Word Gets Around

by Lisa Wingate

  Chapter 16

  Nathaniel Heath

  The kiss wasn’t premeditated, really. It just … happened. Afterward, I think we were both a little surprised. I had the sense that we’d just tripped over a line Lauren hadn’t wanted to cross.

  Taking a step back, she turned her face away, her gaze fluttering off into the moonlight. With a nervous laugh, she suggested that maybe we’d better leave while the horse and the goat were peacefully sharing space, and before Sasquatch reappeared under the tree.

  “Maybe he’s looking for The Shay’s cowboy hat. That thing would be worth some serious dough on eBay,” I said to lighten things up, which was a technique I’d learned way back in the skinny middle school days. When you’re potentially close to getting a reaction that might bruise your ego, make the girl laugh.

  It seemed like she lingered there by the barn a moment longer, but that could have been my imagination. I got temporarily lost in observing the way the moonglow painted her cheek as she glanced toward the car, then back at me. Her gaze fluttered upward, met mine, her eyes deep and liquid. Her lips parted, and I halfway thought about kissing her again, invisible line or not. The other half of me said, Don’t be a doofus. She just said, Let’s go.

  It’s always hard to know which half has the better grasp on reality in a case like that.

  A howling sound disturbingly close by convinced me that the truck might be a good idea. “What was that?” A chorus of eerie voices joined in and some primordial reaction made the hairs stand on end all over my body. The watchdogs barked and moved to the edge of the gravel.

  “Coyotes.” Lauren barely gave the noise a glance. “Don’t worry.

  They won’t come up to the barn. You don’t hear coyotes where you come from?”

  I knew there were coyotes where I lived, even around LA, because I saw complaints about them on the news. Periodically, one wandered into a park or a sidewalk coffee bar and gave the city dwellers an unwanted thrill. “I usually have the TV on.”

  Lauren made a soft tsk-tsk behind her teeth. “That must make it hard to write.”

  Ouch. Touché. She’d ferreted out one of my most counterproductive habits—using the TV for companionship and an avoidance mechanism. Brain anesthesia to keep my mind from wondering how I’d ended up thirty-eight, living alone in a cabin in the mountains. If I was there to create my magnum opus, why wasn’t the room littered with shreds of genius and the computer filled with little opi just waiting to be strung together into a work that would add meaning to the world?

  “Peace and quiet are overrated,” I said.

  She laughed again, and we got in the truck and drove back to the hotel. By the time we’d finished putting away the haul of leftovers from Donetta’s house, Justin and Frederico came in. Justin was in one of his manic moods and wanted to hang out downstairs and talk horse whispering and foster shelters all night. Even though we’d all just eaten a week’s worth of food, he was in favor of breaking out the leftovers and partying on. He called Amber to invite her over, but she was still on her way home from Austin. Lauren, perhaps noting that Justin was determined to get up a party, waved a quick good-bye and slipped off to her hotel room, looking tired. Frederico decided to investigate the exercise machines, which quickly drove Justin away because he didn’t want to get roped into making up for two days of missed workouts.

  Justin and I ended up together in Suite Beulahland, which I was enjoying much more now that Elvis and I had our own room. Unfortunately, Justin wasn’t in the mood to sleep. He wanted to pull an all-nighter with the script and decide how we would put the proposal together for Dane before next Monday.

  “So Dane’s really coming here? In a little over a week?” I asked, wondering again if we were dealing in real reality or Shay reality here. It was possible that the whole Dane thing could be just another one of Justin’s master-of-the-universe delusions, in which case I was (unknowingly or not) exactly what Lauren had accused me of being—a conman helping to perpetrate a really low scheme on some very nice people.

  “Yeah, he’s coming.” The Shay stopped pacing the room and stood by the tall windows that overlooked Main Street. Hanging his arms in a gorillalike posture, he eyed me critically. “You know what, Nate … Why am I still getting the vibe that you’re not on board here?”

  Well, we’ve arrived, I thought. Moment of truth time. “You want me to be honest, or you want me to tell you what you want to hear?”

  “Both.”

