Chapter Two
Patrick struggled to find his trailer in the sea of production vehicles, which today were parked just outside Hampstead Heath on the Cricklewood side. (Again with these names.) When he finally located the vehicle with his placard, he trudged up the two steps, hoping to have time for a catnap before he was called to set. Half-asleep, he screamed when he saw a figure inside, and was just about to call for security, when he noticed this person was perhaps more scared of him than he was of her.
“Cassie?” he asked as he watched the startled figure grab tissues to mop up her sloshed coffee from the floor.
“You made me spill.”
Patrick stepped inside and closed the door quickly behind him, so as not to attract the attention of the first and second ADs who were always milling about with headsets. Cassie Everest was his agent now for five lucrative years. She landed Patrick as her first client when she was working as his former agent Neal’s assistant and Patrick was desperately in need of a change. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re wrapping your first leading role in a feature. I thought I would stop by to celebrate my favorite client.”
“Your only client.”
Cassie stood up with the clump of wet tissue and turned around in a tight circle, looking for where to dispose of it. Patrick pointed to the rubbish just next to the makeup table. “That used to be a fun joke, I’ll grant you, but it’s just not true anymore. I have lots of clients, thank you. And a bigger office, too.”
She certainly looked the part, having pulled off a major glow-up these past few years; her clothes were impeccably tailored and her haircut looked like it cost more than a week’s salary as an assistant. Yes, Patrick had taken her shopping once when they were first working together, around the time Barneys in Beverly Hills morphed into Saks. But this may be a case where the student had now eclipsed the teacher. Patrick pointed to her shoes. “Are those the...”
“Gianvito Rossi PVC mules?” she replied, doing her best Anne Hathaway from The Devil Wears Prada.
Patrick stared, bemused. “But it’s daytime.”
She casually tossed the hair out of her face. “I flew all night.”
Patrick chuckled in disbelief that she took the red-eye just to see him; he absentmindedly thumbed through a stack of scripts on the table. “What are these?”
“Scripts.”
“I can see that they’re scripts.”
“Then why ask?”
Patrick picked up the stack to move them and winced, as they were surprisingly heavy. “You can email these, you know.”
“You don’t read them when I email them.”
“I don’t read them when you print them out, either. And emailing is better for the environment.”
Cassie scoffed. “Didn’t you fly in a private plane?”
“That was one time!” Patrick blurted before he could see she was intentionally trying to ruffle his feathers. “Four times. Okay, seven max.” He picked up the script on top of the stack and opened it. “Are these better than the last stack you sent?” Patrick was still sore, as one of his recent films managed only nineteen percent on Rotten Tomatoes. In that instance he was grateful to have had only a small part.
“The last stack was good! Three of those scripts made the Black List.”
Patrick kicked off his shoes and reached for his costume, which had been dry-cleaned and was hanging on the back of the door. “The body-switching movie about identical twins? Come on.”
“What was wrong with that one?”
“They were identical twins! No one gives a shit if they switch bodies! A hundred pages of them whining. What difference does it make?! Just get on with your lives!”
Cassie laughed. “It was avant-garde. And I’ll have you know the filmmaker attached to that won a Student Oscar.”
“When he wins a grown-up Oscar I’ll read it again.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Nineteen percent!” he shouted, reminding her of the Rotten Tomatoes fiasco. It had become somewhat of a rallying cry for him to only commit to projects he believed in.
Cassie awkwardly offered him the second coffee from her tray, but Patrick waved her away. That should be hers, to make up for the one that spilled. Someone walked by outside playing an accordion.
“Is that an—”
“It’s been going on for days.”
“It’s cheerful,” Cassie offered, trying to remain upbeat, before remembering, as his agent, it might be her job to intercede. “Do you want me to...”
“No, it’s fine. It’ll be the soundtrack to my demise.” After an awkward moment, he softened. “You really flew all this way to see me?”
“And for the miles,” she said, grinning. “I can finally take that trip to Belize.”
They were escorted to their table at Isabel’s by a woman in a tulip dress; Patrick couldn’t decide if she looked more like an air hostess from the 1960s or an emissary from the near future. The restaurant was one of the most beautiful in London, centered around a four-sided bar that was made for people watching. Hoping for a more discreet evening, Patrick had reserved a private table to the side, where he and Cassie could quietly gossip about the film he was wrapping and what might come next.
Patrick pulled back a chair for his agent. “I was surprised you were staying at Claridge’s,” she began as she took her seat. A napkin was placed across her lap. “I pictured you somewhere more modern.”
Patrick eyed their hostess as he pushed back his own chair, a little puzzled as he mulled a quippy response. He liked Claridge’s. Was he growing less cutting-edge with age?
