“So you still hate my guts. So maybe I deserve it. But you know I love you. You know that I haven’t touched any other woman since you left me—”
“Since you left me sitting in a street staring at the Reverend Elvis.”
“You’re writing gags for other comics. Don’t do that. Come write for me.”
“I did that once before. Without pay or credit. Forget it.”
“This time will be different. I’m offering you a job on the writing staff. You’ll be our first girl member. Gee whiz, Amy, we’ll let you in the tree house and give you a decoder ring and everything.”
A treacherous thrill went through her. A writing job on a national show—a hit show! She could join the Writers’ Guild. She’d be paid at least fifty grand a year. She knew because as associate producer she’d been privy to the writers’ salaries. Her palms clammy, she searched Elliot’s face. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch. Just be there for me, the same as you used to.”
Her hope died. “You mean get paid to be a writer but instead be your warden—slap your hands when you reach for a drink or a pill or a spoonful of coke?”
“Both.”
“And sleep with you?”
“If I get lucky. No pressure. I swear.”
“Oh, Elliot.” Her shoulders slumped. She pressed trembling fingertips to her mouth and dropped into a chair. “I can’t watch you self-destruct anymore. I care about you, I really do, but you won’t listen to me. You make me play mom and never take responsibility for yourself.”
“I party. I’ve always partied. So what? I’m still in control.”
She groaned. “Don’t kid yourself. I know what’s going on in your life. I talk to the people who used to consider themselves your friends. I know about your mood swings, your stupid arguments with anybody who disagrees with you, the wasted money, the slick characters who hang around the studio waiting to sell you drugs. I know about the fist fight you had with a stage hand whose only sin was to forget your glass of mineral water. I also know that you totaled one of the motorcycles up on Mulholland one night.”
“You have better informants than the FBI.” He began to pace the small room, no longer able to hide his agitation. “You’re driving me crazy! I could deal with everything if you’d come back and do what you’re supposed to do, which is take care of me!”
“I deserve to be more than your glorified baby-sitter. I’ve got talent! One of these days I’m goin’ to try a stand-up act.”
He halted, pointed at her, and began to laugh in loud, yelping gulps. It was a bitter sound. “Hanging around comedians for six years doesn’t make you a fucking comedian! You’ve never even been up on a stage! There’s no way you can make it on your own. Don’t be a sap, baby. It’s pathetic.”
“Thanks for the lecture and the pizza.” She stood, miserable with the tension these confrontations always provoked, and gestured toward the door. “See ya later.”
He shifted from side to side, his face flushing, fury spewing from him like steam from a cappuccino maker. “You’re trying to ruin me! Somebody’s paying you to fuck up my mind! Who? Who wants me to screw up? Oh, I know they’re out there, trying to get me! They know how important I am, and they can’t stand it! Just like when I was a kid with asthma! Make fun of the geek! Make him look bad! Well, I never let ’em beat me then, and they’re not going to beat me now!”
Amy backed away, her muscles stiff with horror. She wondered how long Elliot had been paranoid. She tried to speak in a soothing voice. “Let’s sit down and talk about this. I’ll get you a beer. How about that?”
“Don’t suck up to me now! Forget it! I’ve had enough of this abuse! You can’t treat me this way!” Spit flew from his mouth. His face was livid. “I’m getting out of here! I’ll make you sorry! I’m taking my goddamned pizza with me, too!”
He snatched the carton and flung the pizza through the window into the backyard. “Put some salsa and some jalapeños on it and have dinner, you mothers!” he bellowed to whomever might be wandering the neighborhood, waiting to be insulted by a loud-mouthed Anglo-Saxon.
Frozen in place, she listened to Elliot run down the outside stairs, yelling obscenities. She heard a door slam and the patriarch of the Alvarez family cheerfully threaten to pull his asshole over his head. Elliot dissolved into garbled muttering.
