Between the Lines (23 page)

“What the hell, Dad?”

He fixes me with one of the stares he’s perfected after years of cross-examining hapless witnesses. I wait him out. “I’m aware that you drink, despite the fact that you’re considerably underage. You’ve been out from under my direct control for a while now, so I know there’s little to no hope of me influencing that behavior. But you’re not doing it in my presence, out in public. I have a reputation to maintain. So do you, not that you spare any concern for it.”

Wow. This trip is just one joy-infused moment after another. I should have stayed in Austin. “Why, exactly, did you decide we needed to have dinner together?”

He exhales through his nose, his patience as close to snapping as mine, though I can’t imagine why. He could have saved himself the agony by simply leaving me to my own devices for the evening. “I thought you might have questions about your mother’s rehabilitation process. Also I wanted…” he exhales again, his mouth a thin line, “…wanted to thank you for coming this morning. If nothing else, I know you care about her, and I appreciate the effort.”

If nothing else
? What the hell kind of backhanded accolade is that? “I didn’t come for
you
, so you don’t need to thank me.”

“Nevertheless, I’m thanking you.”

“Awesome. Well, you’re so very welcome. Will that be all?” I sit up, put my napkin on the table.

“Why are you so hostile?”

“Why are
you
?”

“Look, I’m doing the best I can—”

“
This
is the best you can do, Dad?”

“Jesus Christ, Reid. Let’s not do this here.”

“I concur, counselor. Let’s not do it at all.” I sit back, fix an unnatural smile on my face and try to appear relaxed. “I don’t have any questions concerning Mom’s rehab at this time. I’ll let you or
Marcie
know if I do.” Marcie had given each of us her card and told us to call or email any time. Riiiight,
that
was going to happen. “Also, George and I are considering an action flick for my next project. They want someone older, bigger and more buff to do the part, but George is selling them on the idea that I can be each of those things. I’ll have to train like hell to get the role, but if they give it to me, I’m doing it.”

“Hmph,” he says, but it’s an impressed
hmph
. I haven’t gotten one of those in a while. I hate how good it feels—it totally pisses me off.

*** *** ***

Emma

“Have you told Emma about Derek?” Emily’s mom asks as we sit down to dinner.

“
Abercrombie
boy.” Jason, Emily’s twenty-something brother, moved back home three weeks ago, temporarily between jobs. Again. He makes a hobby of torturing his little sister.

Emily jerks the basket of rolls out of his reach. He’s already eaten two and was going for a third. “At least Derek
has
a job.”

Mr. Watson starts to laugh and tries to turn it into a cough as his wife gives him a tight-lipped look. Mrs. Watson believes that in order to succeed, young people need emotional support and encouragement. She’s the queen of cheerleading her kids, which worked well with Grant, the oldest, but appears to be backfiring in Jason. Em migrated to her dad’s way of thinking (that sometimes a person needs a swift emotional kick in the pants) when Jason moved back in for the third time.

“I’ve
had
jobs.” Jason scowls and digs into his pasta.

“That’s true,” Emily answers, “but
keeping
one seems to elude you. And really? The getting is easy; the
keeping
is the important part.”

“Like you know anyth—”

“Children!” Mrs. Watson says, and I wonder how that one word doesn’t make Jason go job-hunting immediately, and stay out until he finds one. “Emily, have you asked Emma’s opinion on the homecoming dance?” Uh-oh. I know this is a loaded question before Emily sets her jaw, because when Mrs. Watson invokes my view on something, she’s grasping for already rejected straws.

“Mom, seriously. You’ve gotta stop with the dance thing. We aren’t
going
.”

“So Abercrombie boy didn’t ask you?” Jason snatches a roll from the edge of Emily’s bowl. “What, he didn’t want to waste the money to see you wear a new shade of
black
?”

“Bite me, mister perpetually unemployed.” Emily takes a roll from the basket to replace the one he’d stolen. “You can’t afford to take someone to the Mini-Mart.”

“Enough! We have a guest!” Mrs. Watson says.

