Nob Hill for reel_sg1 (2/2)
TITLE: Nob Hill
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“Your…boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
”Who is it?” I hear from the bedroom. Out walks her equally-famous boyfriend, Cameron Mitchell, opening his shirt and untucking it. I lie and say I’m room service, and he makes some odd comment about my attire and penguin suits. All the while, Vala stands there nervously glancing between the two of us. Mitchell asks for some cold water, specifying still, not sparkling. Then he asks me to clear his dishes and take out the trash. Mitchell’s oblivious to her discomfort as she suggests it’s not my job to clear. He looks at me to see if I’m okay with it and asks my name. I give him my friend, Murray’s name. He slips me a tip - a stingy one at that - before I go.
Mitchell asks her what she’s going to order, and she fumbles over not knowing. As he leaves the room, pulling off his shirt, he calls back, “Make it something light. Don’t want people to say, ‘There goes that famous actor with the big, fat girlfriend,’ you know.” I see Vala physically withdraw into herself at the comment, and I wonder at their relationship.
Now that Mitchell’s in the other room, I indicate I should leave, but first I confront her with, “This is a strange reality for me to be faced with. To be honest, I don’t realize…”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupts. I think I can tell she truly is, but then again, she *is* an actress. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I think good-bye is appropriate.” My answer is harsh, but I think I’m still in shock over the boyfriend.
I leave with the dishes and waste basket, not even able to think ahead what I’m going to do with it - or how Mr. Mitchell’s going to get his water. And frankly I don’t care. I decide I really don’t belong in her world, and it’s best I find this out right away. I walk for a while and then catch a bus, which appropriately enough is one plastered with her face.
The next time I go to see a movie, I’m drawn to the picture for which I endured the publicity junket. Vala, in space, in a space suit. At least this time, I have my glasses, and I can see her very clearly.
* * * * *
One day not too long after that, I’m sitting in the window seat, looking out over the City, and Jack walks in. He sits on the chair facing me.
“Come on - open up - this is me - Jack - I'm in contact with some quite important spiritual vibrations. What's wrong?”
“Well,” I begin, against my better judgment, “There’s this girl.”
”Ah, I was getting a female vibration.” Seriously, when *hasn’t* Jack gotten a female vibration? “Good. Go on.” Since he seems to be taking this more seriously than anything in the past, I continue.
“She's someone I just can't -- someone who... self-evidently can't be mine - and it's as if I've taken love-heroin - and now I can't even have it again. I've opened Pandora's box. And there's trouble inside.”
“Yeh. Yeh... tricky... tricky...” Jack scrunches his face in thought and taps the arm of the chair with his long fingers. “I knew a girl in college named Pandora...never got to see her box though.” He laughs at his own joke.
Okay, that’s it. The man is a retard and an a$$. I chalk my fatal error up to my melancholy disposition and just thank him for his non-help.
* * * * *
A few weeks later, my friends and I have gathered at Jonas’ restaurant. Paul, Janet, Murray, Sam and even Jack are there.
“You didn’t know she had a boyfriend,” Paul asks.
“No. Did you?” From the looks on their faces, I can tell everyone but me did know. “D*mmit all to hell,” I respond, “I can't believe it - my whole life ruined because I don't read the ‘Inquirer’ or watch ‘Entertainment Tonight’.”
“Let's face facts,” Paul states. “This was always a no-win situation from the beginning. Vala's a goddess, and you know what happens to mortals who get involved with the gods.”
“Screwed?” I ask.
“Every time,” he answers. “But don't despair. I think I have the solution to your problems.”
“Really?” I’m not entirely convinced I *want* to hear his idea.
“Her name is Kira, and she works in the contracts department. The hair, I admit, is unfashionable frizzy - but she's as bright as a button and kisses like a nymphomaniac on death row.” He catches the questioning look Janet’s giving him and hastily adds, “Apparently.”
About a week later Paul and Janet invite me for dinner and to meet Kira. It’s a disaster. She’s walks in and states the obvious, that Janet’s in a wheelchair. Then she suggests we get sloshed. She’s clingy and sickeningly sweet. The evening goes downhill from there.
Another week and Paul has another girl for me to meet. This one’s named Shyla. She seems to have an Oedipal complex with a famous dad, some well-known senator. And she’s a drug addict, I swear. She had to be high on something!
Lastly, Paul invites me over to meet Sarah Gardner. Beautiful, funny, charming, open-hearted, delightful - in a word, perfect. And tall. She looked me in the eyes in flats, and I’m six feet tall. As she leaves, Sarah kisses me on the cheek sweetly and suggests we might see each other again some time, and I obligingly say it would be great, knowing full well, my heart is nowhere near as open as hers at the moment. When I get back to the living room where Paul and Janet anxiously await the verdict, I tell them she’s perfect. They want more.
“I think you have forgotten,” I begin, “What an unusual situation you have here - to find someone you actually love, who'll love you - the chances are... always miniscule. Look at me - not counting the Australian - I've only loved two girls in my whole life, both total disasters.” I forestall Paul’s objection, “No really, one of them marries me and then leaves me quicker than you can say Gray Grantham - and the other, who seriously ought to have known better, casually marries my best friend.”
“Still loves you, though,” Janet offers in consolation.
“In a depressingly asexual way,” I complain. She thinks about it for a second before she responds.
“I never really been attracted to you much actually...” We laugh. “I mean I love you. You’re terribly funny. But all that…” She shudders. “No, like kissing my brother.”
“Oh no -- this is just getting worse. I am going to find myself, 30 years from now, still on this couch.” She asks if I want to stay the night, and I answer, “Why not? All that awaits me at home is a masturbating Irishman.” Paul carries Janet up the stairs, and I just watch, their love for each other so blatant. How can I be jealous of that? How can I not?
The next morning I walk back to my place to shower and shave. I’m almost done when I hear the doorbell. I open the door to find Vala standing there with sunglasses on. She’s upset, crying. She asks to come in, and I move back to let her. As she passes, I notice her really disheveled appearance, which I’d overlooked at first with the shock of seeing her at all. I soon find out that someone has posted some graphic photos of her on the internet, and the news is all the rage in the tabloids.
“They were taken years ago - I know it was...well, I was poor and it happens a lot - that's not an excuse - but to make things worse, it now appears someone was filming me as well. So what was a stupid photo-shoot now looks like a porno film. And well... the pictures have been sold and they're everywhere.” I don’t know what to say, so I just shake my head. “I didn’t know where to go,” she says. “The hotel is surrounded.”
“This is the place,” I assure her.
”Thanks. I’m just in town for a couple of days.” She composes herself a bit and further explains, “These are such horrible pictures. They're so grainy... they make me look like...”
“Don't think about it. We'll sort it out. Now what would you like - tea... bath...?”
”A bath would be great,” she admits. I see her shoulders relax. She sighs as though a great weight has been lifted.
Later, we sit in the kitchen eating toast with strawberry jam, and she tries to explain what happened at the Ritz. “He just flew in unexpectedly,” she says after apologizing about it. “I had no idea - in fact, I had no idea whether he’d *ever* fly in again.”
I lie and tell her it’s fine. “I don’t get the opportunity to ‘adios the plates’” - as Mitchell had actually put it - “for a major Hollywood star very often. It was a thrill for me, really.” For that I earn a smile, and I mirror it. But on a more serious note, and before I fall hopelessly for her yet again, I ask, “How is he?”
“I have no idea,” she answers. After a moment’s reflection she explains, “It got to the point where I couldn’t remember any of the reasons I loved him. What about your love life?”
“Well, there’s a question - without an interesting answer.”
“I have thought about you,” she tells me. I don’t want to hear this. “It’s just…any time I’ve tried to keep things normal, with anyone normal - it’s been a disaster.”
Expressing my appreciation for her explanation and candor, I try to change the subject tactfully. I latch onto the script she has in her hand. “Is that the next film you’re shooting?”
“Yes, we start in L.A. on Tuesday.”
I offer to help her work on her lines, and she gratefully accepts and gives me a basic run-down on the plot. She’s a brilliant but difficult junior officer who’s going to save the world in about twenty minutes. We work on the lines for a while. She butchers them terribly, but I can’t blame her. It’s a bunch of technobabble no one’s going to understand. We take it out on the roof terrace to enjoy some fresh air. At one point, she asks me what I think of the script. I think I make some vaguely positive comment before comparing it unfavorably with Jane Austen or Henry James. She asks if I think she should do one of those adaptations, and I assure her I think she’d be great at it. We joke around about these writers being pretty good, too, but you never hear anyone in a Henry James production asking for a “naquadah generator” to be set on a feedback loop to overload it or to go through the “Stargate”, whatever that is.
Later, as we’re sitting in the kitchen, Vala comments on my calendar, which has an art print of a Chagall painting on the upper half. The bride floats in a blue expanse. When I ask if she likes Chagall, she answers affirmatively.
“It feels like how being in love should be,” she says. “Floating through a dark blue sky.”
“With a goat playing a violin?” I ask.
“Of course, Daniel. Happiness wouldn’t be happiness without a violin-playing goat.” She has roped me in again.
Just then Jack returns with several pizzas and a 6-pack of his favorite beer. He lists off the ingredients, and all have meat. I remind him Vala’s a vegetarian, and well, he offers to pick off the pepperoni for her and eat her share. Right.
After pizza, Jack heads off to his favorite bar since the 6-pack is long gone, and Vala and I settle in the living room. We both have something to read, but I get the distinct impression she’s not paying that much attention to her magazine.
“You’ve got bigt feet,” she declares.
