Up & Out - Ariella Papa [46]
I decide to start reading my book over again.
When I get home, the house is empty except for my easy chair and coffee table. Lauryn is sitting in it. Her eyes are red; she is staring at the corner where the TV used to be.
“What’s up?” I ask, plopping on the floor next to her. I kept looking in the corner where the TV used to be, too.
“I’m all done. I’m exhausted.”
“So you don’t want to have one last drink in NYC?”
“No, I’m gonna hit the old sack.” She punches the air with her fist. “Hey, did you talk to your friend Seamus?”
“No. Did he call?”
“Yeah, he said he hoped you had a good weekend. I told him to try your cell.”
“I had it on, but he didn’t call. What time are you leaving tomorrow?”
“Early. The train, then the ferry, then who knows.” Lauryn stands up and opens her arms. “No big scenes, okay? I can’t. I’ll call you when I get there.”
I start humming “Memories” and she swats me and then meows.
She goes into the bathroom. She’s sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag.
“You can have my bed if you want.”
“No thanks,” she yells. “I’m fine.”
A minute later she peeks her head out of the bathroom. Her toothbrush is stuck inside her foamy mouth.
“Byth the way. Betsh nevah called.” She goes back into the bathroom and I hear her spit into the sink.
When I get to work on Monday there is a three-page memo about using music in episodes from Delores. She slipped it under everyone’s door. The memo doesn’t just say you can use Library A for music and Library B for effects, but never ever Library C. No, it details the entire process that Delores had gone through to arrive at the four-page form that we have to fill out in triplicate whenever we use our CDs from the stock music library.
There is also a message from Seamus, left on Sunday night. He hopes I had a good weekend and that we can hang out Tuesday night.
If I didn’t know better (and I wasn’t sure I did), I would think he was trying to avoid actually talking to me.
Maybe I’m just being paranoid. He had mentioned Zarela on the message. A guy who didn’t want to see me wouldn’t be taking me for upscale Mexican. Would he?
I am distracted by the double ding warning of another “urgent” e-mail from Delores to all of the executive producers.
Hello all,
Happy Monday! Hope you all had a terrific and restful weekend. What does that word mean again (ha! ha! LOL). I’m certain you all got my memo about the new procedure for music cues. (What, more forms? Hee! Hee!) Well to make things even more convenient, I am sending you the memo in this nifty attached file. I know you’ll all want to fill these out for any future shows, but in addition to that it would be real troubleshooting to fill out forms for all past episodes.
Thanks, all.
Best,
Delores
P.S. The word of the day is mayhem with a y.
Is she giving us a spelling lesson or trying to be cute? Past episodes? The dwarf is crazy. The word of my day is Dwarf with a capital D for fucking Dwarf Dramatic Delores.
And yet another Monday spent with the door closed….
When I get home, Lauryn is gone. The apartment feels lonely and empty. I feel unsure of everything. The people I care about I can’t seem to connect with and the people I’m not sure of or just plain don’t like are taking up most of my time.
I remember my dream from last night. I was looking for Esme in her schoolyard. There were kids everywhere, but I couldn’t find her. I knew she was around, the way you know things in dreams, but I never found her.
I am so unsettled, nothing feels like it should. I check the messages. There is a message for Lauryn from Beth. It is 10:45 and I haven’t eaten dinner. I never called Seamus.
It seemed too late for everything.
10
Man in a Suitcase
There is nothing like having to move that makes you want to give it all up and become a monk or a nun or whatever you could be that requires no earthly possessions. The only point of earthly possessions is to collect dust. And dust brings you down. Apart from the knowledge that magnified dust is actually a killer-looking