Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
I GO BACK TO MY OFFICE, SHUT THE DOOR, AND SIT under my desk. I rest my head on my knees and feel the soft cotton of my jeans. I breathe in for five. It’s over. I breathe out for five. I breathe in for five again and take inventory. I spent a week in an alternate reality and, as payback, this under-desk reality is my future.
I have my copy of True Story on my knees. I’ll keep this copy forever, I think. There are notes in the margins and big exclamation points next to dialogue I’ve circled. I start to read the first scene so that I can see it play out in my mind.
The Finnegans’ world seems a million miles away. The orderly chaos. The way they all know each other and no one hides from who they are. The ribbing, gentle and not; the way Dan just says the thing without fear of recrimination. They tell the embarrassing story; they bully you into admitting you like the girl. I close my eyes and picture myself seated around their garden table, tethered to my seat by a sleeping baby and laughing over her heavy head.
I sit like this under my desk and eat two mini Krackel bars and read the rest of the script. At the end my hand is clenching my heart and my eyes are wet. I thought this movie was going to be my ticket to success, but really it was the key to another world. It’s a world where someone would know me anywhere, at any time. He’d know me with his whole body. I’ve banished myself from this world, but it was just a matter of time anyway.
The door to my office opens and Mandy says, “Jane?” Perfect.
I have no choice but to wipe the chocolate off my face with the back of my hand and crawl out from under my desk. “Sorry,” I say, getting up. “Just dropped something.”
“Okay?”
“So what’s going on?” I ask, wiping the back of my hand on my jeans.
“That’s what I was going to ask you. Good to see you taking a casual day.”
I look down at my jeans and don’t tell her that I forgot to get dressed.
“Yeah, so we’re not moving forward with True Story.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine. But . . .” I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. It’s as if I know this thing is dead but I’m not willing to bury it. “It drives me crazy to have this idea in my head of how that movie would be and how it would affect people and then not have any way to get it out.”
“What does Dan Finnegan say?”
“He doesn’t know yet.”
“Did you ever watch his movie? Grapevine ?”
“No.” I want to roll my eyes, but they won’t roll. I just stare down at my desk.
“It’s beautiful. I know he’s the worst, but he’s talented.”
“He’s not the worst,” I say to my desk. “I think I’m going to go home.”
*
I’M IN BED with my laptop watching the closing credits on Grapevine. A good cry is a lot like a good laugh, I realize. It starts as your head connects to something in your heart and just sort of takes over. The wet eyes, the snot. This movie is so Dan—quiet and warm, like you want to climb right into it and stay forever. The small things are the big things. It’s the thing that happens at breakfast.
I have done everything wrong. I went in search of a prize, and when I didn’t get it, I turned on the prize I already had. I don’t deserve Dan—I know this—but I miss him in a visceral way. It’s been one day, and I am already desperate to hear his voice. I could call him and test the waters. I could tell him that I loved his movie—everyone likes compliments. He’d say thank you and then there would be an open line between us again. I don’t want to rip myself open and show him how ugly things are inside me, but maybe we could talk about this movie or Ruby or the forest. And maybe I wouldn’t feel so desperately empty anymore.
I call him before I have a chance to talk myself out of it. It goes straight to voicemail. I text him: Loved your movie
It doesn’t go through. He’s blocked me.
I had the open line. I could have said anything. I could have told him how I felt and that I was scared and ashamed. I didn’t.
Clem knocks on my door when I’m in the middle of watching it a second time.
“Is this a nervous breakdown or the flu? Because I’m out of soup.”
I pat my bed. “Get in,” I say.
She climbs into bed next to me, still in pink scrubs, still coated in the stress of the day. “This doesn’t look like Bridget Jones.”
“Shh,” I say, and I can feel her relax into the movie. It’s the way the light hits the vineyards and the way the heroine is backlit by the sunset. It’s the small details that attract your eye, the Dan-ness of it all, that make this movie great.
“Okay,” she says. “It was beautiful. So are you going to pine over this guy forever?”
“That’s my current plan, yes.”
She smiles at me.
“I called him an hour ago.”
“From your closet, I assume.”
“No, from right here.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I’m a real badass. But he didn’t answer. I sent a text and it didn’t go through. I think he’s blocked me, so. Probably for the best.”
Clem lets out a breath. “Remember when Nick was pulling away and I kept saying he won’t give me what I need? Remember what you said?”
“Stop it.”
“No, say it.”
“Whatever it was, I just saw it on Instagram or something,” I say.
“You said I should stop waiting for someone to give me what I need.”
