CHAPTER 5

ROME

Daniel felt her watching him as soon as he walked in the door. A pair of dark expressive eyes framed by long lashes radiated their potent gaze from a recessed alcove at the back of the restaurant. She peered out from behind the dividing curtain like an ingenue in the harem of some old film where white actors played Arabs and young girls paraded in veils for a hero’s pleasure. Except Claudia was fully clothed in an elegant shawl and leggings. She wore no makeup either to accent her features or to conceal the fine wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. The long luscious hair that had been her trademark as a sex icon in another era was pulled back and arranged with pins, an old-fashioned style that highlighted her long neck.

He drew his spine up, forced some swagger into his shoulders and walked through the restaurant at a snail’s pace. He pretended he hadn’t seen her so he did not have to maintain eye contact. This allowed him to focus on walking as confidently and normally as he could.

“Ciao Daniel.” She extended her hand, not to shake, but for him to kiss, which he did almost without thinking. Claudia and the Italian New Wave had been his first exposure to the craft of conveying character in image; he’d been too enraptured to keep track of the subtitles and thus, had experienced the films without language. He’d seen the open souls of people he felt he knew in those films. He’d agonized over their decisions with them, Claudia most of all.

He’d planned a summation of these thoughts in a brief opening monologue. But her eyes, peeling back his armor like it was so much tissue paper, banished the prepared speech from his head. Taking his seat at the intimate table beside a window overlooking the Villa Borghese where he’d spent the morning walking and reading, Daniel tried to stay calm. A waiter brought espresso and biscotti. Claudia gazed at him with an expression of marvel, the way a student of sculpture might gaze at a Bernini marble.

She continued to gaze at him, seemingly unaware of the lengthening silence. Finally, he said, “I’m glad you liked my tape,” and immediately cringed. He felt like such an uncouth provincial. “I think I can bring a lot to Thomas and his frustration over always being second to Carraldo.”

“I have no doubt you could do anything,” said Claudia. “I’m so glad you decided to come out of retirement. Our little film is the perfect way to reintroduce you to the world.” She reached across the table and set her hand on his just as he was returning his cup to its saucer. He swallowed the instinct to pull away. He adjusted his feet under the table to make sure both appeared squarely resting on the floor even though she couldn’t see them.

“Daniel, I think we should be honest with each other. It’s very clear to me that you chose to audition for Thomas because you weren’t confident that you could get a lead part after being away from work for so long.”

“Thomas resonated with me. I think—”

“You’re a Carraldo.”

Daniel coughed out a laugh. “Thank you, but—”

“I’ve seen over a hundred auditions. But no one had the look the way you do. You’re the swaggering cowboy, the superhero, the victorious soldier. The prototypical hero. That aura radiates from within you.”

Daniel looked out the window at the green canopy of the villa’s park. A light rain had begun to fall, one of those distinctly Italian rain showers that came out of nowhere and lasted just long enough to ruin the day of the man caught without an umbrella. Shrouded in mist, the park, with the roof of the Temple of Asclepius just visible in the gray-green dusk, looked like the scene of a fairy tale. If he could just walk into the trees he could return to childhood where the paths to one’s dreams were always clearly marked and easy to follow.

For a moment Daniel thought he would cry.

“Claudia, I’m thrilled by your faith in me. It’s a lot more than I have a right to expect. But I can’t play Carraldo.”

She looked ready to argue, so he pressed forward, his voice low and defensive.

“You claim to be a progressive, but here you are saying I’m too attractive to play the serious role. You just want me to take my clothes off.” Daniel channeled Steve’s growling sarcasm as his words gained speed. “You’ve invited me here never intending to offer me the part I want. Assuming I would be desperate enough to do anything you wanted. I’m not going to play a character that amounts to the male version of window dressing.”

As he continued, Daniel tapped into his trove of American stereotypes, raising his voice and swearing, so that people in the restaurant began to look in their direction. Claudia held up her hand in surrender. She apologized for taking up his time. She left the restaurant like a crane who’d had its feathers ruffled by a tornado.

