Chapter Nine: “Epistolary”
Chapter Nine
“Epistolary”
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
December 6, 5:24 PM
Subject:
CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Hi Sarah,
Brock McNight here. Got your email address from Jason. Thought I’d give you a shout before we give this thing legs.
I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of working together before (thousand apologies if I’m wrong!), but I’m a big fan of your work in June’s Shadow Walkers series.
Feel free to reach out once you’ve read the first few episodes. Any pronunciations/character voices to discuss, let me know.
This’ll be fun,
Brock
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
December 7, 8:41 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Thank you so much, Brock. I’m a fan of yours, as well.
I’ll dig in to the first few episodes and will definitely reach out with questions. Warning: I tend to have a lot of questions!
Looking forward to doing this.
Best,
Sarah
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
December 13, 3:16 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Hi again,
Okay, finished reading the first three episodes. Enjoyed it! But, as I warned you, I have a significant number of questions (attached). Also sending along a sample of what I’m thinking of doing with the voices. Let me know if these work for you.
Best,
Sarah
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
December 14, 10:27 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Good questions. Made notes in the attachment. Character samples sound PERFECT.
Brock
SEWANEE WAS LOADING
the dishwasher with the usual lunchtime detritus when she saw Mark come out of his office and hit the button for the house’s ancient intercom system.
“May I have your attention, please. The e-mail . . .” He gave his best dramatic pause. “. . . has arrived.” Sewanee stopped loading, retrieved a stack of clear plastic cups from a cabinet, and unstacked them on the island. Mark went to the garage and returned with two bottles of Kirkland brand sparkling wine.
Normally, the house was library-silent during the day. The rotating narrators and engineers were ensconced in the four bedrooms and the editors were sitting at desks in the living room listening to raw audio files. If conversation happened, it was murmured lowly in the kitchen or more volubly in the garage; on the deck you could laugh without being heard. But now, the floorboards above Sewanee’s head creaked, doors opened, and footsteps made their way down the thickly-carpeted stairs. The editors pulled off their headphones.
The herd gathered in the kitchen, Alice among them. She rarely came to the studio anymore, but her home booth was currently out of commission. Most full-time narrators had home
studios, so Mark’s place usually hosted new narrators, old holdouts, actors who only did audiobooks occasionally, and celebrity or author readers. It was nice to see a familiar face.
Alice slipped her arm around Sewanee’s waist, giving her a kiss on the cheek. Sewanee moved to throw her right arm across Alice’s shoulders, but she’d never regained full range of motion. She substituted a snuggle into Alice’s side. “How you?” Alice whispered.
“Good,” Sewanee murmured back. “You? What are you recording?”
“They’re unicorns. Except when they’re humans. Then they screw a lot.”
“Hear ye, hear ye!” Mark cried, pulling a folded raft of papers out of the back pocket of his Dockers. He liked to preserve tradition whenever possible and he particularly enjoyed this one. He’d be damned if he read this off a screen. “I have in my hand the sacred scroll! The communique from on high! The fates of every living being! Gather ’round to hear your fortuity!”
Alice and Sewanee snorted.
“For the uninitiated, the Audies are the Oscars of the audiobook world. And we have among us, here, in this very kitchen, gods of the realm. Your Meryl Streep of Romance”–he looked to Alice here–“your Daniel Day-Lewis of Sci-Fi”–a nod to Brian, a narrator who insisted on wearing a tie in the booth because it made him feel like he was at work–“your promising-newcomer, the, shall we say, Adaku Obi of Faith-Based and Inspirational . . .” Sewanee laughed as Mark gestured to a baby-faced woman she thought might have been named Carly. “And, of course, your Cate Blanchett of Fiction and winner of last year’s Best Female Narrator award, Sewanee Chester.” A tip of an invisible hat.
“Don’t forget yourself,” she called out. “The Katharine Hepburn of History and Biography.”
Mark curtsied amid the hoots, but continued, “Now, the Academy Awards might have a celebrity-strewn televised announcement of the nominees, but we aren’t nearly as fussy, are we? Nay! We are humble artistes, who prefer our accolades to arrive via electronic mail, on an awkward mid-week afternoon right before the holidays.” More chuckles. “This year’s ceremony will take place on . . .” He scanned the paper. “. . . Wednesday, March 10th. Now, the ceremony. Ahhh, the ceremony. First and foremost, arrange transportation because each ticket includes not one, but two drink coupons!”
Mark said louder, over the laughter, “The event is black tie, so leave your sweatpants at home,
mon amis
. Shave all the parts no one usually sees. Decide which footwear you’ll spend the evening complaining about!” He looked back to the paper. “And what is this? Do mine eyes deceive me? Hark! This year, the event shall take place here, in the City of Angels!” At this, a victorious cry went up. “Los Angeles, rejoice! New York, pack your sunblock!” The entire group applauded and whistled. “And so, without further ado, while I read the categories and nominees,
une petite
Blanchett over here will distribute the bubbly.”
At that, Sewanee moved away from Alice and to her task. Mark began to read. She knew if she checked her phone, she’d probably see texts and e-mails from friends and colleagues who had already scanned the nominees and reached out to her. But she preferred it this way.
In the end, Mark was nominated for a Jefferson biography, Alice was nominated twice in the Romance category (one a co-narration with Brock McNight, who had an additional nomination of his own, prompting a pointed raised eyebrow in Swan’s
direction from Mark), and she herself was nominated in general Fiction for
Them Hills
. No one in the room would have sensed her disappointment at not being nominated in the big kahuna Best Female Narrator category she’d won the previous year. She was too good an actress to let any suggestion of a sting show. But when she saw the shocked joy on Carly’s face at having been nominated, for the first time, in Young Adult, she was reminded that all of it was an honor. More than the awards, she had a steady job in an industry she loved.
As everyone chatted and sipped their meager ration of sparkles, Sewanee found Alice in a corner of the kitchen. One of the engineers, Petra, came up to them and they congratulated her, too–she’d engineered one of the nominated books–and Alice smiled at her, setting her plastic glass in the sink. “Let’s finish out the chapter and call it a night. Let Swan get in studio 3.” Alice knew Sewanee recorded whenever there was a free booth–that’s how she made the bartering work with Mark–and today there wasn’t one.
They hugged once more and Alice and Petra moved to leave, but Alice turned back. “Oh, Mark told me about the June French series. Fantastic!”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll love working with Brock.”
“Yeah?”
“Sweet kid. Communicative, thoughtful, respectful.” Sewanee opened her mouth and Alice held up a hand, smiling. “No, I don’t know who he really is. But he’s one of the good ones.”
Interesting.
Sewanee finished her congratulatory rounds and then, when everyone had gone back to their work, she started the dishwasher and leaned on the counter. She took out her phone and composed an e-mail:
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
December 17, 3:11 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Congrats on your Audie nomination(s)! May you somehow win them both!
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
December 18, 5:27 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Thank you! I’m honored. Though being nominated twice in the same category means even if I win, I lose.
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
December 18, 1:36 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Lol.
I’m planning to record the first episode after the holidays. If we don’t speak (type? Correspond?) before then, I hope you and yours have a good rest of the year. Looking forward to getting into this with you in the new one.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
December 18, 1:37 PM
Subject:
Automatic Reply: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Hello,
I won’t be checking email until January 7. I humbly implore you to join me.
Peace and love and New Year’s countdown kisses,
B
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 7, 6:14 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Happy New Year! Hope you and yours had a good holiday. Have you looked at the next two episodes Jason sent? You’ll be doing the voice of Claire’s late husband in a flashback section. Can you send me a sample of how you’re doing it? I have one dialogue exchange where he’s condescending to me at the rehearsal dinner and I want to make sure we are in sync.
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 7, 9:57 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Happy New Year to you and yours! Hope it was merry and bright.
I’m thinking high and reedy, slightly sniveling. To contrast with your Alessandro, The Ultimate Man™.
Question: Jason had mentioned you’d never done a June French book before. So, I admit, I looked you up and surprisingly it’s true. 400 audiobooks and none June’s? Curious how this project found its way to you.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 7, 4:35 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
You Googled me, huh? Thought I felt something.
You know, it’s interesting. Before June died, she reached out and told me about the project and said I was the only voice she wanted reading it. So, I promised her. And honestly, I wanted to do it. To honor her. Her legacy, I guess.
One more thing you should know: she was equally insistent about you. It had to be both of us or she didn’t want it done. Jason and I decided not to tell you that in the beginning. We didn’t want you asking for a bigger cut.☺
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 7, 5:15 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
I would definitely have asked for a bigger cut.☺
That’s actually very heartwarming. I appreciate you telling me. She was very good to me when I was first starting out. I
loved doing her books, even if they were in a category I later pulled back from. I’m sad she’s gone. But we will do right by her!
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 7, 5:33 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Agreed.
Question: I Googled you, too (feel anything?), and 75 Romance novels but nothing in the last five years. Curious. Why did you stop and, more importantly, how can I?
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 7, 7:48 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Haha. Well, I started in Romance, used it as a training ground. Full disclosure: I never enjoyed the genre. Other than June and a few other authors who were wonderful writers, I just don’t like Romance. It’s not my . . . thing? Speed? Taste? I think I’m too cynical. For what it’s worth, I don’t do Faith-Based and Inspirational either.
Bah humbug.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 8, 10:22 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
I get it, Scrooge. Trust me. I ONLY do Romance. And some days you’re just not in the mood for happily ever after.
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 8, 5:21 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Most days.
(But also I did some terribly written omegaverse/wolf erotica and that put me over the edge. Here lies Sarah Westholme, slain by her own prudery.)
Also FYI, Sarah Westholme is a pseudonym, that’s why there are only 75 titles under that name. I record other books under my real name.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 9, 7:13 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
At least Sarah Westholme sounds like an actual person. Brock McNight sounds like a porn star.
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 9, 7:15 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Well, congrats. Nailed it.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 9, 7:24 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
I almost went with ROCK McNight but might as well be Stiff McStufferson at that point.
Anywaaaaaay, have you recorded the first episode yet? If so, can you send? I want to hear your tone/pacing before I start.
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 9, 7:35 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
It’s attached, Stiffy. Have a great weekend!
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 12, 2:15 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Hope your weekend was good.
Listened to the first episode. I have to tell you–maybe I
shouldn’t tell you–no, I’m going to tell you: you’re ridiculously good. Shadow Walkers was a while ago and that impressed me. But this is exceptional.
You should read books out loud. Has anyone ever told you that? People might even pay you! Something to look into.
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 12, 9:26 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Thank you! That means a lot, coming from you.
I was a bit concerned I was out of practice. Any tips or tricks you have for narrating Romance these days would be welcomed.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 13, 11:43 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
I wouldn’t worry about performance. People listen at 3X speed.
Kidding.
Kind of.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 13, 11:47 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Sorry, that was glib. Of course you should care about performance.
One of us should. *cymbal crash*
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 14, 6:12 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Why do you only record Romance (if I may ask, obvs)?
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 14, 7:31 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Money aside (LOLZ obviously it’s the money):
It’s a crash course in learning about women. A subject I have repeatedly flunked.
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 14, 7:38 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
That would be like me learning about men from narrating Sci-Fi. Ten pages on the inner-workings of the spaceship’s command center A.I.? That can’t be the extent of what goes on in their heads.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 14, 7:41 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
No, that’s entirely accurate. But please husk your voice when you read, “The main shaft drives the dual condenser into lockdown.”
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 14, 7:44 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Like this? [voice memo attached]
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 14, 7:46 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Oh. My. God.
I’m so glad we’re doing this project together. I know this is about the money for both of us, but I can’t help feeling like maybe June knew something about the two of us individually that
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 14, 7:49 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
DID NOT MEAN TO SEND THAT MY STUPID FAT FINGER SLIPPED I WAS TRYING TO ERASE ALL THAT DRIVEL UGHHHHHHH
(I have had a few drinks. Sorry. Ignore me. Going to bed now.)
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 14, 7:56 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Stiffy? No apology necessary.
Quick business question: How are we saying Claire’s company, Visage? VIZ-idge (like the actual word) or vi-ZAWzh?
Be nice if we could ask June.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 15, 8:17 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
You’re a gem, Westholme. Truly. You’re not only the right voice, you’re the right person for this. (He wrote, completely sober this time)
And good question. But I defer to you, Claire’s your domain.
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 15, 12:51 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
So much pressure! I think vi-ZAWzh sounds more like a fake cosmetics company.
And thank you. That’s kind of you to say. I was thinking, but only if you’re completely comfortable with this, that we should exchange phone numbers. Just for texting. Just for that. Just in case another pronunciation question comes up. I don’t check emails when I’m in the booth. But only if you are COMPLETELY COMFORTABLE with this. Please know I would never abuse the privilege. I would of course keep your number confidential.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 15, 12:51 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Hey, here’s my phone number, can I have yours? I don’t have email set up in the booth or I’d never get any recording done, but I do respond to texts. Just in case we have questions that require an immediate response. But only if you’re COMFORTABLE with this. Please keep my number confidential and I will, of course, do the same.
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 15, 12:52 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
LOL! Great minds!
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 15, 12:52 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Whoa did we send those at the exact same time???
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
January 15, 12:53 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
YES AND NOW THESE LAST ONES, TOO! ACK! STOP! GOODBYE!
* * *
January 19
SEWANEE:
Hi, it’s Sarah. I have questions. Many questions.
BROCK:
Hi Sarah, it’s Brock. I have many answers.
I also happen to have a question.
SEWANEE:
You first.
BROCK:
Are you doing Italian pronunciations for all people/places/things, with R trills, etc?
SEWANEE:
of courrrrrrrrrsuh. We should keep it authentic, no?
BROCK:
Rrrrright, we should, si.
Your turn.
SEWANEE:
So. Speaking of pronunciations, we both have clitoris coming up and we should make sure we give it the same emphasis.
BROCK:
Please. Continue.
SEWANEE:
Well. MW has two acceptable pronunciations: 1st is KLIT-ur-us, 2nd is kli-TOR-us.
BROCK:
Door #1. Number 2 sounds like a dinosaur.
SEWANEE:
Agreed.
Can’t you just see ol’ Merriam and Webster debating this one?
BROCK:
The men who wrote the DICK-shun-airy? Absolutely.
Or is it dick-SHUNNERY?
SEWANEE:
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. What about areole?
BROCK:
Not sure that’s the tip of an *iceberg*.
SEWANEE:
Haha. Are we going with the technically correct pronunciation, even though I’ve never heard it said like that? Ever? Aw-REE-oh-luh?
BROCK:
You’ve obviously been out of the Romance game for a while. MW recently added air-ee-OH-luh as an official alt pronunciation.
SEWANEE:
NO!
BROCK:
Yes.
SEWANEE:
They must be turning over in their graves!
BROCK:
Hope they don’t bruise their air-ee-OH-luhs.
air-ee-OH-ly?
It’s complicated when there’s two of them.
SEWANEE:
I have another question.
BROCK:
Is it above the neck?
SEWANEE:
Way above. Why is the sky blue?
BROCK:
ha.
Seriously?
SEWANEE:
Yeah, I’ve always wondered.
BROCK:
Simple: reflection.
WAIT NO. Refraction.
SEWANEE:
Wrong. Particles. *sends link to NASA website*
BROCK:
That article is incorrect.
SEWANEE:
Oh, NASA’s incorrect?
BROCK:
Sarah. These people staged the moon landing, for Pete’s sake.
Hey here’s a question: who’s Pete?
SEWANEE:
?
BROCK:
Pete! Pete’s sake. For the love of Pete. Sneaky Pete. Honest to Pete. Who tf is Pete??
SEWANEE:
. . . God?
BROCK:
Oh my Pete!
* * *
January 21
BROCK:
Why is the OCEAN blue?
SEWANEE:
Well, Brock, it’s not always blue. It can also be green, or gray, or other colors depending on how the light bounces. It only appears blue because water absorbs colors in the red part of the light spectrum which acts like a filter, leaving behind colors in the blue part of the spectrum.
BROCK:
*Brando’s Godfather voice* you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married and give me SCIENCE.
SEWANEE:
Forgive me, Don Corleone. There is no science anymore. FAKE NEWS.
BROCK:
ALTERNATIVE FACTS
SEWANEE:
WITCH HUNT
Grazie, Godfather.
BROCK:
Prego.
