Chapter Fourteen
Patrick had barely closed the door to his room when a wave of complete exhaustion overtook him. He fell face down on his bed with such force that one of his espadrilles flew into a corner. The bed linens were soft and absorbed his breath, even though his nose was squished to one side. He wondered how long he could stay like this. The kids were with their father, his next commitment wasn’t for another few hours. He could lay here, face buried in bedding, drift in and out of consciousness, and still have time for a hot shower to steam some of the creases from his face. He reached for a bottle of Acqua Panna that housekeeping left for him by the bedside, thinking hydration would be smart before his snooze. He grazed the glass bottle with his fingertips and tipped it toward him until he managed a solid grip around its neck, then lifted his head the best he could and tossed the bottle back with a little too much enthusiasm. The water, which was carbonated, came exploding out of his nose. “Isn’t anything here flat?” he moaned to himself as he wiped water from his face with the back of his hand. The duvet was now wet and he did his best to brush the excess water beads onto the floor. He then rolled over onto his back and hung his head off the edge of the bed, and the mountains across the lake taunted him. No, nothing here was flat. Italy bubbled with life.
He had just dozed into that type of afternoon sleep, the kind that was so disorienting after a day in the sun that you woke up not knowing if it was day or night, when his cell phone rang, startling him into a panic. He fumbled for the phone, which he found underneath him; that was surprising for some reason—he was usually like the princess and the pea in that regard, needing his mattress just right. Certain it was one of the kids calling to pester him about his waning dedication to their cause, he answered, “What time is it?” as if he might have been asleep for hours.
“Ciao,” a woman replied, her voice cheery and vaguely familiar. Patrick looked at the ceiling, which was adorned with molding and an ornate ceiling medallion. He rubbed his eyes, not quite able to place where he was.
“Ciao,” Patrick repeated flatly. “What time is it?”
“Where you are?” the woman asked. “I’m not sure.” And Patrick remembered he was in Lake Como, an unusual place for him to be.
“What time is it where you are, then?” he asked.
There was a pause as the woman checked. “It’s a little after six in the morning.”
Patrick sat upright in bed, wondering if he’d slept through the night. Greg would be mad, as would the kids, as he’d have one less day to stop the wedding. But the sun wasn’t where it was supposed to be at six in the morning, and there was too much activity on the lake. “Cassie?” he asked with some hesitation.
“Yes, who did you think it was?”
Patrick didn’t really know—the front desk? Livia?—someone who had a legitimate reason to say, “Ciao.” “You’re getting an early start,” he observed, assuming this was a work call. He hoped she wasn’t phoning him just to gab, as he had no gab left in him. He put the phone on speaker and rolled over onto his back.
“You’re nine hours ahead.” What she said next was swallowed by static.
“Time zones are overwhelming.”
“The earth is hurtling through space at one hundred and sixty thousand miles per hour, but sure—time zones are what’s overwhelming.”
Growing bored of this call as it was currently unfolding, Patrick derailed it by asking, “Are you seeing anyone?”
“Am I...?” Cassie began with a sort of stunned bemusement. She struggled to answer before observing, “We never talk about me.”
It was true. The client-agent relationship was weighted in one direction. Cassie knew everything about Patrick, his taste in material, his desires, his moods, his successes... his failures. Even his income flowed through her office. Conversely, Patrick knew very little about his agent. He thought of her like a messenger on horseback, riding into his remote castle every so often with news from the outside world. All anyone in the castle wanted to know was if the kingdom seemed prosperous or in danger of collapsing, if forces were gathering that threatened them or if they could continue their way of life. No one ever cared about the messenger’s journey or if they had hopes or dreams of their own—or if they even wanted to be a messenger at all. “Yes, but we’re friends, right?” Patrick was still haunted by his conversation with Clara; he had to have some female friends.
“I just started seeing someone, in fact,” Cassie announced with a burst of pride. “And Patrick, I’m so touched! I’m thrilled you think of us as fri—”
“A woman?” Patrick interrupted, bracing himself for the answer. The last thing he needed was another lesbian upending his life—he was in danger of being outnumbered. “You said someone.”
“It’s a common turn of phrase.”
“I’m just wondering why you didn’t say ‘a guy.’?”
“Is that a qualification for friendship?” Cassie asked, hoping friendship wouldn’t be easily revoked. “Yes, a guy. As it so happens he’s an up-and-coming director.”
Patrick groaned. “Please tell me you’re not dating a client.”
There was a beep through the phone, as if she had pressed a button in annoyance, a sort of electronic Bite your tongue. “Jealous?” she asked. Cassie had grown so much in five years and of course he wanted her to be her authentic self, but selfishly he was relieved he had only one lesbian to currently contend with. “For your information, I don’t represent directors,” she continued. “My actor clients are needy enough. Why the sudden interest in my dating life?”
It was a good question. In the back of his mind he wondered if he shouldn’t have played more of a hand in finding Greg a second wife since he’d done so well with his first. Straight men, after all, can be kind of hapless in that regard. Perhaps Cassie and Greg might be well suited. They had been introduced. They got along. And the kids seemed to adore her; at least they did that summer in Palm Springs and the few times they’d interacted since. Like with Clara, he’d assisted in finding Cassie a look that worked best with her natural features and Cassie was an absolute catch (although it had as much to do with the confidence she exuded, and despite Patrick’s pride in her makeover, confidence was something that came from within). But when Patrick had introduced Greg to his best friend, his own relationship with Sara suffered. Would he want to share Cassie the way he had once had to share Sara? No was the obvious answer; Patrick didn’t like to share much of anything, let alone his one female friend. But there was also very little he wouldn’t do or at least try for the kids. “No reason, I was just wondering if you might like to date Greg.”
