Role of a Lifetime (13 page)

Chapter 32

Holly glanced at her e-mail list and chose the new one from the hospital.  She didn't recognize the name but the subject was "Therapy Rabbits for Group Sessions".  She had all but forgotten about that.  It had been a while since she had been to the hospital.  Holly didn't want to go by herself and the whole group kind of got derailed when the winter hit.  They had to cancel twice when big storms blanketed the county with well over two feet of snow the days they had planned to go.

Holly read the e-mail which basically invited them to a weekly session that met on Wednesdays at 11 AM.  She grabbed her phone and texted Tanya and Marie at the same time.  They both replied back almost immediately and though Tanya couldn't do it, Marie was up for it and she'd said she'd drive if Holly wanted.  Holly went back to her e-mail and replied back to M. Jenson that they'd be able to come, two adults and three rabbits.  Then she sat, staring at the computer.

She fingered her phone and brought up Kelly's number.  He'd be happy about it, she knew he would.  She remembered the look on his face when he had told her about his childhood friend's father.  This would mean a lot to him.  She tapped the phone again and Kelly's info disappeared.  She should delete it.  She was kidding herself.  She just wanted a reason to call him.  She missed him.

Most days she had no reason to leave the house and, although the days were still very short, depressingly so, they seemed to last forever.  Lia rarely called or e-mailed or texted and even though Holly was very happy, very, that Lia had seemingly made a full and healthy recovery from the Dylan breakup anguish, Holly missed her daughter.

One day, out of total boredom, she had straightened up Lia's room.  Then she had regretted it because it made it seem even more like Lia was gone.  She hadn't realized it, not until it was cleaned up, but Holly had been fooling herself every time she glanced in when she went down the hall.  The mess made it seem like Lia wasn't gone.

Holly forced herself out of the chair and made her way around the kitchen, then the house, clockwise in every room.  But there wasn't anything to clean up.  Ages ago, when Lia was still in elementary school, Holly had once said, only half joking, to some of her friends, that they should rent a studio apartment together.  A place for moms only, where they could take turns going, just when they couldn't take the mess anymore.  Everyone had loved the idea, but it really was just a joke.

Holly stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned back to the living room.  There was nothing to clean up upstairs either.  She turned back to the living room.  She hadn't gotten around to painting it yet.  She sunk down to the stairs feeling totally defeated.  She could be in Aspen right now, well possibly, Kelly hadn't mentioned an actual date but if the movie he was working on wasn't done yet, it was probably pretty close.

She didn't care about Aspen, she just cared about Kelly.  It was nice to have someone care about you, love you.  That's why people craved it so much, she supposed.  That's why you put up with a ton of stuff you knew you should not be putting up with, just to have that.

She leaned her head against the wall.  She could still remember how he felt and how he smelled when she was in his arms.  She wondered if Kelly would understand if she told him, but as soon as she thought that, she knew it didn't matter.  She wouldn't tell him, or anyone else for that matter.  Why should she?  God, it was so long ago.  It didn't mean anything anymore.

She got up and went to the computer.  She busied herself on the internet reading garbage she wasn't interested in.  When she was done she turned the lap top off and turned to the TV.  Watched stuff she wasn't interested in.  She looked at the calendar and wrote the group therapy session on the square for Wednesday.  It was Friday.  Wednesday she'd have a reason to get out of bed.  Until then, she just didn't know.

Chapter 33

"Here, let me," Kelly said and opened the door.

"Thanks," said Zoe and they walked out together.  "Oh, look at the moon."

It was hard to miss, the night was clear and the moon was huge and bright.

"Wow," Kelly said, "I should go surfing."

"Surfing, now?"

"Yeah, it's bright enough."

"Won't the water be freezing?"

"Well cold, but not freezing, the wet suit keeps you pretty warm actually."

Zoe looked up and down the parking lot.  "Where was I again?" she said, "Oh right, over there."

Kelly had parked on the other side of the lot but he walked her to her car anyway.

"So you surf a lot?" she asked him.

"Not lately," he said, "You ever tried it?"

"Oh no, but it looks like fun, is it hard?"

