On Screen & Off Again

Now Daxon

Now DAXON

“D axon. The hell are you doing here?”

Bob Chase moves aside as I slip past him into the foyer of the home that’s always felt like my entire childhood tucked neatly inside four walls.

Just the smell of it is familiar, comforting, like a hug from arms I didn’t know I’d been missing.

“I’m looking for Wil. Is she here?”

“No, she’s not. I was hoping she was with you.” He studies me. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be on set in one of the Carolinas?”

The breath that comes out of my mouth wavers like a laugh, but it’s more of a tired sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. We are.”

Bob ushers me into the living room.

“Wil okay?” he asks me. His voice goes a little gruffer than I remember it and I realize it’s the sound of a wall rising, a drawbridge retracting. Anything to defend the castle.

“She’s mad,” I say. “She’s really mad. At me.”

Bob’s round, jovial face darkens. “Why?”

We’re seated on opposite couches, a fire crackling in the hearth to my left despite the already warm California morning outside. Does he know what happened back then, why the show ended? They probably would have looped him in. Then again, maybe not. If he did, it was probably something he’d have shared with her, even when their relationship was fracturing.

I take a deep breath, in through my nose, out through my mouth. My knee jiggles, and I place my hand on top of it to keep it still; the other one starts going. The fire gives a roaring snap.

“Katrina’s working on our project. The South Carolina one. It’s been hard for Wil.”

I hear Bob swallow. “I heard something about that.”

“Right,” I say. “Well, Katrina asked me to dinner with her agent.”

“Max fucking Perry,” says Bob, rolling his eyes. Then he puckers his lips and makes a kissing sound. “Ass-kisser. Bet he was all over you.”

I can’t help it, I laugh. Bob rolling his eyes is a dead ringer for Wil. There’s humor in it without needing to say anything else; it’s charisma and a loud opinion in one quiet second of time. I love this family, truly, completely. But my laughter doesn’t ease the tension in my gut or in the room.

“Yeah, he was interested in meeting with me. But the thing is, Wil ran into us on our way out. I didn’t tell her I was meeting with Max and Katrina. Which I realize now was not the way to play it at all.”

“No,” Bob agrees. “Probably not. She saw you with Katrina? Fuck.”

“Fuck, indeed.”

He chuckles softly at this. “So where does you being in California all of a sudden come into this?”

My stomach is like an eel, twisting, serpentine, inside me. Itake in a shallow breath. Ending Marnie wasn’t just taking away Wil’s dream, but Bob’s day job playing Marnie’s father. “Do you know why Marnie, Maybe ended?”

“Hell should I know?” Bob grunts.

“It...” I breathe out slowly and rub a hand down my thigh and back up again, trying to wipe the sweat away. “It was me. I got into Yale for drama. And then contract renewals came up and I said no.”

Bob sinks into the couch cushions, taking this in. He rubs at his nose with the back of his hand. “No fucking kidding,” he muses.

“No,” I say, “and the part that I’m still kicking myself over is that I didn’t tell Wil.”

“She wasn’t ready to hear it,” says Bob. “My girl’s been Swiss cheese for a long time. Bunch of life-shit digging holes in her since she was a little thing. Her mom dying. All the things that went down with Katrina. I hate that I had a hand in that. But I don’t think she needed to hear that truth back then, ’bout you and the show ending.”

Swiss cheese . Such a Bob-ism. Air comes forcefully from my nose and mouth in a strangled laugh, but my eyes sting, my throat starts getting tight. “I’ve been beating myself up for not telling her. For years. I’d never lied to Wil before that. Iguess I did it so she wouldn’t hate me. Which is kinda selfish, because I should’ve done it, to protect her from one more hole in the cheese.

“Why’s all this coming up now?” Bob asks.

“Katrina told her. When I was chatting with Max. Which is so fucked-up. I should’ve kept an eye on her. I could’ve prevented it.”

“Whoa, hey, hang on. Go back a beat. When Katrina gets an idea in her head, she’s gonna see it through. You couldn’t have kept her from telling Wil.” His eyes soften. “Wil could never hate you, Daxon.”

I swallow the rising lump in my throat and nod. “I really wanna believe that.”

“Thanks for tellin’ me about Katrina.”

“Listen, Bob, I have to find Wil. She left set. No one knows where she is.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. I know. She’s so good in this movie, she’s so natural. It’s the perfect next step for her. I have to... make things right.”

“You checked her place?”

I nod. I swung by before coming here, only to find her driveway empty.

“She can’t be too far. Probably just cooling off somewhere she feels safe.”

And it hits me in the face going ninety miles an hour.

Somewhere she feels safe.

All the lights are on in Studio 7B.

And while the set decorations are unfamiliar, the room has the same cool smell of metal and polished wood, the lingering sweetness of hairspray and laundry starch.

The door shuts behind me with a creak and a crunch as it settles closed.

Wil is sitting center-stage, her knees up to her chest, arms wrapped around herself. For a second, she’s twelve and being thrown from general obscurity into the Sarlacc pit that is instant, lonely, glittering child stardom.

In the next moment, she’s seventeen. Fresh from losing everything she’s loved and worked her ass off for—lost all semblance of normalcy for—afraid of what it means to climb out of that pit Boba Fett–style.

But ultimately, she’s the Wil those past lives have grown into. Stronger than ever.

“Hey,” I say. “You busy?”