by Ames, Alex
“Can you go, please?”
“Rick, please!” Louise cried.
“Go!”
Louise gave Rick a long last look. Then she hugged herself, grabbed her stuff, put her glasses back on, and left, the front door clicking silently behind her.
Rick continued to sit until darkness fell, head in his arms.
Louise
Louise rang Hal’s doorbell at around seven in the morning, as she knew that the kids were in prep for the school day. Hal lived in the former house of his parents, a small, well-kept bungalow from the early eighties, painted white, with a neat little front garden. Practical single men seem to have time for chores, Louise thought as she pressed the bell again.
A unkempt Hal opened the door. He made a face. “Uh-oh. Somehow I had imagined our first date differently.” He tried to lighten the mood but failed.
“You’ve had better lines, Hal,” Louise said. “I wanted to speak to the kids, if possible.”
“Yeah, come in. So it didn’t go well with Rick?”
“He hasn’t called?”
Hal shook his head. “Not a word.”
“Should we worry? He was pretty down when I left him last night.”
“I take this as a didn’t-go-well,” Hal said and ushered Louise into the kitchen, which was surprisingly modern, all white and shiny. The United Kids of Flint sat around the counter, Dana precariously balancing on a high chair. All looked at Louise expectantly.
“Louise has been crying,” stated Dana solemnly.
“Yes, I have, sweetie,” Louise said, fighting tears again. These four kids were part of her, and seeing them like this in their unity was breaking her heart. They were judge and jury. She took a deep breath.
“I’ll give you guys some privacy. Don’t worry about the school bus. I’ll take you guys whenever you are done here. This is more important than algebra and Shakespeare.” Hal nodded to Louise and went down the hallway. A second later the shower could be heard.
Agnes spoke up first. “How is Dad?”
“Not good. He took it hard.”
“So it is true? You . . .” Britta glanced at Dana and caught herself in time. “You kissed another man? This actor?”
Louise nodded. “I was unhappy. I felt lonely. I was far from home.”
“That’s it? Unhappy?” Britta snapped at Louise, and her big sister wanted to calm her down but got pushed away. “No, Agnes, let me say it. You were unhappy? By what right are you unhappy? You’ve been part of our family for the last half year! Why can’t Dad make you happy? Why can’t we make you happy?”
Louise closed her eyes, tears rolling down her face.
“I’ve been unhappy for the last three and a half years, ever since Mom died. And even though I kept to myself and tried to sort things out, I stuck with my siblings. And didn’t give up.” Britta looked around the table to her siblings. “Not one of us gave up.”
Louise felt the sting in her heart and slowly turned red. “I guess . . . you are right. I gave up.”
“And you betrayed us!” Britta jumped up and ran away, slamming the guest bedroom door.
The rest of the kids looked at Louise. Charles fingered his glasses, all his genius couldn’t help him in this emotional turmoil; Dana knew that something bad had happened, and Agnes crossed her arms.
“What do you want from us, Louise?” Agnes asked finally. “Forgiveness? Understanding? You won’t find it here.”
“I wanted to say in person before you: I am sorry. You guys have been the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life. I cherished every second with you.”
“And?”
“Your father and I will probably not be together anymore. Maybe he will come around . . .”
Agnes interrupted her. “Don’t count on it. He is as stubborn as I am, and just as unforgiving.”
“You could be right about that.” Louise swallowed. “What I wanted to say was this: Even though Rick and I might no longer be on speaking terms, I would really like to stay in touch with you. See how you are doing, still be a little part of your lives.”
The look in the eyes of the three kids in front of her told her that this was going to be a very steep hill.
twenty-six
Parallel Lives
Louise
Her alarm rang at 5:30, just like any other day before Rick. But this was day one after Rick and the first day of Louise as a single, middle-aged artist. She gave herself the usual mirror inspection and was sure that the Louise staring back at her looked different from the one before Rick. Little lines around the eyes, a different shape to her waist, and a different feel of her upper legs. Had half a year immersed in suburbia already changed her so much? Well, that had been that, it was now back to the old scene.
Not exactly, though, as she had no one to bring her her morning coffee anymore. Arielle and Louise hadn’t yet come to an agreement, as Arielle’s job description was that of a junior agent and not that of a personal assistant. So she tended to do most of the organizing from the office and not around the Louise-sphere. Louise prepared a latte for herself, after a few optimizing attempts with the Nespresso machine and the automatic milk-foamer that heated and whipped the milk into perfect consistency.
At 6:00 the doorbell rang, and Louise let in Simona, who had agreed to start up their daily exercise regimen again.
“Honey, if that is milk foam on your upper lip, I will run your sorry ass up Puerco Canyon Road and back!”
Louise was so glad that some things never changed.
