by Hamel, B. B.
“So, where’s lunch today?” I asked.
“I was thinking sushi, there’s a new place nearby.”
My mom, ever the adventurous eater. I liked sushi as much as the next person, but my mom was always hunting down new places and trying whatever they made. She loved to drag me along for the ride, and usually it was pretty good. I couldn’t complain about free food, although sometimes it wasn’t the best. Once, she took me to an Ethiopian restaurant, and while it was delicious, I didn’t love eating with my fingers the whole time.
“Sounds good,” I said. My mom stood up, and we walked out of her office together.
My mom was about my height and had the same mouse-brown hair. I wore mine long, but she kept hers short. She looked like a typical college professor, thin and a little spacey, well dressed but not business-like. People often told us we looked exactly alike, though I hoped they meant that I was a younger version of her.
We made our way out onto campus, and cut out toward the north. I followed, and my mom aimlessly chatted about her day. I wanted to ask about Noah’s dad, but I decided to play that cool and wait until she was fed. She told me about the faculty infighting and the tenure committees, and I was thankful that I wasn’t going into higher education. It was really hard to be a college professor; they were replacing full time faculty with adjuncts who were underpaid, overworked, and got no benefits all the time. My mom was all about worker’s rights, and I totally agreed; the universities took advantage of their teachers, to the detriment of everyone but the administrators.
I always found myself getting fired up and political around my mom. She was infectious and charming, and had a knack for making any issue seem exciting.
Finally, we found the place she was looking for. It was a tiny, hole in the wall sushi place, which probably meant it was amazing. There were no more than five booths in the whole place, though there was only one other group of people there. We were seated right away, and Mom ordered for both of us.
“So honey, how are your classes going?” she asked as the waitress left.
I shrugged, taking a sip of water. “They’re going pretty well. Noah Carterson is in my film history survey, the one with Professor Johnson.”
I steeled myself for my mom’s reaction. I hadn’t mentioned Noah yet on purpose, but it felt like the right moment to drop his name in there.
She blinked. There was a second where I thought she wasn’t going to respond at all, but then she said, “That’s nice, honey. How’s old Johnson doing?”
I sighed. I knew she wouldn’t take the bait. She clearly had no intention of going into it with me, and really, why would she? It wasn’t like I was dating Noah. She had no real obligation to tell me anything.
But still. We told each other everything, or at least almost everything. I knew as much about her life as she knew about mine. Mom wasn’t the type to shy away from a subject, sometimes to the point of embarrassment, like the time she tried to talk to me about her sex life with Dad. I swear, she wanted to go into the nitty-gritty, and I eventually had to storm out of the house to get her to stop. She was pretty oblivious, but she meant well.
I knew that I had to push her. She might get angry, or maybe just weird, but if I wanted to know what her deal was, I had to be strong. She wasn’t very good at keeping secrets, as I found out one year when I was a kid and she referred to the mall Santa as “Mister Wells, the man who cuts your hair.” Or, like the time she said to my father, “Make sure you show up at eight, since the guests for your party are coming at seven,” completely ruining his surprise and months of her own hard work. Needless to say, my mom could be a little daffy sometimes.
I launched into details about my class, including how interesting Professor Johnson was, as our tea and sushi was brought out. My mom gleefully told me crazy stories about Professor Johnson, including how he once got into a loud verbal argument with another professor at a film history convention. Apparently, they disagreed over thematic elements in Citizen Kane, which was about the most boring thing I could imagine. Professor Johnson apparently got so angry that he cursed the other guy out, and called him “possibly the worst thing to have ever happened to the great world of filmmaking, ever,” which was definitely an exaggeration. Michael Bay comes to mind, before anything else.
I laughed loudly at her jokes, and purposefully lulled her into a false sense of security. I felt bad that I was going to assault her, but she had left me no other choice. Once the sushi was consumed, and there was no danger of thrown raw fish, I commenced my attack.
“So Mom, I’ll be working pretty close with Noah Carterson,” I said slyly during a small lull between stories.
She looked surprised then her face quickly turned blank. “That’s nice, honey.”
“What do you think about his dad? The guy produced a lot of movies.”
She looked over at the waitress, visibly uncomfortable. “Yes, he did.”
“Any in particular you like?”
“Ah, honey, I need to use the bathroom.” She stood up and made a beeline for the bathroom door.
Damn. Foiled by the toilet.
I waited patiently for her return, well aware that I had to step my game up. There was only one thing left to do: a full on, direct frontal assault. I had to outright question what her deal was. I looked around the restaurant, picturing her reaction. I guessed it would be anger, initially, or maybe just awkwardness. I wasn’t sure why I was so intent on finding out; it wasn’t like Noah showed any interest in me. If anything, I had scared him away by basically calling him a manwhore. At that point though, it was more about why my mom was hiding something from me than it was about trying to learn more about Noah.
Finally, she returned from the bathroom, a smile plastered on her face.
“So, honey, make sure you call your father. He’s going to tell you all about Norwegian reindeer, but it won’t be too bad. They’re actually pretty—”
“Mom,” I said quickly, interrupting her.
