Footsteps pounded behind him, and Patrick felt someone grab his bicep.
He spun around to see Emory.
“I thought that was you,” Emory said. His glasses, oddly, were spotted with rain.
“What are you doing here?” Patrick shook his head, amused. Emory wore a beanie slouched to one side, making him look like an idiot.
“On a break from filming.” Emory pulled the hat off his head, and Patrick was relieved it was part of a costume. “I sometimes come back here to think.”
Patrick looked around. This could be his world again soon enough. “Your glasses are wet.”
Emory crossed his eyes and focused on his lenses. “Oh. I ran past the Western town. They’re filming something with rain.”
What a bizarre occupation we share, Patrick thought.
“What about you? You’re a long way from home. What are you doing here?”
“Me?” Patrick asked, as if Emory could be inquiring about anyone else. He looked around at the brick and stone buildings that lined this New York block. “I’m a little lost.”
“No shit.”
“I was meeting about a show,” he said with a sour face. “If you can believe that.”
“Of course I can believe that. You’re a goddamn star.”
A plane went by overhead and they both paused to look up at the sky.
“What about the desert?” Emory inquired. “Coming out of retirement?”
“I don’t know.” Patrick tried to balance himself on a fake cobblestone. “The desert will always be there. But it’s time for me to rejoin the world.”
Emory smiled. “I’ll miss that pool.”
“I’ll loan you the house.”
“I’d miss you in it.” He smiled even broader. He had one chipped tooth Patrick hadn’t noticed before. Another flaw that somehow made him ideal. “Where you headed?”
“Now?” It was a good question. Patrick was lost in his thoughts; he wished there were more of the city to walk through. Alas, it ended ahead, melting into more bungalows and a small park set with a gazebo. “Back to my hotel. I have to walk the dog.”
Emory smirked. “Is that a euphemism?”
“No,” Patrick chuckled, remembering his explaining euphemisms to the kids. “No, it’s not.” Marlene, who was not used to hotels or the sounds of people walking a hallway outside her door, was certainly antsy and waiting to go out. “What about you?”
Emory’s eyes lit up from behind his spattered glasses. “I have one more scene to film, but then grabbing a drink with you.”
Patrick removed Emory’s glasses so he could see his eyes. “What are you looking for, Emory?”
“Nothing.” He winked like he had the night that they first met. “Everything.”
Patrick tried to call Joe’s face to mind. It came, blurred. Smudged. The features weren’t quite right. It’d been a lifetime since he’d seen it. Patrick did his best to dry Emory’s glasses on his shirt. “Well, I’m looking for . . . something.”
Emory nodded. “Any idea what that is?”
Patrick had never really seen Emory without his glasses. He looked older, more mature. “I think I’d rather like to do a play.” The words took Patrick by surprise. But they were in his head, planted by Cassie in his kitchen the day of their very first meeting. Being in LA felt like repeating something; Patrick desperately wanted to start something new.
Emory took a step forward and they stood nose-to-nose. He gestured at the Manhattan streetscape around them. “You’re in the right city, then.”
Patrick smiled in spite of himself. “I guess I am.”
“A play sounds like fun.”
“Does it?” Patrick was already second-guessing. It would mean saying no to a network show and the paycheck he was chasing for his family.
“Have a drink with me,” Emory encouraged. “We’ll talk it all out.”
They stood like this, on the sidewalk, at an impasse. Patrick blinked. Their eyelashes were almost touching. Emory wasn’t right for him, the age difference was just the start. But he also wasn’t wrong, and Patrick knew himself well enough to know when he was making excuses. Emory was full of life, a yes to his no. And the whole point of leaving the desert, coming out of isolation, was to stop. Making excuses. Saying no. “One drink,” Patrick relented. “Four max.”
Emory flagged a couple of extras wearing fringe vests and boots on their way to the Western town. “This is my friend Patrick,” he said to one of them. “He’s going to do a play.”