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"I wanted this exact scarf," she turned to face me. "Thank you so much, love"
The room smelled like fried potatoes.
"No problem," I said. I thought about last night's antics and the mob surrounding me.
I looked at the artificial tree in the corner that was filled with handmade wooden ornaments that Tessa used to make in the nineties.
Bob sat in his recliner wearing the new barn jacket like he got a new pin in Boy Scouts. He hadn't taken it off despite the woodstove pushing the temperature past seventy-four degrees.
I smiled back at her, "The business has treated me well. I also want to tell you two something."
Bob leaned forward and took a sip from his black coffee, "Another project? Already?"
"Well, I do have another project. But it's not that. I want to," I stared at both of them, "I want to pay off the house, if that's alright."
I looked towards the Christmas stockings that had my name, Bob, Tessa, and Rick's. I put his name as a joke a few years ago and it had been there ever since.
The room was completely silent and only the distant sound of the holiday radio played.
"You want to what?" Bob asked, his voice unusually low.
"Pay off the mortgage," I said, steadying my tone. "The whole thing. I ran the numbers with the back-end from Looper and now CMBYN coming through. All we need is your account number and Bob's signature."
Tessa's hand tried to cover her eyes, "Oh, Ryan, no. You can't, that's your money. You worked so hard for that."
"Tessa," I said, I reached for her hand. "I will never forget the day when I came in. I lost all hope from you know." Tessa began to sob, "I thought it would only last a couple of months, but you two gave me a home. Something that's constant and real."
I began to tear up and the room became blurry, "I remember at Malcolm's," Bob stared right at me as he got up from his seat, "I watched Stuart Little and couldn't understand why the Littles fought so hard. And now I understand. And I want to fight hard for you two."
I put my head against Bob's shoulder and began to tear up, his voice was soft, "You were a blessing. And I'm so proud of you." He played with my hair, "When I watched the father's monologue at the end of your film. I wish I gave you the same speech about us. I'm so proud of you."
Tessa rubbed my back and said with such anger, "What you have gone through, no child should have gone through that."
She continued, "I don't know how many times I have to say it but you are not alone. Never. I drive all the way to Beverly Hills from here. Just like in The Beverly Hillbillies."
Bob laughed, "Yeah, when we see that house we might think its a prison."
Tessa continued to rub my back and as I leaned back to face the two of them, there was a loud knock on the door.
Rick called my phone and his high pitched voice played through the speaker, "Mr. Hollywood, I'm here. Let me collect my things in the stocking. Or did some fan break in and stole my presents?"
We all laughed and I saw through the screen a reflection of me and almost didn't recognize myself.
I went downstairs to the front door.
Rick was leaning sideways against the doorjamb. Under one arm, he had a brown paper grocery bag clinking with six glass bottles of local winter lager.
"Look at the movie star," Rick said, pushing his way past me into the heated foyer. "I thought maybe some teenage girl from the outlet had crawled through the basement window and held you hostage."
"Ha. Nobody crawled through the window," I said, locking the door behind him.
He caught the scent drifting down the hallway and his nostrils flared. "Is that glazed ham? Tell me she made the scalloped potatoes with the crispy edges."
I touched his belly, "You might explode if you eat more."
Rick walked into the living room, swinging the paper bag onto the dining room sideboard, and the energy shifted.
Rick stopped dead in the center of the braided rug, his eyes darting between Bob's face, Tessa's stained napkin, and me.
"Who died? Did Mark call? Did the movie get pulled from theaters? It was a great movie."
Tessa smiled, "Ryan is going to pay off the house. Am I dreaming?"
Rick stood completely motionless. "Really?"
"You can live here if you want. I mean you are already part of the family," I pointed to the stocking.
He hugged me, "Congrats. I got to do a few movies now."
"Thanks."
He hugged Tessa too and said, "Thank god you made him do theatre in middle school."
She whispered back something I couldn't hear and he shook Bob's hand who still looked dazed.
He went over to his stocking and pulled out a black laminated card. "No fricking way."
Tessa went near it and read it. Her usual cackle filled the room with expectation.
Rick read it out loud, "Ryan Stone VIP Pass. Official Proof of Brotherhood–Valid for 2nd Dates Only."
"See now they know," I said.
He threw it at the ground and laughed, "I get my get back."
