The Corner of Bitter and Sweet Page 3

  Ouch. He may have been hot, but obviously he had not downloaded any sort of How to Talk to Older Women Without Making Them Feel Old e-book.

  Mom’s smile flickered. “Well, thank you,” she said. “I appreciate that. I think.”

  “Although now that I’m standing in front of you, it’s obvious that you were like, twelve, when you shot that,” he laughed.

  His save made Mom turn the smile back up to full wattage.

  “But seriously. You’re, like, an idol of mine,” he said. “Your comic timing in that show was genius.”

  I cringed. Putting emphasis on words like that—that was definitely a kind of flirting, wasn’t it?

  “You know, I did a guest role on Two and a Half Men,” he said, “so I know how tough sitcoms can be.”

  That was, like, the nicest compliment Mom had gotten in the last few months, other than when the homeless guy we passed on Ocean Avenue a few nights earlier had told her she had killer knockers. “You’re so sweet to say that,” she said again.

  The way his eyes kept drifting down toward those knockers, I wasn’t sure sweet was the word for Billy Barrett at that moment. According to the blogs, he was a bit of a commitmentphobe. He had an on-again, off-again thing with a screenwriter named Skye, who was known as much for her habit of dressing like a 1940s movie star as she was for her ironic indie comedies. Skye did not have a last name. Well, she did—Bernstein—but after being nominated for her second Academy Award, she decided to chuck it, and Hollywood decided to let her. She broke up with Billy every other week because of the photos that popped up with him thisclose to other girls, and then overshared about the whole thing on her blog and Twitter.

  “And the fact that you just walked away from a hit series to pursue your art?” he asked Mom. Huh. Billy Barrett was a reader—at least of feature articles in People and US Weekly. “Talk about inspiring.”

  Pursuing her art. It hadn’t exactly panned out that way, seeing as how barely any offers for roles in any films had come in, let alone for ones in arty, indie films.

  “Do you realize the guts it takes to do something like that?” He shook his head. “Wow. Wow.”

  Okay, we were definitely in flirting territory. Why couldn’t we have run into him in Target instead of Whole Foods? At least if we were in Target, I could have excused myself and gone and bought some Play-Doh and ducked into the bathroom for a quick huff.

  He grabbed her arm. “Do you know who Joseph Campbell is?” he asked, as if the fate of the universe hung on her answer to the question.

  Mom gasped. “Omigod—I love Joseph Campbell!”

  There was a book by this Campbell guy in Mom’s bathroom, which was where she did a lot of her self-help reading.

  “Oh, me, too,” Billy said. “The makeup woman on my last movie gave me one of his books to read before I went to Costa Rica last year—we weren’t involved or anything, just friends,” he added quickly and a little guiltily. “I have to say, the dude just nailed it, you know? Totally blew me away.”

  “Meee, tooo,” Mom agreed, clutching at his arm. “Absolutely genius.”

  “Right?” Billy said. “Now that I have this production deal at Universal, I’ve been thinking about developing a biopic about him. You know, for me to star in?”

  “I love that idea!” Mom exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a picture of him, but I bet you’d be perfect!”

  “Who is he?” I asked. I was somewhat intrigued because of the way they were gushing, but also a little annoyed. Mom clearly forgot there were other people around. Like, say, people who were a tad uncomfortable watching their mothers flirt with guys who were in college when watching her TV show.

  Billy turned to me. “He was the one who came up with that awesome phrase ‘Follow your bliss,’” he explained. He turned back to Mom and smiled. “And that’s exactly what you did.”

  She sure did . . . she followed it right out of a career.

  She sighed. “You know, I can’t tell you how nice it is to feel so . . . understood.”

  This needed to stop. For many reasons. And I needed to get home to my Play-Doh and my Barbie head, and make a list. I pulled at her arm. “Mom, we need to go.”

  Billy looked surprised. “This is your daughter?”

  “It is. This is Annabelle,” she said proudly, with some lash battage. Whenever she introduced me, it was as if she were introducing the baby Jesus. “I had her when I was quite young,” she made sure to add.

