The Stand-In(82)

Too wired to do anything as banal as sleep, I putter around my suite tidying and thinking. Fretting. Sam put Todd out of my mind but now that I’m alone, I’m worried about what he’s going to do. My severance from work is safe but what if he comes looking for me? What if he tries to contact me or threaten us? He’s vindictive; I know that from how he treated people at work, how he treated me. I hate that the amount of real estate he should take up in my head should be the size of a hovel, a subcloset, but instead he’s living rent-free in a sprawling mansion.

A knock comes at the connecting door that leads to Fangli’s room. “Are you awake?” she asks through the door.

I open it. “Yeah.”

“I can’t sleep and I saw the light under your door.” Fangli rubs her eyes. “Can I come in for a bit?”

“Let’s sit on the balcony.” It would be nice to have the company and take my mind off worrying about Todd. But now that there’s another human near me, I’m almost bursting with my Sam news. That gets diverted almost immediately when Fangli touches my hand.

“You were the one who had Sam make me agree to talk to someone,” she says. “Thank you.”

“The decision was yours,” I say. “I think you were ready.”

“Sam’s been trying to get me help for years.” She takes her hand back, and the chair leg scratches as she shifts it along the concrete balcony. “I didn’t realize how heavily it weighed on him.”

“He was worried about you.”

“I know, but I didn’t want to admit it.” Fangli raises her face to watch the full moon flooding the sky. “I thought it would be death for my career. That’s what my manager said. He told me to cure myself because it wasn’t that bad.”

“Cure yourself?”

She glances at me out of the corner of her eye and gives me a small smile. “It didn’t work.”

“No, I imagine not. It didn’t for me.”

“You tried, too?”

“Failed the same way I wouldn’t be able to cure my own pneumonia or cancer through willpower.”

“I never thought of it like that.”

I think over what I want to say. “You said it would be bad for your career.”

“My manager said if it was known I had problems, no one would hire me. They would think I was unpredictable.”

“When was this?”

She thinks. “Five or six years ago.”

I make up my mind. “You’re more established now. Other people feel like us. It might help them to know they’re not alone, if you think that’s something you can do.”

The long silence makes me worry I’ve gone too far. Then her soft voice rises. “I think so, too. But I don’t have the courage.”

“You?” I twist in my chair. “Did you know one of the most common fears is speaking in public? You do it all the time. You put yourself out there with your art in front of a critical world. I could never do what you do. I don’t have the guts.”

She bursts out laughing and grabs my shoulder. “You don’t? What do you think you’ve been doing for a month? You’re the one who took a chance when I asked you to pretend to be me. Do you think most people would have the courage to do that?”

“I think it was the money.”

“No, you’re braver than you want to believe,” she says. She eyes me. “You like to pretend you’re not bold because it’s an excuse to not stretch yourself.”

I wince. “Harsh.”

“You helped me. This is me helping you. Sam told me about Eppy and how well you did filming with him. You can do whatever you set your mind to, Gracie. I’ve seen this in you but you need to see it in yourself. I believe in you.”

Have I ever had a pep talk like this? Mom loves me but she was more about setting realistic expectations to avoid disappointment and failure. I never had anyone tell me to dream. I’m not even sure I’ve ever had a talk with a friend like this before, at least not sober.

Fangli fetches a blanket from inside. “Cashmere or wool?” she asks as she spreads it over our knees.

“For what?”

She twitches the corner of the blanket. “What material do you prefer?”

“Neither. I like that synthetic stuff they make into stuffed animals. It’s so soft you can barely feel it on your fingertips.”

“I like cashmere,” she says in the comfortable tone of a woman who owns a lot of it. “Yak is good, too.”

“Yak?” I turn to see her face, pale in the moonlight. “Isn’t that, you know…yakky? Coarse?”

“Oh, no. The inner coat is very soft.”

I file that information away and we sit in the dark for a while longer, idly quizzing each other.

Pasta or rice?

Train or plane?

Dramas or comedies?

Despite our disagreement about the best blanket fiber, we are eerily in sync for the rest of our choices. Finally we both yawn in unison.

“Back to bed,” I say, happy to have distracted myself back to exhaustion.

Fangli leans over to give me a hug before she stands up to go. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I drag myself into the bathroom to shower. The water washes away some of my unease and after towel-drying my hair, I collapse into bed. Todd crosses my mind and I force his nasty face away with a physical gesture.