Page 7

And yet…

I ordered another amber drink. And I began, God help me, to plan.

* * *

Martin was waiting at the curb at LAX in the black Suburban, holding the door, wearing the gray suit he has worn for years and will presumably be buried in. When he saw me his face did the thing his face always does, which is almost nothing at all — a small tightening around the eyes that on any other man would be a shrug and on Martin is roughly a standing ovation.

"Mr. Normand."

"Martin."

I let him take my one bag, because it makes him happy, and because a man who has driven you since before you were anybody has earned the right to carry your things. Martin drove me to the Darkest Hour premiere and to my wedding. Martin drove me to this same airport two years ago to leave the country, and he did not say one word the entire way. That silence was the kindest thing anybody did for me that year.

"You look well," he said, which was a lie, and we both got in.

"I look like a man who sold his boat to somebody named Chip."

"I've always found the ocean overrated, Mr. Normand."

"Martin, you contain multitudes." I settled into the leather. It smelled the way it has always smelled, like money and pine and the ghost of every conversation I've ever had in the back of a car, which is where I have had most of the important ones. "Take the long way. I need to make a call I'm going to regret, and I'd like to be moving while I ruin things. It feels less premeditated."

In the mirror, his eyes found mine. "Is this," he said carefully, pulling into traffic, "a good idea? The thing you're about to do."

"God, no." I already had the phone out. "It's a terrible idea, Martin. It may be the worst idea I've had, and you'll recall I once optioned a musical about the Donner Party."

"I remember. I drove you home from the reviews."

"You did. And you bought me a milkshake." I found the name — LANCE, no last name, because in my phone the truly consequential people have no last names. It occurs to me that my former mother-in-law and I have that in common. My thumb hovered. "This one's worse than the Donner musical, Martin. This one has a person in it I love."

I pressed the button before I could sit in Martin's silence, which had already told me, in one held breath, everything he thought and everything he knew I'd do anyway.

He picked up on the fourth ring, which for Lance is immediate. The man has people who have people.

"No," Lance said, instead of hello.

"You don't even know why I'm calling."

"Gregory. I’ve known you for many years and I am telling you no now, before you find a way to make it my fault." A rustle. A door closing. The acoustics of a very famous man walking somewhere private. When he came back his voice had dropped into the register he uses for things he actually means — the low one, the one he has never once used on camera, because it's the only thing about him that isn't for sale. "Where are you?"

"Los Angeles."

A pause with an entire ocean in it.

"You saw the announcement."

"Why yes, I did."

"Oh, Greg." And there it was. Not anger — not yet — but the thing underneath the anger, which was grief on my behalf. That was worse. Lance Hayworth has been nominated four times, won once, and cannot fake the low voice. And now the low voice was breaking a little. For me. "I wanted to call you. I picked up the phone a dozen times since Blaine told me. And then I'd think, what would I even say. What is there to—"

“You could have said, Gregory, your ex-husband is marrying a man named Steven Ellis Bland in the meadow where the two of you got married. That would have been a hell of a place to start."

"I couldn't have said that."

"For your information, I found out from a model named Dash. At a yacht club. In Hawaii. Lance, do you understand the staging of that? The—"

"I couldn't have said it because I'm the best man." He said it fast, the way you tear off a bandage. "I'm in it, Greg. I said yes. He's my friend too — Blaine was my friend before he was your husband — and he asked me with those eyes he does, the ones that don't ask for anything, which is exactly how you know it's costing him everything. And I said yes. And I have hated myself every day since." A breath. "And now you're in Los Angeles doing that voice. The producer voice. Oh my God. You're already producing again, aren't you?"

"I don't know what you mean."