  Leave it to Justin to pick C when given a choice of A or B. “I think we’re leading a lot of nice people down the yellow brick road, and when it comes right down to it, we won’t be able to pull this thing off.”

  My point, whatever it was, whizzed over Justin’s head like a bumble bee on its way to someplace else. “Don’t worry, man, Dane’s into me. With him on board, Randall and those stuffed shirts’ll be falling all over themselves to do this thing.”

  There was no value in arguing with Justin when he was in a mood like this, and besides, I was tired. I wanted to close my eyes and sink back into that hospitable, homey feeling I’d had when I was enjoying the meat-o-rama and the ensuing horseshoe game at Donetta’s house. “How did you convince Dane to come here, anyway?”

  He held up his palms as if it were elementary. “Hey, I’m Justin Shay.”

  Yeah, right. That doesn’t count for much when you’re practically uninsurable. In Hollywood, you’re only as good as your last project.

  “Come on, everyone wants Dane. Nobody’s been able to get him to work for how long now … five years or more? How’d you get him to come all the way to Texas to take a meeting?”

  Justin crossed his arms over his chest, displeased with the fact that I’m the Shay didn’t work as a passkey for me. “He owes me. I went to one of his kids’ birthday parties.”

  “You went to a kid’s birthday party?” The Shay didn’t even like kids. As far as I knew, he’d never even been to his own kids’ birthday parties. His personal assistant sent lavish gifts at the right times of year, but that was it.

  “Yeah, his son’s a big fan.” He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. “And Dane’s interested in the foster shelter project. You know, he’s got all those kids adopted from all over the place.”

  Ahhhh … now a few things were starting to make sense. Dane and his actress wife were rapidly building a patchwork of family adopted from poverty-stricken orphanages all over the world. The tabloids and TV talk shows loved their mixture of glamour and humanitarianism.

  The Shay grinned, seeming pleased with himself. “I told him to bring the kid out to the ranch, and I’d show him the horses and stuff.”

  “You used Dane’s kid to try to get Dane on board for this project? At his birthday party?”

  Justin’s lip curled indignantly. “No. The kid’ll get to see the horses. Willie said he’d even ask Frank to come up with a pony that likes kids.” I once again noted Justin’s obvious admiration for Willie Wardlaw. Such hero worship was completely uncharacteristic for Justin, as was taking advice—fatherly or otherwise—from anyone. Normally, Justin liked to be the alpha. Period. “He’s a cute kid. I think he’s about Brody’s age. They got him from someplace that used to be the Soviet Union.”

  I was dumbstruck at the mention of Brody. Justin almost never mentioned either one of his sons. I wondered if he even knew how old Brody was at this point.

  Justin’s expression turned oddly pensive. He stopped moving and looked me in the eye. “Do you think Stephanie would want to bring Brody and Bryn here to see the ranch and stuff?” Maybe the question seemed more farfetched when he said it out loud, or maybe he saw my mouth dropping open, but he quickly added, “I guess it’s a stupid idea.”

  “I think you … ” I started to restate what we both knew by saying something useless and off-the-cuff like, I think you’ve burned more bridges than Patton’s army, where Stephanie’s concerned.

  Stephanie had spent thirteen years being lured by Justin’s var
ious attempts at rehab and normal family existence. She and the boys had been sucked in and spit out more times than I could count.

  After she moved out of LA and took the kids, I figured that was pretty much the end of things, which was probably for the best. Neither Marla nor Randall nor I encouraged Justin to complete the long to-do list required for him to get visitation again. He was mad at Stephanie at that point, and we all knew he wouldn’t stick with it. Brody and Bryn needed to be safe, the dirt from the custody battle was slowly burying Justin’s career, and aside from that, I remembered what it was like to live with the adults around you at war. No kid deserved that.

  I’d always reasoned that some people just weren’t meant to be parents. Now, face to face with Justin, and even though I knew this whole foster shelter thing was the brain child of one of his manic states from which he would eventually come down, I couldn’t bring myself to tread on his fantasy. I just kept thinking, You know what, Nate, if your mother ditched you in a video arcade, you’d be screwed up, too.

