Chapter Eleven
They drive out of the little town and into the middle of nowhere. Fifteen minutes, and there aren’t even buildings anymore.
Half an hour, and the road unravels into a single lane.
Charlie turns onto a street that’s just dirt and gravel and weeds, and which leads them up a hill to a house that looks like
it was built from logs—like someone took the set of Lincoln Logs Simon never wanted to play with and used it to make an actual
human-size house. It’s a cabin, but not the kind of six-bedroom, plate glass wall overlooking a strategically landscaped brook
kind of cabin that Simon’s used to.
Parked in front of the house are two pickup trucks. Charlie engages the emergency brake, puts his head on the steering wheel,
and lets out a breath. “That’s his truck.”
“If you want me to wait in the car, that’s fine.”
Charlie’s head is still on the steering wheel, but he turns to face Simon. “If you want to wait in the car, that’s fine too.”
“If you think I’m passing up a chance to see what a man who doesn’t answer his phone for a week looks like, guess again.”
“Maybe something happened and he’s in the hospital. And his truck is here because they didn’t know what to do with it.”
Recognizing an anxiety spiral when he sees one, Simon opens his door. “Only one way to find out.”
Two golden retrievers come bounding across a hill to bark at them, delighted to say hello. When Charlie and Simon head toward
the front door, the dogs trot happily beside them.
“Worst goddamn guard dogs,” a man says from the front doorway. “And what do you want?”
“Is Dave Antonetti here? I’m Charlie. He hasn’t been answering his phone.”
“You’re Charlie,” the man says, like Charlie hadn’t just said so. He steps out of the house, and Simon can see that he has
black hair in a ponytail and brown skin. “I’m Mike.”
“Are you the Mike who sold Dave that Impala about ten years ago? I worked on that bastard for months.”
“He sold it for a mint,” Mike says.
“I got seven bucks an hour.”
“Yeah, well, if you’re the Charlie I think you are, you aren’t hurting.”
“Can’t complain.” Charlie grins, and if it looks a little forced, then Simon bets he’s the only one who can tell.
Mike turns into the house. “Dave! You’ve got company.” Then, to Charlie, “You should come in. I’ll get you a drink.”
“This is Simon,” Charlie says.
“Nice to meet you,” Simon says, shaking Mike’s hand.
Mike looks at Simon a second too long, which probably means he’s watched the show.
Inside the house, every surface, including the ceiling, is made of broad pine slats.
There’s a huge stone fireplace and a wall of windows that Simon missed from the outside.
If there’s a hot tub somewhere on the premises, it’s basically a four-hundred-dollar-a-night Airbnb in Aspen.
Dave has not been living rough this past week.
At the kitchen table is a man with gray hair that’s buzzed short, weathered tan skin, and two sleeves of tattoos emerging
from a white T-shirt. He’s clearly (1) alive and (2) fully capable of answering a phone. Simon hates him on sight.
Charlie opens his mouth and snaps it shut.
“What are you doing here, kid?” Dave asks, getting to his feet. He sounds confused. Disappointed. A little pissed off.
“You weren’t answering your phone.”
“What?”
“I’ve been calling you for a week. No answer.”
“I left my charger at home.”
“He has an iPhone,” Mike explains. “This is an Android household.”
“Wasn’t gonna waste money on a new charger,” Dave says. “We’re not all rich movie stars.”
Charlie, incredibly, doesn’t rise to the bait. “I went to your house. I nearly went to the police. I was about an hour away from filing a missing persons report.”
Dave takes a step back. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
Charlie’s hands are balled into fists so tight that his fingers are white. The vein in his forehead is doing terrible things.
“Because I thought you were dead. I was worried sick.”
“What can I get you to drink?” Mike asks. His voice is low, the question meant for Simon.
Simon doesn’t want anything but feels like drinks might be the kind of stage dressing that makes a situation feel more normal.
“Water for me, and Charlie likes Coke, if you have it.”
“How many times have I told you that you don’t need to worry about me? I’m not your problem,” Dave says.
“Only five-fucking-thousand times, but seriously, Dave, you don’t get to decide who I worry about. If I’m not gonna worry
about you, then who will?”
“He’s got a point,” Mike says. He hands Simon both the drinks, like he senses nobody ought to approach Charlie right now.
“None of your neighbors know you, which isn’t any kind of surprise. Most of your friends are dead. When I drove by the garage,
it looked like it was closed. When did that happen? You couldn’t let me know? Whenever I talk to you, I ask about it, and
you say everything’s fine.”
“None of your business, Charlie. Nobody asked you to stick your nose in.”
