“BABY LOVE”

A short fiction by Christopher Horton

“Don’t you think it’s time to think about settling down with one girl?”“Why? I already have a cat that interrupts me when I’m doing something I want to do.”

Jack’s mother laughed. She had just turned sixty. More definitively, she was a professor of literature at a small New England college. Nonetheless, she had a healthy sense of humor. She and Jack had always gotten along. At least after he’d grown up.

“I’d like to have a grandchild to spoil in my dotage.”“You? When I was growing up, you walked around saying, ‘sharper than a serpent’s tooth is a thankless child’ and ‘I should have raised Dalmatians’.”“I didn’t say I wanted to raise another child---remember that. I said I wanted to spoil one.”

Now Jack laughed. He could hear her pleasant, knowing---just shy of arrogant--- smile through the phone. He could picture her sitting in an overstuffed chair by the fire in her colonial house, while the snow drifted outside the windows. Miserable weather most of the year. Jack swiveled on his chair so he could see the Sunset Strip below his hill and the flats of LA spread out in geometric light patterns as far as he could see under a clear desert night sky.

“How did we switch from steady girlfriend to grandchild, Mother dearest?”“You’re ready for a big leap. You’ve more than mastered casual girlfriend.”“I think you’re confusing ‘casual girlfriend’ and ‘conniving starlet’.”

They both laughed. It was pretty easy for him. He was thirty-five. And a successful agent. And he looked like the high school quarterback he had once been. Jack was also smart enough. Eventually, his mother had resigned herself that her only son was not a scholar, but had, as she had snidely described others, but never him, a first rate second rate mind. Nonetheless, she’d stuffed it full of things that mattered to her and smugly felt it did a lot for the quality of their conversations now. She also wryly admitted to herself that his charm and beauty had served him far better in the vicious world he had chosen and she largely ignored. When he was young, she called him, ‘Achilles’, because he was perfect, except for one little flaw---the nail on one of his little toes was wavy and bent. She didn’t hate the flaw, but it annoyed her because it was a constant reminder of the other half of his genes. His father’s toenail was the same. And his father’s father’s, and so on.

“You sound like you’ve been talking to your father?”“The other week.”“Any great words of wisdom from the carpenter hyphen shaman hyphen bum?”

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Jack’s father also largely ignored the vicious world, too. They split up when Jack was small because they didn’t want to opt out the same way. Instead of academia, Jack’s father never really gave up on the flower child way of life. Not in the deranged sense of the sad, often addled ghosts that still haunted some places in the canyons and Venice Beach. Although he lived in Venice. Jack’s father was sane enough---on the surface, at least---but still lived a life of subsistence and coffee shop debates.

“He said, on the whole, he thought pot was cheaper and more reliable than women.”“He would. You were talking about women with him?”“Well, he is my father, as much as you try and skip that. And, I’d be up for settling down with someone who really loved me.”“Then why don’t you?”“Maybe you guys set too high a standard.”“You are indeed a wretched, thankless child. I should have raised Dalmatians.”“No, really, Mom, I would settle down but I don’t want a starter wife.”“At least you’re a sensitive thankless child.”“Don’t tell anyone. It would ruin me professionally.”“That might be for the best. Maybe then you’d meet a better class of women.”“Don’t you need to go to sleep---it’s late out there.”“You always say that when you’re losing.”“You thought Felicia was alright.”

Felicia had been the first, longest lasting, and probably nicest of the starlets. But that was eight years ago.

“Everything’s relative.”“You said you liked her at the time.”“I said she was a rhinestone in the rough.”“Meryl Streep gets all those roles now. What else you got?”“Touche. What happened to that smart girl you were with?”“Brittany?”“I didn’t say she had smart parents. The architect.”“Brittany.”“She could always change her name. What happened to her?”

Jack debated what to say. He decided to skip the opening she gave him---she had changed her name---and go with the truth, the brief version at least. He thought it might bring him sympathy points. After all, she was his mother.

“She dumped me.”“The world shudders on its axis, then recovers.”“Thanks, Mom.”

But he could hear kindness, sympathy, and maybe even a touch of outrage in her tone. But only because he knew her well.

