No Ordinary Life

by Suzanne Redfearn

  “I am normal.”

  “Yeah, see? Almost normal.” He toasts me with his half-empty beer. “Except for the lack of backbone and your fetish for assholes.” He grins again. “Boy, I’m on a roll.”

  “What you’re on is a bender,” I say. “Come on, let’s get you back to camp.”

  He chuckles. “ME go back to camp with YOU. Ha!” Then, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” until he’s laughing so hard that his whole body is shaking. “ME…” He points at himself and nearly falls off his rock then points at me. “With YOU.”

  “Okay, big boy, let’s go.”

  Sean’s been known to tie one on, and I’ve supported him out of plenty of bars. Griff’s bigger than Sean, linebacker size, but I think I can manage. “Upsy-daisy. They’re making s’mores and hot dogs back at camp, and I bet I can scrounge up some coffee.”

  “Show up with Chris’s sloppy seconds,” he slurs. “Never live that one down.” Belch. “I’m drunk, but I’m not that drunk. Thanks, but I’ll find my own way back.”

  He stumbles to his feet, takes a step forward, loses his balance, falls back, trips over the rock, and lands flat on his back in the water, his eyes closed.

  Crap. The current pulls at him, turning his body and trying to tug him from shore.

  I wade in, grab hold of his arm, and drag him onto the dirt. The guy weighs like seven hundred pounds, and when I’m done, I’m soaked, breathless, and pissed.

  I plop onto the rock where he had been sitting, pop open a beer, and call Emily on my cell phone. She puts Helen on, and I explain what happened and that it’s going to be a while and that she doesn’t have to stay. She assures me that she’s fine staying and that she’d rather be hanging out with my kids than babysitting Griff by the river.

  “Faye,” she says as I’m about to hang up.

  “Yeah?”

  “Take care of him. He’s one of us.”

  48

  Us.

  I love being one of “us.”

  I sit beside the set contemplating who exactly “us” is.

  Griff, who looks miserable this morning—hunkered and moving slow, sunglasses on—is a confirmed us, as is Helen and myself. Griff’s cameramen along with the grips and lighting techs are tight with Griff, so I assume they’re with us. Henry’s too awesome not to be part of us and so is Jeremy. The ones I can’t decide on are Jules, Caleb, Gabby, the sound crew, or the craft service folk.

  My us-ness is comforting. Like knowing what table to sit at in the high school cafeteria, suddenly I belong. I’m nearly giddy with the inclusion, and my happiness makes me realize how lonely I’ve been. In Yucaipa, I had Bo, our neighbors, the ranch hands, the moms of my kids’ friends, but in LA, other than my mom, I have no one.

  Emily has definitely found her crowd as well. As we wait for the crew to finish setting up the next scene, she hangs out a few feet away with Caleb, Gabby, and Miles’s two sisters. They’re laughing and joking, and Emily seems right at home, happy and popular like she used to be in Yucaipa.

  Caleb says something funny, and my eyes bulge as I watch her giggle with undeniable guile. She’s working it. My twelve-year-old daughter just tittered like a temptress—her eyes looking up through her long lashes, her hair draping seductively across one eye. And Caleb is eating it up, nudging her playfully with his shoulder.

  My focus instinctively shifts to Gabby and Miles’s sisters. All three wear frozen expressions of fake support. Four girls and one superstar boy equals trouble. Miles’s sisters are harmless. Like Emily, they are young and goofy, and though envious of the attention Emily’s getting, they’re fine being spectators. Gabby is another story. Though she’s three years older than Caleb, her attraction is beyond that of friend. All you need to do is watch the way she looks at him to know she has feelings for him.

  Emily and Caleb are oblivious to the insincere grins around them, their attention completely on each other, Caleb making lame jokes and showing off while Emily says things like, “No way,” “That’s so cool,” and “Will you teach me how to do that?” Neither knows quite what to do with their limbs or how to position their mouths, and it’s a bit like watching two baby giraffes learning to walk, both cute and excruciating at the same time.

