Chapter Three: “The Stakes”
Chapter Three
“The Stakes”
THE NEXT MORNING, AS SEWANEE DEBATED HER LIPSTICK COLOR FOR
the panel, she found herself staring into the bathroom mirror, eye patch off. It didn’t matter how accustomed she’d become to it, she couldn’t help looking at it. Every time as if it were the first and every time hoping it were the last.
The space where her right eye had been was curtained with skin that looked as if it had been burned. It hadn’t. It was simply the effect of not enough skin to cover too much surface. The long, jagged scar that accompanied the drape went from the middle of her right eyebrow down over the highest point of her cheekbone. Like the mouth of a river, it dumped itself into the estuary of her cheek’s hollow.
She looked down again at the lipstick. Red. Definitely red. Be bold.
Her cell phone, resting on the counter next to her, rang.
She glanced at the caller ID: Seasons. Her grandmother’s assisted living facility. No matter how many times she had seen “Seasons” on her screen over the years, her stomach tightened. In recent months, the tightness had worsened in tandem with Blah’s mental state. “Hello?” she answered.
“Sewanee?” the familiar voice asked.
“Amanda. Is everything okay?”
“Well, we had a bit of an incident.”
Sewanee turned around, leaned against the counter. She imagined spark-pluggy, capable Amanda behind the desk in her tidy office, Christmas sweater probably over the back of her chair, frizzy gray-black hair pushed back by a reindeer-antlered headband. “What happened?”
“Sorry to bother you. We reached out to your father, but he hasn’t returned our call.”
Typical. “It’s fine, what’s going on?”
“Well,” she sighed, “BlahBlah left her room last night.” Even the caretakers had adopted her grandmother’s nickname. Barbara had never wanted to be called “grandma” or “nana” or any other “ancient-sounding familiarity.” But a young Sewanee couldn’t say Barbara. The best she could manage was BlahBlah. Sewanee’s father had thought it fit his loquacious mother perfectly, so it stuck. “One of our orderlies found her in the common room at two thirty this morning. She believed she was at a hotel in Tennessee getting ready for her debutante ball. She thought the orderly was her escort.”
Sewanee closed her eye. “How is she this morning?”
“She woke up having no memory of last night. Was her usual bubbly self at breakfast.”
“Okay,” Sewanee breathed, tipping her head back. “That’s good. Right?”
“Yes, but the thing is, we had to put her on lockdown for the rest of the night, for her own safety. Her circumstances have advanced, necessitating we evaluate future care requirements.”
“What–what does that mean?”
“We believe that, in the somewhat near future, we’ll need to transition her to our memory care side.”
Sewanee had seen the big, locked door. She recalled vividly
the red-lettered sign above it: M
EMORY
U
NIT
. K
EEP
D
OOR
C
LOSED AT
A
LL
T
IMES
. It was off the hallway that led to the bar. Yes, Seasons had a bar. And a yoga room. The place was designed to look like a Hollywood back-lot version of 1950s Americana: the main hallway, Main Street; the salon boasted a barber shop pole; the little market had a soda fountain counter and jukebox. It unnerved Sewanee, the Disneyfication of dissolution. But it made Blah happy. And being located in Burbank, right across from Warner Bros. Studios and next to the Smoke House, it was full of Show Folk like her grandmother.
That was why Blah had chosen it after her sister, Bitsy, with whom she’d been living, had died.
While other assisted living facilities took their residents on field trips to the mall or a museum, Seasons’ field trips consisted of movie nights at Hollywood Forever Cemetery to watch classic films outside (“and to visit old friends,” her grandmother liked to joke). They went to sitcom and talk show tapings. They had a happy hour Friday night that was open to the public and Swan would be there for most of them, drinking a martini with Blah and her pals.