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“Why?’“I don’t know. I guess she wasn’t that in to me.”

Jack had no interest in discussing any details with his mother. Fun’s fun. And he knew she knew that. So he just let the silence ride for a second.

“Maybe I will go to bed. The fire’s burning down. I can dream about my grandchildren.”“Everyone should have a good fantasy life.”“What do you mean by that?”“I mean, it would be cool to have someone but I’m not falling all over myself to have children. Dad told me that you can have a great life if you don’t have children.”

Every once in a while, Jack liked to pull her chain. She was smarter than he was, but he had a weightier advantage. She was his mother. No contest.

“That’s awful. When did he say that?”“Not when I was ten. A couple of years ago. At Thanksgiving. He said, ‘If you don’t have children, if you decide on Wednesday that you want to go to the Bahamas on Friday---you go.’ He’s got a point.”“What does he know about going to the Bahamas? Or about anything besides sitting on his ass on the beach suiting himself?”“Like you always say, Mom, ‘blind pigs and truffles’.”“Wrong pig.”“Well, just the same, I’m not sure I’ll have kids.”“We shall see what we shall see. Goodnight, honey.”“Yes, mother. Goodnight.”

Jack tossed the phone on the table. He did like talking to his mother, but it was wearying just the same. And sometimes, like tonight, it made him think more than he personally enjoyed doing. It was much easier to just not notice. That was a virtue of a first rate second rate mind that his mother never could appreciate. He wasn’t sure he wanted to have children. Even as a boy, he just couldn’t wrap his mind around doing that. He just had to look at his folks. Clearly, about three weeks a year was his Dad’s capacity for involved parenting. And his Mom, yes and no---he’d been her top priority but she went through the days with this “how did I get here?” expression on her face. And she was always busy. To Jack, it seemed like it might be way too much work for questionable rewards. He wondered if she remembered saying to him, “I hope you grow up and have a son just like you” at a couple of stressful moments. Yeah, he actually was pretty sure he didn’t want to do it. He figured his Dad might have found a truffle.

By now, he was standing, looking through his picture window at the neon radiating up from below. It was a lot more soothing than some damn blizzard. He did think that it was too bad about Brittany. Or too bad about somebody like Brittany. It was getting tiring to be alone. Not that he noticed that often. And not that he was alone that often, at least literally. In fact, hardly ever. He was supposed to be at some party tonight. An

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after screening industry party at a club. Nothing better to make you feel alone in public. Jack knew some European philosopher had gone on about this. But he couldn’t remember which one. His mother had far less interest in philosophy than she had in literature. Anyway, he really believed it would be nice to have someone he could trust. Maybe he should get out of the industry. On the other hand, Jack thought, his best friend from college had said that Jack lived the life of Riley. Of course, that guy, Jed, was an engineer exiled to somewhere near Birmingham, Alabama, courtesy of US Steel. And he was married with two and half kids or something close to the national average. Jack wondered if Jed felt alone just the same. Or just trapped. Life didn’t seem to be getting any easier as he got older. No matter how much he skipped thinking about it, it leeched in anyway.

Jack figured that was a bigger problem than Brittany. She was old news---he hadn’t even talked to her in. . .well, since the night of goodbye sex. And that was about a year and a half ago. Wow. One of the details he hadn’t told his mother was that she’d gone back to her ex husband. A mediocre actor with a mediocre career. And a much crappier agent. She must really have not been that into him. So she really had changed her name. Jack figured it was time to stop thinking and show the flag at that party. It was at a place on the Strip, which meant he could walk down and then walk, cab, or bum a ride home. People thought he was nuts, well, as nuts as agents are allowed to be and still succeed. Which isn’t very eccentric. But Jack didn’t like valet parking---at least the parts that involved waiting and then paying for the privilege. Driving on the Sunset Strip at night wasn’t a favorite of his either since it was slower than walking. Jack reminded himself that he should move somewhere without constantly crawling traffic before he was old enough to need an ambulance.

