CHAPTER 22
At the Vanity Fair party, I sort of float around. The Oscar I’m carrying shouts, “Talk to me! It’s important that you know me!” I meet directors and producers and actors that I’ve been watching for decades. I drink champagne and eat off of passed trays while people take turns carrying my Oscar. It’s just been engraved with my name so I assume it’ll make its way back to me. I keep an eye out just in case.
I don’t see Leo, and I try not to look for him. Or, rather, I tell myself I’m looking for my parents while actually looking for him. I wander around with Martin, meeting everyone he wants me to meet. I feel comfortable in a way I couldn’t have imagined; winning has emboldened me. There is nothing I can do to wipe the smile off of my face as people congratulate me and I sip champagne. “Hello. Thank you. Nice to meet you.” I love this night.
Martin wants me to meet someone named Cayla who doesn’t seem old enough to babysit. “This right here,” he tells me, “is my next big star.” Cayla giggles, and I drain my glass so I have a reason to walk away.
I’m waiting at the bar when my mind starts playing tricks on me. How many glasses of champagne have I had, I wonder. Leo is standing next to me. “You must be Nora,” he says, which makes no sense. This Leo is slightly taller with shorter hair. “I’m Luke Vance. The brother.”
“I really thought I was drunk there for a second,” I say, because my filter is not working. “I mean you really look a lot alike. Wow.” I shake his hand.
“Congratulations,” he says. “You guys really swept it tonight. We cheered you on from the nosebleed seats.”
“Thanks. I still can’t believe it.” There’s more of an ordinariness to Luke, which I find refreshing. Like Luke’s been to Costco. He’s as handsome as Leo, but he doesn’t seem to expect anyone to notice. He has Leo’s way of looking at you as if you have all of his attention, which I find slightly painful. I wonder if this is something they picked up from their parents. “I’m sorry about your mom,” I say.
He’s taken aback, and I resolve not to finish this glass. “Thank you. Leo never talks about it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he told you.”
A pretty, dark-haired woman rushes over to us and puts her arm through Luke’s. “Oh, I don’t want to miss this. I’m Jenn. I’ve been dying to meet you.” She’s out of place in her normalness, like we’re at a barbecue. I like her immediately.
She congratulates me, which isn’t getting old. She says she likes my dress, which isn’t getting old. And then, “You really got to him. Luke and I never thought it would happen. All these starlets rolling through year after year, and it’s a real woman—a mom even—who does him in.” Luke’s nodding as she says this, like this is the thing they were just talking about on the drive over. And also like this is a fun fact, rather than the saddest thing in the world.
An older man hands Jenn a margarita before turning his smile on me. “Ah, here she is. I’m William Vance, their father. I thought it was a great film, congratulations.” There’s a hairline crack in my heart as I look at Leo’s dad. It’s like looking at future Leo, the one I’m not going to grow old with. Seeing his dad also rounds him out, like he’s a guy with a past and parents. I briefly want him to be held accountable.
“You’re all so handsome,” I hear myself saying as we shake hands.
William laughs. “Well, thank you. Luke and I are just handsome as a hobby. Only Leo makes a living at it.” Luke and Jenn laugh, so I do too. These are some of the easiest people I’ve ever met. They’re grounded and open, like the best parts of Leo. And they don’t think Leo can handle hospice.
Leo appears and gives them each a hug. “Thanks for coming. I see you met Nora.”
“She lives up to your description,” Luke says, and Leo winces. He’s visibly uncomfortable. I wonder if he seriously thinks I’m going to call him out for dumping me, right here in front of everyone. I think we’ve established that I’m not exactly the kind of person who calls people out.
People seem to be inching closer to us as I stand and stare at these two brothers, one who is Leo and one who is not. I must look confused, because Luke laughs and says, “He got drunk at Thanksgiving and told us the whole story.”
“You did?” I’m looking straight at Leo, but he won’t look at me.