From:
Jason Ruiz
To:
Brock McNight; Westholme, Sarah
Date:
January 23, 10:27 AM
Subject:
Casanova–ep 1
Hey you two,
Just wanted to let you know the first ep is locked and it is DOPE. SO good. It’s all set to drop on Valentine’s Day. Fans are stoked. The preorders are through the roof. As I’d said, I’ll send out payment at the beginning of each month, so your March 1 deposit will reflect two weeks of sales for episode 1 and one week of sales for episode 2.
Sarah, I’ll have pickups to you for episode 3 tomorrow.
Thanks!
JR
AS SEWANEE PLACED
eight used mugs in the studio sink, Damian, an engineer with dreads down to his ass, entered the kitchen. “Hey D,” she said.
“Hey,” he sighed, smiling wearily, and opened the fridge. He
retrieved a mason jar of his homemade kombucha. He took a pull on it as if it were a cold beer.
She inclined her head at him. “Tough day?”
He shook his back at her tightly: later.
Just as, into the kitchen, walked Doug Carrey.
Jolted, Sewanee spun back to the sink.
Not once in the last eight years and now twice in the last two months? Why? How? Help.
“So, brothah, we all good?” Doug asked Damian.
“All good, my man, you’re free to go,” Damian replied. Doug pulled him into a bro-y handshake/back pat combo and Damian said, “Great job,” but Sewanee knew him well enough to know he didn’t mean it.
“Who woulda thunk reading a book out loud could be so wicked hahd, huh? Even a kids’ book!” Damian took another swallow of kombucha as Doug floated his head around the kitchen and living room. “This house is sick. Who owns it?”
“Mark Clark.”
Doug snorted. “That practically rhymes.” It
did
rhyme. “He ever think of selling?”
Sewanee kept her hands in the sink, her gaze down, doing her best to disappear.
“No,” Damian answered. “I mean, I don’t think so. Not with the studio and all. Right, Swan?”
Shit.
Doug angled his head toward the disappearing act at the sink. “Waaaaitaminute, what a pissah! Swan?!”
She wiped her hands, turned around, faced Doug fully. “Of all the gin joints,” she drawled.
“God
damn
!” Doug enthused. “How’d I miss that backside this time?” He laughed, of course, and Sewanee wished they could go another eight years without this happening again.
“So, uh, yeah, no,” she said, steering him back to the topic of the house, “Mark will never sell.”
“Well, minds are meant to be changed. Tell him to give me a bell. I been lookin’ fah one of these old places in the hills fah years.”
Damian took one more chug and returned the mason jar to the fridge. “I gotta go export the files. Nice working with you,” he lied, and Sewanee wanted to tell him
she’d
export the files and could he please stay, please? But Damian was already gone and then there were two.
Doug smiled with all his teeth and Sewanee smiled back with pressed lips. Now what?
Doug pointed to his eye. “Still rockin’ the patch, huh? Damn, how long you gotta keep it on?”
“Uh. Forever,” she said, and, off his head tilt, added, “It was a bad accident.”
“Oh.” His grin wavered. “That’s brutal. I thought it was something temporary . . .” The grin officially went out. “Shit. And you were so good. I mean, I’m sure you still are. Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
Doug’s sincerity, while perhaps fleeting, reminded Sewanee why she had felt some little something for him way back when. Even if that something had been just as fleeting. “Thanks.”
“When’d it happen?”
“Seven years ago.”
His silence got to her and she found herself reaching for words. Any words. “Did you enjoy recording–”
“Don’t give up,” he said suddenly. “The business has changed. You know what I’m sayin’? People are more open to . . . you know.” He waved a hand. “Diversity.”
She knew he meant disability, but either way he wasn’t wrong. She had considered it herself. She still wanted to act, sometimes so
desperately she had to go lie down until the yearning passed. But she knew that doing so would force her to face the truth, or at least her truth: she couldn’t reclaim who she once was when who she once was no longer existed.
After a moment of gazing at her, he closed the distance between them and pulled her into a hug. It wasn’t sexual, fortunately. It was delicate. A bit careful. The way you might hug someone you felt sorry for, but who also might be contagious, you weren’t sure. Better safe than sorry. Still, it was Doug’s version of trying. Of being a good guy.
She pulled back first, anything that could give her the illusion of having the upper hand, and glanced at the sink, hoping he’d sense she had to get back to work.
He did. He stepped fully back, but said, “Hey. Didn’t you used to hang with Adaku Obi?”
She smiled. “Still do.”
His smile came back, too. “Man, say hi fah me. We keep missing each other at awards shit. Tell her I’d like to connect.”
Sewanee said, “Will do.” But Sewanee thought, Will not.
He backed away, out of the kitchen. “And tell Mark–Mark?–I want this house. Serious. Gimme a bell.” He winked. “Here’s looking at you, Kid.” Again, with the terrible Bogart impression.
An hour later, when the house chores were done and Damian had finished exporting, Sewanee let herself into studio 1 to start recording for the day. It still smelled like cologne. His cologne. A cologne he hadn’t changed in eight years.
She stepped out, turned up the fan in the booth, and went down the hall to studio 4. She sat down inside and tried recording, but she was tripping over every other sentence. This only happened when she was tired, PMS-ing, or . . . just plain bothered.
She wanted a hug. A real one.
Instead, she picked up her phone.
SEWANEE:
Question: what happens after we die?
He responded immediately:
We don’t have to record Romance anymore.
She smiled.
Another text appeared:
Unless we go to hell. Which is pretty likely tbh. Then that’s all we do.
SEWANEE:
You really don’t like doing Brock McNight, do you?
BROCK:
Would YOU like doing Brock McNight??
SEWANEE:
How DARE you ask me that?!
BROCK:
Walked right into that one.
Sewanee paused, considering how to respond. Her decision was made easier when her phone lit up again.
BROCK:
You know, the problem with sexual innuendo is . . .
you can’t keep it up.
SEWANEE:
lol
Speak for yourself. I can go all night.
BROCK:
Just thought you’d slip that in?
SEWANEE:
Well. I don’t like to beat around the bush.
BROCK:
Maybe I should go deeper into this.
SEWANEE:
Oh, it’s about to go down.
BROCK:
Wait, I don’t want to blow it.
SEWANEE:
You’re making this too hard.
BROCK:
Not hard enough.
SEWANEE:
Awww, it’s okay, happens to every man at some point.
BROCK:
Easy come . . .
SEWANEE:
Don’t brag.
Sewanee’s cheeks ached from the smile on her face. If someone walked in, she knew she’d appear absolutely deranged. A
picture appeared in the chat. A meme of a Golden Retriever holding a giant femur in its mouth. The caption read: WANNA BONE? She blurted a laugh, then, realizing how loud it had been, closed the booth door.
SEWANEE:
No thanks. I should get off.
BROCK:
And scene!
SEWANEE:
Oh, are you done?
BROCK:
Almost. Just finishing.
She debated for half a second.
SEWANEE:
Need a hand?
She watched bubbles appear . . . then stop. More bubbles . . . another stop. What was he typing?
Then:
Okay, okay, I’m out, you win. Service ace.
SEWANEE:
And match.
BROCK:
Good volley.
Can I have my balls back?
SEWANEE:
bahahahahaahaha
BROCK:
You.
SEWANEE:
What?
BROCK:
Just. You.
SEWANEE WAS IN
an epic line at Costco when her phone dinged.
BROCK:
Question. Got a sec?
SEWANEE:
No, I don’t know where babies come from.
BROCK:
Dammit.
Before pulling out of her parking space, Sewanee texted:
Still waiting for your question.
BROCK:
Still waiting to ask it.
Leaning against the replenished shelves in Mark’s garage, Sewanee texted:
Seriously?
BROCK:
You know what? Never mind.
SEWANEE:
oh COME ON!
BROCK:
It doesn’t matter.
SEWANEE:
I am never letting this go, you know that, right?
BROCK:
Ughhhh
SEWANEE:
Waiting . . .
BROCK:
Forget it.
SEWANEE:
tick tock
BROCK:
It’s just, I thought it mattered, but now I think it doesn’t.
SEWANEE:
Cool. Now tell me.
She went inside. Checked the apple supply. Put the kettle on. Refreshed the pretzels.
SEWANEE:
SERIOUSLY??
BROCK:
ok ok give me a second!!!
Please take this in the spirit with which I mean it.
I want to make sure nobody’s getting hurt.
Or confused.
I don’t want anything weird.
Between us.
In the end.
SEWANEE:
Nice haiku. Question please.
BROCK:
Blargh.
SEWANEE:
STIFFY!!!!!
The bubbles started, so Sewanee put the phone on the counter, grabbed a mug, a tea bag, promised herself she wouldn’t look at her phone until she heard it ding. Betrayed that promise thirty seconds later, felt like an idiot, had just set the phone back down on the counter when it dinged again.
BROCK:
It’s just this: since we began texting, I have gotten concerned–albeit irrationally (can’t believe I used the word ‘albeit’)–that maybe I/you/we were possibly, potentially (probably?), crossing a line.
SEWANEE:
And?
BROCK:
And . . .
I was thinking that I should ask
You
If you’re single.
(I feel like I’m in middle school for christsake.)
SEWANEE:
*pete’s sake
BROCK:
This would be easier if Pete could pass a note with check boxes to one of your friends in study hall.
SEWANEE:
So you want to know if I’m single because . . . ?
BROCK:
bcuz someone else could be looking at your phone!! You never know who’s looking at your phone!!
Not that there’s anything inappropriate.
Too inappropriate.
(for the record this is going just as badly as I predicted)
What I mean to say is THIS:
I would never want somebody to think I was coming on to his woman.
(Or her woman???)
Again with the smiling she couldn’t seem to contain. His adorable awkwardness prompted her to answer him amusingly, but sincerely. Why was her hand shaking?
SEWANEE:
You’re safe. I’m single.
His next text appeared simultaneously:
I know I can be jokey and flirty. And it might be confusing to tell what’s real and what’s not. Am I making any sense at all?
Followed instantly by:
FML Don’t read my last text PLEASE
Sewanee’s full-body laugh sloshed some tea out of her cup and onto the counter. She wiped it up with her sleeve and quickly typed:
lol you kidding I’m gonna frame it.
BROCK:
sigh
So . . .
we’re good?
SEWANEE:
We’re good.
BROCK:
Thank Pete.
SEWANEE:
Thank YOU.
* * *
February 14
(On WhatsApp)
MOM:
Good luck today, Swanling! Today’s the day, right? We’re so happy for you!
SEWANEE:
Thanks! Yes, first episode releases in about an hour.
MOM:
Oh good we didn’t miss it. Stu wants to say something.
I mean type something.
SEWANEE:
Okay.
Go ahead, Stu.
I can see that you stopped typing. Did you press send?
Stu?
MOM:
These buttons are too damn small.
SEWANEE:
Agreed.
MOM:
But that was not what I wanted to say.
SEWANEE:
Okay.
MOM:
Wait your mother wants to know if you are going to send us the episode.
SEWANEE:
No.
MOM:
Yes! Please send. This is Mom again.
SEWANEE:
NO I am not sending.
MOM:
Can we download it?
SEWANEE:
NO no downloading.
MOM:
But we want to hear it!
SEWANEE:
NO you do not. Trust me.
MOM:
We are happy to pay for it. This is Stu.
SEWANEE:
You are not allowed to listen to it. Okay? I record 50 books a year you could listen to that aren’t Romance.
Mom tell me you understand you are not allowed to listen to it.
MOM:
We’ll see. Love, Mom.
This is what I wanted to say. We saw dolphins. We were docked. Came right up to us. Did the EE-EE-EE right to us.
Oh this is me.
Stu.
SEWANEE:
Wow! How cool!
MOM:
It was talking just to us.
SEWANEE:
I’m sure it was.
☺
MOM:
Wish you were here with us Swanling, from Mom.
SEWANEE:
One of these days.
MOM:
You better young lady. Do not make me come get you. I would put a smiley face here but I do not know how to. This is Stu. Bye now. LOL. Stu.
SEWANEE:
Bye!
MOM:
It’s Mom. He thinks LOL means lots of love.
SEWANEE:
Well, LOL back.
MOM:
Miss you, darlingest of daughters.
SEWANEE:
Miss you. So much.
♥
From:
Alice Dunlop
To:
Sewanee Chester
Date:
February 15, 10:27 AM
Subject:
Audies presenting?
Hey hon,
Helping to organize presenters for the Audies and wondering if you’d have any desire to present the Lifetime Achievement Award (posthumously ☹) to June French? The public doesn’t have to know your connection, but I think it would be a nice wink wink nod nod for the industry. What do ya think?
Hugs,
Alice
P.S. Have you seen the Facebook groups? Everyone is losing their minds over
Casanova, LLC.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Brava!
From:
Sewanee Chester
To:
Alice Dunlop
Date:
February 15, 11:06 AM
Subject:
RE: Audies presenting?
I would LOVE to. Thank you so much for asking.
And no, haven’t dipped into FB. Will do so now.
From:
Sewanee Chester
To:
Alice Dunlop
Date:
February 15, 11:38 AM
Subject:
RE: Audies presenting?
OH. MY. GODDDDDDDD.
SEWANEE:
Hey are you on Facebook?
BROCK:
Hell no.
Why?
SEWANEE:
Fans are loving the first episode. Like, a lot.
BROCK:
Nice.
SEWANEE:
Like, a lot a lot.
I think this might end up being huge.
BROCK:
SEWANEE:
That’s it?
BROCK:
Did you know the real Casanova was a terrible human? Horrible. Actual criminal. Did time. Rapist. Even knocked up his own daughter.
SEWANEE:
“And now, Children, Story Time with Brock McNight”
BROCK:
heh. Sorry. I’m happy for us, I am.
SEWANEE:
You just don’t care?
BROCK:
No, I do, I’m just . . .
IDK.
SEWANEE:
You’re checked out.
Of audio.
Of Romance.
BROCK:
I guess so?
I’m sorry. You deserve a better partner.
SEWANEE:
It’s okay. Really. Like a trophy wife, I will console myself with the piles of money you brought to the marriage.
BROCK:
deal.
* * *
February 22
SEWANEE:
Question.
BROCK:
Sorry, wrong number, this isn’t Question.
SEWANEE:
groaaaaaaaan
BROCK:
Deepest apologies, that was truly horrid Dad humor.
SEWANEE:
So, not judging, but what do we think of this hero?
BROCK:
. . . ?
SEWANEE:
I’m having trouble deciding if Alessandro’s complicated. Or just an asshole.
BROCK:
He’s an alpha.
SEWANEE:
riiiiight but
BROCK:
He only cares about his art. Relationships are transactional for him.
SEWANEE:
Yes, most. With all the others, but not with her. When she gets what she came for (no pun intended) she’s prepared to honor their agreement. He then treats her terribly (which, okay, typical Romance Hero having his Feels), but why?
BROCK:
IDK
SEWANEE:
Well, how are you going to play it?
BROCK:
What do you mean?
SEWANEE:
Is he really that oblivious to what he wants or is he protecting himself from going after what he wants in case he can’t have it?
BROCK:
What do you mean?
SEWANEE:
I meeeaaan, why is he?
BROCK:
*who?
SEWANEE:
No, why. You can’t just look at who someone is. You have to look at WHY someone is. Surface versus substance. That’s the difference between caricature and character.
BROCK:
I just figured out why you’re a better narrator than me. You’re an actress, aren’t you?
SEWANEE:
Was.
BROCK:
Why’d you stop?
SEWANEE:
Mmmmm story for another time.
BROCK:
I’ll hold you to that.
What do YOU think Alessandro’s “why” is?
SEWANEE:
off the top of my head . . .
I think he’s tired of being seen as this sex god. I think he’s desperate to end the performance, but who is he without it? Who would want him, the real Alessandro, when all the women he has ever known only seem to want the fantasy? All except her. She wanted something no one else saw in him: the person, not the commodity (represented by how she falls in love with his art, i.e. his soul, i.e. his truth).
So I err on the side of he’s not oblivious, he’s scared. Because he’s falling in love with her. So: attraction = fear = self-protection = assholery.
BROCK:
Yeah that’s totally what I was going to say.
That’s good.
That’s Really Good.
Mind if I steal it?
SEWANEE:
It’s you.
