There had been four sitcom guest parts, and an arc on CSI, and, of course, On the Highlands, but it wasn’t “down payment in Holmby Hills” sort of money. Ben didn’t care. Ben didn’t even think twice. “What’s mine is yours,” he said. “We’re a team,” he said. Which we were, but we still weren’t entirely because he had this big, looming life, and I was still stuck in mine. The best actress at Tisch who just got shot down for the girlfriend part on Two and a Half Men because, my agent tells me, I wasn’t blond enough. (I am not blond at all, in fact.)
My dad had celebrated one year of sobriety in March. Our deal was: as long as he stayed sober, he had a place in our home. Ben didn’t like it; he bristled about the loss of privacy and he worried about my dad relapsing and letting me down, but he lived with it all the same, which I appreciated. Piper flew out to celebrate the one-year anniversary. We went for a hike in the Santa Monica Mountains at dawn, and he hugged me and told me he was proud of me, grateful for sticking with him. He went back to night school to re-earn his accounting certificate, which had lapsed, “something I’ve thought of doing for a long time.” We aren’t fixed, we aren’t even close to perfect, but we are better, we are healing.
Each time we drive south to our therapy sessions, Dr. Wallis, our therapist, reminds me: “Don’t be afraid to let your dad know when you feel like he’s not on your team.”
I do tell him, which is something I’d learned to avoid in my childhood, an avoidance that made me a better actress, and, frankly, freed me from the burden of my past. When I became somebody else, I no longer had a father who was an alcoholic and also negligent. But now, as myself, I am a sieve with my father: I am angry that you used Mom’s death as an excuse to fall off the wagon. I am angry that she was sick and I had to hold the house together. I am angry that I never knew if you’d be sober enough to take us to school or there to pick us up afterward. I am angry.
I am still angry some days. But every once in a while I’ll forget to be mad, and those will be the better days too.
Like when I landed a coveted role in On the Highlands, which took me to Scotland to be directed by Sir Edmund Wolfe and was filled with a cast of British acting royalty. And me. And my dad drove me to the airport because he knew he’d missed so many other chances to take me to choir or practices or just show up. And when he picked me up at the airport upon landing too, because Ben was in San Francisco for a scouting trip, and my dad knew that after a difficult, wet, lonely shoot (surrounded by British acting royalty who didn’t warm to the young American upstart), I could use a friendly face.
Or when I lost the lead in three pilots that my agent all but assured me were locks, and he came home to me eating a peach pie straight from the pan, though he also knew that I was on a strict diet because each role—covert double-agent spy, sexy teacher-by-day-detective-by-night, and NASA engineer who discovers a plot against America—required me to lose at least seven pounds. (“Ten would really be ideal,” my agent said just before my screen test for the NASA role.) Rather than say a word about the nearly eaten entire pie, he spun out the door and returned fifteen minutes later with Entenmann’s doughnuts. Because Entenmann’s had always been my favorite for Sunday morning breakfasts before our household fell apart.
So it’s not that my dad isn’t on my team. And it’s not that Ben isn’t either.
“When I slow down, when I have the time, I want to write something for you, like how we did Romanticah, and how that was perfect.”
“I don’t need you to,” I’ll say, but I’ll crawl atop his lap anyway. “This CSI gig is really fulfilling.”
“Hardy har.” He’ll kiss my nose. “But you are brilliant, and I am brilliant, so let me write something for our brilliance together.” He’ll meet my eyes, see right into me. “It’s OK to let me take care of you.”
My skin will prickle when he says this, because I am so used to solely taking care of myself, but Dr. Wallis tells me I need a team, that we are all a team, so I kiss him and say, “Thank you.” And I believe that Ben will write something great for me, and I hold on to that because he knows me as I know myself, and so of course he can write me the role of a lifetime. He won’t write it because I need him to, and he won’t write it out of obligation; he’ll write it as a testament to how we are whole together.
