Plan B (42 page)

“Hey,” she said.

I poured myself a cup of orange juice and pulled up a stool. “Where’s Jack?”

“He’s sleeping,” she said, and smiled shyly at me, confirming our earlier speculation.

“Was that the first time?” I asked. “For the two of you, I mean.”

She took another sip. “That was the first and second time,” she said with a wicked grin, but there was a sadness behind it.

“So what’s wrong?” I asked. “Is ten years of foreplay too much to live up to?”

She smiled again. “No, nothing like that.”

“So what then?”

“He asked me to come out and live with him.”

“What, in Hollywood?”

“Yep.”

“That’s great,” I said, but Alison just sipped at her tea. “That’s not great?”

“I told him no,” she said.

“Oh.”

She sighed deeply. “I think, after all these years of waiting for him to get his act together with me, I’m finally ready to move on. We came up here to get him off drugs, but I think I also came to get me off him.”

“You know he loves you,” I said.

“I know,” she said softly. “And I love him. But he’ll never be who I want him to be, which is the Jack I knew before he became ‘Jack Shaw.’ ” She put up her fingers to indicate quotation marks. “And he’ll never love me the way I want to be loved. Now he’s been shocked into this awareness that he’s somehow been changed, and that terrifies him, so he wants me to be with him, to somehow prove he’s the same guy he always was. But he’s not, and as much as I love him, I can’t go with him just because he’s scared. I deserve better than that.” She looked at me.

“You’ve thought about this,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “And I’ll probably be second-guessing myself as soon as he’s gone, kicking myself for not going with him, but right now I’m sure I’m doing the right thing. He and I are actually in the same position now. We’ll both be looking to find another way to make the world go around. Him without his coke, and me without him.”

“Man,” I said, reeling from what she’d just told me. “This must be so hard for you.”

“I know,” she said. “All those years, wishing he’d just tell me he wants me. Now he does, and I don’t want to go. I must be crazy.”

“You sound pretty rational,” I said. “How’d he take it?”

“Okay. We had sex.”

“After you said no?”

She laughed. “You didn’t think after ten years I wasn’t going to at least get a taste.”

“Slut,” I said with a grin. “You know, you’d be surprised at how similar you and Chuck are sometimes.”

“Please,” she said. “I’m depressed enough already.”

I finished my drink and got up. “I’m going to sleep,” I said, giving her a small kiss.

“Ben?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“We did the right thing. For Jack, I mean.”

“It looks that way,” I said.

“You think he’ll go back to doing drugs?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so, but I didn’t think he’d take drugs to begin with.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Well, if he does, he’s on his own. I have a strict once-in-a-lifetime intervention policy.”

“I agree,” I said, setting down my glass in the sink.

“Have a good night,” Alison said.

“You okay?”

“Sure.”

“Well,” I said, pausing in the doorway, “it sounds like you know what you’re doing.”

“Yeah,” she said sarcastically. “I’m a big talker. Watch. Next week I’ll be jumping on a plane to go see him.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think we all found some new direction this week.”

“Oh, is there something you guys haven’t told us?”

“Tomorrow,” I said. Alison smiled at me and I turned and headed back up the stairs.

The reporters went berserk when Jack stepped out of the house the next morning. They were literally climbing all over each other to jockey for position and it was all the troopers could do to keep them behind the barricades. Jack walked calmly down to the front of the lawn and stood there for a few minutes, smiling and engaging in good-natured banter with the reporters. Most of the nonprofessional portion of the crowd had disappeared overnight, but there was still a pretty impressive throng of media, all clamoring for a bit of Jack’s attention. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN,
Hard Copy, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, Extra, The National Enquirer, The Globe
, and a whole slew of local affiliates I didn’t recognize. After he’d given them about fifteen minutes he came back into the house and we all made our good-byes.

“What do you think, Ben?” he said to me after giving me a hug. “This whole thing would make a pretty cool novel, huh?”