“Yes, they’ve always been big, well since puberty anyway.” Did I just mention puberty? Jeez, way to go, Daniel!
“You know what they say about men with big feet, don’t you?”
“No,” I play along, “What?”
“Big feet…large…shoes.” I laugh at her dumb joke, and she smiles wickedly. I go get us some ice cream, and while we eat it, she talks about nudity in the film industry.
“The thing that’s so irritating is that now I’m so totally fierce when it comes to nudity clauses.”
“You actually have something in your contracts about nudity?” This is news to me, but then I don’t read ‘The Inquirer’.
Vala goes on to give examples of wording, but when she mentions having “full consultation” if a stunt person is used, I can’t resist asking, “You have a stunt bottom?”
“I *could* have a stunt bottom, yes.”
“Would you be tempted to go for a slightly better bottom than your own?” Not that I can imagine one existing in this galaxy or the next, actually.
“Definitely! This is important stuff.” I can’t imagine.
“One helluva job, isn’t it? What do you put on your resume? Most recent work: Mel Gibson’s bottom.”
“Actually, Mel does his own a$$ work. Why wouldn’t he?” I can’t imagine that either. “It’s delicious,” she pronounces, and I’m not entirely sure whether she means the ice cream - so I ask.
“The ice cream or Mel Gibson’s bottom?”
“Both, equally.” She smiles and licks off her spoon.
“But you wouldn’t necessarily lick…both.”
“I don’t know. This is peachy…and fuzz free.”
While Vala ‘adioses the dishes’, I put fresh linen on my bed and bring down a pillow and duvet to the sofa for myself. I’m not going to assume anything. As I’m walking her upstairs, she surprises me by saying, “This has been a good day. Which, under the circumstances, is…unexpected.” I thank her and suggest it’s time for bed - or in my case, the sofa bed. She agrees and then leans forward and kisses me lightly on the lips before disappearing behind my bedroom door.
As I’m lying on the couch, trying to get comfortable, I think about her. I can’t get to sleep. I wonder what type of relationship - if any - she wants with me. I hear the stairs creak, and my heart skips a beat to think Vala might be coming to me.
“Hello?” I whisper.
“Hello,” Jack answers. I groan. “I wonder if I could talk to you for a minute.” He appears around the column, in just his boxers again, and I pray that Vala doesn’t come out while he’s running around like this.
“About what, Jack?” I hope this is quick.
“I don’t want to interfere, or anything, but…she just broke up with her boyfriend, right?”
“Maybe.”
“And she’s here in your house?”
“Yes.”
“And you two get along swell, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t you think this might be a good time to…?” He doesn’t finish the question but makes a crude gesture.
“Jack, for G*d’s sake, she’s in trouble. Get a grip, will you?”
“Right. Okay. You think the timing’s bad. Got it.” He starts to leave and then looks back. “Do you mind if I give it a shot?”
“Jack!”
“No. Right. Gotcha.”
“I’ll talk to you in the morning.” He says something back as he’s leaving about morning possibly being too late, but I turn over and punch the pillow. I’m just settling back down, not really drifting off to sleep yet, but relaxing, when I hear the stairs creak again. “Oh, for crying out loud, go to bed!”
“Okay,” I hear Vala say.
“Wait. No!” I jump off the couch and go after her. “I thought you were someone else…I thought you were Jack. I’m happy it’s you instead.”
We come face to face in the dark, only the moonlight shining through the front window illuminating her exquisite features - and long legs. She’s wearing one of my shirts, and, I suspect, nothing else. Before I know it, I’m holding my hand to her face, and slipping it around her neck to pull her close. I kiss along her neck, pushing the shirt collar back for better access, and then I make my way up along her jaw line and then to her mouth.
“Wow!” I whisper the exclamation as though observing a sacred ceremony in a holy place.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing.” I kiss her again. After that we go upstairs together. As we’re lying in bed some time later, Vala wriggles and snuggles up to me, and I caress her arm as tenderly as I know how, even though I suspect she’s really already asleep. It’s all so very new and extraordinary to me, and she’s so spectacular.
The next morning we sleep in, and lying with our heads at opposite ends of the bed and sharing the duvet, I admit, “It still strikes me as, well, surreal that I’m allowed to see you naked.”
“You and everyone in the world!”
“Oh, yes. I’m sorry!”
She wants to know why men find nudity so fascinating, particularly breasts, and I’m at a loss to explain. She points out that every other person on the planet has them, mothers have them and feed their children with them and they’re odd looking. After all that, I’m not quite sure what the fascination is, but it gives me a chance to check hers out again, which she allows with a good measure of eye rolling. Then she quotes some actress from fifty years ago, and talks about how people’s perception of someone famous isn’t what they get in real life, which often leads to disappointment. This leads to the inevitable reassurance.
“You are more beautiful to me this morning than you have ever been.” This seems to sink in, and then suddenly she leaps out of the bed and says she’ll be back in a minute. She returns with coffee and toast and juice.
“Breakfast in bed. Or lunch. Or brunch.” She sits beside me on the bed, nibbling on one of the pieces of toast. “May I stay a bit longer?”
“Stay forever,” I plead. I want her to say yes to that so badly!
Instead, she says, “D*mn, I forgot the jam.” Just then the doorbell rings, and she offers to get the jam if I answer the door, which to this day I regret.
When I open the door, hundreds of camera flashes blind me, and an equal number of voices shouting questions assail me. I close the door and head for the kitchen. Vala appears at the top of the steps, wanting to know who was at the door. I tell her not to ask, but this seems only to pique her curiosity. Or she thinks I’m fooling around. She brushes past me, still only in my long-sleeved dress shirt, and opens the door. The paparazzi explode, and she closes the door in a split second.
Panic sets in. She realizes they’ve photographed me in only a t-shirt and shorts. Then they got pictures of her in my shirt. Jack chooses this moment to arrive on the scene in only his boxer briefs with a terrible case of “bed head”. Vala races past him, and he just gives me a thumbs-up for what he considers a “conquest”. I ignore him as I pass with only a muttered warning not to go outside. He ignores me and opens the door as I find Vala on the phone.
“It’s Vala. The press is here. No, there are hundreds of them. My brilliant plan was apparently not so brilliant after all. Yeah, I know, I know. Just get me out of here.” With a couple of choice expletives I’d expect to come from Jack, not Vala, she runs up the stairs. I follow. As she dresses, I ask how she’s doing. Her bitter response grates. “How do you *think* I’m doing, Daniel?”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“I do. Your fuzzy friend there thought he’d make a buck or two telling the papers where I was.” She begins to pack as I deny it. Jack’s a pig at times, but he wouldn’t do that for money. “Really? The entire Bay Area press just woke up this morning and thought, ‘Hey, I know where Vala is. She’s in that house with the blue door in Nob Hill.’ And then you go out in your g*dd*mn underwear.”
Jack stands in the doorway and announces he went out in his g*dd*mn underwear too. I tell him to get out, and he apologizes and leaves.
“This is such a mess. I come to you to protect myself against more crappy gossip, and now I’ve landed in it all over again. For G*d’s sake, I’ve got a boyfriend!”
“You do?” I am both shocked and confused.
“As far as they’re concerned I do. And now, tomorrow there’ll be pictures of you in every newspaper from here to Timbuktu.”
I acknowledge that but try to calm her. She rants on.
“You can stay calm. It’s the perfect situation for you, isn’t it? Minimum input, maximum publicity. Everyone you ever bump into will know. ‘Way to go, man! You slept with that actress; we’ve seen the pictures!’”
I tell her that’s spectacularly unfair, but she has none of it.
“Who knows, it may even help business. Buy a boring book about Egypt from the guy who screwed Vala Mal Doran.” With that she leaves me stunned, but I recover and follow, begging her to calm down, maybe have a cup of coffee.
“I don’t want a g*dd*mn cup of coffee. I want to go home.”
I hear the doorbell again and ask Jack to check who it is. He opens the landing window and pokes his head out. He says it looks like a chauffeur, and I know my time is limited. I make one last attempt to reason with Vala.
“Wait a minute,” I beg as I follow her from kitchen to the entry hall. “Can’t we just laugh about this? Seriously, in the huge scope of things, this stuff doesn’t matter.”
“Next he’ll say there are people starving in the Sudan,” Jack offers from the kitchen.
“Well, there are,” I agree. “And we don’t need to go anywhere near that far. My best friend slipped down the stairs, cracked her back, and now she’s in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. All I’m asking for is a normal amount of perspective.”
Vala stops. Her voice changes from maniacal to controlled anger. “You’re right, of course,” she says in a low voice that scares me more than a little. “It’s just that I’ve dealt with this garbage for ten years now. You’ve had it for ten minutes. Our perspectives are different.” She has a point, but still, I try again.
“I mean, today’s newspapers will line birdcages and wrap fish tomorrow. It’s just one day. Today’s papers will have been thrown away tomorrow.”
“Excuse me?” I realize too late I’ve taken the wrong tack and offended her.
“You really don’t get it. This story gets filed. Every time anyone writes anything about me, they’ll dig up these photos. Newspapers last forever. I’ll regret this forever.” My heart sinks. I’m done.
“Right. Fine. I will do just the opposite, if that’s okay with you. I will always be glad you came. But you’re right. You probably had better go.”
She’s staring at me. I can’t read her face. The doorbell rings again, and she opens the door. Her people - George, Liz and two burly bodyguards “adios” her from my life. And suddenly it’s deathly quiet.
“Was it you?” I ask Jack without turning.
