Trouble Me

by Beck Anderson

Andrew puts me in the bed, pulls the covers up, adds a pillow behind me.

  “I’m not tired. I’m pissed. And I was going to make dinner. It’s, like, five thirty, you know.” In most cases, I’d love the idea of being swept off my feet, but we haven’t finished talking about this movie.

  “I did this.” He sits on the edge of the bed and stares at the floor.

  “What?” I’m confused.

  “I upset you, and you fainted. You could have a concussion. It could have put the baby in danger.”

  “Hiccup’s fine. I have a lot of padding around him. And I passed out because I was tired and spun around too fast, and I probably should have eaten more at lunch. This is not emotional distress. I’m not Rhett’s lover…you know, the one from Gone With the Wind.”

  “You don’t remember her name?” Andrew’s eyes are aflame with worry.

  “Pregnancy brain. Not concussion brain. Andrew, it’s okay.”

  “What’s her name, then?” He looks like he’s going to cry. His blue eyes are deep and wet.

  “Jesus. Scarlett. Scarlett O’Hara, okay? I couldn’t remember for a second. It’s more likely Alzheimer’s than a brain injury. I promise.” I take his hand. “Listen, the boys and I can manage in Boise alone. We’ve done it before.”

  “No. I’ll turn down the movie. I don’t care about it.”

  “No, you do care about it. You’ve worked very hard for a very long time to make this happen. You deserve it. My job as your almost-wife is to cheer you on. I should trust you enough to believe in you.”

  “I’d be in LA until Christmas, probably.”

  Tears come up in my eyes. That sucks. I hate being away from him. “We could manage. Make hay when the sun shines, right?”

  “You’re just repeating stuff you’ve heard Jeremy say.”

  “If I was doing that, I’d be cussing and insulting someone, possibly saying something sexist.” I squeeze his hand. “It’ll be fine. I’m tired and pregnant, and I worry. But we’ve gotten through lots worse. It’ll be fine. It’s not even for very long.”

  He takes his hand back and runs it over the back of my head. He pauses on the bump, and I resist the urge to smack him. Yes, I have a knot on the back of my head. Stop touching it, everybody. Geez.

  But I don’t smack him. He leans over and plants the softest, most tender kiss on my lips. “Nothing can happen to you. You, the boys, the baby. He has to be safe. You guys all have to be okay.”

  “Ha! See, I got you to call Hiccup a him. I’m winning the gender war.”

  “Hiccup. Ugh.” He smiles, just a little. Maybe I have succeeded in distracting him.

  “It’s cheesy, I know. He had the hiccups. It was destiny. And if it’s a girl, then it’s gender neutral enough for her too.”

  “I’m not kidding. Your safety is first. If anything happened to you…” He stops talking and tucks the blanket tightly in around me.

  “Same for you, Andrew. You know that. Life is precious and short. You’re talking to the expert at that, remember?”

  He kisses me again, taking me by the shoulders. His intensity stirs me, and I kiss back, wanting him closer. I pull his shirt, tug him toward me.

  “Slow down there, Cochise.” He lifts his head and breaks the moment.

  “You started it.”

  “I love you, and I want you to rest now. Humor me?” He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear, kisses me again, this time on my forehead.

  I sigh. “Fine. Tell the boys not to drink what I bought them yet. They’ll never eat dinner.”

  “I’ll handle it. They were going down to the pool last time I checked. I’m glad they missed all this. They worry about you too, you know.”

  “Enough worrying! I’ll take a nap. Go handle dinner.”

  “I’m looking in on you in about ten minutes. Call me if you feel sick again.”

  I push him. “Go. If you hover, I will be sick from all the fussing.”

  He stands, and his hands go deep in his pockets, his shoulders shrugging up. “I know, but—”

  “Stop!” I throw a pillow at his head.

  He ducks. “I’m going.” He smiles and slides out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

  I stare at the ceiling. I’m not tired. I feel fine. I don’t even feel sick anymore. But for Andrew to worry, that gets me worrying too. I’m the master at it. I’ve spent my life with real, unreal, big, and little fears eating at my gut.

