He's Come Undone Read online

  Because of course I liked movies. Movies had once been my life, and deep down they were still my life. I continued to devour director autobiographies, especially the ones that dealt with craft, and I was a rabid fan of French New Wave and directors like François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. And oh, my God, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman had stolen my heart. But I couldn’t tell Julian that. It was all too close to this gig and the truth of who I was.

  “Do you like David Lynch?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure how to play this.

  “There’s a Twin Peaks marathon at the Oak Street this weekend,” he explained. “And there’s a Hitchcock thing at the Riverview. I think they’re screening Rear Window and The Birds.”

  I was a huge fan of both Lynch and Hitchcock. “I might be going,” I said evasively.

  “Which one? Hitchcock or Lynch?”

  “That’s a tough one.” Absolute truth. “Maybe because it’s October, but I’m kinda in a Hitchcock mood, so I’ll probably go to that.” Before he could make his move, I blocked him. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

  “Yeah.”

  And then I left.

  * * *

  A job. This was a job, I kept reminding myself. And really, that’s the only way I could think about it. A job. An acting job with different scenes and different marks to hit. And in between those scenes, I either forced myself to not think about what I was doing, or I defaulted back to the guy needing to be taken down.

  But of course doubts arose, this voice in the back of my head that I kept suppressed most of the time, but when it occasionally surfaced I had to beat it down with a Whac-A-Mole mallet. This was a job. A paying gig, and Julian Dye was a user, a manwhore.

  * * *

  The Riverview was one of those cool vintage theaters that had been in Minneapolis forever. They’d probably replaced the seats a few times, but everything else was like a time machine to the sixties. The pastel colors, the weird ceiling lights, the mint-green sinks in the bathroom, and the black-and-white tile.

  I spotted Julian as soon as I stepped inside the lobby. Dressed in jeans and a gray sweater—plain clothes that made him shine, made me more aware of how beautiful he was with those long legs, firm chest, sharp jaw line, hair over his forehead and ears. He already had his ticket, but with hands in the front pockets of his jeans he talked to me while I waited in line, and then he walked to the refreshment counter where we both got popcorn and a drink.

  “Mind if I sit with you?” he asked.

  I tossed some popcorn in my mouth and shrugged. “Sure.”

  Any real movie buff will tell you the middle of the theater is the prime spot. We sat in the back. The movie ended up being Vertigo. Vertigo! I thought it was going to be Rear Window. I’d probably seen Vertigo five times, but as the plot played out I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable.

  Spoilers ahead, but Vertigo is about a woman who takes on a secret identity, gets Jimmy Stewart to fall in love with her, then she vanishes only to reappear with different colored hair and really new eyebrows. He finally realizes her deception, but is driven a little mad by the whole thing. A lot mad.

  I stuck it out and tried not to squirm, and when it was over and we were in the bright lobby, Julian asked if I wanted to go somewhere for a beer.

  This could be my chance to move directly to the last scene. A drink, then his place. But that wasn’t long enough to break someone’s heart.

  I went for the drink, and after two beers I told him I had to go. I left him there. He looked startled, and I had to wonder if any girl had ever left him anywhere before. No.

  After Vertigo, there were more movies and more drinks and more coffee shops, more jogging and accidental meets that weren’t accidental. One bowling gig where I finally gave him my phone number, and he began texting me at odd hours and I would text him back. We talked about stuff that interested us both, some silly, some serious.

  He finally confessed that he was a fan of Doctor Who. I was too, and I didn’t have to lie about it. That led to text conversations about the best Doctor. Mine was David Tennant, because really? How could it not be? Julian was old-school Who, and preferred Tom Baker. Good choice.

  I began to look forward to his texts. The ones that came early in the morning, and the ones that came late at night, the timing of the text telling me he wasn’t sleeping with anyone.

  The deeper stuff we got into? This took me completely by surprise, but one day at a coffee shop I suddenly found myself talking about my mom’s cancer and how I’d taken care of her until she died. I don’t know how that personal revelation surfaced. I just started talking about death before I really knew what I was doing. And once I put it out there, it was too late. And once I got going, I had a hard time shutting up.

  “Nobody gets it,” I said. “Death. They just don’t understand it. Sometimes I feel so alienated from people my own age, you know?” I was engrossed in finally sharing my story with someone, the mad pounding of my heart overriding logical thought. And maybe I felt kind of safe unloading on him since he’d never connect the dots, and he’d never know the whole story of Ellie Barlow.

  I was so wrapped up in unloading the mother thing and the cancer thing that it took me a while to notice that he was staring at me with a stricken expression on his face. I can’t even describe it, because it was just so odd. Like he suddenly wanted to be anywhere but there, talking to me. Panic in his eyes, followed by a darkness that came over his face, his whole body language changing to that of someone I didn’t even remotely know.

  This time he was the one who left. “I have to go,” he said woodenly.

  He tossed some money on the table, got up, and almost ran from the café.

  People sure didn’t like to talk about death. And then my next thought: Had I blown everything?

