The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Parting Is Such Sweet Something

Previously: "A Rake's Progress" 

Carmen calls you that night, inviting you dinner on Tuesday at her place. She also reports that Rebecca is excited but also a little scared of the idea of moving to California. But, she says, you seem to have established such a rapport with her that she's willing to do it. Of course, you accept the offer.

You spend the next day on the script, but you put the pre-writing procrastination period to good use by researching Los Angeles high schools online, starting with the one serving the area where you live. It doesn't look very promising—there aren't likely to be a lot of "industry people" there—and the theater/television/film program looks only nominal. Not that it matters greatly. Once you've begun to make pediwhatsis, you will be able to place Becky most anyplace you want, at any expense. But you need to tell Carmen something for the meeting.

It turns out she's prepared as well, having done almost the same research as you. She is very high on some of the private schools, but you tell her that it will have to be a public school, given your limited resources. Besides, you tell her, some of the high schools are just as good as the private schools for what you and she and Rebecca want.

Eventually, after some talk, you settle on Rocky Beach High School in Calabasas, between Beverly Hills and Thousand Oaks. Despite its proximity to Los Angeles, it is a small town (smaller even than Saratoga Falls), but the school has a razzle-dazzle website for its film/theater program, and you tell Carmen a story about it having a higher-than-usual proportion of film industry people living in the town. (You've no idea if that's true or not; but with Beverly Hills so close, she believes it.) It's decided that Carmen will talk to the school about withdrawing Rebecca and having her credits and records transferred to Rocky Beach; you, of course, will arrange to enroll Rebecca after she has arrived. Only after that does Carmen think to ask if you actually live in Rocky Beach. You confess that you don't, but tell her that the lease on your place will be up in a month or so, so that you can take a new apartment in Calabasas at only minimal extra expense.

When Rebecca withdraws to her room to start her schoolwork, you and Carmen take your glasses and the bottle of wine out onto her patio. "I am so ... immensely grateful to you, Paul," she says in a voice that swells with emotion. "I never could have predicted this could have happened after I— Well." She looks down into her glass. "Those emails I sent."

"Forget it. I wouldn't have predicted it either. It's a surprise for both of us." You also look down into your glass. "You know who's responsible for it, don't you? Rebecca. She's a ... an amazing girl." You look up to see Carmen's eyes brimming with tears. "You've done the best job with her. I only wish—" You shrug.

Carmen sniffs, and looks away. It's a long moment before she says, "I could say something about 'wasted years', but it wouldn't be right."

"None of your years were wasted," you protest. "Not with her."

"I wasn't talking about her. Or me. Or you." She touches your arm. "I'm sure your years weren't wasted, and I'd never say it. I mean the years I spent ... resenting you."

"You mean 'hating', don't you?"

"No, I don't think I ever hated you. I was angry, I was bitter, I wondered if— But I knew it wasn't your fault. You were just a boy, I was the adult, and I— I shouldn't—"

"You got Rebecca from it."

"I know!" She breaks down completely and collapses against you. You cradle her head in your chest as she shudders and sobs. "But it's the years of wasted ... barren ... meaningless ... resentment! That's what I regret."

"You had good reason."

"Oh, Paul." She embraces you tightly. "Is there a word to describe it? Receiving a great gift and hating it because you don't understand it, you don't recognize it for the bounty that it is?"

"I don't know. The Germans probably have a word for it. Or the Eskimos."

"I mean it. Eighteen years of misery I've done to myself, letting my own resentments poison what I had. And only now, when— When it's ending! When my ... baby ... is leaving me, do I realize what I'd had all along."

It would all be very affecting, you feel, if it wasn't so obvious that she is playing a scene. To be sure, she is drawing on situations and emotions that are real and perfectly accurate. But she still can't resist playing it instead of living it. Her little speeches are too on point to be real.

You pull her more tightly to yourself, because of course you're playing the scene with her, and she's just cued you for your next line.

