“Evan Beckman.” I sigh, contented just knowing he thinks I’m talented. Funny how that naive girl from Georgia, thrilled by rave reviews, can still come out to play even now.
Then my plucky optimism fades a bit. “I wonder if he wants to direct Julian’s movie?” I hate being cynical, but it’s the next thought popping into my head: that he’s hoping to attach to the project, and will use me to get it.
“Rebecca! This was last week, before anybody even knew about Julian’s deal.”
I smile again, feeling radiant inside. “Then I can be excited for about five minutes, right?”
“I think you can be excited from now on, girl.”
What a radical concept: I could actually act again. No agent, no job, loads of scars, but Evan Beckman is asking about me. At this rate, maybe I’ll even forget all those average days eventually.
***
While we’re waiting in the valet line, braving heat that’s still suffocating even this late in the day, Cat starts in with the Michael Warner survey. I notice that Trevor falls silent, and since that’s such an unusual occurrence, it catches my attention.
“Have you told her the full story?” he asks after Cat waxes dreamy about Michael for a while.
“What full story?” Her black eyes widen in curiosity.
“Trevor.” I smile, but my silencing glare telegraphs another message entirely. I hadn’t planned to let Cat in on that aspect of my new guy, at least not yet. I feel incredibly protective of Michael, and I don’t want anything said that might hurt him—or Andrea—later on.
“No, no, no,” Cat cries, grasping at my arm like the professional gossip-hound she can be. “I need to know. What full story?” The valet driver squeals up to the curb with her BMW, but she stands her ground, unwilling to move until she wrangles the truth out of me.
Folding his arms over his chest, Trevor sighs and looks away disinterestedly. Sometimes he’s such an ornery little priss, it really ticks me off.
“Ma’am?” the young valet driver calls, holding the door of Cat’s car expectantly.
“He has a daughter,” I allow, hoping to throw Cat off the scent. “An eight-year-old, a really precious girl.”
“Wow, so it’d be like, not just a guy, but a kid, huh?” she says. “That’s interesting.” Great, my little tidbit worked like a charm, and she leans in, pecking me on both cheeks. Then, as she’s sliding into the seat of her car, and I’m letting loose a sigh of relief, she looks back, calling, “What about the ex? What happened to her?”
Trevor peers at me, a slight smirk on his face. I was nearly home free for a moment there. “We’ll talk about that part later,” I call to her, noncommittal as I wave goodbye. “It’s a long story.”
“Oh, oh, oh.” Cat laughs through her open car window. “Girlfriend’s gotten herself into a big mess, hasn’t she, Trevor?”
He slips his arm around me, making peace. “Well, it’s a lovely mess,” he answers pointedly, winking at me. “We’ll give our girl that.”
“And it’s a mess that makes me happy, unlike some of my other messes,” I say to Trevor as we wave goodbye to Cat.
“Darling,” Trevor says with a wry grin, “the happy messes are the only ones worth bothering about.”
Chapter Sixteen: Michael
Waiting in baggage claim for Laurel to arrive seems to last forever, a real study in patience for a guy like me. It’s damn hot for one thing: an oppressive heat wave spiked temperatures into the upper nineties by late morning, and now that the afternoon’s here, the city’s a regular boiler room. I only hope the weather’s not some kind of omen about this visit.
Andrea keeps wandering off, too, which makes me crazy, and I have to keep following after her. “Andie!” I call to where she’s flipping through some tourist brochures. She doesn’t even glance my way; in fact seems to turn her back more pointedly against me as I call, “Andrea, come back over here with me.”
When I reach her, she rolls her eyes. “Michael, it’s not a big deal. You can see me fine from right over there.”
“I don’t care. Come back over now,” I insist, glancing up the escalator for any sign of Laurel. “Besides, it’s not polite to be over there. You need to be waiting for your aunt.”
“I am waiting,” she argues, and finally I just give up, wiping the sweat away from my brow, closely watching my daughter from the sidelines.
