Everybody Knows Your Name (15 page)

Nightmarish butterflies hit my stomach as soon as I've asked this. I talk about my dad, but I never ask my mom to talk about him. Her expression is so panicked that I'm definitely finally going to cry if I look at her anymore. So I avoid her eyes.

After a couple of seconds, she says, “I wasn't involved with your dad when he got sick.” Her voice is hard for me to take.

“But still, you were connected,” I mumble.

“The relationship was over.” My mom is already getting onto her knees so she can step up and walk out. She's the one not looking at me now. “I'm going to go call Lucien and talk to him about writing that scene for you. The Ford make-up scene.”

“Please don't.”

I don't know if she doesn't hear me over the rustling discs of her dress, but she doesn't answer as she opens the door to the closet and leaves. I just sit there for another couple of hours, thinking. I don't try to work on
Ships
or anything. It's more like a meditative state, except I don't think you're supposed to be extremely upset while you're meditating.

Lucien finds me during vocal coaching at Stacy's the next morning. I ended up missing the entire group number rehearsal, so she's teaching me my part. (Since the first time here, I've learned that this
is
actually Stacy's house. She's just continually surprised by the objects in it because she had an interior decorator choose them.)

“Dig in, reach for the note,” Stacy commands as she hits a key on the high end of the piano. “You've got to put more heart into it or you're not going to get there.”

“Noooooowwwww,” I try, not hitting it.

Lucien leans against the doorway. “Can I borrow Magnolia?”

Stacy sighs. “Is this show even about singing?”

It's definitely not. But I'm not going to be the one to tell her.

I join Lucien and we go out and sit at a table on the patio. He's got his hair in a low pony, a very thick pony, and baby spit on the shoulder of the usual football jersey he wears.

It's bright out. I put on a pair of Gucci sunglasses we got in one of the twenty gift baskets we've been sent since last week. The Guccis would be good for hiding puffy eyes if I had puffy eyes. I'm not even close to being in the mood to cry today. When I woke up this morning, I had shifted into mostly being really, really angry. I saw Ford only once, in the kitchen grabbing breakfast. His back was to me. Anger surged through my chest, once again keeping away sadness. I walked straight out.

“So your mom called me last night about this Ford development,” Lucien says.

“I don't want to have to go running to him on camera. And I don't want him to run to me either.”

Lucien leans back and basks in the sun. “Yeah, I hear you.”

I wait another second for him to argue with me, but that's all he says. I'm surprised because I figured he would definitely push for a more dramatic action than ignoring Ford.

“That's all?”

“I'd be pissed if I were you too.”

“And?”

“Where do you want to go next with your story line? Do you want to do a variation on a young-woman-scorned thing? There's always a ready audience for that.” He's looking up at the sky, speaking in that kind of back-of-the-throat voice you try out when you're a kid and you want to annoy your parents. But he's not trying to annoy me. He's bored, I'm realizing. “Or you don't have to do anything at all.”

“Hey, are you bored by this job?” I ask.

He looks down. “Well, yeah. It's not my ideal project. It's not my
Moby-Dick
.”

“What don't you like about it?”

“This job isn't writing. On a good day, it comes
close
to bordering on storytelling. If I get to structure a scene around something going on in the mansion or feed a good line, I go home feeling better about it. But I'm not creating you guys out of my head. I'm not getting to pursue the themes that most interest me.”

“What are those themes?”

He makes a cross with his fingers and holds it in front of him like I'm a vampire trying to suck out information. “I don't think my job is to sit here and answer the big questions of my existence.”

“Fine, the questions can be smaller,” I say. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-seven.”

“What's your baby's name?”

He looks at me sideways. “No, seriously, what's with all the questions? I'm not the one who does interviews. I'm the invisible one.”

“I don't know. I just got curious about your life.”

“Her name is Scottie.”

It rings a bell. “Wasn't that also F. Scott Fitzgerald's daughter's name? We read
Gatsby
last year in English. Mrs. Corinthos turned it into a book about how Daisy should have focused on herself. She says Daisy got in that trouble by letting herself just be a pretty face.”

