Chapter Four
Elise had grown upin Calabasas, just like her mother, Allison Darby. In the wake of her husband’s affair and divorce, Elise had latched back onto her maiden name—linking herself up with her mother again in a way that felt entirely correct. Back when she had been a younger, bright-eyed screenwriter, she’d also gone as Elise Darby. Elise Fletcher had been her married name; it wasn’t that she hadn’t loved the sound of it, especially at the beginning when she and Sean had been wrapped up in a cocoon of their love. The name had just never aligned with the creative persona she had wanted to build.
Elise’s first memories were naturally around her mother, Allison. They’d lived in a moderately-sized house in Calabasas, with a big sunroom that seemed almost electric with bright blue sky and gorgeous, gleaming wooden floorboards. When Elise had been four or five, she and her mother would both don ballerina outfits and spin round and round in that sunroom, until one or both of them had fallen to the rug and bellowed with laughter.
“You’re my girl. Nothing can come between us,” her mother had said on that very rug, tapping her finger against Elise’s nose.
In those early days, Elise and Allison hadn’t had as much as the other residents of Calabasas. The house they lived in had been passed down from Elise’s grandparents, who had both died when Allison had been nineteen years old—her mother after a long illness that had left her too weak to walk, and her father, incidentally, of a broken heart. Allison had said several times that her parents would have shrieked to see her as an adult: “Still hungry to be an actress! They would have told me to give up and grow up and find another dream,” she’d laughed, usually with tears in her eyes.
By the time Elise had been born, Allison had only booked a handful of jobs as an actress—about three commercials, and a few plays. Once, apparently, she had spent a whole summer in New York City filming a movie for Woody Allen that never went to screen. According to Allison’s closest friends, this had broken her heart; but Allison spoke about it very little.
Elise remembered when Allison got what she referred to then as her “big break.” It would have been 1991, and Elise herself had been a whip-smart eleven year old with creative dreams and visions of her own. Allison had requested to take Elise on set with her, and the production had been big enough that whoever had been in charge had agreed to it.
Elise hadn’t been able to believe her luck. She remembered those long afternoons after school, taking the bus from Calabasas all the way to set, where she stormed the steps of her mother’s trailer to find her already in her outfit for whatever scene they were shooting that day.
Allison had been the vibrant and beautiful star of a film that was said to bring an older director back from the “dead.” In the film, she was the mother of three young boys, all of whom struggled with the abandonment of their father in different ways. Allison’s character struggled to make ends meet, yet always found a unique way to tease and educate her sons until her untimely death at the end of the film. Elise hadn’t liked to think about the untimely death part. It was too in-line with her own personal fears.What if one day Mom doesn’t come home, just like her own parents never did?
Still, Elise loved being on set. She sat in her mother’s trailer and ran lines with her almost daily throughout those first weeks of filming. Usually, Elise had to handle all the sons’ lines, while Allison handled her own parts.
“Come on, baby, can you run that part with me again?” Allison had asked, bouncing at the edge of her chair as she fluffed her blonde curls. “I can’t seem to get it in my skull.”
“Okay. But really concentrate this time, Mom,” Elise had told her, furrowing her brow. “Because the director isn’t going to be as patient as I am.”
“You’re harsh but fair,” Allison had told her. “Okay. From the top.”
“That’s the thing, Mom,” Elise had begun, speaking in a deeper, gruffer voice as she pretended to be the middle boy in the fictional family. “I never wanted you to stay. I only wanted Dad here. Dad would know what to do.”
Allison had dropped down to a crouch in front of Elise. Elise had loved the way her mother’s face looked when she was in the middle of “acting.” Her eyes grew glossy; the little wrinkle between her eyebrows jiggled. She had it, whatever it was—and she could be whoever she wanted to be in the world.
“Baby, I know you want your daddy here,” Allison had whispered, her voice raspy. “I know you do. But your daddy, you know what? He thought about the big wide world, and he thought about all the adventures he could do out there. He wanted to stay safe here with you, but something else called out to him. He’s a wild one, your daddy. Maybe a little bit like you.”
Elise fake-sniffled. “We could be wild together, Mom. I don’t know why we can’t call him and tell him that.”
Allison had gripped her fake son’s shoulders and whispered, “Baby, there’s something about wild animals. If you watch them from a distance, you can see just how beautiful they are. They’re just exactly as grand as you want them to be. But if you latch them away, just because you want to see them up close and for a little bit longer—they change on you. They’ll do anything in their power to end their caging. They’ll fight you and everyone around to be free.”
Elise had glared at the words on the script after that. Her heart had pumped in her throat. For a long time, silence fell between them.
Finally, Allison said—to Elise, and not to her fake-son, “Honey, I think that’s your line, isn’t it? Or did I mess up?”
“No. It’s my line,” Elise had offered. “It’s just that...” She trailed off and bit her lower lip.
Allison dropped the script to her side and stood from her couch. “What’s up? You’re helping me so much, baby. I never thought I’d get some of these lines, and Ricky and I are filming this scene today of all days. It’s highly emotional. I hope I can get there.”
Elise had heaved a sigh. “It’s not that I don’t want to help, Mom. It’s just... it’s a little too like real life, isn’t it?”
Allison had tilted her head with sudden curiosity. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just that, I mean, Dad left us, didn’t he?”
Elise had never had the strength to ask about her father, not before this day in the trailer during her mother’s first good part in a film. Allison’s eyes reflected this fact. She was confused, hurt, and slightly annoyed.
Allison had dropped back on the bed beside her daughter and blinked into the stillness before them. She recollected the pages of the script and tossed it to the side on the little bed, where Elise sometimes took naps while her mother rehearsed with the actual actors.
“You really want to talk about this now?” Allison had asked.
Elise had sniffled—this time, really sniffled, rather than just acting it. “I didn’t mean to bring it up.”
“No, baby. It’s okay. If it’s on your mind and your heart, we should talk about it,” Allison had offered. She had drawn her hand across Elise’s cheeks and held her face against her chest. There, Elise had heard the soft pounding of her heart.