by Ames, Alex
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Louise said, her face showing uncertainty and disappointment.
“I’ve been meaning to say this to you since our third date,” Rick said, still standing in the doorway. “When Hal asked me how I felt about you and me, guess what I answered?”
“Lucky?”
“Scared.” Rick had to close his eyes. “And now scared has become truly terrified. It feels like stepping toward an infinite cliff and looking down. The abyss pulling me down, even though I know that I am still one step away.”
“That’s crazy, Rick. We are dating. Maybe . . . hopefully more will develop. If you need more time, if you need things to go slower, tell me. I know that I’m intimidating, or that the idea of Louise Waters is intimidating.”
“But then, why am I more scared now, instead of getting used to you date after date? Louise, you are not intimidating—you are a funny, lively woman, great to be with. It’s everything else. I’ve seen most of your movies, I’ve seen you in magazine ads, in TV spots, and in TV reruns. Dammit, I’ve had sexual fantasies with you in the center. But look at you! You are wearing a wig and sunglasses to have an unmolested walk on the street. Your bodyguard checked the house for intruders so that we could have undisturbed sex! What kind of life am I getting into? You have paparazzi at your heels, and I have four kids at home. If these two worlds were to collide, it would be messy beyond compare.”
Louise leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded. She unfolded them, put her hands into the pockets of her jeans, took them out again, and let them hang at her sides. “Are you breaking it off?”
Rick got up his courage and held her by the shoulders, the electric current charging both of them. “Louise, I can’t go to extremes. I am a normal guy with normal problems. Four kids at home without a mother, my company on the brink. I may want the next base, but I don’t think I should reach the next base.”
Louise closed her eyes, no words left, so she gave a small nod, her lip starting to quiver. I won’t cry! she said to herself, folding her arms tighter.
He gave her a short peck on the cheek, turned, and went to the car.
Louise kept standing in her doorway, watching Rick drive away. Her tears flowed freely now. The red lights of the minivan vanished around the corner. “Dammit, Rick Flint! Can’t beat normal!” She went inside and closed the door.
To underscore everything, it started to rain.
Afterward, Rick couldn’t say how he had made the drive back home. It was all a blur, and he was replaying the conversation with Louise in his head over and over. You must be crazy, Richard Flint, for breaking up with Louise Waters on the night of going for the home run. When I’m in my eighties, the other geezers at the retirement home won’t believe this one.
The only thing that helped taking his mind Louise was the pouring thunderstorm, which required all his concentration while driving on the 101 toward Oxnard.
Agnes and Britta were still up and greeted him with the usual post-date questions, but when they sensed that something was not right, they quickly said their good nights and went to their rooms.
In slow motion Rick prepared the house for the night and set the table for the next morning before he remembered that tomorrow was Sunday.
She has to wear a disguise to interact with the world, how crazy is that? A prison of your own making—invisible bars keeping wild animals away. And that James Bond thing with Floris checking out the road ahead for photographers and the house for intruders. If that was a normal daily scenario, how over the top was it then in a situation like on a red carpet or on those beach holidays where you can see the paparazzi shooting away in the distance while the stars oil one another’s backs or ride jet skis?
He was too wound up to go to bed, so Rick switched on the TV to catch a few minutes of Saturday Night Live, but not really seeing anything.
I’ve kissed a movie star! A goddess! A woman so beautiful, just looking at her across the table gives me belly cramps. Her electricity, lips, warmth, and fragrance still on me.
And, wow, did he want her. Just thinking about slowly undressing her made his head spin. Now he understood why some men had performance problems in bed. He meant every word he had said to her; she was so out of his league that they shouldn’t even try. After the next commercial, the upcoming skit featured SNL cast member Naeve Ness playing Louise Waters filming a Sarah Palin movie. The first seconds were a bit surreal to watch, as Rick still had the real Louise in his mind and on his senses. But Naeve was doing such a great job of the meta-impersonation that Rick had to laugh out loud, because she really nailed Louise’s style of acting.
