I'm Glad About You (27 page)

Martin was still smiling, but there was that edge of something else underneath that fuzzy Midwestern bonhomie. Superiority? “I was in Los Angeles once, the weather’s nice but the traffic was so horrible. I don’t know how anyone lives there.”

“I can’t stand LA,” she agreed, although the few times she had gone on press junkets out there, they had put her up in posh hotels and treated her like a movie star. It didn’t precisely suck.

“New York is worse,” Martin continued. “All those homeless people? Who wants to see that?”

Kyle swooped in with a glass of wine for them both. “When was the last time you were in New York, Martin?” he asked, as if this were a serious conversation.

“I’ve never been,” Martin announced, again with such an air of authority that Alison started. She had been immersed in the innate New York dismissal of the Midwest for so long she had forgotten, frankly, how thoroughly Midwesterners returned the favor. This clown had never been to New York, but he still thought he knew enough to dismiss it? Dismiss
New York
? The whole thing?

“You must come!” she said, smiling winsomely, completely pretending that he hadn’t insulted her life choices six times in two minutes. “It’s actually such a crazy interesting and dynamic place. It truly is a melting pot, it’s so amazing to live with so many people from so many different cultures. I love it.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Martin informed her.

“How long have you been there now?” Kyle asked.

“Wow, I guess it’s been—four years? Five years?” She wasn’t feigning; at some point time did blur and that point had been passed long ago. Which was why, presumably, she could stand in the kitchen of Kyle’s glorious home and chat with total strangers about nothing. In the distance a doorbell rang. Kyle’s pretty wife floated by, greeting people, making sure their coats were put in the proper bedroom. A gorgeous little girl ran after her, golden curls flying. Kyle was apparently living a Victorian fantasy now.

“How do you and Kyle know each other?” Martin asked.

“We dated in high school,” Kyle said.

“Oh.” Martin made a face, putatively impressed. “Kyle! You have an eye for the ladies.”

“Well.” Kyle smiled and offered up a self-conscious little shrug,
what can I say?
There were more people now, drifting into the kitchen, cooing hellos. He turned to greet them and to collect drink orders.

“You and Kyle dated?” This Martin person apparently had concluded that Kyle’s offhand mention of it made their personal history fair game.

“We did, yes.”

“So how’d you let him go?”

“Excuse me?”

“Good-looking doctor, isn’t that what you girls all want?”
Leering? Was he actually leering?
“You’re an actress, you’re going to need someone to take care of you. Unless you were looking to trade up.”

“Oh, look who’s here!”
What a fucking creep.
“Excuse me, I really do need to say hello.”

Tragically there was really no one she knew there, but she headed across the room with a purposeful determination. The guests who were slowly filling the house were a different sort from what she was used to. The women were dressed up; Ann Taylor or something like, tasteful fitted dresses off the rack, a lot of beige brushed wool, a flash of houndstooth, low heels. Their husbands in dress slacks and sports coats, ties, Alison honestly didn’t know any people like this anymore, and there were so many of them here, standing around holding wineglasses and chatting. They were all clearly educated and well-off, young adults who seemed like old adults. She felt like a slightly dysfunctional teenager next to them; her black jeans and loose violet-striped top seemed boho and unsophisticated and rebellious, when in fact she had hoped that something so simple and chic might help her fit in.
You look hotter than anyone else in the room
, her brain reminded her.
Stop worrying.

This particular bit of internal advice bucked her up, made her feel strong, independent, more like a television star and less like a loser actress. She gave herself permission to temporarily ignore the little pods of people who were ignoring her, and drifted over to the wall of bookshelves to read the spines of the books and find out what Kyle and Van were reading or pretending to read. She and Kyle had both been book junkies back in high school but she always went for a good novel while Kyle was constantly struggling with the serious thinkers who were utterly over her head. He had been so sure she could join him in his fascination for theological and philosophical ephemera, but while she had loved listening to him read to her, she actually never understood a word. Although she did develop a true fondness for Teilhard de Chardin, that old brainiac priest who had fallen in love with a woman he couldn’t have sex with.

