Marissa
“Hit me.” I extend my drained wineglass toward Pooja.
My best friend tilts her head and studies me appraisingly. “Hmm. How many glasses have you had?”
“Anywhere between four and forty-seven. Impossible to know for certain.”
Pooja purses her lips. “All right, then. One more can’t hurt.”
She picks up the near-empty bottle of cabernet I received from a director on my twenty-first birthday and have been saving for a special occasion ever since.
Having decided that abstaining from a complete mental breakdown (and averting a potential homicide) in front of my daughter’s elementary school class was as good a reason as any for celebration, she and I cracked it open immediately after putting my kids to bed.
Pooja refills my glass, then settles back against the wall of my costume closet.
The space is exactly what it sounds like: a treasure trove of the wardrobe pieces I’ve kept from movies I’ve starred in, all artfully organized by the delightful women of The Home Edit.
Currently, I’m in my Felicia Fox costume, which I put on every time I want to embody the ferocity of a superhero.
No matter how bad reality gets, I always feel strong and impenetrable when I slip into it, even if the defined muscles in my biceps are the result of sculpted padding.
“I can’t believe he’s marrying her,” I say, staring morosely into my glass of wine. “They just got back together a few weeks ago.”
“I can’t believe she said yes,” Pooja snorts, and adjusts the spandex sleeve of her own bodysuit.
A true ally, she’s also dressed in a Felicia Fox costume, only hers is the slightly altered (read: more cleavage-forward) version from the sequel, Felicia Fox: The Uprising.
Why costume designers feel the need to redesign a superhero’s nipples for every movie in the franchise is truly beyond my scope of understanding.
“Rayna already called it off once,” Pooja points out. “Between you, Rocky’s gotten two of Hollywood’s most beautiful and successful women to agree to marry him thrice. What is it about this guy? Is his nutsack filled with magic beans?”
I sigh. “You know how charming he can be.” But admittedly, it is wild that they’ve gotten engaged again.
R for all his public enthusiasm about supporting Levi’s diagnosis, he’s never taken a hands-on role in caring for him.
He also seemed to have conveniently forgotten his initial objections to having Levi evaluated in the first place.
He’s more than happy to bring up his experiences as an “autism dad” in interviews, but he isn’t the one who turned down the lead role in a Greta Gerwig project to stay home with our son and facilitate early intervention therapies.
While Rocky was off filming, I was the parent who put her career on hold.
The one who coordinated Levi’s speech and OT appointments, the one who consoled him during meltdowns and ordered pair after pair of the same blue suede sneakers because he refused to wear anything different.
It was me, not Rocky, who struggled to decipher Levi’s needs when he didn’t have the words to express them, me who laminated schedule cards and mounted sensory swings.
What has Rocky contributed? The creation of a media circus that’s threatening to throw our child’s carefully ordered world into total disarray.
“I have half a mind to go hide out at the lake house all summer,” I mutter. “The press would never find us in northeastern Pennsylvania.”
Pooja furrows her brow. “The lake house? What lake house?”
“Oh, right. I almost forgot to tell you. Right before the R&R news broke, my grandmother’s attorney called. Apparently, she left me the lake house in her will.” A fresh wave of guilt sloshes over me as I consider the circumstances of my unexpected inheritance.
Comprehension dawns on Pooja’s face as I take a long sip of wine.
“Oh, of course. The Poconos lake house.” I nod.
Growing up, my family and I spent every summer there until I started filming Little LLC and my schedule became completely erratic.
I loved my childhood summers at the lake.
I used to reminisce about them all the time to Pooja.
“You should do it,” she says. “School is out in two weeks. Take your kids to the Poconos for the summer. Get away from this whole thing.”
Now it’s my turn for a brow furrow. “We already have the summer scheduled. We’re going to Cabo in July. I signed Isla up for scuba lessons. Plus, Levi has all his therapies here.”
“Change. Your. Plans,” she says emphatically.
“I’m serious. You know it’s only going to get worse, and the press will be all over you in Mexico.
But a sleepy town in Pennsylvania? It’s the perfect escape from all of this.
Think about how much better it will be for Levi.
You can find therapists to work with him there. ”