What We Leave Behind

by Weinstein, Rochelle B.

  Today the ocean’s waves are disorderly and unkind. I watch them fingering the shore—coming close and backing away. The sea is a grayish hue that I’d never seen, full of somber regret. I reach for the blanket I am sitting on and wrap it around my shoulders. The movement sends a sharp pain through my leg and up through my back. I’m almost certain it stops in my stomach.

  Searching the span of beach, I see that I am not alone. A little girl—about five—and her mother are building a sand castle nearby. Other than myself, they are the only ones brave enough to venture out on this chilly afternoon.

  The daughter is determined and playful at the same time. Her movements are controlled as she scoops the sand into her shovel and drops it haphazardly on top of the other piles.

  I watch them for more than an hour. Shaping, smoothing, decorating. The little girl’s patience is wearing thin. Her mother is executing the finishing touches.

  I look away from this family to stare out at the ocean. I hear the little girl’s cries first.

  “Mommy,” she shrieks, as I turn my head in her direction. “Mommy,” she yelps again, as if her mother can stop the wave from beating down on her castle. I look up and see their hard work has been washed away with the tide. Almost instantly, the daughter bursts into tears. The mother desperately begins to rebuild. I know that however successful the mother is, the castle will never be the same for the child.

  I want to rush over to them and tell the mother to stop. I want to take her hands into my own to prevent her from making a mistake. And when she turns to me with unyielding surprise, then anger, I will explain it all to her. I will tell her that if she builds a new castle, her daughter will never learn about loss, about mourning. She won’t have the chance to move through her feelings and come out the other side, whole and recovered.

  I don’t say anything to the very young mother. Instead, I stand up, aware that it’s time for me to leave and return to my son. I wipe the sand from my pants and hear the faint cries of the daughter as I fold the blanket. The mother is consoling her, rebuilding, frantic in her attempts to replace what’s been lost.

  I begin the walk up the beach toward my car and when I step in, I look at myself in the rearview mirror. I’m reminded of who I am and the various castles in my life that have been destroyed by the fateful waves of nature. I have been unable to stop the waves or rebuild the fortresses and dreams. I can tell you about the force of the ocean, but first, allow me to return to better times when my castle seemed to magically form out of thin air.

  The ring of the doorbell roused me from such a deep sleep that I lifted up my head, thought I was dreaming, and put my head back down on the pillow. This commenced my twenty-second birthday. Then I heard it again. I looked at the clock, annoyed at what I saw, nine something or other. Some of the lights on the digital numbers were out, so it could have been 9:13 or 9:33. I didn’t know, but I was sure I didn’t want to be awake before eleven.

  I was living in Santa Monica in a duplex I shared with two fellow UCLA film school grads. Mom had moved to Phoenix when a job opportunity presented itself at the same time that Harold broke off their engagement. Her sadness forbid me from saying, “I told you so,” and reminding her that I was the one who had said that sometimes one love was enough. Beth had graduated from Boston University with honors and was moving to New York City to attend law school in the fall. I couldn’t imagine why Kevin and Patricia weren’t jumping up to get the door, but then I remembered the night before, and I figured they were both passed out, having partied until the wee hours of the morning. Some of us from film school had gone to Q’s to play pool and ended up a whole lot intoxicated. It was the usual industry crowd, agents-in-waiting, mailroom contenders, aspiring actors, musicians, video promotion geeks, a small, incestuous group. Sure, we all had this untamed obsession for music or film, but you’d think sometimes we worked in the emergency room at Cedars Sinai by the seriousness in which we rubbed elbows. Then there were the A&R guys, Artist and Repertoire, a complicated group at best. One of my roommates, Kevin, well, he was aspiring to be just that and changing the world along the way. “We hear the music in our hearts and then it’s our job to ensure the world hears it too. That’s touching people’s lives.”

  My June birthday always marked the completion of some milestone. This year, it was my graduation from film school, finishing a successful internship at Fox, and consulting with a local radio station on its playlist. “You should program, Jess. You’re wasting your time in film school,” they would tell me, but I shrugged it off, acutely aware of my goals.