  The man I love is a movie star. He’s a natural target. I’m pregnant, and I know every single terrible sad story I’ve ever heard about lost babies by heart, since they linger stubbornly in the crevices of my brain. I have two beautiful young men I love more than my own life, and they’re about to be in the prime bad-choice-making era of their lives. I know what it’s like to lose a loved one. It’s happened once; it could happen again.

  All of this could tear me apart or paralyze me. Fear of the unknown.

  Strangely, today a peace settles over me. For right now, for this moment, nothing is wrong. I can’t know what will happen tomorrow, but there is no sense in worrying about it tonight. I wonder where this calm came from, but I am thankful for it.

  Maybe it’s the knock to the head. Perhaps some sense found its way in.

  I close my eyes and am surprised to feel drowsiness settle on my limbs, warm and heavy. For now, I will sleep and know that the ones I love are safe.

  15: Too Close

  JESUS. I STEP OUT OF THE LIMO, and there it is, as usual—the roar.

  As usual. I sound like a total douche. I can’t believe I just thought that. Here I am, about to be interviewed on a national morning TV show, and I’m Mr. Blasé.

  But I want to be at home with Kelly right now. Last night, we argued, and she fainted, and it scared the hell out of me. I’d rather keep an eye on her than stand here and listen to people scream their heads off at the sight of me. Now I really sound like an ego-maniac.

  I do have my absolutely neurotic moments: “They aren’t squealing as loudly as they used to.” That’s the thing about going after fame or acceptance or whatever this craziness is—it’s so cliché, but there’s never a point where it’s enough. Because really what a narcissist like me—a fame whore, an actor—is looking for, we’re not ever going to find out there. Until we’re enough inside, all the success and magazine covers will just whip people like me into a weird, insecure frenzy. We need to get another hit, score another deal, more more more to get the same buzz we used to get from less attention. That sounds utterly familiar, doesn’t it?

  Why couldn’t I be a normal addict and transfer my addiction to something like Saint Bernard-size plastic cups of Mountain Dew? I shake off nicotine and alcohol, but fame, man, it tastes so damn sweet.

  Facing the crowd, I breathe in deep and bite the insides of both of my cheeks as I stand tall. This deep breath and slight twinge of pain helps to center me, sure, but Sandy, my publicist, also taught me to do it for the red carpet, for appearances. It makes the cheekbones pop.

  Wow, this stream of consciousness is getting dangerously shallow, isn’t it?

  Anyone who thinks photogenic people were born that way haven’t been through media training with a major movie studio.

  “Hey, handsome.” It’s Amanda.

  “Amanda.” I’m gonna be hoarse. It’s loud out here. The concrete canyons of the city bounce all the sound of the crowd back to my ears. Again I wish I was back at the condo, still in bed with Kelly since she goes back to Boise soon.

  Amanda pokes me on the arm. “I’m here to save you from taking yourself so seriously.”

  “Uh-huh.” I eye the sidewalk between us and the stage door to the television studio. On one side, a large group of people is contained against the building by a metal crowd-control fence. On the other side, the sidewalk is supposed to be clear for us and for anyone who hopes to just walk down the street, but people have heard the commotion and are starting to mill around to see what’s up. The limo I just got out of pulls away, and
Tucker joins us for the short walk from the fire lane up the city sidewalk to the back door of the building. We’re taping a spot to promote the movie on the morning show I hate, the one with two people who despise each other with a passion but who pretend to be besties for the sake of sagging mid-morning ratings.

  Tucker hustles us along, his hands out to clear a path through the gathering crowd. We have to edge closer to the street, avoiding the looky-loos.

  “Let’s go in. We could hold hands.” Amanda gives me a sly look.

  “No, we couldn’t.”

  “’Cause we’re not going steady? You could give me your ring. Or pin me.”

  “’Cause I’m in love with someone who is quite clearly not you and who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing jeans with that amount of shit on the back pockets. What, did you tie one on and get crazy with the Bedazzler?”

  “Suck it, Pettigrew.”

  “Always the lady, Amanda.”

  Right now I only mildly hate her, and most of the time on set it’s been more reminiscent of Arthur and D.W. than Hepburn and Tracy. She’s the pesky cartoon kid sister—if D.W. were into cupping and fish pedicures and colonics and whatever other weird beauty nonsense Amanda is doing to herself lately.