"Not that hard."

"Well maybe I should try it sometime."

"Maybe you should," Kelly said.

He wasn't being dense, he was reading Zoe's signals loud and clear.  And it was more than just this current conversation.  On the set, sometimes she held onto him a beat longer than necessary after the director yelled "cut".  She had even asked him out for a drink one night, two days ago, along with some of the other people on the cast and crew, but he had declined.

It had been Mabel's birthday and Kelly had ordered a small cake for her.  He had explained, awkwardly, why he couldn't go, then rushed to clarify that his neighbor was turning eighty-six.  Zoe had smiled at that and for a second he had thought about asking her to come along with him.  But that would have been weird.  Plus he was still spending a fair amount of time every night sulking about Holly.  Most days, when he got home from work, he went down to the workout room in the basement, put on whatever local sports team was playing, and ran on the treadmill until he had exhausted himself.

"Well, I think I would wait until the water gets a little warmer," Zoe said.

"What?" Kelly said.

"If I'm going to try surfing, I think I would wait until the water gets warmer."

Kelly didn't say anything.  He hadn't tried to contact Holly since the day she had broke it off with him and every day he wondered if he should.  Zoe was smiling at him and he looked at her and smiled back.  Really smiled.

"Well like I said, the wet suit will keep you warm."

"I don't think I would like a wet suit, but you know what I do like?"

"What?"

"A hot tub," Zoe clicked her car door open and Kelly opened it for her, "Thanks.  I better go, you know how Jeff is when you're late." She got in and started the car.

"You're going to work out?  Now?" Kelly asked.

"What?" she said, "Oh, wait," and rolled the window down.

"You're going to work out now?" he repeated.

"Oh yeah, I've been getting over there two or three times a week.  You?"

"No, I've been mostly been doing my own thing.  Running mostly.  On the treadmill, I have one at home."

"Oh you're good, see if I don't have Jeff making me do it, I won't do it."

"Really?"

"Really, the whole time I'm there I'm just thinking how much longer?  How much longer until I can just go home and get in the hot tub?"

Kelly leaned down into the car window.

"I think you're right, if you want to try surfing you should wait until the water's warmer.  You seem to really like warm water."

"I do," she said.  "I got to go now though.  Jeff, you know."

"I do."

Kelly walked back to his car feeling lighter than he had in days.  On the ride home he decided to do the mile loop around the neighborhood, instead of sulking on the treadmill, in the basement, in front of the TV.  He changed, put on the reflective vest he owned, and headed out.

He was running hard when he turned down Mabel's street and saw the flashing lights.  He was too far away to be sure, but somehow he just knew, and when he sprinted down the street it didn't take long to confirm he was right, the cop car was in Mabel's driveway.  He ran up to the front door.

"Mabel!" he called and pushed the door open.

"Back here," a man's voice called and Kelly peered down the hall.  The police officer popped his head out around the corner and waved him back.  "You family?" the cop asked as Kelly walked into Mabel's family room.

"Neighbor," Kelly said, then his heart sank at the site of Mabel lying on the floor next to the coffee table, "Jesus, is she?"

Mabel's eyes flew open, "Am I what Kelly?"

"Oh, you're Kelly Rockport," the cop said and Kelly nodded in agreement.

"Nothing, asleep, I thought you were asleep," Kelly told Mabel.

"Bull, you thought I was dead."

"She's not dead," said the cop.  "Drunk," he mouthed to Kelly and made like he was tipping a bottle to his mouth.

"Are you hurt?" Kelly asked.

"Obviously, I can't get up, can I?"

"Well can I get you anything?"

"I would like to finish my glass of wine if you don't mind."

"I don't mind," Kelly said, uncertainly.

"Well he does," Mabel said, pointing to the police officer, then, "Ow."

"It's your arm, you hurt your arm?" Kelly said.

"Yes, I fell on it."

Kelly said a silent prayer that it was only her arm.

"Do you want to sit up?" he asked her.

"We tried that, but she said she was dizzy, so I think we should wait for the EMTs.  They'll be here in a couple of minutes," the cop said.

