How was I supposed to answer that? I couldn’t even tell if she was insulting me or giving me a shot in the arm for being lucky.
“I wonder, sometimes.” She moved a rock with the tip of her shoe. “Am I just the last thing that you fell into? Get a daughter and find her a mother right after? Perfect. Home run. Brad Sinclair steps in shit again. Rejects his kid. No consequences. Parties like a teenager for years. No consequences. Suddenly a single dad? Easy. Sinclair doesn’t miss a beat. Lies about knowing he had a daughter? What’s going to be the consequence?”
I bristled from her summary of my life. She knew damn well it wasn’t that easy.
“You don’t have to worry about my consequences. You’re not God.”
Her head shot up as if pulled up by shock. She blazed. Even in the Arkansas sun, her anger was the hottest thing for miles.
“No. I’m not. God forgives. I can only stand so much lying. I’m not a saint. I’m a human and so flawed . . .” She looked away for a second. Trying to gather her emotions. I put a hand to her face, and she slapped it away. “I’ve copped to every mistake I ever made, and you just make a show of it. You rejected her. You left her.”
“I was living in a studio in Silver Lake.”
“For how long? A year?”
I was on a trajectory at that point. One low-paying, SAG-waivered critical darling in the can. Shooting another with a major director, and a summer tentpole scheduled. Significant money hadn’t started rolling in and wouldn’t for another year. But my path was lit like a runway.
“I didn’t even remember signing it. I was handed a paper in the middle of a flight.”
“Anything else on the list of excuses?”
And you know what? Fuck her. She was betraying me, right there. Stabbing me in the back with my own decisions.
“You know what, lady? I’m trying my best. I took this on. I didn’t try and get out of it. I’ve had to change my life all around for Nicole, and I’m glad I did. But I don’t need the self-righteous judgment from you. I don’t need to look over my shoulder every second because you might not approve. Here’s the deal. I’m in the paper all the time. I’m a dude. I do dude things. Deal with it. And I didn’t tell anyone I can barely read. That would have ended me before I started. And I’m not admitting it now. I’m not taking that risk. Deal with it. And the last thing you can deal with is that I have a past just like you and I made decisions in the past you’re not gonna like.”
Well, that felt good. Real good. Laid it out right there. I didn’t know what I expected from her after that, but I held on to that good got-shit-off-my-chest feeling because the goodness of it was about to disappear. Nothing I said was deniable. I knew I was right on paper. But life wasn’t on paper. Life was on the side of the road in Arkansas, on the way to Thailand with my daughter and a woman I needed.
“I’m disappointed,” she said, the wind blowing hair over her face. “I’m disappointed in myself for trusting you. I thought you were honest. I don’t even know who you are.”
How could I tell her she did? When we were alone with Nicole in the dark, I was complete. She had to know who I was. She had to see me because I’d opened myself to her. I hadn’t opened up to anyone, and I realized how much I needed her to see that. To know that she stood inside the open door of my heart.
I loved her. I needed her. She couldn’t turn her back on me over this. I wouldn’t allow it.
A minivan came down the highway, slowed. The side door slid open and two girls, no older than twelve, waved and called out, holding up their camera phones.
“Brad Sinclair!”
I waved, but I wanted them to go away. My first reaction was to flip them two birdies, but they were too young. So I turned my back on them and when I faced Cara again, my defenses were up.
“This is what I am,” I said. “I’m not deep. I’m just trying to hold this job together.”
She shook her head ever so subtly.
The minivan driver got the hint and sped away as the girls squealed.
Cara and I?
We were just locked in a wordless battle.
I didn’t know what was on her mind. I couldn’t read past the anger. I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t move. The stillness of our bodies was a lie in my case. My mind was on fire. Should I apologize? Should I say it was a mistake? I could grovel and spend hours dismissing the decision as the worst yet in a series of bad decisions. I could beg and plead for the case of love.
But I wasn’t going to.
I’d done what I had to do, and I didn’t lie about it. I just kind of more or less chose not to think about it.
The cord between us snapped when the car door opened.
“Daddy?” Nicole stood in the dirt with her legs crossed.
“Yeah?”
“I have to pee.”
“Can you make it fifteen minutes?” Cara asked.
“I think so?”
“Let’s roll,” I said, happy to be away from that shitty scene at the side of the road. I had no idea it would get worse. I didn’t even think it was possible.
CHAPTER 68
CARA
Nicole made it. What a kid. The best kind of kid. The kind of kid you met in a bathroom and said good-bye to in a bathroom. The kind of kid you loved face-to-face and had to leave when her father’s assistant sent you screenshots of documents denying he wanted a child. I could have forgiven him. I don’t know how, but maybe if he’d admitted it. He didn’t need to apologize, but pretending those documents didn’t exist and getting self-righteous about them made me want to hit him over the head. I was going to run away instead.
It took me the entire ride to the airport and the seven minutes to the first-class VIP lounge to absorb how angry I was.
I couldn’t handle this relationship.
I couldn’t handle Brad Sinclair. I couldn’t handle his fame or his dishonesty. I couldn’t trust him. Today it was lies about rejecting his daughter. Tomorrow? Who knew? How deep was I going to get before it got to be too much? And how much closer to Nicole would I be by the time I had to leave?
Nicole flushed the toilet herself. She wiggled her pants up with the seriousness of solving the world’s problems. I crouched by her and watched as she moved her shirt out of the way so she could tie the bow on her waistband. She did it slowly so she wouldn’t make any mistakes.
I’d fallen in love with a man and his daughter and it was a disaster.
She looked at me through her hair.
“Should I double knot it?”
“No. I think it’s fine.”
She pulled her shirt down.
“Okay! Let’s go fly high in the sky!” She clapped once and sent one hand far into the atmosphere with a breathy whoosh.
I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her so close I could feel her heartbeat. I held her longer than I should. Until the hiss of the toilet tank stopped and my knees ached. I held her until she wiggled so hard I had to let her go.
“I love you,” I said. “I love you, and I’m always here for you. Please always remember that.”