“Maybe,” says Leo. “Hard to remember.”
“At Thanksgiving,” I say. What I really want to say is What’s “the whole story”? Can you explain it to me?
“Leo brought a bottle of scotch and finished it. Performance of his life,” William says.
“Wish I could have seen it,” I say, mostly to myself.
“It sounds beautiful, where you live,” Jenn says to me.
“Okay, wow, fun that you guys are here,” Leo says, “but we don’t need to do this. It’s fine. What happens at Thanksgiving stays at Thanksgiving, right?”
“I taught Leo how to grocery shop,” I say. “I was like a counselor at Camp Normal Life, and he did pretty well.” I’ve had exactly the right amount of champagne to want to keep this going, as it turns out.
Now he’s looking right at me, hard. “Please,” he says.
A flourish of yellow appears out of the corner of my eye. My parents are standing a few feet away, unsure if it’s okay to approach. The only thing in the world that could make this situation more awkward is Leo meeting my parents. This certainly isn’t how I dreamed of it happening. My dad makes eye contact and approaches, dragging my mom with him.
“Leo,” he says, extending his hand more formally than I’d expect. “Charlie Larson. Nora’s father.” There’s something in the way he enunciates the word “father” that makes it sound like a threat.
Leo is completely flustered, and this makes Luke smile. “Oh, sir, nice to meet you. And are you Marilyn?” He shakes their hands, holding my mom’s between his for a beat longer than necessary. “So nice to meet you. I’m a big fan of your grandkids.”
“So we’ve heard,” says my dad. I need to make this stop.
I introduce them to Luke, Jenn, and William. And I eye my mom, willing her to fill the space. She delivers. “Well, this has been the single most exciting night of my entire life. My daughter wins an Oscar and accepts it so beautifully. You really did look beautiful up there, sweetheart. And then just now I walked out of the bathroom and right into Dirk Richardson! He was just standing right there, like he was waiting for me. I don’t know what came over me but I said, ‘Dirk, I’m Marilyn’ because I’ve seen every one of his movies and I feel like I’ve known him my whole life. And he took my hand and said, ‘Hello, Marilyn.’ Can you imagine that?”
“And now I’ve got to go find him and punch his lights out,” my dad kids. They’re smiling at each other and I can feel Leo looking my way. I don’t dare look at him in case he can still read my mind. My parents are the happy ending of the romance movie. My parents are what we could have been if he’d just come back.
“Martin wanted to meet you guys,” I tell them. “Let’s go find him before he runs off with a teenager.” Everyone exchanges good-byes and nice-to-meet-yous. William hugs me, like hard. As I usher my parents off to find Martin, or anyone for that matter, I realize that Leo and I are the only two who didn’t say good-bye. I guess that’s just our thing.
It’s nearly midnight, and I’m in the bathroom happily noticing that most of my makeup has worn off. I’m sick of all this hair on my shoulders and wish I had a pencil to secure it in a knot. I check my phone and see that everyone I’ve ever met has texted me, including Ben: I must be a hell of a muse, I’ve got to see this movie! That’s as close to “congratulations” as Ben’s going to get.
“There you are,” says Naomi, coming out of a stall. “You must feel like a million bucks.”
“It does feel pretty good, I have to say. I never saw it coming.”
“Well, it was a powerful story, I think you helped a lot of women by telling it.” She’s reapplying her lipstick, which seems like a normal thing to do, so I pull out mine.
“Thanks.” That’s all I should say, but I’m a little cracked open after seeing so much of Leo tonight. I’m raw all over again, and I just want to hear all the facts so I can reseal my heart. “So what do you and Leo do now? Stay in L.A.?”
“I think Leo’s headed back to New York, but I’m not sure. I’m going to France. I’m going to take a full month off to read and eat delicious things.”
My envy is profound, but this whole scenario sounds like it would be better with Leo. “He didn’t want to come?”
“Who?”
“Leo.”
