by Sidney Bell
She nods, shocked by the rough outpouring of words, so raw and honest and devotional. She reaches out blindly in the dark to take his hand, wanting to soothe. “Okay. It’s okay, baby. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be mean to your friend.”
“I know. It’s fine.” He sounds tired. “I get it. He’s hard to get to know. He comes across kind of—”
“Boring. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to do when you’re not in the room with us. I say something and he gets all stiff and polite and sits there like a lump and I want to poke him with a stick to get him to do something.”
“It’s not fair for me to get frustrated with you. I mean, I always had music to bridge the gap with him. We would work together for hours, figuring out how to write songs, how to play the different instruments, talking about how to make something work. And one day I looked up and he’d become the most constant thing in my life and it didn’t matter that he couldn’t say a word about anything else. I guess I forgot that you don’t have the band to help you meet him in the middle.”
“No,” she admits. “I feel very much like I don’t know what to say to him.”
She can feel Zac’s surprise. “Has that ever happened to you before?”
He isn’t teasing her, and he doesn’t mean it in a bad way. He likes that Anya will say whatever’s on her mind, that she’s painfully direct. He says that it means he doesn’t have to try to read her mind or guess if she’s angry when she says she’s fine. Anya likes that about herself too, for all that some people have had a problem with it in the past. She doesn’t know how to flail during a basic conversation. Except with Cal.
“Not with anyone I can’t avoid for the rest of my life.”
“No wonder you didn’t like him.” His feet touch hers, a silent show of support.
“It’s not that he won’t talk, though, is it?” After all, Cal had tentatively answered when she’d shown a willingness to wait. “It’s more that he needs to know that you value his words.”
“Yeah.”
“I think I’ve been impatient with him. I’ll do better.”
“That’s not only on you.” Zac doesn’t sound tense or tired anymore, only thoughtful. “He could probably try harder too. I think you’ll be surprised how similar you are at the root once you get to know him better. You both love very fiercely. He does it by being there and giving whatever’s needed, and you fight and bully and murder anything in the way, and on the surface it seems like there’s nothing that’s the same, but the motivation is.”
She smiles and kisses his hand. “That’s something to build on, at least.”
* * *
Operation Make-Friends-With-Cal falls by the wayside for a bit, though.
There’s Zac’s birthday to plan and PJ to care for and her own work to consider. She loves her son immeasurably, but his unplanned arrival has been an inopportune thing in more ways than one. She and Zac ran away to get married on a beach in Hawaii after three whirlwind months of dating, and they were only married for about a year and a half when she got pregnant. She’d barely begun to acclimate to being a wife before she had to acclimate to being a mother. There hasn’t been time or energy to acclimate to being a photographer.
But her career has been on the back burner for long enough. She loses track of everything else for a while, setting up photo shoots, tracking down people who owe her favors, taking day trips to interesting places so she can practice shooting in different kinds of light. She sends apologetic texts to her girlfriends begging out of lunches and puts off a call to her mother up in Seattle. Soon enough the groceries get thin, because she’s not the only one busy with work.
Zac’s spending all of his time working on the new album, which everyone except Cal seems to adore. Zac pulls ridiculous faces while he tells her about it in the evenings while they eat takeout spinach pizza and smother PJ with kisses to make up for leaving him with the nanny all day. Zac mostly bitches at first. He’s a tornado when he’s frustrated—he has to blow and bluster for a while before he can settle in to get to the heart of the matter. It’s not until they’re lying in bed that he really talks, when the house is dark and quiet and the street lamps pour dim yellow light between the curtains.
“He’s so much harder on himself than anyone else could ever be,” Zac murmurs, his arm warm and heavy around her belly under the cool sheets. “I wish he could trust that the work is there. It’s solid. Even Frank and Jim like it, and they don’t like anything, and especially not concept albums. I didn’t think we’d ever get the label on board, and here we are, with three tracks close to done and two more about to be recorded, and Cal’s the one complaining. It’s good. It’s really good, Animal, but he won’t believe me.” He pauses. “Except for ‘Cherry.’ That one might still need work.”
“That’s the instrumental track, right?” she asks, as innocently as she can.
“Yes, and don’t think I don’t know what you’re suggesting. I’m not a narcissist. I don’t have to be in every song. I just think it’s missing something. It needs words.”
“Mmm,” she murmurs, and he tickles her under the covers until she has to press her hand against her mouth to keep from shrieking her laughter and waking the baby.
* * *
A couple of weeks later, when Marina calls, Anya’s on a shoot, an important one. It’s for a women’s health magazine, a cover with a star who Anya’s met a couple of times at industry parties back in the day. It’s a good job, one that’ll build her portfolio. It’s not Vogue or anything, but that’s all right. Stepping stones. Pictures of an actress with a recent big hit will never go amiss.
Marina’s their nanny, an older woman raising her granddaughter alone, and the girl is apparently sick enough that she needs to leave school. Anya agrees that PJ shouldn’t tag along in case it’s the flu.
“I’ll call Zac,” Anya tells Marina. “Give me a few minutes, all right? I’ll get someone over to relieve you.”
