Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
A lex shot away from the wine bar like a cannonball. He didn’t stop until he was five blocks away. His thighs were screaming, and his lungs were on fire. He didn’t stop until tears streamed down his face and stained his shirt. That was Valerie. Valerie saw me. After everything.
She’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
And then he thought, She’s the only woman I’ll ever love in my life. I promised her.
Alex faltered and fell forward so that his head throbbed and hung between his legs. He thought he was going to throw up. He half imagined Valerie sweeping down the road to find him with her sisters hot on her heels. Had she told them about their marriage? Had she told them about their life in California? It didn’t stand to reason she would. But why was she back? Was she really playing happy family with the Suttons? It didn’t make sense. She turned her back on them. She wanted a clean life without any of the mess back East.
Alex remembered the final day of filming Blue Days. They’d been at another beach outside of San Francisco, and blue-gray clouds roiled on the horizon and threatened rain. Rowan was having a tizzy fit, something about getting the flu if he stayed out too late. Why did I forget what a pill he was? He almost ruined every shoot. Rumor had it that Rowan had a stream of auditions coming in, and there was buzz around Blue Days. Everyone thought it was headed to Sundance, Berlinale, and the Venice Film Festival. Everyone told Alex to prepare himself.
A few minutes after Alex called “cut” for the day, Valerie appeared on the horizon with bottles of champagne and plastic cups for the crew. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She leaped on him, wrapped her legs around his waist, and scream-cried with excitement. Then the rain came splattering against her hair, and she kissed him recklessly. They’d only been married a little while. Everything was still sensational. Everything was still new.
“Cheers to my favorite director!” she’d called, raising her cup and spurring the rest of the crew and Rowan to do the same. “Hip, hip, hoorah!”
Alex shook the images out and gazed down the dark street, waiting for her to come after him. But she didn’t.
She hadn’t come after him when he’d left California either. That meant something.
Alex returned to his truck and drove the rest of the way to his cabin. He hadn’t been able to sleep because he still wasn’t accustomed to his new schedule. That, and his adrenaline continued to pulse after saving that man this afternoon.
Alex stumbled into his cabin, removed his shirt and pants, and opened the back door to gaze at the inky-black night that hung over the ocean and threatened to flatten it. He felt closer to a broken heart than he had in years. It occurred to him that working the front desk at The Rooster had been the best possible distraction. All he’d had to worry about was other people’s logistics. Other people’s problems. But now that he was “making art again,” he was opening up an old wound. Maybe it wasn’t fair to him.
It was past midnight when Rowan wrote.
ROWAN: The footage we got today was killer, man! You still have your skills.
ROWAN: And the me saving a man’s life thing? It totally works into the narrative of the documentary. I think it adds a lot of texture to my character.
ROWAN: I’ll pick you up at six in the morning tomorrow. I want to get sunrise shots.
Alex wrote back a thumbs-up, then thought before he could take it back, Rowan could never save a man’s life. He’s too slippery. Too egotistical.
But wasn’t he trying to save Alex’s career? Wasn’t that enough?
Alex sat at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and his laptop open. For the first time since he’d finished the result, he brought up the footage from Wes and Beatrice Sheridan’s recent wedding—a wedding he’d been lucky to attend. A wedding that had forced him to imagine what his and Valerie’s might have looked like if they’d opted to be surrounded by family instead of strangers and fake Elvis. Together forever, he imagined them whispering to each other on a Nantucket beach.
True to his word, Rowan appeared at six the following morning to pick Alex up. Alex was practically levitating after four cups of coffee and zero hours of sleep. He hadn’t even bothered to get into bed, knowing he would be sweaty and agitated just lying there, waiting to fall asleep but knowing that would never come. He bolted into Rowan’s passenger side and buckled himself in. He probably looked crazy, with eyebrows too high and hair out of whack. He didn’t care.
Rowan looked every bit like the Hollywood elite he was trying to become. He was well-rested, tan, and dressed in linens in dark colors. Just before he took off, he adjusted something under his shirt: a heart monitor, he explained. Dr. Sutton wanted to make sure everything was ticking along smoothly.
“But I told her I’m Rowan Collins,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “Nothing can get between me and what I came here to do.”
Rowan had a vague vision for the morning’s shoot that Alex, ultimately, took over. Alex was the local. He knew where the light would strike the cliffs best, where the most beautiful birds burst up from a line of trees, and where the ocean was particularly startling in its turquoise blue. Rowan eventually begged Alex for more, and Alex gave in because he didn’t know how not to. I have to do it for the beauty of the shot. He directed Rowan around the island all morning long. It wasn’t till nine thirty that Rowan admitted he was starving.
“Nadine wants us to come by for breakfast,” he said. “Sound good?”
Alex’s caffeine intake meant that his stomach lining felt like it was eating itself. He agreed, then asked, “Victor wants more later this week?”
“He said he’s free. Anything for the king of family psychiatry. Ha. Until then, I need you to take shots of me,” Rowan said. “Maybe a monologue in front of the beach house after breakfast? What do you think?”
