“I had a motorcycle accident in June, riding with a friend. I was a graphic designer before this. So now I figure I'll be selling pencils in a cup on the street. There's not a lot of work out there for blind designers,” he said, sounding half tragic and half funny. But she liked him, he had a friendly voice.
“I'm …I was a painter. Same problem. I was living in Florence.”
“They drive like lunatics there. No wonder you got in an accident.”
“It happened here, on the Fourth of July.” She didn't tell him about her mother. That would have been too much, even in their shared darkness. It was impossible to say. Maybe later, if they really became friends. But it was nice to have someone to talk to the first day.
“I'm gay, by the way,” he said suddenly, out of nowhere.
She smiled. “I'm straight. My boyfriend just dumped me, right after the accident. But he didn't know I was blind.”
“That's rotten of him.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“I'm twenty-three. I graduated last year. Where'd you go to school?”
“Risdy,” she said, which was the code among the knowledgeable for the Rhode Island School of Design. “I went to the Beaux Arts in Paris after I graduated, and picked up a master's degree. And I've been studying in Florence ever since. A lot of good all that hot-shot education does us now. Risdy, Yale, now this, so we can learn to use the microwave and brush our teeth. I fell flat on my face outside the school this morning, getting out of a cab,” she said, and suddenly it didn't seem so tragic, it was almost funny. “I walked into the sex ed class by mistake and they asked me if I brought condoms. I told them I'd bring some tomorrow.” He was laughing at what she said.
“Do you live with your parents now?” he asked with interest. “I've been staying with my mom since June. I was living with my boyfriend before that,” he said, sounding solemn. “He died in the accident. It was his bike.”
“I'm sorry,” she said softly, and meant it, but she still couldn't tell him about her mother. “I'm living with my sisters for a year, till I get on my feet. They've been really nice to me.”
“My mom's been pretty cool too, except that she treats me like a two-year-old.”
“I guess it's scary for them too,” Annie said, thinking about it.
And then they were told that it was time to go to the classroom. They were being divided into four groups.
“I hope I'm in yours,” Baxter whispered. She did too. She had a new friend at school. They listened carefully for their groups and were ecstatic to discover they were in the same one. They followed the rest of the group to their classroom, and found their seats. It was Braille 101.
“I don't remember this class in college, do you?” he whispered, and she giggled like a kid. He was funny and irreverent, and smart, and she liked him. She had no idea what he looked like, tall or short, fat or thin, black or white or Asian. All she knew was that she liked him, they were both artists, and he was going to be her friend.
They were both exhausted by the end of the day. She asked him if he needed a ride home, if he lived uptown and was on her way. He said he had to take two buses and a subway to Brooklyn, where he had to take another bus to get home.
“How did you do that?” she asked with admiration.
“I just ask for help all along the way. It takes me about two hours to get here. But if I don't come here, my mother will kill me.”
Annie laughed at what he said. “My sisters would too.”
“Are you going to get a dog?” he asked her. “My mom thinks I should.”
“I hope not. I hate dogs. They're yappy and they smell.”
“In this case, I think they help,” he said practically. “And it might be good company, when I live alone in my own place. I'm not sure there's a lot of interest in blind gay guys. I figure I may be alone a lot.” He sounded sad as he said it, and echoed her fears about blind women.
“I've been thinking pretty much the same thing,” she admitted.
“It's too bad I'm not straight,” he whispered.
“Yeah, it is. Maybe you'll get cured.”
“Of what?” He sounded shocked.
“Being gay.”
“Are you serious?” Their friendship was about to end.
“No,” she said, and he burst out laughing.
“I like you, Annie.”
“I like you too, Baxter.” They both meant it, which was sweet. It seemed like a miracle that they had found each other in the cafeteria and sat down at the same table. Two blind artists in a sea of people. There were eight hundred adults in the school. There was a youth section, but there were far more adults. And it was thought to be one of the best training schools for the blind in the world. They both suddenly felt lucky to be there, when it had seemed like a punishment before.
“Best friends?” he asked her before they left each other for their respective journeys home. Hers was a lot shorter and easier than his. His sounded like an odyssey to her.
“Forever and ever,” she promised as they shook hands. “Have a safe trip home.”
“You too. Try not to fall flat on your face again on your way out. It gives the school a bad name. It's okay on the way in, but leaving you should at least try to look like you know what you're doing.” She laughed again, and he disappeared.
There were guides in the hallway to help the new students find the main door, and to assist them with transportation outside. Annie explained to one of them that she needed a cab, and he told her to wait, and he'd come to get her when he had the cab. She was standing in the main lobby, feeling lost again, when someone spoke to her. He had a calm, pleasant voice.
“Miss Adams?”
“Yes.” She looked hesitant, and suddenly shy.
“I'm Brad Parker. I just wanted to say hello and welcome you to the school. How did your first day go?” She wasn't sure if she should tell him the truth. He sounded very grown up, unlike Baxter, who sounded like a kid, even younger than he was.
