Chapter eleven

The changing of the seasons in California just doesn’t seem to pack the same punch as in other parts of the country. But for Micah it did…for at least one of the seasons anyway. It happened when the StarBash season ended and anything but StarBash began. And with another show in the can, and only one more to go, the fresh scent of a new season had started blowing through the ranch.

His spirits had been lifted for another reason, too. Even though the show had gotten hopelessly sidetracked over the years, for the first time, he liked where they had ended up. He liked Brandi, and he liked Cass. Though they had completely different personalities, they both had a core of decency that guided their lives, and they had lifted the show with that decency.

On this night, just after wrapping for the week, he had popped over to the workshop to grab his mail. As he started to open the door, headlights flooded the building, and a familiar car pulled up. It was Cass, in her black BMW. She lowered the window and said, “Remember when you invited me to dinner?”

“Yes,” said Micah.

“Good. I accept. Get in.”

“Uh…OK,” said Micah. He got into the car.

Cass had on the same peach-colored cashmere sweater and designer jeans that she’d worn earlier on set. She said, “Buckle up,” and then stomped on the gas pedal.

“I take it you’re hungry,” said Micah.

“You have nothing to smile about, Micah. This isn’t a date. It’s a distraction.”

“OK. A good distraction is probably better than a bad date, so I’m down for that. What exactly am I distracting you from?”

“See, you’re already doing a good job. Maybe this won’t turn out to be a terrible decision after all,” said Cass.

She then tossed a newspaper onto his lap. Micah looked it over and thought of a few jokes but then saw Cass’s clenched jaw.

“I’ll give you one guess who did it,” said Cass.

“I’m hoping Lenora did it because then that would mean you got off easy with whatever deal you have going on,” said Micah.

“Good guess but wrong answer. Brandi did it.”

“I’m sorry, Cass. You don’t deserve this.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re obsessed with Lenora?”

This blunt question surprised Micah, but he chalked it up to Cass’s disturbed state of mind. He answered, “Yes. One person has said that.”

“Your wife?” asked Cass.

“You know, I’m probably only good for one distraction,” said Micah. “Are you sure this is the one you want?”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” said Cass. “You tell me about your marriage, and I’ll tell you about mine, and then we’ll both be miserable. And if you make your marriage more rotten than mine, I’ll even pay for dinner. How’s that sound? But first tell me where we’re going, and the more crowded the better. My career is scorched, so we might as well make a big splash and give these idiots something decent to gossip about—besides this bullshit.”

Micah gave her directions to the restaurant, and then his brain scrambled to think of the words to describe his marriage. He never talked about it. And since he never talked about it, he had zero confidence in his ability to choose words that had even a hint of presentable gloss to them. So over the next twenty minutes, as they made their way down the hill, Micah gave Cass the unglossed version of a short marriage that had ended four years earlier. It hadn’t been a rotten marriage. It had been a crowded marriage, and Micah had had the power to make it uncrowded, but he didn’t do it. And it hadn’t been a case of meddling. Lenora, the unwelcomed third party, hadn’t cared enough to meddle; after four years living under the same roof, she barely knew Heather’s name. It had been crowded by Micah’s devotion to Lenora, devotion that had rightfully belonged to his wife. At first he’d convinced Heather that he just had a demanding job, like millions of other people. It didn’t take long, though, for her to see through that. And then she eventually left, and Micah didn’t stop her.

“Why didn’t you fix it? What does Lenora have over you?” asked Cass.

“It’s not her. It’s me. It’s like she’s a math problem, and I’m the only one in the world who can solve it. And if I give up, the answer will be lost forever.”

“But maybe, if you lose the answer, you’ll find out that life is better without it,” said Cass.

“There’s no maybe about it,” said Micah, “but here I am, still at the ranch with Lenora.”

After this the two fell silent for a while before Cass said, “Uh…does this mean it’s my turn?”

“Yes, I believe that’s what it means.”

“Any chance of a rain check?”

“Yeah, I suppose so, but only because I’m the distractor, and you’re the distractee, and everyone knows the distractee isn’t required to say a word.”

“I like this game,” said Cass. “Are you ready for the next question?”

Micah said yes but secretly hoped that the next question would be easier than the first.

“Why did you ask me out?” asked Cass.

“That’s an easy one. You’re not afraid of people, and I find that interesting. I’ve seen it. You rush into the mess without giving it a second thought. You’re not afraid of the sadness or the ugliness, and because of that, you find beauty that would otherwise be lost. Who knows, maybe I’m hoping some of it will rub off on me.”

 

***

 

Cell phones immediately popped into the air from tables and booths all around. Cass had grown accustomed to the phones and the clicking and the excited whispers of the picture takers, even if it did sometimes get tiresome. On this night Cass barely noticed. She had other things on her mind. She had problems. And now, before they had barely made it to the restaurant, Cass had added a new one to the pile: She liked Micah Bailey, and the more she got to know him, the more she liked him. Cass had officially crossed over to the dark side.

She especially didn’t need this kind of problem. The Micah Bailey problem didn’t synchronize with her other problems. In fact, it made them even worse: “Hi. My name’s Cass. I’m reading for the part of Betty…oh, don’t mind him. He’s with me, and he hates Hollywood…”

She thought about putting on the brakes, reining in her feelings, or at least burying them in a hole for a few weeks until the dust had settled from the demolition of her career, but Micah’s straight-shooting ways completely disarmed her. One minute she had the menu in hand and talked pleasantly about peanut coleslaw, in full control of her faculties; the next minute she found herself blabbing about her train-wreck marriage in glaring black-and-white honesty. Cassandra Moreaux just didn’t do things like that. It was scary confessional kind of shit. She told it from beginning to end, about two top-of-the-world fun-loving actors who got married and moved straight into the Hotel Hollywood power suite. About how she thought she had lucked out with a dream marriage that made all of her friends envious. Whenever one of the tabloids did a marriage issue, they put Cass and her husband on the rock-solid, smiley-face side of the page. Until one day they didn’t anymore, and Cass found out that she had married a cheater who had started cheating before they had even gotten home from the honeymoon.

