Adulation (44 page)

Teresa straightened in her seat and clapped her hands together. “Ooh, yes! How exciting!”

On the Kingsmen Studio lots, Danny drove Teresa around in a golf cart, pointing out classic sets for famous shows, including the
 
Winters in Hyannis
 
family compound, modeled after the actual Kennedy compound. She took it all in like a child at Disney World, wide-eyed and open-mouthed and speechless, save the occasional
 
Oh. My. God.
 
Occasionally someone would look up and wave to Danny, shouting a hello or something inaudible to him. He was delighted to find Robbie Marsh on a break, dressed in a baseball uniform for a new movie, and he motioned him over to introduce her (“a friend of my assistant,” he said) and request an autograph on her behalf. Robbie signed the back of her café receipt before posing for a photo that Danny took with her smartphone.

“Allow me,” said Robbie, who then took her phone and snapped a photo of her and Danny. Another surreal moment overtook him, yet she didn’t seem to feel it. Perhaps she was too enamored with having just met
 
the
 
Robbie Marsh.

“We should get back,” said Danny, and they returned to his office. “What are you going to tell your friends?” he asked her along the way.

“I’m not sure. Hard to keep this from them. But I swear, I won’t tell a soul, except for Kelly, my best friend in the world. We’ve known each other since we were kids, even before the accident. You can trust her. And I promise you’ll not see any pictures on Facebook or anything like that. Especially the one of the two of us together.”

“You can show and tell anyone anything you want,” he said. “And you’ll send me a copy of that photo, right?”

“Of course.”

The car was already waiting for Teresa when they pulled up to Danny’s office.

“Listen, there’s one more thing,” she said before departing. “All that money you gave me over the years? I hope you don’t mind, but I donated it—well, most of it.” She didn’t wait for his reaction. “I know you wanted me to have it, and I really, really appreciate your giving me so much. But it just never felt
 
right
 
to take it—and I never thought you were bribing me or anything like that,” she added quickly. “It’s just...you never
 
needed
 
to. You quit drinking. And you paid all my medical expenses and made it possible for me to go to the college of my dreams. That’s atonement enough.”

Danny trembled all over.
 
That
 
was atonement enough? Nothing could atone enough.

Then he heard a voice, something Raj had said many months ago:
 
The little girl
 
lived
, Daniel.

She was standing there, right in front of him, and she was OK. She had been OK all along.

Finally the dam broke, and the remorse, regret, guilt, and shame rushed out, trickling down his cheeks and coursing through his bloodstream and pounding in his temples.

“I’m sorry,” he cried. “I am
 
so
 
sorry.” He said it repeatedly, and whether he took her into his embrace or she took him into hers, he couldn’t be sure.

She had succumbed to emotion as well. “It’s OK,” she said, “I know you are.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for your forgiveness.”

They held each other for a long time. He didn’t want to let her go. And yet he knew that if he did, he’d be OK.  But he couldn’t bring himself to look at her when he finally did. At least not immediately. He wiped his eyes, which had started to sting, and pushed his hair back with both his hands and tried to take a couple of slow, deep breaths. He wanted to erupt into a wail, could feel it bubbling, but willed it back.

“Thank you for contacting me,” he said. “That took a lot of guts.”

“I never hated you,” she said “I mean, I thought I did. I hated the person my parents told me to hate. I don’t know why, and maybe I should, but I don’t hate
 
you
 
and I never will.”

“I have. Enough for both of us,” he said. He’d never admitted that to anyone other than Raj.

“But you don’t have to anymore,” she said. “There’s no point to it. I mean, you’re sorry—anyone with eyes and a brain can see it. You made a huge, big-ass mistake fifteen years ago—I’ll give you that. It was cruel and thoughtless and beyond stupid. But it was a mistake. It’s not who you are.”

“Who am I?” he heard himself ask, uncertain of where the words came from.

“You’re free, if you let yourself be.”

She said it with such authority, and it stunned him. Suddenly the meaning had become clear as day. He’d given up the alcohol, but he’d never given up the guilt and the shame and the punishment. Those things had consumed him, become him.
 
But it’s not who you are.

He wasn’t his father, nor was he the worthless boy he’d always felt in his father’s presence. He wasn’t his mother either. He had a voice, and he’d been using it.

He also wasn’t Danny Masters. He was not a man to be revered, praised, bestowed with awards and accolades and adulation. Neither was he to be belittled, demeaned, or abused.

He was in recovery. He finally knew what the word meant. Finally understood it. He finally felt as if the word applied to him.

He was a writer. Or perhaps he just wrote for a living, and wrote well.

He was a father. And that was the one thing he never questioned, the one part of him that never felt fraudulent.

Teresa smiled and waved good-bye from the open window as the car drove off and left himstanding there, lightheaded. Danny went up to his office (he’d given Dez the rest of the day off) and closedthe door. Then he sagged into his sofa and his body let go. He wept again—let forty-five years of emotionout, and when he was finished, he closed his eyes.

He slept there all night. When he woke up, Dez was hovering over him with a wet towel on hisforehead.

“My God, you scared the shit out of me,” she said, her voice shaky. “Another ten seconds and Iwas gonna dial nine-one-one.”

