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Chapter Eleven - And the Oscar Goes To...


It turned out that there was a lot of stuff that Ethan had never seen before. Like Alien and Ghostbusters and Stripes and Freddy Krueger. He’d never seen Almost Famous or Dumb & Dumber or Elf or It’s a Wonderful Life or --- the list just goes on and on. I don’t know what kind of entertainment that kid had around home, but clearly movies were not it. Each one we watched he proclaimed was his new favorite movie. Although he said that with the most gusto when we watched the entire Lethal Weapon franchise and we were quoting it off and on for the rest of the week.

Seriously, I think we spent basically the whole next two days watching movies and talking and getting to know each other better. It was like this two dimensional idea - this fifteen year old kid that stole pizza from a crappy food court place - was morphing slowly into this whole person that I knew and liked having around. We had similar senses of humor, and when we started laughing and joking, throwing one-liners back and forth, Lauren would roll her eyes with a humored smile on her face. He was becoming 3D, and I was getting really used to having him around. Like it was easy, like maybe it wouldn’t be so bad being a parent if this was what it was like all the time.

I learned his favorite food was quesadillas and that he had a huge crush on Demi Lovato and he was a bit of a computer nerd and knew how to write web code to make simple little video games show up on the browser when we opened the file. He grew up in Nashville, and the furthest from home he’d ever been was Chicago, via bus, to see a hockey game with his dad and uncle - back before his dad started drinking and his uncle had been killed in Iraq.

But what completely, totally blew my mind was that the kid had never seen the ocean.

“You’ve never seen it? Ever?” We were sitting at the dinner table eating an asian-inspired dish Lauren had made, including these tofu dumplings with soy sauce.

“Never,” Ethan answered.

“There’s plenty of people that’ve never seen the ocean, Nick,” Lauren injected. “Most of the country is landlocked don’t forget.” She spun some of the noodles she’d sauteed around her fork.

I still couldn’t believe it, “Never?”

“Well, like, on TV,” Ethan said, shrugging.

“Jesus.” I leaned back. I couldn’t imagine having never seen the ocean. I could barely imagine going a week without seeing it. I was already starting to miss it being right out back. That was the only downfall of Tennessee, really. If I could get the ocean closer to Tennessee, I probably would spend all of my time there instead of anywhere else. But I was literally addicted to the ocean. I needed the ocean. Half the time, it was what kept me feeling balanced. I could forget all my worries just by standing by it a few minutes and breathing deeply. “We should go to the ocean.” I looked at Lauren.

She raised her eyebrows. “Now?”

“Well not like right now, but like maybe this weekend. We could drive down to the gulf. Like a road trip,” My voice sped up with eagerness as I talked. Ethan’s eyes lit up with excitement.

Lauren looked less enthused. “That’s like a twelve hour drive.” She lowered her voice to add dramatic effect. “Each way.”

“Yeah, it’ll be fun. We can stop along the way. Doesn’t that sound fun?” I asked, looking at Ethan.

He nodded.

He was very quickly becoming my minion in evil.

“You only think so because you haven’t spent twelve hours in a car with him,” Lauren told Ethan, pointing her fork at me.

Ethan laughed, “It can’t be all bad.”

Lauren gave a knowing laugh back, “Oh you think that now, but give it three hours in a moving vehicle and see how you feel then.”

“C’mon Lolo,” I whined. “He ain’t never seen the beach before.”

Lauren shook her head, laughing, “We’ll see.”

I grinned at Ethan, who grinned back.

When we were done, we cleared the table, Ethan helping, and put the leftovers away and since Lauren cooked, Ethan and I did the dishes. I was really getting used to him being around. I’d basically forgotten that he didn’t just belong there and that I had this whole other busy life that needed to be attended to.

At least until Lori called.

“So where have you been?” she asked, her voice sharp.

I shook soap suds off my hands and into a dish towel. “Uh, home in Tennessee,” I replied.

“Did you forget you had a phone interview today?” she asked. “Or did you just decide not to do it?”

“Shit,” I muttered. I ran my hand through my hair as Ethan continued doing the dishes. I paced out to the dining room. “I forgot.”

Lori sighed. “Jack had a great time trying to smooth that over, the radio station was pissed.”

“Well, tell them I’m sorry, I just forgot. I’ve been busy here,” I said.

