50. James
JAMES
Ididn’t move. I had to make Will understand. Just because I didn’t have the luxury of pretending money didn’t matter didn’t mean it was all that mattered.
I knew exactly what Will was doing. I’d done the same thing to Michael. Rather than believe he’d loved me in his own way, it was easier to accuse him of only staying because it was financially convenient. It was all or nothing, black or white.
“You’re stressed out and hurt, and you have every right to be.
I know how much you love your father, even if you pretend you don’t.
And I know I’m partially, if not mostly, responsible for the way you feel right now.
I just dropped a major bomb on you, too, and at the worst possible time.
But you deserved to know, and I hated keeping this from you.
“I know it took you all summer to let your guard down and trust me, and I know the moment you did, I betrayed that trust, or at least it seemed that way to you, but I really did do this for you. And, yeah, I’m not gonna lie, I also did it for Theo.
I thought I could give him the life Travis wanted for him.
But I also wanted to give you the life you deserve.
You are a movie star, Will, and one day the world is gonna realize that.
I’m sure of it. I just thought maybe, if I took care of Tony, that day could be now.
“I know how easy it is when everything goes to shit to try and make sense of it all with oversimplifications, like he was only doing it for the money, but trust me, it’s not gonna help.
You can’t see it now, but you’re in a prison of your own making.
You keep waiting around for someone to let you out, but no one’s coming.
It doesn’t matter how much you punish yourself or how small and unthreatening you try to make yourself.
There is no time off for good behavior. If you want out, you’re gonna have to—”
“Are you seriously giving me another fucking dad talk right now? Jesus, get over yourself. I don’t need your fucking advice on how to handle my emotions.
Handling emotions is literally what I do all day, my own and everyone else’s.
So fuck off. Find yourself another twenty-two-year-old skater boy who thinks you’re old and wise. I’m not interested.”
Despite wanting to tie him up and force him to see reason, I held up my hands and stepped back. “Okay, I’m gonna give you some space. But will you at least go find Miles and Tiffany? I don’t want you to be alone right now.”
“Fuck you.” Will grabbed the crystal decanter of bourbon and slipped through the glass doors into the garden.
I watched him cross the yard toward the beach and disappear into the darkness. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, staring out the glass doors, but it was long enough for the sky to fill with stars. Then my phone rang.
I glanced down and saw Es’s name.
“Hey,” I said, not bothering to hide my defeated tone.
“Where are you? Theo just posted a Snap of himself in a bathtub carved from a giant quartz crystal.”
“We’re at Robert’s mansion in the Hamptons.”
“Really? Does this mean you patched things up with Mr. Fine Ass?”
I turned away from the garden. “No, the opposite, actually. It’s over. He hates me, and I don’t blame him.”
“He doesn’t hate you. He hates himself.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes, but that’s not why I’m calling. I’ve been doing some more digging into our friend, Tony, and guess who owns a house in Morocco and just applied for a Golden Visa?”
“What’s a Golden Visa?”
“It’s citizenship by investment, which basically boils down to buying yourself a passport in another country so it’ll be harder to be extradited.”
Shit. Maybe Robert was right. Maybe Tony was getting scared. “How did you find this out?”
“I’m not telling you my trade secrets.”
After dropping Theo off at the motel, I headed to the movie set. They were in the middle of filming when I entered, so I waited by the door. From there, I watched a younger, prettier version of myself in cutoff jeans and a tank top attempt to check my father’s diaper. Robert—Bruce—wasn’t having it.
“Why are you dressed like a queer?” he asked, his impression of my father so perfect, I shuddered.
Ryan, playing me, pushed Robert forward and tried to pull back the elastic of his sweatpants. “Because I am queer, Dad. We’ve already been over this. You just don’t remember.”
“Take that fuckin’ shit off before your mother sees.”
Ryan gave up trying to peer into Robert’s diaper and just jammed his finger inside instead. “Mom’s in Florida,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“Get your fuckin’ hands off of me. Maggie? Maggie?”
“She’s in Florida, Dad,” Ryan said. He pulled his soiled finger out and reached for a wet wipe. “Now lie down so I can change you.”
Robert’s body trembled as his eyes glazed over. I thought he was having another stroke until he erupted into a tirade of homophobic obscenities.
Will came in through the kitchen, his boots caked in shit and hay.
“What are you doin’?” he asked, taking in his brother’s ridiculous getup and his father’s unfiltered bigotry.
“Why are you dressed like that?” Even as anger flared in his dark eyes, he looked bone weary.
“Would you just fuckin’ leave Dad alone for five minutes?
You’re gay, we get it. Now give it a rest.”
My heart slammed against my ribs because I knew what was coming. “Fuck you,” Ryan said, then his fist connected with Will’s face.
“Cut!” Michelle shouted, and my jaw unclenched as I sucked in a breath.
I wasn’t ready for this. The set was like a finely curated exhibit of the worst parts of my life, every mistake laid bare for all to see.
Why had I tortured my father like that, coming out over and over again?
Why had I tortured myself? Had I really believed I could Groundhog Day my way to something other than hate and loathing?
And there were Will and Travis, packaged into one person. I’d tried to help both of them, but I’d only made things worse. What if Tony flew to Morocco tomorrow and leaked the videos from there?
Robert finally noticed me and waved me over. “Oh, good, you made it. What did you think?”
I swallowed the lump of shame in my throat and stepped into the light. “It was good.”
