Grandma shuffled the cards with a professional flair. I thought she probably would have loved Vegas. I could just see her with a little green visor telling the dealer, “Hit me.” She laid out the cards row after row and studied them.
“You’re going to die soon,” she announced to me.
Walker reared back at the death pronouncement, but I just pulled out a chair and sat down.
“No, I’m not, Grandma. You say that every time,” I said.
“Don’t anger the spirits. I just tell you what they tell me.” Grandma was getting huffy. She studied the cards again. “You may be right, though. It might not be you. But somebody close to you is definitely a goner. See, the ace of spades is upside down between the jack of diamonds and the queen of hearts, and the queen of diamonds is just below the ace. It’s as clear as day.” She tapped the cards with her index finger.
“Um, Jeannie? Do you want to go to the Whippi Dip for an ice cream? Or out to Lake Michigan or something?” Walker stood up, clearly ready to leave the nut house I call home.
“I can’t. I have to stay here with Grandma. Why don’t you just hang around with us? We can watch TV or something.”
Walker rolled his eyes upward behind Grandma’s back and shook his head. He came over and kissed the top of my head. I trailed after him out the back door and walked him to his car. “Do you really have to go? Come on, it won’t be that bad. I just have to be here in case something happens.”
“Jeannie, something always happens in this family.”
“We prefer to think of it as excitement,” I said stiffly.
“I’m sure your grandmother is very nice, but I don’t want to stay inside and watch As the World Turns on a beautiful day. Or any other day for that matter. I’m gonna go sailing with John.” Walker got into his Pinto and pulled away. He stuck his hand out the window and waved. I waved after him and turned to go back into the house. I broke into a jog when I heard the phone ringing.
I bumped through the back door and grabbed the phone in the hall.
“Hello,” I gasped.
“Jeannie?”
“Yeah, hi, Sammie,” I answered.
“Have you or Mom talked to Lucy lately?”
“I talked to her about two weeks ago and I think Mom talked to her last Sunday. Why?” I fiddled with the tangled-up cord of the wall phone.
“I think something’s wrong with her. She called me today and sounded really down. She wouldn’t say what was going on, but she definitely sounded not so good.”
I stretched the cord as far as it would go so I could look into the kitchen to make sure Grandma was all right. I couldn’t see her. I went the other way into the dining room, but couldn’t see her there either.
“Speaking of something wrong,” I said, “have you talked to Evan? He seems a little off lately. His show just doesn’t have that spark right now.”
“People get creative blocks. Nothing to get worried about,” Sammie said. “Anyway. Lucy. She did say that something was up with her and Chuck. I think she’s going to try and come home soon.”
I walked back to the kitchen as Grandma wandered back into view. I eyed her warily. She was removing her panties, which was the last stitch she had on.
“Sammie? I really have to go.” Grandma’s droopy rear end was facing me now. She walked over to the sliding glass door and pressed her body against it. I wondered how that looked from the other side and winced.
“Anyway, I wanted to give you guys a heads-up,” Sammie said.
“Look, Sammie, Grandma is buck naked here in the kitchen and I have to go deal with that.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Sammie said calmly. “Just let Mom and Dad know I called.”
I hung up the phone and ran to Grandma, picking up her clothes from the floor as I went. “Grandma? Grandma? Are you okay? Why did you take off your clothes?”
“It’s hot. The window is nice and cool.”
I held her housecoat open for her but she darted away. I barely managed to stop her from opening the front door. “Grandma, no! You have to put your clothes on.” I tried to wrestle one of her arms into the sleeve but didn’t get very far. She had become a squirmy two-year-old who doesn’t want to put on her shirt. She wiggled away and then stiffened her body so that I couldn’t get the housecoat on her.
Thankfully, Mom arrived. She dropped her bag of groceries on the table and ran over. Grandma suddenly became compliant and allowed Mom to dress her. Darting her eyes over at me, Grandma whispered to Mom, “There’s something wrong with that girl. She told me to take off all my clothes.”
