Funny You Should Ask(93)

I slide across the seat and put my hands on the wheel. It’s warm. I can still feel what Gabe left behind. The warmth from his hands. The smell of his hair.

It would be easy to leave.

I think of everything that will be said if I stay. Of the articles, the comments, the smug confirmation that I’m exactly as unprofessional and undeserving as people thought.

But I realize—for the first time in a long time—that I don’t care.

I don’t care what people will say.

I know what I want.

I take the keys off the dash.

The wind fights me as I shove the door open, my scarf once again left behind.

I run into the white flurry of snow and hit something. Someone.

Gabe’s arms come around me. Steadying me for a moment before letting go.

There’s a bark and I realize that Teddy is with us too, her tail whapping against my leg as she circles us.

“I was coming to get you,” I say.

“Me too,” he says. “I forgot something.”

He takes my hand.

My heart goes up even higher in my throat. I’m afraid it will fall out onto the sidewalk if I try to say anything.

“In the midst of my very dramatic and completely unnecessary cinematic gesture, I forgot to say the one thing I should have said first.” Gabe looks at me.

My breath fogs in the air between us.

“I love you,” he says.

Our fingers are entwined, our palms pressed together. I imagine that I can feel his heartbeat there, but I’m pretty sure it’s just my own, beating harder and faster than ever before.

“I love your clever mind. I love your hair and your butt. I love how fucking brilliant you are, how bold and how brave. I love that Teddy loves you. And I’m pretty sure that my family loves you too. I love your ideas, your stories. And mostly I love your very big eyes and your very smart mouth.”

I swallow my heart down.

“And my dumb questions?”

He smiles at that. His hand is on my elbow.

“Everything,” he says. “I love everything about you.”

I let my heart settle in my chest. Where it belongs.

“I love you too,” I say. “Everything about you.”

Then I plant my face directly into the spot where his neck meets his shoulder. I get it very wet. He lets me cry, the two of us standing there in the snow and the cold.

“Stay,” Gabe says when I’m done.

“Here?”

“Wherever,” he says. “With me.”

“Okay,” I say.

I wipe my nose on my sleeve.

“How are we going to make this work?” I ask, thinking of the logistics of our lives.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says. “At least, we owe it to her to try.”

I look down at Teddy, whose mouth opens and unfurls her tongue in the perfect doggy grin. She barks and nudges my hand.

“That’s true,” I say.

Gabe puts his hand on my cheek, his thumb rubbing the drying lines of tears, flaking away the salt there. He kisses the spot, softly. Then, with his hand on my chin, he kisses me. My arms go around his neck and it’s not so cold anymore.

“Chani,” he says.

I love the way he says my name. And this time, there’s a question there. A question I finally have an answer for.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes.”





BROAD SHEETS


Bringing the Big Show to the Big Sky

[excerpt]


By Gabe Parker-Horowitz


I’ve been given this article, this space on a page, to promote the theatre I’m launching in my hometown. I know I’m supposed to talk about the season we have planned for the fall, starting with a production of Angels in America. I’m supposed to write about things coming full circle and second chances and new starts and all that. Maybe toss out a brilliant metaphor or life lesson or something.

But it’s fair to say that I’m not much of a writer. And yes, I’m aware that there are people who would argue I’m not much of an actor either.

I’m also not going to talk about my drinking or my recovery or even my latest movie and how well it was received. Okay, maybe I’m going to talk a little bit about that.

Mostly, though, I want to write about a question.

It’s a question my wife asked me when we first met. About success. How I defined it.

I didn’t have an answer for her then, but I think I do now.

It was easy, when I was younger, to think of success in terms of the roles I was getting, the money I was being paid, the perks that were being lavished on me. I was successful because I was famous. Because I was known.

It’s a funny thing when the world thinks it knows you. Or, when you think what the world knows is who you are.

Acting, for me, was an escape. When I stepped onstage or in front of a camera, I knew who I was. I was more comfortable playing pretend than I was being the person that existed when the lights were off.

I felt safer in the fantasy.

I’m sure it will surprise no one to learn that alcohol helped maintain that. When I was working or when I was drunk, I could ignore the voices in my head—and in the media—that told me that no matter what roles I got, no matter how much money I was being paid, no matter what perks were given to me, it would never be enough. I’d never be enough.