“It went fine,” she said meekly.
“I hear you had a little mishap on the way in. We have to get the city to do something about that curb. It happens all the time.” She felt less stupid about having fallen when he said it, which seemed kind, whether it was true or not. “Are you all right?”
“I'm fine. Thank you very much.”
“Did you find your classes all right?”
“Yes.” She smiled. She didn't tell him that she had stumbled into the lesson about condoms. She didn't know him well enough.
“I understand you're fluent in Italian and lived in Florence.” He seemed to know all about her, and she looked surprised.
“How did you know that?”
“It's on your form, and I read them all. I was interested in that, because I spent a lot of time in Rome. My grandfather was the American ambassador there when I was a child. We used to visit him in the summer.”
She suddenly wondered and decided to ask, since he knew so much about her, even that she had fallen down. “Are you blind?”
“No, I'm not. But both my parents were. I built the school in their memory, with a bequest they left for this purpose. They died in a plane crash when I was in college.”
“That's pretty amazing.” Annie was impressed, and he sounded like a nice man. She was touched that he had bothered to talk to her, had read her application prior to that, and even knew about her fall. He was well informed, particularly in a school that size.
“We've grown considerably since we started. We've only been here for sixteen years. I hope you enjoy it, and if there's anything I can do for you while you're with us, let me know.”
“Thank you,” she said demurely. She wouldn't have dared to call him Brad. She had no idea how old he was. But as the founder of the school, she had to assume he wasn't very young, and he sounded like he was a man, not a boy like Baxter, so she couldn't kid around, and didn't want to seem rude.
As they spoke, the guide came back inside to get her. He had a cab waiting outside. He greeted Brad informally, she said goodbye, and the guide took her outside and helped her into the cab. She thanked him and gave the driver her address. And as she promised she would, she called Sabrina at her office to tell her she was on the way home.
“How was it?” Sabrina asked, sounding anxious. She had worried about her all day.
“It was okay,” Annie said noncommittally, and then smiled in the back of the cab. “Okay … it was pretty good.”
“Well, that's nice to hear.” Sabrina smiled in relief. “I felt like I'd sent my only kid to camp. I was a nervous wreck all day. I was afraid you'd hate it, or that someone would be mean to you. What did you learn?”
“Condoms 101.” She laughed as she said it.
“Excuse me?”
“Actually, I wandered into the wrong class, after I fell on the curb outside. We studied braille.”
“You'd better tell me about all this when I get home. I'll be home in about an hour.” Annie had left the school just after five. They went to school from eight to five every day, five days a week, for six months. It was an intensive course.
When Annie got home, Candy was still packing for Milan, and there were suitcases all over her room. She was leaving for three weeks, but after Sabrina's lecture that morning, she had kept all of it in her room, so Annie didn't trip and fall when she walked in. And then she saw the knees of her jeans. They were torn and soaked with blood.
“What happened to you?” Candy looked instantly sympathetic.
“What do you mean?”
“Your knees.”
“Oh, I fell.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I'm fine.”
“How was school?”
“Not too bad,” Annie conceded, and then smiled at her, looking more than ever like a little kid. “Actually, it was almost cool.”
“Almost cool?” Candy laughed. “Did you meet any guys?”
“Yeah. A guy in my class who's a graphic designer. He went to Yale, and he's gay. And the head of the school, who's about a hundred years old. I'm not going there to meet guys.”
“That doesn't mean you can't meet them if you're there.”
“That's true.”
Candy could tell that she had been favorably impressed, and other than the skinned knees, no harm had come to her. It seemed like an acceptable first day, to all of them. Tammy called to check in the following morning, and she was relieved to hear about it too. Sabrina asked her if things were running more smoothly than before she left for the holiday.
“Not exactly. I'm dealing with a wildcat strike. And about four hundred other headaches, but I'm okay.” She sounded stressed, and she had been worried about Annie. All of the sisters were pleased with Annie's first day at the Parker School, and so was she.
Sabrina hoped it was a good omen for the future, and they celebrated with a bottle of champagne that night.
Chapter 18
Tammy's week went from bad to worse. Problems with actors, problems with the network, problems with the unions and the scripts. By the end of the week, she was a total mess. And she felt guiltier every day for not being with her sisters to help deal with the aftermath of her mother's death. Her father sounded terrible. And Candy was in Europe for three weeks, so Sabrina was handling everything alone. She was singlehandedly supervising Annie, trying to bolster their father's spirits as best she could from the distance, and carrying an enormous workload at her office. None of it seemed fair. And now with Annie to take care of, and their father to visit whenever she could, she felt as though she hardly had time to see Chris. He slept at the house a few times a week, but she said she barely had time to talk to him. All of the responsibilities were on her shoulders, and no one else's. And even when she had been at home, Candy was too young and immature to really help. She was twenty-one going on twelve, or six.
