Monsters

by Liz Kay

  “Now, kids, we have a very special visitor today.” All the kids twist in their seats to look. “And I know you are all going to do your very best to use your ears and your eyes, but not your … ?”

  “Mouths,” all the kids say.

  “That’s right. Now maybe, Stevie, you could greet our guest and introduce her to the class?”

  Stevie’s still little enough to hug me in front of his friends. He takes my hand and pulls me to the front of the class. “This is my mom,” he says.

  “Mrs… . ?” says the teacher.

  “Mrs. Lane,” Stevie says. I smile at him, and he sits back down.

  “Hi, guys,” I say, and I wave my hand. “So, Stevie asked me if I would come and talk to you guys about poetry because that’s what I do. Poetry is kind of my job.” Jesus Christ, I think, I sound like an asshole. “I thought maybe we could start by talking about metaphors. Has your teacher told you what a metaphor is?”

  It turns out that Bashō is not the biggest hit with first-graders, and their little confused faces make me even more anxious. I wish the teacher would just cut me off like I can tell she wants to, but she just lets me talk and talk, and then I get the kids to help me write a haiku on the board.

  “Why don’t we write a poem about one of the animals we’ve been studying?” the teacher says, and a boy in the back says, “Ooh, a bear, a bear.”

  “That’s great,” I say, and I write bear on the board. “Now, how do we want to describe it?”

  The teacher says, “What are some good adjectives for a bear?” and then we end up with furry, which I don’t think is a particularly interesting adjective, but what do I know?

  “Okay,” I say. “What’s something surprising we could compare a furry bear to?”

  “A garbage truck!” someone yells, and I’m like, Nice, but then the teacher says, “I didn’t see a hand.” She’s a real stickler.

  Stevie puts his hand up, and I think, Yes, because I’m doing this for him, or maybe I want him to do it for me. I don’t know, but he says, “A monster,” and I’m like, Really? I start to make a face at him like, Maybe not, but then the other kids all start saying, “Yeah,” and the teacher is telling them all to settle back down, so I write monster on the board. Then the teacher hands out paper and they all copy down Furry bear monster of the dark woods, which is not exactly seventeen syllables or a very good metaphor. They’re drawing giant brown bears and trees, and I’m just ready to get the hell out of here.

  “Well, thank you so much for coming,” the teacher says to me.

  I slip around behind Stevie and hug him goodbye. His furry is missing an r, and his bear looks like a boulder with ears. “Bye, sweetie,” I say. “Thanks for letting me come to your class.” He nods, but then he kisses me on the cheek with his soft, tiny lips and I feel like I could cry. I don’t though. I just stand back up and leave.

  When I get in my car, I pull my phone out to turn the ringer back on. I have a text from Jenny and a voice message from Daniel. I hit play.

  “Hey, it’s Daniel. Call me as soon as you can.”

  He picks up on the first ring. “Hang on,” he says. “Here’s Tommy.”

  “Stacey, hey. How’s it going?” He sounds nice. He sounds like we’re friends.

  “Good,” I say, though I’m suddenly feeling anxious again. “What’s up?”

  “I need you to come out to L.A.”

  This is not what I was expecting, not that I knew what to expect, but if I had, it wouldn’t have been this. “Okay. Why?”

  “So I’ve got my friend Jason coming in to talk about directing. I think he’d be perfect, you know. I don’t know if you know his work? Jason Collier.” He pauses like I’m supposed to answer, and I don’t say, Are you kidding me? I just say, “Yeah.”

  “Anyway, I think he’s interested, but I want you to be here. I mean, Jason’s a genius, but so much of this comes from you. I want to make sure we’re shaping his vision, you know, that we get this right.”

  This is flattering, and it is January in Nebraska, and the thought of leaving sounds great. “Okay. When?”

  “That’s kind of the thing. Jason’s coming over at eleven tomorrow, so we could have you on a plane at, hang on.” He holds the phone away, and I hear him say, “Daniel, what time is that flight? Four o’clock,” he says.

