What You Wish For (34 page)

“I . . .”

Julian Wales emerged from the banquet corridor and headed for the restrooms.

“I have to go to the bathroom.” Eva leaped to her feet and bolted before Sawyer could utter a sound.

She sighted on Julian’s bald head like an X-wing fighter on the Death Star. It disappeared into the men’s room. Sparing but a second, Eva barged in after him.

Julian looked up, startled, hand frozen on his belt buckle.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” Eva said.

There was a pause. Eva thought maybe she could have waited.

“Am I in the wrong bathroom?” Julian asked, standing before the row of urinals.

“Oh my goodness, I thought it was unisex!” Eva lied. “I’m so embarrassed. But how fortuitous! I’ve been trying to reach you for days. I’m Eva Lytton.”

He reluctantly let go of his belt buckle to shake her hand. “I know who you are, Daisy Carmichael’s agent.”

“I’ve been looking forward to talking to you about
Cora
. Daisy is quite delighted with the script, and as you saw last week, her test reel was incredible. She’s a natural.”

“I can see that you’re anxious to discuss it.” His tone was wry, and he seemed to be wavering over what to do. Eva prayed he wouldn’t pee in front of her. She didn’t know what she’d do if he unzipped. Instead, Julian walked to the sink and washed his hands, more out of habit than need, since she’d prevented him from his purpose there.

“I haven’t made any decisions, Miss Lytton, which is why there was no point in returning your calls.”

“Eva, please. I’m in the men’s room. That merits a first-name basis.” She was acting like a teenager around a lifeguard’s chair, not a competent negotiator. “Daisy is good. What’s holding you back?”

“Maybe I don’t want to work with a vapid narcissist,” Julian said.

“Daisy is revered by the eighteen to thirty-five female demographic, and desired by the entire male demographic.” “Revered” might be a strong word, but Eva seized on the opportunity to neither acknowledge nor deny that her client was a vapid narcissist. “Her attachment to this project would draw a lower age sector to your already impressive following.”

“If that was my goal I’d cast Taylor Swift.”

“But Daisy has talent. She’s delivered the roles she’s been given. Rom-coms have been stillborn at the box office for years, but
Best Day
grossed $33 million its opening weekend, with Daisy the top-billed actor in the cast. That’s more than
Notting Hill
.”

“It’s not about money.” Julian’s tone suggested he’d made this defense before. She pounced.

“It is to the studio. They love you, Julian, but they have to look at the bottom line. You have a great script and a vision, but you need financial returns or you’ll learn how fast everyone can say Big Screen back to Documentary Short. Remember
The Wackness
? Exactly. Even Ben Affleck couldn’t make an art house movie mainstream without hot talent. Compare
Gone Baby Gone
with
The Town
. Critics loved them both, but one had fading names and the other had rising stars. Guess which one made money?”

Julian made a frustrated gesture. “So I can have a larger audience pan the lead’s performance?”

“I had reservations until I saw Daisy’s sample reel. Julian, she’s fantastic. She showed that with richer material she has the potential to be inspiring.”

“You’re telling me Daisy is a role model?”

“We both know the broken toilet my mom uses as a planter in the backyard would make a better role model than Daisy Carmichael,” Eva said. “But she’s the best actress for this role.”

“Eva, I admire your zealous advocacy for your client. I’m not afraid to tell you the studio’s on your side—they want someone young and fresh. But the decision is mine and I’m still struggling to get my hand around the shape of Cora. Some days she’s old and some days she’s young, and I don’t know which way to jump. I can promise you, you will be either the first or the second person to know when I do.” So it was down to Daisy and Dimple. “Now if you promise not to follow me, I’m going to my room to use the bathroom unmolested.” He walked out of the restroom. Eva followed.

“Julian, Dimple Bledsoe is pregnant.” She changed her character with a sentence.

He froze in his tracks. When he swung around, all color had drained from his face. “What?” His reaction was more intense than she’d expected.

“I have it on good information.”

“No. That’s wrong.” Aghast.