“I suppose I might have let it slip to one or two people down at the Bigfoot or Hyde Out.” Hyde Out is Jack’s main haunt, with its thirty beers on tap and free popcorn, though he hangs at the Bigfoot Lodge, too. There, taxidermy trophies and antler accoutrements dot the premises of this kitschy log-cabin-themed bar, where a 9-foot-tall resin Sasquatch presides over the pseudo-rustic scene. Happy campers can circle around the fake fireplace and sample drink specials such as the Toasted Marshmallow, the Forest Fire and the Girl Scout Cookie.
I shake my head and wait to turn until I’m sure he’s gone. As sure as I am that Vala is gone for good.
* * * * *
Months pass, and I go on. I know I’m no picnic to hang around, but I haven’t seen Sam in weeks when she rushes into the book shop one dreary day. Jack’s with her, which seems a bit odd; he’s kept to himself or at least out of my way all this time. Sam can hardly contain herself.
“Have we got something for you! Something which will make you love me so much you’ll want to hug me every single day for the rest of my life.” She’s clutching a piece of paper.
“Wow, what could be that incredible?” She sticks her tongue out at me for that.
“The phone number of Vala Mal Doran’s agent. You can call her. You think about her all the time; now you can call her!”
I thank her, and she leaves with Jack, pausing at the door. “See you tonight. Hey, Marty - sexy outfit!” Once she’s gone I toss the paper in the nearest trash can.
* * * * *
That night we gather at Jonas’ restaurant. We’re all there again - including Jack.
“I have a speech to make,” Janet announces. “I won’t stand up because I can’t…be bothered. Exactly a year ago today, this man here started the finest restaurant in San Francisco.” Jonas thanks her. “Unfortunately, no one but us ever came to eat here.” Jonas acknowledges that tiny hiccup in his plans. “So we must face the fact that starting next week, we have to find somewhere else to eat.” I watch Jonas’ face; he’s crushed. “I just want to say, Jonas, don’t take it personally. The more I think about things, the more I see no rhyme or reason in life. No one knows why some things work out, and some things don’t. Why some of us get lucky,” and with that she gave Paul a smile. “And some of us…”
“Get fired,” Murray finishes. We all express our amazement, and Murray explains, “Well yes, they’re shifting the whole outfit much more towards the emerging markets, and of course - well, I was total crap.” I’m still taking in that news when Jonas proposes a toast.
“So we go down together! A toast to Murray, the worst stockbroker in the whole world!” We raise our glasses, and then Sam pipes in.
“Since it’s an evening of announcements, I’ve got one, too. I - I’ve decided to get engaged.” We look from one to another in the group, and I see only bewildered expressions; no one seems to be clued in on this. I protest not having been informed previously, as the older brother, and ask Janet if she was keeping the secret, which she denies.
Paul finally has the presence of mind to ask if it’s someone we know, and Janet follows up with whether he will be able to support them both. Sam tells us he’s an artist with brilliant prospects. I’m trying to think of what artists she knows. I’m too dazed to think properly. I see her lean over to Jack, and I think, ‘No…can’t be.’ But it turns out later to be true. Paul asks if anyone else has any announcements, and I say I do.
“I have to apologize to you all for my behavior the last six months. I know I’ve acted pretty down in the mouth.”
“That’s the understatement of the year. There are dead people with more enthusiasm.” I ignore Paul’s jabs.
“But I have turned a corner, and vow going forward that I intend to be impressively happy.”
Two hours and a lot of wine later, I’m talking with Paul. The ladies are at the table, Janet announcing sloppily that she’s horribly drunk and Sam reaching out to comfort her. Jack’s dancing to the music - or his own drummer, while Jonas sits in a corner morosely surveying his soon-to-be-lost domain. Murray keeps a silent vigil over him, almost in a meditative state. Or maybe that’s the wine, too.
“So, you’ve laid the ghost,” Paul asks.
“I think so.”
“Don’t give a damn about the famous girl.”
“No, I don’t think I do.”
“So, you wouldn’t be the least interested to know that she’s back in the City, grasping her Oscar and filming her next project.” Paul sets a copy of a tabloid in front of me, Vala stares back from the cover.
“Oh, G*d, no.”
“So…not over her, then?”
* * * * *
I don’t know what I’m thinking, arriving on location without calling first. The security people won’t let me through, of course, and that’s embarrassing. I luck out when Vala spots me from a distance as Liz and several others involved in the production (I assume) try to hustle her off to the set. She walks over, clutching the long, full skirt of her costume and followed by her entourage. Neither of us knows what to say at first. She begins with the obvious.
“This is certainly a surprise.”
“I only found out yesterday you were here.”
“I was going to call, but…I didn’t think you’d want to…” Liz whispers that she’s needed on the set right away, and Vala nods. “It’s not going very well, and it’s our last day here.”
“Sure. You’re busy.”
“But…wait…there are things…to say. If you could wait.” I agree, and she chuckles. “Drink coffee. There’s lots of coffee.”
Liz shows me over to a stand with all kinds of electronics. “This is Siler. He’ll hook you up with headphones, so you can hear the dialogue.” Siler hands me a set of headphones and instructs me on their use. Once I put them on, I can hear both Vala and another actor trying to rehearse their lines while they wait for the director to cue their action.
“We’re living in cloud-cuckooland. We’ll never get this done today,” says the other actor, who reminds me of Sam’s dad, my foster father, Jacob.
“We have to, Bray” Vala objects. “I have to be in New York on Thursday for Letterman.”
“Show off.”
“And quit checking out all the girls, you dirty old man. Let’s work on our lines, and you can stop ogling all the T&A on set. So, I ask you when you’re going to tell everyone, and you say…?”
“Tomorrow will be soon enough.” He looks up at her from the script and asks her, “Say, who was that rather diffident fellow you were talking to on the way up?”
“Oh, no one. No one. Just some…guy from the past. I really don’t know what he’s doing here. Bit of an awkward situation, if you know what I mean.”
He nods, and I pull off the headphones, returning them to a confused Siler with thanks. I leave then, without talking to Vala further. Again, I feel I can move on.
* * * * * *
The next day, I’m adding up the month’s sales and preparing the report for our accountant, whom I obviously can’t afford, when Marty interrupts.
“I hate to disturb you when you’re cooking the books, but there’s a delivery.”
“Marty, can’t you just deal with it yourself?” I hate to be impatient with the guy, but seriously, sometimes I wonder what I pay him for.
“But it’s not for the shop. It’s for you…personally.”
“Okay. Tell me, would I have to pay a wet rag as much as I pay you?” He’s smiling broadly, though I’ve just insulted him, I’m sure. When I turn to sign for the delivery, it’s not Walter, our usual UPS guy. Vala shifts from foot to foot and adjusts a large wrapped package that’s obviously as awkward to manage as I imagine this conversation’s going to be. We greet each other with simple hellos, and Marty fades into the background.
“You disappeared.”
“Yes, sorry about that. I had to go. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Oh, okay. How have you been?” She’s still shifting, and her eyes wander nervously over the shop.
“Fine. Pretty much same ol’, same ol’. When they change the law for good, Jack and I will marry immediately. Whereas you…I’ve watched in wonder. Awards, glory…and all that jazz.”
She makes light of it all, calling it nonsense. I keep eyeing the package, so she finally steers the conversation back around to it. “Well, yesterday was our last day of filming here, and so I’ll be leaving. But I had brought you this from home, and…I thought I’d give it to you.”
I thank her and take it. She stops me from opening it right away, saying she’d be embarrassed. I thank her again.
“I actually had it in my apartment in New York, and just thought you’d…but, when it came down to it, I didn’t know how to call you…having behaved so badly…twice. So it has just been sitting in the hotel. But then you came…so I figured…the thing is…the thing is…” She stops, and as I’ve been hanging on her every word, I feel like I’m dangling over a cliff.
“What’s the thing?” Just at that moment the bell jingles as the annoying customer who comes in looking for novels enters. “Don’t even think about it. Go away!” He apologizes and leaves, and I turn back to Vala. “You were saying?”
“Yes, the thing is, I have to go away today, but I wondered, if I didn’t, whether you might let me see you a bit…or…a lot maybe. See if you could…um…like me again.”
It’s a lot to take in, and I choose my words carefully.
“But yesterday, that actor asked you who I was, and you just dismissed me out of hand. I heard it all, through the headphones.”
“You expect me to tell the truth about my life to the most indiscreet man in the country?” Her cheeks flush with temper, and I fear I’m in for another irrational tirade. Marty interrupts with a phone call from my (foster) mother, who won’t leave a message because I didn’t call her back soon enough last time. I love the woman who raised me after my parents died in an accident, but her timing is impeccable as always. I leave Marty with Vala and take her call. When I return, Marty bows out, and I get the feeling their conversation went about as well as I would expect it to.
“Sorry about that.”
“That’s okay. There’s always a pause when the jury goes out to consider its verdict.” I know she’s waiting for my response, but she’s not going to like what I have to say.
“Vala, look, I’m a fairly level-headed guy. Not in and out of love all the time. But…can I just say ‘no’ to your kind request and leave it at that?” Tears well up in those gorgeous eyes, and I still don’t know if she’s acting or it’s all real. I suspect the latter, so when she starts to leave, I stop her. “The truth is…with you, I’m in real danger. It looked like a perfect situation, apart from that foul temper of yours, but I don’t think my relatively inexperienced heart would recover if you - as I suspect you might - cast me aside again. There are just too many pictures of you everywhere, too many films. You’d go and I’d be…well, screwed, basically.”
