.
“I love you, Edward. Remember us when you become a big star! Bye,” she said, running off toward the house.
When I heard the front door lock turn and the bolt click shut, I put my back pack around my shoulders and walked away into the dark. I have never been back to Vista or seen any of my family members to this day.
Chapter Eighteen
My Friendship with Elizabeth
I don’t remember much of what happened that night. Early the next morning I was sitting on the curb in Vista, stewing in my own thoughts and unresponsive. Apparently, a policeman who tried to get me off the street corner was concerned for my mental health and dropped me off at a psychiatric hospital, my second visit in the last few months. I was given some drugs to sleep. This time I wasn’t released the next day. I was placed in a large room with several other mental patients. There was one TV mounted on the wall, but it was controlled by an aggressive older woman who insisted on watching the Home Shopping Network all day long. Every fifteen minutes a nurse would come in and count the patients in the room and then leave. Several of the patients were coming off of drug or alcohol addictions and were constantly asking the nurses and each other for cigarettes. One patient stood rocking himself in the corner of the room and knocking his forehead against the wall over and over. No one seemed to notice. I walked over to try to stop him and noticed a large calloused lump on his forehead. After staring at me, the man turned back to the wall and began striking his head again.
When I was admitted the hospital had confiscated my back pack and wallet. I had nothing in my wallet except my California Driver’s License, a few dollars in cash and a small crinkled piece of paper with the cell phone of Elizabeth Rose written on it. The hospital called the number and informed Elizabeth that I was admitted into the Psyche Ward at Scripps Coastal Medical Center. I don’t know how she did it, but Elizabeth worked her charm and magic on the doctor and they released me into her care later that night. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her come into the locked ward of the unit.
“Elizabeth…” I said, slightly embarrassed to have her see me surrounded by crazy people, of which I was one now.
She glided through the day room toward me in her ethereal beauty, like an angelic creature appearing in our troubled ward, bringing a sense of calm to all of us. Even the man repeatedly banging his forehead against the wall paused to drink in her lovely visage. Elizabeth gave me a warm embrace.
“Edward, thank God you’re alright.”
After signing some discharge papers, we walked out of the psyche ward together. As soon as we got into the parking lot we started talking.
“What the hell happened?” she asked.
I told her about my awkward experience with Ms. Steele, falling into another depression and then finding out too late that my Father passed away and how I missed his funeral.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Edward,” she said with tears in her eyes.
Elizabeth decided to take me to her home in La Jolla to rest. On the drive, I told Elizabeth how my family had essentially disowned me after discovering the adult film we had made and how my brother accused me of it causing the death of my Father. She took my hand and held it while she drove. After we arrived at her house, I took a long hot shower and we had a bite to eat. She offered me her guest room to rest in for the evening. I asked about her husband she told me he was away at a medical conference and wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. I felt exhausted after my ordeal and fell asleep. It was the best night of sleep I had in a long time. Even if we were no longer a couple, it made me happy just to share the same roof with her.
The next morning Elizabeth gave me a ride home before she had to pick up her husband at the airport. She made a quick stop at a Verizon Wireless store while I waited in the car and then dropped me off at my crummy apartment downtown.
“Thanks for the ride, Elizabeth,” I said.
I was about to get out of the car when she took my hand.
“Wait, Edward. I need to talk to you before you leave.”
“Don’t you have to pick up your husband?”
“There’s time. First, I want you to know that you had nothing to do with your father’s death. His passing had nothing to do with the movie we made. You can’t take responsibility for that, Edward.”
I nodded my head and stared out of the window.
“You didn’t cause your father’s death,” she repeated.
“OK.”
“Also, there’s one more thing. I really need to be able to get in touch with you by phone, just in case anything happens.”
Elizabeth took a brand new cell phone out of her purse and handed it to me.
“I’ve put you on my plan so I can keep in touch with you, just in case I need to reach you for any reason, OK? I only wish I could’ve gotten it to you sooner.”
“Elizabeth, I can’t really afford—”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s only ten dollars extra a month on my family plan.”
“OK. Thanks Elizabeth. I’ll pay you back when I can—”
“It’s not necessary. And… what I wanted to say is…”
For the first time in our relationship, Elizabeth became emotional. Her eyes became moist and her voice quivered. She gripped the steering wh
eel tightly with her fingers.
“Even though we’re not lovers anymore, I want you to know. You’re still a part of my family, Edward... I need you, OK?”
