“Then why did they call?”
“Lara, are you on drugs?”
“Probably. I’m just waking up.”
“Waking up? It’s nine o’clock out there.”
I turned my head to look at the nightstand. There wasn’t a clock. “I think I had surgery yesterday. Be sympathetic.”
“I am sympathetic. That’s why I’m calling.”
My ankle was encased in a mound of plaster and laid out on a stack of stiff pillows. Everything about it looked like a prop, a movie cast. “I still don’t understand why they called you.”
“You put me down as your person to contact.”
Had I done that? The form must not have been very clear because really, why would Uncle Wallace have listed his second wife? “I must have thought they meant professional contact, like if I was offered a great part and they needed to get ahold of someone.” Is that what I was thinking?
“Well, I’m touched,” Ripley said. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.” Why was the cast so big? I fell on a tennis court, that was all. “I ruptured my Achilles.”
“You don’t want to do that,” he said, like I’d been offered a part in a teenage slasher film that would ultimately diminish my career.
“Well, I wish you’d called yesterday morning and told me.”
“You aren’t the easiest person to get on the phone.”
“Have you been trying?”
“No, but I was going to. There’s serendipity in this.”
I pushed the button on the guard rail that made the top of the bed go up. I held it until I had achieved the angle I thought of as Elyse Adler. “I want to hear how my ruptured Achilles is going to work in your favor.”
“I need you to come back to L.A.”
I planned to go back to L.A. in the fall when summer stock was over. Duke and I were going together, but somehow hearing Ripley say it, I didn’t want to anymore. I looked out the window of my hospital room, across the parking lot to a row of trees. Even the parking lots had trees! For the first time I realized that I didn’t want to leave Michigan. “I have a contract.”
“Okay, one, it’s a contract with a summer stock theater. That’s easy enough to take care of. Two, you can’t walk, which means you’re no good to them. They’ll be thrilled to get you off the payroll.”
“If that’s one and two I can’t wait to hear three.”
“Three,” Ripley said, pausing to indicate drama. “Three is that your movie is coming out.”
“Singularity?”
“Unless you’ve made another one.”
I had thought it was a wash, a tax write-off for someone. “Oh, Ripley, that’s great. I’m happy for you.” It had taken such a long time.
“Be happy for yourself. The film editor fell in love with you. When he cut it all together he made you the star.”
“I’m not the star.”
“Wait till you see it. It’s a sharp bit of work, kiddo. You’re fantastic. I need you out here for publicity. Publicity is all about sitting down, you know. Plus the injury makes you relatable. How did it happen?”
“Tennis.”
“Tennis in the summer in Michigan. Beautiful.”
