The house is exactly the same. The flowered sofa still lines the same wall, and the chairs are still where they were a year ago. It could have been yesterday that I last saw it. Tyler is lounging when we come in, as if he is unaware of the commotion taking place on the front porch. His right arm is resting in a blue sling, like the ones we use at the hospital. He doesn’t get up, just gives me a small nod and turns to look back at the TV.
James is bounding down the steps and rushes across the living room to stop in front of me. I reach out and pull him into a side-armed hug. He is much taller this year, and the features of his face are stretched and elegant. I see the bones of his mother in him, because those long features are not his father’s.
“Hey, James,” I say, squeezing his shoulders. “How are you?”
“Good. How are you? How’s California?”
I blink against the brilliance of his interest, then understand that it is not really me he is excited about—it is California. “It’s beautiful. No snow, though.” He rolls his eyes, as if he could do without snow.
I brought some snapshots that I planned to leave with Grandma Barb, because every time I talk to her she says, “I just can’t get a sense of where you are.” I have one picture that Darla took of me standing in the kitchen, cutting a salad. I am smiling and laughing at something Cici said. It’s a good picture, and I thought Grandma would then be able to see me in my kitchen when we talk on the phone. The rest of of California, our condo, the mountains, the sea. There are pictures of the Walk of Fame in Hollywood from a weekend I went up for an audition. I didn't get the job, I was too short or too red headed, but I had spent an afternoon walking through the streets of old Hollywood. It wasn’t what I had expected. It was dirty every direction brought at least one homeless person, pushing a shopping cart filled with trash bags of belongings, into sight. People in the midwest think Hollywood is glamorous, but it isn’t, or at least not that section. It is gritty, and rough, and not someplace you want to be out alone at night.
A full hour passes in a blur of questions and answers, mostly from James, who is particularly interested in all things Hollywood. Have I met any stars? Have I seen any? I explain that the stars aren’t just walking around and if they were they’d be more in Los Angeles than San Diego, where I spend most of my time. “I’m going to big party in LA on New Year’s Eve, though, so maybe I’ll see some then.” I wink at him, and he smiles. I tell him to watch the MTV Bash, because I’ll be there. “I’ll wave to you,” I say to him. I tell everyone about Trey, who managed to get the tickets to the MTV party, and just as I am talking about the party, an ad for it pops up on the TV, and we all stare at the screen, feeling awed by the coincidence.
“I’m gonna be there,” I say in a sing-song voice to James, finally feeling the excitement that Trey has been anticipating, and James gives me a high-five. “Trey has already rented a limo. I guess it’s going to be a pretty big deal. How cool is that?” Funny, I hadn’t realized it was a big deal until I looked at it from the Midwest.
I look over James’s shoulder, and see Uncle Steven stopping by the couch and leaning down, saying something low in Tyler’s ear. Tyler clenches his jaw, bites his tongue. I shift, so I can no longer see them, and feel a small quiver in my stomach. There is something in Tyler that I didn’t see last year. Something cold and dangerous.
Sometime later, when darkness has closed in around the house and the snow has continued falling, making the world seem blurred and filmed in soft focus, we are all sitting around the kitchen table, sandwiches eaten, plates moved and stacked but not cleared away. I catch Tyler looking at me with such cold dislike that I can’t believe I am reading it right.
“How is school?” I ask when he doesn’t look away and it’s clear that he isn’t going to speak first.
He shrugs, an elegant, long-limbed shrug, his lip curling with the movement. “You know, probably the same as yours.”
“What’s it like living on campus?” I’m trying to find a way past his wall, indicating that I’m not having the same experience as him, giving him the superior role of teacher.
He says, “It’s all right.” His disinterest is palpable, and I turn to look at Grandma, who is touching my arm.
“Tyler’s been frustrated this year,” she says close to my ear. I look to Tyler then back at her, and Tyler gets up from the table and goes to the other room.
“What has happened?” I ask, because he is clearly not the same young man I met a year ago, who was so full of himself, so confident.
“Well, it started off right at the beginning of the season. He suffered a stress fracture in his foot, so was out for a bit, then at practice, when he got better, he came down wrong and tore some muscles around his rotator cuff. He’s been out pretty much all season.”
I nod, understanding his sullen attitude. “His scholarship?” I ask in a whisper, not wanting our words to carry to him, even though he already knows.
“They’ve put it on hold next semester. It’s a sports scholarship, so if he can’t play, they don’t pay. It’s a shame.”
Uncle Steven adds, “He’s just angry. Feels like he got a raw shake.”
It certainly does sound like a raw shake. He was so excited about his scholarship last year, and I remember the confidence he exuded, the knowing that the world was at his feet, just waiting for you to step aboard.
“I’d be angry, too,” I concede, thinking that life is hard. “Do you think he’ll ever be able to play like he did? That sounds like a pretty significant injury.” I hear my voice but from very far away, sounding mature, grown up. It’s an adult conversation about life and the problems of life that don’t have anything to do with me. I like the sound of my voice from that distance. It’s the way Petra talks, the way she probes and offers questions for thinking.
“I doubt it. He’s pretty down,” Uncle Steven says.
“Any other interests?” I ask, after silence sits around the table. If he can no longer play basketball, he needs to figure out what his other interests are. If he has no other interests, he just needs to get a job and start paying his way. It’s up to him. My uncle shrugs, the same elegant, long-limbed shrug his son had given earlier. “I mean the whole point of college is to get an education so you can have a career. Surely he wasn’t going pro?”
“No, I don’t think he was ever going to go pro,” Grandad Will puts in. “He’s very good, but he doesn’t have the height for professional.”
“Well, he’ll figure it out, I’m sure. What about being a coach?” I ask, and I feel my old friend Jay standing next to me and can hear him asking, “So what are your options?” He’s the person who taught me to think and not just react. I’m looking forward to seeing the old group on Friday. Grandad has already said I can use his truck—”if you know how to use a stick”—to take a trip up to Charleston. The McGills know I’m coming, of course, and Leslie says she has my room ready. Lucky for me, they don’t have a new misfit yet.
“I think he’d be a damn good coach,” Grandad says. It’s obviously something he has thought about. “But he’s not very interested.”
We let the conversation roll away from Tyler and toward James, who was in the high school production of Oklahoma and thinks he wants to be an actor now. “It can happen,” I say. “If you meet the right people, anything can happen out there” Meaning California, the land of dreams.
Grandma looks doubtful.
“Seriously, I was at a party, the second day I was out there, and met a photographer. Who knows where it will go? Did I tell you I have a meeting with Elite Models in January?” I know I haven’t because I have downplayed the modeling. It feels vain to talk about it—Look at me, I’m pretty.
“That’s going well, then?” Grandma asks, and Uncle Steven looks blank.
“It is. I brought my portfolio, if you want to see it.”
We spend the next hour looking through the ads, passing them down the table, flipping through the cellophane-cased images of my portfolio. I tell them about the Delphi shoot in Mexico, about working with Dom Devlin. I recite the scripts for the commercial, looking down at an imaginary diamond on my hand.
They applaud and cheer. I am the center of my family.