18. Solenne #2
We make our way into the theater. The lobby is full of industry people, critics, the usual premiere crowd.
I shake hands, accept congratulations, introduce Valentin to people he needs to know.
He’s charming but restrained, always redirecting attention back to me, to the work, to the team that made it happen.
Rachel finds us near the bar. “Five minutes. We should head in.”
The theater is beautiful, one of those old Hollywood venues with velvet seats and gilded ceilings. I find our seats in the front section, reserved for the creative team and their guests. Valentin sits beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touch.
The lights dim. The screen flickers to life.
And there she is. Elena. Standing in a diner, wearing an apron, listening to her manager refuse to pay for the extra hours she has already worked.
I know every frame of this episode. I’ve watched it in editing rooms, on laptops, on my phone at two in the morning when I couldn’t sleep. But watching it here, in a theater full of people who are seeing it for the first time, feels completely different.
I hear them react. A small laugh at a line that was supposed to be funny. A shift of discomfort when the manager dismisses her. A collective holding of breath when she reaches for the apron strings.
She unties it. Folds it. Sets it on the counter.
And she walks out.
The scene changes, but I barely see it. I’m watching the audience, feeling their attention, understanding for the first time that this thing I made is now out in the world, belonging to them as much as it belongs to me.
His hand rests on the arm between our seats. I turn mine palm up beneath it, threading my fingers through his. He looks at me, and I keep my eyes on the screen while he settles his hand around mine.
Near the end of the episode, Elena is standing in her empty apartment, looking at the boxes she’s packed. Her roommate asks if she’s scared. Elena turns to face her.
“I’m not losing everything,” she says. “I’m only losing the parts that were never mine.”
The words land differently tonight. When I wrote that line, I was thinking about Elena. Now I’m thinking about myself. About the life I thought I had, and the life I’m building instead.
The episode ends. The lights come up. The audience applauds.
People stand to congratulate the cast, the director, the writers. Rachel pulls me into a hug. Marcus shakes my hand and says something I can’t hear over the noise. Someone takes a photograph. Someone else asks for an interview.
When Rachel pulls away, she has left a little mascara on my shoulder. She apologizes and tries to wipe it off, making it worse.
“Leave it,” I tell her. “Evidence that somebody liked it.”
“I watched you instead of the screen for half the episode. You looked like you were waiting for someone to throw something.”
“Were you?”
“Only at Marcus. He whispered a note about the sound halfway through.”
“I said it was good,” Marcus protests from behind her. “I am capable of saying something is good.”
Valentin hands me the jacket I left on my seat. “For the record, I liked the sound.”
Marcus points at him. “Thank you.”
I laugh, and the tightness that has been sitting under my ribs all evening finally eases. There will be reviews tomorrow.
Tonight these are the people who sat through the unfinished versions, and they’re still here, arguing beside me.
***
The after-party is at a rooftop venue with views of the city and too many people trying to talk to me at once.
I circulate, accept compliments, deflect questions about future projects.
Rachel introduces me to a producer who asks what I want to make next.
Marcus corners me near the bar to argue about a scene we cut, then admits it was probably the right call.
Odette appears with a fresh drink and a warning that my feet are going to hurt tomorrow.
“You’re doing great,” she says. “Two more hours and you can go home and sleep for a week.”
“I don’t think I could sleep if I tried.”
“Adrenaline. It’ll wear off around 3 a.m., and then you’ll crash hard.” She glances across the room to where Valentin is standing alone, looking out at the city. “He’s been behaving himself.”
“I noticed.”
“That thing he said on the carpet. About nearly destroying your marriage.”
“I heard.”
“He kept it short.”
“We talked about it beforehand.”
She studies me for a moment, then smiles. “Good. Now tell me whether that director across the room is the one who rejected you because you were too tall.”
“Odette.”
“I’m only going to say hello.”
She goes before I can stop her. I watch the director’s face light up, then grow wary, and decide not to rescue him.
After a while, the crowd thins enough that I can slip away to the balcony. The night air is cool for March, and I’m glad I brought a jacket. The city spreads out below, all those lights, all those lives, all those stories happening right now that have nothing to do with me.
Footsteps behind me. I don’t turn around.