*yours
SEWANEE WAS NAMED
after her grandmother’s hometown. Everyone who’d been involved in the decision had liked it. It was possibly the only thing they agreed on, if for completely different reasons. Elegant, her grandmother had said. Magical, her mother had said. Allegorical, her father had said.
Sewanee had wanted to live up to all of it.
But her name did not endear her to her grandmother. Not at first.
It wasn’t personal. Barbara Chester had never shown much interest in children, and she’d had no use for Sewanee until she was old enough to have a conversation and not run mindlessly back to Henry and repeat it. But by the time Sewanee was eight or nine, they’d discovered what was missing from both of their lives: each other.
On school holidays or weekends or summer workdays, Marilyn would drive up Beverly Glen and pull over on Mulholland, where Sewanee would get into Blah’s waiting car and they’d drive down the other side of the hill to Bitsy’s house. They’d watch old movies in the shagged living room and Sewanee soaked it all up, knew every line from
The Philadelphia Story
, every step of “Make ’Em Laugh” from
Singin’ in the Rain
, every head tilt from Lauren Bacall.
At the height of the day, they’d go out to the green-tinged pool and Blah would teach her how to swim, telling her the combination of swimming and dancing would give her everything she’d need to maintain her yet-to-appear figure. At some point, Blah would say, “I suppose your parents expect me to feed you,” and they’d glide into the kitchen and Blah would forage for something, anything, that constituted food. Usually Ritz crackers or apple slices. Always Mallomars. Sometimes Bitsy would stop by between her lunch and dinner shift at Du-pars and bring them pancakes, which Sewanee loved, but her real appetite was elsewhere.
One more dance step; rewatch a Hepburn/Tracy film and talk about “chemistry”; go through Bette Davis’s entire oeuvre.
By the time Sewanee was in middle school, they would drive around the Valley in Blah’s Oldsmobile convertible and go consignment shopping on Ventura Boulevard. They’d sweep down the racks, pulling anything remotely intriguing. When Sewanee
would say, “I like this, what do you think?” Blah would respond, “I think you’re a knockout, Doll.”
This was when Sewanee began sensing what it might be like to be Sewanee. She would show up at school in jeans, T-shirts, flip-flops, and ponytails, but every Homecoming or Snow Ball or Prom she was decked out in impeccably tailored vintage and makeup, looking about a decade older than she was.
It was at one of these dances her junior year when a classmate’s father, a television producer, asked if she had any interest in acting. She said it was all she wanted to do. What she didn’t tell him was that her parents had told her she couldn’t until she was eighteen. They lived in Los Angeles, after all, they knew the horror stories. So when the producer asked her to audition for his new show, she did so without telling her parents. Because she was sure she wouldn’t get it. She just wanted to test herself out. Like a first date.
So when she inevitably got the role and was forced to tell them, they said no, of course she couldn’t take the part, hadn’t they discussed this?
But, but, but!
They fought, their first real teenager knock-down drag-out, and Sewanee slammed the front door, got into her rattletrap Jetta, and steamed over the hill to Bitsy’s.
She and Blah had sat out by the pool in the warm October evening while Sewanee sobbed, hurling invectives at her parents. Blah calmly sipped her martini and waited for Sewanee to breathe. Then she handed her the last gulp of her drink, which Sewanee immediately threw back and just as immediately nearly threw up, making a face only a lemon could love. They both laughed; Blah’s aim all along.
She reached into the pocket of her quilted dressing gown, pulled out a lighter and the silver cigarette case her agent had
given her in ’58. It was inscribed on the back, “To: A great pair of get-away sticks. May they take you where you want to go.” She tapped out a cigarette, lit it, smoke dancing in the pool lights.
Sewanee had heard the story of how Blah had been discovered many times over the years, but like all of Blah’s stories, new layers were added as Sewanee got older.
“Bitsy and I had moved to Nashville for work. We were cocktail waitresses at a dive in Printer’s Alley. And one day, a man walked in.” Most of Blah’s stories included the line: a man walked in.
“They were location scouting for a honky-tonk in Nashville. Big deal at the time, going on location instead of making a soundstage in Hollywood look like a honky-tonk. So, I sauntered up, talked him into staying for a drink and into using our bar to shoot in. He came back two months later to film, and I went from being a waitress-in-life to a waitress-in-a-movie. I saved my tips, got on a bus, and when I got to Hollywood, I telephoned him. He got me a room at a good boardinghouse. He got me a coat check job at Musso and Frank. He got me my first agent. And all he got was my virginity.”
Sewanee’s mouth dropped open, but Blah waved off her shock. “He was a looker. And it was time to get rid of it anyway.”
“But . . .” Sewanee sputtered. “He used you!”
Blah raised an eyebrow. “Did he? Two people can use each other, you know.”
She barely dared ask. “Grandpa?”
Blah shook her head. “He was later. He was love. He was a playwright out of New York and he thought
I
was interesting. Imagine that.
“What I’m saying, Dollface, is I never slept with anyone I didn’t want to sleep with. I always had a reason. Was it right? Was it wrong? Who the hell knows. You’ve seen movies about that time. People write their little tell-alls now. Casting couches,
randy directors, lifted skirts against a dressing room door.” She scoffed, took a drag. “I’m not saying that’s not how it was for some gals. And I’m sorry if that’s how it was. But for me, it was three-martini lunches and bonfires in Malibu that lasted until the sun came up and ‘my wife is visiting her sister for the weekend, you ever been to Catalina?’ Reciprocal, you understand?”
“But you wanted to be an actress and they exploited that.”
Blah cackled and ashed her cigarette. “I didn’t want to be an actress. I wanted to be famous.”
“But you worked?”
“But I wasn’t good! Shit’s sake, I couldn’t act my way out of a wet paper bag. My choice was, I could be in it the way I was, or out of it because of what I wasn’t.” She pointed her cigarette at Sewanee. “And Doll, I can see on your face that won’t work for you.”
She took a final drag and snuffed it. “You want me to take your side and rail at your parents but–much as it pains me, and Lord knows it does–they’re right. This? Who you are now and what you’re being offered? Is how things end badly.”
Sewanee stamped her foot, every inch the child she didn’t think she was. “So what am I supposed to do?”
Blah leaned back, wrapped her hands around the frame of the lounger, crossed her legs. “What I never did. Get good. So goddamn good they can’t tell you shit.”
Blah’s lack of talent had never prevented her from understanding how it manifested in others. She helped Sewanee develop emotional accessibility, a command of words and language, a body that moved freely, effortlessly, sensually through space. She set about making her granddaughter her, but better. And when Sewanee applied to Julliard and got in? It was the greatest accomplishment of Barbara Chester’s life.
And by the time Sewanee graduated, she had Blah’s star quality, Marilyn’s innate goodness, Henry’s analytical skills, Julliard
training, and four years of New York spit shine on her. She was unstoppable.
Until she wasn’t.
* * *
February 25
BROCK:
Been thinking about our convo the other night. I want you to know: I’m not an actor. Everything you said about Alessandro made so much sense. I never think about stuff like that.
SEWANEE:
How did you get into audiobooks if you’re not an actor?
BROCK:
someone liked my voice.
SEWANEE:
It is a good voice.
BROCK:
I once called the DMV and the representative said, “I loved the way you said your VIN number. Would you mind doing it again a little slower?”
SEWANEE:
Haha appreciate what you have, my friend.
BROCK:
I do. I’d be lost without it.
Hey AM I your friend?
SEWANEE:
Figure of speech.
BROCK:
Ouch.
SEWANEE:
JK it’s not that we’re not not friends.
Ooof, too many nots.
We. Are. Friends. No nots.
I hate texting.
BROCK:
I heard they’re testing a new invention. Calling it a tellingphone or something like that. They’re saying we’ll actually be able to talk to each other through this here typing box! Science!
SEWANEE:
FAKE NEWS
Eleven minutes later:
SEWANEE:
What did you do before you were a narrator?
BROCK:
Mmmmmm story for another time.
Sewanee made herself wait until she was done for the day, still dripping from the rain that had been lashing during her climb back up to the casita, to text:
OKAY IT’S ANOTHER TIME!
BROCK:
Is this MY Another Time or YOUR Another Time?
SEWANEE:
Nice try. You’re up.
BROCK:
K just let me wrap up this chapter.
Maybe make myself a drink first.
SEWANEE:
Ooh I’ll join you!
BROCK:
You a wine-spritzer lady or a whisky-neat woman?
SEWANEE:
Depends. What kind of story am I settling in for?
BROCK:
A tale of enduring friendship in the face of dashed dreams.
SEWANEE:
I’m breaking out the tequila.
BROCK:
Olé
57 minutes later:
BROCK:
Tequila ready?
SEWANEE:
Turns out I only have a little cheap vodka in the back of my freezer.
BROCK:
Only a little?
SEWANEE:
It’s a little freezer.
What are you drinking?
BROCK:
Beer.
SEWANEE:
LOSER
BROCK:
And you don’t even know the story yet.
SEWANEE:
I’ll get my little vodka while you type.
BROCK:
Ok, here goes.
I was in a band. We were killing it. We had a record deal. We were on tour. We were young and fearless and had nothing to lose. Long story short, the lead singer, my best friend, flamed out. Drugs.
SEWANEE:
Wow. I’m sorry.
BROCK:
So typical it’s embarrassing in hindsight.
SEWANEE:
Did you try a solo career?
BROCK:
No. He was the musical genius. I just write a little, play a little guitar, and sing a little.
That’s my M.O.: do a lot of things a little.
SEWANEE:
You and my freezer.
How’s your friend now? Or shouldn’t I ask?
BROCK:
That’s the silver lining. He’s sober. Has been for five years.
SEWANEE:
That’s great!
BROCK:
It is. Few months ago we started playing together again. To see if there was anything left.
SEWANEE:
Was there?
BROCK:
He wants to take another shot.
SEWANEE:
And you?
BROCK:
IDK
SEWANEE:
Are you afraid he’ll relapse?
BROCK:
He’s not the problem.
SEWANEE:
?
BROCK:
I’m not afraid for him specifically. I’m just afraid.
SEWANEE:
Of what?
BROCK:
Sigh. How much time ya got?
SEWANEE:
About a finger’s worth of vodka.
BROCK:
I was a fearless boy who became a fearful man.
There. Nostrovia.
SEWANEE:
Ennnhhh I don’t shoot vodka. If you want me to finish this, I’m going to need a little more than that.
BROCK:
K. I’ll skip to the end.
When the world’s your oyster? And you gobble it up? There’s nothing worse than getting food poisoning. Just the sight of one after that makes you sick.
(I promise I’m a better songwriter than this analogy would suggest)
SEWANEE:
But if you never open another oyster, you’ll miss the pearls.
BROCK:
Yeah. Well.
For the record, I hate talking about this.
SEWANEE:
Brb gonna go post on Facebook that Brock McNight is afraid of eating oysters.
BROCK:
I will completely understand if you never want to talk to me again.
SEWANEE:
R U kidding? I’m making popcorn.
BROCK:
Okay, enough about me. What’s your Another Time?
Sewanee sat back and sipped her vodka. How would she even begin? Was she ready to tell her story? To open herself up like that?
Maybe she could at least address the fear. Tell him she knew something about life getting pulled out from under you. Maybe use the awful oyster metaphor. At least let him know how much she understood his struggle. Talk straight, one ruination to another.
But she didn’t want to.
She wanted to talk about songwriting and vodka and sexual innuendos.
And where he lived.
And how old he was.
And what he did for fun.
And did he have hair?
Was he tall? He sounded large, but not necessarily tall. Which was fine. She didn’t care. Why would she? Who was she to care about such things?
It was novel, having this strong a connection with someone she’d never seen. Who’d never seen her. Then again, maybe that’s what made it possible. Would seeing each other, meeting each other face to face, fracture the relationship they’d built? He would probably say
a little
relationship was safer and he’d be right.
Which was why, she realized, she could identify with Brock much more than with someone like Nick.
Nick.
The man who always went ’round the bend, who would look into the well even if it meant crushing disappointment. Nick was who she wished she were; Brock was much closer to who she actually was.
It was as if she had been staring at a painting and foreground-Nick and background-Brock had switched. When had that happened?
Her phone lit up.
BROCK:
You’re not literally making popcorn?
SEWANEE:
Ha no, sorry. Thinking about a worthy answer.
BROCK:
Take your time. I took mine.
Actually, no. I totally forgot. I have rehearsal.
SEWANEE:
Oh!
BROCK:
I’m so sorry.
SEWANEE:
No, no it’s okay! Trust me.
BROCK:
God my brain these days!
SEWANEE:
No listen I dodged a bullet here.
BROCK:
Grrr. I don’t want to leave this. It’s important.
SEWANEE:
No, your rehearsal is important. It’s not like you wanted to know why grass is green. My story can wait.
BROCK:
I know that one! Chlorophyll! TBC!
FRIDAY. HAPPY HOUR
. Seasons.
Sewanee signed in at the front desk, as she did almost every Friday. But this time, Adaku joined her.
Adaku was in self-imposed lockdown as she trained for the Lysistrata-in-the-jungle movie (which was titled
The Originator
, for reasons Sewanee did not understand), and when she’d texted last night
I NEED TO GET OUT OF MY HOUSE
, Sewanee had suggested she join her at Seasons and they could have dinner after.
They headed to Blah’s room to rouse her. “Ten bucks says she’ll be on the left side of the couch, two pillows behind her, headphones on her head, an audiobook playing, fast asleep.” They were chuckling as they entered Blah’s room and found her exactly as Sewanee had predicted.
She opened her eyes, instinctively sensing their presence. “Dollface! What are you doing here? And who is this?”
“Blah, I’m Adaku. I don’t know if you remember me, but I–”
“Of course I remember you! Who could forget that smile?”
Adaku bent over to give Blah a hug. “It’s so great to see you again.”
Sewanee couldn’t be sure whether Blah recognized Adaku or not, but she supposed it didn’t matter. “It’s Friday!” She finger-combed the hair on the back of Blah’s head. “What do you say we get ourselves together and head down to happy hour?”
“What are we waiting for? Hand me my lipstick, Doll.” She did and Blah applied it–flawlessly, without a mirror–while telling Adaku, “Don’t go anywhere without your lips. You never know who you’ll run into. Or kiss, for that matter.”
When they went downstairs, Adaku moved toward a corner table in the half-filled lounge, but Blah said, “The bar, hon. Stools. Shows off the gams.” So they commandeered three of the four stools and ordered martinis, Adaku unhappily abstaining for the sake of her regimen. Blah crossed her legs and ran an elegant hand along her thigh as if straightening a gown’s high slit instead of smoothing the beige polyester of her elastic-waisted pants.
“Two martinis, one dirty with extra olives, just the way you like it, Blah,” the orderly-cum-bartender said, pushing their glasses toward them.
“Thanks, Dan,” Sewanee replied, sliding the special one to her grandmother. “Blah, Dan gave you three olives. It’s normally two. Something you want to tell me?”
“That’s between me and Dan,” Blah simpered. She saucily slid one off the toothpick, then winked. “That’s why the extra one.” She turned to Adaku. “I hope you’re taking notes.”
Adaku laughed. “Always.”
Sewanee took the opportunity, while Blah was sipping her drink to, once again, reinforce the impending move to memory care. “So, I was thinking, when it comes time to move to your new room, I’ll bring over some roller suitcases and make it easy.” She’d been repeating this every time they talked for the last two months, but she wasn’t sure it had stuck. Or, if it had, if Blah completely understood the implications.
Blah merely nodded and sipped her martini. “Whatever you want, Doll.” She jerked her chin at Dan. “Let’s get Popeye here to help. He looks more than capable.”
Dan smiled. “Where are you moving to, Blah?”
Blah’s smile froze. She glanced at Sewanee. “Where am I moving?”
“Just to another wing,” Sewanee answered, smiling at Dan, infusing her voice with calm for Blah’s sake. “She’ll still be here every Friday so keep those olives stocked.”
This seemed to mollify Blah, who raised her glass to her lips and looked out into the room, casing the door, as if this were the bar at the Roosevelt Hotel and Gregory Peck might walk in.
He didn’t, but Mitzi did.
When Mitzi entered a room, orange preceded her. Orange lipstick, orange fright-wig-looking hair, even the tennis balls on the
feet of her walker were electric orange. All gracefully wrapped in a leopard-print stole. None of it, however, was meant to outshine the enthusiastically applied blue eye shadow that went all the way up to her drawn-on eyebrows. It was about balance, you see.
