You are the Story (The Extra Series Book 7)

by Megan Walker

  “Yeah,” Felix says. “If you figure out a way to make that stop, let me know.”

  I groan. That’s not exactly what I wanted to hear, but I guess it’s unfair to expect Felix to be able to solve all my problems. Especially because Anna-Marie and I decided a long time ago that the way we’d handle problems is to work through them.

  I just felt a lot better about that when they were her problems.

  “I really do get it, though,” Felix says. “It doesn’t help that I’m kind of a perfectionist in general. I’m the guy who won’t perform a piece I haven’t practiced to death. I joined Jenna’s band a week before they had to perform, and I about killed myself trying to get ready. At the first practice, I remember sitting there hating on myself, because I’m probably a better musician than all of them, and I couldn’t play the songs perfectly. After a couple of days, having never played with a pop band in my life.” He smiles and shakes his head. “Sometimes I’m an idiot.”

  I consider this. “I guess this infertility thing is a little like that. I want to play the situation perfectly, but I don’t know the . . . what, notes?”

  “Notes works,” Felix says, grinning at me. “If you hadn’t started doubting yourself there, I might have thought you knew something about music.”

  “I should stick to business metaphors. That I know.”

  Felix shakes his head. “Now I’m feeling guilty for saying I’m a better musician than Jenna. That’s not true.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “No?”

  “No,” he says. “I’m a better technical musician, but Jenna is way better at the artistry of it, at taking things and making them her own. When we did our first tour, right after we got married, I picked this long, complicated classical piece for cello and piano, and we played it together. I played the notes perfectly, but Jenna only had a month or so to practice, so she was dropping notes and riffing off the piece like a rock musician with this crazy complicated piece of music.” He pauses to take a sip of his drink and then continues.

  “Classical is all about perfection,” he says, “but she’s all about making things beautiful, and she just goes with it and experiences it and makes the audience feel it with her. That’s why a crowd could sit through fourteen minutes of classical at a pop concert, because we worked together to make this beautiful thing and people were happy to see it. I’m trying to do that more—to let go and not make myself be perfect, but just enjoy the experience of playing with her. For our audience, anyway, that’s what matters.”

  Felix is all but glowing as he gushes about playing with his wife, like I probably do when I talk about building miniatures with Anna-Marie. But what I’m stuck on right now is this idea that it’s not perfection that makes something beautiful. It’s the collaborative experience of being imperfect together.

  “That was exactly what I needed to hear,” I say.

  Felix looks up in surprise. “That my wife is a brilliant musician?”

  “That I need to let go of the idea that I need to be perfect and let myself get carried away in this beautiful family I’m making with my wife, even if it doesn’t work out the way we planned.”

  Felix looks kind of impressed. “Nice. Glad I could help.”

  “I don’t know how to do that.”

  He laughs. “Yeah, me either. But I try. Every day.”

  I can do that. I can try. Maybe I don’t know exactly how to go about changing the way I think about myself and our lives, but now I know what kind of change I’d like to make.

  And that means I have something to work toward.

  Nineteen

  Felix

  I pull Ty out of school later that day to take him to set with me, and all the way there, he’s still talking about that snake. Josh said his detail people didn’t say anything about having found any strange snakes in the car, and there can’t be much to eat in the upholstery of Josh’s Porsche, so I think it’s fair to assume that the thing slithered out, either while we were dealing with the seats or later that night.

  “I’m not saying you can’t get a snake,” I tell Ty. “I’m saying you can’t get a rattlesnake.”

  Ty perks up at this. “So I can get a snake?”

  “No. You can talk to your mom about a snake. But you just got a dog, so I’m thinking one pet per calendar year might be a good family rule.”

  “Aw, that’s not fair,” Ty says. “We’ve only had Rocket for a few months.”

  “And we also have a newborn,” I say. “So new pet adventures are not on the top of the list.”

  “But we got Rachel in the same calendar year.”

  I give him a look. “And your sister is not a pet.”

  He frowns at this, but clearly realizes arguing that point won’t get him far. “But I want a snake.”

  “And you can want a snake,” I say. “But even if we got one, I’m a little afraid that it would get out and Rocket would eat it.”

  Ty considers this. “He eats a lot of things.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I saw him eat an earwig yesterday.”

  Gross. “Right.”

  “And last week he ate one of your socks and Mom threw it away.”

  So that’s why I’m one short. “Good to know.”

  “And about a month ago he ate half an aluminum can.”

  I stop at a stop sign for longer than necessary, so I can stare at him. “Rocket ate half an aluminum can? And he’s still alive?”

  “Yeah. Pops left his empty Snapple can sitting on the floor.Nana said we might have to take him to the vet but then he was fine. So she said maybe he just chewed it, but half of the can was gone. Maybe he buried it.”

  Or maybe, instead of a dog, we have adopted a very small and furry goat. “Well, I’m glad he’s okay.” I pause. “Where was I when that happened?”

  “You were at the hospital with Rachel.”

  Ah. I’m kind of glad Jenna’s mom had the sense not to text us at the hospital about that. Though we probably would have told her to take the poor dog to the vet just to be sure he’d be okay. “We’ll have to remember to keep cans out of his reach in the future.”

