“Well, we should wrap this up. I took the kids bowling last month, and my nephew’s ball should be reaching the pins any minute now.” He looked at an invisible watch on his wrist. “I should be there to cheer him on.”
“This is the show,” Scott LaBerge declared, tapping the table excitedly with his pen. “You are the show, Patrick. You’re the head of the modern family. A Father Knows Best for the era.”
“Uncle Knows Best!” said Basil, or Abner or Quill.
“Guncle Knows Best,” said Bow Tie, and the room went wild. The sun emerged from behind a cloud and all seemed right with the world again. Or did it?
Scott LaBerge pounded on the table, calling the meeting back to order. Everyone grabbed ahold of themselves and renewed their rigorous posture. “Clearly, we’re excited. I hope you’re excited. We’ll get down to work here and I hope you’re looking forward to moving back to LA.”
“Back to LA?” It spilled out of his mouth like ELL LAY.
“Well, yeah. The show will shoot in LA.”
“I thought it was going to be in New York?”
“We thought it would take place in New York, there’s a certain precociousness to city kids. But, no. We would film it here.” Scott LaBerge looked confused, and even went so far as to let the tip of his tongue slide out one corner of his mouth. “Costs and such to consider. Is that a problem?”
The room began to spin, but Patrick said nothing. He owed this to Sara.
Cassie got the call with an offer an hour later.
Patrick, the city whispered.
After his meeting he strolled the back lot again, his thoughts reeling. This was supposed to be his way back to the kids, now he was, what—farther away? He chuckled when he got to the New York set, which seemed only to exist to taunt him. He took a seat on a stoop across from the facade of a bagel shop. It was eerie, New York, when empty of the people that make it such a pulsing, vibrating place. He looked down the street, past an NYPD car and several Yellow Cabs parked by the curb. Steam rose from a subway grate, which somehow added to the artifice. But the street was indeed vacant. He was hearing things, on top of everything else.
“Patrick!” His name rang again.
Another ghost, he thought, calling to him from a different time, from actual New York, when he would walk home on empty streets late at night from his gig at the Greek restaurant, plotting a better, more promising life that didn’t involve setting people on fire. He stood up and continued down the block, charmed by the store windows with colorful mannequins in angular garb; they must be dressing the set to film.
Footsteps pounded behind him, and Patrick felt someone grab his bicep.
He spun around to see Emory.
“I thought that was you,” Emory said. His glasses, oddly, were spotted with rain.
“What are you doing here?” Patrick shook his head, amused. Emory wore a beanie slouched to one side, making him look like an idiot.
“On a break from filming.” Emory pulled the hat off his head, and Patrick was relieved it was part of a costume. “I sometimes come back here to think.”
Patrick looked around. This could be his world again soon enough. “Your glasses are wet.”
Emory crossed his eyes and focused on his lenses. “Oh. I ran past the Western town. They’re filming something with rain.”
What a bizarre occupation we share, Patrick thought.
“What about you? You’re a long way from home. What are you doing here?”
“Me?” Patrick asked, as if Emory could be inquiring about anyone else. He looked around at the brick and stone buildings that lined this New York block. “I’m a little lost.”
“No shit.”
“I was meeting about a show,” he said with a sour face. “If you can believe that.”
“Of course I can believe that. You’re a goddamn star.”
A plane went by overhead and they both paused to look up at the sky.
“What about the desert?” Emory inquired. “Coming out of retirement?”
“I don’t know.” Patrick tried to balance himself on a fake cobblestone. “The desert will always be there. But it’s time for me to rejoin the world.”
Emory smiled. “I’ll miss that pool.”
“I’ll loan you the house.”
“I’d miss you in it.” He smiled even broader. He had one chipped tooth Patrick hadn’t noticed before. Another flaw that somehow made him ideal. “Where you headed?”
“Now?” It was a good question. Patrick was lost in his thoughts; he wished there were more of the city to walk through. Alas, it ended ahead, melting into more bungalows and a small park set with a gazebo. “Back to my hotel. I have to walk the dog.”
Emory smirked. “Is that a euphemism?”
“No,” Patrick chuckled, remembering his explaining euphemisms to the kids. “No, it’s not.” Marlene, who was not used to hotels or the sounds of people walking a hallway outside her door, was certainly antsy and waiting to go out. “What about you?”
Emory’s eyes lit up from behind his spattered glasses. “I have one more scene to film, but then grabbing a drink with you.”
Patrick removed Emory’s glasses so he could see his eyes. “What are you looking for, Emory?”
“Nothing.” He winked like he had the night that they first met. “Everything.”
Patrick tried to call Joe’s face to mind. It came, blurred. Smudged. The features weren’t quite right. It’d been a lifetime since he’d seen it. Patrick did his best to dry Emory’s glasses on his shirt. “Well, I’m looking for . . . something.”
Emory nodded. “Any idea what that is?”
Patrick had never really seen Emory without his glasses. He looked older, more mature. “I think I’d rather like to do a play.” The words took Patrick by surprise. But they were in his head, planted by