When the sign flashes that Laurel’s flight has arrived from Albuquerque, my nervous anxiety spikes upward by a few notches, and I try to rein Andrea in. “Sweetie, look, her plane’s here, so any minute now she’s gonna be coming down that escalator. Any minute.”
To my surprise, Andrea does become compliant then, standing beside me dutifully, chattering about all the things she wants to show her aunt. The art project that won the Best Overall award for third grade; Jerry’s World Famous Deli down at the end of our street; her new doll, the one Laurel sent her a few weeks ago. But to my supreme mortification and anxiety, Andrea is most interested—more than absolutely anything else—in sharing my new girlfriend with her. Rebecca O’Neill and the Richardson family are on a collision-course trajectory, and while I knew it was coming, I’m still not sure what to make of it.
“There she is!” Andie scampers away from the baggage carousel to the foot of the escalator, waving exuberantly at her aunt. Laurel looks as beautiful as ever, maybe even thinner, and she’s always been rail-thin to begin with. Long and willowy, that’s Laurel’s look, with porcelain skin. She has shiny black hair down the length of her back, gypsy style. And clear blue eyes exactly like her late twin’s. That’s what I notice when we first make eye contact, and it spooks me in spite of myself.
“Hello, Michael.” Laurel steps off the escalator, leaning in to kiss my cheek. A delicate whisper of a kiss, practically like air brushing past, and then her full attention locks on Andrea. “Hello, my pumpkin!” she cries, folding Andrea tight in her embrace. Andie buries her face against Laurel’s shoulder, holding on hard. I doubt I’ve gotten a hug like that out of her in more than a year. Over Andrea’s head, again Laurel’s translucent eyes meet mine, and I’m not sure exactly what it is I see. Affection? Guilt? An apology?
I don’t keep the gaze long enough to find out. “Look, we gotta go get your bag.” I gesture toward the carousel. “This is L.A., you know, not Santa Fe.”
The words come out like an accusation of sorts, but Laurel gives me one of her opaque looks and nods. “Of course, Michael,” she says, holding onto Andrea’s hand as she rises to her feet. “Thank you for looking out for me.”
“No problem.”
“And thank you for inviting me.” She searches my face, but this time I say nothing. After all, I didn’t invite her here, never would have; I simply complied with her plan because I have no other choice in the matter. Not when she’s made it painfully clear that when it comes to Andrea, she’s the one with all the control. “I’m hoping we’ll have a nice visit,” she persists. The three of us walk toward the carousel, the flopping sound of her thong sandals loud on the polished floor.
“That’d be good,” I agree, wondering how I’ll ever make it through the next four days.
“I’ve missed you, Michael,” she says, just like the other night on the phone. I roll my eyes at that one, and don’t even care if she sees, but she’s already turned toward Andrea anyway, saying, “I’ve brought you a present, pumpkin.” I’m about to complain about the preponderance of gifts lately when she goes on to announce: “And I brought something for you, too Michael.” She holds up a large shopping bag by the handles, showing me.
I shove my hands into my pockets. “An American Girl doll’s not really my style, you know.”
She actually laughs. Hard to believe, but I can still joke with her a little and get a good reaction, which is as much a tribute to our former friendship as it is to the lack of it these days.
“No,” she says, tossing her long, silken mane over her shoulder. “Something I made for the house.”
/> Oh, crap. I hadn’t even thought about all those damn paintings I took down after Al’s death. She’s going to notice that right away.
“What’d you bring me?” Andrea asks, walking backwards so she can face her aunt as we move toward the baggage carousel. “Oh, and I love my Felicity doll! Love her, she’s so cool. I can’t wait to show you my room…” And she doesn’t stop, just rattles on about her life, her toys, her friends, the dangers of learning to rollerblade if you live in a hilly neighborhood.
As I stand beside them, listening, watching the same pieces of luggage go round and round, I feel like I’ve been here before. Been on the outside, face pressed up to the glass, trying to find a way back in. Laurel listens, just nodding and encouraging her niece, and I sense my child orbiting away from me. I haven’t gotten this much out of her in a month.
