Chapter 20 - Miles
MILES
ME: Do I spoil Macy?
POPS brODIE: Do you want my answer or your mama’s?
ME: Yours. This convo’s just me and you, right?
POPS brODIE: It is. But in this case, I’m afraid I agree with your mother. Yes. You do spoil Macy. But I understand why you spoil her. She’s a sweet girl, and she knows what she wants. It’s tough to see your child want something that badly.
ME: It is. It really is.
POPS brODIE: I know it’s different with daughters. But your mama sure did spoil you before Owen came along.
ME: She did?
POPS brODIE: Absolutely rotten. Once we had a second son, we just didn’t have time to spoil anyone. But when you were around thirteen, you wanted something you couldn’t have, and there was nothing either Bonnie Lyn or I could do about it, even if we’d had the energy.
ME: I did? Was that when I decided I wanted to get a law degree?
POPS brODIE: That was when you decided you wanted to be in TV commercials.
But your face just wasn’t right. Oh, man.
It just was not right. You were inconsolable.
Refused to let your mama stop sending your pictures out to agencies.
Kept practicing little moves and facial expressions in the mirror.
And then you’d go around frowning when nobody wanted to sign you.
You grew into your face when you were fifteen, of course, and the modeling jobs started rolling in.
Then you became impossible to deal with for a whole other reason.
ME: Right. Too impossibly handsome to deal with?
POPS brODIE: Sure. Let’s go with that.
POPS brODIE: I don’t know if you’re asking for my advice about Macy, but if she’s serious about a career in the entertainment industry, she is gonna have to grow a thick skin. You can’t protect her from that reality forever.
ME: Yeah. I know. Sometimes I think I’m the one with the thin skin.
POPS brODIE: As your parent, I have both dreaded and eagerly anticipated the day you’d realize that. Your 32nd year seems as good a time as any.
ME: Thanks, Pops.
POPS brODIE: Anytime, Miles. We’re looking forward to coming out and seeing y’all in a month.
ME:
ME: You guys were right. I can’t date her. This will never work.
OWEN: No one ever said you shouldn’t date her.
DYLAN: Stop cockblocking yourself from the love you so desperately want and need.
ME: What is that? The subtitle of the self-published self-help book you’re working on?
DYLAN: Yes. The main title is: I’m Engaged and You’re Not, Miles.
ME: Who’s the guy who dragged you out for drinks and encouraged you to fight for Scarlett? I was. I was the guy.
DYLAN: I thought you were the guy who isn’t acknowledging the night you got all drunk and mopey about the woman you couldn’t profess your true feelings for?
ME: What night? That never happened.
OWEN: I know how hard it is to get back into a serious relationship after a divorce, Miles. But don’t fuck this up. I don’t want to have to ask Drew Barrymore to leave you a voicemail.
ME: I don’t know what that means.
OWEN: And I hope you never do.
I go to the family room to check on Macy.
She’s watching The Sound of Music for the fifty-seventh time, singing along with every song.
I got her the fiftieth anniversary Blu-ray.
She even watched the documentary about Julie Andrews returning to Salzburg and listened to the audio commentary.
She’s sitting at the edge of the sofa with perfect posture.
She rehydrates in between songs. I saw her massaging her jaw and doing weird vocal warmups earlier.
I don’t think she’s enjoying the movie at all.
I knock on the doorframe. “Hey.”
She’s so startled and annoyed that I’m interrupting her. “What?! I’m doing my homework.”
“Are you hungry?”
She thinks about it for a second before answering. “No.”
“Okay, well. You need to go to bed in an hour.”
“I know. It’ll be over in an hour.”
“Okay.”
It’s been over twenty-four hours since Fartsgate. Macy hasn’t wanted to talk about it since rehearsal. I wish Julie Andrews hosted a documentary about bodily functions. I’m not saying Aria was right—but Macy does need to be less of a poopiehead about poop stuff.
I haven’t heard from Aria since the rehearsal.
I haven’t texted her, but she hasn’t texted me either.
I don’t like the way we left things, and I don’t like that things have been left.
I don’t know why she’d be so chill about the fact that she hasn’t heard from me in over twenty-four hours, unless she just doesn’t care.
People who care about things are not chill. That is a fact. Just ask my eight-year-old daughter.