“Ask her.” Eva wouldn’t say more because she didn’t know for sure. Julian’s horror was testing her audacity.

“Why would you say that?”

“I believe it’s true.” The answer to his question was a complex tangle of Eva’s duplicity, cowardice, and self-absorption, but her reply was honest. “In nine months you’ll be reading on the cover of
Us Weekly
how Dimple got her pre-baby body back in just ten weeks.”

“I . . .” He stared at her, speechless.

“She checked herself out of the race, Julian. Daisy should get the part.”

Julian rubbed his hands over a face that had aged ten years. Eva had never felt more terrible. She had to get out of there.

“Call me after you talk to Dimple, and we’ll settle this thing.” She used the last of her bravado to finish. “Daisy’s not a consolation prize, Julian. She’s the real deal, and she’ll make Cora blaze off the screen.” When she walked away, she forced herself not to run.

There was no rest for the wicked. When she returned, the expression on Sawyer’s face indicated that another showdown was looming.

“Welcome back.” His greeting wasn’t warm.

“Sawyer, I don’t want kids.” Eva was exhausted. Broken. She didn’t have the energy to sugarcoat or avoid the issue.

For the second time in ten minutes, she’d caused all color to drain from a man’s face.

“Are you . . . is that why . . . all the trips to the bathroom . . . ,” Sawyer stuttered.

“No.” Even miserable, Eva had to smile. “I’m not pregnant.”

Relief washed over Sawyer and he slumped in his chair. “That’s a mercy.” He hastened to add, “Not that it would have been the worst thing in the world, but it’s better when you choose.” His smile made his eyes do the awesome crinkle thing.

“That’s what I’m saying.” Eva was near tears. “I won’t choose. Ever. I don’t want kids.”

Sawyer was silent for a long time.

“You certainly cannonball into the heavy stuff,” he said, considering her.

“There’s no number low enough to score the awfulness of how I’m handling this,” Eva agreed. “It’s just that I really like you.” She looked at him straight on. “
Really
like you. I know from experience that most men want a family, and it’s hard for me to get attached if things are going to end as soon as the nesting instinct comes home to roost. So it’s better that you know now.”

Eva needed a drink. It occurred to her that they’d enjoy several awkward hours together on the ride back to Los Angeles. Her timing sucked.

“Okay.” Sawyer shrugged, after a long pause. “Then I guess we won’t have kids.” He cut his steak and took a bite.

Eva was dumbfounded. “But . . .”

He looked up from his plate. “But what?”

“You said, the other night, ‘When I have kids . . .’ ”

“I’ve also said when I’m a hundred, when I take flying lessons, and when I take over as coach for the Lakers, Eva. It doesn’t mean that it’ll happen.”

“Sawyer, I won’t change my mind.”

“You might when you try that pasta.” He pointed with his fork. “My steak is much better.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m serious too.” Sawyer became earnest. “Eva, it’s hard enough to find the person I want to wake up to every day. People date for different reasons, but I’m putting all my chips on this mythological thing called a soul mate. It’s rarer than a unicorn with a winning lottery ticket. I want it, that lover and best friend. To have that would be enough. Except maybe a dog.”

“I’m not going to change my mind when I get older,” she cautioned, “or when we get married, or when my best friend has a kid, or when I find the right guy. I’m not saying I don’t want kids
right now
. I don’t want kids
ever
.”

“It would be patronizing to assume otherwise. I’m saying that to find my soul mate, I accept a life without children. The one, rather idealistic, goal is hard enough without putting complicated strings on it. A vacation home on a Greek island is an acceptable trade-off for children, and a lot less expensive.”

He saw the doubt in her face and put down his fork. “Eva, I’m forty-four. I’d feel like a caricature dating a twenty-something, not to mention be bored out of my mind. I accepted long ago that having an age-appropriate relationship meant that my partner was likely past her childbearing years. As it happens, in your case it’s not true, but you’re not wrenching me from a desperately held desire to breed. I want a family, but I’m pretty sure you can make a family without children. Right now, I’d like to continue down this enticing path we’ve begun to determine whether we might be each other’s family.”

