Monsters (19 page)

He rubs his face with his hands. The knuckles of his right hand are ripped open, bleeding.

“Let me get something for your hand.” I stand up and walk into the kitchen and grab a towel from beside the sink, and I bring it back out. When I sit down, I take Tommy's hand in my lap. His skin is ragged, painful. “She thinks she's in love.”

He pulls his hand away, digs his fingers into his hair. “I'll kill that piece of shit.”

“Tommy, they're just kids. They're just stupid, stupid kids. You've gotta cut them some slack.”

He just sits there for a long time. I wrap my arms around my knees and wait.

“What did he say when you told him?”

“What do you mean?” I'm not stupid. I know what he means.

“Michael. What did he say when he found out?”

I press my teeth together hard, wrap my fingers around and under my feet. “I never told him.” I don't actually know if Tommy can hear me, but he must, because he says, “You never told him?” He turns to look at me, and he sounds almost angry. He makes this derisive sound. “You are a fucking piece of work.”

“When was I going to tell him? When we were dating? When he proposed? When we brought Ben home from the hospital, or Stevie? ‘Hey, I know this'll be really hard for you, and you'll never really look at me the same, but I just thought you should know . . .'” I turn my head, look out toward the water. I pay attention to how it seems to swallow the lights from the house, how it holds them under. “It wouldn't have been okay, Tommy. It just . . . it wouldn't have been.” I pull my legs in tighter, rest my head on my knees.

I love you,
Michael would say sometimes, and I'd think,
Maybe, but how could we know?

“I'm gonna have to call her mother,” Tommy says finally.

“She already knows.” I suck my lips in, hold them with my teeth.

He turns his face up toward the sky and every muscle along his jaw and down his neck is tight. I count the seconds in each of his breaths. I say, “She did the right thing. She had to take her.”

“She should have told me.” His fists are still clenched. “You can't keep a secret like this.”

I say, “I know,” but I don't really mean it.

Neither of us talks for a while. It's cold, but it's still a beautiful
night, and in the quiet, I can hear the water slowly lapping at the walls of the pool. I put my hand on his arm finally. “I'm tired,” I say. “I'll sleep upstairs, give you some space.”

He doesn't look at me, but he says, “No,” and shakes his head. “I'll be in in a minute.”

•   •   •

Tommy wakes me up crawling in beside me, and I roll toward him and then his hands are on my face, and he presses his mouth into me, hard, all lips and tongue and teeth. He pushes me onto my back and lifts himself over me. And he leans past me, to the nightstand for a condom, and tears it open. I reach down to pull off his jeans, but he wrenches my hand out of the way, pins it to the bed. He pushes himself inside me, his mouth by my ear, the button of his jeans pressing hard into my thigh. I say, “Tommy, wait,” but he puts his hand over my mouth and turns my head to the side, leaning his arm hard against my neck.

•   •   •

After, Tommy spoons himself against me, presses his lips over and over into my hair, and I let him.

Next week is my anniversary. The second since the last. Michael had taken me to dinner. The usual place. I'd had three glasses of wine and when I'd ordered the third, he'd raised his eyebrow, said, “Really?” but that was it. Back home, as I was getting undressed, he'd come up behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, brushed his lips across my shoulders.

“Sometimes,” he'd whispered, “I think you don't really love me. I think you just love how much I love you.”

And I said, “Of course I love you.”

•   •   •

Sadie comes down as usual in the morning, but her eyes are red and swollen. Tommy's already been up talking to her. He went up the stairs at six o'clock, almost the minute that my alarm went off. I don't know if he woke her or just sat by her bed waiting. He'd looked pretty wrecked when he came back down, but he just poured himself some coffee, sat down at the counter with his paper. I felt like it was best to stay out of his way, but Sadie is different. She's just a little girl.

“Oh, honey,” I say, wrapping my arms around her. “You know what? I don't think you should go to school today.”

“What?” Tommy says behind me. I hear him set down his paper.

