Comedy of Erinn (24 page)

Leaning confidentially forward, Erinn said, “I've written him a thousand e-mails, but never sent them.”

“You wrote him love letters?”

“They're e-mails!”

“I'll bet you have one on your cell phone somewhere, don't you?”

“What if I do?”

“Oh, Erinn. I bet they're amazing,” Suzanna said. “I want to hear one!”

“Suzanna! It's personal!”

“Love letters . . . love e-mails . . . usually are. Now read me one,” Suzanna said, signaling for another round of Baileys coffee for Erinn. “Please?”

Erinn scrolled through her cell phone. She, being fascinated by technology, had mastered all the extra functions in her phone, including the “notebook,” where she could write notes to herself. The boys had almost convinced her that she needed an iPhone, but she hadn't quite been able to convince herself that she wanted or needed to spend that much time with an instrument that would keep her in constant communication with the human race. At this precise moment, she was also grateful that her phone didn't send and receive e-mails, or she might have sent something she'd have regretted.

She found what she was looking for and cleared her throat.

“OK, this is the latest one. I wanted him to know how sorry I was for doubting him.”

She began to read.

“Dear Jude, Years ago, there was a song that reflects my feelings now. ‘I came to realize, I lost a prize, the day I said good-bye to you.' These words are significant, because you are a prize. You're everything I hope to be but am not—brave, resilient, generous, and warm. . . .”

She looked at Suzanna. “That's as far as I've gotten.”

“That was . . . that was beautiful.”

“Of course it was beautiful. I'm a writer, for God's sake.”

“Well, you've got to send it. Jude needs to know you feel this way.”

“There is no point. I'm sure he has moved on. I'd just look like a sorry old woman.”

“Well, you are a sorry old woman. Sending that e-mail might change things.”

Erinn wasn't sure sisterly bonding was all it was cracked up to be. There was something to be said for Suzanna's hero worship of the old days.

“Suzanna, you need to be realistic. Jude is a fine ... but unrefined . . . young man. He is not educated, sophisticated, or complex. We could never make a go of it.”

“There you go with that superiority complex that is just so unappealing. I swear, Erinn, no wonder you're lonely.”

“If loneliness is the price of superiority, then so be it.”

“Oh, don't give me that ‘loneliness is my destiny' bull. Take a chance. Get back in touch with the living. Go home and send that e-mail!”

“I'll think about it.”

Suzanna and Erinn, swimming in coffee and tea, left the Veranda after a two-hour lunch. Suzanna signaled for the valet, and Erinn announced that she would walk home. Suzanna looked alternately hurt and worried, but Erinn assured her that she had had a lovely time, but she wanted to clear her head. She only lived about a mile from the hotel and the walk would do her good. Erinn hugged her sister good-bye.

“I know you're going to tell Mother about Jude,” Erinn said. “But take it easy on me.”

“I'll make the whole thing seem absolutely fabulous,” Suzanna said. “Or as fabulous as I can make boinking on a bunch of scratchy hay sound.”

Erinn started home, thinking about Jude. And Augustino.

And Massimo.

Could Suzanna be right? Could Erinn be blinded by Massimo's charm?
No,
she said to herself,
she is wrong
.
I'm smarter than that.

Erinn walked through her front gate and headed up to the house. She stopped a few steps from the front porch and turned on the path that led to the backyard. Now that she was on a mission to confront her demons, she might as well talk to Massimo about her sister's misgivings. She wasn't sure what she was going to say, but Erinn was confident she could handle anything that came up. She was, after all, a writer.

Massimo's door was still open. She stopped in her tracks as she got close to the guesthouse. She could hear Massimo speaking on the phone. He was speaking in Italian, and he was speaking quickly, so she couldn't understand everything he was saying. But one thing was clear.

He was speaking to his wife.

Erinn spun around and walked quickly to her house. Caro was sitting on the back stoop, looking at her and swishing his tail. They stared at each other. Erinn sighed and went back to the guesthouse, making as much noise as she could, so Massimo would not think she was sneaking up on him.

He hung up the phone as she knocked on the opened door.

“Cara mia,”
he said.

“Caro mio,”
she said. “You have three hours to get out of here.”

“I do not understand,” Massimo said, his root-beer eyes taking on their most sorrowful expression.

“I think you do understand. You are to leave my house, and you are not going to be
a people
on
my
show. Start packing.
Capice
?”

Erinn walked back to the main house and scooped up the cat.

 

Erinn watched from the picture window as the cab carrying Massimo and his belongings drove out of sight. In the hours it took him to leave, Erinn found the folder Mimi had made on her desktop—
How could I have missed it?
she asked herself—and answered e-mails from Carlos, Gilroi, Fetus, and Rita, all of whom wanted to stay in touch. There was an e-mail from Lamont in New York, saying he hoped she'd be coming east sooner rather than later, and several e-mails from Cary, insisting that Erinn get hold of her as soon as she returned from Lapland.