I went back into the hall and took the phone off the hook. Holding it by its cord, I let the receiver dangle. It began to spin, untangling its knotted cord. I watched it spin and spin until finally one thing in my life was all straightened out.
Chapter Seventeen
April 2006
I think you need to add emotion to the trailer,” pronounced the young starlet of TechnoCat. She was picking at a salad that was about six hours old and was sitting in a plastic takeout box on her lap. Stripe, the director, nodded his agreement from his position next to her on the leather couch. He had obviously prepped her on what to say.
“Esperanza, don’t you think that scene where your character’s mother dies of cancer would be good?” Stripe asked her solemnly.
“Oh, yes! That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Esperanza gazed up at her ticket to the big time, her current lover, Stripe. “Thinking”? I rolled my eyes. This girl had ADD AIR HERE imprinted on her forehead. She had come to Hollywood with the name Susan Hammersmith but changed it to Esperanza Steele.
We were sitting in an edit bay working on the trailer. The director, star, and producers had all generously offered to come and “help” the editor and me. What could have been accomplished in a few hours had now become a marathon. The editor looked ready to drop but gamely plugged away. He wouldn’t even have one change done before the group would decide it wouldn’t work and request a different change. We were now on version 42. Guiltily I looked at my watch. It was 12:30 on a Saturday night. We still weren’t getting anywhere.
“I’ll see Katsu’s trailer in the morning.” Stripe yawned. “If he didn’t nail it, then we’re going to have to do a special shoot to create it from scratch.”
I kept a polite smile on my face. Katsu’s trailer? He was now working on TechnoCat too? This was news to me. As casually as I could manage I asked when Katsu had started working on the movie trailer.
“Oh, he came to me about two weeks ago.” Stripe stretched and yawned again. “Said he had some great ideas about how to approach Cat’s mother’s cancer. I gave him the feature film and told him to run with it.”
“Does Rachael know about this?” I was amazed at how nonchalant I managed to sound.
“Beats me.”
Rachael had to know about it, I thought. An executive just couldn’t wander off and spend money without someone’s approval. Deflated and defeated, I sagged into the leather couch. After another hour, the director said we should all go home and “sleep on it.” He made a point of thanking the editor but not me.
When I straggled into Aidan’s bed, he flopped an arm across me and mumbled, “Rough night?” Then he fell asleep again. I felt the familiar tingling of tension through my body. Sleep wasn’t going to come. I picked up my latest mystery paperback, turned on the itty-bitty night light, and read until my eyes finally started to close.
The first thing I did when I got up the next morning was to check on the opening weekend box office grosses for Sheer Panic. Film studios fax them to the senior executives at their houses over the weekend. Mine would be sent to my house but Aidan was on the fax list from Warner Bros. Why most studios still used fax machines rather than email in this day and age was beyond me.
The movie had opened big—far bigger than research tracking would have indicated. This was a major victory for Oxford Pictures, not to mention that Ms. F.U. had to be over the moon. This was her
biggest opening weekend since 1993. Glancing at my watch I saw it was only 7:15. It was still a bit early for Rachael to call me and other marketing people with the traditional congratulations. But the earlier the congratulatory phone call, the bigger the hit.
I had tried every trick in the book over the past two weeks with Sheer Panic, because it was really a bad movie that had really cost a lot of money to make. The studio had been looking to the advertising team to save it. When the bad reviews started rolling in, we carefully culled through the almost acceptable ones. They were from places like the Sun City Sentinel in Fairbanks, Alaska. So we did TV spots that said, in really big type, “Sensational!” and put the attribution for the Sentinel in tiny type.
My cell phone rang at 7:45. Rachael gushed on for a while about my great work.
But my happiness at the success was squelched almost immediately when Rachael said, “Jeannie, you’ve done an amazing job on this movie.” I sensed a but was coming and I wasn’t wrong. “But I spoke to Fiona Underwood this morning. While she appreciates your work, she would feel more comfortable working with Katsu on her next film.”
