Adulation (43 page)

He escorted her to the first floor of the building, doing his best to avoid any more awkward silences, even in the elevator. He asked her the standard questions of  how she liked UCLA and why she’d chosen it and what she majored in and what were her plans after graduation and who was this year’s commencement speaker and did she know that he’d been asked to do it one year? Teresa dutifully answered all his questions, no doubt bored to tears from having to recite them for every aunt, uncle, cousin, and potential employer. He could relate, having been asked the same five questions by virtually everyone when doing the press for any premiere, not to mention the how-does-it-feel-to-be-an-AcademyAward-winner, which he’d sworn on the ghosts of Thespis and Aristotle that he’d never complain about if he actually won. But he was terrified of the silence, babbling in his effort to fill it.

“Most kids graduate when they’re twenty-two,” he said. “Did you go to work first?”

“Oh, no, I was a year behind my classmates because of the accident. Then I did the five-year plan, ha ha ha.”

How did she talk about such a thing so casually? he wondered. She was
 
left behind
 
for
 
a year

because of
his recklessness
. That’s how he would’ve said it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the words a gross understatement.

“Turned out to be a good thing, though,” she quickly added. “I learned twice as much as my classmates in my regular grade. And I made honors at UCLA.”

In the café Danny ordered another coffee, this time with a Danish, knowing he still couldn’t eat. He instructed Teresa to put her wallet away when she extracted it. “You’re going to need to save every penny after graduation, trust me,” he said. She smiled bashfully and thanked him.

He scanned the café for the most remote table and led her to it. Teresa dumped a packet of sugar in her cup  and stirred it with the stick she’d picked up at the self-service bar, and she tore the blueberry muffin’s top away from its bottom, occasionally picking off little morsels from each at a time.

Danny picked up his coffee to take a sip, then changed his mind and put it down again.

“So...” he started, and trailed off.

“So...” she repeated.

“Am I the only one who thinks this is weird?”

“No,” she answered, “it’s
 
totally
 
weird.”

“How so?” he asked.

“Well, you know, you’re, like,
 
famous
. And hello—you’re an
 
Oscar winner
 
!”

Had any random stranger or fan said these things to him, he would’ve smiled graciously, secretly appreciative for the validation. In front of Teresa, however, this person who’d almost lost her life thanks to his stupid, negligent, abhorrent recklessness, the descriptions sounded shallow, as if he’d wasted his life on frivolous things.

“I’m nothing special,” he heard himself say. “Just a writer who got lucky early on.”

“I’m no writer—I mean, God, I barely passed English with a B-minus...”

A B-minus was barely passing?

“...but even I know you’re an exceptional writer. Everything you’ve ever done has been a success. That’s not just luck. That’s talent. And believe it or not, you’ve inspired me to be very good at what I love. For me, that’s computers. I know—rare to find a girl who’s so geeked out on computers. But, oh my God, I
 
love
 
them. Given a choice between a pair of Manolos and a fully loaded  MacBook Pro, I would take the MacBook Pro without even thinking about it!” She laughed.

Danny laughed as well. “That’s good. That’s a great way to be. I tell my daughter that: to find what you love and then get very good at it, even if that means missing a bunch of parties—which you won’t remember anyway—or football games or whatever it is you think you absolutely can’t miss.”

“I know—I saw a speech you gave at a film school in New York on YouTube, and you said the same thing. I was googling you one day, looking for old articles about the accident, and that was one of the things I found. It was really good.”

Danny was both flattered and horrified. “Why were you looking for things related to the accident?”

She ate another morsel of muffin and sipped her tea. “I don’t remember anything about that accident,” she said. “All I remember is taking my dog out for a walk and waking up in the hospital. I don’t remember you, the car...I don’t remember the legal stuff either, mostly because my parents and their lawyers took care of all that. It took me a long time to recover. Funny, I can barely even remember what
 
that
 
was like anymore.”

A part of him wished the little girl was sitting in front of him rather than this grown-up who mildly resembled her yet felt equally familiar and unfamiliar to him. Again he was filled with agonizing shame, guilt, and remorse that no amount of money, praise, or acceptance could dissolve, all pushing themselves to the brink of his tear ducts.

“I don’t mean for this to be as selfish as it’s going to sound,” he started, “but I actually envy your

memory loss.  You have no idea how that accident haunts me. Every waking day, and night too.”

“I guess that’s why I wanted to talk to you, because I have always gotten that feeling about you. It’s not just because you’ve sent me so much money over the years—”

“And please don’t think I’ve been trying to buy your forgiveness or anything like that,” he interjected.

“I don’t think that at all—my parents do, but I don’t. If anything, I think you’ve been trying to buy

your
 
forgiveness.”

The revelation hit him like a bucket of ice water.

“I’d say you got a good education at UCLA,” said Danny, “but I’ll bet you were already wise beyond your years.”

“That’s just the thing,” said Teresa. “Ever since the accident, I’ve always kind of
 
known
 
certain things. It’s really hard to explain. It’s almost like having X-ray vision into people’s hearts or something.” She blushed slightly. “That probably sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t,” he assured her, realizing that Raj probably had this same gift; he just knew how to capitalize on it. “It
 
isn’t
.” He fidgeted with the plate in front of him, turning it left and right. “I’m still not sure why you wanted to meet with me, though.”

She looked pensive for a moment. “I’m not sure. I think about what happened from time to time, and I wonder about you. Something like this had to be eating you alive. You can kind of see it in interviews and stuff. Or maybe I’m just projecting that.”

