Monsters (17 page)

D
ANIEL RUNS UP
just as I'm pulling my bag from the carousel. He grabs me by the shoulders and presses his cheek against mine. “I just texted the driver. He'll swing through.” He steps back. “Tommy wants me to take you straight to the set. You okay with that?” he says as I'm popping the handle on my roller bag. “I can stall if you need to rest. It might be kind of a long day.”

“I'm fine,” I say.

By the time we walk outside, the driver's pulling around. Daniel opens the back door and nudges me in, sliding in behind me. “I brought you a protein bar,” he says, digging into his bag. “I know you haven't eaten yet, and the shit on set is not going to work for you.”

“Peanut butter? I love it. I wish you lived with me.”

“I know,” he says, patting my hand. “I better text Tommy we're on our way.”

I tear open the wrapper and take a small bite, folding the paper back over the end of it. I shake my head. “I already sent him a text when I landed.”

Daniel raises one eyebrow. “You two still text a lot?”

“Daniel, please don't start.”

“You're right,” he says. “Never mind.” He pinches his lips together, folds his arms, but after a minute, he pulls his phone out and says, “You know, I'm just gonna text him anyway.”

We ride for a long time with our arms crossed, looking out separate windows. The sky is so hazy, so beige. Not like Nebraska, where everything's so blue and wide and clear.

“I mean, you do get that he doesn't do relationships, right?”

“Daniel.” I close my eyes, press my tongue against my lips because of course I get that. “I have a dead husband and two sad little kids. I've got more relationships than I can handle, so the fact that Tommy's not particularly invested really works out pretty well.”

“Jesus, Stacey, you know that isn't how I meant it. Don't make him sound like that.”

“I wish you'd make your mind up, Daniel.”

“Yeah? I wish lots of people would.” He sighs heavily, shakes his head. “I'm not saying he doesn't give a shit. I'm just saying he's not really equipped for this.”

“There's no ‘this,' Daniel. It's just . . . it's easy.”

“Really?” he says. “You just keep telling yourself that. And then when this shit blows up, don't come crying to me.” He shifts his whole body toward the window, and I do the same.

“Take her things back to the house,” Daniel tells the driver as we step out. “I'll text Tommy that we're here,” but he doesn't actually need to.

I hear Tommy's voice behind me calling, “Stacey,” and by the time I turn around, he's in front of me, and he wraps me in this
tremendous, tight hug. “Jesus, how come you haven't been out to L.A. in forever?”

“I don't know,” I say. “You haven't given me an excuse.”

•   •   •

The first person I see when we walk in is Sarah. Well, she's not the first person I see, but the first person I can't stop looking at. She's in costume, and it's like she stepped right out of my head. When she turns toward us, she smiles at Tommy, but then she looks back at me for a second. “Oh my god,” she says, “is this Stacey? Oh my god!” and she comes rushing over and swoops me into a hug. “Tommy's told me so much about you,” she says. Her head is by my ear, and I look over her shoulder at him like,
You didn't,
because someone like Sarah thinking of me as just another girl that Tommy fucks is really more than I can stand. But he just barely shakes his head.

“So I want Jason to rethink the blocking on this scene. Who's going to talk to him?” I don't know if she's talking to me or Tommy now, and I don't know if she does either. She loops her arms through ours and starts leading us toward the set.

•   •   •

They're still filming at six o'clock. They do, I don't know, a million takes of this one microscopic scene, and when Jason turns and catches my eye, he gives me a thumbs-up, and I smile, but really I'm like,
I think I'm in hell.
Tommy must be able to tell. Between takes he whispers, “You want to go?”

“Don't you have to be here?”

“Nah, this is Jason's baby now. I'm just an actor, and they're not
shooting any of my scenes this week.” He nods toward the door. “Let's get out of here.”

Tommy's parked right out front, so we're in the car and off the lot in just a few minutes.

“So what do you think?” he says finally.

“I think your job is exhausting,” I say. “You should try my job. I can do it in bed.”

He laughs. “No. How do you think it looks?”

“Sarah looks amazing, like I dreamed her.”

“Yeah. I thought of her the first time I read your book. She's perfect for the part.” He pulls up a hill, and I think it looks familiar. I think we're almost there. “And she loves it. She's really excited about it.”

But we're not almost there. I'm just imagining landmarks. He's just pulled through some side street, and now we're back on a main road, deep in traffic, stopping at a red light. “Speaking of excited,” he says, and he reaches across with his left arm and grabs my head, pulls me toward him, and leans in to kiss me. “I've wanted to do that all day.” But then traffic starts to move again, and he lets go and kicks the car back into first.

•   •   •

The door's barely closed when Tommy wraps his arm around my waist from behind and pulls me back against him. He twists me to face him and buries his hands in my hair, and he pulls me up against his mouth.

“There's no one here,” he says, and he doesn't move his mouth away from mine, but he walks me backwards, presses me up against the wall, and he starts unbuttoning my shirt.

“Jesus, Tommy.”

“I can't help it, baby. You've been gone too long. You can't stay away from me like that.” He pins my right hand to the wall just above my head and leans into me, pushing his knee between mine. He holds my earlobe between his teeth and the feel of his breath against my neck makes me laugh.

“Slow down,” I say. “Let me get in the house at least.”

“Uh-uh.” He grabs me hard around the waist, lifts me off the floor, and I wrap my legs around his hips. “I'm tired of waiting,” he says.

•   •   •

Tommy brings dinner and a bottle of wine to bed. Dinner being a box of crackers and some insanely strong blue cheese. I don't like it at all, and he says, “You have an undeveloped palate.”