When they’d first toured Seasons four years ago, Amanda had assured them if and when the time came for a transfer to memory care, Blah wouldn’t be isolated from the world she’d enjoyed; she would still participate in the activities of the assisted living side, if she wanted. If she could. Both Sewanee and Blah had brushed this off at the time. Neither seriously entertained the possibility of BlahBlah–gossipy, cackling, bright-eyed, sailor-mouthed, song-and-dance BlahBlah–needing locked doors and twenty-four-hour monitoring.
“Would you like me to keep trying your father or would you prefer to contact him?” Amanda asked.
“No, I’ll get hold of him.”
“Okay. Please have him call me as soon as you do.”
“Absolutely. Thank you, Amanda.”
Sewanee hung up and immediately brought up her father’s number.
She paused.
She sighed deeply and called.
“Sewanee, I don’t have time to chat, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Not that he was really asking. And not that he really didn’t have the time. Which made it impossible for Sewanee
not
to goad him by saying, “I just wanted to have a long heart-to-heart about our hopes and dreams, Dad.” Sarcasm was her best offense against his unrelenting self-protection and she wielded it expertly.
“Is there something you want?”
“Yes. When your mother’s assisted living facility calls, I want you to pick up.”
The smallest pause. “Is everything okay?” he asked, parroting exactly what Sewanee had asked Amanda. But the difference was in the tone. She knew tone. It was her job to know tone. His was distracted, impatient. But–and this was what struck her–almost hopeful everything wasn’t, in fact, okay. It turned her stomach.
“No,” she answered, swallowing. “There was an incident last night, nothing serious, but it prompted Amanda to tell me–tell you–that Blah needs to go into memory care. So, Amanda has to speak with you.”
“Why?”
Sewanee paused. “Why? To discuss . . . literally everything?”
“Her hopes and dreams?”
Sewanee didn’t respond to the quip and Henry didn’t continue. When the silence grew too long, Sewanee said, “I was planning
to visit on Monday, for lunch.” Still nothing. “Why don’t we meet there?” If it weren’t for the sound of his swallowing–what Sewanee assumed was coffee–she would have thought they’d been disconnected. “Dad?”
A slight chuckle. “There’s no need for that. You go ahead and have your luncheon, you ladies figure everything out, and we’ll talk after.”
“Okay. I’ll call you Monday evening.” More silence. “Would you like to at least know what happened–”
“Swan, we’ll talk Monday, I have to go.” He hung up.
BIBLIOCON LANYARD AROUND
her neck, Sewanee hustled and dodged her way across the massive convention floor like a running back going for the end zone. The number of attendees was astonishing. For someone who spent a good portion of her working life with headphones on, hearing only the soft hush of her own voice in her ears, who prized, above all else, absolute quiet, the ambient din of the room made her shoulders creep up her neck.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket, just once, a text.
ADAKU:
You here?
SEWANEE:
Yep. On my way to panel.
ADAKU:
Come to the green room for a sec.
SEWANEE:
There’s a green room??
ADAKU:
Northwest corner
.
SEWANEE:
What am I, Magellan?
ADAKU:
By the Starbucks. Under the poster of me.
Sewanee swiveled her head around the room. She located the poster for the movie
Girl in the Middle
–a stop-action close-up of Adaku’s face looking from left to right–and shuffled over. She quickly texted:
Only have 10 mins.
ADAKU:
Only need 2.
After finding the door and having her ID checked against the name tag hanging from her lanyard by the super-sized man guarding the room, she was ushered into the exclusive holding area, where Adaku was waiting for her, a to-go cup of coffee outstretched.
“Bless you,” Sewanee said, taking it.
Without a word, Adaku grabbed her hand and dragged her down the hallway into a women’s restroom. She quickly checked the two stalls, making sure they were empty, then practically leaped over Sewanee and deadbolted the door behind them.
“What’s up, you kill someone?” she asked, taking a gulp of coffee. Adaku clasped her hands together but couldn’t seem to speak. Sewanee peered at her now. “Is this good or bad?”
A sound escaped Adaku that would set dogs howling. “It’s good, Swan. It’s so good. It’s In-N-Out good.”
