Authors: James Scott Bell
Next day I was in Nancy’s office. She’d called me in. More bad news.
“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked me, almost before I was in the chair.
“Seeing someone?”
“A shrink.”
“No.”
“Maybe you should reconsider.”
“That why you called me in here?”
“No, but it’s a good idea, don’t you think?”
“Why did you call me, Nancy?”
“You have some decisions to make. I have some decisions.”
“Such as?”
“Such as whether to keep you on as a client.” Her face was as cool as November. Gone was any of the warmth she used to toss my way when I faced troubles.
“You’re actually saying . . . Are you dropping me?”
“That’s what we’re here to discuss, yes.”
I could see a thin layer of Valley smog outside her window—a dull, grayish haze that kept the mountains from view. Nothing was clear out there. Or in here, for that matter.
“Why would you do that?” My palms were starting to sweat.
“There comes a time, that’s all. A time when it looks like it might be in the best interests of both parties to pursue other avenues.”
“But why now? I got on a big series. Until Leonard Remey got involved.”
“Are you sticking with that story?”
“Story? It happened.”
“You can’t go around town telling people Len Remey sabotaged your career. You know what that’ll do to you? Ever hear the expression ‘You’ll never eat lunch in this town again’?”
“What about truth?”
“Truth is not the currency of the moment, Mark.”
“Great. What is it then?”
“Relationships. People returning your phone calls. That’s what this business runs on. When that’s jeopardized, you’re finished. I don’t want to see that happen to you, or to me.”
“Are you saying having me as your client is harmful to your career?”
Nancy said nothing, letting her silence answer for her.
“So that’s it? You want me out of here? Never darken your door again?”
Finally, a little thaw showed through. “Here’s what I’m saying, bottom line. You have to decide something, Mark. Once and for all. You have to decide if you want to make it as an actor. I know you have the talent. But you have to have the
want to.
It has to be the most important thing in the world, and you have to be willing to put everything else aside. You have to be willing to shut up if it’s hurting you to talk. There is no other way to do it, my friend. You know that. And those are the terms for our future together. If you can assure me that you’re going to put your career on the front burner, then we can move on. That’s what I want to hear from you.”
For a long time I sat there, a swirling in my belly. And I knew she was right. It was the only way to make it in the business. You had to make it A-number one on your life list. I gazed out her window as I thought about it. The smog was still there, but I thought I could see, way off in the distance, the peak of one of our local mountains, just barely visible in the muck. Once, a couple of years ago, we got some rare snow on the tops of those mountains, and I’d taken a day to drive Maddie up there. It was like Wonderland to her.
I stood up. “That price is too high, Nancy. I can’t do it.”
She seemed shocked. “You’re giving up?”
“No,” I said. “I just figured out what I want to be more than anything else.”
“And what’s that?”
“Maddie’s father.”
Paula is stroking my hair as we sit entwined on the sofa, her legs over mine, watching Maddie perform her dance.
Maddie has taken ribbons and wrapped them around her ankles. She has used Scotch tape to hold the ribbons in place. The ribbons go round and round until they disappear into her slippers, which are fuzzy and have rubber puppy-dog faces.
These, Maddie announces, are her ballet slippers.
And now she dances, arms swirling in the air as she spins, then stops and leaps. It is not an abridged dance. It is the long, uncut version. It seems like she will dance forever.
“She has talent,” Paula whispers to me, not wanting to disturb the genius.
“Gets it from me,” I whisper back.
“Not.”
“You haven’t seen me in tights?”
“Nice image.” Paula hits a phantom computer keyboard with her fingers. “Deleted.”
“No, watch me!” Maddie twirls.
Sutton Hallard was his name. He was a licensed psychotherapist and avid golfer. At least that’s what his office made it look like. There was a huge, framed photo of a gorgeous golf hole on one wall. It had an oceanscape and clear blue skies.
“Pebble,” Hallard said when he saw me staring at it. “You ever play Pebble?”
I shook my head. “Don’t play golf.”