“Look at her. Her eyes are practically swollen shut. What are people going to say?” I turn around to face him, but I keep one arm around Sadie.

“You worry too much about what people say.” He turns back to his paper.

“Maybe you don't worry enough.”

“She's not your kid, and she's not missing school.”

He says this so cold and low it makes my breath catch in my throat. I think about backing down, but then I feel Sadie's shoulders spasm inside my arm as she starts to cry.

“She can,” I say. “She can miss one day. She can lie on the couch with a mask on her eyes for one day.”

He looks up at me, his eyes narrow, and I think,
You owe me, you owe me, you fucking owe me,
and I let it show in my face.

It takes longer than I expected.

“Fine,” he says. He stands up and walks to her, pulls her out of my arm and into his, and he rests his chin on her head. “Your mom home
today?” he asks, and she nods. “I'm sending you back there. I don't want you staying here alone all day.”

•   •   •

“I don't appreciate the interference,” he says after about five minutes of brutally cold silence punctuated only by aggressive shifting. He's going to break something the way he keeps slamming the car into gear.

“Sorry,” I say. I'm not though, I'm not sorry at all, and I think it's ridiculous that I'm the one apologizing.

“That's it?” he says. “That's all you've got to say?”

“What do you want me to say? She's having a hard time. I think you need to be a little gentler with her.”

He grunts. “Well, I guess you're the expert on abortion, aren't you?”

I don't even answer him. I just lean my head against the window. I should have expected this. I should never have told him.

“I guess I should ask, have you had an abortion lately?”

I turn to look at him, and then I just turn back, study the houses we're driving past. He slows down and pulls the car over to the side of the road.

“Would you?” he says. “Would you just take care of it and not even tell me?”

“Probably,” I say.

He grabs my arm and jerks me away from the door. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Fuck, I don't know!” I pull away from him and rub my arm, though it doesn't hurt as much as I'm letting on. “You know this isn't fucking about me, Tommy.”

He takes my face in both hands and pulls me toward him. He
doesn't kiss me. He just leans his head against mine. “I think I'm losing my shit,” he says, and I say, “I know.”

•   •   •

I spend as much of the day as I can reading on the couch in Sarah's trailer because Tommy's realization that he's falling apart has done nothing to soften his mood. Even Jason seems a little afraid of him.

“Jesus, what is Tommy's problem?” Sarah says as she comes in between takes.

I know enough about Sarah not to tell her, so I just make my eyes really big and say, “I know, right? Fucking temper.”

“Is something up with the movie?”

“I don't know. I don't think he had any calls this morning, but I wasn't really paying attention.” I shrug and look back at my book.

“You're not much of a spy, are you?” Sarah says. “Jesus, it's so damn hot in here.” She fans herself.

It is hot, but I have this thin sweater on, and I can't take it off because, thanks to Tommy, I woke up with this purple bruise on the inside of my arm. It doesn't matter. I bruise pretty easily, but it is hot. “I don't know,” I say. “I'm kind of cold. Maybe it's just you.”

•   •   •

Tommy comes in around two, and when he walks in he says, “Hey.”

I'm lying on the couch with my knees up, the book propped against them. “Hi,” I say, and I close the book but hold my place with my thumb.

“Sarah?” he says.

“Not here. You looking for her?”

“No,” he says. “I'm looking for you.” He sits down on the couch
next to me, wraps one arm around my legs and rests his chin on my knee. “Stace,” he says.

I reach up, touch my fingers to his arm. “It's fine,” I say, and I smile. “I'm used to you being an asshole.” Of course this is different, but it's so much easier to pretend that it's not.

“Let me take you to dinner tonight.” He takes my hand, rubs his thumb across my palm. This is in no way the sort of apology that I'm interested in, and my reluctance must show on my face because he says, “Come on, I'll buy you the most expensive fucking wine.” He starts to hold my hand up to his lips, but then we hear feet on the steps of the trailer, and he lets go and stands up, moves the two steps across the room.

