Sugar Time

by Jane Adams

  What Prozac did was help me pretend to the rest of the world that I was okay until things turned around as they eventually do and I was. The drug seemed to mobilize my intolerance for wallowing in misery, which, according to Peggy, comes from being afraid I inherited the bipolar gene like my sister Joan, and letting the dogs out—giving free rein to my feelings, particularly the bad ones—will set it off. What dwindled away with my depression was also my libido, or at least those occasional flurries of anticipation over a new man; a blind date, a chance encounter, an introduction at a party or event—even, once, at a funeral. Not that most of them in recent years had ever panned out, although sometimes the flurry melted into a pleasant, platonic friendship with a fellow I could call on when an escort was de rigueur. One of the mixed blessings of life as a single woman of a certain age is that usually that’s not a requirement, the way it was back when, as Gloria used to say, it wasn’t the man himself that mattered—any man would do.

  Moving to New York finished what the Prozac started. I coasted on the city’s energy and possibilities until my career and social life picked up enough for me to generate my own. It helped that in Manhattan, unlike L.A., women aren’t self-conscious about being seen in public, especially at night, without a man. Still, going solo on New Year’s Eve is bittersweet no matter how old a woman is, which was why I’d been so excited about making an entrance at Hedley’s party with Alex on my arm.

  I didn’t yearn for intimacy the way I once had—not the kind where you get so wrapped up in somebody else’s life you lose touch with your own. But by the time I returned to California after being with Alex for a week, I realized it was already too late.

  The memory of Alex kissing my neck as I dressed for the New Year’s Eve party stabbed me like a paper cut. For the rest of the weekend I tried to distract myself from obsessing about him, but it was like trying to ignore the cheesecake in the freezer. I replayed every moment of our brief affair, every conversation, wondering why he hadn’t told me about his condition or worrying that I’d missed the hints that in hindsight seemed obvious—Alex’s sudden fatigue when we rode our bikes back to his cabin, what he said about how long it takes to make good wine, how his sons seemed to know a secret about him that I didn’t. When those things were too painful to think about, I gave in to some romantic fantasy like choosing the menu for our wedding brunch or imagining us in Paris on our honeymoon. My thoughts and emotions were all mixed up, but one thing was clear: I was incredibly angry at Alex for not telling me what was wrong with him in time to stop me from falling in love with him.

  Remember what it’s like when you’re young and in love, how the future stretches out in front of you, boundless and beautiful? If it happens when you’re older you know it doesn’t go on forever, and when the end comes it won’t be pretty, but you still manage to kid yourself that it’s still a long way off. Until it isn’t, and you can’t, and you have to blame somebody. I blamed Alex. Not just for making me fall in love with him or even face the truth about myself—that I was mortal, too. I was also thoroughly pissed at him for exposing my highly evolved stance on growing old alone for the duplicitous sham it is (even though I know it’s still better than being married to the wrong person, and most of the time, it’s the way I like it.)

  What would I do if, like Alex, I had a time bomb ticking away in my own head? All I’d had was an octopus in my heart, which had disappeared just like the one I came face to face with under water. It might still be hiding inside, biding its time, but it wasn’t threatening me right now the way Alex’s aneurysm was.

  Dying changes everything, but if you’re as good at denial as I am, only coming close doesn’t. My brush with the octopus hadn’t made me work less or smell the flowers more. But for a realist like Alex, who understood exactly what was happening to him, denial wasn’t an option: He knew he was going to die very shortly. Unless, of course, he risked something worse before that happened.

  Suddenly something went ka-ching! in my head the way it does when a piece of the puzzle falls into place, an insight so clear it’s undeniable. It wasn’t just himself Alex thought he might lose to the bubble in his brain, whether or not he had the surgery—if he told me, he might lose me, too.

  Fuck you, Alex Carroll, I thought—at least I took a risk! Not as big as the one you’ll be taking if you let them cut into your brain, but a risk all the same!