Lucien shakes a finger in the air. “Mrs. Corinthos! Very reductionist, Mrs. Corinthos!” He switches over to pointing at me. “And, yes, that was Fitzgerald's daughter's nickname and the reason why my daughter also has it. He's probably my favorite author, depending which mood you catch me in.”

“I like it for a girl. But my ex-boyfriend's name is Scott, so it makes me imagine him as a girl and as a baby.” I haven't heard from Scott since I left him outside the gate. My anger toward Ford has pushed that night way into the background. It's become like a continually dimming star somewhere in the back of my heart.

“Do you like English class?” Lucien asks.

“I think it's the only class I genuinely do like,” I say.

Lucien and I end up talking, as real people, for the first time since we've met. Usually our conversations consist of how Lucien wants me to come off on the show. The last time I talked to him, on Tuesday, the cameramen were at the house getting extra footage for the performance show. Catherine wanted what she called some “ambient stuff” to make a “pondering montage,” which I came to understand was just us contestants in quiet moments alone thinking about whatever the show wanted to make it look like we were thinking about. My thinking face got intercut with Ford's thinking face.

Lucien wanted me to walk around the garden in (pretend) rain because that would convey a
Wuthering Heights
kind of romantic sensibility, and we had a small argument because I thought that would just bring up the tortured and depressed stuff all over again.

But now I tell him about Mrs. Corinthos and what school was like and all the semi-ironic roller rink skating trips that went down in middle school and how I socially cracked when I got to high school. I say I don't want to talk about Ford. Lucien says he doesn't blame me.

Lucien tells me about how he met his wife in the dorms at UCLA and how she made him like himself for once and how they actually used to live in the apartment where F. Scott Fitzgerald died in Hollywood. Lucien tells me that F. Scott died clutching the mantel of his fireplace, so Lucien used to knock on it for good luck every morning before he left for a meeting. I tell him that knocking on a man's death mantel seems like it might not be the best good luck charm. He tells me that yeah, it didn't seem to work because here he is, consulting on this show instead of getting his movies made.

I guess we talk for a really long time because eventually Stacy comes out, holding a fresh Frappuccino, exasperated. “I've got an hour before I have to send you off to that movie premiere. Are you going to come work on this note or what?”

“Be there in a second,” I say.

“I wish your momma was here to help me wrangle you,” Stacy mutters before she steps back inside. My mom is at a salon getting her hair blown out for the premiere. It's a Pat Graves movie, and he's been her favorite star since I was a baby.

I push my chair back from the patio table with my legs. “Hey, why haven't we talked before?” I wonder.

“Context,” Lucien says.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“We were approaching each other from a standoffish context. I was the guy working for the show, making you portray yourself in annoying ways, and you were just another kid I had to convince to take a walk in the rain before I could go home to my own kid. Neither one of us considered trying to talk to each other in a real way. It was all
Spotlight
.”

He opens his arms. “That's how the world works. It's hard to have the personal conversation because you get tripped up by the surface conversation you're
supposed
to be having. Not the one you'd get more out of. That's why you cracked in high school. You didn't know how to change the context. So you gave up.”

I definitely know what he's saying. It connects back to everything I've been trying to reverse in myself. I get up and start back toward the house.

“So any feelings about your story line this coming week?” Lucien calls after me.

“I don't know if we have to worry that much about it. I think I might be going home.”

“Nah, it's looking worse for Dillon. Even worse for Ford. The girls on the message boards are unhappy with him. They liked the orphan spiel. They wanted to save him.”

“Let me get back to you.”

I head inside, and Lucien goes over to use the hose. He holds his shirt away from his chest to dribble water on the spit-up. I stop and watch him for a second. I feel like I've gotten more out of this talk than I have from actually being on the show.

I have this feeling like I should be thinking more about my performance than I am.

I should probably be running it over in my head.

I mean, it should probably pop into my thoughts at least ten times a day?

Twenty?

It kind of feels like there's homework I'm ignoring, but I'm one of those burnout kids who's completely content not doing it.

It was different for the second performance. During the first show, I went out there and hoped I'd become this whole new person. I was so discouraged when nobody else saw the new thing in me.

