Chapter 35
CHAPTER 35
L ABOR DAY WEEKEND COMES AND GOES . CLEM MAKES me hike in Topanga Canyon on Sunday but lets me stay in bed on Monday. I wear jeans to the office again on Tuesday. I do it on purpose this time. I even let my hair air- dry in the car, so that by the time I get to the elevator, it’s a big mass of curls. I run my hand over it, and I like the way it feels, full and free. “Okay,” I say out loud. The elevator dings and the doors open and Dan is not standing there. I have no idea why I thought he would be. I cannot will him into existence.
I sit at my desk, not under it. I am no longer hiding from anything. I pull up the treatment for a new script and read it straight through. I feel nothing. No laughs, no tears, no quickening of the heart rate. There’s a helicopter chase in which the propellor of the villain gets caught in the landing skid of the other. Who cares.
I lean back in my chair and swing my legs onto the desk. I’m in flip-flops at work, and suddenly “dress for the job you want” takes on new meaning. I almost feel like I woke up this morning and put on a costume to dress up like myself. I wiggle my toes. A helicopter fight is so noisy. It’ll sell tickets and make for a great trailer, but we won’t laugh or cry. We won’t learn anything about ourselves. We’ll just be hiding in all that noise.
I have the watercolor Dan and I made together in my desk drawer. I swiped it from the windowsill before I left the house. It’s sloppy and dotted with little bursts of beauty, a bit of a blur, like the week we were together. It bothers me that I don’t have a photo of us together. I don’t know why I would, but it strikes me as strange that I would have had such an intimate relationship with someone and have so little evidence of it. That last part’s not true. The evidence of my time with Dan is in how clear I feel for the first time in decades. I don’t know anything about what’s going to happen in the future, but I know that I have spent a lot of time lying in the past, pretending that I didn’t want to get invited to the ball because I never thought I could be invited. It wasn’t Dan who showed me who I was, but I got quiet enough around him to see myself and just live in my body for a while. I have a truer version of myself back, and that’s what I can see clearly. Who I am, what I’m capable of, and where I’ve been terribly afraid to trust my own instincts. I also have this bracelet, which feels more concrete and shows no sign of disintegrating. I roll the beads between my fingers, and I can feel Ruby there, or at least her sense of certainty.
I take out True Story and read a few scenes for comfort. Those characters show up flawed and fall in love anyway. Their connection is the kind of love I never understood, the kind where the love is the reward for being yourself. It’s This is who I am followed by I’ll take it! When I was with Dan, I jumped in without a mask or a script or best-practices bullet points. I was vulnerable with him, if just for a little while. I felt what it was to be loved, and I don’t know how to turn away from that.
I pick up the phone and do the thing I’ve been dreading. The last step in shutting down True Story is telling the writer. Kay picks up on the first ring. There’s no pretense to Kay, and it’s a little contagious. The first time we met, she told me that True Story was loosely based on her relationship with her late husband, and I cried. It was the first time I’d ever cried at work, and I think it’s why she sold it to me.
“I’ve been thinking about you!” she says.
“Me too,” I say. “How are you doing?”
“Good,” she says. “I’m working on another script. It sort of came out of nowhere, and now I’m up at dawn and walking around my house talking to myself in crazy voices. It’s such fun.”
“I’d love to read it when you’re ready,” I say.
“Oh, good,” she says. She’s quiet on the line, and I remember that I’m the one who called.
“So I have some bad news. Clearwater isn’t going to move forward with True Story.” There’s a little hitch in my voice as I hit the last few words.
“Well, that is disappointing,” she says.
“I know, and I’m sorry for both of us. I tried. I did a lot of stupid things to try to make it happen. I really wanted to see that movie made.”
“You will, Jane. Don’t worry. The option’s up in six weeks, and I had other people interested. I thought you were the right fit. I still do, just maybe not Clearwater.”
“Yes,” I say and sit up straighter. “I am the right fit. I have some ideas, a few of which are totally reckless. But I think that’s what I’m about right now, so please don’t resell the option without giving me a chance.”
Kay laughs. “I knew it, you’re brave.”
We’re quiet on the phone for a second. Then I ask, “Was it love at first sight? With your husband.”
“Oh God, no,” she laughs. “He was wearing this awful bowling shirt and smelled like old cigarettes. I only went out with him because my roommate blackmailed me.”
“And then what happened?”
“Everything,” she says.
This makes me smile because this is a thing I’m starting to understand. Everything. A look, a kiss, whipped cream in my coffee. Standing on a hilltop together looking out at a pond. His hand possessively behind my hip on a catamaran because he wanted me to be his. A little girl dancing for her grandparents. It’s everything.
“Why do you ask?” Her voice sounds wistful, like my question has taken her to another place.
I think of how strong my mom is to have kept trying again, over and over. I think of how afraid I’ve been for so long, hiding behind my own fear and a carefully chosen rotation of dresses. I believe in love now; I’ve felt it and can not unfeel it. It’s an imperfect thing, and it changes and breaks and heals the way people do. I could have had love like that, or at least I could have tried.
“I fell in love, and I chickened out,” I say.
“Oh, Jane. Don’t let that be the end of your story. You’re braver than that.”