“And then?” he said, pouring. “Did the foxhole lose its luster?”
“He became part of the claustrophobia.”
Hugo draped one arm elegantly along the back of the sofa, his drink dangling from his fingertips. “Forget love. My dear, I’m a self-absorbed old narcissist, not your nanny, so I don’t care all that much what you do. Mostly I’m here because I can’t resist meddling. But as someone who’s made many rather impressive messes over the years, if I do say so myself, I believe I am uniquely well qualified to advise.”
“This is different.”
“I beg your pardon. How so?”
“You’re a man, for starters, and there wasn’t an internet when you were being chaotic.”
“You’re right. It’s been a very simple thing being me.” He glowered. “I almost married a woman once. A woman!”
“Disgusting.”
“Let me ask you, what is the worst possible outcome of all this?”
“Endless public shaming. I get fired from Archangel and never work again.”
“It wouldn’t be endless. People will move on sooner than you think. They don’t really care. And you don’t need to work again. You’re extremely rich. You could quit and go buy a winery somewhere. A goat farm. An island. Simplify. Live in peace. What do you want?”
My mind went blank, scrabbly and darting like a panicked animal. All I could think was that I didn’t want to keep feeling the way I felt. I wanted to feel good. An image came to me of myself holding an Oscar aloft, an auditorium of people on their feet, applauding me. “I want more,” I said. “Not less. I want to work.”
He narrowed his eyes, said in a low growl, “Good girl. There’s no reason you shouldn’t have more.”
“Well,” I said, “there are actually a few. No one in Hollywood cares I was unfaithful to Oliver, but they’ll care I was unfaithful to the brand.”
He groaned extravagantly. “You need to get outside this idea of brands. It’s so tiresome. Even if this hadn’t happened, I would have told you to quit. What’s the alternative? You keep doing Archangel until you’re too old and they quietly shunt you aside for someone younger? At least now you’ve established yourself as interesting and unpredictable, not some comely young automaton. Everyone will be looking to see what you do next. You’re not their pawn anymore. And people love a comeback.”
Three
When I was a teenager wreaking havoc, my uncle Mitch offered to take me on a trip, just us, anywhere I wanted. He thought it would be good for me to get away; he was between projects anyway. I chose Lake Superior, where my parents’ plane had vanished.
“Isn’t that a little morbid?” Mitch said.
I told him I just wanted to see it. And I did—I always had—but I also wanted to go somewhere where we wouldn’t do our usual stuff. Some fancy tropical resort wouldn’t have been a vacation because we would have just run around getting drunk and finding people to hook up with. Decadence was what I needed a break from.
We started in Sault Sainte Marie and drove clockwise all the way around, thirteen hundred miles in a rented soft-top Jeep Wrangler, the noisy discomfort of which was a just punishment for us being too cool for an economy sedan. I swam every day even though the water nearly strangled me with cold. I kept thinking about the sunken Cessna out there somewhere, wondering if infinitesimal particles of my parents were floating around me like fireflies.
“Would they just be bones now?” I asked Mitch, shouting over the Jeep’s flapping top and Pearl Jam on Canadian radio.
“Probably,” he shouted back. “I don’t know how long any of that stuff takes.”
“Why did he learn to fly?”
“What?”
“My dad. Why did he learn to fly?”
“I don’t know. I never asked.”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
“I don’t know!” He seemed irritated, then softened. “He wasn’t someone who liked being asked to explain himself. Runs in the family.”
Also, Mitch wasn’t great at remembering to be interested in other people. It’s not fair to blame him for anything, but the way some parents always repeat a mantra to their kids like “Treat others how you want to be treated” or “Actions speak louder than words,” Mitch would say “You only live once.” He would say it when he cracked a beer after three months sober or bet too much on a long shot at Santa Anita. He was the original YOLO guy. When I was little, I made casting agents laugh by solemnly parroting him whenever they asked me if I wanted to show them my biggest smile or be in a commercial for a water park. With my dirtbag Katie McGee–era friends, I didn’t even bother saying it. They knew.