He keeps slipping me little bites of it between kisses, and when I say, “I seriously hate this cheese, Tommy,” he says, “You'll get used to it.”

“You say that about a lot of shit,” I say, and he laughs and says, “I'm right.”

The wine I do like, and I keep letting him refill my glass.

“I hope I have another bottle,” he says.

“You have another bottle of something,” I say, and he says, “Yeah, that's true.”

He rolls to his back, pulling me on top of him, and I lean down to catch his mouth with mine when there's a knock at the door, and this little voice calls, “Dad?”

Tommy pushes me off him and jumps out of bed, pulling on his jeans and wrestling his way into his shirt. “She won't just come in here,” he whispers, but I slide as far down under the sheets as I can. Then I remember that half of my clothes are out in the hallway. At least they're by the garage. I'm guessing she came in the front entrance. Still.

“Tommy,” I whisper, “my clothes are out there.”

He closes his eyes like he's trying to wish this fact away. He holds one finger up for me to wait, and he opens the door. He doesn't walk out though. He just stands there, totally relaxed, holding the door open, like it would be fine for her to come in. At least the door is between us, blocking her view of the room.

“Hey, I thought you were at your mom's tonight.”

“I just came to see Stacey. Isn't she here yet?”

“Yeah, you know, Daniel had to bring her back this afternoon. She had a migraine. I think she's still sleeping.”

“She okay?” She sounds worried.

“I don't know, hon. Hopefully it's just from traveling. I guess we'll find out in the morning. You staying the night?”

“Yeah, Mom's driver just dropped me off.”

“You want some dinner? Want me to take you out?” I can't believe he says this. This would take them right past my discarded clothes, but he must know she'll turn him down.

“I ate already. I think I'll just go up to bed.”

“Try to be quiet. I don't want you bothering Stacey.”

“I'm not going to bother her, Dad, god.”

“I'll see you in the morning, honey.” Now he does duck behind the door to hug her.

When he closes the door, I sit up in bed and drop my head into my hands. Tommy throws himself onto the bed next to me.

“I feel like such an asshole,” I whisper.

He pulls my hands away from my face. “We're not doing anything wrong.” Then he sort of twists his mouth and says, “I mean, aside from the lying.”

I smile, and he smiles, and we both start to laugh, and then we're
laughing really hard, and he pulls me down against him and covers my mouth with his hand. “Jesus. Shut up. She's going to hear you.”

•   •   •

I feel like an asshole again in the morning when Sadie comes down for breakfast all dressed and ready for school.

“Stacey,” she says, and she throws her arms around me. “Dad said you had a migraine. Are you feeling okay?”

“You're sweet, honey. I'm fine.” Having never experienced a migraine, I don't even know how to play this off, and over her shoulder, Daniel is scowling at me. Of course Tommy had to fill him in. How else could he cover for us?
Disgusting,
he mouths.

When she lets go of me, I say, “Daniel stocked us up on yogurt. You want some?”

“Like flavored?” she says, and by this I know she means
sugared
, because that's how I mean it too.

“Plain. It's Greek. Lots of protein. I'll get you some.”

I start to stand up, but Daniel says, “No, let me. You should take it easy today.”

“Yeah,” Sadie says. “You don't need another migraine.”

“Okay. Then can someone refill my coffee?”

“Oh, I don't know.” Daniel turns back from the fridge with the tub of yogurt in his hand. He reaches into a cabinet for a bowl. “You should probably go light on the caffeine today.” He makes a face.

I know the only way I'll get a headache is if I don't get enough caffeine. “Daniel,” I say.

“Caffeine can be a trigger,” he says. I don't even know if this is true, and I'm sure Sadie doesn't either.

“You know what? I'll just get myself a refill.”

Sadie puts her hand on my arm and says, “Really, I don't think you should.” She looks so sincere, so absolutely worried, I just say, “Okay, I'll skip it, but if I fall asleep at lunchtime, it's on you,” and she smiles. She absolutely beams at me, and she eats her yogurt, almost half a cup, and I even talk her into adding a third of a banana.

“Go get your stuff together, sweetie. You don't want to be late,” Daniel says as she finishes the last bite.

She leaves, and Daniel leans across the counter, sighs heavily.

“I know you don't want to hear this, but it's not fair for you to show up for a week and play house or whatever this thing is that you and Tommy do. I don't care how secretive you think you are, this affects more than just you.”

“Daniel,” I say quietly. “I think you're reading too much into things. I think . . .”

“Would you stop lying?” he says. “At least to me.”

•   •   •

“That,” I say to Tommy as we're getting into the car, “was the longest day.”

He laughs. “It's barely after five. That's not even close to a long day.”

“Yeah, but I'm a poet. I work like forty minutes a week. I have a very short attention span.”

Tommy turns to look at me. He hasn't started the car yet. “You're writing again?” He sounds happy about it, so I feel like I'm letting him down.

“No,” I say, “I'm not.” I turn away from him, look out the window. “I guess I work zero minutes a week.”

“Have you tried?”

“It doesn't work like that.” I shake my head. “It's like a radio station, and I just . . . I can't tune it in. It's nothing but static.”

“I knew you heard voices,” he says, and I know he's just teasing me, but right now, I'm not in the mood. I haven't been in a good mood all day. I've been thinking too much.

“It's not funny,” I say. I cross my arms in front of me.

“Stacey, come on, honey, don't be like this. It'll come.”

He takes my hand and kisses it, which I know is supposed to be sweet, but we're sitting right here in the middle of the parking lot. I mean, anyone could see.