“You haven’t changed a bit. Except for that ridiculous ponytail. Tina was right. You’re like another child for her to worry about.” Marianne stared at a far corner of the room, her voice growing solemn. “The baby. We have to go to them, Eddie.” Eddie peeled her hand from his arm as if it were one of his vampires sinking in its fangs. “You accuse me of not paying attention to trouble I didn’t ask for. You insult my hairstyle and then call me names. And you want me to go with you to wade through more shit?” His voice boomed through the paper-thin drywall. If he didn’t get out of there soon, there’d be another bloodstain on the carpet.
“Why did you come out here, like you have every right? This is MY town and MY life, don’t you get that?”
Marianne shrank away and gathered her bag next to the open door. Outside, kids on bikes and skateboards had begun to cluster, their curiosity stopping them in their tracks.
Eddie felt a glimmer of life return. He was on a roll.
“I didn’t ask for any of them to come here. I just want to live my life.”
“Jesus, Eddie, for once, do the right thing. You can call me every name in the book. You can leave me all over again. Any taxi will get me to the hospital, but you can’t run away from yourself. Your father is in a strange place, and from what Tina told me, won’t be getting any better. Your daughter—” her voice cracked, “your daughter has been shot, do you get that? And your grandson is God knows where. Are you going to run again, Eddie?”
Exactly. He ran past the quivering little creature that used to be his wife, his college sweetheart, the mother of his only child, climbed into his car, and headed toward L.A. General, leaving Marianne standing in the middle of a swarm of children, each one wearing an open, gaping mouth.
“I’m her father. I demand to see her. Do you know who I am?”
Stonewalling appeared to be right up there with triage. When Eddie arrived at the E.R., he was immediately asked to take a seat along with the rest of L.A.’s scrappy humanity oozing puss from hastily self-treated wounds, sleeping on vinyl sofas large enough for a ten-year-old child. As he surveyed the sea of sorry humanity, Eddie’s temples pounded, the headache making its way to the base of his neck.
The alcohol from last night made his mouth feel like he was chewing paper towels. And three tries with the receptionist had gotten him nothing but a smart ass response: “Yeah, everybody’s somebody in L.A.”
Two police officers huddled just outside the automatic doors with someone who looked like a doctor. Eddie bought a bottle of water and moved toward them, hoping to catch some of the conversation. Of course, this was L.A. General, and he knew it would be a slim chance they might be discussing his daughter.
He lit a cigarette, good cover for him standing nearby.
“. . . unlikely . . . door open . . .”
As he tried to inch along the wall the doctor eyed him suspiciously and the conversation settled into an uncomfortable silence.
Convinced they were not discussing Tina, Eddie threw his spent cigarette into the street and walked back inside where the room appeared to have swollen to at least twice its capacity.
He marched up to the frosted glass panels for the fourth time.
“Look, I have to have some answers. I have another relative, my father, over at Cedars-Sinai, and they’re going to kick him out because they need the bed. For God’s sake, he’s got dementia! I don’t know what I’m going to do about that, and now, this. Where’s my daughter? Where’s my grandson?” If someone didn’t give him an answer soon, he’d hurl himself through that glass panel, arms and hands outstretched to catch the nearest throat and squeeze it until the brain popped through the top of the head.
“Mr. Lillo? Mr. Eddie Lillo?”
The voice beckoned from the inner sanctum, the door marked “No visitors beyond this point.” A young Hispanic nurse belonged to it. She smelled of antiseptic and clove, not an unpleasant combination to Eddie.
“You can see your daughter now. She’s lost a lot of blood, but she is a very lucky lady.”
“The baby, a boy. He’s—bi-racial, just a little baby—”
“I remember he came in with your daughter, but I stayed with the surgical team. I’m not sure where they took him. I’ll venture a guess he may be in the nursery.” For the first time since he realized he was living a real nightmare, Eddie’s stomach began to calm down. He reminded himself that this nurse was leading the way to his daughter, who, until a few weeks ago, he had not thought much about—at least not on a daily basis.
