The Comeback(27)
“Thanks,” I say, debating whether or not I need to tip her. I feel bad for snapping at her, but when I try to hand her twenty dollars, she seems so alarmed that I stuff it back in my bag.
“Are you okay?” she asks as I’m leaving, and she’s looking me up and down. I look down, too, at my sweat-stained Lakers T-shirt hanging over the slip dress, now torn and ragged at the hem, and a pair of promotional Crocs that I found at the house in Venice on my feet. They’re lined with sheepskin and they’re the most comfortable things I’ve ever owned.
“I think so?” I say, but I must not be very convincing because she still seems like she feels sorry for me.
I get back in the car and just sit for a moment, sweat pooling on my upper lip. I have let other people do everything for me for my entire life, and most of the time I didn’t even know it was happening. Even after I met Dylan, we were only ever pretending to be like any regular college-age couple when really we had a slew of assistants, drivers, wellness coaches and housekeepers organizing our lives. Groceries magically appeared in our fridge every week, and we would stand next to precooked meals from our chef even as we ordered Vietnamese food or sushi to be delivered to our door. I’m not sure I could tell you how to call a cab or make a cup of coffee if somebody were holding a machete to my throat, and what’s worse, I don’t think I’ve ever realized that until now.
* * *
? ? ?
“I’m looking for binoculars,” I tell the first person I see when I walk into Best Buy, twenty miles and three perilous U-turns later. The sales assistant is in his late teens and has an unappealing film of baby fluff covering his upper lip. The rest of his face and neck is clean-shaven, other than one more distinct patch of fuzz over his prominent Adam’s apple. When I see how it leaps around when he swallows, I can understand why he was reluctant to shave it. His name tag says Ethan.
“Oh wow. Binoculars. For bird-w . . . watching?” The poor guy is physically shaking. He’s already recognized me. I keep having to remind myself that I’m back in LA, where everyone is raised on a diet of Access Hollywood and E!, and Oscar nominations are discussed over a bowl of Cheerios in the morning.
I try to seem humble and grateful while Ethan leads me down the correct aisle and waits in front of the binoculars for my response.
“Dolphin watching, whale watching. I suppose maybe some birds.”
Ethan nods and passes me a box from the shelf. While I’m looking at it, he puts one hand inside his pocket, his eyes scanning to check if anyone is watching us, and then he pulls out his phone. After a moment I shrug, understanding that he wants a photo with me. Ethan adjusts the angle of his hand so that we’re both in the frame, and just as I’m attempting to assemble my features into something vaguely acceptable, he takes the photo. A flash goes off from the front, startling me. He puts his phone back into his pocket and takes the binoculars from me.
“I actually also need to get a phone, can you help me with that too?” I ask, thinking of Laurel.
Ethan leads me to a different section of the painfully bright store. I request the most basic model, and as he talks me through the setup process, I can see that he is trying to hide that he has an erection underneath his regulation chinos. I feel a vague mixture of disgust and embarrassment for him, and I hope that he isn’t going to remember my new phone number and stalk me.
“I can ring you up right here, you don’t have to get in line or anything.” He picks up a tablet and presses a few things on it. I hand over my credit card.
“Hey, can you . . . can you say the line?” Ethan asks while we’re waiting for the payment to go through, and I know instantly what he means. He’s talking about my final line in Lights of Berlin, the one strangers demand I send in a voice note to their cousin in Atlanta, or on FaceTime to their dad in Hungary. The one that made audiences burst into spontaneous rounds of applause in movie theaters all around the world as tears dried on their cheeks. The one that never fails to remind me of how much I owe the world, instead of the other way around.
A man in a bright yellow hoodie hovers close to us now, too, waiting.
“I am so sorry, but I’m not actually allowed to,” I say. “You know . . . for contractual reasons.”
Ethan nods and blinks a lot. The hoodie guy moves on.
“Can I . . . ask where you went then? When you were hiding out?” Ethan squeaks, like we’re on a true crime show and I’m a missing child off a 1980s milk carton.
“It was an illusion. Grace Turner never really existed,” I say, but I can tell that he is confused, unsatisfied with my response.
“I went home. To see my parents. They’re getting older,” I say, aware as I do that I’m offering up too much information to the kid with the boner in Best Buy. Am I lonely? Maybe I should call Laurel.
“Thank you for your help, Ethan,” I say once the payment has gone through, and I hope I’m saying it in a way that comes across as sincere and not like I can’t wait to get out of the store and be by myself again. I leave the store with my baseball cap back on and my head lowered, wondering about the kind of person who worries more about hurting the feelings of the guy in Best Buy than their own husband’s.
* * *
? ? ?
As I enter in the security code, I hear a telephone ring from somewhere inside my new house. Once I’m inside, I locate a white landline plugged in to the wall behind the sofa. I pick the phone up tentatively because I didn’t know landlines still existed, let alone that I had one.