“I need you too, Elizabeth,” I said. “As you can see, I’ve literally gone crazy without you.”
“Don’t blame me. You always were crazy!” she said, laughing and wiping the few tears that escaped from the corner of her pretty eyes. “So, from now on let’s talk at least once a day. You have the same number as mine except it ends in 25 rather than 35. I’ll call you later. Oh my God, I’m late for the flight!”
“OK. Drive safe, Elizabeth.”
So that was how Elizabeth and I finally became close friends. We talked regularly on the cell phone and met occasionally for lunch. We talked a lot about her relationship with Eric and how she felt unattractive and sickly a good amount of the time. Once she confessed that she thought becoming pregnant was a mistake and I tried to encourage her as much as I could that she was going to make an excellent mother. I tried my best to act as her friend, even though I was still enormously attracted to her and in love with her.
On the morning she went into labor, Dr. Richards had been called in for an emergency surgery on one of his patients and couldn’t be reached. Elizabeth texted me on the cell phone and said she felt uncomfortable and needed me. I immediately caught a cab to her house. When I saw her on the couch holding her tummy I didn’t know what to do, so I called Dr. Richards again. His secretary said he was in the midst of repairing a brain bleed in emergency surgery and that as soon as she could she would get a message to him to join us in the delivery room. Elizabeth appeared to be extremely uncomfortable and started having contractions, so I rushed her to the hospital.
The nurse set Elizabeth up in a room and they strapped a device around her belly to monitor the baby’s heart rate. She was in a lot of pain and I held her hand. We exchanged a stressed look when we heard a woman’s screams as she was giving birth in the next room. Elizabeth kept asking me where her husband was and I told her he was on his way, but I had no idea when he would arrive. I told the nurse that she needed drugs to ease the pain. Soon an anesthesiologist came in and started poking at her lower back with needles. He kept missing the spot in her lower back, dropping the used needles into a metal basin with a plinking sound, until he was able to attach the tube and administer the drugs. I held her hand through it all. Periodically, the nurse would come in and examine her and say her cervix had not yet effaced and dilated to the proper percentage. Elizabeth told me she never wanted to have any more children and squeezed my hand tightly.
About an hour later Eric had not yet arrived and the nurse told us a room was being prepared for an emergency caesarian section. The fetus was in distress and the head was apparently not in the correct position for a vaginal delivery. A minute later Elizabeth was taken away to surgery. I was given a blue sterile suit and surgical mask to wear. A few minutes later a nurse escorted me into the operating room.
It was nothing like I imagined a delivery room to look like. Elizabeth was stretched out on a table and her arms were stretched out to the sides in the shape of a cross. As I entered, her body was blocked off from my view with blue sheets. She was surrounded by several people and I stood next to her head. Elizabeth smiled with tears of fear in her eyes when she saw me. I stood next to her. She told me that she was scared and I whispered to her how everything would be OK. Eric still hadn’t arrived. A physician told me to hold a small bowl near her mouth in case she vomited. I heard a mix of conversations between the staff during the procedure, plans for weekend activities, gossip about which doctor was romantically linked to which nurse, the subject matter of a particular medical journal someone had read. The light chatter between doctors and nurses kept a relaxed atmosphere in the operating room, I thought.
Next I heard a horrifying sound I’ll never forget. It sounded like a lumberjack revving up a chain saw, which sounded especially loud in the enclosed room. Not seeing what was happening on the other side of the blue sheets made it even worse. Elizabeth told me she was sick and tilted her head to the side, vomiting in the tin basin.
I smelled an acrid odor of blood and flesh. I got worried when I overheard someone say her blood pressure had dropped. Then I heard Eric walk into the room, greeting the other physicians. I backed away from Elizabeth and watched from the corner as Dr. Richards assisted in the delivery of his newborn baby boy. I heard the Father’s jubilant voice on the other side of the sheets.
“Here he is! He’s a perfectly healthy baby boy, Elizabeth! I’m right here, honey. I made it! I just delivered the birth of our baby boy!”
I heard several of the staff congratulate him. After cutting the umbilical cord, Dr. Richards showed his wife their new child, cradled in his arms.
“I’m sorry, honey. I was in emergency surgery. Here is our little boy. Isn’t he beautiful, honey?”
Elizabeth nodded and smiled.
“Yes! Yes!”
He gave the baby to a nurse, held Elizabeth’s hand and kissed her. I left the operating room, changed out of the sterile suit and took the bus back to my apartment.