  That’s what happens when you let someone into your inner world—you take the chance it’ll be changed. That’s what loving someone is. But if Alex couldn’t open up to me and risk that changing his mind, we didn’t even have a limited future together, much less a longer one.

  “Not everything’s about you, Sugar,” he’d said, and while that’s often true, I knew this time it wasn’t the whole story; he didn’t trust me to be able to deal with the reality of his condition, just like I didn’t think he could handle mine. There went that ka-ching again as I realized why he’d gotten so pissed off when I finally told him what happened to me in Seattle.

  Insight is great, but it doesn’t mean anything unless you follow it up with action. And as I was pondering what that might be, the rest of my life—the work part—reared its suddenly very ugly head.

  The readout on my cell showed four calls from Sandro, most recently that morning while I was in the shower, so I phoned him on my way to the studio the first day back after the break.

  He didn’t even bother with ‘Happy New Year.’ “Where the hell have you been?” he wanted to know.

  I wasn’t thrilled by his tone of voice—I wasn’t crazy about going back to work, either, but at least it would force me to stop angsting over Alex and the unsettled nature of our relationship.

  Except for the script I started writing that night in Vail when I was too wound up to sleep, I hadn’t thought about my job since we wrapped for the holiday. In the last few days I’d told my best friends about what was wrong with Alex—I wrapped their sadness for him and empathy for me around me like a hand-knit shawl. They didn’t offer me advice, just comfort, which was what I needed.

  Alex had called me the night before. He sounded stronger and more like himself but our brief conversation felt as cursory as an air kiss, a meaningless brush of lips in the vague vicinity of someone’s cheek. We avoided discussing the elephant in the room; I didn’t ask how he was feeling, he didn’t volunteer, and neither of us brought up what happened in Vail. “I’m staying in town until the transition’s finished,” he told me. “Helping the new team settle in and making sure the folks who are leaving are taken care of.”

  “How long do you think that will take?”

  “A few weeks, and then I’m good to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “The island, probably. I’ll let you know.”

  The unspoken message—the one I heard—was that I shouldn’t expect to hear from him for a while. “I’m going to be really busy for a while too,” I said.

  “We’ll stay in touch.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but I answered it anyway.

  “Of course we will.”

  After the phone call I got extremely stoned while listening to a mix tape called Opus 50 that a friend made for me ten years ago—rueful wisdom about life and love from Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt and Nina Simone, among others. While it was playing the second time I ate a pint of chocolate chunk ice cream. Then I took a bath and cried myself to sleep.

  By the next morning I wasn’t in the best of all moods and Sandro’s hissy fit didn’t help. “On vacation, like everyone else. What was so important it couldn’t wait?” I said.

  “They want to replace you, Sugar,” he replied. “And since it’s my job to look after your career, I thought you might want to know that before you showed up today. If you showed up.”

  “Replace me? Are you serious? And what do you mean, if I showed up? Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Why indeed? That’s the question,” he said. “Apparently, you haven’t been. Not every day, anyway. And when you do, you come in late a
nd leave early.”

  “Says who?”

  “Nelly, the network, the production company. They think you’re doing a half-assed job.”

  “What are they smoking? I’ve practically been sleeping, eating and breathing that job! I’ve risked my life for that fucking job! If you even knew—”

  “All I know is what they’re saying, sweetheart,” said Sandro more gently. “That you didn’t go on all the locations. You miss meetings. You’ve been sleeping in your office in the middle of the day.”

  “They didn’t need me on those locations, they were mostly shooting exteriors. When I don’t come in it’s because I’m working at home—I write better away from the office. I even wrote a script last week while I was on my fucking vacation—what about that? And I’m not sleeping when I’m on the couch in my office, I’m thinking!”

  “Maybe so,” he went on, “but the network’s picking up the show for next season. They’ll make the announcement at the end of the month. Meanwhile, they’re not sure you can finish this one.”

  “But I have a contract. They can’t do that, can they?”