The drawing of the drape against the metal rod jolted him back to the present and there she was, sitting up in bed, tubes draining reddish-yellow liquid from her, taking away bodily fluids she was unable to relieve on her own.
“The swelling on her face will go down. She fell hard on the floor, but the trauma from the bullet also caused great injury to all the capillaries.” The nurse educated him in a highly practiced, regulated tone designed to inform and not agitate. He knew the tone well. He had instructed his actors many times to use it when they discussed the rampant destruction around them caused by zombies or vampires or any of the otherworldly creatures that starred in his movies. Always made for a good laugh with his fans: that calm, professional underpinning of a situation completely out of their control, odds of any human survival, be they professional, medical, military, young or old, wildly stacked against them.
Maybe thinking of this made him start laughing, or maybe it was for the same reason he laughed when his best friend, Bruce, fell out of the maple tree in his back yard when he was playing Tarzan, trying to scale one branch from another. The chuckles had engulfed him as he climbed back down the tree and watched his friend writhe in agony, the lower half of his leg twisted at an odd angle. He was laughing as he pulled his mom by the sleeve of her dress to come outside, as if to show her something hysterically funny.
He was laughing, too, almost bleating, when he told his father that Rosemary had fallen from her chair.
“Mr. Lillo, please contain yourself. This is a dire situation.”
“I need some air.” He stepped outside Tina’s room for a moment, hugging himself, trying to steady his mind that insisted on jumping ahead, thinking about the consequences of the past few weeks, time meant to be spent visiting a father he hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years, a daughter also estranged for at least that long, and a grandson he never knew.
That crippling, overwhelming sensation gripped him the same way it did when Rosemary died; he couldn’t deny its power to strip him of any decorum, leaving him a laughing hyena in the eyes of others.
“How is she?”
Marianne, as composed as when she first appeared inside Tina’s apartment, took him by the elbow and pulled him toward a lounge.
“Are you . . . laughing?”
She’d find him out if he couldn’t make himself stop.
“It’s a nervous reaction. Like crying—at—parades.”
“Have you seen her?”
He nodded, feeling some composure return.
“She’s black and blue. Her whole face, her neck.”
“Where’s Joshua?”
“I don’t know.” Another chuckle that sounded like air escaping from a helium balloon, pushed out of him.
Marianne’s expression went from concern to disgust. She left him sitting in the lounge, a grown man hugging himself, alternating between intense grief and uncontrolled giddiness. He must, he decided, look like a madman.
“I’ve called the nursery and Joshua did spend the night there. I’m pretty sure he has not yet seen his mother.” The nurse addressed Marianne, who stayed calm even as she inspected every inch of her daughter’s bruised neck and face. Tina dozed intermittently.
Eddie had pulled himself together by telling himself out in the lounge that A-list directors—and with this new movie, he was certain to be moving into those circles—did not respond to crises like this; it was bad for publicity, bad for investors to see their money-in-the-bank crumbling
in a hospital waiting lounge. What if some asshole paparazzi got hold of this and splashed it all over the rags? The movie would sit on the shelves for years. Maybe forever. Bye-bye investors, your boy’s too busy with family shit.
I am Eddie Lillo, director of an all-time box office cult classic that’s still making money. For me. For my agent. For my investors. I am in control.
When he walked back in to Tina’s room, Eddie felt that the air had changed. Whatever it was he projected had forced Marianne to the other side of Tina’s bed, away from him, which was okay with him.
“I was telling your—Tina’s mother—that your daughter is one lucky lady. The bullet just missed her jugular by an inch or so, and while the wound is still quite serious, we’re not sure how it will affect her vocal chords. It could have been far worse.”
Marianne made the sign of the cross.
“We believe she’ll respond to her baby. A nurse is bringing him up from the nursery.”
Eddie counted the drips of Tina’s IV. He was up to twelve when his daughter fluttered her eyes.
“Tina. Teen.”