“APE is not going to let you get away,” she said. “Remember that great project on the lighthouse we talked about? We need you to be part of it.”

Erinn wasn't sure exactly where APE would stand on
Let It Shine
when the truth came out, but she found she didn't really care. She had more important things to worry about.

There had been no e-mails from Jude. There was no way Erinn was going to send her . . . love manifesto now.

Erinn headed down to the Rollicking Bun Tea Shoppe and Book Nook. She looked at her watch. The tea shop would be closed, but the bookstore would still be open, and she hoped to distract herself with a good novel.

Eric was standing on a ladder, adding books to a high shelf as Erinn walked in.

“Hey, Erinn, welcome home,” he said, his long legs bringing him back down the ladder. “How were things in Philadelphia?”

“Always sunny,” Erinn said, proud of her first current pop culture reference in twenty years. “How are you?”

“Glowing,” he said. “I know they always say that expectant mothers glow—but I've got to tell you, I feel it, too.”

Erinn smiled.
What a nice thought.

“You looking for anything in particular?” Eric asked.

“No, I just thought I'd wander.”

Eric smiled and gestured toward the meandering stacks of books. While the tea shop was kept neat and orderly, there was a chaotic, mysterious feel to the bookstore. It sometimes seemed as if a tome might suddenly reach toward you from a darkened corner and beg, “Read me.”

Erinn could feel her pulse calm as she strolled through the aisles, gently touching books she had read and loved. She knew that people found her odd—and thought she was lonely. But books had always kept her company and brought her solace. She was happy to be in their company now.

Erinn never read romances. She had no patience with the boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl story lines. But she found herself, for the first time, gravitating toward the Romance section.

Even though the tea shop was closed, Erinn wandered into it, hoping to see her sister. She knew she had to tell Suzanna that she'd thrown Massimo out—she was sure to find out anyway. One of the beautiful things about Suzanna was that she wasn't smug with the “I told you so's,” which made it easier to actually tell her.

Suzanna was watering plants, and Erinn stood still and watched her. Her sister, who Erinn suddenly remembered was now eight and a half months' pregnant, was bathed in the warm, golden radiance of a Southern California afternoon. The soft shafts of sunlight caressed her hair. Erinn leaned against the door frame, wishing she had her camera with her. Suzanna looked up sharply and stared at Erinn. She didn't seem to recognize her.

“I'm sorry, Suzanna! Did I startle you?”

“Erinn!” she said, dropping the watering can and reaching toward her sister.

Erinn instinctively ran toward her. For a fleeting second, she thought the pool of water around Suzanna's feet was from the dropped watering can. But as her sister clutched her belly and howled, Erinn knew her water had broken.

Erinn grabbed Suzanna with all her strength and started walking her toward the back door.

“Eric!” Erinn called. “Get the car! It's showtime.”

E
rinn circled Los Angeles International Airport, keeping an eye out for her mother. When she had called to let Virginia know that her granddaughter had arrived two weeks early, in good health and with striking lung power, the newly minted grandmother booked the next plane out of New York. Erinn saw her mother standing on the curb in front of the American Airlines terminal, and she cut off a Hertz van in her hurry to retrieve her.

Traffic was bumper to bumper as the women made their way back to Santa Monica. Erinn caught her mother up on all the details.

Suzanna's labor had been astonishingly quick. Luckily, the Rollicking Bun was only a few minutes from the hospital. Because everything had happened so fast, Erinn wasn't able to pick up her video camera, so there would be no permanent record of the blessed event. Erinn was disappointed, but Suzanna said she was perfectly happy not to relive the actual birth.

Suzanna and Eric wanted to name the baby Virginia Erinn Cooper, but Virginia, while wildly excited about the prospect of being a grandmother, had gently put her foot down.

“That's very sweet,” she said. “But I have no interest in being called Old Virginia or Big Virginia. I think you should name the baby after Erinn.”

Erinn never thought of herself as vain, but she was with her mother on this one—the idea of ever being referred to as “Big Erinn” or “Old Erinn” or even the more benign “Senior Erinn” was just too jarring. Better to nip this in the bud.

“I really am honored, but you know how those double family names can be so . . . confusing,” Erinn said.

“Yeah . . . fine . . . forget it,” Suzanna said, calling her sister out. “We can forget the whole thing, if you want.”

“No!” Erinn said. “I love the idea! But maybe . . . maybe we could call her by her middle name, Elizabeth, or some nickname like Beth.”

“Nickname?” Suzanna asked. “Who are you? You've always hated nicknames.”

“God forbid I should ever change my mind about anything in this family.”

“Liz,” Suzanna said slowly. “What about Lizzy? Could you get used to Lizzy?”

Erinn's heart squeezed for a second and then she said, “Yeah. I think I could.”

