I closed my eyes again. Opened them. Looked at the lines.“I—”
“Walter, let’s table this,” said Mike.“We have a lunch meeting in Tribeca and about ten minutes to get there.” I swear I saw Mike wink at me. I said a silent thanks.
Walter checked his watch. I held my breath. Betty Jane fluffed her hair. Being late was Walter Torment’s middle name. My knees shook. I put out my hand and tried to steady myself on the table. It slipped on the sheets of paper. They skidded off the side and floated to the floor.
Betty Jane said, “Darlin’, all you have to do is nod your head.Then everything will go back to the way it was.”
I squatted down and collected the scattered script. As I picked up the pieces of paper, I thought about how much I loved my job. The work was creative. It turned my eccentricities into something that people actually liked. I missed the fan mail. The calls from my agent saying so-and-so company said they wanted Violet from
The Neighborhood
to do the voice-over for their commercial. It was tedious work for sure, and the scheduling made everything hectic. But I missed every single minute of it.Then I thought about my two Emmys and wanted another one. I wanted ten more. I wanted people cheering for me when I rebounded from scandal and adversity. The award show still rankled, but I could change it all right now by ceding control to Betty Jane.
I straightened the script. Walter’s Prada shoes reminded me that the enmity between us was mutual. But Walter was not wrong when he’d said he had made me. Of all the diners in all the world, he had had to walk into mine.This made me smile.
“Okay, Holly,” said Walter from the other side of the tabletop.
I almost knocked my head on the table when I stood up.
“Just say you agree and I will put that pathetic performance you just did to shame,” Betty Jane said with a snap of her fingers. Brightly colored lights appeared and began flashing around her. Sarge, Aiden, and the Silent One shook their heads. Betty Jane’s lights glowed more brightly, making their bodies appear as silhouettes.
Yes, I missed this work. I hadn’t known how much until I’d
walked back in here and breathed life into their new story line. I wanted to come back.
“Holly!” barked Walter. I froze. “We’ll get on the horn with Brenda and work things out. I am in L.A. until next week. Production starts in March, and, given your history, I’m going to monitor things closely for the next few months just to make sure we’re good. When I get back, I want to hear what you’ve come up with for Violet.”
I exhaled quietly. Betty Jane snapped her fingers and the lights disappeared. I had a brief glimpse of mottled anger on her face before the mask convened it. She sat down indifferently and picked up her nail file.
“Thanks so much,Walter, for giving us this chance again.”
Aiden buried his head in his hands. Sarge looked angrier than I had ever seen him.The Silent One sat stone faced.
I decided to walk home from Chelsea Piers, and for once my chosen mode of transportation suited Betty Jane. As soon as we reached Twenty-third Street, she transformed the Committee’s living room inside my head into a mirror avenue, but with roped-off sidewalks, cheering crowds, and no traffic. Then a garishly decorated parade float appeared under her feet and began to roll down the avenue. Betty Jane’s attire transformed into a blue satin gown.The jeweled sunflower she wore at the Emmys was pinned to the fur wrap covering her shoulders and it matched the jeweled tiara she wore on her head. She cradled dozens of long-stemmed red roses in her left arm while she did her practiced wave with the right.The couch holding the others sat behind her like discarded refuse.
The walk home took about two hours. Betty Jane floated along the whole way, waving at the cheering crowds on her avenue,
occasionally blowing a kiss. Snow started to fall when we reached Fifth Avenue. I watched the flakes drift to the ground and I thought about how these fragments become whole as soon as someone forms them into a snowball. By the time I arrived at the front door of my building I knew I was willing to do anything to have my life back again.
{ 30 }
I
sat in Milton’s waiting room tapping my foot on the floor. I had given up on the
New Yorker
two minutes ago. I couldn’t focus on the comics today. Sarge, Aiden, and the Silent One sat in their mirror waiting room inside my head without touching their magazines either. I knew they were as nervous as me if
Car and Driver
and
Catholic Weekly
sat on the table. Betty Jane flipped casually through
Vanity Fair
. No doubt shopping for a whole new back-to-work wardrobe. Milton finally opened the door.
