“Uh huh.” Laney was unmoved.
“So.…” Milt sat up in the bed, back against their cold white wall in the near darkness, “I told them I’d give it a shot. Because what I need now is more pressure with all the fucking shit I’m working on right now.”
“Cool,” Laney said.
“No, not cool,” Milt said, knowing this was one of those times when Laney wasn’t hearing him talk but rather just heard that wah-wah-wah sound the adults made in the Charlie Brown cartoons he never really liked much when they were on at friends’ houses as a kid. (Those end credit sequences were weird, man!)
“Work’s work,” Laney said.
“Yeah, I just wish I got paid for things like, you know, hurrying way the fuck up with an entire goddamn book I’ve been killing myself to finish up while also dealing with this Gladly doc and tour nonsense—”
“I’m sorry, I’m listening, babe, but guhhhhhdddd!” Laney fulminated. “For that marketing bitch to say something like that again after she must have seen how uncomfortable I was when she said the other thing a few days earlier…. I mean, she’s only been there barely a week and already she’s making me realize yet again why I’m so glad I work in a field with only men and why I’m never going to call myself a fucking feminist. Where’s my vape pen?”
She reached over the side of the bed to grab at it and take a few hits. Coughing.
“Don’t worry,” Milt said, rolling over again to kiss Laney on the cheek, an act of affection that she didn’t respond to. Not even a flinch. Her eyes were locked with rage on the ceiling above. “I won’t tweet that out to anyone.”
“Go ahead. Do whatever you want with your imaginary Twitter page you don’t even have,” Laney fumed more at the lady in her mind and less at Milt. “I don’t fucking care. I fucking hate that lady and all those bitches out there who think and talk the same way. Don’t bring me into all that BS. I just want to work and make money, and, for some weird reason I still don’t understand, have kids with you and then move the hell out of this country to some farm in Europe where I can grow things in a garden and tend to our animals and take care of the kids and not have cell phones and smoke pot and stare at the wall and die.”
“Wanna have sex?” Milt asked.
This got a visceral reaction out of Laney, broke her from her spell—part of Milt’s impulsive ploy here—and she turned to him to look him in the eyes. “Can you wait a few days? I’m still on my period and it’s kinda chunky.”
“Yuck.”
“Well, you’re the one who wants to do it.”
“I think we must have last night at some point, chunky or not,” Milt said, pointing at the faded speckles of blood by their feet he now noticed.
“Yeah, but that was with Drunk Laney, and she’ll fuck anyone, any time, for any reason.”
Milt rolled back to his back and looked up at the ceiling. He could tell that Laney was staying put on her side, looking at him. Or maybe not looking at him, but still on her side.
Drunk Laney. He hated Drunk Laney. Sure, she could be a hell of a lot of fun while out and about, and she was a demon in bed. She didn’t care nearly as much about blowing money on buenos tiempos as traditional garden-variety Laney, who would balk at the idea of going out for a good meal more than once a month for the cost.
But Laney was right. Drunk Laney had no reservations. About anything. She could be cruel. She could be hateful. She could be destructive and hurtful. She could go out on a Friday night to a local bar while Milt was away traveling for work, traipsing around the country and shooting the bulk of the material he needed for the Gil Gladly doc so many months earlier, and she could find herself dancing to the music, pulling off her white silk scarf (where had Drunk Laney gotten that? Regular Laney never wore that kind of gaudy, silly thing; did she even have one in her closet, hidden away with all her dirty baseball caps, boots, and yoga crap?).
And so it was that on that particular night, with Milt away shooting the Gil Gladly doc, when Drunk Laney was dancing with one of the particular denizens of the gay bar down the street, whether the fellow was indeed gay himself…or maybe bisexual or curious or non-binary or god-knows-what it might be these days—Drunk Laney had taken that adage of “it doesn’t count” to another level, had gone home with the fellow in question and hadn’t brought it up—as Drunk Laney—until quite some time later: “I wanted to wait to tell you until after you were done with all the movie stuff. I know how stressed out it’s been making you and I didn’t want to add this to that,” even though it had come out, with Milt responding he too had strayed while out on the shoot…
And now here they were some months later (six? eight? o, the torpid blur of the last year for Milton Siegel!) in their studio apartment in the earliest morning, hungover and going over just what it meant to be in their mid-thirties and married in ‘Merica, 2017.
