I realize I’ve been drinking a lot lately, but I can’t seem to muster the energy to care. I can write it off to jetlag most of the time, but Audrey knows. We have done about seventeen countries in the last thirty days. At times, I feel like we are getting back to the friendship we used to have before it all became so complicated. I know she wants us to be more again, especially for the baby’s sake. I’m trying.
“I’m done. The initials are designed into the scutes on the shell so you can’t really see them unless you know they’re there,” Nick says, scooting his stool backward. I look down at the creature on my foot. It’s tiny and beautiful. Nick is an artist. It doesn’t make me feel better. But then again, it is more to remind me everyday how easy it can be to take advantage of someone, so that I never do it again. Maybe it’s so that I can focus on providing my son or daughter some sense of honor. Honor that I don’t have.
*
I stand at the railing of my house, looking out over the valley to the Pacific Ocean as the sun sets. A glass of champagne dangles from my fingers. I’m tense but trying to look relaxed. Voices and laughter of mingling sycophants swirl around behind me, every sound another bar on this clichéd cage of mine. I drain the glass and let it slip out of my hand. It satisfies me to see it shatter on the rocky scrag of the hillside below. I’m wallowing. It doesn’t become me.
I mentally prepare, and school my features, getting ready to turn around and become the carefree, successful, and handsome host once again. It has been a tiring evening, the last five minutes the only ones I’ve had to myself. Hopefully, this is one of the last parties for Erath I’ll have to do now that the promotional tour is reaching its end. Endless photo-shoots, interviews, and staged outings with Audrey are finally slowing down.
It was Audrey’s idea to host the party for Andy and some of the studio executives who had first championed the Erath script. It isn’t that I’m not thankful and grateful to these people, but I also know that they depend on me just as much, if not more. Especially now. Inviting them all into my home is too much of an invasion for where my head is.
Audrey wasted no time moving back in here after I pulled the house off the market. I know she needs to show everyone things are fine between us.
I try to stay engaged with her when we are in public, and the effort is exhausting. And I know I have to start trying harder when it’s just the two of us, especially for the baby’s sake.
It helps that I can still pretend it was her public indiscretion that is taking me some time to get over, especially after the tabloids spun my drunken brawl in Savannah as me dealing with my heartbreak. How close they were ... just the wrong girl.
Only Audrey knows the real reason for that incident, and she wastes no time being the perfect, fawning girlfriend. It is nauseating, but I feel sorry for her.
I think of my mother trying to bring me up alone, and I know Audrey is trying her best to repair the damage before the baby comes. I don’t fault her for it. I admire her. It’s a baby. Who wouldn’t do their absolute best to create a perfect environment?
At any moment, I expect Audrey will start the argument that it’s time to make a public announcement. I’m dreading it. I know it’s necessary, but—and I don’t like my mind going there—it will be national and international tabloid news that won’t miss Butler Cove.
“Hey, man.” My agent’s voice accompanies his hand clapping down hard on my back, making me jump.
“Hey, Andy.” I affect a friendly grin; it is what I do best, after all.
“Great party, my man. The latest numbers are in, they’re making an announcement in a moment, come on.”
Andy, dressed in a light grey suit and white shirt open at the collar, highlighting his ruddy complexion, manages to look like a perfect mix of managed stress and competence like he’s just been working his ass off to secure my latest success. Slightly balding, he wears his hair buzzed close to his scalp and stands about a foot shorter than my six-foot-two frame.
“Ja-ack!” Audrey’s voice lilts from behind us. We turn. She is beautiful in a sheer white dress with a small modest slip beneath, her hair flowing in dark waves over a shoulder. For a moment, I’m reminded of a certain white bikini cover-up that didn’t really cover anything up. I flinch under the memory and swallow, and then I lean in for a kiss.
“You look beautiful, and we’re coming,” I say. I take her hand, and the three of us walk inside to hear the latest gross earnings from the movie that has just been released in three eastern European countries. There have been numbers announced after each opening weekend and there will be many more releases, although no more requiring a personal appearance from any cast members, thank God.