“Could be,” I said.

“Well, if you do it, I get first dibs on the film option.”

“Deal.”

He looked at me. “Thanks again, man, for everything.”

“Just stay sober, so we can feel like we actually accomplished something.”

“Oh, I think you accomplished something,” he said, indicating Lindsey. “Don’t thank me, I’m just glad I was able to bring you two together.”

“Right.”

“Hey, it was all part of the plan.”

He gave Lindsey a hug, and then Chuck, who gave him a few hard pats on the back just to keep everything hetero. “Take care, Hollywood,” Chuck said. “Stay in touch.”

“I will,” Jack said. “I want to have you all out for the premier when we get this movie done. They’re looking at Labor Day.”

We all said okay, but I wondered if we’d really go. Then he and Alison stepped outside and got into Chuck’s rental. She would drive him to Cain’s hotel, and Jack would go back with Cain on the studio jet. We watched them as they pulled out of the driveway, Sheriff Sullivan riding in his police car behind them to make sure none of the press tried to pull a Princess Di pursuit. I think he also wanted to make sure Jack got the hell out of his town.

“Well,” Chuck said. “I guess that’s that, then.”

“You headed home now?” I asked him.

“As soon as she gets back,” Chuck said. “I’ll probably be on call for the next year straight after the shit I just pulled.”

“You love it,” Lindsey said.

“It’s a living. You guys packed?”

We looked at each other. “What for?” Lindsey said.

That was four months ago, and Lindsey and I are still in Carmelina, which is already starting to feel like home. The lake is frozen now, a phenomenon that continually fascinates me. Most nights we go walking on its icy surface after dinner, holding hands as we slide around. Sometimes we bring out a blanket and sit in the middle of the lake, just listening to the silence and looking up at the stars.

We stayed in the Schollings’s house for about two months, until mid-December when we closed on a small house on the other side of the lake. It was a stiff asking price, but Jack helped us out by paying for it in full. Now we make interest-free payments to Jack, who insists he’d like us to forget about the whole thing. “Consider it a Christmas present,” he says. Maybe in a few months we’ll agree, but for now pride keeps us writing the checks even though he has yet to deposit any of them. The house has three bedrooms, a cozy living room with a fireplace, a study, a dining room, and plenty of windows. The master bedroom has a small terrace with
a full view of the lake, and when you stand on it you can see the Scholling and Miller houses across the water. Every few days Jeremy and I meet out on the lake and go ice skating while Taz slips and slides clumsily along with us.

Lindsey got a job teaching at the Carmelina Elementary School. She actually filled the slot left vacant by Peter Miller, but we don’t get morbid about it and Jeremy doesn’t seem to care. A few weeks after Jack returned amid great media fanfare to Los Angeles, Dave Boim, my boss from
Esquire
, got ahold of me and told me he thought it would be a good idea if I tried to write the story of Jack’s intervention for an upcoming issue. I called Jack to see what he thought and he said, “No problem, it’s a good idea. It’ll warm you up for the novel and screenplay.” I laughed, but not as much as I would have a few months ago. The article came out in January, and Jack agreed to do the cover to help push the issue, which yielded some very big numbers for
Esquire
. I’m actually putting together some notes for the novel. I’ve gotten a number of calls from some other magazines, and while I’m not an overnight smash, I’m a real freelancer now, not a list maker. There are a few writing assignments I might take, but right now I’m working primarily on writing fiction. Dave told me that now that I’m a contributing writer, he’ll make sure that Bob Stanwyck gives any short stories I submit serious consideration. I’m also teaching English and creative writing at Thomas Jefferson High School in Carmelina. I originally took the job just to pay the bills, but I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would, although walking through the halls sometimes makes me feel old.