Still the truth is, no matter what Dr. Wallis says, no matter what Ben says, what I have learned about this town and this industry is that most days you are a team in and of yourself. I don’t have the connections of Ben and Daisy; I don’t have the network that offers ties to prevent a hard landing. I have lost role after role, and true, gotten a few too, but Daisy knew a girl from high school on New York Cops, who set up drinks with the producer, and now Daisy’s a regular. Next year her name will be in the opening credits. And Ben is back and forth to San Francisco working with Eric Johannsen—his old writing buddy from Williams, who happens to be related to the Johannsens, who run JH Films, the hottest independent studio in town—on a new spin on Alcatraz.
I only have me.
So when Daisy e-mails this morning that she’d run into BAFTA winner David Frears’s partner, Franklin, a costumer on New York Cops, at Runyon Canyon, and that he’d mentioned they were headed to the Brentwood Farmers Market later in the day, I scramble into my most flattering yoga gear and click on Monster’s leash. And then I drive directly to Gretna Green Way, finding a parking space less than a quarter mile away (no small miracle). Monster and I loiter by the strawberry stand until I see them.
Variety had reported that David was remaking Pride and Prejudice, and that he was looking for someone experienced but not too well-known whom he could turn into a star.
“I mean, that is pretty much me,” I said to Ben over our morning coffee earlier in the week. “I’m vetted, but not exactly well-known.”
He looked up from his mug and the Reagan biography he was nose-deep into, and said: “Yes, that does sound like you.”
“Wait, you agree that absolutely no one knows who I am?”
His forehead wrinkled. “Oh, I don’t think I heard you correctly. Sorry.” He recalibrated, rewound. “I think you are the town’s undiscovered diamond.” Then he grinned. “Better?”
He ran his hand through his hair, which needed a trim, but he hadn’t found the time for one. He hadn’t been sleeping well, I knew: the buzz on One Day in Dallas (out next month!) was all positive, but even positive buzz meant new hurdles—PR folks who were lining up the awards push, media days that sucked up what little time he already had, less focus on the Alcatraz project, which was gunning for a season-long pickup at HBO, the only place to be in TV. (And even then, Ben remained slightly unconvinced that TV was the right next move, but the lure of the network that aired The Sopranos proved too much.) Of course, it also meant more time away from me.
“I was only saying—they want someone seemingly kind of famous but not so famous it’s distracting. Do you think that’s me? You know I’ve been honing my accent.” It was an insecure, needy question, and in a different lifetime I might have fronted more bravado. But Ben meant that I didn’t have to.
His attention had drifted back toward his book. “Yes?” He rubbed his eyes, confused at the question. Then: “I don’t know?”
“I bet they’re looking at Lily Marple,” I said.
“Lily Marple has nothing on you. Besides, she actually is superfamous.”
My face slackened. “Thanks.”
He laughed, extended a hand across the table to reach mine. “I meant that you are so much better for the part. Lily Marple in Pride and Prejudice? No thanks.”
“You’re just saying that because I hate her for sticking her hands down your pants.”
“I may just be saying that because you hate her for sticking her hands down my pants, but I don’t need any excuse beyond that anyway.” He stood to kiss me, then disappeared into his office with the biography.
At the farmers market, Monster keeps trying to eat the strawberries off the table, and the vendor ba
rks: “No dogs allowed! Can’t you read the signs?” So I buy three pints from her and plop on the sidewalk, feeding them to Monster from the palm of my hand, which I surely regret later when he poops them all over our backyard. I’ll pick them up before the gardener comes on Tuesday, though Ben tells me to leave it, but I can’t fathom the thought of paying the gardener to pick up our dog’s shit.
The vendor keeps staring, and I wonder, fleetingly, if she recognizes me from something I’ve done, maybe The O.C., maybe CSI?
“These are really delicious,” I say to her. She cocks an eyebrow and turns toward other customers. Monster pants happily, his tail beating against my back, his drool spilling onto my yoga capris, when I see David and Franklin strolling into the top of the market. They appear to be midargument—David’s face is a wash of downward-pointing lines and Franklin’s hands are fluttering—and I start, then stop, then start toward them.
“Franklin, Franklin!” I wave, and skitter up to him.
His angry face turns surprised, and he pastes on a grin.
“Doll! Tatum!” He grasps both my shoulders and double-kisses me. David chews on his lip and stares at the ground, saying nothing. Franklin rolls his eyes. “Don’t be rude,” he says to him. “Don’t be pissy because you lost the argument.”
