Pretend Wife

by Annie J. Rose

  “What do you remember? The Jeep? The phone call?”

  “No. Leaving you in LA and going to the airport to fly to Utah. Did we crash? Is everyone else okay?”

  “Shhh, I have to call the nurse and let them know you’re awake.”

  “No, not yet, please. Tell me what happened,” I said.

  “No one else was hurt,” she said. “The other driver was in a pickup truck. He wasn’t hurt, and you had on your seat belt.”

  “Driver? Why was I driving?”

  “You were on set in Utah. You had called me, and I was upset. So you were flying home.”

  She said it softly. Pain ran through me that I suspected had nothing to do with a car accident.

  “I don’t remember. Why were you upset?”

  “It’s a long story. And I think I’m supposed to keep you calm. I really need to call the nurse.”

  She pushed the nurse call buzzer. I tried to catch her hand.

  “I don’t want you to leave me.”

  “I’m staying right here. You don’t think I flew all the way to Utah for the shopping, do you?” she said with forced lightness.

  Nurses swarmed in, and Abby slipped out.

  “I want my wife,” I said. “Tell her to come back in.”

  No one was listening. They were checking my temperature and blood pressure and everything else. They talked about removing a drain and removing the catheter. I tried to listen, but my brain wouldn’t fasten on to anything and focus on anything but getting Abby back.

  “Did Abby leave?” I asked when a few of the people had cleared out.

  “No, honey, she’s been here since yesterday, never budges from your side except to eat when we make her. I don’t think you have to worry about that girl going anywhere without you. You gave her a scare.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll send her back in. She won’t be far off,” she said.

  Sure enough, Abby came back in.

  “Sit here, please,” I said, wanting her to sit on my bed. “We’re moving out of ICU into a regular room within the hour. It won’t be as crowded.”

  “I’m so glad you’re awake, and that we get to step down a room. I called Ginger and Max and everyone and told them. I even called Chris and Indio and Ben.”

  “Thanks for taking care of everything. But I need to hear how this happened.”

  “I told you. I was upset. I had gone to Sara’s. Because I got fired from my job for being difficult. And I thought part of that was your fault for storming in and throwing a fit that time. You responded by being glad I had all this free time to concentrate on your social obligations, and I was mad about that. And about other stuff. So I left.”

  “I’m sorry I was a jerk about you losing your job. I made things worse for you when I did that, and I apologize. What other stuff?”

  “I didn’t tell you to make you feel bad, Josh. You deserve to know the truth. It’s a shame that it ended the way it did, but I still want you to be okay. I’ll do anything I can to help you,” she said.

  “That isn’t what I want. I don’t want us to break up. I have a new perspective. And mine is this. I know how I feel about you. I know that I want to recover from this accident, but not just because of my job. It’s to be with you. I’m very sorry for the way I acted—the way I treated you, Abby. I don’t know how I could make that up to you, but I want another chance. I’m willing to use my brush with death for sympathy if it gets you to stay,” I said, grinning with only half my face because the upper left side felt tight and painful and bigger than it should be.

  “You are shameless. Playing the brush with death card to get me to stay?”

  “Any trick that will work. I have no scruples about it,” I told her.

  I knew when I woke up and saw her sitting there, saw her reaction to my waking, that I never wanted to be without her. That it was more than convenience by far.

  Carefully, she stretched out on the bed on her side, my arm going around her. She laid her cheek on my chest. I felt her shaking; I wished I knew how to comfort her. I wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive me for almost dying. I didn’t blame her. When I tried to think about her in the hospital, about seeing her in intensive care, my brain and body recoiled and rejected the idea. I wouldn’t be able to stand it myself.

  “I’m going to be okay. We’ll do this together. Please say yes,” I said into her hair. It smelled stale and cold, like the air in the hospital, not sweet from her usual shampoo. I still dragged in a breath of her scent like an addict.

