I reach for my boxers and she pushes my hand aside. "You should stay naked. It's a good look for you."
"I will if you will."
She shakes her head. "It's too cold." She moves into the kitchen and looks through the cabinets. She picks out a canister of rooibos tea and fills the electric kettle.
She turns back to me, looking me over once again. It's not like before. It's not base. It's sweet.
"Come on." She nods to the balcony. She fills two mugs with tea and makes her way to the sliding door. She has a mug in both hands and no way to pull the door open. "Luke. A little help?"
I play dumb. "Help with what?"
"The door."
"Oh, this door?" I run my fingers over the handle.
"Yes, that door."
I pull it open and she steps outside. "Jerk." She rolls her eyes, but she's smiling.
She sets the glasses on the floor and sits on one of the lounge chairs. She shivers, rubbing her arms with her hands.
I bring out a blanket, and she accepts it with little protest. She looks adorable with the blanket wrapped around every part of her but her head.
There's something bothering her, something she wants to say. But she isn't ready yet. I sit next to her. I have to give her time.
We listen to the wind. There's something so calm and peaceful about it. This could be our life together. It could be this perfect.
After a few minutes she turns to me. Her eyes are glued to mine, her hand is glued to mine, but her lips are glued together.
She's still not talking.
I lean closer. "You want to tell me what's wrong?"
She looks out at the water--a giant mess of black bleeding into a dark sky. "I've been taking a lot of meetings. Mostly they were good. The show is doing well, and it looks like it will be a huge boon to my career."
"That's great."
"Yeah, it is." She trails off. Her eyes move to the sky, to the tiny sliver of moon above us. "It's mostly been the same kind of thing. The hot chick, the ex-girlfriend, the bitch. I have to thank Laurie for writing Marie Jane as such a completely awful woman, because everyone thoroughly buys me as awful."
"It suits you."
She laughs but the joy fades quickly. "This one was different though. This guy is in his thirties. He's a writer-director. Shot this tiny micro-budget film that rocked the festival circuit. And now he's looking for a lead for his next feature."
"That's great."
"I thought so. And the character is great. She's dynamic, strong and vulnerable all at once. A bitch sometimes, but still sweet and caring. And she isn't the love interest. She's not the hot babe. She's the star." She squeezes my hand tighter. "It's stupid. It's not a big deal at all, really. I shouldn't be upset."
"What happened?"
"Well." She turns her gaze back to the water. "He talked so much like he was different. He talked about how he wanted to make something real and gritty." She imitates him, hunching over, clutching an invisible cigarette. She brings the invisible cigarette to her lips and inhales deeply. "I see all this fake Hollywood bullshit. Happy endings, pretty people. It's all fake. That's not the world. That's not life." She exhales from her fake cigarette, looking to the sky ever so pretentiously. "Life hurts. And I'm not about to show people sanitized bullshit. Have you ever seen downtown LA in a movie? It looks so clean. So fake." She shifts back to her normal posture. "He went on and on about how real he wanted the movie to be."
"Sounds like a douche bag."
"Yeah, basically." She pulls the blanket tighter. "I liked his passion at first. He had me convinced." She bites a fingernail, her eyes on her knuckles. "I really thought he was different."
"But?"
"He told me I was too fat to play the lead." She pulls her fingernail from her mouth and presses it into her free hand. "Not in those words, of course. But he got the point across."
"Ally, I'm so sorry."
"It shouldn't bother me. This is just how it is for actresses. We need to look a certain way if we want to fit into roles."
"That's bullshit."
"Sure, but there's nothing I can do about it. And your outrage isn't going to make it any easier."
"If you tell me where he lives, I'll kick his ass."
She cracks a smile, but she shakes her head. "That's not necessary."
I move closer to her. All my attention is on her, so I can soak in every ounce of this moment. "I'm so sorry. I wish you didn't have to go through this."
She bites her lip. "I don't. I don't have to keep acting." The look on her face is grim, like it's a horrible thought she hates considering.
"You love acting."
"Yeah, I know, but... maybe Ryan was right. Maybe I can't handle it."
"Alyssa, don't do this to yourself. Don't let him back into your head."
"I'm not."
"You are." I run my fingers across her cheek, tilting her head so her gaze meets mine. "He convinced you that you're weak. He convinced you that you're useless without him. But he's wrong. You are the strongest person I know."
She shakes her head. "This has been so hard. Especially on my own."
"You don't have to be on your own. I'll always be here."
"Always?"
"Always." I press my lips into her forehead.
"Even if I sleep with Ryan?"
"As long as you help me hide the body."
She laughs. "You know, I'd never..."
"I know."
She looks into my eyes. Her eyes are so bright, but there's a sadness in them. She's still upset. I wish my words were enough to convince her she deserves every bit of happiness in the world.
She continues. "There's going to be a point, one day, where I'm too old to play the hot ex-girlfriend, and I'm going to be miserable, pulling my hair out."
I formulate an argument, but she's right. There aren't exactly a lot of women in film and TV over the age of thirty-five. And they tend to fit into very narrow roles--the mom, the wife, the innocent schoolteacher. There are exceptions, sure, but not enough.