“I see,” she says. “That really is a real ‘no’, then, isn’t it?”
“I live in Nob Hill. You live in Beverly Hills. Everyone in the world knows who you are. My mother has trouble remembering my name.”
“Okay. Fine. Fine. Good decision.” After a pause, she adds, “The fame thing isn’t really real, you know. Don’t forget, I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” With that, she kisses me on the cheek, says, “Bye,” very quietly and leaves.
* * * * * *
That afternoon, I’m sitting in Jonas’ restaurant, which is half deconstructed at this point. Paul and Janet are there; Sam, too. I tell them all what I’ve done and show them the ‘violin-playing goat painting’, which is what Vala had given me earlier.
“What do you think? Good move?”
“Good move,” Sam agrees. “When all is said and done, she’s nothing special. I saw her taking her pants off, and I definitely got a glimpse of some cellulite down there.”
“Good decision,” says Janet. “All actresses are nuts.”
I ask Jonas what he thinks, but he’s never met her. Says he never wants to, but I have trouble believing that for some reason. I turn to Paul. He concurs and reminds me never to trust a vegetarian.
“Great. Thanks, everyone. Excellent.”
Jack bursts in, out of breath.
“You called. I came. What’s up?” When Sam fills him in, he calls me a foolish pr*ck. I look away and see Janet studying Vala’s painting.
“This isn’t the original, is it?”
“Yes, actually, I think it might be.”
“But she said she wanted to go out with you?” Murray asks.
“Well, yes…sort of.”
“That’s nice.”
“Huh? What?” I need clarification.
“Well, you know, anybody saying they want to go out with you is pretty great, isn’t it?”
I think about our encounter. “It was sort of sweet, actually. I mean, I know she’s an actress and all that, so she can deliver a line. But she said that she might be as famous as can be, but also, she was just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” I wait while they absorb this information. The look on Jack’s face tells me what he thinks, if his earlier words hadn’t made it abundantly clear. “Oh, crap. I’ve made the wrong decision, haven’t I?” Jack nods. “Paul, how fast is your car?”
Moments later we all pile into Paul’s Ford Taurus wagon to go to the Ritz-Carlton, all except Janet. He won’t leave without her, though, so we all shift. Murray, Sam and I sit in the middle row, and Jack’s crammed in the back with Janet’s wheelchair. We all start back-seat driving, telling Paul how to get there, and he brakes to a halt. He insists that as the driver he will determine the route and then mutters something in a bad Scottish accent about how James Bond never has to put up with this sort of crap.
At the Ritz, I run in and look for someone at the counter to help me. The first person I see is helping someone already. I move around a column and find a man who appears to be the manager, or at least a person in charge. His name badge says, “H. Landry”.
“Mr…Landry. Is Miss Mal Doran staying here.”
“No, sir.” I recognize his voice; this is the same man I spoke to on the phone. That reminds me.
“How about Miss Flintstone?” I ask hopefully. Murray has followed me in, and he gives me the oddest look. I know I’ll have to explain that one later.
“No, sir.”
“Or…Bambi? Oh, I don’t know…Beavis or…Butthead?” Mr. Landry shakes his head and answers in the negative.
“Right. Okay. Fair enough. We tried. Thanks.” I can’t believe I’ve blown it! I start to leave, but Mr. Landry calls after me quietly.
“There was a Miss Pocahontas in Room 126, but she checked out an hour ago. I believe she’s holding a press conference at the Fairmont before flying to New York.”
I’m so grateful, I spring up to lean over the tall counter and kiss him on the cheek before turning for the exit. I catch Murray repeating my actions, and then he’s right beside me. Paul’s had to circle the block, but he’s back. We cram back into the car, and Paul peels out.
We come to an intersection, though, where because of all the one-way streets and the traffic, we can’t get there from here. Suddenly Jack jumps out of the back - not sure how he did that with his bad knees and problematic back, but he does - and starts directing traffic. We lurch forward, and another car tries to cut us off. Jack holds him off, and we move again, only to halt when a Beemer crowds in. One more time, Jack sticks out his arm, and the other driver yields. We’re off! We don’t stop for Jack, but Sam leans out the window over my lap and yells back to him that he’s her hero. I consider rolling my eyes, but think better of it when she glares at me.
I leap out at the Fairmont and repeat my mad dash for the counter. A snob of a manager named Harry Maybourne refuses to tell me anything about the press conference, though I attempt in vain to pass my Blockbuster Membership Card off as a press credential. Janet comes to the rescue - God love my friends! - as she wheels in with Sam pushing.
“He’s with me,” Janet announces. Maybourne doesn’t immediately attach any significance to that, asking just who she thinks she is. “I’m the person writing an article about how San Francisco hotels treat people in wheelchairs.” That changes his tune, but after saying where the press conference was, he warns that we’re probably too late.
“Run!” Sam shouts, and I do. I find the room at last, and there are hordes of reporters behind a velvet-looking, old movie-theater-style rope with stanchions in a semi-circle which keeps the photographers at least ten feet away from a table on a raised platform. Vala sits there with Liz on one side and George on the other; George seems to be marshalling the questions as he has a microphone in front of him, too. Reporters are asking questions as he calls on them. I weave toward the middle front of the pack, unsure of what I think I am going to do in front of all these people. George calls on a reporter named Bregman next.
“How much longer are you staying in the U.S., then?
“No time at all,” Vala answers. “I fly out tonight.” She looks sad and doesn’t answer with any of the vitality I know she has.
“Which is why we need to finish this up now. Final questions,” George announces. He picks on someone about five people away from me.
“Does your decision to take a year off have anything to do with the rumors about Cameron and his present leading lady?”
“Absolutely not.” But she doesn’t explain further. He pursues the topic, asking if she believes the rumors. “It’s really none of my business any more. Though, I will say, from my experience, rumors about Cam…do tend to be true.” The reporters chuckle among themselves and jot things down in their notepads. The next question comes from a guy right next to me.
“Last time you were here, there were some fairly racy photos taken of you and a local. So what happened there?”
“He was just a friend,” Vala answers, a thousand times more calmly than she answered me on the day in question. “I think we’re still friends.”
My hand rises of its own volition, and suddenly I hear George calling on me by my shirt collar. You’d think he’d know my name by now. It takes a moment for that to sink in, but I finally speak.
“Yes, Miss Mal Doran, are there any circumstances in which you two might be more than just friends?” She has looked up about halfway through the question, having recognized my voice. Vala schools her expression to one of mild interest as she finds me in the crowd.
“I had hoped there might be, but no, I’m assured there aren’t.”
“And what would you say,” I begin, only to be cut off by George who says I only get one question. Vala tells him to let me finish, and I try to reconstruct my thoughts. “Yes, I just wondered whether, if it turned out that this person…” When I pause, another journalist provides my name, which seems to amuse Vala no end. “Thanks, I just wondered if Mr. Jackson realized he’d been a foolish pr*ck and got down on his knees and begged you to reconsider…whether you would, indeed… reconsider.”
I can’t take my eyes off her, but out of the corner of my eye, I see Janet, Paul, Sam and Murray all watching from the doorway.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure I would.”
“That’s very good news. The readers of Archaeology will be absolutely delighted.” I see Vala whisper something to George, and he turns back to the first reporter, Bregman. He asks him to repeat his question.
“Vala, how long are you intending to stay here in the Bay Area?” Vala catches my eye, and I smile and nod.
“Indefinitely.” The crowd goes wild. Someone figures out who I am and starts snapping pictures. A few break through the inadequate barrier to take closer shots of Vala. We just stare at each other, unable to wipe the smiles off our faces. Off to the side, I catch a glimpse of Murray kissing some female reporter…twice. And Jack shows up, all sweaty and out of breath; apparently my sister doesn’t mind a bit, because she falls into his arms for a huge embrace.
Vala misses her appearance on Letterman.
* * * * * *
We marry on a beautiful spring day in Grace Cathedral in Huntington Park. I kiss Vala, and we step down into the garden where everyone’s waiting for us. Sam dances with Jack, and I see Dad has his eye on that. Mom tries to tame my hair - a lost cause at best. Jonas has outdone himself with the cake, which is shaped like a pyramid and decorated with glyphs. Paul looks dashing in his tux - very Bond like - and he pulls Vala onto the dance floor as Janet watches, laughing at his flourishes. Marty’s there, too, standing off to the side, moving awkwardly to the music but seemingly having a good time. Murray has a date - with the reporter he kissed at the Fairmont; she’s probably taking notes on everything.
* * * * * *
My first appearance with Vala as her husband is the premiere of her new film. We ride in a stretch limo to the theater, and after a quick kiss, Vala slips out first to take the brunt of the paparazzi frenzy. Then we do the red carpet thing. Of course, klutz that I am, I nearly trip and fall, but I catch myself. I don’t know that I’ll ever really get used to all of this foolishness, but I love her and can’t imagine not having her in my life.
* * * * * *
Months later, Vala’s year off is half over, and we walk to Huntington Park. It’s fall now, and the leaves are just starting to turn. We wander toward that bench, which we’ve unofficially claimed as ours, passing Murray and a group of others doing tai chi - so serene and graceful. Who knew Murray had it in him? I sit, and Vala lies at the other end of the bench, putting her feet on my lap. I read - Henry James, of course - and she rests. She needs to rest up for the birth of our first child, which is due in three months. Every so often I glance over at her belly and think how lucky I am to love her.