"You want me to call Karen for you?" Kelly asked, pulling out his phone.  Mabel's daughter Karen lived outside of San Francisco.  He had met her once or twice.

"No, don't you call her, I don't want to worry her."

"Okay," Kelly said.

He was staring at his phone.  The photo was still the one he had taken of Holly and himself, in the elevator of the hotel, the night of the "Son of Cronos" premiere.  God, he had thought that night had been so great.  How could he have been so wrong in reading her?  Why had she slept with him?  It wasn't like he had forced himself on her, he had tried, in fact, to be very clear, she could opt out at any time.  He had really thought that night, he had hit the jackpot.  Somebody who liked him for him.  Someone who, he really believed, would have felt the same way about him, even if he wasn't the actor, the rich and famous celebrity movie star.  Someone who really just liked him enough to wait and make sure it was right.

"Hello?" someone called from the front door.

"Down here," the officer yelled.

"Finally," Mabel grumbled.  Then she looked at Kelly, "Do you think they'll give me morphine in the hospital?"

"Morphine?"

"I'm eighty-six, I just want to live a little, morphine's supposed to be amazing."

"I wouldn't know," Kelly said, tucking his phone away.

He needed to change the picture.  It was over.  He'd do it later.  He needed to pay attention, in case they got to the hospital and Mabel got her wish of being knocked out with powerful drugs right away.  And he needed to convince her to let him call her daughter.  He stood aside while the EMT's did their thing and when they were loading her up he ran home to get his car.  He still had to be on the set in the morning.

After a very long night in the ER where Mabel had her arm x-rayed and set and did not get any prescriptions for any "fun" drugs, Kelly drove her home.  She refused to let him in her house and he drove home praying she would just go to bed and not have any more wine.

The next day at work he realized he had never changed the picture on the phone.  He told himself it wasn't the right time to do it.  He told himself he needed the right photo for the wallpaper.  Finally he gave up and told himself he was full of shit and he knew it.

Chapter 34

"Hi, you must be Holly and Marie?" the woman said smiling, "I'm Mia."

"Backwards," Marie said, "I'm Marie, this is Holly."

"Oh sorry."

"No problem," said Holly, and she stood up, picking up the carrier as she did.

"Thank you for coming early, I mean we haven't done this before, so I thought we should go over some ground rules."

The psychologist led them into a room Holly had never visited before at the hospital.  The sign on the door said "Group Therapy".  There were a small number of chairs set up in a circle and Mia motioned for Holly and Marie to sit down.

"Did I tell you in the e-mail?  This is just the women's group.  The men, well, we decided the best thing was to have the patients vote because we didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable by having you here.  It gets kind of emotional sometimes, the guys, well, anyway, the women were unanimous on letting you sit in on their session."

"I, we, just want to help," Marie said, "so whatever they want."

"Well, I think the thing to do is to just try to focus on the rabbits," Mia said, "We have some people who rarely talk anyway, it can take a while before people open up in group but sometimes hearing other people's stories will allow people to start opening up during individual sessions.  And they all seem to really like the rabbits.

"Personally, I'm really excited about it, I mean, they were using animal therapy all the way back in World War I, it seems to have a lot of potential, but we really don't know, so it's so great that you guys will do this for us, there's no way we could get animals in here without volunteers.  Oh, here they come.  So maybe just ask them as they come in if they want to hold one."

The women filed in slowly over the next couple of minutes.  Most of them glanced at Holly, Marie, and the carriers and there were a couple of smiles.  One woman came rushing in at the last minute.

"Sorry I'm late, traffic," she said as she sat down.

"Outpatient privilege isn't that against the rules?" another woman said and they all laughed.

Holly spent an hour listening and keeping an eye on the rabbits.  There was a pause in the conversation and the woman who had come in last asked to speak.

"Do you want to hold a rabbit while it's your turn?" Mia asked.

"Can I hold that one?" she said pointing to Timber.

The woman whose lap Timber was sitting on gave him another couple of strokes while Holly made her way across the circle to make the transfer.  She got Timber settled on the patient's lap and then went back to her seat.

