Stay With Me

by Garret Freymann-Weyr

  It doesn't matter. He's called me ambitious and impressive. He's sat here for an hour. He wants to introduce me to people whose work I might learn from. I've had great friends, but Eamon is outdoing himself.

  "I'm so sorry," Clare says again. "That came out all wrong. Rest assured, Leila will kill me as soon as you leave."

  "Are you kidding?" Eamon asks. "She thinks you walk on the moon. Nothing you say to me is going to change that."

  Clare looks at once embarrassed and pleased. I'll always be in Eamon's debt for being the one to tell Clare that she's important to me.

  Before my parents left, I remember being slightly alarmed by how indirectly news flowed to and from Clare, Da, Raphael, and even William. But now, this business of giving and receiving information through third parties makes sense. Or feels familiar. It is, I'm certain, part of why I know anything about Eamon. Why I've been able to be friends with him. It's all taken place softly, the way being with Rebecca did.

  I could see almost right away that Eamon kind of clams up under direct questioning. However, thanks to my sisters, I'm very good at getting information from people who guard it. Since my return from Poland, I've learned where Eamon went to college, the names of his eleventh grade English teacher, his first girlfriend, and his brothers, ages forty-seven, forty-five, and forty.

  Eamon's mother was Mr. Greyhalle's second wife (there were two after her) and she now lives in Boston, where she teaches third grade. Her parents, dead for almost twenty years, lived in Ireland, and Eamon is named after his grandfather.

  "She was supposed to be Dad's trophy wife," Eamon said about his mother. "But she had the wrong personality."

  It's amazing what people will tell you when you are in the midst of discussing their work. Work does not make him quiet. He has a lot to say about television—its function as entertainment, why he can't write for sitcoms, what you lose with a mass audience and what you gain. Buried and revealed in all this are tiny details about him, which are important to me. Because, like Clare, he is important.

  Interesting how all the people I love have work at the center of their lives. Work which is the biggest piece of who they are. My mother, Janie, Clare, and especially Da, if you look at his save the world jobs. Not Rebecca, though.

  Although she worked long, hard hours both at the hospice and the bakery, I never felt that she was passionately attached to either. Perhaps my sister was just unlucky and never found her version of Mom's lab or Janie's lights. Maybe she should have kept looking, a thought that clearly failed to occur to her.

  Twenty-Six

  AT THE START OF AUGUST, Charlotte decides to stay with the revival that's losing money but pull out of the Isaac Rebinsehn play. She feels terrible, since this is the first time she won't play a critical role in bringing his work to Broadway. However, Isaac has already caused one director to quit and the actors he wants are, in Charlotte's view, all wrong.

  "Ever since that monster-hit in London, Isaac's abandoned the concept of a group effort," Charlotte says. "The Brits ruined him."

  Although her accountant calls it misguided loyalty, Charlotte insists on lining up money people (called angels) to replace the amount she's pulling out. As for the rest of her job—doing everything that matters other than investing the money—she says her partners can find someone else to do all of the work for all of the blame.

  "I feel old," she tells me. "It used to be I stayed ahead of change much better than this."

  Eamon's father, who still goes to his office for two or three hours in the mornings, calls her, trying to broker a peace.

  "Listen, Theodore," I hear her say. "You're too late for that."

  There are other projects in the pipeline, and the phone never shuts up. Underneath the din, though, one can sense Charlotte's quiet gloom. It's clear that one huge drawback of having work that matters to you is that it can break your heart as easily as a great love gone wrong.

  On the day of Eamon's dinner party, I get a letter in a blue airmail envelope. It's not from my mother, who writes every week, but an address in London.

  Dear Leila (if I may), Thank you for your note, which was just now forwarded to me at my flat here. I will be back at Hopkins by mid-October and would be more than happy to meet with you at any time thereafter. You are certainly welcome at my home or office, but if necessary I could come to the city. Rebecca's death came as a shock and I cannot even begin to fathom your loss. Please know that my thoughts are with you and Clare during this time. I look forward to meeting you upon my return. Cordially, Adrien.