As they reset for the next take, I stepped outside to clear my head. I walked across the drive and sat on the bench overlooking the pond in the valley below. It was a cool day, at least for August, and a few of the maples edging the property had already started to turn red.
Feet crunched on the gravel behind me, and I turned to spot Donna striding across the driveway in jeans, knee-high boots, and a white blouse.
She held a large Dunkin’ Donuts latte in one hand—no doubt the best she could manage without craft services—and her phone in the other.
She came around the bench and sat uncomfortably close.
“Where’s Theo?” she asked, setting her phone down beside her.
“He’s at the motel.” He’d begged to come, but I insisted he stay home. They were filming the death scene today, and I didn’t want him to see that.
She frowned. “You’re not staying at the house with the rest of us? I was looking forward to one of Theo’s homemade meals.”
I forced a laugh. More like one of his homemade cocktails. “I don’t think Will would appreciate that.”
Donna sipped her latte as if in quiet reflection, but when she spoke, it was about something else entirely.
“I always knew William was different, special. All mothers think that, I know, but some of us are right.” She tightened her blouse against the breeze.
“Andy was always a mama’s boy, but not William.
He worshiped his father. Why? I don’t know.
Robert was always working. Even when he spent time with William, it was never to build a tower or draw pictures.
It was always to rehearse. I think he thought if he could hold a toddler’s attention, it meant he was doing something right. ”
She took another sip of her latte, the aroma of hazelnut reminding me of my own mother, who always got that flavor when pumpkin spice wasn’t in season.
“He must’ve been three, maybe four, when I found him in the nursery one day, reciting a monologue from that Tarantino film Robert did,” Donna continued.
“The nanny was passed out in the rocking chair, and William had Andy propped up between two stuffed animals, creating his own little audience. Andy couldn’t have been more than one or two at the time, but he was rapt, his eyes trained on William as if William were the coolest kid in the world.
‘You say fuck one more time, and I’ll show you how to fuck a motherfucking motherfucker up the motherfucking ass,’ William shouted.
” She paused, smiling a little at the memory.
“There was real venom in William’s delivery, but Andy thought it was hilarious.
It was actually his laughter that brought me to the nursery in the first place. ”
I said nothing, just watched her casually take another sip.
“I hid in the doorway and watched as word for word, emotion for emotion, William recited the entire monologue perfectly,” she said. “When I stopped laughing, I thought, ‘What have we done to this poor child?’ And not because of the cursing. I’ve never cared about that.”
I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to say, so I just continued staring at the pond as the wind whipped its surface into mottled gray ripples.
“It’s going to be hard for him, watching his father die, as it must’ve been for you,” she said, smoothing a crease in her jeans.
“He’s spent his whole life trying to make that arrogant bastard notice him.
” She paused, taking in the splash landing of two ducks in the pond.
“I think the main thing parents want for their kids—what you probably want for Theo—is just for someone else to see them the way we do, to realize how amazing they are and love them for it.”
She brushed aside a lock of hair that had blown across her lips.
“In a way, I was a single parent long before Robert and I divorced. I hated how he wouldn’t even look at him.
William would go to such lengths, too, singing songs, choreographing routines with his best friend Ariel.
Robert was always polite. He was nothing like your father.
He’d point out the parts he liked and give a few suggestions, but he never let William get to him.
He was never impressed or moved, and I couldn’t figure out why.
Was I crazy? But I knew William was special. I knew he had a gift, and I was right.”
She took an especially long sip, as if rewarding herself.
“It wasn’t easy getting him that role in The Beautiful.
They thought he was too young, too green, too average-looking.
But I knew he’d be perfect. I financed most of The Beautiful myself .
. . anonymously, of course. I made a huge profit, too. ”
The ducks disappeared under the weeping willow’s overhang, but even so, I didn’t look away. Apparently, I was just one in a long line of people who’d fucked Will over.
“Finally, the world saw what I saw,” she continued.
“The director even called me after the first day of shooting. ‘That boy of yours is going to win an Oscar one day,’ he said.” Her laugh was soft, almost bitter.
“Derek hated William at first. Said he was obnoxious. But even he grew to like him. Love him, I suspect.” She shook her head.
“But Robert? No. You can’t tell that man ‘I told you so.’ To him, it was just the role that people were in love with, not the performance.
He said William was like Hillary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby, that people just felt sorry for his character.
He even tried to take credit for the film’s success, saying it was all due to the narrative that William might beat him, the great Robert Chapman, to the Oscar podium. ”
She went quiet, but I didn’t fill the silence, still not sure why she was telling me all this.
“Even after I figured out who you really are, I didn’t say anything because I could tell you saw it, too,” she said. “It was in the way you looked at him, how you always found excuses to be near him, to touch him.”
I tore my gaze from the pond. “You knew?”
She shook her head. “Not that you were working with Esther Kim. I didn’t see that coming.
But I guessed you were Jimmy a couple of days after you started coming to the set.
It wasn’t just your insight into all the characters either.
It was the way you’d stare at William when he filmed, like you were seeing a ghost.”
I chanced a glance at her face and was surprised to find a softness in her eyes I’d never seen before. “And you didn’t tell him?”
“I liked seeing him happy for a change.” She uncrossed her legs and stood.
“Just don’t give up on him, okay? He’s going to need a friend, and while I love Miles like he’s my own son, I don’t think diet and exercise are going to cut it this time.
” She turned her back to the wind, her red hair whipping around her face.
“Come on. It’s almost time to shoot the death scene. ”