Tammy spent a long, quiet, reflective weekend. The show was shut down because of the strike, and they already knew they weren't going to be able to shoot the following week because of it. The union said they could hold out for months. And the network was going to lose a fortune if they did. But there was nothing Tammy could do. What she was contemplating now was her own life. She spent a lot of quiet time with Juanita, stroking her quietly as the little dog slept on her lap. Holding the dog always gave Tammy a sense of peace, and by Sunday night she knew what she wanted to do. The decision had been hard. It was the scariest thing she'd ever done.
On Monday morning, she made an appointment with the senior executive producer of the show for later that afternoon. And another appointment with the head of the network the following day. She wanted to speak to them both. She owed it to them, and to herself.
She looked somber when she walked into the senior executive producer's office, and he smiled as he looked up.
“Don't look so depressed. The strike can't last forever. We'll settle it in a couple of weeks, and get back on track.” His view was more optimistic than what she'd been hearing around the show.
“I hope that's true,” she said, as she sat down. She didn't know where to start.
“By the way, I'm sorry about your loss.” It was the expression she hated most. It always seemed to be said by rote, and was such an easy way out. Like Season's Greetings. Or All The Best. All the best what? It wasn't just a loss, it was her mother's life. And her sister's eyes. Which was why she was sitting in his office. But it wasn't his fault. He was a nice man, and had been a decent boss. And she loved the show. It had been her baby for all this time. And now she had come to give it back. It was like giving up her child. Tears filled her eyes even before she spoke.
“Tammy, what's wrong? You look upset.”
“I am,” she said honestly, pulling a tissue out of her pocket and dabbing at her eyes. “I don't want to do what I'm about to do, but I have to.”
“You don't have to do anything you don't want to do,” he said calmly. He could see what was coming, and he was trying to take some of the air out of the balloon, before it popped. But it already had.
“I came here to resign,” she said simply, with tears running down her cheeks.
“Don't you think that's a little extreme, Tammy?” he said gently. He dealt with crises every day, and he was good at handling them. As a rule, so was she. But more than anything, she knew that right now this wasn't where she belonged. She needed to go home. L.A. had been home to her since college, she loved her job and her house. But she loved her sisters more. “It's only a strike.”
“It's not about the strike.”
“Then what is it?” He spoke to her like a child. She was just another hysterical woman sitting in a chair on the other side of his desk, although he had enormous respect for her. A scene like this was totally atypical of her.
“My mother died in July, as you know. And my sister was blinded in the accident. My father is a mess. I just need to go home for a while and lend a hand.”
“Do you want a leave of absence, Tammy?” Normally, he couldn't have spared her, but he didn't want to lose her either. She was vital to the show.
“I would, but that wouldn't be fair to you. I want to go home for a year, so I came here to quit my job. I love it, I love everyone here. It drives me insane, but there's nothing I'd rather do …except be with them. They need me at home. My oldest sister is just carrying too much. My youngest sister is too young. And the one who's blind now needs all the help she can get. So, I'm checking out.” She looked grief-stricken as she said it. It was the biggest sacrifice she'd ever made, but she knew it was right. Leaving the show was like leaving home too.
“Are you sure?” He looked shocked, but it was impossible to argue with what she had said. It was obviously a tough time for her. An extremely tough time, and he knew how close she was to her family. Unusually so, which was rare.
“Yes, I am.”
“This is a lot for you to give up.”
“I know. And I'll
never have another job I love this much. But I can't let my family down,” she said almost tragically. And yet in her heart, it felt clean and right and pure. It had been tormenting her ever since she got back to L.A.
“There are no decent shows for you to work on in New York.”
“I know that too. But even if I work on some shit show, this is something I have to do for them. I'll never forgive myself if I don't. In the end, this is just a show. What they're dealing with is real life. My sisters need my help, and so does my dad.”
“It's noble of you, Tammy, but a hell of a sacrifice for you. It could impact your whole career.”
“And if I stay? What does that say about who I am as a human being?” she asked him, as her eyes bored into his. She never wavered in her resolve. He was stunned by the force of it as she sat on the other side of his desk.
“When do you want to leave?” he asked, looking worried.
“As soon as I can. That's up to you. I won't just walk out. But I'd like to get back there soon.”
He didn't try to talk her out of it, he could see he couldn't. “If you give us till next week, maybe I can get one of the associate producers to step in. The strike will probably still be on, so that gives us time.” In their business, no one stuck around once they gave notice. In fact, they were usually ushered out by security within minutes. He would never do that to her. It was entirely up to him. She was prepared to do whatever he wanted, even if he told her to leave within the hour. Her decision had been made.
“Next week will be fine. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry,” she said, as she started to cry again.
“I'm sorry for you,” he said kindly, as he stood up, walked around the desk, and hugged her. “I hope everything turns out for the best, and that your sister will be all right.”
“So do I.” Tammy smiled through her tears. “Thank you. Thank you for being so nice about it, and not throwing me out.”
“I couldn't do that to you.”
“I would understand if you did.”
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