Not in the Script (16 page)

“And she wants a hamburger.”

“That too.” We'll be at my mom's place in a few minutes, so I can't put this off any longer. “Okay. I, uh … need to tell you something.”

Emma eyes me suspiciously. “All right.”

I suck in a breath. “My mom had a pretty serious stroke about a year ago that left half of her body paralyzed. Her face is looking better every day, but she's in a wheelchair now, and the doctors doubt she'll regain any more movement.” Emma just listens quietly, her arms wrapped around her waist, and I can tell she doesn't know what to say. No one ever does. Not even me. “Anyway, I just don't want you to feel uncomfortable when you see her, and it makes
her
uncomfortable when people don't know what's wrong. Her speech is still a little slurred, but she's fine, you know … mentally. So just talk like you normally would.”

Emma nods. “I can't imagine watching one of my parents go through that.”

We pull up to Mom's gated community, and I enter the code. “It's been a tough year, to say the least. And it doesn't help that she acts like it isn't a big deal, like she can take care of things on her own. But my mom didn't recognize any warning signs before her stroke, so it freaks me out, thinking that something like this, or worse, can happen again.”

The doctors aren't sure why it happened in the first place. It “just did.”

Not only did the stroke come out of the blue, but the timing was horrible. I bought my BMW—straight off the lot, with every possible option—just before then, and had thought I'd been so responsible by saving cash for it. I didn't count on having more important things to spend my money on, like the new house my mom needed, or her home health care and physical therapy. My sister had recently left for her study-abroad program in Italy, and I was already registered to start at ASU, planning on doing just a few
modeling jobs a month. But everything changed overnight, and Liz went after the Armani contract so I could keep up with all the expenses. College had to wait.

While I wind through the roads of my mom's neighborhood, Emma and I talk about lighter topics. I don't want to show up with a solemn expression on my face or Mom will think I've been “feeling sorry” for her again.

Emma grabs the bag of food when I park in the driveway, and we head for the front porch. “This house looks new,” she says. “It isn't where you grew up, is it?”

“Nope.” I unlock the front door. “We had a two-story house a few miles from here, but my mom has to live in a rambler now.”

We barely make it past the entry when Mom comes around a corner in her motorized wheelchair. “Get out of the way, Jake,” she says. “I can't even see her.”

“Hello to you too.” I step to the side and introduce them.

My mom's eyes light up. “My goodness, it's really you,” she says.

Emma hands me the hamburger bag. “It's great to meet you, Mrs. Elliott.”

I doubt I'll ever adjust to the way Mom's life is now. It kills me to think of how trapped she must feel in that chair, with the use of only one arm and one leg. She used to run for miles every morning. She loved it.

“You two must be starving,” Mom says as we make our way through the living room and into the adjoining kitchen.

“Only one of us is starving,” Emma says. “There was rumbling from the driver's side all the way up here.”

“Even
if
my stomach had been rumbling,” I tell her, “you wouldn't have been able to hear it because you were talking too much.”

Emma laughs—a sound that's starting to make me smile instantly—but both she and Mom ignore my jab. “This boy of mine takes in food like a black hole,” my mom says as she parks her wheelchair at the kitchen table. “I can never feed him enough.”

“I get the feeling that I won't be allowed to speak during this meal,” I say.

“I've raised Jake to be quite intuitive, haven't I?” Mom asks Emma.

I sit next to Emma and help divvy out the food. She smiles at me. “Intuitive, and a few other things,” she says. “Jake keeps us very entertained at work.”

Mom shoots me an accusatory look. “You're not teasing the girls again, are you?”

“Me? Never.” I take a monster-size bite of my burger.

“It sounds like he's always been a lot of trouble,” Emma tells my mom. “Jake says he once sold all of your shoes.”

“Yes, but that was the least of his mischief,” Mom replies. I can understand her slurred words perfectly because I know her so well, but I wonder if Emma is picking up on everything. “I can't imagine that he's told you the worst of it.”

“Well … not about my little stint in Folsom,” I say. “If that's what you mean.”

Emma tosses me her familiar smirk. “Prison, huh?”

I nod solemnly. “You know those tags on mattresses that say it's a crime to cut them off? I got a bit carried away one day.”

“I see,” Emma replies. “Then that explains why McGregor felt you had that
America's Most Wanted
look he was after.”

“
America's Most Wanted
,” Mrs. Elliott repeats, her laughter more robust than I expected. Her appearance is almost the opposite of Jake's; she's petite—and looks even more so in her wheelchair—with fair curls that rest on her shoulders. She definitely gave Jake his green eyes, but his height and dark hair must've come from his dad, who I don't see any hints of around the house. “Jake is always needing new friends to put him in his place, so I'm glad you met.”

Mrs. Elliott seems far too young, maybe fifty, to have had a stroke. The left side of her body seems fine—strong, even—but the right side has very little movement. When she smiles only half of her face responds, but both of her eyes totally light up. And even though her speech is slow and a bit slurred, I can understand her okay.

I'm guessing Jake got his wit from her too. She seems like one of those
cool
moms.

