Selfie (47 page)

“Vinnie’s family,” I said grimly, and watching the horror dawn on Noah’s face actually settled me down a little, because that was
both
of us in our pajamas and bedhead, and I wasn’t in this alone.

With a sigh I got to the door and swung it open, hoping I had a welcoming expression on my face as I did.

“Mr. Walker,” I said, fighting against the gut punch of seeing him again. “I’m so sorry I didn’t know you were coming, I’d—”

Vinnie’s dad was a compact man of Mexican descent, with a full mustache and graying hair swept back from his brow. He swung open the screen door as I stood in the doorway and swept me up in the hardest, fiercest hug, and held me there until my ribs creaked.

“We’re so sorry,” he murmured again and again. “We’re so sorry, Connor. We didn’t know.”

Well
yeah
, of
course
I cried. I was at peace, I wasn’t
dead
.

We probably could have hugged forever—or at least until it got awkward—but Kevin pushed past us abruptly, a big box of what I assumed would be broken tchotchkes in his arms, and shoved through behind his dad.

“Sorry, Dad, sorry, Chris, sorry, Connor, I gotta pee. Jesus, I gotta pee, where’s the bathroom?”

Noah took the box from him and nodded down the hall past the kitchen. “It’s around under the stairs.”

“God, thanks,” Kevin blurted, and then took off like a three-year-old instead of a thirty-year-old, but then, Kevin, Christine, and I had always had the best time at Vinnie’s house over Christmas. He was probably the closest thing the family had to a full-grown child.

Noah heaved the box over to the end table and set it down, and we both looked at each other and winced when we heard the tinkle of a lot of broken things.

“God, I’m sorry,” Christine said, coming in last and shutting the door. She waited until her father-in-law stepped aside and hugged me tight. I returned the hug and kissed the top of her head, and she backed up and smiled. “So cute,” she murmured, pinching my cheek.

I winked at her, and gestured everybody in.

“Uh,” I said gamely, “can we . . . uh, Noah, do we have anything like coffee or milk or—”

“Yeah, we’ve got coffee and milk and some soda, or some beer,” he offered. “Can I get you folks anything?”

“Maybe later,” Mr. Walker said, moving to the couch. “How about right now we sit and tell each other some stories, okay?”

I nodded and glanced at Noah, and we both took the stuffed chairs on either end. It meant I couldn’t touch Noah’s knee, or hold his hand while we had this conversation, but Vinnie’s family could sit together. “Uh, I forgot. This is Noah Dakers, he’s my, uh—”

“Boyfriend,” Mr. Walker said kindly. “We know. In fact, we know a
lot
now that we didn’t, thanks to that password you gave us. What was that from, anyway?”

I grimaced. “Mazynsky,” I said with a sigh. “It’s my real last name. I changed it when I signed my SAG card.”

“Of course.” Vinnie’s dad reached over and patted my knee. “That . . . that makes perfect sense now.” His voice lowered. “Just like your thing on YouTube on the . . . on the anniversary of the day Vinnie died, and . . .” He shook his head and looked sorrowfully at Christine. “I am so ashamed,” he said, his voice thick, and Kevin came out of the bathroom then, hustling across the living room so he could lean over the couch and embrace his father from behind, since Christine was sitting next to him.

“He hasn’t been really coherent,” Kevin apologized, his own voice a little congested. “See . . .” He straightened up as his father gave his arms one last pat, and then he moved to the couch to sit next to his wife. Noah had to shift his knees aside, and Kevin gave him an absent, “Thanks, bro,” before settling down.

“So, see,” Kevin resumed, while his father got himself under control, “the whole family wanted to come—but you just can’t fly that many people to Seattle at a moment’s notice, and Mom is sort of in charge of the troops when we’re all together, so she had to stay back in LA. But Christine felt really bad—she was so upset when she came into the house that day, and she said you’d been just destroyed, so she wanted to come here and make sure you were okay.”

