I’m not entirely focused on self-improvement. During the quiet hours when both of my kids are gone, I curl up on the couch and watch Dr. Phil or reality shows about people who have it worse than me. The idea here, I tell myself, is that it will help me feel better about my life. At least I didn’t send my life savings to a fake online boyfriend. At least I don’t have a compulsion to eat my own hair. In the end, I don’t feel better about my life. I just feel depressed that these people have it so bad.
At night I get in bed and scroll through his Instagram account. I know he doesn’t post his own stuff; I don’t even think he has Instagram on his phone. But whoever his agent hired to entertain Leo’s thirty million followers has to be getting his photos from somewhere. There are photos from the set of Mega Man, a few from around his house in L.A. Leo’s hair is longer. Leo’s wearing pastels now. There’s a happy birthday post to Naomi, a candid shot of the two of them on the set of The Tea House. I zoom in on Leo for clues as to who he is. One of these nights there will be a photo of him that reveals a trace of malice or, better, heartache on his face, and it will all make sense to me.
There’s one photo of the sunset that I swear he didn’t take. I don’t know how I know this, but I just know it isn’t how he would have captured it. This thought sets me back. It bothers me that I knew him so well. It bothers me that I can jump right back into his head and know what he’d think, when I actually have no idea who he is now. Maybe he did take that photo, I think. Maybe that’s how he sees things now. I vow to delete Instagram from my phone in the morning. I don’t delete Instagram.
My kids and I are careful with one another. They don’t know how to talk about this situation with Leo, and I suspect it’s because they don’t know what it was. All they know is that everything feels different without him, especially me. I try to bring Leo up in passing to keep him from being such a loaded topic. I try to talk about him as a thing that happened, a little excitement, but not a thing that we are bringing into the future.
Arthur’s camp is putting on a production of West Side Story to be performed for the whole town in mid-August. He can’t stand the director. “It’s like he doesn’t know anything about acting. He’s a gym teacher the rest of the year. All he ever does is tell us where to stand.” The main problem with this guy, I suspect, is that he’s not Leo.
I decide to take the opening. “That’s disappointing. But it was pretty unusual that you had a real movie star directing your last play.”
“I guess.” Arthur looks out the car window.
I try again. “Good thing you didn’t promise Leo you’d never pursue acting. Seems like it’s starting to be your thing.”
“Yeah, like Leo’s so big on promises.”
CHAPTER 16
It’s September, and I’m back. This is what I tell myself. I’d allotted myself a lazy period of mourning, and now it’s over. I am almost completely out of money so, effectively, I have constructed a situation where I will be forced to write to survive. I even spent two hundred dollars I probably shouldn’t have hosting a big Labor Day barbecue in the backyard. It was worth it. I set up the bar on the table in the tea house, and people wandered in and out, cleansing it. Someone spilled a margarita on the floor, and I almost said, Thank you. The best antidote to old memories is new ones.
At sunrise on the first day of school, I vow to stay snapped out of it. Today I will return to my pre–The Tea House self, and I will write. I’m a little tan; I’m my normal weight. I’m even doing some of the runs Leo and I did together, though I haven’t been to the bird sanctuary. I’m not insane.
When I walk out to the tea house, the door is closed. This has to work today, so I open the door, just the way I like it, and go back into my house to start again. I make a fresh mug of tea and re-sharpen my pencils. I approach the tea house and that old feeling is there. It’s a combination of inspiration and motivation. It’s magic, and I’m about to enter another world. I set my things down just so and build the fire.
Hair in a knot, I open my laptop and begin to type. I promised Jackie I’d have a complete script for TRC by October 1, which really shouldn’t be a problem. I write the story of a male actor from Manhattan who goes out to an old country house to film a movie and falls in love with the woman who lives there. They butt heads for a while, but then he steps in and helps with the school play. On the day of the play he’s sucked back into his own world, but has a change of heart and returns as the curtain rises. There’s a chaste kiss as the camera pulls back.