The door opens, and Sarah walks in. “Ugh,” she says, “so many takes,” and then she sees Tommy and says, “Oh, it's you.” She crosses her arms across her chest. “You come here to yell at people? Because you can get the fuck out.”

“I'm begging forgiveness,” he says, and he holds his arms out to her.

Sarah is easy because her posture softens immediately, and she steps right into him. “What's the matter, honey?” she says. “Is it the budget again? If you need more money, I'll call John.”

“No, no,” he says, and he kisses her on the forehead. “It's home. Sadie. Custody shit.” Which is brilliant really. Close enough to the truth that she won't ask for more.

“Poor baby,” she says, and she pats him on the arm as she pulls away.

•   •   •

Tommy manages to drag me out of the trailer for the next hour, but then he gets a call, and I duck away. It's tedious really. I mean, the first
take is cool, but then it's over, and over, and over, and Jason's giving people notes, and then let's do it again. It's just like this year's music program at school. Stevie's and Ben's grades were back-to-back, and it was the same damn songs, the same stupid routines. But those were only half an hour, so this is so much worse.

I'm afraid it's Tommy when the door opens, but it's not, it's Sarah. I think,
Good, I get to stay here,
but she says, “Jason's looking for you,” and I groan.

“Kinda handsy?” she says, and she wrinkles her nose. “I think he's got a thing for you.”

I laugh. “No. Jason's fine. He's a sweetheart. He's married anyway.”

“In this town, that almost never matters.”

“I just don't feel like going out there.” I shrug. “But I guess I will.”

•   •   •

When I turn the corner, there's Tommy. He's got his back to me, leaning against the wall, talking very close with some young girl. Not an actress though. She's got a headset hanging around her neck, so she must be on the crew. As she's talking, very excitedly of course, this strand of hair falls over her eye, and Tommy reaches his hand up, tucks it behind her ear, and his fingers kind of linger against her cheek, and I just think,
Jesus fucking Christ.
I should have known. Things have been too intense, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he'd handle it like this. I almost turn around. I'm about to leave, but then there's Jason from the opposite direction, yelling, “Stacey, I've been looking everywhere,” and I have to start walking toward him. Tommy doesn't move away from the girl. He's not one to overreact, but he does turn his head toward me, and he looks, I don't know,
caught
. I'm not sure how to act natural.
It seems stupid to smile, so as I pass him, I hold my arm up, point to my wrist like I'm wearing a watch, and I just say, “What time are we planning on leaving today?” It takes him a second, but he says, “Up to you.” He's quiet though. I almost don't hear him.

•   •   •

At least the place Tommy takes me for dinner is so expensive that everyone here is rich enough to not be easily blown away. He's not even the only celebrity here, but he is Tommy, so he's obviously at the top of the list. The downside is that there are photographers absolutely parked out front, which is obnoxious, and super disturbing, but once we're inside, it's fine. The wine he orders is insane. It's very close to the number they quoted us when Michael wanted to send Ben to private school. Clearly, this is an apology wine.

“Shoot is going well,” he says. “I know you think it's tedious, but everything's on schedule.” He runs his thumb along the rim of his glass. “Jason's a perfectionist, you know, so we've got extra time built in. I was talking with Amanda about it.” And he raises his eyes to mine to say that I know exactly who he's talking about. “She works with the script supervisor, you know.”

“Mmm,” I say. “She's adorable.”

“Isn't she though?” And he smiles. “Very sweet too. Friendly.” He says
friendly
with a lot of emphasis, and I'm thinking,
You fucking dick,
but I say, “Yeah? Just what you like.”

“I do like friendly,” he says, and he takes a drink of his wine. “That doesn't bother you, does it?”

I laugh, and it's the kind of laugh I make when I actually want to stand up and leave.

“Because you know, Stace, if it bothered you . . .”

He reaches across the table and trails his fingers around my wrist. I feel my shoulders tense, and I pull my arm away. I think,
Don't you dare. Not today. Not like this.
Because he doesn't mean it. I know he doesn't mean it. It's just more apology, more smoothing things over, more
Sorry I've been such a dick.