  Billy turned to me and smiled. “Well, I definitely see the resemblance.”

  Actually, there wasn’t much of one. Mom was blonde and blue-eyed and English- and Swedish-looking, while I, with my dark curls and brown eyes, resembled my father’s Italian side. But because I just wanted to get out of there, I smiled back before pulling on Mom’s arm again. “Mom. Seriously. We need to go. You know, to make the cookies.”

  “Okay, okay.” She turned to Billy. “Well, it was so nice to meet you.”

  Please don’t ask her for her number, I thought to myself.

  “Yeah. You, too,” he said. He patted around his jeans and took out his wallet and pulled out a receipt. “Let me give you my number—”

  Really? This was even worse. Anyone who knew how to Google knew that the passive-aggressive move of a guy giving you his number instead of asking for yours was the kiss of death. At some point down the line, usually right after you had totally fallen for him, he’d freak and do the pullback thing that at first you’d try to convince yourself would pass in a few days but would ultimately prove to be the beginning of a big blow-off. Which, if you were my mother, would then cause you to drink even more heavily and go that much longer without washing your hair.

  “Do either of you guys have a pen?” he asked us.

  Oh, he was good. From the outline of his smartphone in his jeans, it was evident he could’ve just texted or e-mailed her the info, but some reptilian guy wisdom made it so he knew the importance of ensuring that he avoided having her contact information in his possession.

  “Nope. Sorry,” I said at the exact same time Mom said, “But I bet Annabelle does. She’s very organized.” Without even asking, she took my bag and started rummaging in it. “Here you go,” she said, flashing him another full-wattage smile as she started to hand him one of my Pilots.

  “No—wait!” I said, snatching it away from him. I pulled out a regular old blue ballpoint one instead. “Use this one. That one doesn’t work.” I was not letting him touch the good pen. He’d ruin it, and I’d have to find a whole other brand for my lists.

  As he scribbled down his number and e-mail, I read the receipt upside down. Six hundred bucks at Soho House, which was a members-only club in Hollywood that constantly showed up on the gossip blogs. I had been there a few times for some Sweet Sixteen parties, and every time I had felt like some Midwestern Price Is Right contestant compared to the model-like waitresses with their Keratined hair. Radiohead’s “Creep” blared from Billy’s butt. He stopped writing and flashed an apologetic smile. “Sorry. If I don’t take this, it’ll just be more trouble later.” As he fished his iPhone out of his pocket, I saw Skye’s picture and name flash across it.

  “Hey,” he said as he answered. “I’m at Whole Foods. Let me call you back in a few, okay?”

  I couldn’t make out the words that rushed out of the phone, but I could hear the annoyance in them.

  “Yes, I’m in Whole Foods,” he replied, just as annoyed. “Would you like me to take a picture of the sign and text it to you?”

  He closed his eyes and pressed on the spot in between his eyebrows as he listened to her response. “Okay, I can’t deal with this right now,” he said. “I’m hanging up.” She said something else. “Actually, that’s not passive-aggressive at all, Skye. That’s pretty straight ahead.” He clicked off and shoved the phone back in his jeans before morphing back into the smiling, laid-back du
de he had been pre–phone call. He continued writing down his information. When he was done, he held the receipt out to Mom. “So, yeah, we should, I don’t know, get together and talk more about Joseph Campbell.”

  “Oh, I’d love that,” Mom said, snatching it from him.

  He turned to me. “Nice to meet you, Annabelle.”

  “You, too,” I said. I wondered how I could make it so that the receipt accidentally ended up ripped up and in the garbage.

  He flashed another smile. “You’ve got a great mom here,” he said, looking straight at her rather than at me.

  “Yup. I do,” I said, pulling some more while Mom just stayed put, grinning.

  “Well, I should let you guys go,” Billy said, making no attempt to do so. “Creep” started back up from his pocket, and his smiled faded.

