Coming into Focus, page 16
“All right.”
“Why didn’t you ever visit us after you left? You weren’t even far. You could have—”
“I did come!” she said. “I was there so many times. You refused to have anything to do with me.”
“Me?” I was surprised. “No, I didn’t.”
“Don’t you remember? When I came to the house, you wouldn’t even leave your room. Your dad forced you to get in my car once, but the way you screamed, we were afraid you were going to make yourself sick. We tried having me stay at the house and having your dad go somewhere else, but you locked yourself in the bathroom and refused to come out or even speak. You stayed in there until your dad got home.”
“I don’t remember that,” I said suspiciously.
There was a memory teasing at the back of my mind, though. Falling asleep on the bathroom floor, then waking up and listening with my ear pressed against the door. Had I been in there to avoid her? I couldn’t swear it hadn’t happened.
“Why didn’t you spend time with Toby?” I asked. “If your story is true, and I’m not saying I believe it, why did you punish him?”
“I didn’t. Those years, when you were in second and third grade, I came over to get him when you were in school.”
“Then you stopped?”
“I did,” she said after a long pause. “He didn’t like coming with me. He’d cry and ask for you, and I—yes. I stopped. He didn’t want me, and your dad and I agreed it was probably doing more harm than good. So, we stopped.”
“What about when Dad died? We never heard a word from you. You didn’t even come to his funeral.”
Her voice was gentle. “Did you want me to? I worried my being there would make it worse for you and your brother. Was I wrong?”
“I don’t know!” I got up and paced. “Why are you asking me for answers? I don’t understand why you—why you—how you could—we were babies.”
I paused and swept my hair back away from my face. My voice was raw when I spoke again. “You were his mom. He asked for you in the hospital. Over and over. He was scared, and it hurt. He didn’t understand what was happening, and you weren’t there. I was terrified. I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t know how to make it better, and Dad was shattered. Why did you leave?”
Her breath caught. “There isn’t anything I can say to make it okay for you,” she said eventually.
“Try,” I demanded.
I sensed her hesitation. I was asking the impossible, but I didn’t care. I waited until she spoke. “When Toby got sick… I wasn’t strong enough to handle it. I didn’t have what it took. Moms are supposed to be able to fix everything, and I couldn’t. I felt like such a failure, and I was scared all the time. And Bob was there, and I … he didn’t look to me to do the impossible. He made me feel like I was enough, like I was safe. When everything came apart—I couldn’t do it. You guys needed me, but I wasn’t strong enough, and I left. I wish I had a better answer for you, but that’s the truth. It’s that simple and that ugly. I couldn’t cope, so I didn’t.”
“I don’t forgive you,” I whispered. “We needed you, and you left.”
I hadn’t forgiven myself, either, but that was different.
Her voice was uneven when she said, “I’m not asking you to forgive me. But if it’s ever a possibility… I would like to see you.”
“There’s no reason for it. You weren’t there when I needed you, and I don’t need you now.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you for paying Toby’s tuition. That’s what I called for. Goodbye.”
After I ended the call, I crawled into bed and curled up under my blankets with a pillow over my head.
I wanted to call Eric. He’d be able to reason through it with me.
Jimmy would say something outrageous and make me laugh.
Oliver could hold me.
Before I drifted off to sleep, it occurred to me that I’d claimed I couldn’t understand how my mom could leave us. I’d said if she loved us, she’d have stayed… but sometimes maybe it wasn’t completely black and white.
I told myself my situation was different. I wasn’t like my mom. Jimmy wasn’t my child. I left him, but it wasn’t the same thing as a mother abandoning her children.
He was probably fine.
I reached for my phone. I’d just check. I’d skim their Twitter or Instagram, and—
No. I set my phone screen-down back on my nightstand.
I’d left. It was over. I was going to focus on my own life now, and everything was great.