It was a kind of career suicide. Claudia had enough pull with other European directors to make sure no one would hire him. American productions were still possible, but with their stricter safety regulations, and the practice of executive ass covering by insuring every actor against injury, any job Daniel accepted would also mean submitting to a medical examination.

He remained at the table. He could see his hand jittering with tremors, but couldn’t feel it because everything had gone numb. He briefly wondered if maybe he would die at that little table looking out at the dreamscape of the Villa Borghese. He wondered if perhaps that would be a mercy.

At airport security, Daniel waved a guard over and handed her his TSA disability card. Airports were one of his least favorite places, but at least the Italians knew how to use discretion. He still had to walk through the body scanner, but the alarms were muted. He was shown into a private screening room with the guard and her manager.

“May I please see it?” asked the guard.

Daniel took a seat in the nearest folding chair and slowly rolled up the left leg of his pants. The sleeve of his prosthetic leg covered the brand on his thigh, but he felt it as though it still burned hot enough to show through. He released the socket from the residual limb below his knee and handed his leg to her. She laid it on the counter and waved a wand over it. The manager looked apologetic that his guard was being so thorough

Normally, Daniel tried to make these situations more comfortable, tried to convey that he knew they were just doing their job. But he didn’t have any energy left to make other people feel better about themselves. He leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes, and tried not to feel.

He had what Steve considered a very bad habit of zoning-out during points of high stress. Daniel called them his Nude Descending the Stairs moments. He could completely disengage from whatever was going on and enter a timeless, motionless space in which he ceased to become the fractured, earth-toned approximation of a body descending through darkness, and became instead weightless, effortless, polychromatic energy ascending to light. In this space, there was no disabled body, only consciousness, and even that, Daniel had discovered, he could turn off and simply float without a name, or relationships, or purpose.

His ringing cell phone summoned Daniel’s consciousness back to the airport lounge where he sat waiting for his boarding call with no memory of how he’d arrived there or how long he had been waiting.

Steve was calling. The last person Daniel wanted to talk to. He watched the call go to voicemail only to have the screen immediately light up with another call, and then another. The fifth time Steve called, Daniel answered.

“Where are you?”

“Riley has my itinerary.”

“You could just answer my question instead of fucking criminalizing me.”

“What’s the problem, Steve?”

“The problem? I’ll tell you what, your fucking mother is fucking dying, apparently. I thought you should know.”

The line went dead.

Daniel felt the pull back to his void so strongly that the room spun. Someday, if there was justice in the world, Steve would know what it was like to—

He was calling again.

“Yes?”

“All the guys Rowan thinks could replace Garrett are crap but he’s breathing down my neck to pick one, like it’s no big deal. Like it’s just a fill in the blank. This is what I get for working with a suit from New York.”

“What happened to Mom?”

“Jet ski. But Riley went to see her and she was fine. And then she kept calling and saying I had to come sign her out because she didn’t want to sit like a cripple—”

“Which I did last time.”

“Right, which was a fucking terrible decision. So, I stopped answering her calls because I’ve got enough to deal with right now. And then I get a call from this nurse saying like, there was a complication, and another surgery, and maybe Mom wouldn’t make it.”

“When was this?”

“I dunno, a couple hours ago.”

The receiver filled with the static of Steve exhaling into his phone. In the hazy background of the airport din, Daniel heard his flight called for boarding.

“You have to go to the hospital. Figure out what’s going on and send me an email. My flight’s leaving, you won’t be able to call me.”

More heavy breathing.

“Or I’ll call Riley. Is that what you want? Send your wife over to take care of Mom?”

“Riley’s in Mexico.”

“Then you’ll have to do it yourself.”

More heavy breathing.

“Steve, I’m serious.”

“Yeah, I’m on it.”

“Send me an email.”

“I said I got it.”

Daniel turned on his Bluetooth so he could put his phone in his pocket while he carried his bags. He listened to Steve breathing. Each interval that passed without Steve speaking increased Daniel’s dread. Steve saying their mother was dead could be dismissed as dramatic. But Steve rendered nonverbal was an unusually genuine expression that lent weight to the dramatics.