Stunned, I didn’t respond. I backed up until I felt the couch behind my knees and sat down heavily. Fiona—also known as Ms. F.U.—didn’t want me? I had slaved for that woman’s film! Not to mention that it wasn’t Ms. F.U.’s call to remove me. It was up to Rachael to decide who worked on what movie.
Not sure of my voice, I cleared my throat. “I’ve already hired an ad agency to get started on that film.”
“Yes, so I’ll expect you to turn over all materials to Katsu and give him a full briefing,” Rachael responded abruptly. She wasn’t the touchy-feely type, and I knew she just wanted to get off the phone.
“Okay,” I said faintly. As I was pressing END on the cell phone I heard her say, “Again, Jeannie, really great job.”
With my head in my hands I contemplated crying. Tears had never come easily to me, so while I choked out a few tortured gasps, my face remained dry. Aidan patted my back and kept asking me what was wrong. Without responding I crossed the living room, retying my bathrobe as I went. In the hallway I opened the overflowing linen closet and began pulling every single damn thing out. Methodically I began separating items to be refolded, washed, or thrown away. Piles of bed sheets, blankets, and towels grew around me. Aidan spent a while standing several feet away, sipping a cup of coffee and watching me.
An hour and a half later, I was finished. The closet was immaculate and sheets hummed in the dryer. Aidan had disappeared out into the garden long ago. I showered quickly and got dressed. In the kitchen I made some toast, then poured Aidan and myself some coffee and headed outside to find him.
He was watering the hillside that sloped away from his house. Seeing me, he shut off the hose and we sat at the small wrought iron café table on the patio. A yellow umbrella protected us from the strong sun. Aidan sipped his coffee as I told him of the latest treachery from Katsu. He didn’t say anything for quite a while. When he did, it wasn’t what I had expected.
“Jeannie, you’ve become obsessed. It’s not healthy. You just opened a movie to big numbers, and all you can do is talk about Katsu.”
“Don’t you see?” I practically wailed. “It doesn’t matter that I did a great job. Katsu and Rachael are playing some game and I don’t get what it is.”
“Yes, something is going on and most likely there is a bigger picture here. And we, two very smart film industry people, have not been able to figure out what that is. So it seems you have two choices: You can continue to have insomnia and drive yourself completely insane. Or you can just forget about it.” Aidan looked at me steadily across the table.
I stared back at him. “This is my job we’re talking about here. How exactly am I supposed to just forget about what Katsu is up to?” I beat a piece of toast into submission with a knife and a pat of butter.
“Be Zen, because what’s going to happen is going to happen. You can’t do anything about it. If you push back too hard instead of just going with the flow, you might guarantee losing your job. Look, maybe you’ll have this job six months from now and maybe you won’t. There’s no doubt Katsu will keep trying to get under your skin. But what your quality of life is during those six months is up to you.”
Frustrated, I pushed back from the table and walked out to the garden. Aidan didn’t understand. I had worked too hard to just be “Zen” about the politics at work. Aidan quietly followed me out and began watering the rose garden. I sat down on a dry patch of grass and idly tried to pick weeds. I didn’t really know which ones were weeds though, so I stopped. The nasty ones always looked so much like the good ones.
“Jeannie?”
“Huh?” I turned to Aidan. His back was to me while he swung the hose from side to side.
“We haven’t talked about, you know, in quite a while.”
“No, I guess not.”
“Have you thought about it?”
I looked down at my coffee and dug my toes into the grass. He hadn’t brought up this subject in a while and I was hoping he had forgotten about it.
“This isn’t really a great time to talk about it.”
Aidan just looked at me.
“You’ve seen the hours I’ve been working, Aidan. It’s worse now than ever. How can we get married? It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Why do you never think that it’s not fair to you?” I saw his back rise and fall as he sighed. “Jeannie, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Your quality of life sucks. You can’t keep putting your personal life on hold for your work. You keep saying that we can’t get married because of your family and your work and whatever else you can think of. I think that’s just a convenient way to avoid what’s really going on.”