When Milt took a deep, pensive breath and slowly exhaled it this time, he knew why. “Do we want to talk about…the thing now, or.…?”
Laney rolled back on her back, hands behind her head, elbows out to the point that they nearly touched Milt’s. “We don’t have to. I think we’ll be okay.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that, you know, after the tour, I’m going to totally stop drinking. I’ve done it before. I can do it again. I can’t get another DUI. I’m already practically fucked, and that ten-thousand dollars wasn’t fun to pay off. We can’t afford that again.”
“We?”
“Yeah, you know how we’re all married now and all that? We. When we do the taxes this year—or when I do them for us, since you’re totally incapable of doing anything except making movies and writing books and articles and somehow knowing everything about books and movies and music and pop culture, which is one of the weird reasons I fell in love with you sort of in the first place because of how smart you are even though you’re a total fucking moron—”
“Gee, tell me what you really think.”
“Well,” Laney laughed, “when I do our taxes, I’ll be combining everything since it’s our first year filing as a married couple, which means that I’m here for the long haul, Milt. I’ve signed the contract and I’m in. It’s one of the things I realized while you were gone.”
Milt almost thought he was going to cry but knew that it would only make Laney feel strange even though they’d be tears of joy, something Laney never liked seeing or experiencing herself (non-demonstrative Midwest girl vs. his overly tactile and affectionate Jewish upbringing). His eyes were also a little dry and crusty from dehydration courtesy of the drinking and salt intake the night before and whatever his cold was turning into.
It was funny how Laney could be so indifferent and adverse to any tactile experience, and yet whenever a dog on the street would come bounding up to her, she’d bend down and instantly devolve into some kind of blubbery child or overprotective mommy, petting the mangy thing, rubbing its belly and talking in repulsive baby talk, all the things Milt would never expect someone with as rock-hard a constitution as Laney to do.
It was a lot like Melody, actually. Melody could at times seem so aloof, and yet she was also at the same time the consummate “dog mommy,” with two little doggies at home who would tear the place up and nip at her ankles and cause all sorts of harm and malfeasance to her and to her house and to anyone (like Milt, hint hint) who would visit. Yet she loved those doggies like they were her babies which, in many regards, they were.
Or how about the slew of other cold-hearted ex-girlfriends who always seemed to hate everyone, and yet every time had a cat they adored to no end. Typically black, with very creative names. Milt thought about this for a moment. Had he always been drawn to witches? Actual fucking witches with their fucking familiars like some kind of eighties Disney movie?
Oy. Let it go, Milt. Let it go. Stay in the conversation here now with your wife. Your wife.
“I’ve actually signed three contracts,” Laney said. He only looked at her through the corner
of his crusty left eye. “We own a car together now, we have the lease on this shitty studio apartment together that we can’t get out of for another six months, and we have our shared cell phone bill.”
Milt turned away from her, laughing hard. Laney asked what that was all about and Milt said that he thought she meant before that she had “signed the contract” metaphorically but what she really had meant was she had signed literal contracts, and this actually made Milt feel a lot better. Because he knew how money-obsessed Laney was, especially after she had gone through the devastating trauma of her parents going bankrupt when she was eleven.
“Well, you got me now, Milt,” Laney said. “I’m not going to run away. Not anymore. I’m in this, you’re in this, and we’re in this. We have to see this thing through, even if we’ve misstepped in the past and aren’t exactly jumping each other’s bones.”
“Unless you’re drunk,” Milt added.
“Well, like I said, that part of my life—of our life—will be ending soon. We will grow up, guhdddd-dem-it!”
“But not yet.”
“Oh hell no,” Laney said. “If I have to go to Garbagetown, New York with you for your screening there, I’m going to be drrrrrr-UNK, son!”