He took his place in the first-class priority line. He’d just set down his carry on when he felt someone touch his arm. Alarms sounded in Daniel’s head. The floor tilted. His legs tensed to run though he knew he couldn’t run. This time they’d have him for good.

But it was only a small boy wearing a T-shirt covered in the cracked and faded applique of the Avengers, and holding out his ticket envelope for an autograph.

“Poseidon, could you please …” Too bashful to finish, the boy turned and ran into the legs of his father.

Daniel’s eyes swept his fellow passengers for signs of danger even though he knew there were none. He walked back to the boy. “Hey buddy, let me see that.” Sometimes it was so easy to pretend. The threatening black expanse of panic could be pushed back, life could be performed as though everything was fine. Daniel signed the ticket in Steve’s name, and politely refused to take a picture. It was time to board the plane. People moved forward. The steady beep of the ticket scanner began. Everything as it should be, except for him.

“How do people think I’m Poseidon?” Daniel asked Steve. “I get them mistaking me for you, but I don’t have the Poseidon hair. There’s no way to mistake me as your character.”

“My Poseidon transcends the hair,” said Steve. “He is me as you are me and we are all together.”

“Are you high?”

“It’s been a fucking stressful day.”

Daniel laughed despite himself. His breathing had begun to return to normal. “I’m on the plane now. When are you going to the hospital?”

“Soonish, just have to grab a bite.”

“Send me an email.”

“Yep.”

“Steve?”

“What?”

“She’s not dead. Drive over there. You’ll see it was all blown out of proportion.”

“Just get here, okay?”

Daniel stayed on the phone until the cabin doors closed. As soon as he hung up, he felt distinctly untethered, an unnerving feeling since he was almost always surrounded by people and wishing to be alone. He chose to believe Steve would go to the hospital, discover that their mother was fine, and send the email. He decided he would wait an hour before unpacking his laptop. He passed that hour reading. He had a glass of wine even though alcohol interacted with his meds. The interaction ended up being stronger than he remembered from his last break with sobriety. He passed out. When he woke up five hours later and checked messages there was no email from Steve.

It was easy to jump to conclusions.

Nearly every other passenger was asleep. The rest were zoned into in-flight entertainment. Daniel paced the dimly lit aisles. If she was dead, his first call would be to their father. He was out on a research project studying microbial life in the South Pacific. Communication was difficult. He would be able to speak to funeral requests and burial preferences, but probably Daniel would have to make the arrangements.

He was so tired of being the one everyone looked to for miracles. Daniel recognized this as a self-defeating line of thinking. He knew what was down that road. But he also knew that since there was now no movie with Claudia and no chance of Steve giving him Garett’s role in the Hawaii project, he wasn’t likely to have anything better to do than work miracles anytime soon.

With the iron pragmatism of a man who had once been told he’d never walk again, Daniel sifted through his mother’s life and organized her relationships into categories of notification. He made lists of names for the calls that would have to be made. By the time the final descent was announced he had a short list of family and friends to call as soon as he could confirm what had happened. He had a longer second list of people who could wait a few days. He had a script memorized of what he would say. It conveyed the necessary information without inviting emotional sharing. He’d also spent some time organizing a cutting diatribe against Steve for failing to send the email.

The first thing Daniel noticed when he climbed into the ’74 Dodge Challenger idling in the airport loading zone was that Steve had managed to make it to his salon appointment. His hair was shorter and Poseidon’s dirty blonde highlights had been rinsed out.

“Well?”

“I think they’re uneven. He took too much off the end of this one, see?” Steve punched the dome light and shoved his forehead into Daniel’s face while jabbing at his left eyebrow.

“What about Mom?”

“Haven’t seen her. Waited for you.”

Daniel took a deep breath in and very slowly released it. Someday, he vowed, Steve would get what he deserved. Someone would figure out how to make Steve feel consequences.

“She wants something with meatballs. But I figured we wouldn’t because you’re not supposed to eat right after surgery, right?”