She hugs her chest. I can tell she wants to say more, that it's hard for her to even entertain the thought. "Is that what you want?" I ask.
"No. But... after that meeting, all I wanted to do was inhale two pints of ice cream and throw them up." She pulls the blanket tighter. "I'm so lucky with Model Citizen. It's a cheesy show, sure, but the work is interesting. Do you know how rare that is?"
"But you get so excited about acting. You light up when you talk about it. How could you give up something that brings you so much joy?"
"But it brings me just as much pain." She hangs her head. "Maybe I would be happier if I resigned myself to this. Just do Model Citizen. Take the occasional film role. It's ridiculous. I'm either the hot chick or the fat chick. It's never anything in-between. No matter what, I'm always defined by the shape of my body. The only way it will change is if I lose fifteen pounds."
"That's not funny."
"I'm not joking," she says. "It would help my career."
I bite my tongue. She can't be thinking of losing weight for her job. Not now, not when she's come so far with her recovery. I want to tell her how wrong she is, that she's perfect, that she shouldn't risk all the progress she's made.
But I hold back. She doesn't want another person who tells her how to live her life.
She brings her gaze back to me. "Maybe it would be better if I had a job that didn't rely on my looks."
"Like what?"
"I don't know," she says. "I've never wanted to do anything but act."
"You'll find a way."
She nods.
"I meant it. You're the strongest person I know. You can do anything."
She holds my gaze for a while. Her eyes are wide, like she's really mulling it over. "Maybe."
I nod. "You might not get it perfectly the first time, but you'll figure it out."
She pulls her eyes away, bringing them back to the water. There's still something haunting her, something
I'm not giving her.
"I'll be here," I say. "If you start to fall, I'll be here."
She looks back to me, her eyes wide again. The corners of her lips curve into the tiniest smile. "What if that's not enough?"
"It will be."
"How do you know?"
"I do."
She laughs. "Of course you do." She looks at the water for a while. It feels like forever passes. It's the two of us, on this balcony, our own sheltered world.
Then Alyssa stands and pulls the blanket around her shoulders like a cape. "Come on. Let's watch a movie."
"What?"
"I don't care, as long as it's something you love." She catches herself. "That I'm not in."
"Damn, I almost slipped that one by you."
She smiles. "Something that means a lot to you."
I have just the pick.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I run my fingers along the case of the DVD. This shouldn't feel like a big deal. It's not like it's a secret movie no one has ever seen. The African Queen is on the AFI top one hundred films list. It's near the top. It's not a big deal that I'm going to watch it with Alyssa.
She sees right through me. "What are you thinking?
"I've never watched this with anyone but my mom." I slide the DVD into the player. "It was her favorite."
I still remember sitting with her on the couch, way too young to appreciate anything she watched. My friends forced their parents to watch cartoons or silly action shows for kids, but I didn't want to do that to my mom.
I still remember the way the light of the TV flickered over her face. The way she smiled. The way she was glued to the screen. It was the only time she ever seemed alive. It was the only time she was more than Mrs. Lawrence, more than Luke's mom. She was Emilia, a person.
Most of her life was so dull and gray. Every day she cooked dinner for my father. She waited for him to come home, and they sat together in silence. I eavesdropped while I did my homework. He never listened to her. He never cared about any of her wants, her feelings, her dreams.
She was his wife, and it was all she was allowed to be.
But when it was just her and her film collection... she was a different person. She had passion. Joy.
"Luke, your smile is ridiculous."
I shake my head. "It's no big deal."
Alyssa nestles next to me. "What was she like?"
"She was sweet," I say. "She was the sweetest person I've ever known."
"So that's where you get it?"
"I'm not sweet. I'm... normal."
Alyssa shakes her head. She holds me closer. It's hard to breathe. She's so close, so close to being all mine. All I can do now is lose her.
"She was quiet," I say. "She was always busy thinking about something, but she kept it to herself. I know I was a stupid kid, and I probably wouldn't have understood half the stuff going through her mind. Hell, I probably would have been shocked that my mother was a person with her own inner life, but I wish she would have talked to me. She needed someone."
"You shouldn't have had to take care of her."
"I didn't," I say. "She took great care of me. It was all she had to do--she watched films when I was at school, and when I was home, she took care of me. She coddled me, actually. She'd make me snacks after school. She'd ask about my day. She'd allow me to watch movies with her when I was supposed to do my homework." I smile. "It was the same every day. Mom insisted I wouldn't like a film. That it wasn't appropriate for someone my age. She kept that line up even when I was sixteen."
"Was she right?"
"Sometimes," I say. "I watched Apocalypse Now when I was twelve. I had no idea what was going on."
"It's based on an incredibly dense novel."
I shake my head. "I wish she was still around. She would have loved you. My God, if I told her I was dating a woman who played Ophelia in Hamlet."
"Only in high school."
"Still. She would have adored you almost as much as I do."
Alyssa studies my expression. There's something so sweet about the way she's looking at me. This is what she wanted, isn't it? To carry some of the weight that has been dragging me down.