But last night, I don't know, I just wasn't concerned about starting over. I sang before Ford's family reveal, so it's not like I was distracted. The theme was “songs that we felt represented ourselves.” I picked “Every Single Night” by Fiona Apple. I love that song. In rehearsal, Stacy had been pretty unhappy with me.

“You can't find the melody unless you listen to it five times,” she said. “This is not an instantly enjoyable song. And the lyrics—no, no, no, no! You're going to sing about your breast busting open?”

“Yes,” I said.

“No. No, no, no.”

I said, “It's about how her brain won't ever let up. So she's caught in a constant struggle between being sensitive to everything around her and then also being tortured by all that activity.” It really spoke to me.

Stacy just stared for a good few seconds. Then she asked, “Do you
want
to go home?”

I just wasn't worried up there. I don't know why.

It's my turn to walk the step-and-repeat red carpet at the Thursday night premiere. We're all here, judges included, because one, Jazz has a part in the film (as herself), and two, Catherine is thrilled about the free additional promotion for the show. The camera guys taped us getting ready because a story line for next week follows the disappearance of Nikki's curling iron and how she thinks Felicia hid it after Nikki used up her Moroccan oil. You'd think the two of them wouldn't want to play this out for the cameras, but each girl just thinks it makes the other girl look bad.

Anyway, the red carpet. All I have to do is smile, take a step, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Then I can go into the theater and watch a movie.

This should be as simple as jumping rope in PE or like last year, in Mrs. Corinthos's class, when she made us repeat vocab words and definitions over and over in our vocab journals. She told us that's how she remembers names at a party. She mentally says a person's name and a defining characteristic a bunch of times, and then she's like, “Heyyyyyy, Jennifer!” when she sees Jennifer in line for the bathroom. After that I'm sure she's like, “Jennifer, honey, listen, I'd like to talk to you about the way you've been sticking to your husband's side this whole evening and how you could be better at partying if you just focused on yourself.”

I've smiled for the cameras and stepped and repeated four times when I spot a flash of a ton of very red hair getting out of a curbside town car. I know who that is immediately. I check to make sure that my mom is still distracted talking to the director of the movie, and then I say, “Sorry, be right back” to the photographers.

Most people wouldn't know that my mom has been upset since our talk last night. It's hard to tell, but it's all I can see. Not that I really said anything unbelievably awful to her—I mean, I was just asking a legitimate question about my dad. But I know it messed with her.

Ever since then, something in her face has made her look unsteady. She's been quiet around me. She's been nervously shaking the bracelets on her wrists. I hate feeling like I'm her parent. I really, really do. But sometimes what feels worse is just the fact of seeing a parent be vulnerable. And you'd do anything to put her back on top so you don't have to linger in that dynamic a second longer.

I'm wearing a dark blue beaded jumpsuit and the pants on it are a little long, so I step on the hem a few times as I'm jogging to the curb. Catherine and junior producers are on the other side of the carpet hovering around Ford, making sure he says the right things to the press. Catherine is wearing a red tuxedo with her hair gelled back, and I can't explain it any better than this, but she looks like an abusive cotillion partner.

No one from the camp at the town car stops me from approaching the actress from the hotel elevator, because I'm not just an average person anymore. I'm on TV.

She's looking down, watching an assistant fix a streak of bronzer on her leg.

“Excuse me?” I say.

She looks up. She doesn't seem drunk today. Her eyes are clear and wide open. She recognizes me.

“Magnolia from
Spotlight
!” she says.

I say, “Well, that too. But I also met you in a hotel elevator once. Do you remember that time? I was with my mom?”

There's uncertainty creeping into her eyes. “The elevator?”

“I want to get a picture of the two of you together,” says a man who I think is the actress's publicist. The request seems urgent, and I get the sense that he thinks it will help his client's fading career to release a photo of her with me, which is kind of mind-blowing. It's so incredibly weird that
I
, a random high school kid, could help her seem relevant.

We stand hip to hip and put our arms around each other like we're old friends. The publicist pulls over the WireImage photographer to shoot us.