I rushed in and flopped onto the couch. The Committee scrambled for spots in their matching therapy room inside my head.
“I got called back for my show. I went to the studio yesterday. They wanted to do story lines for Violet and Harriet. I did Harriet; then Walter wanted Violet, but Mike saved me with a lunch meeting, so that is on hold until next week, when I have to come back in and read those lines. My agent called and my new contract is ready.” It all tumbled out in one breath. “I’m back.”
“You’ve been busy since we last saw each other,” Milton said, considering me. I hadn’t told him about doing Ruffles’s voice at the theater a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t prepared for the aftermath.
“Not by choice, believe me.”
“And now? Now that you can do Harriet”—Milton gave me a knowing look, but I didn’t know what he knew—“what will you do about Violet?”
“Betty Jane said we can reimplement the old agreement and go back to the way things were.”
“Ah,” said Milton.
All Committee members sat very alert.
“She has a few modifications, though.”
“I said without him,” snapped Betty Jane inside my head.
“And what are those?” said Milton.
“I didn’t ask.” I shook my head.
“Why not? Don’t you think it’s a good idea to find out what you’re agreeing to before you agree to it?”
“I realized that if I have to go back to the way things were to keep that job, I’d rather wait tables.”
“
What?
” Betty Jane screamed inside my head.The other three applauded.
“I decided I’m going to call my agent and tell her I can’t do Violet.”
Milton’s face remained impassive, but the almost imperceptible glitter in his eyes belied something else as he waited for me to continue.
“You stupid, worthless worm,” said Betty Jane inside my head.“I made you, and now you would rather go back to waiting tables. How dare you.” She spit that last sentence out like it was rotten food.
“Responses?” said Milton.
“She is telling me I am a worthless worm. How dare I? The usual.” I sighed.
“How do you feel about that?”
“It’s a bit scary, risking my job.” Inside my head Betty Jane looked up with renewed hope in her eyes. “I guess I have to see how good my agent is. If she wants her cut, she’ll work it out for Harriet.” Betty Jane kicked a pillow across the Committee’s living room inside my head. “And if she can’t work it out, I can always do training videos and phone work.”
“Oh, agony,” cried Betty Jane as she paced the Committee’s living room, digging at her perfectly coiffured hair with her red nails.
I tapped my head and said, “She’s not happy.”
“I should think not,” said Milton.
“Maybe even trade-show announcements,” I said. Betty Jane exploded inside my head. “She’s upending furniture. At least the pieces she can lift.” I rolled my eyes upward.
“Holly, think about what you are doing!” shouted Betty Jane inside my head. She stumbled across the room with her arms outstretched. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that she had been drinking again. I pitied her at that moment.
“I don’t care if I ever do voice acting again.”
“You don’t mean that!” cried Betty Jane. The motion picture of my career as a voice-over artist played behind her. I was unmoved.
“I am not willing to sell my soul a second time,” I said.
The “this is your career” movie stopped abruptly.
Sarge and Aiden grabbed Betty Jane by the wrists and dragged her toward the door inside my head. Her hair was in disarray. Her shirttail untucked. Nail polish chipped. She dug her spiked heels into the hardwood floor. Sarge and Aiden tugged her arms and
continued forward. Her right heel snapped and then the left heel snapped. Betty Jane struggled. She scratched and spit at them. They dragged her to the door.The Silent One stood and opened it. A waterfall as big as the Niagara flowed outside.
Sarge and Aiden swung Betty Jane back and yelled, “One.”
Betty Jane screamed.
Back again. “Two.”
Betty Jane howled.
Back again, and then on the final big swing Sarge and Aiden cried, “
Three!
” And they let go.
Betty Jane hurtled out the door.
She managed to hook her fingers around the doorjamb and then she gripped it like a barnacle on the hull of a ship.The tips of her fingers whitened around her chipped nails as she clutched at the wood. The water rushed right up to the doorway. The strong current loosened Betty Jane’s hold. One hand slipped off.
She cried out inside my head, “Holly, please.”
My resolve weakened.
Betty Jane dug her remaining hand all the way into the wall. The other hand came around and reattached itself. Her head appeared in the doorway. Two mascara-marked trails extended from the eyes to the jawline.
