Selfie (3 page)

“Jillian . . .” I didn’t know what to say.

She shook her head and waved her hands in uncharacteristic agitation. I hadn’t seen her do that since the day we got back from Vinnie’s funeral. I’d asked her if she wanted to come inside—basic courtesy, really, I hadn’t expected her to take me up on it. The place had been . . . Well, I’d needed to find a different maid service after that week.

She’d helped me clean up the broken glass and the ripped-down curtains, all without a word. I’d apologized, humbly, feeling like a spoiled child, as she’d sat me down with some delivered pizza and a glass of soda, and she’d done . . .

That. Held her hands up, palms toward me, waving them back and forth as she’d tried not to see . . . me. My pain. The thing she couldn’t fix.

She did that to me now, and then glared, her eyes watering. “This here is an intervention,” she said briskly, and we both ignored the way her voice got thick. “Connor, you need to work again. You need to see people again. You need a fucking goal, even if it’s just to know your line and hit your mark and look into the goddamned camera. You want to see how bad it is? You showed the
world
how bad it is.”

And with that she shifted aside so I could see the computer. Then she hit Play on the Washington Monument of selfies.

I watched dumbly for a moment as the camera came on, the lens showing a fish-eye view from the mantel in the living room. The furniture was there, fabric couches, matching throw pillows, complementing love seat and recliner, as well as the little conversation pit, and, against the far wall, the 116” flat-screen TV.

Some bozo in board shorts and a tank top was blocking the view, but he backed up like he’d been trained with cameras, and knew about how far he needed to go to be seen in the whole frame.

I stared at my image for a moment.
Jillian was right. I look like hell.
My hair was usually sort of a sandy blond, but I highlighted it because it was Hollywood. You could see about three months of growth between my part and the blond, and there was some silver in that, even visible in the grainy, badly colored shot.

You could see my ribs. Yeah, sure, there were lumps of muscle, but you could
see my ribs
.

I had a sort of long face, with a bold nose and a full mouth—when I was full blond I was an Aryan wet dream, really—and really nice cheekbones, sharp and distinctive. It had been the cheekbones that had convinced me I could make it in Hollywood when my parents insisted that if I wasn’t following my father into farming I would pretty much only succeed as a computer technician or an auto mechanic and nothing else.

I’d seen myself in the mirror, stared longingly at my heroes on the screen, and thought,
Look at that. We have the same faces. We can be the same.

In the video I appeared . . . rodent-like, almost, and feral. My prized cheekbones threw the thinness of my face into stark relief.

I stared at my own image for a few wordless seconds before it hit me.

“What am I doing? And why isn’t there any sound?”

“There’s no sound through the entire thing,” Jillian said irritably. “Did Vinnie not show you how to work the damned camera?”

I gaped at her, and then I gaped at the computer, because no. No, he had not.

I was actually grateful as I watched what followed.

If you asked me on any given day what the worst part of this video was, I’d give you a different answer on each and every different day. I could point out the fact that my eyes were half-mast and my mouth kept opening while I stared at the ceiling in between sentences. I could say it was the beginning sequence when I seemed to be just yelling incoherently at the camera, one hand on my cocked hip, one hand waggling my index finger like a teacher drunk on his or her own power.

But it was obvious that I wasn’t drunk on power.

My tirade, whatever it had been, ended, and apparently it was time to fly. Yes, fly—flap my arms and run around the kitchen and pretend to be an airplane or a condor or a butterfly or what the fuck ever—I was gonna fucking achieve liftoff and zoom overhead, I just knew I was . . .

Right until I face-planted, arms outstretched, on the couch.

“Wow,” Jillian said, like she was impressed.

“Wow, that’s the end?” I prayed.

“No, wow, I can’t believe your luck that you missed the floor. And you only
wish
that was the end.”

I looked at the counter below the frame.

“
Seven minutes
?” Of which we were apparently only two minutes in. It went on. There was the Batusi and the bunny hop. At one point I was singing—obviously singing—head back, belting it out. I tried to read my own lips for a moment, before I gave up.

“‘Sloop John B,’” Jillian said without glancing at me.

“What?” I could not seem to look away from the . . . the train wreck of my life, on display for YouTube viewers everywhere. Oh Jesus. I had over five hundred thousand hits, and it was less than twelve hours old.

“It’s what you’re singing. See? Right here, you can see that last part.” Oh yeah. It was clear I wanted to go home.

“Oh!” And then, as a capper to the madness, we both sang along with my silent movie self as the timer counted off twenty more seconds of my career-dissipation light.

Holy fuck.

And then . . . Oh God. On the screen I was sitting on the couch, one ankle crossed philosophically over one knee, leaning on my elbow and talking earnestly to the camera.

And then . . .

“Turn it off,” I said thickly.

“No.”

I’d pulled up a picture on my phone and was showing it to the camera. It was nothing incriminating, just me and Vinnie, standing on my balcony, leaning back against the railing, sunglasses on, our faces toward the sun.

We looked so happy.

The other me, the skinny, drunk, pathetic me, just broke down and cried.

Then that same guy stood up and drew really close, so close you could see my rib cage through my tank top, so close the frame went black.

Jillian and I slumped in the desk chairs, while I thought of something to say.

“I’m sorry, Jilly,” I managed after a moment.

“It’s my fault,” she said quietly. “I thought you were okay. You said you needed time to grieve, I said sure—that’s what I did. Gave you time to grieve. I didn’t realize you were here, all alone. You weren’t getting better. You were just . . .”

“Just being sad,” I said, closing my eyes. Behind them I could see that icky, rainy May morning we’d gotten back from the funeral, when Jillian had come inside and helped me eat, and I’d told her I just needed time.

There might not be enough time in the world.