“Too bad.” Hallard chuckled, but it sounded forced—like a man who thought anyone who didn’t play golf could not possibly be a fit human being, let alone father.
Hallard sat behind his desk—a mini-golfbag held his pens and pencils—and regarded me. He was trim, about fifty, with perfect, steel-colored hair.
“This is your time,” he said. “I want to be clear on that. I’m here to listen, maybe ask a few questions. But the most important thing for me is to get to know you. I have to make a recommendation to the court about custody for your daughter. That’s a hard thing to do, I want you to know.”
Hard for him? What about me?
“Sure,” I said.
“So why don’t you start. Just tell me anything that’s on your mind.” He leaned back in his leather chair.
I reminded myself to keep calm. I didn’t want a repeat of the Sheila Bonner interview. Hallard seemed a little more human, and maybe the fact that he was a man was a good thing.
“Well, I love my daughter. That’s pure and simple. Since she was born I’ve been a different person. I didn’t realize just how different until she was taken away from me.”
“That hasn’t happened yet.”
“But it has. I mean, that’s why we’re sitting here. I gave Maddie to Paula in good faith, and she refused to return her to me. In my book, that’s a taking. And it hurts. It hurts bad.”
“But you’ve had a visit with her—” he looked at a paper on his desk—“on the twenty-second, isn’t that right?”
“Hardly a visit. They brought her to a park, and I had to pay for a social worker to be there with me.”
“As per the order of the court.”
“That wasn’t the bad thing, though. It was Maddie. She didn’t want to be there at all.”
“She is, after all, five years old.”
“Yeah, but this was something else. When she was with me, she loved me. We had a great relationship. Somebody has been messing with her.”
“Are you accusing your wife of that?”
“I don’t know who, I only know that Maddie wasn’t herself, and that concerns me. What if they’re trying to poison her against me?”
“If they are, they will be in deep trouble.”
“Meantime Maddie suffers. And I suffer. And who knows how bad it is?”
“But you haven’t any actual proof.”
Calm. Stay calm.
“It comes from years of knowing my daughter. I mean, living with her and doing all of the things a father does. You get to know a person.”
“How well do you know your wife?”
“I thought I knew her pretty well. I guess that was naive.”
“You’re saying, then, you don’t know her?”
I shrugged. “It’s all messed up now.”
“Do you really think she would do something to hurt your daughter like this?”
Did I? I did not want to. But hatred was starting to well up in me and I didn’t care to deal with it. “There are all sorts of things people do when this sort of thing is going on. Divorce and child custody. It’s not unheard of for a mother to try to keep kids from the father.”
“Nor the other way around.”
“I don’t know. It seems as if most of the time it’s the fathers who get the shaft.”
Sutton Hallard tapped his lower lip with the eraser on his pencil. “Are you a sociologist, Mr. Gillen?”
“No, but—”
“Where have you been getting this information?”
“I just came across it.”
“Did someone share this with you?”
He sounded like a man homing in on me. I suddenly felt I had to hide the fact I talked to Joe Pfeffer of the fathers’ rights group. I also felt like Sutton Hallard knew I was hiding something. And that my next response was crucial.
“When I was looking for a lawyer,” I said, “I did some talking to people, yes. Do I need to go into details?”
“It’s entirely up to you.”
“I don’t know what it will accomplish. All I’m saying is that I don’t have Maddie with me, and it’s possible she’s being influenced. I don’t think that’s right.”
“It is not right, Mr. Gillen, but again, facts are the only things that matter. Otherwise, we would be flying back and forth with accusations alone. My concern, if I may, is that if you think this way, then if you were to get custody of Maddie, you might try doing something similar, out of spite. That would not be a good situation either.”
Stay calm!
“Mr. Hallard, I don’t know what else I can tell you except that I’ve never done anything to harm my daughter, or even put her in a place where harm would come to her. I mean, willingly. I would never do that. And doesn’t a child need both parents around? For the best shot in life, I mean?”
Hallard lightly sucked on the eraser. “Are you saying a mother who brings up a child alone can’t do a good job?”
“No, I wasn’t saying that at all. Just that all things being equal, both parents should be involved.”