It had been a long time since his mother should’ve gotten out of surgery, but Daniel chose not to ask for clarification. Steve wasn’t likely to know. And Daniel didn’t want to dig further into a subject that was uncomfortable for both of them. When Daniel had been in the hospital recovering from hip replacement surgery, Steve had brought him a plate lunch like they’d eaten in Hawaii as kids. Five minutes after Daniel had eaten it, the food plus some stomach acid had made like Vesuvius all over the bed.

At the hospital, Steve only went in as far as the lobby where he glad-handed the security guard and signed an autograph while Daniel snuck into the stairwell. They’d planned a twenty-minute visit. The time-limit was Steve’s insistence because he, who avoided hospitals as though they could make him impotent, would be waiting in the car. And because he believed hospitals were second only to surfing competitions in their potential to trigger one of Daniel’s panic attacks, which sometimes led to a great deal of embarrassment for the family. If Steve had known the kid at the airport in Rome had startled Daniel so badly he was already predisposed to an attack, he probably wouldn’t have let Daniel visit the hospital at all. For his part, Daniel was feeling optimistic. He still had no hope for reviving his career, but his mother was not dead, which was an improvement on the last thirteen hours.

He felt out of place being a visitor instead of a patient. Nights spent hooked up to machines had never been as peaceful as the hospital felt now, walking the empty hallways lined with clean, well ordered rooms full of healing patients. The steady hum of state-of-the-art climate control kept the furnace outside at bay.

Slipping into her room, Daniel sensed the distinct disturbance of cosmic energy that was his mother. He took a moment, concealed behind the privacy curtain, to appreciate knowing she was in fact alive. She was talking to her nurse, already making plans for her post-hospital convalescence, insisting the nurse come visit. The nurse was trying to be professional. Daniel knew how hard his mother was to dissuade when she was sober. High on whatever post-op painkillers they had her on was like trying to deny a hurricane. He drew aside the curtain to intervene.

“Come on, Mom, don’t tell me you’re that desperate.”

The nurse tried to excuse herself, but his mother grabbed her hand and insisted on making introductions.

Daniel felt a shock wave ten times more potent than the boy at the airport when the nurse looked at him. Just one quick glance and he knew her, the girl from Battery Park. A twitch of dysphoria began in his spine and traveled down every nerve, like the Matrix making adjustments. With it spread a sudden uncomfortable heat. In a few minutes the back of Daniel’s head would go numb. The tremors would begin after that. He had maybe ten minutes before he lost total control of his body.

It was clear she also knew him, not as Steve, not even as Daniel Fletcher the one-hit teen idol. No, to her he was Daniel the college dropout surfer who lived in pursuit of the next wave. This was a revelation he didn’t have time to enjoy. The numbness came in a tidal wave that made the room tilt. He hadn’t had an attack this severe in years. He swayed as Jane rushed by, embarrassed or shy, or something else, he couldn’t tell in the midst of his brain rushing through disorganized signals. What was most important in that moment was that he leave the hospital before he became a seizing mass of tissue unable to control his bowels. He did not want to end up as her patient.

“Didn’t you get my message about the meatballs?” His mother’s voice arched with frustration. “I knew Steve wasn’t listening when I told him—”

“Mom, I need to go. Meatballs tomorrow, promise.” Daniel rushed to give her a hug. Then, seeing the bandages peeking out from the collar of her gown, he stopped short, gave her a salute instead, turned on his heel and walked as quickly as he could to the elevator.

Blood swelled Daniel’s pulse to a pounding throb. His tongue had turned to sandpaper. It scratched against the roof of his mouth. He made the first milestone of the elevator. He accidentally pushed three other buttons along with the lobby button. He counted breaths.

He tried to scare his system into calming down. “You do not want to do this in front of her,” he said as the elevator chimed and opened for no one on the fifth floor.

He tried calming his nerves with hope. “What are the chances? Here in LA, Mom’s nurse after all these years.” It was a sign of something, but he wasn’t sure what. It wasn’t like he could have a relationship with a woman who thought he was still that man.

