Unscripted (24 page)

Mason laughed as well. “No. But we do have a room at the college for guests. It’s nothing fancy, but sometimes we put up speakers, entertainers, anyone like that who visits the college. You know, if they choose not to check into the Super Duper Nine Motor Court.”

“I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.”

“So what do you think? Want the room?”

“Gee, I dunno. I was thinking of sleeping in my car. These leather seats sure are comfy.”

“Oh, okay. I understand. Never mind, then. Sorry to have troubled—”

“Mason? Gimme the damned room.”

“Thought you might see it that way. I’ll get things set up. Check with the admin office in a bit. They have the key.”

Chapter 14

I pulled my suitcases down the industrial-carpeted hallway, looking for room 425. The guest room was at the end of the top floor of an old dorm building. The hallway had a funny smell. I couldn’t quite place it, but it might have been Eau de Sweaty Socks. The cinderblock walls could have used a fresh coat of paint, and I didn’t want to know what that peculiarly large stain on the carpet was over there. The admin lady had told me, rather apologetically, that this particular building was slated to undergo some renovations in the near future, but so far it hadn’t been altered since the school opened in the sixties. I tried not to breathe deeply in case it was rife with asbestos.

Still, I could overlook a cancer-causing agent in the air if at the end of this hallway I’d find a powerful, hot shower and a cushy bed draped with some heavy linens. I wondered if there’d be a fluffy robe hanging on the back of the door, but that was probably too much to ask. Still, it had been a hell of a day, and I was exhausted, so anything would do. My plan was to settle in, get comfortable, and then try harder to track down Jamie.

When I reached room 425, which truly was at the very end of that long hallway, I practically fell inside. The heavy metal door slammed shut behind me as I stood stock still, taking in my surroundings. Linoleum floor. Chipboard dresser. “Bed” that was little more than a glorified cot. Thin sheets folded in a stack at the foot of the bed. Small, grimy window.

That was all.

Feeling panic build in me for the umpteenth time today, I frantically yanked open the only other door in the place, hoping, at least, for a plush bathroom. Instead I found a small, empty closet.

And then I remembered the bathrooms I walked past, halfway down the hall. The ones that looked suspiciously like locker rooms at the Y . . . Oh no.

But I really,
really
had been looking forward to a fluffy bed and a roach-free bathroom.

Stop it,
I ordered myself. I had just decided anything would do. I could handle this. I was Faith Freakin’ Sinclair, for God’s sake. I was not a spoiled brat, not one of Bea’s Hollywood asshats who demanded thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets and lavender-scented robes. I was not my mother, carrying her own bottled glacier water. I always prided myself on being able to cope under even the most averse circumstances. And this certainly qualified.

With a fresh dose of steely determination bordering on martyrdom, I parked my suitcases in the corner and started making up the bed. At the very least I could nap.

* * *

I lurched up onto my elbow and stared around wildly in the dim light. For a second I had no idea where I was. Then, as my eyes focused and I made out the cinderblock walls, metal door, and pitted mirror over the dresser, I put the pieces together. Dropping back onto the pillow, I rubbed my forehead and waited for my hammering heart to slow down. Not at home, but at least not at a skanky motel. And not in the back seat of my car. I had four walls (such as they were) and a roof. And a toilet, even though it was down the hall.

I pulled the chain on the lamp over the bed; a yellow cone of light warmed the top of my head and cast broad shadows on the walls. The display on my phone showed it was around seven o’clock. Shouts in the hallway, blaring music, and slamming doors said it was a weekend evening and my neighbors were ready to party.

Suddenly I felt really old. I didn’t want to party. I didn’t even want to get up; I just wanted to go back to sleep for the rest of the night. But my stomach wouldn’t let me. I was damned hungry. The last time I ate, I recalled, was when Mason bought me that muffin after class.

And then all my problems came rushing at me, bowling me over. Freeze on my bank account, confiscated credit cards, no money, very little gas, desire to murder my stepbrother—check. Not to mention that every minute I was caught up with my own issues, I was missing out on a chance to sway Alex. The only bright spot had been Mason. He’d been nothing but nice to me today.

And
that
was kinda freaky.

I stretched and hauled myself out of bed. Sleeping in my clothes had generated a stale sort of funk that bloomed whenever I moved, and my mouth felt cottony. I decided to dig out my toiletries, take a shower, and then raid the dorm vending machines.

. . . Shit.

I had turned over every bit of spare change I had to Lumpy to pay for my memorable night at the Super Duper Nine Motor Court. I was going to starve to death in a forgotten room in a forgotten dorm at the far corner of a far-flung community college in the Inland Empire. What a way to go. If they eventually imploded the building because of the likely asbestos problem (I tended to think ahead), they wouldn’t even find my bones.

Okay, now it was a matter of survival: It was time to get out and see the sights, maybe find a half-eaten sub in a campus garbage can. A girl could dream.

* * *

The campus at night was a weird mix of localized spots of intense activity and long stretches of silent darkness. I was surprised to find that strolling leisurely, observing the pockets of action and the bright lights of some of the buildings, made me feel calmer, and more refreshed, than I’d been in a long time. I started to realize just why attending college was so attractive to Alex. The place had a singular sense of purpose—helping people improve themselves—that put my aimlessness of the past several months in a whole new light.

As I crossed an open plaza, a warm breeze sifted through the open weave of my cropped sweater and fluttered the silk tank underneath. I skipped up the broad, shallow steps on the other side. The only thing that would take me from mellow to truly happy would be for a pizza to fall out of the sky. Or to run into Alex. But I was so hungry, I was hoping for the Miracle of the Pizza over Alex. I was
that
hungry.

