Page 2 of Nora Goes Off Script

“Leo Vance is going to sleep in that thing? In my front yard?”

“It can’t be avoided. He’s quirky. But he’s got a bathroom in there and we have a honeywagon coming for everyone else. So don’t worry about your house.”

The Airstream door opens and out steps a forty-year-old, shoeless superstar. His jeans hang too low and his gray T-shirt is torn in two places. His hair needs a trim, and he’s way too handsome to play Ben. But then again, Naomi Sanchez is playing me. He squints up at the sky as he gets his bearings, as if he’s emerging from the dark after twenty-four hours. It’s elevenA.M.and we’re only a ninety-minute drive from New York City.

Leo Vance is the highest-paid leading man in Hollywood. I know this because I’ve been googling him for three days. He has homes in Manhattan, Bel Air, and Cap d’Antibes. He owns a share of an NBA franchise. No kids, never married. A Libra. He’s originally from New Jersey and has a brother.

I’ve seen every one of Leo’s movies, which isn’t really a credit to him. I’ve seen a lot of movies. He’s a good actor, and he’s most famous for his smoldering stare. I have to say, it’s alittle over the top. In his first film,Sycamore Nights, he gave his co-star Aileen Bennett a series of white-hot smolders that got him named Sexiest Man Alive that year. I guess it became his signature move, so he kept it up film after film, even when it was entirely unnecessary. Like inBattle for the Home Front, he’s telling his newly pregnant wife that he has to go away to war, and he’s smoldering. Or inClass Action, he’s giving a commencement speech at a military academy and smoldering all over everyone’s parents and grandparents. And don’t get me started onAfrican Rose. A refugee center with a wild malaria outbreak is no place to smolder. Leo Vance seems prone to the inappropriate oozing of sex appeal.

When the smolder is turned off, he has an impressive range of smiles that are unique to each film. They range from timid to maniacal, and I’ve always admired the way he can keep each one consistent throughout an entire film. I’m curious to see what smile he’ll invent forThe Tea House. What smile would he imagine Ben having? I can’t even remember the last time I saw Ben smile.

Leo Vance is walking toward my porch, and I brace myself for an introduction. Perfection on the screen, scruffy in real life. He is going to be transformed into a man with a lot of issues who ends up walking away from the woman he built a life with. Leave it to Ben to be maddening enough to make me finally write something worthwhile. I smile at the irony of Ben actually helping out after all.

Leo brushes past me on the porch like I’m not there, then stops and takes a step back. “You’re missing a dimple,” he says.

“The other one’s inside,” I say.

He nods and walks into my house like he owns the place. Not much of a meet cute.

•••

Meeting the director,Martin Cox, is as intimidating as I anticipated. Weezie’s gone in after Leo, so he finds Meredith and me on the porch. “You must be Nora.” He’s not tall but he’s big, and I can’t decide if he’s physically big or if it’s his presence that takes up a lot of space.

I shake his hand and try not to say anything else. If I start talking, I’ll tell him what I thought of the final scene inAlabasterand why I think he was robbed of an Oscar. I’ll tell him that the lighting alone inThe Woman Beneathwas sublime. Mainly to avoid using the word “sublime,” I keep my mouth shut.

“So, can we see it?” he asks. I lead Meredith and Martin behind my house to where the tea house sits at the entrance to the woods. There is no path to it, just lawn, so that a consequence of visiting the tea house is almost always wet shoes. I’d left the big oak door open, as is my habit, because with the door open, you can see straight through the steel windows on the back wall into the mouth of the forest. It gives me the feeling of endless possibility.

The tea house is a sacred space to me. The space in which I have been able to preserve myself by writing. And, unlike the main house, it is airtight against the elements. I imagine the Faircloths approaching the tea house as I do, anticipatinga fire in the fireplace and a table laid with tea and treats. I imagine lovers meeting here for hushed conversation and first kisses. Ben had always wanted to use it for storage.

It may have come down to that, for all I know. My belief that the last thing the world needs is more storage versus Ben’s belief that he needed a third motorcycle. Among the many consolations around his leaving are that he took most of his stuff with him, and he didn’t ask for the kids.

The tea house plays prominently in the breakup of our marriage, which is what earned it the title role. Ben resented the time I spent out there; he resented the work I did. He resented the fact that I’d been paying our bills for the past ten years. Which made two of us, actually. The more competent I became at taking care of our family, the more he despised me. The more he despised me, the harder I worked to make things right. Me writing in the tea house was a mirror he didn’t want to look into. That’s how it goes in the movie. In real life, I don’t know, maybe he left because he just wanted more storage. Ben wanted more of just about everything.

Now, as we approach, I hear Martin catch his breath. “It’s otherworldly,” he says. “The photo doesn’t do it justice.”

I smile and keep walking. “Well, it’s certainly from another time. This is where I write.”

It’s warm for April, and the slate roof glistens in the sun from last night’s rain. Two giant hydrangea bushes flank the door. They’re getting their first leaves now, hopeful celery-colored things, but soon they’ll be bursting with cerulean blue blooms the size of my head. “If you could have waiteduntil July, you would have seen these in bloom,” I say to no one, because Martin has already walked inside.

“This is absolutely perfect,” he says, running his hands over the paneled walls. He pulls out a walkie-talkie. “I’m back in the tea house. Bring the linens for the daybed, I’m going to need three o’clock sunshine coming through the back window. And a mop. Make sure Leo and Naomi are in makeup.”

Meredith gives me a little wink, presumably to make me feel better about the mop comment. I give her a shrug, what do I care? “Okay, so I’ll get out of your way, let me know if you need anything.”

•••

I go backinto my house, relieved to find it empty. Outside every window, there is activity—a catering truck, a woman chasing Leo Vance with a spray bottle. From the largest trailer emerges Naomi Sanchez, somehow all legs in a frumpy housedress. I assume she’s dressed up as how Martin imagined me. I first saw Naomi Sanchez inHustler’s Revengewhen she was about twenty-five. There was a scene where she discovered she’d been double-crossed that was shot so tight that her whole face filled the screen. Where are her pores, I’d wondered. At thirty-two, she is still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

I text Kate:Leo Vance was in my house. Naomi Sanchez is exquisite.

Kate:Dying.

I’m having a hard time figuring out what I should be doing. I mean I’m inside my house which isn’t a writing-workingspace. Inside my house is a mom-ing space. The kitchen is still a mess from breakfast, and it occurs to me that Leo Vance has seen my pancake spatter and has smelled my bacon grease. I’m mildly agitated that he’s been in here as I start to clean. There will have to be boundaries of some sort. I don’t want to walk in here tomorrow and find him smoldering at my dishwasher.

I call my sister, and her nanny, Leonora, answers. “She’s out with her friends,” she says. Penny and her husband, Rick, live in Manhattan and East Hampton and are frequently featured inTown & Countrywearing the right things with the right people. This is the first time in my life I’m doing something cooler than Penny, so I leave a message. “Please tell her I called and that Naomi Sanchez and Leo Vance are in my driveway.” Leonora squeals, and I am satisfied.

Once my kitchen is clean, I try to think of what I’d normally be doing. It’s Wednesday, and on Wednesdays we eat meatloaf. Of course! I take a pound of ground turkey out of the freezer and place it on the counter. This doesn’t take as long as I’d hoped.

•••

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