The doorbell rang. At this hour of night it was most likely a neighbor in trouble. The thunderstorm had ceased but it was still pouring. Rick opened the front door to be faced with Louise, soaked from the rain. The big, dark SUV stood in the driveway, Floris closing the side window when he saw that Louise had gotten in all right. She was crying, or was it raindrops on her face?
“Louise, what are you doing here?” Rick said helplessly. This surely does not help.
“I couldn’t stay home, I couldn’t!”
“Come in, we need to get you dry.” Rick distracted himself by walking to the bath and back to fetch a towel. “Do we need to get Floris in from the rain, too?” he asked over his shoulder.
Louise shook her head, still standing in the hall, hugging herself. “Screw the hired help. Screw everyone!” she said.
He came back and handed the towel to her. Then he went to the living room couch and brought back Agnes’s thick late-night hoodie. “Why are you here?” He knew he sounded harsh, but he had spent all his words previously. And it hadn’t worked, apparently.
“I hated what you said to me, and I want to die!” Louise cried, still hugging herself.
If this had happened with one of his kids, Rick would have taken the child into his arms, but this was Louise Waters! They had shared kisses and hugs, but that had been such an out-of-body experience that Rick didn’t dare do it again. Especially as he had broken it off a few hours ago. He left her standing, a shared awkwardness between them.
“Let’s go into the kitchen and make you tea.”
“He-he-he-herbal,” Louise sniffed, drying her hair and face.
“We can do that,” Rick said and put some water into the microwave.
“I hated what you said to me,” Louise sat down opposite Rick at the kitchen counter, dropping the towel on the floor and wrapping herself in Agnes’s hoodie. Her hair was still wet, and it made her look even sexier, Rick thought. “You made me feel as if I were a lesser human being!”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not that good with words. And with women in general,” Rick replied. “Listen, I am thrown into a situation that is completely over my head. Guys like me do not go out with women of your caliber. Period! We don’t go out with movie stars. We go out with normal people—a coworker, someone you met at a friend’s party, or someone you chatted up in the supermarket line. And come to think of it, guys like me do not like to go out with women at all. All we want to be is married to one nice girl, go out once in a while with her, and otherwise pray that she still looks sexy by the time she gets to fifty.”
“But why don’t you and I deserve a chance to be together?” Louise said.
“Louise, a relationship needs two people. You might deserve your chance of a relationship with Daddy Normal. But don’t I deserve a chance to date normal people, too? Just before we had had our first date, I went out with someone that Hal set me up with. Cheryl was her name. She was nice, sexy, and in my tax bracket. She had comparable experiences. Messy divorce, almost grown kids, a day job, her own small business. I can see her in my future—the probability is high that our relationship between us would work. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not in love with her, not at all.” He didn’t know why he had said that. Why was he defending his emotional life? “But I should be with someone like her.”
“I see that Rick. But what if I want to b
e normal. I know you are scared by what you see. And I tell you, I am scared by this, too. The protection, the crazy amount of money I get paid, the red carpets, the media hounds. I know that I live in a bubble. But, Rick, give me a chance! I am willing to burst the bubble and become more normal. It will be hard. Look at me, Rick Flint! Forget about everything you saw, you heard. Look into your heart. We will be a great team.” She sniffed. “Don’t’ forget, Rick, I am also just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.”
“Louise, I wish . . .”
There was a rustle from the stairs and Charles audibly commenting, “She stole that from Notting Hill.”
“Sh, Charles!” Britta’s voice.
“Verbatim! She took the Julia Roberts line,” Charles said.
“Guys, can we have a little privacy here?” Rick said firmly. “Go back to bed, please. This is between Louise and me.”
“Don’t you think we should have a say in this? It is our future stepmom, too, that we are talking about,” Britta retorted while the gang slid back into their bedrooms.