“We all do our best to keep Jake humble,” I say. “It isn't easy, though. Not many actors walk into a studio with the natural talent he has. The whole crew has been talking about that.”

“What set are
you
working on?” he asks me. “Pretty much all I've heard is, ‘You're looking straight at the camera again. Watch that cord. Missed your cue.'”

I shake my head in his mom's direction. “Maybe for the first few days, but he's caught on really fast. It's kind of confusing for a while and there's a lot to get used to—stuff all over the floor that you have to watch out for but not notice, and crew members everywhere that you can't look at. Then there's a boom mic right above your head that you have to ignore. And sometimes you're even saying your lines into thin air, pretending that someone's actually talking back to you. It can make you feel kind of psychotic, having conversations with invisible people.”

“I can't understand why. I do it all the time,” Mrs. Elliott says. “Oh! Hello, Charlie!”

I turn around to see who she's waving to, and Jake laughs louder than I've ever heard him. “Did you really fall for that?”

“Jacob!” his mom says, obviously trying to hold back her own laughter.

I throw my hands over my face. “I thought that, you know, you must've had a brother named Charlie.”

“Sorry,” Jake says, still laughing. “I only have a sister.”

“Well, I don't see her anywhere, so she must be invisible too.”

“Amber is in a study-abroad program in Italy,” Mrs. Elliott explains. “She came straight home after my stroke, but when I regained my senses enough to realize my kids had put their lives on hold for
me
, I snapped the whip and sent them away again.”

I'm convinced now that there isn't a father in the picture. But where is he?

Jake's more somber eyes meet mine, and he says, “Amber applied three times for her art program in Florence—it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing. She'll be there for another year or so.”

“Yes, and she wouldn't be there at all if it wasn't for her younger brother,” Mrs. Elliott says, and Jake freezes, his hamburger halfway to his mouth. “I won't allow you to be humble about
that
, Jacob. Her scholarship doesn't cover even half of her expenses, and she'd never stay put if you weren't constantly convincing her that you're taking care of me. Which you
are
.”

“That's … um, wow,” I say. If Jake is trying to pull off some elaborate hoax—to fool me into believing he's the best guy on the planet—his mom is in on it.

Jake's attention lingers on his mom for a second; then he shifts it back to me. “I only help Amber out because she drives me nuts if she's around here. There's some of her work, though.” He motions to a pair of paintings behind the sofa. “Pretty good, huh?”

“Amazing, actually.” I leave the table to take a closer look at two oil paintings of shorelines, each with a lighthouse. If I didn't know they were painted by Jake's sister, I could've easily assumed they were from a seaside gallery in Santa Barbara or Monterey.

Hanging between the paintings is a matching quilt. “Oh my gosh,” I say, noticing how complicated the pattern is, almost like a glass mosaic with tiny pieces of coordinating fabrics pieced together, but it's done to perfection. “Did Amber make this too? Quilting is a big thing back home, but I've never seen anything like
this
.”

“My mom made it,” Jake says, and I turn around with a grin. It's hard to hold this expression, though, when I see that Mrs.
Elliott's smile has a hint of sadness in it—she can't quilt anymore. “She's made a hundred or more quilts as cool as that one, mostly for others.”

“I had another one three-quarters done when this darn stroke happened,” Mrs. Elliott says. “And as soon as I get my right arm working again, I'll finish it.” She looks over at Jake. “I go to a terrific physical therapist a few times a week.”

“Mom likes PT,” Jake says, “because she thinks her therapist is cute.”

Mrs. Elliott doesn't look the least bit embarrassed. “And he's single, and always easy to talk to,” she says. “Which reminds me, I should increase my visits.”

“I don't know, Mom,” Jake replies. “He seems a little too serious for you.”

“Son, at my age, I'm lucky to meet a man with his own teeth and hair.”

Jake laughs. “Then I guess you better grab him before anything falls out.”

I take another look at the wall and say, “I've never quilted, Mrs. Elliott, but I do know how to sew a bit. So if you wouldn't mind teaching me the basics, I'd love to come another time and help you finish the quilt you're working on.”

All she needs is an extra hand, right?

“Would you really?” she asks in a tone of disbelief. “It's an awfully long way to drive.”

“No problem,” I reply.

I turn back to find Jake staring at me, a slow smile developing on his face. “I, uh … I'm gonna load up my boxes,” he says. “You two can talk about quilting, but not about me. Don't talk about
me
.”

“So, about that time he spent in prison,” Mrs. Elliott says as Jake walks off. But we really do end up talking about quilting, and she glows as she explains the process. From choosing fabrics to cutting each tiny piece and setting up the frame, to threading needles and stitching one careful stitch at a time—it all sounds exhausting. But it's clear that quilting means as much to Mrs. Elliott as acting does to me.

It isn't just a hobby, it's part of who she is.

How would I feel if by some bad twist of fate, I couldn't do what I love most? The thought makes me a little sick inside, and I have to swallow down a lump in my throat so I can talk again when Jake returns. “All right, we're ready to go,” he says.

Mrs. Elliott and I express how nice it was to meet each other, and I tell her that I'm entirely serious about helping with the unfinished quilt. Then Jake and I head for the front door.