She hurried to the front window and drew the curtain aside, staring down into the street as Elliot, trailed by Mr. Alvarez and his oldest son, stalked to a Porsche. He shot a bird at them and their baseball bats, and they rewarded him by pockmarking the car roof with dents. He floored the accelerator and careened out of their range.
Amy went to her bed and sat down limply. She had never been afraid of Elliot, before. Where could she get help? Who would know how to deal with him—and more important, who could she trust to keep his name out of the press? There had already been some ugly tabloid stories about the Las Vegas incident and Elliot’s erratic behavior on the set.
She held her head and tried to remember the names of drug rehab centers that had been whispered to her by friends over the years. Then she thought of someone who might help her for old time’s sake. Jeff.
Jeff was nervous. He was still shocked at learning that Amy was living in California and working for Elliot Thornton. The prospect of seeing her again made him check his hair more than necessary. He hoped she appreciated the torture he’d gone through in the battle of the hair plugs. At least he had a hairline near the front of his head now, though nobody was going to scalp him for his luxurious fur.
He lounged in the brocaded foyer of a Los Angeles restaurant celebrated for its haute cuisine. He tried not to fidget with the lapels of his Armani suit. It didn’t look good for the head of staff at the most exclusive rehab center on the west coast to fidget.
When she arrived, he was speechless. How she had changed! She carried herself with great dignity, a delicate purse clasped in front of her elegant three-piece suit of crepe de Chine. The suit’s muted shade of green complimented her eyes. She wore a wide gold choker and thick gold earrings. She looked at him without shyness.
She gave him a wide smile and came to him with her hand extended. He shook it and searched for a sign that she wanted to be hugged, but there was none.
Saddened but admiring, he called the maitre d’ and requested a table. They were led to one of several plush dining rooms decorated with French tapestries, Louis Thirteenth chairs, and Aubusson rugs on walnut-wood floors. The tables were set with candelabra, white orchids, fine china, and Christofle silver. She sat down across from Jeff and propped her chin on her hands, projecting the comfortable aura of a person who had seen too many fashionable restaurants to be impressed by this one.
“God, you’ve blossomed,” he said.
Her face colored, and she laughed. “So have you. You look like a wealthy and important man who shrinks important heads.”
“And I have hair!”
Laughing more, she nodded. “Did you shrink your own head?”
The tension broken, they chatted about his work at the rehab hospital while an aproned waiter brought the wine she selected. Jeff found it enjoyable to be her guest, invited here to discuss the problem with Elliot Thornton. He disliked her involvement with the hyperactive smartass at the same time that he resigned himself to it. His latest relationship, with the star of a lightweight television drama whom he’d met when her daughter came to the center for treatment, was satisfyingly superficial. He knew better than to expect something similar from Amy. She had loved Sebastien despite all odds and then devoted years to taking care of Thornton, an addict. No, she wasn’t the superficial kind.
As the meal progressed she grew increasingly subdued and distracted. Jeff knew that the pleasantries were a facade; fatigue settled around her eyes, and she pushed pieces of sole across the plate without eating.
“Let’s talk about Elliot Thornton,” he suggested.
She gave a tremendous sigh of relief and poured out a list of
symptoms and activities from the recent months, ending with the bizarre episode involving the pizza. Jeff heard nothing that surprised him. Thornton’s fragile moods and paranoia, plus his growing career problems, were part of the typical addiction syndrome. “You need to get a group of his friends together and corral him at home for a discussion—”
“I tried that once last year. It didn’t do any good. He left home for a week and I couldn’t find him. The show went into reruns and we had to lie like crazy to keep the reason quiet. When he finally showed up again he was wearing Mickey Mouse ears and looked as if someone had drained all his blood. He said he’d spent the whole week at Disneyland.”
“The time has probably come for you to let go of Elliot. You just have to let him sink or swim by himself. Since you don’t live with him anymore, you’ve made a start. But sometimes, when someone can’t be helped, you have to walk away completely.”
“I know.” Tears rose in her eyes. “Like with my father.”
“How is he?”
