twenty-one
This Summer
It’s a marvel we get Everett in the car at all.
“No,” he said at first, adamantly, after Laurel announced her plan. He headed immediately in the direction of the stairs,
like he might lock himself in his room.
“Oh, come on,” Laurel had said, dancing after him. “Don’t be one of those artistes who can’t bear to look at their own work.”
“Laurel,” Everett said, turning to face her. “I don’t watch anything I’ve made after the final cut is done. I leave my own
premieres.”
“I know,” Laurel said. “They reported on it in People.”
Everett rolled his eyes sky-high, turning to go again, but I was the one who called out to him, making him stop and turn once
more.
“We’ve never been able to see one of your movies all together,” I said, hip against the island he’d just had me on top of.
His eyes met mine, chilly steel gray, but almost interested. Not in watching his own movie, I knew, but maybe in why I’d said
anything. I wasn’t quite sure myself, other than the fact that I still had the taste of him on my lips and didn’t want to
watch him walk away.
He’d looked back down at Laurel, sighing through his nose. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll come. But that doesn’t mean I’m paying attention.”
Laurel squealed, clapping her hands together. “Perfect!” she said, spinning around. “We’re going to need to pack wine, and
blankets . . .” She threw tasks to each of us as Everett’s eyes locked on to mine once more across the room, the air still
sparking between us.
At the park, we set up camp on the wide lawn that slopes down toward the giant screen, spreading blankets around and Davi
flopping into the low-sitting chair he brought, stretching his legs out in front of him and pouring his first glass of wine
as we settle in to wait for sunset. It’s more of an event than Laurel let on, apparently. There was a banner we walked in
under that read Malibu Movie Series: Cooney!, and two massive posters on either side of the ticket table that made Everett’s cheeks flame red as he ducked behind me.
Food trucks are set up around the perimeter, what looks like a small kids’ carnival set up to one side, likely an homage to
the massive carnival sequence in the movie, when the teenage heroes take on the mysterious threat that’s invaded their town.
This is more of a ring toss, a carousel, and a lone cotton candy cart, but the effect is charming.
I’m next to Everett at one end of our blanket setup, but if I’d thought there would be any covert glances tonight, hands brushing
in the dark after what happened in the kitchen, apparently, I was very wrong.
Everett is sitting with his forearms resting on his knees, the hood of a dark blue sweatshirt pulled up over his head. I examine
him as his eyes dart around the crowd, teeth working at his lower lip.
“I don’t think anyone’s going to recognize you,” I say, more out of any remaining glimmers of irritation I’m feeling toward him than any truth in that statement. Cooney is something of a phenomenon, and an event like this would undoubtedly draw some superfans.
Nevertheless, Everett’s eyes flick toward mine, a frown curving his mouth as he yanks off his hood. “I’m not that vain,” he
grumbles, low enough so only I can hear. At that moment a group of women walk by, one of them pausing to do a double take
at Everett. Though I think it has less to do with her recognizing him and more to do with his rumpled hair, the sharp jaw
underneath his short beard. Every other thing that’s drawn me into Everett Bridges over the years. I watch her as she passes.
“People love Cooney,” I say, turning my attention back to him once they’ve gone. “It won awards.” I don’t know what I’m trying to do, exactly.
Maybe coax Everett into relaxing a little. I reach into the bag of potato chips in my lap, staring down into it as I say quietly,
“It’s a great movie.”
I can feel Everett’s attention land on me, but I don’t look at him, focusing on picking out the largest chip I can.
“You saw it?” he finally asks.
I feign exasperation, crunching down on the chip as I nod, but I meant what I said. Cooney is a great movie, and it infuriated me when I snuck into a matinee of it like I was trying not to be seen, my own hood up
and a box of Sour Patch Kids in my pocket.
It had been out for a few months at that point, but I’d avoided it as best I could. It was bad enough to have to see the poster
for it on my commute to work, or hear about it from everyone I knew. Have you seen that new sci-fi movie yet? Not even sci-fi, it’s, like, a love letter to all those eighties movies we used to
love, Hayes, front of house at my uncle’s restaurant, had said when it first came out, his words lifted directly from all the pull-quotes they’d used for publicity.
The next E.T., filling the Stranger Things void, a tapestry of nostalgia, growing up, and the sci-fi we used to love.
I heard it everywhere. On social media, the radio, in snippets on the street.