"The thing is," the woman, Claire, Holly remembered her name was Claire from the introductions at the beginning of the session, "when I was over there, I felt good about it, I felt strong and confident, and good about doing my job.  I thought I was setting a good example for my kids, especially my daughter.  But now that I'm home, all I can think about is what I missed when I was gone."

Holly looked around the circle and saw several of the patients nodding understandingly.  One woman touched up the corner of her eyes with a tissue.  Claire took a big breath and continued.

"I don't want to miss anything, ever again, and my husband, he's trying, but he's like, why don't you go out with your friends, it's not a big deal.  And I don't want to miss putting the kids to bed even, and he says so go out after they go to bed, what's the big deal?  But if they wake up and I'm not there, again?  Maybe they understand but I feel like, like, I let them down, even though I know I didn't mean to and this is my job, and I can't, I won't let them down again.  I want to be there no matter what because I wasn't, for nine months, I wasn't there at all and I,"

Claire dissolved into tears and the other women sat silently waiting.  No one spoke until she had calmed down.

"Sorry," Claire said and blew her nose.

"You don't have to apologize," someone from the other side of the circle said immediately.

"Anything else?  From anyone?" Mia said.

One of the younger women shifted in her seat.

"Chelsea?" Mia asked.

"Well I don't have kids."

"You can still contribute."

"Well, you've talked about it before, Mia, about how, that thing where kids need to know you believe in them enough to not be there, or something," Chelsea said.

"Right," Mia said, "It's hard, I have kids myself, and letting go is hard.  It's a balancing act, not only do they need to know that you believe in them enough to let them try and even fail, and sometimes, hard as it is, not help them, but what they also don't need is the pressure of being the complete center of a parent's universe.  On the one hand it seems like a doting, loving parent, but there comes a point where it's really about feeding the parent's needs and that isn't what any child needs, for their parent to depend on them for their emotional well-being.

"This is an adjustment for you Claire," Mia said, "we know this and it's okay.  But give yourself permission to regret the time you missed without feeling guilty about it.  You did the best you could under the circumstances.  Learning from your mistakes is one thing, but don't try to make up for the past by scripting the future around it.  Do the best you can with where you are at now, does that make sense?"

"Yes," Claire said, "but it's hard, to actually do it, I mean."

"Of course it's hard, it's a process, that's why we are here, to help you, all of you, through the process," Mia looked around the circle, then her eyes widened, "Holly?"

"Oh no, I," Holly hurried to wipe away the tears from her cheek, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to intrude."

"You're not intruding," Mia said.

"My daughter, she's in college, and I miss her so much and I WORRY about her so much, I just, I know how you feel Claire, well I don't, I mean, I wasn't in the military, I," Holly stopped, sure she was making a making a complete fool of herself.

"Hey," said another patient, "Some of us are moms, some of us aren't, some of us are or were in the military, you guys aren't, it doesn't mean we can't sympathize.  Even if we can't understand a hundred percent we can still sympathize, right?"

Mia nodded in agreement.

"I'm glad you said something," Claire said, "I didn't think my friends would understand, I don't say that to be mean or anything, but I never thought they might feel the same way I do just because it's a mom thing.  I kind of figured they would think it was my fault for being away for so long."

"Which wasn't your fault," someone chimed in from across the circle.

The rest of the session focused on some more practical aspects of therapy, namely what Mia called "cognitive behavior modification", which could be used to combat negative thoughts and feelings.  Holly was fascinated and paid close attention as one patient described what she called her downward spiral, and Mia and the other women offered practical advice to turn it around.  When everyone started getting up to leave, Holly had a lot of questions, but Mia glanced at the clock on the wall and flew out of the room, saying she was late for a meeting.

Just as well, Holly thought as she locked the rabbits in the double carrier she had brought.  Besides, all these women, they really need help, and Mia is here for them and with Marie there, she really couldn't ask questions anyway.  Not without expecting a bunch of follow up questions from Marie on the way home.

"All set?" Marie asked.

"Yes, let's go," Holly replied.

They headed back out down the hall to the main lobby.

"Hey, is that Mercedes?"

