No Ordinary Life (37 page)

89

D
riving to the studio, I'm nervous. Like a leper returning from exile, I'm self-conscious and ashamed over what has happened. Yes, I've been exonerated, but only after my dirty laundry was aired for everyone to see.

Anxious as I am about facing the cast and crew, it is the thought of facing Griff that has my stomach in knots. He called at least two dozen times over the past two weeks, none of his calls returned. He must hate me. I deserve to be hated.

I drop Molly at base camp and Tom at studio school then make my way to the set. At the edge, I stop, my heart hammering as I brace myself against the dozens of eyes I feel watching me, then with a deep breath, I lift my head to face them.

Surprise. No one is looking at me, not a soul, everyone going about their business as if I was never gone or as if my return is no big deal.

Except Griff. Sensing my arrival, he turns.

I wait for his wrath, but instead of the anger I expect, the ache in his expression nearly wrenches my heart from my chest, and I lower my eyes, unable to stand my shame.

“Morning, Faye,” Chris says brightly, stepping up beside me. “Glad to have you back, and let's hope the amazing one-take Molly is back as well.”

He walks past without a care in the world, and I marvel at his ability to forget the past so easily, the epitome of a water-under-the-bridge attitude. And as I watch him continue onto the set, I'm envious, wishing I could do the same.

Or maybe it's not as easy for him as it seems. Something
is
different. I watch as he and Griff discuss the lighting, friction between them that wasn't there before, and I think Helen might be right, two alphas is one too many for Chris to have on his show.

Back and forth they volley until finally Chris pulls his producer card, and Griff has no choice but to back down. It's a childish display of feather ruffling, Chris showing off that he has the biggest plumes.

Chris walks back to his chair, his eyes sliding my way, his chest puffed out in superiority, and I must be a defective hen because I couldn't care less who has more power. My attraction is only for Griff, my body warming as I watch him direct his crew with the new orders.

“Break,” Beth announces. “Kira and Jeremy, music session. Everyone else, be on the office set in an hour.”

Everyone scurries from the set except for Griff, who sits on the scaffold that holds the main camera.

“All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up,” I say, attempting to keep the moment light as I walk in dramatic Gloria Swanson fashion toward him, my heart pounding as I force myself to look him in the eye. My plan is to tell him how sorry I am for everything then to explain that I need some time to work things out, thereby letting him off the hook.

When I'm two feet away, someone flicks the breaker and the lights go out, dimming the stage to shadows. Then Griff is swooping off his perch, and before I can open my mouth to say a word, he has swung me around and backed me against the scaffold, my shoulders pressed to the cool metal as his lips come down on mine.

“Don't do that again,” he says when he pulls away.

To avoid getting upset, I turn the emotion around. “Really? I thought that was kind of fun.”

He doesn't return my smile, his face a fierce mask. “Shut me out. Don't do that again.”

My chin starts to quiver, my composure teetering on the brink of rupture until his lips graze mine, quashing the tremble. “Please,” he says, his voice so gentle that it cuts me to the core. “Please, Faye, don't do that again.”

90

G
riff and I are in Molly's dressing room, curled together, naked and breathless. Henry has taken Molly for ice cream and Tom is still at school.

I've confessed everything about the past two weeks except for Helen's suggestion to sabotage the show and my visit with Graciela to try to pull it off. Instinct cautions me against it. Griff loves me, but he also cares about
The Foster Band
nearly as much as Chris, and telling him I was thinking of betraying the show would be like telling him I was thinking of betraying him.

“So this guy Ethan is still out there?” he asks when I finish.

I nod against his chest. “He's just a kid, a messed-up kid. It was scary at the time, especially because he had a gun, but it's not like they show in the movies. He wasn't some evil-eyed bad guy. He's just a young mixed-up guy who thinks he's in love with Molly, and when I think back on it, it mostly makes me sad.”

“Faye, you get that he's dangerous? He might be messed up and pitiful, but that doesn't make him any less of a threat.”

“I know, but…”

“No buts. The guy is dangerous. Dangerous to you. Dangerous to Molly. Period.”

I nod again. I know Griff is right, but I also do pity Ethan. Love can make you crazy. I know that better than anyone.

