I swallow past the lump in my throat. “You mean: ‘You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself’?” I ask, giving Buddha as a thank you for the perfect, perfect words my father’s delivered.
“Yeah. Something like that.” He taps my nose lightly with his finger before standing again. “And if it’s not school that interests you, that’s fine too. Just…is what you’re doing now what you want to be doing forever?”
I shake my head.
He raises a brow. “Is it leading you closer to whatever that is?”
This time I don’t say or gesture anything because I don’t know the answer.
“Well, then,” he says, as though everything’s been resolved. Then he slinks back to his backgammon board, and I know it’s not because he’s not interested in what I’m going through. He just recognizes that every fool has to make the journey alone. I’m grateful that he’s pointed out the path he thinks is right for me. I still might not choose it, but it feels like he’s given me a place to start.
My mother wipes a tear from my cheek with the pad of her thumb. “Look. Everything’s worked itself out.”
I let out a short laugh. “I wouldn’t quite say that.”
“Why not? Your father told you to go back to school. So you’ll go back to school.”
“Mom, do you want me to go back to school?” I know she does. It’s what she hints at in every Tarot reading she does for me, but it felt good hearing my father tell me what he thought and I want to hear advice from her, too.
“I do.” She’s confident with her answer, but then she adds, “If that’s what you want.”
I bite back my amusement. It’s the closest she’ll ever get to telling me what to do, so worried that she will stifle who I’m meant to be.
I love her for that. So much.
“Thanks, Mom. It’s nice to hear you say that.” But there’s still another subject I’m completely lost on. “And what do I do about Logan?”
My mother pulls back to look at me, her expression slightly perplexed. “It seems like you’ve already figured that out, haven’t you?”
“No, I haven’t.” Not in the least.
She shakes her head, dismissing my response. “You have. When you really want to see it in your conscious mind, you will.”
I know she’s figured out something that I haven’t yet, either because she’s older and wiser, or just because she’s wiser in general. Or maybe because she’s my mother and she knows me better than I know myself, or because she really is more in tune with the universe than I am. It’s frustrating that she can see an answer that’s still hidden to me, but I don’t press her. Because I trust her when she says I’ll see it when I’m ready.
Understanding that doesn’t lessen my current anguish.
I peer up at her, suddenly feeling half my age and very vulnerable. My voice is shaky when I ask, “How can I ever hope to see anything when everything around me is so dark?”
“Not so dark.” She pulls me tighter into her embrace. “You just have to find your North Star. Let that be what guides you.”
There’s sharp insight in her words and a comfort in the energy she gives, and though I’m not sure yet what—or who—my North Star is, I’m reminded of the tarot reading she did for me not too long ago and the star card that showed up in my future—hope.
And with nothing quite resolved, I cling again to that hope, trusting that the universe will give me the answer soon.
19
“Logan O’Toole, you are a god.”
My head snaps up. I’ve been sitting on my couch staring at my hands, my thoughts racing, but Bambi Roo has just walked in the living room, smelling like baby wipes and with her bag slung over her shoulder, and I become aware that I’ve been sitting like this for almost half an hour.
I give her a weak smile. “Hardly.”
“No, really. That thing you did the third time you made me come, when you had me bent over the table? Oh my God, I’ve never come that hard, I swear.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Bambi says, tossing her long, dark hair behind her shoulder with a grin. “I’m telling my agent to make sure I book a thousand more scenes with you.”
A couple months ago, this is the kind of thing that would have made me proud, made me a little smug. I like knowing my girls are happy when they leave my set, I like having a reputation as someone who’s amazing to have sex with. But right now, all I feel is a churning dread in my gut, a sick feeling of worry and shame—and if I’m being honest, a little bit of self-righteous anger.
“You going somewhere?” Bambi asks, gesturing at me. I’m fully clothed, shoes on and a baseball cap pulled down over my hair, and I’ve been that way since our scene ended, leaving Bambi to clean herself up while I frantically tried to call and text Devi. She wouldn’t answer her phone, and there was no way in fuck I could wait for her to call me back. So I got dressed and I’ve been waiting anxiously for everyone to leave my house so I can drive to Devi’s apartment and figure out what the fuck is going on.
“I’m going to my girlfriend’s,” I say, trying to make it clear that I really want to go now and also trying not to be rude.
But really, lady. Get the fuck out of my house so I can leave.
Bambi looks simultaneously disappointed and excited to hear gossip. “You have a girlfriend? Was it the girl who was here today?”