“Look who came to visit!” Mitzi’s voice was a handsaw cutting a 2x4.
“Mitzi. So good to see you.” Sewanee leaned into Adaku and murmured, “I apologize in advance.”
“Ooh, noted,” Adaku whispered back, grinning.
Mitzi did her best to climb onto the bar stool next to her. “Why are these goddamn things so tall? And who are you?” she groused. Loudly.
Blah winced, rolled her eyes at the girls, and said, “Mitzi. Turn your hearing aids down. You’re shouting.”
“What?” she shouted.
“Your hearing aids! You’re shouting!”
“You don’t have to shout!”
Mitzi adjusted her hearing aids as Dan said, “What can I get ya, Mitzi?”
“Two cents plain, I’m off the sauce.” Her volume decreased to an acceptable level. She turned to Adaku. “So, mystery woman. Nu?”
“I’m Sewanee’s friend, Adaku.”
“AdaWho? What is that?”
“Nigerian. Igbo.”
“IgWhat?”
Sewanee caught Adaku’s eye, mouthed: “Apologizing.”
Adaku waved her off and answered, gamely, “It’s an ethnic group in–”
But Mitzi’s attention–short-lived at best–diverted to the glass Dan put in front of her. “What’s with the fruit? Two cents plain is two cents plain. You should bartend in jail.” She lifted the lime wedge from her glass and put it to those Day-Glo lips.
Blah leaned over to look at Mitzi as though they were two old miners down the pub after a long day in the shafts. “You usually get a 7 and 7.”
“You remember her drink?” Sewanee exclaimed.
Blah shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.” Back to Mitzi. “Why the change?”
Mitzi set her glass down. “What, I should publish it in a newspaper?”
Sewanee felt Adaku’s fingers claw into her forearm, her breath hot in her ear, the giggle in her voice. “I’m never leaving.”
“Just wait,” Sewanee whispered back, then fed the fire: “Hey, Mitzi! How’s the hip?”
“Terrible. This one gets better, this one gets worse.” She slapped her left thigh and then her right. “The only good thing about getting old is nothing. But I don’t complain.” She went to take another sip, found it empty. “Goddamm it.”
Dan smiled. “’Nother?”
“What am I, a camel?”
“Hellooooo!”
All four women turned to see Birdie, a Midwestern Mrs. Claus–looking woman in a Champion sweatshirt with Westie appliques on it. “Are we having a party?”
“Oh, Christ,” Blah and Mitzi said in unison, turning back to the bar.
Birdie stepped up to them. “If I’d known we were having a party, I would have brought dip.”
“Not the dip!” Mitzi barked.
Birdie leaned in to Adaku. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure. I’m Bertha, but everyone calls me Birdie.”
Sewanee cut her off at the pass. “This is my best friend, Adaku, but everyone calls her A.”
“You couldn’t have told
me
that?” Mitzi, again, barked.
“How lovely!” Birdie chirped. “We both have nicknames!”
“Yes, lovely,” Adaku concurred.
Birdie turned her attention to Sewanee. “And how’s my dear Swan?”
“You always remember my name, Birdie.”
“Well! As the saying goes, ‘birds of a feather’ . . . do something.”
Blah was gazing down at the bar. “Dan, we need a refill.” Sewanee clocked her half-drunk martini. “And please remember the olives this time.”
“Sure thing, Blah.” Dan took the glass without comment. “Birdie? What can I get you?”
“Oh, you know me, I’m a teetotaler. But since we’re having a party! Vodka, rocks, twist.”
“Coming right up.”
Birdie tapped the bar. “Dagburnit, I wish I’d brought my dip.”
“Birdie, why don’t you tell A about your dip?” Sewanee suggested, to which Blah and Mitzi cried, “Oh, Christ!”
Birdie had blue eyes that were wide and dim, though–if Sewanee were being cruelly honest–perhaps no dimmer than they’d been her entire life. She looked at Adaku now with those fathomless-lake eyes and said, “Would you like that?” and Adaku was toast.
“Please!”
“Well. You’ll need sour cream. A good-sized tub of it.”
“Okay.”
“You might want to write this down, honey. You wouldn’t want to forget something.”
“Of course, good idea.” Adaku smiled, pulling out her phone and going to her notes app. “Ready!”
“Where was I?”
“A good-sized tub of sour cream.”
“Yes! Now, you don’t want one of the huge tubs, mind you, because then the ratio gets thrown off. Just a good, normal tub. Next comes the taco seasoning. You can find that in the Mexican aisle. I don’t mean to offend you.”
Adaku came up from her phone. “Why would I be offended?”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to say Mexican anymore. My daughter is trying to help me be more appropriate. But what’s wrong with being a Mexican anything? Even seasoning?”
Adaku patted Birdie’s hand. “Nothing.”
Birdie raised her other hand to her chest and exhaled. “Phew.” Then she paused. “Where was I?”
“Taco seasoning.”
“Yes! The Mexico aisle. You’re going to want to look for a small package about this big and it’s going to say: Taco. Seasoning.” She watched Adaku type this while Dan delivered the fresh drinks.
He pointed at Mitzi’s empty glass. “You sure?”
Mitzi talked right over Birdie’s lecture. “Jack and Coke.”
Blah said, “I thought you weren’t drinking?”
Mitzi gave an eye-rolling nod in Birdie’s direction. “That was before the dip showed up.”
Birdie heard Mitzi and stopped her recital. “Do you want the recipe, Mitzi?”
“Oh, Christ.”
“Now, the package tells you to put it in ground beef, but don’t. No . . . ground . . . beef.”
“No . . . ground . . . beef,” Adaku parroted.
“You’ll take the sour cream and put it into a bowl. Then you take the packet of Mexican seasoning and you open it. Then you sprinkle it into the sour cream and you stir. Sprinkle it! If you pour it all in at once, you’ll get those garsh dang lumps. Believe you me!” She laughed. “Sprinkle. Stir. Sprinkle. Stir.”
“Do you mix it clockwise?” Sewanee asked.
Mitzi shouted, “Shoot me!” then pointed at her glass and said, again, to Dan, “You should bartend in jail. More rum.”
“You mean Jack?”
“What am I, your manager? I don’t care how you make it.”
Birdie was looking down at the bar, engaged with an imaginary bowl. She placed her hand above it and moved first clockwise, then counterclockwise. She paused. Did it again. Then she looked up at Sewanee, satisfied. “Yes!”
“And what else do you put in it, Birdie?” Adaku asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Birdie said, eyes bugging. “Well, I suppose you could add a touch of salt, but I wouldn’t risk it. My husband, Jerry, loves it. And the boys can’t get enough. They won’t watch a game without it.” Sewanee was pretty sure Birdie’s husband had passed away, that that’s how she ended up at Seasons. Her daughter was an executive at one of the studios and she brought her out here to be closer. Plucked out of Michigan, condemned to spend the rest of her days with Hollywood barracudas like Mitzi and Blah.
A silence fell over them.
Sewanee watched Adaku feel the silence. A different kind of silence than they were used to with their friends. With their friends, a group silence felt as if they were all busy paddling a canoe to an agreed-upon destination. Here, it was more like being set adrift.
Birdie broke in, picking up a paddle. “Mitzi, what’s your husband’s name?”
Mitzi hacked. “Which one?” She took a slug of her Jack and Coke then looked at Dan. “What the hell is in this?”
Birdie now looked to Blah, who was staring at the bar. “Do you have a husband?”
Blah lifted her eyes. And her new glass. “No.”
“Oh. You lost your husband, or did you never have one?”
Blah froze mid-sip. She paused. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
Mitzi scoffed, “I wish I could forget.”
Blah didn’t look to Sewanee for an answer, so Sewanee didn’t provide one. She watched Blah stare at her drink and wondered, not for the first time, if forgetting all the things that had made one’s life worth living before one’s life came to an end was a cruelty or a mercy.
“Well, maybe you didn’t have one!” Birdie suggested, cheerfully. “Maybe you were just sleazy!”
A knife-cutting silence as Blah thought about this. “God, I hope so,” she said and drank.
ADAKU AND SEWANEE
tucked into a curved red vinyl booth at the back of Smoke House, joining the other early-birders. Adaku ordered a steak salad with oil and vinegar on the side and Sewanee, wanting to be supportive, did the same.
“How’s the training going?” she asked.
“I feel like Mitzi,” Adaku answered. “Everything hurts.”
“Well, you look great. You are officially a badass.”
Adaku grimaced. “I better be if I’m gonna make it through this film.”
“Please tell me you’re not doing your own stunts?”
“God, no! But it’s still gonna be a bitch. Running through the jungle and all the fight choreography. I–” She stopped herself, seeming embarrassed to be heard complaining about starring in a film anyone else would have killed for. That “anyone else” being her best friend sitting across from her. She smiled and chippered up. “I should shut up is what I should do.”
“No, A, you shouldn’t shut up. You have every right to feel the way you do.”
But Adaku shook her head. “Uhn-uhn. I’m not gonna become
one of those actresses we both hate listening to.” She mindlessly reached for the basket of garlic bread and snapped her hand back. “I don’t want to talk about me anyway. I want a Brock McNight update!”
Sewanee flushed. “Oh! There’s nothing to report.”
Adaku’s eyes flared with intrigue and she waved her whole hand around Sewanee’s face. “That is
not
what I’m seeing.”
“I just mean, nothing’s, you know,
happened
.”
“But you like him.”
“Sure. He seems . . . nice. We have a good . . . working relationship.”
Adaku shook her head slowly back and forth, back and forth, digging a trough with her chin. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope.”
Sewanee threw her head back. “Ugh, fine! He’s great. He’s funny. He’s a hundred times more interesting than I thought he’d be. He writes in complete sentences. Correctly capitalizes proper nouns.”
“Wow, where are you guys registered?”
Sewanee snorted. “You know, more than anything? It’s just been nice collaborating with someone. Makes me feel . . .”
“What?” Adaku again reached for the bread then flagged a passing waiter. “Excuse me?” She pointed at the basket. “Can you disappear this, please? Thank you.” She turned her attention back to Sewanee. “Feel what?”
Sewanee took a moment to sip her water. To make a decision. Voicing what she was about to, especially to Adaku, felt final. Irrevocable. Once it was out, her friend would have something to hold her to. Adaku was a cat waiting to pounce. “Like I’m acting again. Really acting. And it’s made me realize . . . that I miss it.”
Adaku dropped her chin, gazed solidly at Sewanee through the tops of her eyes. “This is new. What are we going to do about this?”
Sewanee flicked her hand. “Nothing. It’ll pass.”
“It is not nothing. I will not let it pass.”
They looked at each other.
Sewanee prepared to say something, but she wasn’t sure what. Adaku didn’t give her the chance. “You know I think you threw in the towel too soon.”
Grateful to be spared a moment of her own reckoning, Sewanee nodded. “Yeah, I know. You’re wrong, but I know.”
“You were the only one who told you it was over. Even your agent said–”
“He’s an agent. He thought he could capitalize on it. If I’d been more established before the accident,
maybe
. But I wasn’t.”
She’d wondered: Had she done that show back in high school, had her parents let her, would she have been famous enough to overcome what happened to her? If she’d had fans, and they’d lived through it with her? If the industry felt it owed her something? It would have been a story, at least. She could have–and God, she hated this word–
leveraged
it. But how could she have a comeback without a place to come back to? As it was, she was simply another actress who disappeared as quickly as she had been discovered. Not a star; a shooting star.
And then Doug Carrey of all people had said, “Don’t give up.” That maybe there was a place for her. And then Brock had talked about his fear of trying to reclaim what he’d had before and she hadn’t been able to sleep that night for thinking.
Adaku still peered at her. “It’s a simple question. Do you want to act?”
“It’s not a simple question. I can’t–”
“Yes or no.”
“I miss it, but I don’t know if I’m just being–”
“Yes! Or! No!”
“I don’t know!”
“You don’t know? Try saying it. Try saying it and see how the truth feels.”
There was an interminable lacuna. “Yes.”
Adaku banged the table so forcefully Sewanee lunged for her water glass and the whole restaurant turned. Adaku was unperturbed. “Then what are we waiting for?! Here’s what we do!”
“A, please. Everyone’s looking,” Sewanee murmured.
“Yes, they are! At two co-stars of
The Originator
!”
“What, no, A, no–”
“You don’t get to talk right now, you get to listen.” Adaku leaned over the table. “There’s a role in this film and when I read it? All I could think was, I swear to God, I thought: this is Swan. This is Sewanee Chester as I live and breathe. But you’re so stubborn about never acting again–”
“I’m not stubborn, I’m realistic.”
Adaku ignored her. “It’s the best role in the film! Not big. Maybe six scenes. But pivotal and memorable and just”–Adaku groaned loudly, fiercely, garnering more looks–“delicious.”
Sewanee quirked her head. “In
this
film? Isn’t it chicks in hot pants with machine guns in the jungle–”
Adaku waved her finger at Sewanee’s mouth. “You got to close this up and hear me out, okay?”
Sewanee could have been blinded by the light in her friend’s eyes. She sighed with internal excitement and external caution and said, “Okay.”
Adaku brought her hands together, as if in prayer. “She’s the leader of this resistance group that’s been living in the trees–”
Sewanee snorted. It was involuntary.
Adaku glared at her. “And when I stumble upon them with my tribe, she almost kills me. Bowie knife to the throat. But then we ally–”
“Let me guess: She dies in the final battle?”
Adaku’s hands turned into fists, taking the reins on her patience. “Swan. There’s so much meat on this bone. It’s such a good death. They hang her!”
“They
hang
her? Jesus–”
“She goes out like the true warrior she is.” Adaku leaned in. “And as they’re raising her up real slow, real torturously, because they’re dickwads, she and my character? They make eye contact. And there’s this beautiful camaraderie, this, like,
witnessing
. This, ‘I will make this right if it’s the last thing I do, you
will not
die in vain’ thing. And I’d have tears streaming down my face and you’d have one tear rolling down your cheek–’cause you have that freakish ability to time your tears–combined with this steely go-ahead-you-shitheads-kill-me defiance on your face. And then your life force . . . just . . . fades out. I mean, come on!” Adaku spread her hands over the table, at this imagined spread of opportunity. “It’s your role. I can do this.”
“What do you mean you can do this?”
“Star power, babe! It’s what we’ve been fighting for since our Tony’s pizza days and now I’ve got it.”
Sewanee tried to squash the jolt of excitement that shot through her. “Okay. Okay. What’s her backstory?”
“She was kidnapped and forced to work in a brothel. And she refused to do what they told her to. A queen from the jump.”
Sewanee paused. “So, they punished her.”
Adaku paused, too. “Right. But because she was so–”
“She’s disfigured.”
Adaku took another pause. “Yes, but that’s not the point.”
“No, my ability to time my tears is the point.” She balled up her napkin, tossed it gently onto the table. “Come on, A, at least be honest.”
Adaku huffed. “You know what?” Sat back, huffed again.
“
Honestly?
Sometimes you really piss me off. You want to think the only thing anybody sees is that scar, go for it. But meanwhile, there’s a chance for us to do something together. To make something happen
together
. And you are perfect for the part because of everything you are, and everything you’ve survived, and sorry, but yes, that has a lot to do with that scar.”
Adaku stopped there as the food arrived. She dug into her salad with leashed frustration. Sewanee picked at hers for a few moments before saying, “I’m sorry. You’re right. I just wish–”
“And I just wish you’d deal with it already,” Adaku rushed out, in loving exasperation. “Because it’s holding you back and it kills me to watch you–”
Sewanee held up a hand. “I know.” She encircled Adaku’s wrist. “I’m sorry.” She widened her eye for emphasis.
Adaku sighed and lifted her wrist to her lips, kissed the top of Sewanee’s lingering hand. “Me too. I’m hangry all the time now. This training’s turned me into a roided-out gym dick.”
Sewanee chuckled and Adaku dug back into her salad. Sewanee took a bite and a sip of water. “So. How real is this? Me doing this?”
Adaku swallowed. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll check in with the studio. I know they haven’t found anyone yet. I can’t guarantee they’d make a straight offer. Even I had to audition. But it’ll be a formality. They’re going to fall in love with you.”