I looked down at my coffee again. How could I explain that at least work had always been there for me? So had my family in their own crazy way. Men, as a rule, hadn’t. “Aidan, I love you. I can’t live without you. I know you want to get married, but isn’t simply being together enough for right now?”
Aidan watered the lemon tree without looking at me. “What if it’s not, Jeannie? You’re almost forty years old. If we want a family, then we don’t have a lot of time to dwell on this. Have you ever considered what your life would be like without me?”
The truth was, I hadn’t. As I sat there in the Southern California sun, I was ashamed of myself. Why had I been so inconsiderate of his feelings? Why had I blotted out the fact that Aidan, feeling rejected by me, might turn to a willing Montana? Still, the marriage proposal was a question I just couldn’t bring myself to answer right now. My head felt too jumbled up.
I walked over to Aidan and rubbed his back. “I love you and, yes, I would love to marry you.” Aidan turned, his face lit up. I continued, “But you still don’t know everything about my family. So you can’t make an informed decision. Walker was constantly embarrassed by my family. Other people were hurt in other ways by coming into contact with my family. I couldn’t bear it if you felt the same way. Since we have a quiet morning, how about I continue the story?” Aidan turned abruptly and went into the house and I held my breath, thinking he had left in anger. But he reappeared with the coffee pot and filled up my mug.
“Okay, go.”
Chapter Eighteen
July 1986
It wasn’t until later that night that I remembered to tell Mom and Dad about Sammie’s phone call about Lucy.
“Lucy is coming home? Before her graduation at the language school?” Mom fretted. “Something has to be wrong.” Dad stroked her head as she riffled through her address book for Lucy’s phone number. That address book was a veritable log of our lives. As we moved from dorms to apartments to houses, the old address above would be crossed out and the new one added. I looked over Mom’s shoulder at Lucy’s list: her dorm at Western Michigan University, her barracks at Fort Dix, her brief sojourn at Fort Huachuca, and now her barracks at the Defense Language Institute. Mom dialed the number but d
idn’t reach Lucy. The person who answered explained that this phone number was for a pay phone in the barracks hallway. She had no idea who Lucy was and, no, she wasn’t going to go look.
“Why doesn’t Lucy ever call us about stuff?” I complained. “It’s like she’s sneaking up on us all the time.”
“Don’t talk about your sister that way.” Mom sighed. “All of you are the same way. If something is really wrong, you don’t talk about it until you get home. Especially you, Jeannie. When you’re away at college and I don’t hear from you for a few weeks, I know you’re struggling with something.”
That was true. If something was bothering me I tended to retreat from my family. It was easier to avoid thinking about a problem that way. Mom had an uncanny knack for sensing your mood and prodding the problem out of you. Many times she had come up to my bedroom at night when I was just drifting off. Mindless of the sleeping lump that was one of my sisters next to me, she would sit on the side of the bed. “You’ll feel better if you shake this thing out” was what she always said. Like our problems were a pile of crumpled-up laundry that just needed a good airing.
Most of the time she was right. She also knew that when any one of us was being particularly bratty or bitchy it was because something was eating at us. That’s why she put so much stock in her wooden sign, PEOPLE NEED LOVING THE MOST WHEN THEY DESERVE IT THE LEAST. She repeated this mantra constantly during all the years of our arguing over the phone, throwing the nearest object at one another, and occasionally flat-out rolling-on-the-ground fighting. We never punched each other. We were far too girly for that. But we did indulge in a fair amount of hair pulling and scratching and waving our hands in front of each other’s faces like we just might land a slap. Evan was immune to most of the arguments because he was older, because he was our brother and we loved him to distraction, and also because he didn’t care about most of the things we fought about.
Twenty years later, my siblings and I are at the point where we know each other’s buttons and don’t bother to push them. Or, if one of us inadvertently does set another one off, the other party will eventually sigh and just say, “I know, I’m a pain in the ass on that front.” Over the years, we’ve worn the rough edges off each other so that we are no longer like jagged shards of metal waiting to cut, but rather like smooth stones that rub and tumble against one another, polishing each of us to a high shine.
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