  The doorbell sounded again. I got out of bed, wrapped myself in something that lay strewn on the floor, headed toward the door, and with eyes half opened, peered through the peephole.

  He was tall and gangly, with a face hidden from view beneath a mass of curls. I thought he was a delivery guy but couldn’t figure out what he’d be delivering so early in the morning. Patricia, the aspiring actress, with enough drama in her life to fill an entire year of General Hospital, had promised me a strip-o-gram, joking that I needed a little loosening up. Could he be there for that? Or maybe it was one of Kevin’s A&R cronies. This one I hadn’t seen before.

  “Who is it?” I called out.

  “I’m here to see a Miss Jessie Parker.”

  I turned from the door. I wondered if this was one more version of the game my roommates played with me—drinks to get me to talk, a little pot here and there, smuggling guys into our house to see if perhaps I still had a pulse. I’d learned what kind of messes loosening up could get me into and saved the melodrama for the movies and the collection of songs I hoisted onto film, the backdrops to an oh-so-common theme: I love you and I can’t have you and you’re breaking my heart, but I love you anyway, still, forever, and hey, it feels great.

  He knocked again and I turned around, searching through the door to see if he was carrying anything with him, nothing that I could see.

  “What is this regarding?” I asked, slightly apprehensive.

  “I have a delivery for a Jessie Parker.”

  “Leave it at the door,” I shouted, seeing through the small circle that he was getting impatient.

  “I’ll just slide it under the door if that’s okay with you, Miss.” And I watched as the thin envelope found its way through the door without making a sound.

  Kneeling over, I recognized the logo on the envelope at once, SixthSense. It was only one of the most well-known and successful production companies in the business.

  My fingers were jumping, tugging at the sealed flap. The lone business card fell to the floor while I searched the remainder of the envelope for more, but it was definitely empty. The card with a Beverly Hills address was all that was there, and when I turned it over, it read, 10:30 sharp, with today’s date.

  I opened the door, racing to find the messenger, shouting in case he couldn’t hear me, “Who am I meeting there?” He was already out of sight. So I politely thanked him under my breath, closed the door behind me, and remembered, according to my misleading clock, how little time there was to get myself ready.

  The ground floor reception area of SixthSense was silent and unassuming. I had given the receptionist my name. She eyed me coolly. I eyed her back, and when she told me to take a seat, I obliged. She didn’t strike me as one that divulged anything to anyone, so I dismissed the idea of inquiring any further and waited patiently like the anyone I was.

  When the waiting turned into an hour, I got up from the couch and scanned my surroundings, searching the walls for a sign of some kind. I’d been in enough entertainment offices by now to know what I’d find; the indulgent office with expensive art by some up-and-coming contemporary artist, or the self-promoting offices with giant life-size framed posters of their films or their artists, some housed with small-screen televisions of various videos or films that made them legendary. This office was different. There were no accolades garnering the walls, no self-serving tactics to lure in clientele, and no minimalist arti
stry, just tasteful, warm touches. Returning to the couch, I closed my eyes, and rested my head against the pillows.

  “You must be Jessie Parker.”

  The voice came out of nowhere. I hadn’t even heard approaching footsteps, but the words caused me to jump, seeking out the person behind the deep, penetrating voice.

  “I’m Marty Tauber,” he said, holding his beautiful hand out to me.

  “Mr. Tauber,” I repeated.

  “Marty is fine,” he said, his enormous hand engulfing mine in one hurried grasp.

  “Call me Jessica,” I responded, freeing myself from childhood.

  “Jessica.”

  I couldn’t believe I was shaking hands with Marty Tauber. He was, after all, one of the most famous producers in town and one of the top executives at SixthSense.

  “I’d heard you were beautiful, and tall!”