"What else?" Alyssa asks.
"By the time I was eight, our movie afternoons were a daily event. Monday through Friday. She picked me up from school. We usually went straight home and watched something from her collection. Of course my father made her keep all five hundred of her movies in a closet, some place where no one would ever see it. So no one would get the stupid idea that his wife was anything more than a trophy."
"That's awful."
"Yeah. And only a small part of why I hate him so much."
I feel Alyssa's hand on mine. My heart pounds against my chest like it's the first time she ever touched me. I take a deep breath.
This is harder than I thought it would be.
"A few times a week we went to the independent video store across town. She even let me pick out a box of candy, so long as I promised not to tell my father. We had a lot of secrets from him. I knew the pen name she used to write a column for the local paper. I tried to read it, but it was so far over my level. She didn't even have to tell me to keep our movie dates a secret. I knew he would hate it. I knew he didn't want his son to get stupid ideas in his head."
"What kinds of stupid ideas?"
"That caring about film was anything besides a waste of time." I smile. "You should have seen his face when I told him I was going to major in film studies. It was a bluff, but it was the most brilliant bluff. He was beet red. He was so angry."
"Why didn't you?"
"I wanted to. But it was too painful. It made me think about how much I missed her."
Alyssa nods, a nod that says she understands exactly what I mean. But I don't know where it comes from. Who did Alyssa lose? There's still so much I need to learn about her, so much of her I haven't seen.
But there's time. There has to be.
"Those were the best afternoons," I say. "She explained the movies to me. Not the plot. She would talk about the lyrical cinematography or the canted angles or the score. I was probably the only ten-year-old who could carry on a conversation about Seven Samurai and Some Like it Hot."
Alyssa laughs. "So you were a little know-it-all."
"Yes."
"Things never change, huh?" She moves closer to me again. "But The African Queen was her favorite?"
"Yes," I say. "It's a cheesy movie. Completely unbelievable. Katharine Hepburn plays a proper English woman, a missionary, and Humphrey Bogart plays a working class stiff. War breaks out, the First World War I guess, and they have to flee their village on the old beat-up ship, the African Queen. They face a lot of silly obstacles. Some terrible special effects. And they fall in love. They're from two different worlds. Their relationship could never work, but they fall in love."
"Do you think she believed it was possible?"
"Maybe. I don't know. She thought it was romantic. At the end... well, I won't spoil it," I say. "But she loved it. Don't get me wrong, she loved lots of other movies, but this one was her favorite."
"And you think it's cheesy?"
"Yes, but I love it. It's like she's here when I watch it."
"You miss her, huh?"
I nod. "She had to hide all the parts of herself that mattered. She was like a robot most of the time. Like a Stepford wife. But she was a totally different person when it was the two of us and she could geek out over her film collection. She was so happy poring over classics. She could watch a movie she'd seen a hundred times--literally a hundred times--and still notice something new."
"So that's where you get it."
"Get what?" I ask.
"How many times have you watched Law and Order?"
"Not a hundred."
"Uh-huh."
I tap her lightly. She smiles, playful, her face lighting up. There's such a warmth here. It's so perfect. I lean down and kiss Alyssa. For a moment, I feel like I'm floating.
Her eyes flutter open. "Does it still hurt?"
"I don't usually think about it."
Alyssa's eyes bore into mine. She's listening with such rapt attention. She actually wants to hear this.
"Yes," I say. "It hurts whenever I think about it. She never had a chance. She lived her whole life hiding her passion. And she did it all for me, because she didn't want me to grow up in a broken home."
"It's not your fault."
"She was thinking about divorcing my father. I overheard her on the phone with a friend once. But she wouldn't do it. She knew he'd fight for custody, just because he could. After not working for years--at my father's insistence--she'd have no way to support herself. She had no choice but to stay married to that asshole."
I feel Alyssa's fingertips on my cheeks. Her eyes are back on mine. It's such a caring expression. "That's why you're a divorce lawyer, isn't it? So you can be the person your mom needed?"
I nod. "I could get her a very generous settlement."
"Is that why you represent so many women?"
"Yeah. They need someone to look out for them for once. Someone to take care of them for once."
"Did you ever think that maybe you need someone to take care of you for once?"
"I didn't." I bring my hand to Alyssa's and press my fingertips into hers. "But I'm reconsidering."
"What was it like when she died?" she asks.
"It hit me so hard. I couldn't function for so long. I drowned myself in schoolwork. I took every class I could, went to every club I could, tried making friends with every person in the school. I was obnoxious. And, when I finally finished my homework at midnight, I would fall asleep to one of her favorite movies. It hurt so much, thinking about her while the images flashed on screen, but it was a good kind of hurt. Like pressing on a bruise. It was like she was still around."
"I'm so sorry," she says.
And I know she means it.
"This is the one I watched the most," I say. "It was her favorite, and I must have fallen asleep to it a hundred nights."
We settle onto the couch and we spend the next two hours wrapped in each other's arms, our attention on the screen.
And once again, I swear I could float.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Stir Me Page 18