The Animators(26)

“Have you two had a serious talk about her behavior?”

“Attempts have been made.”

“She’ll listen to you before she listens to anyone else. Let me suggest trying again.”

And with this, I hope she’s done chewing me out, but she’s just drawing breath. “Whatever you all do with the Hollingsworth, it better be good. Otherwise, I’ll be in a choke hold to do something, you know. Disciplinary.”

“Well, we’re not talking to each other at the present, so we’re cleaned out on the ideas front.”

“Sharon. Are you kidding me?”

“No.” I flop back on the couch. I’m so tired, I can’t find it in myself to give a shit. “She probably shouldn’t hear any of this from me.”

“I’m drafting an email to her as we speak. This need not be sugarcoated. I do not want to hear about Mel publicly stripping, destroying sound equipment, or wantonly making out with defenseless production assistants in Florida.”

I groan openly. I forgot about the Florida conference—a small liberal arts college holding a festival of Florida-centric work. Weird Florida history, Florida fiction, Florida noir (which is, apparently, a thing). They’re screening Nashville Combat, hosting a Q and A. They were really gunning for us. Called Donnie and laid down all kinds of sexy talk and more money than what we’re used to seeing for this kind of thing, frankly, so she fell all over herself to book us.

“Your flight’s on the sixteenth,” she says. “You signed a contract.”

“How much is it, again?”

“Four thousand each. Not including travel.”

I curl into a fetal position. “That’s a lot.”

“And all you have to do is muzzle Mel and be your lovely self. Talk about this beautiful thing you’ve made. You don’t have to talk to each other, aside from the Q and A. You’re professionals. You can at least do that much. Keep it civil for fifteen minutes and then we have a discussion about where we all go from there. Okay?”

I hang up, pop a couple of ibuprofen for the low-grade headache I’ve had for most of the morning, and curl up on the couch, running my fingers through three days of hair grease. Click on Netflix. Light up a joint. Try to disconnect.

Brecky’s documentary series is on my “Recommended for You” suggestion list. If Mel and I ever call it quits, I guess there would no longer be a reason to consider Brecky my mortal enemy. The reality of my social stance without Mel occurs to me. Connections shouldn’t count, but God knows they do. And I will need them. I keep thinking about our fight: You can’t do this without me. It robs me of appetite every time. I’m not accustomed to thinking of myself in the singular; it’s a new, chilling experience.

I run a bath, light up another joint, put on some Ren & Stimpy to even myself out. I sink into the cold water and try to trace it all back. What happened to Mel this summer? How did we get out of hand together so fast? I think of the beginning of the tour, when we were still booking two separate hotel suites and she just passed out in mine night after night. How I was the only one to see how torturous it was for her to sleep, how she kicked and muttered and cried out. How watching the movie—something she once loved—turned her to ice, how she drummed her fingers on her knees at the opening credits, wincing; how, when the audience laughed, she pulled a flask I didn’t know she had from her pocket and slumped down in her seat to take a pull. I felt guilty admitting to myself how much I loved seeing people see the movie. How, when the audience laughed, I could feel myself flush and get wet, squirming breathless in my seat, glad I wasn’t a dude or else I’d pop a raging boner every time someone paid me a compliment, while Mel had to get high before meet and greets just to get through them. By the third or fourth screening this summer, her eyes were perpetually pink after eight P.M., no questions asked.

None of this is supremely new. Mel’s always liked to unwind, drink, smoke, smoke up. She’s a good-time girl. It’s the look on her face, more than anything, that makes it different than before; a sudden preoccupation when she’s still, the way she snaps in irritation when asked if she’s okay: “I’m fine. Jesus.” As if she’s been caught at something.

The undercurrent, rarely discussed: We did not ask Mel’s mom’s permission. Nashville Combat rides the line between memoir and fiction; we used a facsimile of Mel’s mom, a her-but-not-her, as the movie’s focus, though it’s understood that this particular line between fiction and reality is all but nonexistent. Distribution’s legal team told us slander was a hard case to prove if you changed names, where they worked, who they dated. “She doesn’t give a fuck what I do,” Mel maintained mildly. “You shouldn’t worry so much.”

But wouldn’t she want to know? I asked. Doesn’t she want to know what you’re doing in the world?

“Like I said,” Mel repeated. “She doesn’t give a fuck.”

But during the tour, I could tell she was thinking of that Salon article. Rolling the question over and over, like a pebble in the mouth.

We had planned to use the few weeks we had in New York before the tour to brainstorm, but she stopped working at the studio. Started taking her laptop and sketchpad to a bar in Bushwick called Dixie Mafia. I tried to join her there but accomplished nothing, sipping G and Ts and eyeing the male bartenders woefully. We haven’t had a productive day since Kelly Kay died. It marks the first time we’ve been blocked in a few years. Just trying to work feels stifling. Futile.