  “Probably a good idea,” I agreed. “Seeing that, you know, we have lots of stuff to do.” I dragged Mom behind me.

  “What were you doing?” I demanded when we got to the aisle with all that baking stuff.

  “What are you talking about?” she replied, peeking around the corner to get another look at him as he paced around the bananas while on the phone.

  “You were totally flirting with him!”

  “Oh, please.”

  I looked at her. “Mom, he’s like almost half your age.”

  “Annabelle, you’re such an exaggerator,” she said. “He is not. He’s, like, ten years younger than me.”

  I whipped out my iPhone and Wiki’d him. “Twenty-six. Actually, he’s sixteen years younger than you,” I corrected.

  She cringed. “He is? Oy.” She fluffed her hair. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like it makes a difference. We’re just two actors who admire each other’s craft and took the opportunity to tell each other that and might get together to talk philosophy.”

  “You’re not actually going to call him, are you? Mom, he’s on the phone with his girlfriend right now.”

  “Well, he sounded annoyed by her, and from what I read in People, they’re very on-off,” she sniffed.

  “If you have a ringtone and picture for someone when they call, that’s pretty much ‘on,’” I replied. Mom had been single for a whole three months, which was like three years for normal people. Her last guy was James, this yoga teacher who had a reputation for giving his students lots of adjustments that included his hands on their butts. But as desperate as she could be for male attention, she never got involved with people who were involved with other people.

  As she reached up and began to rub the area in between her eyebrows, just like Billy, I couldn’t help but laugh. Usually she didn’t start morphing into the guys she went out with until after she had slept with them. “Annabelle, he’s an attractive man. This is Hollywood. You can’t swing a cat without hitting one. I didn’t say I was going to call him.” She started grabbing stuff off the shelves. “Now let’s bake those cookies.”

  I tried to grab the receipt/phone number out of her hand, but she slipped it into her bag before I could snatch it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A HISTORICAL LOOK BACK AT WHAT HAS PASSED FOR A TYPICAL SATURDAY NIGHT DURING THE COURSE OF MY TIME ON THE PLANET

  Ages 0–9 . . . Handing Mom tissues while she cries about how she doesn’t have the energy to go to yet one more audition, then giving her one of the five pep talks I rotated through about why she shouldn’t give up on the acting thing and how it was only a matter of time before she got her big break so we could stop eating Lean Cuisines and go out to the movies instead of watching things on Netflix.

  Ages 9–15 . . . Monitoring how much Ketel One vodka Mom poured into her glass of club soda as she got ready for an A-plus-list party held at a Malibu Colony beach house/famous-architect-designed modern thing in the Hollywood Hills/Spanish hacienda north of Montana in Brentwood given by a smarmy agent/producer/network executive, then giving her a pep talk about how, yes, she did deserve all the fame and acclaim she was getting and, no, people didn’t think she was a fraud. And, yes, I had the credit card number to give the guy at Nobu when I ordered sushi for my friends and me, and of course I would thank them for making an exception and delivering it to me all the way in Santa Monica because I’m Janie Jackson’s daughter.

  Age 15–up until two months ago . . . Pouring out some of the straight Ketel One Mom was drinking and replacing it with water as she got ready for a C-plus-list party held at a smaller/ not as nice/nonfamous-architect-designed house/ condo/restaurant held by a just-as-smarmy agent/ producer/network executive, then giving her a pep talk about how, yes, she was right to follow her gut and walk away from the number-one-rated sitcom on the air so she could fulfill herself creatively with dramatic roles in feature films even though those roles were not being offered to her. And, yes, I would not overtip the Domino’s guy because I understand that while we’re totally okay as long as those residual checks keep coming, we’re no longer made of money now that Mom doesn’t have a steady job.

