Seven
Sydney, Thomas, and Andrew are in the salon watching football the next afternoon. My mother and Will have gone for a walk on the beach. I’m in the kitchen making a turkey sandwich for Dustin. My dad wanders in to get a beer, and I try once more to get information about Bella Flora’s mystery tenant.
I had a dream early this morning just before Dustin and Max appeared at the side of my bed, that it was Daniel and Tonja who’d rented it simply to force me out. A couple of Christmases ago when she found out, before we did, that Daniel had bought Bella Flora, she threatened to gut her and put an indoor lap pool in the salon. She was not a happy camper when it turned out he’d bought it for Dustin and me. In my heart I believe that she’d drop a bomb on it if she could. Or take it apart brick by brick if she had the time. The only reason she mostly controlled herself on the phone yesterday is that she wants Dustin in the movie and has not yet achieved her goal.
“I’ll make you a sandwich if you just tell me that it’s not Tonja or Daniel?”
“I’d be glad to have the sandwich. But I actually don’t know the name of the tenant. The rental was set up through a company that’s owned by another company. I couldn’t find anything about either of them online.”
“Doesn’t that seem like a lot of trouble to go to unless you’re extremely wealthy or famous or both?”
“Well, anyone who could pay half a million up front and another quarter to exercise the second six-month option has money. But it could be anybody who’s looking for privacy. A corporate raider. A mafioso. A . . .” He shrugged. “We don’t know because they don’t want us to. But I think it’s safe to assume they aren’t going to be holding keg parties or tearing the place apart.”
“Why not? It could be some trust fund baby or something.” I pull out the ketchup and mayonnaise to make a Thousand Island dressing to smear on the bread.
“No offense to Bella Flora or the gorgeous ground she sits on,” my dad says, helping himself to a handful of chips. “But someone young with that kind of disposable income isn’t likely to choose this particular house in this particular location.”
It’s true that the population of St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach, on which Pass-a-Grille sits, does tend to skew older than, say, the panhandle or Daytona Beach or Key West. The standing joke is that if you leave a glass of water out, someone will put their false teeth in it.
“You need to just accept this rental opportunity as the godsend it is. The money’s sitting in escrow and will be transferred into your account at 12:01 a.m. January second.” He pulls out a jar of pickles and a couple of paper plates. He’s gotten a little handier in the kitchen since he moved into a place of his own. “If you want to reassure yourself, you can stop by and say hello after they move in.”
This goes without saying. Wild horses couldn’t drag me out of town until I make sure there is not a homicidal maniac or destroyer of property living in our home.
“You know John and I will keep an eye on everything.” He puts down the half-eaten pickle. “Kyra, just do the film. Collect the rent. You’ll be ahead of the game.”
“Right.” This sounds so much easier than it is. In fact, everything in my life sounds a hundred times easier than it feels. Just go spend six weeks on location with Dustin, Daniel, Tonja Kay, and family. Then just come back and live in a nine-hundred-square-foot two-bedroom cottage with your mother, son, and a Great Dane puppy for what could be a whole year while some rich stranger occupies the home you are forced to rent out. Oh, and don’t forget to figure out how to salvage the career you thought you were building so that you can earn a living. I stop working on the sandwiches and try to slow the frantic beating of my heart. Because even if I somehow manage all that, I’m still going to have to figure out what to say when Dustin gets old enough to ask why his “Dandiel” is married to someone else and has a whole other family.
I cringe at the whiny tone my thoughts have taken and am appalled at the panic that I feel. This is not the person I want to be, but it appears to be who I am. Move on. Grow up. The commands echo in my mind. As the reverberation begins to fade, I try to grasp how such simple goals could seem so impossible to achieve.
* * *
“Oh my God! I can’t believe this shit! There’s no way that defensive end wasn’t offside!”