* * *
February 27
BROCK:
Heads up: in one of my sections, Claire asks what Alessandro wants out of their lovemaking and he
says, “I want to change your voice.” And then at the end, he references that he did at some point and how it was the hottest accomplishment of his life or some such. So maybe find a place to change your voice in one of your sections?
SEWANEE:
You want me to change my voice?
BROCK:
IDK. Maybe just something that gives a little heat to Claire’s typical cool/calm/collected thing.
SEWANEE:
You really want that?
BROCK:
No. Not necessarily. I’m just spit-balling.
SEWANEE:
Well, is there a specific spit-ball you have in mind?
BROCK:
You know, whatever. Something a little wild. Maybe.
SEWANEE:
Wild? Really.
BROCK:
Ok, not wild.
Maybe just wanton.
SEWANEE:
Wanton?!
BROCK:
Forget it. I shouldn’t have brought it up.
SEWANEE:
BROCK:
Are you . . . laughing at me?
SEWANEE:
Wantonly.
Hey, uhhhhh, heads up: In one of my sections it says, “I’d never heard my own voice sound like that, I didn’t sound like myself. Or maybe I sounded exactly like myself. My true self.” So maybe if you could, like, IDK, do something worthy of that response . . .
BROCK:
you already knew all this.
SEWANEE:
But rest assured I thoroughly enjoyed you trying to talk about it.
BROCK:
It wasn’t easy.
SEWANEE:
I could hear your voice change.
BROCK:
☺
Twenty-eight minutes later, as Sewanee was standing in a towel in her bathroom, combing out her hair, her phone dinged.
BROCK:
It’s a good line, isn’t it? I want to change your voice.
SEWANEE:
It is.
BROCK:
It is.
SEWANEE:
June knew what she was doing.
BROCK:
I would vaporize if a woman said that to me.
SEWANEE:
I would vaporize if a man achieved it.
She watched the bubbles appear. Watched them stop.
Start again.
Stop.
Start.
Stop.
Start.
Stop.
* * *
February 28
SEWANEE:
Question. Any interest in doing something other than Romance? A friend is casting a Clancy-esque book and needs an alpha assassin sound.
BROCK:
It’s gratifying to know I sound that masculine to you.
SEWANEE:
Sounds can be deceiving?
BROCK:
Let’s just say the voice is the only thing I have going for me in that department.
SEWANEE:
Don’t forget you’re a musician. Lots of women dig that.
BROCK:
Not you tho?
SEWANEE:
I live in LA. Every guy is a musician.
BROCK:
Anyone ever written a song about you?
SEWANEE:
mmm . . .
I don’t think so?
BROCK:
You wouldn’t remember?
SEWANEE:
I’ve listened to a lot of bad boyfriends’ bad songs. I just don’t think any of them were written about me. At least I hope they weren’t.
BROCK:
Fair.
SEWANEE:
So should I put your hat in the ring?
BROCK:
I appreciate it, really, but honestly? Even the thought of it . . .
it makes me tired.
you want to know how unsuited I actually am to this job?
SEWANEE:
PLEASE
BROCK:
Here it is:
I’m not a reader.
I don’t like reading!
There! I said it!
SEWANEE:
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
BROCK:
I feel so much better!
Freeeeeeedom!
I want to dance! I want to sing!
SEWANEE:
lol
BROCK:
I want to grab you up and kiss you!
Got carried away.
Sorry.
SEWANEE:
Don’t be.
BROCK:
ok.
(I wasn’t anyway)
From:
Jason Ruiz
To:
Brock McNight; Westholme, Sarah
Date:
March 1, 4:56 PM
Subject:
Casanova, LLC payment
Hi,
Just made the first deposit, let me know if you don’t see it hit your accounts in the next few days. Receipt attached.
☺
JR
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Jason Ruiz; Westholme, Sarah
Date:
March 1, 4:58 PM
Subject:
RE: Casanova, LLC payment
HOLY SHIT!!
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight; Jason Ruiz
Date:
March 1, 4:58 PM
Subject:
RE: Casanova, LLC payment
HOLY SHIT!!
BROCK:
did we send that email at the same time?
SEWANEE:
did we reply at the same time again?
BROCK:
lol
SEWANEE:
LOL
BROCK:
STOP IT
SEWANEE:
omg stop
k you go, I’ll wait.
BROCK:
I REPEAT: HOLY SHIT
SEWANEE:
SERIOUSLY. Congrats!
BROCK:
You too! See, now I care! Now I feel like the trophy wife!
SEWANEE:
I wish we could go celebrate.
BROCK:
I wish we could go celebrate.
SEWANEE:
AGAIN?!
BROCK:
AGAIN?!
SEWANEE:
This is ridiculous!
BROCK:
This is ridiculous!
SEWANEE:
LOL!
BROCK:
LOL!
SEWANEE:
Four score and seven years ago
BROCK:
You got out! Well done.
SEWANEE:
Thank you.
Now go buy yourself something pretty.
BROCK:
Will do, Daddy.
Ew.
SEWANEE:
Ew.
SEWANEE WAS STANDING
over her kitchen sink, eating a salad, running lines–for her upcoming audition–in her head, Golf Channel on in the background, when her phone vibrated.
ADAKU:
Hey, what day did you say you wanted to go over the scenes?
SEWANEE:
The 4th. Day before the audition.
ADAKU:
Sweet, then can I ask a favor?
SEWANEE:
Course
ADAKU:
Can you help put me on tape for the Angela Davis thing? I wore him down! He said he’d at least watch a self-tape.
SEWANEE:
OMG YES! Exciting.
ADAKU:
She’d just set her phone down when it vibrated again.
BROCK:
Can I be honest? I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.
SEWANEE:
Are we doing innuendos again?
BROCK:
No. Seriously.
SEWANEE:
What?
BROCK:
Narrating.
SEWANEE:
oh. Phew.
BROCK:
phew what?
what did you think I meant?
SEWANEE:
Uhhhhh this. The texting thing.
BROCK:
Why would I want to stop this?!
And do we have a THING?
SEWANEE:
I don’t know! Lol
BROCK:
Actually, maybe we should stop this.
Remember that telewhatever invention I was telling you about? I hear it’s up and running. Wanna give it a try?
Sewanee froze, forkful of lettuce halfway to her mouth. She set it back in the bowl and stared at her phone. She wrote
Okay
, sent it, and typed
When do you want to set up a time to
The phone vibrated with an incoming call.
She threw it on the counter as if she’d been electrocuted. It kept vibrating, pulsing away from her in bursts, the words “BROCK MCNIGHT” taunting.
She didn’t move again until it stopped moving.
Don’t panic, don’t panic, she thought. Why are you panicking? There’s nothing to panic about.
The phone vibrated once.
BROCK:
?
She spun in a circle, blew out some Lamaze-style breaths, and made herself pick up her phone. She quickly typed:
I wasn’t ready. I mean I’m not ready. I don’t know why I’m not, but I’m not. I’m being weird. Sorry. I’ll get back to you. Double sorry.
She pressed send before she could second-guess it.
She watched his bubbles appear.
Then:
No worries. Take your time.
* * *
March 2
BROCK:
Question. Weren’t you gonna get back to me?
SEWANEE:
Sorry. Yes. Just got tied up.
BROCK:
kinky.
SEWANEE:
Fifty Shades of Deadline. In the middle of a book intent on killing me. World War Two. Every accent on earth. Screaming men. Gonna need a couple of days.
BROCK:
Should I apologize for last night?
SEWANEE:
No!
BROCK:
Be honest.
SEWANEE:
NO. I am. I will. I want to talk. And I will.
I think this is what a crazy person sounds like.
BROCK:
It’s ok. We really don’t have to talk.
SEWANEE:
I pinky-swear promise I’ll get back to you. Maybe an email. Or a letter! Or a carrier pigeon? Regardless: soon.
BROCK:
Good.
THE NEXT DAY
, Sewanee sat in Adaku’s living room running the scenes. Adaku assured–and reassured–her that everyone was already convinced she was perfect for the role. The studio was insisting they see a few token actresses, which they both knew was industry standard, but–Adaku adamantly repeated–they were
so
excited to see her.
Adaku read with her and kept trying to boost her up (you’re brilliant! Love that line reading! They’re going to die, you’re perfect!), but it wasn’t necessary. Sewanee was genuinely fired up to get back in an audition room. Besides, nothing was more daunting than performing a book. It felt luxurious, actually, building just one character instead of an entire world.
Then they filmed the Angela Davis self-tape. After a few takes, Adaku said, “Any notes?”
Sewanee glanced down at the pages, assessing them the way she might a particularly opaque novel. “Try it distracted. Harried. You don’t have time to be having this conversation.”
“Hmm,” Adaku grunted, and they ran the scene once more. “Yeah,” she said after, nodding. “That’s better. Makes room for the ambiguity.”
“Let’s try one more and that last line? Don’t look at her when you say it. You’re already on your way out. Leave her to interpret it.”
Adaku tried it and, after Sewanee had cut, tossed back her head. “Yes! So much better!” She thanked Sewanee with a hug. “You’ve always been my best director. And I miss acting with you!” She fluttered her hands by her face. “Ahh, I can’t wait!” She spun away and took a drag on her super-duper protein shake Sewanee thought smelled like moldy spinach. “This will move fast, Swan. Get all your recording done because we’re gonna be in Australia for three months.”
Sewanee smiled. “I only have six scenes, remember?”
“Yeah, well, the last time we were on location together it was only supposed to be a week and look how that turned out.”
Sewanee watched Adaku realize what she was saying as she was saying it. Saw the flare of panic in her eyes, the last-minute decision to add a cheeky grin at the end, the way she went back to her smoothie in an effort to look casual. As she’d said, Sewanee was her best director; she knew all the tics in Adaku’s performances.
To put her at ease, Sewanee changed the subject. “You know, I should go with you to the gym, see what routine they’ve got you doing.”
Adaku shook her head and did some hamstring stretches. “You’re on your own for that. I’m heading to London tomorrow for the
Girl in the Middle
premiere and press. I’ll be there for . . .” She stared at the floor, calculating. “Three? Four days? Then back here, but just for an overnight, because
The Originator
is sending me to Georgia for some off-grid team-building thing with the other girls in my ‘tribe.’ And then there’s two weeks of weapons training, which I’m sure you’ll be a part of. Then Australia.”
Adaku took an intense slurp and said through her cringe, “I can’t believe I’ll be trudging through backcountry Georgia swampland this time next week.”
Sewanee peered at her. Adaku’s usual go-go-go attitude seemed to be limping a bit. She always approached the world like one big improv setup: yes, and! Right now, though, Sewanee was seeing more yes, but. “You taking care of yourself?”
“Yeah! Just tired is all.”
“Can I do anything to help?”
“Be brilliant in this film so we can do more of this.”
Sewanee stood to go. She had a lot of recording to burn through if she was going to Australia. She quickly calculated when she might next see Adaku, given her schedule, and the answer was bleak. So she said, “Hey, why don’t I take you to the airport for the Georgia trip next week?”
Adaku shook her head. “It’s the morning after the Audies, you don’t love me that much.”
“Wanna bet?”
Adaku smiled. “Okay, but I’ll meet you at your place. No need for you to come all the way East only to take me all the way West. Plus”–she winked–“give you more time to get Brock out of your bed.”
Sewanee scoffed as she walked to the front door. “I doubt he’ll be at the Audies.”
“Why not?”
“He’s all smoke and mirrors. The whole pseudonym thing. No one knows who he is!”
They said goodbye, Adaku taking her empty shaker into the kitchen, Sewanee closing the door behind her.
As she walked to her car, she rolled the audition pages into a telescope, tapping them against her leg in a jittery beat.
The thought of acting again, of putting herself fully out there after having hidden away in a 4x4 sound booth for all these years, was making her heady. Was she really ready to do this?
Yes.
Hell, yes.
It shocked her that whatever trepidatious fear she’d carried for so long could be so instantly, so thoroughly, overruled by excitement. By being given the opportunity to make it right. Like being given a second chance. Like Claire and Alessandro. And all of it, somehow, kept her circling back to thinking about Brock.
If she were Adaku, she might say everything happened for a reason or the universe was harmonizing or some shit, but she . . . well, that wasn’t her.
Still. Something was cohering. Maybe it was one of those seven-year cycles people talked about. Maybe she was finally coming around the dark side of the moon.
She’d text him later: Question. Why does the moon go dark?
But right now, in this moment, she had a question for herself:
Why was she so afraid to talk to him?
It made no sense.
Everything was coming together for her, and he was a part of that. Why couldn’t she bring herself to tell him the story she’d put off telling him? Twice now. Her “Why.”
What was the worst that could happen? She would discover it wasn’t–
he
wasn’t–the fantasy she hoped he would be? No. Was it that
she
would no longer be the fantasy she wanted to be? Yes. And how pathetic was that?
The time had come. She would act again and she would stop acting with Brock. She’d be honest. And worst case? They’d stay friends. Colleagues. They’d continue to make a ton of money voice-banging, as the Facebook fans called it. The idea that he
would, for some reason, cut her off entirely was as absurd as the idea that the fantasy was real. Both imagined outcomes so equally ludicrous they essentially canceled each other out.
The shit she could convince herself of, to keep her from being herself. Remarkable. Ridiculous. Really.
That was as far as her thinking had gotten by the time she parked in front of Mark’s house.
As she climbed sixty-four stairs, she decided Adaku had been right at dinner: she had to deal with herself. She had to get over it. By hiding, she wasn’t doing herself any favors, never mind him. And wasn’t he the right person to open up to? Wouldn’t he understand? Someone who shared the same fears, a similar past? Who knew what it was like to have the world spread out at your feet, only to trip over it?
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
March 4, 7:12 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Hey,
To start, I want to apologize. I know I made it seem like I don’t want to talk to you on the telethingy, but that’s not true. I would love to talk to you. But you want to know my “Why,” my Another Time . . . and the problem is I’m not prepared to talk about it. I am prepared to
tell
you about it, though. I hope you can understand the difference.
So.
I was 24, about two years out of Julliard. I was getting some work, episodic TV, failed series, micro-budget indie film stuff. I was considered a “hottie” (their opinion, but okay also mine)
who could actually act. I was getting close on a lot of stuff. My almost-resume was amazing. It felt like it was just a matter of time. Something was gonna hit.
And then it did.
I booked the lead in a film. To be more precise, the co-lead of a major film. It was a DEA thing, kind of like
Training Day
, but with cartels and a female newbie. Overnight, I went from obscurity to relevance. That’s our business. Nobody to somebody instantly. Like one of those dried up sponges that kids put in water and voila it’s a dinosaur or a cow or . . . never mind.
Sidebar: You ever heard that joke about actors in Hollywood? It’s the five stages of an actor’s life:
Who is Sarah Westholme?
Get me Sarah Westholme!
Get me a Sarah Westholme type!
Get me a younger Sarah Westholme!
Who is Sarah Westholme?
Anyway, we were filming in Mexico. There was a small role for my character’s best friend and I got my real best friend cast in it. (And now I think she’s trying to repay me for this, but that’s a whole other story.)
I’d been there for about three weeks. Two weeks of rehearsals, one week of filming. My best friend’s scenes were scheduled early in the shoot, first few days, and they went great. They wrapped her on Friday and I made her stay the weekend because I wanted to celebrate. This was our big break, right, so we looked for something memorable to do. Exciting! Fun! A little crazy! (read: stupid. Well, maybe not stupid under normal circumstances, but the kind of thing you probably shouldn’t do at the beginning of a job in a foreign country known for its dubious safety regulations.)
We went skydiving. The kind where you’re strapped to an
experienced jumper. So we get into a plane and up we go. The higher up, the more significant the panicking. I was flip-flopping back and forth in my head: am I scared or am I excited? I wasn’t sure. (This is, like, a theme of my life, btw, and prob explains what happened the other night when you called.)
Anyway, we level off and suddenly my friend is strapped to her guide and they’re standing at the open door. She smiles big, gives me a double thumbs-up, and they’re gone. My jumping companion walks me forward and I look out, look down, feel the grab of the wind. I don’t jump so much as fall and then there’s nothing under my feet and that wind is slamming against me. I hear a voice. No, not God. The guy on my back is counting down. He’s telling me to pull the cord. But I can’t move. So he reaches for it, grabs it, and yanks.
