The View Was Exhausting

by Mikaella Clements

  “I know,” Pritha said. He knew her name, of course, but it unsettled him that she didn’t offer it.

  She didn’t shake his hand either. After a moment he let it drop. “Do you want some coffee?”

  “Tea,” she said. “It’s in the high cupboard.”

  Leo went to put the kettle on, certain she was still watching him. His neck was prickling. He watched the kettle until it began to boil.

  When he brought her the mug, she nodded in acknowledgment and gestured for the salt jar, which was filled with sugar. She pulled over the iPad on the counter and started to flick through emails. Leo felt an unprompted tug of fondness, which had nothing to do with this strange, quiet woman and everything to do with the familiar crinkle of her brow. Then he rolled his eyes and turned away again, resuming his hunt for bread.

  “Would you like some toast?” he asked.

  She looked at him like she thought he was making fun of her.

  “My daughter has made me a diet plan.” She gestured at the fridge. “It’s probably muesli again.”

  “Yikes,” Leo said. He walked over to examine the timetable tacked to the fridge. It was color-coded and littered with comments like give yourself a treat! and delicious! It didn’t look like Win’s work, but like something she would hire someone else to do. Today’s breakfast menu read Green smoothie, almond yogurt, muesli—no added sugar. He turned back to Pritha, raising an eyebrow at the mug of tea. She glared back at him.

  “All right,” Leo said. “Muesli it is.”

  He poured two bowls for them (BOWL, each of them read on the side). He was acutely aware of the silence, but Pritha didn’t seem concerned. She had closed her emails and opened a card game. She glanced up and grimaced when he set the muesli in front of her. It was dry and floury, and they both chewed on it slowly and without speaking.

  “Oh,” Win said, in the doorway. She looked startled, as if she had expected him to be halfway back to London by now. “How are you feeling, Ma?”

  “Fine,” Pritha said, not looking up from her card game. “I think I’m going to have a new high score.”

  “Great,” Win said. She swept past them to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of mineral water. Leo waited.

  Finally she said, “You’re still here.”

  “Have you checked Twitter?”

  “I’m not interested, Leo.”

  “You should see this,” Leo said, and took out his phone. He opened the message he’d gotten from Marie in the middle of the night.

  He’d already watched the video. It was an American talk show, four beaming women sitting at a round table with a green screen Miami vista projected behind them. He ate his cereal while it played, and Win drew grudgingly closer, hugging a light arm around her mother’s shoulders.

  “One more time,” one of the women was saying, “one more time, come on—”

  “Oh, Janine, you softie,” said another.

  “Just once more,” Janine said, and the show played back audio of Leo’s interview.

  “We fight sometimes, like most people,” the recorded Leo said, his voice fuzzy over the phone line. He sounded easy, sure; the thread of discomfort with the interview in his voice had come out as seriousness, like he was discussing his future. “That doesn’t change how much I—how much I care about her.”

  “See?” Janine demanded. “Oh, Kirsty, don’t tell me that doesn’t warm your heart. Look how he jumps to defend her honor. It’s his first interview in five years.”

  “It is sweet, it’s very sweet,” Kirsty said. “Wow, though. I guess I’m just surprised that Whitman Tagore and Leo Milanowski have apparently lasted longer than a week, this time?”

  “I think they’re growing up,” the third woman chimed in. “You know, Leo’s matured a lot in the last few years. I think he’s ready to stop being a playboy and start committing to the woman he loves. Look how happy Whitman was to see him, her whole face lights up—”

  “Who are these women?” Pritha said.

  “It’s a random talk show,” Win said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It’s all over the internet,” Leo said through a mouthful. “And Marie says most of the morning shows will be covering it.”

  Win scowled at him. On-screen, Janine said, “And you know, I told you guys this, I have such respect for Whitman Tagore. There’s a lot of rumors about her mother and, like, a lot of celebrities would just hire someone to take care of it, but she takes a step back, she doesn’t care what people are saying about her, she only cares about her mom—”

  Pritha snorted. Win, lips pressed tight together, reached forward and clicked Leo’s phone so it went dark.

