Life and Other Inconveniences(55)

Sheppard . . . sometimes, a memory stabbed at him while he was dozing . . . the way his heart had lifted when Sheppard asked if he wanted to play. Clark seemed to remember that Shep had helped him brush his teeth at night. But Sheppard hadn’t been perfect, though Mother would stab herself in the heart before admitting it.

When he and April visited Sheerwater over Christmas, he paused at the pictures of him and his brother. “A handsome boy,” April said, slipping her hand in his.

“Yeah.”

“You must miss him so much.”

“Yup.” He wished his brother hadn’t died. Ditto his father.

“Let’s not talk of painful subjects, shall we, April?” Genevieve said, frost in her voice. “Clark, do tell me about your . . . book.” She always paused like that, as if she knew he was really fucking tennis moms or falling asleep in movie theaters or playing golf and drinking at eleven a.m.

“Book’s going great,” he said.

“It’s going up for auction in Hollywood,” April said, and Clark winced internally. April would buy that kind of lie; Genevieve would not.

“How very thrilling for you,” she said.

“Yeah, well, they want a second book,” he said, “plus a proposal for the third, and that’s almost done, so we should know pretty soon.”

Genevieve lifted an eyebrow, managing to convey that she knew he was lying through his butt. Yes. If the baby was a boy, they’d name it Sheppard, and it would make Genevieve furious. There was only one child named Sheppard in the world, and it was hers.

The baby was a girl, unfortunately. He floated Sheppard as a girl’s name, but April said no. Her heart was set on the name Emma, so whatever. That was fine. The kid was cute enough. Genevieve visited and pronounced her “quite the Riley.” The insinuation was clear . . . Even his kid wasn’t good enough.

A month after the baby, April’s mother got sick and it was bad, one of those long, wasting diseases with no cure. April was sad, of course, and that got tiring pretty fast. Actually, maybe she was sad before, too. The postpartum depression thing, maybe? It was depressing, that was for sure. No laundry done, the house a mess, smelling like breast milk and sour diapers. Her mother getting sick sure didn’t help. He hired a cleaning service and a private nurse for his mother-in-law, but even that didn’t cheer up his wife.

When Emma was about four months old and sleeping through the night, Clark told April he had to travel for “research.”

“You can’t go!” April had wailed. “Are you crazy? I’m barely holding it together, Clark!”

“I have to,” he snapped. “Who do you think pays the bills around here?”

“Your family’s money!”

“You think that covers everything?” he said. “You’re wrong.” Total lie. “I’ve been doing some consulting in the city, and I have to, since you want to stay home with the baby.” Another lie. No one would hire him, for one, because FHK had sued him for breach of contract just to be spiteful. The trust fund could pay for an entire life for the three of them, though, yeah, he’d spent a lot in the past few years. Not that April knew about that.

They fought. It just made leaving easier.

God, he’d forgotten how much he loved traveling! Everything was new when you traveled. Every time you saw a street you’d never seen before, where no one knew you, where you could be anyone, where you had no history . . . what was better than that?

He went to LA, because you never knew who you might meet, especially when you stayed at the coolest hotel in town. Clark dressed the way he thought a writer would—black T-shirt that cost $350, distressed jeans ($900), Converse high-tops (cheap), the $5,000 briefcase his mother had given him when he started at FHK. Monied (i.e., successful), but still cool. He lingered in the hotel lobby, saw Denzel Washington come in with three or four other people, thought about asking for an autograph but then decided to simply pretend he knew him.

“Denzel, my man!” he said, jumping up to shake the actor’s hand. “Clark London. Great to see you again.”

“You too,” the actor said with a courteous nod as he continued into the restaurant with his people.

“Take care!” Clark called, then regretted it. But it was okay. It was great! He’d met Denzel Washington! They’d talked. They were both in the hotel on business, and they’d talked, so this was definitely a step in the right direction. He found himself saying to strangers at the various bars he frequented, “Denzel and I were talking a few days ago at the Bel-Air when we had drinks . . .” And they had had drinks. Not together, but practically.

He loved it. Stayed away for three weeks. When he came home, April was different. Her eyes told him she knew what he’d been doing. He lied, said the consulting had been just fine, and guess what? The books had been optioned and were going into production soon . . . He and Denzel Washington—yes, really—had talked about him playing the lead role of, um, Pierre (April knew nothing about what he had or hadn’t written).

“Is there any money associated with this?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, yeah. I’ll have the check this week.”

Her face changed. “Clark, that’s great,” she said, hugging him. So he had to take a huge chunk of money out of his trust fund—Jesus, the fines they charged, it was robbery—and gave it to his wife. “My advance,” he said.