“Emma’s not a
guest
,” Jason scoffs. Which is kind of true. I’ve slept over at Emily’s house hundreds of times in my life.

“Jason, do you want dessert tonight or do you want to just go to your room?” his mother asks, no differently than she would have asked (make that
did
ask) when he was twelve.

“What? Mom, are you serious?”

“Dead serious.”

“I’m an adult! You can’t send me to my room.”

“The hell she can’t.” Mr. Watson glares at his son. I’ve watched them do this tag team maneuver on all three of their kids. Resistance is futile. You’d think Jason would know that by now, but I guess not.

“Dad,
Jesus
—”

“That’s it! To your room.” Mr. Watson points as though Jason needs directions. I bite the inside of my cheek and sneak a look at Emily. Her lips were pressed so tightly together that they’re losing color. On the counter is some sort of berry cobbler, and a big scoop of that stuff has our names on it, so we’re not getting ourselves sent
anywhere
.

“This
sucks
.” Jason pushes away from the table, taking his roll. “I need my own place.”

As soon as Jason is out of earshot, Mr. Watson mumbles, “Now
there’s
a notion.”

Emily turns to her mother. “Mom,
no one
goes to that incredibly sucktastic dance. Everyone just goes to the game. Things have changed since you went to high school.”

“See there, Vera, it’s how they roll nowadays,” her dad says, and I swear it’s all Emily and I can do not to lose it. Emily’s parents bought a book called
Decode Your Teen!
when Grant was in high school, and are oblivious to the fact that adolescent lingo changes daily.

Hours later, we lie in Emily’s bed, stuffed with raspberry cobbler and fresh whipped cream.

“So what’s the deal with Abercrombie boy?”

Emily sits up and hits me in the face with her pillow, and I squeal. “Your brother is a bad influence!”

“My brother is a tool.” She stuffs the pillow back behind her head.

“So, what’s the deal with
Derek
, then?”

She throws an arm across her face. “It’s hopeless.”

“Hopeless how?” I turn on my side, watching her.

“We’re complete opposites. He’s super prep boy. He wears
khaki
chinos
. He’s never even heard of most of my favorite bands, and I’ve spent years making fun of his. I have purple stripes in my hair. Piercings in places I had to have parental permission to get. My favorite nail polish is called
Vampire State Building
. All of his friends think I’m a freak.”

“Did he tell you that?” I ask, and she turns on her side to face me.

“He didn’t have to tell me. I can see it on their stupid faces.”

I sweep her purple-accented hair out of her eyes. “Who cares what they think?”

“Oh come on, all that ‘If they’re your real friends, they’ll accept whoever you love’ is a load of crap. I can’t expect a guy to stand up to that kind of pressure. And I like me the way I am. I don’t want to change!”

“Has he asked you to change?”

“No,” she says, sounding almost disappointed.

“So how much do you like this guy?”

“Oh my God. So much.” She turns into me and buries her face under my chin, her voice desolate, as though she’s confessing to murder instead of attraction.

“Sounds like a bungee-jumping sorta moment.”

She nods her head.

“Emma?” My name is muffled by the comforter. “I think I already fell.”

“I guess all you can do is wait to see if the cord holds.”

Funny how I can in no way apply this wisdom to myself, no matter how sensible it sounds when I say it to Emily.

Chapter 31

REID

I have every intention of taking a break from hookups while I’m pursuing Emma, but this party is full of hot girls who are flying so high they don’t know which end is up. The invitation to ditch my temporary abstinence plan is powerful. Plus, Emma and I aren’t actually
together
yet. She’s taking her own sweet time about that, though I think we’re getting there. I came home to LA this weekend certain I could be patient… but every moment that goes by is draining that resolve.

The exclusivity factor of this little gathering is high. I’ve recognized several film colleagues and a couple of John’s friends—trust fund babies who live for rubbing elbows (and other body parts) with movie stars and music idols. Highly unlikely that anything will turn up on the Internet. Non-celebrities who get invited to these events understand that outing any of us puts them on the other side of that door in the future. That’s why you seldom see photos of famous people misbehaving in private settings. Figuring out who narced amongst a restricted set of people is far too easy.