  “You’ve made your point.”

  “It’s working,” Leo said. “That’s my point.”

  “You haven’t given me any other options,” Win said, “and you’ve exposed my mother—”

  “It would have happened sooner or later, regardless,” Pritha said. She pushed her bowl away. “With your…public position.”

  “This way we can control it,” Leo said.

  Win was quiet for a second. She had her hair pulled back, and she looked tired, Leo realized. The same frustrated expression he had seen on her a thousand times before. She took a step toward him, and he almost reached out to touch her, but she went past his shoulder for the handset on the wall and punched three numbers in a row.

  “I’m coming out for a run,” she said into the speaker. “All clear out back?”

  “Clear,” a voice crackled.

  “I’m glad you two have already teamed up,” she said, striding out of the room. “You can just give me your schedule for the week when I get back.”

  She was gone before Leo could say anything else.

  “I’m going back to bed,” Pritha announced. “Today is not going to be a good day.”

  Leo nodded. She struggled off the stool. When he held his arm out to help her, she took it, sighing. She let go of him once she was upright.

  “Do you need help up the stairs?”

  She gave him a long, discerning look. “I know that you’re trying to prove that you are useful. I won’t be able to help you. She doesn’t trust me either.”

  “I’m not trying to prove anything,” Leo said. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “All right,” she said, like she didn’t believe him. “I can manage the stairs.”

  He watched her shuffle away. Now he felt irritated with both of them, and he paced around the kitchen, unsure what to do. Maybe it had been a bad idea, coming here. He hadn’t thought things through properly. The litany of articles about Win and hospitals and crisis had spooked him, and then the phone call with Marie planning his Radio 1 appearance had only made it worse. He’d wanted something to focus on beyond his own anger, beyond the realization that she’d never really cared about him. He’d wanted to see her again. He’d wanted the physical fact of her, the exact cadence of her voice.

  For lack of anything better to do, he went back to his room. There was a cat curled up in the sheets where he’d pulled them back, old and surly with its eyes squinted closed. He sat down next to it and switched the TV on, flipping channels; a cursory flick through the entertainment news in case his face showed up, and then on to a bad cop movie he’d seen before.

  The house felt close and confined despite its size. Without realizing it, Leo had been picturing Pritha as an invalid in bed with Win pious by her side, and Leo the hero arriving to save them both. Instead Pritha was an unknown quantity, and she and Win interacted as though they were colleagues working to defuse a bomb, never speaking more than necessary, professional and distant. Leo didn’t fit here, but neither did Win or Pritha. He didn’t understand what was happening.

  After a while the cat woke up with a sleepy yowl, and picked its way down onto his lap. He scratched under its chin. It didn’t have a collar. It was nameless and grumpy, turning circles over his knees trying to get comfortable. He stroked it until it batted its paw at him to make him stop. He wa
tched it fall asleep.

  Leo didn’t wake up until somebody switched off the TV, and then he inhaled sharply, opening his eyes. The cat jumped from his lap and stalked off.

  Win was in the doorway watching him, the TV remote in her hand. It must have rained while she was out because she was soaked through, and her cheeks were flushed pink from running. There was mud on her calves. He wondered how long she’d been out there.

  “How many people know?” she said. “About the marriage?”

  Leo scrubbed his palm over his face. “Hardly anyone. No one who talks to the press, anyway. Lila jokes about it, but I don’t think she’d actually tell someone.”

  “And Lila knows the truth about you and me.”

  Leo stared at her. He felt off balance from the unexpected nap, not ready for another fight. “Yes.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “I never said I would lie to my friends,” Leo said. “That’s not part of our deal.”

  “Oh, your friend,” Win said, and looked away, her lips pursed. “Well, maybe—if you’re here. It might help.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You figured that out?”