  “Oh, God,” I said. “I don’t remember anything after I left LA, but I sure as hell missed my wife.”

  “I can’t wait until I can take you home. I can’t stand seeing you like this. I want to carry you out of here on my back, just put this behind us. It makes me sick that they’ve got wires and tubes in you—”

  “Catheter’s gone. That’s a win.”

  “And so sexy,” she said, looking up at me, chin propped on my chest. “You should put that line in your next movie.”

  “You should do that for me. Write my next movie. We’ll produce it with my company. You’ll direct. You can boss me around.”

  “You know I want to write a period piece, a real costume drama. You’d have to wear a cravat.”

  “I don’t know what that is, but from the look on your face, you like the idea enough I’d be willing to try it on for you. In the privacy of our bedroom,” I said archly. She laughed and kissed me so carefully, so gently. But she tasted like herself. The taste of her, the heat, and the relief I felt in her kiss flooded through me like a light. I felt more alert, more alive. I wanted to pull her on top of me, but the stabbing pain in my side told me it was a bad idea. At least for the moment.

  Chapter 16

  Abby

  He was released three days later, off of painkillers and walking like he had been dead for six months and had to drag his zombie leg behind him. Or so I told him, which made him laugh and then clutch his ribs and then swear at me. I told him the plane would be ready in the morning, that we were staying overnight in town so that he didn’t get overtired.

  “I’m due on set at eight in the morning,” he said.

  “What now?”

  “On set. Devereaux stopped filming for me. He didn’t recast. So I can do the role. And look on the bright side. My liver got lacerated, so I should do a better job playing someone with liver disease.”

  “I think it’s more the kind of liver disease that makes you fatigued and miserable, not the kind of injury that feels like you’re being stabbed every time you move,” I pointed out.

  “Ah, the devil’s in the details, and you were an excellent script supervisor, I believe,” he said.

  “Flattery is not going to convince me this is anything other than a stupid idea.”

  “Come on. The role was Oscar bait anyway. Now, if I bravely perform less than a week after a life-threatening car accident, I’m a shoo-in for a nomination.”

  “I know that’s not why you’re doing it. You’re too stubborn to give up, and you thought that if you gave me some bullshit conceited answer, I’d believe it. You just won’t give up.”

  “That’s right. Just like I didn’t buy your bullshit about how it’s a shame it ended this way when I was in the ICU, and you were crying like someone had just brought me back from the freaking dead.”

  “Fine, you have a point. But you were not cleared to go back to work.”

  “Yeah, but that have a recheck in a week thing is standard. It’s not like I labor in an oil field. I stand still and say words. Do not tell the Screen Actors Guild I described my job that way. I’ll never get a SAG award.”

  “You are so full of it. It’s a good thing that I—” I broke off.

  “What?”

  “It’s a good thing I love you,” I finished. I didn’t feel bashful. I felt proud. I felt full, replete. Somehow satisfied.

  “You said it once before, you know. In the throes of passion,” he said.

 
; “I probably said all kinds of stuff when I was out of my mind,” I said with a shrug.

  “I love that you’re not embarrassed that you blurted it out once,” he said fondly.

  “I love how pleased you look that you managed to make me say it when I was holding it back as much as I could. When I wanted to tell you all the time. You watched one of those Hallmark movies with me and laughed in all the right places, and then you downloaded your sexy Frosty movie for me. And sat through it while I laughed, and you made fun of it with me. There is nothing more endearing than that. I thought not saying it then was going to kill me. But what almost killed me was when you ended up on a helicopter to the hospital, and I’d never told you I love you.”

  “You’d told me.”

  “You couldn’t have known I meant it. I could’ve said anything at a time like that.”

  “I know, but sex is funny like that. It’s like being drunk—drunks say all kinds of horrible shit. My dad always did. But the thing is, it’s stuff they don't dare to say when they’re sober. Drunks don’t lie. They just tell the truth in the worst way possible.”