She looked surprised. “What’s up?”
“Why are you avoiding talking about Mr. Carterson?”
She stared at me for a second, and then sighed. “I’m not being very subtle, I guess.”
I laughed. “Are you joking? That was subtle?”
She grinned, looking a little embarrassed. “I was trying to hide it from you.”
“No kidding, Mom! That was about as obvious as it gets.”
She shook her head, grinning. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“I know Mom, but look. I’ll be seeing this guy a lot, at least because of work. If there’s anything I should know, I want you to tell me.”
“It was a long time ago, sweetie.”
“You can tell me. Seriously. Remember the time you tried to talk about Dad’s penis?”
I shuddered at the memory.
“That one was a little too much, wasn’t it?” She looked sheepish.
“A little too much? You crossed so many lines it isn’t even funny.”
She sighed, frowning. “Look honey, it’s an old story. Do you really want to know?”
“Please. I really do.” And I realized just how desperate I was to know.
She was quiet for a second, lost in thought. “It happened when I was still reviewing for the Times,” she said slowly.
“Eli Carterson was producing his first movie, something called Escapee. It was a thriller, pretty high budget for the time, supposed to bring in a lot of money at the box office. I don’t know how, but he knew of me, maybe had read some of my reviews, I don’t know. But he ended up getting my office number and calling me one afternoon. He said he wanted to let me watch the film early, and hoped that I would consider reviewing it. At the time, that was a pretty weird request, or at least I hadn’t gotten it before, but I figured, what the heck, and said yes. I made sure he understood that I wasn’t guaranteeing I’d write anything, let alone write a good review, and he said that was fine, whatever. You know how that can go. People have th
eir own set of rules and expectations, and I guess Noah’s dad was working on his own wavelength.
“Anyway, a week later, I drove over to the studio where he was working at the time and met him. Nice guy, maybe a little sleazy, but attractive. He gave me a short tour of the grounds, which was really nice of him, and then he set me up in a private viewing area and played the film. I sat through the whole thing, and afterward he treated me to lunch. It was all pretty nice and personal, and he seemed to be really trying to pull out all the salesman stops, trying to woo me. And honestly, I felt a little uncomfortable.
“Here’s the problem. The movie was awful. I mean, really honey, it was so bad I couldn’t understand how they spent so much money on it. At lunch, he gave me this whole speech about how it was going to be an Oscar contender, and the studio had a lot of faith in him, and all this nonsense, and I couldn’t believe it. I mean, he was only a producer; it wasn’t like he directed the thing, but still. I had to smile and nod and pretend like what I had seen wasn’t a total absolute train wreck.
“Finally, lunch was over, and I went home. Sometimes, I look back on this moment and wish I had done something differently. I don’t regret it, not exactly, but I wish I had done it a little differently. At any rate, I was so shocked that the studio was wasting so much time and talent and energy on such a terrible movie that I slammed it. I mean, I absolutely tore it apart. I wrote the meanest, most negative review of my entire career. I haven’t written something so scathing since. And you know what? My editor loved it. He loved it so much, he ran the whole thing, and gave me half an entire page, which was a lot for me back then.
“Well, you can imagine how Noah’s dad took it. He was furious. He called me twenty times, threatened to sue, and said some pretty terrible things I won’t repeat. He was actually pretty scary for a while. After a week though, he stopped bothering me, and I thought things had died down. But boy, was I wrong. Soon, my editor started getting calls from studio executives, trying to get me fired. Every time I tried to interview someone from Mr. Carterson’s studio, I was completely ignored and stonewalled. It quickly became apparent that he was blackballing me. He was using his time and influence and money to try to destroy my career.
“And it worked. At least, it worked for a little while. I couldn’t get the interviews I needed to get, I couldn’t get anyone to talk to me. I could still watch and review movies, of course, but anybody could do that. All of my contacts were slowly leaving me, which meant my career was slipping away. Eventually, after a few months of trying and trying, my editors demoted me to a different part of the entertainment section. After that, I quit, because I couldn’t bring myself to write about abortions and pill popping starlets and crap like that.
“Mr. Carterson liked to say that I ruined his career, but you can see how untrue that is. More than that, his movie still made a profit, though maybe not as big as he was expecting. And he definitely didn’t win any Oscars, that’s for sure. But he always blamed me for all of that, and never considered that maybe a single reviewer doesn’t have the power to entirely destroy a film. Maybe that film was broken and terrible from the start.
“I never forgave him. I hated him, actually, for a long time. After I quit the Times, I struggled for a few years. I met your father during this period, and I ended up going into academia, which was the best thing I’ve ever done. But because of Eli Carterson, I had some of the most difficult years of my life. Everything was a struggle, and it was all because I wrote one stupid review. I can’t forgive that terrible, awful, piece of shit man. He was petty, and I’m sure he still is. If I were you, I’d stay away from his son.
“Because if his son is anything like his father, he’s bad news. I would stay away from Noah Carterson.”
Chapter Seven
“Why haven’t you ever told me about this?” I asked, my mind reeling. I could barely comprehend her story, let alone understand how she must feel about Noah’s dad.