  “Don’t be a dick, Leo.” She sounded more dismissive of him than she ever had before. “And this doesn’t make up for anything. I won’t owe you anything.”

  “Fine.”

  “I have work to do,” Win said. “Marie’s going to call us this evening. She’s working out a plan, the best way for us to handle this. Try not to pick up any new wives in the meantime.”

  Leo scowled at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to give me more-specific instructions? A script maybe?”

  “You never stick to them anyway,” she said, and her voice was bitter like black tea.

  Chapter Twelve

  Marie called in from New York to summarize the coverage. Since Win had returned to the UK, there had been competing theories about her nervous breakdown: she couldn’t handle the pressure of her career; she was too controlling and pushed men away (first Nathan, then Leo); and now, with the added fodder from Leo’s radio interview, she was struggling with family issues that were threatening to push her over the edge.

  Marie looked up brightly from her notes. “So there’s plenty to work with here.”

  Leo turned to Win to share a look of disbelief, but Win was nodding, waving Marie on.

  “Let’s see this as an opportunity for you. We’ve always had to walk a difficult line between calm in the face of criticism and coming off as boring. This is a chance to showcase some real vulnerability. You’re just like everyone else, and bad things happen to you, and you’re surviving.”

  They would do away with the romantic photo ops and the luxury shopping trips. Instead, Win should appear distracted and anxious in public. They would dial back her makeup and hair and dress her in sweaters and leggings; Marie called it a “tired but hot” wardrobe. She would smile weakly in photos with fans, and Marie would arrange for her to be ambushed outside the hospital—not Pritha’s real one, obviously, but a decoy clinic in a different town where Win could appear unfairly cornered and slip away into a waiting Leo’s car. They wanted people to feel sorry for her rather than revel in her misfortune. They wanted young women to recognize their own fraught lives in her. They wanted her to be the strong but vulnerable hero, who did fall down but got back up again.

  Leo’s presence would signify an active support network behind the scenes, adding a touch of tenderness to avoid Win becoming rock-bottom pathetic. She hadn’t been abandoned; she had just chosen to retreat. And the fact that she and Leo were still together made it clear that beneath this new veneer, stripped of glamour and laughter, the same Whitman Tagore remained. She was still beautiful, still fascinating, and Leo was still bound to her.

  “Let’s imagine your life turning to dusk,” Marie said, sounding dreamier than Leo had ever heard her. “It’s been a long summer’s afternoon, and now everything is poised still and waiting. Like a new dreamscape for the two of you to wander through, hand in hand.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Leo said, lip curling. He felt like the one sane character in an absurdist play.

  Marie narrowed her eyes. “Not at all. I have a mood board if you need something to visualize.”

  “You’re not happy about this,” Leo said, because Win’s mouth was tight with anxiety. “I know this isn’t you—”

  “Don’t try to tell me what I am,” Win said. She looked back at Marie on the video call. “You think this will work? People don’t…” She paused, considering. “They don’t really like it when I’m upset.”

  “Not upset,” Marie said. “Vulnerable. Worried. Sad. They’ll relate to all of that.”

  “Christ,” Leo said. “What happened to not playing the victim card?”

  Win gave him a cool look. “I’m not playing, Leo. My mother is ill.”

  “You’re being a hypocrite,” he said. “You won’t talk to me or anyone else about anything difficult, not your dad or creepy directors or when Nathan fucking Spencer makes a racist joke on TV, but suddenly we’re telling the whole world how your life is falling apart and that’s totally fine. You’re not actually upset—”

  “I’m not upset that my mother is ill? Thanks for another amazing insight—”

  “I’m trying to help you,” Leo snarled. “Marie just said that if I leave, people might turn on you again.”

