I text Jessica, arranging to meet her in the lobby at noon. We can catch a cab and go over to Little Italy for lunch. My dad’s family has always preferred Chiapparelli’s, and although Jessica usually prefers the more “it” places, I’m not taking no for an answer.
She agrees by saying, I hate that place, but it will be worth it if I can see you, darling.
I show Jack the phone. He rolls his eyes. “Sometimes there are no words for how gullible people think a person can be,” he says.
“I need you to do me a favor,” I ask. “Can you drive me to the Galleria, get me there by ten so I can do some shopping? I want to look absolutely amazing.”
Deborah Raines be damned. I’ll spend that money and be glad to do so.
He reaches across the breakfast table, grabs my arm, and squeezes. “Of course I will. I’ll get a little work in beforehand and we’ll leave here at nine forty-five.”
I head into the living room where Dad watches the morning news show hosts dance the fine line between journalism and entertainment.
“Dad,” I say. “I’m going shopping. I want to look really great when I meet Jessica for lunch.”
He sets the remote on the coffee table. “How about a daddy-daughter shopping spree? We’ve never had one of those, and I’d say we’re long overdue.”
I grin, catching a dim reflection of myself in the sliding glass doors, wondering at that ghost of a girl in front of my eyes, the girl who looks so much like I used to feel, the girl who’s quickly fading to nothing. And good riddance.
After shopping with my father, getting photo after photo snapped by onlookers, I’m sitting in the hotel bar, absolutely exhausted but looking good in a flirty yellow floral sundress and flat, red sandals. I found the dress right away, on sale, despite all the gawkers. Dad and I put on a nice little show, and I still had time for a blowout. My now-flowing hair looks decently fluffy in all the right places.
But the best thing? It turned a little chilly, and around my shoulders, Lila’s coat gives me strength.
Sipping on a lemonade, I compose myself, thankful I had the foresight to get dressed up for this. In entertainment terms, I’m armed and dangerous because, facts are facts: I’m young and pretty, and Jessica isn’t young. She’s far prettier, yes. But that doesn’t matter. Her beauty is attained and maintained, and everyone seems to want what they cannot have. Poor Jessica will nevermore possess a youth that doesn’t come from being able to afford it. Much like a house or a garden, without maintenance, and a lot of it, it will fade like the paint on my porch pillars.
In her own terms, I win. In fact, given a youth culture like we’ve got, I’ve already won.
And a part of my heart goes out to her. This is the battlefield of Jessica Randolph.
It isn’t fair. It’s absolutely meaningless to have some sort of competition set up in the first place over something that simply is or isn’t.
I’m old. You’re young.
I’m young. You’re old.
Who the hell cares?
But right now I need this to feel strong.
And, Mom, if you weren’t so worried about being young, you could have been the coolest older lady ever. If you wanted to be in competition so damned bad, why not make yourself even cooler than Jessica Tandy was? Why put yourself at odds with women possessing half the wisdom and life experience you might have built up to become amazing?
In this moment, my head-space filled with the same old monkey chatter that has cluttered it for years, I actually listen to myself take stock of my own advice. The woman who has tormented me for as long as I can remember has to go. And the woman I’ve used inside my head to torment myself? She has to go too.
There she is.
I watch her walk away from the bank of elevators, enter the lobby proper, and look around as if she’s looking for me when I know full well she’s looking to see who is looking at her, and, might I add, she’s looking as stunning as ever.
But I can x-ray right through those summer white pants and the nautical shirt with the Hermès scarf tied around her blond hair. The gold jewelry and perfect, patent leather flats don’t fool me at all.
She wants worship, and she wants it right now.
I look down at my lemonade, pretending to be absorbed in my own thoughts, unaware of the show in front of me. If all the world’s a stage, my mom wrote the manual on how to block it perfectly to suit any production and venue.
She makes her way up to me, taps me on the shoulder playfully, and smiles, eyes lifting to the bartender almost imperceptibly. “Hey, you,” she says, as if we saw each other for the last time yesterday, not more than ten years ago.
“Hi, Jessica.” I’m striving for pleasant but not overly emotional, and definitely not needy. “Have a seat.”
“Drinks first?” She slides onto the stool and sets her electric-blue designer tote in her lap. One smile at the bartender brings him right over. “Lemonade for me as well, please. Diet, if you have it.”
The way she nods him off probably makes him feel as if he has been given the quest of a lifetime. Sir Galahad of the bubbler machine. It amazes me how this works with other people but fails to have an effect on me.
“Shall I call a cab?” she asks.
Time in a cab with Jessica? Trapped in a moving vehicle? Little Italy will have to wait for another day. “No. Let’s have lunch here. My leg is tired after the morning with Dad.”
Her eyebrow rises at my use of his title, not his name, but she says nothing.
“I thought it would be good to walk around a little this morning and he did too,” I explain.
Her lips purse in a pouty way. “Well, I would think it’s a little too soon, but never mind about that.”
This from the woman who wanted me to pick her up at the airport yesterday afternoon.
The bartender arrives with her drink. “Menus?” she asks.
“Right away,” he says. I judge Lyle (according to his name tag) to be in his midthirties, a gym rat when he’s not plying the trade of cocktails, maybe a little difficult to deal with if you’re in a relationship with him and you’re not as good-looking as he is, but otherwise generally harmless.
