A kiss goodbye for his sleeping wife, still in picturesque repose on the pillow. Judging by the condition of the pages on her nightstand, Jennifer must have stayed up late finishing the latest draft of his movie script. She’d always believed that Carter could make movies. She believed in a lot of things, like maintaining cheerful, regular attendance at a weekly lunch with her parents (eggplant timbale, Hancock Park), and the necessity of knowing one’s most flattering clothing colors (apricot, ivory, and coral). Lately, she had unflagging faith in Carter’s potential as a formidable tennis player, if he could just commit to lessons (and a composite racket, Victor Imperial strings). Each day, for Jennifer, was an invitation to improve in some way. It hadn’t been unpleasant to travel through life in the wake of her convictions—marrying her had been like catching a strong headwind, an unexpected and welcome boost toward a better version of himself. Though certainly he had fallen short. In some arenas. Ever since the intervention, he sometimes caught her looking at him a beat too long, like she was assessing whether a piece of furniture really worked in a room.

Okay to switch the final two scenes? Because Ray had a hard out at three. Settlement meeting with divorce attorneys.

Lynn had sprained her wrist skateboarding—could costume come up with some way to hide the wrist guard?

The twins’ mother was complaining that the wigs were digging into their scalps—did we have the budget to replace?

Everyone looked to Carter, awaiting Daddy’s guidance.

Eight years in, Carter knew this little dance: when to flatter, when to discipline, how to calm the daily tantrums. How did they even function in their actual lives without him around?

When he started to speak, the gathered crowd got quiet, reverent.

“Yes,” Carter said, “switch the scenes. Tell Ray no more wives.”

(Pause for laughter.)

Carter and the crew used to go through two cases of beer by the afternoon. Sometimes they went harder, if shooting was particularly punishing—the prop guy wielding his Wild Turkey like he was offering up a sacrament, a big Good morning! swig in Carter’s coffee. These days it didn’t get much crazier than a few beers, and a beer was basically a Coke, providing the same gentle tonic. Carter was not totally clean, not totally sober, but pretty much. It had been a sacrifice, a genuine trial, giving the rest of it up, but it was worth it, he knew—he had to rise to the occasion.

There are certain moments in life that ask much of us, Carter thought to himself. He couldn’t recall, suddenly, if that had been a line of Pa’s from an old episode or a thought he was having right this second.

Carter lay back. The walkie-talkie was glitching—a PA was asking for Michelle’s status, someone else was responding with the code for bathroom break. They found ways to amuse themselves, the crew: their different codes for different genres of activity. Ten-one and ten-two, those were self-explanatory. Ten-three was the crew’s invention for a possible jerk-off situation. Ten-ten, they used back in the day, thinking Carter didn’t notice. Ten-ten meant he was on one of his benders, unresponsive to their knocks on the trailer door or the increasing static from his walkie and the shouts to open up.

Carter retrieved the movie script from the drawer of the trailer’s kitchenette. Just the heft of it soothed him, distracted him from the thought of Michelle. He ruffled the pages, the pleasing blips of dialogue flashing past, the chunky monologues. He wasn’t sure anymore which parts he’d written and which came from Jennifer. Everything was working beautifully in this latest draft. Bergmanesque, he thought, a phrase he’d first heard from Jennifer. Carter had not seen any Bergman movies, but he felt like he had.

There had been a night when he and Bobby had descended on a vial of pure Merck, the two of them giddy from the holy whiteness and chattering till the sun rose.

“Jennifer says it’s Bergmanesque,” Carter babbled.

They stopped for dinner at a red-sauce place off Sunset, their weekly ritual to kill time before Bobby dropped Carter at his Tuesday meeting. Carter went to an all-men’s group, one of the conditions of Jennifer’s forgiveness. A lot of the guys were in the industry, too, and Carter had grown genuinely fond of them. The group often joked about how their jobs made you believe in a higher power—you just thought it was a studio head in Beverly Hills. Jennifer would be waiting to pick him up when the meeting was over.

He pulled Michelle up on the bed, positioning himself between her legs with a pillow under her ass, and he tried to do good work, to apply himself, but kept almost dozing off. Strange, all his amped excitement now transmuted into sleepiness, and she was mewling a little but seemed sleepy herself. He looked up to gauge her response. Pleasing her—apparently another thing he had failed at.

“It’s okay,” Michelle said with kindness, maternal kindness.

She knew Carter. She saw him, the middle-aged man currently crouched on her sateen coverlet, chest hair sopping with vodka sweat. Those all-seeing eyes comprehended everything, understood exactly what kind of fuckup he was. It didn’t seem to faze her.

He lay back beside Michelle. It was peaceful here in her bed. Jennifer, wherever she was, would be furious. Electric with rage. Throwing his shit on the lawn, the whole performance. They’d probably get divorced. There would be no trip to Sayulita this summer, Jennifer tanned and frisky. No Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Why didn’t this bother him? He felt strangely calm.