A classroom building in the distance was all lit up, and I headed that way, hoping to find a reception or an art gallery opening, solely to score some free canapés. I mean, screw the education and the socializing—my situation was dire. When I got closer, I saw a small sandwich-board sign propped up outside the front doors: “Mona Urquhart Film Series:
Death and Taxes
. Discussion following with Prof. Mason Mitchell.”

Oh, I couldn’t miss this.

I slipped into the lecture hall through an open door; I was at the back, up high, and there were about fifty people scattered in the rows below me. Mason stood at the bottom of the bowl, in a bright spotlight. I tucked myself into the nearest empty seat. The place was dead silent except for his resonant voice, which carried clearly all the way to the back. Nobody coughed, nobody fidgeted, nobody checked their phones.

“. . . this marked her entrance into the inner circle. The ‘big leagues,’ if you will, of modern cinema. No woman had ever come this far, this quickly, as a producer and director in the film industry and lived to tell about it.” Polite laughter. “But as the film showed, and I hope you noticed, she was able to keep up with the boys. She
thought
like the boys, she
acted
like the boys, and it showed in the choices she made, the toughness she made sure was brought to the screen, in every frame. In hindsight, from our comfortable perch in the twenty-first century, we could criticize, and say that she wasn’t being true to herself, to her gender, to feminism in general. But thirty-five years ago, that was her mode of survival. With
Death and Taxes,
she came into her own . . .”

Mason was talking about my mother’s first blockbuster, the one that really put her on the map. I was too young to remember this era of Mona’s career clearly, but I’d heard enough about it, both from her and from the film community at large. After all, who didn’t know about Mona’s first big success after slaving away during the early seventies on a bunch of silly, forgettable, girly-fluff films and then more serious, but weaker, ones?

Mason, bless his fuzzy face, wasn’t saying anything new, nothing that a thousand film scholars hadn’t already said over the years. And yet the audience still lapped it up. I glanced around; there were a lot of senior citizens, many of them sagely nodding their gray heads in agreement. I knew they were remembering their first viewing of this movie, back when tickets cost $2.50 and the theater speakers didn’t blow you out the back wall. It was weird to think that my mother’s work was a part of their cultural memory, that it meant so much to them.

“And yet . . .” Here Mason paused dramatically, which effectively brought my wandering attention back to him. He thoughtfully rubbed his chin, and I noticed he didn’t have a fuzzy face tonight—he had shaved off his two-day stubble for the occasion. I kind of missed it. “What I think many retrospectives and nostalgic multiple re-viewings of this film miss is that Mona Urquhart did not ignore the feminine in her quest to be accepted by the masculine. Whereas the men were busy with the gritty realism of the era, she made sure that her female characters were not, in fact, prostitutes, or divorcees, or junkies. Not downtrodden. Although they may have fallen on hard times, they, like she herself, remained strong and purposeful. And I think that’s the biggest lesson we can take away tonight: In every female character onscreen in her films, there was a little piece of indomitable spirit, of Mona Urquhart, to last for eternity. Thank you.”

After a healthy round of applause, the audience began to disperse, most of the attendees heading for the exits, but some of them clustering around Mason. I inched down that way myself to hear them complimenting him on his insight, sharing their own thoughts, asking questions. Mason gave each of them his full time and attention—and then he glanced up at me. The small, brilliant spotlights overhead made his eyes sparkle. He extricated himself from the group with apologies and pats on shoulders, and came up the steps.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself, Moner.”

He reddened a little.

“You didn’t tell me you gave lectures on my mom’s work.”

“Well, it hasn’t come up in casual conversation. Were you here for the whole thing?”

“I caught the tail end of it. Mona would be pleased with your offering.”

“I’m honored.” He gestured up toward the doors, and I turned and loped awkwardly up the wide, shallow, oddly spaced steps, Mason following. Once we were outside in the warm night, he asked, “What about you? Did you approve?”

“Hey, it’s got nothing to do with me.”

A tiny smile curled up the corner of his mouth. “You sure?”

“Completely. Mona’s Mona, and that’s nifty, but if you want to know the truth, I really don’t give a rip about a lecture on her work—yours or anybody else’s,” I added.

“Wow. When you said you weren’t a fan of hers, you meant it, didn’t you?”

“If you knew Mona like I know Mona . . .”

“I can only imagine.”

“I’ll bet you can’t.”

“Was she really all that awful? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he rushed to tack on, which I appreciated.

But something, maybe the honest way he looked straight at me, made me trust him. Mason started to meander down one of the walkways, and I joined him, trying to explain.

“Mona was . . . not the greatest mom,” I started. My opening was lame, but how in the world could I even begin to start explaining our messy mother–daughter relationship? How in the world could I distill our complicated . . .
thing
. . . down to a few pithy sentences?

When my pause went on a little too long, he tried to fill in the blanks for me. “Um, let me guess: married to her work, which came first, and that meant you came second, or was it a distant third to her Husband of the Week?”

Impressive. He cut to the chase well. “Pretty much.”

“Not really warm and fuzzy? Didn’t do the blankies and hot cocoa thing with you?”

Wow. I couldn’t remember the last time someone made me laugh when the topic was my childhood with Mona. “Not even a little bit.”

“Dad?” he suggested.

“Not in the picture. My parents divorced when I was two years old, and my father immediately hightailed it for Europe. I hear he’s got a really small, rustic vineyard somewhere in France. I couldn’t pick him out of a police lineup if my life depended on it, though. It’s like he . . . doesn’t even exist for me. Is that weird?”

Mason shrugged. “Who’s to say what’s weird, for anyone? So,” he went on, “it was just you and your mom—and her movies—for most of your life. And you still hate her for the way you were brought up?”