With that, as though triggering something in her already besotted brain, Laney got up and out of bed. Oh yes, she was indeed totally naked, Milt could see, even in the near darkness, the slowly rising sun outside peeking its rays meekly through the slats of large plastic white blinds in their one window. She shuffled over to where her vape had rolled over, bending over to grab it.
Milt glanced over to his wife standing there, bending over, nude. He admired her legs for the first time since they met.
He also had enjoyed Laney’s legs that first night when they had met at the Lincoln, Nebraska, bar and Laney, on acid and Molly, had stumbily introduced herself to him sitting there reading Norman Lear’s autobiography. He enjoyed reading books at the bar, and it had the added bonus of, more than once, attracting a girl. (“Who’s that weird dude over there reading a BOOK at a bar? That’s sooooo…weeeeeeeird. Gosh, who is he? Maybe I should talk to him. What are you reading?” Etc. etc. etc. etc.)
Laney’s black leather knee-high fuck-me boots had caught his attention in particular. And even though he had thought her ears stuck out, her hair wasn’t exactly how he liked it (lazily up), and she didn’t possess those all-important large doll eyes he so craved when it came to the kinds of girls he had pined for in the past, those legs did pull him in…along with that goddamn infectious smile of hers, that smile that went all the way across her whole face and made her light up like some kind of happy-go-lucky cartoon character, a mischievous imp that knew you were looking and kind of liked the effect she had over you while you were doing it. Yes, there she was. There Laney had been standing, his future wife in all her imperfect, magnificent glory.
She certainly wasn’t watching him look at her now, bending over to grab her vape pen, naked in their Boston apartment. Over the past few weeks her legs had become so much fitter and defined.
He felt himself lusting after her. Partly. He also felt a certain kind of irrational envy about it.
Milt could work his ass off trying to lose weight, doing everything possible—exercise, diet, portion control, the works—and he’d be lucky to lose five pounds in a month. Laney would lose five pounds in a few days even when she wasn’t starving herself to look good for the leg of the screening tour she’d be joining him on in the short days ahead.
Milt was perplexed—watching Laney stand back up and take a few hits from her vape pen, facing away from him with her nearly flawless ass and her slightly more defined legs—with how he really felt here. Was he envious that she could lose weight and look so much better faster and easier than he? Or was he upset that now she could go out and get another guy much easier and quicker than before? Some imaginary guy who would steal away his wife and get to enjoy physical pleasures with her due to her better body and legs and ass that Milt hadn’t really gotten to enjoy because it would be too late? Was he just “future tripping” here, as his mom, the therapist, would put it? Totally fabricating a future scenario and then worrying about it so ridiculously?
“Milt, are you all right?”
Milt looked up and realized he had been lost in a daze before Laney had finished vaping and came back to the bed looking down at him from where she was standing. “You okay, babe?”
Milt nodded slowly.
“Look,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and placing her hand on his shoulder, “you know I’m not the kind to say, ‘Oh, Milt. I do love you soooo much.’ I’m not built that way, and that’s not how my family ever is. We’re not like you and your family.”
“Jewish.”
“Well, yeah, but being Jewish isn’t totally what I mean here. You can’t use it as a reason for why you’re maybe too clingy sometimes or get on my nerves or whatever else. You can’t always use that as a card to get out of things when I’m annoyed by you. You don’t get special treatment like that. Being Jewish isn’t a disability.”
She smiled at that, and Milt nodded, smiling too. He really did love her.
“It’s funny you’re saying all this and doing all this, Laney.” He placed his own hand on hers on his shoulder. “Because I totally wasn’t expecting you to say anything like, ‘Oh, I love you so much,’ or any of that crap. You know I don’t fully trust anyone. Not even my mom. That might be a Jewish thing, but I’m not sure.”
“I’m still learning.”
“Right.” Milt smiled brighter and sat up, Laney’s hand falling to her side. “But just the fact you said all of that at all means something. It does mean you care even more, even if you think you don’t. And that’s nice. I appreciate it. I trust you as much as I can trust someone because of the contract thing you said earlier.”