  “Sure they can. They might have to pay you but they don’t have to play you. Especially when they’ve got a replacement all lined up.”

  “Robin.” It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t answer it. “Don’t get your tits in an uproar,” he said. “We’ve been talking. I convinced them you were just tired, all you needed was a little vacation. They’re willing to guarantee you the rest of this season under certain conditions. You can still turn it around, Sugar, but you’ll have to work your toochus off to keep them from taking the show away from you.”

  “What happens if they do?”

  “Oh, you’ll still make out okay. You’ll get development credit as long as the series runs. There’ll be dough from repeats, residuals, foreign sales. And you’ll get paid as an executive producer until the hiatus in April whether you run the show or not. Not as much as if they have to ante up for Robin or someone else to keep things going while they’re still paying you off, but it’s not chopped liver, either. So you better decide what you’re going to do before you go in there, or they’ll tell you.”

  “Those conditions you mentioned—exactly what are we talking about here? Do I have to punch in and out like I’m on a clock? Am I supposed to report to somebody every time I take a pee? Do they want me to keep a daily log or kiss some asses I might have overlooked, seeing as I’ve been getting a show on the air and building the ratings?”

  Sandro ignored my questions. “They’re worried about the season finale. They haven’t even seen an outline yet. They want a big close.”

  “They always want a big close. I’ll think one up and give it to them by the end of the week.”

  “They want something different for next season, so the finale needs to set it up.”

  “Different how?”

  “You know what, Sugar?” said Sandro. “Maybe you should just forget about that one now. We can talk about it in a few days. In the meantime, why don’t you concentrate on showing them you’ve still got what it takes?”

  “You think I don’t?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I—” he began, and then I heard a click followed by dead air that means the other person either disconnected or lost your signal. Since I still had plenty of bars, maybe he just didn’t want to answer my question.

  I couldn’t let them fire me in the middle of a season. If you’re really big in the business with a string of hits behind you, you can do time, rehab or whatever else is required to pull your shit together and still get work, especially if you’re Aaron Sorkin and the suits think they can wring another hit out of you. But not if you’re Sugar Kane, not if they’re already worried about whether you can still deliver.

  Flashing what I hoped was a peppy, confident smile at the gate guard, I drove onto the lot. I kept the same smile pasted on my face until I left ten excruciatingly long hours later, and that’s how it went for the next several weeks. I arrived at the office before anyone else showed up and was usually the last one to leave. I finished the script I’d started in Vail and told the writers what I wanted done about those we needed for the rest of the season. I went to every single meeting, including the low-level ones I’d sent Robin to until now—casting, locations, budgets, publicity, even catering. And I didn’t indicate to anyone at all that my job was in jeopardy. “Be smart about playing dumb,” Sandro had suggested. “Let them think you don’t know anything.”

  “That’s easy, I don’t. Until they announce we’re being picked up, I can’t hang on to my writers. My best one is leaving to work for that new show about the serial killer with the heart of gold. What are they waiting for?”

  “Have they said anything to you about the last show yet?”

  “No, but that’s not unusual. The don’t ordinarily see a script until I give them a final draft.”

  The day after I told Sandro that, Robin stuck her head in my office. “We have a meeting with Patrick and Claudia at Nelly’s tomorrow at ten. It’s about the finale.”

  “Good,” I said absentmindedly. “I’m working on it now. It’ll be finished by then.”

  “Really?” she asked. “I didn’t realize you’d already started on it.” You know how some people can make their voices sound snide and skeptical at the same time, while others merely raise an eyebrow? Robin does both. “I’d be glad to look it over if you think it needs another pair of eyes,” she said.

  “Thanks, but I think I’ve got it covered.”

  I didn’t, quite, but I would by the next morning, even if I had to stay up all night to do it.

  On the way home from the office I stopped at a takeout place for dinner—I hadn’t been shopping for real groceries or cooking them since Sandro goosed my work ethic into overdrive after the holiday break.