  Present day . . . Fighting with Mom about her drinking/pills/the fact that, actually, she’s not tired—she’s depressed. Door slamming (sometimes her, usually me). Apology from her about how sorry she is for being so moody—it’s just a really rough time, but that’s no excuse because she’s the mother and should know better, and don’t worry, all that’s going to change because she’s going to get it together this time. She swears. Really. Me accepting apology because it’s either that or watch her stare at me like a puppy that’s been kicked until I do. Going out with my friends to parties but spending more time checking up on her than trying to talk to guys.

  But instead of going to parties, I seemed to be spending more and more time Googling “what to do when a parent’s drinking gets worse,” or working on my photography. Photography is my thing, and I’d found it only recently. Ben and I always hung out on Sunday afternoons—we started doing it about four years ago, first to let Mom catch up on her rest after having spent the week on set and, once she left the show, to sleep off her hangovers. About a year ago Ben took me to a Diane Arbus exhibit at the Getty Museum one Sunday. Photography hadn’t been something I had paid much attention to before, but there was something about the shots—they were from her “Freaks” series—that floored me with how powerful they could be.

  Before then I had never realized how a photograph—even a simple one—could tell a story that was just as descriptive as a four-hundred-page book. It was as if the lighting and composition and angles all worked together and told you a secret. Something you couldn’t put into words. Maybe didn’t feel safe putting into words. But it was there.

  I became obsessed with the Nikon Ben bought me for my fifteenth birthday. Sure, things like Instagram and Hipstamatic were fun, but I preferred old school. The heft of a camera in my hand. Black-and-whites that weren’t Photoshopped to look prettier or heightened with filters. Which, if I ever admitted that out loud, would probably result in my being run out of L.A.

  Dr. Warner thinks that the reason I love photography so much is because it’s something my mom has never had an interest in, so it’s a way for me to define myself as separate from her. Maybe. Or maybe it’s because photography is about expressing things without words. Mom’s not good at being quiet, and I am. I don’t know.

  But I do know that I never feel more like myself than when I’m out and about shooting. When I’m taking pictures, it’s as if the pane of glass that I always feel is between the world and me disappears for a while. Which, seeing that I’m behind a camera, doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. When I’m shooting, it’s like I’m part of the world rather than separate from it.

  Post–cookie making (as usual, Mom’s ADHD made it so that she got bored and wandered off before we had even finished assembling the ingredients, leaving me to make the cookies myself), I was in my room posting a photo I had taken of a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart past a tricked-out Escalade in Venic
e onto my Tumblr when Mom came barging in, holding two of the many vintage 1970s Diane von Furstenberg wrap dresses that she owned.

  “This one?” she asked, holding up a brown and pink print. “Or this one?” She gestured with a purple one with red squiggles.

  I picked up my Nikon and fired off a shot of her.

  “Annabelle, we talked about this—no pictures of me without makeup,” she warned.

  “But you look good. You look like yourself.” I may have been the only person who preferred her without makeup than with.

  “Put the camera down, please.”

  I did. “I missed the part on the Movie and A Manicure Evite about dressing up,” I said, rubbing at a smudge on my white duvet in an attempt to get it out but only making it worse. Like the rest of the house, my room was all Shabby Chic whites and creams. It wasn’t my style, but the decorator had said that it was dangerous to screw with the chi, or energy, of the house.

  “Oh, honey, we’re going to have to do that another time,” she said, walking over to my full-length mirror and holding both dresses up. “I just got a call from Carrie that these reality-show producers from Germany are in town. They want to take me to dinner to talk about doing a show about me, and this is the only night they’re free.” She turned to me. “So which one? The brown or the purple? Keep in mind that one of the guys is single.”

  There was so much about this that was wrong I wasn’t sure what to be more upset about. Was it: (a) Mom didn’t sound even the least bit sorry that not only was she blowing me off after I had canceled my plans for her but she was just telling me in passing; (b) her career was so in the toilet that she was considering doing a reality show; or (c) she was dressing to impress a German guy whom she had never even met? I decided to go with (d) all of the above.

  “Really, Mom?” I demanded.

  She turned away from the mirror. “So you don’t like either of them.” She began to walk out of the room. “Not a problem. I’ll bring some more choices—”