She may be the reason I survive
The why and wherefore I'm alive
The one I'll care for through the rough in many years
Me, I'll take her laughter and her tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where she goes I've got to be
The meaning of my life is she
She
She
see 1/2 for rest of header
“Your…boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
”Who is it?” I hear from the bedroom. Out walks her equally-famous boyfriend, Cameron Mitchell, opening his shirt and untucking it. I lie and say I’m room service, and he makes some odd comment about my attire and penguin suits. All the while, Vala stands there nervously glancing between the two of us. Mitchell asks for some cold water, specifying still, not sparkling. Then he asks me to clear his dishes and take out the trash. Mitchell’s oblivious to her discomfort as she suggests it’s not my job to clear. He looks at me to see if I’m okay with it and asks my name. I give him my friend, Murray’s name. He slips me a tip - a stingy one at that - before I go.
Mitchell asks her what she’s going to order, and she fumbles over not knowing. As he leaves the room, pulling off his shirt, he calls back, “Make it something light. Don’t want people to say, ‘There goes that famous actor with the big, fat girlfriend,’ you know.” I see Vala physically withdraw into herself at the comment, and I wonder at their relationship.
Now that Mitchell’s in the other room, I indicate I should leave, but first I confront her with, “This is a strange reality for me to be faced with. To be honest, I don’t realize…”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupts. I think I can tell she truly is, but then again, she *is* an actress. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I think good-bye is appropriate.” My answer is harsh, but I think I’m still in shock over the boyfriend.
I leave with the dishes and waste basket, not even able to think ahead what I’m going to do with it - or how Mr. Mitchell’s going to get his water. And frankly I don’t care. I decide I really don’t belong in her world, and it’s best I find this out right away. I walk for a while and then catch a bus, which appropriately enough is one plastered with her face.
The next time I go to see a movie, I’m drawn to the picture for which I endured the publicity junket. Vala, in space, in a space suit. At least this time, I have my glasses, and I can see her very clearly.
* * * * *
One day not too long after that, I’m sitting in the window seat, looking out over the City, and Jack walks in. He sits on the chair facing me.
“Come on - open up - this is me - Jack - I'm in contact with some quite important spiritual vibrations. What's wrong?”
“Well,” I begin, against my better judgment, “There’s this girl.”
”Ah, I was getting a female vibration.” Seriously, when *hasn’t* Jack gotten a female vibration? “Good. Go on.” Since he seems to be taking this more seriously than anything in the past, I continue.
“She's someone I just can't -- someone who... self-evidently can't be mine - and it's as if I've taken love-heroin - and now I can't even have it again. I've opened Pandora's box. And there's trouble inside.”
“Yeh. Yeh... tricky... tricky...” Jack scrunches his face in thought and taps the arm of the chair with his long fingers. “I knew a girl in college named Pandora...never got to see her box though.” He laughs at his own joke.
Okay, that’s it. The man is a retard and an a$$. I chalk my fatal error up to my melancholy disposition and just thank him for his non-help.
* * * * *
A few weeks later, my friends and I have gathered at Jonas’ restaurant. Paul, Janet, Murray, Sam and even Jack are there.
“You didn’t know she had a boyfriend,” Paul asks.
“No. Did you?” From the looks on their faces, I can tell everyone but me did know. “D*mmit all to hell,” I respond, “I can't believe it - my whole life ruined because I don't read the ‘Inquirer’ or watch ‘Entertainment Tonight’.”
“Let's face facts,” Paul states. “This was always a no-win situation from the beginning. Vala's a goddess, and you know what happens to mortals who get involved with the gods.”
“Screwed?” I ask.
“Every time,” he answers. “But don't despair. I think I have the solution to your problems.”
“Really?” I’m not entirely convinced I *want* to hear his idea.
“Her name is Kira, and she works in the contracts department. The hair, I admit, is unfashionable frizzy - but she's as bright as a button and kisses like a nymphomaniac on death row.” He catches the questioning look Janet’s giving him and hastily adds, “Apparently.”
About a week later Paul and Janet invite me for dinner and to meet Kira. It’s a disaster. She’s walks in and states the obvious, that Janet’s in a wheelchair. Then she suggests we get sloshed. She’s clingy and sickeningly sweet. The evening goes downhill from there.
Another week and Paul has another girl for me to meet. This one’s named Shyla. She seems to have an Oedipal complex with a famous dad, some well-known senator. And she’s a drug addict, I swear. She had to be high on something!
Lastly, Paul invites me over to meet Sarah Gardner. Beautiful, funny, charming, open-hearted, delightful - in a word, perfect. And tall. She looked me in the eyes in flats, and I’m six feet tall. As she leaves, Sarah kisses me on the cheek sweetly and suggests we might see each other again some time, and I obligingly say it would be great, knowing full well, my heart is nowhere near as open as hers at the moment. When I get back to the living room where Paul and Janet anxiously await the verdict, I tell them she’s perfect. They want more.
“I think you have forgotten,” I begin, “What an unusual situation you have here - to find someone you actually love, who'll love you - the chances are... always miniscule. Look at me - not counting the Australian - I've only loved two girls in my whole life, both total disasters.” I forestall Paul’s objection, “No really, one of them marries me and then leaves me quicker than you can say Gray Grantham - and the other, who seriously ought to have known better, casually marries my best friend.”
“Still loves you, though,” Janet offers in consolation.
“In a depressingly asexual way,” I complain. She thinks about it for a second before she responds.
“I never really been attracted to you much actually...” We laugh. “I mean I love you. You’re terribly funny. But all that…” She shudders. “No, like kissing my brother.”
“Oh no -- this is just getting worse. I am going to find myself, 30 years from now, still on this couch.” She asks if I want to stay the night, and I answer, “Why not? All that awaits me at home is a masturbating Irishman.” Paul carries Janet up the stairs, and I just watch, their love for each other so blatant. How can I be jealous of that? How can I not?
The next morning I walk back to my place to shower and shave. I’m almost done when I hear the doorbell. I open the door to find Vala standing there with sunglasses on. She’s upset, crying. She asks to come in, and I move back to let her. As she passes, I notice her really disheveled appearance, which I’d overlooked at first with the shock of seeing her at all. I soon find out that someone has posted some graphic photos of her on the internet, and the news is all the rage in the tabloids.
“They were taken years ago - I know it was...well, I was poor and it happens a lot - that's not an excuse - but to make things worse, it now appears someone was filming me as well. So what was a stupid photo-shoot now looks like a porno film. And well... the pictures have been sold and they're everywhere.” I don’t know what to say, so I just shake my head. “I didn’t know where to go,” she says. “The hotel is surrounded.”
“This is the place,” I assure her.
”Thanks. I’m just in town for a couple of days.” She composes herself a bit and further explains, “These are such horrible pictures. They're so grainy... they make me look like...”
“Don't think about it. We'll sort it out. Now what would you like - tea... bath...?”
”A bath would be great,” she admits. I see her shoulders relax. She sighs as though a great weight has been lifted.
Later, we sit in the kitchen eating toast with strawberry jam, and she tries to explain what happened at the Ritz. “He just flew in unexpectedly,” she says after apologizing about it. “I had no idea - in fact, I had no idea whether he’d *ever* fly in again.”
I lie and tell her it’s fine. “I don’t get the opportunity to ‘adios the plates’” - as Mitchell had actually put it - “for a major Hollywood star very often. It was a thrill for me, really.” For that I earn a smile, and I mirror it. But on a more serious note, and before I fall hopelessly for her yet again, I ask, “How is he?”
“I have no idea,” she answers. After a moment’s reflection she explains, “It got to the point where I couldn’t remember any of the reasons I loved him. What about your love life?”
“Well, there’s a question - without an interesting answer.”
“I have thought about you,” she tells me. I don’t want to hear this. “It’s just…any time I’ve tried to keep things normal, with anyone normal - it’s been a disaster.”
Expressing my appreciation for her explanation and candor, I try to change the subject tactfully. I latch onto the script she has in her hand. “Is that the next film you’re shooting?”
“Yes, we start in L.A. on Tuesday.”
I offer to help her work on her lines, and she gratefully accepts and gives me a basic run-down on the plot. She’s a brilliant but difficult junior officer who’s going to save the world in about twenty minutes. We work on the lines for a while. She butchers them terribly, but I can’t blame her. It’s a bunch of technobabble no one’s going to understand. We take it out on the roof terrace to enjoy some fresh air. At one point, she asks me what I think of the script. I think I make some vaguely positive comment before comparing it unfavorably with Jane Austen or Henry James. She asks if I think she should do one of those adaptations, and I assure her I think she’d be great at it. We joke around about these writers being pretty good, too, but you never hear anyone in a Henry James production asking for a “naquadah generator” to be set on a feedback loop to overload it or to go through the “Stargate”, whatever that is.
Later, as we’re sitting in the kitchen, Vala comments on my calendar, which has an art print of a Chagall painting on the upper half. The bride floats in a blue expanse. When I ask if she likes Chagall, she answers affirmatively.
“It feels like how being in love should be,” she says. “Floating through a dark blue sky.”
“With a goat playing a violin?” I ask.
“Of course, Daniel. Happiness wouldn’t be happiness without a violin-playing goat.” She has roped me in again.
Just then Jack returns with several pizzas and a 6-pack of his favorite beer. He lists off the ingredients, and all have meat. I remind him Vala’s a vegetarian, and well, he offers to pick off the pepperoni for her and eat her share. Right.
After pizza, Jack heads off to his favorite bar since the 6-pack is long gone, and Vala and I settle in the living room. We both have something to read, but I get the distinct impression she’s not paying that much attention to her magazine.
“You’ve got bigt feet,” she declares.
