“Not really,” I tell her. “I mean, what am I going to do up there?”
“What do you mean, what are you going to do? Work. Go back to your life. Faulkner’s a pipe dream. You would go crazy there.”
“Maybe not. Peace and quiet. Cheap rent.”
“All our real equipment’s back in New York. We made do here, but the stuff we’re going to need for the brunt of the work is up there.”
I lean my head against the window. “I just can’t do it anymore,” I tell her. “It’s expensive, it’s cold as fuck, and I can’t make anything decent up there. It seems like everyone around me is making amazing shit and I’m just treading water. I know that’s not really the way it is. But still.”
“Dude, everyone’s a little marketer up there. Don’t let it get to you.”
“It still feels awful. I just keep imagining a roomful of Brecky Tollivers who keep telling me where they did their undergrad and won’t stop tweeting to take a piss. I’m goddamned tired of feeling on the outside of everything.” I’m just complaining now. But Mel keeps nodding.
“Teddy hates me.” I look to her. “Right? Hates me.”
She hesitates. It was Ryan and Tatum who fetched my belongings from Teddy’s apartment. I could hear Mel outside on her cell talking to them as we packed up to leave. There were lots of shut up dudes and right right rights. Mel nodding with her bleakest shit happens face. Apparently they didn’t know the boy in the clips was modeled on Teddy—had no idea, in fact, what had sparked our argument, until Teddy told them.
“He won’t hate you forever,” she says finally.
We pass Frankfort. Mel lights a smoke and flips the bird at a sign for Kentucky Republican headquarters. “You know what I would have done? Tell him right after he shoots his load. All those sleep endorphins swimming through his system. He would have been cool with anything then.” She glances at me. “Joke, Kisses.”
“It’s my fault. My mess,” I say. “The blame’s on me.”
“You were not making this to hurt him or anyone else. I’m sure he knows that, deep down. It’s just.” She shrugs. “His dad’s a sore spot with him, you know? He struggles with it. You can tell. He saw all that stuff play out on a screen and freaked. He’s not used to this kind of thing.”
“Who is used to this kind of thing?”
She shrugs. “Artists and sociopaths? I dunno.” She packs a smoke thoughtfully on the steering wheel. “Maybe I’m a little surprised that you never brought it up, but that’s irrelevant. You weren’t obligated to discuss this with him in the first place. We sought him out to see where and who he was now. That’s all. I’m sorry if he feels offended. I hope he finds closure. And I wish him the best.”
And that’s that. She looks at me.
“I messed up, Mel. This is not something to feel good about.”
“You did not. Think about whatever let you walk away. You didn’t compromise with him. You are committed. Look.” She pushes her finger down on the center console to punctuate. “When you take the things that happen to you, the things that make you who you are, and you use them, you own them. Things aren’t just happening to you anymore. Make this thing because you are compelled to, and because it’s yours. And do it whether or not it suits Teddy ‘Fuck you Mel’ Caudill or anyone else.”
She merges onto the Mountain Parkway amid semis and RAV4s. One more night in Faulkner to pick up our things. Then back north. Another steely January hell in New York. Maybe I can wrap myself up in this thing. Spend a couple more seasons cramped in front of the drawing board, biding my time until my life comes to find me.
—
Mom’s Malibu is the only car parked in front. We find her hunched over the kitchen counter pecking at a laptop, brow creased. A pair of reading glasses perches at the end of her nose on a beaded chain reading NANA up one side and MAMAW down the other. She looks at us, mouth a straight line.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Well.” She pushes herself back from the counter and lights a Doral. “Y’all have a nice time in Louisville?” Two smeared syllables: Looo-vuhl.
“It was okay.”
“Now, how does a weekend turn into near on three months, again?”
“We ended up doing some of the project stuff there.”
“Mmm hmm.” She crimps her mouth like she’s holding in a cough drop.
“I thought you’d be at work,” I say.
“Off today.”
“Oh.”
She leans into the counter and stares at me. Something’s simmering. “Melody,” she says, “I need to talk to Sharon alone for a second. Could you go into the other room, please?”
Melody. Mel looks sidelong at me. “No prob.” She steps out.
I put my bag down, pins and needles in my bad leg. “What’s up.”
She waits a beat, then spins the laptop around with a flourish. It is the wild orange-and-lime banner of Filming Forum. The article: “Nashville Combat Creators’ Next Project: Life of Kisses?”
“I did a Google search,” Mom says. “This popped up first thing when I typed in your name.”