“It was a long time ago, honey. It just doesn’t matter anymore.” She shrugged and smiled. My mom wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, but it had become clear that she felt strangely about Mr. Carterson, and it was easy to see why.
What kind of person tries to sabotage another person’s career, all because of a bad review? I couldn’t understand the kind of man who would do that, let alone to someone as sweet as my mother.
He must have been a monster.
“But Mom, he tried to destroy you.”
She nodded, still smiling. “Yes, he did, and he almost succeeded. But I moved on, and things are going just fine for me now.”
I understood why she didn’t want to talk about it. My mom was constantly trying to get me to make up my own mind about things, and not to let her own feelings influence me too much. Even when she was showing me movies, she worked hard to keep her own opinion from me until I had formed my own ideas. She must have understood that I was interested in Noah, and she didn’t want her own experience with the Carterson family to sway me in any direction.
But the question was, did it?
Noah wasn’t his father. The children of bad people aren’t necessarily bad themselves, although Noah certainly was an asshole. Was being a complete and total douchebag heritable? Was evil genetic, like brown or blue eyes? So far, Noah hadn’t shown me anything particularly awful; on the contrary, he was trying to help out a friend of his, and he seemed genuinely interested in me. But he was constantly making sexual jokes and acting so cocky.
Being an asshole was one thing, but was he a bad person, too?
I shook my head, completely taken aback. “That’s a lot to take in,” I said.
“You really shouldn’t worry about it, honey. This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”
“But Mr. Carterson did something awful to you. Something seriously evil, Mom.”
“He did, but he isn’t his son.”
“I know Mom, but still, it’s hard to pretend like I didn’t hear that story.”
Suddenly, she got a very serious look on her face. She nodded her head once, and reached out to take my hand. “Listen to me, Linda. You can’t judge a son based on the sins of his father. If Noah Carterson is a decent guy, then I say you should give him a chance. And this is coming from someone who genuinely despises his father.”
That little speech wasn’t like her. Normally, she was more passive, and actively avoided giving me advice. I smiled and squeezed her hand in return, and felt genuinely glad she had decided to break her own non-intervention rules.
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll think about it.”
She nodded and pulled her hand away. “Good,” she said, and then started to gather her things. We paid the bill and left, my mind still reeling from her story.
We parted ways at the subway station, and I climbed down the stairs in a daze of confusion. I didn’t know what I should expect from Noah, or if there was even any reason to expect anything. He was being nice to me, but that could have been only because we were going to have to work together.
More than that, did he know about what happened between our parents?
Back home, I climbed the stairs into the apartment, buzzing with confusion and nervous energy. Unfortunately, Chris wasn’t home, and I had nobody to talk endlessly at until I worked myself into some semblance of sanity. Instead, I collapsed onto the couch. I flicked on the TV and surfed through the channels. Noah had seemed normal the last time I talked to him, despite my accidentally insulting him. We had a lot in common, actually, and even shared the same taste in movies. In my book, that was the most important thing in the world.
And yet he had such a fucked up past. His father was clearly an awful human being, and Noah didn’t seem much better. He was a womanizer and a drinker. He kept calling me by that awful nickname, even though I asked him multiple times to stop. His perfect smile, great sense of style, and amazing body annoyed the hell out of me. It pissed me off how much I found myself thinking about him.
If he was so terrible, why couldn’t I just
start ignoring him? There were plenty of guys at Temple, and some of them were pretty hot. I was sure I could meet someone else with a similar taste in movies if that was what I really wanted. Why was Noah Carterson the man that stuck out in my head?
Trying to distract myself, I pulled out my laptop and logged in. I opened up Facebook and stopped short in my tracks when I saw the New Message icon at the top of my screen. I had completely forgotten about adding him earlier, like an idiot. My heart began to hammer in my chest, and I was nervous to read his message. I clicked the icon and the window popped up at the bottom of my screen.
Noah: Thanks for the add, dots.
That was it. Nothing else, no jokes about me stalking him, nothing. I stared at the message for a second, and then decided to type back.
Me: Stop calling me dots. And you’re welcome.
I hit send, then clicked his name and started paging through his pictures. They were the pretty typical college bro pics, plenty of drinking with his boys, boring stuff. But I started to notice that there were different girls in almost every set of pictures, as if he went out with different people every night.
Or, he was meeting new girls every night. That pretty much solidified his reputation in my mind. Noah Carterson was definitely a player, although I had to admit that didn’t necessarily mean he was a bad person. I noticed there weren’t any pictures of his family, and I realized I didn’t know anything about them, except for who his father was. I didn’t know his mother, or if he had any siblings, or if he was close to his grandparents, or his cousins. Basically, I knew nothing about him.
Suddenly, the sound on my computer dinged loudly, and I turned it down, startled. I was constantly forgetting to turn down my volume, and it was always scaring the crap out of me.
When I looked back at the screen, I got the second biggest fright of the day: Noah had sent me another message. There was a little green dot next to his name, which meant he was currently online, and currently messaging me.