Jack pulled open the metal framed glass door of an old coffee shop that had somehow stayed in business on the Sunset Strip for years and years. He figured maybe they owned the land. Jack needed a cup of enthusiasm because he really wasn’t looking forward to this party. It was for a film that he’d seen a cut of already and hadn’t liked at all. A remake of an old Marlene Dietrich creaker, “Shanghai Express.” Jack knew this because it had been his maternal grandfather’s favorite film. That’s why he‘d winced throughout the screening. Especially during his grandfather’s favorite part when she made the crack about changing her name. Not that it was Brittany. That was another thing he disliked about it---Tom, Brittany’s ex, or husband again by now, had a small part in it. At least it was too small a part to entitle him to an invite to this party. Small mercies. It would still be an evening of congratulating people he didn’t, on the whole, particularly like for a movie that he pretty much hated.

“An Americano, please.”“Decaf?”“Regular.”

The coffee jerk looked at him like he was nuts. In LA, hardly anyone drank real coffee at night because of some set of imagined vapors or another.

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“Better make it a double, please.”

He supposed he could always chat up some actress-model, but he wasn’t really in the mood. Jack blamed his mother entirely for that. Although he did have a couple of things that had to be done in the morning, anyway. From the corner booth, Jack heard murmurings about a unique vision, and a rad perspective in an English accent. After rolling his eyes, he angled around to identify the source.

Jack had to smother a smile. A classic LA gang of four. Dreaming of glory. The English voice that was doing almost all the talking emanated from a twenty-something with long limp blond hair, and impossibly pink, fat cheeks. The rest of him was fat too, in the way that would look distinctly unhealthy when he got older. His baggy shorts and t-shirt didn’t help. Fat, not even a shot at burly, Jack thought. The guy looked like a wealthy Dickens character pretending he was Coppola. Jack thought being an agent was like being a psychiatrist except, instead of analyzing strangers on the street, he typed them.

“So, for the music, I want to find some brilliant combination of old and new, with some hip hop, you know.”“Right on.”

Rather. Jeez. The second voice belonged to a tall, lean black man in dreads. But he also had an English accent. His eyes radiated a certain amount of intelligence, although his enthusiastic encouragements of fat boy’s prattle undermined that theory. Still, Jack figured, he was a good looking black dude with an English accent and could probably get work if he could act at all. Maybe even if he couldn’t. And Jack figured maybe he was being unfair, as wasn’t he on his way to go spout platitudes over drivel himself? Ah, shit. Even though Jack didn’t know his mother’s exact opinion, there were times when he wished he was either a little smarter or a little dumber. He was tired of thinking about things he couldn’t figure out.

Jack decided to drink at least some of his coffee at the counter, as this seemed like it could easily be the highlight of the evening’s entertainment. It got repetitive fast. Only these two talked and ninety percent of that came from fat boy. Jack calculated that about ninety-nine percent of that ninety percent was nonsensical. Fat boy was obviously the auteur though and the black dude seemed to be a musician. Casting department didn’t take any chances there. Jack wasn’t quite sure how the other two fit in though. The two Englishman were sitting diagonally from each other. Somehow Jack felt that the other two were Americans. Next to fat boy was a woman in her forties wearing some kind of hippie mumu for all the usual reasons. She had a very pleasant face with a happy but vacant smile. Once upon a time, she had probably been pretty. But not pretty enough for the movies. Jack didn’t get any vibe that she was the lover and doubted she was the money. The producer? Except that she was so docile and quiet. The fourth guy was probably the youngest. He looked like Eminem. If Eminem had grown up in Grosse

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Point instead of some shithole. Or maybe it was just the sullen, quiet pose. Kids today---you say you want brooding and you get sulky. He must be the writer.

Jack couldn’t contain his smile so he quickly turned away. He’d amused himself twice in a row. His mood was getting better. He didn’t feel like thinking anymore. And this was really the great—or at least utterly unique---part of living in LA. You could see guys like that in any coffee shop any day. It was easy to snark, and he enjoyed doing it, but only as an inner monologue. He didn’t really like hurting people’s feelings, probably because he’d grown up with two parents long enough to learn to dislike that kind of meanness. So he tried to be nice, even to conniving starlets. That’s why Brittany dumping him had been such a shock to his system. He guessed that maybe he was a sensitive, wretched child. A partner at the agency had said that was his biggest character flaw. And he hadn’t been kidding. Since then, Jack had had quite a few coups without getting much blood on his hands. And that gave Jack quite a bit of satisfaction.