  “So I guess you wouldn’t have died not knowing. Is that supposed to be, like, a comfort to me?” I said. “Because I’m driving this wheelchair out of the building, and if I accidentally hit a bump and you fall out…”

  “Nurse, my wife is threatening me,” he said.

  “Honey, you ain’t even the first man today to complain to me about his wife. I don’t do domestic disputes. I’m a discharge nurse. Here are your instructions. No heavy lifting, no driving, and no climbing,” the nurse said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Thank you. You both did a lot for this place. And I don’t just mean the photographers we got camped out all over the place. I know darn well the two of you’s responsible for all of us getting a cruise.”

  “It’s a very inadequate thanks,” I said, “for what you did. You brought him back to me.”

  We rode to the motel, and I managed to get him to rest for a while by napping with him on the bed. Then we watched Sesame Street on one of the two channels the motel had.

  “The red one pisses me off,” he said.

  “Elmo.”

  “Yeah. I don’t like him.”

  “He’s practically the star of the show. Let me guess, you auditioned but didn’t get the part?”

  “My Elmo portrayal would’ve been better than this guy. What a creep.”

  I laughed. “I am so glad to have you back. But I need to talk you out of going on with the film project. It’s not safe. Also, your face is still…”

  “You were going to say fucked up.”

  “I was going to say fucked up. But I decided it was obnoxious when I’m so glad you’re going to be okay.”

  “Makeup covers a multitude of sins, Abby. And these people are pros.”

  “You’re telling me they can cover up a green and purple bruise the size of Australia?”

  “Yes. And the swelling’s down. I’d say it’s more of a Madagascar by now.”

  “God, you’re so stubborn!” I said, kissing him.

  The next morning, bright and early, Ginger came to get us, and we rode out to the filming site. It was truly ten miles past the ass-end of nowhere. I said a silent prayer of thanks that the paramedics had gotten to him in time when his wreck had been someplace this remote.

  The director welcomed us, and while I ate a bagel, they took him into the makeup trailer. Half an hour later, he came out looking as whole and handsome as our wedding day. I gaped. Devereaux yelled for the makeup person to dial it down. “The man’s supposed to be dying, not fresh back from Fiji. Give me hollows in his cheeks and dark circles under his eyes.”

  Another ten minutes brought a less perfect version of Josh out of the makeup trailer and in costume. Cheap, worn-out jeans that were too baggy in the backside, a thrift store shirt, suitably dirty with the sleeves rolled up. His hair, always flawless even when lusciously messed up, looked somehow dull and lank, like it was three months overdue for a trim. He walked onto the set, squinting from the bright sunlight and hitching his right leg a little. The physical therapist had said his gait would be affected by the ribs and the trauma to the liver for weeks to come, that he was not to resume workouts until he completed post-operative assessments. Knowing that, I could recognize the slight wince when he tried to settle into a laconic, hands-in-pockets stance. Otherwise, to the casual observer, he was just a careless drunk gone to seed. He had told me he imagined this character as what would have happened to the crusading dad role if his kid had died, and he’d fallen off the wagon himself for a while. That he’d be a bitter dry drunk, hating everyone, waiting for death.

  I knew he regretted losing out on that role, but that he’d make this one his own. I sat in the chair provided for me and watched them do take after take, as the director had him angle his body differently because of a shadow, or because another actor had missed his mark. Josh was flawless. He embodied the character even more than I’d seen him do in our living room when he’d rehearsed. His line delivery was slow, taciturn, dripping with contempt. Watching it, you wished the old bastard would drop dead. You could forget that sex symbol Josh Mason was portraying him, that a thirty-five-year-old famous for sexy comedic turns was acting his ass off as a fifty-year-old with liver disease and a chip on his shoulder. When he clapped the lead actor on the shoulder, his hand coming down on the young actor’s shoulder just a shade too hard making the man wince, it was perfection. The resentment in his last line was pitched just right to make him tragic, but not redeemed. When the director said ‘cut,’ I got to my feet and applauded.