“No!” I said.
Betty Jane cried out again inside my head,
“Please!”
Compassion and pity welled up.
She smiled. It was that old evil, crafty smile.
“No!”
I said again with conviction.
The smile vanished and, for the first time, Betty Jane looked stricken.
I wanted to be free of her.
“I want to be free.” I closed my eyes. “I want to be free.”
I was in the Committee’s room. The Silent One bowed his head. I motioned to Sarge and Aiden for help. The Silent One stopped them with his hand. Betty Jane had pulled herself halfway back into the house. I strode with purpose across the room, passing the heels of her shoes still lodged in the wood. I reached the front door. Betty Jane and I stared at each other the same way we did in group therapy. Betty Jane’s face was fierce with determination, her makeup smeared.
I pried one hand loose from the doorjamb. Her arm flew back. She looked down at her body. I pried the other hand loose. Then I kicked her with my foot. And just as I had imagined so many times during group therapy when Betty Jane sat on the pink commode, I heard a loud flushing sound and Betty Jane swirled away.The echoes of her scream lasted quite a while after she disappeared.
I turned to Sarge, Aiden, and the Silent One. I smiled. I hugged them. I wanted to dance. We were free now. Then the scene in my head transformed to the driveway, and sitting there was Sarge’s sparkling-clean ’57 Chevy. “Wait a minute!” I said, alarmed.
“Holly, it’s time for me to go,” said Sarge.
Tears filled my eyes. I told myself I didn’t mean for him to go too, but deep down in that place I ignored, I knew his departure was inevitable if I made the choice I had just made. Still, I said to him, “You don’t have to leave.”
“But I do, Holly,” he said gently. Betty Jane was right: I always chose wrong.
Sarge lifted my chin with his finger and said, “You made the right choice, soldier. This is the right choice. HUA?”
“HUA,” I said through my tears.
He got in his car. Turned the key. Gunned the motor. Put the
car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. He idled in the street for a moment. Then he shifted the car into drive. Flipped on the stereo. Winked at me. Waved. Hit the gas. The powerful engine roared and the car shot forward. The song “Badlands” by Bruce Springsteen mingled with the motor. I stood until Sarge and his car completely disappeared.
Aiden. My stomach lurched. I felt his hand slip into mine. I turned. Aiden’s face was completely healed. He smiled. All his teeth were back in place.
“Not yet!” I cried.
“Holly, it is time.You don’t need me anymore.”
“I do need you. You can’t leave me. Oh, Aiden. You can’t leave.”
“You don’t need me anymore, Holly,” said Aiden. “You have Sarah.You’ve had her since the day I died.” I did have Sarah. At that moment, I felt overwhelmed at how much of my burden my sister had carried all these years. How much I never knew.
He led me back into the house.We sat on the couch. Aiden leaned against me; I pressed my cheek lightly on his head. I wept. Aiden’s hand became lighter and lighter until I was holding nothing. Aiden was gone. I could still feel the softness of his hair on my cheek. I clutched at the blanket he always carried, buried my face in it, and sobbed.
After a while I felt a hand on my back. The Silent One. I looked up. He bowed his head.
“Holly,” the Silent One’s voice sounded like all the notes on a musical scale. I had heard it only once, but I never forgot the melodious sound.
When the Silent One said my name, I knew I’d reached the second-to-last page in this chapter of my life. I used it as a respite, just like I did when I was reading a book I didn’t want to
finish. I needed to come to terms with this ending because it meant acceptance that I had no power and no control over many things in life.
“Holly,” he said again.The sound of his voice made me realize that it was time to read the last page and close the book.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“Do you know who I am?”
“You can’t be who I think you are because I stopped believing in you the day Aiden died.”
“Do you know who I am?” repeated the Silent One.
I remembered Mr. Rhode telling me that God is whatever we need him to be. It is just a matter of faith.Then I reflected on the day in the closet when I had tried to get to Narnia. I had pleaded for Aiden to stay with me. And at that moment I knew that I had gotten an answer to my prayer. It just took me twenty-seven years to see it.“If you were answering prayers,” I said to the Silent One, “why didn’t I get to Narnia?”