I roll my eyes. “Yep, I’m like Yoda. Please soak up all of my wisdom.”
She doesn’t laugh. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to come clean to your mom. Like now. All the heavy lifting you thought this movie True Story was going to do for you, showing your mom something true, opening up a conversation. I think you need to do that for yourself.”
*
ON TUESDAY I go to work and text my mom from under my desk.
Me: I’m really sorry. I was horrible. I’m happy for you and Gary
Mom: It’s fine, and thank you. I know you’re having a hard time
Me: Movie Friday?
Mom: Yes please
That small bit of forgiveness loosens the knot in my chest, but the pressure there still feels unbearable. Even if Dan hadn’t blocked me and I could apologize, I’d still have ended up here under my desk eventually. Because even if he forgave me and there was love talk, it would have ended, and I’d have been back down here eating mini Snickers and hiding the wrappers.
On Wednesday I sit through an internal strategy meeting and stare at Nathan’s cavernous left nostril. I watch it expand and contract as he speaks, but I don’t hear a word he says.
On Thursday I call in sick. I lie in my bed and watch my ceiling fan spin. I don’t normally use it and I don’t ever dust it, so I watch it fling particles of death around my room. Dead skin and nails, the dust of things that were never meant to last. I close my eyes and hear a car pull into my driveway. I imagine Dan getting out and knocking on my door. I imagine myself jumping into his arms. He’d reel from the impact but smile at me and pull me close. Stubble scraping my cheek, lips catching my ear. I hear the car pull away, and I know it was just someone turning around. Dan doesn’t even know where I live.
On Friday night I am in a dark, overly air-conditioned theater watching a loud superhero movie with my mom. The other choices were love stories, and I know she was being thoughtful picking this one, but it’s backfired. There’s no getting away from thinking about Dan. I take in every scene and feel how much he would have hated it. I long to see the way he would have shot the scene when the villain climbs out of the junkyard in the moonlight. I run my fingers over my jaw, where he spent an entire day planting small, breathy kisses and saying my name. There is no getting away from him; I have been infiltrated. I can stop going to the movies, maybe, but I cannot get away from my own jaw.
“Sweetie,” my mother whispers. I hadn’t realized that I was holding her hand. And crying. “Do you want to go?” she asks with a squeeze.
I think about the offer. We could go to my happy place, her apartment with the old patched couch. We could order moo shu pork and experiment with liquid eyeliner. But my jaw would be there. And my raw, aching heart, turned inside out so that all of the hidden bits are exposed. I’m going to bring myself wherever I go now, and I’m going to have to get used to it.
“I wish I could go back and do everything differently,” I whisper, finally. A car explodes in the background to thunderous effect.
“I do too, Jane.” She squeezes my hand. I rest my head on her shoulder in the dark as a seven-foot-tall man kicks in a steel door on the screen. I think of True Story. I think of Reenie and Cormack and the way she looked at him during his toast. I even think of Gary making my mom an omelet. And offering me one, like that was a thing I deserved.
We walk outside into the warm, dry August air. It’s wildfire season. I can feel it as I stop under the fluorescent light of the marquee. There’s something restless in the air, and I think of how fires lead to mudslides and how everything that happens on this earth was caused by something else. People jostle us as they exit the theater, but my feet are planted firmly in place.
My mom says, “Well, that was a terrible movie,” just as I say, “I know about my dad.”
It surprises me almost as much as it surprises her. She cocks her head a bit, but doesn’t say anything.
“When I was a kid, actually the same night I humiliated myself with Jack Quinlan, I found the letter. I know that he left us before he died. And that it was because of me.” The words come in fragments, like I’m forcing them out. The tightness in my chest burns up through my throat.
She narrows her eyes at me and then looks at my feet. “That’s not how it was.”
“Please stop lying to me,” I say, my words steadier.
“Should we go home?” she asks.
“Let’s do this here,” I say.
She takes a breath and straightens her shoulders. “He was young.”
“I know.”
“We were broke.”
“I know. And I know you lied because you thought the truth would hurt me. But I found out anyway, and honestly, the lying made it so much worse.” The tears come; they rise from my chest with a sob and just flow. People are still trickling out of the theater, and I don’t move my feet. I’m going to stand here and cry until my tears run out.
“Oh.”
“We could have just agreed he was a big jerk and moved on. That it was a shitty thing for him to have left. But the fact that you lied made me feel like it was something to be ashamed of.” I wipe my face with the back of my hand and it barely helps.
“I don’t see how that makes a difference.” I don’t blame her for being defensive. This must feel like a sneak attack.