Erinn had to admit, if only to herself, that she'd grown rather fond of that particular nickname. She was happy to bequeath it to her precious niece. It would be her own private memento of all that had transpired over the last few months.

Erinn's guesthouse didn't stay vacant for long. Suzanna and Eric had remained very close with several of their Napa Valley childhood friends, and they all arrived within days of Lizzy's birth. Fernando, the Napa Valley High School buddy who had once been the pastry chef of the Rollicking Bun, left his new B and B in the hands of his business partner and headed down the coast from Washington. He had catered Suzanna and Eric's wedding in Erinn's backyard two years previous and was a big fan of the guesthouse, calling dibs on it within minutes of announcing his arrival.

Suzanna's childhood girlfriend Carla was a very busy architect in Northern California, but she canceled all her appointments and drove down as soon as she heard the news. She wanted to stay in the apartment over the tea shop with Suzanna, Eric, and Lizzy, but Virginia had already laid claim to the guestroom, and there was no overruling Grammy. Carla would be staying in Erinn's guestroom.

All the excitement should have kept Erinn's mind off Jude. He did manage to pop up in her thoughts from time to time, but Erinn was very practiced in the art of pushing things aside. She just immersed herself in all things Lizzy.

The Rollicking Bun was having a little get-together for the loyal friends, family, and patrons who wanted to be part of Baby Lizzy's arrival. Erinn realized that she was probably the one who should have planned a baby shower before the big event, but it honestly hadn't even crossed her mind. Since the baby had arrived early, no one seemed to have noticed the rather glaring sisterly omission.

Suzanna's pediatrician—and all the baby books and other mothers—said that newborns didn't have fully functioning immune systems and crowds were a bad idea. Suzanna was happy to have the party, but was determined to keep Baby Lizzy upstairs. Eric had bought several digital picture frames—the ones that rotate several pictures in one frame—and placed them around the room. Erinn stood in front of one of them and realized that she had taken every single one of the photos.

Fernando had shooed everyone out of the kitchen as soon as the party had been announced.

“Out, out, you damned spots,” he said, waving everyone away. “Fernando the Fantasmo is ready to cast his magic spell
again
.”

Erinn was determined to make up for not videotaping the birth—although all the main players assured her it was hardly her fault. She brought two full boxes of tape with her, although she made sure no one saw that all of it was recycled. In her mind, it wasn't professional to use old stock. In Philadelphia, the crew always shot take after take, reminding each other “Tape is cheap.” But Erinn knew that tape was only cheap when somebody else was paying for it.

She had to admit that the time she spent in Philadelphia had sharpened her social skills. While she stayed behind her camera most of the time at the party, when she did have a conversation with someone she hardly knew, it wasn't painful.

All the regulars were there, including Mimi and Cary. Cary caught her eye and smiled. Erinn waved and ducked behind her camera, but she could see Cary threading her way toward her.

“Hi, Erinn!” Cary said. As a veteran television producer, Cary hardly noticed the camera between them. “How was Lapland?”

“Oh . . . well,” Erinn stalled. “Does anything ever really change in Lapland?”

Mimi, sipping a girlie pink punch Fernando had whipped up, appeared instantly.

“Now, Cary, Erinn just became an aunt,” she said, steering Cary away. “No business today.”

Cary turned back to Erinn. “It's been too long,” she said. “Stop by the office next week, and we'll chat.”

Mimi directed Cary back to the appetizers, giving Erinn a thumbs-up that Erinn caught on tape.

Erinn heaved a great sigh of relief. With the birth of her niece, and the arrival of out-of-town guests, she managed to keep thoughts of her own life,
BATTLEready!,
her career, and Jude out of her mind. It appeared the universe was giving her a signal that it was time to step up to the plate again.

 

When Erinn got home, the house was bathed in the pinkish hues of sunset, which caught her eye. It had been over a month since she had been home from Philadelphia, and the season's light had changed. Winter—even California's sorry excuse for winter—was ebbing. Although she was pleasantly tired from the party, she knew she couldn't resist the sunset. She grabbed her camera and headed out to the park. The sunset would be perfect in about ten minutes, and shooting would relax her before her houseguests returned from the other end of town.

She headed over to the bluff. Seeing Cary had brought
BATTLEREADY!
back full force, and Erinn's mind was whirling with thoughts of Jude. She looked through the viewfinder, but it was cloudy with tears. She thought of the old saying, “Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop.”

She admonished herself, and she tried to focus on the spectacular colors stretching out over the water. Oranges, pinks, reds were all vying for attention and practically screaming, “Look at me! Look at me!”