Rick
The first days without Louise were a muted affair. The Flint gang had gotten used to the fact that part of the household had been run by a woman for a few months, even if not as stern or as structured as their mother had done—according to what Charles, Britta, and Agnes could remember anyway. But at least there had been two parents around. And one of them was gone again. The four kids had no idea how to cope with their dad’s broken heart and their own loss of their friend Louise. On top of that, the unresolved Agnes-Dad conflict was looming over everything.
Rick’s mornings started at five now with a half-hour run through the neighborhood or on the beach. The rest was the usual scramble to get everyone going and pointed toward the school bus. Dana was very still the first week; she sensed her father’s heartbreak and the difficulties, understood the concept of tact, but started to cry occasionally without apparent distress. All Rick could do was to hug her tight and kiss her.
The best antidote against heartbreak, in Rick’s definition, was work. He threw all he had into the design and construction of the upper deck. He prepared high-resolution scans of the photos they had of the Vera and went to work again after he had finished up dinner with the kids and had tucked Dana in. He took the short drive over to the yard, as too much reminded him of Louise at home. It was the constant presence of ghosts, sitting on sofas, standing in front of windows, or blocking the dishwasher door. He had had the same experience after Bella died, and he could see Louise in all her casual poses in the house. Sitting at the kitchen counter, reading on the couch, picking up toys in the garden after a day filled with kids, and sleeping under her pillow at night because her head felt cold otherwise.
The shipyard was silent; occasionally a cat or rat or both would scurry under the Vera, which waited patiently and silently and endured the ongoing endless open-heart surgery.
On Wednesday night, Rick felt that he had found the groove of how to set up the exterior and have some sort of basic cabin on the inside. He was in the zone, where creativity and output flowed effortlessly and time had no meaning. A noise caused him to look up. Styler stood in the doorway of the office.
“Man, I could have stolen everything around you,” he said.
“What are you doing here, Styler?” Rick rubbed his face, feeling the hour. A glance at the clock gave him a light shock. “Whoa, one o’clock!”
“Join me for a nightcap beer?” Styler asked.
“Good luck with that at this ho
ur,” Rick saved his work and shut down the computer.
“Follow me, dude, ways and means!”
Together they locked up and went downstairs. Rick was walking over to his car, but Styler pointed in the other direction. “No, I have something here, in case I run dry after an evening on the beach.
“You’re an alcoholic, Styler?”
“Nah, just a comfy, casual guy.” Styler walked to the side of the workshop hangar where the guys had placed some benches that overlooked the harbor channel. He leaned over between two mooring posts and pulled on some strings leading into the water that Rick never would have spotted—which was the purpose, obviously. He hoisted up a six-pack of bottles, broke two loose and lowered the rest back into the water.
“So that is the happy hour spot of the yard?” Rick laughed when Styler handed him a bottle, and they sat down. “Is that healthy?”
“Nah, take your shirt and rub it down, if you don’t trust the water quality.”
“It hasn’t kill you so far,” Rick said and did as suggested.
The two men sat silently side by side.
“I guess you don’t want to talk about your girlfriend troubles?” Styler asked.
“You got that right. Got any of your own?”
“Babe trouble? Got no serious strings attached in this phase of my life.”
“What are you planning to do in your life? You’ve been with us, what, three years now? At minimum wage with not too many ambitions.”
“No ambitions! Surely a crime! I am twenty-five, still sixty years of life ahead. That’s a little early to make commitments, I feel. Or final decisions. Or have ambitions.”
“No existential worries?”
“Not really. I have a working van to take me to work and to the beach, five boards in the back and my neoprene. I have an apartment, cheap, but clean and dry. I am able to live off minimum wage. If I can make it on nine-fifty, I’ll make it anywhere.”
Rick had never seen it that way, but he saw Styler’s point. “And that’s your plan eventually. To make it anywhere?”
“I have ideas. Some more concrete than others. But why hurry?”
“You might have to cash those ideas in if we go Chapter Eleven.”
“See, that is the beauty of my lifestyle. M&M will need to scramble to find adequate replacement jobs in the wooden boat industry. Myself, if push comes to shove, I’ll flip burgers or work the checkout lane without any loss of income.”
Rick and Styler clinked bottles.
“Aren’t you scared to fall sick, without insurance?”
“There I am cheating.” Styler smiled in the dark. “I come from a rich family, and my dad pays for insurance.”
“So there is a fallback plan.”
“But a difficult one. I envy you and your relationship with your kids. I never had that with my parents. Both were much too much ambitious for their only son; we are constantly fighting. It’s gotten better since I left home for college and never returned, but still, I feel it has been a lost relationship since I was ten years old or so.”
Lost relationship, Rick thought. Is that what I am heading for with Agnes? Broken up because I am not able to accept her choices?
“You’ve been to college?”
“See how good you know me? You are aware that we have never had a serious conversation with each other? Don’t get me wrong, your wife died shortly before I came on board, and you were occupied. But see it from my side.”
“You are right, Styler, we never had this. What was your major?” Rick asked.