  At the bottom of the page, he has written his e-mail address, his two numbers in Baltimore, and a number in London, with the words rarely in next to it.

  I was right, I think. He knows Rebecca's death has been a loss. Adrien Tilden is a sign I saw because I wanted to, but that doesn't mean he isn't also a real one. And yet I have to face the fact that if he knew anything, he'd have written it. Or phoned. But maybe it's a small thing he isn't sure caused it, but that I'll recognize as being ... what?

  I'm really grasping here and read the note again. He knows Clare's name. Is that proof that he knew Rebecca even better than I'd hoped? I reach for the phone and dial Clare's office.

  "Honey, knowing who I am doesn't mean much," she says after I've read her the note.

  "Are you sure?" I ask. Only those who know me well have heard my sisters' names.

  "There are people I've worked with in Germany and all over Budapest who know I had a sister named Rebecca," Clare says. "I don't think any of them know me. Not in an important way."

  "I just can't believe Rebecca didn't talk to someone," I say. "It's not natural to make that big of a plan all alone."

  "I know," Clare says. "I wish she hadn't."

  This, as usual, is pointless.

  "I have to go," I say. "And pour myself into that dress of yours."

  Said dress is dark blue with thin shoulder straps and tiny pearl buttons along the sides. It is, my sister has assured me, casual but elegant. Even after taking it to the tailor for letting out, it looks like it has been sewn onto my body. There's just so much of me.

  My legs and arms are all endlessly long, and if I could I'd tape my breasts down. I'm not super skinny the way anyone this tall should be, so I have to settle for good enough. There's room for improvement in every female body, and as my mother never tires of saying, if I didn't need a bra I'd be unhappy about that.

  I am, at least, having a good hair day.

  Eamon said to come at around seven, but of course the number nine sits on the track at Forty-second Street for almost twenty minutes, waiting for trains ahead to clear. On top of that, when I get out at Twenty-third, I cross the street instead of heading south. Not dyslexia this time, but habit. Ben lives in the direction I'm going.

  I have to do something about Ben. If Da thinks I deserve kindness from someone I love, then it stands to reason that anyone who loves me deserves the same. I haven't been unkind to Ben, at least not yet. Although if he liked someone the way I like Eamon, the word kind might not rush to mind. Even if the girl he liked didn't like him back.

  I turn around and head west toward Mr. Greyhalle's apartment. The mirror in the lobby tells me that the detour I took in sticky August-in-the-city air has not done wonders for my appearance. My good hair is gone and now my dress looks soggy.

  Deep breath.

  I'm the last to arrive, but no one seems to mind. Mr. Greyhalle is as nice as possible, as Eamon said he would be. He pretty much does everything Eamon told me he would, including saying that I'm far too lovely to waste any time with his son, who has no taste.

  "Thank you, Dad," Eamon says. "Leila, what would you like to drink?"

  "Freezing cold water," I say, which makes a woman sitting over by the window laugh.

  She has short dark hair and is wearing big, dramatic jewelry. She's striking more than pretty.

  "He's actually a wonderful boy," Mr. Greyhalle says when Eamon hands me a glass full of ice water. "I'd be lo
st without him."

  That's unexpected, since Eamon usually makes his father sound like someone he can never please.

  I get introduced to everyone and only remember two names. The striking woman is named Brett Collodi. And then there's Isaac Rebinsehn himself, which is oddly thrilling. Even if he's broken Charlotte's heart and written plays I don't love, he has won two Tonys. More than that, he has made a whole life out of providing the play itself. Without it none of the other work can happen. I shake his hand and say how much I enjoyed his last play.

  "And what did you enjoy about such a dreary night?"