“I did not . . .” David starts, then huffs. “I did not lose the argument. You are wrong, and you just can’t accept that.” At this exact moment, Monster chooses to jump atop David’s chest and run his strawberry-covered tongue across his cheeks.
“Monster! Monster, stop, off!” I yank his leash, and Monster reluctantly drops to all four paws, still wagging his tail enthusiastically, as if he hasn’t just physically accosted one of Hollywood’s most beloved directors.
“Tatum Connelly, meet David Frears,” Franklin says. “And Monster.” He claps his palms together. “Oh, you’re the perfect person to resolve this argument.”
“Oh,” I say, “I don’t know that I should get in the middle of an argument.”
“No, listen.” Franklin waves a hand, then scratches behind Monster’s ears absentmindedly. Monster repays him by leaving a large swath of drool across the left leg of his shorts. “David is currently angry with yours truly because one of our dogs pooped on our white living room rug this morning, and he believes that it’s my job to wake up early and let the little shitter out.”
“Oh,” I say. “Yikes.”
“I was in the edit bay until two a.m.,” David snaps. “Of course it’s your job, since you were asleep by ten!”
“I do need my beauty sleep.” Franklin winks.
“Who’s responsible for your dog?” David says to me.
“Uh . . .” Well, technically, I am. That was the pitch when I brought him home two years back. I’ll take care of everything, I promise! I know how busy you are, Ben, and this will be great practice for kids! Not that we were discussing kids, not that I was anywhere near kids, since they’ll wreck my body and my body is fighting a battle against twenty-two-year-olds now, when I’m twenty-nine, nearly thirty. But still, a dog seemed like a good warm-up. Also, he’d keep me company, so I vowed to Ben that I’d do the heavy lifting. The reality of it was that . . . it hadn’t quite worked out that way. I liked to sleep late, so Ben walked him at dawn, and though I did pick up the shit from the backyard, I wasn’t exactly meticulous about enforcing the no-couch rule or not feeding him from the dinner table, which was too tempting not to do, but which admittedly did not foster the best manners from our behemoth animal. Still, I say: “Mostly me, I do most of the work, so yeah, Franklin, not to be a bitch, but I kind of have to take his side. Late-night work means the buck falls to the other person.” Forget that Ben wakes early to deal with Monster regardless of what time he’s gotten home.
Franklin frowns, and David seems to notice me for the first time.
“Exactly! Exactly. And now that rug, which if you recall, we had shipped in from Italy”—he says Italy in three slow, drawn-out syllables—“has a giant brown shit stain right in the middle, and I can’t exactly cover it up with a piece of furniture!” He widens his eyes. “He actually proposed that we just stick a coffee table over it.”
“Like that is the worst suggestion in the world!” Franklin says.
“I mean, I guess . . .” I stutter, trying to recalculate. On the one hand, Franklin is my entry point to David; on the other hand, David is the money grab.
“Look, fine,” Franklin interrupts. “I should have woken up and let him out. OK, are we happy?”
“I’m happy,” David says, though he does not look happy at all.
“Jeeeesus,” Franklin says. “These fucking dogs. They’re basically going to be the death of our marriage.” Then: “They were his idea.”
At this, Monster jumps atop David again, who rather than recoil says, “Ooh, your mama is very smart. She got Franklin to admit that he was wrong.” He purses his lips and kisses Monster on his black, wet nose. I mask my embarrassment with a too-aggressive laugh.
“I’m sorry, Tatum?” David asks, when Monster has finally jumped down and is seated, looking on expectantly. “It’s Tatum, right?”
“She’s Daisy’s best friend,” Franklin says. “You know On the Highlands? She’s in that.”
“Aah, we just watched a rough cut the other day. I knew I knew you from somewhere.”
I haven’t yet seen a rough cut, and my anxiety spikes in the form of an accelerated pulse, a jumbled tongue.
“Oh, gosh, I haven’t yet seen it . . . I hope I was OK . . . I was kind of out of my . . .” I stop. No. Play the part, pull it together, don’t give them something to find fault with. I’ve almost gotten rusty at this, complacent because I am so disarmed with Ben. I refocus. “Anyway, what I mean is: I haven’t seen the rough cut yet, but I’m hearing good things.”