  Helen walks from the commissary with two cups of coffee and offers me one.

  “I think Griff needs this more than I do,” I say.

  “Let him suffer. Damn fool. He knows he can’t hold his alcohol.”

  Sensing we’re talking about him, he turns, and Helen toasts him with her coffee. He flips her off, and she toasts him again. After I called Helen last night, she called his lead cameraman, and a few minutes later, four of Griff’s crew arrived and carried him back to the barracks.

  A moment passes in silence until I say, “Thank you again for last night.”

  “I should thank you. Normally I find these trips tedious, but last night was fun. Molly’s a riot. There’s a little naughty in that package.”

  I laugh. “Did double red turn into triple red?”

  “More than once. Tom and Emily moved her right back in place. Then the next turn, she’d do it again, totally innocently, like she just miscounted.”

  “She is persistent.”

  “But also very entertaining as all the world will soon find out.”

  “I hope so, but that’s not why I was thanking you. I appreciate you watching them, but I was thanking you for coming to the cabin in the first place and for this.” I lift my coffee.

  “You might not want to thank me after you taste it. It’s awful.”

  “For including me,” I say, not letting her sidetrack the conversation. “Really, you have no idea how much it means to me. So thank you. Really, last night…”

  “Stop,” she snaps, cutting me off. “Would you just stop already?”

  I blink rapidly at her abruptness.

  She frowns and groans, then says, “Crud, you really are a pain in my rear end.”

  I have no idea what I’ve done to piss her off, so I stay quiet.

  “It wasn’t even my idea. Last night I didn’t even want to go to your cabin. It was Griff’s idea, so stop thanking me.”

  “Griff?”

  “Yeah, the big oaf. He called and told me he was getting shitfaced waiting for you to show up to thank him and asked if I could I give you a nudge. I told him I didn’t even know you, and he told me to get off my high horse and get to know you, that you seemed like you were all right.”

  “But Griff hates me. He called me a squid.”

  She laughs. “He calls me an ice queen. Says I’m so cool I could freeze a thermal reactor.”

  “You are cool,” I say, “but in a good way.”

  She gives a resigned smile at my insistence to adore her then says, “Not today. Damn it’s hot out here.”

  As if to confirm the statement, a gust of furnace air puffs, making the already oppressive heat so warm that it stifles the conversation.

  “Places, people,” Beth says.

  “Helen?” I say, before she can turn her back to get into character. “How did Griff get there so fast? In the river—how was he able to get to Molly before the rest of us?”

  “He was waiting downstream. He knew what was going to happen before it happened. That’s the way it is with Griff. He has a sixth sense for trouble.”

  The moment they start the rehearsal, I run to the commissary.

  Fifteen minutes later I return, march up to Griff, and hold out my coffee cup. “Peace offering,” I say.

  “Coffee. Yes. I accept.”

  He takes a sip and nearly spits it out. “That’s not coffee. Are you trying to poison me?”

  “It will cure what ails you. Trust me.”

  He holds it out to hand it back. “I’d rather suffer.”

  “Baby.” I refuse to accept it. “Drink it down like a good boy, and I promise not to tell your crew what really happened last night.”

  His eyes bulge, and I give a wink, pivot, and return to my seat. Today is so mu
ch more fun than yesterday.

  “Why is Griff pinching his nose as he drinks his coffee?” Helen says. “And why is he guzzling it like that?”

  I shrug and smile.

  * * *

  Poor Rhonda.

  I actually feel sorry for her.

  Chris has an amazing ability to literally forget everything that happened before, good or bad. By the way he’s behaving, you’d never know that yesterday Molly almost drowned, that he threatened to fire us, or that, for the second night in a row, he screwed Rhonda’s brains out.

  Today he acts like she doesn’t exist, ignoring her even when she gives his butt a squeeze as she brushes past.

  I’m not a fan of Rhonda’s, but pangs of sympathetic understanding clench my heart as I watch her desperation grow. She thinks this might be the start of something, and as a single mom I relate to how infrequently possible somethings come along. Only two days ago, I also considered Chris as a man with future potential—reliable, caring, passionate, respectable, devoted. Ha! It’s amazing how a hard wish can distort things.