But Zac doesn’t answer his phone. Not the first time or the second time or the third time. Anya’s shoulders tighten against her will as she considers what to do next. Anya’s girlfriends are all mostly a year or two younger than her own twenty-six years. None of them are parents or have experience with a child of PJ’s age. A few of them are irresponsible enough that—though she hates to admit it—she wouldn’t trust them with her son regardless of their parenting experience. Neither she nor Zac have family in town—well, in Zac’s case, no family that they’d risk leaving PJ with. The teenager who babysits for them sometimes is in school at this hour. Anya could call Mrs. Teague, the woman who lives a couple of houses down, but she doesn’t know the woman well enough to feel comfortable. They mostly commiserate over the hedges about whether or not the HOA dues are worth the money.
No, it’ll have to be Zac. She tries him again. Still no answer.
She gives the waiting producer a tight smile, taking a few more steps away. A part of her is already resigned, already certain she’ll have to be the one to abandon her work, that this, like so many other things about parenthood, is somehow her responsibility first and Zac’s second. She calls a fifth time. Nothing.
“Is there a problem?” the producer calls. She doesn’t sound angry. Yet.
“No,” Anya lies through her teeth. “Just another minute, please.”
In the end she decides, fuck it. If anyone will know where the hell Zac is, it’ll be Cal. She has his number, given to her back in the day while the band was on tour once and Zac had lost his cell, but she’s never had to use it. She’s never spoken to Cal on the phone at all.
She feels weirdly young and out of place as she presses Call, as if she’s a preteen calling a boy for the first time. She doesn’t care for it.
That feeling subsides when he answers after only two rings, sounding both wary and anxious. “Anya? Are you okay? What’s wrong? Is it PJ?”
Bless him for making
this easier. “It’s not an emergency, although it’s urgent. Our nanny has an issue and needs to leave, I’m stuck at a shoot, and I can’t get ahold of Zac. Do you know where he is?”
“He’s in session.” Cal sounds apologetic. “There was something off with the vocals on track one, and we decided to do it again.”
“Shit,” she mutters, irritated. Or maybe irritated is the wrong word. Furious might be closer. There’s no way Zac will be able to go relieve Marina. Even if she manages to find someone at the studio to drag him out, it will take forever and there’ll be drama about it. Not that there won’t be drama if she has to reschedule her shoot, since she’ll have to pay the assistants she’s hired regardless of whether the job gets done, and there’s a good chance this producer won’t hire her again.
She hates this. The way they’re both parents and they both have jobs, and Zac’s by far the more established in his career, so the consequences would be considerably less severe for him to bail, and yet somehow this sort of thing always falls down to her first. It’s stupid, it’s so stupid, and the magazine’s going to remember this, the way she bailed on this shoot—
“I can go,” Cal offers, and her brain stutters.
“You’re not—you’re not busy too? You’re not at the studio?”
There’s a brief pause. “No. I’m at home.”
He lives in Brentwood. It won’t be much more than a twenty-minute drive at this time of day. That’s faster than light by LA traffic standards. “You would take care of PJ for me?”
“Sure. What do you need me to do?”
“Oh, thank you! Oh, God, I love you right now, Cal, you have no idea. You’re perfect, you’re the most perfect man.”
He chuckles, but she doesn’t care if she sounds ridiculous. She walks him through the big stuff—where the spare car seat is if he needs to take PJ anywhere, where PJ’s formula is kept, where the emergency numbers are—and then she thanks him about a dozen more times until he’s forced to tell her that “It’s fine, I don’t mind, Anya, it’s okay. Don’t you have to go?”
“Right,” she says, flustered in her gratitude. “Okay.” She can’t help saying it again: “Thanks.”
She calls Marina back and tells her that Cal will be there soon, and then she hangs up and takes a few deep breaths, trying to get the knots out of her shoulders. She walks over to the monitors to look at the shots they’ve already taken, checking the light, getting her head back in the game. The producer lifts her eyebrows in question. Anya gives her a professional smile, a light and breezy wave of the hand. She sends the message with everything but words: it’s no problem, everything’s fine, it’s all under control.
It’s easier to portray confidence once she gets the text from Cal that says: I’m here. We’re going to watch Sesame Street together.
She presses a hand to her mouth for a moment, then picks up her camera.
It’s after five when she gets home, later than she planned, but it’s worth it. The film she’s put together for the magazine is excellent. A handful of shots are downright gorgeous—original and captivating and some of her best work yet. She’s bubbling with the adrenaline that comes with knowing she’s done good work as she unlocks the door.
She puts her things down in the entryway, and finds Cal and PJ in the living room, sprawled out together on a blanket playing with soft, cushy blocks with letters on them, a cartoon blaring from the television.
“P is for PJ.” Cal bops the baby gently on the nose as he says it, making PJ giggle, and everything in Anya fucking melts. She finds herself on the edge of tears, and he looks up in time to see it, of course.