His coffee was almost gone. Jack glanced in the other direction. Round up the usual suspects. Three solitary geeks huddled over laptops. They all looked and dressed like special needs students. The most striking was a guy in his forties who styled shoulder length hair with Rob Reiner level baldness on top. If Jack had been with someone, he would’ve bet them a hundred bucks that at least two out of the three were working on their screenplays.

Jack felt bad for a second about snarking on them. Bad upbringing. He remembered his mother quoting Alice Somebody, Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter: “If you don’t have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” Jack also knew that if he introduced himself to any of them as an agent, they’d jump through hoops. But he didn’t jerk people’s chains. . .out of the office at least. He did enjoy that feeling of power a little, he was just a guy. But, as much as he found it all laughable, it touched Jack too. Something about the hope and bravery with which these often benighted, sometimes wild eyed souls put it all on the line in pursuit of their dreams until they either succeeded, chose washing machines, or were destroyed by endless and dismissive rejection. As much as people saw LA as Lala land---and sometimes Jack did, especially when he talked to his Dad---Jack thought that the guys in this coffee shop and this town were classically American in their unbridled confidence that they could remake the world and themselves.

Jack like that in his Dad, too. The way Jack saw it, his father’s craziness was just more obvious than his mother’s genteel educated version, not really more extreme. In fact, he counted on a photo finish. He decided that he had to get going before he started thinking again.

Jack stood in the entrance to the main room and surveyed it. Talk about round up the usual suspects. Physically, it was a big sea change from the coffee shop. People were beautiful and seriously coiffed. At least the women. Jack felt like the best part about LA was that a guy could wear jeans and cowboy boots almost anywhere. On the other hand,

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people were probably nicer and definitely more innocent in the coffee shop. He decided that he was going to make one circuit and get the hell out. His mood was still too fragile for the long haul. Maybe he’d tell people that he had to go home and check on his mother because she‘d seemed a little forgetful lately. That, or imagining the expression on her face if she heard that, would keep him smiling on the inside.

Jack felt before he glimpsed the willowy blonde sidle up next to him. She swept her hair back with one hand.“Hi! I’m Summer, and I’ll be twenty-one in six weeks.”

Right.

“Hi, I’m Jack.”

Jack reckoned that she figured he must be important since he was over thirty. He still wasn’t sure he was in the mood. She did seem sweet as well as breathtaking. Not a native, he bet.

“Were you at the screening? Did you like the film?”

It would be too much of a giveaway to say he’d seen it before the screening.

“It was good.”

He would burn in hell. Sorry , Gramps. He could see that she took it that he didn’t like the film. She was clever as well as sweet. And breathtaking. There was only that one call right before lunch that really had to be made. So he could deal with the morning if he wanted to. It would definitely have its up side.

“It was good, except for the full frontal nudity. I’m not interested. Y’know, unless there’s a cock ring in it, I don’t want to see it.”

But she’d been in LA too long. Jack decided to stick to not being in the mood.

“Hey, Jack. Glad you made it.”“Dude. How are ya? Great job. This is Summer. She wanted to complain to you about the nudity while I get a drink. Gary directed the movie.”

A quick smile at each of them, and the hostage was extricated. Jack thought that was smooth and silky---and he’d probably made both of them happy. Jack thought Gary was kind of an oaf. But she was kind of a starlet, all right.

One quick circuit with a drink in his hand covered all of Jack’s bases. From experience, he knew that if he kept moving, he could wave instead of having to stop and spout platitudes. And, at these things people coalesced in their cliques and circles. Like high school. Five minutes later, most of the people there would have been able to say, “Yeah,

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I saw you. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk.” And since the important ones weren’t really sorry, it was all good, because the unimportant ones, like, say, Tom, didn’t matter. Jack, with the door in his sights, set his barely touched drink down on a shelf. He saw that Gary had his arm around Summer as he explained. . .something. And she had a lovely smile. He slid towards the door.