“And who is this Cheryl, anyway? Can’t compete against Louise,” Agnes could be heard.
Rick and Louise listened to the gang filing away, looking at each other, poker-faced. The interruption had broken the spell between them—it was as if a cloud had been lifted.
Louise cocked her head. “Yes, Rick, who is this Cheryl anyway? She can’t compete against me!”
“I can’t believe you quoted a romantic comedy and did a fake Julia Roberts on me to get into my pants,” Rick said.
“Yeah, that was a bit cheap. But I forgot that the Internet Movie Database had a branch in Oxnard.”
Rick popped open the microwave and put the mug of hot water and a teabag in front of Louise. They looked at each other across the counter.
“And just for the record, I am perfectly willing, and able, to have a great thirty-year-long platonic relationship. Sex is completely overrated.” Louise pouted her mouth and blinked her eyelashes at Rick.
“Yeah, who is this Cheryl anyway?” Rick muttered.
They watched each other for a minute, while Louise dipped the tea bag.
Rick sighed. “Listen, I have no idea about your life, and you have no idea about my life. But I know that for the next fifteen years until Dana turns eighteen, I will have Groundhog Day like the last three years: I’ll make her breakfast and the sack lunch; I’ll help her with homework, play games with her, and simply be a good dad. And watch the other three grow up. Where is there room for a superstar like you?”
“But don’t you think that you are entitled to a life, too?” Louise challenged him. “Don’t you think I can be a part of that? Not every day needs to be Groundhog Day. Let me play with Dana or take her to school. Let me watch your kids grow up, too.”
“Louise, you are a star. You are the center of the universe everywhere you go. This is not about you or me. I am responsible for raising four kids. They come first, second, third, and fourth place in everything that I do. You’ll always play fifth fiddle in the back row. Do you even remember how to do that?”
“Oh, come on, Rick!” Louise raised her arms. “These are two completely different things, don’t you think? You look at me, and you see a movie star. Hell, even I see myself as a movie star when I check my body in the morning in the mirror for sagging breasts and wrinkles.” She held up a finger. “And before you ask, there are none. But inside, there is still the same Louise that was too shy dating at fifteen and had stage fright at twenty and was nervous like a little girl when she kissed her first movie star in a scene.”
“That is hard to imagine,” Rick said. “You stood crying in front of me and had the nerve to tear-jerk a line from a movie. Who is the real you and who is the movie star you? Will I ever be able to tell them apart?”
“Don’t you think I know that I am a freak? I live in a prison in Bel Air or Malibu, I wear a wig to get out for an hour, I have a bodyguard with me wherever I go.” Louise looked around. “If you are honest, you maybe feel the same sometimes. All these responsibilities, the kids, the house, the business—your life is a treadmill.”
Rick kept quiet.
Louise continued. “That’s the way I feel, too. Groundhog Day, the same day over and over. My life happens on a different scale, I agree. But both of us have the same feeling—we would like to break out of it, start something new, find ourselves. And I want to do this with you.”
“How will this work? We live in Oxnard, you in LA, or somewhere on location, on promotion tours, at galas, on TV, anywhere. My work is here, and your work is everywhere else.”
“I am willing to compromise if you are. My houses are only houses. Except for my Malibu beach house, I am not attached to any of them. They are not homes!”
“You are aware that I need the counsel of the Fearsome Four before I commit to any compromise?” Rick said.
“I think they stated their clear opinion tonight, don’t you think?”
“How would your compromise look?” Rick asked.
“I’ll stop the three-movies-a-year cycle immediately and let my current contracts run out. I’d go back to one movie a year, supporting roles only. Or do indie filmmaking—there is a lot of that going on in LA. If I produce, I might even get the filmmaker to shoot in Oxnard. Hell, if needed, I will stop making movies completely.”
Louise paused.
“You have it all figured out, don’t you?”
