The Comeback(55)
“And now I’m going to offer my help to you in any way that I can, just on the off chance that one day you may feel like accepting it. It may not feel like it right now, but your life is only just beginning, Grace, and all this is my incredibly convoluted way of telling you that I’m not giving up on you, do you understand?”
Emilia’s blinkered faith in me is palpable, a third presence in the room, and I try to ignore the warmth that spreads through me without my permission. I know this sort of promise doesn’t mean anything.
“What do you mean that we’re alike?” I ask slowly.
“Well,” Emilia starts, putting her head to one side. “Do you know that I left my parents behind too? They couldn’t have been less impressed when I told them I was moving to LA. They would have preferred I was crawling the streets, as long as I stayed in New England while I was doing it, I swear to God. Good thing they didn’t know about the trashy books back then.”
“I don’t know if I left my parents behind, exactly,” I say, because it’s always been more complicated than that.
“Maybe you didn’t mean to, but we all do in the end,” Emilia says, raising her eyebrows. “And for me, it was because I cared too much about what they thought. Not caring at all is so much easier.”
“About anything?”
Emilia frowns slightly. “About what you can’t control.”
“What if you can’t control any of it?” I ask, and Emilia studies me then, thinking about her answer.
“You know that at some point you have to make a choice. Life can be cruel and, even worse, random, and if the only way to get through it is to protect yourself, to find the good where you can and just forget about the rest, then is that such a bad thing?”
“I don’t know if that’s ever been an option for me,” I say, staring down at the melting ice cubes in my glass. Suddenly, I feel inexplicably sad to realize that maybe Emilia really does know exactly who I am, and still wants to be around me. That somehow she understands me better than anyone else, and, in another reality, we could have been friends. I can feel Emilia’s eyes on me before she drains her own glass, and I realize that I’ve broken my ninety-minute rule by at least three hours at this point. I’ve outstayed my welcome and I’m about to dispel the myth that is Grace Turner, if I’m not careful. I take a deep breath and piece her back together, trying to appear interested but ultimately untroubled by whatever Emilia has to say next.
“Well, I think we can both agree at least that you need to start working again, and whatever it is needs to be so dazzling, so outstanding, that nobody in the industry will be able to ignore you,” she says brightly. “I know Able was just devastated when there wasn’t a role for you in this movie. I saw what it did to him.”
“What did it do to him?” I ask, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Well, it broke his heart,” she says, having a sip of her drink. “Of course it did.”
Like hell it did. The silence in the room feels heavy, but I don’t rush to fill it.
“Look, I know Able can be difficult,” Emilia starts slowly, as if she’s reading my mind. “But it’s easy to forget that he didn’t have the traditional upbringing that we had. Honestly, it still surprises me how insecure he is, even after all this time. You’re probably the only other person in the world that knows the full extent of it.”
Insecure. I roll the word over in my mind a few times, basking in its familiarity. I understand better than anyone how tempting it is to view Able’s behavior as the natural outcome of his insecurity—the result of some trauma, some life-defining humiliation that occurred in his early childhood. We are all primed to seek order, causation, in this way, but it is only ever to comfort ourselves: Able seeks power because he was born with nothing. Grace is a disaster because she was broken. Grace was broken because she wanted too much. Be good and dream small and it could never, ever happen to you. I silently reject Emilia’s hypothesis even as I’m nodding at her words.
“I have a meeting, with someone else,” I say slowly. Emilia leans forward in anticipation.
“What’s the project?” she asks.
“It’s the new John Hamilton project,” I say, before I can stop myself from lying. “That one you mentioned the other day. It’s kind of feminist and subversive, and he really wants me for a role. I think it’s a black comedy.”
“Grace! That’s fantastic. That would be perfect. Subversive and funny would be ideal—I always thought you would be outstanding in a comedic role. You’re so funny when you want to be, and it’s such a waste not to use that timing.”
I smile slightly, because her claims are both generous and wildly inaccurate, and she squeezes my shoulders from behind on her way to the wine fridge. “How sly of you not to have mentioned it the other day! I need to remember what a talented actor you are.”
Emilia selects a bottle of Sancerre and turns back to me.
“That’s just reminded me actually—I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something . . .”
I try not to tense as I wait for her to finish.
“You know when you wake up at five a.m. and can’t get back to sleep because everything you’ve ever said or done comes hurtling back into your mind to haunt you?” Emilia asks. I nod but I don’t tell her that she’s just described every waking moment of my life.