“So how are you?” Cassie asked, moving on. “I saw Emory at a premiere. He asked about you.”
Patrick’s knee hit a table leg and their silverware jumped. “What did you tell him?”
“I said you were a broken man living off crumbs of the former limelight.”
“Limelight doesn’t crumb.”
“A panache of Marlon Brando, Greta Garbo, and the Unabomber is how I think I put it.” Cassie rested her chin on her hands with a smirk.
“I think you mean pastiche,” Patrick said as he straightened his silverware.
She thought for a moment. “I do. I do mean pastiche.”
“Panache almost works.”
“I’m sure I said pastiche.”
“Maybe you said pistachio.” A nut almost worked, too. “I like the Unabomber, though. Well, I don’t like the Unabomber. But you know what I mean.”
“Thank you. I thought that was a nice touch. Although I’ve never once seen you wear a hoodie.” Cassie picked up the knife from her setting and used it to see if she had lipstick on her teeth before coming clean. “I said you were filming a movie in London.”
Patrick agreed this was good. “The truth is always the best policy.”
“May I offer a little personal criticism?”
“Personal?” This marked a shift in their relationship. Patrick wasn’t so sure he wanted to hear it. “I can take any amount of criticism as long as it’s unqualified praise. No?l Coward.”
“Never mind, then.” Cassie placed her knife back where she found it. She was treading in dangerous waters. “So how are you, really?”
“Really?” Patrick was eyeing a sea bream tartare with pink grapefruit and white turnip that was placed on their neighbor’s table when he finally answered. “Tired.”
“You seemed so energized on set!”
“That’s called acting and I’m good at it.”
“No. It’s more than that. I mean, look at you, you’re practically glowing.”
Patrick reached for his fork and pointed toward the ceiling. “We’re all of us glowing. We’re sitting under three hundred brass lamps.”
Cassie glanced upward and, sure enough, recessed into the ceiling were hundreds of domes in a flattering alloy, each one looking like it had been delicately scooped out with a melon baller.
“Well, I’m glad you summoned the strength to join me.”
“I’ve got to eat.” Patrick could tell she was disappointed he wasn’t as excited as she was, so he added, “You have a marvelous glow about you, too.”
Cassie shifted in her seat, uncomfortable as always in the spotlight, let alone under the glare of three hundred of them. She blushed as she perused the main courses.
“In truth, it’s been a great experience. I was hoping to get another season or two out of the sitcom, but I think this movie is going to be really good.” The sitcom was Guncle Knows Best; Patrick had recently completed a four-season run of the show modeled on his relationship with Maisie and Grant.
Cassie was happy that her client was pleased. “Four years is good for networks nowadays. Besides, the problem with kids is they grow up too fast. Do you think they’d still need your character when they’re looking at colleges?” Cassie’s smile faded when she realized she’d skirted too close to Patrick’s real life. She then raised her menu to hide her faux pas. “I’m debating between the ratatouille and the cod.”
“English food,” Patrick said in a tone that was hard to read without elaboration.
“Did you have time to glance through those scripts?” Cassie asked, determined not to let her carelessness derail their evening.
“I told you no sequels.”
“There was just one sequel,” she protested. “It wouldn’t kill you, you know, to do something that others already enjoy.”
“I don’t agree with what others enjoy and I don’t want to be responsible for giving them more of it.”
“What’s wrong with sequels? Avatar 2, Toy Story 3, Top Gun: Maverick—all received Best Picture nominations.”
“Did any of them win?”
“No, but...”
“You can’t lead with exceptions to the rule. Sequels are either too bloated, too stuffed with B-team actors or characters or Ewoks—things that weren’t good enough for the original. A cash grab to profit off something that was probably a fluke in the first place.”
Cassie glanced at the surrounding patrons, perhaps wishing she could dine with one of them.
“The only time it maybe works—and I mean the only time—is when there wasn’t an ending that was entirely happy, when not everything was tied up in a neat little bow. Otherwise you have to undo someone’s happy ending to create more drama for your characters, and no one likes a happy ending undone. And what stories these days don’t have happy endings? They all do, because the planet is on fire and our rights are being stripped and we’re slipping into fascism and people need some distraction from their miserable lives—”
“Okay,” Cassie said very slowly, backing away from a poked bear.
“I’m sorry, I’m not actually No?l Coward. I could have said that with more panache.” Patrick placed a finger alongside one nostril and then pointed at her. That, in the business, is what they referred to as a callback.
“Okay, no sequels. So what do you want to play next?”
Patrick didn’t have an answer, but he was rescued by a server with the night’s specials. He ordered a vodka martini dry, very dry, and Cassie a Kir Royale. Part of the problem was that he didn’t know who he wanted to be next. He did his best to explain. Not only was there not much of a career model for a gay man of fifty to follow, there wasn’t much of a life model. Cassie listened intently, and he saw his pain reflected back at him in her rigorously focused gaze. She was positively Bill Clinton–esque in that way.