“Hey Jack, you’re not leaving already, are you?”

Abe was around fifty and one of the senior partners, and not a bad guy, which was saying something in itself. Even if he drank too hard for someone his age. Jack liked Abe. And, of course, Abe could crush Jack like a bug. But Abe seemed to like Jack.

“Hey, Abe. Yeah, I wanted to check on my mother before it gets too late. She’s starting to get a little forgetful.”“I understand. We just went through that with Candy’s mother. It only gets worse, let me know if you ever want to talk.”“Thanks, Abe. And maybe it’s just my imagination. But I feel like I should check on her more.”

In high school, his teammates had called him “Slip” for slippery because he hardly ever got sacked, even when hopelessly trapped in the pocket. He remembered his mother threatening to say he already had a nickname, “Achilles.” Even a high school quarterback couldn’t live that down. Thank God she never did. Jack smiled to himself and figured he hadn’t lost his touch. The air felt good as he walked past the idling cars clogging Sunset. Right this second, it was a good kind of alone.

By noon the next day, Jack felt like the master of all he surveyed. Since he’d had an early night, he’d made it to the gym before his breakfast meeting. Everything else had either cancelled or gone as scheduled. If this last call went quickly, he could maybe walk to his lunch meeting. Of course, if he didn’t have all these damn food meetings, he wouldn’t have to go to the gym at the crack of dawn. Or walk to lunch.

Twenty minutes later, Jack‘s hopes were hanging by a thread. Sometimes he hated actors. To take this part or not to take this part, that was the petty question. As if it mattered. For fifteen minutes, he listened to this guy argue both sides. For an action star, he had a lot in common with Woody Allen. If Jack was going to walk, he had to get off the phone. The way Jack saw it, this guy had just worked himself into a frenzy of taking himself too seriously. That’s what he had to change. Of course, so far, he hadn’t been able to get in a word edgewise. But then came the magic moment.

“What do you think I should do?”“Dude, you’re fucking the cat. I’m just holding the tail.”

Dead silence. Jack began to wonder if he’d miscalculated. That’s how it goes, one minute you’re cock of the walk, then a client dumps you, and all of the sudden you’re

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selling cars in the Inland Empire. Then laughter. Fits of laughter. Almost hysterical laughter. Jack’s mother had impressed upon him the worth of a cleverly turned phrase. While Jack considered that part of her craziness, he’d saved that one since college for just the right time. See Ma, Shakespeare ain’t got nuthin’ on me. Slowly, the laughter subsided.

“I love you. And you’re right. I’ll do it.”

He was right? Well, apparently, this had been the right time. There were moments when Jack fell in love with himself all over again. This was one of them. And it crossed his mind that maybe he should send his forgetful old mother flowers. Let her wonder.

“Great! I’ll set the wheels in motion.”

Five minutes later, Jack was out on the street. Another good kind of alone. Because nobody walked in LA. Jack felt like life was pretty good. It seemed like he was good at what he did without having much blood on his hands. Sometimes he wished he’d had a normal mother because then fewer Shakespearean phrases would pop into his head. And sometimes out of his mouth. Fortunately, no one recognized them so they didn’t think he was a weirdo. Once in a while when he was in New York. He wondered why he’d been so down last night. Probably because he was whiny and self-indulgent, he guessed. Maybe he should have become an actor. What was today, Wednesday? Maybe he should go to the Bahamas on Friday. Life was good. Jack felt like he was having an epiphany. This was how he wanted to live. And he saw no reason why it had to change anytime soon. Sorry, Mom.

Jack rounded the corner with an extra spring in his step. Down the block was the restaurant and a small but impatient queue circling the valet stand. Jack smiled and took that as a validation, pun intended. In the foreground was another validation. One of those double strollers was heading for him, both seats filled with boy babies at that perfect baby stage. Jack figured them for about nine months. The work rules for nine month babies were a pain in the ass. It looked like they were staring at him but Jack wasn’t sure they could see that far. It ain’t me, babe, it ain’t me you’re looking for. Along with Shakespeare, his mother had planted the music of her times deep in his synapses. Some days he thought it was a miracle he could work in Hollywood at all with those twin handicaps. He looked up at the woman pushing the stroller. It was Brittany.