"Go wash your hands," Tessa ordered. She set up the food while Rick asked me how I made the card so quickly.
The next hour dissolved into the warmth of a meal that felt miles away from the junket's hotel food. In the center sat the glazed spiral ham, crisscrossed with clove marks, coupled with a casserole of scalloped potatoes bubbling with sharp cheddar, and buttered green beans.
Bob took his seat at the head of the table, using his pocket whetstone to give a quick edge to the bone-handled carving knife. Rick popped the crowns off three bottles of Saranac winter lager, sliding one across the wood to Bob, one to me, and keeping the third for himself, while Tessa poured a modest glass of sweet white wine.
"To family," Bob said, holding his glass aloft before the first fork touched a plate. His eyes caught mine across the table, steady, solemn, and filled with love.
"To family," we echoed, the clink of glass and heavy ceramic ringing through the room.
We stuffed ourselves with food.
"You're too skinny, Ryan," she said. "I thought LA has great food."
I smiled, "They do. But, you know, for the roles I play skinny guys."
"You should play Rocky then," Rick muttered around a mouthful of potato. "You would lose but I guarantee an Oscar."
When lunch finally wound down, Rick tossed the wrapped box into my lap. It was the latest iPhone. I thanked him and Bob handed me a small, flat box containing his father's silver pocket watch that had the year 1941 engraved on it.
"My father gave it to me when I turned 21. Forgot to give it on your birthday, now I can give it to you," Bob said.
"Thank you, Bob," I said, running a thumb over the polished silver casing. "I really mean it."
I took the slate-grey box upstairs to my room after lunch, leaving Rick and Bob arguing over carbureted versus fuel-injected small-block engines down in the living room.
I powered it on. The glowing white Apple logo reflected in the dim room, followed by the soft, multi-language greeting screen. I slid to set it up, entering my Apple ID and letting the iCloud backup churn through the slow household Wi-Fi.
For ten minutes, I watched the progress bar inch forward in complete silence, surrounded only by the creak of the old floorboards and the muted clinking of dishes downstairs as Tessa ran the hot water.
Then the sync finished.
The screen blinked, organizing itself into familiar grids. Instantly, the device seemed to shudder in my palm. The backlogged data went through: seventy-four unread emails, forty missed calls, dozens of news alerts, and a swarm of text threads that had accumulated while my old handset sat dead on the kitchen counter.
My eyes bypassed the email as I looked at Mark's message:
Sony's second-weekend hold just crossed. Expanded to 1,100 screens and held at $9.2M through Sunday. Zero drop from opening weekend. Barker is losing his mind. Have a Merry Christmas, sorry for that meeting. My fault. We talk Sundance on Tuesday.
Nine point two million dollars. On its second weekend.
In late 2012, holding completely flat with zero box-office decay during an expansion wasn't just a good hold, it was an anomaly. An art-house film about two men falling in love in Italy was playing to packed houses across the country.
I set the phone face-down on the nightstand, pulled the thick wool blanket up to my neck, and stared at the old movie posters in my room. Who knew that I would join them?
The remaining two weeks in Orange County slipped by in a dreamy haze.
I spent the mornings in the drafty garage with Rick, handing him wrenches and holding the trouble light while he rebuilt the front differential on his old truck. In the afternoons, Tessa and I sat by the TV drinking tea, watching Cougar Town.
By mid-January, the bubble burst.
The festival schedule was locked, the flights were booked, and the industry's circus had packed its bags for the Wasatch Mountains. On a sub-zero Tuesday morning, Rick dropped me off at Terminal C at Newark, giving my shoulder a hard squeeze.
"Good luck, I look forward to the film," he said through the rolled-down window of the Jeep.
"It's shit," I smiled.
Five hours later, the twin-engine regional jet broke through a dense, slate-grey cloud deck and touched down on the snow-swept runway of Salt Lake City. The air that hit me on the tarmac was thin and razor-sharp, freezing the moisture in my nostrils instantly.
In my lap, I opened the leather portfolio containing Damien Chazelle's shooting draft for Whiplash, alongside the printed screening tickets for the Eccles Theater.
I looked down at the silver pocket watch ticking reliably inside my coat pocket, closed the folder, and leaned back against the plane seat. I held the pocket watch the whole time.
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