It’s that Richardson gift: the ability to do all the listening and make the other person feel perfectly affirmed. Alex had it—one reason he was such a good doctor, with his knack for getting his patients to open up to him. Laurel has it, uses it to “hear” her paintings, that’s what she once told me. They got it from Ellen, of course, who has always had a world of patience for listening to me.
And in this particular instance, with Andrea talking to her aunt at record speed, it only points out that maybe Laurel was right a year ago. Maybe Andrea would have been better off living with her, instead of here in L.A. with me.
***
Stepping into the kitchen, the house feels cool and quiet compared to the choking L.A. traffic we just fought our way through out on the freeways. Late afternoon heat rolled like a mirage off the asphalt, and it seemed like we’d never get here, like I’d never survive all the polite chitchat volleying between us. The 405 was log-jammed with cars because of an overturned truck, and edging past that accident only made me more cranky and irritable about this whole damn visit.
Laurel shakes out her hair, dropping her shopping bag to the floor along with her funky, beaded purse. Andie slips past me, scampering to her bedroom ahead of her aunt while I lug Laurel’s expensive suitcase back to the guest room. She follows me, wordless, as she sees her brother’s house again for the first time since his death. Her movements are pensive as she steps through the living room toward the back hallway. I know she’s wondering where all her damned paintings went, but that would require a trip to the attic for me to show her all the loving care I used in warehousing them all. Just ’cause she hurt me doesn’t mean I wouldn’t protect such a material reminder of my years with Allie.
Andrea and I’ve spent the past year steadily erasing Alex’s fingerprint from this place. Bedroom shoes, eyeglasses, razor, toothbrush, these are the things that mark a home as belonging to someone distinct, and so long as that person is alive, you take every balled-up athletic sock, every discarded tissue and half-finished Coke for granted. It’s only afterward, when you wander through each room, that you’re spooked by the illusion that your lover might simply waltz through the ether into your bedroom, slip on those eyeglasses, and finish the novel he left cocked open bedside.
Of course Laurel doesn’t understand that as she wanders through each room, admiring what I’ve done with the place since Allie’s death—which is exactly nothing. But it’s been a few years since she’s visited; the last time was when Andrea was about five. So the leather sofa we bought a couple of years ago, and the thick hand-woven rug, and the mission-style entertainment center—those are all new to her. She drops to the floor, admiring the rug. “This is great,” she says, tracing her fingers over the pattern.
“Al bought it up around Monterey.” Shoving my hands deep into my jean pockets, I rock back on my heels. For some reason it hurts, talking about that trip we made together, like it was only yesterday.
“I never knew he liked this kind of thing.”
“Sure he did.”
“I guess I always thought he was a little more…” She pauses, fingering the fibers and texture. “I don’t know. Classic.”
“Guess it’d be hard to say, sitting two states away.”
A whole damn lot she didn’t know about her brother, no matter how well she thought she understood him. Especially not in death, when it came to what he would’ve wanted from her with his family. I think of the past year, all that’s happened between Laurel and me, of how our only communication for a while consisted of angry phone calls and lawyerish e-mails. And then just silence, Laurel always trying to reach me, while I just spun farther and farther away.
Without a word, Laurel rises to her feet and continues meandering through the house, down the back hallway, until she notices our family portrait—that same one Rebecca admired on our first date. “Oh, my.” She stops, studying it appreciatively with a kind of awed hush as she clasps her hands over her heart. “Oh, look at all of you.”
I pace beside her, unable to stand still. Unable to tolerate the dishonest reverence she’s displaying toward her brother and the family we fought so hard to weld together.
“Yeah, it’s a good picture,” I mumble as I move on toward the guest room, and after a moment, I hear her Birkenstocks clopping behind me on the hardwoods. “This is the guest room.” I shove the door open gruffly with the palm of my hand. “Bathroom’s connected. You know the drill.”