Rowan parked in front of the beach house, and Zane whipped around the side wearing a Spider-Man outfit, including the stretchy fabric that covered his head. Rowan cut the engine and muttered, “He can’t get enough of that thing.” He said it as though it really bothered him. As though he already expected his young son to wear couture and pull himself together.
In answer, Alex burst from the passenger side and bellowed, “It’s you! Spider-Man! My enemy!” His voice echoed across the sands.
Zane froze with surprise, then hopped up and down for a brief second before catching on. He shot all ten fingers out, saying, “You’ll never take the city, Otto Octavius!”
Alex remembered Otto from the early 2000s Spider-Man films. He was a crazy scientist who’d gone evil after he’d attached himself to octopus arms. In response, Alex flailed his two arms and two legs, pretending he had more than four appendages. Zane cackled and danced around the side of the car.
Rowan threw his keys into the air and grunted. It occurred to Alex that he didn’t enjoy how easy it was for him to hang out with his son. Does he ever play like this? Does he realize how special this is to me?
Children needed silliness. They needed to play.
But suddenly, Nadine appeared in the doorway. She wore a sleek bodysuit and had her hand on her hip. She had no eyes for Alex or for Zane. She pegged Rowan and barked, “Row? Can I talk to you for a second?”
Alex shivered with surprise. He hadn’t anticipated Nadine would ever treat Rowan like that. He’d thought Rowan to be “the man of the house,” the breadwinner who refused his wife to be anything but docile, good at cooking, and exceedingly kind. Alex and Valerie had poked holes in relationships like that, so sure theirs had been healthy, wonderful, and unstoppable.
Alex remained outside with Zane, kicking a soccer ball with the inside curve of his foot.
That was when he heard Nadine howl, “You told me you saved that guy!”
A shiver ran down Alex’s spine. A violent wind pressed itself against the beach house and fluttered the limbs of the vibrant green oak. Rowan came home yesterday, showed her the footage, and explained that he’d saved a man’s life. How sick.
Beneath Alex, Zane shrugged his shoulders. “They fight all the time. You get used to it.”
Alex tapped the soccer ball up to bounce it on his knee. “I hope they don’t yell at you?”
Zane raised both hands and bucked forward to bounce the ball on his head.
“I don’t care what you want the public to think,” Nadine declared. “Why wouldn’t you tell me? I’m mortified, Rowan. I told three people last night that you saved some guy from the ocean. And now it’s all over the paper?”
Suddenly, a text came through Alex’s phone. It was from his mother, and it was a photograph of the newspaper article Nadine spoke about right now. There was a photo of Alex at the Madequecham Beach, on his hands and knees as he prepared to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the drowning victim. Beneath the photograph was a straight-on image of Alex’s face—taken a few years ago for a reason Alex no longer remembered. How did they get it? But it was a small town. A small island. Things like that were probably easy to come by. The caption read: Nantucket local Alex Garland spotted maintaining the health and safety at Madequecham Beach.
Alex’s stomach curdled. Maintaining health and safety. He hated this kind of publicity.
MOM: That’s my boy!
MOM: We’re so proud of you.
MOM: Why didn’t you say anything about this? We heard about someone almost drowning on that beach yesterday, but we had no idea you were the saver.
Alex shoved his phone back into his pocket and clasped his hands.
From inside came the sound of Rowan howling, “You don’t get my work. You’ve never understood it!”
“I’d better hit the road,” Alex said to Zane.
Zane’s eyes were enormous. For the first time, Alex wondered if Zane had snuck out of his room at The Rooster because he wanted to be somewhere away from his parents. Maybe Rowan and Nadine had spent the evening fighting. Maybe Zane had tossed and turned on a sweaty mattress, wondering if his parents still knew how to love.
If Valerie and I had had children, would we have fallen out of love too?
Nadine soon appeared on the front stoop to call Alex inside for breakfast. Alex had no desire to enter the beach house and face the darkness that brewed therein. So he came up with an excuse, as was his right as a fiction writer. He said, “My dad needs me over at the inn.”
“We can drive you,” Nadine offered.
“Don’t worry,” Alex said. “He said he can pick me up.”
Not wanting to wait a moment longer, Alex waved a hand to a glowering Rowan and high-fived Spider-Man. But that was when Rowan bucked out of the house and stalked toward him. His face was ghastly green. He was ashamed because of what his wife had said aloud. Now that the story was public, he knew that he could no longer use the footage in his documentary. And like a toddler, he decided to test boundaries and make a big fuss.
Alex crossed his arms and waited.
“Zane, go inside with your mother,” Rowan said. “Alex and I have a few more things to do today.”
“Like I said,” Alex offered, “my dad needs me at the inn.”
“You said you got a replacement at the inn.”
Alex’s mouth went dry. There was so little reason to argue with this horrible man. I never should have hired him for Blue Days. I never should have linked myself to him.