Of course, she’d already seen him. For just a second, Jake’s mind went blank. Except for the line about “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Someone should have called child services. Fortunately, in his profession, he’d learned not to let his thoughts show on his face. Brittany, lacking the benefit of such training, visibly braced herself. Jack couldn’t quite get her vibe though---despite his professional training. She seemed simultaneously happy and unhappy to see him. He was less clear on how he felt. Typical. Too excited, for one. Relentlessly, the distance between them closed, like guys playing chicken in cars. She looked good in what seemed like an effortless way, but undoubtedly wasn’t. What should he say? What would a Hollywood big deal do?

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“Hey! You look great. It’s wonderful to see you.”“Jack. What are you doing? No one else in LA walks places.”

It sounded to Jack like she was cursing her destiny and that didn’t seem like a promising start.

“Can I give your monkeys each a banana?”

All he got was a tight smile. She stayed on her end of the stroller. No hug. In LA, that was an even worse sign

“When I was six, I used to say that to my mother’s friends. She hated it, too.”“You haven’t changed much.”“Since six or since last year? Less than you, it seems. They’re yours?”“They’re mine.”

Jack sat down on his haunches in front of the stroller.

“Hey, young bloods. What are their names? They don’t look like twins.”“They’re fraternal twins. Their names are Jonas and Ethan.”

Brittany wasn’t really giving anything much out. That’s partly why Jack was talking to the babies. And partly it was because he figured it would cast him in a good light. Jonas, on the right, had an olive complexion, but his brother Ethan was much fairer. Ethan also burbled happily at Jack, earning a glance from Brittany, while Jonas seemed a little sullen and started pushing out his lower lip.

“Jonas is the spitting image of Tom. You guys are still together, right?”“Yes.”“His brother, not so much.”

Ethan laughed and extended his hand toward Jack. Jack stuck out his index finger and the baby grabbed on. Jack thought it was sweet, but he was puzzled just the same. He would’ve thought that her child, at least one of them, so obviously liking him would be a positive to Brittany, but it almost seemed like it was bumming her out.

“Listen, Jack, they’ve got a doctor’s appointment and I have to get going.”

Jack guessed that was that then. He started to straighten up. Ethan refused to let go.

“He must like the way I smell---since he doesn’t care that I’m agent. Which is a refreshing experience for me.”

Jack could’ve sworn that he was being at least a little charming, but Brittany didn’t even look at him. She was too intently watching Ethan.

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“He’s usually not that way at all.”

Jack tried to retract his hand with a little more force. Ethan made this odd kind of wildcat yelp and his blondish eyebrows violently collided at the center from the force of his frown. It reminded Jack, how his mother used to go on about how, as a baby, when Jack was mad, his eyebrows would lurch like frigates in a storm. She never gave rhapsodizing a rest. And. . .she’d also said he’d had a wildcat cry. . .Jack looked at Ethan and up at Brittany. Her eyes met his squarely but the quiver behind them made Jack feel like he was on an out of control roller coaster. And, like on a roller coaster, his voice sounded disembodied to him.

“Brittany? Could I take off Ethan’s bootie for a second?”“You don’t have to. The nail on his little toe is all wavy and bent. His middle name is Achilles.”

This time when she met his stare, there was a belligerence in her that battled with her nervousness. Like she was screwing her courage to the sticking point. Jack admitted that that Shakespeare guy did have a way with words sometimes. Once again, that kind of stupid thought interfered with the dozens of questions and thoughts that were bursting in his head like star shells. Brittany watched him, she’d always been a little too good at using the power of silence for his taste. But all the smart ones were. Except, maybe his mother.

“So. . .were you going to tell me ever?”“Yes. I mean, I was trying to figure it out. It’s kinda fucked up.“No kidding. What does Tom think?”“He doesn’t. You remember how people sometimes asked us if we were related.”“And here I thought it was because we were so tight.”“Please don’t. Look. I didn’t know how you’d react. What you would do. And I couldn’t do that to Tom after everything. Plus you know, well, his father sold his company right at the peak and they’re helping us. But I was trying to figure something out. I thought about it every day, every time. . .”