Her right eye moved beneath a purple lid, but the left opened and began searching like a beacon looking for a landing.
“Tina, you’re in the hospital. You’re going to be fine.”
She began to fidget; the brow of her good eye arched in what Eddie knew was terror. Countless actors try to master the look, but Tina’s came naturally. He put his hand on her arm, gently, and he felt her muscles tense beneath his touch.
“Calm down.” He glanced at Marianne for a clue, but she quickly averted her eyes and concentrated on Tina.
“They’re bringing Joshua to you, Tina,” Marianne said.
Tina’s body relaxed. She closed her good eye. Marianne wiped the tear that dropped from it.
He had nine calls.
Five from Ricki, two from Cedars-Sinai, one from his agent, and the other number he didn’t recognize.
Eddie started to listen to Ricki’s message, but when talk turned to the word “lawsuit” quickly followed by “Riley’s contract,” he deleted them. Though activity swirled around him, Eddie felt like he was watching himself sitting on a plastic molded chair, playing with this goddamn iPhone and feeling so sorry for that person who obviously has no peace, no family to surrender to each night, his contact with humanity the result of pushing buttons and connecting over telephone wire.
Is this how he would find out about his father’s death? From a call to his cell phone? That wasn’t the way Pop found out when his own father passed away. He had told the story often, of falling asleep on the cot in his father’s room because his mother did not want to leave him alone. His grandfather had been gassed in the first World War, and had suffered a massive stroke that left him without sight in his right eye. The night he had died, Frank was on watch. He had just finished helping his father smoke a cigarette, who had insisted on taking drags from his Lucky’s, and tucked him in for the night.
As he pulled the covers up to his father’s chin, the old man said in a raspy voice, “Buono figlio. Buona notte.”
When Frank awoke the next morning, his father was dead.
He couldn’t run from this. Maybe he and Pop could get a place, Tina, too, if she wanted. And the kid. He’d hire nurses; he could do that, right? And Pop wouldn’t have to die some place he didn’t know, surrounded by people he didn’t recognize. But he couldn’t just yet, it all takes time. He’d have to see how liquid he was, then have Ricki call around for nursing care.
“Mrs. Waters, please. Neurology.”
He’d kill for a smoke.
“Yeah, Eddie Lillo returning your call. Sorry it hasn’t been sooner. We—had a family emergency. My daughter’s in the hospital. No, she’s going to be fine, she got lucky they’re all saying. Yes, the baby’s fine. The nursery staff is looking after him.”
He found himself blabbing the whole sordid affair, how he was totally unprepared for any of this, the visit, the baby, his father, much less any of the problems that seemed to have followed them. It was so much easier to talk on the phone.
“Yes, I am aware that we have to find him a place. I—uh, I can’t do that this second, but I want to—I’m thinking of buying a place, letting him move in with me. Oh, yes, with help, of course.”
What was he saying?
“It’s going to take a while, I mean, my daughter’s predicament. Please don’t tell him she’s in the hospital. Can you hold him there for a little bit longer so I can sort things out? I know. I know. Okay. Two then, two nights? Okay? Okay? Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. There’s a list of skilled nursing care there? I’ll stop by. Thank you again.”
A bassinet rolled by him carrying a little brown bundle covered in blue. He had some room to spare, but not much.
“Can I see him a minute?” Eddie rolled the blanket down and checked every part he could see of his grandson.
Joshua’s big dark eyes fixed on his, and for a moment, he saw the eyes of his dad. Warm, trusting.
“Hey, little man. You’re mommy’s waiting for you.” He bent over and kissed his forehead, making an exaggerated gesture of licking his lips. “Yummy. Tastes like chocolate. Just wait until you’re old enough for that.”
thirty one
This is a nice hotel. Young girls feeding and bathing you. I can’t tell Mamie I’m letting them touch me. They’re pretty persistent. Maybe I won the lottery.
I know. Why didn’t I think of it before? Eddie put me up here. He’s a big shot, in the movie business. He can afford this.