  Embarrassed as I am about kissing Chris, I know now that I dodged a bullet. No matter how much I tried to convince myself I was just in it for fun, I’m not wired that way. If I would have slept with him, I would have expected something to come of it. And like Rhonda, my heart would have pounded in confusion and panic if Chris went about his day as if nothing had happened.

  On top of my sympathy, I’m also embarrassed for her. Everyone knows. Eyes follow her as do snickers and whispers. Their tryst might as well have been projected on the side of the barn, and I’m horribly thankful it’s her and not me they’re cackling about.

  Griff gives me a smile and a thumbs-up, and I return the gesture, glad to see my surefire hangover cure of pickle juice and Sprite is working its magic and that he’s feeling better. He returns to contemplating the angle for the next shot, and I return to contemplating him.

  I find myself looking at him a lot today, surprised by what I see. It’s as if I’m seeing him for the first time and am shocked I was so blind. If you would have asked me yesterday to describe him, I would have said lumberjack or mountain man—big, rugged, gruff. The beard and his size give that impression, a burly man of brute strength rather than good looks, but if you look close, he’s far more refined, his posture straight, the features beneath his beard chiseled. Despite his efforts to appear otherwise, Griff is more royalty than knight, and it makes me wonder why he wears the disguise.

  49

  Our week at the farm is finished. Molly has a few short retakes, then we can get on the road. I’m anxious and not anxious to get home. I need to deal with the Sean issue, and I’m dreading dealing with the Sean issue.

  I call Emily to tell her to finish up with her friends. She answers on the fifth ring, her voice dreamy. For the past three days, she and Caleb have been inseparable. Last night they sat on the porch whispering until nearly midnight. When they stopped whispering, I got concerned, but when I peeked outside, they were just sitting on the steps holding hands, Emily’s head resting on Caleb’s shoulder.

  I’m nearly as happy for Caleb as I am for Emily. The kid is always on his own. Union rules say that a guardian needs to be on the set with a minor at all times, but I have yet to meet either of Caleb’s parents or anyone who is looking out for him. This week I’ve taken him under our wing, and I can feel his relief. Like me, he’s happy to be part of an “us.”

  “Hey, Em, we need to get going.”

  Emily sighs then tells me she’ll be over in a minute.

  I smile at her lovesickness, vaguely remembering the feeling, the blissful wonder and optimism of first love, innocently believing your devotion will last forever and carry you through anything—precious and beautiful, before reality and disappointment make you cynical.

  Chris barks at a sound tech, causing me to turn my attention back to the set to find Griff looking at me. He screws up his face so he looks like Elmer Fudd, and I laugh. The guy is very funny.

  Chris sees the exchange. “Griff, get your damn head in the game.”

  Chris is not happy that I have become an “us.” Like the star high school quarterback, he is pissed off that I’ve chosen to hang with the outcasts instead of the cool kids.

  Since the river incident, I’ve made it clear that the only relationship I want with him is a professional one, but he refuses to take the hint, and I actually find myself avoiding him so he won’t corner me and strike up another conversation full of not-at-all-subtle innuendo.

  It is not only annoying but cruel. Yesterday, while blatantly pursuing me, he was callously disregarding Rhonda. And as a result, Rhonda turned Fatal Attraction scary, wailing and pounding on his cabin door, demanding he let her in. The whole camp could hear her, and it was horribly humiliating. Finally Henry was able to reason with her and led her away.

  This morning, Rhonda is gone, and Miles’s dad is on the set instead. The guy seems okay. Ex-military, he walks with a limp and seems to always be in pain, but he takes care of Miles and Miles’s sisters with a devotion I respect. He certainly doesn’t seem like the bloodsucking sponge Rhonda said he was. He wears old Levi jeans, still uses a flip phone, and doesn’t seem enamored in the least by the stars or glitter around him. Mostly he looks tired and worn out, and I can’t decide if it’s from his service in the war or his marriage to Rhonda.

