by C. D. Reiss
How could it actually be worse?
I texted her.
—Teacup? What’s wrong?—
Her phone dinged. She looked at it, then at me. She put the phone back in her lap and looked out the window.
Okay. This wasn’t working. I wasn’t sitting there wondering what the fuck was wrong with her. I didn’t do that. I didn’t sit and wait for things to happen. If she was going to be mad, she was going to do it now.
I rapped on the driver’s window. It slid down.
“Pull over here, would you?”
“Sure thing.”
“What’s happening, Daddy?”
I looked at Cara when I spoke. “Miss Cara and I have to make a pit stop.”
Nicole went up like a shot, peering out the window. “Can we get a hot dog?”
“There’s not a rest stop in sight, Brad,” Mom said.
“Not that kind of pit stop.”
Gravel crunched under the tires, and the limo came to a stop. A car blew by so fast the limo jolted. I didn’t wait for the driver to open the door. I yanked the handle and went to the side of the heat-baked road. Cara didn’t follow. I leaned into the car. Her phone was still sandwiched between her hands, which were folded between her legs as if she wanted to protect her device or shield herself from the information on it.
“You coming?” I said. “Or do I have to carry you?”
In the sunlight her eyes were bluer. Less like the deep ocean and more like the color of running sea water.
“Maybe we should discuss this in front of Nicole?” I suggested.
I stepped out of the way and finally, she followed.
“Give us a minute,” I said to my mother, whose look of disapproval was cut off when I closed the door.
I decided, as I scanned for Cara and found her leaning on the back of the limo with her arms crossed, that I wasn’t going to pretend this could be about anything else. It couldn’t be, and if it was, I was just going to bring it up anyway.
I stood across from Cara and crossed my arms so we were a matched set.
“Can you hear me?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She handed me her phone. I immediately recognized the documents I’d signed, refusing my parental rights, and Paula’s name at the top of the screen. I handed it back. “I don’t want to talk about it yet. I’m confused.”
Yeah. I wasn’t confused. I was real clear. I was going to man up, and she was going to deal with my apology.
“She was better off without me.”
Which wasn’t exactly what I was planning to say, but that was what came out. The truth.
“How convenient, golden boy.” She finally looked at me. The wind blew the hair off her face, and it trailed behind her like a black flag. The opposite of surrender. “Everything just goes your way.”
How was I supposed to answer that? I couldn’t even tell if she was insulting me or giving me a shot in the arm for being lucky.
“I wonder, sometimes.” She moved a rock with the tip of her shoe. “Am I just the last thing that you fell into? Get a daughter and find her a mother right after? Perfect. Home run. Brad Sinclair steps in shit again. Rejects his kid. No consequences. Parties like a teenager for years. No consequences. Suddenly a single dad? Easy. Sinclair doesn’t miss a beat. Lies about knowing he had a daughter? What’s going to be the consequence?”
I bristled from her summary of my life. She knew damn well it wasn’t that easy.
“You don’t have to worry about my consequences. You’re not God.”
Her head shot up as if pulled up by shock. She blazed. Even in the Arkansas sun, her anger was the hottest thing for miles.
“No. I’m not. God forgives. I can only stand so much lying. I’m not a saint. I’m a human and so flawed . . .” She looked away for a second. Trying to gather her emotions. I put a hand to her face, and she slapped it away. “I’ve copped to every mistake I ever made, and you just make a show of it. You rejected her. You left her.”
“I was living in a studio in Silver Lake.”
“For how long? A year?”
I was on a trajectory at that point. One low-paying, SAG-waivered critical darling in the can. Shooting another with a major director, and a summer tentpole scheduled. Significant money hadn’t started rolling in and wouldn’t for another year. But my path was lit like a runway.
“I didn’t even remember signing it. I was handed a paper in the middle of a flight.”
“Anything else on the list of excuses?”
And you know what? Fuck her. She was betraying me, right there. Stabbing me in the back with my own decisions.
“You know what, lady? I’m trying my best. I took this on. I didn’t try and get out of it. I’ve had to change my life all around for Nicole, and I’m glad I did. But I don’t need the self-righteous judgment from you. I don’t need to look over my shoulder every second because you might not approve. Here’s the deal. I’m in the paper all the time. I’m a dude. I do dude things. Deal with it. And I didn’t tell anyone I can barely read. That would have ended me before I started. And I’m not admitting it now. I’m not taking that risk. Deal with it. And the last thing you can deal with is that I have a past just like you and I made decisions in the past you’re not gonna like.”
Well, that felt good. Real good. Laid it out right there. I didn’t know what I expected from her after that, but I held on to that good got-shit-off-my-chest feeling because the goodness of it was about to disappear. Nothing I said was deniable. I knew I was right on paper. But life wasn’t on paper. Life was on the side of the road in Arkansas, on the way to Thailand with my daughter and a woman I needed.
“I’m disappointed,” she said, the wind blowing hair over her face. “I’m disappointed in myself for trusting you. I thought you were honest. I don’t even know who you are.”