Or could he?

Daniel’s good leg thumped spastically against the floor of the elevator as it stopped on the second floor.

“She was really into me, like really. We had a connection. She didn’t seem like the type who cared about being tough. So maybe …” His jaw clenched. It became too difficult to continue talking to himself. Silently, he continued to interrogate the possibility that maybe the Battery Park girl …

Jane.

That maybe she was one of the few women—maybe the only woman—in the world who could be okay with him being a partial instead of a whole.

The security guard gave Daniel a look as he staggered across the atrium and out the front door with his arms clenched across his chest and his good leg nearly flaccid with the shakes.

The Challenger idled in the circular drive. Daniel stumbled across acres of cement like a wounded bank robber trying to reach the getaway car. It would’ve been nice if Steve had thought to open the car door so Daniel wouldn’t have had to try and grasp the handle and pull, an impossible series of muscular interactions he only managed on the fourth attempt.

“What the fuck happened?”

“Water,” gasped Daniel.

Steve gave him the ‘here we go again’ look, as though he was somehow impositioned by Daniel’s tired song and dance of dysfunction. But he reached into the back and produced an over-heated bottle of water from the case behind the passenger seat.

“The girl from New York.”

“Which girl from New York?”

“My … girl. Mom’s nurse.”

“Well, fuck.”

Daniel braced one arm against his car door and the other against the center console. He repeated the jumbled mantras of five different psychiatrists in his head. This is a safe place. No one can hurt me here. But the one thought that brought a modicum of clarity through the cacophony of psychological and physiological alarms was Jane.

She knew him as he used to be, which was still the man he wanted to be. There were just some very fundamental barriers to realizing it. She could help him.

“She-re-mem-ber-erzzzz-me.” Daniel shook so hard his seatbelt rattled.

Steve arched a doubtful eyebrow. The shorter one. “Forget it, she’s obviously a trigger.” He drove toward the parking lot exit at a crawl, stalling to see if this was going to turn into an emergency room visit. “She’s probably more my type, anyway.”

“You-think-ev-rrr-eee-one … is your type.” Daniel finished off his water and focused on the empty bottle. Empty was not a trap, he told himself. Every Fletcher family car, except Steve’s Maserati, had a case of bottled water specifically for this purpose. Knowing there was more water was an important part of Daniel believing he was safe.

“My type likes a guy with two legs, so yeah, they’re all my type.”

“As far as she knows, I have two legs.” The tremors decreased in intensity by a few degrees. Breathing began to come more easily. “It would be like a vacation.”

“You want a vacation where you pretend you have two legs?” Steve wore a small, almost bitter smile, as he put on his blinker and pulled the Challenger into traffic. “Bet you fifty bucks she dumps you when she finds out.”

“If I tell her and she still wants to go out, you give me Garrett’s job.”

“No way.”

“In Italy, you said, start small, get a girl.”

“That’s not what I fucking meant.” Steve careened up the interstate onramp like he was preparing to launch into the air. “Even if I said bets on, you couldn’t make it happen that fast. You’d have to go from monk to Casanova in like a week, less than that. We’re fucking leaving for Hawaii in …” he searched for an answer he’d never had to know because Daniel managed his schedule.

“Eleven days.”

“Exactly. You can’t do it. Besides, I put my movie in danger waiting on you.”

“Did you screen any of Rowan’s new options?”

Steve made a face.

“You don’t have to stop looking. But if you don’t find anyone, it’s me.”

“She’ll dump you.”

“Bets off if you interfere.”

“You have to bring her around, so I see that it’s legit.”

“Fine.”

“But she’s going to dump you.”

“She’s probably married with three kids. Or she’s hung up on the fact I never met her at the park when I said I would. We won’t even make it to our first date.”

“Sure you will,” said Steve. “You’re my brother. She’ll at least let you take her out so she can tell her friends she was that close to greatness.”

Daniel tossed his empty water bottle at Steve. It ricocheted off his head and clattered onto the dashboard. “If you sweep in and be all movie star, I’m going to break your face.” He was only half-joking.