I’ve smiled for the cameras and stepped and repeated four times when I spot a flash of a ton of very red hair getting out of a curbside town car. I know who that is immediately. I check to make sure that my mom is still distracted talking to the director of the movie, and then I say, “Sorry, be right back” to the photographers.
Most people wouldn’t know that my mom has been upset since our talk last night. It’s hard to tell, but it’s all I can see. Not that I really said anything unbelievably awful to her—I mean, I was just asking a legitimate question about my dad. But I know it messed with her.
Ever since then, something in her face has made her look unsteady. She’s been quiet around me. She’s been nervously shaking the bracelets on her wrists. I hate feeling like I’m her parent. I really, really do. But sometimes what feels worse is just the fact of seeing a parent be vulnerable. And you’d do anything to put her back on top so you don’t have to linger in that dynamic a second longer.
I’m wearing a dark blue beaded jumpsuit and the pants on it are a little long, so I step on the hem a few times as I’m jogging to the curb. Catherine and junior producers are on the other side of the carpet hovering around Ford, making sure he says the right things to the press. Catherine is wearing a red tuxedo with her hair gelled back, and I can’t explain it any better than this, but she looks like an abusive cotillion partner.
No one from the camp at the town car stops me from approaching the actress from the hotel elevator, because I’m not just an average person anymore. I’m on TV.
She’s looking down, watching an assistant fix a streak of bronzer on her leg.
“Excuse me?” I say.
She looks up. She doesn’t seem drunk today. Her eyes are clear and wide open. She recognizes me.
“Magnolia from Spotlight!” she says.
I say, “Well, that too. But I also met you in a hotel elevator once. Do you remember that time? I was with my mom?”
There’s uncertainty creeping into her eyes. “The elevator?”
“I want to get a picture of the two of you together,” says a man who I think is the actress’s publicist. The request seems urgent, and I get the sense that he thinks it will help his client’s fading career to release a photo of her with me, which is kind of mind-blowing. It’s so incredibly weird that I, a random high school kid, could help her seem relevant.
We stand hip to hip and put our arms around each other like we’re old friends. The publicist pulls over the WireImage photographer to shoot us.
“You know, the elevator,” I continue. “You were really nice to us.” It’s sort of half-true. “I have a favor to ask. My mom’s here tonight, and if you could come over with me and say hi to her, that would mean a lot.” The photographer snaps us and we smile, repeat, repeat, repeat. “But if you could call her Di, like you remember her name, that would be even more meaningful.”
The actress turns slightly, giving the photographer another angle. “That’s it?” she asks me.
“That’s it.”
“Di, you said?”
“Right.”
After we take a couple more pictures, I tell the actress to give me a head start and then to follow. I go over to where my mom is standing so the actress knows which person to approach. My mom’s dressed in an emerald evening gown with a sheer panel at her stomach. The panel plays a trick on the eyes because it seems like you should definitely be seeing a belly button, and you can’t figure out why you’re not.
As I approach, my mom’s bracelets are jangling on her wrists like wind chimes. Seeing her unsteadiness cements the feeling in me that I have to do something to fix it, like I have to take care of her, like I have to put her back together. So that’s why I could kiss the actress for showing up to this premiere.
Walking up, I hear my mom saying to the director, “Spike Lee, his early stuff. Lee Daniels, I can’t wait to see what he does next. . . .”
I don’t think I have to explain that the director is black.
“Hey,” I say.
My mom tries to beam at me, but it’s not like normal. There’s distance between us. “Magnolia, have you met Mike? Mike, I took her to see Last Summer Resort the night it came out. She loved it. I love the scene where Pat is leading everyone in lawn games and then suddenly that bear appears—”
“The bear scene!” Mike says, proud. He’s bald and looks something like if turtles were allowed to join the army. He can just barely cross him arms successfully because his muscles get in the way.
“So Pat picks up the wife of the millionaire—that millionaire was such a douchebag, by the way—in his arms—”
“Di?” says a very convincing voice from behind us.
My mom turns. She sees the actress. My mom looks young. She looks doe-eyed. It’s like I’ve restored her, and that makes me feel such phenomenal relief. “Lauren! Oh my God, hi! You remember my name?”
“Of course, the night in the hotel elevator!”
The actress can act. Lauren and my mom start talking like they’re long-lost sisters, and my mom introduces her to Mike, which Lauren really seems to appreciate. It seems like Lauren would give up an organ to be in one of his movies. While the three of them are talking, my attention drifts off and I watch Pat Graves signing autographs for the fans in the bleachers; they’ve waited hours to see him walk the carpet. He smiles, and it’s honestly pretty astonishing. I would need about fifty more teeth to manage a smile like that.
I notice one fan’s face in particular—she has shining tears pouring down her cheeks, but she’s obviously really happy. I wonder if that’s real love, having so much feeling for someone that you only need the tiniest interactions to keep yourself going.
While I’m thinking about this, I feel someone’s fingers drift up my spine. The jumpsuit is a halter, so it’s completely open in the back. I know that it’s Ford’s hand on me. I just do.