“I tried to quit,” I say, changing the subject. “That's part of the reason Chris did what he did. It was the day we got back from Thanksgiving break. Molly wasn't feeling well, and I didn't want to do this anymore. I still don't…”

His arms stiffen. “You can't quit.”

My own muscles flinch at his abrupt intractable response. “That's what Chris said.”

Griff rolls onto his side so he is looking at me. “Faye, I get that sometimes this is hard, but this isn't a game. Making a show is serious business; a lot of people are counting on you, and you can't just quit.”

“You quit,” I defend. “Of all people, you should understand. It's not just hard—sometimes it's horrible. You know that. You were at the airport. You saw how bad it was. You told me yourself that being famous sucks. That's why you got out.”

“After the show was done. I would have never left during it.”

And I realize my instinct that cautioned me against telling Griff my plan was right. Griff's been breathing stardust his whole life, and as such, he is a blind follower of the Hollywood religion—the show before everything else—and asking him to choose between me and the show would be like asking him to choose between me and his god.

“You get that, right?” he says when it's been a minute and I haven't responded.

You get that my life is being torn apart? You get that my kids are the most important thing in the world to me, more important than any show?
“I'm losing Emily,” I say. “If I don't get us out, I might never get her back.”

His face tenses, and I watch as he literally bites back his thoughts, taming them into a more diplomatic response. “You and Sean are going through some pretty rough stuff, and Emily's a bit of a wild kid. The show has nothing to do with that.” Translated, what he is saying is
Your life is fucked up and you've totally fucked up your daughter, and you can't blame that on the show.
He continues, “The show is counting on Molly and Tom. Hundreds of people, the cast, my crew, my crew's families. This show is their livelihood. This isn't just about you. When you're involved in a show, the personal stuff needs to be set aside.”

His loyalties revealed, he pulls me back into his arms.
Screw family, the show must go on.
Until this moment, I wouldn't have believed that's how he really felt. But now I know, and if it comes down to him being with me or against me, I know exactly where he stands.

91

M
rs. Martin, we need your help.”

I carry the phone out the door of the condo into the hallway so the kids won't hear my conversation with the detective. Molly and Tom know nothing about Ethan showing up with a gun, about his threat to the president, or about his letter to Molly, and I don't intend for them to find out.

I listen as the detective tells me that Ethan was spotted an hour ago by a surveillance team who then followed him into an apartment building across from the Hilton. When they tried to apprehend him, he climbed out the window of a seventh-story apartment and is now standing on a ledge threatening to jump unless he gets to see Molly.

“I know it's a lot to ask,” the detective says, “but I assure you she won't be in any danger.”

My mom has joined me in the hallway and is listening in. She backs away from the earpiece and shakes her head.

“He has a gun,” I say in my waitress voice, my throat closed up in panic.

“He doesn't. The gun is in the apartment. He purposely left it so we wouldn't shoot him. This guy doesn't want to die. This is a cry for help. And that's what we want to do. We want to get him to come inside so we can help him. I wouldn't be calling if I didn't think it was safe. I believe if he sees Molly, he'll come in peacefully.”

My mom pulls back and shakes her head harder, her eyes bulging.

“Molly's only four. She…This won't make sense to her…Seeing a man standing on a ledge claiming to be in love with her…It's…I can't.”

Silence pulses between us for an eternal minute until finally the detective sighs and says, “I understand. Sorry to have bothered you. I needed to at least try.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, and the image of Ethan holding out my keys and saying thank you fills my brain. “Wait. Okay. Tell him we're on our way.”

My mom follows me into the apartment screaming, “Faye, have you lost your mind? You can't do this. You're not really going to do this?”

Despite my mother's rant, Molly doesn't hear her. She sits totally engrossed in watching
The Backyardigans
, her mouth suspended open in complete zoned-out mode. Tom sits beside her with his music headphones on, both blissfully oblivious to everything around them, the way a four-year-old and an eight-year-old should be.

Griff's voice plays in my head:
No buts. The guy is dangerous. Dangerous to you. Dangerous to Molly. Period.