  I remember now—too late—that as Da was explaining what the play was about, he mentioned that it was one of Rebinsehn's few critical failures. We'd gotten tickets at the last minute because it was about to close.

  "Well, I thought you really captured the friction between privilege and oppression," I say, dredging up one of my father's comments.

  It works. For a second I think Isaac Rebinsehn is going to kiss me, but he just puts his hands on either side of my face, saying, "Delightful! Where did they find you?"

  "Be careful, Isaac," Mr. Greyhalle says. "She works for Charlotte."

  Isaac drops his hands and steps back like I'm made of toxic waste.

  "Leila, come sit here," Brett Collodi says, moving over on the couch. "Let the old men go off and talk business."

  "Ouch," Mr. Greyhalle says to her, and to Eamon, "I told you not to invite her."

  "You know you love me," Brett says, smiling at him.

  As I pass Eamon I hold my empty glass up and mouth the words More, please.

  "I've been ordered to tell you how I love working in film," Brett says to me. "But I'd much rather find out what you're interested in. Then I'll brainwash you."

  She has the warmest laugh and an intense gaze that mixes a welcoming air with sharp calculation. She is, I decide, Clare without formality. I tell her that plays have always unfolded easily for me and given up their secrets and, odd as it sounds, invited me to help make them real.

  "I never read a play without seeing how it would be in a theater," I say. "I do like movies, of course, but all the work is done for you."

  "How about when you see a play?" Brett asks, smiling thanks to Eamon, who has refilled her wineglass and brought me an entire pitcher of water.

  "I told you movies," Eamon says. "She's already well informed about theater."

  "Go away," Brett says. "You have people to feed."

  "Is it too late to ask you not to be quite so bossy?" he asks.

  She laughs, saying, "It was too late years ago."

  "Brett," he says. "Be good."

  "Aren't I always?"

  And while they are having this lovely, private moment, I consider the water pitcher with its ice and slices of lemon. I want more than anything to dump it over my head. Or hers. His. Perhaps theirs? I'm not feeling too picky.

  I look over at two men and another woman who were described as friends of Eamon's from his last TV show. I don't have to sit here. I could go and ask them all about aliens. As Eamon returns to the kitchen, Brett puts her hand on my wrist.

  "We haven't been together for years," she says. "But he can still make me do anything. So be warned. That's what will happen."

  I just look at her. If I need a warning, I probably won't take it from someone I hardly know.

  "I think the whole TV and film thing is his ploy to get you to California," Brett says. "I figure you have to go to college somewhere, and with Charlotte Strom on your résumé you could easily get work that helps you decide if film interests you."

  She goes on in this vein for a while as we all move into the dining room, where Mr. Greyhalle holds out both my chair and Brett's. She is forgiven, I guess, for calling him old. Once everyone starts eating, separate conversations break out around the table. Brett is telling me how it's true that in a film all the work is done for the audience.

  "But that's the magic," she says. "That's why people will always love film."

  I can't tell if I like or hate the way she uses the word film as if every movie ever made was a work of art.

  "If you become part of the work which a film demands," Brett says, "then you are the magic."

  From underneath her avalanche of information, I pull out what seems most relevant to me.

  "Why would he want to get me to California?" I ask, my voice suitably low since Eamon is seated across the table from us.

  Brett, who had been leaning in a little too close, pulls back a little before leaning in again to say, "God, he's a secretive bastard, isn't he?"

  "Not really," I say. "He's been pretty clear with me."

  "I wonder," she says.

  "Well, I don't," I say, wishing I hadn't thought so many nice things about her at the start of the evening.

  Under the guise of really being curious about film, I manage to get her talking about her most recent job. It was, she says, a brutal shoot in Texas. God help her, Texas. The film's being edited now and maybe that will save it. It's the last time she works with that director. Couldn't keep to a schedule or a budget.

  When she is quite done, I listen in on some of the other conversations. Isaac Rebinsehn is saying unpleasant things about Charlotte in response to a question about how the new play is going. I wonder if I should point out that my boss has left him in very good financial shape, which is probably more than he deserves.