I look over my shoulder, and his hand is still extended behind him, reaching toward me, even though he’s moving away and facing forward. He’s being escorted by Madison in the direction of Pat Graves, probably to meet him. I don’t know what he thinks that touching my back is going to accomplish.
A whole new wave of anger comes. Let’s put aside when I was looking into his eyes and telling him stories about my dad. What about when we were almost having sex before the show? What about then? What about when his hand was on my hipbone and he was pausing from kissing me and staring at me like I was all he needed? And he knew that in less than an hour, his family would be jogging up onto the stage. When he was staring at me like that, even if he hadn’t known where to start, couldn’t he have tried? Couldn’t he have at least said something like, Magnolia, I don’t know where to start . . . even if he couldn’t get the rest out? And I would have said, What? What? and been completely frustrated and mystified, but at least I would have known a part of him wanted to tell me before the rest of the world.
I’m walloped by the sudden understanding of just how much Ford wants to get away from who he was. He wants it so bad that he even pretended with me, when we were alone.
But that doesn’t change how pissed I am.
“You ready to go in?”
The actress and the film director are gone, and my mom’s standing there, waiting on me.
“Yeah, sure.”
I look around, and the red carpet is emptying out. Pat Graves has gone inside. The fans in the bleachers are comparing trophies. A couple of publicity people from the movie are walking up the carpet, making shooing motions and yelling, “Carpet’s closing! Please head into the movie! Carpet’s closing!” We obey them and walk toward the theater. At the end of the carpet, there’s only one person still posing, and that’s Jazz Billingham. She looks so small when you see her out in the world. I mean, she looks like the preteen that she is.
Also, the skirt on her dress is gigantic, nearly antebellum, and it
makes her look like these dolls that my grandma used to keep in the bathroom to cover up the extra toilet paper rolls.
We step around the front of the carpet to pass by her without ruining her photos. Jazz says to the photographers, “You have your pictures, yes? I’ll be going, then.” And then she takes a step and falls.
She falls hard. She’s tripped on one of the under layers of her dress. I gasp. The press is still taking photos of her. She lifts her face and it’s panicky, hurt. You can see the deeper horror of her embarrassment. There’s this fear that she’s just shown something to the crowd that they’re never supposed to see.
“I want my mom,” she says quietly, maybe even so quietly that I’m one of the few people who knows what she’s said because I’m looking right into her eyes and I’m standing right in front of her. Her parents are never with her. From what I hear, they live somewhere back east. Jazz’s lawyer is the one who acts as her guardian. He always stands off to the side in his charcoal suit, taking calls, and occasionally they speak a couple of words to each other.
And then something kind of bizarre happens. My mom runs to Jazz and scoops her up from the ground, taking her into her arms. She hugs her like she’s her mom. I think Jazz is going to fling off my mom’s affection and say something like, Hugs are for people who don’t have their own art to embrace them. But Jazz just holds on to her really tight.
My mom protectively blocks Jazz from the press and then guides her off the carpet and behind the step-and-repeat backdrop. I don’t think Jazz and my mom have ever interacted before this moment, apart from maybe shaking hands during a backstage introduction.
One of the movie’s publicists touches my arm and says, “We need you in your seat.”
I can see my mom still comforting Jazz, who seems to need her. So I figure I should just leave them alone. “Coming,” I say.
I enter the lobby and another studio person hustles me toward the theater door, saying I’m going to miss the start of the movie. So I head in, but as soon as I’m through the door, someone else grabs my hand and pulls me into an ushers’ supply closet underneath the stadium seating.
“Maggie,” Ford says. He’s standing there in dim light, in a suit without a tie. The way he says my name is both urgent and hopeful.
“No,” I say. I start to back out, pulling away my hand.
He doesn’t let it go. “Maggie,” he says more urgently this time.
“I adored you.” This isn’t meant as something nice. It’s supposed to be a punch to the face. I pull away my hand, hard. I leave him.
Shaken, I walk down the hallway to the stairs for the seats. I watch my step because of this insane jumpsuit. At the front of the theater Mike is saying, “And I just hope you all really dig it!” The room breaks into applause. Pat Graves stands and claps over his head like he’s at SeaWorld. I spot Mila near the aisle, and Ricky’s taken the seat next to her. I duck down at their row.
“Hey, Ricky,” I whisper. “Can I have that seat?”
“There’s more near the front,” he whispers, confused.
“I just really want to be with my friend right now.”
Mila nudges him. “Your eyes are bad, Rick. You should get up as close as you can.”
He sighs and indulges me. I take his seat with all my sequins crunching underneath me.
“You look paler than usual,” Mila whispers.
“Ford tried to talk to me.”
“You’re allowed to be disappointed in him. Don’t let him get that twisted.” She picks up a sequin that’s fallen from my jumpsuit to my shoulder and flicks it away for me.
The lights start to go down.
I can’t help but be aware when Ford appears in the aisle as the theater is almost dark. I stare ahead. He takes a seat somewhere in the back.