And there he was, the intellectually impenetrable and physically chaste Jesuit, represented by at least six or seven volumes, next to Henri Nouwen, another high school favorite, and there at the end of the shelf four volumes of Thomas Merton. Another one of those priests who couldn’t consummate their lust for the women they loved, because of the church. They were their own Boy Scout troop, those guys. The Merton books were newer, while the other books sported the battered covers of those read years ago. Probably the same ones he’d read to her in high school before she would finally get sick of it and climb all over him. She thought about reaching up and taking a peek, hoping to find one of the passages he had read to her back then, but decided against it.
No more of that
, she reminded herself, as she let her attention drift to the other shelves—volume after volume of medical textbooks and then shelf after shelf filled with books about childbearing and child-rearing—
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
,
Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Years
,
Bearing His Fruit: Stories About Godliness for Children.
Were Kyle and Van some sort of Jesus freaks now? Some of these books looked more like mindless Christian middle-stream tripe.

“You checking up on my reading?” Kyle asked, stepping up beside her.

“Absolutely,” she admitted, and she gave herself permission to grin at him. “You still reading this stuff?”

“Mostly Merton now. I went down to his monastery in Kentucky, it was really beautiful.”

“You went to a monastery? What, do they give tours?”

“Not a tour,” Kyle explained, smiling a little at her cheeky ignorance. “More like a retreat. Their doctor needed some time off, so I went down for a week and took care of them, and prayed with them.” He bumped a little on the word “pray.” Kyle knew her attitude toward that sort of thing, or at least he knew that her attitude toward that sort of thing had probably not changed over the past years. She had never been openly disrespectful about the seriousness with which he regarded his Catholicism, but it was impossible not to notice that her views were a shred hostile. One time she had actually posited that she might not believe in God; that was another big hurdle.

“So you’re a bigger Catholic than ever, I guess,” she observed.

“I guess I don’t have to ask where you stand,” Kyle replied.

“That whole horrible religion sucks,” she informed him. “Although I do still have a soft spot for Caravaggio.”

“The murderer.”

“He was a genius who broke some rules. Like your favorite Jesuit.”

“Chardin
didn’t
break rules, that’s the point.”

“He so did too, Kyle, that much I remember. The church told him to shut up, which he didn’t—”

“He did.”

“No, he didn’t, he kept writing.”

“But he didn’t publish until after he died.”

“They were creeps, they should have let him do what he was doing, discovering Piltdown Man.”

“Peking Man.”

“Whatever. They sent him to China, right—”

“Yes, that’s—”

“As a way to shut him up and stop him writing about evolution, even though he knew that God wanted him to be doing that.”

“That’s not exactly—”

“You told me the story enough times, and then when they banished him to China, what do you know, the biggest find of the century, Peking Man, is right there. So that’s either irony or God. You can take your pick.”

A charming laugh flashed out of nowhere and skittered between them like a butterfly. “What are you two arguing about?” And there was Van, smiling, rosy, the blonde child propped on her waist. “Reminiscing about your great romance?”

The shock of Van’s direct allusion to their “great romance” clipped Alison right across the back of her neck. She turned, polite, racking her brain for a sufficiently lighthearted comeback, but Kyle was ahead of her. “Hardly,” he said. His indifference to the accusation put him effortlessly on firm ground. “We were arguing theology.”

“Hardly that either,” Alison echoed. “I never understood a word of it.”

“Not so. You’re very good,” he informed her. “More wine?”

He turned and reached over to a side table, where several opened bottles waited for a host’s attention. Van’s smile floated over them, and back to her guests with an adorable, bemused exasperation.

“She was the love of his life, you can’t blame a wife for suspecting the worst,” she announced cheerfully.

Alison remembered how at Dennis’s Christmas party Van had proved herself so adept at the art of inflicting wounds in public.

“Well, I want to hear about the theology,” Martin announced. “An actress, arguing theology! You don’t see that every day.”