After Elizabeth came home from the hospital, we spoke on the phone every day, but were unable to get together after the baby was born.
Now that Elizabeth was busy with her child, I tried to return to my previous life as an actor. There was an excellent play called “The Fourth Wall” that was being produced at one of the respected theaters in San Diego that cast local actors. I had heard a lot about this interesting play when it debuted in NYC. I set up an audition and read for one of the main roles. I got one call back which got my hopes up, but when I didn’t get cast in the play I was extremely disappointed. My dreams of being a professional actor dried up and snapped like a twig. I decided to give up on my career.
When I was about to run out of money, I stumbled into a full-time telemarketing job at Broadway San Diego, selling a season of musicals at the San Diego Civic Theater. As soon as I made my first call to sell season tickets to Doris Johnson of El Cajon, I knew I had finally hit rock bottom of the theater food chain. I became a slick telephone salesman for the Arts, a gifted, and smooth-talking closer, doing the dirty work of the theater. Within a few weeks I was given all the best leads to call. I finally earned a consistent paycheck, hawking third rate nationally touring retreads of “Phantom of the Opera”, “The Lion King”, and “Les Miserables”, getting credit card numbers, putting butts in the seats. I made pretty good money and paid back the back rent that was past due.
I stopped exercising, ate crappy fast food and put on weight. My once chiseled body became soft and doughy around the midsection. I walked aimlessly around the Gaslamp District when I wasn’t at work. At the end of my walk I always ended up sitting on the bench overlooking the San Diego Bay. I would look up at the Coronado Bridge and the historic hotel where Elizabeth got married. Then I would stumble back home to my little apartment. The next day I would do it all over again.
A few months passed before I saw Elizabeth again. I received an invitation in the mail to attend their baby Desmond’s three month birthday party. There was a handwritten note on the card.
“Please come to Desmond’s birthday party, Edward. I want to see you. I miss you. Love, Me.”
I put the note on my bedside table, next to the photograph of us from the “The Monastery”.
On the day of the party their home was packed with guests and well-wishers. I set my present, a rocking horse with a large red bow around it on the pile with the others. I saw Elizabeth across the room, playing with her baby boy to the laughter and delight of the crowd. She caught my eye and gave her child to her husband to hold. I wandered out onto the balcony and looked down at the California coastline. In a moment, Elizabeth was standing next to me, leaning against the railing. I could hear the sound of the breaking waves against the shoreline below.
“Hi there, stranger.”
“Hi, Lizbeth. Congratulations about your son’s three month birth
day. He’s beautiful. He looks just like you.”
“I never got a chance to thank you in person for taking me to the hospital. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you weren’t there, Edward.”
I nodded and smiled.
“That’s what friends are for, right? You look great, Elizabeth. You lost all your baby weight.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to get together with you lately, Edward.”
“Don’t worry about it, Elizabeth. I know you’ve been busy with the baby.”
We stood together, looking down at the ocean and watching the waves, our bodies less than an inch away from touching.
I looked over my shoulder and there he was, towering over us at his wife’s side, holding her waist.
“Hey, Dr. Richards,” I said.
“Come on, Edward. You’re practically family now. Call me, Eric. You were there for the birth of my son, for gosh sakes. That was a crazy day. I’m in surgery repairing a brain bleed at the same time my wife goes into labor. Thank you so much for getting Elizabeth over to the hospital safely.”
“Sure, Eric”
“Excuse me while I go check on Desmond,” Elizabeth said, leaving us together on the balcony.
I was always anxious for the moment I would be alone with the husband of the woman I loved, but when it happened it was no big deal.
“Congratulations on the birthday of your son,” I said.
“He’s really just three months, but thank you,” Eric said. “You’re looking well, Edward, filling out nicely. Have you had any auditions lately?”
“No. I dropped out of acting a few months ago and took a job selling tickets at the San Diego Civic Center, marketing their Broadway touring shows.”
“Oh really? That sounds promising. How’s the pay?”
“It’s more money than I ever made acting.”
“Well, good for you, Edward. Good for you. You should save up some money for a down payment on a property while interest rates are still low. Where do you live now?”
“Downtown.”
“I’m sure there are some up and coming neighborhoods where you could buy a nice condo. I’ll talk to my realtor about it. How do you like the property I bought for Elizabeth? I can actually watch the surfers catch their waves while I get ready for work every morning.”