"You're not losing anything," you tell her. "You're giving. Giving Rebecca her life. As for being late to the party—" You stroke the back of her head. "You'll remember those years. You were always going to remember them. But they'll be sweeter now than they would have been."

You hold her to your chest for what seems a very long time. Eventually you feel her shifting in your arms, and you look down to see that she's lifted her face and is gazing into yours.

A chill runs through you. She is trying to look ... seductive.

Not a good look on a woman crossing the fifty-year mark, and looking every day her age.

It's a foolish look, too. As though the sixteen years of self-hurt could be plucked out clean and the wound cauterized by repeating the act that set it all off in the first place.

"Paul?" she says.

"Mm-hmm?"

"What about us?" she whispers.

I may vomit, you think, remembering one of the insults from the play that Westside is putting on this Saturday.

Instead, you touch her nose and with soft regret reply, "We'll always have Paris."

* * * * *

You have to spend the rest of the week and the weekend after in Saratoga Falls, as Rebecca and her mother start to put her affairs in order. You don't see the girl at all during this time, except briefly at her house when you stop by to visit in the evenings, but you do exchange texts during the day as she keeps you informed of relations between her and Carmen. (The woman, as you would have bet every dollar in residuals you have coming to you, is heaving with emotions, and Sydney asks you once if you can please put a mask on her to shut her the hell up, and then asks if you can please murder her and drop her body somewhere in the Nevada deserts on your way back to California. (You answer each request with a crisp No.)

Then there's Saturday night. Carmen has it in mind that Rebecca wants to see the school play, and you attend too. It's not bad as such things go, though Charles Hartlein (in your opinion) would have been better cast as the effete and bitchy Beverley Carlton, as he lacks the booming personality that the title character requires. Afterward you hang out backstage with the cast and crew and their families, congratulating and twinkling at them like a well-mannered celebrity. You give autographs too, and only one of them—the beefy football player who staggered through the role of Bert Jefferson like a whole lumber room of wood—do you condescend to call "champ."

On Sunday you have another brunch at Le Metropolitain, though this time Carmen joins you and pays. She seems to have worked through her emotions, for her company is pleasant, restrained, and relaxed. After that you drive out to Lake Covington, despite the cooling October weather, to stroll the banks and chat. There is no repeat of the mortifying scene on her patio the previous Tuesday night.

And then, bright and early Monday morning, after having said goodbye to your parents, you drive out to Carmen's to pick up Rebecca. You load her suitcases into the back, and there are some teary farewells from mother to daughter, and more restrained ones from daughter to mother. You embrace Carmen and give her an affectionate kiss on the temple. She stands in the driveway and watches until you turn the corner and can no longer see her in the rearview mirror.

"Oh, God, Will!" Becky moans, and her head lolls with exhaustion. "Can I take this fucking mask off yet?"

"Don't you like being Rebecca Oliver?"

"There's nothing wrong with Rebecca Oliver. But oh, the drama I've been through!"

"We're going to Hollywood, Sydney. What do you think we'll find there?"

She scrunches her nose at you. "And don't think I haven't noticed how goddamned grown up you've been all this time!"

"Well, between you, me, and Carmen, someone had to be the adult."

"That's all good for you!" She tucks one arm into yours, and rubs your thigh. "But I miss the dumb blonde kid I fell in love with."

You jerk in surprise. "What?"

"You heard me. You've been acting too much like this ... actor! Same way I've been having to act too much like Miss Moonfaced Drama Princess! Oh, Will!" You're still in town, on a busy thoroughfare, but she tears off her blouse, exposing her bra. "Kiss my titties! Promise me that when we get out of town—"

"Sydney!"

"You're gonna kiss my titties, Will, at some point, I swear to you! You're gonna kiss my titties and then you're gonna fuck me, as yourself and not as—!"

She growls.

"And then you'll put the mask back on and be my daddy. The way you were with my mommy!"

Next: "Behind the Curtain" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"