“This is exactly what I’m talking about when I say you’re impossible.”
“All I’m trying to do is take you to eat French toast, Connie. There are worse things.”
There was a knock on the door of the Hollywood Hills bungalow I’d rented. I opened it to see Harry.
“I gotta go, Mom,” Connor said. “Karen is coming over. Luisa’s making us barbecue meat loaf,” she said.
“Wait one second,” I said. “Your father is here. He wants to say hi to you. Good-bye, honey. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I handed Harry the phone. “Hi, little bug . . . Well, she has a point. If your mother shows up somewhere, that does sort of mean that, by definition, it will be considered a hot spot . . . That’s fine . . . That’s fine. Tomorrow morning, the three of us will go out for breakfast, and we can go to whatever the cool new place is . . . It’s called what? Wiffles? What kind of a name is that? . . . OK, OK. We’ll go to Wiffles. All right, honey, good night. I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Harry sat down on my bed and looked at me. “Apparently, we are going to Wiffles.”
“You’re like putty in her hands, Harry,” I said.
He shrugged. “I feel no shame in it.” He stood up and poured himself a glass of water while I continued packing. “Listen, I have an idea,” he said. As he moved closer to me, I realized he smelled vaguely of liquor.
“About what?”
“About Europe.”
“OK . . .” I said. I had resigned to letting it go until Harry and I were settled back in New York. I assumed that then he and I would have the time, and the patience, to discuss it in more depth.
I thought the idea was good for Connor. New York, as much as I loved it, had become a somewhat dangerous place to live. Crime rates were skyrocketing, and drugs were everywhere. We were fairly protected from it on the Upper East Side, but I was still uncomfortable with the idea that Connor was growing up so close to so much chaos. And even more to the poi
nt, I was no longer sure that a life where her parents were practically bicoastal and she was being cared for by Luisa when we were gone was the best thing for her.
Yes, we’d be uprooting her. And I knew she’d hate me for making her say good-bye to her friends. But I also knew she would benefit from living in a small town. She’d be better off with a mother who could be around more. And to be frank, she was getting old enough to read gossip columns and watch entertainment news. Was turning on the television and seeing her mother’s sixth divorce really the best thing for a child?
“I think I know what to do,” Harry said. I sat down on the bed, and he sat next to me. “We move here. We move back to Los Angeles.”
“Harry . . .” I said.
“And Celia marries a friend of mine.”
“A friend of yours?”
Harry shifts toward me. “I’ve met someone.”
“What?”
“We met on the lot. He’s working on another production. I thought it was just a casual thing. I think he did, too. But I think I’m . . . This is a man I could see myself with.”
I was so happy for him in that moment. “I thought you couldn’t see yourself with anyone,” I said, surprised but pleased.
“I couldn’t,” he said.
“And what happened?”
“Now I can.”
“I’m thrilled to hear that, Harry. You have no idea. I’m just not sure this is a good idea,” I said. “I don’t even know this guy.”
“You don’t need to,” Harry said. “I mean, it’s not like I chose Celia. You did. And I’m . . . I think I’d like to choose him.”
“I don’t want to act anymore, Harry,” I said.
All through shooting this last movie, I found myself burning out. I wanted to roll my eyes when asked to do a scene more than once. Hitting my marks felt like running a marathon I’d already run a thousand times before. So easy, so unchallenging, so uninspiring, that you resent even being asked to lace up your shoes.