Sewanee knew if Adaku were allowed one dying request, it would be a Double-Double from In-N-Out Burger. Adaku was buzzing like a lightbulb. Sewanee began to buzz, too. “What?”
Adaku wrung her hands. “That Lysistrata-in-the-jungle project I was telling you about?” Sewanee nodded. “I hit a milestone. The big one.”
She stilled. “
The
big one?”
Adaku’s chin trembled. “
Our
big one.”
Sewanee could take comfort, later, in the fact that her
first
impulse, her
instinct
, had been happiness and not a finger-snap of jealousy. The smile that happened was real, the shout that erupted from her was genuine, the tears that followed were joyful. They giggled and they cried and it was impossible to tell, after a certain point, which was which. A wintry mix of emotions. Sewanee threw her arms around her friend, the only true one she had left, the most constant thing in her life, and felt Adaku’s heart beating rapidly against her own.
“A million dollars,” Adaku whispered, trembling. “A million goddamn dollars.”
“You did it!” Sewanee squeaked.
Adaku pulled back, took Sewanee’s wrecked face in her soft hands. “We did it! In that shitty pizza joint on 181st–”
“You dare malign the memory of Tony’s?”
Adaku’s tears coated her smiling lips. “Over our $2.99 two-slice-and-a-Coke special, we promised. One of us would get a cool mil before thirty-five.”
Sewanee pulled her close again and felt tears overtake the laugh, her throat tightening. “You did it. You–” She abruptly shoved Adaku away. Playfully, she was sure. “God, I’m so proud of you!”
Adaku wiped her face. “I mean, after taxes and commissions it’s like four hundred thousand dollars, but–”
“Oh, well then never mind.”
They looked at each other for a quiet moment. Adaku’s eyes clouded. Her face turned earnest. “We both know you would have gotten this ages ago. If that motherfu–”
“You win, I win, we win, remember?”
“But it’s so unfair–”
“Don’t,” Sewanee demanded, taking Adaku by her shoulders. “You’re getting paid a million dollars to star in a film.”
Her smile returned. “I just got the call and you’re the only person I wanted to share it with. I’m so glad you’re here!”
Sewanee stepped back and held up her hands, like a soothsayer fending off a vision. “I see . . . I see copious amounts of champagne in our future.” Adaku laughed. “But right now your two minutes are up and I’m going to be late.”
Adaku jumped forward. “Of course, of course! Sorry.” She unlocked the door. “What do you want to do tonight? I was thinking–”
“Whatever you want!”
“Can I convince you to go to a club? The bottle service–”
“Yes, all of it, babe, I gotta go!”
Adaku flung open the door. “Go, go! You’re going to be late! How many times do I have to tell you?”
Sewanee laughed, gave Adaku’s arm a firm squeeze, and beelined away.
As she hustled down the hallway, she felt her jaw lock.
As she reentered the convention floor, she felt her chest tighten.
As she found her way to the Romance pavilion and located the correct ballroom for the panel, one word pounded in her head. Why. On a loop. Why. Why. Why.
This was how quickly her mental state could change. This dangerous, invisible undertow was the one thing in this life that
still scared her, made her wonder if she was wrong to have forsaken medication after the first year, to have given up on therapy earlier than that. Because this wasn’t good. Because in her mind, it was seven years ago and she was lying in that hospital bed wondering why they had bothered saving her.
THE BALLROOM WAS
filled to overflowing with authors and fans. They were sitting on the steps, leaning against the walls, propped on their friends’ laps. The well-chosen panel–smart, talented people who had upended the childhood dictum to be seen and not heard–had kept the room engaged. There was Alice Dunlop aka Dixie Barton; Mildred Prim, a Royal Academy of Dramatic Art–trained septuagenarian Brit with an obsessive following from the famous Highlander series she’d narrated for the last twenty years, who simply used her ironic maiden name for Romance; and Ron Studman. Ron was one of the few Romance narrators who relished being seen, because he wanted people to know that even if you were more than middle-aged, with an ever-increasing waistline and an ever-decreasing hairline, you could be a sex symbol, too, if you had the goods. And the goods, in his case, was his voice, and the fans loved him for it.