Kevin smiled weakly at me. “And I was worried too. I mean . . . Jesus, Connor. We were just wrecked over Vinnie, but I don’t know how we could have assumed you wouldn’t be, even if you’d just been friends. I guess . . . I guess being sad made us really selfish. We assumed we were the only ones who were hurt that bad. And we weren’t. And we just wanted to sort of . . . I don’t know, get rid of some of that hurt, and we hurt you . . .”

Kevin trailed off, and Christine grabbed his hand with one of her hands, and with the other, she pulled a small laptop out from the bag under her arm and set it on the table.

“Sorry,” she said, and she sounded like she’d gotten most of her crying out of the way. “We . . . we’re doing this badly. We just— Nobody in the family knew. Maybe we can start with that. We’re doing all the talking here, Con. Can you maybe tell us why he wouldn’t tell us? Why you guys would . . .” She took a deep breath. “Why you would spend all that time together, practically married, and he wouldn’t tell us that you were more than friends?”

I swallowed, and wiped my own eyes. Actors are sympathy criers by nature, I guess. “See,” I said, Vinnie’s bright-blue eyes and shy smile flashing in front of me as I spoke, “when Vinnie met me, I was . . . well, I was living out of an abandoned car and sneaking into the gym to shower for auditions. And . . . we . . .”
Sorry, Vinnie—nobody wants their folks to know they were a total slut. I’m going to give the kid’s lie to the parents here, okay?
“We hit it off,” I said with a little smile. “And moved in together that day. And eventually he asked me why I’d been so desperate for money. And when I told him that my parents had . . . had kicked me out, and they’d told all of my friends’ parents not to take me in, and that I’d essentially hitchhiked to Hollywood because I wanted to . . . you know, make my fortune there . . .” I looked at Noah and shrugged. “He got afraid. I mean . . . I don’t have to tell you Vinnie loved you guys, right?”

They all shook their heads, and I felt better about the world as a whole. “Good. Because he thought you guys were everything. We’d talk about his family all the time. It was like gossiping about you guys, that was the substitute for me not having my family, and for . . .” I swallowed, “for the idea that Vinnie and I, we’d probably never have one of our own if we didn’t come out. So . . . so you—you were all we had. He . . . he was just too afraid to lose you.”

Mr. Walker nodded. “Connor,” he said, tentatively, “we looked at my son’s videos. At all of them—all thirty-eight hours of them.”

For the first time since they’d arrived, I had trouble catching my breath. “Thirty-eight hours?” I asked, my lungs laboring in my chest. “I . . . I’ve got thirty-two.”

Mr. Walker looked at Christine and Kevin. “You guys were right—you were so right. You were right we had to come here and show him this. You were right he had to see.” He turned back to me. “The rest of it is video diaries, Connor. And pretty much all he talks about is you. He talks about how you got together—” His lips twitched. “Hit it off? Really? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Noah snorted softly, and I blushed.

“And he talked about rehab, and how bad he felt. Twice, Connor. Twice my son called on you, and you left
everything
and came to his side. He . . . he never forgave himself for that, so you know. And he . . . I’m so mad at him for that, you know?
I
thought you were flaky. Me and his mother, we used to talk about, ‘Oh, Connor, he’s such a nice boy, but he’s going to piss his career away if he doesn’t get his act together.’”

He shook his head. “And we were talking out our asses, weren’t we? Because you
did
have your act together. Your act was taking care of our son. And you did a really good job of it. Vinnie told us so. He told us . . .” Mr. Walker had to look up at the ceiling for a moment to get control.

“He told us about the other men, on those tapes, and how lonely he was. And how he felt horrible when it happened. And how you forgave him. Connor, I can’t imagine how lonely you’ve been in the last year or more. I can’t imagine how much it must have felt like you squandered your heart on someone and those ten years didn’t mean spit. But . . . but I’ve seen my son’s tapes. I’ve seen him talking to you. I’ve seen him crying because he’d hurt you, and I’ve seen him happy because he did something that made you smile.
I
didn’t see what he was hiding, and I’m going to have to live with that regret. But please—I’m sorry about your stuff. I’m
so
sorry. But don’t feel like . . .”