“I haven’t seen him in four years. I call him on the phone at Christmas and the Fourth of July, though.” She laughed sharply. “For my biannual doses of guilt.”
“He trained you well.” When she gave him a bewildered look he explained, “You’re a dutiful slave. Eager to make the helpless strong again, even if it’s impossible, even if you’re always getting hurt in the process. You couldn’t help your father, but you’re determined to help Elliot. Your self-esteem is based only on what Elliot tells you about yourself, the same as with your father. If you want the five-dollar word for what you are, it’s ‘codependent.’ ”
She fixed an intense, thoughtful gaze on empty air. “Sounds like a brand of cold medicine. But I believe you.”
“I get paid a lot of money to tell people the obvious.”
“So tell me the obvious next step.”
He took one of her hands and squeezed it hard. Maybe this time when she needed his trust he could help her instead of hurt her. “Live your own life. Do what’s best for Amy Miracle, not for anyone else. Practice telling yourself that the only person you have to make happy is yourself.”
Her drawl became more pronounced when she was upset, he’d noticed. Now she leaned toward him and said with about a million extra syllables, “Good lord, Jeff, that sounds cold. I think amoebas have friendlier lives than that.”
“But the important question is, Do amoebas deliberately hurt other amoebas?”
She sat back and shook her head, her attention distant again. A decision tightened her mouth. “I feel my protoplasm mutatin’.”
“Go for it.”
Her gaze met his—sad, angry, determined. “Do I look like an amoeba yet?”
He nodded with approval. “Maybe it’s just the light, but I think I see you changing.”
The phone was ringing as she walked into the apartment from her dinner with Jeff. She had a terrible headache, in part because she’d forced herself not to ask him if he ever heard from Sebastien.
Amy frowned at the phone and let the answering machine respond. As she dropped onto the bed the tape clicked, and a formal female voice said. “This is Lakeside Hospital in Gainesville, Georgia, calling to tell Ms. Miracle that her father was admitted today. Please contact us at—”
“Got it!” Amy interrupted, having dived across the room. “This is Amy Miracle. What happened to my father?”
“He had a severe stroke, I’m afraid.”
The woman continued talking, but Amy’s thoughts were already tuned to plane reservations and packing. She imagined Pop—garrulous, independent Pop—as an invalid, and it was the cruelest fate and the best revenge she could have wished on him. But she felt only a gnawing sense of love, of a deep and bittersweet regret that his unhappy life had come to this.
She didn’t have to be absorbed by his unhappiness to love him. She did have to go to him. So much for amoebas.
“A neighbor saw your father collapse beside the mailbox,” the doctor told Amy. “It’s good that it happened that way, because he got an ambulance there pretty quick. Your father might not be alive, otherwise.”
Staring at her father now, a slack-faced stranger who did no more than flutter his eyes from time to time amidst a wilderness of tubes and machines, Amy wanted to ask why being alive in this condition was a blessing. “Will he ever be normal again?”
“It’s hard to tell.”
She was so giddy with fatigue and nerves that she almost said, Oh, you can tell me, I’m his daughter. Rim-shot, please. It’s a gag I swiped from a movie, thank you very much. “Do you think he’ll ever be able to take care of himself without help?”
The pudgy, earnest-looking doctor sighed. “Considering his poor health in general? No, I don’t, frankly. I think you need to consider a nursing home.”
“What’s the going rate on the good ones?”
“You’re probably looking at two thousand a month.”
Amy gaped at him. “I’ve got to check my father’s savings account,” she finally managed to say. Please, God, let him have saved some of the Ferrari money.
He hadn’t. She didn’t know what he and Maisie had done with the money, but he had only five thousand dollars in the bank at Gainesville. After talking to the manager about gaining access to the account, Amy left the city and drove out to the old place. She wandered numbly through the trailer, anxiety having given way to a blank feeling. She let herself be caught up in the eerie déjà vu of memories. The summer sunset haunted the rooms; dust motes seemed suspended in air and time.
