Nora Goes Off Script(43)
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After the Fourth of July we are back in Laurel Ridge and settled into the slow soupy routine of summer. Arthur has turned eleven and is sleeping later, leaving Bernadette and me to our morning routines. Bernadette has an all-day soccer camp that starts at nine. Arthur has an acting camp that starts at noon. I have time for my run between drop-offs, but there is no real time to settle in and write.
I decide not to fight the situation, to give myself a real summer vacation from work. I’ll be broke by the end of September, and I’ll probably have to run up a little debt before I sell another TRC movie. The thought of going back into any debt at all makes me feel like my hair has been set on fire, but the thought of going back into the tea house is worse.
Even just standing at the sunroom window and seeing those gorgeous hydrangea at either side of the tea house door, the ones that Leo is not, in fact, here in July to see, is too much for me. It’s ridiculous but I look at them and see a lie: He did not wait around to see what would bloom in July; he did not stay. Bernadette likes to cut them and bring them into the house, which is normally the joy of our summer, open windows and giant blue hydrangea covering every surface. This year I suggest she put them all in her room.
I consider trying to write at the library, but the truth is I’m not ready to write at all. I’m not ready to make light of love affairs and heartbreak. I certainly can’t see myself moving toward a happy ending. I know that I need to build my world back up around me. My schedule was my armor and I need to reconstruct it. I need new routines so that I don’t see Leo every time I roast a chicken. Plenty of people don’t roast chickens, and I will be one of them.
I’m not entirely focused on self-improvement. During the quiet hours when both of my kids are gone, I curl up on the couch and watch Dr. Phil or reality shows about people who have it worse than me. The idea here, I tell myself, is that it will help me feel better about my life. At least I didn’t send my life savings to a fake online boyfriend. At least I don’t have a compulsion to eat my own hair. In the end, I don’t feel better about my life. I just feel depressed that these people have it so bad.
At night I get in bed and scroll through his Instagram account. I know he doesn’t post his own stuff; I don’t even think he has Instagram on his phone. But whoever his agent hired to entertain Leo’s thirty million followers has to be getting his photos from somewhere. There are photos from the set of Mega Man, a few from around his house in L.A. Leo’s hair is longer. Leo’s wearing pastels now. There’s a happy birthday post to Naomi, a candid shot of the two of them on the set of The Tea House. I zoom in on Leo for clues as to who he is. One of these nights there will be a photo of him that reveals a trace of malice or, better, heartache on his face, and it will all make sense to me.
There’s one photo of the sunset that I swear he didn’t take. I don’t know how I know this, but I just know it isn’t how he would have captured it. This thought sets me back. It bothers me that I knew him so well. It bothers me that I can jump right back into his head and know what he’d think, when I actually have no idea who he is now. Maybe he did take that photo, I think. Maybe that’s how he sees things now. I vow to delete Instagram from my phone in the morning. I don’t delete Instagram.
My kids and I are careful with one another. They don’t know how to talk about this situation with Leo, and I suspect it’s because they don’t know what it was. All they know is that everything feels different without him, especially me. I try to bring Leo up in passing to keep him from being such a loaded topic. I try to talk about him as a thing that happened, a little excitement, but not a thing that we are bringing into the future.
Arthur’s camp is putting on a production of West Side Story to be performed for the whole town in mid-August. He can’t stand the director. “It’s like he doesn’t know anything about acting. He’s a gym teacher the rest of the year. All he ever does is tell us where to stand.” The main problem with this guy, I suspect, is that he’s not Leo.
I decide to take the opening. “That’s disappointing. But it was pretty unusual that you had a real movie star directing your last play.”
“I guess.” Arthur looks out the car window.
I try again. “Good thing you didn’t promise Leo you’d never pursue acting. Seems like it’s starting to be your thing.”
“Yeah, like Leo’s so big on promises.”
CHAPTER 16
It’s September, and I’m back. This is what I tell myself. I’d allotted myself a lazy period of mourning, and now it’s over. I am almost completely out of money so, effectively, I have constructed a situation where I will be forced to write to survive. I even spent two hundred dollars I probably shouldn’t have hosting a big Labor Day barbecue in the backyard. It was worth it. I set up the bar on the table in the tea house, and people wandered in and out, cleansing it. Someone spilled a margarita on the floor, and I almost said, Thank you. The best antidote to old memories is new ones.
At sunrise on the first day of school, I vow to stay snapped out of it. Today I will return to my pre–The Tea House self, and I will write. I’m a little tan; I’m my normal weight. I’m even doing some of the runs Leo and I did together, though I haven’t been to the bird sanctuary. I’m not insane.