I don’t like that I couldn’t sleep last night, and I really don’t like that I was forced to open up the Disney Plus app on my iPad and stream several episodes of Great Vibes just so I could see Aria’s beautiful, smiling face.
I skipped ahead to the season where she was eighteen years old in real life.
I was hoping it wouldn’t feel so awkward watching her as a super-chill high school surfer girl who catches waves before school and sings professionally after school.
It was slightly less awkward knowing that the twenty-six-year-old version of that eighteen-year-old wholesome Disney Channel star pleasured herself with a sex toy at my kitchen table because I asked her to.
But it was also slightly terrible. And infuriating that I had to resort to this.
I don’t have time to be infuriated about this kind of thing.
I don’t have time for summer flings.
I don’t have time to obsess about toe rings.
Great. Now I’m rhyming like her songs.
I have to tell Aria we can’t see each other anymore.
Except at rehearsals. It’s the only logical approach.
I can’t deal with this guilt I’m feeling.
I had all this guilt that I couldn’t give Macy the first thing she really wanted—for me to stay married to her mother forever.
I finally got her this other thing she wanted, and I can’t make this about me.
I definitely can’t make it about Aria and me.
I need to tell Aria this, face-to-face. My entire body has been aching with longing to see her since last night, and my dick will be depressed for the rest of my life if it doesn’t get to be inside her again—but that doesn’t mean we should keep doing whatever it is we did over the weekend.
I go up to my bedroom to see if her lights are on before texting her. They are. Her bedroom light is on. She is in her bedroom, cross-legged on her bed, wearing a little flowery dress and writing notes in her script binder. I know this because she still hasn’t put up curtains on her windows.
Well, we can’t do this in her guest house.
By “this,” I mean talk.
I need to have a hard and fast talk with her.
ME: Can you meet me in the garage in five minutes?
I peer through my closed curtains again, in a not at all creepy way, and feel a strong sense of satisfaction when I see her glance over at her phone and pick it up to respond to me immediately. Then I close the curtains and walk away from the window.
ARIA: Are you still a grumpy poopiehead?
ME: Would a grumpy poopiehead ask you why you still haven’t put up curtains in your bedroom?
ARIA: Yes. He would also stare out his window at me in my bedroom, like a creepy, grumpy poopiehead.
ME: Can you meet me in my garage or not?
ARIA: Yes. I will see you there in five minutes.
I brush my teeth—angrily. Like a grumpy poopiehead who’s about to give someone a swift, stern talkin’-to.
I apply a small amount of cologne—strictly for the purpose of disarming my opponent.
Then I go downstairs and tell Macy I’m going to look for something in the garage.
She gives me the thumbs-up without looking away from the TV screen.
When I get to the garage, I close the blinds that hang over the window to the backyard. So nobody can see me talking to Aria.
I check to see how the rear bumper of her car is doing—still secured by some very impressive duct tape. Of course. God forbid she should take care of that after who knows how many years.
I lean against the side of her car, arms crossed in front of my chest, and wait.
I hope she’s late so I can be even more mad at her.
As soon as I think that, the door to the garage opens. She’s right on time. It figures she wouldn’t do what I’d hoped she’d do.
She’s put her hair up in a ponytail, exposing her pretty neck, and she wanders in with her hands in the pockets of her short dress.
With those tanned, bare legs and flip-flops.
Like this is all no big deal. Like it’s no big deal that we haven’t seen or spoken to each other in over twenty-four hours.
Like it’s no big deal that when she shoves her hands in the pockets of her dress, it pulls the scoop-neck collar of her dress down and now I can see cleavage and fuck my life I want to see her boobs.
“Lock the door,” I say.
She slowly turns to lock the door, and fuck me, now I have a great view of the back of her upper thighs.
She strolls over and stands a couple of feet in front of me. She isn’t smiling exactly, but she certainly doesn’t look distraught. She mirrors me by crossing her arms in front of her chest, and fucking hell, now her flimsy dress is hugging her boobs and I want to touch them.
I open my mouth to talk, but she starts first. “I’ve been busy meeting with my tech crew and going over their designs.
That’s why I didn’t reach out to you. But I wanted to tell you that I didn’t mean Macy needs to get over herself.
I was talking about her needing to lighten up about certain things.
Although you might be the last person who should help her with that. ”
How dare she.