“No, I am making this up as we go along. I came here totally unprepared. All I know is that I want to be with you. I want to watch your kids grow up, see your boats launched, and take you guys along to my movie premieres.”
Rick rubbed his face again. “This is so scary,” he said quietly. “Like standing on a small ledge on the fiftieth floor.”
Louise sipped her tea. “Oof, this is awful!”
Rick glanced at the wrapper. “Bladder tea. We had a seventy-year-old babysitter a while ago.” He pointed to the hall. “The loo is around the . . .”
“Very funny! Got some water instead?” She pushed away the tea.
“Hot tea isn’t good for you anyway, this late.” Rick fetched the water from the fridge.
When he sat back down, they looked at each other. The magic of the earlier date was still lingering, the first kisses and the embraces. The rejection, too.
“Jump, Rick!” Louise whispered. “Please. We will make it work! Jump off the ledge.”
“I am afraid that both of us have no idea what we are getting into.”
“This is always the case in relationships, right?” Louise held firm.
“But this is no Cheryl relationship. This is a Louise Waters relationship. Which is even higher than a Julia Roberts or Taylor Swift relationship.”
“Really, you would take me over Taylor?”
“Of course. She is what, twenty-two?”
“But oh so sexy, and I should know, having seen her belly button.” Louise stepped around the kitchen counter toward Rick. “I will not kiss you now, because that would be blatant sexual bribery. But I’d like to hold you for a minute while you make up your mind.” Instead of waiting for an answer, Louise pulled Rick gently off the barstool and moved close to him.
This was like it had been earlier. Whatever had been said, whatever they had planned to do, did not matter anymore. It was just them, Louise and Rick, woman and man, holding each other, feeling each other’s heartbeat and warmth through skin and clothing. At first Rick was reluctant and held her loosely, but then he let go, tumbling and falling, almost losing balance, but being kept upright by Louise. The tumbling and falling didn’t stop, butterflies crowded his stomach, and heat rose between them. This was how it was supposed to be, both of them knew.
Over the quietness of the house, they could hear Britta’s whisper. “That’s it, Charles, you owe each of us a dollar!”
“They haven’t kissed yet!” came the reply from the stairs.
But then they did.
thirteen
The Communication
Louise
“You are what?” Izzy stared at her incredulously.
“I am pulling out of Fire and Stone,” Louise repeated calmly. Fire and Stone was Louise’s most successful movie franchises, a cop-buddy action thriller (her costar was golden-age actor Dominick Axelrod) that made Bad Boys and Lethal Weapon look like daytime soaps. Her line “Fire, kill me now!” had made it into the everyday vernacular.
“You can’t,” Izzy said.
“What do you mean I can’t? The project is two years away, not even yet green-lighted, and I understand that we are still in negotiations,” Louise said. “Where there’s negotiation, there’s no ink! Isn’t that one of your mottos?”
“The studio bought three F&S installments, one delivered, one opening at Christmas, the third one being optioned,” Izzy said. “It’s complicated.”
“But I want out, so what can we do?”
“Why do you want out?”
“My priorities in life are shifting. I met a man I really like . . .”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, a man? Who did you meet? Was it that Puerto Rican Oscar guy? I saw you together on TMZ last weekend.”
“Izzy, you bought the photographer a new telephoto lens personally so that the pictures wouldn’t be too grainy. No, it’s no one you know.”
“Izzy Goldfarb knows everyone in this town, humor me.”
“He’s not from this town.”
“I also know the East Coast and Canada’s industry. Or French. Don’t tell me he’s French, with all that garlic . . .”
“He is not from the industry, Izzy. He’s . . . what do you call normal people?”
“Tickets?”
“He’s a civilian,” Louise said for a lack of a better term.
“I also know all the business men in your league . . .”
“Izzy, give it up. He is not in . . . Why am I even explaining this?”
“Because your bad conscience is seeping through!”
“His name is Rick Flint. He and his kids live in Oxnard.”