How could I tell her she did? When we were alone with Nicole in the dark, I was complete. She had to know who I was. She had to see me because I’d opened myself to her. I hadn’t opened up to anyone, and I realized how much I needed her to see that. To know that she stood inside the open door of my heart.
I loved her. I needed her. She couldn’t turn her back on me over this. I wouldn’t allow it.
A minivan came down the highway, slowed. The side door slid open and two girls, no older than twelve, waved and called out, holding up their camera phones.
“Brad Sinclair!”
I waved, but I wanted them to go away. My first reaction was to flip them two birdies, but they were too young. So I turned my back on them and when I faced Cara again, my defenses were up.
“This is what I am,” I said. “I’m not deep. I’m just trying to hold this job together.”
She shook her head ever so subtly.
The minivan driver got the hint and sped away as the girls squealed.
Cara and I?
We were just locked in a wordless battle.
I didn’t know what was on her mind. I couldn’t read past the anger. I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t move. The stillness of our bodies was a lie in my case. My mind was on fire. Should I apologize? Should I say it was a mistake? I could grovel and spend hours dismissing the decision as the worst yet in a series of bad decisions. I could beg and plead for the case of love.
But I wasn’t going to.
I’d done what I had to do, and I didn’t lie about it. I just kind of more or less chose not to think about it.
The cord between us snapped when the car door opened.
“Daddy?” Nicole stood in the dirt with her legs crossed.
“Yeah?”
“I have to pee.”
“Can you make it fifteen minutes?” Cara asked.
“I think so?”
“Let’s roll,” I said, happy to be away from that shitty scene at the side of the road. I had no idea it would get worse. I didn’t even think it was possible.
CHAPTER 68
CARA
Nicole made it. What a kid. The best kind of kid. The kind o
f kid you met in a bathroom and said good-bye to in a bathroom. The kind of kid you loved face-to-face and had to leave when her father’s assistant sent you screenshots of documents denying he wanted a child. I could have forgiven him. I don’t know how, but maybe if he’d admitted it. He didn’t need to apologize, but pretending those documents didn’t exist and getting self-righteous about them made me want to hit him over the head. I was going to run away instead.
It took me the entire ride to the airport and the seven minutes to the first-class VIP lounge to absorb how angry I was.
I couldn’t handle this relationship.
I couldn’t handle Brad Sinclair. I couldn’t handle his fame or his dishonesty. I couldn’t trust him. Today it was lies about rejecting his daughter. Tomorrow? Who knew? How deep was I going to get before it got to be too much? And how much closer to Nicole would I be by the time I had to leave?
Nicole flushed the toilet herself. She wiggled her pants up with the seriousness of solving the world’s problems. I crouched by her and watched as she moved her shirt out of the way so she could tie the bow on her waistband. She did it slowly so she wouldn’t make any mistakes.
I’d fallen in love with a man and his daughter and it was a disaster.
She looked at me through her hair.
“Should I double knot it?”
“No. I think it’s fine.”
She pulled her shirt down.
“Okay! Let’s go fly high in the sky!” She clapped once and sent one hand far into the atmosphere with a breathy whoosh.
I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her so close I could feel her heartbeat. I held her longer than I should. Until the hiss of the toilet tank stopped and my knees ached. I held her until she wiggled so hard I had to let her go.
“I love you,” I said. “I love you, and I’m always here for you. Please always remember that.”
She put her hands on my cheeks.
“Okay,” she whispered close to my face. She poked the inner corner of my eye. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m afraid you’ll forget.”
“I won’t.” She put her fingertips to my lips then twisted them. “I’ll take it, lock it.” Her fingertips went to the breast pocket that wasn’t there. “Put it in my pocket.”
I laid my hand over the place where she’d put my love. “Keep it forever.”
“I will. It’s pink. I don’t throw away pink things.” She ripped a square of toilet paper off the roll. “Here.”
“Thank you.” I dabbed my eyes, but I still cried inside, because I loved her and she wasn’t mine to love.
CHAPTER 69
CARA
The private lounge had leather couches and a dedicated bartender. The concierge had set aside a corner for us and placed subtle barriers between Brad Sinclair and the rest of the world. He sat with his back to the rest of the room, and his mother read last month’s YOU magazine. She folded her magazine, stood up when she saw me, and met us halfway across the lounge.
“Grandma, can I get a donut?”
Before I could say no, Erma did what grandparents do.
“Of course!”
Nicole bounced to the buffet of sweets. It was for the best, anyway. I had no say in the matter.
“Is everything all right?” Erma asked.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
Nicole leaned over the metal table and tapped her chin. So many possibilities. So many colors.
“Kids will do that to you.”
“I can’t go to Thailand,” I blurted out. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh, no no no . . .”
“Yes, I’m sorry but—”
“This is last month’s!” She held up the magazine.
“What?”
She flopped it open to show me the date, but all I saw was Brad’s picture with the costar of his last movie. She was whispering in his ear and he was smiling.
“See?” Erma said, gleeful. “No, wait. These come weeks before the date on the front. So it’s the month before last!”
I took the magazine. When that edition came out, I was still working with Willow and Jedi Heywood, who I loved. Always. He hadn’t even met me when he was dating Geraldine Starrck. They were beautiful together.