I’m both buzzed and high, lounging in a chair and watching the curls of smoke rise from half a dozen joints. John has his tongue down the throat of an aspiring runway model as they paw each other in the space cleared for people pretending to dance. Really they’re all just committing foreplay in front of anyone watching. John
really
digs models. The foreign ones, especially. This one looks and sounds, I don’t know, Swedish? I’m not the best judge at this point.

Tonight, I’m a voyeur. I can reign this in and wait.

And then some girl a few feet from John is dancing with another girl and the two of them are taking each other’s clothes off. Slowly. Once they have my attention, they’re both flicking glances my way at regular intervals, to make sure I’m still watching. No problem there—I’m riveted.

Damn. I’m not getting through the next half an hour without tossing my short-lived celibacy out the window, let alone the rest of the night, and I know it.

***

John’s model is in the shower. He’s too soft. My two were sent home in a taxi while it was still dark out. Now, he and I are sprawled on the sofa in our usual Sunday morning state: hungover. “What are we doing tonight, man?” John blows a few rings of smoke from the cigarette between his fingers, like a cartoon smokestack from a train. One of those people who smokes irregularly, he’s curiously gifted with the stuff he can do with a cigarette, especially considering how infrequently he picks one up. He’s made an art of it. “Do you want to go out?”

I watch the smoke rings dissipate, lay my head back against the cushion. The shower goes off. “I don’t know. Sure. Nothing high-profile, though.”

The bathroom door snaps open. “John?” His name in her mouth sounds more like
Jonah
—two syllables.

His eyebrows kick up once before he rolls off the sofa. “Yeah?”

She asks for a towel. He slips into the bathroom to show her where they’re kept, and stays in. The sound of giggling pushes through the door, and I pick up the remote and click on the television. My voyeuristic tendencies have explicit limits, and listening to John screw some chick in the bathroom is definitely outside that perimeter. On the screen a correspondent reports on a politician who got caught cheating on his wife with their kid’s nanny… who’s in the country illegally.

My first thought is
what a moron
, and then they show a photo of the hot Guatemalan nanny. Damn—that poor bastard was doomed from the start.

*** *** ***

Emma

“I’m just not sure this is such a great idea.” I sit in Emily’s vintage Sentra, staring at the house. “Talking to my father how I feel is always an exercise in frustration, Em. There’s no way I can tell him all the stuff we talked about.”

“Then start with the college thing. Tell him you want to go.”

“Do I?”

She sighs. “You said you did last night.”

“I felt safe talking to
you
about it. It’s different, bringing it up to him. He’ll probably just say no, anyway, even if I manage to argue my point adequately, which is doubtful if he starts objecting right off. Plus I’m half scared to death that if he actually lets me do it, it might be a huge mistake.” I hear the panic building in my voice. “I could flunk out. I could ruin the career I have. Emily, if that happens, what else do I have?”

She grabs my hand. “Emma, what the hell. A few hours ago, you were way more certain of yourself. It’s like the sight of this place scares the confidence right out of you.”

“He doesn’t
know
me. He only thinks he does. I’ve just followed along my whole life, no big rebellion, barely any disagreement. I always thought that at least he understands my need to be an actor. But what if that isn’t him understanding me at all, what if that’s just what
he
wants, and what he really understands is
nothing
.”

“He’s your
dad
, Emma,” she says, still holding my hand.

“Em, sometimes you and your parents argue. Yell at each other even. But you know they’re trying. You know they love you.” My throat feels tight. “It’s not the same with me and them. It never has been. You know that as well as anybody.”

She pulls me in for a hug. “If you don’t want to talk to him, then don’t. But I think you should go in there and say what you need to say. For your own sake. Because yeah, you’re almost eighteen, and
it’s your life
, and maybe this is the first step to just telling someone besides
me
what you
want
out of it.”

“I don’t know how to start, what to say.” I’m stalling, and we both know it.

“Yes you do. Go in there. Just say it.” Emily has this way about her when she knows she’s right. Compassionate, but persistent. I take a deep breath, and go inside.