“I forgot one, actually,” Laney said. “There’s one other contract I signed. We signed. Our marriage license.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that one.”
“Me too. Hashtag me too,” Laney chortled. “God, do you have any idea the paperwork and time and legal fees and all that bullshit we’d have to go through to cancel out, or whatever it’s called, our marriage license? No way. We’re stuck together.”
CHAPTER 19
Milt’s phone began vibrating. “Annulled.”
“Huh?” Laney said, lost in her own stony world again.
“It’s called annulled,” Milt said, reaching for his phone.
“Okay, I guess back to your phone. Your own addiction!”
“It’s probably Gil, and I gotta make sure everything’s okay. Our Manhattan screening’s only.…” Milt checked the phone. “Yup, it’s Gil.”
He answered the call while Laney bent down to peck him on the cheek and get ready for her shower before going to the gym, a behavior Milt always found odd. Who showered before going to the gym?
Gil was screaming loudly. What time was it, for chrissakes?
“M-m-m-milt, I n-n-n-n-n-need you to r-r-r-r-r-r-remove that video now!” Gil hollered as though holding Milt’s ear with his hands through the phone speaker.
Milt looked to Laney, who could clearly hear Gil’s remonstrations, rolled her eyes, and went into the tiny, cramped bathroom to start taking her oddly ritualistic pre-gym shower.
“Uh, Gil?”
“What?!”
“Umm, I don’t know what video you mean. What video do you need me to take down? One of the trailers for the film we posted? I don’t understa—”
“Goddamn it, no!” Gil shouted. “The v-v-v-v-video some dumbf-f-f-f-f-fuck kid posted without my exp-p-p-p-press p-p-p-p-p-permission of the Q&A at our LA scr-scr-scr-s-creening. You h-h-h-a-ven’t seen it yet?”
“Hold on a sec, Gil.” Milt pulled the phone away from his ear and looked up “Gil Gladly documentary screening LA” on YouTube on his phone, while Gil could be heard shouting, “Wh-wh-wh-what?!”
Milt scanned through some of the clip, which,
not surprisingly, had all of about twelve views in the four days since having been uploaded, with no comments and one thumbs-up and no thumbs-down, posted by someone named Dweebeee431 who had a whopping four other videos posted, two of which were of himself—some super-skinny, salt-and-pepper-haired geek kid with crossed eyes and big ol’ glasses—talking about the new Batman movies versus the old Batman movies and one of him with another Balloon star for a three-minute-and-twenty-nine second “interview” whose screencap was blurry.
“I’m looking at the video now, Milt, and I don’t know what you—”
“Don’t fuck with me. Just d-d-d-d-do what I s-s-s-s-s-say. That kid p-p-p-p-osted the v-v-v-v-v-video without asking m-m-m-me, and it h-h-h-h-as me talking about one of my f-f-f-f-f-former pr-pr-pr-pr-producers at B-b-b-b-b-b-balloon getting a b-b-b-b-blow j-j-j-ob in the drrr-drrr-drrressing room from one of h-h-h-h-his in-in-in-interns. My l-l-l-l-lawyer said the producer could s-s-s-s-s-sue, so I n-n-n-n-n-n-need you to tell that kid he n-n-n-n-n-needs to t-t-t-t-take it down now or I’ll be the one t-t-t-to s-s-s-s-sue.”
The shower door opened with a plume of steam and a bright lemon-curd light, the sound of rushing water, and Laney, her hair up in that messy way Milt didn’t particularly care for and a peach-colored towel around her mid-section, asking, “Jesus, I can hear him from in here. Even with the water running! What the fuck does he want? It’s six in the morning!”
Milt muted the phone for a second as Gil continued raving, and—instinctually—still held his hand over the mouthpiece. He told Laney, “One of those autistic YouTube geek kids was at our screening in LA and recorded Gil talking during the Q&A and posted some of it, and part of it has Gil talking about some producer at Balloon he used to work with who got a fucking blowjob from an intern backstage, I guess.”
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