This time there was no pause from her end, not even from the great communicative distance. “Greg, your brother Greg?!”
“What’s wrong with Greg?” Patrick asked, as if she were objecting to his personality or his appearance.
“Aren’t you, I don’t know... AT HIS WEDDING?”
Patrick rolled over onto his side and came face-to-face with a wall paneled with beveled mirrors reflecting the clay-colored room and lush velvet curtains behind him. From this angle he felt like he was in a guest room at Versailles, and in that moment he wished for a tower of French macarons that he could snack on like Marie Antoinette.
“Patrick, what are you trying to tell me?” Cassie asked with obvious disappointment, and in his agent he could momentarily hear his mother. Patrick wasn’t sure what he was plotting—not specifically one of those dramatic “speak now or forever hold your peace” kind of moments, but it was good to keep his options open in a situation like this.
“Tell you?” he asked, sensing it was the right time to change the subject. “You’re the one who called me.”
Cassie snapped back to attention. “Oh, right. I wanted to know when you were coming back to New York.”
She had another offer of work. It should be every actor’s dream that the phones were ringing, but her presence in his ear was adding unneeded pressure in a moment when he was already feeling overwhelmed. “Cassie.”
“It’s not a sequel! I swear. But where do you land on revivals?”
“I told you, I need a break.”
“You’re not ready to commit to film or TV or anything remotely full-time. I get it. But I thought you might be open to having some fun.”
Patrick’s ears pricked up at the word fun and he dropped his protest long enough to allow Cassie time to explain. Grease was the word, and she said it with groove and with meaning. The current Broadway revival was six months into its run and they were looking to goose sagging ticket sales by stunt casting the adult roles. Elizabeth Banks as Miss Lynch, Darren Criss as Teen Angel. That sort of thing. Cassie said they were negotiating a deal for Vanessa Hudgens to play Cha Cha, even though Cha Cha was not an adult and Vanessa very much was.
“Cassie, god help you if this call ends with an offer for me to play Eugene.”
“Patrick, please,” she replied in a way that sounded like she was smirking—either she knew better, or she thought it ridiculous that he, who was no beauty school dropout, imagined a world where he could convincingly go back to high school. “I wouldn’t do that to a friend.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“They’re offering you Vince Fontaine.”
Patrick hung his head off the edge of the bed like a teenager and studied himself upside down in the mirror as blood ran to his head. He looked good, but not great. He had a bit of a tan from his summer travels and he flashed back to something he once told Clara: if you can’t tone it, tan it—a little color masked any number of sins. Hanging upside down helped counteract gravity, and helped him look rested and fresh. But he doubted they’d let him play the role hanging from a trapeze, unless this was some sort of production from Cirque du Soleil. “Which one is Vince Fontaine?”
“He’s the slick, fast-talking DJ who hosts the big high school dance.”
Patrick nodded as he remembered, which was a strange gesture from this angle. “Lecherous type? Hit on Marty?” He found that amusing; only on Broadway were gay men so routinely offered straight roles. He then listened to the rustling of pages, like Cassie was flipping through the casting breakdowns to find which of the Pink Ladies Vince tried to seduce.
“I believe so, yes.”
“I don’t sing. Do they know that? I can’t be expected to sing.” Patrick said this despite having very recently performed a half-dozen numbers from The Sound of Music, shrieking through the streets of Austria; Austria didn’t have New York critics.
“You don’t have to sing. You just have to teach the kids the hand jive.”
He could do that, Patrick thought. The hand jive was what, one dance? It was easier than Maria had it, trying to teach kids rudimentary singing, the fundamentals of all songs. “Can I think about it?”
“Of course. Just let me know as soon as the wedding is over. And I mean over, not off. Don’t meddle where your innate Patrick-ness is not welcome.”
Not welcome? He was an invited guest!
“The bride’s father is a bulldog of a man with a wrinkled pocket between his eyes. I bet I could stuff a whole ravioli in the folds of his skin.”
Cassie’s reply was quick. “I’m begging you not to.”
Patrick laughed. She was in charge of his image, so she worried about these things—an agent through and through. When he ended their call he stood up and stretched and reached for the bottle of Acqua Panna again, stubbing his toe on a period chair. He shrieked and cursed, but to his credit he held on to the bottle. Damn Livia’s family for taking all the larger rooms. He imagined Palmina and her equerries luxuriating in one of the most spacious suites. He was quite certain they had plenty of room to swing cats without tripping over the chairs. He took a swig of warm Acqua Panna and his throat tickled as it went down. His kingdom for some flat water and a few cubes of ice.
Grease, Patrick thought as he sat on the edge of the bed. The idea of Broadway intrigued him and his mind started to race. His thoughts turned to Sara and their summer at the beach pretending to be Danny and Sandy. It could be fun, and a way to keep his feet wet.
Sleep was now out of the question, so Patrick entered his tiny bathroom to run the shower. At least that water was flat.