  I show my ID as we drive onto the studio lot, and Ty looks around like he might see movie stars and actually recognize who they are. I’d say the odds are slim.

  “So what am I doing here again?” Ty asks as we park. “Do I get to be in the movie?”

  “No, you’re just going to hang out with me.”

  “And meet the kid you work with. Do I get to be friends with him?”

  I very much doubt it. “Not necessarily.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “Because I want you to show him how to be a kid.”

  “Oh,” Ty says. “I’m here to teach him.”

  I close my eyes before climbing out of the car. Now I’m having visions of Axel’s reaction to Ty announcing that he’s here to teach him anything. “Yes. But I need you to be a ninja teacher.”

  “So I have to hide?”

  “No. The rule is you can’t let him know you’re teaching him anything. It’s a secret. Like a ninja. Can you do that?”

  Ty’s brow furrows for a moment like he’s absorbing the magnitude of this Very Important Task, and then gives a serious nod. “Yeah, okay.”

  I smile. Jenna and I discovered about a year and a half ago that the secret to getting Ty to do anything quickly or quietly is to tell him it’s ninja business. I’m not sure how much longer this will last, but I’m going to enjoy it while it does.

  I stifle a laugh as security clears us to walk onto the set. I can imagine the look Axel would give me if I told him he needed to play the cello like a ninja, and it’s almost comical enough to try.

  But I’m not here to mock the poor kid. I’m here to teach him, and if I can, I’d like to leave him with a little more knowledge than ju
st how to hold a bow and look like he can play a cello.

  As we near Axel’s dressing room, I hear him before I see him. “The straw is too small!” Axel is screaming. “And the smoothie is too chunky!”

  “Let me take it back,” says a very harried-looking staff member, all but running away from the dressing room with a smoothie in her hand.

  Axel steps into the doorway and yells after her. “And this time, no banana!”

  “That’s not very nice,” Ty says.

  Axel turns his angry glare on us, and then looks up at me in surprise. “Oh. I didn’t know you were here.”

  I doubt very much it would have made a difference in his treatment of the smoothie deliverer, but I nod. “This is my son, Ty.”

  Axel looks at Ty skeptically, though he’s too young to throw me the usual comment about how I don’t look old enough for Ty to be my son. As far as this kid is concerned, I might as well be a hundred years old.

  “That smoothie looked good,” Ty says. “You should be nicer to people.”

  Axel stands up on his toes so that he can look down at Ty. “I’m a star. I don’t have to be nice.”

  “My mom is a star,” Ty says. “And she’s nice.”

  Axel looks taken aback at that, and I usher them both into the dressing room. “What do you mean, your mom is a star?”

  “She’s a singer,” Ty says. He’s matter-of-fact about it, not bragging. I don’t think it occurs to Ty that the band is something he could use to make himself seem cool.

  “Well, she must not be a very big star,” he says. “Because big stars don’t have to be nice.”

  “Mom says everyone needs to be nice, but that doesn’t mean that they are.”

  Axel narrows his eyes, like he suspects he’s losing an argument and he doesn’t know what to do about it. “I don’t think singing stars are as big as acting stars.”

  “Some of them are,” Ty says, as if he is an expert on levels of fame. “My mom also writes songs. She’s really good at it.”

  I smile. I’m glad he thinks that.

  “Do you like her songs?” Axel asks.

  “Yes,” Ty says, flopping down on Axel’s faux-leather couch like he owns it and kicking his loafer-clad feet in the air. “But some of them I’m not allowed to listen to.”

  “Really?” Axel sounds genuinely intrigued. “Are they about blood and killing?”

  I raise my eyebrows, but Ty isn’t fazed. “I think they’re about sex.”

  I cringe. Yes, please, let my son educate Axel about this.

  “Eeeeeeeew,” Axel says.

  So at least he knows what it is.

  “I know,” Ty says. “Especially because they’re about sex with my dad.”

  They join together in a chorus of “eeeew” that I endeavor not to take personally.

  “Why do people want sex?” Axel asks.

  I resist an eye roll. I’m not going to give him the complete rundown, but I also don’t want Ty trying to answer this question. “Because when you get older, your body will want it.”

  Axel nods like this makes sense to him. “And how do you get it? Do you just tell people to give it to you and they do?”

  We clearly need to change the subject, but not before I’ve disabused him of that idea. “No. Definitely not. You have to be likable enough that people want to have sex with you.”

  Axel doesn’t look like he appreciates this. Then he shrugs. “That’s okay. I don’t ever want to have sex anyway.” He sits down on the other end of the couch, but in a much more controlled way, perching on the edge like he doesn’t know quite what to do with himself now that there’s another kid his age around.

  “Me, either,” Ty says. “But you have to, because otherwise you can’t have kids.”

  Axel narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “All right,” I say. “Maybe it’s time that we—”

  “That’s how it usually works,” Ty says. “I mean, not with Felix, because he’s not my biological dad. But he had sex with my mom and that’s how they had my little sister.”

  “Well my mom went to a book full of fathers and then chose the very best one to be my dad,” Axel says.

  Oh.