  “I think something like that’s not going to happen overnight,” I said carefully. I didn’t want to cut Justin off at the knees, but I didn’t want to blow smoke at him, either. “Stephanie’s been burned a lot of times, and she’s got Brody and Bryn to worry about. I think it’s going to take baby steps, and the time to do it isn’t when you’re on a big high about a project.”

  The Shay frowned, rammed his hands into his pockets, and snorted sardonically to let me know that wasn’t the correct answer.

  “I knew that’s what you’d say. You’re always so stinkin’ careful, Nate. You’re so worried about flying under the radar, you don’t ever take off. It’s like you’re still afraid if you stick your head up, the old man’s gonna knock it off.”

  The observation bit in a way I was completely unprepared for, and I couldn’t think of anything to say at first. The Shay was standing here telling me I was a screw-up? It doesn’t get any more warped than that. “We’re not talking about me.” Was he right? Did it sting because it was true? Was I living my life in the safe zone, doing what was easy, always opting for the sure thing rather than going after what I really wanted? Deep down, in some disgusting, twisted, Freudian way, was I afraid that if I tried something big, if I reached for the brass ring and failed, a deeply buried, subliminal Doug would pop up and say, What’d you think was gonna happen, you little screw-up? Now go out to the garage and get me a beer. …

  “You know what, Nate?” The Shay gave me a fierce look. I’d rained on his parade with the Stephanie comment, and now he was going to thank me by laying on the guilt and manipulation with the old, You’re my brother, man. If you don’t believe in me, man, I might as well cash it in right now. …

  Every time I fell for that line, I got sucked into some form of near disaster.

  “Maybe we should be,” he said, and I had to re-track, because the conversation had veered off unexpectedly. “Maybe we oughta talk about you. Maybe we oughta talk about why you’re not on board with this project. You’re just here hangin’ out, giving it lip service, waiting for it to crash and burn.”

  “I think I’ve been pretty honest about that,” I said, and he snorted again.

  “I could make one phone call and have ten writers here to take your place.” Now there was The Shay I remembered—the narcissistic, dictatorial, self-important action superdude who made no apologies for occupying the gravitational center of the universe.

  “Why haven’t you, then?” I remained calm only because I knew it would annoy him. Justin hated it when the sycophants didn’t quiver in fear. “You could get someone who knows about all this horse stuff, someone who’s into emoting all over the page.”

  “I don’t want someone who emotes! I want you!” he exploded.

  “I want this project for me and you, Nate. I want everybody to see we can do something more than another knife and gun car-chase flick. I want people to take us … seriously. I’m tired of walking into parties and knowing they’re all thumbing their noses at us behind our backs. I want us to get respect. A man isn’t anything if he doesn’t have respect.” The last part had an inflection that came straight from Willie Wardlaw.

  Some long-ago comment from my grandfather about respect being something you earn came to mind, but I didn’t say it. The Shay and I were in new territory here, and I wasn’t sure where to go next. Maybe he was finally growing up. Maybe we both were.

  “I’ll do the best I can with the script.” The words were out of my mouth before I had time to reassess the commitment I was making or the level of involvement required. Working with Justin on this project, particularly working in the disorganized, piecemeal, scrap-at-a-time way Justin operated, would tie me up for months.

  There would be no more long, lazy days in Mammoth Lakes. No quiet, contemplative walks in the woods. No afternoons with Oprah while the laptop quietly purred in snooze mode. Dr. Phil would miss me. … “I’ll give it everything I’ve got, but you have to come through on your end. You’ve got to stay off the stuff, and I don’t just mean the hooch, I mean the prescription stuff, too.

  After we finish this meeting with Dane, you need to do rehab— for real, this time. If you want to make a go of this project, if you want to get Stephanie to let you see the kids, you’ve got to keep your head clear and stay focused. This can’t be another screw-up like Morocco. I’m not taking another ride to the bottom with you, Justin.” I realized we were about as close to the bone as The Shay and I had ever been. Another road trip into unfamiliar territory.