And yanks.
And yanks.
At that moment, I had a weird acceptance of dying. Truly. I dissociated. An unexplainable letting go. I was finished. And I was okay with that.
But then: the parachute opened. Some reserve something-or-other. Simple as that. And we landed. Albeit (as you would say) harder than normal, but we were fine. We were alive.
My jump buddy unbuckled me and we hugged like we had survived a war together. My friend came running over and we grabbed each other, screaming adrenaline-fueled nonsense. I can’t describe how alive I felt having come so close to death. I was high like I’ve never been high, and lemme tell you I’ve been hiiiiiiiiigh. In the van, on the way back to the airstrip, I couldn’t shut up. I went over every little detail. I remembered everything, every single piece of the puzzle.
And the irony? I don’t remember it now. Not one piece.
Everything I’ve told you is what my friend told me I’d said.
Apparently, I jumped out of the van at the airstrip before it had fully stopped. Did a cartwheel, supposedly, though I don’t think I’d ever done a cartwheel in my life. Ran over to the plane we’d jumped out of, which had just landed, and attempted to wrap my arms around the front of the fuselage in an awkward hug. Kissed it. And then I whipped around and stepped right into the plane’s prop, which was invisible because it hadn’t stopped spinning. It carved into me.
I guess I could have started the story here. Sorry. But I wanted you to know all of it. I wanted you to be there. For the whole thing. The whole thing I can’t remember.
What I do remember is waking up on December 4th, two days after the accident, in a hospital room with my parents, my grandmother, and my best friend around me.
What I wish I could forget is the feeling in my gut, in the very coil of my intestines, that I’d lost everything and that it was my fault.
The propeller had sliced diagonally down my face, taken my right eye, and separated my clavicle from my shoulder. I was so lucky. It could have been so, so, so much worse. If it had been going any faster, if I’d run into it at a different angle . . .
Exponential ifs.
The one bright side: when I came out of my first surgery, I spoke to the film’s director and I convinced him to test my friend for my role. They were obviously up a creek thanks to me so they agreed and she killed it, of course, and they hired her. They only had to reshoot a week of scenes to make her the lead, recast her role, and that was that. It kickstarted her career. I’m happy for her. I know it might not seem that way, but I am. Really.
Sooooo now you know what you’re dealing with. Exactly what you imagined, I’m sure. Such a common story.
To preemptively answer your questions: I’ve learned to live with
my disfigurement and to compensate for having one eye (are the violins playing yet?). The human body is a marvel. My shoulder is mostly fine (though I’m not competing in Olympic weight-lifting anytime soon). I wear an eye patch, which has become as second nature as lipstick or nail polish. Most people aren’t intentionally rude assholes. I try to avoid drunks and children. But to be fair I did that before the accident, too.
And now you have my “Why.” Finally!
There. Sewanee sat back, basking in the satisfaction of having told the story, all of it, hiding nothing. She placed the cursor over the send icon and then, just as she was about to click, lifted her finger. She realized she should give it a read, to make sure autocorrect hadn’t sabotaged her words, to make sure the story, and her thoughts, were as clear as she felt they were.
So she did.
And whatever courage she’d acquired prior to sitting down leaked away with every sentence.
She couldn’t send this.
She wasn’t ready.
His story had given her a peek into his personality; her story was a naked reveal of all her rawest parts. It was not an equal exchange of insight.
How could she hand over her soul when she didn’t even know his real name?
She deleted everything but the first paragraph and added what she hoped was a distillation of her truth. Enough of it, anyway:
Hey,
To start, I want to apologize. I know I made it seem like I don’t want to talk to you on the telethingy, but that’s not true. I would
love to talk to you. But you want to know my “Why,” my Another Time . . . and the problem is I’m not prepared to talk about it. I am prepared to
tell
you about it, though. I hope you can understand the difference.
So that’s how I started writing this email to you. The email in which I was going to lay it all out there, bare myself in the harsh light of a computer screen. Problem is, “I’m not prepared to talk about it” is true. “I am prepared to tell you about it” is apparently not. I’m sorry. There’s a lot to this. To me. And I thought I was ready, but I’m not.
In what I wouldn’t classify as a happy coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless, I do want to tell you we share something in common: loss. Loss of what we once had and who we once were. Fear of having to go through anything like that ever again. And just telling you
that
feels good. Like you must have felt when you told me? So that’s something, I guess.
I feel better having put this out there, even this sorry, abbreviated version. I hope we can continue. With all of it. The work, the play, the banter, and of course the sexual innuendos when they . . . come.
Onward, friend.
She began to write Sewanee, changed it to Sarah, and then, simply, truthfully:
S
She pressed send.
SEWANEE LEFT EXTRA
early, to be safe. The audition was only three miles directly down the hill, but one never knew.
She’d left her face bare, not a speck of makeup, and the hair she’d refrained from washing for three days hung straight down. She wore cargo pants and a tank top, then realized her arms didn’t look like Adaku’s looked these days, like she’d been carrying the dead weight of her comrades through underbrush for a year. So she found a loose-weave boatneck sweater and threw it over the tank. Combat boots. Eye patch.
Without any traffic, she was at Sunset Gower Studios in ten minutes.
She gave herself another ten in the car to run the scenes.
She had it.
She left the pages; she didn’t need them. Besides, it was empowering to walk in the room without a script. She left her phone, too. She walked to the pedestrian gate. The guard checked her ID and gave her a map of the lot, but she knew where she was going. It was like visiting her elementary school.
Walking through the lot, she remembered past auditions. Some better than others, most unfruitful, but all exciting because they represented possibility. She’d even shot a few guest spots and an independent film on this lot. Blah had worked here, too, it had been around that long.
She found the right office and knew she’d been here before, but it belonged to a different casting director now. Everyone was new. Seven years was an eon in Hollywood.
She rounded the corner into the waiting room. Normally, it would have been overcrowded with wall-to-wall actors, having the feel of a commercial poultry farm. But today, Sewanee was one of a select few. She signed in and took a seat. The actress sitting next to her leaned over. “Eye patch. Nice touch. Wish I would have thought of that.” Sewanee nodded in thanks.
The casting director entered the waiting room, tailed by the actress who had just auditioned, and checked the sign-in sheet.
She turned around, eyes searching, and they landed on Sewanee. She smiled. “Sewanee Chester. Thank you for coming in.”
“Thank you for having me.” Sewanee returned her smile.
The other hopefuls watched this exchange like five baby birds whose mother had returned to the nest with a worm for only one of them.
The casting director turned back to the sign-in sheet. “Kristin? Ready?”
The woman who’d complimented Sewanee’s eye patch stood up.
Silence fell over the room for a moment, which was fine with Sewanee. She’d never liked talking before an audition. But two of the women on the other side of the room resumed a conversation.
“He’s doing good, he booked a pilot, thank God,” one whispered. “Just a guest star, but if it goes he’ll be recurring. Then maybe we can afford a wedding. The Jake Meadows one for ABC?”
“Oh I loved that one. Didn’t Jenna get the lead on that?”
“She was let go.”
“Noooo.”
“Right after the table read.”
“Nooooooooo.”
“Humiliating. And get this. Her film–the radioactive hummingbird one–had its release date pushed back.”
“Well, I’d heard the editor–”
“Editor. More like predator. They had to bring in the DC Comics guy, whatshisname.”
“The one Mattie sued?”
“Wait, that was the same guy?!”
“Yeah, the valet lurker!”
“Who”–she made a jerkoff gesture–“on her tires?”
“Yes. Men: you can’t live with them and you can’t live with them.”
“Right? So, have they recast Jenna’s role yet?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Shit. Who?”
“Some YouTuber. Brandon tried to get me in for it, but they must have had this chick in the wings. Jenna hadn’t even taken out her extensions yet and, bam, it was on Deadline.”
There were certain things about this business Sewanee did not miss.
An hour later, she was the last one left. A redhead came out of the audition room, amid a chorus of Thank Yous and That Was Greats. On her way out, she said under her breath to Sewanee, “Tough room. Good luck.”
Sewanee knew this tactic. Put the fear of God into the competition right before they go in. It didn’t faze her.
The casting director reappeared and beckoned her inside.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight people. Eight people in a clamshell, a camera in the middle pointed at the door. At her.
She turned on like a floodlight. Prom photo beam, marionette wave, game show host “Hello!”
Even the ones absorbed with their phones looked up long enough to smile at her. A man in the center stood, held out his hand. “I’m Colin.” A Brit. “The director. Thank you so much for coming in. Sorry for the wait.”
“No problem!” Sewanee chirped, feeling, instantly, seven years younger. She stepped forward and took his hand briefly. “Sorry I don’t have a photo and résumé for you. It’s been a while since I–”
He looked surprised. “Oh, the internet’s made all that a thing
of the past. I would say the bigger challenge is living up to Adaku’s glowing review.”
Sewanee held out her arms, smiled. “Well, I’ll try.”
“Excuse me,” one of the women spoke up. “I love audiobooks. Are you that Sewanee Chester?”
Sewanee smiled bigger. “That would be me.”
“You are amazing. Big fan.”
“Thank you so much.”
The woman addressed the room. “She won the Audie for Best Female Narrator of the Year.”
“What is that?” another person asked.
“It’s the Oscar of Audiobooks.”
The whole room
ahhhhhd
.
“For what book?” a man who Sewanee guessed was a producer asked.
The woman looked to Sewanee. “
Wasted Space
,” Sewanee answered.
There was silence.
“Reese optioned it,” the woman said.
The room
ahhhhhd
again.
She turned her attention back to Sewanee. “I repeat, amazing.”
“And I am more than happy to repeat, thank you so much.” She’d never been in a room this friendly before.
“You attended Julliard with Adaku, correct?” Colin asked.
“Yes. That’s how we met.”
“And you’ve been wasting away in audiobooks. Shame.”
Sewanee paused. “Well–”
“Well. Let’s see if we can change that, eh?” Colin smiled. “Are you ready?”
Was she. “Absolutely.”
“Off you go.”
“Who will I be reading with?” Sewanee asked.
A younger woman next to Colin raised her hand. Sewanee nodded at her. The man running the camera said he was rolling.
The room took on the hollow silence of a church. Cell phones were put aside, a few throats cleared, and every pair of eyes fixed on her. It was the moment before the music started for an ice skater. The moment before a diver took the first step toward a triple twisting two and a half somersault. The moment before the starter pistol fired and a sprinter ran the 100-meter dash.
Sewanee stilled, took a meaningful breath. Then she stepped into the role and onto the field.
She felt like the person she once was. She felt whole. She felt unstoppable.
It was a gold medal performance.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
March 5, 4:23 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
I understand. I do. Onward, absolutely. If and when you want to tell me about it, I’m here. (Please note the word “tell” not “talk.”)
So, after reading your email, I went for a run, came back, took a beer up to my roof, and read it again. Here’s what I think:
We both believed in something, in ourselves, and we lost it. And we want it back. Can we have it back? And what happens if we get it back? Can’t we lose it again? And then what?
We’re both scarred. (SCARRED, not scared, though both are probably true. God, I ALWAYS misread those two words. SO many pickups.)
Anyway. That’s what I’ve been thinking about. Obviously not getting anywhere.
Other than it reconfirms why I want out of Romance. HEA is too much of a setup. It makes you believe we just need to get back what we lost and life will be rainbows forevermore. But it doesn’t address what happens if you try to get it back and fail, does it?
There’s also the possibility it’s not a problem with Romance, it’s a problem with us?
IDK. Maybe I should have taken a longer run.
AFTER THE AUDITION
, Sewanee realized she’d never told Mark about Doug’s interest in the house. So she told him now in passing, bringing paper towels in from the garage, while he was adding more ink to his printer. It was only when she got to the kitchen that she metabolized what he’d replied and walked directly back into his office. “Did you say you’ll give him a call?”
Mark looked up from the disemboweled printer, brow furrowed. “Huh?”
“Are you seriously considering selling?”
Mark jerked his head toward the office door. She closed it and came over to his desk. He was back to fiddling with the printer. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Now might be as good a time as any.”
“But . . .
now
now?”
He shrugged.
“You’ve been saying no for years.”
“That’s before I got old.”
“Stop it.”
“I can’t even change an ink cartridge anymore.”
Sewanee snorted and stepped forward, taking over the printer. Mark dropped into his chair and sighed. “I’m tired, Swan.”
“You know you never sleep well this time of year.” His partner, Julio, had died on Leap Day fifteen years ago after losing a brutal battle with esophageal cancer. Early March was never good for Mark.
He sighed again. “This is different.”
Sewanee stole a glance at him. “You want to retire?”
He didn’t look at her. “Doug Carrey would pay a lot for this house.”
Sewanee took longer to change the cartridge than necessary, buying herself a moment to think. “And what about the studio?”
Mark sat in thoughtful silence, then abruptly leaned forward and began typing. “I want to show you something.” He hunted around, clicking the mouse, scrutinizing the screen the way he always did, as if it were the first time he’d seen a computer.
Sewanee snapped the printer back into place, put the old cartridge in a bag for recycling, and came around the desk to peer over his shoulder.
Eventually, he found what he was hunting for. A web page featuring the cover of a book. Under the image, he clicked a play button and a strong male voice came through the speakers. Sewanee listened for about a minute until Mark stopped it. “What do you think?”
She straightened. “He’s good. A bit generic, maybe. But good tone, good cadence. It’s a pretty straight nonfiction read. The end of his phrasing needs some work, but sure.” Mark was staring at her. “What?”
“Kid. There is no him.” He pointed at the text below the book cover. “That’s a real book, a real publisher. And a bot narrating.”
Sewanee stared at the screen.
This was the monster under the bed.
“Is he . . .” she corrected herself, “
it . . .
manufactured from a real voice, or a combination of voices, or . . . is it entirely synthesized, or–”
“Does it matter?”
No. No, it didn’t. Except:
“Well, they can’t just copy our voices, right? Without our consent. That would be illegal.”
“Would it?”
Sewanee flung a hand at the monitor. “To create AI that sounded exactly like you or me? Of course! It has to be illegal.”
Mark scoffed. “You better be saving that June French money, because that’s an expensive lawsuit, getting a court to determine what defines a voice. Whether it’s even proprietary. People do impressions.” Sewanee pushed away from the desk, feeling trapped. “And then once a court does decide,” Mark continued, blithely, “from that point forward they’ll just toe right up to whatever line was decided and be forever in the clear.”
Sewanee held up a hand. “It can’t act, though.” She hesitated. “Can it?”
“Give it time.”
“Accents? Characters?”
“What’s stopping it? Look, it’s coming for
me
first. Nonfiction will be the first to go.”
She was shaking her head, barely listening. “People won’t want this. People want people, the human connection, authentic storytelling.”
“Do they? I think we do, because we care about the difference. Hell, we
know
the difference. But the five-year-old who already lives in their iPad or Game Boy or whatnot?” He waved a hand. “What the hell do I know about this? I felt old back when this industry moved from tape to digital. All I know for sure is I’m officially a dinosaur now and this is my meteor. So”–he leaned back and crossed his hands over his stomach–“I’m gonna go buy me a swimsuit, a very small one, and I’m gonna find a beach where the only decision I have to make is what my next
cocktail’s gonna be. You get to figure out this problem. But I’ll save you a lounger.”
Sewanee’s breaths were growing shallow. Mark studied her. “Hon. It’s not like we didn’t know this was coming. It was just more philosophical than practical. Not anymore.”
When she’d first met Mark, first started in this business, they’d talked all the time about Sewanee taking it over when he was ready to retire. That’s why she’d moved into the guesthouse, started working for him. It was an apprenticeship. But in the last year or two, talk of the future had drifted out of their conversations. While it was true the handwriting had been on the wall, as she cleaned everything else in the studio, she’d kept cleaning that off, too.
She mumbled something and Mark cocked his ear toward her. “What?”
She swallowed and repeated, as evenly as she could, “I can’t lose this, too. I can’t.”
Mark sighed sadly, sweetly, softly. He stood and held out a wrinkled hand. “Come here, kid.”
She went right to his open arms, pressing her cheek into his narrow chest. He kissed her forehead, then rested his chin on top of her hair and said, “Everyone talks about coal miners, farmers, steel workers. The horror of automation and what we owe them. No one talks about artists.”
