Everything Leads to You(57)

One of the few areas where my parents’ professional passions overlap, though, is music, most significantly the rise of West Coast gangsta rap. They can talk for hours about it, analyzing the evolution of music videos, from the low-budget Snoop Dogg/Dr. Dre collaboration of Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang, which celebrates Long Beach and Compton over a backdrop of humble house parties, to the opulent candlelight, champagne-filled set of 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted, released only three years later.

I turn on the VCR, Ava hands me the video, and soon the screen (which hangs on the wall flanked by giant original photographs of N.W.A and Tupac on the left and my parents many framed diplomas on the right), is playing the opening credits of The Restlessness.

Blue light and snow over Chicago. A jazzy song.

The story is pretty simple to follow. It’s all kind of a nod to the noir genre, with a mysterious loner protagonist trying to solve a murder mystery before the police do. The plot is fairly predictable but the tension in the den is high anyway, because we don’t know when Caroline Maddox will appear. All we know is that she’s a waitress in the pivotal scene, so we assume that she won’t be on-screen until the movie is at the very least half over.

Even though the wait is inevitable, no one eats much past five minutes in, and Ava doesn’t eat at all. No one moves or says anything, and as is the case with many of my ideas, I start to worry that coming over here was a bad one.

Ava and Jamal are sitting on a love seat, my parents and Charlotte on the couch. I’m alone in a chair where I can see them all through my peripheral vision, and everyone is stiff and nervous. So many things could go wrong. Maybe Caroline Maddox doesn’t even speak. Maybe we only see her from the neck down, a hand and arm refilling a coffee cup in the foreground while our moody detective broods at the counter. Or, even worse, what if we do see her and she’s a terrible actress? What if Ava is embarrassed and we all rush in to say Caroline wasn’t that bad but she can tell that we’re lying?

An hour and five minutes in, I begin to feel ill. I have to remind myself to breathe. I have no idea what’s going on in this movie, only that, at some point, the scene will change to the inside of a restaurant and I will implode.

And then, here it is:

The camera pans to the outside of a steakhouse, and suddenly we are in it. The detective sits in a booth alone, awaiting a blond woman who may or may not be his daughter.

“Can I get you a drink?” a woman’s voice asks, and the camera reveals Caroline Maddox.

We all gasp, because there is no doubt that it’s her, even for my parents, who haven’t seen the photo. She has the same red hair as Ava, the same perfect nose.

And I get this feeling. Like when you’re a little kid and you make a fort out of chairs and blankets pulled off all the beds of the house, and when you’re inside the light is different, and you’re lying on pillows on the floor and you need a flashlight to read even though it’s the middle of the day. It feels like the people in this room are the only people in the world. Like all the life outside must be holding still and quiet, giving us these moments.

The camera stays on Caroline’s face as she waits for an answer. I was expecting her to be the jaded waitress who cocks her hip and chews gum and seems distracted or annoyed by her customers, but she isn’t. When she asks if she can get the detective a drink, she means it.

“Scotch,” he says, and we all gasp again, because the camera is now back on him and it would be too painful, too cruel, if that was all we saw of Caroline. Something is happening. He pats his pocket and pulls out a matchbook and narrows his eyes. Something has been solved, but I don’t know what. He gestures, and—thank God—here Caroline is again.

“Are you ready to order?” she asks.

“Change in plan,” he says. “I’m going to have to take a rain check on that drink.”

“Oh.” Her pleasant, professional courtesy is replaced with confusion, but it’s more than that. It’s concern. She smooths a strand of hair behind her ear. The camera stays on her for longer than it probably should, considering that this is an important moment that is in no way about her.

“Listen. If you see a blonde come in here, tell her something for me, will you?”

Caroline nods.

“Tell her that she duped me but I’m on to her. Tell her no daughter of mine would run around with Mack’s boys.”

“Okay, I’ll tell her,” Caroline says. “Sure you don’t have time for that scotch?”