“Sixteen-year-old you?” John was teasing, and this time he smiled. Patrick did, too.
“That’s when I knew. I had to act. I had to bring that kind of certitude to every role—no matter how supporting. I haven’t thought about that in a while. That monster is still in me. But it’s more than that.”
“What is?”
“I have to go see my agent, as much as I loathe him. He does have me by the balls. Or, at least the situation does. I’m going to have to work when this summer is done. Help my brother support his kids.”
“Didn’t you say he was an attorney?”
“Yeah. But I have no idea what kind of medical bills he’s facing. The kind of debt they took on during Sara’s illness. I don’t want him to lose the house. And even if he’s okay for now, there’s the future to save for. Two college educations. Another ten years? Who knows what it will cost by then. I have to do my part. I owe it to their mother. And that means going to see my agent.”
John nodded; he had opened Patrick’s eyes—at least a bit. There was no need to say more. “Want me to talk to the kids?”
Patrick thought about it. He wasn’t sure John’s harsh truths were the right tactic. “Maybe. Can I let you know?”
“Sure. Do you want to come for a swim?”
“I don’t have my suit.”
John shot him a look. He’d peered over Patrick’s wall enough times to know that that never stopped him from swimming.
Patrick glanced back at his own pool. The water rippled in the breeze, glimmering on the surface. “It’s all right. I have a pool, too.”
“Yeah, but sometimes life is more fun with someone else.”
Patrick looked up at the sky again; this time a satellite floated effortlessly across the night. It was no shooting star, but something, in a pinch, upon which to make a wish.
ELEVEN
The halls buzzed and chattered as Patrick marched past cubicle after cubicle, down the agency halls, which seemed dappled with sunlight （but with no obvious windows or skylights, he couldn’t tell from where）， in search of his agent. He could hear people on their phones actually whisper his name, their hushed tones dripping with juicy excitement, as he walked by yelling, “Neal? Neal!” and wondering out loud where the hell they had moved his office. He didn’t judge the cubicle dwellers. They were merely a half step removed from the dreaded （but storied） agency mailroom, and probably only made a few bucks more than minimum wage for the privilege of being barked at or otherwise verbally assaulted by walking nightmares in Hugo Boss suits steeped in delusions of grandeur. They might as well be gossipmongers—they probably didn’t even have dental. But had he really been away that long? Were the tabloids right? In four short years he went from network star to Greta Garbo?
Patrick stuck his head in an empty office to see if he recognized anything of his agent’s and then spun three times in a circle like a dog might before lying down. “Neal? There’s no use hiding from me!”
A young woman approached from her cubicle, her hands clasped in a fashion that seemed inappropriately formal, like an extra in a community theater production of The Crucible. “Mr. O’Hara,” she said calmly, as if he were a wild animal she had been warned not to startle. “Neal moved offices. He’s now at the end of the hall.”
“They gave that asshole a corner office?” Patrick should have waited in reception, but he had long been amused by the way Dustin Hoffman’s character in Tootsie would burst into his beleaguered agent’s office unannounced and made it a bucket list item to try. There was no turning back now, so he forged ahead, ducking around the woman, nearly knocking a Rothko off the wall in the process.
Two days earlier Patrick had an eye-opening discussion with his accountant. He laid out his new responsibilities as he saw them and mapped where he wanted to be financially for each of the next sixteen years, when Grant would graduate from college. They talked taxes and property and tuition and bills and insurance and stocks and portfolios and assets and liabilities until Patrick’s head swam. He literally swam after their conversation. He dove into the deep end of his pool and thought about never resurfacing. It’s not that things were dire; they weren’t. They were just considerably more complicated. Patrick the loner would be fine. Patrick the family man had other obligations. When he finally came up for air it was with a fresh list of things to do.
Cassie Everest sat in the very last cubicle and Patrick waved as she looked up, stunned. “Look. I put on pants and everything.” He winked at her.