“Yes, they’ve always been big, well since puberty anyway.” Did I just mention puberty? Jeez, way to go, Daniel!
“You know what they say about men with big feet, don’t you?”
“No,” I play along, “What?”
“Big feet…large…shoes.” I laugh at her dumb joke, and she smiles wickedly. I go get us some ice cream, and while we eat it, she talks about nudity in the film industry.
“The thing that’s so irritating is that now I’m so totally fierce when it comes to nudity clauses.”
“You actually have something in your contracts about nudity?” This is news to me, but then I don’t read ‘The Inquirer’.
Vala goes on to give examples of wording, but when she mentions having “full consultation” if a stunt person is used, I can’t resist asking, “You have a stunt bottom?”
“I *could* have a stunt bottom, yes.”
“Would you be tempted to go for a slightly better bottom than your own?” Not that I can imagine one existing in this galaxy or the next, actually.
“Definitely! This is important stuff.” I can’t imagine.
“One helluva job, isn’t it? What do you put on your resume? Most recent work: Mel Gibson’s bottom.”
“Actually, Mel does his own a$$ work. Why wouldn’t he?” I can’t imagine that either. “It’s delicious,” she pronounces, and I’m not entirely sure whether she means the ice cream - so I ask.
“The ice cream or Mel Gibson’s bottom?”
“Both, equally.” She smiles and licks off her spoon.
“But you wouldn’t necessarily lick…both.”
“I don’t know. This is peachy…and fuzz free.”
While Vala ‘adioses the dishes’, I put fresh linen on my bed and bring down a pillow and duvet to the sofa for myself. I’m not going to assume anything. As I’m walking her upstairs, she surprises me by saying, “This has been a good day. Which, under the circumstances, is…unexpected.” I thank her and suggest it’s time for bed - or in my case, the sofa bed. She agrees and then leans forward and kisses me lightly on the lips before disappearing behind my bedroom door.
As I’m lying on the couch, trying to get comfortable, I think about her. I can’t get to sleep. I wonder what type of relationship - if any - she wants with me. I hear the stairs creak, and my heart skips a beat to think Vala might be coming to me.
“Hello?” I whisper.
“Hello,” Jack answers. I groan. “I wonder if I could talk to you for a minute.” He appears around the column, in just his boxers again, and I pray that Vala doesn’t come out while he’s running around like this.
“About what, Jack?” I hope this is quick.
“I don’t want to interfere, or anything, but…she just broke up with her boyfriend, right?”
“Maybe.”
“And she’s here in your house?”
“Yes.”
“And you two get along swell, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t you think this might be a good time to…?” He doesn’t finish the question but makes a crude gesture.
“Jack, for G*d’s sake, she’s in trouble. Get a grip, will you?”
“Right. Okay. You think the timing’s bad. Got it.” He starts to leave and then looks back. “Do you mind if I give it a shot?”
“Jack!”
“No. Right. Gotcha.”
“I’ll talk to you in the morning.” He says something back as he’s leaving about morning possibly being too late, but I turn over and punch the pillow. I’m just settling back down, not really drifting off to sleep yet, but relaxing, when I hear the stairs creak again. “Oh, for crying out loud, go to bed!”
“Okay,” I hear Vala say.
“Wait. No!” I jump off the couch and go after her. “I thought you were someone else…I thought you were Jack. I’m happy it’s you instead.”
We come face to face in the dark, only the moonlight shining through the front window illuminating her exquisite features - and long legs. She’s wearing one of my shirts, and, I suspect, nothing else. Before I know it, I’m holding my hand to her face, and slipping it around her neck to pull her close. I kiss along her neck, pushing the shirt collar back for better access, and then I make my way up along her jaw line and then to her mouth.
“Wow!” I whisper the exclamation as though observing a sacred ceremony in a holy place.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing.” I kiss her again. After that we go upstairs together. As we’re lying in bed some time later, Vala wriggles and snuggles up to me, and I caress her arm as tenderly as I know how, even though I suspect she’s really already asleep. It’s all so very new and extraordinary to me, and she’s so spectacular.
The next morning we sleep in, and lying with our heads at opposite ends of the bed and sharing the duvet, I admit, “It still strikes me as, well, surreal that I’m allowed to see you naked.”
“You and everyone in the world!”
“Oh, yes. I’m sorry!”
She wants to know why men find nudity so fascinating, particularly breasts, and I’m at a loss to explain. She points out that every other person on the planet has them, mothers have them and feed their children with them and they’re odd looking. After all that, I’m not quite sure what the fascination is, but it gives me a chance to check hers out again, which she allows with a good measure of eye rolling. Then she quotes some actress from fifty years ago, and talks about how people’s perception of someone famous isn’t what they get in real life, which often leads to disappointment. This leads to the inevitable reassurance.
“You are more beautiful to me this morning than you have ever been.” This seems to sink in, and then suddenly she leaps out of the bed and says she’ll be back in a minute. She returns with coffee and toast and juice.
“Breakfast in bed. Or lunch. Or brunch.” She sits beside me on the bed, nibbling on one of the pieces of toast. “May I stay a bit longer?”
“Stay forever,” I plead. I want her to say yes to that so badly!
Instead, she says, “D*mn, I forgot the jam.” Just then the doorbell rings, and she offers to get the jam if I answer the door, which to this day I regret.
When I open the door, hundreds of camera flashes blind me, and an equal number of voices shouting questions assail me. I close the door and head for the kitchen. Vala appears at the top of the steps, wanting to know who was at the door. I tell her not to ask, but this seems only to pique her curiosity. Or she thinks I’m fooling around. She brushes past me, still only in my long-sleeved dress shirt, and opens the door. The paparazzi explode, and she closes the door in a split second.
Panic sets in. She realizes they’ve photographed me in only a t-shirt and shorts. Then they got pictures of her in my shirt. Jack chooses this moment to arrive on the scene in only his boxer briefs with a terrible case of “bed head”. Vala races past him, and he just gives me a thumbs-up for what he considers a “conquest”. I ignore him as I pass with only a muttered warning not to go outside. He ignores me and opens the door as I find Vala on the phone.
“It’s Vala. The press is here. No, there are hundreds of them. My brilliant plan was apparently not so brilliant after all. Yeah, I know, I know. Just get me out of here.” With a couple of choice expletives I’d expect to come from Jack, not Vala, she runs up the stairs. I follow. As she dresses, I ask how she’s doing. Her bitter response grates. “How do you *think* I’m doing, Daniel?”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“I do. Your fuzzy friend there thought he’d make a buck or two telling the papers where I was.” She begins to pack as I deny it. Jack’s a pig at times, but he wouldn’t do that for money. “Really? The entire Bay Area press just woke up this morning and thought, ‘Hey, I know where Vala is. She’s in that house with the blue door in Nob Hill.’ And then you go out in your g*dd*mn underwear.”
Jack stands in the doorway and announces he went out in his g*dd*mn underwear too. I tell him to get out, and he apologizes and leaves.
“This is such a mess. I come to you to protect myself against more crappy gossip, and now I’ve landed in it all over again. For G*d’s sake, I’ve got a boyfriend!”
“You do?” I am both shocked and confused.
“As far as they’re concerned I do. And now, tomorrow there’ll be pictures of you in every newspaper from here to Timbuktu.”
I acknowledge that but try to calm her. She rants on.
“You can stay calm. It’s the perfect situation for you, isn’t it? Minimum input, maximum publicity. Everyone you ever bump into will know. ‘Way to go, man! You slept with that actress; we’ve seen the pictures!’”
I tell her that’s spectacularly unfair, but she has none of it.
“Who knows, it may even help business. Buy a boring book about Egypt from the guy who screwed Vala Mal Doran.” With that she leaves me stunned, but I recover and follow, begging her to calm down, maybe have a cup of coffee.
“I don’t want a g*dd*mn cup of coffee. I want to go home.”
I hear the doorbell again and ask Jack to check who it is. He opens the landing window and pokes his head out. He says it looks like a chauffeur, and I know my time is limited. I make one last attempt to reason with Vala.
“Wait a minute,” I beg as I follow her from kitchen to the entry hall. “Can’t we just laugh about this? Seriously, in the huge scope of things, this stuff doesn’t matter.”
“Next he’ll say there are people starving in the Sudan,” Jack offers from the kitchen.
“Well, there are,” I agree. “And we don’t need to go anywhere near that far. My best friend slipped down the stairs, cracked her back, and now she’s in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. All I’m asking for is a normal amount of perspective.”
Vala stops. Her voice changes from maniacal to controlled anger. “You’re right, of course,” she says in a low voice that scares me more than a little. “It’s just that I’ve dealt with this garbage for ten years now. You’ve had it for ten minutes. Our perspectives are different.” She has a point, but still, I try again.
“I mean, today’s newspapers will line birdcages and wrap fish tomorrow. It’s just one day. Today’s papers will have been thrown away tomorrow.”
“Excuse me?” I realize too late I’ve taken the wrong tack and offended her.
“You really don’t get it. This story gets filed. Every time anyone writes anything about me, they’ll dig up these photos. Newspapers last forever. I’ll regret this forever.” My heart sinks. I’m done.
“Right. Fine. I will do just the opposite, if that’s okay with you. I will always be glad you came. But you’re right. You probably had better go.”
She’s staring at me. I can’t read her face. The doorbell rings again, and she opens the door. Her people - George, Liz and two burly bodyguards “adios” her from my life. And suddenly it’s deathly quiet.
“Was it you?” I ask Jack without turning.
