If someone read it to me and I repeated it, I could learn it easily, but I was no one in the business. I was broke, inexperienced, anonymous. One of a few million flowing in and out of the city every year. Casting directors were looking for reasons to disqualify talent so they could narrow down to the winner and move on to the next. Dyslexia made me unemployable.
So when I had auditions, I recorded someone else reading the sides and listened until I had it. Paula did it first, Michael did it when he was in town, and then Paula again. I trusted them to keep it under wraps. And when I got my first full-length feature, I still didn’t tell the director. I wanted to just do the work. Then I’d tell them.
But I got my next picture before shooting had wrapped on the first, and I didn’t want to lose that.
So, there we were.
“And here we are,” I said to my father on the front porch. Almost everyone had left. Cara was with Mom and Susan in the kitchen. Nicole and her cousins were watching TV. Dad sat in the aluminum and blue plaid chair he always sat in, and I was on the swing. Our beers were mostly empty and warm as a hand, but we held them like security blankets. “I’m really good at memorizing. And I can flow with changes on just a few repeats. But fuck if I didn’t lean on Paula. I don’t even know if I have a flight to Thailand. I have forty messages on my phone from the preproduction team, and all I want to do is sit on the porch and drink beer.”
“You’ll figure it out. You were always real smart.”
“Is that why everyone called me retarded?”
A spark and zzt came from the blue bug zapper that hung from the ceiling beam.
“We don’t use that word no more.”
“Never took you for PC, Dad.”
He shrugged and put the bottle to his lips with his three-fingered hand. “Things change. If you don’t get on the train, it just leaves without you.”
“I liked the way things were.”
Zzt. The humidity was cloying, thick, a heavy density against me.
“God doesn’t care what you like, but he will send you what you need to figure it out. Like this girl you brought. She helps you. We can see that. You needed her and God sent her.”
“Yeah.” I tapped my bottle on the edge of the swing.
“And you love her.”
“No. Jesus Christ, Dad.”
“Watch your mouth. That particular train hasn’t left the station.”
“Sorry.” I felt as if I was ten all over again, rolling my first cuss around my mouth before letting it fly. “I was surprised you said it.”
“I know you live different out there. You all have your nannies and staff for your family and handle the career yourself. We always knew Paula wasn’t your future, no matter what she said or didn’t say. You came home one Christmas with her, and all you did was work. But this one.” He jerked his thumb inside. “You love this girl no matter how much you cuss our Lord over it.”
I don’t know what made me think I could hide anything from my parents. These are people who found out I was cutting school even though my grades were no worse whether I went or not. Neither Buddy nor Arnie ratted me out. Mom and Dad knew just because they knew.
“I do, and I have no idea how to make her mine.”
“You could start by telling her you love her.”
“You have no idea how complicated it is.”
He planted his feet wider and leaned back, putting the beer to his belly.
“How complicated could it be?”
“She’d have to stop doing what she loves. So what, right? She’d just . . . what? Take care of Nicole because she’s my daughter? And if it doesn’t work out, what then? Nicole loses her. I lose her. She loses her career. She loses her anonymity. I can’t be with her and protect her at the same time. But I have to be with her. I have to. She’s like glue. She holds everything together.”
He nodded, looking out into the front yard. The crickets were loud, and the bug light zapped more mosquitoes than it had ten minutes before.
“First, you better tell her about the reading problem.”
I shook my head and sipped my beer. “She thinks I’m this really honest guy.”
“Then you better get to it.”
“Yeah. Before we leave for Thailand. Or before I leave.”
“Atta boy.” He tipped his beer to me and we sat in silence, listening to the zzt of sparking mosquitoes.
CHAPTER 56
CARA
Brad got more disconcerted as the next two hours passed. He said he had a fight with Paula and acted like it was nothing. He drank a little, laughed less, hung out with his father on the porch but kept looking into the middle distance as if his mind was back in Los Angeles.
I helped clean up the bottles and dishes. Brad’s mom washed and I dried. Apparently, the dishwasher worked but was still not trustworthy with the good china.
I was just hanging up the house phone with the Disney hotel. They’d confirmed they’d mailed my phone to an Arkansas address for an ungodly amount of money. Erma fiddled with the silverware and asked a question that must have been on her mind.
“Is he a good father?” she asked.
I hadn’t thought about it. I didn’t think of parents as good or bad. They did their best or they didn’t. So I took my time answering.
“I’ve worked with a few dads in the business, and I have to say . . . he’s great.”
She didn’t respond. I hoped she believed me, because when push came to shove, he tried harder than the rest of them, and that mattered. He made plenty of mistakes, but Nicole would grow to see a man who was present for her.
“I had a feeling,” she said warmly.
His parents had set up Susan’s old room for me and Nicole, putting their famous son on the couch for the night. His childhood room was now his mother’s sewing room, and his room as a teen had been in the garage. It was used for storage.
“Honestly,” his mother said, “why would you come back here with that mansion you live in?”
“But that couch is for midgets,” he complained.
“You’re not too big for the floor, young man,” his dad replied with an eyebrow raised. “Unless you want to get one of your fancy staff to make you a reservation over at the Sleepytime Motel on Route 46.”
Brad snapped up a pillow and tossed it on the floor.
“I sleep late, Dad. Don’t step on me in the morning.”
So we settled in. I slept in Nicole’s bed.
“Where’s Daddy?” she whispered in the dark.
“Downstairs.”
“Is he coming? I can’t sleep without him and you. I’ll be scared.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“No! I—”
As if on cue, the door opened and Brad slipped in. I got up on my elbow, adjusting to the hallway light.
“Daddy!” Nicole sat up and turned down the sheets on his side.
“Shush,” he said, getting in fully clothed.
“You’re going to get in trouble,” I said.
“What are they going to do? Ground me?”
We squeezed into the twin bed, as usual. With his daughter curled up against him and the blue light on his face, I knew I hadn’t lied to his mother while drying dishes. We stayed silent for a few minutes, sharing a long pillow, existing in space together, until Nicole’s breathing got slow and regular.
“Is everything all right with Paula?” I asked.
“Yeah. I mean, no.” He paused and took a deep breath. “We’ll figure it out.”