Mamie’s here, too. I thought they were bringing her in to eat with me and the rest of us, but they kept going somewhere down the hall. I tried to follow. The chair wouldn’t move. They have to do something about the mud puddles around here. I keep getting stuck in them and then the wheels on this thing won’t budge.
“Excuse me.” Guess I have to talk louder. “Miss?”
“Yes, Mr. Lillo?”
“Telephone.”
“Okay.”
This thing looks like it’s from outer space. Nothing happens. I’m pushing the numbers here . . .
I hold the phone out to her, that sturdy woman, the one who keeps her head down all the time. She doesn’t understand. I shake the phone at her.
“What’s the number?” She’s acting like I interrupted something important. Probably reading her horoscope. Mamie loves reading her horoscope.
“275 . . . uhhh . . . 275-3542.”
“Out of town?”
Well how should I know?
“Mr. Lillo, who are you trying to call?
“Mamie.”
“Is that your daughter?”
Now that was a cheap shot.
“Mr. Lillo? Is Mamie your—”
“Wife. She’s my wife. She’ll know what to do.”
She raises her finger at me. Like I’ll be doing something else other than waiting. That’s a big, thick book she’s flipping through. Hey! She found my work schedule! Now I’ll know what I have to do tomorrow, someone has to show me around the new plant, but after that, I’ll know what to do.
“Mr. Lillo, according to your chart, Mrs. Lillo—Mamie—passed away.”
What’s she talking about? I saw Mamie wheeled down the hall, away from me. Her hair, all white in those tight curls she wears. I don’t like that hairstyle on her, makes her look like an old lady. When her hair kissed her shoulders, that’s the way I like it. Soft, flowing.
“Is there someone else you could call, Mr. Lillo?”
“Maybe Mom.”
I want to catch the last of the morning sun here on this side of the barn. Mamie’s such a trooper for coming along with me so early in the morning. The worst of it was getting past her dad. Man, what a hard nose he is. Never seems to smile or pass on a kind word. Calls me a Guinea.
She can’t wait to get away from him, runs out of there like the place is on fire, then won’t let me hold her hand until we round the block. He’s just a little shit, couldn
’t be more than five-two, three at the most. But that frown and the words that come out of his mouth. Don’t think I ever heard a kind one, and Mamie tells me, too, he’s always tearing her and her brothers down. Wonder what crawled up his butt?
She looks so pretty sitting in the morning sun. Makes her hair look like a deep shade of gold. Watching me paint must calm her. She’s a bundle of nervous energy when I pick her up, like she’s been wound up for days. She won’t tell me much about what goes on inside the house except to say that she doesn’t much care for her dad, and she doesn’t like the way he treats her mother. I’ve already seen that.
There. A little more white to the yellow and it looks like morning sun on the side of that barn. Couldn’t be a more beautiful morning.
“Who’s got my box of paints?” The girl’s touching me where she’s not allowed.
“Stop that,” I say, but she keeps washing me.
“You were having quite a nice little daydream, Mr. Lillo. Smiling and smiling.”
She’s hefty. Better not mess with her. Just go along so she won’t hurt me.
“Do you know who has my paint box?”
“There are some in therapy. Would you like to go there tomorrow? You could paint.”
I want to know where the paint box is, the one where I painted Mamie’s picture on the inside lid.
I’d open it and there she was, her long hair flowing over her naked shoulder, her heart-shaped lips parted ever so slightly. And those eyes—so full of life. I take it with me everywhere, to art classes, to the plant where I can lift the lid on my break and stare into her eyes.
“Why are you touching me?”
“I’m washing you up for the night. It’s time for bed.”
“My phone call.”
“Did you want to make a call?”
Well, Jesus, I lost energy for it now. This pillow feels great and I think I need to take a nap here, under this maple. Hey, look how the sun streams in; I’ll have to paint those shapes. That one looks like a man’s face with a pointy beard and over there, a heart with a knife in it like the Sacred Heart.
Twice a Child Page 14
