“Mr. Tames?” Jessica said.
“I’m here.”
“Thanks, Jessica,” I said. “Jim, what’s up?”
“Olivia, we have a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Randall’s pulling out.”
“Shit.”
He was talking about Scott Randall, the director, who had agreed to do Max’s film, A Disputed Life.
“Shit is right,” Tames said. “I have to tell you, Olivia, this makes me very nervous. We’re 40 days out from shooting. And, by the way, why can’t I get Max on the phone?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know he’s at his mother’s house. Maybe he’s turned off his phone. I haven’t talked to him in a day or so, either.”
That wasn’t true. I had talked to him, and I knew Max wasn’t taking any business calls for a few days. As much as a micromanager as Tames was, Max probably figured the call wasn’t that important.
“So what is Randall blowing us off for?” I asked.
“A cable mini-series,” Jim said.
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Nope. They’ve greenlit two seasons in advance. They want the first four episodes shot earlier than they thought.”
“So it’s not something he arranged prior to agreeing to do the movie with us.”
“Right,” Jim said.
“Then there’s really no conflict. He’s just blowing us off, pushing Max’s project to the back burner.” I was getting pissed, feeling more defensive of Max’s work — and his professional reputation — than I’d had to deal with so far. “You know what? If he’s that uncommitted to Max’s screenplay, then we wouldn’t want him anyway. I’m going to call you later this afternoon and we’ll straighten this out.”
“I was wrong about 40 days until shooting,” Jim said. “It’s actually 39.”
“I’ll get on it,” I assured him.
I hung up and went back inside the mall to Grace and Krystal.
Grace first noticed the look on my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Work problems,” I said. “I’ll handle it later.” I smiled and hooked my arm around Krystal’s. “Let’s go eat and talk more about this baby.”
EIGHT
Six days later I was back in Ohio, in my parents’ house, and within the first hour or so I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy stay.
Things were still not smoothed over from everything that had happened since I’d moved to LA, and more specifically, since all that happened when my parents and my sister Grace were visiting.
My father — clearly the leader of the family — had seemed to come to peace with it after meeting Max in the hospital, but I guess he and my mom forgot all of that when they got home.
I was staying in my old bedroom. Every time I went in that room was like walking back in time.
Posters of my favorite bands and actors from my high school days covered almost every inch of the walls. My old desk in the corner still held some books from English classes. All of my old clothes were still in the closet and in the dresser.
Despite the fact that I had been a college graduate the last time I slept in that room, this time I felt like I was back in high school. Like I was a teenager who had run away from home, only to come back to the concentration-camp-like setting I’d so desperately wanted to escape for years.
Okay, so it sounds dramatic. But being in that teenage girl mindset, of course my view on things was over the top. I would only be here for a few days, I reminded myself over and over, and then I’d be the adult Olivia again once I got back to my real home in Malibu.
Not helping matters on this trip was the fact that I flew home on Max’s jet. My parents would have much preferred to pick me up at a commercial airline terminal, but instead they waited in the small lobby at the far north side of the airport where all the private jet traffic came and went.
The first night I was back, my parents cooked a big dinner. Grace and her husband came, and of course my little niece and nephew. And, once again, the babies provided a nice distraction from what would have been an otherwise entirely contentious evening.
That didn’t start until later, when the kids had drifted off to sleep. I helped Grace put them in the guest room, which mom and dad had converted to a room just for the little ones.
Back in the den, we all sat around sipping hot chocolate. Mom, as usual, had decorated the house for Christmas in great style. The tree was beautiful, and with the lamps dimmed, it provided soft lighting as we talked.
It was mostly small-talk to begin with, but then mom asked when or if I’d be moving.
“Where?” I said.
“To your own place.”
I sighed. I looked at Grace, who had a look of solidarity on her face, but didn’t say anything.
“I’m not.”
My father got up and went through the swinging door to the kitchen.
“You’re making enough to do that, right?” Mom said.
I decided not to answer that question. I wanted to cut straight to the heart of the matter. “I thought you guys saw how good Max is to me after all that went down. That should count for something, right? Or am I really going to have to live the rest of my life making decisions based on what makes you happy rather than what makes me happy?”
My father came out of the kitchen, holding nothing, so I knew he hadn’t gone in there to get anything, he had done it just to get away.
“Don’t speak to your mother like that,” he said. “She’s only concerned about what’s best for you. We all are.”
I looked at Grace, who spoke up: “I think she’s going to be okay.”
Grace’s husband, Terry, was an auto mechanic, a quiet guy, always nice enough and I liked him, but there was no way he was taking sides in this. He examined his drink with undue intensity.
I excused myself, went up to my room and lay down on the bed. I felt 15 again.
. . . . .
Grace and I spent much of the next day with Krystal. It had been months since I’d seen her, and she was looking much better — she’d put on some much needed weight that she’d lost while jacked up on coke, and the swollen blackish/purplish bags that used to be under her eyes were no longer there. Her hair was shorter and no longer dyed. She looked like an average, everyday young housewife and mother. That’s what came to mind, anyway, strange as it may be, because she wasn’t married and she had no kids.