Page 36 of We All Live Here
“Sure—sure there is—”
“Please don’t. You’ve barely said a true thing since you arrived. I think the least you owe me is an explanation for what you’re doing here.”
Gene swallows. When he looks up, he attempts a smile. It falls slightly when he sees her expression. “It’s not like there’s noactual production. It’s just—”
“Gene.”
“Okay. Okay.” He puts up his palms as if to stop her. “Things got a little tricky for me at home. Nadira threw me out—and I owed these guys some money and they started to get real pissy about it. I thought I’d be better off working over here for a while, you know, with the whole dual citizenship and everything, until it all cooled down, so I just needed—”
“How much money?”
“What?”
“How much money do you owe? And to whom?”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“How much?”
“About fifty K.” He looks up at her. “But only dollars, not pounds. So it’s not so bad.”
“Fifty thousand dollars?”
“They’re not great guys. They’re from Florida. This crazy trip I went on to a casino back in May. I think they must have slipped a Mickey into my drink. And work-wise things have been kinda quiet. There’s not been a lot of jobs around, and I had this part on a low-budget production but the director was kind of a dick and we fell out and the guy fired me. And because of that car wreck I had to pay up for this guy’s hospital bills even though I swear there was nothing wrong with him, and I had forgotten to renew the car insurance, and even though it was just a stupid little ding, the guy was threatening to sue me and then Nadira needed money for her kid to go to school and—”
“Nadira. I haven’t heard about this one. Don’t tell me. Under thirty?”
“No!”
“Thirty-five.”
He rocks his head from one side to the other. “Okay, so she was thirty-four. But she was an old soul! We were great together!”
Lila’s head sinks into her hands. “What do you want, Gene?”
“Just somewhere to crash for a week. Maybe two weeks.”
“I’m going to ask that question again.”
“Okay. A month. Give me a month. That should land me some auditions, let me remind the casting guys over here what I’m made of, and then I can get another place and…”
Lila lets her head rest in her palms for some time, long enough for Gene to tail off. He adds, “I’ll help with the kids. I won’t be in your hair. I just need to cut a break.”
She can feel his eyes on her. She lifts her head wearily. “You really think you can get work over here?”
“I know I can. I have a meeting with an agent on Friday. He says there are a lot of openings for a guy like me. And with my history onStar Squadron Zero…”
Every cell in her body is telling her to say no. Bill will be furious. It will not be a month. She is not sure he is telling the truth about his work opportunities. But he is a seventy-five-year-old man desperate enough to sleep in a shed. And he is her father. Dammit.
She takes a long, deep breath, and then lets it out. “You can stay for now,” she says. “And we’ll see how it works out.”
“Really? Sweetheart, you are the greatest. You won’t even know I’m here—”
She holds up a hand, cutting him off. “There is no drinking in my house, and no smoking weed. If I suspect you’re doing either of those things, I will throw you out immediately, and I won’t care where you end up, because I have two vulnerable daughters.” It’s at this point that she remembers she had to stop Violet merrily singing “Smack My Bitch Up” on the walk to school that morning, and squashes the thought. “You are to be immaculately behaved around them. And you are to be nice to Bill, who is still grieving.”
“Hey, he’s not the only one who—”
“Properly nice. They were happily married a long time and he is a good man. And you are to put the sofa back every day in here so I canstill use my workspace, and you are to help around the house when you’re not out looking for work. Those are my rules.”
