I'm Glad About You(60)

“Let’s just take it one step at a time, doll,” he replied. “When are you seeing Lars next?”

“I’m in Cincinnati, Ryan,” she started.

“Yes, but—”

“I’ll check with my mom,” she said. “I think she wanted me to be here for some brunch thing she’s doing this weekend.”

“It would be great if he could see you before then,” Ryan informed her. “I’ll let you work it out.” The fact that there was no wheedling in his tone made it eminently clear how serious this might be.

But how serious could it be? Show business was all talk and money and kind of nothing else. She could fly herself out to Los Angeles and sit in any number of indistinguishable offices and talk to faceless men in suits for months on end, and it would amount to nothing. Or it would amount to something, for reasons which no one could begin to comprehend. Alison knew that she was going to end up sitting in those tragic offices eventually, was there really any reason to rush into it?

It was all so hard to explain. Megan stopped by with the twins to pick up a peach pie Rose had made for her and Phil, and Rose immediately launched into her version of events, reinterpreting the thumbnail sketch Alison had just finished narrating.

“Alison’s agent called, she’s being offered a big part in a big movie,” Rose began excitedly. She was in pre-dinner mode, which entailed a lot of straightening of the kitchen, so that when Dad arrived back from his day of adventures as a retired businessman the house was tidy. Her actions were both conscious and unconscious, the patterns of a lifetime. Megan barely noticed the fact that her mother barely noticed her as she steered those twins out of the kitchen and into the family room, which was still, after thirty years of offspring, littered with toys. Alison did her best to keep up with the swooping women, as well as the fierce and unremitting confidence of their dialogue.

“Oh my God! That’s amazing!” Megan started.

“I haven’t actually been offered it,” Alison cautioned.

“But they want her for it.”

“They didn’t actually—”

“He called here, to tell you that you had to go to Los Angeles—”

“They just want to talk to me.”

“Well, they want her,” Rose repeated. She was so determined that this was true, and so honestly excited that Alison didn’t have the heart to contradict her again. “The director asked for her himself, which has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

“Who is he, is he a big deal?” Megan’s question was cheerful, innocent, full of her own delight at all this. She had subscriptions to People magazine as well as Entertainment Weekly. Showbiz gossip was like a bag of M&M’s to her.

“He’s not a big deal. He’s kind of a big deal,” Alison admitted. Only a total art snob would pretend that Lars Guttfriend was not a big deal. “He directs action movies. You know.” Her head drew an utter blank trying to remember the action movies Lars had directed. They all sort of blurred together after a while, you had to admit that, even if you weren’t an art snob. “I don’t know him that well. We went out a couple times.”

“You’re dating a movie director? Oh my God, I have to tell Suzanne, she will just flip out.” She pulled out her cell and started to text feverishly. Suzanne was Megan’s best friend, they seemed to be joined at the hip by their iPhones.

“We’re not dating. It was just a couple of dinners!” The absurdity of all this was starting to amuse Alison, as well as panic her. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone in her family had thought anything she did was cool.

“Do you tweet about it?”

“No, oh God, no—I haven’t figured tweeting out yet.”

“You’re dating a movie director, and he wants you in his movie, you need to tweet about it.” Megan was hardly paying attention, the toddlers had stumbled back into the kitchen and they were everywhere now. She kept scooping them up and feeding them Cheetos out of a small Tupperware container. They gobbled the Cheetos with such single-minded pleasure that Alison could not stop herself from reaching over and helping herself although she knew that if she was flying to the West Coast on Friday she had better start the starvation diet again, pronto.

“How come you know so much about tweeting?” Alison asked. “You’re a young mother with twin toddlers, everybody expects you to be brain-dead for another six years at least.”

“The only thing I have time to read is tweets, they’re nice and short, and they’re funny.”

“I don’t even know what a tweets is,” Rose announced.

“It’s stupid, Mom,” Alison reassured her. “It’s a lot of people with nothing better to do throwing their brains away.”

“Oh my God, you are such a snob!” Megan protested. “Mom, you know about tweeting, I showed it to you. People talk to each other on the internet. A lot of people all over the world are tweeting now and it’s a big tool for social justice.” Rose had, in recent years, become interested in the plight of the poor. She was apparently hanging out with a bunch of nuns who got together and prayed for the suffering of people all over the planet. It seemed harmless enough but it did call to mind stories her mother had told them, in childhood, about how she used to collect money for pagan babies. Another activity instigated by a bunch of nuns, just one that wafted even further into the past, ever further into her mother’s unwavering innocent heart.