Day 6
At breakfast the next morning, I tell Kai again that I don’t care about doing Andromeda, because I really don’t.
“Maybe you’ll move to Indianapolis with me. There’s a good theater company there. Better than you’d expect.”
“I love you, but I don’t know that I Move-to-Indianapolis-Love-You.” I smile as he laughs.
“I like real theater,” he says. “I like the spontaneity of it, the one-chanceness of it.”
I tell him I’ve never done much proper theater, that I’ve always acted for screens, because that’s what my mother wanted me to do. “I can’t believe it’s been more than a year,” I say. “I’ve had two movies come out since she died.”
“She’d be really proud of you.”
“Yeah, a little too proud. I wish she’d loved me for being a good friend or a good sister or whatever, but it was only ever for being a good actor.”
Suddenly I notice a teenage boy standing over our table. “Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Juniper Castillo?”
I tell him that I am, in fact, Juniper Castillo, and then I take a picture with him. When I sit back down, Kai asks, “That doesn’t bother you? I mean, in the middle of a serious conversation.”
“Without fans, there’s no job.”
“But you could’ve just told him I’m sorry, I’m eating breakfast or something.”
“That kid is going to meet me one time in his life. I want him to have a good memory. Doesn’t cost me much, and gives him a little something hopefully.”
“I’m not sure it doesn’t cost much,” Kai answers. “But I love that about you, you always having time like that.”
We eat for a while, and then I say, “You know, I realized something last night. I was thinking about how pissed I was about you leaving, and how pissed I was that Todd planned to recast the movie if you wouldn’t do it and I’d lose Gods of Andromeda.
And I just reflexively wanted it, because I am supposed to want it, because it’s the studio’s next tentpole or whatever.
But what I realized last night is that if you’re not in Andromeda, I want them to recast it.
I don’t want to be in it with Charles Fucking Oldham.
I don’t want to be opposite some other actor.
I want to be opposite you, playing with and against you.
That’s the movie I want to make. I spend so little time thinking about what I actually want. ”
“It’s not like we can just take roles together for the rest of our lives. We’ll work on different stuff.”
“Yeah, I know, but we could take this together. My point is just, they tried to threaten me by saying I can’t do it without you. But I don’t want to do it without you. Without you, it’s just a movie.”
He looks at me. One of the nice things about Kai is you can tell when he’s processing information, but you can’t actually tell what he’s thinking. He’s too good of an actor to get an easy read on. I like that.
_____
After working out, we make our way down to the beach.
Jamie has sent me an advance readers copy of the second Andromeda book, so I’m reading that while Kai swims in the ocean.
For an Indiana boy, he’s comfortable in the water, periodically diving under the surface before reappearing again a few yards away.
_____
As I read, I’m also thinking about what I actually want, and how to even figure out what I want.
I know I want to act. I love and crave the feeling of becoming someone else, of playing with others in the hopes that our make-believe can bring forth something real.
I miss being on set—not just because they tell me when to wake up and what to say, but also because I miss being part of a team creating something bigger than any individual on that team could ever make. I open my journal.
Someone told me just after it happened that when a parent dies, you are released from their care, for better or for worse.
But I still don’t feel released and expect I never will.
I miss my mom. I miss when I was little, when I called her mama.
I miss when I was scared and cuddled into her.
I miss when I would book a commercial and she’d take me out for pizza.
I miss being loved by her. She did love me in some fucked-up way, and that’s the worst part of it.
Not that I was abandoned by my mother, but that I was loved by her AND abandoned by her.
Kai’s shadow appears over my journal and I look up at him, dripping wet from the ocean. “God, you’re gorgeous,” I say.
“Can I borrow your phone?” he asks.
I unlock it and give it to him. He sits down on the beach recliner next to me and stares at me as he holds the phone to his ear. “Todd Simons, please,” he says.
“Hey.”
“…”
“Todd, let me tell you what’s going to happen.
I’m gonna do Andromeda, but I will not participate in an awards campaign for Warhol and neither will Juniper.
Also, you will pay for Juniper and me to stay here in Jamaica until we fly to Vancouver in ten days.
In exchange, I will not make an Instagram video telling the world that Matthew Malone is a conniving little bitch. ”
“…”
“You don’t understand, Todd. We’re not negotiating. I’m informing you of what’s going to happen. You don’t own us. The truth is, Matthew owns you. You need him for the next Matthew Malone joint, and the one after that, and the one after that. And me, I just realized I own Matthew.”
“…”
“We—and I can speak for Juniper here—don’t give a flying fuck if you recast Gods of Andromeda.”
“…”
“Good doing business with you.”
Kai hangs up. “We’re making Andromeda together,” he says.
I laugh and hug him. “I don’t care if we make the movie. I care if we’re together.”
“I know,” he says. “That’s what I need. I need you to want me, not Gavinth.”
“Oh, I want you,” I tell him. I kiss him, then walk him up to the villa, where we have sex, which Kai—somewhat charmingly and somewhat cringingly—calls making love.
I don’t feel self-conscious or even self-aware; I’m just in my body, entangled with his, in rhythm with each other such that neither of us needs to speak, only to feel each other.
Afterward, I convince him to stay in bed.
I turn on the TV and find a movie playing.
I don’t recall the film, but I remember just how it felt to watch it with Kai.