He swallowed hard. “And here I thought I’d been hiding it all this time.”

“I just really wanted to meet you. I wanted to see you for myself, and put us both at ease. I thought,
 
He  needs to see with his own two eyes that I’m OK
. Danny...” It was the first time she’d called him by name. “Look at me—I’m about to graduate from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree, with honors; I’ve got a boyfriend who’s amazing and who I’m going to marry once we’re both done with grad school. As far as we know, the accident didn’t screw me up too much—just some memory loss and muscular pain and an occasional nightmare and things like that.”

Every part of him cringed—she spoke about such dysfunction as if it were something she was born with, something that hadn’t been inflicted, something she’d adapted to as easily as the weather or a new school.

“You’re incredible, Teresa,” he said, in awe of her. “I’m not worthy to be in your presence.”

“But that’s just the thing—you
 
are
. You’re worthy to be in my presence and anyone else’s. You’re no better or worse than anyone else. Look, I’m not condoning what you did. Of all people, I know the trouble it caused. And I did hate you for a time, during my teens especially. But then one day we were watching
 
Gandhi
 
in my social studies class—have you ever seen that movie?”

“A long time ago,” he said.

“There’s this scene where this Muslim man has just killed a Christian man who killed the Muslim man’s son, or maybe I’ve got them mixed up... Anyway, Gandhi is on a hunger strike, and the man, who is so full of hate and rage and grief, asks Gandhi what it’ll take for him to eat. So Gandhi tells him—and this part makes me tear up every time—Gandhi tells him to adopt the boy whose father he just killed, but to raise him in the religion the  boy was born into.” She dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “Isn’t that the most powerful scene ever?”

Danny’s eyes were glassy. “Yes,” he barely managed to choke out. “It is.”

She composed herself and continued. “I totally burst into tears when I saw that scene. Right in the middle of class. That day I went home and wrote in my diary that I’d rather spend the rest of my life being a good person than wasting a lot of time hating you.”

He was afraid to speak. Afraid he’d lose it right there in the café, the way she had just described.

“I don’t know what to say.” The words came out in a whisper.

“That day I also vowed to not make what happened something I built my life around or identified myself by. I’m not ‘the girl who got hit by the drunk driver and almost died.’” She gestured quote marks, saying it as if it were the title or label bestowed on her. “That’s the way my parents have treated me my whole life, and it drives me crazy. I’m more than that. I made the track team in high school, won the district spelling bee, even acted in a couple of plays in school.”

Danny perked up at this last mention. “Really?”

“I never made it beyond the chorus,” she laughed, “but it was fun. And I love ice cream and peanut butter, and bike riding, and just being outdoors. I’ve never let anything get in the way of my living, least of all any stupid resentment toward you or anyone else.”

“You’re a better person than I am,” he said.

“Oh, I have my meltdown moments. I’m terribly impatient. Every time we had to do a team project for a class, my teammates all hated me because I was so bossy and  nagging.” She laughed again, and he smiled as he found himself wishing he could introduce her to Ella.

“And sometimes I have a short fuse,” she said. “A shrink told me a long time ago that that’s probably how I deal with the accident. I try to channel it more positively, like going for a bike ride—and just so you know, I almost killed myself on a bike ride once too. Totally stupid, my fault. So you see? You’re not the only one.” She laughed again.

“My God,” said Danny. “I never apologized to you for killing your dog.”

For the first time, he saw a flicker of a flashback in her eyes—in an instant, he saw the little girl she’d been in their reflection, and they looked down for a moment. “Yeah, that was sad,” she said in a child’s voice. “He was my best friend back then.”

Almost involuntarily, he reached across the table and rested his hand upon hers. She seemed startled by the gesture, but only for a moment.

“I’m so very sorry,” he said, practically choking on the inadequacy of the words.

“I forgive you, Danny. I forgave you a long time ago. Anyone that drunk had to be someone who was in a lot of pain. You can’t have any compassion for anyone if you can’t see past their insanity.”

He took his hand from hers and pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes to keep the tears at bay. She seemed to wait for him to resume eye contact with her before speaking again.

“I heard this really funny line about resentment: ‘Resentment is when you drink the poison and expect the other person to die.’”

Danny couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s fucking brilliant,” he said, wondering if she took offense to profanity.

“I just wanted you to know, I never drank the poison.”

Of course not.
 
He
 
had been drinking it. By the gallon.

Danny saw Teresa as if a spotlight shone on her, like they do in those supernatural love stories to show who’s the angel and who’s the mortal. At that moment, every muscle in his body had let go, become suddenly weightless. But it was more than physical well-being—all was right in the world, in his world. All was right with
 
him
. He couldn’t help but grin, and had a mirror been nearby to show his reflection, he would bet that his expression would match that of Raj’s amused contentment.

He sat with that grin for what seemed like a long time, but was probably no more than a few seconds, before speaking again.

“Your name is very pretty, by the way.”

“Teresa was my great-aunt’s name.”

“You certainly did her proud. I like your last name too.”

“Thanks,” she said, beaming. “I read that your last name isn’t really Masters.”

“No,” he said, “it’s Gold.”

“Why’d you change it?”

“My agent thought it was catchier. At this point I’ve been Danny Masters longer than I was Danny

Gold.”

“Have you ever thought about changing it back?”

“I have,” he said. “Just now.”

She seemed as pleased to hear this as he was.

“Shall we take that studio tour?” he asked.