“What about Nathan Lane?” she asked sympathetically.
“Is that how you see me?” Patrick retorted, although Nathan Lane had given a career-redefining performance in the revival of Angels in America that had taken Patrick’s breath away, and had won a Tony for his efforts. A Tony would look nice next to his Golden Globe, Patrick thought; the G in EGOT was for Grammy and not Globe, but it would still put him one step closer to a dream.
“Why not? Or Ian McKellen.”
Patrick gay-gasped. Cassie jumped.
“What?”
“I open my heart to you about gay men and aging, and you come at me with Gandalf?”
“Well, I—” Cassie stammered, but it was too late.
“Why not Dumbledore? He was gay. Why not stop dyeing my hair and rent out the Shubert or the Lunt-Fontanne for a whole evening of homosexual wizards!”
“You dye your hair?” Cassie whispered.
Patrick pounded his fists on the table. “FUCKING GANDALF?” Several patrons in the restaurant turned, and there was a tense moment where people just stared in their direction. And then Patrick started to laugh. That was the absurdity of his situation, wasn’t it? There was no good answer. Patrick waved at the other diners and they lost interest and returned to their meals, salads with peas and sprigs of mint. “I use a mousse,” Patrick confessed, “to strip out some of the gray.”
“It looks very natural.”
He smoothed out the napkin in his lap with both hands. “I guess maybe I need a break while I figure a few things out.”
Cassie’s lips disappeared as she forced a weak grin. “I get nervous about you and breaks.” His last break after Joe’s death a decade and a half ago had nearly derailed his career. It wasn’t until his summer in Palm Springs with the kids that he’d found his way back to the light. “Besides. I thought you were turning forty-nine. Fifty is still a year off.”
Patrick narrowed his eyes, deciding whether or not to come clean. “Neal advised shaving a year off my age before sending me on my first audition. Back then you could be twenty-five and play a student at West Beverly High, but twenty-six was starting to push it. It was the best thing he ever did for me. Then my new age kind of stuck.”
Cassie seemed surprised by this. It sounded like something that happened in old Hollywood, not new. “And now is the time to clear the air?”
“What can I say?” Patrick offered. “I’m a work in progress.”
Their server appeared with a sampling of gordal olives with Manchego cheese along with their drinks.
“By the way, you’re not available to babysit, are you? It pays fourteen dollars an hour.”
Cassie did her best to mask whiplash from the change in subject. “Babysit? When?”
“Say, now through...” He began to count the weeks in his head, but didn’t know how long Greg and Livia planned to honeymoon. “August?”
Cassie laughed nervously. They raised their glasses and offered cheers.
“Greg’s getting remarried in a few weeks. Did I mention that? I said I would take the kids for a while. They’re having a rough time with it.”
“Well, of course.” Cassie’s expression turned pained. “I remember when my father remarried, and my mother was still very much alive. It’s never easy. Does she have kids?”
Patrick shook his head, but then second-guessed himself. He really knew very little about Livia.
“I don’t know if that makes it easier or harder, and it will be another issue entirely if she and Greg have their own.”
“Oh, I think that ship has sailed.” Fudging the truth about his age was one thing, but there were biological realities for women that made it harder for them to do the same. Not that more children would be impossible per se, and rich people had more options than most. But Patrick was tired, and he didn’t do anything really. Even on days when he wasn’t on set he needed a nap. He couldn’t imagine anyone close to his age with an infant.
“So what are you going to do for them?”
“For Greg and Livia? I dunno. They’re probably registered somewhere. Although what they might need is impossible to imagine, maybe one of those toasters with four slots.”
Cassie looked at him, disappointed. “For the kids.”
Patrick took a long, slow sip of his martini. The vodka his server recommended (apparently distilled in France specifically for the restaurant) had a nutty, rich taste. He set the glass down on the table, the olive floating on the surface like a tiny bird in a bath.
Cassie proceeded with caution. “You did kind of make them an oath.”
Patrick carefully spun his cocktail on the marble tabletop, which had a handsome inlay. He stopped a passing server. “We’re going to need some wine. Could I see a list?” The server disappeared to fetch one. “I kind of did, didn’t I.” He lifted the martini glass holding only the stem and admired the small ice chips that rose to the surface. “Any suggestions?”
Cassie repositioned her napkin just so on her lap to draw attention away from her smile. “I thought I was limited to giving career advice.”
“Oh, Cassie.” Patrick threw one arm over the back of his chair. “I think we’re well beyond that.”