They stood quietly like that for a minute, the hush of the house beyond, the particular quiet of their particular work getting done around them. The stories being told, the entertainment being created, the humans making it happen. Mark lifted his head. “Do you know how much your mom’s condo on that cruise ship costs?”
Sewanee chuckled. “A lot.”
“1928 Spanish Revival in the Hollywood Hills a lot?”
“Possibly.”
“Doug Carrey a lot?”
“Probably.” She looked up at him, letting him see in her eye just how unpalatable she found this idea. “What a pissah.”
“What does that mean?”
“No idea.”
He squinted at her. “Didn’t you two . . . ?”
Sewanee groaned and stepped back.
Mark lifted an eyebrow. “Dare I ask?”
“Porny. He jackhammered me off the bed.” Mark belted a laugh as Sewanee turned for the door. “The bruise on my hip outlasted the relationship.”
“Well, maybe I’ll let you give him a private tour of the house. Show him where he can hang his Red Sox banner.” He quirked a brow. “Where he can put his lobstah roll.”
She chortled and emphatically shook her head. “Pass.” Then she took a breath. “I’m gonna go slip into studio 3, get some recording done.”
While she could.
From:
Westholme, Sarah
To:
Brock McNight
Date:
March 5, 7:07 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
So, after reading your email, I decided to go for a run, and then I came back and took a glass of wine out to my porch and I read it again. Here’s what I think:
You’re right.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
March 5, 7:34 PM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
You should have taken a longer run.
HER PHONE VIBRATED
, skittering across the nightstand. Sewanee lifted her bleary head and grabbed at it. There was only one number she’d programmed to be able to call during her pre-set Do Not Disturb hours. “Hello?” she croaked.
“Help me.”
She came awake instantly. “Are you okay?”
“No.” Blah’s voice was adamantly edgy. “Marv is late. I’ve been waiting for hours. He’s terribly late and I don’t know where he is! Where is he?”
Sewanee bolted upright, sheets twisted around her legs. “Okay, take a deep breath. I’ll find Marv. Everything’s fine.”
“Everything isn’t fine, Bitsy! Stop it, just stop it!”
“BlahBlah, it’s Sewanee. Listen to me, it’s–”
“No, you listen! Marv left me here and I have to be in Westwood and it’s already too late! Marilyn’s gonna kill me.” Each fragment of thought was another log hurled onto a fire.
Sewanee didn’t know what to do. She looked at her bedside clock. 2:14
A.M.
“Blah–”
“You’re no good to me! You’re no fucking help, Bitsy! I’ll handle it!”
“I’ll come get you, stay there.”
“No!”
The line went dead.
Through the blood pounding in her ears, Sewanee called Seasons and spoke with the night nurse, asked him to please, immediately, check on Blah, and then waited while he did. Each
second felt like an hour. She couldn’t sit still. She fought her way out of bed, started pulling clothes on, then stopped, not knowing what was coming next.
Five minutes later, the nurse’s voice was back, informing her Blah had been standing in front of the window in her room, holding the entire phone–cradle and all–no longer agitated, just confused. So he’d helped her back into bed. He said he’d check on her throughout the night. Sewanee thanked him profusely and hung up.
Shaken, she went to the kitchen and put the kettle on, pulled out her Tea-For-One set, and had a good two-minute cry. Then she sat, drank her chamomile, and thought. And thought. And thought.
The Tea-For-One usually grounded her. Reassured her she was fine alone. But tonight, in this living room that might soon no longer be hers, after talking to a grandmother who was slipping further away, this kind of alone was not fine.
She pulled out her phone, and though she knew he wouldn’t see it until morning, texted:
Then there are the things we lose and can’t get back. I don’t know what to do about that one.
She sent it, re-read it, and added:
Good morning.
She set her phone down and sipped.
In the dimness of the guesthouse, lit only by the faraway lights of a sleeping city beyond the sliding glass door, the face of her phone illuminated.
BROCK:
Took a little midnight run?
SEWANEE:
Nooooo your phone is on?! I’m so sorry!! You’re awake? Why are you awake? Are you awake?
BROCK:
No I’m sleep-texting.
SEWANEE:
I’m so so sorry.
BROCK:
It’s okay, really.
What are you doing up?
SEWANEE:
Couldn’t sleep.
BROCK:
You know what’s good for that?
SEWANEE:
Ugh I don’t have innuendo in me right now.
BROCK:
No wonder you can’t sleep. Tell Innuendo to get busy.
SEWANEE:
Good one. But I can’t. Seriously.
BROCK:
Okay, seriously? I was going to say audiobooks.
I have fans who listen to my voice in bed to fall asleep.
SEWANEE:
That is . . . not what they’re doing.
BROCK:
Still. I could try reading you a story? See if it helps?
SEWANEE:
I don’t think your kind of story will help.
BROCK:
K Goodnight then.
SEWANEE:
Night. Thanks for the chat. Truly.
Sewanee found that she was smiling. The tears were gone. The tea was gone. She slipped off the sofa and went into her bedroom. She set her phone on the nightstand, crawled back into bed, and hoped Blah would be okay, would go to sleep, would let
her
sleep. She took a restful breath. She wanted to be able to close her eyes and think of Brock, not her grandmother. But before she could, her phone illuminated again, dropping that oh-no feeling back into her stomach. She snatched it up.
A voice memo.
From Brock.
She pressed play.
His voice sounded like early morning. It was soft-edged, as if he were close enough to warrant a whisper. There was no preamble. He just read.
She recognized it instantly. It was
Goodnight Moon
.
In the great green room
There was a telephone . . .
Now she closed her eyes. She rested her head on her pillow and her phone rested itself on her chest.
She listened.
After he spoke the final refrain, there was a moment of lingering silence. She waited for him to say something else. She wanted him to say something else. To sign off, perhaps. To chuckle, maybe. She wanted more.
But there was nothing else. The recording stopped. In a moment of greediness, she thought about playing it again. But she didn’t move. There was no need. She was satisfied. Beyond satisfied. Beyond
Goodnight Moon
.
She texted:
You.
He replied:
Again. You.
* * *
March 6
SEWANEE:
For future reference, what time zone are you in?
BROCK:
EST.
?
SEWANEE:
So next time I have an existential insomnious crisis I can time my texts better.
BROCK:
Insomnious: the Roman god of late night thought.
I’m an acolyte myself.
SEWANEE:
And from whence in the EST doth the acolyte hail?
BROCK:
Newest of York.
And whence . . . yourth . . . hailest?
SEWANEE:
Lol still live in L.A.
BROCK:
So close!
SEWANEE:
Only if Los Angeles is still just above 96th street.
(Jokes aside for the moment: I really appreciated the bedtime story last night.)
BROCK:
(Jokes aside, my pleasure)
L.A., huh? Interesting.
SEWANEE:
The first time in recorded history a New Yorker has ever said that.
BROCK:
Gotta make nice, I’ll be there in a few days.
SEWANEE:
Oh! Wait, for the Audies???
BROCK:
PETE NO.
SEWANEE:
Hmmm
BROCK:
Hmmm?
SEWANEE:
Just hmmm
BROCK:
Well hmmmm back.
From:
Brock McNight
To:
Westholme, Sarah
Date:
March 7, 1:57 AM
Subject:
RE: CASANOVA, LLC–and hello!
Hello!
So, my acolytic self has been thinking. I know how you feel about talking on the telewhatever. Understood! New thought: we don’t talk.
We meet.
Our options, as I see them:
1. Meet face to face. We then:
a. Keep walking.
b. Stand there.
c. Speak and screw it all up.
And then we:
2. Decide to never see each other again and:
a. Go back to texting OR
b. Touch each other to make sure we’re real, then never see each other again
3. Decide to see each other again:
a. Right then and there
b. Another time
If the answer is 3.a then we:
i. Add in the talking, or
ii. Keep staring at each other for a while.
What’s the worst that could happen? Things stay as they are. We finish the project, of course, be professional, of course, be courteous, more than of course, and etc, etc, etc, of course.
We have tons of questions. Don’t you want answers?
We have the chance to put this to bed. Whatever bed that is. Maybe it’s a friend bed. That’s fine. It’ll be a bunk bed. You can have the top.
OK. Insomnious hath spoken.
Me
SEWANEE WAS IN
a booth, long after all the other studios had emptied of people, attempting to get ahead on her recording and
trying not to think about Brock’s latest e-mail–succeeding at neither–when her phone lit up with a call.
She immediately, if cautiously, picked up. “Blah?”
“Dollface!”
“Everything all right?”
“Right as rain! What are you up to today?”
“Just recording.” Sewanee readjusted herself in the booth, removing her headphones and cracking the door for some air. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, fit as a fiddle!”
Right as rain. Fit as a fiddle. Suspicious, Sewanee tried again, “You sure everything’s okay?”
“Can’t an old lady call her granddaughter? That a crime now?” Definitely something in her voice, right there beneath the teasing. Tentativeness like an undertow. Sewanee sensed the pull of an impending conversation. There was a pause as each waited for the other to start it.
Blah finally said, “Read any good books lately?”
“That supposed to be funny?”
“I didn’t hear you laugh, so no.”
Which made Sewanee genuinely laugh, which made Blah laugh. But when it subsided, the undertow remained. So Sewanee asked, “Do you remember calling me last night?”
Blah sighed. “No. Well, sort of. Goddamn it. I’m sorry, Doll.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“Tell me what happened. I want to know.” Though she sounded as if she didn’t, not really.
Sewanee left the booth. She needed space to breathe, to think, to talk. “You were upset. And frustrated. You said you were late for something. You thought I was Bitsy.”
“Well, shit,” BlahBlah said thinly.
Sewanee sat on the floor, back against the outside wall of
the booth, and tucked her knees into her chest. “Are you aware of . . . do you know when it’s happening?”
“Not a clue. There’s some kind of before and after, but the middle? Black as night.” She exhaled. “I hate it, Doll. I need a prescription for Dumb Pills.”
Sewanee snorted. “I don’t think that’s what they’re called.”
“Well, that’s the generic.”
They both chuckled at that. Then, there was such an extensive pause Sewanee was sure she’d lost her. That the next thing Blah would say was, “Did you see Mitzi’s face-lift?”
“Betty Lou McCarthy lived in the hollers.”
Dammit. Sewanee hated being right. “Who’s that?”
“School friend. And if I was out there when the fog rolled in . . . I wasn’t going nowhere. Happened in an instant. Like God poured gravy over everything.”
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Blah hadn’t veered as far off track as she’d thought.
“You could barely see your hand in front of your face. And shapes you knew were out there–the old oak, the mailbox, her daddy’s truck–all those comforts would get . . . sinister. They moved around. Weren’t where they were supposed to be.”
Sewanee didn’t dare interject.
“It feels something like that when it starts. Then people are born out of that fog. Some I recognize, some I don’t. Everything . . . shifts.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“It’s kinda like being on a soundstage, doing a big dance number. Stagehands take up a backdrop and lower another. A desk flies in on wheels, a soda fountain disappears, and now there’s a door, and in comes Gene and we’re tapping away in an office building instead of a diner.”
“God,” Sewanee murmured quietly, not wanting to break this spell of clarity.
“And then . . . well, uh . . . what the hell was I . . . dancing, wasn’t I?”
Sewanee swallowed. “You were talking about everything shifting around you, what it feels like in your mind? Did you want to say something else about it?”
“Oh, I’m just rambling.” Blah cleared her throat and her voice was crisper when she said, “Anyway, this is all to say, Doll . . .” Sewanee heard the rustling of paper on the other end. “I think I’m going to need more help. That it might be time to take the next step. Before I don’t know where the step is.”
Sewanee hadn’t known it was possible to feel relief and shock at the same time. She sat forward. “You don’t have to worry about any of that. Soon you’re going to have another place.
At Seasons.
You’ll be just down the hall, in memory care, okay? More help when you need it, but you’ll still have Mitzi and Birdie and Amanda and, of course, me. You’ll have me, whether you like it or not,” she joked.
A charged kind of silence fell, like the expectant moment right after the power goes out, waiting for it to come back on. Sewanee heard paper rustling again.
“Listen to me, Doll. I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know. And I love you so much. And I want you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise. Anything.”
“Good. When the next step comes, you are not to visit me anymore. You–”
Sewanee jerked. “What are you–”
“Let me finish. No visits. No phone calls. You are not to be any part of this.”
“Of what?”
“My end.”
All of Sewanee’s blood rushed to her head. “I’m coming over. You’re going to say this to my face–”
“No! No, you’re not! I’ve thought this through, thought it all out. I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget.” The paper shook near the phone. “I’ve decided. It’s done. Now, enough of all that. I want to tell you about Birdie.”
“I don’t want to fucking hear about Birdie, what are you–”
“We are not discussing this.” Blah’s voice cracked and Sewanee’s eye filled with tears as if they shared a body. “Endings are messy and I’ll be damned if you remember me as a mess.”
Sewanee was on her feet. “That is
not
how I’ll remember you! I’ll remember you at the pool and cruising around in the Olds and trying on clothes and smoking and drinking and swearing and laughing and rolling your eyes at Mitzi.”
“No, trust me. You’ll remember the end.”
“Stop saying the end!” Sewanee was shouting. “Shut up about the end!”
“Don’t tell your grandmother to shut up!” Blah sputtered.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
After a silence in which Sewanee felt like all her nerve endings had been thrown into a blender, Blah laughed. And kept laughing. Sewanee couldn’t make her face smile the way she wanted to.
Then Blah started to cry. To hear that and not be able to touch her could barely be endured. Eventually, Blah spoke. “It’s just so sad, Doll. Don’t make us say goodbye. I can’t bear it. I need you to understand that. Leave ’em laughing, remember? Please.”
The tears fell fatly down Sewanee’s cheek. “You could ask anything of me. Literally anything but this.”
“Dollface. Please.”
Three distinct thoughts came to Sewanee simultaneously:
Tell her what she wants to hear.
Argue until she forgets what she’s asking.
And Henry saying, she would see. That she could take her turn caring for Blah, if she wanted, but, trust him, she’d see.
Sewanee had to gather all the pieces of herself that had splintered off before she could speak again. “I can’t do it,” she said. “But I will.”
As much as Sewanee didn’t want to admit it, Blah had a point. Didn’t a person have the right to decide how they wanted to be remembered? And didn’t she owe it to her grandmother to honor that? In the end, what the hell else was there to leave behind, really, but memories?
She decided she would keep her promise as long as Blah remembered to hold her to it. She knew, at a certain point, that would no longer be the case, and then Sewanee would do whatever she believed was right for herself. This was fair. To both of them.
Blah exhaled. She said, “I love you, Doll,” which echoed through Sewanee as if it had been shouted from a mountaintop.
“I want to see you,” Sewanee murmured.
“Who’s stopping you?”
Sewanee dropped back down to the floor, a strangled laugh escaping her. “I swear to God.” She shook her exhausted head. “One of these days, Alice, bang, zoom, you’re going to the moon.”
“Did I ever tell you my Jackie Gleason story?”
Sewanee smiled. She loved that story. “No.”
Blah told it. Then asked, “Are you coming to happy hour this week?”
“Not sure yet. But we’d already decided I’d get ready for the Audies at your place. Does that still work? The venue is around the corner.”
“Ooh, when is it?”
“Wednesday night.”
“What’s today?”
“Sunday.”
“And when’s the event?”
“In three days. Wednesday night.”
“Bet you’ve told me that.”
“A few hundred times.”
“Is that all? Maybe I’m getting better. Talk tomorrow. Love you.”
“Love you to death.”
“Hey, don’t rush me.”
They both laughed and Sewanee remembered something. “Wait, what did you want to tell me about Birdie?”
“Huh?”
“You’d said you wanted to talk about Birdie.”
Blah clucked her tongue. “Oh, right. She died.”
“What?!”
“Bless her heart.”
Sewanee didn’t want to doubt her, but, “Are you sure?”
“My mind brings dead people back to life, Dollface, not the other way around.”
“
Birdie
, not Mitzi?”
“Mitzi? Mitzi will outlive the earth.”
“When?”
“Oh, Christ, what’s today? Yesterday maybe.”
“How?”
“Went in her sleep, apparently. Lucky lady.”
“Oh my God.”
“Well, she was old.”
“She wasn’t
that
old!”
“Don’t be fooled, she’d had a lot of work done. Doll, that new girl is here, I’ve got to go to dinner.”