“Economics. I went to college but didn’t finish. I stopped wasting Dad’s money after sophomore year. Did a bit of traveling through the United States and then ended up with you guys.”
“I remember; you came from the Chicago area.”
“Yeah, my dad is big in the furniture industry. He’ll probably sell the business when he hits sixty in about five years.”
“So that is how much time you have to make amends with him and maybe take over the business yourself?”
“Nah, that train is gone. Both of us know that.”
Styler got up. “Just put the empty bottle under the bench. I’ll cash it in tomorrow. See you later, boss.”
Rick kept sitting, watching the quiet yacht harbor.
Are my trains gone, too? How much time do we have to sort things out, as long as we still can? He thought back to Vera and her long sunset, almost a hundred years old. On the one hand lucky to be still comparable healthy, living in her own house with someone she loved. But on the other hand, having lived her life many years ago. And now waiting for the inevitable end, like the long fade on a music track. A very long fade for you, Flint, if you don’t get your life in order again.
Louise
Louise sat in a preproduction meeting for Five Ways of Solitude. Now that she was back at work without family obligations, they discussed Louise as the lead again. Last week’s plan to give an unknown actress the chance to play the lead, with Louise taking one of the more interesting supporting characters, had been thrown out.
Aaron, the scriptwriter, shook his head and ran his fingers through his thick curly black hair. “My concern is this: the book is set during Sarah’s early twenties, and with all respect, you are not twenty anymore. We could stretch it to a believable mid- to late-twenties, but that’s about it. Midthirties? Phew!”
“I hate to say it, but when you’re right, you’re right,” Louise said.
“Can’t you rewrite it?” Izzy asked. “We are talking about the difference between fifty million at the box office or two hundred million when people see Louise’s name heading the bill.”
“What part of early twenties . . . ?”
Izzy was his usual diplomatic self. “What part of two hundred million didn’t you understand, Aaron? Aren’t you the creative guy here? Make it a midlife-crisis drama instead of a coming-of-age story, for what all I care.”
Aaron rolled his eyes, but the two hundred million argument also registered with him, as he knew that Izzy was right.
“Guys,” Louise stepped in. “Executive decision by the ugly midthirties wretch: Aaron is right. I will play Penny; the lead will be someone fresh and new. Joel has the short list of candidates, and I want test reels in my inbox by end of next week.”
Izzy asked, “You still insist that we blacklist Madge Hardy? Her management had asked repeatedly for a casting chance.”
Louise looked at Izzy “Absolutely not. I didn’t pay four million for the rights to snatch it away from her to give it to her for free. Meeting closed.”
People left the offices and in the elevator ride downstairs, Aaron asked, “Have you heard from Josh Hancock lately?”
“Josh? No, not for a while. He’s on location in Canada, right?”
“I heard that he walked off the set again.”
“Uh-oh.” Louise immediately thought about Rick and the boat project. “He had a mysterious episode during the summer. My then-boyfriend . . . never mind. What have you heard?”
“Nothing else. He’s gone, even his entourage is clueless, I heard. They can cover for two more days by reshuffling scenes, but then it will be decision time. My partner is AD on the set, and she’s tasked to prepare reshoots with a replacement actor. Peter Eckhart might be flown in tomorrow for a talk with the director.”
“Josh, what are you doing?” Louise asked out loud. Should I warn Rick that the shit might hit the fan again? On the other hand, maybe Hal would be the more diplomatic recipient of the info.
Rick
Hal’s mobile phone rang while he was dissecting the first interior designs of the Vera, breaking Rick’s drawings down into a bill of materials to purchase and for detail design. Rick was busy with another client, discussing some design options for a new sloop. The prominent and sexy body of the Vera gave some rich folks in Oxnard ideas about wooden boats. Good, they needed that.
“Fine Wooden Boats! This is Hal.”
“Hi, this is Louise, pretend I am someone
else if he is around.”
“Hm, hey, Mrs. Kellogg, what can I do for you?”
“Mrs. Kellogg?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You might prepare for the worst. Josh went AWOL from his Toronto set yesterday.”
“You mean a repeat from what we experienced summer?” Hal glanced over nervously to Rick, but his buddy was busy.
“Yup.”
“Shoot. Just now that the whole thing starts to take shape. We’ve made such great progress!”
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. How is he?”
“Mrs. Kellogg, I can assure you things have not changed here.”
“That bad?”
Hal whispered. “Let’s put it that way: he has become the most productive member of our team with all the time he pours into his work.”
“If it’s any consolation: like me.”
“I am . . .” Hal stopped. “No, I am keeping out of it.”
“Good luck, guys!”
“We’ll need it.” Hal hung up.
Zuzu’s line went straight to voicemail throughout the day. “I assume this means she is either bombarded with calls from worried business partners or she is on the flight to Belize,” Hal said after the tenth attempt.
Rick sat on his desk, throwing his pencil repeatedly into the air. “Do we squirrel away the money that is still in the account? As a safety precaution?”