She laughs. “Leo and I wouldn’t even share a coffee together, let alone a month’s getaway. Neither of us would survive.” She’s dusting her face with powder and stops. “Nora. You don’t think Leo and I are a thing? Tell me you don’t.”
“Aren’t you?”
“That’s movie promotion. If people are gossiping about us, the movie gets mentioned. That’s pretty much Hollywood 101.”
“Oh.” I feel like someone who just wandered off the Kansas cornfields onto Hollywood Boulevard. “But you were together before, right?”
“Like for a minute. But it was nothing. Look, Leo’s super attractive, but we literally have nothing to talk about. It got old fast.”
We had everything to talk about, I want to say. How is that possible? He’s got nothing to say to her but can talk to me for twenty hours a day and pick up in the morning where he left off. My heart is not adequately shut, and I am starting to feel sick. That one thought, that we had so much to talk about, wants to drag me back to the belief that we had something, that he was something meant for me.
She’s saying good-bye. She’s hugging me. When I’m alone in the bathroom staring at my only slightly too-made-up reflection, I realize that I am newly hurt. His not being with Naomi is a fresh wound. His leaving me to go back to her obeys all the laws of nature. Any man would have done the same. But his leaving me just to be not with me aches all over again.
I find Martin mildly drunk at a little table talking to another gorgeous young woman. He motions for me to sit on his other side. “Come, there’s room for both of you.” Oh, brother.
“So Leo and Naomi aren’t together?” I hear myself say.
“Shhhhhh. We’re still marketing this thing. Shhhhhh,” he says with Elmer Fudd eyes, glancing left, then right.
I need some air and maybe a cracker. A waiter passes with a tray of stuffed mushrooms and I put four on a napkin. I make my way to a terrace off the main room where people are still milling around but where there’s room to breathe. I take a seat on the side of a fountain and dig in to my snack.
My parents have gone back to their hotel and they took Oscar with them, so I don’t need to worry about the three of them. I guess I can leave anytime I want to. I need to unpack my feelings and then repack them more securely. But the air feels nice, crisp for Los Angeles I guess, and I am in the middle of my big moment. I wrote a movie and won an Oscar. I’m wearing this beautiful dress, and once I take it off, I don’t know when I’ll ever wear it again. I just want to sit and enjoy it a little longer.
“You okay?” It’s Leo.
My mouth is full of mushrooms, so I cover it with my dirty napkin and mumble, “Sure.”
“So congratulations, really,” he says. “Okay if I sit down?”
“Thanks.” I nod. He sits down right next to me, but not close enough that any of our parts are touching. My eyes track that space between us, as if it’s something so familiar but from another lifetime.
“It’s a big deal,” he says.
“Yeah. For you too.”
“Not really. I don’t mean to seem jaded, but the first one felt like a bigger deal. And I can’t get that excited about an award for acting like a total dick.” He’s flustered. “Oh, sorry.”
“No offense taken, that’s how I wrote it.”
“Yeah. So are you happy? You said you were happy a while back.”
“I am. My kids are good. I’m a big success.” I look away, as if on the other side of me might be the answer, a better thing to say.
“Okay. That’s what matters.”
That’s not what matters at all, I think. “That’s not what matters at all,” I say.
“Probably not. Sounded right though.”
“Do you have a pencil?” I ask. He reaches into his coat pocket and hands me a pen. I can feel him watching me as I tie my hair in a knot and secure it with his pen. If only I could wash my face. I turn to him. “That’s better.”
He doesn’t smile. Something hurts, and I’m glad. He says, “I guess I want you to know that what we had was the most important thing that’s ever happened to me. And I’m glad it happened.”
I hold his gaze as I consider this. It’s a really nice thing to hear, but it sort of sounds like he’s delivering the breakup speech he should have given me last spring. He wants to be let off the hook, and to my surprise, I find that I want to let him off the hook. I don’t want him to feel bad about leaving me, and I sort of like the idea that he remembers it like I do. Maybe there are moments where people come together and you can just seal them in their own space while you move on with your life. Maybe what we had was a secret you keep hidden in a book to take out and ponder on your birthday. I smile at the thought because I know I’ve stolen it from a movie.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing. I just hated The Bridges of Madison County.”