Holly looked up, startled.  She and Marie had been deep in conversation, she hadn't been paying attention to the other people in the lobby.  The guy, boy really, got up from his seat and made his way over to them, slowly.  Holly didn't say anything.

"Is Lia here, that is Mercedes right?" the kid asked.

"Ummm," Holly said, unsure of what to say, but sure she didn't like a strange man, er, boy, being aware of her daughter when she had absolutely no idea who he was.

"Are you a patient here?" Marie asked.

"Outpatient now," the kid said with a big grin.  He reached down and pulled up his pants leg from the knee and Holly caught a glimpse of a flash of metal and the mom in her felt awful.  He continued, "I'm just here for physical therapy today. I met Lia when I got back.  And Mercedes."

"Oh," Holly said, "No, Lia's at school, I'm her mom, Holly, and this is Marie."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Joe," the kid said and held out his hand, which Holly shook.  Then he held out his hand for Marie to shake too.  "Yeah, I met Lia the day Kelly Rockport was here, I have a picture of us, actually."

"You don't have to," Holly started but Joe already had his phone out.

"See," he said holding it out.

It was a nice picture, Kelly, Joe and Lia holding Mercedes.  But it broke Holly's heart all over again.

"Look Mercedes, there you are," Joe said, smiling and showed the phone to the rabbit, who reacted by turning away.

Joe and Marie laughed and Holly joined in a beat later.

"It was nice meeting you Joe," Marie said.

"Yeah, nice meeting you too, could you ummm," Joe stopped.

"What?" Marie asked.

"Umm, tell Lia I said hi, if that's okay."

"Sure," Marie said.

Joe limped back to his seat in the waiting room and Holly and Marie left the hospital.  Marie had driven there so they put the rabbits in the back of her minivan and got into the front.

"What?" Marie asked.

"What?" Holly echoed back.

"Something wrong?" Marie put the car in drive.

"I just, hate seeing that, I mean, he lost his leg, it's sad."

"Yeah, I know, but what a nice kid.  Polite, unlike my kids, by the way."

"Going through a rough patch are they?"

"Rough patch, my ass," Marie said, "the past seventeen years have been a rough patch, they act like they're still in preschool sometimes, I swear.  Ugh, I don't want to talk about it.  How's Lia?"

"Fine."

"Are you going to tell her about Joe?"

"Uh, I don't know."

Things were quiet for a while.

"So when is Kelly done with the movie?"

"What?" Holly said.

"You said he was working on a movie, then after that maybe he would come back out here, when's he going to be done?"

"I don't know," Holly said.  Part of her wanted to leave it at that, but the other part of her wanted to get it over with.  They were almost to her house anyway.  "We, I, broke up with him so it doesn't matter."

"You broke up with him!  Why?"

"He lives three thousand miles away Marie, it just wasn't working."

"Why not?"

"He's too far away."

"So?"

"Most of the time he works in California, he can't come here."

"You can go there."

"No I can't."

"Why not?"

"Lia.  Lia's here."

"She's in school," Holly didn't say anything and Marie kept going, "You're entitled to have a life you know.  Have some fun."

"Fun?  I'm a parent first," Holly said.

"Yeah, you're right, take me and my husband, we've spent every waking moment for how long, shuttling the kids around, now they're driving and we're useless, so we sit home cause they're out with both of our cars and he falls asleep on the couch and I watch god awful reality TV for three hours every night.  You've done your job, now it's your turn. Isn't it?"

"Marie."

"Sorry, that was harsh.  I just want to live vicariously though you for a little bit.  Dating Kelly Rockport and going to movie premieres beats the hell out of my life."

Holly stared at the dashboard.

"Holly?  Holly, I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"No, I'm sorry, if it wasn't right, it wasn't right, just cause it was Kelly Rockport, that's kind of irrelevant, isn't it, if he's not the right guy for you.  I'm sure you did the right thing."

Marie changed the subject and, even though it was months away, Holly filled her in on the details regarding graduation and the month of seemingly nonstop celebrations and events leading up to it.  But in the back of her mind the same thought circled over and over.  Kelly was the right guy.  He wasn't the problem.  She was.