Pop hadn’t changed much of the decor; Maisie’s ceramic chickens still preened on the kitchen wall, and her cheap bric-a-brac filled the living room. The only major alteration was in Amy’s bedroom. Pop had turned it into a studio, and it was crammed with canvases, easels, and painting supplies.
She stood in the shadows, hating him. His clowns and circus scenes were robust, colorful, even cheerful. Because she hadn’t seen them in so many years the contrast struck her as never before. He had despised his life after the circus, the back injury. And she had been just one more responsibility that he didn’t want.
Amy began to shake. “I deserved better,” she said aloud. Rage cleared away the numbness. She grabbed a tube of red oil paint and ran to a corner where dozens of canvases were stacked against the wall. Falling to her knees in front of them on the old pine floor, she squirted paint onto her palms then swiped it across a portrait of a smiling clown.
Low keening sounds came from her throat as she shoved the canvas aside and attacked another one, then another. She would destroy what his talent could create, just as he’d tried to destroy her. Without putting it in so many words, he’d blamed her for everything that had gone wrong with his life. Her birth had killed his beautiful Ellen; raising a child without her had put too many emotional and financial demands on him, especially after the back injury; he would have been happier with a son, whom he would have trained to be a professional clown like him.
It enraged her to think that she’d grown up trying so hard to compensate for crimes she’d never committed, and that even now Pop lurked in the back of her mind, telling her that she was no good, that no one could really love her, that she could never succeed at anything important. He’d imprinted his dark, fearful world on her so deeply that she was always wary of being captured by shapeless specters. She couldn’t fight them because she couldn’t name them.
And here was the evidence of his selfish lies. His world could be cheerful and confident when he wanted, but he’d never shared it with her. He had hoarded these happy images and put them on canvas, leaving her with nothing but blank spaces to be filled with hardship and self-doubt.
She ripped into the next canvas, punching it with her fists, spitting on it, hating the smiling clown. Throwing it aside, she stiffened in shock at what she found behind it.
Her own portrait stared back at her. He must have painted it from memory after she’d made one of her early visits from college. She recalled the
brindle sweater and soft white blouse she’d owned. It was a flattering portrait, devoid of hostility on both his part and hers.
Dazed, Amy set it aside and looked at the next one, another portrait, this one taken from an old photograph she had loved. It was a man and a tiny girl in matching clown suits. The photograph had been taken against a backdrop of half-constructed circus sets, but in the painting Pop put him and her against an empty slate of white tinged with pink.
She went through every canvas in the room. She found portraits of the mother she had known only from photos; she found portraits of Maisie; she found other portraits of herself—as a child, as a teenager, as a young woman. All were painted with a sensitive, even loving, touch.
Why, Pop, why? she wondered desperately, tears streaming down her face. Does this mean that you didn’t hate me? Is this the only clue I’ll ever have? She gathered the family portraits and carried them to the living room. As darkness closed in she turned on a lamp and arranged the portraits along the sofa, where she could look at them as a group.
She felt confused and lost; redefining Pop meant redefining herself. But she still didn’t know who he was, and never would. His puzzle was maddening, unsolvable. She dialed Mary Beth’s number in Atlanta, hoping for a cynical bit of advice to put the dilemma in perspective. But there was no answer. She finally recalled that Mary Beth was in New York hawking her interview show to a convention of station managers. This was the year Mary Beth hoped to go national.
She can’t help you, anyway. Listen to yourself. For the first time, really listen.
Amy moved restlessly around the house, sorting through her emotional turbulence, her fists pressed to her temples. Pop hadn’t destroyed her, that was the important thing. She could be whatever she wanted, despite him. How he had viewed her in his life and paintings was only his reality, not hers. He had never known who she really was. He had treated her one way and painted her another, so what did his opinion matter? What did anyone’s opinion matter, except her own?
She locked the house, got into her rental car, then rested her head on the steering wheel and took deep breaths. She fought a smothering sensation. The summer heat seemed heavy with fear, but also with excitement.