Chapter 55 Ryan

CHAPTER 55 RYAN

2011

Los Angeles to Charleston

Janie and I were sitting in the living room of my fancy Hollywood Hills home. It had five bedrooms, six baths, walls of glass, and low-slung couches. Real A-list movie-star energy. An interior decorator had chosen the artwork. I hated it. She and I had a fling, and for a few weeks I thought she might be more. But one night cooking dinner she told me she wasn’t into books. Magazines, she liked those fine. I paused while sautéing the onions and said, “It’s just a ‘no’ for you on books, across the board?”

She shrugged like it was neither here nor there. Not even worth the seconds we were spending discussing it. Reading had always made me feel closer to the world, and everything in it. I guess it’s no surprise that the art she hung felt violent.

Sipping tea with Janie, comfy in my sweatpants, I thought, once again, that I needed to change the decor. But that house in the Hills was never going to be what I wanted. My heart was in my Los Feliz bungalow.

“Like I’m going to a funeral,” I replied when Janie asked how I was feeling about shooting the final scene of The Very Last trilogy that weekend. After six years playing Persephone, immersed in Cass’s words, her creation, this felt like the final goodbye. Janie frowned, said she would love to join. But pointless, she said, when we were filming just one scene, and not even any dialogue.

When she said pointless , I popped off the couch. I went to the bookcase, scanned the rows until I found my original hardcover copy of The Very Last. The one Matt had couriered to my trailer all those years before. I held the spine in my right hand, let it fall open like it was the Bible and I was a revivalist. I’d pressed the note to Cass between the pages and gently removed it.

The note was wrinkled and worn and with an unfortunate coffee spill on it, but still legible. I walked over to Janie and held it out as evidence of my broken heart, of my need for hand-holding on this final day of filming. She was texting, but when she looked up, she dropped the phone and raised her hands like she didn’t want the note coming any closer. Warding off bad spirits or something. Over the years I’d noticed that Janie, who usually seemed to relish telling me no, bent easily to my will whenever Cass was involved. I suppose unrequited love is a terribly sad thing to everyone, even a ruthless Hollywood manager.

“I get it, I get it,” she said, already back on her phone. “You know, though,” she added without looking up from the screen, “I’ll have to reschedule some key meetings about that script you want for your directorial debut.”

My directorial debut. My hopes were pinned on directing. That it would satisfy something deep within me. By that point, acting and Hollywood were pure emptiness to me. A nagging inner voice wondered if I’d been sold a rotten bill of goods. No pot of gold existed at the end of this Hollywood rainbow.

But who knew? Maybe my love of acting had run its course, but directing would fulfill me. I hoped so. I was about six months from selling everything, shaving my head, and disappearing into the wilderness. (Wilderness = a well-appointed camper with a Chemex and almond milk about fifteen to twenty minutes from a major city.)

“Janie, I need you in Charleston,” I said.

She didn’t miss a beat. “Then I’ll be there, RyRy.”

A Mercedes Sprinter van collected us from our downtown Charleston hotel. Janie spent the drive on her phone. She was now my manager, agent (I fired Matt), and head of my production company, so I couldn’t complain when she slacked on her duties as best friend and confidante. Though she was those things as well.

I had the note to Cass in my pocket. I kept closing my eyes and attempting to meditate. But each time, I was hijacked by a fantasy: Cass appearing after we shoot the final scene. The director calls “cut” and then I see her, walking toward me. The light is stunning because of course it is. Nothing beats the sunsets in Charleston. I Then I remembered I was supposed to be meditating. I wasn’t mad; it was a lovely daydream to step into.

Finally, the van was zipping across Gold Bug Island. Named after the short story Edgar Allan Poe wrote after living there, I’d been told. (And told and told and told… they were proud of him down South.) Then we were pulling into basecamp. The driver parked the van and disembarked. Janie pocketed her phone. Outside, waiting for me, was an ending that I wasn’t quite ready for, but that was coming anyway.

“Tell me how you’re feeling,” Janie said.

I pulled the note out of my pocket, went to unfold it, but Janie covered my hand.

“Forget that for a second,” she said.

“It’s like I want this day to feel, I don’t know, profound somehow,” I said, enjoying the warmth of her hand on mine. “But I’m worried it’ll just feel empty.”

She patted my hand, said, “It’ll feel how it feels.”

I inspected her words, looking for wisdom. Had she given me her best or put her brain on autopilot? I gave her my one-eyebrow look, said, “Is that from Yogi Berra?”

She laughed. “And if it is?”

“He does have some excellent observations,” I offered.

“Exactly,” Janie said, then I watched her turn serious again. I loved that we could do serious-funny-serious in such rapid succession. I remembered that I’d loved that about Cass, too, though that wasn’t a helpful thought right then.

Janie released my hand, turned to face me. “I once spent an entire train ride from Milan to Rome imagining the Coliseum and how transported I’d feel when I stepped inside. But when I got there, it felt like an overrun tourist trap, empty of whatever I’d hoped would fill it, and I’d never been so disappointed. It might still be the most disappointed I’ve ever felt. And I crashed. I felt so lonely I changed my flight to leave a day earlier than planned because I was so miserable. And who wants to be lonely and sad in Rome, with all those people eating pizza and gelato? So, I fly home early and I’m sad and wondering what the point of life is. I mean, if I can’t even find meaning in a place like that?”

She paused and I waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, I asked, “Does this story take a turn toward relevant at some point?”

She fixed me with a look. “And that flight home, that’s the flight I met Nick.”

Nick was her husband of sixteen years.

“What’s the moral of the story?”

She grabbed my forearm, shook it lightly. “You just never fucking know what’s going to happen next in this life—okay?”

I . Note from Cate: The Great Sunset Debate: New York City vs. Charleston.