The night before we moved into our new home, I stepped out of the shower to hear the Schollings’s piano being played downstairs. It was a powerful piece, with strong minor chords and a soft, haunting melody. I ran downstairs to find Lindsey sitting at the piano, her body swaying as she played. I waited dumbfounded
until she was done, and then, as she quietly closed the lid I said, “That was incredible!”

“Thank you,” she said simply.

“When the hell did you learn to play?”

“I’ve always been able to,” she said. “I just never played in front of anyone before.”

I was floored. “I can’t believe you can play the piano and I never knew.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she said with a teasing smile.

“Like what?”

“Like, I’m pregnant.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

Alison and Don have been dating for about six weeks and things sound pretty solid. She turned him down twice, but the guy just kept coming at her. I know she still speaks to Jack every week, but I guess that’s a lot healthier than every day. Despite what she said that night in the kitchen, she didn’t break down and go out to LA. I don’t envy Don the baggage that probably comes with Alison from her Jack years. Still, they seem happy, and I hope it works out because I like Don and it’s always a good time when the four of us get together.

Chuck’s been seeing Sally Hughes on and off ever since he went home, and every once in a while he talks about getting serious with her, but so far it’s still pretty casual. Neither of them seems at all interested in settling down. The last time I spoke to him, he mentioned that he was looking into a hair transplant, which I didn’t take to be a good sign.

Jack finished shooting
Blue Angel II
, which will come out on Labor Day, and went right to work on
Crossed Wires
with Julia
Roberts. It’s his first romantic comedy and he’s really jazzed about it. He’s also signed on to do two indie films over the summer, to build his credibility as a serious actor. “When you get your start in action,” he explained to me, “it’s an uphill battle to get any other kind of roles. The sooner you cross over, the better off you are. Otherwise, you’ll be playing the same character for the rest of your life.”

After he got back to LA he did the whole talk show thing, apologizing to Oprah and everyone else and talking about his rehab. He’s got a new group of agents at CAA. and he swears by his drug counselor, with whom he meets weekly. He’s also taken up yoga and has been flirting with Scientology. Despite all of that, or maybe because of it, I still worry about him. There’s a certain desperation in the way he needs to fill every hour with something. It’s like he’s still searching for the discipline that will become his anchor, that will keep his addiction at bay.

We try to stay in touch, but we’re both pretty busy. I’ve discovered, to my dismay, that I’m already thinking of him more and more as Jack Shaw the movie star and less as the Jack I used to know. It was probably inevitable, but it still depresses me. Time’s surface is slick as oil, and there’s just no way to hold on. Whatever it was that held the five of us together has grown up and moved on. There was a shot of Jack in
Entertainment Weekly
last week, stepping out of a restaurant with a striking brunette. I asked him who it was, but he dismissed her as just a friend of his. It may be true, but I know there will always be a part of his life that he doesn’t share with us. If anything major happens, I guess I’ll have to rely on
Entertainment Tonight
or
Access Hollywood
like everyone else.

I haven’t told my parents yet that they’re going to have another grandchild. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. My mother will be horrified that we’re not married, and I don’t think I’ll be able to
make her understand that it just feels tacky to get married in the same year I got divorced. My dad, as usual, won’t say much, but I think he’ll be happy. I have to admit that I get a little kick out of being an unmarried, expecting father. It has the same effect as a temporary tattoo, making me feel like I’m on the edge, but only for a little while. I’m sure we’ll get married one of these days.

Life’s not perfect. Sometimes we hit cash crunches and I’m periodically flustered by the antiquated plumbing in our new house. But we’re both happy. Our life together is a full one, and sometimes I get this overwhelming feeling of sweet anticipation that brings a lump to my throat. I’m looking forward to being a father, and I’m amazed at how ready I feel. Thirty is a fine age to become a father. Jeremy Miller is a fixture in our house, and we’re looking forward to seeing the next
Star Wars
films together. And this spring I’ll sit by the lake with Lindsey and our unborn child, watching for the return of our Canadian geese. More than anything, I’m looking forward to spending the rest of my life with her.