Over dessert, Cassie promised to find him work that would feel like a break without actually being one and he wished her good luck with that; they parted on a cheerful note. When he was safely back in his room Patrick turned on the TV and flipped through channels until he found an old Ab Fab rerun. Eddie was jogging around the kitchen island in an obnoxiously loud tracksuit making a spectacle of herself as usual, declaring to anyone who would listen, “Inside of me there is a thin person just screaming to get out.” The brilliant June Whitfield, as Eddie’s mother, deadpans, “Just the one, dear?” Patrick laughed as he always did when he heard that line. It was such an inspired takedown. And it’s how he often felt. Inside of him was a good person just screaming to get out. He had his moments, sure. But it was easier than not to revert to old ways. But he still wanted to do better, be better. He slumped his head back against the upholstered, scalloped headboard. A midlife identity crisis? Really? It was all so cliché that it was categorically boring.
He picked up his phone and searched for the travel agent he still used in LA; he was relieved when someone answered his call, as he was pretty sure he was the only one keeping them in business. One day soon travel agents would be like phone booths—decommissioned. The last one removed by some public works department and hauled off to live in a museum.
His next call was to Greg.
“Oh. Cheerio,” Greg said, surprised to hear from his brother so soon. “It’s late where you are. Have you given any more thought to the kids?”
Patrick unlaced his shoes and shimmied his bare feet under the duvet. He had done nothing but think of the kids. “You know, I went to a museum here in London on one of my days off.”
“Do you want like a medal?”
Patrick cleared his throat. “The museum only had mirrors.”
“Okay, but what about Maisie and Grant?”
“Old mirrors, antique mirrors, futuristic mirrors. Quite fascinating, really.”
“Am I in a different conversation?” Greg asked, confused.
“Almost always,” Patrick replied. “Anyhow. I thought, ‘This is a hustle.’?”
Greg gave up. “The mirrors? How so?”
“Charging people to look at themselves. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I admired it. But it truly was quite the swindle.”
“Ah,” Greg said, finally understanding. “This is a roundabout way of saying you’ve done some introspection.”
Patrick was certain he had a point in telling the mirror story, but in the moment he couldn’t remember it. And if he was doing some introspection, he wasn’t going to talk about it with Greg—at least not yet. “I booked tickets for the kids. Plane tickets. JFK to Heathrow.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“Hello?”
“Patrick, I—” Greg didn’t quite know what to say.
“They’ll come spend a couple weeks with me in Europe while you and the Baroness take care of last-minute details—”
“She’s not a baroness.”
“And we’ll meet you in Italy for the wedding. It’ll take their minds off things, and who knows. Maybe it will be good for all three of us.” Patrick hoped that would once again prove to be true. “Just don’t expect another wedding gift. Oven mitts or a casserole dish.”
“Livia’s family comes from seven hundred years of generational wealth, so I think we’ll be fine.”
“Yes, but Suze Orman says it’s not until eight hundred years that you feel truly secure.”
“Who’s Suze Orman?”
“A lesbian financial gu— What difference does it make? Do you need her curriculum vitae?”
Greg laughed.
“What?”
“They’re related to three popes. I think this situation is different.”
“Three popes.”
“One by marriage.”
Patrick, too, had to laugh. They were not raised Catholic, but his parents took all three of their children to some kind of Lutheran church in Connecticut until his sister, Clara, started high school and had her own life on weekends, and Patrick, several years younger, declared his disinterest. Their mother was all too happy to throw in the towel. Only Greg, the youngest, seemed to enjoy it at all—something about the ritual of the service—until he learned that Lutherans did not worship at the altar of Lex Luthor. And now here he was all grown up, about to be a third cousin twice removed or some nonsense to three popes.
The last thing he instructed Greg was to tell the kids to pack light. He’d also purchased three flexible Eurail passes. Thirty-three countries at their fingertips. No fixed route. The world was about to be their oyster.
“It’ll be hard to convince Maisie to leave her books,” Greg warned.
“Is Livia planning on being buried with her generational wealth? Get your bumptious offspring Kindles, for heaven’s sake.”
“She likes physical books, what can I say. And she’s started her period. Can you handle that?”
Patrick hesitated, but supposed he’d handled worse.
“It came later than most of her friends and she’s very sensitive, so you have to tread carefully.”
“I’m sensitive, too, you know.”
“She just had it, so maybe you won’t—”
“Okay.”
“It’s a twenty-eight-day cycle.”
“The length of this conversation has now exceeded my interest in it.”
“I just figured you haven’t had that kind of experience with women.”
“I’m saying goodbye now.”
“PATRICK, WAIT.”
Patrick pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes,” he said, listening again.
There was only a slight hesitation on Greg’s end before he said, “I love you.”