“Yes, that’s the ideal, and the courts seek to do that when there are no circumstances that militate against it. That’s part of this evaluation process.”
“Is she being evaluated?”
“Excuse me?”
“Paula. Is she going to have to go through this same deal?”
“Of course. I will be interviewing her, just as I am interviewing you. And I will talk to Maddie as well.”
“Alone?”
“Yes. For part of the time, anyway.”
This excited me. “Then would you do one thing for me?”
“What would that be?”
“Would you ask her a question?”
“Maybe.”
“Ask her about the moon dance.”
“What is the moon dance?”
“She’ll know. Ask her if she remembers dancing with me, by the light of the moon. Just ask her that and look in her eyes. Please.”
Sutton Hallard jotted something on his pad.
I decided Hamlet was crazy-in-love.
Nikki thought so, too. But his obsession with avenging his father’s murder makes everything else pale. Even Ophelia. And so he has to drive her away. Because he loves her so much.
“I think that lends a lot of colors to the scene,” Nikki said. We were rehearsing at the house in the Hollywood Hills she was renting with two other actresses. There wasn’t much furniture in the place, in keeping with the actors’ life. But potted plants and some funky artwork made the house feel homey.
Nikki was wearing a sweatshirt with UCSD on it and light blue jeans. She offered me a soda, and we sat across from each other and read the scene together.
Then we decided to try it on our feet, to see what emerged.
What did emerge neither one of us was prepared for.
Hamlet begins by teasing Ophelia, and I did that by remembering the times I used to tease Paula—she didn’t like it, but usually I could make her laugh after a while.
“Are you honest?” I—Hamlet—said.
“My lord?” Nikki answered in character.
“Are you fair?”
“What means your lordship?”
I began to circle her. “That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.”
Nikki stood still, as Ophelia might, wondering what Hamlet was up to. “Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?”
“Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness.” I looked at Nikki/Ophelia as if she were a statue. “This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.”
“Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.” Nikki/Ophelia had eyes wide with sadness, confusion.
“You should not have believed me,” I/Hamlet said, but I did not move away. “For virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.”
Nikki’s eyes began to mist. She was crying already! Totally into the scene. Amazing.
“I was the more deceived,” she said.
Following our improvisational format, I felt moved to grab her by the shoulders. Nikki went with it. Her eyes were filled with fear.
The feel of her shoulders was soft and warm. She was delicate, as I imagined Ophelia would be. And smelled like orange blossoms.
That’s when I kissed her.
Was it part of the scene? I, as Hamlet, doing what the moment demanded? Or was it something I just wanted to do?
She went with it again. Was she just an actress?
When I pulled back and looked at her I knew neither one of us was acting.
Her face got red. There was a long pause. She looked at the hardwood floor.
“Interesting choice for Hamlet,” I said.
She laughed defensively but did not look up.
“Do you want to start from the top?” I said.
Before she could answer her roommate, Deborah, walked in carrying an
Entertainment Weekly
and eating a peach.
“Hey guys,” she said. She stopped, getting that sense of interrupting something secret. “Oh, sorry.”
“No, Deb, it’s okay.” Nikki waved her in. “This is Mark Gillen, an actor friend.”
“Oh, hey,” Deb said. She wiped her hand on her shirt and shook mine. She had short curly hair and a lithe body.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“You guys doing a scene?”
“
Hamlet,
” Nikki said.
“Cool,” Deb said. “Which scene?”
“Get thee to a nunnery,” Nikki said.
Deb laughed. “That’s exactly what I was thinking today. Nunnery. Beats Hollywood, don’t it? You dudes go ahead.” She whisked out of the room.
Leaving Nikki and me in an awkward silence.
Finally, I said, “If we do the scene again, it’s going to go the same way.”
Nikki nodded. “I think it will. Maybe that’s why we shouldn’t do it.”
“You want to postpone until tomorrow?”
“I mean, maybe we shouldn’t do it at all.”
“No,” I said, “I want to do it.”
She shook her head. “Let me call you tomorrow.”