“You’re going to be even busier in January doing promo if you don’t start getting these phone-ins done,” she warned. “Don’t forget, this was your idea back in September when you started saying that you needed some time at home after the Nick & Knight tour was over. It wasn’t a vacation you said, because you’d be working at home.”

“I know,” I said. She was right. It’d been my idea to do some stuff like Skype and phone interviews. At the time I’d expected fully to have a couple-months-pregnant wife at home to take care of during the movie’s promotional run in January and I’d thought that getting some of it done on the front end like this would make it easier. I hadn’t bargained for suddenly having a teenager in the house. “I just got distracted is all.”

Lori breathed like she was probably counting to ten in her head to keep from throttling me. I know I can be really aggravating. I couldn’t blame her. “Nick, when will you be available to do the interview this week? Without any distractions?”

I had a feeling she thought that distractions was, like, code for sex or something.

“Anytime,” I answered.

“I need an exact time,” she replied.

“Uhh… okay, Wednesday,” I said.

“Tomorrow’s Wednesday, Nick,” she said.

Was it? I couldn’t believe it’d been almost a week since Thanksgiving already. We’d been pretty holed up in the house since Saturday. The only time we’d left was to bring Ethan down to Carver’s for a couple hours early that morning, hours during which Lauren and I had gone grocery shopping at Whole Foods. Otherwise, we hadn’t really gone much of anywhere. I’d kind of forgotten that time existed, in a way.

“Tomorrow, then.”

“Time.”

“Nine o’clock. AM.”

“Okay. Wednesday. Nine o’clock. I’ll tell them to expect a call from you then.”

“Alright.”

“You better call them this time.”

“I will Lori,” I answered.

“That’s what you said last time I scheduled this,” she replied.

We hung up and I went back into the kitchen. Ethan was still doing dishes. I grabbed the dish cloth and started drying. I felt bad for missing the interview, like I’d let everyone down. I took my job really seriously, whatever it might seem like when I run late or forget things - like this interview. Lori sometimes had this way of making me feel like I didn’t care enough. I did, though. It’s just I had a “real” life, too, and there had been an extraordinary about of stuff going on in that “real” life.

Ethan obviously could sense the upset in me because he was quiet for a few moments before finally, he glanced over at me, “So, like, when you’re at the ocean, do fish just swim up to you?”

“Sometimes,” I answered.

“That sounds pretty cool,” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“So, like, was that phone call something bad?” he asked.

“Nawh,” I shrugged. “Just I forgot to do this work thing. It’s all good.” I waved it off.

He was quiet again for a moment as he ran the water and rinsed off a few plates before putting them in the strainer. “I had a fish once,” he said conversationally when he was done, “A goldfish with big fat cheeks like this.” He puffed his cheeks out. “I named him Bubbles because I was real original with stuff like names back then.” He drained the sink.

“I had a lizard named Babyface once,” I said.

Ethan laughed, “That’s an original name. Way more original than Bubbles the fish.”

“He might’ve come prenamed, I don’t remember,” I admitted.

“If I had a fish now, I’d name him something totally random. Like Porkchop or Rodger.”

“I’d name him Sushi,” I replied.

Ethan’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he laughed, “Gross.”




The next morning, I got up bright and early and made myself coffee and sat in the studio, tuning my guitar, waiting for nine o’clock so I could call the radio station in Tampa, like Lori wanted. At five of nine, I called. Calling early was my little form of rebellion, the only way I could be like hey screw you, I do care. Even though Lori would never know.

Even though the media had only just started with the questions about the movie, there were already standard questions that they were all asking, things we’d come to expect each and every time we talked to someone. They wanted to know when we’d filmed, what it had been like filming, if we planned to release it in theaters or just straight to DVD, etc. All those questions were asked, and I gave all the standard answers that I had been giving to every interviewer that I’d seen yet. Then the deejay, a young girl with an overexcited element to her voice, threw me a curveball.

“Is the film truly honest, and what is it like making yourself vulnerable to your fans?”

Caught off guard, I didn’t have a fill-in-the-blank style answer for her. I paused. “Well, I mean, yeah it’s honest. We try to stay honest with the fans all the time, but I mean… sometimes there’s stuff we can’t be. Everyone has things they aren’t honest about. But we try to be. And it’s hard being vulnerable. It’s hard to put yourself out there and be like hey this is me. And my fans are really hard sometimes, they forget I’m human, like they think I’d a god or something, like I can’t do wrong but I can and I do. Everyone does. It’s normal. But yes, it’s honest. I strive to be honest.”

