Christopher Beha - Arts & Entertainments - A Novel

Unburdened, he walked into the park. A crowd of students had gathered beneath the victory arch, holding candles and photographs of Justine, singing a song of hers that Eddie vaguely recognized. He stood on the edge of the crowd and swayed along.

“Here you go, man,” said a girl beside him. She passed him a candle and lit it from her own. She looked like the girl he’d spoken to that morning outside Melissa’s class, but her hair was cut short. She gave no sign of recognition.

“Thanks,” he told her, putting the thought out of his head. He lifted the candle, watched its flame dance to Justine’s song, and wept.

THE METROPOLITAN HOTEL HAD not struck Eddie as particularly shabby when he spent his first night there after Susan threw him out, but that was before his months at the Cue. Now the place’s condition spoke of his own declining prospects. The brown paint on the lobby walls was peeling through to a coat of blue beneath. The ceilings were water stained, and half the lights were out. The man at the front desk barely looked up from a televised tribute to Justine to hand over the key to Eddie’s room, which stood at the top of a narrow staircase. It was barely large enough to fit its full-sized bed, and the television on the bedside table looked nearly two decades old.

How had he arrived at this place? Moody had been right. He’d signed everything away a long time ago. Leaving the Cue wouldn’t bring Susan back. Nothing would bring her back if she didn’t want to come back. And, honestly, who wouldn’t choose Rex Gilbert over him, if offered the choice? So what was he doing here? He’d exercised his freedom, but what kind of freedom was freedom to choose his own banishment?

At least he had money coming until Susan gave birth and his contract ended. After that, he’d need to figure something out, but that might not be so hard. After all, he was famous now. He’d even done a bit of decent acting. There had to be some way to make something out of that. Moody wasn’t the only producer in the business. Eddie would have to wait until his contract ended to sign another deal, but he could start planning right away. He needed to talk to Alex in any case, to discuss the repercussions of what he’d done. But soon after settling in the room, he discovered he didn’t have his phone. He’d packed it in one of the suitcases he’d given away. For the moment, everything was quiet. The sense of disconnection calmed Eddie. He felt a pulse within him, the inner self.

IT WAS AN ODD feeling to wake the next morning with nothing to do, but not an unpleasant one. He wondered what else would be different about the day. There weren’t any crowds waiting when he went to the corner to buy the morning papers. No one gave him a second look. By itself this didn’t mean much, Eddie thought. There were no cameras to signal his worthiness for attention. Turner Bledsoe could probably walk down the street in New York without being recognized.

Back in his room, he worked carefully through all the papers without seeing his name. All the gossip stories were about Justine, but they found plenty of ways to mention other stars. Martha and Turner would be attending the funeral, to be held that night at the Staples Center in L.A., and Martha said she was especially moved by Justine’s death as a new mother herself. The service would be simulcast at Madison Square Garden as part of the Stomping Out Head Trauma Gala, whose celebrity attendees included Susan and Rex.

Eddie watched an hour of Entertainment Daily before changing to a news channel, where a commentator argued that Justine’s death had altered everything. America finally needed to break its addiction to celebrity gossip. Even this man didn’t think to connect Eddie to the problem. It amazed Eddie to see how quickly Moody had written him out of the story. But the real test would come when the next episode of Desperately Expecting Susan aired. The show was nearly in sync with real time now. The producers were turning footage into episodes in a matter of days. They couldn’t cut Eddie out entirely — it would be too abrupt, bad television. They would have to make some mention of his departure. He hoped they would eventually use his good-bye to Melissa. It was the best performance he’d ever given, and he wanted to see it aired. It might give him some sense of finality, let him go back to the world as himself and figure out what came next. But all this speculation came to nothing, because that night’s episode was preempted by funeral warm-up coverage.

Guests filed into the Staples Center, stopped along the way by a red-carpet correspondent who asked where they were when they first heard the news about Justine and who had designed their mourning wear. Interior shots showed the arena darkened, apart from a spotlight on the casket at center court. While the seats at the Staples Center filled up, 2True cut to the head trauma gala. Susan sat courtside at the Garden, with Rex’s arm wrapped protectively over her shoulder.

“The story of the night so far,” the New York correspondent reported, “is Rex and Susan. After months of will-they-or-won’t-they, the famous ‘just friends’ have declared their couplehood. ‘In a great tragedy you realize you don’t have time to waste,’ the pair said through a publicist. ‘You have to show your true feelings.’ That’s a bit of heartwarming news we could all use about now.”

Eddie felt a surprising lack of bitterness as he turned the TV off. Mostly the scene had given him an urge for human company. He wanted to see someone who really knew him, who had known him before any of these changes. He thought of Blakeman and Justin, but without his phone it wouldn’t be easy to contact them. He could go to Blakeman’s place, but there would inevitably be a crowd there that he didn’t want to face. It was just as well. He couldn’t explain things to Blakeman. He didn’t want to answer questions about Melissa and Patrick or Susan and Rex. He wanted to speak with someone who wouldn’t care about any of that. If possible, he wanted to speak with someone who didn’t even know about it.

BY THE TIME HE woke the next morning, he knew who that person was. He waited for the school day to begin before walking to St. Albert’s, so that he wouldn’t see any of the teachers or the boys. He wore the same clothes he’d been wearing for two days — the only ones he had. It had been impulsive to give those bags away; he could have used their contents now.

Outside the school, Stephen McLaughlin sat on the sidewalk, holding his sign.

“Handsome E,” he said. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I got fired,” Eddie told him.

“Doesn’t surprise me. I’ve been trying to tell you for years these people have no loyalty.”

“I should have listened.”

Stephen smiled in recognition.

“How’s your mother doing?”

“She’s good.” Eddie lowered himself down beside Stephen. “She lives in Florida.”

“You get down to see her much?”

“Not as much as I should.”

“She’s a nice woman. She always looked after me when my dad was being tough.”

“I should get down there more.”

“And how about your wife?”

Eddie thought Stephen might know something after all, but his face showed only casual interest.

“She’s pregnant,” Eddie said. “Due any day now.”

“Congratulations. Boy or girl?”

“Girls. Three of them.”

“That’s wild,” Stephen said.

They sat together for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. They didn’t talk about much. But that suited Eddie— sitting quietly next to someone who’d always known him. Nearly every day for three years Stephen had sat in this place, saying almost nothing. His life took place inside his head. What happened on the sidewalk wasn’t nearly as real to him as whatever was going through his mind. This had always seemed a little sad to Eddie, but not anymore. Eddie felt a bit as he had while sitting next to Susan at church. He’d stopped going once she threw him out, and now he realized that he missed it. He also realized that Susan had never gone to church on the show. The new Susan— the champion of Richard Oh’s melted figurines — would have seemed out of place kneeling in a church.