  “Are you serious? That’s not exactly time for me to figure out my kids.” I lean my head back against the headrest, chew on my lip. “Let me call my sister. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Look, the minute Jason’s on board, we get the green light on this. You’ve got to be here. You have to come out.”

  Out the window, the sky is a dull gray. It’s been just warm enough that some of December’s snow has melted. Beneath it all the grass is brown and dead. Dormant I guess is more accurate, but it just looks dead.

  • • •

  Daniel picks me up at the airport and takes me back to Tommy’s. His house in L.A. is nothing like the house on Parrot Cay, but it’s definitely as dramatic. The gates are tall and the whole place is hidden behind walls and shrubs, and when we pull past them, it’s this modern beachy-looking spread. It looks expensive, of course, but inviting. Just inside the entrance there are these open, floating stairs to the right, and then this long wide hallway that leads straight back toward this tremendous fireplace, and halfway down, double doors that lead to a living room on the left.

  Tommy is in the living room, and he throws his arms out and says, “Hey, you’re here.” He crosses the room and catches me in a hug.

  “Hi,” I say. “Good to see you.”

  “You look like you need a drink.” He lets go of me and walks to the bar in the corner. “Red?” he says, holding up a bottle he’s already opened. “Daniel? You staying to drink or you headed home?”

  Daniel shakes his head. “I’ve seen this show before. And I’m guessing I’ll need to be here early to feed you ibuprofen and make sure you’re presentable.”

  “I’m presentable. I am always presentable.” Tommy pours two glasses and steps out from behind the bar. He carries both glasses in his left hand, the bottle in his right. He holds the glasses out toward me, and I take one.

  “Don’t stay up too late. Don’t open another bottle.” Daniel points his finger at Tommy and then at me.

  Tommy just smiles, and Daniel squeezes my arm and says good night.

  I turn to move toward the couch, but Tommy says, “Come this way. I want to show you something,” and he presses the hand with the wine bottle against my back and takes me through the doorway into the dining room. Beyond that is the kitchen and this enormous great room, which is where the fireplace is, and then there’s this wide hallway. The first door opens into a study that is just lined with books. I mean, there are shelves all the way around it, and then there are stacks of books on almost every surface. There’s this small loveseat at one end of the room and a desk at the other. Tommy sets the wine on the table in front of the loveseat and retrieves a laptop that’s sitting open on the desk.

  “Sit,” he says. He sets the laptop on the table and sits next to me. His leg presses right up against my leg, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. It is bothering me. I take a big sip of the wine, a really big sip. It might be more like a swig.

  “Okay,” he says, “so I have all of this shit on Frederick, and I want to see what you think.”

  There are pages and pages of notes, this whole backstory on the character that I obviously never wrote, and then there are just these random lines and quotes. I only recognize a few, but there’s Eliot, Rilke, Nabokov obviously. As I’m reading through them, Tommy says, “I felt like I needed to get some male voices in my head, you know?” and I nod.

  “Where did you get all of this?”

  He sort of holds his hands out like, Look around. “Well, it’s great,” I say. “I mean, it all feels right.”

  He lets out this tremendous sigh like he’s been holding his breath, and he puts his arm around my shoulders a
nd leans his head against me. “Oh thank god. I was sure you were gonna fight me on this again.”

  “No. I mean, if this is how you see him, you see what I see.”

  “Okay,” he says, and he leans forward, grabbing the laptop, balancing it on our knees. “So look at this.”

  He has all of these short video clips. Some are him, but mostly it’s other people. He’s been using them to figure out the walk, how he’ll move his hands, how he should talk, and everything he shows me has some little shadow of Frederick, and he’s trying to explain how he’ll layer them together. He wants me to look at the screen, but I keep turning my head to watch him talk, and he has to keep pointing me back. He has a lot of this to show me, so we do go through the wine, and Tommy does open another bottle, but by then I don’t even mind how close he’s sitting or the way he keeps touching my hand when he makes a point.

  When he finally closes the laptop, I pull my left leg up and hug it into me and then my right. I’m trying to unkink my hips.