Chapter Eighteen
A terrible chore awaited me the next morning: paying bills. To make it even worse, I hadn’t been exactly organized. Some paperwork was in my room, there were stacks on the kitchen counter, random things crammed in pockets, and a pile of unopened mail on the table by the front door. I made a stack on the kitchen table, poured myself a whiskey for courage, and settled in at the table for a marathon session. I promised myself a second whiskey when I made it through the pile.
I sorted receipts to record and bills to pay. When I got to the folded-up paper, I flattened it and started skimming it before I realized what it was: the contract Jimmy sent Hope. I skimmed the document for a void stamp or an end date, but there wasn’t one. I flipped through the pages until I came to the photo clause. It had a big “X” drawn through it. “Clause voided per Jimmy Standish,” it said, with Hawk’s initials. It was backdated to my first day with Jimmy.
I stared at it, processing what it could mean. Jimmy would probably have sworn to himself never to mention my name or think about me again, yet he did this for me. It felt like an apology.
I hadn’t finished processing it when my phone buzzed with a text.
It was from Hope. Go check your email. Then CALL ME.
I powered up my laptop and opened the email Hope forwarded me, with the subject line: “FW: Photo Release for Willa Reynolds.” The scanned attachments were standard releases, signed by Jimmy Standish and Benny Walker, making it even more explicit that I could sell the images I’d taken of the two of them together. Hope’s message above was brief: What do you have???
I sent back an email with a few of the best images. About three seconds after I hit send, my phone rang.
“Holy fucking shit. How long have you had these? Do you realize what you’ve been sitting on?”
“Hi, Hope.”
“Are you crying?”
I cleared my throat. “I’m fine.”
“There’s a Benny Walker story you haven’t told me,” she said. “I’m no leg expert, but I suspect those are your thighs those boys are between. Am I right?”
I felt my cheeks get warm. “Does it matter?”
“Not to me. You should come in and meet with Ken. I’m not the one who told you this but aim high. If he doesn’t make you a good offer, shop them somewhere else. You have more?”
“Yeah. I have a lot.”
“More of Jimmy?”
“More of all three of them. Jimmy, Eric. Oliver.” I started to tell her I didn’t have the right to those photos, then I realized I did. The contract was backdated—I owned the pictures I’d taken.
I owned every one of them.
“This is just off the top of my head,” Hope said, “but Ken might want to run a feature on it. ‘On the Road with Corporate,’ or something. Pitch it to him. Aim for a special off-cycle edition, but don’t settle for less than an eight-page insert.” The dollar amount she named made my throat go dry.
I tossed back my whiskey when we hung up, then emailed Uncle Ken and scheduled a time to meet with him. Head spinning, I returned my attention to my bills and statements.
Then I got yet another shock.
My statements for the house, my second mortgage, both credit cards, and my car all showed lump payments and a zero balance. On top of that, my bank statement showed continuing weekly payments from Corporate. There must be a mistake because there were only the regular, smaller bills to pay—our phones, the electric bill, water, wireless internet. Even after I’d paid them, I was going to have a balance.
All those loans were through the same bank. They must have had a systems failure. The devil on my shoulder told me to run with it, but I wouldn’t have any peace if I did. I was going to have to call and get it fixed, no matter how much I didn’t want to.
Twenty minutes later, I had an answer. Sort of. It wasn’t a mistake. Every cent of debt was paid. The guy I talked to on the phone wasn’t able to tell me who, but he said I could come in next week and meet with the manager, who could possibly give me more information.
There was no need to meet with the manager. I had a pretty good idea of what had happened.
I did the math. It would be near the close of business hours in England. I searched for the number and dialed before I lost my nerve. I needed to tell Hawk to stop paying me, first of all. Jimmy must not have hired a new assistant yet to take care of those details.
When he answered, I said, “Hawk, it’s Willa Reynolds. I need to tell you—”
“Hello, love. Feeling a bit better, are you?”
I was wrong-footed already. “Uh, yes?”