Not long after that, Rowan and Alex returned to Rowan’s rental and soared across the rolling hills of an island painted with pink pastel skies. Alex’s heart pounded loudly in his ears, and he gripped the camera hard and got as many shots of the rolling landscape as he could. He needed to eat something, but he couldn’t imagine saying so. On the one hand, he was pleased that Rowan had been “found out” for lying about the save. But on the other, he really needed Rowan to give him a leg-up in the industry. He felt just as he had in his twenties when he’d first got to Hollywood. He’d known he needed to lick everyone’s boots to get anywhere. Didn’t I abandon that world for a reason?
Suddenly, Rowan yanked the car into a gravel road, driving far too quickly for the terrain. Alex closed his eyes and imagined them ripping into trees or into a ditch. His mother would cry and cry. But suddenly, Rowan nosed their way to an abandoned beach with spindly birch trees lining the edge and decadent sand like white icing frothing in the wind. Rowan cut the engine, and Alex turned on the camera and shot him with a side profile. It was just as they’d already agreed. It was good to film everything in case something came out of it.
Alex had the sudden sensation that he’d been the one to teach Rowan that back in California. Back when he’d been the director going somewhere.
Rowan began to talk with his eyes on the horizon. “We all knew you didn’t have it in you back then, Alex.”
Alex continued to hold the camera stiffly. He reminded himself not to move. Not to flinch. No matter how much he hated what Rowan said.
“You were fresh out of rehab, right? Fresh into recovery. And your emotions were all over the place. Rumor had it you’d run off and married some girl you’d just met.” Rowan scoffed. “You were a genius, maybe. Maybe you were. But there was that one day you broke down on set. Do you remember?”
Alex’s nose twitched. He decided to answer despite not being on camera. “I think I remember.”
“You couldn’t get the shot, and the rain kept coming, and all the crew was complaining,” Rowan said. “There was something wrong at home, too. Your wife or girlfriend kept calling, and you were crying but trying to pretend that it was just the rain.”
Alex could still hear Valerie’s voice on the other line. He could still hear her weeping and saying, “I lost the baby. The baby, Alex. The baby is gone.”
It had felt like a knife through his heart. And for whatever reason, he hadn’t been able to shake the image of Joel in the hospital bed from his mind. He’d thought, Why would we bring a baby into the world when the world is so cruel to its children? Why would we bring a baby into the world just to suffer?
“We met up with your investor that night,” Rowan continued, “after we finished filming for the day. You were crying into your beer in the corner about whatever was wrong at home, and I got to chatting with him. He said he’d randomly met you at a baby shower? He’d hired you to film a little video for his wife?” Rowan snorted. “You got lucky there. But you squandered that luck. Anyway, your investor and I got to talking. I pitched him some of my ideas. Told him how tumultuous it had been on set so far.”
Alex’s heart pumped at a strange beat in his chest. He felt as though he was watching a film reel of his life after it had ended.
“He realized it was horrible to be associated with you,” Rowan said. “By beer number three, he was touting my brilliance. And by the fifth, he’d decided to completely rescind the rest of your funding and pass it along to me.”
Rowan’s smile showed too many of his shark teeth. Alex thought that he might have punched him if Alex himself were a stronger man. But he didn’t have it in him.
Rowan flipped his hands so that his palms were facing up on his thighs. “You know as well as me that Hollywood is a dog-eat-dog world. That you have to take whatever you can and run with it. I saw my opportunity.”
“You stalked me to The Rooster,” Alex muttered. “It wasn’t a coincidence.”
Rowan snapped his fingers. “That’s not true, actually. That’s the strangest thing of all. I’ve been riding high since I got funding from your ex-benefactor. I’ve been to every film festival. I’ve been written up in every film magazine and blog. My name is touted with the other documentary greats. But, like most everyone else in Hollywood, I forgot where I came from. And here you are to remind me. You lucky fool.”
Alex wrapped his hand around his own throat. His legs and arms felt like jelly. But he’d gotten it all on film. Every lick of it. And he saved the clip to the cloud before Rowan could stop him.
Rowan raised his eyebrows and looked Alex dead in the eye. “I think that’ll play really well, don’t you?”
Alex tilted his head.
“Go ahead and share it online if you want to. The footage works with the documentary,” Rowan said. “I betrayed you repeatedly because I need to see myself as the ideal American family man. It’s just like Victor Sutton betraying his family. It’s just like everyone else. We take what we can, and we run with it.” Rowan’s eyes shone, and he grabbed Alex’s shoulder and shook him. “Man, you don’t know what it means to me that you’re here. You’re the first guy I ever really wronged. You’re a milestone in my life, man.”
Alex was slack-jawed with shock. Before he could stop himself, he bucked out of the side of the car, slammed the door, and walked down the road. Rowan was cackling in the front seat. The car shook beneath him.
“Come on, man. Lighten up!” Rowan called. “If you’d wanted to make it, you would have made it. But you just didn’t have it, man. Everyone knew that.”
Rowan’s heart seized at the memory of how much he’d loved Blue Days, at how much he’d loved Valerie, and the thrill he’d felt when she’d first told him she was pregnant. It’s like we escaped all that bad stuff back in Nantucket. We’ve carved out our own destiny. But destiny was right here, and it was laughing in his face.