“Yes, I have stayed here before, Michael,” she reminds me, her clear eyes bright and teasing, but I ignore her attempt at familiar warmth. I follow her in, then hoist the suitcase onto the queen-sized bed. She enters the room cautiously, tiptoeing toward the open closet where Alex’s old suits now hang. I’ve stockpiled a lot of his stuff in here—suits and dress slacks and the like, much of it preserved in plastic dry-cleaning bags. His winter sweaters are in the dresser, the cashmere and hand-knit stuff he loved when it got cold enough.
“You kept all this?” she asks in a choked voice, folding her arms over her chest with a protective shiver.
“Couldn’t get rid of it,” I explain with an offhand shrug. “Couldn’t figure out what to do, exactly, so yeah, it’s here for now. The stuff I don’t wear.”
She trails her fingertips over all his suits that aren’t sealed off, sifting through each sleeve and bit of material with quiet reverence. Until she discovers his long suede jacket, that caramel-colored duster he wore from college until he died—the one he refused to give up despite juice stains from Andrea’s babyhood and ink stains from his office. She presses it longingly to her face, inhaling, a lost child burying her face in a beloved blanket. I’m startled when a quiet sound escapes from her throat, a slight moan of grief, and even with all the fury I’ve felt toward her, tears still burn my eyes.
“Oh!” she cries out in an anguished voice, stroking her hands over the familiar worn suede. “It’s so stupid, Michael, but I thought maybe, somehow, it would still smell like him.”
God, don’t I know that feeling? Just like me in his surfboard room, or slouching in his T-shirts, it’s no different at all.
“It’s been too long for that, Laurel,” I answer, gruffer than I intend to be. “He’s been gone more than a year.” I won’t tell her that sometimes I do still catch his scent now and then, like a gift right from God in heaven.
She glances at me over her shoulder, a melancholy expression on her face. “All this time, I kept thinking there was someplace he’d been hiding.”
“Thought maybe it was here?”
“I know that’s ridiculous.”
“Well, I always think he’s still over at the hospital working,” I concede gently. “Keep thinking I just gotta go see him, that’s all. Spooks me a little every time I drive near the place.”
She turns to face me, running her fingers down the shiny length of her black hair, smoothing it. “How have you possibly done this, Michael?” she asks, searching my face. “How have you managed?”
I shrug. “You do what you gotta do.”
She smiles, a beatific, forgiving expression that mirrors one I often see on her mother’s face. “You’ve done an excellent job,
Michael,” she affirms, and I know what’s coming next—some kind of commentary on Andrea and my single parenting skills—so I cut her off at the pass.
“Look, I’m gonna go make some coffee, okay?” I turn my back on her, walking toward the doorway, fast. “Make yourself at home—”
“I want to make peace with you, Michael.” Her voice is electric-quiet, shocking me sure as if I’d reached out my hand and touched her. “That’s what I want. It’s why I’m here.”
“It’s pretty late for that, Laurel.”
“Why?” she pleads, with the childlike innocence that is forever surprising me about her. “Why is it too late?”
I sigh, and turn back to find the liquid blue eyes wide and beseeching me. Softening, I say, “Look, I kind of thought I was gonna see you a few weeks ago, up in Santa Cruz, for the anniversary. Thought we were gonna do this scene then.”
“Is that what you really needed?” she asks, earnest in her question. “For me to be there?”
I shake my head. “Nah, not really.”
“And would it have made a difference if I’d come?” she asks, stepping toward me, hands opening. “Would you have forgiven me then, Michael?”
“Like I said, Laurel. It’s pretty late for that.”
Her gaze lifts, and this time there’s a fragility there that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before. At least not but one other time—the day we put Alex in the ground.
“Michael, I honestly didn’t think you needed me there, not that day.”
“No, Laurel, you’re wrong about that.” My voice is surprisingly quiet, but I don’t feel quiet inside. “See, I did need you. But that was a year ago, not now.”
She reaches for me. “Michael, I made a terrible mistake,” she says in a rush. “I want to try to heal that.”
But I jerk my arm away. “We can’t bring Alex back,” I blurt, staring hard into her eyes. “And we sure as hell can’t undo your mistake, Laurel. It’s as much a part of this scene as Al’s death is.”
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