“You should be hearing good things,” David concurs. “It was excellent. You are excellent.”
“Oh, thank you.” I shake my head like it’s nothing. “I did love the shoot, though. I’m completely obsessed with period pieces. It’s amazing to me how the literature holds up even a hundred years later.”
“I just . . . I literally just said the same thing to Franklin, didn’t I?” He turns to Franklin, their skirmish entirely behind them now.
“He did.”
“I’m dying for another one,” I add, then immediately want to retract it. I’ve fallen out of the role I’m playing, and I know better than that. I am better than that. The point here is to be spontaneous, not pushy, and it’s a fine line to walk. Pushy means desperate, and any actress can tell you that desperation can be smelled across the farmers market by a mile, maybe even over the shit-stained white rug that they have to throw out.
The scent goes undetected by David.
“I’m about to do Pride and Prejudice. Early prep work now, shooting next spring. I know, I know, remaking a classic, but I think I can bring something new to it, you know? I wouldn’t have accepted the job if I didn’t think so.”
“You don’t have to justify it to me!” I laugh. “God, who wouldn’t want to try their hand at Austen?”
“An actress who reads!” David claps his hands together. “And whose dog is impossibly adorable and who takes my side in an argument with Franklin. I think I love you, darling.”
“Well.” I grin. “I won’t tell Franklin if you don’t.”
17
BEN
JUNE 2008
It’s raining in Los Angeles, and no one knows what to do about it. People are scattering around, hovering in Whole Foods, tweeting with panicked abandon: It’s raining! It might be the apocalypse!
I’m set to meet Spencer for lunch to discuss my next steps in my career: One Day in Dallas hadn’t blown up like we’d all thought, and for the first time I have to consider strategy; I have to “take a meeting” with my agent to ensure that I don’t, as my dad would say, slide into a wasteland of mediocrity. It’s happened to plenty of other golden boys. It can’t happen to me.
Tatum is in majestic Hawaii while I am here on daddy duty for the next ten days. It’s longer than she wanted to be away from the baby, but she’d been back at work since he was four weeks old, the necessary requirements of capitalizing on Oscar-nomination heat, and thus when production on Shipwreck called for nearly two weeks in Hawaii, she packed her breast pump and was flown first class to the Big Island. She calls on her breaks, asks for me to put Joey on the phone, though he doesn’t seem to understand that his mom’s voice is being beamed in across an ocean, and he usually just wiggles around in his crib. Eventually I put the phone back to my ear and assure her that we’re doing fine. That I am defrosting her frozen breast milk, that the night nurse is cutting his fingernails and minding his diaper rash, that we can survive a week and change without her.
I can. We can. We can survive ten days without her. I don’t want to think of myself as one of those guys whose wife does everything better than he does simply because she has a uterus. That guy was my dad. That guy was my grandfather, who showed up from time to time in a three-piece suit to hand us a hundred-dollar bill and then shooed us out of the room because he didn’t like to hear children playing. I’m fucking capable.
But . . . I’m also completely inadequate. The house is a disaster; I badly need a shower; I’ve eaten stale Cheerios for more than a handful of meals. And also, though I would never say this to Tatum, I’d rather be working. I’m envious that she gets to jet to Hawaii and sleep in a quiet hotel room with a view of the ocean, while I rise to quell whatever Joey is screaming about in his crib and then stare at my laptop for the afternoon, trying to muster inspiration but mostly dawdling back to lackluster plotlines for Alcatraz’s next season—the writers’ room starts back up at summer’s end.
Neither one of us was quite ready for the baby—we’d figured Monster was our biggest responsibility for the foreseeable future—and Joey was an accident (“a happy accident,” we’ve gotten used to saying). I was more panicked than she: I had never quite hit my stride in toeing the line between being brotherly and fatherly to Leo now—sometimes I was too stern, sometimes I was too distracted, sometimes I just didn’t want the responsibility of picking up where our dad had left off. And there were plenty of nights while Tatum was pregnant when I’d wake up damp from sweat, pulse racing, the fragments of a frantic dream reverberating in my consciousness until dawn broke. I’ve been surprised, to be honest, that I’m not worse at parenthood now that he’s here.
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