Ten seconds later we’re looking at the usual “pub fare” menu large hotels sometimes have in their Irish pubs that are anything but. I don’t have to look twice. If the menu says “fish and chips” somewhere, my decision was made the day it rolled off the printing press.
After we order, Jessica requesting the Cobb salad, light on the blue cheese and the bacon (some mysteries cannot be explained), she takes a sip of her lemonade. “Fish and chips? Really, Fiona?”
“Look at me.”
“Bad for your heart. Some people can be skinny as rails and still have fat around their organs and clogging up their veins.”
“I’m thirty-two.”
“Still and all.”
The question is, do I strike at the beginning of all this, or ease into it?
My phone lights up with a text from Dad: I’ll pick you two up at two. Studio tour all set. They’re looking forward to it. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
“Who was that from?” Jessica asks.
“Dad.”
“What’s this ‘Dad’ business? Since when did you start calling him Dad?”
“Since we had one of those conversations we should have had years ago.”
Her eyes cloud momentarily and I can hear the electricity-speed thoughts. What did they talk about? Was it about my career? Her career? Surely it wasn’t about Campbell. I did the right thing. Was it about Brandon’s new girlfriend? Was it about assets? Maybe my new movie? Have they seen it somehow? Did they hate it?
“Well, good. Let that stay between you two. I’m happy for you both.”
She turns her stool away from me a few inches and lays both hands on the bar. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard about what happened with me yesterday. Of course not. Not with your leg and all, but anyway.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, it appears that my tweets about you caught the attention of Deborah Raines, and she wants me to come on her show and talk about motherhood. She said it was all so touching and the world needs to see and hear from a dedicated parent like me.”
Thank God I didn’t have anything in my mouth or Lyle would have had to administer the Heimlich maneuver. The type of acting that got me an Oscar shows up, and thank God for it. “Wow,” I say. “Pretty crazy, huh?”
“Isn’t that amazing? The show called this morning. Of course I said I would. It’s a chance to even up the score.”
“Well, good for you,” I say, drawing her in, needing to hear her egocentric babbling in all its glory for the final time. “When do you fly to New York?”
“This evening, actually. I just got word. I only have time for lunch and then I have to get an outfit to appear on camera tomorrow.”
“So, no go on the Charm City Killings set visit with Deborah Raines waiting in the wings?” I ask.
“Hardly. It’s like you said. That show isn’t what it used to be. I’d be stooping.” She leans forward and sips her diet lemonade.
“Did you tell her why you came to Baltimore?”
“Of course. They were so impressed and promised me I’d be on the first flight back here tomorrow. I told them you’re an adult, of course, and doing well, but I couldn’t stay away for long.”
Not to mention I’ve already been in this state for days.
Another text from Dad comes through: You surviving?
I chuckle and I see so much of what was hidden before the rusty old rake pulled the blindfold away from my vision.
It’s time. Time to let go of this person who was supposed to protect me, guide me, and love me when it didn’t always suit her. That’s not the way I want to live my life anymore. Wondering why I wasn’t enough, why she cared more about herself.
“Well, fish and chips or not, I’m done.” I stand up, and although my leg is on fire, I don’t wince or cry out. I summon all my skills.
“What are you talking about? What are you doing?” she asks, panic suddenly flitting across her perfect face.
“I’m leaving, Mother. And you can’t come with me anymore.”
The corners of her mouth turn down. “You’re not making any sense, Fiona. Now sit down and stop risking a scene.”
I used to be very good at scenes.
“No, Jessica. I’m telling you what’s going to happen this time because I know you well enough to know how you’re going to respond. I’m going to walk across this bar, out into the lobby, and onto the street. And you will not follow me. You won’t follow me any longer.
“And what’s more, I’m going to get in a cab and go back to my friend Jack’s house, collect my things, and go home. Home-home, to my big, achy, old house that needs a lot of work, but so much has been done. And it’s beautiful underneath it all. It’s simply the most beautiful place ever.”
She reddens and opens her mouth.
“No. Don’t speak. After that, Dad is going to take me over to Jasper Venn’s studio and I’m going to tour it, without you, because I’ve thought about it, and maybe a little guest spot, doing what I’m good at, being the best actor the Randolph family has ever seen—and yes, I believe that—would be just right. And I’ll come home to work on my beautiful house with my beautiful friends, and learn to become a blacksmith and make an archway for my weird friend at the coffee shop. Sometimes I’ll ride my bike to Fort McHenry and watch the sun on the water and my life will truly be a thing of beauty. In fact, it already is.”
“You’re speaking nonsense, Fiona.” Her mouth has slimmed in rage. “Stop this right now!” she hisses.
“I’m done already. If I thought anything you ever did was truly for me, I’d feel guilty about this, but I don’t. You threw me to that wolf Campbell again and again, and someday I may have the strength to forgive you for that, but today I only have it in me to make sure you never, ever hurt me again. I only have the strength to walk away and not look back.”
In a movie script, I might lean down and give her a hug, change up the mood for just a second so the audience knows there’s still hope. But this is my life, and as far as my mother is concerned, there is none.
I turn and walk away knowing without a doubt she will let me go.