Page 60 of Hollywood, Ending

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the host says.

“My old man, what a guy,” Matthew says. “In all our years together, he only told me he was proud of me once, when they named the oncology wing of Children’s LA after me.”

“Well, you’ve made a hell of a movie, Matthew, even if your dad wouldn’t say as much.”

“I wish he could’ve seen this one,” Matthew says. “The kids in it are great. Juniper Castillo and Kai Laramie,” he says. Juniper and I start pushing each other in excitement. “When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you know the special ones. And those kids are special.”

Ellen is calling me. Katie is calling Juniper. We answer. “Holy shit he said your name on network television,” Ellen says. “God, he’s class. That shit about love being stronger than death? We’re gonna push the hell out of that. That’s the kind of theology even atheists can get behind.”

“Yeah, Juniper and I are watching together.”

“Just make out already,” Ellen says.

“Can’t. She’s married to the sea.”

_____

After our calls, Juniper and I flip through channels until we come across an action comedy Matthew made with Kevin Hart. Juniper’s analyzing the movie—she can tell what lines were recorded later in voice-over sessions, when the director wanted a long two-shot but had to cut away because something wasn’t right in the performances, and so on—and I love listening to her, seeing her mind interact with a movie, even a bad one. Maybe especially a bad one. When we watch good movies, we’re silent, just taking it in, but the bad ones are easier to laugh at and learn from. In bad movies, you can see the strings of the puppets better, understand the actors’ choices and how, in combination with the camera and the sets, they try to create the illusion that this all might be real, or real enough anyway to bring forth genuine feeling.

We lie in bed watching this not-great movie for a while, and I think about the absurdity of having never kissed Juniper in real life, and how much Ellen and Katie and the rest of the machine would like me to kiss Juniper, and how that makes me not want to kiss her. I actually do want to kiss her, I think—but I know that kissing would lead to all kinds of other things, including, potentially, me throwing up in the bathroom while having a panic attack. I think about how it’s harder to say I love you to Juniper now than when we first met.

“Matthew must’ve known this would be a terrible film,” she says. “He couldn’t have been tricked by the script, you know?”

“Maybe he just loves his costar. Why do you think I’m doing Gods of Andromeda?”

“Because of the money?”

“Well, and I get a free personal trainer.”

“Plus you get to wear gold armor.”

“And that hot girl’s in it.”

“Which hot girl?”

“The one who plays your sister.”

Juniper laughs. “That’s actually a good bit of repartee for the junket, if you want to really play up the possibilities. Romances need Obstacles.”

“Nah,” I say. “Even joking ‘I find the girl who plays her sister hot’ is a bad Obstacle.”

Juniper is quiet for a minute, then we go back to watching the movie, laughing both with it and at it. Out of nowhere she says, “What is our Obstacle?”

“Um,” I say.

“I mean, you could like me, right?”

“In fact, I do like you very much.”

“So you could kiss me.”

“And you could kiss me.”

She is looking at me now, and I realize I know she’s looking at me because I am looking at her. Never shy of eye contact, that Juniper Castillo, and what eyes they are—a deep, enveloping brown. “I could,” she says again.

I flinch. “The thing is,” I say, “you can’t unkiss someone. You can’t go back to before you knew what that person’s kiss felt like.”

“You already know what it feels like to kiss me,” she says.