  Emily shuffles up and hugs me around the waist. “Hi, Mom,” she says, laying her head against my ribs, and I need to stop myself from laughing at her lovesick languor.

  “Want to help me pick up a few things for the trip home?”

  She nods and takes my hand, swinging it between us as we walk. A few feet from the corner of the commissary, she stops and puts her finger to her lips.

  Gabby’s voice reaches us first. “Really, Caleb? Of all the girls in the world, that’s who you choose to hook up with?”

  “She’s cool.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.”

  “She’s a hayseed who buys her clothes at Walmart and who has never seen the inside of a salon.”

  Emily’s hand tenses in mine.

  “I like her,” Caleb says, but his voice lacks conviction.

  “Christ, Caleb, you have supermodels giving you room keys. Have you seen your fan mail?”

  “Chill, Gabs. It’s not like we’re a thing.”

  “Thank God. Could you imagine the field day Tiger Beat would have with that? You with Emily nobody?”

  “The press isn’t going to find out.”

  “They will if you keep seeing her. Caleb, I’m your friend. Emily isn’t one of us. You get that, right?”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I said, I get it. It’s not like I’m going to see her after today. She was here, and it was easy. That’s all it was.”

  Like a fist to the solar plexus, the air goes out of me, my ribs caving inward as Emily whirls and races away.

  My first instinct is to chase after her, but instead, I follow my second instinct and march forward, rounding the corner just as Gabby says, “That’s good. I thought you were really losing it there for a minute. Really, Caleb, you’re a star. You’re way too good for that girl.”

  Caleb’s face goes pale when he sees me. Gabby barely reacts.

  I ignore her and focus on him, my nostrils flaring as I take a deep breath to light into him. But as I open my mouth, I find I can’t do it. His jaw quivers, and his expression is so sad that it makes me realize that this horrible moment will define not only Emily but also this boy. And so, because I love my daughter more than I love anyone, I am cruel, and rather than yelling, I confirm his thoughts. “You just lost the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  I turn to Gabby. “Why don’t you go stick a spoon up your nose? You look like you’re running low on energy.” I have no idea if the rumors of Gabby’s drug use are true, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind, so that’s what I say. If ther
e’s one thing I’ve learned in the past month, it’s that it actually doesn’t matter if rumors are true. It only matters if they’re perceived to be true. Gossip can ruin you.

  She sneers at me. “I don’t do drugs.”

  “You should,” I say. “Might help you lose weight.” I’m stunned by the depth of my meanness but also not. She hurt my baby, and at this moment, I want to hurt her back, which judging by the darkness of her features, I have.

  Three kids decimated in a matter of minutes. And as I run back toward the cabin to pick up the pieces of my daughter’s shattered heart, I wish life had a rewind button so I could turn back time and have us not walk up to the commissary when we did, to have us not listen at the exact moment that Gabby was being a jealous, catty teenager with a crush on a boy who is in love with someone else. Because I know, no matter what I say to Emily, words won’t fix this. Like a fire that destroys a house, with time you can rebuild, but it will never be the same and you will never feel as secure.

  50

  We’re halfway to the elevator, pulling our new roller suitcases, when Sean steps into the parking garage from the street. “Hey, kids.”

  “Daddy.” Molly drops the handle of her bag and runs straight into Sean’s outstretched arms. He lifts her and twirls her around.

  Emily also leaves my side, shuffling over to him and burying her head against his stomach. “Hey, M&M. What’s the matter, babe?”

  His genuine concern makes me want to scream. He’s never there when the actual calamity strikes but somehow always manages to appear after, swooping in like a superhero.

  Emily sniffles and sobs. “I need new clothes,” she says, shocking me.

  Sean looks to me for translation.

  “She doesn’t need new clothes. What she needs is new friends.”

  Emily’s head shakes against Sean’s shirt. “No. I need new clothes. I’m dressed like a farm girl, and if I’m going to live here, I need to dress better.”