  * * *

  Back at the loft, Devon stopped me as I shot for my room to change clothes. He spun his laptop around on the kitchen island. “Have you seen this video?”

  I joined him and he hit Play while we both hunkered down in front of the small screen. It took me a minute to figure out what was going on. A dark bar. Noise. Screaming and chaos. A girl with blond hair and a red dress. Jumping on a guy’s back while she bopped him in the side of the head.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  Devon paused the video so he could look at me with a huge grin. “Yeah.” Back to the laptop. “You haven’t seen the best part.” He hit Play again, and the noise and chaos continued, the final few seconds of me falling to the floor, my dress around my waist.

  “That’s maybe the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen,” Devon said. “It’s already had 500,000 hits.”

  And then I noticed the title: Who’s That Girl?

  Several thoughts collided in my brain at the same time. Had Julian seen it? No, probably not, otherwise he’d have said something. But my biggest concern was my newly-minted anonymity. If this went viral—and it looked like that’s where it was heading-—somebody might figure out who that girl was.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  “You’re gonna be famous,” Devon said, playing the video again, giggling every damn time. “Maybe this’ll even get you an acting job. Maybe you’ll get interviewed on one of those lame morning shows. Yeah, that’s what’ll happen. They’ll fly you to New York and put you up in some fancy hotel, and the next morning you’ll go from one set to the other doing interviews. Hey, maybe you can even get on Letterman or Fallon. Or Conan. This is the kind of stuff Conan would really dig. That way you could go to Hollywood. Next thing you know, somebody will be offering you a sitcom or a movie role.”

  “That’s not gonna happen.” I felt like throwing up. “None of that’s gonna happen.”

  “Something’s gonna happen,” Devon said. “This has only been up about twelve hours. This’ll be big. Big.”

  Time to come clean. “I have something to tell you. About me.”

  When he
saw how serious I was, his smile faded and he pulled up a stool and sat down, chin to hand. “I’m here for you.”

  So I told him. “I’ve done Hollywood. Years ago. I used to be in a fairly popular TV show that a lot of pre-teen girls watched. It was called Mad Maddy.”

  His eyes widened. “Oh, my God. You’re Mad Maddy! My sister watched that show all the time. She wouldn’t miss it!” Then he frowned. “I kind of remember some big stink about money and your mom. Like that typical shit where the mother steals it all and you took her to court.”

  “Yeah. That happened. She was my manager, and she was supposed to be putting a big chunk of my earnings into a trust fund. Instead, she blew it all. Every cent.”

  “That sucks so much. Do you have any contact with her?”

  “She died two years ago. Turned up at my door in LA with nothing. Had cancer. I took her in.”

  “Wow.” He looked stunned. “Just wow.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t tell you earlier because… well, when I rented this place I didn’t even know you, and I wanted to start over. I wanted to leave all that behind.”

  “I get it. I totally get it.”

  “You can’t tell anybody.”

  “My lips are sealed.” He stared at me in this thoughtful way, then got to his feet and pulled me toward the stool he’d just vacated. “Sit down.”

  I sat.

  “Relax and close your eyes.”

  I closed my eyes, but I didn’t relax.

  And then I felt something against my scalp. He was combing my hair. Very slowly dragging the plastic teeth of a comb against my scalp from the front to the nape of my neck.

  “How’s that feel?” he asked.

  I sighed. “Like heaven.” Why did it feel so good to have someone mess with your hair?

  As he combed, he began to hum to himself, some soothing little tune. “I could give you a great updo.”

  “I’d love that.”

  Then he said, “That video is still funny as hell.”

  I agreed.

  Chapter 10

  ~ Julian ~

  “How are you doing?” Dr. Rebecca Adair asked from her chair on the other side of the coffee table.

  I hated shrink day, which wasn’t the same as saying I hated my shrink. Dr. Adair was okay, but everything else…everything else sucked, starting with the room. Like the couch I now sat on, and the coffee table with the obligatory box of tissue, placed right in front of me at an angle so it would look like the positioning hadn’t been orchestrated when in fact it had because there was always that tissue, pulled out just so far, waiting perfectly.

  I imagined Dr. Adair bending over and arranging that box and that single tissue before the arrival of every patient. I had yet to grab for said tissue even though the good doctor tried like hell to get me to break down.

  And that was really the thing, the core of my loathing. The way shrinks wanted you to go over this stuff again and again. Like they wanted you to break. It wasn’t just Dr. Adair. They were all the same.

  I could say that, because I’d had three of them. Two back in New Hampshire where we used to live, and Dr. Adair, someone I’d been seeing once a week since starting school at the U of M. I hoped like hell we could drop it to every other week, because I usually felt pretty good until I saw her. How did that make any sense? You went to a doctor to feel better, not worse.

  I didn’t have to go, and I’d skipped a few visits, but they always called my sister, and she always got after me. The tears. The fear. I couldn’t handle it, so I came. I let Adair poke at my scars, and then I’d leave, and then I’d start to heal, and then I’d go back for the next visit and it would start all over again.

  “I met a girl,” I told her. The words just popped out of my mouth.

