Chapter 37 Ryan

CHAPTER 37 RYAN

February 2007

Los Angeles

So is Hollywood everything you dreamed of?” I asked Cass on one of the last days before I had to leave for Charleston. It was early afternoon. The sun was full strength. She was lowering herself into the pool. I was lying on the Moroccan tile, my right arm dangling in the water. She pressed her lips against the inside of my elbow, and I wished we were in bed again, but the sun had put me in a kind of coma, and I felt immobilized.

“Let’s see.” Cass crossed her arms on the tile and put her chin on her hands. “I’m next to, literally, the most beautiful woman in the world, the sun is out, we can have anything we want, and work hasn’t crossed my mind in weeks—yes, I think it’s everything I dreamed of.”

Plenty of ways for me to respond to that. But, of course, I couldn’t get past the compliment. It made me wonder what other women, if any, Cass had loved, so I asked her how long she’d known that she liked women. She turned her head to the side, her left temple on her hands, and looked at me.

“How long have you known?” she countered. Her tone was light and flirtatious, so I didn’t mind answering my own question.

“Hmmm,” I said, my eyes closed against the sun, more relaxed than I’d been in years. “You mean in addition to Notting Hill ?” I opened my eyes just long enough to wink at her before continuing. “I think fifth grade. Kansas. We were going on a school field trip, and the boys were asking girls to sit with them like it was the elementary school version of the prom or something.”

The sun had me feeling almost stoned. As I told the story, I felt myself back there—that fifth-grade classroom with maps of the world on the walls, the dawn of my sexual consciousness.

“This boy named Mark asked if I’d sit with him, and I had this physical reaction like, absolutely not , because the only person I wanted to sit next to was this girl in my class named Ashley. We were kind of friends, but I wanted to be, you know, better friends, and so I told Mark that I already had a seatmate, Ashley, then I turned to Ashley and said, ‘Right?’?”

“Oh God, I’m worried for you, Ryan.” Cass leaned over and touched her lips to mine, armor against my impending devastation. “And what did your one true love say?”

“She said—and I kid you not, I’ll remember it for the rest of my life—she said, ‘I think I’ll sit with Mark.’?” I shook my head slowly, as if reliving the pain.

Cass pretended to stab herself through the heart, then let her body slowly slip beneath the water—a silent, lovesick death. She absolutely could have been a movie star , I remember thinking in that moment. One eye squinted open, watching her go under, resurfacing with her hair slicked back and beads of water clinging to the ends of her eyelashes.

“Fuck,” I said. “You’re aware of how sexy you are?”

“No and yes,” she said, then smiled. “Although that was probably a rhetorical question.”

“It was, but I like when you answer all of my questions—rhetorical or otherwise.” I wasn’t really thinking about the one question she’d left unanswered (for the whole world), but as soon as I said this, I could feel her body tense ever so slightly. I brought my hand out of the water and brushed her bottom lip with my thumb, left it there until she slowly opened her mouth and let me inside. She was watching me the entire time. Once the tension released, I said, “Your turn, please. How long have you known?”

She lowered her mouth to the water. Her bottom lip was just below the surface, her mouth half-filled with pool water. I waited. I was willing to be patient for this answer. After a few moments she lifted herself an inch. The water was at chin level. Whenever she decided to tell me something about herself, I felt relieved. I was one small step closer to knowing her fully. (But always it was hovering: Why, why, why did she need to be anonymous? What happened all those years ago?)

“It was summer theater camp, and I was probably a little younger than you were on the field trip. There was this small outdoor theater behind the local library, near the lake, and we’d break into groups and at the end of the week we’d put on a play. That was the whole camp. It was amazing.”

Here she paused and lowered her bottom lip below the water again, filling her mouth, and again I waited, watching her closely and wishing I could be inside her head. She was so careful. With all her words. I was wondering if I should be more careful with mine. And yet Cass seemed to be handcuffed in some indescribable way.