“Hey,” he murmurs, and has the presence of mind to make sure PJ won’t topple over—she knew she could trust him with her son, she knew—before he gets up and crosses to her, where he fidgets a few feet away, watching, worried. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She wipes her cheek. “Stressful day.” She has no intention of telling him how very much she wants to give him a hug right now. “You really did me a favor, Cal. I appreciate it. I owe you one.”
“Gee, a day with an adorable baby. My suffering is legion.” He smiles, a soft, easy one, and pats her twice on the shoulder a bit stiffly, like he wants to soothe but isn’t sure he’s allowed. He’s so awkward, and so unexpectedly lovely.
“At least let me pay you back with ice cream.” After a dozen family dinners over the years, Cal’s sweet tooth is hardly a secret.
“Well...” He follows her when she picks up PJ and carries him into the kitchen, kissing his face and neck as she goes, making him squeal and yell ma, ma, ma.
In the kitchen, she gets the ice cream and dishes out but lets Cal handle the scooping so she can get PJ settled in his high chair. “How’s about some peas, my little man? Some nasty, bland peas? Huh?”
Cal tries to take over feeding the baby so she can eat before her mint chocolate chip melts, but she gives him a hard stare until he meekly turns his attention to his bowl. He’s done her enough favors for one day. “So why weren’t you recording with Zac?” she asks. “I thought you usually supervised that sort of thing.”
Cal draws designs in his ice cream with his spoon. It takes forever for him to answer. Finally, he sighs. “They kicked me out.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Oh?”
Another interminable pause. Then, sounding wooden, he adds, “It’s been made very clear to me that I occasionally micromanage.”
“Wouldn’t stop telling him how to do it?”
Cal shrugs, sheepish. “He’s probably mad at me.”
“Probably. He’ll get over it.” Zac is temperamental. He gets angry easily, but he tends to forgive almost as quickly. “He says you don’t like the album.”
He becomes suddenly fascinated by his spoon. She tries to outwait him, but he seems disinclined to volunteer anything even after a few minutes. She isn’t sure if she should push, and the silence stretches, mildly uncomfortable. This is the thing about Cal that irritates her most, the constant sense that she’s reaching for someone who can’t be bothered to reach back.
“I can’t tell if you’re searching for words or hoping I’ll give up and change the subject,” she says.
He doesn’t lift his head, but she can see the faint curve of his lips anyway. “Not going to let me get away with it, huh?”
“I don’t really do that.”
His smile widens, and now he looks at her. It’s a warm look, almost fond. “I get that impression.”
His expression and the acceptance in his voice have her flustered yet again. It seems to be a day for being off her game around him. Trying to pretend otherwise, she takes a bite of ice cream. “And?”
He taps his spoon against the bowl a few times. “Apparently my standards are inhibiting to other peoples’ creative processes. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard lately that I don’t always know best.”
“You do always know best, though, don’t you?”
“I thought I did.” He startles, as if he didn’t realize what he said until after it was already out. “I mean—no.”
“But you do. Zac says it all the time. That you write most of the music. That you’re the most talented one in the band.”
“Oh, I don’t...” He trails off, ducking his head, turning red, and she finds it absurdly charming. “That’s not—it’s not really applicable.”
“I’d say it is. It’s lovely to be modest about your brilliance, but not when it comes to the quality of your work.”
He doesn’t say anything, but she has the distinct impression he’s listening.
“Zac is...” She blows out a breath. “Tender. He has these little hidden bruises. You know what I’m talking about?”
He nods. “He can’t stand it if you tell him he’s being selfish.”
“Exactly.” Anya learned this lesson the hard way, via a screamin
g argument during their first three whirlwind months of dating. It’s a leftover from Zac’s mother, a word she only ever uses when she’s trying to manipulate him. Zac’s estrangement from his mother isn’t for anything relating specifically to her bipolar disorder. Ellie is a bitch of the first order, and it’s not due to her fluctuating emotions so much as her invariable narcissism.
For Zac, selfish means that no matter what he does, there’s about to be a major guilt trip coming his way. It makes him defensive, makes him feel unsafe. Anya can call him moody or impatient or asinine or, hell, she can call him a fucking asshole. Any of those will express her feelings without hurting him. She cannot call him selfish without leaving a wound behind, and she hasn’t done it since she realized its effect on her husband. She doesn’t mind pissing him off; knowingly hurting him is something she refuses to do.
She pats Cal’s hand, touched that he, too, cares enough about Zac to notice and respect these tiny details about him. She pretends not to notice the way he subtly pulls his hand into his lap after she lets go. She tries not to take it personally.
“Did you call him lazy?” she asks.
He blinks, gaze going distant. “I might’ve.”
“That’s another one his mother would use on him. Also ‘you’re just like your father,’ although I think that one’s less likely to come up in conversation between you.” She dabs some pea gunk off her son’s chin. “Three more bites, little man. We’re almost there.”
“That explains why he got so angry. I thought it seemed weird. Zero to sixty, you know? Now that I think about it, I didn’t even call him lazy. I think I said, ‘let’s not be lazy about this’ and then he was—Nothing I said could defuse it. Brian told me to take off so that they could actually get the recording done, and I didn’t even know why it was my fault, but I left.”