I concentrate on the movie. The Universal logo spins. There aren’t any opening credits. It just starts. Pat jumps from the second story of a mall to the first. He tackles a bad guy (who just looks bad) that works in the mall pet shop. The guy produces a scorpion from his pocket. Mila laughs. Nobody else does. Pat expertly takes hold of the creature, and he gets it to clamp a claw down on the bad guy’s nuts. I laugh too.
Ford
35
It’s Saturday morning, and I’m helping Dillon lug his stuff outside to the waiting town car. He’s been pretty quiet toward me since Wednesday’s performance show. Even more so after the results came in last night. He thinks I’m nothing but a liar. Last week he couldn’t stop projecting his voice to his imaginary Madison Square Garden—now, total silence. We walk down the driveway without saying a word.
The driver takes Dillon’s KISS computer bag from me and drops it in the trunk. KISS was vomiting fake blood onstage back when computers were the size of living rooms, so I’m not sure what they’re doing selling laptop bags.
“This sucks,” I finally say. What I mean to say is, This sucks that you’re going home, and this sucks that our friendship dies here. And it’s also me trying to own up that I know it should have been me, even though I didn’t want it to be.
Dillon takes a deep breath and gives me a look full of hurt. “Yeah, well, too bad I didn’t have a secret family to pull up and hug onstage.”
“Dill, I—” I start.
He doesn’t want to hear it. “Yeah, welp, that’s show biz, man.” He says this like he’s a fifty-year-old road dog at the end of an exhausting world tour. He makes a depressed set of rock horns with his fingers. “Friends are strangers, and strangers are friends. Being a straight shooter won’t get you anywhere.” He looks off down the street. “But don’t worry about me. I’m sure you’ll get over your guilt. I’m sure people at home will forget about my last performance, eventually. I’ll live it down.”
That performance is why Dillon’s going home instead of me. For obvious reasons, I was in the bottom two with him. What started out as a pretty good version of “Baba O’Riley” turned bad when Dillon climbed onto a giant human pyramid of actual teenagers and it collapsed. He finished the song mumbling “teenage wasteland” from the bottom of a dog pile.
When you make a mistake on live TV, people get to enjoy watching you blow it over and over. Dillon’s pyramid collapse has already gotten millions of views online. It’s as if that version of him has been pinned up like a butterfly, and he’ll be stuck like that forever. How are you supposed to get any better if you can’t screw up when you’re starting out?
As Dillon ducks into the car without saying bye, I know something has gone bad between us. I guess losing out to someone who killed off his own family isn’t sitting well with him. The car pulls away.
I drift back into the mansion.
Everybody’s on different schedules with fittings and coaching, so I search the place until I find Mila upstairs doing what I think is yoga in the music room. She watches me walk in behind her, her head hanging upside down between her shins. She doesn’t seem any happier with me than Dillon was. But I don’t need her to be my best friend—I just need her to help me get to Magnolia.
“Dillon gone?” she asks coldly.
“Yeah, he’s gone.”
She moves into a kind of side lunge with one arm up in the air. “He’s a good person, so hopefully good things will happen for him,” she says pointedly. “You know. Karma.”
I take a deep breath. “Do you know where Magnolia went?” I ask.
“Hair consult, fitting, story meeting with Lucien.”
Magnolia has gotten really good at not being wherever I am. She’s been away a lot for coaching, and she disappears somewhere in the house when we get home at night. We’ve been near each other only when everyone else is around. At the premiere she wouldn’t talk to me. This morning she was gone somewhere before I got up.
An hour ago I tried texting her, but she still hasn’t responded. I guess that not answering is her answer: I hate you, go away
. I can’t blame her.
But I also don’t know what to do with all these feelings now that their reason for existing wishes I didn’t exist.
“She hasn’t said anything about me, has she?” I know it’s a stupid question as soon as I’ve asked it, but it comes out anyway. I already miss Magnolia so much that even hearing something painful she’s said seems better than nothing.
But Mila doesn’t answer and just twists her body into something that looks like the letter D. I think that’s D for Done with this conversation. I slip out and head back up to my room.
I take a minute to stare at Dillon’s empty side. His bed has already been stripped of its sheets. The bareness reminds me of those war movies where your bunkmate goes out on a dangerous mission and never comes back. Another man down. Who’s next?
Out of the corner of my eye I sense a shape in my bed, like there’s someone in it, and I whip around. But it’s just a big USPS box of letters. Hell, it’s the biggest one yet. Before I came on this show, I think the last time I got a personal letter in the mail was from my grandmother on my eighth birthday. It was a card with a two-dollar bill inside and instructions to use it to jumpstart a savings account. I spent it on Milk Duds.
I head over to the box and start going through the mail inside. The return addresses are a list of places I’ve never been but always wanted to go: New York City, San Francisco, New Orleans, one from England. I picture it being written from a castle tower with one of those feather pens. Do they even get the show in England?
But what really surprises me is how many letters are from Arkansas and the feeling these postmarks from my state give me: now that I’ve left home, I feel closer to it.
My phone rings from the windowsill. It’s got to be Magnolia.
I pick it up and see Catherine’s name. I eat the barreling disappointment and answer.
Catherine doesn’t bother to say hello. “So I was up half the night dealing with your interesting family.”
Everybody Knows Your Name Page 15