Ron currently had the crowd eating out of his hand. There were catcalls from a group of women in the front row when he did the voice he was best known for: a sexy Irish vampire named Seamus.
Sewanee had covered everything Mark had asked her to.
Why do you think audiobooks are booming right now? How do you prepare to record a book? What is the best approach when recording a sex scene? Why people who out a narrator’s pseudonym should be publicly drawn and quartered.
It was time to wrap it up, so she asked a question that would give the panel one last opportunity to shine.
Why are Romance novels so popular?
As each member
answered, Sewanee’s spirits rose. She had done her job and done it well. Mark would be happy and the organizers pleased. She was looking forward to the night ahead with Adaku, who deserved to be celebrated, who deserved every goddamn ounce of success she was enjoying.
Ron was the last panelist to answer and, being Ron, didn’t disappoint. “Women are discovering the full extent of their pleasure. Shame is a thing of the past! Happily ever after is possible. It might even be sitting right in front of your eyes!” Then he winked at the audience.
“All right,” Sewanee said to the room. “Thank you, panelists, for your insights. We have a few minutes left, so let’s open it up to questions.”
One of the women in the front row jumped up and asked Ron if he’d sign her chest. Hoots all around. Ron obliged.
A woman a few rows back stood, took the mic. “Hi. I think I speak for all of us when I say: Who is Brock McNight?” The crowd cheered. “Seriously! We have to know.”
Ron made a show of zipping his lips and the rest of the panel shook their heads.
The next question was also about Brock McNight. As was the next. Then Sewanee said, “Any non-Brock-McNight-related questions?”
Someone had a question for Sewanee: “Do you narrate Romance?”
“No.” She realized it came out more emphatically than she’d intended. She beamed and pointed to the panel. “I leave that to the experts.”
“Sewanee does all the tough books,” Ron chimed in. “The ones no one else can touch. Fantasies with three hundred characters, war sagas with twenty different accents, the Classics, literary
doorstops. The longer the better, the bigger the better, she does them all.”
“That’s what she said,” Sewanee quipped and the audience laughed. She’d learned long ago to leave them laughing; BlahBlah had taught her that. “Okay, so how about one more round of applause for our wonderful–”
Sewanee noticed a young, barrel-curled blonde stand and smooth her pretty sundress. She called out, “Sorry, y’all! One quicky little question?”
Sewanee glanced at the clock on the back wall as the floor mic made its way to the woman.
“Thanks so much,” the woman said. “And thanks so much for taking the time to come talk to us?” She had a significant Southern drawl. So significant Sewanee wondered, briefly, if she were putting it on. High, nasal, and with the propensity to uptalk. “Um, my question is? What’s the best way to get into the business?”
“I can give you more info at the booth,” Sewanee answered, “but once you’ve got a draft of your book you should be thinking about audio–”
“Oh, no!” the woman giggled. “I’m not an author! I’m an actress?”
Sewanee stalled, her brain misfiring.
Ron took the wheel. “Well, first thing you should do”–he leaned into the microphone and dipped into his Irish vampire voice–“is come see Seamus after the panel.”
“Ron,” Sewanee scolded, “Seamus on you!” The audience laughed. “Okay, everyone, thanks for–”
“I mean, I love reading?” The girl tucked her hair behind her ear and continued. “And I’m taking some acting classes in L.A.?” Oh God: they had one of those
this isn’t a question so much as a comment
people on their hands. “And, like, I don’t know, it just seems like the perfect job?”
Once again, a panelist saved Sewanee from having to respond. “Well,” Mildred began, “I tell people the best thing one can do, if one thinks this job might suit, is to go into a windowless room and read a book aloud, stopping at every mistake and starting again at the top of the sentence. Do this for eight hours and see if you still think it’s the perfect job.”