He’d replace me in a minute. Was I all right with that?
I had to be.
“I want the sprinkles!” Nicole called out.
“Yes, dear,” Erma called to Nicole before turning back to me. “It’s hard to see this, but he cares about you.”
I folded up the magazine.
“Get a plate and use the tongs to pick it up,” I told Nicole, then brought myself back to Brad’s mother. “Have you ever been to Thailand?” I asked.
“No. Why?”
Her brows knit together and she tilted her head. With every word, every expression, every breath I let pass, I got closer to the point of no return.
“Do you have a passport?” I asked.
“I had to show it to get the ticket.”
I was going to cry again. I felt my mouth contort and tasted the salty rush of tears in the back of my throat. Erma put my hand over hers.
“I’m sorry to do this to you,” I choked out. “I’m putting you in the middle and inconveniencing you terribly. But I can’t go to Thailand. I don’t want to send Nicole with a nanny who’s a stranger.”
“It’s not the magazine, is it?”
“No. I don’t care about that.”
I wasn’t going to tell her why I was leaving. What would I say? Her son was a liar? He’d denied his daughter and never admitted it? I couldn’t trust him. He was her baby. I was nobody but the first woman he was with when he started the process of changing his life. I was the one who was too mad to forgive him.
Nicole came from the buffet with a donut in each hand. One chocolate. One vanilla. Both with rainbow sprinkles spotting the paper napkins they sat on. She had a dot of chocolate cake on her cheek and a blue sprinkle on her chin. She’d obviously already sampled the sweets while standing at the buffet.
“I brought you donuts. Grandma gets to pick first because she’s older.”
I cleared my throat. Some of the gunk rattled down, only to be replaced by a fresh lump to remind me I could cry any second.
“I’ll take the white one.” Erma plucked up the pastry and the napkin. Nicole held out the chocolate.
“You can save it for the plane if you’re not hungry. Or you can give it to me if you want. I can wait until we’re on the plane.”
I never saw a kid want a donut more. But it wasn’t about the donut. Not for me. It was about the plane.
I crouched in front of her.
“I don’t think I’m going to be on the plane with you.”
“Why not?”
Because I did something stupid. I did exactly what I avoided doing with every other father I’ve worked for. I fell in love, and that’s going to impact you.
“I have to stay home.”
“I can stay home with you.” She shrugged. This was easily solved, of course. “I don’t want to go to Thailand anyway.”
I was doing this backward, and it was going to suck. I had to go talk to Brad and—
“Hey. What’s going on?” Brad asked from behind me. Perfect. He’d heard me talking to his daughter, of course.
Erma glanced at me, then at her son and put a big fat southern smile on her face.
“Let’s go look out the window, honey! I think that big plane’s taking off!”
“Wait!” She handed me the donut. I took it. Nicole and her grandmother walked away to see the planes in the big window.
“The concierge said we’re boarding in fifteen minutes.” He said it suspiciously, relaying information he’d seemingly lost interest in. “What is this? You’re not coming? You all right? You afraid you’re going to puke or something?”
He was going to make me say it. He knew damn well I wasn’t going to puke. I tried to be mad at him so I could really cut him and leave, but he’d
taken his jacket off and I could see his arms. I remembered how they tensed when they held me. How the hard biceps felt under my hand when I gripped them.
It was his eyes that almost took my resolve. He trusted me. He knew I was angry, but he trusted it was a bump in the road, and I was betraying him.
“I think it’s best if I stay behind.”
“With Nicole?”
“You should take her.”
“I’m working all day.”
“Your mother will go. She ag—”
“What the fuck is going on?”
This was bad. Very bad. I was bailing, and I was the worst kind of coward. But as perfect and beautiful as he was, as much as I admired what he’d gone through in life to get where he was, I couldn’t see past the lies.
“You denied her. It’s just going to eat at me. And you know what? Keep it a secret. Never tell her. Let Paula put it in the papers now before Nicole can understand it, then never mention it again. By the time she finds out, she’ll love you so much.”
He straightened his hand into a plane and thrust it in my direction.
“This is bullshit.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You do this now? We got one foot on a plane and this is what you come up with?”
The world got quiet, and he was at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Nothing existed but the hard words between us.
“Just take her,” I growled. “She’ll be fine. She’ll get used to it without me. I’m not necessary here—”
“No, you take her. The two of you wait for me. I’m sorry, teacup. You’re not turning your back on us. Maybe she’ll be all right without you, but I won’t. We’re smack-dab in the middle of something good, and I’m not gonna let you go so easy. I fucked up too much already. I fucked up when I denied her the first time, and I fucked up not telling you my trouble. I fucked up taking your phone. I fucked up trying to hide the newspapers. I’m going to fuck up again. I know I am. And I’m asking you to stay with me and let me fuck up. Let me try again and again. There’s no one else I want to fuck up with. There’s no one else I want to apologize to. There’s no one else I want to be better for. It’s you. I’m going to be better for you, and if you leave I’m afraid I’ll never have a reason to stop being a fuckup.”