  “You were amazing!” I said, marveling at his talent and skill.

  “You should see me in a cravat,” he said, kissing my cheek.

  I gave him a bottle of water. “You better hydrate, Casanova, or you’ll be back in the hospital hooked up to that IV again.”

  He nodded grudgingly and sank into his chair and drank the water. I watched his scene on the dailies, and I was so impressed, so proud of him. The director cut him down to two days of filming instead of the original four so that he could go home sooner. That meant he worked long days, resting in the makeup trailer between takes, out of the pitiless sun. He wrapped up his role, and I was never so happy to be on a plane in my life.

  When we arrived home, the paparazzi were six deep outside the gates. I stepped out of the car and gave a quick statement.

  “I just want to thank everyone for their good wishes and prayers. We’re grateful to be home and grateful that no one else was injured in the accident. Josh is up and around, and he’s been on set for two days finishing out his role on the new Devereaux project. There was no way I could convince him to drop out, even with broken ribs! I intend to make sure he rests and recovers according to doctor’s orders. I’m sure he’ll say more about what happened in the coming days when he’s feeling up to it. Until then, thank you for everything.”

  I smiled, trying to look brave and tired when what I really felt was pride and relief.

  “You were great,” he said when we got inside the house.

  “Thank you. Now you need to rest, and I have to apply for jobs, read scripts, and consider being a supervisor again since I have a reputation for being difficult on a writing team,” I said with a sigh.

  “It’ll work out,” he said. “Look at me, still standing. Anything can happen.”

  “I’m sure you meant that to be reassuring…”

  “I seem to remember you promising to make me soup.”

  “You said you don’t remember anything after leaving LA!”

  “Fine, I don’t remember it, but it sounds like something you’d say.”

  “Ugh, yeah, I did. I guess I can do that while I’m searching for jobs. Hey, maybe I could wait tables at the Chinese restaurant.”

  “Not with your history of being difficult,” he deadpanned. I rolled my eyes at him.

  “So supportive,” I teased. He kissed me li
ghtly and went to rest on the couch.

  They were good days, holed up in the house together. I read through scripts he’d been sent and worked a little on my House of Mirth adaptation. I applied for several jobs and called a few contacts from my days as a script supervisor. I had no leads. I had no interviews. It seemed that my reputation preceded me. I was discouraged about work, but I loved curling up on the couch with Josh, making sure he went to his recheck appointment and his physical therapy evaluation. We chased away interview requests and watched home improvement shows instead. I liked fussing over him and making three kinds of soup. I liked snuggling with my head on his shoulder and telling him I loved him every night before we went to sleep, and I liked pressing my cold feet against his leg under the covers just to hear him laugh.

  It was possible I loved hiding out with him more than anything. So when I woke in the early gray hours of the morning to his hand sliding up my stomach, I reached for him. Slowly, tenderly, ever careful of his side where the incision was healing to a scar, we made love in our bed. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything so deeply as the way he kissed me, the way I touched him like I’d believed I’d never have the chance again.

  When Caitlyn called with an audition for a historical drama, made for cable and already gaining buzz, he was excited. There were two major stars attached, and it was being touted as the next Game of Thrones or the next House of Cards—something major that would run for years and become a pop culture icon. The audition was in New York. Josh had spent two hours in a meeting with Caitlyn about this project, and they’d gotten clearance from Devereaux to use a clip from the upcoming film as part of his portfolio. Since Devereaux never did previews of any sort, not even a teaser scene, it showed what a prestigious series Josh was auditioning for. I was proud of him, but it also made me anxious that he had to fly across the country to read for the part.

  “They should just offer it to you. Knowing you were in the Devereaux film should be enough without the clip. Without auditioning. You’re a star and a terrific actor. They’d be lucky to sign you, much less get you to agree to read for a role,” I said.