Page 77 of It's a Love Story

“Thank you,” I say.

“Well, I’m sorry. That I lied, and that you’ve been carrying this for so long. The truth is I did love him, but in this he was selfish and immature, and he just couldn’t handle it. It was on him to stay, it wasn’t on you to make him.”

All the fantasies of what I could have said or done to make him want to stay flash behind my eyes. And I’m not even sure those fantasies have stopped; they’ve just changed into fantasies about what I might say or do now to be loved by the bigger world. By a date, by Hollywood, by the hostess at the Ivy.

“I never understood what it was about me,” I say. “All the kids with their dads showing up for things. Or worrying about their daughters’ curfews or interrupting kisses under porch lights. It’s a universal thing, fathers treasuring their daughters. I watch TV, Mom. I know things.” My mom smiles, just a little bit, but I can’t stop. “Remember that movie with Robin Williams where he loves his kids so much that he dresses up like their nanny so he can spend time with them?”

“Mrs. Doubtfire,”she says, so quietly.

“Yes. That movie wrecks me. I’ve never gotten over that, how much he wanted them.”

She pulls me into a hug and runs a hand over my dad’s curly hair. I sob into her. I’ve started and it just won’t stop. After a while, she pulls back and looks me in the eye. Her eyes seem clearer than usual.

“I think I never gave up on love because I wanted you to see it. Not even for me, but for you, Jane. I wanted you to see a Hollywood happy ending and know you could have that too. And I know it was hard for you to see me fall apart every time it didn’t work out. I know it was a lot of times.” She gives me an apologetic smile and I take her hand. “Every time, I felt like I let us both down.”

“I never felt let down,” I say, “because I never believed you were going to find that happy ending. I was lying to you as much as you were lying to me.” The pressure in my chest is loosening, but I still feel the weight of unsaid things there. “And I don’t think it was good for us, the lying. Every time you told me your happy story and I acted like I believed it, it put distance between us. Can we just not do that anymore? You’re the only family I have. I want it to be different.” My face is wet with new tears, and now that I’ve said it and the world didn’t end, I don’t know why it took me so long. Old hurts are buried so carefully.

She squeezes my hand. “Why are we talking about this now? You’ve been carrying this around forever.”

I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. “I think I might have fallen in love? And it’s more beautiful than you described. But I wrecked it before it could wreck me.”

“Why?”

I let out a breath and shove my hands in my pockets. “Because I can’t actually believe someone would stick around for me. I mean, besides you and Clem. It’s Dan, by the way. Dan who I don’t hate.” I laugh a sad laugh. “I guess I panicked and left before he could see the part of me that’s so easy to walk away from.”

My mom’s heart breaks—I see it behind her eyes. They’re wet with tears. “I’m so sorry you’ve been feeling this way for so long. Let’s figure this out before it takes anything more away from you.”

“I liked it,” I say. “Falling in love, like actually falling. It’s sort of effortless, you know?”

“I do.” She smiles.

“But also terrifying. If I got any closer to Dan and he changed his mind . . . I don’t know how people recover from stuff like that. Now that I’ve felt it, I can’t believe you were strong enough to keep trying.”

“Trust me, you’re stronger than I am. The little girl with the power to support us both with the sheer energy of her smile.”

Of course I think of Dan. Dan, who feels my smile in his chest. Dan, who is always at the tip of my tongue, the ends of my fingers. All he has is his talent, his ability to follow his heart. What’s inside of me is all I have too, the good and the bad.

“Can we start over?” she asks. “I loved your dad, was so in love with him. But if he’d stayed, we would have broken up eventually. He was all about himself. We wouldn’t have died in each other’s arms like in that stupid movie.”

“I love that movie,” I say, wiping tears. I ache at the thought of standing with Dan in the rain in a see-through dress.

“Thank you for telling me this,” she says.

“It was nothing,” I say and laugh. It was everything.

“If we’re being honest, your dad was a lot like the rest of the guys I dated. Big fun and then gone when it stopped being easy. It’s a type. But not Gary.”

“He made you an omelet.”

“I know!” She loops her arm in mine, and we start walking back to her apartment. “It’s a totally different kind of thing.”

“I really wish you could have seen the movie I’m not making.”

CHAPTER 35

LABORDAYWEEKENDCOMESANDGOES.CLEMMAKESme hike in Topanga Canyon on Sunday but lets me stay in bed on Monday. I wear jeans to the office again on Tuesday. I do it on purpose this time. I even let my hair air- dry in the car, so that by the time I get to the elevator, it’s a big mass of curls. I run my hand over it, and I like the way it feels, full and free. “Okay,” I say out loud. The elevator dings and the doors open and Dan is not standing there. I have no idea why I thought he would be. I cannot will him into existence.

I sit at my desk, not under it. I am no longer hiding from anything. I pull up the treatment for a new script and read it straight through. I feel nothing. No laughs, no tears, no quickening of the heart rate. There’s a helicopter chase in which the propellor of the villain gets caught in the landing skid of the other. Who cares.

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