Adulation (38 page)

She looked at him apologetically, a feeling of foolishness hidden behind it, he guessed.

“It’s no biggie,” he said. “You’ve been working hard lately. I figured you needed to cut loose.”

Charlene’s expression changed from regret to gratitude, and Danny felt good.

“So,” he said, “you up for going out? It’s going to be ridiculously gorgeous today, and I think wecould both use some fresh air.”

She willed herself off the stool and on her feet, gripping the edge of the island counter to steadyherself. “Give me two hours,” she said. “I’ll be as good as new.”

Danny took his iPad out to the lanai, checking e-mails and other sites, and trying hard to refrainfrom smoking another cigarette. The coughs were coming more frequently, the burning even morepronounced. He decided to go to Masterminds, not having been there since posting a message ofappreciation two days after his Oscar win. He scrolled back to the day of his post and found himselftouched by his fans’ stories about their Oscar parties, about rooting for him the way they rooted for theirsports teams, about shedding tears as if their brother or best friend had won. He was touched that theyactually
 
cared
, were willing to overlook his flaws. Yet it was their overlooking his flaws that made himequally distrustful of their intentions. Maybe that’s why Sunny was different—she had called him on hisflaw, not as some fan pissed off because she didn’t think she got her money’s worth or because shethought Danny Masters owed her something. No, Sunny had seen him in action, and it had nothing to dowith Danny the writer. She had called him out for the jackass he was.

He wanted to be a better person. Not for Sunny, or Charlene, or even Ella, he realized.

He continued to skim the discussion threads as he scrolled, until his eyes stopped on one that madehim sit up and take the iPad in his hands:

Remember Sunnyside? Well, she currently has a novel for a dollar on Kindle. I read it and it’s reallygood. Don’t let the price fool you.

Wasn’t Sunnyside the one who gave Danny a hard time about his apology?

Yes, she did. Sunnyside was also the one who called Danny a jackass and a failure. I know herpersonally. She confirmed.

No shit! I can’t help but notice she’s not here anymore.

And I hope she never comes back either. She disrespected DM and drove him from the boards.

Excuse me, but DM never came here before. If you recall, he came here to apologize, not to makefriends with all of us. Sunnyside  was always a breath of fresh air in here. There are plenty of us whomiss her. And she had good reason to give DM a piece of her mind. He called his fans wannabes,issued a disingenuous apology, and probably didn’t lose a wink of sleep from it. His movie grossedtens of millions of dollars and he went on to win the Oscar. Sunnyside, on the other hand, was treatedlike some kind of pariah.

Point taken. But no one told her to leave.

No one encouraged her to stay either.

And by the way, her real name is Sunny. She’s the one Danny was addressing at the end of hisacceptance speech when his mic got axed.

How do you know?

Dude, I *know*.

Well, now we know that the sunny to which he referred in his Oscar speech was a Who rather than a

What. Do you think DM has spoken to her since?

Maybe he was telling her to get bent and that’s why he was cut off.

It’s douchebags like you who give forums like this a bad name. Sunny challenged DM, but she wasnever mean or disrespectful to him.

Dude, you’re calling me a douchebag and saying *I* give forums a bad name? And tell me how callinga critically acclaimed screenwriter a failure is not disrespectful.

What’s the name of her novel?

It’s called “Long Island Ducks.” It’s under the name Sunrise M. Smith.

Danny couldn’t believe his eyes.

He had been right all along. Sunny was the woman outside the theater, the woman who hadconfronted him both in person and on Masterminds.
 
An author!
 
But she had told him that she’d not beenpublished!

A lot could happen in six months, he told himself.

He immediately went to Amazon, entered
 
Long Island Ducks
 
into the search box, and downloadedthe book. He then opened the book to the end, looking for an author photo, but couldn’t find one. Googlewas next. Her Facebook profile photo was a still of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn from
 
Charade
. Seeing it made him grin profusely—it said so much about her, all of it good. Her Twitter photo was thebook cover.

Danny googled her name again, this time in Images, and was bombarded with an array of stockphotos of sunrises. Suddenly he felt like a stalker. He logged off and went back to the beginning of thebook, reading the first line:

Betty Greenfield had never seen such a big duck.

Already he loved it.

He read more, with a clear intent—he was reading
 
her
, just like with her past comments on Masterminds, trying to find any keyhole or opening from which he could enter.

Her family had recently moved from a tenement in Queens to one of the new houses in Levittown, the ones that still smelled like paint and fresh-cut wood. Their lawns once blanketed acresof potato fields, and Betty swore she could smell those too. Levittown, in comparison to Queens, waslike being on vacation. The houses stood sparsely aligned at attention; kids passed by on bicycles or inred wagons, and it seemed like every other day a moving truck was depositing yet another family on Meeting Street. Her childhood friend Dorothy (whose family had also migrated years before, to a townfarther east with an American Indian name Betty could never pronounce) was home from college in abrand-new Chevy. Shelter Island was their summer destination, but first they stopped in the town of Flanders.

Charlene opened the screen door to the lanai, and Danny looked up, startled—not just by Charlene’s transformation, but that the two hours had passed like two minutes. By the time she appeared, Sunny’s novel had teleported him back in time to a general store in the mid-fifties, its owner mysteriouslymissing.