“I can leave you alone if you want,” Valentin says.
“You can stay.”
He comes to stand beside me at the railing, keeping a careful distance. We look out at the view in silence.
“The episode was extraordinary,” he says. “The scene where she walks out. I couldn’t look away.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it. Not just because I’m supposed to say it. Because it’s true.”
I turn to look at him. In the dim light of the balcony, he looks younger somehow. Less guarded. More like the man I married, before everything went wrong.
“Did you really like it?” I ask.
He looks at me. “You heard me say so.”
“I know. But you liked that restaurant I chose when the waiter forgot us for forty minutes. You’re generous when you’re trying not to disappoint me.”
“I liked the bread.”
“There was no bread.”
“Then I’m thinking of another terrible restaurant.”
I laugh and lean my elbows on the railing. He moves a little closer.
“I liked that she went back for her pay,” he says. “I thought she’d walk out and that would be the victory. But she still needed what they owed her.”
“Marcus fought for that scene.”
“Tell him I liked it. And I liked the woman who plays her roommate. She doesn’t let anyone finish a sentence.”
“She improvised half of it. We kept having to stop because the crew were laughing.”
For a while I tell him about the day we shot in that apartment, how the neighbor’s dog barked through every quiet take. He asks what finally worked. I explain, and he listens without checking how long I’ve been talking.
Inside, I hear my name. Someone is asking where I went. I have a few minutes before they find me.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I tell him.
He looks down at the city. “So am I.”
“Not just because of what you said tonight.”
“I hoped not.”
I turn toward him. “When you spoke at the Solano house, I kept waiting for you to soften it afterward. To say you hadn’t meant to embarrass anyone, or that there was another side.”
“There wasn’t.”
“You never went back and made it easier for them. Even after I left Sicily again.”
“You shouldn’t have had to stay there to make it true.”
I remember the message he sent with the invitation. Then I remember the months since, all the times I haven’t had to find out whether he still meant it.
“I couldn’t have asked you back if you’d only chosen me when we were alone,” I say. “I needed that to change.”
“It should never have been something you had to ask for.”
A waiter appears at the balcony door, sees us talking, and leaves us alone. I put my empty glass on the small table beside the railing.
“Summer misses the sea,” I say.
Valentin goes very still.
“She talks about it sometimes. The beach below the villa. The way the water looked in the morning. She asks when we’re going to visit.”
He waits. I can see the effort it takes him not to answer before I’ve finished.
“I want us to go back with her,” I say. “Together.”
“For a visit?”
“To try. To see what it’s like being in that house with you again.” I hold his gaze. “I miss you too, Valentin. Even on the days I see you. I’m tired of ending every good evening at separate front doors.”
His face changes. It’s not a smile, exactly. It’s something deeper, something that starts in his eyes and moves outward, like watching the sun come up.
“Solenne.”
“I’m asking you to come back to Sicily with me,” I say. “Will you?”
“Yes.” The answer comes immediately. Then he laughs once, unsteadily, and presses his hand against the railing. “Yes, Solenne.”
I reach for him. He takes my hand in both of his.
“Summer’s school break starts next week. We could go then. I still have work here afterward.”
“Then we come back afterward.”
“I need you to mean that. Los Angeles doesn’t become the thing I gave up again.”
“It won’t.” He looks at the lights beyond my shoulder. “You made a life here. I’m asking to be in it.”
The door opens behind us. Odette puts her head out, starts to say something, and stops. I raise one finger, asking for another minute. She nods and closes the door.
“I’ve wanted you to ask me that since the day you left,” Valentin says.
“You weren’t ready then.”
He lowers his eyes to our hands. “No. Wanting wasn’t the same as being ready.”
I step closer and rest my forehead against his shoulder. His arms come around me, and neither of us speaks for a while.
There are still things we have to say. The papers in the drawer at home haven’t disappeared. Neither has the memory of waiting for him in Sicily. But tonight I don’t have to turn either of those things into a reason to step away.
I lift my head. His eyes are bright, and he doesn’t try to hide it.
“Next week,” I say.
He nods. “Together.”
Inside, my name is being called again. This time I take his hand and turn toward the door.
I’m not going back to the life I left.
I’m taking the life I made with me.