“I’ve been worried sick.” He was oozing sarcasm. “You might want to get yourself checked out. It’s unusual to get dysentery on a tour of the United States. Crabs, maybe. Herpes is a guarantee. Dysentery is a first.”
“Oh. Um—”
“Imagine how worried I was when Jimmy said you’d been hit so hard with it,” he said. “Every time I called, you were back in the toilet.”
I decided not to mention the salary; it seemed safest to play along for now. “Crazy, right? All kinds of things are coming back now that people don’t vaccinate, ha ha.”
“Why did you call?”
“I wanted to thank you for updating my contract.”
“Mmhm.” The skepticism was thick in his voice. “It’s a bad idea, and I didn’t want to do it, but Jimmy wouldn’t shut up until I did. Whatever you kids are up to, get it sorted. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
I had no idea what was happening tomorrow, but my only strategy now was to get off the damn phone as fast as I could. “Have a great day, Hawk, byeeeee!”
I hung up before he could say anything else.
Leave it. Let it go. I didn’t last for even a full minute.
I opened my laptop and went to their Instagram, ignoring the bills that slid off the table and onto the floor. I needed to see the boys. I expected to find the kind of casual, candid things they took with their phones. I wasn’t prepared for what I found.
The first picture loaded slowly. There was Eric, in a mirror putting his own makeup on, in what must have been a deliberate recreation of the picture I’d taken of Jimmy in Hope’s bathroom. Then I saw it: on the inside of Eric’s wrist reflected in the mirror, printed in tiny backward letters: “Willa.”
The next one was Jimmy at the table with a disposable white coffee cup. Once I could take my gaze off him, I noticed my name written on the cup. What the hell? What did it mean? Were they sending me a message? If so, what was the message? Writing my name was a weird way to prove they’d forgotten about me.
The next picture was Oliver. It was a close-up of him giving the camera side-eye and embodying the word “ornery.” My name was nowhere to be seen. Okay. Whatever the message was, he was abstaining. Maybe he was angry. Or maybe not even. Oliver and I weren’t from the same world. Not even the same universe. Our few stolen kisses meant a lot to me, but I had to be honest with myself. There was a lot less kissing in my past than his. What loomed large in my world might barely register in his. I couldn’t tell what hurt more—him being angry with me or the idea that he didn’t even care enough to be angry.
Next photo: Jimmy onstage with his arms open, embracing the crowd. His shirt was gaping open, hanging off his shoulders. “Willa” in large letters on his stomach.
There was one of the three of them sitting on a couch for an interview. Through the ripped-out hole of Eric’s jeans, I spied my name written on his knee.
I kept scrolling. There were about twenty pictures of them with my name written on Jimmy or Eric or on something in the scene.
There were zero pictures of Oliver with my name anywhere near him. I didn’t want to take it as a sign, but… it definitely felt like a sign.
It was a relief to get my eyes on them, but pictures weren’t enough. I opened a search engine and clicked on a link to a news article announcing their social media was nominated for a major, well-publicized internet award, with me named as head artist. I was too frantic to react, but I stored it away. This award would get my name in front of industry people.
I found a headline that said they were going to be on a late-night show tomorrow in New York. I clicked on a link to an interview they’d done to promote it.
They were sitting in a row, wearing black jeans and shirts I recognized from having washed and folded them many times myself.
“I understand you guys are huge overseas,” the reporter was saying. “Tell me how long you’ve been together and how you got—”
Jimmy took the microphone from her. “Listen, Mary,” he said. “Can I call you Mary? Let’s not worry about those boilerplate questions. Everyone already knows that anyway. Let’s chat about whatever is on our minds. I’ll go first. Hm, let’s see. Oh, here’s something. Have you ever met someone, like a new friend, say, and told them that once you make a decision, you never go back on it? Maybe she sees you write off a relationship completely and without regret, and then she reckons she can predict how you’ll react in the future if the two of you have a row and get separated?”