Panning slowly, she turned the camera lens from the ocean to the park itself, adjusting the iris as the light changed. Erinn, like most serious professional videographers, had nothing but disdain for autofocus, auto-iris, or auto-anything else. She concentrated on steadying her movements, while adjusting the various settings as she turned the lens one hundred and eighty degrees from the sunset. She was so absorbed with her camera work that it took her a minute to realize that someone had ridden into frame on a skateboard and ruined her shot. She looked up, annoyed. It took her a few seconds to realize that the person standing there was Jude, smiling at her.

“Hey, Erinn! I thought that might be you.”

Erinn shut off the camera and tried to steady her breathing.
I must remain cool
, she said to herself.

“How is the chick magnet working these days?” she said, nodding at the skateboard.

“Some women are attracted to it,” he said, grinning. “Magnet . . . attracted . . . get it?”

As if the magnet joke wasn't reminder enough of the chasm between them, Jude suddenly stomped on the front of the board, which sent the back spinning into the air. Jude caught it expertly and tucked it under his arm. It was a practiced gesture, one he had probably been perfecting since high school. Erinn said a silent prayer of thanks giving that she had not sent her confessional e-mail to Jude.

What could I have been thinking?
she said to herself as she looked at the impossibly young man in front of her.

“So . . . what's new?” he asked.

“My sister had a baby,” she said.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I heard something about that.”

“They named her Erinn.”

“After you?”

“I assume so, yes.”

“How about a hug, then?” he said. “To celebrate the arrival of little Lizzy.”

Erinn nervously extended one arm. She had the camera in the other arm and Jude was holding his skateboard, so it was awkward and uncomfortable.

“Did you know,” Jude said, while embracing Erinn, “that hugging has health benefits? Seriously, studies have shown that hugs reduce blood pressure and increase levels of oxytocin.”

Erinn thought Jude sounded as if he had memorized this little tidbit. Why would he learn by heart some obscure piece of scientific trivia? Would this actually work as a pickup line? she wondered.

“I did know that,” she said. Jude continued to hold onto her, so she was speaking into his armpit. But she was grateful to have something to talk about beyond the obvious. “But it's still very interesting, isn't it?”

“Yeah. Even though I have no clue what oxytocin is.”

“It's a mammalian hormone.”

Erinn released herself. Jude stared at her.

“You're kidding me, right? You actually know this?”

“Oh, yes. It's fascinating! Oxytocin's biggest role comes into play during childbirth. I've been reading up on childbirth lately.”

“Oh. Well, yeah. I guess you would be.”

“Large amounts are released after the cervix and vagina have stretched during labor. Afterward, it helps facilitate breastfeeding by stimulating the nipples.”

“Really?” Jude said.

He and Erinn both smiled at each other.

“Tell me less,” they said in unison.

“Dude,” Jude said, putting his arm around her. “Don't ever tell anybody that. Nobody will ever hug again . . . although that ‘stimulating the nipple' action is pretty tight.”

Erinn laughed. Jude visibly relaxed.

“I'm glad I ran into you,” he said. “I've been really bummed that I couldn't get hold of you.”

Erinn held up her hand.

“Let's not even get into that quagmire,” she said. “I know you were trying to warn me that someone seemed to have stolen my show idea.”

They started to walk along the path that threaded through the park.

“I freaked out when Cary told me about the show, but I really didn't know enough details to be sure you didn't have a partner who had pitched it or something like that. I mean, I thought you didn't . . . you don't seem like the partnering type . . . but you never know. I figured the best I could do was let you know what Cary said and back off.”

“Well, thanks. You did your best.”

“Did I?” Jude asked. He looked . . . haunted. “I kept wondering if there was anything else I could have done.”

“No, Jude, you were great,” Erinn said, squeezing his arm reassuringly. “And I'm sure Mimi will be able to straighten everything out. I'm not worried.”

“Cool.”

“Besides”—Erinn tried to make light of the situation—“money is like a pie. You eat it up a piece at a time and it's all gone. It's inevitable, so no real loss.”

“Hmmm,” Jude said. “I don't really think that's true. I think money is more like a river. You scoop some out, and more flows in. Enough for everybody. Fuck the pie idea. That's just lame.”

Erinn thought about it. The river analogy
was
a much better way to think about it. And if money were like a pie, disappearing a slice at a time, than you'd guard it jealously. Massimo truly wasn't as innocent as she'd thought, on any level.

But Erinn was through thinking about Massimo.

The sun had completely set and a strong wind picked up over the ocean. Erinn looked at her watch. She probably had an hour or so before her houseguests descended. She invited Jude back to the house. They made their way into the kitchen. She set the camera down on the table and made coffee. Caro jumped into Jude's lap.

“Hey there, Truck!”

Erinn set out the coffee, and Jude caught Erinn up on the crew. Jude, Carlos, and Gilroi were all over at a rival production company working on a “new show”—Erinn noted that he left out the description.

“Even if APE gets going on
Let It Shine
, it will be a couple months before they're in production,” Jude said. “You should come work with us. We'd have fun.”