He felt disoriented as well as an inexplicable lightness, the cliché of an anvil having beenremoved from one’s body, only on the inside. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve believed he couldfly out the window and to his car.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“It’s a little after eight in the morning. You were here all night. I thought you fainted.”

Danny laughed. Like a giddy, crazy person.

“What’s so funny about that? Geez, what if you really had fainted and got a concussion?” she asked, more as if she were talking to herself.

“I’m fine,” he said, and he hugged her. “Wow,” he exclaimed, noticing for the first time, “you smell good!”

“That does it,” said Dez. “I’m taking you to the ER.”

Danny laughed even harder.

Wait until he told Raj!

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Sunny Smith

I
 
ANNOUNCED MY
 
resignation to Angela in the conference room, with Phil on speakerphone, my voiceshaking on every word. Georgie was with me, holding my hand. As expected, they were shocked, yetsupportive.

“I don’t have to tell you how much we’re going to miss you,” said Phil, “but given your recentsuccess, it’s time.”

“Thanks,” I said, squeezing Georgie’s hand and trying to keep my composure.

Angela was crying. “First Georgie, now you.”

“I’m assuming Josh knows,” said Phil.

“Actually, he doesn’t. I’m telling him tonight, so please, don’t say anything.” Gossip circulated thecompany like blood through arteries—it wouldn’t have surprised me if Josh had somehow found outbefore Phil even picked up the phone.

I texted Josh immediately afterward and spent the next hour trying to work off the anxiety ofwaiting for him to call me, plunging my box cutter into the shipment like a knife into a pumpkin. I nearlyjumped out of my skin when the stockroom phone rang.

“What’s up, Sun,” said Josh in his manager’s voice. We’d not spoken since he’d angrily left myapartment the other night.

“I was wondering if I could come out to Jersey tonight and meet you.”

“Everything OK?” he asked.

“I just really want to see you.” I knew my attempt at a casual, loving-girlfriend tone was betrayingme, that he could see right through it.

“I’m in Connecticut today. Why don’t I take the Port Jeff ferry and meet you at your place.”

Already the guilt was needling me. “No, I think it’s best if I come to see you,” I said.

“OK,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”

He was dressed casually in Dockers and a button-down shirt when I arrived and sporting a slightfive o’clock shadow. He looked handsome, yet tired. He drove us to a café in town, where he bought me alatte and a slice of peanut butter cheesecake for us to split, although I couldn’t even swallow one bite. Wesat opposite each other, and he could read the fear on my face.

“Before you say anything, I want to apologize for the other night,” he said. “You’re right, I wasmoving too fast.”

I took in a deep breath.

“I officially put in my two weeks at Whitford’s today,” I said.

The muscles in his face relaxed as he broke into a grin. “Sunny, that’s fantastic. I had a feelingsomething was up when I spoke to Phil today.” He reached for my hand, and I let him take it. “I knowwhat a big step this was. It must be scary for you. And I know I wasn’t supportive of  you the other night—you blindsided me, that’s all. But I just know it’s going to work out for you. And I’m sure you checkedyour rankings today. I think you’re going to be in the top one hundred by the end of the month. You’re at

least set for the rest of this year, financially speaking.”

Please, please stop being so wonderful and supportive right now. Be a jackass, will ya?

“Josh,” I started. “There’s more.”

“What?”

I took in another breath. “I...” God, this was hard. Even worse than resigning. “I don’t think weshould see each other anymore.”

A tear slipped down my cheek as I watched his demeanor turn to one in which he’d just beensucker punched.

“Say that again?”

I was about to open my mouth when he put up his hand to stop me. “Never mind. I heard you thefirst time.” He looked flabbergasted. “Look, I admit I was rushing things, but
 
this
?”

“That’s just it, Josh; looking back on it, I don’t think you were rushing things. But it scared me, and I think the reason why was because I realized this is not what I want.”

“Why?”

He had been in cheerleader mode as he listened to me. Then he was human Josh, real Josh—vulnerable and visibly heartbroken—and it pained me not to be able to reach out and touch him and lovehim the way he’d wanted me to, the way I wanted to at that moment.

“I wish I knew. On paper, we’re the perfect match. We can talk to each other, and you’re funny andsupportive—I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for all you did to  help me get published and make mybooks a success. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

I stopped to search for words while he waited for the next stab wound.

“But I don’t want to make the same mistake with you that I made with Teddy—and I’m notcomparing you to Teddy,” I said quickly. But he took offense anyway.

“And what mistake is that?” he asked, a bite to his tone.

“Teddy was perfect on paper too. At least when we first met he was. But something was missing. Iwas in love with the idea of the package Teddy was selling me—house, kids, picket fence—you name it. But it wasn’t
 
my
 
package. It wasn’t my
passion
. I didn’t feel for Teddy the way you should feel whenyou’re going to spend the rest of your life with someone you love. Like you can’t wait to get up everymorning. I know every relationship is work, but honestly, it was manual labor with Teddy.”

“And what, you think that’s your fate with me? I’ve never made any demands on you other than foryou to better yourself for
 
you
, not me.”

“I know,” I cried. “And I love you for that. I really do. You’re so
 
not
 
like Teddy. That’s why Ireally wanted to make it work. But I don’t feel that passion for you that I should. You deserve that fromsomeone.”