“Um—”
Eric was to Jimmy’s left, following along and nodding. Oliver was to his right, arms over his chest, eyes focused on something offscreen. I leaned closer to my screen.
“And maybe,” Jimmy continued, elbowing Eric in the side, “maybe one of your best mates told her you’d write her off if things went wrong, even though he was not right to speak on your behalf about metaphysical connections he doesn’t understand. Maybe he even took it upon himself to tell this new friend something from your past that has nothing to do with anything and was better off buried with everything else you don’t like to think about.”
Eric leaned toward the microphone. “I underestimated someone’s ‘personal growth.’” He didn’t physically make air quotes, but they were implied.
Oliver hadn’t moved apart from a twitch in his jaw.
Jimmy continued, “Perhaps the permanent break with a certain Frenchwoman who used to be your assistant only happened because she wasn’t important to you anyway, and it was different because it was only sexual in nature and utterly trivial. Perhaps with this new person, this grown-ass woman who doesn’t belong to you, and you know that, you may have taken advantage of her, and put yourself first and refused to listen when she was trying to tell you something important. If all that happened, you might understand now that you were an absolute selfish shit. Maybe you’re infinitely sorry, but you’re struggling not to use the stalkerware on her phone to track her down because you mean to show her you’re a new man who won’t even attempt to control her, and also those apps smack of desperation, don’t they? You shouldn’t even use them on your siblings, in my personal opinion, which I have expressed previously. But if this friend wanted to call you, like right away please God, she should know she’s very, very welcome to. Immediately upon seeing this interview, or any other interviews with similar content, because no matter how hard you’re trying to respect her, give her the room to be her own grown-ass woman, you miss her terribly and won’t be able to hold out forever. She could consider herself literally begged, at this point, to please, please call so you can apologize to her properly.”
Mary blinked at him.
“Anyway, back to you. Yes, darling. Like you said. Massive in England, breaking in here in the States. Thanks so much for asking.” He dazzled her with a smile, handed the microphone back to her, and mimed “call me” into the camera. Oliver gave a tiny sigh before the clip ended.
I immediately dialed my brother. When he answered, I said in a rush, “I want to go back. Do you mind, and can you check the house at least every few days? I’m going to fly out tonight if I can get a flight—”
“Whoa, whoa. Slow down. What is happening?”
I told him everything. Amended contract. Publishable, sellable photos. Money in the bank. Apologetic Jimmy. “They haven’t even fired me. He’s treading water with Hawk, hoping I’ll come back, and I want to go back. I miss them, and he needs me. He hasn’t even shaved his own face since I left. He has visible facial hair, Toby, and it takes him like three weeks to grow a five o’clock shadow, even. He’s a wreck.”
“Who?”
“Jimmy!” I shrieked.
“Okay, okay! What about your career?” he asked. “One job, photography, all that?”
“I don’t know! I’ll figure something out later,” I promised. “Eric and Jimmy want me back! I need you to tell me you’ll be okay if I go,” I said. “Because—”
“That’s two. What about the third?”
Oh, yes. The third.
The tall, gorgeous one with arms crossed over his chest, his expression stony.
I’d spent enough time studying Oliver’s body language to read what he was trying to hide—he was furious. Absolutely seething. The clenched jaw, the tense muscles, his hands curled into fists. He couldn’t even bring himself to be nice to the interviewer, and he was always nice to strangers.
Maybe I’d exaggerated what was between us. Maybe it mattered more to me than it did to him.
Or maybe it did matter to him—so much that he couldn’t even bring himself to play nice for an interview on national television. It was an awful lot of anger for a woman who didn’t mean anything to you.
“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll handle it. I’m going, okay?”
“Yes. Yes. Go if you want to. I’ll watch the house. Go.” Toby paused. “If you’re sure it’s what you want. It’s a real about-face, Willa. You’ve been so impulsive lately.”