  I look to my left as she takes a step ahead, just in time to see Tucker lunge toward me.

  At that exact moment, someone shoves me from behind, hard. I’m off balance, turn a bit in my bid to regain my footing, and am thrown back on my heels. I’m going over, about to be off the curb.

  Except that there’s nowhere for me to go, no pavement on which to be laid out flat, because this isn’t the bowed-in fire lane next to the studio alley. Moving north, the flow of traffic is right on me. Behind me. About to take me out.

  Tucker’s hand has me by the neck of my sweater, roughly, and he yanks. My head comes up, sending the trajectory of my body in a direction away from the New York City traffic. But as he gives me a serious neck burn, I also feel sharp, clean pain bite hard into my shoulder blade.

  I hear a crunch, a pop of plastic, and hope that crunch was glass or something else besides my scapula. Noise—a yelp—escapes my mouth, and for a second I’m self-aware and proud of not letting loose a huge chain of filthy, angry pain words.

  But I also hear a sick gasp come collectively from everyone witnessing what just happened. There’s an eerie half-second of quiet, then girlish screams of concern.

  I’m listening, but really what I’m doing is being dragged by one arm and my lapels. Tucker pulls me through a door.

  “Oh shit oh shit oh shit.” I hear myself repeating it, like a panicked mantra.

  Tucker shouts, bellows, and now I look at linoleum and the glare of fluorescent lighting, and I hear, I think, the heels of my shoes squeaking and squealing on the tile because Tucker’s not done dragging me yet.

  I wonder when he’s gonna stop when all of a sudden he does.

  We’re in the back of a kitchen, by a prep sink. He’s on the cell phone, and he’s put himself between me and anyone else. There’s a small crowd of wait staff and cooks hovering behind him, but navy-sport-coated burly guys form a human barrier between him and them. They must be network security.

  He talks to me. “Andrew! Andrew!”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “What?” I have no idea what the hell’s going on. Everything’s just now coming into focus. “You shredded my neck.”

  He turns me around, away from him. I look at the sign above the sink: It’s New York State Law, Wash Your Hands Before Returning to Work.

  He barks again. “Someone get me scissors. And give me a status report on the driver of the SUV. I want the actual statement he gives to the police.”

  I feel something hot and wet on my right hand. It’s blood. It’s my blood. “My shoulder?”

  Someone’s gotten him scissors. “Jesus, Andrew. What happened out there?”

  “Someone shoved me. It was like a dirty play from that Burt Reynolds movie, the one where the prison guys play football.”

  “All the Right Moves?” There’s loud ripping of fabric.

  Jacket’s ruined. Probably the sweater, too. Jeremy’ll be pissed. He got Escada to dress me for today. Now it’s all gone to hell. “No, not All the Right Moves—that’s Tom Cruise. Good God.”

  Tucker works on the back of me. “Oh, I know. The Longest Yard.”

  “Yeah, that one.” I watch my blood drip into the sink. “Tuck, the blood thing. You know how I do blood.”

  “Your own, not well. How do you feel right now?”

  To tell the truth, right now I can bet money—oh hell, I’ll bet that sweet flat screen I was going to give Jeremy for Christmas—that I’ve been struck by a car. I know logically that I took most of the hit to the right shoulder blade, which laid the flesh above it wide open, probably clean down to the bone.

  But shock’s a wonderful thing. I don’t feel anything, not yet, except for the warm, wet river down the right side of my back.

  “Janus, come put pressure on this,” Tucker says. Janus comes to my side. Tucker leans around, looks me in the face. “Ambulance is one-forty out. They’d be here right now, but the traffic is a cluster. Police shut the whole block down. EMTs are driving the last half-block down the sidewalk.”

  Something comes to me clear and bright, like a yellow balloon in a blue summer sky. “Tucker, that was on purpose.”

  Tucker looks me straight in the eye as he turns me around and helps me sit on the edge of the stainless steel sink that’s now covered in my blood. There go the six-hundred-dollar pants. My shoulder decides to start throbbing in a hey-there’s-some-trauma-going-on-here rhythm under the heavy-fisted pressure Janus’s putting on it.

  Tucker nods gravely. “It was definitely on purpose.”