“Wha—” Danny said, baffled. “Who are you, and what have you done with Hungover Charlene?”

Her hair and makeup were done and her outfit of jeans, a long-sleeved, fitted tee, and flats madeher look perky. “My nutritionist in LA gave me an herbal remedy that kicks the crap out of hangovers. Ikeep it in my bag along with my Excedrin. It. Is. The. Bomb. It doesn’t work unless you have a fullstomach, though.”

Danny forced Sunny out of his mind, stood up, and embraced Charlene. “I’m glad you’re feelingbetter. You look terrific.”

The weather was postcard-perfect, a rare preview to spring, traces of snow all but melted away. Despite the season, the entire town of East Hampton was taking advantage of the sunshine and warmth, itsinhabitants and visitors strolling  leisurely, walking in and out of shops and boutiques with doors open tolet in the fresh air, and opting for face-to-face conversations over electronic ones. Danny and Charleneboth seemed to be on their best behavior, he observed, laughing and teasing each other in that new-relationship sort of way, even showing public displays of affection, papa-
rat
-zi be damned. Perhaps shefelt guilty about having drunk so much the night before, he speculated. And perhaps he felt guilty about

reading Sunny’s novel, wanting to be closer to her.

While window-shopping along Main Street, Danny picked up a realty book and started perusing it.

“You finally thinking of buying another house?” asked Charlene. Danny figured she’d lost count of how many times she’d made the suggestion to him, that he was the only Hollywood guy she knew who owned only one house, not counting the apartment he kept at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. “It’s a little weird,” she’d said when they first started dating. “What have you got against real estate?” Danny had answered in the way his father would’ve rationalized: that no man needed more than one piece of property, that despite everybody saying what a great investment it was, it was nothing more than a headache, that the working world rented and that was fine with him. “Commitment-phobe,” Charlene had called him.

“Besides,” he had added, “the Hamptons are passé. It’s cliché. Banal. Snooty. It’s for people who want to be seen.”

“Hypocrite,” had been Charlene’s next retort.

How had Charlene never figured out that it was Long Island he’d wanted to keep his distance from? he wondered. But now it seemed to be beckoning him like the foghorns beckon the sailboats across the sound.

“Ella expressed some interest,” he said in the present moment.

“Ah,” said Charlene. “Anything for Ella.” Danny couldn’t tell if she was stating a fact or being

passive-aggressive. He opted for the former in order to resist the old pessimism. Fresh start, remember?

Later that evening, as they sat on the lanai overlooking the ocean, Danny turned to Charlene. “Mind if Itake a walk on the beach by myself?”

“It’s almost dark out.”

“It’s a full moon.”

“What, have you got a rendezvous with a lover or something?” Her words came out in a singsongy voice undercut by a sharp edge.
 
More passive-aggressiveness
, he heard an inner voice say before he shushed it yet again. No. She had a point. Why was he suddenly withdrawing from her after they’d spent such a lovely day together?

“I just want some time alone, that’s all. No big deal.” He tried to sound casual rather than demanding.

She gestured toward the beach, as if to state the obvious—
there it is
—and give her permission. He put his phone in his pocket, grabbed his cigarettes and lighter, and started down the path that led directly to the beach. As he padded along the sand barefoot, biting cold for April (the temperature had dropped considerably since the afternoon), he shoved his hands in the front pocket of his sweatshirt and pulled the hood over his head to shield him from the wind that was equally biting. The  only thing louder than the wind was the ocean, its waves cresting and threatening to claw at his toes, maybe snag one and carry it off. He practically had the entire beach to himself, lit by the full moon and houses in the distance. He found a place to sit and smoothed out the sand before parking himself on it, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it.

Halfway through, Danny started to feel sick. He then snuffed the cig in the sand, making sure it wasfully extinguished before burying it. But he unearthed it just as quickly and put it in his pocket, sat, andstared at the ocean. Then he closed his eyes and lost himself in the rhythm of the surf, in harmony with theseagulls and accompanied by the wind.

And then he saw her face. Clear as day. Like a sunrise, she just rose from the horizon and filled hismind’s eye. He could almost feel the warmth of her handshake, see the smile behind her bashful, smoky

eyes.

Sunrise. That was her name.

He coughed and couldn’t stop, wheezing and holding his chest. Finally he regained his breath, buthis heart was racing.
 
Holy shit
, he thought.

This has got to stop. Now.

It was over with Charlene. Really, truly over.

He was about to toss his pack of cigarettes into the ocean when he remembered the butt in hispocket and begrudgingly carried them on the walk back to the house. Charlene was no longer on the lanai. He entered through the sliding glass doors and went to the bathroom, where he flushed the cigarettes downthe toilet and threw away the package. He then ambled through the cavernous rooms one by one, somedecorated sparsely in nautical colors,  others ready for their magazine spread, until he arrived at themaster bedroom, where Charlene was sprawled on the bed, scantily dressed and watching a basketball

game.

“Char, we’ve gotta talk.”

She looked up at him lackadaisically before reaching for the remote next to her and turning off the television. It was as if she’d been waiting for him, as if she already knew this conversation was going to take place. She’d probably rehearsed it in her mind, he thought, prepared her lines, her listening, her reactions, her cues.

“Why’d you drink so much last night?” he asked.