  It was dark when I turned into my driveway. Usually Tory hears me arrive and meets me just inside the front door, her tail thumping in welcome. Since she didn’t come when I called her, I flicked on the lights in the back yard to see if she’d gone outside through the pet door in the kitchen and was absorbed in some doggy pleasure like digging up a bone or treeing a squirrel. There’s still plenty of local wildlife wandering around even in the residentially cultivated parts of the Canyon; although I wasn’t really worried about Tory getting eaten by a coyote, I made an uneasy foray around the property before I gave up and went back inside. She’ll come home when she’s ready—she’s probably pissed off because I’ve left her alone so much lately.

  I heard and smelled her before I found her. First there was a kind of keening moan—not exactly like a baby’s cry, but human enough to startle me. I traced it up the stairs, not finding Tory right away but following the unmistakable odor of shit into my bedroom and getting down on my hand and knees next to the bed. She was hiding under it, quivering in embarrassment over losing control of her bowels. But what was worse was the way she shied away from my touch when I reached under the bed to pet her.

  “It’s okay, baby, you just had a little accident,” I crooned soothingly. I couldn’t gentle her out, so finally I squirmed under the bed and pulled her out by her collar.

  She made a couple of efforts to stand up, but her back half seemed lifeless—she couldn’t straighten out her rear legs or even her tail, and after she tried and failed she made that keening sound again. I picked her up and sat down on the bed with her in my lap; she peed a few drops, and then fell into a stupor.

  Ignoring the wetness on my thighs, I petted and stroked her and talked to her. I said I was sorry I’d left her alone so much lately. I told her I loved her as much as the world and more. I promised that as soon as we got to the vet she’d be fine. Maybe it was just a coincidence—she hates the word ‘vet’—but as soon as I said it I felt her tail wag against my knees, and then she lifted her head up and licked my face.

  When I lowered her to the floor, she stood up, took a couple of wobbly steps and walked out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs,
looking back twice to make sure I was following her. I exhaled a breath I wasn’t aware of holding and we went downstairs together.

  The vet was closed and I didn’t want to take her to the Valley to the emergency clinic, especially since that night she seemed to be her old self again, eating her regular diner, relieving herself outside the way she always did, and moving around easily. She stretched out at my feet under my desk and I finished a complete treatment for the season finale. Then I e-mailed it to Nelly so she could look it over before our meeting the next day and Tory and I turned in.

  I fell asleep right away; I was too tired to think but not to dream, and when Tory made that awful keening noise early the next morning I thought it was being made by the baby Alex was holding out to me—the baby from the hospital nursery that looked like Condoleeza Rice.

  I’d been pretty good about keeping Alex walled off in a small corner of my mind the last few weeks; I couldn’t afford to dwell on anything but the show. He e-mailed me that he’d finished his business in Seattle and was going up to his cabin in the islands, and called a couple of times after that.

  “I need to be alone for a few days and decide what I’m going to do next,” he said.

  “Are you reconsidering the surgery?”

  “I’m reconsidering everything,” he told me, and if there was an opening there, I didn’t take it. Instead, I worked harder than I had in years: It was my show, and nobody, not even Robin, was going to take it away from me.

  When Tory cried I woke up, but then she licked my face and bumped my head with her muzzle, a sign that she needed to go out. She fell rather than jumped off the bed but she managed to make it downstairs all the way through the hall and the dining room until she collapsed suddenly a few feet from the doggy door in the kitchen. As her urine puddled around her, she hung her head in shame.

  She didn’t get up again under her own power. After I watched her valiant attempts and listened to her pitiful whimpers for a few minutes, I threw on some clothes, wrapped her in a blanket and drove to the vet in Westwood. The receptionist said the schedule was full until 11:30: “We’ll wait,” I said, but when Tory moaned a few more times she left the front desk; when she came back, she said the doctor would see us next even though I hadn’t called ahead to tell them it was urgent.