  He looked at me narrowly, and whatever he wanted to say— probably some form of stock denial of his addiction and the fact that he’d almost killed us both the last time he went off the deep end—went unspoken. “I get it,” he said flatly. “You just hook up with the horse trainer and give me a good proposal. She’s hot, by the way. You should go for it. She’s into you, dude.” Without another word, he headed off toward his room, leaving me with a strange combination of lofty promises, relationship advice, and Elvis memorabilia.

  A short time later, he was bored with rattling around the hotel, and he wanted me to, of all things, go down to the VFW hall and try to get in the poker game with the sheriff and some local guys, who apparently played at night. Picturing something like The Dukes of Hazzard, I politely declined. By then, I’d pulled out the screenplay and was looking it over again. Justin’s feeling was that our Oscar run could wait until tomorrow. Right now, he wanted a poker buddy. In his room down the hall, Frederico was sacked out and unwakeable. Justin wasn’t happy when I didn’t cooperate, either.

  “You act like you’re old, dude. It’s not even midnight,” the bored, fun-seeking Justin complained, then he headed off to find the small-town party life. By the time I went to bed, he hadn’t reappeared. I didn’t worry about him. I figured available trouble in Daily, Texas, was limited, especially when your poker buddies included local law enforcement.

  I woke up early in the morning listening to Justin snore on the other side of the adjoining door. Lauren was on my mind and I had the strange sense that I’d been dreaming about something, but I couldn’t quite pull it out of the mist. The dream had something to do with Lauren—I remembered that much.

  It had been a long time since I’d waken up in the morning thinking about a girl—since high school, probably, when Jennifer Pope told me she’d go to homecoming with me next Friday. I woke up with her on my mind every morning from Monday until Thursday, when she canceled the date and broke my heart. She was nice about it. She made some excuse about her family having plans, but the truth was that her dad didn’t want her hanging out with some foster kid from Mama Louise’s.

  After that, I joined the youth group at Jennifer’s church. When her father figured out I was showing up there—mostly to see Jennifer—they moved to another congregation. That nixed my church career, except on Sunday mornings, when Mama Louise mustered us out of bed and dragged us three blocks down the road to the Victory Lane Fellowship, where the music was l
oud and you never knew who might get the Holy Ghost and dance in the aisles on any given Sunday. Justin used to make fun of that place when we lay in our bunk beds at night, but I didn’t mind it so much. The preacher was high volume, but he said some things that made sense. He made me think of my dad. Even though by then I couldn’t remember for sure, I suspected that my father had been a religious man. I had vague recollections of waking late at night and finding him praying over my bed. I liked the way it felt when he did that—as if he were weaving a net around me, and I could float away on it until morning.

  Sometimes, after we were living with Doug, when the fights and the TV were at their max in the other room, I’d curl up in my bed and try to pull that net over me. I’d pray the only prayer I could remember—one my grandfather had taught me when I was sure there were elephants under the bed and monsters in the closet. I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Then I’d pull the pillow over my head so I couldn’t hear anything. I’d try to remember the farm. In the morning, Doug’s house would be quiet, so you’d have to say the prayer worked.

  I checked once to see where it was in the Bible. Psalm 4:8. When they asked us to name our most important Bible verse in Jennifer’s youth group, I used that one because it was the only thing I knew off the top of my head, and I didn’t want to look stupid in front of all the churchy kids. Besides, it had made a believer out of me. It always kept me safe until morning, and in Doug’s house, that was a minor miracle in itself. At some point, I concluded that God was more powerful than Doug, which was good to know.

  My mother didn’t want to hear talk like that. She said all those church ladies sneering at her was the biggest reason she hated living at the farm. She never really complained about my father, just the family, and the farm, and the people in town. Maybe she even believed it was bad luck to speak ill of the dead.

  I had the strangest urge to tell Lauren that story, but I couldn’t fathom why. Perhaps just because she was in my thoughts as I woke up and took in anew the wonders of Suite Beulahland. Even Elvis watching me in all forms of Plasticine (and several colors of velvet) couldn’t chase away the warm, slightly romantic notion that last night had been … well … special. Normally, I wasn’t one to make a move when a woman appeared hesitant—after something like the Jennifer Pope affair, one never quite recovers—but with Lauren, it seemed worth the risk.