  "He's gotten so out of control," Brett says to me in a whisper. "But look, even Theodore knows what really happened, so don't stress yourself out."

  So I think I like her, but I'm in no hurry to decide.

  The talk soon turns to a singer whom even I've seen on television. She's been around for a few years, is hyper-cute, and has one of those ooohh ooohh love songs playing on the radio. The woman next to Eamon, whom he introduced as his boss at the cable network, is going on and on about how this singer is destroying the precious little that is left of American culture. Mr. Greyhalle laughs, and the man seated next to him asks if American culture is really so fragile. The woman answers by saying, almost rudely, that it's self-explanatory.

  The only self-explanatory thing about this singer is her ability to annoy. That's hardly enough power to destroy American culture.

  And now everyone at the table is looking at me. I have, from some mixture of irritation and nerves, actually said this aloud. It would appear that I am the one who has spoken rudely. Oh, joy. I take a sip of water and try explaining.

  "What I mean is, whenever I hear her, I think, Please, God, no, don't let that song get stuck in my head."

  "Leila's right," Eamon says. "The song does make >> you pray.

  "Of course," the woman says. "And if I were as cute as Leila is, you'd agree with me."

  "Elizabeth," Eamon says, his voice kinder than she deserves. "That's not true."

  I keep in mind that this woman is his boss and that there's a limit to what he can say.

  "What's true is you'll never be as cute," Brett says, in a clear attempt to lighten the charged, heavy air.

  "Never be as young, you mean," Elizabeth says.

  Underneath her words is the implication that there is something wrong with me for being young. And also something seriously wrong with Eamon for being in any way associated with me. In fact, Elizabeth has described me exactly the way she described the singer with the ooohh ooohh love song. She has dismissed us both as young and cute. It's hard not to think that this had been her intention from the start. Even before I said anything.

  Isaac, with the ease of someone with years of experience in talking about himself, begins a long rambling speech about when he was young. Within minutes, I'm safely out of Elizabeth's firing range. I also have a splitting headache, and for the first time in my life pass up dessert.

  Brett and one of the men switch places. He's the production designer Eamon thought I should meet. And he seems nice and interesting and I promise myself to rent DVDs of the movies he's mentioning, but right at this moment I couldn't
care less about my future. I look around the table and catch Eamon looking at me. What am I doing here? What does he want?

  ***

  It's in the cab ride home that I remember the only thing about today which has been important. What matters is not why Brett thinks Eamon cares where I go to college. Or why Elizabeth thinks I'm stupid but is only willing to say young and cute. It doesn't even matter that Isaac Rebinsehn is even more disappointing in person than in Charlotte's descriptions.

  What matters about tonight is that Adrien Tilden wrote me. Although I do wonder about the wisdom of wanting to uncover my dead sister's secrets more than wanting to understand the people around me. Right now Eamon and his friends seems impossible to decipher. It's easier to focus on Rebecca.

  I squash my doubts about the vague note from London and, as the city flashes by too quickly to see clearly, decide that by October I'll have answers.

  Twenty-seven

  I WAKE UP THE NEXT MORNING with red welts along the inside of my arms and at the base of my neck. They're a little itchy and I think maybe a spider has bitten me, but Clare takes one look and says,

  "Stress hives. I used to get them all the time. I thought you said everything went well last night."

  "It did," I say.

  She finds some antihistamines in her briefcase and tells me to take a cold shower. And not to get too hot (good luck on the subway) or wear anything tight.

  "Did you eat anything unusual last night?" she asks. "Shellfish? Strawberries?"

  "No," I say. "It was lamb. With rice and salad."

  "You'll be okay," she says, and kisses the top of my head before heading out for an early conference call.

  Raphael gives me some money before he and I leave.

  "Maybe take a cab today," he says.