It occurred to Eva that she might be dealing for the first time in her life with an actual mature male, something she’d previously considered an essentially cinematic concept. Tears pricked her eyes, but this time the cause was welcome.

“I might love you,” she said.

“Oh, you will.” He smiled. “When you see how much that bottle of wine cost.”

Eva laughed too loud, the dark mass from her chest swirling up into the room and dissolving away like smoke up a vent.

“So,” Sawyer said, as he returned to his dinner. “Am I allowed to get a dog?”

Dimple Colors Outside the Lines

I
’m sorry, darling,” Freya said when she called to give me the official bad news.

“Don’t be,” I said. “I had some good times and got a free rash guard out of it.”

“Frankly, I think the man is . . .
unhinged
for sentencing himself to working with Daisy Carmichael.”

“Perhaps they deserve each other.”

Freya didn’t comment. “Onward and upward. I received something interesting last week. It’s a western actually, sort of a modern—”

“Actually, there’s another role I’m going for.”

Pause. “Without me?” I could visualize Freya’s arched Nordic brow.

I gave an exaggerated sigh. “It’s a pretty amazing part, but I’ve been hesitating because I wasn’t sure it was right for me.”

“Dimple,
darling
, this is why you have an agent. Where did you get this script?”

I giggled. “I think it was given to me at puberty. It’s something I’ve considered for a really long time.”

“You’ve lost me.” I could smell the brain smoke as Freya tried to dissect what I was saying.

“I’m going to try to have a baby, Freya.”

Silence. “A . . .
real
. . . baby?”

“Is there another kind?”

“Well. That’s . . .”

“Unexpected?”

“To say the least. Who’s the lucky fellow?”

“Donor 1124.” I’d fallen for his wry humor and disease-resistant genetic history.

There was a longer pause. “I didn’t see that coming. You’re sure about this . . .
adventure
?”

“Of course not.” I laughed. “I’m not sure what I want to do after lunch!”

“But is it the right time?
Cora
has renewed attention to you.”

“I don’t think there’s a ‘right time,’ but I think sometimes the time can be right. I don’t want to wait too long, Freya.
While I still can
is my right time.”

“And that’s now?”

“When I was a kid I saved all the best pictures in my coloring book for when I was older and had better skills, coloring pictures I didn’t like as much so I wouldn’t mess up the good stuff. When I had the talent, I’d lost interest in coloring. All the best pictures stayed blank.”

“You’ve figured out there’s no crayon police?”

“That and I probably would’ve had a pretty good time messing outside the lines. I used to hate the expression ‘without great risk there can be no great reward.’ It was stupid to me. Better aim lower and be sure of ‘sufficient’ than aim for ‘great’ and miss.”

“Now?”

“It’s not about the reward. It’s about the risk itself. You live in your tries, not your endings. I don’t want to look back and think I didn’t have the career I wanted, or I didn’t have the family I wanted. I want to be too busy looking for a lost tennis shoe while the dog needs a walk and I’ve got pages to memorize but I’m going on a picnic instead.”

Freya said simply, “Good for you, honey.”

“I should know if I get the part in about two weeks.”

We were quiet for a moment.

“I suppose I could tolerate being called Auntie Freya as long as sticky hands don’t touch my Birkin.”

I laughed. “Freya? Donor 1124 is Scandinavian.” He was also tall and bald.

I held the phone away from my ear as she squealed.

“So that script of yours might have to wait a bit.” We both knew it meant more than that.

“Forget it, honey. She was a boring character who colored inside the lines. But I can’t lie to you. This poses career challenges.”

“I know. No one wants to tell you that you can’t have it all. But you can’t have it all. Telling women that if they wait, it all works out isn’t true. You have to make hard choices. I like my career, but I want a baby more.”

“I think you just made my no-heart beat,” said Freya.

“That’s not possible,” I said. “You’re an agent.”