“It makes a difference to who I am. There’s a difference between being a person whose dad died and a person whose dad left. It’s the difference between being unlucky and unwanted.” She starts to say something but I interrupt. “And don’t say of course he wanted me. I read the letter, he didn’t.”
She looks down at her hands. “He didn’t.”
The truth hangs in the silence between us. It’s so ugly, hanging there.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Well, I’m sorry. That I lied, and that you’ve been carrying this for so long. The truth is I did love him, but in this he was selfish and immature, and he just couldn’t handle it. It was on him to stay, it wasn’t on you to make him.”
All the fantasies of what I could have said or done to make him want to stay flash behind my eyes. And I’m not even sure those fantasies have stopped; they’ve just changed into fantasies about what I might say or do now to be loved by the bigger world. By a date, by Hollywood, by the hostess at the Ivy.
“I never understood what it was about me,” I say. “All the kids with their dads showing up for things. Or worrying about their daughters’ curfews or interrupting kisses under porch lights. It’s a universal thing, fathers treasuring their daughters. I watch TV, Mom. I know things.” My mom smiles, just a little bit, but I can’t stop. “Remember that movie with Robin Williams where he loves his kids so much that he dresses up like their nanny so he can spend time with them?”
“Mrs. Doubtfire,” she says, so quietly.
“Yes. That movie wrecks me. I’ve never gotten over that, how much he wanted them.”
She pulls me into a hug and runs a hand over my dad’s curly hair. I sob into her. I’ve started and it just won’t stop. After a while, she pulls back and looks me in the eye. Her eyes seem clearer than usual.
“I think I never gave up on love because I wanted you to see it. Not even for me, but for you, Jane. I wanted you to see a Hollywood happy ending and know you could have that too. And I know it was hard for you to see me fall apart every time it didn’t work out. I know it was a lot of times.” She gives me an apologetic smile and I take her hand. “Every time, I felt like I let us both down.”
“I never felt let down,” I say, “because I never believed you were going to find that happy ending. I was lying to you as much as you were lying to me.” The pressure in my chest is loosening, but I still feel the weight of unsaid things there. “And I don’t think it was good for us, the lying. Every time you told me your happy story and I acted like I believed it, it put distance between us. Can we just not do that anymore? You’re the only family I have. I want it to be different.” My face is wet with new tears, and now that I’ve said it and the world didn’t end, I don’t know why it took me so long. Old hurts are buried so carefully.
She squeezes my hand. “Why are we talking about this now? You’ve been carrying this around forever.”
I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. “I think I might have fallen in love? And it’s more beautiful than you described. But I wrecked it before it could wreck me.”
“Why?”
I let out a breath and shove my hands in my pockets. “Because I can’t actually believe someone would stick around for me. I mean, besides you and Clem. It’s Dan, by the way. Dan who I don’t hate.” I laugh a sad laugh. “I guess I panicked and left before he could see the part of me that’s so easy to walk away from.”
My mom’s heart breaks—I see it behind her eyes. They’re wet with tears. “I’m so sorry you’ve been feeling this way for so long. Let’s figure this out before it takes anything more away from you.”
“I liked it,” I say. “Falling in love, like actually falling. It’s sort of effortless, you know?”
“I do.” She smiles.
“But also terrifying. If I got any closer to Dan and he changed his mind . . . I don’t know how people recover from stuff like that. Now that I’ve felt it, I can’t believe you were strong enough to keep trying.”
“Trust me, you’re stronger than I am. The little girl with the power to support us both with the sheer energy of her smile.”
Of course I think of Dan. Dan, who feels my smile in his chest. Dan, who is always at the tip of my tongue, the ends of my fingers. All he has is his talent, his ability to follow his heart. What’s inside of me is all I have too, the good and the bad.
“Can we start over?” she asks. “I loved your dad, was so in love with him. But if he’d stayed, we would have broken up eventually. He was all about himself. We wouldn’t have died in each other’s arms like in that stupid movie.”
“I love that movie,” I say, wiping tears. I ache at the thought of standing with Dan in the rain in a see-through dress.
“Thank you for telling me this,” she says.
“It was nothing,” I say and laugh. It was everything.
“If we’re being honest, your dad was a lot like the rest of the guys I dated. Big fun and then gone when it stopped being easy. It’s a type. But not Gary.”
“He made you an omelet.”
“I know!” She loops her arm in mine, and we start walking back to her apartment. “It’s a totally different kind of thing.”
“I really wish you could have seen the movie I’m not making.”