“None of my business,” Charlie repeats. “None of my business?”
“Drink.” Simon hands Charlie the can of soda.
“And who the fuck is this?” Dave asks, looking at Simon. Simon doesn’t believe for a single second that Dave doesn’t recognize
him. No matter how much of an asshole this guy is, no matter how little he thinks of Charlie, there’s no way he hasn’t occasionally
watched an episode just out of curiosity.
“This is Simon,” Charlie says, no explanation. Dave raises an eyebrow, and still Charlie doesn’t qualify it with “from work,”
or “a friend,” or anything else. It sounds like a dare.
Dave doesn’t say hello to Simon, which is perfectly fine by him.
“It isn’t your business,” Dave repeats. “I’m not your father. It’s not your job to keep tabs on me. You don’t owe me that,
and I don’t owe you that, so you can quit this shit right now.”
“Dave,” Mike says, but Dave grabs a pack of cigarettes off the table and walks out the back door.
In the last five minutes, Simon’s watched Charlie go from frantic with worry to incandescent with rage to just plain hurt.
All this Dave fucker had to do was apologize, maybe even promise not to do it again, and Charlie would be completely satisfied.
Charlie’s expectations for this man are at rock bottom.
Charlie’s jaw is clenched. There are divots in the Coke can where he’s gripping it. This is the same Charlie who dumped coffee
on that dickhead director. This is the Charlie who took whatever he was feeling and channeled it into bad ideas and self-destruction.
Simon is flooded with shame to remember that he once saw this Charlie and thought he was being tacky, that Simon saw a crisis and thought it was in poor taste.
“We can come back tomorrow,” Simon says, low, in Charlie’s ear. “We can get out of here, take a break.”
“Yeah,” Charlie says, deflating a little. “Okay.”
Simon takes the Coke can and his own glass of water and hands them back to Mike. “Sorry,” he murmurs, because most people
probably don’t like drama unfolding in their homes.
Mike shrugs. “What can you do.”
Simon gets into the driver’s seat and Charlie doesn’t even argue. “I’m going to get a hotel room unless you tell me not to,”
Simon says.
“Yeah,” Charlie mumbles. “Fine.”
Once they’re at the bottom of the hill, Simon pulls over to the shoulder of the narrow road and takes out his phone. He has to lower his standards repeatedly before he finds a room, because apparently this car festival is a big deal, and all the decent places are booked.
Charlie doesn’t seem like he’s in any state to navigate, so Simon relies on GPS and luck to get them to the motel. It isn’t
as bad as Simon feared, at least not from the outside. They only had one room left, but he doesn’t think Charlie will care.
He isn’t sure Charlie will notice.
“It’s my own fault,” Charlie says, once they’re in the room. At least it has two beds. “He’s right. He doesn’t owe me anything.”
“Bullshit.”
Charlie flops onto one of the beds. “I’m so embarrassed that you were there for that.”
“I bet,” Simon says, because he’d have to murder anyone who got the kind of glimpse into his psyche that he’s had into Charlie’s.
“Thanks, Simon, you’re helpful as always.”
“No, I mean, I’d be dead from the shame.”
“Maybe stop talking?”
“I’m trying to say that I get it.” Simon sits on the bed and puts a tentative hand on Charlie’s ankle. “I want to push Dave
off a cliff,” he says, which might not be comforting but is true anyway.
“We lived with him for a year when my mom was sober enough to have me but not sober enough to think twice about bringing me
to live with strange men twice her age. In high school I worked at his garage. He was my boss. I’m not anything to him. I
know that.”
Something in Simon’s heart gets pulled dangerously tight at that.
Nobody should be able to say “I’m not anything to him” about someone they’ve spent days worrying about.
Charlie is generous hearted in a way that Simon maybe couldn’t understand and wouldn’t think to value until he saw that same quality rejected and thrown back in Charlie’s face.
“I feel like a kid who accidentally called their kindergarten teacher Mom.” Charlie groans and puts a pillow over his face. “And you were there, which makes it a million times worse.”
“If you want, I have three decades of embarrassing stories that are all yours, just say the word.”
“That’s nice.”
“I know.” He’s sort of patting Charlie’s ankle. Poor Charlie, stuck with nobody to comfort him but Simon, the world’s least
qualified person.
“Give me one now,” Charlie says, the pillow still over his face. “Come on.”
Simon has no shortage of embarrassing stories, but most are just incidentally embarrassing. He went on a date with a man who
confused Simon with some other, more famous actor; once he got distracted and left Whole Foods without paying, just sailed
right out the door with his cart until the security guard ran him down. “A few years ago, Jamie was having problems with his