“Thank you,” she said. I could hear the smile in her voice. “Okay, now we have a couple caller questions. First caller… Hello, you’re on the air.”

“Nick, I love you. I’ve loved you since I was ten.”

I laughed, “Hi, what’s your name?”

“Brittany.”

“Hey Brittany, thanks for calling, sweetheart.” I pictured the plethora of Tweets and Facebook messages and Instagrams and whatever the hell else were being sent out right this second over my words.

“Do you have a question about the movie?”

“Yes. I was on the cruise and I saw the preview clip you showed and I was wondering if your family is in the movie? Like if you talk about the stuff that happened with your family?”

I hated when I got asked this question.

“Uhh, you’ll have to see.”

The deejay thankfully cut her off before she could probe much further than that, and we sifted through a few more calls before the deejay said, “Okay, last caller. You’re on the air.”

I was just mentally congratulating myself on making it through an interview without giving Lori and Jack any reason to freak out on me when my mother’s voice came over the airwaves. “Hi,” she said, “I’m Jane Carter, Nick’s mother, and I’m calling to talk to my son, who has refused personal phone calls from me since he got married to that woman in April.” Her voice was harsh. “Nick. Why have you cut me out of your life?”

I bit my lips. “This is not the place for this. We don’t need to be having private family matters discussed on the radio.”

My mother huffed her disapproval of this statement. “I suppose I need to call your PR team? Book some time with you? What is it, like ten grand an hour? I’m sorry, I can’t afford to pay you for some family time, which is really odd considering all the money you claim to give me.”

I wanted to hang up. The deejay was probably sitting there salivating; this was radio gold. If I hung up, she’d probably give my mother her own interview time and I’d end up looking like a total dickwad. I scrambled through my brain, trying to come up with something to say.

“What’s the matter, Nicky, are you embarrassed I’m calling you out on the radio after you just finished talking about how honest you are?”

I constructed my sentence carefully, “I’m embarrassed that you feel that this is an appropriate attack you are making.”

“Attack?” she said.

I cringed the moment she’d said it. I’d used a word I shouldn’t have.

“I don’t see how a mother wanting to speak to her son is an attack,” she said with a chilly laugh, “That woman you married has stolen you from me and I am worried about you. I worry for your well being. I worry that you’re on a bad path, that you’ll end up stuck in a relationship, bound by children or something, like I did with your father. I don’t want you to make my mistakes. I don’t want you to get depressed again and take drugs and drink and God knows what else, like your sister and I’ll lose another one of my babies.” She sounded pathetic, like almost believably sad.

My mother should’ve been a movie star.

She could’ve won a fuckin’ Oscar with this performance.

I could feel my stomach turning.

“Then call me, like a real mother, instead of calling in on a radio station,” I said. Then, to the deejay, “Please disconnect her.”

“I would love to call you but I have no way to contact you!” she shouted, just before they cut her off.

I took a deep breath.

“Well,” chuckled the deejay, speaking for the first time since she’d connected my mother through, “That was certainly unexpected.”

I wondered how long they’d known she was on hold, and how excited they’d been when they realized what kind of insane publicity they were being handed.

When I’d hung up, I punched the wall beside the desk I was sitting at, frustration built up inside me.

I heard a gasp behind me when my fist hit the wall.

I turned around. It was Ethan.

“Sorry,” I said.

He stared at the wall where my fist had been. No mark had been made, but he seemed to be able to see the exact place of impact in his mind just the same....

And he looked fuckin’ terrified of it.

I needed to diffuse that, I thought. So I tried to be funny. “I guess I should apologize to the wall,” I said. Ethan just hovered there awkwardly, despite my joke, though. I swallowed, unsure how to kill the weird feeling that hung between us. I noticed then that he had his guitar. “You wanted to learn how to play,” I said.

Ethan nodded slowly.

“Well. C’mon in.”

He hesitated.

“C’mon, Ethan.”

He came in slowly, eyes still flitting between me and the spot on the wall.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have done that. I just got really frustrated is all.”

“About what?”

“My mom. It’s not a huge deal.”

“Okay,” Ethan said.

He didn’t ask any other questions. At least not then.