The audience chuckled. Sewanee silently thanked Mildred for the reality check.
“Listenin’ to y’all has made me realize,” the girl continued–continued!–“narrating Romance’d be real neat.”
Sewanee’s morbid curiosity got the best of her, as if slowing to pass a car accident on the freeway. “Why?”
“Well, using my acting skills and all, I could bring hope to people?”
“How?”
“By–by what I just said? By audiobooking Romance? How great would it be to help the world know love will always find a way, it’ll all work out, that we can truly live happily ever after?”
Sewanee fortified herself and tried not to sound condescending. “That would be great, if it were true, but . . . probably best we leave it there.”
The girl made an adorable pouting face. “Sounds like somebody could use a little of that hope?”
Straw, meet camel’s back.
“I have hope. Real hope, not false hope. Romance novels are a wonderful escape, but–” Sewanee took only the smallest beat–certainly not long enough to consider the polity of what she was about to say–before continuing, “Look, you want to give people something, give them the truth. Level with them. Romance novels
are not real life, love is not a God-given right, being an actress won’t make life better–in fact, it might make it worse–and happily ever after is bullshit.”
Someone was waving frantically at the back of the ballroom, a woman wearing a T-shirt with the convention’s logo on it and holding a clipboard. She tapped her wrist in a manner that struck Sewanee as vaudevillian. Which broke the spell.
She looked out into the silent crowd, what she’d said settling over the auditorium like suffocating ash from a volcano.
Shit.
She took a measured beat. “I heard someone say that earlier on the convention floor and I couldn’t believe it. I mean, what do we think? Is HEA a bunch of BS?”
“No!”
She’d recaptured them. “I’m sorry, I don’t think they heard you over in the snob pavilion! Is it bullshit?!”
A reverberating, room-filling response: “NO!!!” The audience clapped and cheered.
Another Blah-ism? Get the audience on your side.
Over the applause, Sewanee shouted, “Thanks, again, to our panel and remember we’ll be signing for the next hour at booth 2186! Have a great day!”
AS THEY ARRIVED
at the end of the allotted hour, the activity at the signing booth slowed. Ron came over and gave Sewanee a hug, said he was off to the casino for a Scotch and soda and some Let It Ride. “You should get a drink, too,” he said, affable, lovable, wink-able Ron. Sewanee heartily agreed. Mildred stood, cracked her back, and patted Sewanee’s hand before leaving.
Alice, however, pulled Sewanee behind the curtains of the booth and looked her right in the eye when she said, “Swan.”
“I know.”
Alice exhaled and put a hand on her motherly hip. “You saved it, you did. But hon . . . everything okay?”
“Yeah, no!” Sewanee chirped. “It was just that girl, with that
voice
, thinking she could–”
Alice shook her head. “Not our job to tell her. She’ll be selling essential oils on Instagram or something within the month. But I don’t think she was the issue?”
“I mean . . .” Sewanee looked down, shook her head, and took a breath. “I’ve been . . . a little off. Lately.” She felt Alice peering at her.
“You know, I like Romance novels. And not just narrating them. Reading them.”
Sewanee glanced up.
“Ten years ago, when I was empty-nesting, I found out Bob was having an affair, and we were going to lose the house, and then my mom got sick, and
then
they found a lump . . .” Alice’s hand touched her chest, the top of her right breast. “More than anything else, I wanted to believe that there could still be a happily ever after for me. It was actually kind of religious.” Sewanee opened her mouth, but Alice continued, “Relax, I’m not getting weird.”
She took Sewanee’s hand. “You’re amazing. You’re talented and kind and you have shoveled a ton of shit in your young life and I don’t blame you for being cynical. But you don’t know how things are gonna go. And that cuts both ways, good and bad. So you just have to trust it’ll work out in the end.”
Sewanee searched for a wry, sarcastic comeback that would dismantle Alice’s argument. Something her father might say. But there wasn’t one.
So she said nothing.