Try as I might, Cooney, and reminders of Everett with it, was unavoidable.
The irritation in me flickered and then started to fade as I watched it, though, steadily marching through my candy until
my hand hit the bottom of the bag only halfway in. I’d been that absorbed, and the sugary cellophane against my fingertips
was enough to yank me out of it for a second, to remember to watch the movie with Everett in mind.
And I did. For the second half, I watched it searching for reasons to be angry, like he might have left a piece of us somewhere
in there. He had writing credits on the movie too, had been working on the concept with a buddy of his for years, I knew,
even if he’d been secretive about it then. We hadn’t talked much about his work, I realized as I sat in that theater, as I
watched the two leads fall in love while they unraveled the mystery of what was plaguing their small town.
But I could see him all over it, in ways I didn’t expect. We were in it somehow, all of us, in the friend group that formed. They were all on the brink of the next phase of their lives,
this one last hurdle to cross before they could grow up. And logically I knew that was the point, that the message here wasn’t
specifically for me, but for everyone who’d ever felt something like that. Even so, by the time the credits rolled, my cheeks
were wet, and I sat through to the bitter end and then a minute longer, until a kid the age of the characters in the movie
came in to sweep up.
It was the only time I’d let myself cry about Everett Bridges since things had fallen apart between us. And it had been his shining, brilliant, award-winning movie that had done it. I hated him for it.
So it’s a little hard for me to admit it’s a great movie to him now. Not because I don’t mean it, but because of what it meant
to me. Something outside of what it meant to the millions of other people who saw and loved it.
Everett is still watching me when a kid in what looks like a homemade Cooney High School sweatshirt comes bounding up to us, cheeks ruddy. His mom is with him, beaming down at us. Laurel, Gabe, and Davi crane their
heads to watch as the kid holds the hem of his sweatshirt out toward Everett, wordless.
“We love your movie,” the mom says, not even bothering to ask if he is, in fact, Everett Bridges and not some doppelganger
here to enjoy some popcorn and a little sci-fi horror. “Would you sign Kit’s sweatshirt?” She produces a Sharpie, extending
it toward Everett.
It shouldn’t surprise me that Everett just smiles and takes the marker from her, signing a quick signature on the light blue
fabric. He’s the picture of cool as the kid watches with shining eyes. He’ll tell everyone about this, I think.
“Nice to meet you, Kit,” Everett says as he caps the marker and hands it back to the mom. “Enjoy the movie.”
As soon as they’re gone, and Laurel, Gabe, and Davi erupt into oohs on my other side, Everett retreats back into himself. If he still had his hood up, I swear he’d be drawing his head into it
like a turtle.
“Shut up,” he says to our friends. Laurel pelts him with a peach ring, Davi cooing his name loudly enough for nearby moviegoers
to hear while Gabe claps. I reach for the open bottle of wine, pouring heavily into one of the mishmash of cups we tucked
into bags and handing it to Everett.
Because I get it, I think. It’s not that he isn’t proud of his work, or that he hates signing middle schoolers’ sweatshirts.
He isn’t vain enough to think everyone here is going to recognize him, or care if anyone does.
But there’s something so personal in it that it’s like we’ve all sat down to watch a naked Everett on an operating table for the next two hours, ogling something he’s powerless to hide.
Everett can be the charming guy, self-deprecating enough that he’s not an asshole.
But he’s never totally had to be that with us.
This trip, this place was once a sanctuary.
And even if coming to see his movie isn’t the reason it’s not, even if some of the magic faded from this place a long time ago, tonight makes him feel like he isn’t safe.
Like we’re examining him somehow, the same as everyone who has watched Cooney and made some assumption about the people who created it.
“Thanks,” he says with a grateful grimace as I hand him the wine, filled to the top. I nod, pour my own glass, and settle
in as the screen flickers to life in front of us, ads and announcements starting to roll as the sun dips beneath the horizon.
I startle a little when Everett’s arm brushes against mine, looking over in time to see him glance away from me and back at
the screen, where an ad for a local credit union is scrolling past.
I look down at where our arms touch, the blue of his sweatshirt against my denim jacket. And I shift, the same way he did,
just close enough to mean something, pressing back.
An hour in, Everett is miserable.
I glance away from where the two leads are breaking into the abandoned medical facility and look over at Everett, who’s watching