“No, no. Lines are boring. More about you,” Alexi persisted. Cass wasn’t ready to come clean, especially not in a crowded waiting room filled with actresses rehearsing for a Mentos commercial.
“I’m just feeling a little lost, I guess. I needed time away, for a variety of reasons. But I just don’t know where I’m headed.” She tried to lighten the mood. “And what’s up with Tinder? I’m worried the guys are reporting their height in centimeters.”
“Do you ever wonder if Jonathan is seeing anyone while you’re out here? Once he gets over the shock of it all—if he hasn’t already—I could see him getting into the idea of having a little fun.”
Jeez, Alexi was like a dog with a bone. Cass inhaled and let the air out in short bursts.
“That’s the part I didn’t really consider. Talk about being self-centered. When I left, I wasn’t even focused on what he would do. I guess I was willing to take the risk, subconsciously.”
Alexi nodded, as did some of the women seated around them. Rehearsing lines seemed to have taken a backseat to eavesdropping on Cass’s conversation. She lowered her voice considerably.
“Sometimes I daydream about what it felt like when I kissed Jonathan for the first time or when we used to hold hands—that jolt, the butterflies. I really miss that. Once that’s gone, and the little things start to get on your nerves, it makes you question everything. The spark went away so quickly. Even if we reconcile, it won’t return. Maybe kids would help. We’ve probably waited too long. I think if you pop out the little ones right away, you’re too tired to worry about anything else. Who knows, though? Maybe kids would make everything worse.” And I would feel even more trapped, with only myself to blame, for orchestrating this entire marriage, pulling every string.
“Maybe you should have had an affair,” Alexi said, her tone breezy but not altogether joking. “Probably would have been easier than a full-blown separation.”
“No, no. I respect Jonathan too much for that. And I believe in monogamy. It’s a sacrifice worth making if you’re with the right person. The point of this is to make sure Jonathan is the right person. We were on the verge of starting a family. And I’d rather know now than later.” The release of some of the truth felt like the loosening of a noose. There was something valuable in sharing with an actual person, not just a shower faucet or the invisible call-and-response in her head.
“Just don’t forget we’re getting old, lady.” Alexi used an open palm to pan around the room. “Our reproductive parts are museum artifacts compared to most of the women in this room.”
At this, Cass pictured her parts as withered little bits, grapes left for raisins.
“Don’t pressure me! My OB says I’m fine.”
“I’m just saying. I worry about it. Right now I’m all about career, but what if I wake up one day and decide I want a family and it’s too late? And people do get divorced after having children. I mean, your parents did. Look at Dahlia.”
Cass inhaled deeply, like she was taking a big pull of a cigarette.
“They do.”
“Maybe you just need to remind yourself how lucky you are.” Alexi smiled, patted Cass on the knee. “From where I’m sitting, your life has gone exactly according to plan. That wedding toast Jonathan gave—I still get shivers when I think about it.”
Me too, my friend. Me too, Cass thought.
Alexi was more correct than she’d ever know about Cass’s life going according to plan.
* * *
♦ ♦ ♦
ROCKS FOR JOCKS.
It was the unofficial name of Geology 101. Back in college, Cass fancied herself an intellectual and took pride in getting to Brown without an amazing pitching arm or a robber baron ancestor, but her strong GPA had taken a beating last year after she overestimated her ability to perform in Russian Literature in Translation (Intensive): Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Now she was looking for an easy A, which led to the discovery of Rocks for Jocks.
She found a spot in the back of the auditorium, which overflowed with a couple hundred other right-brained undergraduates seeking to inflate their averages. The row in front of her was a sea of monochromatic brown and broad shoulders; an athletic team had commandeered it. Well, they certainly belonged, given the class’s appellation. She, on the other hand, was alone, as she too often was, though it was already senior year and she ought to have forged more than one or two lasting friendships by this point. Through some combination of feeling like a misfit on campus and not taking the time to let anyone all the way in, she’d been more of a loner during college than she’d hoped for at the outset.
With no pals to chatter with before class, Cass passed the time by trying to follow the athletes’ banter. They spoke something like Pig Latin—a variation of her own dialect that she could nearly comprehend if she paid close enough attention. Once she heard “coxswain,” she knew; it was Brown’s heavyweight crew team blocking her view of the professor. Even though she was able to catch their drift, she felt light-years away from these muscled bodies just inches away from her. These were guys who had grown up in places where boating for sport was a thing. Crew was another one of those mystery sports to her—like lacrosse and field hockey. Athletic programs that seemed only to exist in towns with a certain median income.
“Dude, what time we going out tonight?” a curly-haired blond with sunglasses on the back of his head asked his neighbor to the right, another fair-haired guy with a popped collar layered under his crew T-shirt.
“Pregame is at Coyne’s place tonight, right, J-Dawg?” The neighbor reached his incredibly long rowing arm over the backs of two friends to reach the guy sitting on the end of the row, and gave him a good knuckle rub on the head. J-Dawg, Cass supposed.
“Not tonight,” the recipient of the noogie said. “I’m going to Paragon instead.”