I walk back into the salon a while later to see Sydney on her feet shouting at the television screen. Thomas and Andrew are on their feet, too. But they’re looking at Sydney with admiration and a fair amount of lust. Dustin’s eyes are glued to Sydney’s face. They are wide with shock. Even Max looks surprised. It’s not that I’ve never slipped and uttered a swear word, but it’s always followed by a quick apology and explanation of all the reasons we shouldn’t talk that way. You have to grab your teaching moments where you can. But Sydney is not apologizing or explaining. In fact, she looks as if she’d like to charge the TV set and do the referee bodily damage.
“Maybe we need to step outside and cool off a bit.” I take hold of Sydney’s shoulders and aim toward the French door.
“Me and Max wanna come, too!” Dustin and his shadow follow us out the door. Max makes it almost off the pool deck before he pees. I’m not sure whether to praise him for waiting until he was out of the house or pick him up and move him onto the grass so he knows where he’s supposed to do his business. Dustin is already in the sandbox by the time Max finishes.
Sydney paces the pool deck, apparently still worked up about the bad call. I try to imagine getting that upset about a football play, but I just can’t do it. I’ve already got too many things to worry about. Her phone rings. She answers gruffly then abruptly stops pacing.
As I watch, her face goes white. Her grip on the phone tightens. I see her take a deep breath, but she says nothing. I think maybe it’s Jake. Or someone calling to tell her something she doesn’t want to hear about Jake.
When she hangs up after not speaking a single word, she stares out over the water for a while before finally turning to me. Her face is still pale, her features slack.
“Was it Jake?”
She shakes her head.
“Are your parents okay?”
She nods. “As far as I know.”
“Who was it?”
She looks at me as if trying to decide whether to answer. Finally she says, “Tonja Kay.”
Now it’s my turn to stare. “Tonja Kay called you?”
She nods again.
“What did she want?”
I’m not sure how Sydney manages to get the words through her lips given how tightly clenched her jaw appears. Actually all of her looks tightly clenched.
“She called to let me know that she has friends at the production company that produces Murder 101. That she knows I’m not pulling in the audience I used to. And that they really need to consider making some serious casting changes.”
She looks me right in the eye. “She told me that she knows someone who’d be way better in my part than I am. Someone who could take over if something happened to Cassie Everheart. You know, if they decided to write her—and me—out of the show.”
“But Cassie Everheart is the show,” I say. “And she has been from the beginning. You created her. You absolutely rock that part.”
“Yeah, well. She reminded me that characters get killed off all the time. Then she pointed out that one quick call from her could change the trajectory of my career completely. You know?”
I know all right. That’s exactly how I ended up off Halfway Home and out of the movie business. Tonja also threatened to take Do Over away from us, but in the end we managed to lose the show on our own. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”
“I wanted to tell her to shove her threats up her ass, but that show . . .” She swallows. “That show is all I have.”
We drop down on a chaise, our backs to the speedboat still idling off the seawall. I am appalled by how much I hate Tonja Kay at the moment and how neatly she’s boxed me in.
“She told me that if I convince you to bring Dustin to do the movie, she won’t feel like she needs to make that phone call.” She shakes her head. “But really I think the point is to remind you how much power she has and what she’s capable of.” She snorts inelegantly. “I’m just collateral damage. A lever she can pull that might get you to act.”
I can barely swallow for the lump of anger and fear clogging my throat. That lump is wrapped in guilt. Whatever I do, somebody will get hurt. But you aren’t supposed to give in to a terrorist’s demands, right? Because then they know that their reprehensible acts work.
I keep my back to the photographers. My hands fist on my thighs. It takes every shred of self-control I have left not to cry or telegraph just how furious I am. “I am so, so sorry, Syd. I just . . . I promise I’ll find a way to make things right.”
“You just do what’s right for you and Dustin,” Sydney says. “I’m a big girl and there are other parts. Other shows.” She gets up and walks slowly back into the house. She’s not the same woman who was yelling her lungs out over a football game.
The truth is, there aren’t unlimited roles floating around out there. Shows like Murder 101 don’t come along every day. And Tonja Kay has lots of pull in Hollywood and a vicious will to use it.