Anne Siddons - Fault Lines

“Well, go ahead,” she said grumpily. “Tell me I look like some kind of whore. That’s what Marcie’s dad said we looked like. Tell me I belong on the wrong end of Sunset Boulevard.”

“Hello, darling,” I said. “Nice language. I’m not going to tell you anything, except that you look thirty years old and it’s going to take me a while to get used to it. Hop in. Where are Marcie and Jess? Did you remember to thank Marcie’s stepmother?”

“Oh, God, of course,” she said. “Marcie and Jess are in Marcie’s room blubbering.” She got into the backseat, slamming the door. She did not speak to T.C. He lifted his eyebrows quizzically, but did not say anything. My face burned; the anger was starting up again.

There was a joyous woof from the backseat as Curtis recognized her, or perhaps it was her smell. I did not see how he could have found much else to recognize.

“Oh, Curtis; oh, hello, you old dog,” Glynn said in an entirely different voice, one that was soft and so vulnerable that my very womb seemed to turn over at the sound of it. I looked back and saw that she had her arms around him and her strange new face buried in his neck. I turned back and stared straight ahead as we drove back out of town.

“He’s missed you,” T.C. said amiably. “He asked when you were coming back so often that we had to promise him he could spend the night with you when you did get back.”

Glynn was silent a moment, and then she said, “Well, that should work out just about right for everybody, shouldn’t it?”

I whipped my head around, but T.C. touched my thigh and I fell silent. For almost the rest of the trip we did not speak.

He drove past the tower and down to the lodge and cut the motor. We all sat still for a moment, and then he said, “I’ll take you up to San Francisco whenever you’re ready. You ought to give yourselves two and a half or three hours if you have to get a flight after you get there. Or I can call the airport for you tonight—”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Glynn said sharply.

“I’ll come back up when I’ve gotten everything down here squared away,” I said formally. “I need to make some calls.”

“I’ll just bet you do,” Glynn said under her breath.

She got out of the Jeep and slammed the door.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to T.C. “I’m going to have to figure out how to handle this.”

“You want me to come in and talk to her?”

“No, she’s in too shitty a mood. I’m not going to let her talk to you this way.”

“I wish you wouldn’t let her talk to you that way either,” he said, “but that’s between the two of you. You really coming back up? You think you should?”

“I think I have to. I can’t just…I have to see you one more time.”

“I’ll put on some coffee, then. But if you change your mind and think it would be easier just to…let it stop here…I’ll understand. It might be, at that—”

“I have to, T.C. Don’t you want…a little more time?”

“Oh, my God,” he breathed. “What do you think?”

Curtis whined from the backseat and T.C. reached back and opened the door. “You still want him?” he called out to Glynn, standing rigidly by the lodge door with her back to us.

“Yes,” she said in a low voice, and T.C. said, “Go, Curtis. Carpe diem.”

Curtis took off out of the backseat like a heat-seeking missile and flew to Glynn, jumping up and down beside her, licking her knees and her hands. She knelt and put her arms around him and stayed there, motionless.

“Shall I bring him when I come?” I said.

“Whatever, he’ll let you know what he wants to do. If he wants to stay with her, let him. Merritt—”

“I’ll see you in a little while,” I said, and closed the door and crossed the lawn to where the girl and the dog were.

We went inside in silence, and Glynn vanished into her room, Curtis loping beside her grinning his red-tongued grin. She closed the door with a small, ugly slam, and I opened it and went into her room.

I stood with my back against the door, arms crossed over my breasts as if to ward off blows.

“I think we’d better talk about this,” I said tightly. “I think you better tell me what’s gotten into you. The way you’re behaving is not acceptable.”

She was lying on her back, her arms around Curtis, who had flopped on her bed with her. She sat up abruptly.

“Oh, really,” she said furiously. “Oh, well, excuse me, Emily Post. By all means, tell me from your vast store of acceptability just what it is that you’ll accept from me.”

“Glynn, what is it? Is it because you were having such a good time and you don’t want to leave? Are you worried about your father? Do you think he’s going to jump all over you about your hair and the nose ring and all? Because I promise you, I won’t let him do that. How you look is your business; you’re sixteen years old now—”

“You’re goddamn right I am! And I’m old enough to decide for myself where I’m going to be, and I’m not going home! I’m not! I’m going to stay out here; they’re holding the Joan part for me, and I’m going to do it, and you can’t stop me—”

“You know you cannot do that movie. You know we agreed on that. I told you that from the beginning; you said you understood that—”

“But that was before we knew for sure they were going to do it! And they are, and they want me, and we’ve already made plans for it; I’ve already told Mr. Margolies I could stay; he’s sent me some early scripts, and all kinds of presents, and flowers every day. It’s going to happen! You can’t stop it! I’ve told everybody !”

My head felt as light as if I were about to faint, and my pulse raced in my wrists so hard that I could feel it out to the ends of my fingers.

“It’s not going to happen and I can stop it, so fast it will make your silly yellow head swim,” I said through a red mist of rage. “What on earth has happened to you in just three days? Have you completely lost your mind? How did Margolies know where to get in touch with you? What kind of presents?”

“Aunt Laura told him!” she screamed at me. “Aunt Laura told Caleb, and Caleb told Mr. Margolies, and they’ve both been in touch with me, and it’s a done deal, and we start shooting in September, and if you try to stop me I’ll run away. I’ll starve myself. I swear to God I will.”

Oh God, Laura, I thought in dull grief and defeat. You just aren’t capable of not wrecking things for me, are you?

“Where is Laura?” I said tiredly. “I haven’t been able to get her anywhere, not at her place, not at Stuart’s.…You’d better tell me. I need to talk to her. If you don’t, I’m going to call Margolies this minute and tell him the deal’s off. And it is off, kiddo. We’re on that noon plane home tomorrow whether or not I’ve talked to your precious aunt. Don’t think that’s not going to happen.”

“I don’t know where she is,” Glynn said sulkily, dropping her awful, spiky lashes. “I can’t get her, either, and now nobody else knows where she is. I can’t get Caleb, either, and Mr. Margolies isn’t at his number…”

She looked back up at me, and there was a kind of wild radiance in her painted face.

“Listen, Mom,” she said. “You know you can’t go home without knowing where Aunt Laura is. You know it would just…haunt you. You know how you are about taking care of her. Well, why don’t we go down to L.A., and you can find her from there? She’s bound to let somebody know eventually; Caleb, or Mr. Margolies; somebody. We can ask around, and you can talk to Mr. Margolies and Caleb, they’ll make you see how wonderful all this will be for me. I know they will. We can stay at Stuart’s; he’s not there—”