“Is Jon Coyne too good for beer pong these days?” Popped-collar asked. A crumpled piece of paper sailed from one end of the row to the other. J-Dawg, Jon, caught it midair.
“I like Paragon. Different crowd. Better beer.” The peanut gallery didn’t look impressed. “Hotter girls,” he added. Then he reconsidered. “Well, different girls. It’s my new Tuesday-night place.”
His teammates looked unimpressed.
“They have dollar drafts,” Jon added, and finally he earned some approving nods.
Cass studied him, this renegade oarsman opting out of beer pong. He didn’t look like someone who made his drinking choices based on economics. His selection of end seat (if it even was a choice) felt symbolic, like he was deliberately choosing to be a part of the group but also separate. A Cro-Magnon among Neanderthals. Her antenna stood up straighter.
The lecture started and Cass watched this person of interest take copious notes while the bulk of his pals napped their way through the hour-long class. Those who were alert made whispered wisecracks. Hard to believe their joke about rocks and testicles hadn’t gotten old yet.
Later that afternoon at the library, tucked into a private carrel, she first looked up Jon Coyne’s campus address. He lived off-campus in a fancy condo building on Thayer Street, something Cass’s scholarship would never allow. Then she googled “Coyne,” “Crew” and “Brown,” which garnered her a full name, a hometown and a height: Jonathan Edward Coyne, Boston, Massachusetts, six foot one. The rest was a piece of cake; the Internet dumped information on her like manna from heaven. He was the oldest of four siblings, a graduate of Exeter, and his father was the chairman of something described as a family office. She had to look that up. Apparently managing one’s own money was a job. Who knew? Images of the parents, Betsy and Christopher, were easy to locate. The mother—statuesque, blond, always with pursed lips—was photographed at the Boston Symphony, at the clambake for the Martha’s Vineyard public library, in front of an impressive building at Exeter called the Coyne Center for Cultural Understanding, whatever that was supposed to
mean. Christopher was usually a step behind her, looking serious, bored, rich. Yes, a person could look rich even if the photographs were grainy and you couldn’t touch the thread count of the suit, just like her parents looked poor before they opened their mouths. Jonathan was the only dark-haired one among the Coyne clan, typically the only tieless one too, and also the only one bearing a look of casual indifference in the pictures. Plus, she liked his last name. Cass Coyne. The alliteration was mellifluous almost to a fault. She couldn’t help but contrast the shiny photo of the Coyne family with the one photo shoot she and her parents had ever done. Kmart was running a special where if you spent more than two hundred dollars on other products, you got a free photo session and one 8-by-10 photo, gratis. Donna dressed them up in their finest, rang up a cartload of goods totaling $203, and then forced them to play happy family while an amateur photographer told them to call out different varieties of cheese over and over again. Through gritted teeth, Cass said “Parmesan,” “Cheddar” and “Muenster” until he was satisfied he’d clinched the money shot. A week after their 8-by-10 arrived, Donna returned all the products to Kmart in triumph.
The evening at Paragon was a huge letdown. Jon never showed. She went gussied up in coed cool: scented lip gloss and three coats of Maybelline, tight jeans with a flare at the bottom, chunky wedges. All night she sat at a corner table where she had a perfect view of the front door. In came the townies with their tattoos and piercings, and she had to keep looking down to avoid misleading eye contact. A few RISD students she recognized from her art classes trickled in with their goatees and backgammon boards, and she watched their merriment with envy. At least they had a group. She was alone on a stakeout without much reason other than a sixth sense that Jonathan was worth pursuing, albeit a sense supported by the data. And she’d lied about her whereabouts to Dahlia, not wanting her to tag along or, worse, bring Alexi. Pint-sized Alexi would be a diaphanous butterfly tucked under Jon’s enormous wingspan, and Jon wouldn’t be the first jock she’d gotten to attend her experimental theater performances. Even Dahlia, who wasn’t as pretty, had a well-timed wit that more than made up for it.
At first Cass planned to go back the following Tuesday night for another stakeout, but then she reconsidered. Actually putting to use what she had learned in the Modern Consumerism seminar she’d taken sophomore year, she made sure Jon Coyne saw her three times in the most attractive available light before they properly met. It was a course with a name that would have befuddled her parents, had either of them asked what she was studying, but which had proved the most useful to her in more ways than one. She groomed herself carefully before the next few geology classes, inspired by the look of the girls who flitted around the athletes, and once there, positioned herself two rows ahead of Jonathan and did a few back-twisting stretches during the class. She started getting her lattes at the hippie-dippie coffee shop next to the crew house, instead of the hippie-dippie coffee shop closer to her dorm. By the time they met face-to-face at Paragon, he’d probably seen her a half dozen times, though never for long enough to fully place her. It was sufficient for brand recognition, that security you need before you make the purchase. She’d gotten an A in that class, and only a B+ in Geology. Turned out she was far better at marketing than identifying geodes. And that was the first time she’d strategized and plotted and connived to make her future husband notice her.