  I felt the blush crawl across my face, feverishly emerging from the place it had laid dormant for years. The pictures I had seen in the trades hadn’t done him justice. Sure, he was good-looking, but there was a realness about him that the camera didn’t capture, this energy that surrounded him and bounced off the walls. He wasn’t much taller than I was, but his charisma added inches to his height. He was in the category of men who could have the leading role in a film, become the next big star, the country’s sexiest sex symbol. When he walked into a room, people stopped talking and not so much because of his looks, but because of the way he carried himself, this elusive charm. I knew this because he had barely spoken, and I was riveted.

  “No wonder my instructions were to leave you alone until you were of age,” he said while appraising me.

  “Do we have a mutual acquaintance?” I asked.

  “I think we do,” he said. “Does the name Adam Levy mean anything to you?”

  Hearing Adam’s name caught me off guard, and I wouldn’t let the surprise unhinge me. “You knew him?”

  “Everybody knew Adam, and I had the pleasure of working on different projects with HiTide for years. Adam’s label always had the best repertoire in the business, still does, notwithstanding the fact that he was a close friend, a mentor, so to speak, and one of the few genuine guys in the business.”

  “Yes,” I said sadly. “He was.”

  “Come, follow me,” he instructed, waving me toward a back hallway and into a private elevator. His hand rested on my shoulder, and I smiled at him as we rode in silence. My composure had all but escaped me with the mention of Adam Levy.

  We reached the top of the building, and I followed him down a narrow corridor through two large doors that opened to a sprawling office. “Have a seat,” he began, as he found his way behind a massive mahogany desk, and I took mine on the espresso, suede chair across from him. A hoarse voice came over the intercom; I studied his features as he took the call. Marty Tauber was easy on the eyes with salt and pepper gray hair, steel blue eyes, and a strong, tanned face. I guessed him to be younger than Adam Levy had been. He was dressed in jeans and a white Lacoste, and the casualness of his clothes helped me to relax.

  “I don’t want any interruptions for the next half hour, Marla,” he said to the intercom as he hung up the phone. Then he turned to me. “I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here, so let’s get to it. I’ve always admired Adam. He was a friend and his love for this industry matched my own. I started in music, hugely obsessed with it, and if not for my comparable interest in film, I would have taken him up on his several lucrative offers to work alongside him at HiTide, but I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself at one record label when I could work with all the labels and their music. So, having kindly rejected his offers and pleas to come onboard, we started SixthSense, Jeff Walker and I, and well, you know, the rest is history.”

  Jeff Walker was only one of the most talked about directors in town. Every movie he touched translated into millions of dollars in box office revenue worldwide. The casual way Marty spoke of him, like he was a household name, was almost as jarring as hearing Adam Levy’s name again after all these years.

  “Adam thought very highly of you. He made that clear the last time we spoke.”

  “I never saw you at the hospital.”

  “That’s because the old man wouldn’t let me or any of his friends visit. However, we spoke on the phone often, and, like I said, he saw something in you, potential.” He held up the cassette tapes I’d given Adam for his birthday, the ones with my favorite songs, the ones I’d emptied myself onto.

  “You could sell these compilations in today’s market. You picked an excellent blend of music. Maybe you weren’t aware of it at the time, but he was. He knew you had talent.”

  Marty Tauber smiled, the corners of his lips turning upward. “Adam’s lawyer drafted this document that I was to adhere to upon his death.”

  I eyed the suspicious piece of paper he held in his hands.

  “In an unobtrusive manner, I was to keep close tabs on you, follow your education, watch behind the scenes as your career path unfolded. He’d always assumed you’d go into film and/or music, and as I witnessed, he was correct.”

  I fumbled in my seat at the idea of being followed, my life being scrutinized beneath a magnifying glass. I said, “He always told me to do what I loved.”

  “It’s a good thing you did, because that’s where I come in. Your dossier is quite impressive. Stellar reports from former employers, exceptional recommendations from your professors. What struck me the most were the two short films you worked on. They were decent stories, although similar in theme and tone. I was able to get my hands on copies without the music so I could watch your individual work, and then I watched with your music. I thought your music selections were perfect.”