“She’s quite intelligent,” Kyle stated. He wasn’t looking at her.

“I’m sure.” A cute chuckle from that fucker Martin, what an asshole.

“The best actors are brilliant, they have to be, to understand Chekhov, Shakespeare, Molière,” Kyle informed him. “You can’t approach the world classics without some spark of genius.” That was her argument, made years ago how many times in the face of his insistence that she’d be throwing her life away. “What would the world be without our great artists? Or our great actors?”

“You’re on television, aren’t you?” This from the cheerful woman in the houndstooth, Alison hadn’t even met her yet.

“I don’t know if I’d call that brilliant,” said Martin.

“I wouldn’t either,” Alison agreed. “It’s a good job, though. I get health insurance.” This was meant to be a joke, but Kyle did not look up from the glass of wine he was refilling with such concentration and diligence. His face was set, severe. Was he angry?

“You’re being much too modest,” Van insisted, kissing that blonde child on the head.

“I’m an actor, we’re not a particularly modest tribe.”

“Do you see that as being your goal, then?” Kyle finally lifted those pure gray eyes of his. She’d seen that look before. He
was
angry, but not at the creeps who kept pawing at them.
He’s mad at me
, she realized.

“I—it’s more of a job, I don’t know about
goals,
” she stuttered.

“Meaning?”

“Well, television shows don’t last forever.”

“But you’ll stay in television.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Somebody lobbed that one in from the back of the crowd. “They pay like, crazy money, don’t they?”

“Who are you people?” Alison laughed lightly, to let them know she was kidding, or maybe the laugh was just to take the sting out of the fact that she
wasn’t
kidding. “Do you really hang out in Ohio and speculate on what television actresses make?”

“What
do
you make?” This from one of the men. They had all gathered around her, like she was a science exhibit.

“What do
you
make?” she tossed back.

“I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

“What are those things you aren’t supposed to talk about, at dinner?” Van asked.

“Politics and religion,” Martin answered.

“And
money
,” Van finished. Underneath that angel in the house, there was something implacable and she was not happy. Having started it all, this whole scene wasn’t going the way she wanted.

“They already broke the rule about religion!” Martin protested. “All bets are off.” The assorted party guests chuckled at this shrewd point.

“We weren’t talking about religion at all,” Kyle said. “We were talking about art.”

“I don’t know if I’d call what I do
art
,” Alison countered.

“You used to.”

“You gotta eat.” Now that idiot Martin was stepping into this on
her
side? How could this keep getting worse? All the other guests were nodding; this was a version of the world they understood. Being an actor was a ludicrous idea
unless
you were on television making a lot of dough.

“I still want to do Chekhov, is that what you’re asking?”

“You
still
want to do Chekhov?” Kyle was implacable, and unamused.

“Doing television is hardly selling out. If I get big enough, they’ll pretty much let me do—all the things—I want to do.” This was such crap she couldn’t believe she had actually said it. But it was what they all said; every actress she knew who was stuck on a shitty television show at one point or another ended up explaining to anyone who would listen that she had bigger dreams than sitting in a trailer all day for the chance to wear pretty dresses and spout bad dialogue. Besides, putting her in a position where she had to defend her choices to a bunch of strangers was really the limit. They didn’t even know each other anymore! “And television isn’t exactly a wasteland,” she added. “The best storytelling in America is happening on television.”

“I just thought you had bigger dreams,” Kyle said. The thread of bitterness lying under all of it revealed itself, pricked her.

“I thought you did too,” Alison countered. “I thought you were going to South America to set up health clinics.” Kyle’s jaw stiffened, another one of his tells. But who was he, after all, to judge her?

“Oh, sure,” said Martin, that charmer. “South America!” He laughed, as if he even knew what any of this meant.

“It’s true, it’s the whole reason he wanted to be a doctor, it was all tied up in this idea of service to the poor,” she announced. “God’s calling. He wanted to take care of the masses.”