“Okay, okay, go, I love you.”
“Love you.” She made kissing noises into the receiver and hung up.
Sewanee continued to sit there, on the floor, leaning against the booth.
Then she began crying again. Crying for herself, sure, for Blah, of course, but mostly, it seemed, for a woman whose greatest accomplishment was a two-ingredient dip her boys liked forty years ago. Why had this sunk its claws so deeply into Sewanee? The utter callousness of an unremarkable life unceremoniously ended.
She had to stop. She made herself stop. She couldn’t cry; she had to record. If she continued crying, she’d have to wait an hour for her voice to clear. She didn’t have an hour. She didn’t have any time to waste.
She stood shakily and took up her phone. She went to her messages, scrolled down to Brock, second only to Adaku, because Adaku had texted while she’d been on the phone:
ADAKU:
OK update: they’re focused on wrapping up the deal with the male lead. Surprise surprise. But then they’ll get to your role and hopefully send an offer early next week. Okay to let Manse handle it for you?
Sewanee gave the message a thumbs-up and went to her chain with Brock.
SEWANEE:
So . . . I got your menu. Sorry, email.
When exactly are you going to be in LA?
BROCK:
Ah, yes, would’ve been good info to include.
Arrive early morning on the 10th, leave late morning of the 11th
SEWANEE:
???
BROCK:
I know. Wish I could stick around, but my recording schedule back here is punishing. I have two priorities in L.A.: Meetings on the 10th (sadly including dinner) and meeting you any time after that.
Oops. Also have a breakfast meeting on the 11th.
SEWANEE:
????
So what, we’re meeting at midnight? Who am I, Cinderella?
BROCK:
Let’s make it 11. Don’t want any Prince Charming expectations.
For real, I’m SO sorry.
SEWANEE:
It’s okay. It was a last minute idea. Meet me at Miguel’s in Burbank at 11 pm on the 10th.
BROCK:
Lemme check my schedule.
SEWANEE:
I swear to Pete.
BROCK:
Jk jk I’ll be there.
SEWANEE:
I’ll be coming from the Audies so might be a little late.
BROCK:
Bring all my awards with you.
SEWANEE:
Sorry, I’ll have my hands full with my own.
I’ll be the one in the ballgown.
BROCK:
That makes two of us.
Forty-seven minutes later:
SEWANEE:
Are we really doing this?
BROCK:
We’re really doing this.
SHE WAS RUNNING
late. The dishwasher in the studio had inevitably decided to stop working that afternoon and traffic had been unusually bad. Her intention had been to have an early dinner with Blah before getting ready for the event, but she’d missed
dinner and arrived with less than an hour to make herself presentable. She was frazzled, rushed, and could not stop thinking about the fact that, in five hours, she was going to meet Brock.
She stood in front of Blah’s sink, leaning into the mirror, trying to catch the light properly. Blah stood behind her, propped against the sliding door of the small closet, where Sewanee’s ballgown hung.
“Damn fluorescents,” Blah muttered. “The good lord didn’t intend for makeup to be applied under fluorescents.”
“I can manage. Doesn’t have to be camera-ready.”
“What lipstick do you have?”
Sewanee dug in her bag and handed it to her. She inspected it and nodded. They said, in unison, “It’ll bring out the purple in the dress.”
When she was a kid, Sewanee would watch BlahBlah put on her makeup, sitting at her vanity in her room at Bitsy’s house. Marilyn had been a mascara and ChapStick kind of mom. The slightest hint of some plum eye shadow for special occasions. Blah, on the other hand, never left the house without a full face on. She had learned makeup as a craft, from the studio makeup artists, and she’d passed it all down to Sewanee the way some grandmothers passed down recipes.
She fell into a memory of her grandmother’s smiling face beside hers in the mirror. The smell of nicotine fingers on her chin and the peppermint Altoid in Blah’s mouth to cover it. Blah boinking her on the nose with a blush brush and saying, “Dollface.” Like an anointing. A coronation. A curse?
Blah grunted as she moved away. “Want a Mallomar?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
As Sewanee applied the lipstick, she heard Blah murmur, “What in the world . . .” and Sewanee poked her head around the
corner. Blah was standing next to her bed, staring down at the nightstand.
“What?”
“They’re gone.”
“You probably ate them.”
“Luckily, it’s not summer. I can still stock up.”
Sewanee went back to the mirror. “I never understood that.”
“They don’t ship in the summer months. Nestlé was afraid the chocolate would melt. No refrigeration trucks.”
“But that was a long time ago.”
“Over a hundred years. Can you believe it? That cookie’s been around longer than me. You still can’t get them during the summer, though. Now I think it’s a marketing ploy. Supply and demand. Extortionist sons of bitches. Do you know they make it in Canada, but you can’t get it in Canada? They have this other thing called a Whippet. Supposed to be the same, but I don’t believe it. I think they even put some kind of jam in them. The bastards.”
Sewanee came out to where Blah was standing. “You know, for someone who’s losing it, it’s ridiculous what you remember.”
“No, it’s Mallomars. The one true love of my life. Besides you.” Blah turned to her. “Now, you are a sight! Perfection.” That said, she rubbed a crooked finger under Swan’s eye, right at the lash line. “You always forget to blend.”
“With one eye I only have half the practice now.”
Blah pshawed. “You’re gorgeous, Dollface. The most gorgeous girl I know.”
Sewanee groaned theatrically as she walked back to the closet. She took the dress off the hanger and slipped into it. She secured her eye patch over her updo and gave herself a good once-over in the mirror. Not bad. In truth, the awards were not what she
was dressing for tonight. Sewanee tried to breathe through her anxiety. And Spanx.
“Where are my Mallomars?” she heard from the other side of the wall.
“You ate them,” Sewanee repeated, coming around. “We’ll get some more tomorrow. Remember, it’s still cold out, so–”
Blah shook her head. “They were right here!” She pointed at the nightstand. Her voice had grown anxious. “Someone stole them! I don’t like the new nurse here. She comes in whenever she feels like it and watches me. I bet she stole the Mallomars.”
“She didn’t steal–”
“I want to go home.”
Sewanee took her grandmother’s hands and tried to catch her eye. “Blah, you are home. This is your home. And you have a wonderful home. Everyone here cares about you. You’re just forgetting you finished your cookies, that’s all.”
Blah calmed, but pointed at the nightstand. “I keep them right there.”
“I know, but . . .” Sewanee looked where she was pointing.
There was a glossy 8x10 folder covered in stock photos of elderly people laughing. At the top, the words: SUNNYSIDE–A BETTER CARE SOLUTION. She stilled. “Where did that come from?”
But Blah was walking toward the kitchenette, muttering, “Where are they?”
Sewanee picked up the folder and opened it. Inside, there were pages of information and stats, marketing materials for–what was now obvious–an alternate living facility. She closed the folder, confused, a foreboding sense of anger rising up inside her. And then her eye landed on the dark bold print at the bottom right of the idyllic front cover: MEDICAID ACCEPTED.
Sewanee’s mouth tightened. “Was Dad here?” Blah didn’t answer. She’d sat down in her rocker and gone silent.
There was a knock on the open door. “Hello? It’s me again. I forgot something, but I also got you–”
Henry stepped into the room just as Sewanee turned around to face him. He stopped in his tracks. “Oh. Hi.” He held up a familiar yellow box. “I ate her last Mallomar, so I bought her more.”
Sewanee held up the folder. “Oh. Hi. You want to explain this?” Her voice was admirably calm.
Henry saw what she held. Shifted his weight. Took a breath. “Options.”
“Options!?” Her voice was not admirably calm.
He exhaled and shook his head. “May I have it back? Please?”
“No, you may not have it back. Please, thank you, or anything else.”
“Sewanee, you have no right–”
“
I
have no right? What are you talking about? I have every right. I’m paying for this!”
Henry inclined his head at his mother. “She wants to move.”
“She wants–
what
?!”
“We discussed it. She’s happy to move.”
Sewanee scoffed. “I thought it was the Mallomars. Now I know why she’s really upset!”
He rolled his eyes, actually rolled his eyes at her. “I’m simply doing what’s best for all concerned, including you. Even if you’re too damn stubborn to see it.”
While he was talking, Sewanee turned her attention to Blah and said, over him, “What did he say to you? What did he tell you?”
Her grandmother stared blankly back and shook her head, little shakes, close to shivering. She pointed to the box Henry was holding. “There they are!”
Sewanee walked over to the window. There were extra safety latches on it, which normally made it challenging to open. But
rage has a propulsive quality and within moments Sewanee had managed it and the Sunnyside folder had taken flight.
Henry huffed something that sounded like a chuckle. “Your flair for the dramatic doesn’t change anything, you know that, right?”
She marched over to him. In her high heels they were eye to eye. “Stay out of this. I told you I’m taking care of it.” She said this in the lowest part of her voice.
“You also told me I should visit her.” The smugness. The smugness!
“You’re not helping anyone but yourself. All you’ve managed to do is confuse her. Hurt her. Hurt me,” she hissed. “Don’t you get that? Don’t you care?!” She yelled the last part.
Henry replied in his patient professor voice, “My problem is I care too much. And I won’t watch you do this to yourself. Or to her.”
“Do what? Take care of her? Protect her? Love her?”
“At the expense of your own future! This is a waste of your money and for what? For my mother, who I care about more than you know, but who is not going to know the difference between Sunnyside and Seasons. She’ll think they’re the same thing because they both begin with an S.”
Sewanee took a moment to regroup. To be more adult. To tamp down the urge to hit him. “You think that’s funny? She is sitting right there, she can hear you. God–” She groaned. “This is precisely why I’m making this decision without you.”
“And we all know how well things turn out when you make decisions with no regard for your future.”
The snap inside her was instantaneous, as if he had stepped on a twig. “IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! AND I BLAME MYSELF FOR IT EVERY FUCKING DAY! FEEL BETTER?” she screamed, a part of her voice she hadn’t used in years. She couldn’t even be sure
he meant
that
decision; he seemed to hate every decision she’d ever made, every one that had excluded him. All the regrets that lived dormant inside her, cumulatively coiled at the base of her heart, he had the power to awaken with the slightest provocation.
Henry visibly stepped back. “That’s not what I–”
She stalked forward, got right in his face. “When you decided to fuck your student, who did
you
consult? How much were you thinking about the future? About anyone other than your selfish, self-absorbed”–she sputtered–“self? That decision turn out well for you, Dad? I scarred myself. How many people did you scar?”
He was silent.
She knew he’d never been hit this hard, certainly not by her. And it enraged her further that the hurt blooming on his face only made her want to reach out and grab him, hold him, cry with him. Jesus Christ, what
was
it with the two of them?
She didn’t have time for this. She had to get to the Audies. She had to get to Brock. She left Henry standing there while she gathered her purse, her phone, her control, all while saying, “If you keep at this, I will never let you near me ever again.
Ever again.
” She went back to him, grabbed the Mallomars out of his hands. “And don’t eat her fucking Mallomars!” She walked over to Blah and handed them to her.
Blah smiled as though seeing a photo of a long-lost friend. “I knew they were around here somewhere.”
“I love you, Blah, see you tomorrow.” She walked past her father without acknowledging him. As she reached the door, he said her name and his voice cracked. She stopped. She wanted to face him once more, but was afraid if she did, she would lose it. So she said, to the hallway, “This isn’t one of the bad decisions, Dad.”
As she left the room, she heard BlahBlah say shakily, in the strongest Tennessee twang she’d ever heard from her, “Well. Ain’t we just blue-ribbon people?”
THE AUDIES CEREMONY
was being held at a five-hundred-seat theater less than a mile from Seasons and yet Henry had deactivated Sewanee’s sense of direction. Fuming, muttering to herself, she fast-walked to the event only to look up twenty minutes later and find herself in a neighborhood. She dug her phone out of the ballgown’s pocket and brought up a map. After one more misdirection, landing her in a grocery store parking lot, she arrived at the theater.
She had missed cocktail hour. She really hadn’t wanted to miss cocktail hour. A double vodka soda would have definitely helped numb the throb of her feet in her heels and the Henry-sized pain in her ass. But people were already being ushered into the auditorium and she was swept into the current of hugs, cheek-kisses, and hand-squeezes. Once inside, she was plucked out of the crowd and ushered to the front row where the other presenters were sitting.
She couldn’t focus on the ceremony. No idea what was going on, who was speaking, who was winning, nothing. She heard her name being read as a nominee in her category and numbly clapped when someone else won. About halfway through the ceremony (as far as she could tell, anyway), Alice, who was sitting next to her, leaned over and whispered, “I think you’re up,” and inclined her head toward an event coordinator standing in the wings waving at Sewanee.
“Thanks,” Sewanee muttered, but continued to sit there for a few more seconds. Then, as the coordinator’s waving grew more frantic, it registered, and Sewanee was instantly up, tripping on
the front hem of her gown. Alice reached out a steadying hand, but Sewanee stabilized and bombed backstage.
Once there, her training kicked in. She took a few quick huffs of breath. Watched the coordinator give her the five-finger countdown.
She walked to the podium like a beauty pageant contestant, held momentarily for applause, and read with graceful authority from the clear teleprompter to her left, making sure to address the right side of the room whenever possible. A total professional.
“Every year, this body recognizes one person’s contribution to the world of audio storytelling. This year, I am deeply honored–bittersweet though it may be–to present the lifetime achievement award, posthumously, to June French.” The audience applauded and Sewanee joined in at the podium.
“June was a
USA Today
bestselling author and RITA winner many times over. She sold her first novel to Harlequin at twenty-seven. Last year, sadly, she passed away at the too-young age of sixty-six. During those years she was one of our most prolific writers, having penned seventy-eight novels and sold over fifty-six million copies worldwide in twenty-three languages. In the last seven years of her life, June became a pioneer in the audiobook industry. She was a producer, an entrepreneur, and a creative force who broke down barriers of genre, production, and, yes, sales. Many of the people in this room have benefitted from her work in our industry.
“In a now canonical interview with
Cosmopolitan
magazine, when asked about her work in audio, June said, ‘The human voice is the thread that connects one soul to another. It’s as innate as the murmur of your mother’s voice as you nursed at her breast and as potent as your father’s words of approval. It is the conduit of all human expression. It is as elemental as life itself
because it helps us love and be loved.’ She loved audiobooks, she loved us, and tonight we honor her. Accepting this award on her behalf is the person who knew her best, her nephew. So, let’s welcome him here tonight, into our community, with the same love June showed us.”
Sewanee stepped back from the podium and clapped along with the audience, scanning the room. She didn’t see anyone approaching the stage. The applause faded and there was a slight titter in the room as the audience began searching for him. Someone shouted something from the back of the auditorium. “What?” Sewanee called out.
“He’s in the bathroom,” came the muted reply.
The crowd laughed. Sewanee chuckled and shrugged. “Well, in the meantime,” she braced an elbow on the podium and leaned down into the mic, “will the owner of a white Toyota Corolla please come to the security desk? Your audiobook is still playing.” The crowd chuckled. She continued to vamp. “Hey, how many narrators does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” She cupped a hand around her ear and the audience called out, “How many!”
“Two. One to do it and one to tell you they narrated a seventy-hour book on the history of the lightbulb once and did you know that Thomas Edison–” Sewanee dropped her head to her chest and snored. The audience laughingly groaned. “One to do it and everyone else to say we should be getting royalties for it.” This made the audience clap. She adopted a theatrical grimace. “Okay, now
I
have to go to the bathroom!” Big laugh. “No, I really do!” Bigger laugh. “Power of suggestion–”
“Here he comes!” someone shouted from the back.
“Oh thank God.” She tented a hand above her eye to see past the lights bearing down on her.
A sleek shadow dashed down the steps of the auditorium, practically jogging. The crowd cheered and Sewanee joined in,
watching him reach the stage, head bowed, bounding up the stairs. He turned to the crowd and made a show of looking down at his fly in horror, mimed quickly zipping it. The crowd hooted and he took a small, mocking, self-deprecating bow. He turned, heading directly for the podium, for her, and the spotlight caught his face. Their eyes met.
And they were in a car crash.
Glass shattered, steel crunched, they were spun around, and around, and around. Like a roulette ball.
His pace slowed and her heart surged. He approached her as he had in the Las Vegas suite.
Deliberate.
Powerful.
Inevitable.