He closed his eyes. “
Please
don’t feel like . . . like you loved him in vain.” His voice broke completely. “You were the best thing my son had, and I’m so grateful you’re here!”

And then I broke, falling on my knees in front of him, and he held my head on his lap and rocked me gently, like a real father, and we mourned his son.

The rest of the day was . . . hard.

We watched those extra hours together, Noah gripping my hand like he was anchoring me in the here and now.

Maybe he was.

I had watched Vinnie’s movies in the past year—that much I remembered. But nothing equaled the full “Vinnie is dead but alive” experience like seeing him on the computer screen, talking into his computer like nobody else would see.

“I’m sorry, Con. I . . . You’re right. You said you were going to call rehab. It’s the right move.”

I remembered that outfit—the one with the brightly striped shirt and the pants tight enough to show his camel toe. The shirt was torn in the picture, and his nose was bloodied, because I’d tackled him when I caught him taking someone else’s painkillers in our bathroom. He’d lied to me for a month, but I’d seen it—the mood swings, the oversleeping, the general bitchiness.

I’d thrown the pills down the toilet, and he’d blackened my eye.

And then I’d stalked out and told him I was calling a rehab center and he’d better pack his bags.

I hadn’t seen him doing this, having this conversation with . . . with me, I guess. Since I wasn’t there.

Oh, Vinnie. I guess this last year wasn’t an anomaly. We both did this, but you did it on screen.

“That one’s too far, Dad,” Kevin muttered. “Did he see the footage from when Connor first went to shoot that
Warlock
show?”

“No,” Mr. Walker said quietly. “But maybe not—”

Kevin found the file and pressed Play.

Vinnie, as he’d looked nine years ago, impossibly young, a little bit of baby fat still on his chin. This was when he’d gotten to play the vampire in all of the sci-fi shows. Everyone wanted him to be redeemed.

“Damn it, Connor. I hate this. I hate myself. You did everything you could to get me up in this business, and now you’re out there, a solid series under your belt, and I’m whining here like a baby. And . . . and last night. There was a guy, and he was so kind, and so sweet, and he just wanted to get in my pants and I . . .”

He broke. “I let him, Con. I’m so sorry. But the whole time, I saw you, in my head. I just missed you so damned bad. And I used rubbers, because I’m not stupid, but I feel so dirty now. How can I touch you when you get in tomorrow when I feel so dirty?”

“Oh,” I said, resting my head on Noah’s waist as he sat on the arm of my chair. “Now I know about the rubbers.”

Noah let out a breath and stroked my hair back from my eyes, and we watched on.

Almost six hours of film. We didn’t stop in the middle—although we were all starving—and there was a line at both bathrooms after the last file played because
everybody
had to pee.

But I watched it all. I watched six hours of Vinnie that I’d never seen before, six hours of him that I hadn’t known I’d had.

And yeah, his father was right. It was almost all about me.

I cried so much I felt clean with it—not just cleansed but polished and shiny, my tires blackened, my chrome wiped down. I was the best Connor I could be, because I’d tapped out all my tears.

In fact, I felt reborn.

After six hours, I was done with the lot of us lurking in our living room, eyes glued to the little screen. Randomly, I asked Vinnie’s family if they wanted to go somewhere to eat. Noah and I got ready in record time, hustling down the stairs with hair that was still drying and clothes sticking to our skin. We’d had a quick naked hug as he’d stepped out of the shower and I’d stepped in, but God—who had words right now?

I had Noah take us to the Rockin’ Surf and Dockn’ Turf while they followed in their rental car. It was local, and they hadn’t seen it before, and it sat partway to Seattle, where they’d booked a hotel in the mistaken idea that it was close enough to Bluewater Bay to not be a nuisance to drive.

I was relieved, actually. They were welcome in my home anytime, and I had high hopes they’d take me up on my offer to come visit the set, but I would be glad when we got some distance between us, just for tonight.