“The worst.”
“All that pining away.”
“And she saves that crappy linoleum table.” We’re both laughing, sort of. “I’m not going to hug you,” he says.
“Okay.”
“I just think it would be too much.”
“What’s this? The winners’ circle?” Martin appears on the terrace with three young women.
Leo stands up to be introduced. The girls are talking in the most high-pitched voices I’ve ever heard, literally squealing with delight. Leo dons his gracious public persona as he talks to them. I’m still seated, dirty napkin in hand, and I ponder the fact that I’ve just been broken up with by a person I dated ten months ago. Was it gallant of him to address it, to acknowledge that it was actually something? Maybe. But did that balance out the thoughtlessness of leaving it unsaid for so long? If we were as close as I remember us being, if I didn’t imagine the whole thing, he could have just said it. “I’m not coming back.” I didn’t anticipate that he’d turn out to be a coward, yet here we are.
I decide that I want to leave on this note. We’ve made a little peace; he probably doesn’t feel guilty anymore. I got to hear that our thing was a thing. I’m in a gorgeous dress and I’m about to make off with his pen. Let’s roll the credits on this.
“I’m going to head out,” I say to Martin. He grabs me and hugs me and says how happy he is for all of us. I’m to take his limo and have it return for him later.
I turn to Leo and the girls and say, as if they all have equal importance in my life, “Well, good night. Hope you all get home safely.” And it feels like the second time I’ve won tonight.
I am certain that if I can get back to my hotel, get into my pajamas, and wash my face raw, that all of life’s mysteries will become perfectly clear to me. It’s two A.M. by the time I’m out of the bathtub and in bed, Oscar on the pillow next to me, compliments of my parents.
Leo hasn’t been with Naomi this whole time. He’s been on his own or with dozens of other women who he decided are better than being with me. It wasn’t like he was swept into some big love affair, he just left. I wasn’t enough to come back for. At a minimum, I wasn’t practical. I fall asleep clinging to new pieces of information: (1) Leo got drunk and told his family about me. (2) Leo isn’t great to talk to; Leo’s great at talking to me. (3) Our thing mattered to him.
I wake at ten o’clock because my kids are FaceTiming me. “You looked so pretty, Mommy. And I liked all the things you said.” I don’t remember anything I said, I’ll have to look that up.
“Can I see the trophy?” Arthur asks and then laughs when I show him Oscar tucked into bed next to me. He studies my face. “Did you talk to Leo?”
“Barely. He was sitting right in front of me, but there were a million people to talk to. Peter Harper is not as tall as you’d think.”
Bernadette grabs the phone. “Ohmigod, Mom, Naomi looked so pretty. Could we do that with my hair?” There’s a skirmish of some sort, Arthur wants her to shut up and give him the phone. I lie back on my pillow, relishing both the love I feel for these kids and the fact that I can hang up anytime I want.
“Want to hear something crazy?” I say. “Naomi and Leo were never even dating. It was all publicity for the movie.” I’m not entirely sure why I feel the need to gossip with my kids. It’s possible that I just need to say it to someone.
Bernadette’s eyes go wide. “That’s so sneaky. And it worked!”
Arthur seems hesitant. His face fills half the screen, and I think about how I can so often read his mind. He’s running something through his processors; I can almost hear the click click click of it. Then again, one time I was sure he was being bullied at school, and it turned out he was just upset because I kept breaking the yokes on his egg sandwiches.
“Listen. Guys. Tell Penny I’ll be there tonight; I’ll come straight from the airport and maybe we can have a sleepover in her guest room—you guys, me, and Oscar.”
They erupt in cheers before going back to their fight.