Other People's Houses(46)
“You can’t divorce a kid?”
“Nope.” Frances looked up and saw Ava leaning in the doorway. “Once you’re someone’s mommy you’re their mommy forever, and you never stop loving them or taking care of them or wanting them to be happy. That’s just the way it is.” She was looking at Ava as she said this, and saw her daughter about to challenge pretty much everything she’d just said, citing child abuse, death, drug addiction, et al., but then Frances frowned slightly, indicating Lally, and Ava just rolled her eyes. There would be time for brutal honesty later. For now Frances was determined to let Lally think the best of the world, and apparently Lally’s older sister was OK with that, too.
“Unless the kid is really bad, right?” There was a pause, and Lally tipped her head back to look at her mom. “What if the kid is really bad, can you divorce them then?” Whether she was planning some terrible crime, or just wondering how bad refusing to eat vegetables was, legally, Frances didn’t know. She kissed her daughter on her clean little forehead, and shook her head.
“No, baby, it doesn’t matter how naughty a kid is, you still love them forever.”
“Even if they poo on the floor?” This was a question based on experience.
“Yes, even then.”
“Or if they steal your hat?”
Frances grinned. “Or even then. There is NOTHING you can do that will stop me loving you. I might not like what you do, but I will always love you.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Frances hugged her littlest child, and looked up at her eldest. Ava was just looking back at her, impossible to read. Then she turned away and headed off to her room.
Twenty-one.
Wyatt was already asleep when Sara came home from work, still in makeup and looking gorgeous. Iris was wearing an old-lady flannel nightgown, lying in bed reading the New Yorker and eating ice cream. She was happy to see Sara, of course, but inwardly cursed that she hadn’t gotten more ice cream in the first place because now getting seconds would look greedy. Bad planning.
Sara threw herself down on the bed next to Iris, kissed her hello, then sat back up again. Such energy, thought Iris, closing her magazine and smiling.
“I like your nightie,” Sara said, half smiling. The granny nighties were a running joke between them because Iris shopped for them compulsively on eBay, hunting for genuinely old, worn flannel gowns that genuinely old, worn ladies had possibly died in. She liked how soft they were, found the patterns and cuts comforting. Sara thought it was funny, and secretly adorable.
“Thanks. How was work?”
Sara shrugged and leapt up to go wash her face. Her voice drifted from the bathroom. “It was fine. I kind of rushed out of there, but I think it went well. David Rapelli turns out to be a nice guy.”
Her costar. He was a hunky handsome guy, the dude next door, the fuckable-husband type. He and Sara were married in this movie, but that was about as much as Iris knew about it.
“Oh yeah?” Iris reached for the magazine again, but was thwarted by Sara suddenly reappearing, her face bare. She had the common actor’s ability to put on and take off makeup in about three seconds. Ten thousand hours of anything makes you an expert, presumably. Iris patted Rosco instead, as if that had been her intent the whole time.
“Yeah. He’s married, two kids, not the brightest bulb on the tree and knows it, mostly grateful for the lucky break he had genetically, followed by the lucky break he had temperamentally, followed by the lucky break he had professionally.”
“So, grateful then?”
Sara nodded. “Largely. He started to be a dick about craft services, but he picked the wrong day for it, so that didn’t last long.”
“How do you mean?”
“Lynsey was first AD.”
Lynsey was a woman they both knew socially, after Sara had become friends with her through work. A dedicated and gifted multitasker who could have been directing enormous movies or captaining some industry or other, she was instead a first assistant director on made-for-TV movies so she could earn enough money and have enough working flexibility to care for her younger sister who was slowly but surely dying of cystic fibrosis. Lynsey had incredible empathy, maybe as a result of watching someone you love fight to stay alive despite a life filled with pain, which made her a pleasure to work with unless you were rude, at which point she would flay you alive and you’d never be hired again.
Sara pulled off her clothes and clambered under the covers, snuggling up to Iris. “Ooh, you’re so toasty.” She wrapped her long legs around her wife, who shrieked and pulled away.
“Your feet are like ice cubes. What were you shooting, a scene on an iceberg?”
Sara laughed. “Yeah, because in this story the young married couple are going on vacation to the Grand Canyon and an iceberg comes floating down the Colorado.”
“Global warming. It could happen.”
“Well, this isn’t the dystopian vacation rom-com you seem to be imagining. I just have cold feet. You married me for better or worse, let me tuck my cold feet under your warm legs.” She did so, and continued. “Anyway, Lynsey pulled him briefly aside and said something and after that he behaved himself impeccably. I think you’d like him.”
“Is he incredibly short?”