“That’s the instrumental track, right?” she asks, as innocently as she can.
“Yes, and don’t think I don’t know what you’re suggesting. I’m not a narcissist. I don’t have to be in every song. I just think it’s missing something. It needs words.”
“Mmm,” she murmurs, and he tickles her under the covers until she has to press her hand against her mouth to keep from shrieking her laughter and waking the baby.
* * *
A couple of weeks later, when Marina calls, Anya’s on a shoot, an important one. It’s for a women’s health magazine, a cover with a star who Anya’s met a couple of times at industry parties back in the day. It’s a good job, one that’ll build her portfolio. It’s not Vogue or anything, but that’s all right. Stepping stones. Pictures of an actress with a recent big hit will never go amiss.
Marina’s their nanny, an older woman raising her granddaughter alone, and the girl is apparently sick enough that she needs to leave school. Anya agrees that PJ shouldn’t tag along in case it’s the flu.
“I’ll call Zac,” Anya tells Marina. “Give me a few minutes, all right? I’ll get someone over to relieve you.”
But Zac doesn’t answer his phone. Not the first time or the second time or the third time. Anya’s shoulders tighten against her will as she considers what to do next. Anya’s girlfriends are all mostly a year or two younger than her own twenty-six years. None of them are parents or have experience with a child of PJ’s age. A few of them are irresponsible enough that—though she hates to admit it—she wouldn’t trust them with her son regardless of their parenting experience. Neither she nor Zac have family in town—well, in Zac’s case, no family that they’d risk leaving PJ with. The teenager who babysits for them sometimes is in school at this hour. Anya could call Mrs. Teague, the woman who lives a couple of houses down, but she doesn’t know the woman well enough to feel comfortable. They mostly commiserate over the hedges about whether or not the HOA dues are worth the money.
No, it’ll have to be Zac. She tries him again. Still no answer.
She gives the waiting producer a tight smile, taking a few more steps away. A part of her is already resigned, already certain she’ll have to be the one to abandon her work, that this, like so many other things about parenthood, is somehow her responsibility first and Zac’s second. She calls a fifth time. Nothing.
“Is there a problem?” the producer calls. She doesn’t sound angry. Yet.
“No,” Anya lies through her teeth. “Just another minute, please.”
In the end she decides, fuck it. If anyone will know where the hell Zac is, it’ll be Cal. She has his number, given to her back in the day while the band was on tour once and Zac had lost his cell, but she’s never had to use it. She’s never spoken to Cal on the phone at all.
She feels weirdly young and out of place as she presses Call, as if she’s a preteen calling a boy for the first time. She doesn’t care for it.
That feeling subsides when he answers after only two rings, sounding both wary and anxious. “Anya? Are you okay? What’s wrong? Is it PJ?”
Bless him for making this easier. “It’s not an emergency, although it’s urgent. Our nanny has an issue and needs to leave, I’m stuck at a shoot, and I can’t get ahold of Zac. Do you know where he is?”
“He’s in session.” Cal sounds apologetic. “There was something off with the vocals on track one, and we decided to do it again.”
“Shit,” she mutters, irritated. Or maybe irritated is the wrong word. Furious might be closer. There’s no way Zac will be able to go relieve Marina. Even if she manages to find someone at the studio to drag him out, it will take forever and there’ll be drama about it. Not that there won’t be drama if she has to reschedule her shoot, since she’ll have to pay the assistants she’s hired regardless of whether the job gets done, and there’s a good chance this producer won’t hire her again.
She hates this. The way they’re both parents and they both have jobs, and Zac’s by far the more established in his career, so the consequences would be considerably less severe for him to bail, and yet somehow this sort of thing always falls down to her first. It’s stupid, it’s so stupid, and the magazine’s going to remember this, the way she bailed on this shoot—
“I can go,” Cal offers, and her brain stutters.
“You’re not—you’re not busy too? You’re not at the studio?”
There’s a brief pause. “No. I’m at home.”
He lives in Brentwood. It won’t be much more than a twenty-minute drive at this time of day. That’s faster than light by LA traffic standards. “You would take care of PJ for me?”
“Sure. What do you need me to do?”
“Oh, thank you! Oh, God, I love you right now, Cal, you have no idea. You’re perfect, you’re the most perfect man.”
He chuckles, but she doesn’t care if she sounds ridiculous. She walks him through the big stuff—where the spare car seat is if he needs to take PJ anywhere, where PJ’s formula is kept, where the emergency numbers are—and then she thanks him about a dozen more times until he’s forced to tell her that “It’s fine, I don’t mind, Anya, it’s okay. Don’t you have to go?”
“Right,” she says, flustered in her gratitude. “Okay.” She can’t help saying it again: “Thanks.”
She calls Marina back and tells her that Cal will be there soon, and then she hangs up and takes a few deep breaths, trying to get the knots out of her shoulders. She walks over to the monitors to look at the shots they’ve already taken, checking the light, getting her head back in the game. The producer lifts her eyebrows in question. Anya gives her a professional smile, a light and breezy wave of the hand. She sends the message with everything but words: it’s no problem, everything’s fine, it’s all under control.
It’s easier to portray confidence once she gets the text from Cal that says: I’m here. We’re going to watch Sesame Street together.
She presses a hand to her mouth for a moment, then picks up her camera.
It’s after five when she gets home, later than she planned, but it’s worth it. The film she’s put together for the magazine is excellent. A handful of shots are downright gorgeous—original and captivating and some of her best work yet. She’s bubbling with the adrenaline that comes with knowing she’s done good work as she unlocks the door.
She puts her things down in the entryway, and finds Cal and PJ in the living room, sprawled out together on a blanket playing with soft, cushy blocks with letters on them, a cartoon blaring from the television.