  “Fuck, no wonder you’re so tense,” he says, and I think, What? Why? Is it obvious? “You’ve been stuck on a plane all day, and now I’ve got you all cramped up in here.” He rests his hand on my back and rubs his thumb along the edges of my spine right between my shoulder blades. Up one side, down the other. I try not to flinch.

  “I should get some sleep,” I say. “It’s like three a.m. for me.” I smile. “You’re a terrible influence.”

  “I hear that a lot. Come on.” He stands up and pulls me to my feet. “I’ve got a room for you upstairs.”

  • • •

  When I wake up, there’s a pale yellow light coming in through the window. The curtains are just these thin beige panels, and they don’t keep anything out. I can see now that there’s a shade behind them that I could have pulled down, but of course I hadn’t noticed. It doesn’t really matter. It’s always hard for me to stay asleep.

  In the shower, I let the hot water run through my hair for a long time, try to massage away the fog left by the wine.

  I walk back into the bedroom and pull my clothes out of the bag. Packing for this was confusing. I mean, what do you wear to a business meeting that’s in someone’s house? And what if the person you’re meeting is really powerful but they’re more of an artist? I don’t know. That’s too many variables for me, so I brought these black pants with a wide leg, but they hang really low on my hip like they could be casual. The top is this sleeveless, mossy green knit, and it’s got this nice flow to it and a low neck, which now that I have it on, shows kind of a lot of skin. I wish I’d brought a tank or something to put under it, but I didn’t, so I’ll just have to live with it.

  • • •

  Tommy is already in the kitchen when I get downstairs, and he looks fine, refreshed even. He’s sitting at the counter reading a newspaper. I don’t know how he can live like he does and still look like that. It took a lot of work to disguise the circles under my eyes.

  “Morning, lazy. Thought you were gonna sleep all day.”

  “Please. It’s not even nine. Coffee cups?”

  He points to a cabinet, and I open it, take down a mug to fill. The coffee smells perfect, all earthy and rich. “Actually, I’ve been awake for hours.” I lean back against the counter across from him. “I don’t sleep all that well.”

  “Ever or just the last year?” He sets his newspaper down like he’s giving me his full attention.

  I shrug. “I guess it’s probably gotten worse.”

  “Daniel can get you a prescription if you want to try some Xanax or something.” He gives me this look like he’s actually a little concerned. “That, or maybe you just need to get laid.”

  “Wow, you’re like a doctor or something, aren’t you?”

  “You’d be surprised how much it helps.”

  “Well, you look like the picture of health in any case.” I look back down at my coffee. I bring the mug up to my lips, but it’s still too hot, so I just blow on it.

  He picks his paper back up, refolds it to a different page. “Honestly, honey, with you looking like that, it would not be hard to arrange.”

  “Wow. Isn’t that the highest compliment? ‘I bet there’s someone willing to fuck you.’ You’ve made my day.”

  “Jason’s going to love you, actually, which might work in our favor.” He sort of gives me this nod like, That would be great. “I don’t know if it’ll really help your sleeping problem because he is married. Third wife though, so who knows?”

  “You are such an asshole,” I say, and I stand up and walk to the other side of the island, which is actually closer to where he is, but I can’t figure out another direction to move.

  “I’m kidding. Jesus. I forgot how uptight you are.” He stands up and walks toward me with his arms kind of raised like he wants to give me a hug, and I take a step back.

  “Oh, come on, Stacey. Lighten up. I’m just giving you shit.” He reaches me and throws his arms around me and slides his head right down next to mine. “You really need to learn to relax. No wonder you can’t sleep.”

  • • •

  Tommy is leaning against the wall by the front window watching for Jason, who’s about fifteen minutes late.

  “Lunch is ready to go whenever you want it,” Daniel says to Tommy.

  “Perfect,” Tommy says. “Sounds great.” It actually sounds like Tommy’s not paying much attention.

  “Also, I was checking your calendar, and it looks like you have a reservation tonight. Dinner plans. What do you want to do about that?”

  Tommy knocks his head back against the wall. “Shit. I forgot. You’re gonna have to call Hannah. Tell her not tonight. Maybe some night next week.”

