24. Luke
LUKE
Nine in the morning. Delia's already there when I arrive, which means they've been talking about me.
Morocco logistics. Six months. The schedule, the insurance, the trainer situation, the dialect coach, the stunt coordinator.
Steven walks me through all of it with the particular efficiency of a man who has been doing this for twenty years and has learned that actors stop listening after the third line item.
"Your passport is all good?"
"I checked it."
I sign what needs signing.
"Anna's coming with me."
"How long?" Steven asks.
"Most of it I guess."
"So you two are really dating now?" Steven says.
"It happens."
"Hey, my wife was my secretary, what can I tell you."
"Are there laws against that?" I say.
"There are laws against sleeping with your fake girlfriend too."
"You can't take her," Delia says.
"Why not?"
"She's getting auditions daily now, how's she going to do that from Morocco?"
"She wants to come."
"Luke. She's thirty. You know what that means for a woman in this town, do I need to explain it."
"No, I get it."
"This is her time. Do not fuck it up for her if you want her to have a career. Don't make her pause and restart."
"Talk to her about it."
"Oh, I will," Delia says.
The room is quiet for a moment.
"Fucking actors, man," Delia says.
She looks at Steven.
"My daughter wants to be an actress now. I wish it was drugs. There's help for that."
"Let's move on," Delia says.
I can feel her not being done with it.
We go to Danny's to watch the football game. It's easier than them hauling the kids to us.
Danny's couch is the most comfortable couch I've ever sat on.
I tell him this.
"Jen picked it. It's the Cloud from Restoration Hardware." He reaches for his beer. "I wanted the leather one. She said it looked like a divorced guy's couch."
"She's not wrong."
"She's never wrong. It's exhausting."
The Steelers and Ravens, third quarter, Baltimore up by four. Danny has opinions about every play and shares all of them.
Brian is in the yard with Anna and Jen, running some kind of game that involves a lot of falling down. Penelope is asleep on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, one sock on, one sock lost to history, completely unbothered by the surrounding noise.
"I want her to go," I say.
"Maybe she doesn't go the whole time, that's all."
"It would be bad for her career. She's got momentum right now. Auditions. You don't walk away from that."
Danny is quiet for a moment.
"Is this about Rebecca?"
"No, it's not."
"Okay good." He nods slowly like he's filing that somewhere he'll come back to.
"Have you ever been tempted?" I ask.
"Tempted, yes. Have I ever done anything, hell no. I have these two little ones."
"You know for the first time in my life, I am actually thinking about it."
"Kids?"
"Yeah."
"Wait, what happened to not me, I don't believe in children."
"First of all, that's not what I said. Second, Anna wants kids."
"She said that?"
"She put it out there on the table, so I have to seriously think about it. I'm just worried about fucking the kids up, you know."
"Good for her."
"I didn't have the best role models, man."
"Well, mine weren't terrible but Jen's were. Her parents were a nightmare. Beat her and shit. She's amazing. Look at her."
Outside Anna says something and Jen laughs. Brian runs toward them with his arms out like an airplane and Anna catches him and swings him around and he screams with delight.
"You know, you're not a bad boy anymore."
"Yeah. Anna did that."
"I used to think you were a dick," Danny says.
"Oh, really? Because I thought you were an asshole."
"Huh."
Baltimore scores. Danny stands up. Makes a fist pump so he doesn't wake Penelope.
"Why are you rooting for Baltimore?"
"I have a hundred bucks on Baltimore. And do not mention that to Jen."
He sits back down. Shakes his head at the secondary like it personally offended him.
Anna and Brian are still at it. Anna crouched down in the grass in the backyard, explaining something to him, completely absorbed in it. Like there's nowhere else she needs to be.