“Amanda,” she said after a little while, and hearing that name and the way she said it— reverence is the word that comes to mind—I felt certain she was telling me something important. I’d been letting the sun daze me, but now I propped myself on an elbow. I made it as casual as possible so that I didn’t startle her back into silence with my sudden, undivided attention. She continued: “Her name was Amanda and that week she was the only thing I could think about. Every morning I would wake up early and pop out of bed, just because I knew I was seeing her. She had these clear jellied sandals, but she’d painted them herself, like an ombré rainbow or something, and they were the coolest thing I’d ever seen.”

The way Cass spoke, with such precision, I was mesmerized watching her lips form the words. The way her pink tongue—were all tongues so pink?—peeked out between her teeth. When she mentioned the jellied sandals, she closed her eyes, and I knew she was conjuring them in her mind. “After that first summer camp, we were inseparable,” she said. “She was the only friend I ever needed—and really the only one I wanted in that small town. We did everything together, but we were never… she never… we were friends. It wasn’t like that for her, I guess.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t?” I couldn’t imagine being near Cass and not wanting to touch her, to make her my own. This Amanda, maybe she just hadn’t known it yet.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Cass said, then she let herself slip under the water again. I leaned over the side to watch her, the ripples distorting her image, but I thought I could see the heels of her hands pressing into her eyes. Amanda , she was something big, I could tell. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t want Cass to disappear into herself. I debated what to say next. Should I ask, or shouldn’t I?

My curiosity outweighed my caution. Once she came up for air, I waited a moment, then asked, “What happened—with Amanda?”

She ran her hands through her hair. She dipped her head left and right, shaking water from her ears. I could feel the energy, thickened by the churning of her mind.

“There was an accident.” She lifted her eyes and met mine, briefly, before dropping them again. She began cupping the water with her hands. “She was in an accident.”

“Is she okay?”

She inhaled deeply. “No, she di—”

But just then a knock came from the back of the house. Janie appeared at the sliding door, pulling it open. In her hands was a thick binder. As she walked toward us, she held it aloft and shimmied it back and forth as if to say, Here it is!

It was the latest script for The Very Last . Janie didn’t ask if now was a good time. Nor would she care. She sat at the outdoor table and started flipping through the pages. Cass lifted herself out of the pool, wrapped a towel around her waist, and joined her. “Wow, so it’s really happening,” she was saying, and I could hear in her voice how happy she was to switch topics.

Cass and Janie had interacted a few times by then. (Sorry, NDA.) During her most recent visit, Janie had cornered me in the kitchen and asked, “What’s going on with you two?” And in response I took as big a bite of my toast as I could fit in my mouth. I I chewed slowly, then shrugged.

“Dude,” Janie had said, which made me laugh. I liked being called “dude.” It helped balance out the hyperfemininity I had to exhibit almost everywhere else. Plus, this dude , she said it like an exhale—it had so much loaded inside. If Janie had asked, I could have listed everything she’d infused it with. Instead, while still chewing, I said, “You worry too much. It’s going to be fine.”

She scoffed. “Do you know how famous you are now? I know you’ve been holed up in here, but it’s bananas out there.” She pointed to the outside world, and I pictured a frenzy of paparazzi and car chases. “You’re telling me you’ve decided to date someone whose goal in life appears to be maintaining absolute secrecy concerning her identity? And you think I’m worrying too much ?”

Okay, when you put it that way! I said something like “Point taken,” but my brain was on the drug of love and no doubt that was distorting everything. A few hurdles, that’s all they were. We’d figure them out.

Janie leaned into me and whispered, “To be clear, the only thing I’m worried about is you and your beautiful heart.” Then she snatched the peanut butter toast out of my hand and said, “Wardrobe fitting next week, help me out here.”

I . Note from Cate: I’m thankful that Ryan included these parts about her losing weight for The Very Last . We never talked about it, but watching her hardly eat for weeks on end made me question if I would have enjoyed being an actor as much as I’d assumed I would as a kid. I never considered the underbelly of it—only the shiny parts.