Brittany’s voice trailed off. Jack wasn’t sure which part he liked most: the parents helping out or “I couldn’t do that to Tom.” OTOH---it was amazing to Jack that he now sometimes thought in text, especially since he’d never been any good at French---tears started to roll down her cheeks and they melted the cutting edge of Jack’s anger into dullness. If she’d been a starlet, he’d have called bullshit. But she was an architect.

“Well, good news. Now you’ve told me and I still don’t know how I’m going to react or what I’m going to do. What about him? What’s fair for Ethan?”“I don’t know.”

Jack looked at the boy, who was watching him intently with his little hand still wrapped around Jack’s finger. Brittany cried soundlessly but harder for a few seconds before her

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shoulders straightened and her slightly quavering chin began to stick out. It was a part of her that Jack had always liked and admired. But, right this second, there was a righteousness to it that Jack thought was undeserved. In fact, his anger surged again and gurgled up into his craw. The kind of angry a guy like Jack doesn’t get very often. But what tripped Jack out was that he had to vaporize it because a baby boy was clutching his finger and watching his face. As a point of fact, it was his son. And that meant every edifice of his life was shifting under his feet in his personal Northridge quake on a sunny afternoon on Robertson. He looked at the baby, whose smile then broadened, and he felt like some force was sucking his insides through his arm and into Ethan’s miniature fingers. Tears welled in him and that softened the vibrations emanating from Brittany. The tension between them swirled down some mythical drain. They looked at each other.

“So, was the doctor’s appointment thing bullshit?”“No.”

That power of silence thing was just a killer for Jack. He bent over and disengaged his finger from Ethan.

“Dude. . .Ethan. . .Ethan Achilles. I’ll see you around. You hang tough.”

He ruffled the boy’s hair before straightening up.

“Well, then I should let you go. Everything’s different. . .everything’s changed. When I figure out what I’m thinking, I’ll let you know.”“How do you know you’ll be able to find me?”“I’m an agent and your husband’s an actor. . .more or less. Or I’ll send you a friend request.”

Before she could get angry at the first, she laughed at the second. Jack was glad that he hadn’t completely lost his touch. If that still mattered. He wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Well, he was sure that part of him was very angry with her but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do about that. It didn’t seem like a good time to start burning bridges. That she just skipped it is what pissed him off. She watched him, partly like she was waiting to be excused and partly like she was looking for clues in his face. But he was pretty sure he wasn’t giving any out.

“You’re right that it’s pretty fucked up. What fools these mortals be.”“What?”“Nothing.”

Jack figured he must be upset if that was happening.

“How could you do that? “I don’t know. I was just hoping it would work out somehow.”“Yeah, right. To me. To the baby. Even to Tom, if it comes down to it.”

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“What do you want me to say? It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lil?”

Not that. Unbelievable. His first thought was that somewhere his gramps must be having a good laugh. She must have seen the movie with Tom at the little people screening. She was smiling at him. For once, her charm wasn’t working any better than his. But he smiled back, mostly out of reflex. Leave on good terms.

“I don’t know. I’m tripping. Like I said, I’ll be in touch.”

She smiled goodbye in a relieved way and pushed the stroller past him He watched her back for a few seconds. And now he was supposed to go make small talk over salads and pay attention to a pitch about some project. Maybe a remake of “Look Who’s Talking,” if he’s really lucky.

Jack smiled at the doorman. He wondered how she could be so cold blooded? How come there aren’t more top women agents? More importantly, what was he going to do? Fuck up Brittany’s life? But how could he let it slide after he’d touched him and looked at him. Brittany made a mistake---she should’ve called. Over the phone, well, maybe. But now? What was he going to do? And what did he want to tell his mother? Jack remembered her saying, “Watch out for what you wish for,” mostly when he was a teenager. Well, she might get that in spades. Jack wondered what he was getting. He knew what he’d never forget. And he knew what he was going to do. He was going to walk into that restaurant and make small talk over salads and try to pay attention to the pitch.

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