  Ty looks understandably confused. “Like the telephone book?”

  “No. She went to a bank to find me a father.”

  “A bank?” Ty’s brow furrows. “I think you’re confused.”

  “All right!” I say. “Axel, grab your cello. Let’s see how your bowing is coming.”

  Axel looks somewhat relieved to get out of this perplexing situation. He grabs his bow, and I move over the cello, because I can’t stand to watch the kid try to move it himself. Last time he dragged the edgework right across the floor.

  Axel sits and I set him up with the instrument. He’s getting better at holding it.

  “What are you going to play?” Ty asks.

  “I’m not,” Axel says. “I’m going to look like I’m playing.”

  “What good is that?”

  “It’s called acting.”

  “Oh,” Ty says. “Anyone can do that.”

  Burn. I expect Axel to start screaming, but instead he looks Ty up and down, like he’s looking for some way to insult him, but is mostly just confused. As the fall weather is getting the slightest bit colder, Ty has resumed his winter look, which almost always includes a sweater vest. Today’s has red and yellow ribbing—Gryffindor colors.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” Axel asks. “Are you rich?”

  “Yes,” Ty says.

  He doesn’t even sound unsure. I didn’t know he thought that about us. It’s true, by a lot of people’s standards. Not by my parents’, of course, and definitely not by Axel’s.

  “I bet you’re not as rich as me,” Axel says, though he’s starting to sound less sure. “I get to be in the movie.”

  “I wanted to be an extra,” Ty says. “Those are the people in the background.”

  “I know,” Axel says. He opens his mouth like he’s going to school Ty in the ways of the established actor, by Ty just rolls right over him.

  “My aunt Gabby was an extra, and she said it was cool. I wanted to walk my dog Rocket through the back of the scene, but Dad wouldn’t let me bring him.”

  This stops Axel in his tracks. “You have a dog?”

  “Yeah,” Ty says. “His name is Rocket Superpope Mays.”

  “That’s a long name.” He sounds a little awed.

  “Not as long as mine,” Ty says. “I’m Tysen Alexander Rollins Mays, which is the longest name in the world.”

  I try not to laugh. I haven’t had the heart to tell Ty that his name isn’t the longest in the world, not by a long shot. I was just so happy he wanted to take my name when I adopted him that I let him have that illusion.

  Axel is quiet for a minute, possibly calculating the comparative length of his name. “My mom won’t let me have a dog. She says they have dander.”

  “That’s too bad,” Ty says. “Dogs are awesome.”

  They’re both quiet for a minute, and Ty looks around at the dressing room. “Are you always here?” he asks.

  “No,” Axel says. “Just between scenes.” He gives me a guilty look. “And when I’m supposed to be practicing.”

  “We’ll get to that,” I say. I’m not ready to break this up. The truth is, I’m proud of my kid. He doesn’t let anyone make him feel bad about himself, including Axel. Axel may hate Ty by the end of this conversation, but he doesn’t seem to yet.

  “What do you do when you’re not acting?” Ty asks, swinging his feet again.

  “I’m always working,” Axel says self-importantly.

  “Oh,” Ty says. “That sucks.”

  Axel’s mouth falls open. I don’t know that anyone has ever had that reaction to his job before. I
expect him to inform Ty of the many and varied ways that his job is actually awesome.

  Instead he says, “What do you like to do?”

  “I like video games,” Ty says.

  “I’m not allowed to play video games,” Axel says, a little sulky. I’m surprised his mom has taken a firm stand against anything he might want, though of course it would be about things that might make him at all a normal kid. “Can I come to your house?”

  I’m not sure that Axel’s mom would allow him to come to our house, which is full of gluten and dander and various electronic entertainment, but I’m not going to butt in.

  “Maybe,” Ty says. “But only if you’ll be nice to me and my dog and my mom and my baby sister.”

  “Thanks, kid,” I say.

  “And my dad,” Ty adds.

  Axel considers this. He isn’t even trying to hold his bow right, but he’s also not talking about his dad being a sperm donor, so we’re up from where we were.

  “But why do I have to be nice to your dad?” Axel says. “I don’t have to be nice to him here.”

  “Yes you do,” I say. “If you want me to help you not look like an idiot on camera.”

  Axel pouts. “I never look like an idiot.”

  “You will if you don’t learn how to hold your bow right.” I’m glad Axel’s mother isn’t here. I’m sure she’d be horrified that I’m not treating her son like royalty, but really.

  “And besides,” Axel says, “it doesn’t matter if I do look like an idiot. I’m the biggest star there is.”

  Ty wastes no time jumping on that. “Are you bigger than Blake Pless?”

  “No. But I’ve met him. And I played with his kids. And they’re my friends.”

  I doubt that last part very much, but Ty seems to buy it.

  “Really?” he says. “Cool! What are their names?”

  Axel smiles smugly. “His daughter’s name is Ivy and she’s my age.”

  “Then she’s my age too,” Ty says. “And my dad is friends with Kim Watterson’s agent, so I might meet her someday.”

  I don’t think that me being friends with Josh is going to get Ty into Ivy Pless’s social circle, but I decide not to break that bubble, either.