* * *
♦ ♦ ♦
CRAIG’S WAS A Beverly Hills hot spot. Dimly lit, with a bustling bar scene and wide, leathery banquettes, it was the kind of place Hollywood heavy hitters went when they wanted to be seen. Paparazzi waited out front hoping for a money shot, but the restaurant had a back way out that celebrities could use if they had too much to drink or suddenly felt camera shy.
Alexi and Cass, along with two friends of Alexi’s from acting class named JuJu and Zandra, were finally seated after a forty-minute wait at the bar. Cass had had to be coaxed into going, even though it was a place she’d wanted to try since arriving in L.A. But dinner with three actresses talking about auditions while picking at kale salads didn’t have much to offer by way of emotional or intellectual nourishment, certainly nothing that could rebound her from her dismal first Puddles exchange. Alexi assured her the night would be more fun than Cass expected, but so far she was underwhelmed. The star sightings were C-list at best (washed-up sitcom stars turned reality contestants) and the wait for the table was downright obnoxious. At least the menu held promise. It was mostly comfort food, a relief since Cass had been expecting microgreens. A burger with fries and a second glass of red wine did a lot to unwind her, and the shortcake à la mode she ordered for dessert gave her serotonin a peppy spring.
The night with Alexi and her friends turned out to be entertaining. She even liked playing the role of single girl out on the town, though it was clear how it could get old fairly quickly. Her dinner companions spent a good part of the evening doing touch-ups and surveying the groupings of single men at the bar, so much so that Cass was sure they’d wake up with sore necks. Alexi, four skinny margaritas deep, was cracking a lot of jokes and Cass couldn’t help devolving into fits of giggles. Ironically, each time she let out a belly laugh, it made her think about Jonathan and then she was sad all over again. He frequently said how much he liked to see her “real” smile—told her some nonsense about her brow wrinkling cutely and loving that damn overlap of her teeth, but really it was more like he thought of it as a personal accomplishment.
Sipping the last of their skim cappuccinos, because naturally a group of women orders nonfat milk after a decadent meal without blinking at the irony, they readied themselves to leave. The check landed on the table and Cass seriously considered grabbing it. Listening to Alexi and her friends gripe about making rent and realizing the gray shearling coat she’d bought for herself for Christmas cost more than each of them made last year was causing her to flush, not unlike when Manuela used to iron her underwear. If she didn’t reconcile with Jonathan, she’d soon be joining their ranks, but for now she could be a sport and treat.
Cass reached for the bill just as Alexi and her friends gasped.
“It’s fine, really,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “You ladies cheered me up.”
“Did you see who just came in?” JuJu asked. She’d been quiet for most of the meal after her complaints about being perpetually cast as the kooky friend were not received well by Zandra, who lately wasn’t getting cast as anything at all.
“Who?” Cass said. A hush had fallen over the entire restaurant, which a moment earlier had had the buzz of drunken laughter and the clumsy clanking of silver- and glassware. She quietly slipped her card into the black sleeve of the bill. None of the other women protested, either too distracted or just plain grateful. Like everyone else in the dining room, Cass swiveled her head around to see two older gentlemen make their way to a corner booth, which in hindsight Cass realized had been kept empty the entire evening despite the throngs of hungry patrons begging for mercy at the bar.
“Marty Spiegel and Eli Spiegel,” Alexi whispered. At tables all around, similar huddles formed. “They’re the most—”
“I know who they are,” Cass interrupted. “Which one is which?”
JuJu pointed out the taller of the two men. He had a blazer and a thick head of gray hair, the kind of man who might be termed a silver fox.
“That’s Eli.”
Cass shifted her gaze to the other man, Luna’s father, who was semi-reclining on his side of the green banquette. On the heftier side, shirt untucked, he had a hairline that looked like it had been plowed above each eyebrow, resulting in a harshly accentuated widow’s peak. She saw him scowl at the drinks menu and there it was, the resemblance to Luna, who made the same face when questioned about not showing up.
“I know him,” Cass said. “I mean, I know his daughter.”
Alexi gasped. “How did you never tell me that? You do realize he’s
the most powerful producer in Hollywood? And that I am a struggling actress reduced to eating ramen noodles at times?”
“It’s not what you think. Luna’s our housekeeper. And she makes a big point of not taking anything from her dad; hence, the cleaning- lady gig. She’s an undergrad at NYU and likes to do the Cinderella thing for extra money, probably also to piss off her dad. It wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to ask for favors. Besides, I rarely see her.”
“Marty Spiegel’s daughter is your maid? That is fuuuuuucked up. Well, you’ve got to go over there now,” JuJu said, her expression actually menacing. She should show that side of herself at auditions, Cass thought wryly. It would do away with the quirky neighbor/batty friend roles. “You are sitting with three women who would give their right arms to talk to him face-to-face.” Zandra nodded sharply by way of backup. Alexi, more comfortable using physical force with Cass, gave her a shove in the direction of his booth.
“I guess it would be interesting to meet him,” Cass relented.
She stood up and subtly attempted to pull herself together by smoothing out her silk tank and giving her bra straps a tug in the right direction. Conscious of the many sets of eyes on her and petrified of tripping, she slowly made her way over to the table.
The Intermission Page 18