  “Is she meant to be grateful for that?” Marie said, sudden and unexpected. “That she needs you here to make her palatable? If people would take her seriously on her own, or give her just a tiny bit of credit, or not make her work a thousand times harder than every other actress I work with…”

  Win smiled, neat and bitter. “Yes, thank you, Leo. It makes me feel so good that I have to be dependent on some guy because alone I’m a bitch—”

  Some guy stung. Leo said, “It’s not my fault they don’t!”

  “Nothing’s ever your fault, is it,” Win said. “You’re not like every other guy, right? How could anyone blame Leo Milanowski for anything? And you’re calling me a hypocrite?”

  Leo’s face went hot, embarrassed. He felt some yawning desperation open up beneath him. It wasn’t his fault that the same people eager to shove Whitman Tagore aside would make excuse after excuse for Leo. What did she want him to do about it? How was he supposed to take responsibility for something so complicated and ingrained?

  Into the silence, Marie said briskly, “Your complaints have been noted, Leo. It’s unfortunate that we’re all in this situation now, but we just need to get through the next few months, and then I can phase you out for good. It might be time to push the independent woman angle, anyway.”

  “Agreed,” Win said, and swept out of the room.

  “I’m not going to do this,” Leo said, voice strained. “I’m not going to be part of this.”

  Marie was uninterested, packing up her notes, glitching over the connection as though she was already turning her energy to the next problem.

  “I’m curious,” she said, looking up. “Do you really think this is so different from anything else you’ve done?”

  * * *

  They went outside. They took walks on the beach. Marie tipped off a few of her pocket paparazzi, and the next day there were photos splashed across the internet, Win and Leo hand in hand, heads bent close, leaning into each other as though they were the last couple in the world. Photos of Win sitting on a big gray rock, Leo kneeling before her as he adjusted her scarf. The photos hadn’t caught the way Win had said, her mouth a breath away from his, “I don’t think we need to get any closer than this.”

  They visited Marie’s decoy clinic together in dark sunglasses with a host of suited bodyguards. They bought to-go lattes, ducking out of coffee shops hand in hand with their faces tilted down, expressions sad and unsure. Marie announced it would be better if Win looked raw, exposed, so the stylist team had left, and Win didn’t bother hiding the deep shadows under her eyes. Once they were back behind the tinted w
indows of the waiting car, Win shoved away from Leo and took out her phone, messaging someone until they got home. Leo still wasn’t cleared as a houseguest by her security, so every time they drove up to the gate, she had to lean over him and tell whoever was there, “It’s okay, he’s with me.”

  It made him feel like a sulky child, unimportant and neglected, like he was part of his dad’s entourage again. He would have complained, except he was absolutely certain that Win knew and was doing it deliberately.

  When Leo wasn’t being shepherded on an outing, he wandered around Pritha’s house. Except for the framed photos hung in the hall, there was no real sign that Win or Pritha had anything to do with the place. He wondered what had happened to the home Win grew up in. A few pictures showed glimpses of it, a poky terraced house with ugly red carpeting and overflowing bookcases. Win’s father appeared in some of them. He was usually pulling Win or her mother forward, arm hooked warm around their shoulders, bright-eyed and cheerful behind an old-fashioned pair of tortoiseshell glasses. He seemed incongruous to the misty, fragile past that had produced Pritha and Win.

  Leo remembered Win having an aunt, but he’d never heard about any other family. It was hard to imagine Win blending into a large group of cousins, Win as a descendant from a long, sprawling line. She had always seemed marked apart to him, a stranger in every room she walked into.

  As much as he could, Leo stayed out of their way. The house was big enough, the fridge stocked, the rooms full of diversions: a mini-gym in one, a massive entertainment center in another. It would have made sense for them to hire a housekeeper, but Leo never saw anyone else in the house, and most of the rooms seemed pristine from disuse. Meals were delivered once a week to be reheated, half eaten, and discarded without comment; nobody seemed to have much of an appetite. The only daily chore Leo could find was emptying and refilling the dishwasher. After two weeks he had yet to find any discernible system to the kitchen cupboards, so he just put things away wherever he felt like.