At some point, when telling the tale of a bad marriage, a common practice is to recount some of the good times and then gracefully segue into platitudes about busy lives and best friends who drifted apart but who will still be friends forever. Cass didn’t do that. She told Micah about the crushing humiliation and despair that had plunged her into a pit with no bottom. She also admitted that she had loved her career more than she had ever loved her husband, and he had known it. So in a sense, she had been a cheater, too—just not quite in the same league.

On several occasions Micah opened little exit doors in the conversation to give Cass the opportunity to quit. Cass ignored them. She told Micah the whole truth. She told him things that you only tell a mother—or a guy with a cardigan sweater and a fancy degree hanging on the wall. That’s the kind of power Micah had over her.

Up until the very end, the night had been great. It had started out as a selfish distraction for Cass, and it turned into an unexpected human connection. And who knew what else it might have eventually turned into. But then one of those difficult life-lesson moments popped up, and it happened to be a lesson that Cass hadn’t yet learned. That night the lesson sank in but only after the damage had been done. She learned that there’s a certain responsibility attached to the kind of raw honesty that she and Micah had shared. It’s a responsibility, a trust really, that both parties will protect the deeply personal vulnerabilities that make that kind of honesty possible in the first place. Unfortunately, Cass and her temper violated that trust in the worst way.

The problem started after one of the servers came up to their table and said, “Please forgive me, Miss Moreaux; I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to tell you that when you went on that show, I got really pissed—uh…no offense, Mr. Bailey.” Micah smiled graciously, and the server continued: “I felt like you had sold us out…actors, that is…but after the way you stood up for us in the bar a few weeks ago, I changed my mind. We actually have someone to fight for us now. I’m proud of what you’re doing, and I’m proud to be an actor. OK, that’s it. I just had to tell you.”

She started to leave, but Cass quickly grabbed her hand and said, “Can I ask your name?”

“Almita Deleone.”

“Can I ask you a question, Almita?”

“Yes,” said Almita, nervously.

“What do you think about the feud between me and Brandi?”

“Truthfully, I hope you guys become friends. I know Brandi says things that get her into trouble, but I still hope you become friends. This business is hard enough anyway. Why make it harder with stuff like that?”

“Thank you, Almita. You’ve been very helpful.” After Almita left, Cass turned to Micah and said, “The only problem is Brandi won’t talk to me.”

“How come?” asked Micah.

“I don’t know…she thinks I blacklisted her.”

“Why does she think that?” asked Micah.

“Because she went ape-shit political a few years ago, and I refused to work with her,” said Cass.

“And she got fired,” said Micah.

“Yes.”

Micah looked down at the dessert menu, and Cass wondered if it might not be more of an evasive maneuver than an interest in a hot-fudge brownie. “So what do you think?” asked Cass.

“I think it happened a long time ago, and what’s done is done,” said Micah.

“OK…it happened a long time ago. Now tell me what you think.”

“Cass, you’ve had a rough day. Why not talk about this later?”

“All right, now you’re starting to make me mad,” said Cass.

“OK. I’m just wondering what you would have done if you had liked her politics.”

“Nobody likes her politics! She’s a terrorist with two sticks of dynamite up her ass! And I stood up to her. I stood up for what is right.”

“The substance of Brandi’s politics has absolutely nothing to do with the question of a blacklist,” said Micah. “What matters is whether or not she got punished because of those politics. Look at Joseph McCarthy. He fought against communism, and that’s not such a bad thing, but he still got it completely wrong.”

“Are you comparing me to Joseph McCarthy?” asked Cass.

“You’re missing the point,” said Micah.

“Obviously. What exactly is your point?”

“I’ll say it again. What would you have done if you had liked her politics?” asked Micah.

Cass didn’t say anything, but it didn’t matter because they both knew the answer.

In a calm, quiet voice Micah said, “That’s the essence of a blacklist. Someone doesn’t believe what we want them to believe so we take away their job. And when it comes from someone with power, the results can be devastating. I’m sorry, Cass, but if I didn’t tell you the truth, what kind of friend would I be?”

“Yeah, well, you and truth have a funny kind of relationship, Micah. The only truth you’re interested in is the kind that fits into a narrow little box. Everything else is a lie! And let me ask you this. Where exactly does all the StarBash bullshit fit into this truthful world of yours? Every week you tell fifty million people that actors are less than human and deserve to be treated like shit! Did it ever occur to you that just maybe we are nothing more than the people from your beloved Main Street, USA? We’re good and bad, strong and weak, rich and poor. But for some reason you’ve decided that we don’t fit into that perfect little box of yours!”

“Yes, you might be from Main Street, but not all of Main Street is welcome in Hollywood. That’s one of the main points of the show. But you’re right, Cass. That whole bit is off base. I was trying to be funny. I thought it was just a joke.”

“That’s the problem. You’re so caught up in your little mommy complex and your hatred for Lenora, you can’t tell the difference between what’s funny and what’s not.” Before these stinging words had left Cass’s mouth, she knew she had gone too far.

Micah’s face turned red, and he said, “I’m not your enemy, Cass. We might not always agree, but I’m not your enemy.” Then he got up and left and never came back.