  I took my time exhaling so as not to scare him with the tumult of anxiety I’d been holding in.

  “I especially liked the lovemaking scene in Butterfly. All that pent-up sexual energy. The choice to shoot in black and white, showing the lovers’ hands and obscure angles of their faces and bodies was a brilliant touch. It was tender and simple, naked, both literally and figuratively, and when I watched with the music, that Pavarotti song really brought it all together, with the man whispering the words in her ear, softly, erotically. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. That’s how all lovemaking should be.”

  They were actors and actresses in a tale I’d created, but hearing Marty talk about it, I was abashed and naked to his smiling blue eyes. He had described my most intimate moment, took a peek into my soul, and perhaps even at my body. “They say,” he began again, “we create in art what is closest to us, what we think we know best. Is that true about you?”

  I averted my eyes, avoiding the question that ignited forbidden thoughts.

  “Nonetheless,” he said, “you’ve accomplished impressive work, and that’s what we’re looking for—someone with your vision, someone who has her finger on the musical pulse, someone who can leave the audience captivated.

  “What I’m offering you is an integral role at SixthSense.” His long, smooth fingers clasped together and rested on the desk in front of him. “Music supervisor. You’ll work directly with the executive in charge of music, overseeing all aspects of music for our films and their soundtracks.”

  I reflected over the pile of resumes I’d just finished printing at Kinko’s, the unreturned phone calls, the stack of classifieds that had accumulated over the weeks, ripe with job possibilities, and the fact that Adam Levy saw something in me; with a souvenir from the past, doors were opening.

  “Are you serious?” Even as the words tumbled out of my mouth, I recognized how adolescent they sounded. Things were moving quickly, so quickly one had to be guarded, cautious, and I still had my master’s degree to think about, which paled compared to the opportunity that Marty was presenting.

  “If you’re going to work here, there are two things you’ll need to know about me. One,” he said, holding up a finger, “I never lie. Two,” this time two beautifully manicured fingers, “I never g
o back on my word. I gave Adam my word, and I’m making good on it. There’s one stipulation, though. I need you to start right away because we’re shooting in Barcelona next week, and I want you to read the script before we leave. This could be the biggest film of all of our careers.”

  There was a mirror to my right I hadn’t seen when I walked in. My likeness was reflected in it—the tailored suit, the self-assured smile. Marty Tauber dwarfed me in expertise, and for one split second, his expectations of me caused my eyes to question myself.

  “What do you say? Can I welcome you to our team?”

  I wanted to say let me think about this one, uh, yes, but I decided against mindless humor. “Thank you, Mr. Tauber. This is an incredible opportunity, one that I’m very grateful for. I’d be honored to join your team.”

  “Please, I told you, call me Marty.”

  “Marty,” I repeated, already a good pupil.

  “You’re going to love your immediate boss, everybody does. He started out just like you. He’s got passion, a hell of a lot of experience, and he’ll teach you everything you need to know: conceptualization, clearance, negotiations, editing, licensing, distribution.”

  “I can’t wait to meet him.”

  He smiled, a devilish grin mixed with amusement.

  “You already have.” And then he gave me that big, huge hand again, and I gave him mine. Of course he’d be my boss. He had commanded the room, hadn’t he?

  “Would you like to join me for lunch?” he asked.

  It would have been terribly rude had I said no.

  “Let’s go,” he said, “I’m starving.”

  A car was waiting for us on the street when we exited the building. Marty told the driver, “The Ivy at the Shore,” and when we passed by my street on the way out west, I thought about how radically my life had changed since I left there this morning.

  We took our seats at a table in the back of the restaurant, where at least half a dozen people stopped by to acknowledge one of its own. Most of them were curious. This was an envious town, a one-upmanship kind of business. Could I possibly be the next big star of one of his blockbuster movies, or, heaven forbid, his latest conquest? He introduced me to some of his friends, mindful of his words, not giving away too much. He seemed to know what they were thinking, and he played along with their carefully scripted inquiries, hiding their objectives beneath a bevy of baloney.