“Hey, I’m sorry. I was out of line. I shouldn’t have—”
“No,” she said. “I wanted you to.”
“What?”
“Can we talk later? I’m feeling a little irrational at the moment.”
Go ahead, I wanted to say. Be irrational! Irrational is good! But it’s bad, too! What was I doing?
“All right,” I said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” she said.
I exited, like Hamlet leaving Act III—confused, needing to do something to keep the ghosts away.
I almost yelped when I saw Ron Reid sitting outside my apartment building.
“What are you doing here?”
“Came to see my son, man.” He was dressed in jeans and sandals.
“I’m not into seeing anybody right now.”
His face got a hangdog look. He was my father. I didn’t want him to be.
“All right, all right.” I started to unlock the front door. “You want to come up for a minute?” Ron followed me in.
I made up some instant coffee, and we sat at the dining-room table.
“So how’s the job working out?” I said.
“Ah.” Ron waved his hand. “It’ll do for now.”
“You have to work. You have to settle down now. Don’t blow this thing.”
“I don’t know, it’s just not a good fit.”
“You’re drawing pay, right?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then it’s a good fit. You’re a convicted felon. You don’t have a lot of choices.”
Ron shook his head. “Enough about me. How are you doing?”
I shrugged. “Getting by.”
“What’s the latest on Maddie?”
“There’s an evaluator dude looking at me, at Paula. He makes up a report and gives it to the judge. Then we’ll see.”
“How do you think it’s going?”
“I don’t know.” I ran my thumb along the rim of the coffee cup. “They can’t think I’m a bad father. No way.”
“No way,” Ron echoed. At least he was trying to sound supportive. “So where you been?”
“Huh?”
“I was out there a long time.”
“Oh, rehearsing. Doing a scene.”
“The old acting thing.”
“I can pretend.”
“What kind of a gig?”
“Not a gig, just a scene. To try and get into an acting company.”
“Oh yeah? Very cool.”
It was still unnerving to hear my father, now in his fifties, talking hip. But it was a mild diversion.
“So what’s the scene?” Ron said.
“You really interested?” If he was, I wouldn’t mind talking about it. Acting discussions were fun for me.
“Yeah, really.”
“I’m doing a scene from
Hamlet
, where he confronts Ophelia.”
“
Hamlet
, huh? Cool guy in tights?”
“Funny. Maybe I’ll look as good as Mel Gibson did.” Ron laughed. “Who’s the chick?”
“Chick? Did you really say
chick?
“Babe?”
“Ron, the
woman
is named Nikki, and she’s very nice.” “How nice?” His eyebrows bobbed.
“Come on.”
“You like this . . . young lady?”
“Like I said—”
“No, I mean really like?”
It almost seemed like I was fifteen and Dad was asking about my first crush. “I don’t know.”
“But maybe?”
“Maybe. Who knows? My life is a little unsettled right now.”
“But if the opportunity came up, would you ...?”
His eyebrows danced again. I didn’t like it. “Would I
what?
”
“You know.”
“Sleep with her? Is that what you meant?”
“Don’t get bent about it.”
“First, what business is it of yours? Second, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.”
Ron squinted at me.
“Other than what’s normal,” I said. “She’s a Christian girl, I’m not going to try and get her into bed.”
“Why not?”
That snapped it. I put my cup down so hard it splashed all over the place. “Shut up, Ron, just shut up.”
He put his hands up. “Whoa—”
“Grow up, will you?” That sounded odd coming from me, but I went with it. “Quit acting like some teenager. Quit talking about not working. Get your life together, man.”
“Look who’s talking,” he said, with an edge.
“What’s that mean?”
“You can’t even keep your family together.”
I recognized the familiar grip of rage inside me. It was almost as if I was standing outside, looking in, watching myself lose control. The outside part was passive, didn’t even try to intervene. Didn’t want to.
In my mind I saw my fists driving into Ron Reid’s face. I don’t know what stopped me, but looking back it seems a voice was whispering to me.
Don’t don’t don’t.
Was it the voice of God? I think now it was.
If only I had continued to listen for it.