  16: Worst That Could Happen

  WHEN THE PHONE RINGS, I answer right away, expecting Andrew. He left insanely early to tape a morning show segment. He’s even less of a morning person than I am, so this is a grouchy phone call, probably.

  “How’s Mandy?” I ask in greeting.

  “Kelly, I’m on the way over there.” It’s Jeremy.

  “What?”

  “I’m on my way, be sure to buzz me up fast.” I’ve never heard him sound like this. His voice is brittle, like gray driftwood on the beach.

  “What’s wrong? Where’s Andrew? What’s happened to him?” My heart is pounding.

  “Stop. He’ll kill me. He didn’t even want to tell you yet. He got clipped by a car on the way into the studio for the taping.”

  “Clipped? What does that mean?” My voice is high and tight.

  “A car grazed him. He took it on the shoulder.”

  “Oh my God, Jeremy. Where is he?”

  “Getting stitches. Getting checked out at Roosevelt Hospital, since Jordan the dick won’t rest until he knows his investment is in one piece. The studio doctor could’ve handled it, but no—”

  “Jeremy! Why are you coming here? I want to go there and see him.”

  “Ah, that’s just what he said you’d say. I’ve been told to come over there and prevent you from going anywhere. Tucker and Andrew will come home shortly. You are to stay put. End of story.”

  “That’s crap. I’ll get a cab.”

  Jeremy exhales sharply. “Kelly, for chrissake. Just do this, for once. Don’t flip out. This is hard enough on him.” Jeremy is always one for the tactful, gentle comment.

  “How badly is he hurt?” I ask.

  “Lots of stitches. Nothing else as far as I know. It’ll hurt like a bitch, though. No pain meds for Mr. Clean.”

  I turn circles in the kitchen. Judging by the other night when I fainted, I need to proceed with caution—too much spazzy aimlessness on my part and I’ll probably keel over again. I sit at the kitchen island.

  “I’m here. Buzz me up.” Jeremy hangs up.

  I’m on my feet again. I try to stay quiet. Hunter’s still asleep. He stayed up late last night watching movies. B
eau’s in his room reading. What are we going to say to them about this? It’ll scare them. They’ll worry for Andrew.

  There’s a loud rapping on the door. I check the peephole and let Jeremy in.

  He’s got a bag in his hands. “I brought food.”

  “You stopped to get a bite to eat? Who does that?” Sometimes Jeremy’s absolutely callous demeanor makes me want to push him off a cliff.

  “I stole it from the green room at NBC. It’s the least they can do. Fuckers almost got my favorite client killed.” He dumps out cartons of milk, juice boxes, bagels, croissants, doughnuts.

  I can’t help it. I laugh. “Jesus, Jeremy.”

  “Tucker’s expected to do all the crowd control? By himself?” Jeremy waves a bagel around in his zeal. “Did it not occur to them that one of the biggest stars in Hollywood was coming by? They couldn’t even close the stupid sidewalk for thirty minutes while they did arrivals?”

  “What happened?”

  “He was walking into the studio, the crowd surged, he got pushed almost into traffic. You owe Tucker big. He swiped him out of the way, before anything worse could’ve happened.”

  I sit down again. “My God.”

  “Hey, hey now.” He finally seems to remember that I’m Kelly the widow, Kelly the lady who knows death. He sits down next to me, grabs a doughnut. “Listen, Tucker was right there. No big deal. He’ll have a good story to go along with the scar.”

  I can’t say anything. He hands me a chocolate milk and takes my hand, pats it.

  We sit like this for a minute. It’s the nearest to compassion Jeremy gets. When he’s quiet, that’s a very big deal.

  “You know, it’s probably best if you don’t watch TV for the day,” he says after a moment. “They’ll have coverage of it for a while.”

  “I just want him to come home.”

  He lets go of my hand and starts walking around the kitchen. He finds the butter and slathers it on one of the bagels. “He’ll be here. I’ll hang with you till they come. It’s going to be fine.”

  “I just want to have a peaceful day or two with him. Is that too much to ask?”

  “He’s Andy Pettigrew, Kelly. Yes, it’s too much to ask—at least until he’s not so famous. That’ll happen, sooner or later. Right now, he’s on fire. So, no, no peaceful stuff quite yet.”