Sean screams at me:
I told you, Faye, Molly's not going anywhere near him. I hope the police take him out with a sniper bullet. One less fucking nutcase in the world.

Helen:
Sometimes you need to say no.

My dad:
A line in the sand, Faye. At some point, we all need to draw our line and stand behind it.

I return to the hallway and hit the callback button. “I'm sorry, Detective. I've changed my mind.”

92

E
than is dead. Moments after I told the detective we weren't coming, Ethan stepped off the ledge and died. His last words were
I love you, Molly. This is for you.

I found out almost immediately after it happened because, within minutes of his death, the media stormed our condo, screaming questions up at our window and buzzing the intercom.

Now, two hours later—the shades down, the intercom disconnected, my phone muted—a dozen police officers surround the building attempting to keep the peace, a task about as easy as herding a swarm of bloodthirsty locusts.

Like a lump of burning coal sitting in the pit of my stomach, the news has decimated me, charring my insides and making me hollow. There are no tears or hysterics, only the sick, empty feeling of knowing I am responsible, that I was the one who could have stopped it.

Since finding out the news, I have tortured myself by reading every shred of information I can find on Ethan W. Howell.

Twenty-three. He was only twenty-three.

The son of a wealthy businessman, he had a brother he was not close with and a sister who died when he was a toddler. The sister passed away from leukemia when she was five, and a photo of her shows a little girl with curly blond hair who looks a little like Molly.

Over and over, I watch the YouTube video of Ethan's death, recorded by a spectator who stood behind the police tape. Twenty seconds long, it shows Ethan crying and shaking, his hands spread out against the brick of the building to hold him in place as he made his overture of unrequited love. Then the awful irretraceable step, the panic when he realized what he had done, and the video cuts out. It does not show him hitting the ground, but I do not need a visual to flinch in horror each time I watch it.

Robotically I go through the evening routine, giving the kids their baths, reading their lines to them, tucking them into bed. I am pulling the covers up around Tom when he asks, “Who's Ethan?”

“No one you need to worry about,” I reassure him.

He looks unconvinced, and I know at some point I will need to explain why the press has descended on our home and is shouting questions about someone named Ethan. But at the moment, I am at a loss as to exactly what to say, the truth too gruesome for an eight-year-old to handle. The truth too gruesome for a thirty-two-year-old to handle.
Ethan is that guy who used to wave to us on the corner, the guy with the sweet smile who would do a fist pump if he saw us. Well, he's dead now because he became infatuated with your sister and decided he couldn't live without her, so he threatened to kill the president to prove his love, and when the police found out, they tried to arrest him, and he got scared, so he stepped onto the ledge of a building and threatened to kill himself, and I could have saved him by letting him see Molly, but I didn't and so he died.

“Mom, you okay?”

“Yeah, baby, I'm fine.” I kiss him on the head then go to the living room to lie down with Molly. I crawl in beside her and smooth her hair from her face, her forehead damp from the heat radiating from her small body. Outside, on the street, the press still prowls. I hear their voices and occasional laughter, vultures circling, waiting for us to emerge so they can pick our bones.

As time ticks by, the charred emptiness that consumes me begins to glow, an ember burning and growing hotter until it rages like an inferno.
He's dead, but I didn't mean to kill him.
I didn't want to kill him. I didn't ask for this. I don't want this.
Sorrow to anger, disbelief to outrage. Unable to lie still another minute, I throw back the covers and begin to pace. Molly's blue elephant, won for her by Sean when she was a toddler, lies on the table beside the door. Emily's cleats sit on the floor below it where she dropped them after her last game. Remnants of who we were before Ethan, before the show, before my life was taken from me.
Graciela is wrong. I did not sell my daughter. I will not sell my daughter. This is not a better life. I am not like her. She and I, we are not the same.

Wandering silently through the dimness, I scan the relics, and by the time I peek in on Tom, asleep in the room Emily used to sleep in, my skin is on fire. And when I see the rainbow-colored bag sitting open on Emily's desk, the bright blue “Sugar-Free” banner above the Life Savers logo, my lips curl into a smile that holds no joy. As Helen says, there's more than one way to skin a dragon.