“I suppose I might have let it slip to one or two people down at the Bigfoot or Hyde Out.” Hyde Out is Jack’s main haunt, with its thirty beers on tap and free popcorn, though he hangs at the Bigfoot Lodge, too. There, taxidermy trophies and antler accoutrements dot the premises of this kitschy log-cabin-themed bar, where a 9-foot-tall resin Sasquatch presides over the pseudo-rustic scene. Happy campers can circle around the fake fireplace and sample drink specials such as the Toasted Marshmallow, the Forest Fire and the Girl Scout Cookie.
I shake my head and wait to turn until I’m sure he’s gone. As sure as I am that Vala is gone for good.
* * * * *
Months pass, and I go on. I know I’m no picnic to hang around, but I haven’t seen Sam in weeks when she rushes into the book shop one dreary day. Jack’s with her, which seems a bit odd; he’s kept to himself or at least out of my way all this time. Sam can hardly contain herself.
“Have we got something for you! Something which will make you love me so much you’ll want to hug me every single day for the rest of my life.” She’s clutching a piece of paper.
“Wow, what could be that incredible?” She sticks her tongue out at me for that.
“The phone number of Vala Mal Doran’s agent. You can call her. You think about her all the time; now you can call her!”
I thank her, and she leaves with Jack, pausing at the door. “See you tonight. Hey, Marty - sexy outfit!” Once she’s gone I toss the paper in the nearest trash can.
* * * * *
That night we gather at Jonas’ restaurant. We’re all there again - including Jack.
“I have a speech to make,” Janet announces. “I won’t stand up because I can’t…be bothered. Exactly a year ago today, this man here started the finest restaurant in San Francisco.” Jonas thanks her. “Unfortunately, no one but us ever came to eat here.” Jonas acknowledges that tiny hiccup in his plans. “So we must face the fact that starting next week, we have to find somewhere else to eat.” I watch Jonas’ face; he’s crushed. “I just want to say, Jonas, don’t take it personally. The more I think about things, the more I see no rhyme or reason in life. No one knows why some things work out, and some things don’t. Why some of us get lucky,” and with that she gave Paul a smile. “And some of us…”
“Get fired,” Murray finishes. We all express our amazement, and Murray explains, “Well yes, they’re shifting the whole outfit much more towards the emerging markets, and of course - well, I was total crap.” I’m still taking in that news when Jonas proposes a toast.
“So we go down together! A toast to Murray, the worst stockbroker in the whole world!” We raise our glasses, and then Sam pipes in.
“Since it’s an evening of announcements, I’ve got one, too. I - I’ve decided to get engaged.” We look from one to another in the group, and I see only bewildered expressions; no one seems to be clued in on this. I protest not having been informed previously, as the older brother, and ask Janet if she was keeping the secret, which she denies.
Paul finally has the presence of mind to ask if it’s someone we know, and Janet follows up with whether he will be able to support them both. Sam tells us he’s an artist with brilliant prospects. I’m trying to think of what artists she knows. I’m too dazed to think properly. I see her lean over to Jack, and I think, ‘No…can’t be.’ But it turns out later to be true. Paul asks if anyone else has any announcements, and I say I do.
“I have to apologize to you all for my behavior the last six months. I know I’ve acted pretty down in the mouth.”
“That’s the understatement of the year. There are dead people with more enthusiasm.” I ignore Paul’s jabs.
“But I have turned a corner, and vow going forward that I intend to be impressively happy.”
Two hours and a lot of wine later, I’m talking with Paul. The ladies are at the table, Janet announcing sloppily that she’s horribly drunk and Sam reaching out to comfort her. Jack’s dancing to the music - or his own drummer, while Jonas sits in a corner morosely surveying his soon-to-be-lost domain. Murray keeps a silent vigil over him, almost in a meditative state. Or maybe that’s the wine, too.
“So, you’ve laid the ghost,” Paul asks.
“I think so.”
“Don’t give a damn about the famous girl.”
“No, I don’t think I do.”
“So, you wouldn’t be the least interested to know that she’s back in the City, grasping her Oscar and filming her next project.” Paul sets a copy of a tabloid in front of me, Vala stares back from the cover.
“Oh, G*d, no.”
“So…not over her, then?”
* * * * *
I don’t know what I’m thinking, arriving on location without calling first. The security people won’t let me through, of course, and that’s embarrassing. I luck out when Vala spots me from a distance as Liz and several others involved in the production (I assume) try to hustle her off to the set. She walks over, clutching the long, full skirt of her costume and followed by her entourage. Neither of us knows what to say at first. She begins with the obvious.
“This is certainly a surprise.”
“I only found out yesterday you were here.”
“I was going to call, but…I didn’t think you’d want to…” Liz whispers that she’s needed on the set right away, and Vala nods. “It’s not going very well, and it’s our last day here.”
“Sure. You’re busy.”
“But…wait…there are things…to say. If you could wait.” I agree, and she chuckles. “Drink coffee. There’s lots of coffee.”
Liz shows me over to a stand with all kinds of electronics. “This is Siler. He’ll hook you up with headphones, so you can hear the dialogue.” Siler hands me a set of headphones and instructs me on their use. Once I put them on, I can hear both Vala and another actor trying to rehearse their lines while they wait for the director to cue their action.
“We’re living in cloud-cuckooland. We’ll never get this done today,” says the other actor, who reminds me of Sam’s dad, my foster father, Jacob.
“We have to, Bray” Vala objects. “I have to be in New York on Thursday for Letterman.”
“Show off.”
“And quit checking out all the girls, you dirty old man. Let’s work on our lines, and you can stop ogling all the T&A on set. So, I ask you when you’re going to tell everyone, and you say…?”
“Tomorrow will be soon enough.” He looks up at her from the script and asks her, “Say, who was that rather diffident fellow you were talking to on the way up?”
“Oh, no one. No one. Just some…guy from the past. I really don’t know what he’s doing here. Bit of an awkward situation, if you know what I mean.”
He nods, and I pull off the headphones, returning them to a confused Siler with thanks. I leave then, without talking to Vala further. Again, I feel I can move on.
* * * * * *
The next day, I’m adding up the month’s sales and preparing the report for our accountant, whom I obviously can’t afford, when Marty interrupts.
“I hate to disturb you when you’re cooking the books, but there’s a delivery.”
“Marty, can’t you just deal with it yourself?” I hate to be impatient with the guy, but seriously, sometimes I wonder what I pay him for.
“But it’s not for the shop. It’s for you…personally.”
“Okay. Tell me, would I have to pay a wet rag as much as I pay you?” He’s smiling broadly, though I’ve just insulted him, I’m sure. When I turn to sign for the delivery, it’s not Walter, our usual UPS guy. Vala shifts from foot to foot and adjusts a large wrapped package that’s obviously as awkward to manage as I imagine this conversation’s going to be. We greet each other with simple hellos, and Marty fades into the background.
“You disappeared.”
“Yes, sorry about that. I had to go. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Oh, okay. How have you been?” She’s still shifting, and her eyes wander nervously over the shop.
“Fine. Pretty much same ol’, same ol’. When they change the law for good, Jack and I will marry immediately. Whereas you…I’ve watched in wonder. Awards, glory…and all that jazz.”
She makes light of it all, calling it nonsense. I keep eyeing the package, so she finally steers the conversation back around to it. “Well, yesterday was our last day of filming here, and so I’ll be leaving. But I had brought you this from home, and…I thought I’d give it to you.”
I thank her and take it. She stops me from opening it right away, saying she’d be embarrassed. I thank her again.
“I actually had it in my apartment in New York, and just thought you’d…but, when it came down to it, I didn’t know how to call you…having behaved so badly…twice. So it has just been sitting in the hotel. But then you came…so I figured…the thing is…the thing is…” She stops, and as I’ve been hanging on her every word, I feel like I’m dangling over a cliff.
“What’s the thing?” Just at that moment the bell jingles as the annoying customer who comes in looking for novels enters. “Don’t even think about it. Go away!” He apologizes and leaves, and I turn back to Vala. “You were saying?”
“Yes, the thing is, I have to go away today, but I wondered, if I didn’t, whether you might let me see you a bit…or…a lot maybe. See if you could…um…like me again.”
It’s a lot to take in, and I choose my words carefully.
“But yesterday, that actor asked you who I was, and you just dismissed me out of hand. I heard it all, through the headphones.”
“You expect me to tell the truth about my life to the most indiscreet man in the country?” Her cheeks flush with temper, and I fear I’m in for another irrational tirade. Marty interrupts with a phone call from my (foster) mother, who won’t leave a message because I didn’t call her back soon enough last time. I love the woman who raised me after my parents died in an accident, but her timing is impeccable as always. I leave Marty with Vala and take her call. When I return, Marty bows out, and I get the feeling their conversation went about as well as I would expect it to.
“Sorry about that.”
“That’s okay. There’s always a pause when the jury goes out to consider its verdict.” I know she’s waiting for my response, but she’s not going to like what I have to say.
“Vala, look, I’m a fairly level-headed guy. Not in and out of love all the time. But…can I just say ‘no’ to your kind request and leave it at that?” Tears well up in those gorgeous eyes, and I still don’t know if she’s acting or it’s all real. I suspect the latter, so when she starts to leave, I stop her. “The truth is…with you, I’m in real danger. It looked like a perfect situation, apart from that foul temper of yours, but I don’t think my relatively inexperienced heart would recover if you - as I suspect you might - cast me aside again. There are just too many pictures of you everywhere, too many films. You’d go and I’d be…well, screwed, basically.”
“I see,” she says. “That really is a real ‘no’, then, isn’t it?”