  Dr. Adair sat with her back to a window that overlooked a park and jogging trail, her office located in her home. Patients entered through a side door, and I’d never seen what was beyond the room where we met.

  Next to her was a pink orchid with two green fronds and a stem so long and weak it had to be supported with a wooden stick and some twist ties. I mean, come on. I knew orchids were supposed to represent something soothing, but I would often catch myself looking at that damn flower, wondering if it represented her patients, represented me, this person who couldn’t stand on his own. Who couldn’t deal with the world without someone supporting me. She should really have some strong and sturdy plant, something with a thick stem. Maybe a jade plant or cactus or something.

  “A girl,” she said. “What’s she like?”

  “Weird. She’s weird.” She saved my life. She jumped on a drunk guy’s back and smacked him in the head. Of course she hadn’t saved my life. I wasn’t delusional.

  “In what way?”

  “In a good way.” I didn’t want to go into the brawl, because I didn’t want Dr. Adair to know I was hanging out in bars. She’d lecture me about drinking, especially drinking while on medication.

  I leaned into the couch and stretched one arm across the back. “She’s spontaneous. I guess that’s how I’d describe her. And so real. So bluntly honest. I love that.”

  She frowned and looked down at the notebook in her hand, then back at me. Dr. Adair never talked about herself, but she seemed like the kind of person who might be married to a professor. They might have two kids about my age, and two dogs, preferably yellow labs, but maybe some kind of retriever.

  “Julian, I don’t think you’re ready for a serious relationship.” This was the first time she’d ever given her opinion about anything—another annoying thing about psychiatrists.

  “It’s not serious,” I told her. Not yet. “I’m not even sure she likes me.” Especially after walking out on her at the coffee shop. I felt bad about that, but when she started talking about death I couldn’t hang around. I couldn’t even respond because I was afraid I’d fall apart in front of her. And then what would she think? So I left.

  “That’s something I haven’t heard before. A girl not liking you. Do you think that might be why you find her attractive? Because she’s not interested?”

  She could have a point. I thought about her question while I stared at the orchid. What would happen if the twist ties that held it to the stick were removed? Would the flower just flop over? I’ll bet it would.

  “You might not realize it, and you might not want to admit it, but you’re still very fragile,” she said. “And a relationship brings with it a lot of strong and unfamiliar emotions.”

  I closed my eyes and reopened them while pulling in a steadying breath. I would not get pissed. Before I could launch into an argument, she continued with her negativity.

  “As I’ve said before, along with PTSD, I suspect you’re also suffering from post-traumatic growth syndrome. When someone goes through something as traumatic as what you went through they often stop growing emotionally.”

  “So you’re saying I’ll always be nineteen.” That was bullshit. Total bullshit.

  “No, not always.” She riffled through her notes, then looked back up at me. “You’ve been out of the mental institute over a year, and you’re doing fantastic. I just don’t want anything to happen that could set you back, that’s all.”

  “I like this girl.”

  “Like you liked all of the others.”

  “Others? What others?”

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve mentioned girls.”

  “This is different. Those girls… they came on to me. I met them at parties. They were just one-night stands. They were just looking for a good time. This is different. Totally different.”

  “Because she doesn’t like you? Because she didn’t come on to you? I think that’s what it is, Julian. This is what I mean by post-traumatic growth syndrome. Yes, emotionally you might be nineteen. Or even younger. You are reacting to this girl with the emotions of a teenager rather than a twenty-three-year old. I think you’re reacting to all girls with the emotions of
a teenager.”

  I wanted to get up and walk out like I’d done the other day with Ellie. I was starting to see a pattern in my behavior.

  “These girls. How many have there been?”

  “I don’t know. Six? Seven?”

  “You don’t know how many girls you’ve been with since you moved here?”

  “No, I haven’t kept track.”

  “Have you used protection?”

  I could feel my face getting warm. “Yes.” Was that any of her business?

  And then she got around to what was really bugging her. “Are the girls just objects to you? Interchangeable? Disposable?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  God, were they? Was she right?

  All along I’d justified my behavior because they came on to me, they asked me out, took me home, made the first move. All of them. So what if I never called them back? That was part of the college game, right? And they got what they wanted out of me. That’s what I figured. Beyond the sex, I just hadn’t been interested.

  “They wanted it.” I tried to explain. “They all wanted it.”

  She watched me in that calculating way of hers. With an expression that said she thought I was full of shit and she was just waiting for me to come to my senses and admit I’d used them. God, maybe I had. I didn’t like where this was going.

  The whole thing had been so heady. I’d started college and suddenly there was this buffet of beautiful girls who were attracted to me. And they were hot, and they were horny. Had I done anything wrong?

  She must have seen she was upsetting and confusing me, because she changed the topic, moving to something safe. “What about running? How’s that going?”

  “I have a marathon coming up,” I said, relieved to talk about something else. “Training for that. It’s not school-related. Just something I want to do.”

  “And classes?”

  “I like most of them.” But she probably wasn’t interested in how much I liked or disliked them. “I wish I could have gotten into the Kurt Cobain class since they only offer it every few years, but it was full.”