“Well, you had a right.” She clasped my hand. “I was sad—I don’t know if that helps, but I was sad as fuck. You remember when I called Christmas Eve?”

I nodded. I’d been alone, in my house, while Vinnie’s family had held a quiet celebration next door. They hadn’t asked me over. They hadn’t known about us, of course, but you’d think they might have asked Vinnie’s
friend
over, right?

I wasn’t sure if that meant they were insensitive, or grieving, or just . . . just users, hanging on Vinnie’s fame like my family had offered to do with mine a couple of times since I’d hit it big.

I didn’t want to think of Vinnie’s family that way. For a few years, I’d been able to pretend I had family for the holidays. It had been nice. I didn’t have much to pretend right now—I could probably just pretend they were grieving and had forgotten me.

That was easier.

“I remember,” I said, to try to pull myself away from my post-Vinnie Christmas featuring me, a bottle of wine, a steak, and a laptop full of memories. “You were the only voice I’d heard in a week.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah.”

“Is my career over?” I had money in the bank. I’d probably have to sell the beach house if I never worked again, but I could live pretty comfortably on what was left.

“No.” Jillian rolled her eyes. “I thought it was when I called you—man, my heart almost stopped. But I’m telling you, on my way over here, I fielded about six different calls from people who want your story.”

“No.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” She simultaneously looked around for an ashtray and fished in her purse for cigarettes. Vinnie hadn’t let people smoke in the house, but you know what? Vinnie wasn’t fucking here.

Nice, asshole.

I’m not even sorry.

I opened the sliding glass door and grabbed an ashtray from outside—we kept a few for guests. The wind caught me square in the face, and I leaned into it, closing my eyes.

“God, I love the ocean,” I said, thinking wistfully of when I’d have to sell the house.

“Do you?” she asked. I turned back inside and set the ashtray down for her, and she lit her cigarette with a shaky hand and a gold lighter.

I moved away from her and crossed my arms, leaning against the doorframe and letting the breeze cleanse away some of my despair.

“I really do. I wish I could live somewhere like . . . like Oregon, or Washington, or even Crescent City. Somewhere it’s cold.” Where it was cold, and the sky was blue, and the water fought an endless, frothy battle for dominion over cliffs and outcroppings of stone.

“You know,” she said tentatively, “you’ve gotten a couple of offers from television in the past months. A lot of shows are still shooting up north. Are you game?”

I nodded, exhausted, even though I’d only been awake for a few hours.

“Yeah,” I sighed, closing my eyes against the sun. “I’d love to go do something like that. Something not . . . here.”

“Well, I think I’ve got just the thing,” she said, checking her tablet. “It’s late—they might have asked someone else, because shooting starts, like,
immediately.
Let me make a few calls—it might be temporary, you know. Just two months of relocation, and then back here. But it’ll be enough to get your feet wet. And the show films just outside of Seattle—”

“Sounds great.”

“Do you even want to hear what it is?”

With my eyes closed, I could hear the two pulses in the wind. The first one was the ocean, and it pulsed with everything I loved.

The second one was emptiness. And it pulsed with
He’s not here. He’s not here. He’s not here. Vinnie’s not here, he’s not here, he’s not here.

It was that second one that made me crave another bottle of wine before I’d even eaten breakfast.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said honestly. “It’s perfect.”

“What makes it perfect?” she asked, exhaling smoke.

“It’s somewhere not here.”

If I could have teleported directly from my balcony in Malibu to a beach house outside of Seattle, I would have, but that would have been too easy.

Jillian, apparently chock-full of remorse after I almost torpedoed my career, set about making me “presentable” before sending me away. I spent a day at a stylist’s getting highlighted, vacuumed, manicured, massaged, and waxed, and then another day with her personal shopper. I fought bitterly for the right to my and Vinnie’s old T-shirts, and in the end I won custody of three of them while she had the rest boxed and put into storage.

I got an entire drawer full of new yoga pants and underwear, as well as jeans, flannel shirts, and sturdy boots that really
were
made for the outdoors and not the movie set.

There wasn’t a hole in sight.

Jilly also fed me constantly—by the time I got on the plane for Seattle two weeks later, I’d gained five pounds, but she still wasn’t happy.

Oh well—agents. Jillian was the best of them, but it was the nature of the species.

And she really
was
the best of the lot, because I wouldn’t be getting on that plane alone.

“I’m getting you set up in the house before I leave,” she said sternly. “And you have a driver—”

“I can drive!” I protested, but she waved me off.

“Yeah, you say that, but you know what? We both know you still get lost in Hollywood, and you’ve lived there for ten years.”

“Everybody gets lost in Hollywood,” I grumbled. “This is Seattle—it’s not nearly as big.”

“Honey, you get lost in
Nordstrom’s.
”

“Everybody gets lost in Nordstrom’s.” Yeah, right. I’d once wandered the women’s department so long I’d bought lingerie for my supposed girlfriend and sent it to Jillian as a joke. But it rankled—my sense of direction was
horrible
. In fact, my horrid sense of direction was the reason Vinnie had been driving alone that night—that and exhaustion. He’d been going to a party out at the canyon, and I’d been fresh off the shoot for
Jupiter Seven
—I’d be no help finding the house and no fun at the party. I’d elected to stay in.

“I’m just going to drive out, make an appearance, drive back—it’ll be a few hours, I know, but don’t worry. We’ve got some making up to do!”

It was part of the job, right? We both knew that. You put in an appearance, air-kissed a few people, jumped back in the car, rolled down the top, and enjoyed the trip from the mountains to the beach.

Or got T-boned at an intersection by a guy with three times the legal blood alcohol and all the coke you never snorted pulsing through his bloodstream.