“You know, the elevator,” I continue. “You were really nice to us.” It's sort of half-true. “I have a favor to ask. My mom's here tonight, and if you could come over with me and say hi to her, that would mean a lot.” The photographer snaps us and we smile, repeat, repeat, repeat. “But if you could call her Di, like you remember her name, that would be even more meaningful.”

The actress turns slightly, giving the photographer another angle. “That's it?” she asks me.

“That's it.”

“Di, you said?”

“Right.”

After we take a couple more pictures, I tell the actress to give me a head start and then to follow. I go over to where my mom is standing so the actress knows which person to approach. My mom's dressed in an emerald evening gown with a sheer panel at her stomach. The panel plays a trick on the eyes because it seems like you should definitely be seeing a belly button, and you can't figure out why you're not.

As I approach, my mom's bracelets are jangling on her wrists like wind chimes. Seeing her unsteadiness cements the feeling in me that I have to do something to fix it, like I have to take care of her, like I have to put her back together. So that's why I could kiss the actress for showing up to this premiere.

Walking up, I hear my mom saying to the director, “Spike Lee, his early stuff. Lee Daniels, I can't wait to see what he does next. . . .”

I don't think I have to explain that the director is black.

“Hey,” I say.

My mom tries to beam at me, but it's not like normal. There's distance between us. “Magnolia, have you met Mike? Mike, I took her to see
Last Summer Resort
the night it came out. She loved it. I love the scene where Pat is leading everyone in lawn games and then suddenly that bear appears—”

“The bear scene!” Mike says, proud. He's bald and looks something like if turtles were allowed to join the army. He can just barely cross him arms successfully because his muscles get in the way.

“So Pat picks up the wife of the millionaire—that millionaire was
such
a douchebag, by the way—in his arms—”

“Di?” says a very convincing voice from behind us.

My mom turns. She sees the actress. My mom looks young. She looks doe-eyed. It's like I've restored her, and that makes me feel such phenomenal relief. “Lauren! Oh my God, hi! You remember my name?”

“Of course, the night in the hotel elevator!”

The actress can act. Lauren and my mom start talking like they're long-lost sisters, and my mom introduces her to Mike, which Lauren really seems to appreciate. It seems like Lauren would give up an organ to be in one of his movies. While the three of them are talking, my attention drifts off and I watch Pat Graves signing autographs for the fans in the bleachers; they've waited hours to see him walk the carpet. He smiles, and it's honestly pretty astonishing. I would need about fifty more teeth to manage a smile like that.

I notice one fan's face in particular—she has shining tears pouring down her cheeks, but she's obviously really happy. I wonder if that's real love, having so much feeling for someone that you only need the tiniest interactions to keep yourself going.

While I'm thinking about this, I feel someone's fingers drift up my spine. The jumpsuit is a halter, so it's completely open in the back. I know that it's Ford's hand on me. I just do.

I look over my shoulder, and his hand is still extended behind him, reaching toward me, even though he's moving away and facing forward. He's being escorted by Madison in the direction of Pat Graves, probably to meet him. I don't know what he thinks that touching my back is going to accomplish.

A whole new wave of anger comes. Let's put aside when I was looking into his eyes and telling him stories about my dad. What about when we were almost having sex before the show? What about then? What about when his hand was on my hipbone and he was pausing from kissing me and staring at me like I was all he needed? And he knew that in less than an hour, his family would be jogging up onto the stage. When he was staring at me like that, even if he hadn't known where to start, couldn't he have tried? Couldn't he have at least said something like,
Magnolia, I don't know where to start . . .
even if he couldn't get the rest out? And I would have said,
What? What?
and been completely frustrated and mystified, but at least I would have known a part of him wanted to tell me before the rest of the world.

I'm walloped by the sudden understanding of just how much Ford wants to get away from who he was. He wants it so bad that he even pretended with me, when we were alone.

But that doesn't change how pissed I am.

“You ready to go in?”

The actress and the film director are gone, and my mom's standing there, waiting on me.

“Yeah, sure.”

