Day ninety came right after the week they filmed the love scene between Josiah and Elizabeth, where they’re frolicking by the stream, and things get steamy. If you look close, right at the end of the scene, you can catch a glimpse of Joshua’s house-arrest sensor, a gray plastic thing that looks out of place in 1863 Virginia. Right before they walk off into the woods. But you have to look close for it, and to know what it is you’re looking for.
Joshua wasn’t shooting on day ninety—Lars had arranged a free day for him. First a car came to take all his stuff from our house, and then the police arrived to escort him back to the courthouse where Judge Weintraub had to declare that he’d served his sentence and tell him something about probation and something else about his license still being suspended. They took the sensor off, and Joshua just nodded, glancing repeatedly at his ankle like he didn’t quite believe it was gone.
“Usually this is where I’d say that I don’t want to see you back here,” Judge Weintraub said.
I was standing by the door, listening. Mr. Bellevue and I had come over from the county clerk’s office to watch it all happen.
“But I hope you’ll understand the sentiment if I say that you’re welcome back in these parts at any time,” the judge said.
“Thank you, sir,” Joshua said.
The judge nodded, and then he came out from behind his bench and gave Joshua a hug. It made me want to cry, really, when Judge Weintraub told Joshua that he had family in Jefferson County. And I think I saw Joshua choke up a little, too. Then Lars pointed to me, standing there by the door, and Joshua came over. Mr. Bellevue politely excused himself.
Joshua smiled at me and ran his fingers through my hair. “It’s a great cut,” he said. “Very Left Bank.”
“We have your address, right? If you forgot anything…I can mail it.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “But I’ll be down at the shoot for the next month. You should stop by if you change your mind about being an extra. I told the judge to convince you to give it a try. Or you could just hang out in my trailer.”
“You’ll have enough distractions,” I said. “Besides, I’ve got a lot of stuff to get done in the next couple weeks. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“You can’t bother me anymore. It’s only the other way around.” He smiled. He was still the most beautiful man I’d seen up close like that. “You know, I brought a lot of crap with me this summer. I know that.” He held up his hand because I was starting to interrupt him. “And you just…I don’t think it was a fair trade.”
It was true and not true. Without Joshua’s crap, I doubt that Momma would have met up with Judge Weintraub. And who’s to say if Vince would have been spurred to come back, if he hadn’t seen me on that Hollywood Express exclusive, up-ending a pyramid of apples? And maybe it did take a nudge, a bump in the guise of Joshua Reed, incarcerated movie star, to get Max to move from the shadows into my life. You can’t know things like that.
I think about those twists of fate, the strange run-ins that can alter everything in the blink of an eye, or the shift of a single season. I think about Sandy and Alice, living up in New York, who might never have met if Sandy’s brother’s boss had given him vacation time. I am certain that if Momma hadn’t found her Pat Boone picture, I wouldn’t ever have written to Judy for a photo of Joshua Reed. And if I keep tracing back, I know that Momma wouldn’t have been sorting through that box if Dad hadn’t died. So good does come from bad.
I think about Beau Ray, of course, because bad can come from good, too. It doesn’t really matter whether you think there’s a reason for the events that hit your life or no reason at all. They still happen.
But on that day in the courthouse, saying goodbye to Joshua, I didn’t know the half of what was coming, no more than I had known the day of Beau Ray’s football picture. It seems a well-walked path now that Lionel would marry Lisa, that Jackie Reed would come back to Joshua and that I would finally get my law degree. But the only thing clear back then was that the ninety days were over. Joshua had done his time, and things were supposed to fade back to the way they’d been before. But of course, they could not.
They could not, for me at least, because I knew that I was leaving Pinecob. Twenty-five years old, and I was finally leaving. Max and I, together. In two weeks time, he’d be flying back in from California, so I’d have someone to sit next to on the plane ride out. These days, when I look at Max Campbell, I still see that gangly twelve-year-old I met when I was eight. I still see the boy who ran into traffic for a dog. But now I also see a man, nearly thirty and nervous as hell to be flying, sitting beside me all the same.