“I live in Nob Hill. You live in Beverly Hills. Everyone in the world knows who you are. My mother has trouble remembering my name.”
“Okay. Fine. Fine. Good decision.” After a pause, she adds, “The fame thing isn’t really real, you know. Don’t forget, I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” With that, she kisses me on the cheek, says, “Bye,” very quietly and leaves.
* * * * * *
That afternoon, I’m sitting in Jonas’ restaurant, which is half deconstructed at this point. Paul and Janet are there; Sam, too. I tell them all what I’ve done and show them the ‘violin-playing goat painting’, which is what Vala had given me earlier.
“What do you think? Good move?”
“Good move,” Sam agrees. “When all is said and done, she’s nothing special. I saw her taking her pants off, and I definitely got a glimpse of some cellulite down there.”
“Good decision,” says Janet. “All actresses are nuts.”
I ask Jonas what he thinks, but he’s never met her. Says he never wants to, but I have trouble believing that for some reason. I turn to Paul. He concurs and reminds me never to trust a vegetarian.
“Great. Thanks, everyone. Excellent.”
Jack bursts in, out of breath.
“You called. I came. What’s up?” When Sam fills him in, he calls me a foolish pr*ck. I look away and see Janet studying Vala’s painting.
“This isn’t the original, is it?”
“Yes, actually, I think it might be.”
“But she said she wanted to go out with you?” Murray asks.
“Well, yes…sort of.”
“That’s nice.”
“Huh? What?” I need clarification.
“Well, you know, anybody saying they want to go out with you is pretty great, isn’t it?”
I think about our encounter. “It was sort of sweet, actually. I mean, I know she’s an actress and all that, so she can deliver a line. But she said that she might be as famous as can be, but also, she was just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” I wait while they absorb this information. The look on Jack’s face tells me what he thinks, if his earlier words hadn’t made it abundantly clear. “Oh, crap. I’ve made the wrong decision, haven’t I?” Jack nods. “Paul, how fast is your car?”
Moments later we all pile into Paul’s Ford Taurus wagon to go to the Ritz-Carlton, all except Janet. He won’t leave without her, though, so we all shift. Murray, Sam and I sit in the middle row, and Jack’s crammed in the back with Janet’s wheelchair. We all start back-seat driving, telling Paul how to get there, and he brakes to a halt. He insists that as the driver he will determine the route and then mutters something in a bad Scottish accent about how James Bond never has to put up with this sort of crap.
At the Ritz, I run in and look for someone at the counter to help me. The first person I see is helping someone already. I move around a column and find a man who appears to be the manager, or at least a person in charge. His name badge says, “H. Landry”.
“Mr…Landry. Is Miss Mal Doran staying here.”
“No, sir.” I recognize his voice; this is the same man I spoke to on the phone. That reminds me.
“How about Miss Flintstone?” I ask hopefully. Murray has followed me in, and he gives me the oddest look. I know I’ll have to explain that one later.
“No, sir.”
“Or…Bambi? Oh, I don’t know…Beavis or…Butthead?” Mr. Landry shakes his head and answers in the negative.
“Right. Okay. Fair enough. We tried. Thanks.” I can’t believe I’ve blown it! I start to leave, but Mr. Landry calls after me quietly.
“There was a Miss Pocahontas in Room 126, but she checked out an hour ago. I believe she’s holding a press conference at the Fairmont before flying to New York.”
I’m so grateful, I spring up to lean over the tall counter and kiss him on the cheek before turning for the exit. I catch Murray repeating my actions, and then he’s right beside me. Paul’s had to circle the block, but he’s back. We cram back into the car, and Paul peels out.
We come to an intersection, though, where because of all the one-way streets and the traffic, we can’t get there from here. Suddenly Jack jumps out of the back - not sure how he did that with his bad knees and problematic back, but he does - and starts directing traffic. We lurch forward, and another car tries to cut us off. Jack holds him off, and we move again, only to halt when a Beemer crowds in. One more time, Jack sticks out his arm, and the other driver yields. We’re off! We don’t stop for Jack, but Sam leans out the window over my lap and yells back to him that he’s her hero. I consider rolling my eyes, but think better of it when she glares at me.
I leap out at the Fairmont and repeat my mad dash for the counter. A snob of a manager named Harry Maybourne refuses to tell me anything about the press conference, though I attempt in vain to pass my Blockbuster Membership Card off as a press credential. Janet comes to the rescue - God love my friends! - as she wheels in with Sam pushing.
“He’s with me,” Janet announces. Maybourne doesn’t immediately attach any significance to that, asking just who she thinks she is. “I’m the person writing an article about how San Francisco hotels treat people in wheelchairs.” That changes his tune, but after saying where the press conference was, he warns that we’re probably too late.
“Run!” Sam shouts, and I do. I find the room at last, and there are hordes of reporters behind a velvet-looking, old movie-theater-style rope with stanchions in a semi-circle which keeps the photographers at least ten feet away from a table on a raised platform. Vala sits there with Liz on one side and George on the other; George seems to be marshalling the questions as he has a microphone in front of him, too. Reporters are asking questions as he calls on them. I weave toward the middle front of the pack, unsure of what I think I am going to do in front of all these people. George calls on a reporter named Bregman next.
“How much longer are you staying in the U.S., then?
“No time at all,” Vala answers. “I fly out tonight.” She looks sad and doesn’t answer with any of the vitality I know she has.
“Which is why we need to finish this up now. Final questions,” George announces. He picks on someone about five people away from me.
“Does your decision to take a year off have anything to do with the rumors about Cameron and his present leading lady?”
“Absolutely not.” But she doesn’t explain further. He pursues the topic, asking if she believes the rumors. “It’s really none of my business any more. Though, I will say, from my experience, rumors about Cam…do tend to be true.” The reporters chuckle among themselves and jot things down in their notepads. The next question comes from a guy right next to me.
“Last time you were here, there were some fairly racy photos taken of you and a local. So what happened there?”
“He was just a friend,” Vala answers, a thousand times more calmly than she answered me on the day in question. “I think we’re still friends.”
My hand rises of its own volition, and suddenly I hear George calling on me by my shirt collar. You’d think he’d know my name by now. It takes a moment for that to sink in, but I finally speak.
“Yes, Miss Mal Doran, are there any circumstances in which you two might be more than just friends?” She has looked up about halfway through the question, having recognized my voice. Vala schools her expression to one of mild interest as she finds me in the crowd.
“I had hoped there might be, but no, I’m assured there aren’t.”
“And what would you say,” I begin, only to be cut off by George who says I only get one question. Vala tells him to let me finish, and I try to reconstruct my thoughts. “Yes, I just wondered whether, if it turned out that this person…” When I pause, another journalist provides my name, which seems to amuse Vala no end. “Thanks, I just wondered if Mr. Jackson realized he’d been a foolish pr*ck and got down on his knees and begged you to reconsider…whether you would, indeed… reconsider.”
I can’t take my eyes off her, but out of the corner of my eye, I see Janet, Paul, Sam and Murray all watching from the doorway.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure I would.”
“That’s very good news. The readers of Archaeology will be absolutely delighted.” I see Vala whisper something to George, and he turns back to the first reporter, Bregman. He asks him to repeat his question.
“Vala, how long are you intending to stay here in the Bay Area?” Vala catches my eye, and I smile and nod.
“Indefinitely.” The crowd goes wild. Someone figures out who I am and starts snapping pictures. A few break through the inadequate barrier to take closer shots of Vala. We just stare at each other, unable to wipe the smiles off our faces. Off to the side, I catch a glimpse of Murray kissing some female reporter…twice. And Jack shows up, all sweaty and out of breath; apparently my sister doesn’t mind a bit, because she falls into his arms for a huge embrace.
Vala misses her appearance on Letterman.
* * * * * *
We marry on a beautiful spring day in Grace Cathedral in Huntington Park. I kiss Vala, and we step down into the garden where everyone’s waiting for us. Sam dances with Jack, and I see Dad has his eye on that. Mom tries to tame my hair - a lost cause at best. Jonas has outdone himself with the cake, which is shaped like a pyramid and decorated with glyphs. Paul looks dashing in his tux - very Bond like - and he pulls Vala onto the dance floor as Janet watches, laughing at his flourishes. Marty’s there, too, standing off to the side, moving awkwardly to the music but seemingly having a good time. Murray has a date - with the reporter he kissed at the Fairmont; she’s probably taking notes on everything.
* * * * * *
My first appearance with Vala as her husband is the premiere of her new film. We ride in a stretch limo to the theater, and after a quick kiss, Vala slips out first to take the brunt of the paparazzi frenzy. Then we do the red carpet thing. Of course, klutz that I am, I nearly trip and fall, but I catch myself. I don’t know that I’ll ever really get used to all of this foolishness, but I love her and can’t imagine not having her in my life.
* * * * * *
Months later, Vala’s year off is half over, and we walk to Huntington Park. It’s fall now, and the leaves are just starting to turn. We wander toward that bench, which we’ve unofficially claimed as ours, passing Murray and a group of others doing tai chi - so serene and graceful. Who knew Murray had it in him? I sit, and Vala lies at the other end of the bench, putting her feet on my lap. I read - Henry James, of course - and she rests. She needs to rest up for the birth of our first child, which is due in three months. Every so often I glance over at her belly and think how lucky I am to love her.
She may be the reason I survive
The why and wherefore I'm alive
The one I'll care for through the rough in many years
Me, I'll take her laughter and her tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where she goes I've got to be
The meaning of my life is she
She
She