  “Great,” Daniel says, and he makes a face at me. “That’s gonna be a fun call.” He rolls his eyes.

  I laugh. “Are you really so important you can’t break your own dates? That’s kind of shitty.”

  Daniel nods. “Isn’t it? He doesn’t like to ‘make his own arrangements,’” he says, making these dramatic air quotes.

  “Daniel knows my schedule better than I do. I don’t need to talk to her, and she doesn’t need my number.”

  “Wow. You really are a dick.”

  Daniel nods. “This is what I’m trying to tell you. He is un-fucking-believable.”

  “Okay, hold on, it’s not that I don’t want her to be able to reach me, but I don’t need my number getting out. If she wants to talk to me, she can just call Daniel.”

  “And I can tell her he’s ‘not really available right now,’” Daniel says, punctuating with his fingers again.

  “Exactly,” Tommy says.

  It’s horrible, but I laugh. “God, you’re an asshole.”

  He shrugs. “But I sleep like a baby.”

  “No. I bet you do because in my experience babies sleep like assholes who interrupt everyone with their random, selfish demands for more tit.”

  Daniel laughs, and Tommy just smiles. “That was pretty good, Stace. I’m gonna let that one slide.” He turns to Daniel. “Keep the reservation. I’ll take Stacey.”

  “I don’t want to go to dinner with you.”

  “Shut up. It’s a nice place,” he says. “You’ll like it.” He looks out the window again. “Jason’s here.”

  • • •

  Jason is awfully cute but a little short. I know he’s in his mid-forties, but he could pass for my age easily. He has this curly brown hair and a sweet baby face and this one great dimple on just the left side. When he shakes my hand, he smiles really wide, and it makes me smile too.

  “So you are Stacey,” he says, leaning his arm against the bar. Tommy is fixing us something to drink. “I have to admit, I didn’t know what to expect.” He makes an apologetic face. “Your book is a little scary, you know.” He laughs.

  He doesn’t seem to think I’m scary though. His eyes keep dropping to my chest, but I pretend I don’t notice. I don’t actually mind.

  “Jason, I know you’re having scotch
. Stacey?”

  “No. No scotch. Maybe vodka.”

  “Tommy tells me you live in Omaha,” Jason says. “You don’t strike me as all that Nebraskan.”

  I put my hand up to take the drink that Tommy holds out, but I keep my eyes on Jason. “Really? You can’t picture me out with the tractors and cows?” I raise my eyebrow.

  “Not really.” He laughs. “Should we have a seat?”

  He motions to the couch. He sits on one end, and I sit on the other, but I turn sideways, sit on my hip, so my knees are pointing toward him. I lean my arm against the back of the couch. I take a drink. The vodka is nice and cold. The vodka is great.

  “So tell me about yourself,” Jason says.

  I smile. “There’s not much to tell.”

  He reaches over, picks a copy of my book up off the table. “So where did all this come from?”

  I laugh. “I have no idea. I couldn’t tell you how it all works.” I pull my bottom lip in with my teeth, but not in a nervous way. I’m doing this on purpose. Jason smiles.

  Tommy crosses the room and sits in the chair across from us. He leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees, and looks at Jason. “So, what are your thoughts?”

  “Well”—he turns to Tommy—“I’ve read the script, and I like it. I do. I think it has potential.”

  “But?”

  Jason tosses his hands up. “I don’t know. There’s some fucked-up shit in this thing, no offense.” He reaches across the couch like he means to pat my hand, but there’s a lot of space between us. He doesn’t even come close.

  “I think,” I say, “you’re focusing on the wrong things.”

  Jason looks back at me. I swirl the vodka in my glass, watch the ice spin and settle.

  “The story isn’t about the things that happen. It’s about the people they happen to. All of this violence that sort of builds up around them, that isn’t the story, Jason.” When I say his name, I look back at him. I look him in the eye. “It’s just the lens through which we discover these characters, who they are, what makes them, what tears them down.”

  Jason takes a breath, he raises his eyebrows, he looks at my breasts. I lean and stretch my arm to set my glass on the table, and when I sit up, I may shift my shoulders back a bit.