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“Yeah.”
“That’s a start. You called me to hang out because you know you don’t have to be on over here. You drank some beer, ate some greasy pizza, played some darts, played with my kids, and in the moment–until you got antsy–it was great. Baby steps to the Zen of just enjoying life. Maybe take up surfing. It gets you out of your head. You can’t pay attention to your ego because you have to focus on your form.”
“Spoken like a Gold Coast native.”
“Shrimp’s on the barbie, mate.”
Kline laughed and hugged his friend. “Thanks, Thad.”
“Anytime.”
He did feel better driving home, and he thought about calling Rhiannon, but that meant crawling back into at least part of his movie star character, so he dialed Jill instead. She answered with a yawn and let him talk for ten minutes before saying, “Do you know what time it is?”
“Midnight?”
“I’m in New York. It’s three.”
“Oh! I didn’t know you were there. What are you there for?”
“I did a charity event.”
“Maybe I should do more charity?”
“Maybe you should do charity at all.”
“Salty.”
There was a smile in her voice when she retorted, “Sleepy, but I’m glad you feel like you can call me and pour out your midlife crisis.”
“Hey! I’m hardly midlife. It’s just an existential crisis. Jill?”
“Yes?”
“Are you happy with where you are in life?”
“Are you really asking me that? I just got a divorce I didn’t want, from a marriage that I didn’t really have, and am now in the middle of a relationship with a man who is trying to shave me into the image he has of me in his head because I’m too afraid to either be alone, or try to meet someone I haven’t already known for twenty years.”
“Gus wants to change you?”
“Gus has an idea of me and he’s trying to get my outsides to match his vision of the insides. He keeps telling me how much he loves me, but I don’t think it’s me. I think it’s this idealized version of someone he thinks I should be. I’m a character for him. I don’t want to talk about this with you, though. Go on and tell me more about how miserable you are because you’re a star and no one understands you.”
“When you say it that way–”
“Because that’s what it sounds like. Listen, I didn’t choose performing. My mother chose it for me and by the time I was old enough to separate my talent from my training and my profession from my personality and question whether this was the life I wanted, I was an under-educated, over-exposed Broadway veteran with no other options but to stick to the stage or branch out into screen. But I have asked myself that question now and the answer is no. I don’t want this life, but it’s the life I have. So, I’m going to exploit it and bleed every dime out of it I can, so that in a few years I can tell it to fuck off and go live in Mexico or something.”
“Gus would never live in Mexico.”
“I said or something.”
“Baby’s stuck in LA forever,” Kline teased.
“You know what I mean. I don’t want to act anymore. I don’t want to perform. I want to sit in the audience and enjoy someone else, then I want to go home and read a book.”
“How long are you in New York?”
“I come home tomorrow.”
“Too bad. If you were there longer, I’d come up and meet you.”