I look around, and the red carpet is emptying out. Pat Graves has gone inside. The fans in the bleachers are comparing trophies. A couple of publicity people from the movie are walking up the carpet, making shooing motions and yelling, “Carpet's closing! Please head into the movie! Carpet's closing!” We obey them and walk toward the theater. At the end of the carpet, there's only one person still posing, and that's Jazz Billingham. She looks so small when you see her out in the world. I mean, she looks like the preteen that she is.

Also, the skirt on her dress is gigantic, nearly antebellum, and it makes her look like these dolls that my grandma used to keep in the bathroom to cover up the extra toilet paper rolls.

We step around the front of the carpet to pass by her without ruining her photos. Jazz says to the photographers, “You have your pictures, yes? I'll be going, then.” And then she takes a step and falls.

She falls hard. She's tripped on one of the under layers of her dress. I gasp. The press is still taking photos of her. She lifts her face and it's panicky, hurt. You can see the deeper horror of her embarrassment. There's this fear that she's just shown something to the crowd that they're never supposed to see.

“I want my mom,” she says quietly, maybe even so quietly that I'm one of the few people who knows what she's said because I'm looking right into her eyes and I'm standing right in front of her. Her parents are never with her. From what I hear, they live somewhere back east. Jazz's lawyer is the one who acts as her guardian. He always stands off to the side in his charcoal suit, taking calls, and occasionally they speak a couple of words to each other.

And then something kind of bizarre happens. My mom runs to Jazz and scoops her up from the ground, taking her into her arms. She hugs her like she's her mom. I think Jazz is going to fling off my mom's affection and say something like,
Hugs are for people who don't have their own art to embrace them
. But Jazz just holds on to her really tight.

My mom protectively blocks Jazz from the press and then guides her off the carpet and behind the step-and-repeat backdrop. I don't think Jazz and my mom have ever interacted before this moment, apart from maybe shaking hands during a backstage introduction.

One of the movie's publicists touches my arm and says, “We need you in your seat.”

I can see my mom still comforting Jazz, who seems to need her. So I figure I should just leave them alone. “Coming,” I say.

I enter the lobby and another studio person hustles me toward the theater door, saying I'm going to miss the start of the movie. So I head in, but as soon as I'm through the door, someone else grabs my hand and pulls me into an ushers' supply closet underneath the stadium seating.

“Maggie,” Ford says. He's standing there in dim light, in a suit without a tie. The way he says my name is both urgent and hopeful.

“No,” I say. I start to back out, pulling away my hand.

He doesn't let it go. “Maggie,” he says more urgently this time.

“I adored you.”
This isn't meant as something nice. It's supposed to be a punch to the face. I pull away my hand, hard. I leave him.

Shaken, I walk down the hallway to the stairs for the seats. I watch my step because of this insane jumpsuit. At the front of the theater Mike is saying, “And I just hope you all really dig it!” The room breaks into applause. Pat Graves stands and claps over his head like he's at SeaWorld. I spot Mila near the aisle, and Ricky's taken the seat next to her. I duck down at their row.

“Hey, Ricky,” I whisper. “Can I have that seat?”

“There's more near the front,” he whispers, confused.

“I just really want to be with my friend right now.”

Mila nudges him. “Your eyes are bad, Rick. You should get up as close as you can.”

He sighs and indulges me. I take his seat with all my sequins crunching underneath me.

“You look paler than usual,” Mila whispers.

“Ford tried to talk to me.”

“You're allowed to be disappointed in him. Don't let him get that twisted.” She picks up a sequin that's fallen from my jumpsuit to my shoulder and flicks it away for me.

The lights start to go down.

I can't help but be aware when Ford appears in the aisle as the theater is almost dark. I stare ahead. He takes a seat somewhere in the back.

I concentrate on the movie. The Universal logo spins. There aren't any opening credits. It just starts. Pat jumps from the second story of a mall to the first. He tackles a bad guy (who just looks bad) that works in the mall pet shop. The guy produces a scorpion from his pocket. Mila laughs. Nobody else does. Pat expertly takes hold of the creature, and he gets it to clamp a claw down on the bad guy's nuts. I laugh too.